Tsuji

They are unequivocal buffs due to the way the game works. If you can't see it, that's unfortunate, but it doesn't make them nerfs. You have a higher potential damage at almost all levels and, really, you should be using your hold between attacks most of the time anyway. Having all of your attacks always available is only cool if they don't all suck.

I picked SS for the animations, actually. So....Yeah.

But I have a really really hard time believing that, should Castle really go through and actually rebalance sets, kinetics won't get nerfed. I mean, your argument even holds for the reason people choose kin. They choose it cause the animations rock, right? Not because FS and speed boost are strong...

I also have a hard time believing that if he changed rage the rest of SS wouldn't get compensated. The changes he made to the rest of psionic assault to compensate for the PSW nerf were actually pretty well done. I'm a little disappointed that psi doesn't get anything like blaze or power burst, but PSW really wasn't nerfed that badly either, so it's not that big a deal.

Wow, how'd you manage it with perma hasten? I got to 100% on a mind/psy with that much defense, but I had to use some purples

Random guy said: Didn't this used to say increased from 10 to 16 mobs hit? Or am I losing my mind?

Castle replies: It did. That, however, missed the cut off and won't be in til NEXT patch.

So it's definitely coming.

Hey all, recently I've been playing around with different builds in Mids to try and find cool ways to combine set IOs. I've been focusing on dominators because they're my favorite AT. The main thing I've been doing is trying to combine high ranged defense without sacrificing perma dom.

I created a build with Mind/Energy that could cap ranged def. and had about 85% recharge. It's very expensive, but also very cool. Even though most stuff isn't attacking you w/ perma dom it's still useful for ambushes and AVs.

It seems like hitting about 30% is the best idea since you don't have to sacrifice as many cool powers, but can still use a purple to softcap when necessary. Anyone else been playing with this?

You have more 6.25% recharge bonuses than will benefit you, that's the main thing about the build...Also I would remove a slot from surge of power and put the resist 5% recharge set into charged armor.

As far as I can tell you mostly built for high HP, which I'd assume you're doing for PvP. The resists won't help you much in PvP due to DR; when I activate power surge with charged armor running in PvP it gives me an extra 4% or so resist.

I'm not huge fan of Grav/ on doms just because I think it's harder to build for a really broad variety of set bonuses. With Mind/ and Ice/ you can get really high ranged defense along with perma dom. You can cap ranged def with perma dom on a mind/energy, which is pretty cool.

The biggest mistake you could possibly make would be to neglect your secondary early on. Back in I2 or whatever it was a great idea to focus on primary powers first, but now your defenses are too low without SOs.

Make sure you have a decent attack chain before you start grabbing anything but the essential defense powers and you'll enjoy your tanker a lot more. Even if you pick up all the defenses in the world 1-20 you're still going to go splat without buffs etc. AND you will suck at soloing.

As for which of your builds to pick, I vote dark/mace or shield/axe. Ice is fun and all, but I like the other two choices more. I never even THOUGHT of stacking stuns w/ dark though....Sounds like a good idea.

Definitely, and since you're fire you'll have decent early AoEs for taunting...If you're willing to spend some money on IOs you can also cap defense to all damage types but psi with willpower and still have the resist/regen.

I'd recommend willpower if you're willing to spend some money at 50, and invuln if you don't like spending the money. Both can handle the various 20-40 TFs well enough.

PS I feel like I know you from the tanker channel. I used to go there during I4, were you in there too?

Well, one ice map would be the map with frostfire, but I don't know if that's available through architect.

For the volcano map you could use the final map from the Hess TF, which I know you can use in Architect. The downside is it has a giant robot in it.

How do you make an arc for dominators, anyway? Like, what makes it specifically for doms?

I've got a high level Grav/Sonic, the focus on ranged defense works quite well.

You really do need something to help with end, though. Running tough, weave, AND dispersion bubble while actually doing stuff is going to murder your endurance, so if you happen to have a bajillion influence you should buy yourself a miracle and a numina's, because there is no way you will be able to play a build with that much end drain. I actually got super lucky and got a miracle from a TF drop, and after that I didn't have many end problems.

The tough+weave etc. might be overkill. I just have TI from primal and that along with dispersion bubble and my ranged def made it so that I didn't have problems with dying. I did pick up aid self, though, so take that with a grain of salt...

If you're going for damage you'll probably be a little disappointed though. Singularity is pretty low damage, and even with the AoE focus you're not going to be doing very much damage, so be aware that you're going to be a purely support focused character. The debuff in particular was disappointing for me. You can put it on singularity, sure, but the thing has a repel aura, so enemies don't stay debuffed for more than a split second unless you trap them in a corner with wormhole.

You're absolutely right that singularity, when buffed, is super defensive. It can stand up to pretty much anything, and I actually used it like a tank for teams that didn't have one.

I can't comment directly on brutes, but I didn't require more than about 50 million to make my Fire/SS tanker quite strong. I focused on Smashing/Lethal defense, and it worked well. Obliteration and Kinetic Combat are pretty expensive, though.

For endurance I just slotted some end reduction into my attacks and shields and ended up dropping consume. Just make sure you have some blues for emergencies.

I'll answer your actual question.

Yes, there are a lot of tanks that can be softcapped, but you need inventions to do it. Willpower, Ice, Shield, Dark Armor Invuln, and Stone can all softcap with the right invention setup. I think you might be able to softcap Fire too, but you would have to sacrifice way too much to do it.

The one thing that you need to keep in mind is that you'll be softcapping typed defenses rather than positional def., although it's not as hard to do that as it used to be. It can also be pretty expensive to do, and actually isn't needed for most play.

But it's pretty fun to work towards...

Hey, I've been playing since launch, I think I get to say what I like.

And claws, you forgot dominators, soldier of arachnos, brute, kheldian, stalker, not to mention masterminds, where being mezzed isn't a big deal. Or did you forget that villains exist?

Open mids, next to the file menu there's "Import/export". Click long forum post, then OK, then paste into the forum post box

Thanks everyone! I don't think knockback will be a huge problem due having some -kb IOs in the build. I manage pretty well on my fire tank using just one -kb IO, and the blaster has two. So holds aren't the soul crushing issue they are at my normal defense...good to know.

Actually it's because of my blaster that I stopped playing characters without status protection, heh heh. Even my controller is sonic.

How often do you get held w/the softcapped defense? I'm trying to decide between using flight or going for super jump + acro.

Normally I'd just get acro no question, but it's an energy blaster so I want hover to control the knockback more effectively.

Fire/SS is probably the best. Only real issue is getting knocked back if you don't have that covered with IOs/Acro.

If it's just casual zone PvP my friend has an Invuln brute who does quite well. His secondary is DM, though, so I'm not sure how much the heal has to do with it.

With the way damage calculations changed, DM is actually strong for damage in PvP since you can use stuff like shadow maul. He does have problems with missing unless people crowd around him, though.

Leviathan probably. As a non melee everyone will jump on you at once, so hibernate helps a lot. I've only really found the mu pet useful for healing you when fighting one blaster up in the sky or something like that.

Look at the bar, there's an epic pet.

I don't know if this belongs in General, but this is the forum where I heard about the equations in the first place, in one of the flamefest Psi Assault threads. Someone had said that according to X equation Psychic Shockwave would require 50 endurance to use based on the dev equations. They also said a number of powers were outliers, but generally only in a range of about 30%

Can anyone tell me the equations used for determining endurance etc.? I was trying to figure out if the non-Shockwave attacks in psi assault are also outliers, but in a bad way.

Thank you