StormyDarkness

I think they removed it because it's bugged. From my understanding once it's fixed, they will be returning it.

Could be wrong, though.

I actually came up with a name pretty quickly and the costume was very easy.

I like mine, not sure enough to actually play it post the costume contest, but it definitely fits Virtue's Pocket D and a meme combined.

Stormy's Guide to Build Basics

Not sure exactly where you'd place that under...

Not to burst your bubble Ski, but TA does the same amount of -resistance as Storm and 1000 more -regen than Storm. However, against an AV Storm can deal more damage than OSA can easily, but that's 400 damage base for tornado + lightning storm damage on top of your own damage versus 250 damage base for OSA + -1000% regen from EMP Arrow.

Cold Dom would be a better case to argue since it has Heat Loss added in there, so -60% resistance and -500% regen, not to mention the added +def from shields than the other two have to to-hit debuff to attempt to achieve.

Special note: TA Defenders (40%) do more -resistance than Storm Defenders (35%) do, while Cold Dom Defenders remain the same at 60%.

Slight update on cc's, also times slightly altered. This event begins in 15 minutes. If you want to have your Task Force mentioned by the DJ on wtfrlive.com, shoot me (@Deertayorkay or @Sen Maltz) a tell. You can also request any music you'd like to hear to either. We are about 6 inches from each other.

Stormy’s Guide to Build Basics

Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Knowing Yourself and Your Powers
III. Build Goals
-A. Solo/Team/Hybrid
-B. Exemplar/Level 50 only
-C. Accuracy
-D. Endurance
-E. Health
-F. Survivability
-G. Recharge
-H. Damage
IV. General IO Understanding
-A. How to Make IOs
-B. IO Sets in Powers
-C. Frankenslotting
-D. IO Sets with Exemplaring
-E. The Rule of Five
-F. Global/Proc/Unique
-G. Softcap
V. Links

I. Introduction
Welcome to Stormy’s guide to the basics of making builds. The goal of this guide isn’t for the pro builders nor a great detail of how to use Mids the program, but is to get people who are either number nervous or who are trying to make their own builds for the first time. I’m attempting to make this as number friendly, but to a degree, any character building ends up with a bit of a number crunch regardless how much you try to stay away from it. I will attempt to explain most of my numbers and what it does means as I go along.

II. Knowing Yourself and Your Powers
The most important thing to remember about making your build is that it is for you. Because of this fact, you shouldn’t feel you have to take a power that you dislike or will never use. Also, you should know how you play the character and this should also affect how you go about making your build. For instance, if you are playing Radiation Emission and know you always remain at range, you could easily find Choking Cloud useless because it doesn’t fit into your tactics.

It is also key to know what your powers do and what you want to do with them. This allows for you to get your character’s powers optimized versus trying to slot your Lightning Rod for range instead of damage. You should keep what your powers do in mind as you slot them. This fact is imperative when dealing with how to slot individual powers, including whither you should set IO them or frankenslot them (details on what I mean below).

III. Build Goals
Something that is a key mistake that happens to newer build makers is not having any sort of goals set. Each goal can effect your power selection and IO choices, so it is important to keep in mind what you want. It is okay after you figure out what is important to what your trying to do to place “As much as I can get” into a category, but realize that it means you’ll be overlooking those since you’ll be focused other places first. Here are a few example build goals and how they can effect how you build your character.

III-A. Solo/Team/Hybrid
In this build goal, you’ll need to choose if your goal is to solo by yourself (which can include teaming but you’re not focused on helping your team), team focused (which means you’re focused more on helping your team than making yourself completely self sufficient), or a hybrid of the two (where you take powers that can help your team but can’t or minimally help you while solo). Choices like these will determine your skipping Grant Cover (if solo only build), taking Elixir of Life (if team build), or having Vengeance with a Luck of the Gambler 7.5 placed in it (gives both a team and solo benefit).

III-B. Exemplaring/Level 50 only
This is a fairly straight forward goal to which you’ll probably know what you want right away – Do you want to Exemplar or do you want to only do 45+ content. This seems simple enough of an answer, but because of rules regarding IOs, it is important to remember your goal here.

III-C. Accuracy
Once again, this feels fairly straightforward, but it is an important goal to keep in mind. How well do you want to hit your enemies? The usual answer is “All the time” which is possible to do. Don’t get scared, here’s a bit of numbers. Against an even levelled minion, the base accuracy (x1.0 powers) have a 75% chance to hit. This means 1 in every 4 enemies will be missed by the power. The key of this goal is to find what accuracy fits you best. If you despise missing, you can build for a lot of accuracy but there is a hard cap to accuracy and that is 95%. This means that 1 in every 20 enemies you will miss with the power. Granted, 1 in 20 is much better than 1 in 4; however, you’ll be pumping a lot of accuracy to get that type of accuracy going on incarnate trials.

III-D. Endurance
This goal has several different components to it; however, as we all are aware that you can not do anything if you do not have endurance. The three components are recovery, endurance usage, and endurance costs to which they can all be looked at separately but contribute to your overall issue if you are having it. Recovery is simple, how much endurance per second you get. There are very few ways to manipulate this, which basically boils down to slotted endurance modification in Stamina, Atlas Medallion and Portal Jockey accolades, a few +recovery set bonuses, and even fewer +endurance set bonuses. Endurance usage are your toggles which translates to your spent endurance per second. It is usually best to have a general endurance gain versus endurance used per second to attempt to achieve. If you do not have enough net endurance gain then you won’t be able to use any other of your powers besides Brawl. The last is endurance costs. These are not typically measured in endurance per second because they are click powers, like most melee and blast sets are filled with. Both endurance usage and endurance costs are best managed with endurance reduction as there are rarely any powers that give you endurance discounts and there are no set bonuses that give out discounts. If you see yourself running out of endurance a lot, it’s going to be one of the above that is causing your problems. Either try to cut your endurance costs from toggles and clicks via endurance reduction or attempt to raise your endurance/recovery via sets.

III-E. Health
This goal is a quite a bit similar to Endurance, though I’ve got it broke down into two categories, Health and Survivability. The reason I’m splitting it up is Health is about your Hit Points, while Survivability is about preventing or reducing Hit Point reduction. In short, the Health goal is usually best measured with the following two stats: Regeneration and Hit Points. Hit Points is a very basic concept, how much you can get hurt before you die. There are a few powers, a couple accolades, and several set bonuses affect Hit Points, to which the higher your usual health is, the more effective those accolades and set bonuses are useful because they are based off of percent of your usual Hit Point total, in short Tankers will get more bang for their buck with +HP set bonuses and accolades than a Mastermind will get. Regeneration statistic is based completely off your Hit Point total for your character as it is a percent of your Hit Points are returned to you every second. The higher this percentage is, the more that is returned to you, but since it is based completely off your Hit Point total, it is once again more effective for Tankers than it will be for Masterminds as Masterminds have less Hit Point total and thus less Regeneration.

III-F. Survivability
As stated above, this goal is less about your actual Hit Points, but reducing or eliminating damage. As far as reducing damage goes, there’s only two major ways of succeeding at this, -damage on your foes and +resistance on yourself. The problem with reducing the damage method of survivability is that it’s completely set dependant because there are very few resistance set bonuses and they usually don’t do enough to be worthwhile on getting. This means that if your set does not or gives little resistance or –damage, then this is not really a viable method of survivability. Using a heal power, Regeneration, or raising your total Hit Points is a better method than trying to scrounge a few .9% resistance to Smashing damage only set bonuses. The other side of survivability is eliminating damage from even impacting you. There are two ways to do this, increasing your defence and lowering their to-hit. It is plausible to mix and match these as long as you realize that +to-hit on enemies negates both ways and enemy to-hit debuff resistance reduces your survivability. Sets like Time Manipulation where it has Time’s Junction (a –dmg and –to-hit power) along with Farsight (a +defence power) increases the team’s survivability by increasing the team’s defence and lowering the enemies to-hit (eliminating) while it also reduces the damage used by the enemies (reducing). This also doesn’t account for the Time Manipulator’s other set where either can help it (Fire Control’s Smoke, Dark Blast’s Gloom, or Dual Pistol’s Chem Ammo). It is also quite easy with set IOs to gain defence, as there are multiple sets that give anywhere from >1% defence up to 5% in a purple set. Though, I will follow up the defence portion later in the General Understanding of IOs section of the guide in reference to the Rule of 5 and Softcap sections.

III-G. Recharge
This is a usual suspect when it comes to builds to at least have some look into because it is the part that allows you to use your attacks or click powers (like a heal or buff/debuff power) more frequently. Outside of Dominators, there’s no “official” recharge to look at, just what you deem necessary and preferences. For Dominators, the magic numbers you are looking for are X with Hasten and Y without Hasten because this allows you to be “permadom”, meaning that after your initial build up of Domination, you will maintain Domination permanently unless you are in the middle of another animation or other circumstances that don’t allow you to click the power.

III-H. Damage
For me, this is usually my “as much as I can get” clause after I achieve my other goals. Damage is nice, but endurance, accuracy, survivability, recharge, and health usually take a larger stance to me than this. There are a few powers that give you +damage, but it is mostly a few +3% here or a few +2.5% there from set bonuses.

IV. IO General Understanding
If you have done the tutorial from the University and understand it, or dealt with Inventions enough, then you can skip sections you understand already. This is just a quick brush of how the invention system works, along with a few building rules and tips.

IV-A. How to Make IOs
IOs come in recipes that you get from defeating enemies. Enemies also drop salvage, sometimes depending on what enemy group, they drop different type of salvage. For instance: Circle of Thorns drops arcane salvage while Sky Raiders drop tech salvage. When a recipe drops, you can go into the recipe tab on your powers bar, click the enhancement you are interested in making, and it will tell you what salvage is required to make it. White Recipe/Salvage are common, Yellow are uncommon, Orange is Rare, and for recipes Purple is very rare. You can search at Wentworths/Black Market for both recipes and salvage (among other things) and buy it from there. Recipes can also be obtained via completing Story Arcs/Task Forces, Reward Merits redeemed at the Merit Venders (either random draw or save up for specific ones), AE tickets as a random draw, Astral Merits from Incarnate Trials, or Hero/Villain tips from either their respective tips or completing a Signature Story Arc once per week. Salvage can also be bought with AE tickets either as a random draw or specific salvage.

IV-B. IO Sets in Powers
When you get an IO set, it’s usually pretty easy to tell it apart from a generic set. First, it is in your Invention subfolder instead of whatever common IO it is. An Invention: Healing (40) is a common while Reactive Armor: Resistance/Endurance Reduction is a set IO. The other major note about set IOs is they do less than a common IO but do multiple things with one slot. For instance, the above mentioned Reactive Armor: Resistance/Endurance Reduction increases a power’s Resistance and Endurance Reduction of that power but not as much as a common IO of either, while a Reactive Armor: Resistance would increase the resistance of the power at the same rate as the common. If you were to put both Reactive Armors into the same power, you get a set bonus, which is a small bonus for using the same set. It is also something to note that you can not place identical set IOs into the same power, like you could not place 2 Reactive Armor: Resistance into Dark Embrace; however, you could place Reactive Armor: Resistance and Resistance/Endurance Reduction into Dark Embrace and Murky Cloud and get bonuses from both.

IV-C. Frankenslotting
This is a term that is used on a power where you are care less about the set bonuses and want to capitalize on a few specific areas. An example of this (for the cheap people like me who don’t want to buy Hami-Os) is Empathy’s Fortitude. The Endurance cost isn’t too damaging, and some may not want to focus on the to-hit buff of the power, so they do the following slotting: Luck of the Gambler: Defence/Recharge (50), Red Fortune: Defence/Recharge (50), and Serendipity: Defence/Recharge (40). This makes the Empath’s Fortitude capitalized on the Defence and Recharge aspect without caring about what sets they can put into the power. A note: A triple enhancing power like Acc/Dmg/End paired with another Acc/Dmg/End is equal to a Damage generic and Endurance generic of the same level. In this terms meaning your getting a free Accuracy generic if you were mostly focused on Damage and Endurance. Two dual Defence/Recharges are stronger than a single Defence and single Recharge IO of the same level.

IV-D. IO Sets with Exemplaring
This is one of the reasons you need the goal of going to stick as much as possible to 45+ content or allow yourself to exemplar down without crippling yourself. Whenever you exemplar, with very few exceptions, IO sets stop giving their bonus if they are under of 3 levels above of your new exemplared level. For example, let’s say you have Positron’s Blast: Damage at level 30, Damage/Recharge at level 34, and Accuracy/Damage/Endurance at level 50. At level 47+, you have the 2 and 3 set bonus of Positron’s Blast. If you exemplar down to level 40, you maintain your 2 set bonus for having the Damage and Damage/Recharge being under the 3 levels above, but lose the 3rd set bonus of Positron’s Blast because your Acc/Dmg/End is well above the level 43 maximum to keep your set bonus. However, your power does keep the Accuracy, Damage, and Endurance that the IO offers, you just lose access to that set bonus. This all stays true until you get to level 30 or below, since the Damage/Recharge is level 34, you lose access to that set bonus as well, while maintaining the Damage and Recharge increases. If you expect to exemplar a lot for whatever reasons, lowbie task forces or helping out SG mates, and you want to maintain your set bonuses, you must choose lower level enhancements to keep your set bonuses. The trade off naturally being that those lower level enhancements offer less straight up bonuses as a level 30 Damage IO is going to be less effective than a level 50 Damage IO.

IV-E. The Rule of Five
IO sets have a very hard rule: The Rule of Five. What this rule says is after you get five of one type of bonus, you can not get any more of that bonus. This, however, is not taking about three 9% accuracies, three 5% accuracies, and one of those stop working. It is for each individual number, so you can have up to five 9% accuracies that work, but once you place a sixth 9% accuracy, it will ignore that one, but will allow a 5% accuracy to work along with all five 9% accuracies. Most are pretty easy to spot, do you have six 2.5% recoveries in your build. Do you have six 10% regenerations in your build. It becomes more complex when you start bringing in defence set bonuses. The reason it becomes more complex is because there are two different numbers per set bonus: typed defence and positional defence, each usually having one high number and the other halved. Melee is linked with Smashing/Lethal, Ranged is linked with Energy/Negative, and AoE is linked with Fire/Cold. The reason it is more complex is because if get three 1.875% Smash/Lethal Defence set with a high Melee defence and three 1.875% Smash/Lethal Defence set with a low Melee defence it is six 1.875% and one of them will not be counted, while all six Melee defence numbers, since they are different, will work just fine. In short, if you are messing heavily with defence, make sure you are keeping a close eye on the number of each, or just keep your eye focused on either typed or positional numbers.

IV-F. Global/Proc/Unique
In some IO sets, there are special IOs that give bonuses to either powers or your entire character. The first is Global bonuses. These IOs give you a set-like bonus within itself. Example: Karma: Knockback Protection. This enhancement follows the same set bonus rules in regards to Exemplaring, the enhancement has to be within the 3 level rule of your exemplar level. Meaning if you have a level 16 Karma: Knockback Protection, if you go below level 13, you will no longer receive the bonus, regardless what level the power it is put it was chosen. Chose Maneuvers at level 49? Karma still works at level 13 or above if level 16. Procs are the next thing on the list. They allow a percent chance to make damage powers deal more damage, gives you a recharge boost for a time, or placates an enemy and they ignore your presence. These work the opposite way of Global enhancements. It does not care what level the enhancement is, but as long as you have the power active while exemplaring. So if you took Positron’s Blast: Chance for Energy Damage in Psychic Scream, each enemy you hit with Psychic Scream could potentially take Energy Damage. The enhancement can be level 50, and you exemplar down to level 30, it will still work in Psychic Scream, as long as at level 30 exemplaring you still have Psychic Scream as a non-greyed out power. Unique IOs tend to be Procs, however you can only slot one per build. It is a common practice to place Numina and Miracle unique IOs into Health, as Health is a passive power at level 1, it is always active.

IV-G. Softcap
I know there are more detailed guides on this, but I just wanted to hit this, since this goes with the Survivability, but much more detailed and with numbers. A usual equal level minion has a 50% chance of hitting your character, assuming no buffs of any kind on them and no debuffs on you. Since they have a minimum of 5% chance to hit you, it takes 45% to go from 50% to 5%, but since you are not debuffing their to-hit, the most you need is 45% defence to achieve this 5% chance to hit. When you are looking at the numbers, 40% and 45% do not seem like a big difference, but when look at it from an enemy’s to-hit perspective: at 45% defence, they have a 5% chance to hit you, while at 40% defence, they have a 10% chance to hit you, then that 5% defence missed on your part is doubling their chance to hit you. I will say that achieving softcap on everything is very difficult, so this is a place that I consider very important to look at your tactics and build. With few exceptions, every accuracy power in the game has either some sort of positional or type to it. For example: Lingering Radiation from Radiation Emission has the tags of AoE and Energy. It will take your higher defence between AoE positional and Energy typed while Ice Bolt from Ice Blast has Ranged positional, Smashing typed, and Cold typed. If you are always at range, then there is no need to try to softcap your melee defence. If you are in all and have a lot of defence to make up, it is usually best to go for Smashing/Lethal defence since those are the most common types of attacks. Gunfire being Lethal and punches being Smashing. Energy, Negative, and Psionic tend to become more common in later levels, so you may consider trying to softcap those as well.

V. Links
For those who wish to help better my guide, please let me know (via this thread or PM) of more specific links on these topics I've raised so people can easily get to locations for more information on that topic. As for the rest of this guide, it'll be links that don't specifically go with any topic above, but are useful places to find information.

List of Set IOs by Set type

Several new postings have been made on events.

If there is something you'd like to join or form yourself, feel free to send me a message or post here. We'll have it announced via our DJ when your event is coming up as a reminder to those who have joined and if it's not full yet, another way to get people recruited for your task force.

Is the name Brony taken?

Also, someone needs to make the SG called the Pegasisters.

That is all... for now.

If only for now.

First couple of events have been posted. One person has messaged me so far and is posted and as I see people post interest for Task Forces and whatnot, I'll be posting updates.

The Galactic Shield and Danger Rangers Supergroups are planning a Super-Superbowl Party and After Party and all of Virtue is invited to attend!

Our exact schedule of events is mostly open right now, but we are planning on various City of Heroes activities during the Super Bowl, for those who dislike both football and overly priced commercial spots. I'd be willing to run various Task Forces and at least one Mothership Raid and costume contest during the event. One of our members will be doing a live music feed from wtfrlive.com from 1pm to 1am EST with the possibility of requests and a dance party.

We will be happy to have more super groups or individuals help our with various events. I'd personally prefer having a "scheduled" start time for task forces, costume contests, or the like as to allow announcements on the music feed to be made about upcoming events, with spur of the moment task forces or iTrials welcomed.

I'll be updating this post with times of events and other information as it proves necessary. It's currently just a two man team taking this project on, so any ideas or wanting to run your own scheduled events, let me know via this thread or PM. The plan is to have events for all walks of life of CoH. From lowbie teams/task forces, to iTrials, to costume contests, to a dance party, we want there to be something that you can be apart of if you don't watch any part of the super bowl.

Once Task Forces are posted, please post your global and want to join the task forces. I don't want to end up with a few too many interested that another one can't be formed. However, if there is enough interest for said task force at that time, I'd appreciate it if someone were willing to spearhead another effort. Naturally anyone late or spots still left open can be filled by people online at the time (via global channels, broadcast, or the like).

1:00 pm: Brickhouse Chat Global Channel's Costume Contest (Average Guy/Gal. 100 mill for 1st place)
1:30 pm: @Maressa's Casual RP Dr. Quarterfield Task Force (4/8 attending, 122 Reward Merits, 4 hour, 30 minute scheduled time, Done approximately at 6 pm)
Danger Ranger's Positron Part 1 Task Force (1/8 attending, 11 Reward Merits, 1 hour, 30 minute scheduled time, Done approximately 3:00 pm)
2:00 pm:
2:30 pm:
3:00 pm:
3:30 pm: Danger Ranger's Sister Psyche Task Force (1/8 attending, 50 Reward Merits, 1 hour, 30 minute scheduled time, Done approximately 5:00)
4:00 pm:
4:30 pm:
5:00 pm:
5:30 pm: Galactic Shield's Imperious Task Force (2/8 attending, 26 Reward Merits/Incarnate Salvage, 1 hour, 30 minute scheduled time, Done approximately 7:00 pm)
6:00 pm:
6:30 pm:
7:00 pm: Galactic Shield/Danger Ranger's Costume Contest (No theme, prizes TBA)
7:30 pm: Galactic Shield/Danger Ranger sponsored Mother Ship Raid in RWZ 2, if multiple. (Vanguard merits and more, 1 hour, 30 minutes scheduled time, Done approximately 9:00 pm)
8:00 pm:
8:30 pm:
9:00 pm: Galactic Shield/Danger Ranger's RP Dance Party with your host DJ on wtfrlive! (Studio 55, Imperial City/Praetoria, requests taken, 1 hour scheduled time, done approximately 10:00 pm)
9:30 pm:
10:00 pm:
10:30 pm:
11:00 pm:
11:30 pm:
12:00 am:
12:30 am:
1:00 am:

I think someone is in love with a Blast set...

Like *most* knockback powers, it is from where the caster is in regards to the enemy. Targeting in the middle of a mob will not send some flying towards you.

Ice Blast has good synergy, due to the massive amounts of damage. Its mitigation of -recharge is kinda already built into Storm.

Psi Blast, same redundancy, just less damage. Though I do *love* Psionic Tornado. It probably has less synergy, but good for those AVs that decide to pop a T9.

Rad is okay. Place Heel procs everywhere, and then I start thinking more of the set. From a debuff standpoint, you already have probably more -defense than you already need between Tornado and FR. I personally dislike Rad, but that's just my preference.

Sonic has good synergy because you can get some crazy -resistance numbers. Personally, I dislike Sonic due to its lack of AoE, but that's typically how I easily justify using my blasts. I just did -30 damage to like 10 enemies. That's 300 damage! However, the only AoEs you get are A) you nuke. B) a low damage sleep cone. C) a moderate damage knockback cone. and D) a moderate damage -resistance cone. Since Sonic is all about -resistance, I really only see D as an AoE option when I had my Storm/Sonic up to level 42ish. However, I've been playing a concept character with the Sleep and -Resist one, and she's a bit more enjoyable. Then again, she's also a Corruptor.

Well, the max number of targets is 6 higher, so there's 6 more possibilities of getting your proc to fire off.

Not bad when it's a 10% chance. That means statistically, you're only having 1 of those minions hit. However, if luck is just a little bit against you, you don't have it fire off. With Explosive, you're getting 16, which should give you the boost each time, assuming it's not in its downtime for the proc.

Just remember, it's +100% for 5 seconds, then down for 10 (if memory serves) so you only need to explodsive every 15 or so. On my Emp/Psi, I use Psionic Tornado typically as much as I can, maybe not getting as much out of the proc as I can, but it also has the knock down, damage (like Explosive) but also -recharge (and a large chunk too). You can also use it as a mitigation tool for more than one enemy.

Heh. If it were me, I'd switch Stunning Shots for Exploding. It's only a 50/50 shot on the knockback. Then it'll keep your slots in tact from your other powers, keep your recharge bonus, and only lose your 3% defense to range. You could give Hover BotZ to help compensate some. Also, give yourself a little endurance redux for Hover, assuming you don't want to give it a LotG 7.5

Recharge, imo.

If you want to take the effort, go over to red side and unlock Patrons. Grab yourself some tasty Power Boost from Soul Mastery. With a slotted Fortitude and Maneuvers, you can get your allies to 43% defense to everything. Power Build Up works for smaller teams or if you're lazy, but PB has half the recharge of PBU. It also has a pet you can buff with your empathy powers while solo or duoing.

Major build suggestion (especially if you already got the power), place Forced Feedback proc into Exploding Arrow. That'll give your Exploding arrow a chance to buff your recharge and get your empathy powers going even faster!

Lore pets -> go your choice on the damage side. As with the Patron pet, you can buff these and you can solo like there's no tomorrow.

Barrier's buff does the same as PB (though you could go crazy and do it double and have a ton of defense for one person), so I'm not sure if that would be a route to take if you already went that route with Patrons. Clarion works, since you can't mez protect yourself. I'd also suggest Ageless for even more recharge! I've done this argument for my Emp/Psi defender, and have yet to come to a conclusion on which one I want.

With the great amount of defense you can offer, I'd suggest either another support type, or a resistance armor melee. This is because likelihood of good defense is high, so you'll get more bang for your buck with a resistance set melee ally. AB on a Traps, Empathy, and many others are godly, though if she prefers melee characters it'll still be nice. Just not as nice for you since you can't get buffed or enjoy in her debuffage.

Well, personally somewhat conflicted as far as Empathy/Ice goes.

I already have a 50 Emp/Psi Defender and a 50 TA/Ice Defender. Both of them have been mostly neglected on defense, but my Emp/Psi has little/no trouble keeping her aggro under control. This might be of serveral reasons, partly due to buffing with Empathy taking away aggro gaining time or Psychic Blast's secondary effects greatly aiding me in not taking damage (most notably -recharge (like Ice Blast) and knock up with Psionic Tornado (I use that all the time due to Force Feedback's +recharge proc, so I damage, debuff recharge, soft control knock up, and every now and again buff myself to make my Empathy powers go faster)).

However, the same lack of defense on my TA/Ice defender causes me some decent chuck of trouble if I'm not paying attention to myself. However, I have Ice Storm, Blizzard, -resist powers, OSA, and still some more that all cause aggro because they are all aggro inducing powers (except Flash... unless you are silly and place a proc in it). He has the knack of being able to pull aggro off people, which with the less focus on defense causes some problems.

In both cases, with a decent aggro magnet, they seem to be very safe because they are both very range oriented characters and rarely need to jump all in their grill. I'm about to redo the TA/Ice build to Dark Mastery due to Soul Drain versus PBU. PBU is nice, but doesn't last the full duration of Ice Storm or Blizzard, causing your storms to become nerfed after a while. Soul Drain, on the other hand, will keep up the damage on it because its duration is 30 seconds versus PBU's 12 seconds.

That's part of the reason I suggested Soul Mastery, Soul Drain (though not as recharge friendly as Dark Mastery) will keep your Ice Storm and Blizzard nice and heavy for their entire 15 second duration. Also, for added bonus if you think your Soul Drain is lacking, pop Aim before you use Soul Drain because of the duration on Soul Drain will be overall much more beneficial than Aim's on your storms (see PBU problem above).

Second power of note is Power Boost. This is much less the reason for PBU that you could use it for if you took that route. It allows you to do mad amount of increase to your fortitude and if needed, power healing with Heal Other. Giving 38% defense to a Blaster can be godly. It's a bit under half as effective as official softcap, but if you're mostly at range, you are probably giving the Blast Maneuvers, making him 2% defense off softcap (over double as effective as your 38% fortitude alone). Then if they just have the 3% def from Steadfast, they are instantly softcapped via you, and can then go blast happy without having to worry about going insta-squish. Also, with the build I gave you, Heal Other does 622 with the Spiritual, but Power Boost brings it up to 880 with just one Heal Other that you just have to wait on the animations to keep doing it. Other pros over PBU is it's half the recharge of PBU, meaning instead of Fortituding 6 people and giving PBU Fort on 2, maybe, you can fairly consistantly give power boosted fortitude on 3 members (Blaster, Dominators, Controllers, other Defenders... anything without an non-defense armor set). Come on, there's nothing like being on a team with a Dark or Electric Armor Scrapper and go "Oh yeah, you've got 38% defense on top of your 60% resistance". Small side note, you can use PB when you jump into mobs for Soul Drain and that'll increase Maneuvers, CJ, and Stealth's defense powers for the duration. I've done this with my TA/Elec, hit PBU to give myself 40% defense on top of their -9% to-hit debuff and then completely sap them in one go.

Other note is the pet. The major thing about that pet is it gives your empathy use even solo. Stealth + SS to the end of a map, summon your pet, PB fort, AB, RAs, CM, let loose on a mob. This will also (hopefully) lower your aggro because there will be another target there, which will be properly buffed to cause major havoc. Even if you toss the buffed pet into the last mob so you can stealthy grab the glowie for quick complete.

The Hold (if you want it) will be stackable with your Ice holds and also gives you another place to put 4 Basi's Gaze. There's also resistance shield that's useable for more survive ability if you're really worried about it.

The exacts of Patrons, you have to go all the way to Villain, do the first arc of the Patrons, gets all the patrons unlocked on your character forever (even if you decide to respec into a different pool later). So one trip to red side to do the first arc of your patron and you're good. Even if you respec after going back hero, you still have Patron Pools open. It is somewhat annoying to actually do, but once it is done, you never have to worry about it again.

Sorry, wanted to attempt to give you all the facts in detail about the Patron. I think it's a great asset, just like Lore pets, especially for the soloing Empath. There's a video somewhere about some Empath soloing Rikti Pylons, AVs, and the like, buffing their Patron pet, the lore pets, and then dpsing themselves.

Since I'm making an Empath/Ice Build on Victory (and the servers are currently down), I'm going to make myself a build and post it on here for you to look at. To me, recharge tends to be the most important thing. Also, you might want to consider taking Soul Mastery (yes, you'd have to run red side to do it), but this'll allow you to get Soul Drain (not up as often as Dark Mastery) and Power Boost (Up more often than PBU straight out of the gate, allowing you to get amazing Fortitude numbers).

Before using the following build, I'd ask you to consider i21 coming out first. There's a few new pool powers coming (one that's great for recharge hogs like Empathy) that could greatly benefit you if you that instead of one of the powers. Something that I'm considering rebuilding my Emp/Psi around (that and actually giving her the pet to buff, because I was a dope and didn't take that).

Alright, this is what I came up with. Notes of interest before the build:

* 163.8% recharge with hasten (just enough to perma Hasten and summon mistress)
* Power Boosted Fortitude (PB up every 35 seconds, Fort up every 16, average 6.7 teammates buffed with fortitude giving you a bit of wiggle room to keep it on 6 members) does 38% defense and 40% to-hit, without any to-hit slotted (that you could use the Defense/To-Hit Buff/Recharge Hami-O for)
* PB Fortitude + Maneuvers gives your (half) teammates around you that are squishy 43% defense, so assuming they can get 2% defense from somewhere, they will be softcapped to everything.
* PB Fortitude + Maneuvers works on your pet from Soul Mastery, making it a viable unkillable machine (assuming the enemies don't kill you instead)
* Soul Drain is up every 62 seconds, making it up roughly half the time.
* 16 second recharge Ice Storm, that does average of over 300 damage.

Note: On Mids I have Spiritual active along with the 4 Endurance and HP accolades. Otherwise, most of the stuff is turned off.


Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Empathy
Secondary Power Set: Ice Blast
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Concealment
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Healing Aura -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(21), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal(23), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 1: Ice Bolt -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), Dev'n-Dmg/EndRdx(45), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45), Dev'n-Hold%(46)
Level 2: Heal Other -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(5), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(5), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal(7)
Level 4: Ice Blast -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(11), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(15), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45)
Level 6: Resurrect -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(9), RechRdx-I(9)
Level 10: Aim -- AdjTgt-Rchg(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(11)
Level 12: Fortitude -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(13), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(13), S'dpty-Def/Rchg(15)
Level 14: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Ksmt-ToHit+(46)
Level 16: Freeze Ray -- BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(A), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(17), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(17), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(19)
Level 18: Recovery Aura -- Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(19), RechRdx-I(40), RechRdx-I(40)
Level 20: Ice Storm -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(21), Posi-Dmg/Rng(37), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), Posi-Dam%(37), RechRdx-I(46)
Level 22: Super Speed -- Zephyr-ResKB(A)
Level 24: Stealth -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(25), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(25)
Level 26: Regeneration Aura -- Dct'dW-Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(27), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(27), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(31), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(33)
Level 28: Bitter Ice Blast -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(29), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(29), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(36), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(36)
Level 32: Adrenalin Boost -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(33), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(33), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Dct'dW-Rchg(34), EndMod-I(34)
Level 35: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 38: Blizzard -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(39), Posi-Dmg/Rng(39), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(39), Posi-Dam%(40), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 41: Soul Drain -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(42), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(42), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Oblit-%Dam(43)
Level 44: Power Boost -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 47: Summon Mistress -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx(48), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(48), S'bndAl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(50), S'bndAl-Dmg/EndRdx(50)
Level 49: Clear Mind -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 0: Task Force Commander
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
Level 0: Portal Jockey
Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve
Level 50: Spiritual Radial Paragon
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(3)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(3)

With incarnates, I did something even more awesome for Storm/Dark (debatable on Reactive still, with the dots and all). Dia Interface with your blasts set for damage, you're doing a ton of -to-hit. With your cones, you're trashing the entire mob's to-hit! I mean, 9% to-hit debuff upfront, with 20% more waiting in the wings, with Steamy Mist and any other defense powers you have. Not much can touch you after -38% to-hit debuff with Nightfall + Tentacles once when you automatically get a +5% defense base power of Steamy Mist.

Just something to toss out there.

Incarnate wise, I went Spiritual, Dia, Void (theme reasons, though if you go debuff route, -50% dmg is pretty nice), Warwalks support side (for the mez protection support drone thingy), and Ageless (to get even better recharge, and to solve all my endurance problems at 50). Though when I look at 200% or better recharge, I wish the old LS was still here. I'd love to see it just go to town on AVs.

I have a Storm/Dark as well, and I know your feeling exactly.

I also have a Fire/Storm Corruptor and have had a Storm/Sonic Defender (got up to like 42ish, my 2nd highest level character deleted). I have also had multiple of other builds too, Earth/Storm Controller and Storm/Ice Defender for example. Storm was my major thing for a long time due to my Storm/Dark. My Storm/Dark would also probably be considered my "main" for most purposes, though I do spread the love a lot.

From what I remember and how mids is currently set up, it will not raise the current HP, just the maximum.

This means that if they are already at HP cap (like my Stalker is), then it's pointless to give them Frostworks for any reason. I have told Cold Doms with Frostwork "Thanks for giving me the buff, but it doesn't help me any."

Reasoning with Mids: It says HP increase, but unlike Ice Armor's Hoarfrost, Hoarfrost has both an HP and a Heal part to it. Another note for Hoarfrost, it has an enhance-able HP and a non-enhance-able HP buff, then a straight up HP gain (all enhance-able) making a healing enhanced Hoarfrost actually heal more damage than it gains back.

Once it really did hit me how much Frostwork sucks (when I thought it worked like Hoarfrost at least), I immediately dropped it from all my builds and consider it one of the best skippable powers from Cold Domination power set (since there is so much good in it already)

I haven't actually changed my build yet, but if it becomes somewhat of a hassle, there are purples to be had.

Quick note, I just unlocked mine, so this is evidently still open.

As for your OG question, I consider it as a choice between that and Dark Consumption for opening the pool. I like the rest of the Dark Mastery pool more than OG and Dark Consumption. So for me, it's "Do I like OG or DC for this character?" Since DC works better for Blizzard than OG's safety with Soul Drain, I prefer DC and continued onward. I'd rather have the rez most of the time than both OG and DC, which that's typically 3rd place in my favorite powers for the pool. Sure, I've had times where OG works wonders synergy wise (I'm looking at my Traps/Psi atm), but it's the resist and +dmg I'm looking at mostly with Dark Mastery.

Well, technically my current build is power mastery, but I've come to realize that it was a bad choice for the reason I was taking it. PBU + Blizzard for the same damage bonus, though it's a lot less constant damage, that and when PBU/Aim is finished, the pseudo-pets of Ice Storm/OSA/Blizzard lose their damage bonus as well.

As for your build itself, here's things I'd consider:

First is Flash Arrow. Yes, I understand you're shooting for the tasty +3.75% Range defense, but with the damage proc, it no longer is non-aggro causing. This mean that when you use Flash Arrow, you'll be attacked instantly, because (from my understanding) it's not flagged as an attack, which causes them to be aggroed. Not saying that it's completely a bad thing, especially if you wait for whoever is doing aggro control to take hold before firing it off, but that tends to be counter to most people's uses of Flash Arrow. Since I don't want to aggro them, and the 5 slot is kinda useless, I just 4 slot Flash Arrow with as much to-hit debuff from Clouded I can get.

Entangling Arrow is second on my list. It's not really a great power for Defenders as it's better on Controllers, and typically the knockdown of OSA and the slows from Ice Storm, Glue Arrow, and various other forms seem to be a better use of keeping them in storms and you don't have to do anything about it. You may consider taking a power that can get more use out of it with the amount of slots you've give it, or something with more slots and steal them from somewhere.

For Aim, I'd just toss the Recharge and either End/Rech or To-Hit/Rech and get a free 2% damage for 1.36 seconds on aim's recharge given up.

For Acid Arrow, I'd switch the Defense Debuff Shield Breaker for one of the two following choices. 1) The Lethal Damage Proc. It's an AoE power so the proc will roll against each enemy effected by Acid Arrow, giving a lot of potential proc attempts for extra damage for 5% defense debuff (from 39 to 34 without PB). 2) Achilles's Heel proc. Same logic as 1, but instead of damage, it's an extra -20% resist. This option, however, makes you lose your 11% accuracy bonus, to which I'm unsure if you're willing to lose.

For OSA with the purples, I'd consider two things. One, it's already deep into ED on recharge and damage. You might want to consider placing a proc in there instead. Option 1) get rid of the acc/rech (accuracy is hardly needed for OSA) and put the knockdown proc in there instead. You'll keep your set bonuses, but lose less than one second on recharge to make people go like fish when they step on OSA. Option 2) Instead of the Recharge IO, place in the Heel proc (yes, I love that proc), which it'll give 4 chances for -resist for each enemy at certain ticks of the debuff. Either way, you'll make them die faster or give it some more soft control to work with you.

Next, Soul Drain. I know its recharge isn't as good as Dark Mastery's, but I'd suggest trying to find one extra slot, putting it here, and place in Oblits to give your build 5% more recharge. Not to mention, more damage, and accuracy (something I've suggested taking out of with Acid Arrow). If you take all but the damage Oblit, your accuracy will go from 418.92% (with everything but PB toggled on your build) to 480.8% and from 72.38% recharge to 73.3%, not to mention an 18.55% endurance reduction and 66.25% damage increase on that power. Small beans for what you want it, for some healthy increase in stuff you've not had. Granted, you could also frankenslot it with Acc/Rech from Oblit, Dervish, Cleaving Blow, and Eradication, freeing up maybe a slot or two.

If you can manage the slots (again), you may consider giving weave two more slots and going with LotG 7.5, along with 5 Red Fortunes for damage and recharge. You could also consider not placing the LotG at all and 6 slotting Reds and get 2.5% Range Defense out of it. However, that's typically my liking for slotting weave.

Last thing I'd suggest is switch your Aid Self's Miracles for Numina's. It's the same amount of HP given, but you get 12% regen to go with it. Though it's up to you if you want more regen or need more recovery (though the recovery from Miracle isn't very large from the set bonuses).