dave_p

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If you are looking for more controller-like characters to play, two I have taken to 50 are a Dark/Elec Defender (Two single target holds to hold bosses! Two pets!) and an Ice/Ice Blaster (Three single target holds, AoE slows, an immobilize, two AoE Rain powers with slows.)

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I like my Dark/Ice too. You lose the pet, but get a 3rd hold (like you need more than 2), slows, and more damage (rain powers have blaster level damage). Dark/Dark is good too since you get a mass immob, or Dark/Son for the sleep/KB/stun in the secondaries. Dark defenders are really broken (in a good way!), unless you run into fear-resistant mobs.

Blaster-wise, I actually think Son/Ice is the most "controller-ish", since you get a cone sleep & KB, ST stun, ST hold, KD patch, mucho slows, and you can pick up a 2nd ST hold w/your epic. And you always get containment (cuz, you know, you're doing blaster damage...)!

BTW, how does Dreadful Wail work? Its debuff has a 0.5 sec delay, and comes in 4 waves timed 0.5 secs apart. Does that mean waves 2, 3 & 4 are affected, or just waves 3 & 4? I guess I could test this in-game, but am lazy. Either way, I'll have to revise my calcs for Son blasters & defenders.

I'm not sure what you're referring to as server lag. If you're actually talking about actual lag on the server side, it can be nominally removed by always having the next attack queued. If you're talking about "lag" as most ppl in-game phrase it, it's a combination of many things that can't possibly be quantified on a single spreadsheet.

If (most likely) you're talking about what we refer to as "Arcana Time", that has nothing to do with lag, and everything to do with the fact that the animations run on a 132msec clock cycle, and that an attack that activates in 1 sec and another that activates in 1.1 sec both in fact activate at 1.118 (which is to say the next power fires either 1.118 or 1.25 (don't think anyone's 100% sure about this one yet) sec after the current attack) and has no real difference. That's not lag--that's just how the software is designed.

If you want to list the Arcanatime values in your table like you're doing, that's up to you. I've found it easier to maintain my charts by listing actual stated act times and just adjusting for it in the DPA calculation. Just personal preference--either way, some ppl will be confused.

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Scream is higher damage because it's -res takes effect DURING the attack (1 dot is normal, then the rest are buffed)

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Ah, this is something I've overlooked. Thanks for the heads up. That explains why Son does better than I anticipated. Umbral's right--Scream sucks (to calculate).

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Your activation times dont account for server lag

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If by "server lag", you're talking about Arcanatime (which has nothing to do w/lag, but clock cycles), it's baked into the DPA equations, which don't show up here and caused someone else on the blaster forum to accused me of doing poor division (which means Excel can't divide correctly, I guess, cuz I'll be damned if I'm doing all these calculations manually).

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Question: I was thinking of 5 slotting FA with the cheap purple sleep set (the value there is crazy) and then slotting a damage IO to keep it honest. Is this viable?

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I'd really have to advise against that. You undoubtedly already know that FA is likely your best attack power at 50 (Frost technically does more damage, but you'll hit more targets by far w/FA; if you go Pyre, Fireball has better DPA, but recharges slower) and I'd hate to not slot it for max damage. It's also a really good place for 6-slotting Obliteration, which will add to your S/L defense from Rock, so that's kinda optimal slotting for me.

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I had originally slotted Pots with tempered readiness but I guess that is overkill on mitigation, eh?

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Yeah, I used to slot Pots w/end redux & slows from various Slow sets, but then I ran herostats to see where all my damage was coming from (this was before Ice Melee's boost, so it really was kinda pitiful those days), and it shocked me to see Pots ranked as #2 only behind Frost. Even now, it's #3 behind FA & Frost, since I picked Arctic Mastery (so no Fireball for me). Since then, I've vigorously advocated slotting Pots not just for damage, but a proc or two. You can easily frankenslot to ED cap for damage & end redux and still fit in a damage proc, more depending on the level of the IO. It really adds up.

Mind you, if you're fighting like 1 critter at a time, or trying to solo AVs, Stone/Ice is about the worst combination you can pick in this game, and all my advice about Pots, Frost & FA can be thrown out the window. Play like most normal tanks and you'll be kicking much booty, though yes, you are relegated to a taunt-bot in those AV fights (but a damn tough one!).

Oh, and Fire/Ice is such a sweet build, even if you take away the whole Burn + Ice Patch combo. BU + FE + Frost + FA + Fireball = major mayhem, and Ice Patch of course helps Fire survive better.

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Save yourself the frustration, and roll as something else. I had a Stone/Ice Tanker way back when, and not only did I fail to come up with a suitable IO build for it, I realized exactly how bad that combo is. I rolled it because I knew it was rare... now I know why it's rare. I ended up deleting mine at level 34 or 35 and never looked back.

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If you rolled that tank back before Ice Melee got buffed, you're dispensing some bad advice out of ignorance. If you deleted that tank after the buff, you made some bad power choices and never got to see the crown jewel at 38, so you're still dispensing bad advice from lack of experience. My Stone/Ice has better AoE damage output than my Fire/EM, though maybe that says more about EM's AoE damage. It's comparable to my WP/SS too, though not quite as good. Then again, I don't spend all day in Granite, and with Ice Melee, I don't need to.

To the OP, Stone/Ice is a fantastic combo, but it's slow blooming. To help the process, make sure you take Frost and slot it early. It's by far your best attack for the 1st 37 levels of your life. Your second best "attack" will be Mud Pots, so don't skip the damage slotting on that either. If you ever run Herostats, you'll see that Frost & Pots outdamages all your attack attacks by a very wide margin (again, pre-38 and Frozen Aura). Also slot Freezing Touch like an attack--it's also your best ST attack you'll ever get. Don't bother with GIS, but at 38, take and immediatly slot up Frozen Aura. It's basically Foot Stomp--you can choose to ignore the Sleep side effect since Pots will just wake them up anyway. You're now about as good as a tank will ever get in the AoE game (granted, Shield/Ice or Fire/Ice would even be better). Check out Stars' new charts if you don't believe me.

From the Stone side, the standard build is to take & slot Rock, Stone, EE, Rooted and Crystals, then respec at 32 and drop Crystals and any slots in Stone Skin (just the base will do). Pick up Minerals later for psi damage. Mud Pots come after Stamina or you'll be hating life. Swift (and 3-slotted) just before or right after Rooted or you'll really be hating life. I don't usually recommend it outright, but Taunt is also very handy for Stone tanks. You'll also likely want the TP pool, though many strive w/o it. Look for IOs w/+run speed bonuses--some are more expensive than others, but w/enough of them, Granite is no problem. I also recommend Hasten to offset some of Granite's -recharge and +rech IOs as well, but those get very expensive, fast.

BTW, I took Ice Patch at 20, even before Stamina. It's that good, esp for a pre-Granite Stone tanker. Just Ice Patch & Rooted will get you further than all your other powers (again, pre-Granite, and pre-IOs). With IOs, you can cap your S/L def out of Granite and you can relegate it as a true, emergency Tier-9 power.

I'd love to see the dev headaches for a future self pet. What happens if your future self gets killed? Do you randomly suffer 100% damage at some point (can survive if buffed)? Shouldn't your future self be a fully purp'ed out lvl 50 (cuz, we're all gonna get there "someday", right?), or does it auto-exemp ala Ouro mishes? And shouldn't you have to travel back to make up for the summons? Maybe a 60 sec forced phase period for every summons?

Surprising that Elec gets better than Ice w/Hasten, but falls back w/IOs. W/VS as a constant, I Would've thought higher recharges would increase Ice's advantage almost linearly w/a faster charging BiB. I guess Elec catches up, but as you get rid of that wait period, Ice goes back up. Of course, w/o VS, elec falls pretty flat.

I thought AR would do better than that since Buckshot is a decent 3rd attack, even for ST purposes, and you have Ignite too. Not horribly surprising that they're last though.

Son is very surprising, but even that's still deceptive, because Son lacks good burst potential, so while it'll do well in AV fights, if you're fighting a bunch of minions, Son still sucks. Still, combined w/the excellent mitigation, Son's definitely one of the better sets, IMO.

And again, this all falls apart w/a single attack from your secondary. My thinking is that Ice would benefit a ton from getting rid of that almost 1s gap in its SO+Hasten chain.

That's just... excellent!

You need a hand rubbing emote tho.

I noticed a few days after I ran a Dr K TF that I'd picked up a Heca Dam in the process. I looked on the market and saw I could easily get 200M for it. It's not like I need the monies, but damn, that's hard to pass up. I'm also sitting on a set of 5 Ragnarok's for a newly minted 50 and can prolly get close a full billion for the lot, maybe more during or right after 2X wknd, so I'm really, really tempted to just sell them and slot w/a "cheap" Posi sets, which I got lying around in droves. Is there no end to my own greed?!

I am happy I slotted up a ton of "cheap" purps a few months back, and bought a few extras just in case, cuz they were cheap. I got a few sets of Unbreakables just to throw on any toon w/an epic hold, not just my controllers. I'm not sure if even my bankroll could stand up to fully purp'ing out all my up & coming 50s w/o getting all ebil again. Good thing I go for high def builds and not high rech.

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This should be a bit better. Some of the numbers are largely useless though and could stand to be trimmed. DPS for an individual attack is pretty much useless as are DPA and DPE values across the other damage types because they'll remain largely constant because they're percent decreases. There's a large amount of pointless data on our friend's spreadsheet.

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Agreed, though he put a lot of work into it, so props to Player99. This is what my spreadsheet shows:

Code:[/color]

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Sonic	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Shriek	52.56	1	3	4.368	12.03 	44.24

Scream	82.6	1.67	6	6.864	12.03 	44.70

Howl	50.68	2.33	10	10.192	4.97 	20.21

Shockwv	40.04	2.17	8	11.856	3.38 	16.85

Shout	132.64	2.67	11	11.024	12.03 	45.67

S Song	31.28	2	20	15.6	2.01 	13.94

Screech	12.52	1.5	20	10.192	1.23 	7.30

D Wail	304.98	1.97	360	20.8	14.66 	144.40

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I'm showing Sonic because the numbers for Scream were wrong. According to CoD, Scream does 5*8.26 of energy and an equal amount of smashing for a total of 82.6, not 91.6. Other numbers look more or less right (only skimmed over the primaries).


Individual damage, act, end, rech, DPA, DPE are really all I care about. From there, you can do a very good estimation of the various combos of powersets, slotting, IOs, procs, etc. Doing actual, accurate DPS calculations are so painful that I rarely bother--mostly I rely on others like Werner and just do an internal check to confirm that they're right. 95% of the time, your intuitive chain, just based on DPA, tends to be the right one--things only really get tricky w/procs, esp debuff procs.

I also color code them for various effects (stuns, etc) and AoE, but that's too messy to show on the forums. And yes, I know DPA/DPE values for nukes are largely superflous.

I have my own damage charts to look through when trying to decide on powers and even powersets. Certainly, you can post your tables and add more empirical data to everyone's knowledge base. I just want to caution that looking at Blaster primaries in a vacuum can be misleading, far more than looking at other sets' damage outputs, like Scrapper primaries or Tanker secondaries (and again, they have their own problems, but nothing like Blasters).

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Meh. Don't care. I've got 2 EM tankers. Enjoy playing both of them ...

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Ultimately this is the most important goal with any of the sets within the framework of the game.

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I think we had a few Ice Melee tanks who enjoyed the old, damage-less Frozen Aura style of play too. Thank goodness they got overruled.

The whole, "as long as you're having fun," argument doesn't hold a lot of water unless everyone, or at least a decent % of the players are "enjoying" playing a set. If there are enough voices of dissension, I think the least the devs can do is take a look at the set and how it's balanced with the other sets. Right now, I see a lot of ppl not being totally satisfied playing EM.

To Sarrate: I think it took like, what, I4-ish, for the devs to even get a clue about DPA? So of course you're right, ET was never balanced around DPA in concept, but in reality, it may as well have been. The normalized numbers seem harsh though--I knew it enjoyed a good 50% or better DPE discount, but I'd hate to pay full price for the damage. Maybe just cut down on the incoming damage by 1/2?

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Not to beat an already-nerfed horse, but it was always strange to me from a game-theory perspective that the EM heavy-hitters were so fast-animating in the first place. I mean, here is the biggest pair of melee attacks in any set, including the single highest-damage melee attack in the game, AND they're a poorly-resisted damage type...AND they're both fast as hell? It just seemed like not giving much incentive for picking other sets (aside from the lack of AoE). Especially for PVP and certain sorts of power-gamers.

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When you say both heavy hitters, are you talking about ET &... EP? BS? Cuz TF was never a fast activating power. However, its DPA is higher than EP or BS in the current version of EM, so TF is really no longer a "skippable power" (that's directed at Clouded, btw), esp considering the mag 3 stun.

Anyway, we seem to be headed a bit towards a consensus so I don't feel bad about jumping back in. Basically, hyperbole about how EM is worthless or broken isn't going to get us anywhere. It's a perfectly playable set, but it's underpowered by several, measurable metrics. It certainly can use some help. My suggestions would be increasing WH's damage by about 50%, which would still put its DPA below FSC, Foot Stomp & Frozen Aura, but at least would make it competitive, and get rid of ET's self-damage.

ET's self-damage was balanced against the fact that it was a ridiculous attack, both for DPA and DPE. It's still a bit ridiculous for DPE, but its DPA is very pedestrian now (still good for tanks, just not anything eyepopping), and I wouldn't even mind a bit of an end cost hike if it meant no damage. I mention this, because w/my Fire/EM, I started to drop ET as part of my attack chain during particularly tough AV fights, i.e. Reichman and the like. My last attempt at it, I was the lead tank on a PUG (and please don't scoff at the fact that I was Fire/* since that build has capped S/L def and does most duties just as well as anyone), and I was finding my regen-to-damage rate just about even when I wasn't using ET, but I'd start falling behind just a bit when ET was spammed. W/better support, of course, ET can be used, but then w/better support, anything can be shown to work.

Oh, and I'll continue to remind everyone that Barrage is a crap power, just like almost every other T1 tanker attack. Even the new & improved Barrage has a terrible DPA, and its longer recharge time is forcing ppl to build better attack chains, so I consider it a good thing. It's better than it used to be (it used to be worse than Brawl), and it's better than a lot of other tank T1s, but if you have any other options, you really should skip it in your chains. On that note, switching up Barrage & EP as the T1 & 2 would also improve the set quite a bit by freeing up a power slot. While that applies to just about every other powerset, it'd really help out EM.

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What about secondaries?

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I think I specifically mentioned a caveat earlier that doing DPS calculations for primaries is pretty inaccurate. The secondary sets provide nearly half of the attacks that a blaster will get and many of them actually have excellent DPA. A better (and more telling) analysis would be for a comparison of all primaries by all secondaries, but that would be a lot of work, which is more than I'm interested in doing at the moment.

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Yeah, I said the same thing somewhere up there. Basically, looking at just the primaries is somewhat misleading since you can pretty much remove the lowest DPA attack in your string and substitute an immob to increase your DPS. That ability alone will completely change up the rankings and make the T3 blast (if you have one) weigh far more heavily. And again, if you introduce blapping into the equation, the primaries are really only about the T3, and maybe a T1 or 2 every once in a while. I'm of the opinion that each power in each set should be analyzed separately to get an overall feel for the set, then combine them w/a secondary that complements it well. Like, if you're playing w/a primary w/no heavy T3 blast, I'd pick a secondary that can provide a good ST option, like Fire. For just ST damage purposes, I don't think Elec/Dev or Elec/En are good options, unless you're willing to be really patient w/Mines and such, or blap a bit w/Elec/En.

Wait, how does Stone beat out Axe for AoE damage, and even WM for the 250% recharge? Are cones devalued that much (even then, Wh Axe & Mace do more damage. Does the increased radius of Tremor matter that much?).

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You know that FA = FS, right?

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That isnt correct. FS has a 15' radius and FA only 10', and that's a world of difference (aka 125% surface covered more).

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I meant for damage. You're right about the radius, but I find that for tanks, you can get most things into that 10' radius. I don't miss much outside of that w/either power, which is to say, I never say to myself, boy I wished FA had an extra 5' radius. If it were a scrapper power, I absolutely would.

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The knockdown is also much more useful as a form of mitigation than a mag 2 sleep.

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Agreed, but we're talking about damage, as in "Ice Melee" is low damage. Did you really want to get into a mitigation battle bet. SS & Ice Melee?

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And FS benefits from Rage too

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Uh, yeah, which is why I explicitly said that it was Rage that took SS over Ice even though it doesn't have a cone.

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Another small advantage for FS, but not insignificant, you can slot a FF +rech proc in it which has a chance to proc for every critter hit.

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Yeah, that's usually a good move, but I 6-slot Obliteration in mine for the def (WP/SS w/capped S/L def FTW!). And, yes, it would increase your overall DPS. Again, I never disputed that SS was better than Ice, but it's not by that much. For pure damage per critter hit, FA = FS. In real terms, FS >> FA, but again, I already conceded this.

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And no, I dont agree on your fast assimilation that AoE = useful and ST = useless. Depends on the playstyle.

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I never explicitly said that ST was useless, though upon rereading my last post, I can easily see how it can be taken that way. I should've been clearer--of course ST damage is useful. I am however of the opinion that for most of the game, AoE damage is far more useful, and this is doubly true for tanks who aren't likely going to be up against 1 mob at a time, unless it's an EB or up. In that regard, I would take Ice Melee over Stone or EM even if you took away all the mitigation Ice provides. Prolly Axe, DM & DB too, esp if you consider the all lethal nature of the weapon sets.

Bottom line, you can quibble about which sets may or may not edge out Ice (and really, it's just edging out), but to say Ice has low damage is completely absurd. Unless you're trying to solo AVs and Pylons w/your tank, in which case, yeah you should stay the hell away from Ice Melee.

BTW, by a happy coincidence, Stars seems to have updated his charts. Not sure what happened to WM (haven't read his post yet), but it seems to have fallen behind Ice (and DB!) for AoE damage. SS does beat Ice for AoE, but as I predicted, not by much, regardless of recharge. Fire dominates, of course. And, yes, as previously stated, Ice's ST damage is sad.

http://foundersfallshigh.com/__/new_tank.html

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It boggles the mind that ppl still say Ice Melee is low damage

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It's low on damage if you compare it to Fire Melee, Super Strength and Stone Melee.

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I think your information is horribly outdated. Unfortunately, most ppl agree with you, which is why this myths is perpetuated.

Everything's low compared to Fire.

SS? You know that FA = FS, right? What does SS do for a cone? Right, nothing. Rage gives SS the edge, and Stars' chart (which I highly encourage you to look at if you're not familiar w/it) shows it's enough to take the lead over Ice, I don't think it's by much. Of course Cold is far less resisted than Smashing too.

Stone? Only for ST damage. How often are you fighting 1 mob at a time other than AVs and such? Ice destroys Stone for useful (i.e. AoE) damage.

Ice Melee has absolutely dreadful ST damage, the worst in the game. It has fantastic AoE damage, and if you're a tank, you should care far more about the latter than the former. But hey, if you wanna take the set just for Ice Patch and settle yourself for craptastic damage (go, GIS!), knock yourself out.

Sparky really throws a lot of wrenches in calculations, but what's your 3rd attack in an Elec ST chain? You can't just do 1-2-1-2 w/o a gap. Are you going to use BL on 1 target (valid, if you can afford the end)? Of course, if you're assuming you can fill it w/your secondary (unless you're /Dev), then things get trickier still. It's prolly fair to assume most Elec blasters have a T1 secondary ranged damage power (unless you're /En) or even a melee attack as filler. In fact, Elec/Fire's RoF > CB > EB > CB chain is better than En's Burst > Bolt > Blast > Bolt, but not better than a comparable En/Fire's RoF > Bolt > Burst > Bolt, though the gap is very narrow at this point (mostly cuz Burst sucks for a T3), so Sparky might tip the balance back to Elec.

Of course, this benefits Arch even more, cuz an Arch/Fire can do BA > Snap > Rof > Snap and get rid of the underperforming Aimed Shot (this will cause a redraw which drops the overall DPS by a hair). Same for Ice/Fire w/BiB > Bolt > RoF > Bolt and so forth. And yes, Ring of Fire has a better DPA (and comparable DPE) than every T1/2 primary power in the game. It also has a shorter range, but it's the same as most T3s so should fit into most ranged attack chains seamlessly. It also immobs targets, just as a bonus.

Or course, not everyone plays */Fire, but it's just an illustration of how comparing Blaster primaries only can be so misleading. Chilblain & Elec Fences are lower than most T1/2 blasts, but higher than a couple. Subdual sorta gets the shaft, but makes up for it w/MM's uber AoEs. Then there's the whole blapping issue. Scrapper comparisons are easier because most of their secondaries are about mitigation, not more damage, though they have their complications also.

BTW, AR's best ST chain might involve Buckshot, since even against a single mob, it has the 3rd highest DPA, unless you can get all of Ignite's damage all the time. In fact, Buchshot has only a bit less ST DPA than Slug. Of course, it's bad DPE for 1 target and there's the whole KB thing.

I was talking about her entire build, which is why I mentioned a bunch of powers taken, slotted and skipped. I could care less about which EPP she's considering--I'm just talking about a very poorly planned Ice Melee portion of her build. And who cares what level she is? What do you think respecs are for?

I never said to drop Ice Sword--you can't and have a reliable ST chain. She should drop GIS for Frost (yes, you have to juggle stuff around) and FF should only be slotted as a filler attack, if needed at all. BTW, if she chooses to later, using Ice Blast would be a far better ST option If you're trying to mimic a controller, I suppose Chilblain, BoI & Shiver might be better, in which case Chilblain is still a better attack than FF and from range, though more end intensive.

As for Frost, if you can hit even 2 critters with it, it blows every other Ice Melee ST attack out of the water for efficiency, except for Frozen Touch. You'll need to hit 3 mobs w/Frost to beat FT. Mob for mob, it's actually better than FA, though you'll likely hit way more mobs w/FA making it ultimately the more effective power (though you can hit 5+ mobs easily w/Frost's increased radius). It boggles the mind that ppl still say Ice Melee is low damage (yeah, I've seen the OP say that repeatedly), but skip Frost.

Your attack chains are flawed in that they are unsustainable. If you're only looking at a fixed window of 3 attacks (in an order not likely produced anyway), the results are wildly misleading, unless you're just talking about burst damage. Put in another way, most attack chains will look like T3-1-2-1, repeat, not T1-2-3, which will turn into 1-2-3-1-2-gap (or a wasteful AoE). If you can do 3-1-2-1 indefinitely with no gaps, the recharge of each of the powers are meaningless. If you can also sustain said chain w/o blowing your end bar too quickly, the DPE is also somewhat meaningless.

For pure and sustained ST damage, Blaze > Flares > Blast > Flares (repeat) beats out all to no one's surprise, but 2nd is BiB > Ice Bolt > I Blast > I Bolt (repeat), followed by Psi (actually, I don't know Psi's optimal ST chain since WD does a sliver more DPA than MB, but its long recharge means it won't be as big a factor--you might be able to nudge Psi's ST damage higher than Ice, but Psi's weakness is its dreadful AoE damage anyway). I can maintain both of the Fire & Ice chains gaplessly and indefinitely (at least long enough for most fights to play out) which makes both recharge times and end costs meaningless. Compared to that, most of your higher (than Ice) ranked blasts fare much worse. En's Burst > Bolt > Blast > Bolt chain isn't even close to Ice's. Anything w/o a T3 blast suffers in the long run, so Elec & AR are right out. Son has a T3, but is completely pathetic. Archery's an intriguing case since its T1 & 2 attacks are kinda weak, but has a decent T3 and it still beats out En once you average out the 3-1-2-1 chain.

Why are you comparing Frost to Shiver when I pointed out 2 gimp *damage* powers that should be dropped (well, you can't drop FF, but damn, I wished you could...)? One is a cone to be picked up at lvl 4 to level and do damage over your entire career. The other is an epic power you don't get til you're 44, and wow, you're right, it's a control power. So other than the fact they're both cones and have cold themes... what exactly begs this comparison?

Pure support tankers know how to pick up massive amounts of aggro w/their AoE attacks. Taking and/or slotting inferior attacks like FF & GIS doesn't do *anything* for you or your teammates. Increasing kill speeds does.

How would gimping your damage output, esp AoE damage, ever be a good thing? The only thing that explains in that build is slotting FT for some holds (I still never recommend this unless you go w/Perox HOs).

QR

You don't have Frost. You don't take Frozen Aura at 38 and immediately 6-slot for damage. You don't slot Freezing Touch for enough damage. You slot Frozen Fists and take & slot GIS as if they're effective attacks. This is why ppl still think Ice Melee has lousy damage.

Well, I pity anyone playing in Granite w/o IOs for the debuffs they have to live through, so never consider that a fair comparison. Still, you make fair points.

You might wanna look at Lockdown sets for epic hold powers if you wanna add some good ranged & AoE #s, btw. Not horribly expensive, iirc. And 2-slotting the BotZ sets in your travel powers will get you some nice returns on your ranged def w/o spending too much. If you have the inf, just 3-slot and get your KB protection w/some AoE defenses and get sell the Karma/Steadfast -KBs (alas, not for much these days, I think).