Miladys_Knight

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I would say try it out and see. What have you got to lose?

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Um...sounds like shes got stamina to lose.

I would never build a blaster without stamina. You may say you have never run out of end with unslotted stamina at 43, but then I may say you must be doing it wrong.

Concepts are cool, but damn do they wreck a build.

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The build is /mental. /mental can easily get away with out stamina. The low duration is the sticky point especially since as soon as you unload your first AoE all the feared stuff is going to get to retaliate.

If you want to try it out I'd suggest copying to the test server and trying it out before going with it on live.

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Items trading in a shortage (purples) will not go down at all as there will be no oversupply, so they will continue to rise as disposable income rises. Hold on to your purples, the prices are just going up.

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There doesn't have to be oversupply for prices to decline, just greater supply than currently. I think your analysis is sound except for your conclusion about purples.

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Agreed. Purple availability will increase as level 50 soloable farmers will come out of the AE, leave their padders/teammates behind and farm standard missions and repeatables.

There will be a mass influx of produced influence but also many more purples being produced per farmer/unit time than now.

Yellow (uncommon) salvage will take a price hit especially in the tier 3 range. I'm prediciting a return to glut levels here. Best to unload any supply of uncommons prior to I16.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Ebon Pearl (updated): Level 50 Mutation Defender
Primary Power Set: Force Field
Secondary Power Set: Dark Blast
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Dark Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Personal Force Field -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 1: Dark Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(3), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(3), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(5)
Level 2: Deflection Shield -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(5), HO:Membr(7)
Level 4: Gloom -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dev'n-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Dev'n-Dmg/Rchg(9), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9)
Level 6: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 8: Insulation Shield -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(21), HO:Membr(21)
Level 10: Hover -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(11), Zephyr-ResKB(11), LkGmblr-Rchg+(50)
Level 12: Dispersion Bubble -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(13), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(13), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(15), RedFtn-Def(15), RedFtn-EndRdx(17)
Level 14: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(17), Zephyr-ResKB(19)
Level 16: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(19)
Level 18: Tenebrous Tentacles -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(43), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(45), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(45), Posi-Dam%(46)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), P'Shift-EndMod(23), P'Shift-End%(23)
Level 22: Night Fall -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(29), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(33), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), Posi-Dam%(34)
Level 24: Force Bolt -- FrcFbk-Dmg/KB(A), FrcFbk-Acc/KB(25), FrcFbk-Rchg/KB(25), FrcFbk-Rchg/EndRdx(27), FrcFbk-Dmg/EndRdx/KB(27), FrcFbk-Rechg%(29)
Level 26: Repulsion Bomb -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(34), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(36), Posi-Dmg/Rng(36), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(36)
Level 28: Torrent -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(37), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), Posi-Dam%(40)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(31), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(31), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(31), RedFtn-Def(33), RedFtn-EndRdx(33)
Level 32: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Life Drain -- Theft-Heal/Rchg(A), Theft-Acc/Heal(46), Theft-Acc/EndRdx/Heal(46), Theft-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 38: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(39), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(40), GSFC-Build%(40)
Level 41: Dark Consumption -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(42), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(42), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(42), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(43), P'Shift-End%(43)
Level 44: Dark Embrace -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx(45)
Level 47: Soul Drain -- AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(48), AdjTgt-Rchg(48)
Level 49: Combat Jumping -- Zephyr-ResKB(A), Zephyr-Travel(50), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance



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Below is the build that my FF/Dark/Dark uses.

These are my thoughts and tactics with these power picks and their slotting.

The build has a single wasted set bonus, a 6th 2.5% recovery bonus. This problem will go away when I slot a set of Ragnarok in Repulsion Bomb.

The build has +50% global recharge. It's not quite hasten levels but it's adequate to my needs and it doesn't cause that end depletion that hasten does when it drops.

My personal defense to ranged and AoE is soft capped. Melee defense is at 32.2% with out the mob to hit debuffs from /dark and there is 34.7% resistance to smashing and lethal layered under that plus 20% resistance to negative and 18.9% to toxic. This particular combination makes the build very nice on the ITF where you have excellent personal mitigation of all the damage types that the task force will throw at you.

My grantable shields + Dispersion Bubble + Manuvers gives all team mates within 25' soft capped defenses. Team mates with 15-16% defense of their own can range to 60' and remain at the soft cap without taking my debuffs into consideration.

The reason I play FF/Dark is to keep myself and team mates at or as near the soft cap as possible in all possible situations. The debuffs in /dark allow me to do that even when exemping as low as level 20 (exemping below level 20 tends to cause endurance problems).

The build gives a 35.3% increase to my personal damage. When the Gausians proc fires or Soul Drain is active I get even more. The procs in the AoE powers that cast+recharge in 10 seconds or less also give a very nice boost to damage output.

I skipped accuracy slotting in Soul Drain. It has a base 90% accuracy (rather than 75% like most other powers) and Tactics and Global Acc bonuses are more than enough here. I went with Adjusted Targetting for the set bonuses.

The key to the build is Tenebrious Tentacles and Hover. This power combo gives me an AoE immobilize that doesn't give the mobs Knockback protection. This allows me to use my KB tools (Force Bolt, Nemesis Staff, and Torrent) to position mobs anywhere I want them and once they get there they stay there and it keeps them out of melee range with me and any other squishy team mates. No mobs will enter melee range. This makes both Force Bubble and Repulsion Field redundant endurance drains which is why they aren't included in my build.

T_T is easily double stacked and is triple stackable with only a second or so gap which will keep even bosses immobilized.

Hovering over the immobilized mobs allows me to pour on damage. Alternating Torrent from directly above the mobs with Repulsion Bomb also adds mitigation by keeping the mobs on their backsides while locked in T_T. The extra -acc from the dark blasts are excellent for countering defense debuffs which the Romans have in plenty. This build is also excellent on Rikti ship raids both for the mez protection provided to the squishies and to counter the defense debuffs from the Rikti Magus.

The Numina and Miracle Uniques are required to fuel the endurance needs of the build. The toggles on this build consume 1.43 end/sec even with the amount of end reduction I use. The recovery the build provides is 3.49 end/sec which makes it liveable if not always comfortable. Dark Consumption isn't up as often as Power Sink but I find that it fullfills my needs. As slotted, it only takes 2 targets to completely refill my end bar.

My tactics with both Dark Consumption and Soul Drain is to allow the mobs to bunch up under me. I hit T_T, Nightfall, Torrent or Repulsion Bomb, and drop in for Dark Consumption or Soul Drain. The nearly 20-30% acc debuff to the mobs and the KD compensate for the not soft capped (32.2%) melee defense that I have long enough for me to drop in and suck them dry. This is about the only time I get hit by an attack that has the potential to be dangerous but dropping in and then out and following up with Life Drain if needed has proven to be adequate on all but the rarest occasions.

I have Life Drain slotted as a heal. I find my single target damage is satisfactory and the one weakness that the build has is that 5% of all attacks that get through. A high damage attack that gets through can be a problem. This gives me the means to effectively counter that almost immediately. On the extremely rare occasions that I am defeated it is due to 2 high damage, back to back, lucky shots, landing.

Edit - Providing soft capped defenses to the team and stacking acc debuffs on top of it will assure that you get virtually no benefit from Vigilence. This is also the reason my build doesn't include Vengence. Only extremely careless/inexperienced team mates die.

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My post is from my experience soloing Dark Astoria with my Fire/Storm in the mid 20s. No self heal, endurance heavy Primary and Secondary. Yes I have char, but it was much easier killing all the mobs in a group before I got Bonfire than it was after. The ones Fire Cages misses ( it's going to miss 5% per cast, so you WILL lose at least two during the duration of the Bonfire, more likely 3 or 4 ) get thrown a long way off in multiple directions, so it's not easy to see them while you are in the middle of the ones you managed to root trying to drop them before Flashfires wears off. Before Bonfire I had to chase one or two down, after I got it, I had to chase 3-5 down. Yes, Five minions sniping at you for the time it takes to get to each of them and drop them individually will hurt you. After the initial kill of the main group, you are low on endurance, and trying to drop things. Applying Char to 4-5 different mobs while trying to kill one at a time is a losing proposition.

I had similar experience with my 48 Fire/Rad. She has much less scatter and much quicker kill speed when she doesn't use Bonfire so I'm going to stand by my contention that it slows kill speed, and is a very situational power rather than something you would use to increase you kill speed vs anything but AVs.

On teams it may not matter so much because the blaster or scrapper can track those guys down and drop them easily. For soloing large spawns, Bonfire hinders more often than not.

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The pics I posted previously are from my experience in DA at level 26. I did not experience the problems you are bringing up.

My endurance consumption was nominal. My attack chain started with Flashfire (Cinders if Flashfire wasn't recharged), Cages, Freezing Rain, move into Hot Feet range, Cages, Bonfire and then stand there and burn stuff to a crisp refreshing Cages as needed and alternating Char/Ring on the lieutenants to take them down almost at the same time as the minions.

On the rare occasions that a mob gets missed twice with cages a single char will keep him where he lands until you can finish him off or, with a bit of skill, you can Ring of Fire the mob you double missed with Cages before it gets KB'd.

It does take a little practice to get it down but after that it's a cake walk of a salvage fest.

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Yep, since Fire Cages can use AoE and Immob sets, it's easy to frankenslot Cages get max accuracy, recharge, and endurance reduction. Wouldn't I have to chase or otherwise deal with the ones missed by Cages anyway?

I hadn't yet thought about dropping it in those corner offices full of badguys. That'll be super useful on the heroside Respec trials, both for clearing the rooms and keeping baddies off the Core.

I'll have to practice bouncing critters between Bonfire and Repulsion field for some one-man ping-pong lolz.

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With a 5% chance to miss each mob no matter how high your accuracy is you have a statistical chance of .25% to miss any mob in each spawn with double stacked cages. So about 1 in 400 mobs.

With appropriately slotted powers you can use the 2x Fire Cages, Bonfire, Hot Feet combo to drop an entire spawn of minions in about 15 seconds.

With a resistance debuffing secondary like Storm, Rad, or TA you can drop that down to about 10 seconds.

It doesn't work so well. The duration isn't long enough even with maximum slotting.

If it had more appropriate duration it would be a nice combo with /MM. You could stack scare on a boss, intimidate on a lieut, invoke panic and fear the entire spawn.

That's 6.3 seconds to cast all of it and a max duration of 16 seconds giving you only 10 seconds of AoE spawn control.

I hear what you are saying, you simply make no sense.

At one point in time I had blackstar in my build. After running about 20 missions and never finding an appropriate time to use it I looked into the power's descriptions, and numbers and compared them. It rapidly became obvious that there would never be an optimum time for my FF/Dark to use it.

Other powers or combinations of powers were better in all respects. Unlike some power sets dark's debuffs self stack. I can keep the same level of acc debuff on all mobs, not lose any of my defense, not cost the team part of theirs, not lose my mez protection, not cost the squishies on the team theirs, not crash my end, not have to retoggle, do more damage in the same amount of time that it takes to cast and recover from the crash, and not be vulnerable to mobs missed/not defeated by blackstar or any subsequent ambushes.

Hovering over the mobs makes the floor a perfect corner on every map in the game. My AoE attack chain consists of T_T, Nightfall, Torrent, and Repulsion Bomb. The mobs that aren't debuffed into the ground by the shields and the acc debuffs in the blasts are knocked back to the ground everytime they stand back up and double (or more) stacked T_T makes sure they aren't running after another squishy or running out of range.

If you want effectiveness (which is usually what an OP that wants a critique of their build is looking for) taking a highly situational power such as Blackstar is not an effective use of that power pick.

Your idea behind using Blackstar is not optimum especially when taking into account the OP.

If I want the "fun" of using a nuke I'll bring one of my blasters to the team.

If Flight is your travel power of choice, then taking and using Air Superiority will also give you the -fly power that you are lacking.

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The problem with Bonfire is that you are guaranteed to miss one or two mobs with Fire Cages while it's up. Bonfire will throw those guys a long way away. They will sit out there and snipe you to death while you are dealing with the rest of the mob. To be honest, it takes a lot more time to deal with the stragglers that bonfire tosses out than using bonfire saves you in killing the majority of the mob. So Bonfire has a few uses, but damage isn't really one of them because it will actually slow your kill speed.

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It's quiet easy to slot cages apropriately for the task. You can get the end costs down to about 8 per cast, you can increase the recharge so it can be double stacked (this eliminates most of the miss/kb problems), you can add extra accuracy, and even throw in a proc or 2 depending on your global set bonuses.

If you want some extra melee defense 6 slotting Enfeebled Operation into Cages is a cheap and easy way to get the most bang for your Cages+Bonfire buck.

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I think all the Fire guides I've read think Bonfire is a crappy power good only for skipping... but doesn't the immob from Fire Cages cancel the knockback from Bonfire?

Bonfire looks like it does massive damage, and contained critters just standing around in it while Fire Caged... seems like a pretty good pair of attacks. It works to drop Fire Cages on critters standing in a Burn patch, too.

I'm comparing the stats in Mid's - it gives Bonfire a 45 second duration. So it'll be on the ground there, pulsing KB and damage for 45 seconds? And Fire Cages has a base 27 sec duration, but the -KB effect only lasts for 12 seconds, and it doesn't look like Immob enhancers lengthen the -KB time, but it'd be easy to re-apply the Cages before 12 seconds are up.

My Fire/FF just hit 32, and I'm going to respec and see how Cages + Bonfire + Imps works, and can't wait to add Repulsion Bomb to the mix.

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It works very well indeed.

Before
After

That's my Fire/Storm in DA pre-imps.

The zombie on the left got knocked back because I missed it twice in a row with cages. All that carnage happened from the time it took to for him to get knocked back and then stand back up.

Yep it's going to go the opposite way. Yellow salvage will drop in price as people come out of the AE and run regular content (or more than likely radios). There will still be a shortage of commons and rares. Commons will probably maintain prices seen in what is usually an AE spike for the duration of 2 XP.

Rare salvage will rebound in price somewhat and crash again the week end following 2XP.

I'm going to be buying tier 3 and 2 uncommons during 2XP and make my stock available again about 1-2 weeks after 2XP weekend when the prices have bumped up again.

I have 4 SG bins full of level 35 and 40 common IOs. There is all ready a shortage of common salvage. I'm looking to make $$$ on those and am planning on unloading the entire lot throughout the day on Saturday. I'm betting on making between 300,000 to 600,000 on that alone.

I'll probably unload my rare salvage some time on Saturday night or early Sunday depending on what prices do.

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While I agree that blackstar is probably skippable based on what you have said thus far, I think it's skippable mainly because the power is to situational, not because it doesn't deal enough damage. With enough +Acc sets, and a acc/to hit debuff set, it would be able to hit +4's without to much problem, but it's not a power I'd be using every group. Maybe only against groups which have an AV or EB.

Using this power as a situational power, you won't need to worry about slotting it for recharge, or damage. It would only need accuracy and to hit debuff. Combined with power build up shields, it would be just as effective as having your toggles running. I do think that blackstar would work better with other primaries though which don't relie on toggles as much. I could see a TA/dark taking blackstar.

I just don't see the need for a powerful to hit debuff like that of a FF/Dark when I have several AoE debuff attacks which should be enough to create a decent synergy between soft capped defense and -tohit.

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Except that it's completely unneeded even for the debuff. FF + Manuvers soft caps your teams defense. Add in a few set bonuses for yourself and yours are capped too.

The acc debuff from T_T, Nightfall, and Torrent all stack. With standard rech slotting and a little bit of +rech from set bonuses you can easily get the mobs acc debuffed to -58.98% with out adding any debuff slotting (more with hasten and a little bit more +rech).

Blackstar simply isn't needed as a debuff by ANY /Dark defender and it's totally redundant for Forcefields/Dark

As far as the damage goes you'll have done more damage (even more if you use procs) by stacking those 3 powers in the time it takes to cast and recover from Blackstar and without bottoming out your end, forcing a retoggle, and losing your mez protection.

As far as Wind goes he's the kind of person that believes that his play style is the only valid one and he's made it a point to try to contradict every post of mine that he finds.

To show my geekness and quote a Star Trek Episode...

"What the Klingon says is unimportant and we do not hear his words."

/1 star
/kick
/gignore

CoT has most of it. Don't forget to stock pile respec recipes as hasty slotting and power picks during 2XP will require respecing after. Respec recipes are worth more after 2XP. Its a good item to flip.

/TA especially with the Power Epic.

Less damaging than storm, slight less debuffing than storm, but more endurance friendly and much more control.

I beleive that this is caused by the recent AI changes. Multiple re-exploding Rikti Drones and Council Hover Bots, Repairmen in the STF geting their repair off, mobs that are defeated still doing their damage after defeat, are all things that I have noticed.

Hopefully these are new bugs and not new WAI.

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There's really no reason for a Bubbler to take their nuke. You don't want your toggles dropping and neither does your team.

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That's not really going to matter considering especially with shields on them that the mob you are attacking WILL have their accuracy floored for 20 seconds after using Blackstar (62.5% base debuff)

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Except that with a 1/2 strength defender nuke you won't kill any thing but minions, plus the 5% that you always miss, the 5% that always hit you, all the mobs that were outside of blackstar's radius, purple patch for higher level and high rank mobs and the 5+ (or more) seconds that it will take you to recover enough end after the crash and retoggle every thing while you and your team are being smacked around by the stuff that is no longer debuffed, with out your mez protection, without a good chunk of your defense, fully aggroed and locked on to you.

Good plan!

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Or you could use it INTELLIGENTLY, and make sure it has enough accuracy, and only use it when its going to hit the whole mob, so that is not an issue. With 5.3% to hit debuff slotted on blackstar, its debuff Plus slotted ally shields will floor +4 enemies without a problem.

There is also this thing, called a blue. Its this very inventive thing the devs made, oh, back in, BETA. Its amazing! It lets you use it after a nuke, to retoggle *GASP* before the debuff wears off!!! AMAZING!

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If I'm starting a team and I pick up a FF/dark and his opening comments are something like "I'm a great FF/dark! I have Blackstar and use it!" My response is to punt the AE pl'd n00b off the team and find someone that knows what the heck they are doing.

Blackstar is NOT the reason I invite a FF/dark to my team.

I have done the intelligent thing, by skipping it.

The Blaster version of Sniper Blast, with 3 Damage SOs, Aim, and Build Up does 617.2 damage at level 50. This is not quite enough to kill a lieutenant.

ED soft capped Blackstar does 343.5 damage. Since /Dark lacks Aim and FF/ lacks any damage buffing/resitance debuffing power, that's all the damage you'll get out of it barring a few small percentage points from set bonuses and adding in Assault if you choose to take it. That's barely enough to kill minions.

Blackstar has 105% base accuracy and since FF/Dark has neither Aim nor Build Up you'll need at least 1 Acc (2 if you are using it against +4/5s).

If you use a slot for Acc Debuff you've no room left for recharge unless you Franken slot in which case you give up that important 6th slot set bonus.

I found that it simply doesn't do enough damage, has too many draw backs, creates too much down time for a toggle heavy toon (I run leadership as well, that's 10 seconds worth of retoggling just to wipe out minions), is far too situational especially on a team where you would be most likely to use it.

A team steam rolling mobs at the speed that FF buffs allows them has no need of the FF/Dark defender's feeble nuke no matter how you attempt to spin it as a good thing.

By the time you get your Catch a Breath popped, get retoggled, and catch up to the team they'll probably have the next mob just about taken out.

If the team has your buffs they won't need your Blackstar damage. If the team NEEDS your black star damage there is more wrong with your team than your FF buffs can fix.

You can spin it how ever you want, you can play it how ever you want, what ever floats (sinks) your boat. With a play style like that you won't be on MY team for longer than it takes me to 1 star and kick you.

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There's really no reason for a Bubbler to take their nuke. You don't want your toggles dropping and neither does your team.

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That's not really going to matter considering especially with shields on them that the mob you are attacking WILL have their accuracy floored for 20 seconds after using Blackstar (62.5% base debuff)

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Except that with a 1/2 strength defender nuke you won't kill any thing but minions, plus the 5% that you always miss, the 5% that always hit you, all the mobs that were outside of blackstar's radius, purple patch for higher level and high rank mobs and the 5+ (or more) seconds that it will take you to recover enough end after the crash and retoggle every thing while you and your team are being smacked around by the stuff that is no longer debuffed, with out your mez protection, without a good chunk of your defense, fully aggroed and locked on to you.

Good plan!

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Yup and dying and being rezzed doesn't eliminate this debuff. It runs it's full amount of time no matter how many times you die. If you hit the hospital afterwards you "can" sometimes make use of the detoggle on zoning bug which will occasionally reset the debuff.

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Right-clicking on the power gave the name "Diseased". My apologies, but that is all I got to see. I didn't think to check the attributes or the combat attributes of it. I'm 100% positive it has a -Recovery effect on you as that is what made me find it, as my end was trucking along the entire mission till that moment.

However, I disagree with the above quote as, upon dying and being rezzed in the same mission, the effect was no longer present. That's not hearsay, that's actually what happened. I know, because I got toggle dropped from the -Recovery, smacked by 10 EB's and then rezzed by a fellow teammate.

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Disagree all that you wish, that doesn't make it so. My blapper has a total of 7% defense and gets hit with this about once every other ITF. Unless this has been repaired recently the debuff runs it's full length of time death not withstanding. The only time death has removed this debuff is with the recent return of the toggle drop bug and then only on occasion when that bug kicks in.

And yes I've bugged it numerous times

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Aren't there some mobs with non-positional attacks?

[/ QUOTE ]A few types of Longbow Warden, Carnie Illusionists, anything with Dominate...

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Envoy of Shadows damage aura and the "nuking" Nictus' PBAoE attack ignore defense as well.

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Wait, shields can't be uber. When it was introduced, it was universally bemoaned as the weakest defense set.

What happened?

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It is the weakest defense set..... if you use only SOs (which the game is "designed around")

Spend a couple billion on IOs and the extra offense in the set allows Shields to become a power house. Pair it with the melee set (Dark) that overcomes its 2 largest shortcomings (no self heal and not enough base defense) add IOs and you get beyond Uber since Shields gives you a hard hitting AoE that Dark lacks.

Oddly enough if you look at most of the builds that are posted in the scrapper forum the one thing you won't find players doing is playing it as the developers designed it, which according to Castle during the beta was "3/4 mitigation and 1/4 buff"

I wonder if they'll take a look at shields again since "no one" is playing them as designed, after all that's one of the main reasons Doms got looked at. Underpowered (but having potential) without IOs and vastly overpowered with (2 billion inf worth of) IOs.

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Minotaur's [Fetid Howl] power does -res, as described. However, it also has a small chance to hit you with the [Diseased] power. I think the actual combat text is "Minotaur's Fetid Howl has Diseased you!"

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Yup and dying and being rezzed doesn't eliminate this debuff. It runs it's full amount of time no matter how many times you die. If you hit the hospital afterwards you "can" sometimes make use of the detoggle on zoning bug which will occasionally reset the debuff.

1. Blappers tend to be single target oriented and lacking in mitigation.
2. A Low Damage PBAoE auras are going to bring you lots of very unwelcome aggro from the mobs that you aren't killing right away.
3. Defiance buffing your single target blaps means that once you pick up the aggro very few other toons will be able to take that aggro away from you (high caliber tanks are about it)

So lots of it is play style choice. Are you going to be able to survive Alphas? What are you going to do for mitigation? Sapping? AoE KBs from Lightening Clap and Thunder Strike? Defense Bonuses from set IOs?

Get your mitigation plan in place first, then look at lightening field. In my experience a single damage aura like this won't usually be worth it mainly because of over kill.

But, if after your typical attack chain you have minions with sliver of health left it can then be a good power. This is a case of underkill. In this case running a damage aura will make the difference between defeating a mob early or having to make another attack.

Damage procs in Lightening Field may also make a large difference.

I'm not sure if the stun proc from Energy Manipulator can be slotted into Lightening Field. If it can this may become a nice part of your melee range mitigation. You could stack stuns with Lightening Clap, Thunderstrike, and this proc. The stun proc could be slotted into all of your AoEs and PBAoE attacks giving you the potential to stack massive amounts of stun.

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On mission 2 your grantable shields should be more than enough for the suicide jockey(s) running off to break cysts. Since that's usually the tank and scrappers, where you'll be needed is where all the squishies are huddled together trying to figure out how to survive multiple ambush spawns being dropped on them.

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It may seem that the grantable shields would be more than enough, but they're really not. With his idea, where he'll be needed is at the cysts (the suicide jockeys are the ones getting the mission done.)

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On mission 3 at the computer same deal. Pushing the robots away from the computer means they unload those AoE rockets. The tank and scrappers have enough resistance to survive the mass AoE strike (especially the 3rd wave) the squishies will still drop from the 5% of all those attacks going through.

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From my experiences (an ITF almost every night for the past month or so) those AoE rockets are already firing, and the squishies usually die anyway if they're still on the platform towards the end. The bubble idea sounds good to me ...at least to keep them away for the last 1/8 of the computer's health when its really tough to keep everyone alive for just. a. few. more. SECONDS!

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Mission 4 Will Power, Invul, and Sheild melee toons will want to be surrrounded by those extra mobs

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I definitely don't. Tanking Rommy on my scrapper isn't a problem. Tanking the nictus away from Rommy and the rest of the team isn't a problem on my scrapper. Tanking anything with one of those ambushes descending down upon me IS a problem ...I dont need AAO saturated that badly ..I just need to stay alive.

More than half of the ITFs I've ran were completed without a tank. The use of force bubble the way he mentioned just might make that all the easier.

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You should get better teammates. I do a nightly ITF with this FF defender pretty much just like I've said. Times typically run between 18 and 22 minutes. (Then 3 or 4 of us spend another 10 minutes cleaning every thing off the last map.)

On mission 2 I bubble the tank and 2 scrappers and they each run down one pipe (on the map that has 3, which is fairly typical but doesn't always happen) and break cysts. The rest of the team sits in the interesecttion of all the main cave branches and farms purples (the ambushes) inside my Dispersion Bubble while we wait.

In mission 3 letting some of the Robots use melee attacks on the melee focused characters allows the squishies to stay alive (we usually pull Rom and Requiem and take them on while we destroy the comp).

Mission 4 we bum rush Rom (all the defense means the healing nictus does a poor job of healing Rom).

I can assure you that the only thing that Force Bubble or Repulsion Field does is slow the process down.

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You won't want to run (nor will your team want you to run) Force Bubble. While it may do a fine job of keeping the melee off the squishies it's totally unneeded. The squishies should all be softcapped with your grantable shields, Dispersion, and Manuvers. If a squishy gets into trouble that's what Force Bolt and Torrent are for. Tenebrious Tentacles will also assure that squishies remain out of melee.


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I was thinking specifically of mission 3 and 4 of the ITF. Possibly even mission 2. Mission 2 would allow me to run through with force bubble and help whoever is breaking cysts move through unharmed. Mission 3, force bubble could be used for the computer and for the AV's. Mission 4 FB would keep the ambushes out. It will make me a target which is what I want the soft cap for.

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On mission 2 your grantable shields should be more than enough for the suicide jockey(s) running off to break cysts. Since that's usually the tank and scrappers, where you'll be needed is where all the squishies are huddled together trying to figure out how to survive multiple ambush spawns being dropped on them. (This is where FB might actually be useful but most likely it'll just be pushing mobs off Ice Slick and out of debuff patches.)

On mission 3 at the computer same deal. Pushing the robots away from the computer means they unload those AoE rockets. The tank and scrappers have enough resistance to survive the mass AoE strike (especially the 3rd wave) the squishies will still drop from the 5% of all those attacks going through.

Mission 4 Will Power, Invul, and Sheild melee toons will want to be surrrounded by those extra mobs, For mobs that are on squishies T_T and Torrent pushes them to the melee or off the roof and makes sure they don't come back until T_T wears off, and no one is going to want you accidentally pushing Rom off the roof. (which can happen pretty easily if you get pushed by an ambush mob)