Unthing

That's strange. I beat up 2 behemoths with Invincibilty on. With invincibilty and unslotted brawl I got an 82% chance of hitting. ( 200 hits )
Without invincibilty I got a 73.9% chance of hitting. So that just doesn't make sense. Maybe the Prima guide is wrong. ( about 185 hits )

Invincibilty had a hami O in it so was experiencing a 20% to hit buff. So the base is around 6.75%. I'm going to check with the person who found it was 30% 3 slotted.

This ahs been confirmed by Tiffany Seville who said she messed up a test and got 31 instead of 3.75.

The only one I'm not a great fan of is the Flight pool.

Superspeed has hasten as a prerequisite, it gives you stealth ( allowing you to ghost missions ) and feels the fastest by a long way ( because you are on the ground ). In reality it is fast. It needs no slots, but Hasten does benefit loads from 2 additional. If you are taking the fitness pool, you could do well with Hurdle or Swift, Hurdle to get some vertical or swift to feel like more of a speedster.

Superjump is good, it has the advantage of Combat Jumping as a prerequisite, a power I love as it make you able to change directions in mid air. Add Hurdle to make a good in mission travel power ( CJ + Hurdle = fast ) or Swift if you don't want to look like a mad jumpy thing. Superjump speed is reasonable, I wouldn't slot it past the default slot, especially with Hurdle. For non melee types this also provides the Acrobatics power for knockback / status protection, something you don't have to worry about.

Fly is SLOOOW, as others have said, it is also end hungry but then as a regen that shouldn't be much of a problem. Fly is safest used at high altitudes which gives the illusion of being even slower than it is. It does need slotting. The prerequisites are reasponably okay, Hover provides walking speed when 3 slotted and has knockback protection but I wouldn't get it as a scrapper. Air Superiority is a nice attack solely because of the guaranteed knockdown.

Teleport is reasonably good, it is a bit clumsy and expensive in end. Normally squishies take it rather than scrappers. The prequisites are useful too, recall friend is great for low level sidekicks or moving dead allies to somewhere they can use an awaken. Also it is good for getting slow flying teammates to the mission faster.

Oh NO!

Although if you are Inv/SS you have the option to completely drop accuracies. Rage gives a 20% to hit buff and so does Invincibility, so you can get a 62% to hit buff ( 31.2 each, my 35% buff figure was wrong because it is morning ) which is more than excessive, even for PvP ( although I probably would add 1 accuracy just for those overload defence powers ). If you get focussed accuracy ( 25% to hit buff IIRC )too the whole thing becomes even more excessive.

I know someone that has tested Invincibility and reckons they have around 30% against 1 enemy with it slotted with 3 to hit buffs, so it looks like it is likely to be around 20%.

I suspect for my next Golden Golem build I will try to live without accuracies.

I don't know, however that description is actually not consistant as it talks about getting a to hit buff per opponent.

A flat 20% to hit buff is more useful, as that is basically enough for a 35% to hit buff 3 slotted. This is means you have an 83% chance of hitting with unslotted attacks against purple minions.

I've never seen an accurate value for the to hit buff of invinvcibilty, lots of testing was done for the defence, but I'm not aware of much on the to hit side.

We are meeting in Eden at 2, at the contact ( who is on the big mountain at the back ).

Or just tell Hibernal Flea.

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hehe.

AH but your forgetting the AV's resistances, and of course the amount of HP they have.

-res is a very powerful thing in AV fights!

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Resistance doesn't matter because -res doesn't exactly debuff resistance ( the targets resistance protects against the resistance debuff ). So Resistance debuff is twice as good ( numerically ) as damage buffs.

However the amount of +damage a kin can generate against a single opponent is about the same ( as my previous post stated ) as the -res and +damage a rad can make.

-Resistance is very good in all fights, but so is +damage.

Temp Invulnerabilty is important as it gives you S/L resistance ( about 22.5% IIRC ) which stacks with your Resist Physical Damage.

Unyielding does not provide damage mitigation at low levels. It does provide mez protection.

It has a -5% defence to all.
It also has +3.75% res to S/L and 7.5% res to everything else ( except Psi ). So you need to enhance it by 33% to come out evens ( because 1 defence == 2 resistance ). This is 2 DOs.

So you will need to rely on Temp Inv as your main defensive power* until you reach level 28 and can get invincibility.

* Unless you get Dull Pain, but that is not good at low levels as it isn't available frequently enough.

It wasn't was it? <activates time machine>

@Alan_P
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Kinetics is very useful for AV fights, as is a Rad.

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Kin has +/-dam ( about +100% buff = x1.5 damage, -90% debuff ), -regen and -recharge ( -0.75 ish ). Kin gives a +0.5 recharge buff too. However these take a minute or so to stack up, not an issue in an AV fight.

Rad has +/-dam ( +25% buff = x1.12 dam, -30-40% debuff ), -regen and -recharge ( -0.375 ), but also has -res ( -30-40 perhaps? ). So it has 1.12*(between 1.3 and 1.4) damage boost. That is in the same league as Kin. It gives a 0.25 recharge buff too. It also provides a decent to hit debuff.

The disadvantage is that a Kin really has to spam their powers excessively to benefit the team and they have to be in range of the kin so they all get the Fulcrum shift and Siphon Powers.
A Rad on the other hand has to hit 2 powers at the beginning, hit AM every 2 minutes and LR every 30-60 seconds ( can't remember the recharge on it ). The rest of the time can be used for attacks.

So assuming that the -regen is as effective, basically a Kin has is more at risk and has to be more active in order to get similar results to the Rad.

Replied to Everclear for no sensible reason, I was going to reply to this.
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sorry i should have said, kinetics is not THAT effective, for AVs, its not in a league with radiation. You are forgetting -res, is a very important factor for AV fights, not the -regen.

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With something like this
+damage providing you aren't capped is as good as -res, see above.

Recharge is your only option. I don't know if Heal enhancements actually increase -regen. I would be suprised if they did.

You can also use Siphon Speed as much as possible in order to get the +recharge bonus as high as you can.

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i might b intrested wht lvl is it coz i might do it with my pb its lvl 35 2 secs away from lvl 36

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I think it is 39-41.


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Possibly... but it may be an idea to consider if the GM changes affect the crystal titan. Wouldn't want it to turn out he takes forever to defeat since you only have so much ambrosia.

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Oh, I hadn't thought about that... I think the crystal titan is the least of our worries. The 2 walls are much harder than him, they had very good regen before. Also the first has cairns provding damage resistance and the second has almost infinite swarms providing hellishness.

So we need probably at least 2 of rad, dark and kin. Ideally 3-4 and some good damge dealers.

The last time I did it was in I5 too.

Maybe I'll put this on hold then

The late teen slotting problem can only be done one way, using a respec and getting Health at 16. Of course that would mean missing a useful power until 18/20 so it probably would not be a good idea.

For Energy Absorption I would slot Recharge and def. It becomes perma with 1 recharge and starts double stacking with more ( always a good thing ). So I would slot 1 recharge first and then decide to continue on recharge or add def depending on whether you need endurance or not. Personally I would try and slot it ASAP. It's a bit of a shame that there are so many six slottable powers in the late twenties/early thirties, I had the same problem though.

As for Hibernate, I haven't really decided on how to slot it yet. I think I only have the default slot, but I can't remember whether it is slotted for recharge or healing. I generally only use it every 2 minutes when Rage crashes to top up my hitpoints, or to wait for Hoarforst to recharge when I'm over my head. It does let you tank over your safety limit quite considerably.

Does anyone fancy the Eden Trial on Sunday 11th in the afternoon? 2pm perhaps.

I'm providing Hibernal Flea for all your tanking needs.

Both are worth slotting for 3 def enhancements. However of the 2 invincibilty is the most effective slot usage.

Because they stack it is worth slotting both, they provides the majority of your protection against non S/L damage.

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I agree that it is annoying how Burn causes a scatter, but if you use it right, it can be an advantage, and now I wouldn't have it any other way. For example, when protecting allies or doing the protect the reactor mission, all you have to do is set up burn and you get the bad guys away from whoever or whatever you are guarding.

It also makes a sweet boobie trap when enemies are chasing you through doorways, and can work sort of like a very very basic and uninteligent pet, in as much as it gives you two points of fire (run over to one mob, and set of burn, run over to another and kick some [censored], dealing damage in both places at the same time.)

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I have played around a bit more with burn, it is pretty effective for improving my damage output at the risk of losing aggro, however it does make soloing far easier. In teams it can be good if someone is doing AoE holds/immobolizes, otherfwise it is only worth while for melee bosses/lieutenants. The melee guys seems to come back often as the burn patch is quite small.

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..... Use it wisely grasshopper, as Consume has a painfully long recharge.

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I'm no grasshopper, I fly properly, none of this jumping rubbish


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By the way, someone suggested the fighting pool for your build, having never sampled that pool, I am cuious as to what it could do for me, could someone fill me in? Is it worth investing in the fighting pool, cos it looks pretty... mediocre, and I already have my firesword powerfully slotted.

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I would take the fighting pool purely for the tough power. Tough stacks with Fire shields Slash/Lethal resistance to go from about 50% to about 70%. As a result this reduces incoming damage of the most common damage types by about 40%. It does cost more than one of the firey aura shields and so probably needs a end red or 2 as well as the 3 slots for damage resistance. Whether this is worhtwhile is up to you, but in my book it seems to be.

Also whilst Fireswords are actually pretty effective power they are against the concept of the build so I can't take them. My fire tank doesn't have that level of control of Fire, he can just make it explode or gush out flames.


Generally I am quite happy about the effectiveness of my tank, whilst he doesn't have quite the toughness my Ice or Inv tanks enjoyed at this level ( 24 ) he does seem to be functioning well and probably soloes better than both of them did ( given he has 3 attacks and a damage aura , rather than 2 attacks and perhaps an damage aura, that is hardly suprising ).

I'm not convinced by the 2 end reducers in Frozen and Glacial Armour. Especially when you've only 5 slotted Icicles. Moving one to Icicles is probably worthwhile.

Also I would probably slot CJ for def not end red, 0.5% free def may actually make a difference, 0.02 end per second probably won't.

I take it you don't like Hibernate...

How is your end recovery doing with all of those attacks anyway? I was planning on doing a similar thing with Hibernal Flea but with the Ice Ancillary.

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Empathy/Tank combo is godly!

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A few times I've had 'Can I join your team?' requests from empaths. One of these was when Golden Golem was soling in his late 30s-40s. I invited him to increase the spawn sizes.

Halfway through the mission the empath says, "I'm not really needed here am I?". Of course this was I5 but I think the same would apply.

Personally I would suggest a duo with an Inv scrapper if I was an Empath. He/She still holds aggro ( not as well ) but also would benefit far more from the buffs and do more damage.

Other scrappers would be good too, but regen would benefit the least.

Weird because I like the Brute Firey Aura I think it looks better and was very disappointed when my fire tank didn't get it in I6. I was even more disappointed that the Corruptor Fire Shield gets nice heat hazes over them but even brute Firey Aura didn't.

Which just shows you can't please all of the people all of the time.

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My flying fire tank is very similar in concept, and currently level 45. I don't use any of the sword attacks, Burn seems to work very well to ignore the very few times I get immobilised (heck... I remember back in I2 having to spam burn in order to get to standard status defenses that they thankfully moved to the shield toggles!). Hover handles all knockback too.

It's not an 'easy' build to play, but I have far more fun with it than I would with a standard cookie-cutter build, and its still very effective.

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I agree with that, it is not easy, especially trying to use Burn in combat ( drop down deactivate hover, activate burn, reactivate hover ) to avoid being immobolised. Luckily the status protection from burn seems to last for about 2 minutes.

As for level of effectiveness, a flying fire/fire tank is slower than a jumping one ( making it less suitable for herding ), is very susceptable to -fly and needs to spend 2 slots on hover. On the other hand I save a power choice, look far cooler ( flying breath of fire looks amazing ) and am able to do flying taunt kiting on dangerous melee mobs.

IMO Hasten is too useful to drop, it gives extra recharge on Energy Absorption, Hoarfrost, Hibernate and your attacks.

My gut feel would be Build Up is the most missable, I wasn't very impressed with it on Golden Golem, a 80% damage buff available for 10 seconds every 30-45 seconds ( with Hasten ) is about equivalent to a 20% damage buff or a 12% increase in damage if you 3 slot all of your attacks for damage. I found that it didn't always allow me to get all my attacks off before it ran out, however this may change when they remove the pause in FSC. If you can get more than 2 AoEs off in the duration it may well be worthwhile though.

Icicles fully slotted will increase AoE damage by around a third, it does about the same or more DPS than each of the Fire AoEs. It does small amounts of damage but it does it every 2 seconds.

Incinerate and GFS will boost your single target damage to a respectable level, before them I found Golden Golem's single target attack damage was severely lacking. The 2 of these will both probably increase your single target damage output by a factor of 3-4. If you don't mind having problems with bosses and AVs ( without good damage support ) these are droppable. I generally use GFS, Incinerate, scorch and FSC when fighting AVs. I sometimes even use Boxing.

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just a quickie

isnt the taunt cap 17 not 5??

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The aggro cap is 17. So only 17 enemies can have you as a target at once.

AFAIK There is no cap on the total amount of people taunt but each use of the Taunt power will only taunt 5. Similar your aura will only affect the 10 closest people to you.
Punchvoke hits the 5 closest to the target so most of the time these are the same ones as the Aura.

I've heard that the Fire secondary is really weak. But looking at the powers it has 2 PbAoEs ( which you probably need a tank to use), build up, an end recovery power and a few melee powers. So it seems okay as a damage dealer.

Is it considered weak because it doesn't really help you solo as it lacks control?

I would get shriek, I found it does a significant amount of my total damage over time on my corruptor, more than Shout does. It also means that you will have an extra -res.

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Is taunted needed for that though? I'm sure if you just ran in, run around all the mobs and then go and hide in your corner that will do the same thing.

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But that takes longer, soloing with tanks is slow enough anyway ( especially at low levels ).

To be a good tank you need to care.

You need to care about your teammates survival. All the bad tanks I've played with act like 'I am invulnerable, look how great I am' rather than 'I'm watching you back, I'll protect you'.

Tanking is an enabling role, a good tank lets everyone pull out all the stops and forget about aggro and as a result the team becomes incredibly effective. If the tank doesn't care, this doesn't work.