Vysires

I wanted to comment on the Plant/thorns. I have a lvl 50 incarnate plant/thorns. She's heavily IOed, permadom without hasten, though I do have hasten. She's got 30% or so S/L Defense. So she's a good toon. I love plant.

However, Thorns has gotten fairly annoying. First it's mostly lethal, which is heavily resisted. 2nd, it's got redraw, which is annoying. lastly, the tier 3 blast has a big knockback on it, which I find annoying, and the tier 2 blast has a really long animation.

Really the only good thing about thorns IMO is fling thorns, which animates fast and rather big at a 90 degree cone. Only 30 feet, but wide. End result of all this though is that I have become discouraged about my Plant/Thorns. I absolutely love plant though, and so am in the process of leveling a Plant/Fire up to 50, then I plan on stripping the IOs out of my plant/thorns. It's not that /thorn is crippled or bad, but the annoyances have started to out-way the good for me.

So my suggestion is try either plant/fire or fire/fire.

Basically what Late said. Time deals with status effects by defense capping so they miss. Then carry a couple break frees to cover the rare hit. A defender with power boost/buildup and the PBD clarion is almost softtcapped with just the boosted farsight, I think it's like 41% or something , it's retarded. It actually makes it fairly easy for a defender to build for the incarnate softcap, which is 59%. This isn't absoulutely required obviously, but it's something to work for if you want.

Power Buildup is available as early as 35 now, which works for a defender depending on your secondary. My fire/time corrupter isn't quite as well off there since I want other powers for my 35 and 38 slots, so have to wait til 41 anyways.

I tend to prefer Brutes. However I did see one thing that made me lean towards Brute for TW anyways. That was Build Momentum. Build Momentum vs Buildup trades +damage for 10 seconds of momentum. This would impact a Brute less then a Scrapper. While both gain the same benefit from the 10 seconds of momentum. It's not exactly a huge difference, but it did help push me towards Brute.

The other thing, for me, is that I wanted to run TW/Elec, and Electric Armor is a bit better on a brute then on a scrapper.

I'm aware that you can design builds that SK down really low. What I meant was getting permadom in a leveling character. It's a bit of a squeeze, and depends on the primary and secondary, but it's generally doable by sometime in the 30's. It's hard to do before that cause you just don't have enough slots.

It's possible to get perma dom before 50 even. I generally plan for most of my doms to hit perma by mid 30's. It just makes everything easier, plus the global recharge helps everything else out.

I've been meaning to read the books this is based on. But I decided I would wait until after the movie was out. That way I won't be disappointed if it strays from the books. I figured if I read the books after, then I get the best of both. For those interested, Amazon has at least the first couple books for free via kindle ebooks, though there are some collections people are selling for dollar or two.

I would have to say the best soloer of the three in the OP would be the Mind Dom. They have plenty of control for solo, and Dom's do great damage. So they would be able to kill fast enough to be a good soloer. I have an Ill/Rad controller, and as some have said, it's very strong in some ways, but not what I would call a quick soloer. Ice/Storm Corrupter would be ok, but not great. It has some damage, but would suffer a bit from a lack of good defenses.

I haven't really been keeping up with movies much lately so my first reaction to seeing the thread title was me wondering why someone wanted to talk about an old telnet application.

Honestly I don't think these numbers mean much of anything. They are revamping their whole line. A lot of people who are otherwise not interested are going to pick up comics just to see what they have done. If they still have a big uptick 5-6 months in, then it might be worth talking about.

I keep seeing posts like this, and I think about leveling a Dark Armor character, but ultimately I decide against it. Not because Dark Armor is lacking, but because what it has over other sets isn't always something I want.

Basically I tend to compare Electric Armor and Dark Armor. Looking at them, I tend to call the Resistances a wash, mostly, though I think Electric might come out a bit better, but it's a matter of opinion. Electric has better S/L/F/C, it's energy resist is better then DAs negative, but it has no toxic resist, and slightly lower Psi. Only reason Electric might come out better is because there isn't a ton of toxic, and there is a lot of energy. But for discussion I'll call them close enough.

So beyond resists, you have to look at the utility that a set gives. Both sets have a damage aura, so ignore those. Electric has huge end drain and recovery resists, but Dark has good enough end drain to work. Other then that, Electric has a bit of slow resist, and +20% rechage passive and a couple good end recovery tools. Dark has a significantly better heal, and some defense, and a pbaoe mag 2 stun aura.

One comment on the heal in DA. It's great, and with TOE's proc it's generally fairly usable. But in a lot of ways it's overkill. You only have 100% of a life bar, the fact that Dark Regen can heal multiple bars in one go is somewhat pointless. So it is the best heal in the game, but in a lot of ways, I prefer Fire's heal, since you don't need a target to use it and it doesn't miss.

So looking at the overall benefits, Electric gives +recharge, slow resist and end recovery tools. Dark has a better heal, some defense, and a stun aura. If you look at it, Dark's utilities are all defensive, while Electric's are offensive. Which is why I tend to make Electric toons, and not DA ones. Because with IOs and pool powers I can get a lot of defense, but not quite so much offense. The last tick against Dark, IMO, is that if I did want a super tough toon, DA would be great, except the fact that right now, the only place I really need a super tough toon is for iTrials, and a significant chunk of damage in iTrials is energy damage, which is not so good for DA.

Just a couple quick comments on the build posted. I'm assuming this build is purely for farming, since you don't have any kind of a single target attack chain.

First thing is that you are better off taking some slots out of tough and moving them to weave. You get more defense, and to all, by slotting up weave then you get from reactive armor. If you still want to run tough, leave a couple slots, and stick level 50 Res/End or just Res I guess depending on your endurance worries.

Second comment, Hasten only needs 2 level 50 IOs, especially with the level of global recharge you have. That frees up another slot, to use wherever. One place for it would be drain psyche, an accuracy would be useful there, though it's not completely required due to global accuracy, but it's one thought.

Another idea, if you move things around, take the 4 slots from tough, and one from hasten, You can stick 2 more slots in weave, adding LOTG:defense, and LOTG:def/end, then you can drop burnout and shuffle powers around to pick up hoarfrost, which is another ice power I like. With the amount of recharge I generally run on my doms, it's almost perma. The slots we have left are enough to get 4 slots into it, slotting 2 pair level 50 heal/rech and heal/rech/end gives a recharge of 137s in your build, so 17s downtime. Hoarfrost is an ok heal, plus the hp boost works well with the regen boost from drain psyche. Not sure if you want to fit in more defense or not. I would rather have a well slotted Hoarfrost, and just not use tough, then slot and run tough, however it does require giving up burnout, not sure how much you want that.

Last thing, Not sure which you prefer, but a thought is to switch Ragnarok from Sleet to Ice storm. Current config recharge is 23s sleet, and 37 ice storm, with Posi and Ragnarok swapped, you have 27s sleet and 30s Ice storm. I normally want sleet up more then Ice storm, but I also very much like pairing them, and the second config would make that easier. It's up to you though.

Hm, ended up with more then a couple comments . Hope they are helpful.

It depends, are you going to be soloing mostly? or grouping or some of both?

Basically Ice is better in groups because everyone benefits from sleet. Add that into the other benefits from ice, including a heal/hp buff and a nice S/L Defense shield, which takes another LOTG, and Ice pulls ahead. I also always end up planning on Ice for my Doms, just because there is too much there that is useful.

However if you are expecting to primarily solo the toon, then with EF, Fire might be worth it for the raw damage. Especially if you manage good uptime on EF. Also might fit better thematically if that matters.

I think it just depends. I usually tend towards spiritual or cardiac, only on a few characters do I prefer musculature. Basically only character I've used it so far is my Plant Dom, who has so much global recharge that spiritual isn't needed, and due to domination firing off so often, also doesn't need cardiac.

Is Chonro Shift perma with your current build, without spiritual? One of the issues I have looking at a Fire/Time, which I'm currently leveling, is that I want enough recharge to get Chrono Shift permanent, but I also want to get my defense up to softcap if I can. I'm willing to depend on power boost/buildup to get to softcap, but I don't really want to depend on TJ. So getting enough recharge for perma chrono, and getting enough defense is a pain. Spiritual helps out there. However if you aren't as worried about defense, and/or have enough global recharge to get Chrono up to perma then spiritual isn't needed quite as badly.

One thing to keep in mind is that Spiritual also boosts healing, and slow if you choose the right one. On the flip side, Musculature also boosts Endmod and To-hit debuff. It's useful to keep in mind the other effects beyond the primary one that most people think about. The fact that spiritual also boosts healing is another reason I tend to choose it.

Basically, IMO, if Chrono Shift is perma without spiritual, then go Musculature, otherwise go spiritual.

I have a hard time not slotting Basilisk's Gaze in any power that will take hold sets. It's really one of my favorite sets. It only takes 4 slots to get the set bonuses you want. It gives some ranged defense, it has some recovery, it gives the best recharge set bonus outside of a purple set. That plus the 7.5% set bonus is fairly rare outside of BG and a couple other sets, so your unlikely to run into the rule of 5. If I want something more out of the power, I use the last 2 slots to get it. So my suggestion would be 4 BG and 2 procs. Either Lockdown and a damage or 2x damage procs. Or just conserve slots and go with 4 BG. If you want some slow enhancement, 1 level 50 triple with slow in it is enough to get DF up to the cap for runspeed slow.

I keep thinking I would like to try EA, but the holes to Psi and Toxic are just more then I'm willing to deal with. I know that you could likely put together a build with IOs to cover some of the Psi hole, but it's just something that seems like you shouldn't have to do. Especially considering how much Psi damage there is in the late game. I'm sure someone with a high level EA could post saying they do fine, but it's still enough to keep me from making an EA toon.

4 Crabs/Banes would be pretty nice. Not only do you get massive buffs from leadership, but you also get very nice -res from Venom Grenade. At high levels you could add even more -res from Arctic Breath. So everyone went with double assault, your group is running at 120% increased damage, and -80% Res all, -160% vs toxic, not including Arctic Breath. As was said below, 4 TT:Maneuvers is 60% def to all. You have status protection, ok hps either from bane armor or fortification. Only thing you would really be missing is a heal. Plus compared to most AE -res powers Venom grenade activates and recharges super fast. Most AE -res powers either have semi long recharge, or fairly long activations.

If you all went crabs, you could have a ton of pets, but might be overkill/overcomplicated. Really 4x venom grenade and 4x heavy burst should wipe out most things. I guess hypothetically you could go with say 2 huntsman/crabs and 2 melee banes, make sure everyone gets venom grenade, open with that, banes for go for hard targets while others stick to AE. VEATs really are great.

But otherwise, like many said, 4 fire/rad controllers are nice. Other nice options are Fire/Traps Corruptors, or Fire/Cold. Really though, with 4 your better going with say 2 pairs. 2 Fire/Cold and 2 Fire/Thermal Corruptors would be pretty nasty. Gives you 2x defense shields, and 2x resist shields, Thaw for status protection, Frostwork/Forge for some more buffing. You get 2x sleet and 2x melt armor, some rather nasty single target debuffs. And this is just the buffing side. 4x Rain of Fire is pretty nasty. The scatter becomes less of an issue since while the slow on RoF isn't huge, when it's x4 it's enough and you have the sweet scourge effect on rains.

We also have our new powerset, Time Manipulation. 4x Fire/Time corrupters could give some nice recharge and regen. With minimal slotting, Temporal selection could be kept up on 2 targets, so everyone would have 50% damage, 60% recharge and 500-600% regen, depending on slotting. Stacked Time's Junction and Farsight means capped defense, and mob to-hit, and better, damage are going to be floored. 4x Time's Junction is -80% damage. While that isn't a ton for a player, most mobs don't have any +damage, so it's somewhat more impacting. Once you get to Chrono shift, that plus Temporal Selection is going to give everyone 260% global recharge. Keeping perma Chronoshift requires only 300% recharge enhancment, so it should be perma with just slotting in the power. Heck you could just pick up hasten and that should be enough to keep both perma. With Hasten plus all the other +recharge, most powers would be at the recharge cap with minimal slotting. So Rain of Fire every 14.2 seconds, including activation time. Blaze recharing in 2 seconds. Really, only thing /Time corrupters would be missing is status protection, and while that is nice, they don't have a ton of toggles, and at defcap a lot of it misses anyways. 4x /Kins would be able to put out similar +recharge, and more +damage obviously, but would have basically no defense, and no -resist.

So looking at the various corrupters, Fire/Time gives massive recharge, good damage, regen and capped defense. Fire/Cold gives capped defense, capped hp, better -resist power in sleet vs slowed response, and some good F/C/E resists in Arctic Fog. Fire/Thermal gives almost capped resists, very good healing, status protection, some +damage from forge but is more lacking in debuffs. Melt armor is one of the worst -res powers, and heat exhaustion is ok but single target. Fire/Traps does some nice stuff, but is a bit more fiddly with traps.

Giant2005's suggestion of /Pain isn't one I'm normally a fan of, but looking at it, you could do some nice stuff there too. With a good IO build it's possible to keep painbringer up on a single target most of the time, which gives 900% regen and more recovery then you would really ever need. 4x World of Pain gives around 65% resist all. Basically it looks fairly similar to /thermal, rather tough but somewhat lacking in debuffs, since it's only debuff is Anguishing Cry, which isn't a bad-res, but it's nothing special.

Lastly I wanted to comment on /Rad. I love /Rad, and stacking it can give some really great effects, however I tend to find that anchored debuffs are a pain to use in a steamroll group. That plus /Rad doesn't really have any defense or status protection, and I just think some of the newer sets will stack up better.

One of the more interesting thoughts I had seen was a thread where the discussion turned to a /SR build that stacked up a ton of recharge and used Burnout and Eye of the Magus to cover the downtime on Elude. Basically got a ton of recharge, use Elude, when it wears off, Burnout and Elude again, then while Burnout is recharging, use the Eye of the Magus Accolade to cover while Elude recharges, then use Elude once EoM runs out, by the time Elude runs our for the 3rd time, Burnout should be back up. It required some hugely retarded amount of global recharge though. Also looked like it would work for /Elec and Power Surge.

I love the show. Thought this episode was ok. I found it a bit frustrating though, because we don't really know whats changed and what is the same. I also looks like they are going to drag this no Peter thing out for a while, which is kind of annoying for me. I liked his character.

One thing worthy of note is that unlike Corruptors, Defender Fire blast got a AT modified Rain of Fire. So Corrupter Rain of Fire does significantly more damage then Defender Rain of Fire.

For a Time I would say one of the Epics with Power Boost or Build up is the way to go. You can get some rather nice numbers with that affecting Far Sight. Just FYI, you can also go Soul Mastery to get Power boost, which gives some options for a Res shield, and a somewhat crappy Soul Drain, but it's there. Obviously with Soul Mastery Power boost has to wait til 44, so that is a downside.

So for a Corruptor, power boost will increase the defense given by Far sight by about 8%. You go from about 15% to about 23%. With tough w/Steadfast, Weave, CJ and Maneuvers slotted how I normally slot them, I'm seeing a total of 39-40% defense to all with a PB Far sight. So my numbers match up with others in the thread. Getting the last 5-6% from other IOs is really easy to be honest. A set of Gaussian's in Tactics or Aim would net another 2.5%, leaving you to only need basically 3 more defense bonuses, one for each of M/R/A to get to cap. A Thunderstrike in a ranged attack covers ranged, For Melee I like Obliteration in a PBAE if possible. AOE can come from Aegis in Tough, or a full set of Perf Shifter in Stamina. There you go, your capped to M/R/A.

I see alot of people picking up Scorpion Shield and it is nice, but I think it's better for sets that don't offer good M/R/A bonuses, but with Farsight, you have a very good base to work off of, so I think a lot of it would be wasted. I guess if you have a really tight build and didn't want to have to get Tough/Weave or Maneuvers, then you could get by with Scorpion Shield, but I think PB is better overall.

I had a question, looking at the character creation screen, Chrono shift for Defenders shows an 8 minute+ recharge, while Corruptors and Controllers show a 6 minute recharge. Is this just a bug in the real numbers window?

I have to say, unless the animation times are really bad, Staff fighting looks pretty nice. Two 9' 90 degree cones, one of which is a parry analog. A PBAOE. 3/6s single target attacks. A 9s 40' ranged attack, and a 15s extreme damage attack. Plus you get to choose a range of buffs from your form. Though the duration on the 3 stack proced buff seems a bit short. 10s isn't super long, but I guess it's not meant to be.