Nytemynde

Originally Posted by Umbral

Which is why you should go with CJ rather than Stealth. They both contribute the same amount of real defense (i.e. not out-of-combat, which isn't where you're spending a lot of time getting attacked) and CJ costs a lot less end/sec (.065 end/sec compared to .325 end/sec, that's 5 times cheaper).

If endurance really doesn't matter to you (which might be why you're comparing Stealth to CJ in the first place), your best bet is actually Maneuvers because it contributes more defense than either CJ or Stealth (Scrapper numbers: 2.275% +def compared to 1.875% +def).

Originally Posted by New Dawn

Forget about that as you don't need taunt to tank, but ask yourself "How would I tank so and so AV for such and such a defender?!" edit: and more similar stuff. You might think it doesn't matter, there may come a day when it does but overall it still doesn't. You may think the quickest of surefire recoveries don't matter despite the day when it might. There is no point arguing whether someone has taunt or they don't but know this, tankers with taunt are potentially more superior at tanking than tauntless ones. It's the inarguable truth on the matter and they who would argue on this one are very likely to get mullered in a tanking competition.

Originally Posted by Finduilas

Nytemynde, there is basically no benefit to slotting this way over slotting the 4 defense IOs in a single set. The amount of defense is the same, and the amount of end you save by slotting a low endurance toggle for 95% end reduction instead of say, 40% is trivial. You'd be far better off by 4-slotting a set that has good bonuses, like LotG or GotA than frankenslotting for a tiny amount of additional end recovery.

Now, it does make sense to frankenslot an attack or a high-end toggle like Icicles if you want to max out every enhancement type. I usually slot for set bonuses myself, but there is definitely some benefit to super-slotting powers that have many different enhancement types.

Originally Posted by StrykerX

Depends on what you consider a fortune. My Archery / Energy hover Blaster has around 30% ranged defense and 45% global recharge... his build cost around 100 million and I find it very playable. I can almost softcap with one small purple and overcap with one medium, so I can use Lucks for times I need more defense (like EBs) and 30% defense is plenty for normal spawns if you're not trying to solo 8-mans.

Actually hitting 40-45% defense is going to cost considerably more inf and will also require some significant build compromises... things like skipping nukes, not capping Hover speed (doesn't bother some people, but it does me), sacrificing a lot of recharge (or requiring LotGs to get it, which drives the price way up), and needing to "waste" slots and power picks on set mule powers. Capping the ranged defense itself isn't horribly expensive (though it's going to cost a few hundred mil)... but getting enough recharge for a good attack chain after slotting all those +defense sets (which generally lack +recharge) is.

I'd suggest trying for around 35% ranged defense and Aid Self unless you are wanting to solo 8-man spawns. If you are, you'll probably need the capped defense to survive alphas. That build Santorican posted is nice, but it'll likely cost around a billion inf thanks to the uniques and LotGs, you'll be kind of slow when hovering (you may want to use a bind that switches to Fly when moving), and you lack Aid Self or Inferno. The build does have good regen so Aid Self may not be needed, but no Inferno? That's missing out on a lot of fun... I'd consider dropping Total Focus for Inferno and living with only 43% ranged defense, but that's just me. After all, how often are you going to be using a slow-animating melee attack on a ranged build?

Originally Posted by SouthernCross

Without a Build-up or Aim in either set, I'm wondering if anyone has tried running Assault to help with damage. This will be my second attempt at a AR/Dev in 5 yrs as I mostly play Tanks and Controllers.Thanks for any help I might get.

Originally Posted by Finduilas

Heh, this is pretty much how I feel when I see Shatter and Crowd Control in Mace slotted with KB sets.

Mortimer, Aett gave great advice as usual, but I'll add my $.02.

I do see some focus in your slotting, and a focus on defense bonuses, which is good for a defense set like Ice Armor. What is not so good is your choice of sets. Almost all of them are primarily positional defense set bonuses, but Ice has *typed* defense, which means you are spending a lot of slots and influence for relatively little gain. You need to look for set bonuses that have higher typed (S/L/E/NE/F/C) bonuses than positional (melee, ranged, AoE), for instance Kinetic Combat, Smashing Haymaker, Eradication, Mocking Beratement and others of that sort.

Though it's not absolutely necessary, I think your primary goal should be try to soft-cap S/L/E/NE defense. (F/C defense would be difficult to soft-cap since Ice has none to start with, but it does have capped Cold resists, so Fire and Psi are the weak points.) Ice Armor starts with high levels of defense, and you can soft-cap it just with IOs. However, it's easier and cheaper to soft-cap if you take the Fighting Pool and pick up Weave. So the first choice you need to make is whether you want to soft-cap with or without Weave; but keep in mind that using Weave means you'd have to drop 3 powers from your current build.

Whichever you decide, you absolutely need to pick up the Steadfast Protection +Def unique IO, which provides 3% def to all types of damage. I second Aett's suggestion about using Doctored Wounds instead of Miracle for Hoarfrost. Try 5 slots of DW (everything but the Heal/End/Rchg) and leave the sixth slot for the Steadfast +Def. It can also go in Tough if you take it, but you'll be taking Hoarfrost much earlier.

I'll go further than Aett and say that FA, GA and Stamina are all way overslotted. 4 slots should be more than enough for those powers unless you're getting a very desirable set bonus you can't get another way, and that's not the case here. (Note that for defense and resistance toggles, once you go past 56% def/res and have some endurance reduction--40% is enough, IMO--everything else is superfluous.) So pull 2 slots from each power to use elsewhere. LotG has better 4-slot bonuses than RF, so I'd stick with that or Gift of the Ancients, which is also a nice set and considerably less expensive than LotG.

As I mentioned, sets like Touch of Death are better for positional defense than typed, so you should be looking at Kinetic Combat or Smashing Haymaker instead for S/L defense. (Kinetic Combat's bonus is twice as good as SH, but some pieces of KC are very expensive and hard to find.)

Obliteration is a particularly poor choice for Icicles, not only is is a positional defense set, but it's very low in end reduction, and Icicles is a high-end cost damage toggle. Eradication is a good choice for PBAoEs on typed defense sets, since it has a nice E/NE bonus for just three slots, and for Icicles you can slot aggressively for end reduction in the remaining slots.

So after all the advice from Aett and me, why don't you try putting together a build and we'll comment futher?

Originally Posted by Darth_Vernon

People are going to disagree with me, but I love the Entropic proc chance to heal. You can put it in any ST Ranged attack, which you will get 2 of. While not much healing ( and most people HATE hurl for its long animation) it might be worth a shot. Then you would have to hit HF less. Also blazing aura will help and Burn has the highest DPE of any of your hard hitting attacks (included KO Blow).

Just my 2 inf tho

Originally Posted by Sardan

If you end up having a go at AV soloing, make sure to write it up here on the forum. I'm interested to hear how it goes.

Originally Posted by Tonality

IO sets do not offer much in the way of resistance bonuses. They do offer decent defense bonuses, which players on defensive sets use to hit the softcap (and therefore only get hit 5% of the time).

A resistance based set can stack a certain aspect of defense on top of a build in order to increase survivability. This is typically either melee defense or Smashing/Lethal. They use these IOs: (remembering off-hand so my numbers/names might be slightly off)

S/L Defense Sets:
-Kinetic Combat (Single Melee) - 3.75% at 4 slots
-Enfeebled Operation (Immob) - 2.5% at 4 slots (another 1.25 if you want it for the 6)
-Mocking Beratement (Taunt) - 2.5% at 4 slots
-Perfect Zinger (Taunt) - 3.13% at 6 slots
-Reactive Armor - 1.88% at 4 slots.

Melee Defense Sets:
-Touch of Death (Single Melee) - 3.75% at 6 slots
-Obliteration (PBAoE) - 3.75% at 6 slots
-Multistrike (PBAoE) - 1.88% at 6 slots
-Titanium Coating (resistance) - 2.5% at 6 slots

General sets for defense:
-Gaussian's - 2.5 to all positions and 1.25 to all types at 6 slots
-Steadfast Protection Res/Def Unique IO - 3% defense to all
-Gladiator's Armor Def/TP Resist - 3% def to all (but will probably cost you around 4 billion [with a B])

Also Melee and S/L defense sets listed are interchangable. They offer half the bonus to the other category. So, a 3.75% S/L bonus would also have included a 1.88% Melee bonus, but I listed which category they offered the best bonus in.

As for handling an AV, Castle was able to solo an AV on an invuln with a simple SO build. He was able to do this by intentionally glitching the AV to stick to ranged attacks in melee range to reduce the incoming damage. In other words, it's possible you can solo an AV on that build, but you will struggle a lot less using other sets. There will also likely be many AV's you will encounter on that build that you cannot solo.

This is because of how long AV fights last solo. The biggest concern once you've made sure you can live through the damage the AV puts out becomes actually having enough recovery to last the 10-20 minute fight.

Optimal AV Soloing builds have these characteristics:
-An effective single-target chain with no net loss of endurance (so enough recovery to support a sustained chain)
-A method of restoring health when you get hit by the AV. This can be an innate heal, or Aid Self (in the case of a claws/SR brute).
-45% defense against the AV's damage to reduce the chance of hitting you as much as is possible.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

Interesting, I don't recall seeing any patch notes on it, I'll have to check it out sometime. Given that though I would generally agree that Expedient Reinforcement is a better choice.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

Unless they've changed something Gun Drone can only take Ranged Damage sets, I'll admit I haven't checked this recently in game but the wiki agrees with my memory.
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Devices#Gun_Drone

Originally Posted by Radubadu

ok... while I appreciate the effort of your post I'm at work... and after reading it my brain is officially ready to shut down lol

So basically, I will want to slot targetting drone for +to hit and still have one +acc in everything else?

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

I tried that for a while, it was ok but the target selection was to erratic for me to really feel that ti was worth it. I ended up sticking in a Thunderstike set for the defense.

Originally Posted by Catwhoorg

You should be able to soft cap versus ranged, but most of the +ranged def will be coming from attacks/travel powers

Thunderstirke 6 slotted gives 3.75% ranged def
Blessing of the Zephyr 2 slotted gives 3.13% ranged def

3 single target attacks, plus CJ and SJ gives 17.5% from those set bonuses alone.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Catego...Ranged_Defense
Lists all sets with +def

on Stealth and PvP: Most serious PvP will involve people who are at/close to the perception cap, making stealth of limited use.

If you want to sit in a lowbie zone and snipe folks, you should be just fine, if you want to use it as a tool in RV or arena, then think again.