UberRod

Originally Posted by Dissolution

You don't like the blinking clue?

Originally Posted by Obitus

I think a lot of people would be happier with that than what Unstoppable currently does. Hell, if the Unstoppable crash were reduced to 99% (rather than 100%), just enough to give players some assurance that they could keep their toggles up, the power would have vastly more appeal.

Originally Posted by SpaceJew

It's a matter of stacking what you have to work with. What does invul have? Well, lets see.

A: High S/L Resistance

B: Moderate typed defense

C: Moderate typed resistance

D: Low/Moderate regen

Depending on how you slotted your invul, there are different options. However, the 'best' option imo is to go for the T4 +regen buff. And here's why...

My Invul sits at 25 hp/sec before DP is popped and has roughly 2330 HP. After I pop DP, my regen sits at roughly 35-40 hp/sec and has 3440 HP. The +regen destiny up's it to cap for a few seconds, then slowly degrades to around 50-60 hp/sec at bottom tier regen. This stacks better than the, what, 5% bonus to resistance/defense even if you're about that close to soft cap defense. It also gives you a better ability to mitigate unstoppable crashes, but even if you opted out of unstoppable it's a second heal which is more likely to save your butt than barrier imho.

EDIT: The +regen destiny basically turns you into a WP or Regen toon, i'd actually argue that barrier is better for WP/Regen since they already have plenty of HP regen. Think of your shields as a three-legged stool. Defense/Resistance/Regen. You want all three, and you want them all to be as high as they can be.

Originally Posted by Syntax42

The Aegis IO is 20% status resistance, not protection. It will make the mezzes last slightly shorter, but the real problem is that you're getting hit with the mezzes in the first place. Defense is the best way to avoid status effects once you have mez protection.

Originally Posted by DoctorWhat

Hand Clap, IMO, is a good power to take until around the late 30s, early 40s. It helps you get out of a jam when your defensive powers are still being given slots and developed. However once you have all your armors and got them slotted to a reasonable degree the usefulness declines sharply. By the time your slotted out, SOs, IOs, Hami-Os or whatever, then any time you're getting your backside kicked chances are Hand Clap won't do much more than make noise.

For a level 50 build ditch Hand Clap and grab something like Hasten, Combat Jumping, Maneuvers or some other power that can be left at one slot and be useful.

Can't remember his build, but thought it was worth bringing up.

Originally Posted by Pyrox Saberdon

Not even close. In-N-Out Burger is leaps and bounds better. It's fresh. Real fresh not that "Fresh 5 months ago before the freezer" some places advertise. Potatoes sliced and fried minutes before you ordered kind of fresh. And fast.

Originally Posted by Obitus

Fair enough. The only reason I even brought it up was that I don't think Hurl or LBE is such a mismatched choice that it deserves so much hand wringing -- a premise that seems ironic in retrospect because my stating it spawned even more semi-off-topic talk.

If your choice is between LBE and Hurl, you're essentially making a conceptual decision, is all. I'd personally tend to agree with you that LBE is better than Hurl, but if someone truly does want an option to ground the occasional flyer and/or just adores the aesthetics of Hurl, then I can't tell them they're wrong -- just as I would never criticize someone for taking LBE to flesh out their Superman-esque character concept.

It all comes down to the build's attack chain. If you're looking to incorporate a ranged attack into your regular attack chain, then LBE is clearly better because it takes up less time and accepts the Achilles' Heel proc. If you already have a continuous ST attack chain and you just want the ranged attack as a mule and for the occasional distant enemy, then it's a toss up: Hurl delivers a larger burst of damage (~63% more than LBE), so it's more likely to kill a wounded runner in one shot, for example. Hurl has a Fly debuff that can potentially make an annoying encounter with a flying opponent much faster.

(It's worth noting that neither LBE nor Hurl is as good as Punch for a continuous ST attack chain. Partly thanks to Bruising -- which essentially forces Tankers to slot and use their fast-recharge Tier 1 attacks -- Tankers generally have a pretty easy time constructing a seamless attack chain without resorting to APP/Patron powers. So if I had to make up a rule of thumb, it would be that you take LBE if you're trying to fit in a ranged-attack mule and your build is so tight that you had to skip Punch as a result. Edit: All of the above assumes you're taking Energy Mastery to begin with, just to be crystal clear.)

To make an over-long story short: Hand Clap is a much bigger problem here, if you can even call it that, than Hurl/LBE.

Originally Posted by BigBoss Eyepatch

What is wrong with Hurl?

Its one of the only ranged attacks in the Tanker secondaries, it does a big chunk of damage if slotted correctly. Drops flying enemies out of the air. Can knock a foe back... useful if you are wanting to come to the aid of a squishy teammate. Can be used with taunt to strategically pull the enemies.

The only downside is the time it takes to do the attack, but its not THAT much slower to execuste than KO blow. Plus if you're using invulnerability, there isn't really going to be a problem with it being interrupted.

Hurl seems to be getting a bit of short change here guys.

Originally Posted by Obitus

Hey, different strokes, man. Almost by definition, I'd say that the worst of a given set of analogous options can't be called solid, but this whole solid-not-solid thing is semantics. (Disclaimer: I'm not even sure offhand that LBE is the worst available ST attack in the APPs/Patrons, but I do know that it's markedly worse than at least four other popular options -- Gloom, Fire Blast, Mu Lightning, Ice Blast. I'd imagine the Mace option is worse than LBE by dint of redraw penalties, but I'll have to look it up later.)

The rest is just confusion, it seems: First I say that Energy Mastery (the whole pool, including Torrent) is a "terrible" source of supplemental attack powers. Then you reply to say that LBE "isn't terrible." Then I say that I was talking about the combination of LBE and Torrent. Now you say that you weren't talking about Torrent. We're talking past each other here, and over something that's pretty silly even on a forum the purpose of which is inherently insignificant.

Thus far, I've gotten a lot of vaguely snippy correction over an issue my over-arching theory of which no one has even explicitly questioned. Do you disagree that Energy Mastery is a sub-optimal choice for anything but endurance management and incidental +regen? Do you disagree with the idea that people looking for bona-fide attack powers should go elsewhere? Doesn't seem like you do.

Originally Posted by lionsbane_EU

Well, the answer to that is I want my guy to be as all round powerful as I can, and that does include offensive powers. So I was hoping to free up a slot to allow me to pick up a range attack. (attack is but a name for another defence right?)

But I'm not stupid enough to not listen to the pretty much unanimous opinion put out by my peers. Tough hide it is.

Originally Posted by New Dawn

The pros to LBE that people put forward makes me wonder. What non concept build on any Tanker has an extremely essential Laser Beam Eyes? I think maybe once I might of seen a build where it was ever so tight to achieve its goal where I thought to myself well that could be the one and only time. Hurl on the other hand is something I've always liked as it does -fly and when I was a grounded tanker (footstomp is grounded anyway) found it had great utility. I may fly now but its still great to stack with taunt to make sure aoe damage can be directed away from the squishie gank and spankers surrounding a tough AV if needed or saves me the bother of air lifting.