dave_p

No longer responding to Airhammer, since he's made up his mind, as is his right, but since others have joined the fray, I feel the need to comment for the benefit of those considering Sonic, and its tier 9 power: Comparing Liquefy to RI is silly. Both have positives over the other, but to say that RI by itself supplants Liquefy is ridiculous.

First off, Liquefy has a higher base, 35.7 vs. 31.25. Not a lot, but there you have it. 2nd, RI takes 3.1s (+Arcanatime) to cast--there's a reason why a lot of Rads don't bother with it on fast moving teams . yes, Liquefy takes a while to cast too, so this isn't such a huge advantage for Liquefy, but... 3rd, RI has a 15' radius vs. 25' for Liquefy. That's a huge difference, even though RI is mobile (but then, that's also a disadvantage). 4th, RI is anchored, and you all know what that means, esp w/that 3.1+ animation time. 5th, RI doesn't do all of the other extras that in fact do make Liquefy an I Win button, at least for that fight. I've cast RI in many hopeless seeming fights and still have gone down--we all likely have, and pretty often at that. I rarely lose a fight after Liquefy is cast.

Does RI hold advantages over Liquefy? Sure, mostly because it's available every fight. It's also a nearly set-defining power, not quite the "oh crap" tier 9 that Liquefy is (tho maybe it can serve as one). Maybe we should compare it to EMP instead, a comparable tier 9?

Same recharge. Same, I Win feel (tho I've lost more fights after EMP than after Liquefy). Worse drawbacks w/the -end recovery. Better radius, though. Better effects? Debatable--both have advantages in certain situations. Still, I don't see too many ppl saying EMP sucks even w/the same recharge. And yes, it too can be supplanted by any controller PBAoE (in that same "sorta" way Liquefy can be supplanted by RI), including Flash at a mere lvl 6.

Another 300s recharge power would be Adrenaline Boost, and Speed Boost can replicate many of the primary effects, except you can boost the whole team, all the time. Again, I don't see too many ppl thinking AB sucks, or is even merely "okay". SB is a great power. AB is even better, if rarer to come by. RI happens to be a fantastic power, but Liquefy is far better, if again rarer.

I spread it around, though my higher toons will generally be at or over the 1B mark and my newer toons will hover around 300M. As I get over 1.7B or so, I gleemail a few 100M to a poorer toon.

Following my own advice, I made a Fire/Stone brute and pumped up his out of Granite stats to see what I could come up with.

46.1% to S/L/E/N, 43.6% to Psi. Close to 30% res to S/L/F/C. 41.5% DDR and 46.66 HP/Sec w/EE & Rooted. Unfortunately, I couldn't fit in Taunt (but did sneak in fully slotted Fireball), but I can drop Brimstone if it became an issue, though that would dip my Psi def down to 41.7%. Has a gapless Incin > Scorch > Cremate > Scorch ST chain, which isn't the top FM chain, but still a very good one.

Yeah, I think I found my new alt. 6 months for my next free character slot though.

We Sonics are rare, and proud of it. On Liberty, at least, they're also very appreciated. I'm always welcome on TFs, PuGs, MSRs, whatever, because most ppl seem to understand how much they bring to the table. FF clone? Pshaw. Since when did FF bring massive -res debuffs? Liquefy a joke? It's an I win button, even if few ppl understand just why you won that fight.

I love my Son/Son, and I hardly ever play him solo, but the few times I do, it's in 100% security. Then again, I feel that way w/all my defenders--they're all slower than hell to solo compared to pretty much all my other ATs, but safe as hell, though much, much more fun to play on teams.

So if JB was Superman, would he always fight Metallo, he of the kryptonite heart, toe to toe? Or would he, I dunno, stay at range and kite him w/heat vision? Or, maybe use his too-often-forgotten super speed to hit (from behind) & run? Maybe throw cars at him? Or just be outraged that he weren't allowed to just walk up to him slowly and punch him in the face like he could w/everyone else.

(Yes, I know bad writers have Supes doing exactly that w/Metallo for decades.)

And yes, Metallo sometimes will get a temporary upgrade from Darkseid. Supes would find a way to deal and so should you.

Honestly, I think Crystals just gets a bad rap. Lots of ppl skip Tough/Weave because of Granite, but if you look at Stone w/o Granite as a set, and build on it like you would w/say Ice Armor, you have a damn viable set even w/o IOs (and Psi def to boot). I spend way more inf getting S/L (sometimes E/N too) softcapped on like my Fire, WP & Dark tanks, but it's way cheaper on Stone since you get a head start w/Rock & Crystals. Brimstone is... well, it helps.

Oh hey, this got bumped up! I suppose I should look at it more often for feedback like this...

So my newly worked over Stone/Ice, post-I19, boasts softcapped S/L/E/N/Psi def (50/50/45/45/52 to be exact), 38% S/L resist, 42% Fire/Cold resist, 20% toxic, and regens 58.5 HP/s w/perma EE going. Yes, thanks to the free Fitness pool, I worked in all the Stone armors, even lolbrimstone! And thanks to Crystal, I'm also rocking a 52% DDR.

Over the weekend, I took my newly respecced Stone/Ice on an ITF, LGTF & a MSR w/o popping Granite once. Well, I did hit it once against both the AVs at the end of the LGTF when we just rushed the middle of the room. Turned out to be a mistake w/all the Psi flying around and I went back to my other armors instead. On the ITF, I had other Maneuvers running keeping my S/L def at 60+, but still, the cascading failure never happened as my def hardly ever dipped below 40%.

End issues? Yeah, there are some end issues running like 9 toggles w/o team support, but I took Cardiac boost to deal w/that, plus that'll get me some more resist numbers when I go Radial. On the plus side, Rooted gives me enough end drain protection that I can laugh at Sappers and the like (Famine!).

Seriously, I used to roll my eyes a bit at all Granite tankers in the past, but now, it's hardly even needed, even as an emergency power. I'll hang on to it for like the STF and likely the new Apex & Tin Mage TFs (haven't tanked those yet, but I'll likely need Granite for the Tox resists, esp against the hydra), but I'm pretty much saying good riddance to all the annoying Granite debuffs. Well, except the slow movement, which Rooted is even worse for.

Note: I don't post builds so please don't ask. It's not hard. Take all armors. Slot Kin Combats & Eradications. Lots of them. Yes, you need Tough, Weave and maybe Maneuvers. Give it a shot and you too can say goodbye to Granite!

This is a very well written advanced guide for monitoring attributes, but I wanted to add a pretty simple tip. I only monitor a fixed number of attributes that matter to each toon, and often, that's defense of a certain type or position. All 3 positions are easy enough, but for those of you who want to monitor all the typed defense, you can save a few lines by only monitoring just the S/E/F (or L/D/C) defenses, since they're almost always a paired set, as are the bonuses. Exceptions would be like Parry (only L & Melee), but for the most part, I find you can simplify your monitor at least by 3 lines, and since I only like to monitor 4-6 lines at all times, this works out nicely for me.

I finished 31 respecs in a week not to waste my 2nd respecs and now you want me to do another 31 before the 15th? Man, the nerve...

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I kid! This is awesome. I also have several toons for whom even the 2 freespecs weren't enough to pull all the IOs w/o destroying them (replacing like 5 full sets of Obliteration, among others). Even the 3rd won't be enough to do them all, but it'll get more of the job done (yes, I have many vet-specs and trial-specs, but I really don't like using those ). Thanks, Posi!

Well, I always believed there were 3 pillars for melee secondaries, ST damage, AoE damage & mitigation. Of the three, I think ST damage is the least valuable for a tank, so having a very high mitigation and high AoE damage puts Ice Melee towards the top overall sets in my book, even w/pi** poor ST damage. Also, cold damage is less resisted than, say, smashing, so IM has that going for it.

True that a good enough primary leaves mitigation not as important, but that mitigation also helps your team, even if you're perfectly fine (and as a Stony, I'm usually perfectly fine). Of course killing things faster also helps your team, which is why I also love Fire Melee & SS.

I will say my least favorite tanker sets are ST-oriented sets. EM, SM, DM all do little to excite me, despite having decent-to-great mitigation (and my first 50 tank was a Fire/EM). Slightly different priorities for scrappers, and likely brutes too, though I still like AoE damage best.

Or just go to monster isle in PI. I always get annoyed w/those cuz they go running back to their friends after you went to the trouble of luring one away from the pack.

I was planning on going Spiritual for my Fire/EM, but decided at the last second to go Cardiac instead. He already had a solid ST attack chain, and my AoE attacks were also coming up fast enough to be gapless through almost 2 cycles (BU+WH+Burn+Fireball+FE+WH+Burn). More recharge would've been nice for HF & Consume, but I noticed on some of my other toons just how much more end made life, and while my Fire/EM wasn't exactly sucking at end recovery (esp w/Consume), it could definitely be better. The +resists that will come later (only have the common so far) is just gravy, gravy that will become richer and sweeter as we go through the alpha slot tiers.

First, please see my Ice Melee guide if you think Ice Melee is really "low damage", unless you mean low ST damage, which it fully is. AoE-wise, it's actually one of the better secondaries for tankers, behind SS, Fire & Elec (possibly Mace too depending on how you play). It has of course one of the best mitigation of all tanker secondaries (Stone Melee fans often think it's the best--I think it's a tossup bet the two).

Second, Claws makes a great about about the DA/Ice combo that I hadn't though of before. I still think Stone/Ice (which is what I run) is the ultimate defensive force in the game, but if you want more offense, SD/Ice & Fire/Ice are also excellent alternatives. Once you pick up & slot FA, AAO + SC (or FE + Burn) + FA + Frost will absolutely wreck things in your path.