I give up... What about Inventions?

Though I realise this is starting to grow old and go far too specific by now, I did make a planned build for Spring Attack by some very minor changes to my existing one, and I wanted to share. Here it is:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.953
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Crash McGuire: Level 50 Technology Brute
Primary Power Set: Super Strength
Secondary Power Set: Invulnerability
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Punch -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(3), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(3), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
Level 1: Resist Physical Damage -- TtmC'tng-ResDam(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(40), TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(42)
Level 2: Haymaker -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(9), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(9), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 4: Jab -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(13), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(13), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 6: Temp Invulnerability -- TtmC'tng-ResDam(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(17), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(17), ResDam-I(19)
Level 8: Knockout Blow -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(19), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(21), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(21), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 10: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(25), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(25), Dct'dW-Heal(43), Dct'dW-Rchg(46)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- Jump-I(A)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Run-I(A)
Level 16: Unyielding -- TtmC'tng-ResDam(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(27), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(27)
Level 18: Rage -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(29), RechRdx-I(31)
Level 20: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 22: Spring Attack -- M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(A), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(29), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(31), M'Strk-Acc/EndRdx(31), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 24: Resist Energies -- TtmC'tng-ResDam(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(40), TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(42)
Level 26: Hurl -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(33), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 28: Invincibility -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(34), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 30: Resist Elements -- TtmC'tng-ResDam(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(40), TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(43)
Level 32: Foot Stomp -- M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(A), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(36), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(37), M'Strk-Acc/EndRdx(37), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 35: Tough Hide -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(39), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(43)
Level 38: Unstoppable -- TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(A), TtmC'tng-EndRdx/Rchg(39), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(39)
Level 41: Superior Conditioning -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(42)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(45), Heal-I(45), Heal-I(45)
Level 47: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Taunt -- Taunt-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Dmg-I(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Fury
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(46)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(7), EndMod-I(7)

I didn't do much. I swapped Taunt with Super Jump, then swapped out Hand Clap and swapped in Spring Attack. I drew two slots from Unyielding and Invincibility and put them in there. The net loss of survivability stands at .4% defence, .3% physical resistance and .6% elemental and energy resistance. I think I'll live.

I haven't actually made this build yet, but considering all it asks is one more set of Multi-Strike, I don't expect to have much problem making it. That, and Crash still has her free /respec from years ago.

*edit*
Though I may have lost less than 1% of my survivability, I believe I gained a lot of survivability by not knocking enemies away from me and losing ~10% defence from Invincibility. My expensive equipment also gained a lot of survivability because I should have less frequent urges to punch my monitor now that Hand Clap is gone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Didn't /vault come with the Freedom release? I recall reading about it at that time. I thought or, at least, I had gotten the impression that it was the latest and last reward of the old vet reward system.

I apologise for dragging this thread back out of forum history, but I have a few more questions to ask on the matter and I'd like to keep all the old, very useful information I got in the same thread just so it's all in one place.

Now, I know I went a long way towards giving Crash a decent, Dark-Astoria-Applicable build, but that never happened. I22 took too long to come out and I got bored of the character spinning her wheels doing nothing. However, it's come around to this time again, and this time I'm using a slightly less "certain" character. Plus, I'm facing a few new aspects of Inventions that didn't exist back when I made this thread, which I might want to explore. First, the questions:

What's an "ATO?" I get that they're Archetype-specific enhancements, even if I wish we'd stop attaching the word "Origin" to every enhancement type, but what are they for? What do they do? Do I even care about them? I checked ParagonWiki and it has a pretty good article on what these are, but there are no articles for the specific enhancements. I don't know if these have superior percentages like Hamidon enhancements do, for instance. And, frankly, the set bonuses they offer don't strike me as that impressive.

What I'm working on right now is a Stalker, but do I want those enhancements for that Stalker? I see that I can get them outside of purchasing them, but their costs just seem prohibitive for what they look like they do. From level 1 to level 49 right now, this Stalker has amassed right around 360 Reward Merits, and I see that even the "cheap" AT enhancements costs 400 merits, so that's VERY expensive for something I don't know if I need.

I could ask about Catalysts and how many of these sets I can use, but I'd probably want to know if I even want the things before I dive any further.

---

Next on the list is Enhancement Converters. I managed to somehow avoid ANY discussions about those on the forums, so when I first started seeing the things in my salvage inventory, I didn't know what they were. I've had a few people explain them to me, I read the ParagonWiki article about them, but I still seem to have very little idea about how those work. I get that they convert enhancements into other enhancements, but my question is how much control I have over the process.

For instance, one of the big reasons I don't want to use, say, Mako's Bite is because it has rare and special enhancements in it. Last night, Leo suggested that I could use Enhancement Converters to buy or get a more easily-available set and then transform that into Mako's Bite for the defence set bonuses. So how would that work? How could I, for instance, get a rare Mako's Bite: Accuracy/Damage out of... Say, Crushing Impact: Accuracy/Damage? I assume I'd use the "Convert within Category" conversion that costs two Converters, but what choice would I have to determine the result? The description says "Any other IO of the same level from with its Category regardless of Rarity." but do I get to personally hand-pick which one? That seems a little too good to be true.

---

Finally, I'm down to the actual, practical, final question about build in general. If you've seen me post recently, you've probably seen me mention "Kim," my Stalker. I even wrote a story about her. She's a favourite character of mine, she's currently level 49, and she's running about 35% defence against everything. I'm well aware that this is insufficient for Dark Astoria, so I want to know if there's anything I can do about it without reshuffling her build too badly (i.e. without having to take all of Fighting). Specifically, I want to know if it's possible that Enhancement Converters can help me in doing this.

As before, I'd like to stick to level 50 Uncommon Inventions, which means Crushing Impact for single-target attacks, Multi-Strike for the couple of cones and probably a bunch of Red Fortunes for the defences, in case it's not better to just leave them with Commons. I'm also interested to know if the passives and the toggles really benefit from those third defence slots, though I wouldn't want to lose any defence in the process, even a single percent since I have precious little as it is.

The build I have right now isn't great, and it's still all commons, but as before, I'm not looking for perfection. More than anything else, I'm looking for a build that I can be comfortable with making, and a way of making that build that I can feel comfortable repeating for the next level 50 character I make. Apparently, uniqueness of character build doesn't interest me all that much. So long as it works and it's not a pain in the *** to make, I'm happy. Well, and so long as it fits the concept.

Speaking of which, why Challenge on a Stalker? Oh, right, you can't see it. Well, the Mids' build is at the bottom of the post, and it contains Challenge as Kim's level 49 power. Well, it's a power I didn't need to slot, and it fit her cheeky, provocative nature. It was either that or Shuriken, but I couldn't spare five slots for it since I wanted more recharge in Elude. If I can spare the slots and take Shuriken instead without compromising my defences, I probably will, but for the moment, Challenge is not a terribly important power.

That said, here's the build for reference. Please don't judge me too harshly

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.954
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Kim Navar: Level 50 Technology Stalker
Primary Power Set: Dual Blades
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Presence
Ancillary Pool: Weapon Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Power Slice -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(3), Dmg-I(3), Dmg-I(5), Dmg-I(5), RechRdx-I(46)
Level 1: Hide -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(39), DefBuff-I(40)
Level 2: Ablating Strike -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(7), Dmg-I(7), Dmg-I(9), Dmg-I(9), RechRdx-I(46)
Level 4: Nimble Slash -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(11), Dmg-I(11), Dmg-I(13), Dmg-I(13), RechRdx-I(46)
Level 6: Assassin's Blades -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(15), Dmg-I(15), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(17), RechRdx-I(43)
Level 8: Focused Fighting -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(19), DefBuff-I(19), DefBuff-I(21)
Level 10: Focused Senses -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(21), DefBuff-I(23), DefBuff-I(23)
Level 12: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25)
Level 14: Combat Jumping -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Practiced Brawler -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25), EndRdx-I(27)
Level 18: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 20: Placate -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(27)
Level 22: Vengeful Slice -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(29), Dmg-I(29), Dmg-I(31), Dmg-I(31), RechRdx-I(45)
Level 24: Dodge -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(39), DefBuff-I(40)
Level 26: Sweeping Strike -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(31), Dmg-I(33), Dmg-I(33), Dmg-I(33), RechRdx-I(43)
Level 28: Quickness -- Run-I(A)
Level 30: Agile -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(39), DefBuff-I(40)
Level 32: One Thousand Cuts -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(34), Dmg-I(34), Dmg-I(34), Dmg-I(36), RechRdx-I(43)
Level 35: Evasion -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(36), DefBuff-I(36), DefBuff-I(37)
Level 38: Elude -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(48)
Level 41: Physical Perfection -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(42), Heal-I(42), Heal-I(42)
Level 44: Web Grenade -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(45), Immob-I(45)
Level 47: Targeting Drone -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(48)
Level 49: Challenge -- Acc-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(48), Heal-I(50)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(37), EndMod-I(37)
Level 1: Assassination
Level 4: Ninja Run

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I can say from recent personal experience that the Stalker Set is very nice to have, and you can do far worse that to slot all six pieces in your assassin's strike power (though some experts might have advice on where to slot them for even better). The archetype sets are all also sold in Wentworths/Black Market, and the stalker sets aren't too expensive by those standards. Though they might get expensive next week when Staff Fighting is available.

What makes the stalker set so worthwhile is two parts: (a) generally good overall bonuses and (b) the chance to hide proc piece. Having (b) slotted in a slower base recharge power like your assassin's strike means it'll fire often, possibly every time you use the power. That means that after a successful AS, you'll be right back in hide mode instantly, and your next attack will be an automatic critical strike coming out of hide.

I'm nowhere near a Stalker expert, but I put the full Stalker set in my A/S on my new Stalker.

When looking at this build an its defense defense, the main consideration with the Stalker AT set is that it gives damage-typed defense as its large bonus, so replacing pretty much anything that grants you positional defense in that build is going to cause you to lose more of the type of defense an SR cares about. Replacing Makos compounds this by taking away Ranged defense and giving back (smaller) Melee.

So its worth looking at what you can get if you juggle things a bit, and try to replace something that doesn't give +defense. Crushing Impacts come to mind.

My recommendation is to move Mako's out of AS into one of the powers that currently has Crushing Impacts in it. Instead of putting the CIs into AS, put the Stalker ATE set there. You lose a bit of +HP, gain a bit of recharge, gain a bit of melee defense, and gain a bit of accuracy. (You also pick up a bit of +damage and +resist(L/S).)

Something like this.

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