Muon_Neutrino

In regards to putting the old tier 9 sets into the store once they're rotated out, what's wrong with just putting them in the store for VIPs only? Why do they have to go into super packs? Because I, for one, would be extraordinarily pissed off if I would have to buy a bunch of super packs to get the celestial pieces. Putting yet more exclusive stuff into super packs does nothing for those of us who disagree with the whole super pack idea in the first place. And as I'm sure everyone remembers from all the arguments back when they were introduced, there are quite a few of us.

On the topic of secondaries, one bit of synergy is the mez protection offered by sonic and FF. If you're trying to make heavy use of conductive aura for sapping, having a way to prevent it from getting turned off by mez is very nice. While hopefully you're mezzing things so that they can't mez you back, we all know that even the best laid plans frequently fail to survive contact with the enemy.

I personally grabbed sonic for my elec/ controller, as there's a nice bit of synergy going the other way there in that sonic really could use the extra endurance that elec/ gives you. I don't think that sonic is necessarily the most effective possible secondary for elec/, as it's just not nearly as strong overall compared to powerhouses like rad or time. However, elec/ might well be the best *primary* for sonic, just because of the end recovery tools, so if you've been wanting to play sonic elec/ might be a good choice.

Also, minor addendum to the 'tips' section. When running in to drain targets with conductive aura, as you note chain fences is nice to both drain some extra end and prevent running. Using it wakes up the enemies for a moment, though, and even though they'll get put back to sleep they might still get a chance to get some shots off. I find that tossing jolting chain right before chain fences can help mitigate this, as depending on the timing of the sleep pulses they'll sometimes be put back to sleep before they finish getting up.

edit: also also, jolting chain is probably the only power in the game where the tempest end drain proc might actually be useful, since it's a multi-target power that takes ST sets in a powerset which focuses on endurance drain. Jolting chain doesn't need very much slotting, so it's not too hard to fit in procs.

Haven't read the rest of the thread, to avoid being influenced...

A couple years ago when this topic came up, here's what I came up with:

Basically, that.

The important point is that, in the guts of the system, resistance effects are like damage effects with negative strength (I'm sure Arcanaville will be along shortly with the details). As such, they're affected by things which modify damage effects - such as damage buffs. In other words, if you had a brute running a resistance shield, as soon as fury started ramping up that shield would be providing an extra 200% of its base resistance values, aka doubling its enhanced value. If you had 45% before, now you have 90%.

Obviously that's a problem, and the devs have two ways to stop that from happening. The first is to take the resistance granting buff in the power, and mark it as 'ignores enhancements and buffs'. You can see this on FF's deflection shield. The other way is to take the entire power and flag it as 'not affected by outside buffs/debuffs', as in cold dom's ice shield.

Both prevent the resistance effect from being erroneously boosted by damage buffs on the character. The first, since it doesn't flag the entire power, still allows power boost to function. However, this is only ok for powers where the resistance component isn't intended to be enhanceable. For powers which it is, either because the resistance is the primary purpose or just because the devs felt like it, the whole power has to be flagged to ignore outside buffs/debuffs. That stops the problem while still allowing enhancement, but only at the cost of preventing it from being affected by things like power boost.

So, rule of thumb, any power with an enhanceable resistance component can't be affected by power boost, because if it was able to be affected, then the resistance component would be able to be boosted by damage buffs.

Gravity control *used* to be drastically underpowered. It got buffed recently, and is now merely meh. Battle axe I have no personal experience with, but it *is* a very late blooming set with all the AoE at the end, so if you didn't play it to a high level that might be part of the perception. Other than that what I hear about it makes me think it's probably more like grav's current situation - not spectacularly good, and overshadowed by other sets (mace most notably in this case), but not horribly *bad* either.

Ice *control* could certainly have a case made that it's weak, considering that it's the only control set that, if there's no cover, has no means of absorbing an alpha other than sacrificing its pet. I don't know about the rest, though. Ice melee used to be bad and got buffed, ice blast still has very good single target, decent aoe, and good control, ice armor feels a bit outdated but still functions reasonably well (and stalkers get a dang good tier 9), ice assault doesn't stand out in any one area but is a good overall well rounded assault set, and frostwork is *really* not a representative power to use to look at cold dom. Ice manipulation I have no experience with, though, so I dunno there.

I'm on the 3 month subscription (or is it 4 month? I forget), and apart from that, 0$.

I'm not interested in vanity pets, gambling packs, or consumables. In terms of costumes and powers, there are quite a few on the market that I could see myself wanting at some point. However, I generally don't buy something until I'm actually ready to use it (unless I'm quite confident I will be using it at some point and it goes on sale or something) - i.e. I haven't bought SJ yet despite liking it and planning on using it, because I haven't yet decided exactly what I want to do with it. Given that, so far the monthly stipend has been enough to keep up with the things I actually need for whatever I'm currently working on.

I don't have any real objection to the idea of spending points, but I'm a cheap *******, so as long as I can get away without it, I will.

We do know that they can do this, and I think it's been suggested before. The only real problem is that, while it does allow for some extremely limited customization, I don't know if the devs would be willing to go to that much extra work for a single powerset, given that each alternate power would be just as much work as the original one. Making a new pet powerset that has 3 choices for each pet would, as far as I understand it, be just as much work as making 3 *different* new pet powersets in terms of animating/art time/power balancing/etc.

In other words, while this option isn't unfeasible on technical grounds, it might wind up being unfeasible on *practical* grounds.

On a serious note, do NOT EVER store anything valuable in email for any extended period of time. The global mail system has been known in the past to go down and lose existing emails in the process - email is not a safe place to store things.

I personally store excess inf by placing bids on items that don't exist - level 53 IOs, for example. It ties up bid slots, but you can always offload some of it to alts. Some people store inf in lowball bids on valuable items under the theory that if you happen to buy one, you can probably sell it for more than you bought it for. That can be risky, though, as some people with "lowball" bids of a billion or so on PvP procs learned recently. Personally I'd just stick with the level 53 IOs to be safe.

I strive not to repeat powersets. My playtime is generally so limited that I almost feel like I'm cheating myself if I'm not playing something 'new'. Of course, a character with a different AT or alternate powerset is still a completely different experience, but it still feels... weird. It also somehow makes the character feel less like 'themselves' if another one of my characters shares the set. That said, there are a few powersets that I either actually do have repeats of or or which I often find tempting to use on new characters despite having one already.

Storm is a big one. I have this on two characters and more are always suggesting themselves. It's just so much FUN. Yeah, blah blah, knockback, scatter, chaos, etc, etc, but sometimes you just have to throw a tornado at something. It doesn't hurt that it's also FREAKING AWESOME once you get the hang of it.

Dark miasma is another, just because it's so dang good. Everything I could ever want in a support set, and meshes extremely well with my playstyle. Also two characters, also a frequent contender for new ones.

Stone melee, because SMASH KABOOM CRUNCH KERPOW. No set in the game is more viscerally satisfying. Also, omg orange numbers and mass knockdown and mass stuns and mag 4 hold. Only one character, but that's just because scrappers don't have it yet.

Time is rapidly becoming a contender for this, too. Only one so far, but it's so tempting for so many reasons. And I keep being tempted to roll /traps on a MM even though I already have it on a defender.

I have it on a couple of them, but only in cases where I had an extra power choice that I literally couldn't think of anything else to put in. To me it's at that level of 'take something just to fill the spot' occupied by powers such as recall friend - that is, potentially nice to have occasionally, but less important than literally anything else. If scrappers had access to taunt instead I'd be much more tempted, but as it stands neither of the main active aggro management powers available to scrappers (confront and provoke) are good enough to really move beyond that level, given that aggro management isn't really the AT's thing.

Saying 'except FS', though, is a *really* big caveat.

It's difficult to compare the two sets, IMO, because of how the differences interact with the different ATs that the sets are available on. Is dark affinity better than dark miasma would be, on a controller? Possibly, because the biggest thing dark miasma loses - a very good alpha strike mez - is something that most control sets can do anyway. (And the other thing it loses is a ST hold!) Would dark affinity be better than dark miasma on a corruptor or defender? I'm not so sure, because those two ATs don't already duplicate the things that dark miasma would lose in translation. I know just how massively important fearsome stare is for my dark miasma characters, and I'm not sure that having fade and soul absorption would actually make up for losing it.

Basically, that. That IO set is definitely not something you'd find in a top tier bling'd out build, but there's nothing *wrong* with it, and it certainly does the job better than SOs - the equivalent of 3 acc, 3 dam, and 2 end? Not bad. If you come into some money and become interested in tricking out your MM to the limits you'd probably want to replace it, but there's really no *need* to.

About the only thing that makes me wonder a bit is that, while the set does provide very good enhancement values for straight up combat, it doesn't leave room for enhancing anything else. For the demonlings and the prince that doesn't matter, but it's rather tempting to try to get some resistance or healing enhancement into your tier 2. I might be tempted to switch it out for Blood Mandate acc/dam, dam/end, acc/dam/end (all level 50), the level 40 Brilliant Leadership acc/dam you already have, and two plain level 50 resistance IOs. Blood mandate should also be a cheap set, you still have very good acc, dam, and end values, and you get some nice resistance bonuses.

If you can get them, it'd also probably be worth investing in the two pet +resistance aura IOs - Sovereign Right resistance bonus and Expedient Reinforcement resistance aura. Demons are a mostly resist based set, and it's really nice to stack that extra 20% from the IOs on top of their inherent resistances, steamy mist, and ember shield. I don't know off the top of my head what prices those are commanding these days, but if they're too expensive you can always buy them with merits of one sort or another.

I've got a slot with a level 1 MA/SR scrapper sitting in it, who's holding a name for the eventual MA/nin or SJ/nin scrapper which will replace her. I've also got a placeholder holding the name for my future illusion/energy dom.

So, wait, exactly how are your moving, steering, and targeting controls set up? Are you using wasd for movement? Are you using q and e for looking left and right? What is on the numpad? Your setup sounds *extremely* different from mine, so it's hard to suggest new binds without knowing what keys you're already using for what.

Edit: first thing you probably want to do is to edit your post and erase the duplicate build - it looks like you accidentally pasted it in twice.

I can see what you're trying to do (ranged/AoE defense), and it's a good idea, but you need to be careful that you're actually getting a good return on your slots *aside* from the set bonuses you're getting. You also need to make sure that what you're enhancing the power for actually needs enhancing. You have a number of powers where the slotting, frankly, doesn't make sense in terms of actually usefully enhancing the power.

This is a fairly common beginning builder's mistake, but thankfully it's not too hard to get the hang of. Knowing what a power actually needs to be enhanced for comes with experience - just make sure you look at the numbers for each power to see what it's actually doing. I'll go through your powers and give examples of where I'd suggest changing things.

For one, the last set bonus from multistrike is 1.88% toxic resistance. Even stacked 3 times this is really a marginally useful bonus at best, and look at the enhancement the set is giving you - it's way over the cap on damage and *very* light on recharge. Thus, it would be a decent idea to drop an enhancement for a plain recharge IO - I'd suggest the dam/range, as range is not especially useful in overcharge or repulsion bomb (range *is* of some use in cutting beam, but it's still not super important in my opinion). You'll still have capped damage and *much* better recharge, which is especially nice on overcharge.

The second point is overall endurance usage. Even with repulsion field and force bubble *off* you're spending ~1.8 endurance per second just running your toggles. This is because you're running hover, tough, weave, maneuvers, *and* temp invul without any endurance reduction at all. While attacks generally do consume more endurance than toggles, toggles still do add up, and you're going to find yourself running out of endurance a *lot* with only 1.2 end/s net recovery. This desperately needs to be addressed, but you'll need to scavenge a few slots to do it. Thankfully, there are a few you can find.

Drop the second slot from fly - it doesn't need flight speed enhancement, as it hits the cap even at its base speed. Drop one of the plain endmods from stamina - two level 50 IOs gets you close enough to the ED cap that losing the third only costs you 0.06 end/s recovery, which is worth the slot. Drop both extra recharge slots from conserve power - if your endurance problems are bad enough that you need to use it every time its up at max recharge, they need to be fixed anyway. Drop both extra slots from personal force field - it puts you *way* over the defense cap even with no slotting at all. Don't put the kismet 6% there either - that proc only is active when the power its slotted into is toggled on (unlike things like LotG +rech or a -KB io), and when PFF is on you can't attack anyway! Just stick a karma -KB into the slot instead - this lets you drop one slot from each of your two single target bubbles since you only really need one -KB IO.

That frees up 8 slots - put them into tough, weave, maneuvers, and temp invul until they've got 4 each. The leftover slot should go into aim (more on that in a sec). Now you can slot each of those toggles for good endurance reduction as *well* as defense or resistance (don't bother with the aegis unique in temp invul, it's really not worth it. Note I didn't mention hover - since it offers the least defense and costs the least endurance out of any of those toggles, it doesn't need as aggressive of slotting. I'd just go for two def/end IOs - you lose less than half a percet defense doing that. Combined with swapping the plain heal in health with the second +recovery proc, that increases your net recovery by about 0.8 end/s - 2 end/s is still somewhat on the low side, but a *heck* of a lot better than 1.2. You're also sitting pretty at 70% resistance to S/L, which is not bad at all for a squishy. Capped defense, mez protection, hefty S/L resistance, and the ability to keep mobs out of melee makes a tricked out FF defender one of the least squishy 'squishies' around, and I can attest from personal experience just how awesome it feels.

As for aim, use that slot for the last piece of the gaussian's set, nabbing that super super tasty 2.5% to melee, ranged, *and* AoE defense. This means that you can completely drop repulsion field and replace it with piercing beam (slotted with 5 detonation and a recharge IO, like the other AoEs) without dropping below the AoE softcap. Your mileage may vary, but I found repulsion field to be a rather poor power, mostly because of the obscene endurance cost (especially if you're planning to make significant use of force bubble instead). As well, slotting up repulsion field is a complete waste of slots *other* than for the set bonuses. On the other hand, piercing beam is one of the biggest reasons to pair beam rifle with force field in the first place, since it offers a quite appreciated *offensive* contribution that force field otherwise lacks.

If you want devastation in one of your ST attacks, the hold proc will be more useful in a faster firing and longer ranged attack like single or charged shot, especially since lancer shot *already* delivers a mez so unless the hold proc is stacking on top of someone else's pre-existing hold it won't ever actually mez a target that wouldn't already be mezzed. Also, you don't need to 6 slot the set - the last two set bonuses are rather lackluster, and replacing them with two pieces of thunderstrike gets you better enhancement values and a 2% recovery bonus to boot. However, I'd just be tempted to go with another full thunderstrike set instead, to be honest - it gives you another accuracy bonus, and the extra ranged defense gives you a more comfortable cushion over the softcap to absorb a defense debuff. Plus, it's probably cheaper.

Finally, I'd be very tempted to drop recall friend for either assault or force bolt. Recall friend is really just a 'nice to have'; both of the other two can be much more useful. Assault might be a burden on your endurance solo, but on a team where you're not expected to kill everything yourself (and might be getting vigilance buffs too) it's a nice extra bit of damage for you and everyone around you. Meanwhile, force bolt, even if it does induce redraw, is one of the most amazing tools for handling single bosses in the game. While it's not going to work on AVs, it is singlehandedly capable of keeping any individual lesser mob bouncing helplessly in a corner essentially forever while you or your teammates kill it. It's especially useful at lower levels, when your defenses haven't matured yet. Either of them would be a very worthy addition to your arsenal. As a bonus, neither one needs any slotting at all - an endredux for assault or an acc or acc/end/rech for force bolt is all they need.

This is a quick sketch of the changes I listed above. It's not *everything* I'd do with the build - for example, I'd probably still be trying to improve the endurance management some more - but it's a start. The LotG +recharge IOs are just me being extravagant - they're quite expensive, although you can buy them one at a time using hero merits - another plain def/end would work just as well in those slots on a smaller budget.
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I think a lot of it depends on whether you were looking at it (the original version) from a solo perspective or not. Solo, it's like buildup - pop it and then dive in. As you pointed out, it lasts more or less just long enough for you to get a handle on the spawn. On teams, though, very short duration buffs can be problematic since it requires more coordination than most people usually expect to need. By the time people a: realize you cast a buff on them, and b: realize which buff it is and that it's highly time limited, you've usually lost most of the duration.

The original design somewhat made sense, if you considered that the general function is presumably to replace the mitigation originally offered by fearsome stare. A burst defense power would seem like a reasonable replacement for a power offering a relatively short duration of -tohit, and the fringe benefits can try to offset the lack of a mez. The problem is that a debuff requires only one person to pay attention, while a buff requires *everyone* to pay attention - well, that and the fact that it had triple the recharge. It has even more recharge than that now, but at least the mitigation actually lasts long enough to be useful in a team context.

At the moment, fade is buffable by power boost. However, the new version that's coming has a resistance boost as well as a defense one, and that will mean that it will *not* be buffable by power boost, so don't get too used to being able to do that. That said, the new version is still a much better power overall, and it's nice to not feel like you're giving up something by wanting some other epic.

As far as I know, both old and new soul absorption should be buffable. If I understand correctly it's another pseudopet based power, but those have inherited buffs for a while now, so I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Well, as I'm sure is pretty common, my dom wouldn't have completed a lot of the villain story arcs 'as designed'. She's the sort of character who prompts the frequent complaints about villain stories making you a 'lackey', since she doesn't see any particular reason beyond 'you're stronger than me' for obeying someone.... and she has a very high (sometimes unwarrantedly so) opinion of her own power. In-universe, she wouldn't necessarily have been able to successfully take on some of the forces she would have antagonized by going off the rails, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't have tried.

In particular, she never would have obeyed Daos, and at that point she'd be pretty justified in thinking that she could get away with doing basically whatever the hell she wanted. After all, arbiters are only untouchable if, ultimately, Recluse himself can make that stand up - and, as she would prove in only a few levels, in her case he wouldn't be able to. I'm not sure, however, whether she would have listened to Daos politely, promised to do whatever he asked, and then gone straight to Ghost Widow to warn her and plot how to destroy him, or simply run him through with an icicle on the spot - mostly because I think that she would rather have done the first, but would have had a hard time resisting the temptation to do the second.