Bringing a Dm/SR out of retirement

Hey fellow scrappers,

My DM/SR was built in the buzzsaw days and quickly became my favorite character. When the buzzsaws died, I repecced out of my sets, passed them to other characters and put Immy in retirement.

After playing my Warshade, a Kat/WP, a Claws/SR, an Ele/Shield, an EM/SR Brute and my first character, a Spines/Dark for the last year or so, what I really was thinking of doing is dusting off Imm and getting her back up to speed for i16 and the upcoming i17 and GR.

Currently, in game, we are flat broke, having just focused all our Influence and recipe rolls to spec out my fiance's Arch/EM blaster, however I know the influence will come eventually, and I'll worry about sets when I've got enough to start slotting them.

My big question is, what's the best way to approach softcap on just IOs (not sets) without sacrificing Hasten. Do I even need Hasten now that buzzsaws are gone?

If I drop Manuevers off the build, I'm down to 42.8% to all 3 positions. If I drop Combat Jumping it's 43.5%, both are still respectable numbers, but I really want that all important 45%.
If I drop Hasten and take CJ and Manuevers it bumps up to a nice overkill number of 46.4%, this is with Steadfast +3% slotted in Tough, of course.

Since this is going to be a respec build, I'm not too worried about when the powers come, so long as I have the ones I really need to make the influence to set Imm like I really need her.

I would like the all important Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Siphon Life attack chain, and I'm more than willing to skip any and all travel powers, since I rarely, if ever take them at all.

So, if someone could please give me a hand tweaking one of the following builds so I can start earning Influence to get Imm back into the game I'd really appreciate it.

I have this idea, based off Werner's single IO softcapped:

If I am reading correctly you want to use common invention enhancements and no sets? If so I'm not sure it'd be possible to achieve that attack chain without Hasten. I'd keep looking at sets, there are some cheap sets that are cheaper than common enhancements, Multistrike being one of them, that provide some positional defense.

Yeah, you won't be doing Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Siphon Life, as it requires +235% recharge in Midnight Grasp. You also won't be doing what I consider the next best thing, which is Smite -> Shadow Punch -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Shadow Punch -> Siphon Life, as that still requires +128% recharge in Midnight Grasp. Still, with Quickness, and maybe settling for a couple level 50 recharges in the slowest power, you can shoot for something with around +103% recharge.

How about picking up Shadow Maul instead of Shadow Punch, and chaining Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Siphon Life -> Smite -> Shadow Maul? +93% recharge in Midnight Grasp, +82% in Smite, +27% in Siphon Life, and +19% in Shadow Maul. You're giving up about 13% DPS, but you should be hitting multiple targets with Shadow Maul, so it might work out about even in practice.

Might be something better.

There is probably someting better to do with slots than putting two endurance reducers in what are fairly cheap toggles like Focused Fighting and the like. One seems like plenty. I'd take a couple of those slots and throw them in Tough for better smashing/lethal resistance. Since you're in Leadership anyway, I'd probably grab Tactics instead of Focused Accuracy. It'll burn less endurance, still probably be plenty most of the time, and will benefit the whole team.

You'll get significantly enhanced performance for not much more influence if you take the time to frankenslot your attacks. Pick up cheapo multi-aspect set IOs in maybe the 35 to 45 range, but don't worry about trying to make a set out of them. Just pick and choose whatever is available for cheap and that will add up to decent accuracy, high damage, enough recharge to run whatever chain you choose, and as much endurance reduction as you can pack in. First priority on Siphon Life is usually to slot it as an attack, but frankenslotting may allow you to get a little more out of the heal for better survivability.

I definitely wouldn't leave a gap in Practiced Brawler (build 2). You don't have to get nailed in those three seconds to have a problem. You can still be suffering from effects, and as soon as it drops, so do you. There are also a lot of recharge debuffs out there that can stretch those three seconds into enough more to be a serious issue.

Some people love Touch of Fear, but I'd rather take an attack that does damage, or some other useful power. I'm not specifically recommending Energy Torrent, but just as an example, I'm guessing that a cone knockdown would be better mitigation than a single-target fear in most situations, plus it does a little damage. Or maybe Physical Perfection and Conserve Power won't be enough to handle your endurance needs, and you'll want Dark Consumption. The good news is that fiddling around is pretty cheap with a common IO build, so there's not as much need to get it right the first time as there is with some set IO builds.

Oh! Soul Drain! That's what you want. Yeah, it's not AS good without any good recharge in the build, but it's still a really nice buff when you really need a spawn to be dead dead dead.

Thanks for the input all.

I'm going to get the sets, eventually. Just not to start with until we build up more Influence, which won't take long with Sajitera (my fiance's Arch/EM blaster) sitting with 800 million+ in her sets.

I haven't ever used ToF before, it was just a filler until I get the influence up to rebuild Imm into the final DM/SR destroyer of all things big and small she used to be.

So my main question is, should I just stick with the old buzzsaw build and common IOs until I get up the influence for my final build? Or should I respec into one of the above builds?

I have a DM/SR that I enjoy. This was my first Mission Architect baby.

For sets, my priorities were ----

First, get softcapped against all positions. Not hard.
Then, get your endurance under control with recovery bonuses.
Then, you can start adding luxuries like recharge bonuses.

I didn't really want a buzzsaw build on mine. I just wanted an essentially unstoppable character that was close to impossible to kill and that could take down hard targets.

Do, do, do take Touch of Fear. It may not do damage, but it's your best To Hit debuff.

<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

Well the buzzsaw is long dead, which is why I retired Imm in the first place.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'll fire up MiDs when I get off work in the morning and start tweaking the common IO and then final build.