Ultimate Forms?

Let me just briefly go over my "Mission Statement" for this tentative project: "Tank as good as a Tanker, blast as good as a Blaster."

Strictly impossible, but the goal is to get close. Ideally, lots of Melee Defense while in Dwarf, and lots of Damage in Nova without gimping. I don't care if my Nova is squishy...it was built that way. Besides, my Warshade can do the "gunship" thing.

I see a lot of discussion when it comes to rounding out the edges of each of a Kheldian's forms, but I don't see discussions about using IO's to basically overload the forms.

Has anyone done something like this, and was it effective? I'm planning on taking my (currently lvl 27) Peacebringer to these heights just because my Warshade doesn't need much help. Please share your stories if you have any!

My Peacebringer runs something like this. I've got his Smashing/Lethal Defense just upwards of 30%. Combine that with somewhere near 60% Resistance in Dwarf and he's a pretty tough little bugger. Since I dedicated a lot of the build to those defenses getting Nova to a respectable level of damage required frankenslotting. Fortunately the ranged damage pieces tend to be cheap.

As far as what IOs to use specifically, it depends on your budget. Since Kheldians' have a lot of powers with various effects you can make use of alot of sets. I wanted to keep my build as cheap as possible and built with things like Reactive Armor, Exploited Vulnerability and Rectified Reticle. The only pieces that are giving me trouble are, predictably, Kinetic Combats. I managed to get four Accuracy/Damage and Damage/Recharge pieces for a good price before the market merge. Since then I've been using merits to complete the sets. Got two slotted so far with two more to go before the build's complete.

Budget won't really be an issue (aside from stupid expensive PvP sets that I'm going to avoid). My main enemy is slotting, and levels.

I want to be sure that the powers I'm slotting are powers I like, and will continue to use. I'm not usually against mules, but for some reason they give me the willies on my Peacebringer.

Levels are an enemy because I'd love to get this off the ground with lvl 30-35 IO's for the ability to be super-uber now/soon, and to exemplar well.

In your experience, should I focus on one aspect more than the other to start out? The DEF would be great in Dwarf, but of course killing faster has practically the same effect. I suppose the best idea is to slot the Nova attacks, and let them get me the DEF bonuses*. I'm glad someone else has done this, so thanks for sharing! Now all of my excited pseudo-planning has blossomed into "Get me into the game NOW!"

*Edit: After some ParagonWiki surfing I see why you frankenslotted the Nova attacks. I suppose keeping Melee Defense bonuses out of Ranged attacks is an attempt to keep ranged characters out of melee. Too bad, devs!

I did this with my Warshade, by using both builds.

My first build is more generally an all-rounder, which happens to be the way to get the most damage out of your Nova, as the global recharge in a max triform build helps immensely with the mires and the Nova damage chains.

My second build focused on Dwarf form entirely (other key powers like dark extraction are still reasonably slotted). The particular slotting I have allows me the following stats while in Dwarf.

61.7% Resistance to Smash/Leth/Energ/Fire/Cold/Tox
63.6% Resistance to Neg
12% Resistance to Psi

32.3% Defense to Melee
19.8% Defense to Range
20.7% Defense to AoE
(one small purple insp from softcap to melee, two small purps for softcap to range and AoE; before BotZ nerf, I was one small insp away for all three )

+132.5% Global Recharge [I should qualify this is with hasten up]
2140.6 HP (not a ton but better than any of my scrappers)
'enough' recovery
+22.5% Global Damage Buff

Nigh perma Eclipse, which with one foe hit combined with dwarf's resistances puts me at about 78% resistance to all but psi (28.2%).

Survivability in practice is ridiculous. Slows can annoy me (have the Winter's Gift unique, but that's not always enough) and end drain annoys me. The one bad thing about the whole setup, though, is I still can't "tank" perfectly because Dwarf Antagonize is just insufficient. I was able to (actually needed to for Gaussian's) put Nova in the build, but unable to put any slots in the powers so it's pretty useless. A really good thing about all that defense is that it's pretty safe for me to pop down quickly to stygian, eclipse, mire, or extract an essence.

So anyway, you can definitely accomplish what you want, but I don't think you can max out both forms on the same build; the slotting directions you need to go are too different. By the way, getting melee defense is a tad easier on a Shade because we can slot Enfeebled Operation. If you do attempt this, let us know how it goes; I would love to see what you can do with a pb.

*Still waiting for my Gladiator +def uniques for both builds.

WAIT WAIT WAIT

what are you using to get taht high def?

Everything and the kitchen sink. A couple of the sets with good defense bonuses also have some recharge mixed in, which, combined with 5 LotG mules, helps me keep the recharge up. Obviously the Steadfast and Gladiator uniques are helpful, as well as a set of Gaussian's.

I decided to post an update to this project. My original build for my Peacebringer was pretty sub-par, and that’s what led me to the idea of really pumping up his forms. Well, it turns out I can’t stand the “inhuman” build at all, and that’s essentially the direction this project was going to take me.

I ended up tracking how many times I switched into other forms. I had a heavy bias towards White Dwarf, and human…with Nova being used about 5%(!) of the time, tops. The heavy-hitting melee powers of the human form pushed me to want to be in melee, with White Dwarf being my panic button. I’m a bi-former and didn’t know it. I’ll be seeing my family this Thanksgiving, so I guess I’ll come out to them then.

So, he got a much needed respec to suit my playstyle. I cannot believe I skipped Hasten in the prior build (what was I thinking?). I kept Nova for it’s overall utility, but it is completely unslotted. DAM/ACC IO’s are all it needs for my purposes. The slots pilfered from Nova have made my Dwarf a very heavy hitter.

So the short story is that I’m a boring old Human/Dwarf biform now. The happy ending is that he got bumped up to my third-favorite character with just this respec (I couldn’t rate him before). I think I’ll still try for super-high Melee DEF with IO bonuses, since Melee is where I tend to be.

Overall, I’m happy. I’m bummed out that the Ultimate Forms concept fell to the wayside, but I’m way more satisfied with what my Peacebringer can do.

Thanks guys!

Good to hear you're sticking with it - but may I humbly suggest you try ranged instead of melee defense? You have the hit points, attacks and mitigation to survive in melee right now. Two things will bring a human/dwarf PB down quickly: Mez (on the human) and Psionic damage. Both are almost exclusively ranged attacks. Many sleeps are AOE, and many stuns are melee, but overall I have a feeling your survivability will go way up if you slot for ranged defense.

Ranged Defense? Sure, why not? With two builds, I can even try both if my patience doesn't run out.

I actually meant to put Smashing & Lethal there instead of Melee, but that doesn't undo the wisdom of your suggestion. Being able to avoid Psionic would be great for the times when I become the accidental Tanker.

Ranged DEF it is!