Unthing

I wholeheartedly agree about Hibernate. It is the wild card that let's you escape bad luck of the dice ( mixing metaphors terribly here ). I think it is a much maligned power and I personally prefer it to Unstoppable.

Also the only resistance based tank is Fire. To call invulnerability resistance based is misguided. They are defence based and can reach the same levels as Ice, however not during the alpha strike as they need enemies to get that protection. Stone is not resistance based until you hit granite and they have a pretty solid amount of defence there too, better than an Ice Tank unless the Ice Tank has Energy Absorbtion defence buffs left over.

As a bubbler, get maneuvers before Assault, it stacks with your bubbles to give 44 defence rather than 39. That means people take almost half the damage.

I think all that means is that 40% defence means that you get hit 20% as much as if you have no defence. Or are we all misunderstanding each other.

[ QUOTE ]
I need this badge for lvl 49 my tank. If for u is ok I'll be happy to help u.

[/ QUOTE ]

Any idea what time you are going to be free? It would nice if you are free the same times as Nine Claws.

I'm pretty sure I've outlevelled it so it's just going to be going through the motions.

I have a toon with the Spelunker mission, I'm flexible as to when it's done because I'm only level 14 ( so in no danger of getting the Atlas Medallion in any hurry ) and I have outlevelled it.

I should be on for most of the weekend. The characters name is Miracinonyx.

So if anyone needs it just reply or ping me in-game.

[ QUOTE ]
What do you think of a bubble/rad defender?

[/ QUOTE ]
From what I can see from the Hero Builder, Rad isn't a good single target set until quite late in the game. It's main strengths seem to be it's AoEs.

As a FF defender you are always the most vulnerable person on the team. So I find that being a coward and targetting single target attacks through anyone else is normally the most sensible thing.
If you draw aggro you can always hide in your PFF, but then your bubbles are less than half as effective at stopping dmage for the rest of the team ( with SOs ) because your Dispersion Bubble is no longer helping them. So I reckon you are probably better off with a relatively low aggro secondary.

The early single target sets are Sonic,Archery and Energy. I think that is probably the correct order in terms of effectiveness.

Psychic is also a good choice as it has very good range and the best single target attack chain. But there are quite a few enemies who are very resistant to it and it is a late bloomer.

For the primary, I've done Rad, Dark, Kin and FF.

For soloing actually your secondary is very important as is having some damage boost and/or -res in your build somewhere ( normally in the primary ).

Rad is the best for soloing. I went Rad/Archery, probably for the wrong reasons, I thought 2 AoEs would be nice, but the 2nd AoE is rubbish for a Rad. Rad is a VERY solid set, it has a -res ( Enervating Field ) and an end/damage boost ( acc Metabolism ) which helps loads in early levels if you get it 6 slotted in the early teens, it is availablre most of the time then.

In my experience Kin is not very good for soloing, it relies on healing and single target -dam and -end for it's damage mitigation. It is a very good team player though. It can be hard to play though if you want to get the most out of it and it is a very active set.

Dark is a great bag of tricks, you have everything short of +dam in their, the best debuff/heal in the game ( IMO ). It is very survivable, possibly the most survivable of the defenders I've played. I found my team play AoE D/D defender was horrid to solo, but that may have been due to attack slotting.

FF is a nice one. For teams you really only need 3 powers, the 2 main shields and the disperion bubble. For soloing Force Bolt and PFF really help too. I'd advise the Medecine pool with it. In teams Aid Other is really useful, soloing Aid Self is a great help too. As the powers only really need 3 slots, you have plenty spare for your attacks. However it's main solo drawback is that it gives you no buffs, so it probably isn't the best. However it is the easiest to play.



For primaries, I've played Elec, Archery, Dark and Sonic. Of these Elec I found a little lacklustre, although Short Circuit ius a good sapper power ( more than half a bars worth of endurance drain ). Archery is good single target and is very accurate, but the redraw animation is annying. Dark has some great AoE Cones and feels very evil. The -acc is good for survivability too. Sonic is probably my favourite, it's secondary is -res, which can be used to boost damage on a less helpful primary or to stack up with a good damge one to make a decent solo toon.

If I were to suggest a combo I haven't tried together, I'd hazard a guess that Rad/Sonic would be a pretty good bet. Dark/Sonic would be good too, but I expect it would take longer to mature from my experiences of the opposite Corrupter.


These are all views from experience, I'm not suggesting any thing from a primary or secondary I don't know.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't actually attack, but rather zip from mob to mob with SS and catch them with CE.

[/ QUOTE ]

This method probably only works for Chilling Embrace because of its very fast tick rate ( 0.5s ). For some reason they changed Invincibility to 1s from 0.5s, I think they stated performance so it may be they make Chilling embrace less fast in the future too ( unless they already have ). All the other auras ( Mud Pots, Blazing Aura and Icicles ) have a 2 second tick.

I've found that Damage Auras one my melee toons tend to do more damage over a play session than most other attacks. They also have a much better damage per endurance too.

On my Spines/Regen scrapper Quills is in the top 3 powers for damage.

For my tanks and my Brute Blazing Aura/Icicles are significantly better damage wise than the AoEs, Combustion, FSC or Foot Stomp.

For a blaster though, it all comes down to positioning. If you can safely stay in the middle of a spawn whilst firing off powers then it will probably be worthwhile. So I'd say it depends on who else in the tend. If you the right teammates it will increase the teams damage significantly.

[ QUOTE ]
Which is what you have travel powers for. Tanking without taunt is possible, and it isn't all that hard either.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree that you can ( for instance ) CJ + Hurdle + Jab + Jump back almost as fast as a taunt, because I do it. However I can't remember seeing another tanker do a cross spawn jump attack, so I think it a is fairly rare. I usually only do it for a laugh ( because it is in character ), or if Taunt is not recharged.

@Faultline
[ QUOTE ]
I think gauntlet duration depends on attack power. Low level attacks have about 6 seconds, the heavy hitters are 13.5 but have a recharge duration about the same length. So says city of data anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

nofuture says all are the same. . Can you give me a link to city of data please?

@kimuji[ QUOTE ]

To be "a Skranker" is a bad reason for not taking taunt, ...
I had a invul/SS without taunt (a real skranker) and I tought I was a good tanker until I started a fire/SS with taunt. My fire tanker deals really much more damage than the other one and keeps the aggro on him way better (even without blazing aura!). The Skranker do not exists, bad Damage dealer and bad aggro keeper.


[/ QUOTE ]
Inv tankers are always going to be poor damage tankers. With no Aura they really miss out in damage output. A well slotted damage aura does more damage in a session than any other power in my experience ( measured using Herostats ).

As for Scrankers do not exist, as an ideal/optimal choice, you are probably right. In reality people play their toons as they want and you are always going to find scrankers. This is especially true as some sets like Superstrength are much more satifying than the scrapper sets, despite doing less damage.

[ QUOTE ]
For comparison, as I tested out with Stalk-obots lvl 50 rad/sonic, his defenders epic total focus at the end of the attack chain, with all the debuffs will deal about 200 pts more damage than my lvl 50 blasters aim+BU total focus.

[/ QUOTE ]

Given enough time to do constant debuffery, a defender sonic blast chain will beat a blaster sonic blast chain due to the extra amount of -res debuff.

However most things die before you get to this stage. Of course AVs etc don't.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The 5% Acc bonus that Broadsword, Katana and Martial Arts have is worse than a training enhancement.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but it's 5% on top of what you get for enhancements. No one ever died from having too much accuracy.

[/ QUOTE ]
I know. My point is it makes little difference. It's not a bad thing. It just doesn't help enough to make a difference to your slotting.
This is unlike say the 15% accuracy bonus on Archery which is enough to be able to hit as though you are were 1 level higher, so you can 1) Avoid having a second ACC SO or 2) Not have any Accuracies at all if you can rely on a moderate to hit buff or defence debuff on your enemies.

[ QUOTE ]

Make sure you 2-slot for accuracy on your attacks, Claws doesn't get the 5% Acc bonus that Broadsword, Katana and Martial Arts have so any accuracy buff you can get is a good thing even after you get Follow Up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why does everyone insist on 2 slotting these days? I only do it on key powers. Unless you are in the habit of fighting +4s all the time I'm not sure it's worth the extra slot.

The 5% Acc bonus that Broadsword, Katana and Martial Arts have is worse than a training enhancement.

With claws you get Follow Up. This provides a proper to hit buff of 10%, rather than a rubbish accuracy increase. With Follow Up unslotted for to hit buffs and 1 ACC you hit the to hit cap against +2s and still have a 77% chance of hitting +4s. I would 2 slot Follow Up for accuracy though, the rest are probably not worth it unless it really starts annoying you.

On to the orignal question, SR is a much tighter build than Regen. SR powers are all workhorses, I'm not sure there is a missible power in the set. Regen has some much haves and some missables ( Resilience, Revive, MoG ) which are useful but not essential. Also Regen has Quick Recovery which allows you to delay stamina until the 30s so you can try out more of your primary early.

My main reason for asking is because unlike my pets, I am likely to get my positioning right and get the whole spawn everytime rather than waste them. I suppose I could get better at ordering them around though. The slot expenditure of the AoE attack may also be a problem.

If it is only worthwhile at low levels then I'd probably be better with the 11.25% damage buff of Assault. It costs less slots too. I think I might go in that direction.

I just started a Thugs/Dark mastermind because I like the Dark set.

Dark is a really good set for corner pulling as I found with my Corruptor. I was wondering if it is worth my while getting the AoE attack ( Empty Clips at level 8 ) rather than relying on my unreliable henchmen to do effective AoE attacks.

It is that or a leadership power.

I thought gauntlet taunt duration was the same as that from a taunt aura. The main difference is the taunt aura ticks every 0.5 to 2 seconds ( depending on the aura ) so it is very effective at keeping aggro.

I really like taunt as a power, it's base duration is way larger than the gauntlet effect. It is possible to tank without taunt but it is harder than with it*. It's a sweeping generalisation but the players who don't take taunt are more likely to be the kind who don't take responsibility for the aggro.

* With clever use of gauntlet and being able to switch targets fast, CJ + hurdle + a quick attack like jab is good for this.

[ QUOTE ]

You know, I am not a tough fan but I do know I havent used it enough (at all) to realize its potential

/offtopic over

[/ QUOTE ]

lol

If you didn't notice from my post I'm not an Unstoppable fan. But I do know that I haven't used it enough to realise it's potential.

Slotting for resistances depends what other powers you have on when it's up. It has a base 70% damage resistance buff. As damage resistance cannot go above 90% there isn't any reason for getting more than that. Even Damage resistance debuffs are not affected by resistance above 90%.

If you have the energy passives ( Resist Elements, Resist Energies ) and keep temp invulnerability and unyielding on it's not worth slotting for resistance as a Inv tank has about 26% resistance to all without it. This means it puts your resistance to 96%, your S/L resist will be even higher than this.

If you have the passives or you keep unyielding on, 1 slot of resistance ( which gives 84% ) will cap you.

If you use Unstoppable by itself and don't have the passives you'd want 2 damage resistances.

The reason for turning off Unyielding is that when you crash you can turn it on quick.

Pros:
Lots of endurance available.
Immune to toggle drops
Capped resistances

Cons:
Only available 36% of the time ( 44% on average with Hasten ).
The crash can be messy.
Fights limited to 3 minutes.


I found the crash to be really nasty and enough to not bother with the powers unless fighting malta ( when it is really fun going on an Unstoppable Rampage squishing sappers ). However if you are willing to spend a while in debt learning to use it ( I didn't ) then it may well be useful for you.

I wouldn't use it against an AV, ever! But then against them you have the option of using defence inspirations, which can easily keep you going for the duration of an AV fight.

If you mean dropping all of the other shields to just use unstoppable you will have downtimes of something like 3-4 minutes every 3 minutes. Your teammates won't like you for that.

I recently dusted off and respecced my SS/Fire brute that was relatively untouched for 6 months or so. It's a build based on keeping Fury high by constant attacking. Originally I had Jab, Punch, Boxing and Haymaker in my fury attack chain, but I decided that I could drop Punch for Brawl. I then use KO blow on dangerous opponents. During solo missions I easily keep it above 50% with this chain.

So given that I am getting a 80% damage buff from Rage, and a 100% damage buff from Fury*, doesn't that mean that slotting damage in my powers isn't really that effective if I can slot something else. The difference between 1 damage SO and none is only about 10%. Because of this I've decided to slot attacks with 2 end reducers.

Also with Rage I get a 31.2% to hit buff so slotting Accuracy isn't that important either.

How have other Superstrength brutes slotted their attacks?

*Is a full Fury bar a 200% damage buff?

[ QUOTE ]
Otherwise - KILL KILL KILL!

[/ QUOTE ]

Whilst I do enjoy scrappers there is one major criticism of them. All the powersets bar one are more suitable for an comic-book anti-hero than for a comic-book hero.

Broadsword, it's a sword, swords kill people.
Claws, big knife things on your hands.
Dark Melee, fear, death and draining souls, sounds pretty evil to me.
Katana, see broadsword but with more finesse.
Spines, they are poisonous and impale people.

Martial Arts. Hitting people is fine for a hero.

I do like that these powersets are in the game but I'd like to have a hit people set in the scrapper primaries. After all in comic books the majority of scrappery type characters are either martial artists or super strong.

I should be able to come, but can't guarantee being there for the whole time.

As far as defenders in the 20s go I have

Atomic Arrow, level 27 Rad/Archery
Blue Herald, level 22 FF/Son
Pollution Boy, level 20 Dark/Dark

I think I'll come with Atomic though.

Medicine is certainly worth getting. That little heal from Aid Other really helps lots when there isn't another defender with a more suitable primary for healing.

I only got it because I wanted Aid Self, but in fact Aid Other is one of my useful powers.

[ QUOTE ]

But keep in mind without stamina, you will need to rest after bubbling sessions in large groups.

[/ QUOTE ]

Slotting end reducers is the answer to that.

I found that with a single DO end reducer in my bubbles I didn't need to rest before stamina. It did mean starting the combat with half a bar of endurance though.

Archery is a relatively cheap set, so if you want to avoid stamina putting end reducers in your attacks should help massively. Force Field is relatively cheap too so I think it could work. Also your inherent may help you too.