If you just want the Taskmaster section ctrl+F "finally" to skip to the hero specific section.

This guide will be the first in a series of general overviews I want to work on. Originally these were going to be notes that I kept in a doc for myself. It has since turned into me trying to explain gearing and other points as well since when I was browsing through here trying to find my footing again I realized that most people never really explained why certain things were used here they just posted gear options and videos of terminals or dummy times. Which while nice to see don't help people understand the hero or gearing choices now that the forums are gone. These aren't meant to put you to the top of TTK charts and the build shown above will always be what I ended up enjoying the most on the character instead of necessarily being their best option. A lot of this first section comes from old info that I either had to dig for or had in an old document and most of the testing I have done lines it up with what Tahiti shows so I'm including it here.

Offensive Stats 

Some General housekeeping at the start so that stuff makes a little more sense as we go foward. such as why I use %s instead of leaving it all as damage rating. 

Tooltip damage is calculated from the base damage which is what this site shows when you hover over a skill mulitplied by the percents of all relevant categories added together. So something like  has base damage *(1+base damage%+ Physical damage rating% + melee damage rating%)  keep in mind that percentages need to have their decimal moved to the left twice when converted into a normal number so 12% is really 0.12 or 115% would be 1.15. From my experiments this seems to hold up with a few exceptions with gear such as modified assault rifle which doesn't actually add physical damage on the stat page but it is still calculated and seems slightly higher than what it should be. either way it is still a decent guideline if you need quick comparisons without opening the game or if you don't have the gear piece. Crits and Brutals mulitply the final result.

Ex:  2,531 x 2.8(dmg%) x 3.48(crit dmg%) = 24,662   This should be the high end crit with the out of combat stats shown when you hover over the damage rectangle under our attributes if our target is the same level and has no defenses.

Heres a fun question. If we were to add 50% (.5) to one of our multipliers which one would give the higher damage?

2,531 x 3.3 x 3.48 = 29,066

2,531 x 2.8 x 3.98 = 28,205

While it may have seemed obvious to some of you. The answer is that you always want to bring the lowest multiplier in line with the higher one. This is partially why Brutal Damage tends to come in much higher values than other damage stats and also is considerably less valued when building since it already starts at a much higher percent than the others along with increasing from crit dmg also. The other part that is probably slightly obvious is that our base damage should always aim to be higher than crit damage since it also needs to be balancing brutal damage equations.

1000 Damage rating = +25% damage,  1%=40 damage rating,  Attributes 4% = 160, Tasky attributes 1.5% = 60 

1000 Crit/brut damage = 12.5%   1 crit/brut damage = 0.0125%   80 crit/brut dmg = 1%,     2 crit/brut damage = 1 base damage

0 crit dmg = 150%  0 brut dmg = 300% 

crit damage also increases brutal damage by the same amount. (imagine the starting point as 150% crit dmg + 150% brut dmg)

Crit hit Rating: 500 = 18.4%

1000= 25%

2000= 36.2%

3000 = 44.2

3500 = ~47%

4000 = 50%

5000 = 55%

Brut hit Rating: 500 = 8.4%,

1000 = 15.3% 

2000 = 26.2%

3000 = 34.2%

4000 = 40.4%

5000 = 45.4%

6000 = 49.4%

 

Attack speed actually has diminishing returns: 10% = 10%,

20% = 18.05%,

30% = 23.74%

40% = 27.95%

50% = 31.07%

60% = 33.39%

 

Defensive Stats

These are a bit odd and for most heroes it should simply depend on their trait. There may be some point where it is better to increase the lowest stat instead of your trait defense options, but that is more theorycrafting rather than general guide stuff.

Defense rating 1500 = 4.4% Damage Reduction

3000 = 8%                      

4500 = 10.9%                              

6000 = 13.3%                   

7500 = 15.4%            

9000 = 17.1%

Deflect: 500 = 2.9% deflect chance and 0.6% damage reduction

1000 = 5.6% and 1.1%            

2000 = 10.6% and 2.1%          

3000 = 15% and 3%

4000 = 18.9 and 3.8%

5000 = 22.5% 4.5%

Deflect reduces damage by 50% and reflects damage back. Due to the massive difference in our health and enemies the reflect is fairly negligible.

Dodge: Offers damage reduction at the same rates as deflect and the only difference is that dodge chance is half of deflect chance at those same benchmarks.

Dodge negates all damage you would have received

Gearing

Lets start with relics as that is going to be fairly simple.

 This is going to be the best option in general 13.825% crit damage at max stacks.   (10.275% melee dmg) or (8.675% ranged dmg) can be useful if you are mostly or entirely melee or ranged. If you have some sort of scaling with spirit this is usually decent enough or better than atlantis. Fun shout out to  which used to be used on Nova back when he scaled with move speed.

 

 

The fun thing about relics is that the relic specific stat has diminishing returns. You actually gain 50% of the crit damage/spirit/etc at 250 relics and 70% at 500.

Hp gain is constant. It is 1 Hp for each relic in the stack with  being the exception as it is the Hp relic and adds 2 Hp. What that means is don't worry too much about having a full stack unless you plan on doing something like raiding where that extra could make a difference.

Legendaries

When I initially started writing this up this section was very sparse and was essentialy just gungnir ilvl 70 and then ilvl 80 was anything but gungnir with slight talks of Shield of perseus just for survival needs. I'll do an actual analysis and convert everything into percents this time. Was there a better way to make this chart? Yes! Am I going to change it after all this effort? Nope that will wait until I make a doc to share instead of directing people here.

 ilvl 70         Damage Percents                          Variable Percents                                      Procs/other stats

           25% crit damage                            800 crit hit rating                 Odinrage (5% 5 seconds 1k brut rating 20 sec cd)

           12.5% damage                               500 crit hit rating         1k HP, 200 spirit, Firebirds(5% 80 spirit 200k damage 20 cd)

          20% phys dmg 10% brutal dmg      400 crit/brut rating                       Bleed(8% 8k x2/sec for 5 sec 8 cd)

         25% nrg/phys dmg                              750 crit rating                 75 spirit, below 50% hp (15k shield and +3 all for 10 sec (60cd))

            100% brut dmg                                                                                          Nullify (1% 50k dmg 2 cd)

          25% melee damage              1000 defense and 500 crit rating                                200 hp on hit

    25% area dmg, 12.5% vs slow                                                            10% to slow on hit (5sec) Snowstorm (5k x2/sec 5sec 5cd)

       23% damage(15% nrg 8% base)        600 energy crit rating                      500 hp and 25 spirit on enemy defeat

           25% mental damage                     500 mental crit rating                 50 spirit, Psychic assault(5% 5k x2/sec 5 sec 5cd)                 

    25% summon damage, 12.5% damage                     500 crit rating       50% summon health, Beams(5% 50k dmg 5k heal 3cd) Tsunami (5% 5k dmg x2/sec+ vuln 5cd)  

     15% ranged damage                  600 ranged crit rating, 10% atk spd       Burn( 10%, 7.5k x2 sec 5 sec, 20 cd), explosion (10% 6k)

                                                1.5k defense/deflect/dodge                5% chance to block, 2k hp, petrify(10% 20k + vuln 5cd)

     37.5% damage for each damage type, +1 all for each damage type used (8%-24% damage)                                            1500 health

       12.5% damage                                                       20% xp,500 hp and 25 spirit on enemy defeat 1500 health, Stone proc(10% 50k damage + vuln 5 cd)

    18.75% area/vs demon +8% base damage                     5% summon for 30 sec and 5% 1 second of 1k brut/crit rating

   0-8% base damage                                      revive, 5% summon for 30 sec, 5% for (2 fighting/durability, 600 dodge, 5% defense and 1k health for 5 sec 30 cd)

What this horribly made chart shows is that damage is fairly uniform for most legendaries. Gungnir has the highest crit rating which is important when leveling or getting gear. The other part here is that 25% dmg in the other legendaries is essentially just a +6 in a main attribute which is much easier to get than 2k crit dmg. The other outlier is power cosmic with a lovely 53.5% damage for dual typed hybrids. Godkiller also has its place for leveling. That said utility/procs from other legendaries could make them more useful than just the damage that gungnir offers. Trident is in my opinion better than gungnir for summoners if you aren't able to get ilvl 80s.

ilvl80  These require 900 glf influence to get in hammer bay excluding SAW which drops in daily bugle terminal

  37.5% crit damage                            1k crit rating                                                    same proc as before

 25% damage                                      1k crit rating                            300 spirit 1.5k hp, Firebirds(400k dmg 100 spirit)

  35% phys 17.5% brut                        700 crit/brut rating                                           Bleed now 40k

  37.5% energy/phys                           1k crit rating                                150 spirit, proc now 25k dmg and +5 all

  125% brut dmg                                                                                                          nullify( 500k dmg)

  37.5% melee                                     1.5k def, 750 crit rating                                    300 health on hit

 50% area dmg, 25% vs chill                                                                10% to chill and slow 5sec, Snowstorm(25k x2/sec)

 25% energy  +24% base (+6 energy)       1k energy crit rating                  1k hp 500 hp and 25 spirit on enemy defeat

  50% mental                                        1k mental crit                            100 spirit Psychic Assault now 50k dmg

 50% summon dmg 25% dmg              1k crit rating                               Beam same as before Tsunami now 25k

  30% ranged                                        10% atk spd, 1.2k ranged crit             explosion now 60k, burn now 100k

  25% dmg                                             2k def,dodge,deflect                                4k hp, petrify now 200k dmg

 37.5% movement+16%dmg(+2 all)     1.2k dodge, 1k brutal rating            25% cd reduction on movement powers

 

Slightly nicer chart this time. Gungnir is still decent, but is outclassed by all the heavily buffed procs of the other legendaries and the fact that their crit rating is equal to gungnir's or atleast offering enough to be comparable to ilvl 70 gungnir. Pretty much everything has a use now at ilvl 80. SAW despite lacking crit rating is probably the best thing for anyone that uses a decent amount of movement tagged powers and especially so for those with movement tagged sigs. Casket of ancient winters now gives damage vs chill instead of slow meaning it works against raid bosses.

 

 Team-Ups

Ever since 2.0 when they gained a lot of survivability it has pretty much been the best option to have these as active instead of passive. The effect their gear has on us is minimal and should primarily focus on buffing the team-up instead.  Affixes do not stack or at least didn't on live. 

Base static amounts for gear

slot 1 Communicator- 20% base damage.

slot 2 Portable Defense Screen- 10% damage reduction.

slot 3 Hostile Unit Analyzer- no useful stats here. (Item find and credit drop)

slot 4 Biometrics Enhancer- 1% regen and 15% crit chance.

Team-ups have a base 10% crit chance without any gear so a base 25% crit chance as long as you have gear on.

Rolled affixes

With slot 1 and 3 you can have 3%-10% crit chance for a max of 45% crit chance on your team-up and a minimum of 31%. 

 Slots 3 and 4 can have 7%-15% brut chance for a max of 30% and minimum of 14%.

Slots 2 and 4 are defensive stats with the exception of brut chance on 4 and slots 1 and 3 are offensive stats.

Outside of those your offensive stats go in this order of importance. Special Damage > Crit Damage > Base Damage

Default damage is largely useless once every skill is unlocked since most of them will often end up cycling through abilities instead of using default attacks.

Defense wise reduction vs all damage is ideal. You can use Deflect and dodge the main defensive value comes from the invuln and healing when you use a medkit cosmic affixes though.

As far as best team-ups go there isn't much to say it depends on what you want from them. Vulnerability here is usually better than anything else if you don't have a good way to apply it on your own. From what I remember Coulson has the best damage and is very closely followed by the Wolverines. Dr.Strange despite being the same as clea actually uses BUE animations which are quicker than the old ones Clea uses. 

Utility (Things like Burning and Bleed mostly have it in blue in the power description. There may be others that also count for them.)

Grouping- Clea, Dr.Strange, Jessica Jones, Quicksilver, Spider-Gwen, Spider-man, 

Taunts- Deadpool, Jessica Jones, Quicksilver, Rescue, She Hulk, Spider-Man,  Spider-Woman

Healing- Angel, Archangel, Clea, Dr.Strange, Groot, Magik, Mordo, Rescue

Damage reduction- Clea, Dr.Strange, Firestar, Iron Man, Mordo

Weaken- Arachne, Dr.Doom, Quake, Quicksilver, She Hulk,

Vulnerability- Arachne, Falcon(Civil War), Ghost Rider, Shield Support (20% so it might stack with the normal 10%), Sam Wilson,

Slow- Agent Venom, Angel, Archangel, Carnage, Deadpool, Dr.Doom, Miles Morales, Quake, Rescue, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Wasp

Stun- Agent Venom, Arachne, Captain America, Dr.Doom, Domino, Drax, Groot, Jessica Jones, Jubilee, Magik, Medusa, Miles Morales, Ms. Marvel, Quake, Quicksilver, Sam Wilson, Wasp

Knockdown- Beta Ray Bill, Captain America, Falcon, Falcon (Civil War), Ghost Rider, Groot, Howard the Duck, Jessica Jones, Jubilee, Miles Morales, Mordo, Sam Wilson, She Hulk, Spider-Woman, Sunspot, Wolverines

Bleed-  Captain America, Carnage, Drax, Falcon, Falcon (Civil War), Gamora, Punishers, Jessica Jones, Sam Wilson, Wolverines

Burn- Punishers, Agents Hydra/Shield, 

Hellfire - Ghost Rider ( I have no clue if this counts as a burn or not, but it has its own tag)

Knockback- Medusa, Ms. Marvel

Damage Buffs- Angel (5% movement powers), Havok* (15% base damage), Rescue(120 dmg,crit/brut rate)

Seal of the Vishanti ( Power and Toughness) - Clea, Dr.Strange

*Havok may not affect us, but it is worded with "your powers" instead of saying Havok in the description like every other team-up does with their buffs.

Mastering these Tasks Finally

A is for Attributes of which you would need an absurd amount in order to compare to a normal archetype. Jack of all Trades is an interesting concept and also a rather troublesome thing to work with. While most characters gain 4% damage rating per an attribute we get 1.5%. Normally you would be using this to get our damages balanced however just as a fun comparison 150% damage for us requires 100 attributes. Other heroes only need 38 to reach 152%. This means we will want flat damage rating rather than attributes in order to keep our multipliers balanced.

Since we get benefits from any attribute we can treat this two ways. We can treat it like Pre-BUE and stack our int and fighting or we can try to go for flat stats and consider attributes a bonus. I liked the second option more on live and I'm still leaning that way on Tahiti.

Crit/Brut Rating When you stop and look at this you need to also consider that our signature adds 840 to both so being a little low isn't a terrible problem for Tasky. I generally shoot for 3,500 crit rating and between 3,500 to 4,000 brutal on most characters. Keep in mind that due to our trait giving 3% crit chance that crit rating is actually 50% instead of 47%. The infinity stones also give a flat % increase that doesn't affect diminishing returns. The 5% crit is usually not worth it, but 150 points for 5% brut can be a bit better than the 75% brutal damage if you are lacking in brut chance.

Powers

 These are the main melee spenders. Rending Swing tends to be used more often due to the +15% crit chance it has along with the fact that two of our final row talents remove Nunchuck Beatdown. I like Nunchuck Beatdown a lot it allows you more wiggle room in infinity points since you don't need atk speed anymore.

 These are the options for ranged spenders. I want to like Legion arrow however it is held back by the fact that multiple arrows are random at 20% for two and 10% for 3 meaning most of the time it only shoots one and that in my experience meant Dual Wield was better and more consistent. Then there is the combo/fury building and well even if legion arrow shoots 3 it still only gives one point meaning the faster attack speed of Dual Wield tends to feel better for combo point builds.

 These three all serve similar purposes in being ranged wave clear. Rebounding shield deals more damage than the other two but it only hits 8 targets and you have to wait for the shield to return to you before it can be used again. Stinging Shot hits 10 targets instead of 8 and also provides a knockdown. Deadly Volley is nice for very dense groups of enemies and thats about it. Stinging shot is what I would consider the best option unless you are using Captain's Vigor since then you want rebounding shield for the bleed anyways.

 I have no clue what this is meant to be used for. I guess since Dance of Dane replaces stinging shot you can use this there instead of the bleedless rebounding shield for clearing mobs. 

 These are your non talent specific melee options for cooldown powers. Spidey Swing is a bit awkward to use since it will often leave you a decent distance away from the target you were hitting which would be nice for ranged builds if Evasive Websling didn't exist. Shield Crush is going to be used if you went for Cap's Vigor or Black Knight in row 2 since they have bleeds. Cyclone club is great area damage and should be used in any melee build really.

 A ranged power that pulls enemies to you. It deals good damage and is one of the few ranged cooldown options. I like it more than evasive websling, but not better than boomerang or freeze arrow.

  Good dot and it applies weaken if you have ditched Tanya's Love Letter for something else. I like dot powers the extra damage layer is usually worth it in my opinion and when you really don't need more than two or three cd powers on the bar you might as well use it.

 Boomerang arrow in my opinion is the best use of combo points for ranged builds. Freeze arrow is smaller AOE, but much better damage than web net and is one of the few cd ranged powers so probably worth a slot in ranged builds. Web net is our normal unchanged vuln applicator. I like the AOE size and do occasionally enjoy using it over some other options on my melee builds, but overall anti-metal or Cobra hood are just better than it.

  Coup is decent since it always crits which you can't really go wrong with taking guranteed crits/bruts. It does lack damage wise compared to other cd powers though which tends to leave it feeling less useful than the arrows for ranged builds and the execute doesn't really bring it in line with melee powers for hybrid builds. Which leaves silent killer as the highlight of this option I suppose. It has two things going for it one is if you got a cosmic with the bonus on stealth power use and the other being that it doesn't waste combo points like our normal dash.

 Our signature a nice steroid power. Theoretically it runs for atleast 12 seconds with the slot 4 unique so 33s down time when it ends with the potential of 24s reduction from reshoot we could only have a down time of 9 seconds on this. I have never seen that low of downtime using reshoot, but it might be possible. It gains 2 seconds of up time if we have max ult.

 These are an interesting set of abilities that I feel could be better if the animations were a fair amount quicker or just had movement tags on them. Slam is just too slow and small of an AOE to compete with cyclone club or shield crush even with the extra damage. 

 Builds resources which helps combo points flow a bit better. Not useful for Fury builds unless you really just want to constantly use this which while funny is not very good DPS.

 Guranteed Brutal hit. As with most heroes you can't go wrong with taking guranteed brutal abilities.

Talents

All talents are usable. A lot of it boils down to preference rather than actual DPS choices everything seems rather comparable to me with nothing really standing out as a guranteed must use.

Row 1- pain tolerance which is a survival talent it is decent, but it really only has a place when you need that little buffer that it offers as the other two provide good DPS.

Martial arts of Luke Cage is combo points for extra damage and dodge which I still find it weird for Luke Cage to give dodge. We build combo points through our filler attacks such as rending swings or dual wield. I generally don't worry about building up all 5 combo points on melee since we have so many cd powers just taking the 20-80% tends to be fine for most content. With ranged we don't have many cd powers and Dual Wield is fast at building it so I tended to hold for all 5.

Ferocity of Wolverine which is all about cooldown resets and deflect rating with this bleeds and other dots actually build fury so you can reliably spam cooldown powers without worry. who needs 100% extra damage when you can use that ability 3-6 times before it would normally be off cooldown.

Row 2 -Captain's Vigor, Daredevil's Mastery and Black Knight's Technique. All three of these change skills and all have something that is good enough to consider. I guess Vigor is technically the ranged option here. Pendragon Slice used to be a ranged attack and it was the primary ranged option because of that.

Captain's Vigor the bleed on rebounding shield is nice and resource gain from meteor kick helps keep combo points flowing smoothly. Meteor kick uses combo/fury first then adds to the point pool meaning it will always leave you with 3 CP(60% damage) or 5 Fury after it hits. The key point there is it has to hit and deal damage for points to be rewarded. This is what I use because I like Meteor Kick always setting the next cooldown(cd) power to a minimum of +60%. It also gives us pre-BUE rebounding shield which I enjoy.

Daredevil's Mastery has Tornado Kick which is a guranteed Brut and is usable after every use of a cooldown ability. It also increases the damage of cyclone club. Generally speaking if you are going heavy on brutal damage rating this will outclass the other two options. If you are low on brutal strike rating this will outclass the other two options. I generally just found the other two options more interesting. The main benefit here is that Tornado Kick isn't a cd power so you save combo points or Fury for other things like Slam or Cyclone Club.

Black Knight's Technique is what I prefered when the game was live partially because it was new and different from pre-BUE Taskmaster. Pendragon Slice is the highlight here two charges and 5 fast hits it is a cd power so it uses combo points and fury. Dance of Dane is a rather lackluster AOE it covers about half the area cyclone club and since you would be spending combo points or spaming Pendragon Slice instead of this I would suggest just using cyclone club as it will clear mobs better. The last bit here is the fact that our sword powers all apply a bleed it doesn't stack and is tied to the trait instead of the powers so you can't get book of demonicus stacks with it using Foeslayer. The bleed is also not guranteed to be applied it has some unknown chance of happening which is fun I guess.

Row 3 are our Action! modifiers.

Double time is good for combo point builds and has it's downside mitigated by the slot 4 unique.

Students to me is better than it sounds due to the changes that happened to how summons inherit stats. They also benefit from summon gear if you want to mess around with that idea.

Reshoot is better consistency for long fights anything that isn't handled in one use normally will go down quicker with this.

All 3 have a place and time but reshoot is going to be used for more most of the time since reducing the cooldown on a steroid power is just good.

Row 4 

Deadpool's Flexibility this is the most reliable option here it is also kind of the only ranged option. It has no gimmick like extra costs for constant regen or a random chance to get a decent effect after you trigger it like the other two.

Iron Fist Style 25% spirit restore with a fairly easy trigger due to charges or just decent cds on most of our used power. It has decent effects with the different stances. Generally this will be less consistent due to the fact your stances are randomly chosen. It does solve spirit problems if you have them.

Elektra's Precision sounds good on paper and could be interesting. My general issue with it was that it is too spirit hungry for me to use a spender. It works with Foeslayer, but I'm not sure the 10 seconds of 25% extra damage is worth losing the benefits of the other two.

Row 5 Is an odd one with two ranged options and only one for melee. This is odd since everything else seems to push melee.

Widow's Grace gives coup which is a guranteed crit with an execute and replaces our dash with one that won't spend combo points.

Hawkeye's Skill gives two arrow abilities that are rather nice damage wise on top of having 2 charges. It makes our own vulnerability power much better and is probably worth using if you want to ditch Cobra or Antimetal for a little more damage in that slot. Boomerang Arrow is a great cd power this is what I tended to spam with fury or spend combo points on.

Spidey's Dexterity would work better if they were movement tagged as it would create an actual reason to use movement items some of which actually would be rather nice to have such as  But sadly our tags were only barely looked at during the BUE changes. Without the movement tag slam is still nice damage wise, but it is just a bit too long of an animation in my opinion for not much more damage than cyclone club or shield crush.

Gear

Legendaries  is the best option at ilvl 70. At ilvl 80 I would say  is the best general choice It will work no matter if you're ranged, melee, or Hybrid and as such it makes switching your powers around easier.  Is a good defensive option for melee builds.  is probably a little better for ranged builds because of the procs and the 500 extra crit chance can open up more options in other gear.

Cosmic gear I consider cosmic gear as specialized tools and uniques swiss army knives. A cosmic can provide greater values in specific stats, but the uniques are going to provide more stats usually at lesser amounts. Rather than discussing this in each slot I'll lay out the stats of cosmic gear in their own section. Stats will be discussed at ilvl63 for everything going forward to my knowledge everything scales the same way so there shouldn't be any issues with using the neater numbers from those instead of the less neat ones attached to ilvl 69.

Slot 1 and 5 have a static 25% damage on them (offensive gear slots). Slots 2,3,4 have a static 3k hp (defensive gear slot). Slots 1,2 and 4 can roll 3 offensive affixes while slot 3 and 5 can roll 2 and will always have a utility affix on the third slot.

Offensive Stats- +4 attribute= 6% dmg 

Crit damage can roll 8.9%-15% and brutal damage is 15%-25%.

There is also 15.775% damage against bosses here.

600 crit hit rating and 857 brutal strike rating are both nice things to have and are usually bigger damage increases than their actual damage rolls.

12% atk speed can also be rolled if you find yourself lacking in it though it is not high on priority list.

Defensive stats are really nice on cosmics. 2,400 HP, 2k defense/deflect/dodge, 171 health on hit. The thing I want to draw your attention to is that you could potentially get a cosmic slot 3 that is essentially just shield of perseus' defensive stats only you don't lose nearly as much damage by dropping coat of the skull compared to removing a Savage Axe/Golden Bow.

For utility/procs that you can get in slot 3 or 5 I tend to lean towards plague or +1 all on signature use. Most of the defensive or healing options here are either too long of a cooldown or too specific in activation for what little they do. Though I will say if you can get an invuln when dropped below 30% hp one it is nice.

Cosmic effects- Bulwark and Might are the big ones you want. Devastation and Starfall are both good aswell 20k damage procs are not something you should completely ignore. Signature can be useful though I wouldn't go out of my way to farm for it. We don't have any charge movement powers outside of our dash so Cosmic Movement is pointless. Dash can actually be harmful since it reads shield crush and other movement powers as dashes and will seemingly push enemies out before damage is actually dealt.

The ideal rolls for DPS would be crit/brut rating, crit damage, and brutal damage. If you aren't using Tornado kick you can also consider damage vs bosses over brutal damage as the consistent 15% is probably a little better than the 25% brutal damage. 

For general play most slots I'd recommend only getting two offensive affixes and one defensive affix. It doesn't matter how much damage you do if it only takes a slight breeze or a glare to knock you down and those defensive rolls do make a difference.

Slot 1-  Easiest to acquire option and is fairly good. 43% damage rating, 14.4% crit and brut damage along with the bleed puts this ahead of Rifle for more melee focused builds.

  Modified assault rifle is the easy ranged focus option here If you are going ranged you probably took Hawkeye's Skill which means you have Freeze Arrow which is much better than web net and will apply Vuln so this is better than anti-metal for ranged builds. With max rolls this is 2177 damage rating to ranged abilites and 1530 to the melee abilities or 54.425% and 38.25% damage rating with an extra 4-6% against bosses. 18.5% crit damage. Strangely the physical damage rating from this does not actually show up in the stats page but it does seem to still be calculated for tooltip damage.

  Another option 25% crit and brut damage and 26.5% damage along with what is essentially a permanent vulnerability proc like Cobra Hood. I'm very tempted to say this is just flat out better than the other options for solo play if you aren't using another source of vulnerability. Vulnerability doesn't stack so if you are around other players you probably won't need this since someone is bound to be using their vulnerability or a cobra hood.

 This is only really useful if you need critcal/brutal strike chance. 29.425% damage rating and 1.5% from attributes, 13.39% crit/brut damage. Lower chance to inflict a lesser bleed than Baton. Overall not something I would recommend often since we can get the crit/brutal chance elsewhere.

 If you have raided enough or hoarded enough commendation through other means to get one, this is just the best option for most heroes. 35.9% damage 23.7% crit and brut damage along with good procs.

 A fun option that provides all the brutal strike rating one could ever want. This is not a serious suggestion just a silly one that puts us at about 45% brute chance before any other gear is on.

Slot 2-  27.85% damage rating with max rolls, almost 3k health, a healthy amount of defenses. This is generally going to be the best option even if you aren't going hybrid since the damage procs happen off their own damage type.

  15% from attributes and another 11% against vulnerable enemies. Almost the same as Agency X only you need to do both melee and ranged in order to get all the damage on this. Less variation with stat rolls, but not worth it really.

 A cosmic bodysuit with might is possibly worth considering if you can get the right stats rolled for it.

Slot 3- His own unique is bad It doesn't offer enough damage or defense. 10.5% damage rating and 15% brutal damage rating. Consider a cosmic slot 3 if you don't have other options as the static health and pretty much any combination of affixes will be better than this.

 I like this the flat damage rating to melee powers is 17.65%. It has a good amount of HP and +8 attributes (12%)

 This is a good option but considering it drops from Brevik it isn't really worth it to farm cow zones. +3 to all attributes is 27% damage rating so a little less than Girdle but the defenses and crit/brut chance could be nice.

 This is the DPS option if you have enough survivability to drop the extra 1k health from girdle. 20.6% brut damage 19.75% damage rating from the proc and up to another 5% against elites,champions, and bosses.

Slot 4-   There isn't really competition here on top of having really good stats it also provides 2 more seconds to  which makes looking at other uniques not worth it. 34.4% dmg and +6% vs bosses

Slot 5-  While not bad I still find it a bit lacking compared to a cosmic. 21% dmg decent defensive stats and reasonable 319 crit/brut chance. 4 spirit on crit can help if you have spirit problems. The shield at low health is nice, but odds are it won't save you. I prefer a cosmic slot 5 over this.

 This is the best option in slot 5. Constant vulnerability application, 29.6% damage rating. A cosmic slot 5 with cosmic might will give more damage(45% with might active), however this has a much wider variety of stats and the vulnerability allows you to swap anti-metal for one of the more damaging options.

 91.7% brutal damage. 4.5% base damage from the fighting. You will see these in a lot of builds that use guranteed brutal powers and since we have Tornado Kick I feel I should atleast mention them.

Rings- cosmic rings are more focused and can be better in that focus than unique rings if they roll well. As far as unique rings go I will say  are generally good  is better but both can be annoying to get due to the fact that you have to get one in the right damage type.  These are also nice if you need brutal rating go for it other wise I feel the sling or ICP rings perform a little better. The crit/brut rating on class ring is tied to the HP roll I believe. The other option I would suggest if you are melee focused is  12.5%-17.5% melee power some health and 9% from the +1 to all and it can be bought for only 90 orders from the hand which is rather cheap or dropped by Kingpin.

Uru forged- the base depends on if you want a little more defense or 5% more damage. For physical heroes Power of Doop and it's 4,777 (59.7%) brutal damage rating is the biggest damage increase. I would say in terms of budget friendly options we have Valkyrie's Legacy, Lady of the sword, or unstoppable force as we do have movement tags on Shield Crush and Spidey Swing if you don't replace it with meteor kick through talents. Bowazon and Blood Barrage are decent ranged focus options as well.

Artifacts- I was running out of space so this part is going to be a lot more sparce than I'd like explanation wise.The world is very open here. In general you want either utility or just stats. We can't compete with the amazing gains other heroes get here. We gain 1% more from +1 to all attributes and lose 2.5% per point on normal attribute increases when compared to other heroes.  just for a comparison  offers 750 physical damage and +3 durability for Taskmaster that is 23.25% damage increase. on a physical Durability hero that is 30.75% damage increase. An extreme example would be  16.25% damage for Taskmaster and 28.75% for any intelligence hero. An example of a good +all would be   26% increase for other heroes but 28% for Taskmaster. There are a few +3 all options, but they don't offer much outside the attributes and to put it bluntly +3 all is only 27% which is worse than Tanya's and not much higher than options which actually give things besides damage.

suggestions to consider 

Boss artifacts-  15% dmg, extra crit chance if you use a bleed talent, 60 health regen, and 667 defense. The crit chance is the big draw on this one for me. If you aren't using a bleed talent then it isn't really worth it.

 The most popular artifact in the history of this game. 11.25% crit/brutal dmg combined with the decent 375 hit rating for both as well means that this is just always going to be a good consistent artifact if you need the hit rating. That said the 11.25% crit dmg and 22.5% boost to brutal means this is still fairly good even if you don't need the hit ratings.

 14% dmg, 250 crit, 350 brut chance and 22% brutal damage. The cosmic version is nice since it has the +1 all for us, but normal versions are a bit too lacking with their +3 in one attribute.

 

 2,500 health and 18.5% dmg. Not bad and if you need health this is a rather good option.

 12% dmg,10% crit/brut dmg, chance for attack speed on brutals.

  18% dmg, health and spirit on crit, 12% atk spd, and a revive if you are being defeated.

  15% ranged damage and 18% more when you use your signature for 10 seconds. 300 crit/brut chance. 

 Defensive option. 13% dmg and 5% more vs bosses.

 Just a small bit of info here. Elektra seems to be treated the same way power summons are instead of like a gear summon. That means she inherits our stats. You can test that by comparing damage when you only have it equipped vs when fully geared. Fairly certain this didn't work that way on live though it has been like 8 years since then so my memory may be wrong. Still assuming it is working properly it is a decent option here despite us not gaining anything off the sig damage. 17.5% melee damage +4.5% dmg from the +3 fighting.

 Bleed variation of circlet if you are running one of the bleed talents and can't seem to reach an agreement with Cyttorak for a fancy tiara.

Event Artifacts- 

12.5% crit/brut damage 500 brutal strike rating, and 5 seconds of 26.55% dmg and 664 crit chance with a 20 sec cd.

 Crossbones credentials alternative- 450 brut chance, 10.3125% brutal damage, 100 health regen, and 18% dmg Triggers on melee instead of crits so it works even in Danger Rooms where you can't crit unlike credentials.

 26.75% dmg, 700 health, 250 crit chance and 9.5% attack speed on a proc that is most likely going to be kept up at all times. Regular version is only 13.25% dmg. This has replaced Circlet for me I never really paid attention to it back when the game was live, but it is really nice.

Generic getting started Artifacts-

 Mini gem of the Kursed that offers 15.25% damage and 8.75% crit damage. Decent generic drop that will help you through cosmic trial and farming for better artifacts.

Reward from completing ch 10. Good compared to other non boss artifacts.

 10.5% dmg, good health, and chance for a decent sized shield.

 This is acquired in Lower Asgard from the vendor that appears after you defend the door. Good melee option when just getting started. 12.6% dmg with an extra 10.5% and 468 crit chance from the melee proc

 We may not be able to teleport around with this anymore, but it is still a decent artifact. 8.75% crit dmg, 400 brut/crit chance

 12.5% physical dmg, +12.5% dmg for our merc summons if you take that talent, and 300 crit rating. It may seem odd to suggest this however it really isn't that bad for a generic drop.

Blessings are an interesting thing with 3 main options. From a pure DPS standpoint 4 Loki/Hogun depending on if you are mainly ranged or melee will be the best(800 Brut strike rating and 30% damage rating). 

odin's which forces you into a wide variety of stats and is usually better for more evenly split melee/ranged hybrid heroes. +1 all(9%) +3% against bosses, 5% damage from balder/sif, Volstagg 1k defense and 1% less from all attacks, then the offense slot will be either hogun/loki(7.5%damage) or Hela (5% brutal dmg). for a total of 200 brutal stike rating 21.5% damage rating with 7.5% being specific to melee or ranged. With hela's 400 brutal rating 14% dmg and 5% brutal dmg.

4 Helas (1600 Brutal Strike rating and 20% brutal damage)

Hela is the option that will be used if you need brutal strike chance. If you are already hitting ~45% or higher without Hela's I find the other options to be better.

Medallions- I like Hydra Agent which comes from the omega event or  a Case could be made for  I just don't care for the tiresome process that is doing the one shot to farm it.  This is also nice mostly for the 14.8% damage, but also the invuln can be useful.

 

Infinity Points

My suggestion is to get 150 in each gem first. Most have something useful in that point range and afterwards it is just what you feel you need. I've put my suggestion for splitting the first 900 in the system above. 

Damage priority- Mind > Power > Time 

Survivability - Soul > Space (Each point in gravity well is 73 HP for any h