perwira

I'm still in the midst of doing a freespec build (before i16 comes out) and I'm facing the same dilemma you are. I've learned a lot by following this thread and have incorporated some of the ideas shared by the others here - and that just opened a lot more options on different ways I could go about it.

I've reached the conclusions that I'm almost certainly going to go with two builds - the current one team-oriented one and a future second build designed for soloing. The team build is recharge/buff driven (almost permahaste), with my main defense being stealth combined with superspeed with stealth +proc IO in it. The best defense in some cases is simply not be be seen at any distance (except by the the highest perception enemies) and then choose attacks very selectively in order to draw the least aggro and/or assist in pinning down a single AV target along with the rest of the team. That's not a choice in a solo build, however, and I need to rethink the defense side of it for the second build as you are now with your build.

Likewise on not assuming acquiring very rare IO's - at least not at this stage, even at level 50 and almost 1b inf to work with. I'd rather use that inf to do a very solid 2nd build to solo similarly to what you're doing and probably still have enough left over for an obscure purple set or two - more bang for the buck, so to speak.

What level are you now, anyway? If you're approaching 50, or even 40 (leaving only the epcis), I'd be curious to see what your current play build looks like. I am impressed that you've gone this far with so few faceplants, which speaks as much about your play as it does your build.

It takes me a lot longer to do a respec than clear a market rack worth more than that.

(Edited to add: You do get to move 10 over into the market, which can be worth a whole lot more, and if they're already on your character waiting to be replaced, then it's worth it. But there's no point in creating IO's to slot into the character and then moving them right back out again, so the only advantage I see is for characters with IO's that are intended to be replaced.)

I did mean global for the several of us (people I've befriended since I've started) who play pick up together on more than one server. My global list will also contain RL friends who are all in the same supergroups on different servers.

(eta: You're right in that starts with an addition to the server friends list, which I still let them know in advance through a tell to them although approval is not necessary.)

Nicely done! I've been following this with keen interest and have tried to match the performance of two of my blue side characters with your performance just for the challenge of it. Well, I made it about half way there, and that's a lot better than I've done anytime in the past. Thanks for posting your progress report and giving me a benchmark to test myself against. Kudos for your market work (and yes, I know, it's work - and fun!).

Ok, I'd like to clarify this for my own benefit. I understand that if the enemy has endurance remaining, they will continue to fire as usual without any delay in their attacks or powers. However, if they are completely drained, aren't they down for the time it takes for them to recover at least enough endurance to activate the next power they throw? And if they are hit again with another electrical blast prior to recovering this endurance, they are still not able to throw their next power until they reach a certain minimum endurance threshhold? I clearly recall being able to keep a number of enemy effectively out of action for short time spans this way, including Mary McComber, at least until they recovered enough endurance to carry out their next action. Perhaps, though, you're right, there were other effects on them (such as a hold) that also cause a pause in their actions. I can say with almost virtual certainty, though, that a barrage of endurance reduction on one enemy slows down or disrupts, if not completely cuts off, their usual attack cycle.

Objection, Your Honor!

Well, in creating my second-ever character - an empath, I made exactly that 'mistake' (choosing the electric secondary), but I also quickly learned how to turn it into an advantage. Sapping the enemy's endurance dry and keeping it dry can put them effectively out of action similarly to a controller power. Oft unnoticed (and underrated, imo) is the jiggly-zapped animation they go through (or you go through when you're endurance is zapped clean) that effectively puts them out of combat for an entire round, mitigating any potential damage they may cause although they still have hit points. I still clearly recall neutralizing Mary McComber this way while the team dished out the buffed red-bar damage to finally take her out. In short, every power set has its strengths and weaknesses and the secret as a good player is to make the most of the unique strengths and capabilities they have.

Ten Times the Victor.

All this is true, more so for some defender primaries (i.e., empathy) than others. Have a look at what Biospark is doing in the SOLO quest thread and gain appreciation for the challenge of empath soloing.

But when I started my second-ever character as a Defender (now 50, still much of it solo), I wholeheartedly embraced her team and leadership role. It's who she wanted to be. Add to this that I (made a mistake when I as a newcomer to the game?) chose the electric blast set as her secondary set. Gimped? Hardly! With a carefully balanced selection of powers and IO sets, she shines both as a team buffer/supporter/healer and as an auxiliary enemy disabler, often at pivotal moments during the battle. I plan do a second build geared towards pure solo, but I decided to wait until I could properly fit her out with the proper IO sets, something I'm considering now with about 800m inf. As it is, she can still solo well, although I do often tweak the difficulty level according to the mission.

FWIW, I also play a dark blast / pain domination corruptor red side. While we can compare the two, they're really different as night and day - completely different concepts and play styles, yet neither one more or less effective than the other at what each does best.

Having said all this, I completely agree with you in that vigilance in particular should be reviewed to see how to make it fit in more effectively with the archetype of defender. Some folks have suggested some ways this can be done and I would support several of these ideas.

Not obsolete. Just unique.

Actually, spamming any number of archetype auras (AOE fire pumping, spine tossing, foot stomping, hurricane swirling, disruption field zapping, etc.) in a large public place is annoying. Not to mention the unasked for SB's.

Yes, I think so. And even at levels slightly below that. As levels will take more effort to earn, I think there will be more attention to what the lower/mid level set tiers will provide, particularly as more people acquaint themselves with there is besides just 50's in their character set builds. I'm the type of player who slots IO's from get-go and I've been seeing more activity at this level than any other recently.

Like you, I've only recently been learning and earning my way in the market. I started out not by vendoring or flipping, but by crafting generic IO's with field crafter badges and more recently crafting mid/upper tier set IO's. Which I do now depends more on the level and capital resources the character has.

I rolled two new characters a week ago Thursday, and through pure recipe flipping, they're now both at about 30m inf each, a tidy sum for 14th level characters already frankenslotted with level 16/17 doublet/triplet IO's. At least at this level, the market hasn't slowed down.

Where I've seen more slowdown since double experience weekend and the return of school days is more on the mid/upper tier set IO's. I'm still earning a very good margin in several of these niches, but the turnover in some niches is slower than it was. One of my characters moved to another niche that had a higher turnover although it had a slightly smaller margin (still resulting in more profit over time with the higher rack turnover).

I think it's fair to say the market is in a constant state of fluctuation with its own daily/weekly/seasonal cycles (which I am just grasping, at least at the daily and weekly level). I just diversity a bit and adjust to it, leaving enough room for error so that if it does shift at least I can safely exit a position and enter into a new one without being overcommitted.

Whether you decide to wait or not, the market won't.

I totally agree with this comment, and I always leave a web page window up behind CoX in case I need to look something up - and ironically enough, I had to look up how to get to The Hollows last night. I recently rolled two new characters and the last characters I have that were in the Hollows (ages ago) are now levels 48 and 50.

As a comment aside, I've always wondered about those debt and damage badges, and whether they're really badges of honor! Seriously, I'd rather *not* accrue debt or get whacked any more times than I possibly can. Now, I understand the desire to acquire badges (it's a fun side game for a lot of folks here), but these are badges I that I will probably never acquire as hard as I try to avoid (and have my teammates avoid) damage and debt.

What a lot of other folks here said so far, and...

While I often solo and duo/trio with some friends, I play a lot of "pick up" teams for regular content missions/arcs as well. If I'm on a pick up team and find that the team has some good players, I'll send them a /tell and let them know that I've added them to my global friends list in case they want to play together again. Often, people will reciprocate. Over time, I gradually got more and more invites to teams from people who I played with weeks, even months, ago who remember how good our team chemistry was.

First, I'm assuming at a level 50 build and percentages. You might make different choices prior to level 50 because the percentages increase over the levels until level 50.

For the CB and LB, have a look at the Devastation set. A set of 4 of those will provide a global (non-ED'd limited) 3% bonus to all attacks - or two 2 sets for a hefty 3% + 3%. If you go this route instead of using Thunderstrike, you'd want to slot 4 of these 5:
# Devastation: Accuracy/Damage,
# Devastation: Damage/Endurance*,
# Devastation: Damage/Recharge*,
# Devastation: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge*,
# Devastation: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge*.

I'd probably go with the triplet/quadruplet to maximize total percentages and (given that you only want 30% or more accuracy) the two doublets marked with *.
Total damage% = (26.5 + 26.5 + 21.2 + 18.6 - ED) + 3% + 3% = (92.8% - ED) + 3% + 3%
Total accuracy% = (21.2 + 18.6) = 39.8%
Total recharge% = (26.5 + 21.2 + 18.6 - ED) = 60.3% - ED
Total endurance% = (26.5 + 18.6) = 45.1%.
(The -ED part of these numbers is the enhancement diversification penalty which is tolerable until the pre-ED bonuses >90%)

Then tack on two Efficacy Adapters for the endurance side of it, one for full End Mod plus one more according to your priority between recharge or endurance reduction:
# Endurance Modification*
# Endurance Modification/Recharge*
# Endurance Modification/Endurance Reduction
Total endurance mod% = (42.4 + 26.5) = 68.9% - ED

Add 26.5% to either the recharge or the endurance reduction, depending on the choice between the last two - I'd probably take the recharge to boost it to (60.3 + 26.5) = 86.8% - ED unless endurance is a problem for you.

As a whole, this maximizes damage (92.8% - ED + 6%), has very fast recharge (86.8% - ED), has a strong endurance mod attack (68.9% - ED), and has good endurance reduction (45.1%) and accuracy (39.8%).

Another poster responded with a good reply about how you'd slot LB and SC and I'd go through the same process. One thing I did notice about SC, though, is that it's damage output is low, so I tended to focus more on the End Mod (and Recharge and Accuracy, in that order) than the Dam vs. the enemy with SC.

Yup, this is what my scrapper is. Very easy to solo, but as someone else here mentioned, not much really in the way of AOE. Attacks are set up with a soul drain for the enemy debuff and self-buff, followed either by the Shadow Maul cone attack and/or the Shield Charge to send them flying to be picked off as they rush back at you. Adding flight and air superiority adds to the attack chain with the knockdown putting the target out of action for a round, as well. The Dark Consumption is also an area attack that provides endurance recovery along with a Siphon Life single-target attack to regenerate hit point damage, both of which do a fair amount of damage. The dark melee set also provides an inherent enemy to-hit debuff, so defense is most important early in the attack, less so after they've taken some hits. But it's not a fast 1-2-shot mob-finished build. It may take as many as a dozen shots before the whole mob is put out of action and the time it takes will depend partly on your mobility (superspeed & jumping). It's also a build where recharge rate is as important as the defense cap in order to minimize the recharge time on the Soul Drain and multiple-target attacks, so plan on acquiring some LotG's to tack on to the many defense sets. So far, my dark melee / shield defense scrapper has been my favorite character to solo (and team on the offense side of things).

With a dark melee / shield scrapper, you won't need to worry about mob size. Teleporting into mobs from a distance with with shield charge is fun, but if you've got dark melee, you might want to jump into the midst of the mob first and hit them with a soul drain before sending them flying with a shield charge. That soul drain puts a huge buff on your next attack. Put simply, a dark melee / shield scrapper is *meant* to jump into the midst of large mobs, "against all odds".

Or aura, aura, aura!

I've been fortunate in being in SG's I can trust, where I can leave crafted IO's worth millions in the SG racks. Even so, things like LotG's I keep personally, knowing I'll be slotting them soon.

Back to the OP's original question about salvage, I see it as interchangeable. It can be bought and sold, both. As a general rule, I craft what I can with what salvage I have and let go of the rest on the market. As a market player, I need these salvage spaces for recipes I'm bidding for and crafting, often priced in the tens of millions. There's little space for salvage for anything else.

In short, don't get attached to your salvage. It flows like water on the market.

I also embrace the same philosophy; indeed, the most fun I've had on TF's have been with scratch teams with like-minded players.

Perhaps more important than composition and power sets is team coordination with a sound plan. I've been on a team that theoretically was close to optimum composition/powersets that failed because of lack of team coordination and I've been on teams (of even less than 8) that were less than optimum composition that succeeded handily because of well-coordinated team and individual play.

Also, answering the OP's question more specifically, here is the list of sets which provide recharge bonuses: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category...prove_Recharge.

Some archetypes and primary/secondary/pool combinations are more easily able to obtain these sets than others. Very rare 'purple' IO sets give the largest 10% recharge IO set bonus value and the Luck of the Gambler +recharge gives the largest 7.5% single IO bonus value. For some archetype/primary/secondary/pool builds this is easily obtainable, for other builds without many options for purple sets or defense powers for slotting the LotG's it may not even be possible.

I would advise the OP not to be too obsessed with achieving perma-hasten at the cost of gimping the character's build to the point where it is either counterproductive or drastically alters the character's strengths and your play style. More often than not, just having a solid global recharge rate without perma-hasten along with solid bonuses in other key areas (like defense) is more than good enough.

As I solo and duo/trio a lot, I generally set the difficulty level according to the archetype I'm playing. For highly solo-able characters (e.g., a scrapper), I generally run at difficulty level 4 or 5 just for the challenge.

On the other hand, I usually ran my very first toon, an empath defender (now 50th level), at difficulty level 1 (sometimes 2) going solo with her highly team-oriented build (leadership and all). I plan to make her second build strictly for soloing (meaning no team powers) and then I might raise the difficulty bar above the Heroic level. She acquired the Atlas Medallion going solo with the team build on Heroic difficulty, so, certainly, it's not pointless.

All the more reason to craft whatever enhancements you need for the next level or two in advance. While many of us don't plan our builds completely from 1-50, I try to think ahead at least a few levels on which powers and slots I'll be slotting next and then craft accordingly. It also leaves plenty of time for low bids to fill, and if they don't fill, raise the bids a bit higher until it's all bought.