Wilfred

As my Inv/Fire slowly churns his way towards 50 (46 now), I'm facing the final respec - the power choices which will be with him forevermore (free respecs notwithstanding, might never happen again!).

To prepare for this monumental event, I did some checking on the numbers and sustainable damage (thanks to Doc Rock) for various pools.

The first thing that struck me, was how hopeless REn and REl are, upping sustainability by a massive *twenty* seconds. For two power picks and four slots. I never took them, as the numbers always looked tiny, and certainly will not now.

Tough is almost a no-brainer for taking the most damage, as it allows Inv tankers to hit the golden Res cap for S/L damage - Using my 34 respec, I'd respecced out of Weave when someone told me just how low the number for it is. With the same respec, I took Aid Self, and noticed an overall increase in toughness, so gave weave no more thought.

Sustainable damage numbers are saying to me here, that Weave will take my survivability from 2396 secs, to a rather beefier 4131 secs - curse the Tanker who told me Weave was not worth taking! That's only slightly shy of the increase in survivability granted by Aid Self, and Weave should boost the effectiveness of Aid Self, with (theoretically) slightly fewer interrupts. This also means that for overall survivability, Weave does more for an Inv tanker than Tough?

Is this a surprise to anyone bar me? Or is Weave the holy grail of tanking that somehow I missed, the shining jewel of the power pool toggles that noone told me about?

Teamed with Death Badger's Fire/SS for the entirety of levels 1-50, encompassing every trialm TF and AV - and I can safely say they rock. check out his guide here!

Scrappers dont have a devine right to own blasters, besides, there are other people who may need aid self to play.

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coughEABrutescough

Insprinations! Divine insprination. Love em. They can help make up for shortfalls in a character, or just lend unpredictability, which is always always welcome to anyone who's in there for the fun of it.

I must admit, I feel a tad guilty when I buy a trayful of reds with my brute and two-shot regens, but hey - serves em right for not running away fast enough.

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Aid self is perfectly fine. Not everyone has Powerboost.

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Good grief, I hadn't thought of that - time to find a way to get power boost back into the build!

As far as being on-topic goes... it lets squishies sustain some damage. As it is, as soon as were spotted by a non-squishy it's a race of us against them, a race which is horribly weighted towards Them - scrappers that can hit almost as hard as blasters but can survive being beaten for twenty times longer, and so forth. But it mostly helps with downtime - after engaging, being damaged badly and hoofing it, it helps me get back into the fight quickly, which keeps the action for everyone constant and intense.

Oh, and I dread to think what my /EA brute would do in PvP without it. Dead in seconds.

Assuming I can make the raid, I'd like to volunteer to help SB the PA droppers - Have a kin with Fly, and I suspect that'll be more use than yet another empath!

Cheers MaX, will look at putting a build together later. I like the idea of positioning DS, though I don't know as I'd want to skip on VS (even if it's not that special and is only up for part of the time, would save me a lot of shooting-stuff-endurance) - Two of my charactrers have hit fifty with SS only, so may just take recall friend and skip TP itself to grab the sentinel.

That sounds right, so much for one of my arguments. Still kicks it, though!

Righty, MaX's post in another thread has charged me to resurrect my Dark def (Cap'n Wilfbeard) in a new guise, with /elec behind it. I'm sure I'm not unique in this (since it gets two pseudo-pets) but I'm more or less new to both dark and elec (at least, post-20).

I can see it'll be powerful solo - at the moment, my rad/elec prowls hazard zones (Perez is a good'un) casts RI on a mob, bundles in and drops Ball Lightning and Short Circuit til they all fall over, and has been levelling at a silly rate. In theory, Dark will be better at this with a more powerful acc debuff, and tar patch to hold them in place and lower their res (plus shadow fall, for enhanced survivies and stealth to get close enough to drop darkest night before they notices us).

Is there anything I should know before embarking on a life of herdings?

That's a suitably scary idea. -recharge, single target control, barely resisted damage... erk. Guess that's why it's still ours, eh!

/pedantry 1

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including the best snipe in game.

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Only just! Soo close between psi lance and moonbeam, same everything except psi lance gets the +acc for psi stuff, while dark's -acc debuff is possibly a tad more useful - I prefer the moonbeam anim too (although a great chunk'o'pink flying at the target is amusings).

/pedant 0

To back up what MaX says, Dark/ is unique to defenders (the only defender-only primary), is extraordinarily powerful (and gets a freakin' PET), and a damn sight rarer than kin/.

And /Psi is also unique to defenders, Dark is shared by corruptors but psi is ours and ours alone (and they can NEVER haves our precious). The -recharge is a bugger in PvP (if you're interested in that sort of thing) but more importantly the /psi set offers good single target control, featuring an immobilise, knockback, sleep, disorient, and knockup powers - all of which come with powerful and rarely resisted damage, an inherent accuracy bonus (20%-ish iirc) and a nifty but ne'er noticed -recharge component for their powers. It's got a cone, and AoE, and a nuke to die for...

It's impossible to oversell /psi, it's just an all-round good egg (except for Mental Blast, which is the price we pay to have the rest of the set).

I think Dark's heal is more powerful, and can be placed easier too.

Seems to be missing from you post entirely there, Stryker.

Dark has Heal, resurrect, a pet which heals (woo) lots of ways to stop enemies hitting you, and many nifty tricks.

Slotting's as important as power picks!

I'd try and slip Irradiate in rather than Assault - you'll be struggling for the endurance to run Assault

1) You'll need stamina. You may be able to drop it after Transference, but with siphon speed going you'll be firing off a lot of powers in quick succession, and the blue doesn't last long even with Stamina.

2) Kin/Rad is a valid combination, although the lack of "bread & butter" attacks may make soloing a bit... odd - but Offenders shine in teams anyway, and that's where you'll find your niche. Take, slot, and love your AoE's. For solo work, Rad's secondary effect (def debuff) is perhaps not as useful as some.

3) You can save yourself 1 pick by not taking a travel power apart from inertial reduction, which is plenty good enough if you can stomach the wait to 18. However, Acrobatics is a popular choice for Kin offenders, as you're on the front line most, if not all of the time. Which would be another 3 picks gone. For the record, my Kin/Psi did fine without Acro.

4) I agree with keeping SB, but I'd take another look at dropping ID - it's an awesome power when it's needed, but frankly that's not often. Fitting all your kinetics powers and Stamina in before 20 along with three attacks (get early attacks, or you'll be so bored by 20 you'll be wondering whether it's worth carrying on) is very tight, and I personally think ID can be dropped. It's only really useful against Ruin Mages in the early game, and against Energy AV's in the late game.

5) Repel. Can be dropped from an offender build. Will work contrary to your playstyle.

Edit: 6) Never so much as think about wondering whether you need Siphon Power. You do. That is all.

My build up to 10 would run... Siphon Power, Neutrino Bolt, Transfusion, X-Ray Beam, Siphon Speed, Hasten, Electron Haze. I think Hasten and Superspeed both complement Kinetics superbly - Hasten stacks wonderfully with Siphon Speed, and Superspeed rounds off the impression as the uberfast lightning strike, plus gives the stealth to zip into melee range where you can do serious damage.

Especially if the precursor to it (Assault) is being wangled in anyway!

You went through the 12 mil already

coughEULAcough

I've got a hold! And a large steel pointy heavy thing!

A good offence! Erm, sorry, seriously I'd say /DA was the best allrounder. I don't trust stone, anything that impacts your gameplay to protect from mezzing is baaad, energy aura is too weak, as is electric armour, fire has too many weak spots and Inv perishes if you leave it in to soak, and also isn't great at non-SL.

DA's got sturdy defences, and some neato tricks.

Edit: And Fire isn't anywhere near as weak as energy or electric!

Repel 1-3 end reductions
Fulcrum shift 2 Accuracy, 3 recharge
Transference 2 accuracy, and a mix of end mods and recharge
Inertial reduction works fine with one slot, recharge or jump height depending on preference
Speed boost 1-3 end mods
Increase density 1-3 resistance
Siphon speed 2 accuracy, 3 recharge, and a slow modifier if you want to be fasterer
Siphon power, 2 acc, 2-3 recharge
Transfusion 2-3 acc, rest a mix of heal and recharge.

Recommend swift rather than Health.

All attacks slotted 1-2 acc, 3 damage.

100% I'd say was overkill, Rage's base ToHit is equivalent to 1.5 Acc SO's, which would be easily enough for me. 100% ToHit increase I'd only need against heavily vengeanced nemeses, +10 villains, or in PvP against eluded scrappers with force fields cast on them.

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I noticed some time ago, a thread that looked at the /EA Brute. I was wondering how you got on with it ? Having happily begun to level one of my own ( DM/EA Brute in fact) ! Any info. On this would be greatly appreciated.

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Listen to what Kin says

Don't get too excited though, according to all the survival charts and sustainable damage comparisons out there, /EA is the worst brute secondary for taking damage - although electric comes pretty close!

My two defiant 50's being defenders, think I'll skip - being cannon fodder is only fun for so long :P

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