Angelic_EU

But because of the frequency of those -res proc triggering attacks, Merc (and Thugs too, I think) can keep up with the 20% -res most of the time.

If you want to make to most of TM, you will not have much time left to do anything else: it is a rather busy set. I would prefer it on a Controller or a MM.

On a Controller I would suggest Illusion because Phantom Army can take care of your damage while you are using TM. Same goes to any of the MM pets as well.

The real benefit of Scourge is against a hard target whereas the benefit of Defiance applies across all types of foes.

With the exception of sonic/sonic, nearly all of the time a corruptor will out-damage a defender; particularly true against a hard target when Scourge is taken into account.

I have not looked at the numbers on both ATs for a long time. But roughly speaking, a corruptor does about 1/4 to 1/3 less buff and debuff than a defender. It might seems a lot on certain buildings. But with the combination of (carefully planned) stacking effects and higher base damage, corruptor should still come out ahead in terms of damage output.

That said, if you see damage output as a collective effort of a team, then a defender offers a better deal simply because it is a better force multipler.

How about: Father/Son/Holy Ghost? The ultimate God mode!!

It seems that TM is much a Jack-of-all-trade similar to Will Power.

TM should work well with Bots.

Actually, it is rather good! I am rather surprised with the final product - I thought it will be sort of half-baked of everything.

The remining questions is which AT and what goes with it...

Just asking really.

For all these years, I have never played a controller properly (except the one I PL-ed when AE first came out; but that door sitter does not count as 'played properly'). I have however a 2 perma-doms at 50 and a few more here and there.

Recently I am starting to get a bit interested in Controller - one of the few AT I have yet to tried. But how exactly does it work? Or how to work it?

For me Dominator is easy: Control-n-kill. There are some debuffs that come in as secondary effects of certain powers and I am always mindful with thost effects making sure I can mixmise them.

For Controller, I am utterly lost. I almost work out how does Containment work. But how exactly does Controller do enough damage? It does not seem as straight forward as a Dominator.

So essentially: how to play a Controller?

Thanks.

I know it is still a bit early to know for sure what those new powersets can do. But I am just curious, from what has been know so far (see other posts), which ATs would you choose to play with those new sets?

For myself, at this stage, I would try Beam Rifle on Blaster first, pairing with /EM. Was thinking for mixing it with Time Manipulation on a Corruptor but, from the limited info we have so far, I think I would have all of the powers from both sets. Having a BR/TM would be such a tight build.

I am undecided on whether to play a Street Justice/Nin stalker or SJ/Regen brute. SJ/Nin seems to be a good match in terms of theme, I suppose. I am interested to see how the Combo points would interact with Fury. Anyway, I am keen to try a /Regen brute.

Do you have any thoughts on the new sets yet?

I personally would trade some damage for shorter interuptable time (if not none at all) and fast animation on AS. So it can be used far more often.

Increasing the HP would be nice too.

Well, why not postpone it after i21 is out?

Or better have another one then.

In Beam Gun and Time Manipulation, what is the 'Original' option bar is for??

Street Justice:


http://a.yfrog.com/img740/4054/vp0zr.jpg


This is the stalker version. BU will be the same for the others; Placate will become Confront/Taunt; AS will probably a hard hitting ST.

To be fair, Kleldians have the least powset combo: 1 x 1.

Just saying... XD

Colour customerisation for APP and PPP.

Customerisable resting stance (the natural standing animation). Have the option to use, for example, the various Hero/Villain Stance and others theme orienated ones like /e crouch for animal looking characters.

From my experience, a soft-capped, IO-ed, bane is far more useful than an equvalent stalker. A bane can stealth, crit from hide, re-hide via placate, and surprisingly survivable. On top of that, it buffs the team too with 2 sets of Leadership, bring up the damage potential and defence of everyone. (I have all there spider pets on my bane. They make a huge different in damage output. Their base damage are just average but with slotting and x2 Assaults, they do rather well.)

As other have pointed out, the signature attack of stalker, AS, is far too fiddly to use. I have noticed that even if I am not moving, AS can still be interupted if other people or their pets push me just slightly. That probably the most annoying part for me. Oh, and the target runs off range is an other nuisance. That said, AS is still fine while soloing; but that is because you have all the time in the world to pace yourself and position for AS.

I have done a few ITF kill-all runs recently with my KM/Regen. I could hardly do an AS. Either it was interupted for whatever reasons or other killed the target before I could. Not that I was not contributing: I still scrap the romans to death but, to me, that underplayed the usefulness of hide and AS.

I agree that the design of AS is outdated: the activation time and interuptable period are just too long these days. I personally don't mind reducing the damage output of AS to just x3 or x2 crits but making the activation and interuptable time much shorter. Essentially, make AS easier to use so people can use it more frequently to bring up the damage output.

I think Bane and NW can easily outdamage a stalker with just hide-and-crit. Of course, they have a much higher HP cap too, which helps them to stay in the fight longer and thus do more damage. And again, they can stack 2 Assaults and +ToHit on themselve, which helps too. A scraper can easily outdamage a stalker too for their higher melee damage modifier and HP cap - and they crit as well.

As to stalker: AS is not so efficient to use, their HP is low, the damage modifier is not high enough. It seems that although those ATs might not be able to do a hide-AS-placate-crit run on a target, they can easily make that up with whatever they have, and offer more.

Stalker needs some buffs.


(Edit:

1. I do like the idea of an AoE placate. For me, it fits the concept of a stalker. It could be that the first target is Autohit-ed and the rest within the AoE area are Accuracy-checked. It would be like Placate and Smoke Bomb firing at once on a Target-AoE basis.

2. I have an Energy/Energy brute with a +Stealth IO and of course Energy Cloak. Although it cannot crit or AS anyone, it can effortlessly take out targets one by one from a mob, so long as they are not so tightly packed. With that brute, I feel more like a stalker than a brute. Based on that, I would agree with the suggestion of an unsupressed hide. But stalkers have a higher -preception value from hide (I think, can't remember the numbers). Could do with a 1/2 or 2/3 unsurpressed hide instead of a full unsurpressed hide.

3. By its very nature, stalker should not be visible or draw any argo to itself nearly all the time. With a shorter AS activation time, AoE placate, unsupressed hide and high damage modifier, I think stalker could do quite well alongside other damage orienated ATs.)

I want martial arts for brute.

Just did a successful Keyes run with 2 MMs in the league. There were 3 reactors, none of the pets make it to the second level of each of them. They just could not follow. I saw a few made it to the first level on reactor 1. That was it. The remaining 2, those MMs were petless MMs once the ground level objectives were completed.

The reason I noticed that was because one of them were a /therm and I needed his heal. For most of the trail before the final stage, he was a petless MM using only his secondary power.

The recent changes do make the pets more survivable and MMs' lifes a lot better. But ultimately the major problem with MM is the pet AI. No amount of survivability can change that if the pets are just not there by the MM's side.

Just did Keyes on my Demons/Thermal.

With BG mode on, the pulse has next to no effect on me. So I ended up heal others. The problem began when moving up the reactors: the pets just could not keep up. They were hopelessly silly that they just could not go around the skywalk without falling back to the ground; and then got agro-ed and killed. So to be effective (as in being able to use the pets without constantly losing them), an MM had to be confined to the ground floor. Otherwise, it would just be a case of keep summoning or just using the secondary powers most of the time (could be quite boring for /FF).

That is after all a pathing problem with the AI...

All other stages are fine. Occasionally the pets were trailing way too far because of the lag.

So from my experience of the 3 trials, MMs are best suited for stationary fight and support. Once the team starts moving, the offensive efficiency of an MM falls rapidly.