Wooden_Replica

when you get down to it,
-the To-Hit Mechanics hold up well in standard PvE, but its in PvP where they tend to break down, in large part because standard Mobs aren't built like PC's. I have never seen a mob use build up, aim, or power boost for example.

-Then you got the extremes, do you balance to-hit against an IOed out SR running Elude? Do you balance Defense against a blaster using slotted power boost + aim + build up? Do you want to force everyone in the middle like CO (which IMO is a failure)

-I do think they do need to incorperate elusivity in the real numbers. I also think their mistake was reducing it, rather than making it only a factor when to-hit powers are a factor, and when in its a situation where its just Acc vs. Defense, it has null effect, and it should only work to reduce that to-hit bonus, and not the base to-hit values

-Another approach might be simply do away with it and to-hit, and convert to-hit powers into +acc. With 4 values to contend with( really 6 if you count the debuffs but lets keep it simple), and these extremes those values can get to of course it'll be hard to balance, with only def and acc( ignoring debuffs for a momment), to contend with, getting the to hit mechanics balanced for PvP should be much easier. Also I could add, you could just as easily go the other way, get rid of Acc, and replace all Acc to-Hit, so your left with only to-hit vs. defense.

-Getting back to the real numbers point, someone new to PvP, or even some of us who aren't new would be hard pressed to find an answer the following questions
What powers specifically have elusivity?
Does elusivity stack with different powers?
Does slotting for defense in a power do anything for its elusivity?
Does Defense for set bonuses do anything for your overall elusivity?
Is Elusivity typed? either positional or damage type?

One thing is pretty apparent, I’ll have to play with my graphics settings, or upgrade my graphics card. Even w/o running Ultra, I’m seeing a lot of lag now, when before I wasn’t getting any.

For the record, I would've stayed away from Widows based on how PvP functions right now


1. Is the core concept of NW defense/status resist the same? I have over cap psitional defense with ML in PvM, but in PvP I have only 38% defense for my highest one, melee. I know this is due to DR, but I am sure it can be higher? ML and Elude can be used together it seems, so should I take Elude, as it seems to full that gap well?

Answer: I'm assuming this is your second build and you have a satisfactory PvE build, I wouldn't go crazy on defense set bonuses, largely bc defense doesn't function well in PvP, with that said, it really does take running slotted elude to see much improvement in your defense


2. Is it alright to not have a travel power? I use Ninja run, hurdle, and Swift. I don't have to much of a problem keeping with targets, but I don't pursue to far as I usually like to stick with the team, or if solo stick near a group of other villains.

Answer: I really would recommend having both SJ and SS, or if only one of those two SJ

3. I like poison dart alot. I've gotten most of my kills by it, because I've used it as they were running away. It seems like it serves it's purpose well, or is there a better option for ranged damage for flee'ing players?

With ranged attacks, best to get procs in them

4. I have learned some stuff about PvP NWs, from a PvM post. I will be changing Spin to Eviscerate as it has higher damage. Should I use Follow Up or Build Up? Build Up does increase the mometary damage and tohit, which is what I want, but it seems like it won't be up as often as FU, and a double stack of FU seems to be nearly as effective? though in a "ganking" situation I can see where Build Up is considerably more effictive....

Build up by far, followup is great for PvE but PvP is about burst damage, on that note on that, I would at least get one assault-tactics, double up if you can fit it in. while it won't be a factor yet, when GR hits a VEAT with double tactics + perception unique will have the highest perception in the game

5. Lighting Fence from Mu Mastery doesn't do much? I have IO'ed for duration(Five slotted with Enfebled Operations set minues the Acc/End IO), but it rarely holds, and when it does it last for porbably a second or less. This is due to resistances to holds being raised in PvP and the durations lowered?

Mez effects in general are very marginal for PvP, with immobilizes in some cases the travel suppression on you will be greater than the actual immobilize duration, stuns/sleeps/ holds are only useful for de-toggling offensive toggles, the only good immobilize is one with a lot of -ant-travel effects like web envelope, or of the mezz effect does a lot of damage (ie a tanks fossilize doing really crazy damage)

6. Can stealth be capped on a NW? What is a the cap for a NW, or is it the same to comapired to a stalker? Does a stealth IO in sprint stack with Mask Presence?

The stealth IO does stack with MP, and I would advise getting it, you won't achieve stalker level stealth, but still worth getting

7. This question would help 1 and 6 well. Should I get smoke grenade? Judging by it's effects, and the effectiveness of holds I think not?

Smoke grenade, nope not worth it, Placate is actually a much better choice

8. The leviathan patron pool seems to be the most common used in PvP from what I've seen for villains. The powers Spirit Shark and School of Sharks seems to be the powers used most, but wouldn't Soul Mastery be better for Gloom which is more damage, and a nearly identicle immoblize, Soul Tentacles?

Spirit Shark isn't a bad choice, but it isn't a great choice either. Someone else mentioned BS's patron pool, and they were pretty spot on, and if you need a supplimentary ranged ST attack, its ranged attack isn't horrible either( although the real sale there is the Web power and that mace attack)

with regards to set bonuses, as mentioned I wouldn't go crazy with def set bonuses.
Acc is good, especially if you have the to-hits from double tactics
damage, recharge, +HP are also good set bonuses

Ideally I'd say slot with a combination of purple IO's and PvP IO's combined with other sets,
but being redside with its $ and availability issues that you don't see blueside, that may be a long term goal depending how much Inf you have

First off CC doesn’t accept accuracy the last time I checked( I’d have to log on my Rad / Dark Defender to double check). I have no idea if acc from a hold set actually effects accuracy on this( I really haven’t played him much for a while), but it I’d say accuracy global bonuses do. Also unlike many other PBAE toggles, it doesn’t have an auto hit, debuff component.

Besides its low tic rate, also there is the fact if stunned/ held/ slept, as an offensive toggle, it will de-toggle.

my best guess is that when they were changing status protection to status resists for PvP 2.0, they changed the TP protection to 'TP resist' which is apparantly useless. The question here, was it an accident or on purpose? From what I recall, there were a lot of suprised people who thought they had TP protection, who all of a sudden were being droned when issue 13 went live.

and the joke is thiat TP protection only matters in PvP (when was the last time you were TP Foed or Wormholed by a NPC?), and it hasn't worked since i13

the hazard zones blue side are largely a victom of the various changes made over the years. In the current game their really isn't a reason to go to them other than for door missions and hunt missions. In the beginning, the game did support going to the hazard zones.

The two hazard zones redside are in a slightly different situation, their not often visited largely b/c Hami raids are conducted redside even less than blueside if at all. Hami raids are an entirelly different topic in of itself

If I were try to bring more life to the existing hazard zones,
1) Introduce a medic station, quartermaster, and radio missions to these zones
2) Start an AE contest. Announce the zone in question, general theme, foes to be used, and level range. The winners would have their story arcs inserted into the hazard zones as content ( this is assuming its easy enough to transfer/ copy AE arcs to the actual content system) the winners would get a account wide badge, along with maybe a decent amount of merits to use account wide.

For CoX to be an integrel part of MicroSoft Windows,

I could think of a lot more things like than those two things

I'll likely play around with new Preatorian Alts first, in terms of toons I'd actually change sides on, not sure yet

Can't this be done now sort of?? The science pack was the one pack I didn't get, but didn't allow you to change models and genders one your costume slots? Have one costume slot at the max height allowed, and use another slot for the minimum height allowed. I know its not quite where the OP was going, but if he was going towards this concept....

in terms of primaries, chose any of the 'offender' primaries that is Dark, Rad, Traps, & Storm, and some may argue TA. These are primaries that offer various forms of debuffs, control, and damage mitigation. The only secondary I would be hesitant with, would be psi blast. As a defender your already at a 65% damage base( which -resist debuffs do help to mitigate), combine that with the super high resists on the critters that do resist psi damage ( generally anything that uses psi, robots, and zombie like critters with no brains). The other damage types have critters who resist that type of damage, but I'm pretty sure you don't see resists like you do with psi damage. I am told DB works really well with defenders (variety of damage & secondary effects, combined with stacking with their existing debuffs, and secondary effects on blasts are generally much stronger with defenders)

I still remember leveling my first 50, my rad/dark defender who was a monster in terms of soloing, vs. my wife's emp/rad, granted that was before ED

Will there be enemies up to level 60? In effect yes
Will we go up to level 60? in effect yes
Will there be enhancements at levels 51 to 60? in effect yes

Based on what they have said, we only know there will be 10 incarnate levels, that based on what they have said foes will ramp up, as will incarnate abilities, and left the impression that the incarnate levels will be different from previous levels and the incarnate content will be in Preatoria.

For all we know, they pull a fast one from Blizzard's playbook, that is an incarnate may be a sort of epic AT your toon either transforms into, or is unlocked once you hit 50, whose incanate starting level 1 is equal to 51 for all intents, not totally different from the entire concept of the Death Knights in WoW, or something else totally

Its really hard to judge,
they'll be redside and blueside blasters and stalkers

-We don't know if there will be a forced respec out of the patron/epics once you change sides, or if there will be a group of new patron/ epics pools

-I'm fairly sure redsiders will go blue for a little bit at least just to equip, and the red market will crash (heroes do have a huge advantage of having a more healthy market, making it easier to get high or even medium end IO's)

its hard to judge KM w/o any of the details at this point, ignoring PvP it does look like a fun set

I don't like playing blasters myself, but in PvP they definitely have an edge over corrupters
-More damage
-More HP
-And while mez is a much lower factor in PvP these days than it used to, that ability to use those attacks for the maybe few sec while mezzed gives them an edge

If I were to make a PvP oriented Rupter , I'd chose maybe a */Pain Rupter, the sad thing is there is only a handful of of powers in the buff/debuff/ heal sets that are really useful for PvP