Windenergy21

Originally Posted by Umbral

Actually, GC is better than SotW. SotW takes up more time in your attack string, thereby reducing the overall contributive DPS of SD and GD, which are your real money makers. SotW might have better DPA, but GC allows you to have better DPS with your attack string overall.



Since base DPE is a standard value, the only powerset that actually is "very good on endurance" is Claws/* specifically because it is designed to cost less and recharge faster than the other sets. Kat/* is just as hard on the blue bar as BS/* and every other set out there.

Originally Posted by evilgreg

thats alot of great feedback. So I guess I go ahead and do Dark/SR and Claws/regen...it's a blast either way!!!

Originally Posted by Fulmens

I've never been a fan of Rain of Fire.

Shiver drops both RunSpeed and Recharge. (RoF is -Runspeed only, so once they get out of the rain everything's recharged...)

Shiver can self-stack, has a very long duration, and can drop tough targets' recharge and move speed WAY down.

I've never been all that impressed with Rain of Fire's damage, considering how long you have to survive/wait around for it to do its job, and considering that you can drop even to +2 minions with just fireball/firebreath.

I may someday get Rain of Fire and Shiver on the same character, and fall in love with the combo. (I haven't yet.) At the moment if it's either/or, I choose Shiver.

Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim

Hmmmm, I was kind of hoping for one or the other. I actually managed to fit Aid Self into this blaster's build (something I've managed to do without on my other blasters, but would still like to have so I don't need to keep green inspirations handy for when the RNG hates my ranged defense), as well as tap into the epic pool a fair amount, and I'd have to drop something to pick up Rain of Fire and Shiver.

I guess having both feels a bit like overdoing it to me, but they're both utility powers, so it's hard to discount either of them. Darn Rain of Fire just looks so cool, too.

I could dump Melt Armor, since it doesn't debuff THAT much, but it still helps. And it's always nice to have a "screw you" power like Rise of the Phoenix handy on a Blaster, even though my Blasters don't die much.

Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim

Okay, so I'm at long last getting to one of my Blasters that I made a long time ago (a goofy setup for him... his heroic side was brought out when some Hellions destroyed the restaurant he worked at as a maitre'd. And his name is Maitre d'Flame, heh).

Anyway, some power picks are pretty obvious for me, but I'm unsure of the usefulness of a few.

I'm going to grab Ice Sword just for some up close punch when I need it, but I am hoping to not be much of a Blapper with him... I'm going to focus on my AOEs and high damage to avoid that. For added mitigation, though, I'm not sure if I should grab Shiver or Rain of Fire. Shiver seems better, as it'll slow my opponents, but keep them clumped for all my AOE powers, and I know Rain of Fire really scatters things. But it can be nice for when the gross stuff hits the fan, too.

Anyway, what are thoughts on that? Anyone else play much Fire/Ice and have thoughts they could share above and beyond the scanty guides I found?

Originally Posted by Nihilii

I answered your argument with the first two points. I specifically said so. I then specifically said I was going to run other numbers for my own use, and that I wasn't using them to support my point in this conversation. The reasons I posted the third set of numbers is because it can eventually give insight to other people who have the same playstyle as me, and other people can eventually give me insight if I'm making mistakes in my calculations.

I mean, again, what ? Are you seriously trying to handwave the detailed math proving you're wrong after you've asked for detailed math to prove you wrong by pretending you're dense and focusing on something that is irrelevant to the argument simply because it is on the same post, despite a disclaimer clearly stating it isn't meant to be included in that argument ? You're not stupid so stop trying to pretend you are, you're embarrassing yourself by doing so. Stick to saying you disagree with the math for X and X reasons (i.e. such as slows not being considered) rather than playing dumb with semantics.

Originally Posted by Chaos_String

Your comparison is moot. IE, pointless, petty and useless, like your snarky tone.

And FYI, the topic is "Best scrapper build for farming." So regardless of whatever you've decided "the whole discussion is about," the powersets and their synergies, internal and external, are relevant to the topic.

Originally Posted by Chaos_String

Basically, taken by themselves in SO builds, Shield Charge and damage auras aren't grossly unbalanced in terms of damage output. In this comparison, the burst damage and wide-area knockdown are Shield Charge's big advantages.

However, the powers don't exist in a vacuum. Shield Charge also gets AAO to buff damage while damage auras don't, and my best guess is that the practice of teleporting pointblank with Shield Charge to leverage AAO apparently wasn't forseen in the design of the power. Then, when you begin to factor in Hasten (and a */SD without Hasten is frankly failbuilt) and +recharge from IO sets, Shield Charge starts to pull ahead of damage auras in terms of damage output; and it still has the huge advantage of wide-area knockdown.

Originally Posted by Nihilii

You mean during travel time ?

Sure must be nice to have a 800' radius on BA, but on my version of CoH it's only 8'.

Originally Posted by Santorican

I'm a bit confused are you saying that without AAo SC doesn't do a lot of damage?

Also any defense based power set blows with just SOs. The highest you'll get with an SR is around 35 to 39% and even then you'll be sucking wind a lot. It really chaps my pants when people say you need a metric ton of inventions to make shields playable outside of teaming. If that were the case then Shields would be due for a huge buff. I've made a few builds with 30% smashing/lethal resistance and 30% defense without using any inventions.

Originally Posted by Nihilii

That's not what Katten is saying, but I'll take that argument.

1/

Assuming the best case scenario for damage auras and worst case scenario for Shield Charge, that is, running on SOs with no recharge bonuses or Hasten.

Blazing Aura (highest damaging damage aura) does 13.76 base damage every 2 seconds, or 6.88 base damage per second, in a 8 feet radius and hits at most ten targets. Assuming a +297% damage buff from full AaO, damage slotting and Build Up averaged to +22% damage (46s recharge with 3 recharge SOs), that's 20.43 damage per second to one target.

Max is 10.
Total damage : 20.43 * 10 = 204.3 per second.


Shield Charge does 200.2 base damage with a 90 second recharge, in a 20 feet radius and hits at most sixteen targets. Its animation time adjusted for server ticks is 1.716s.

With +95% recharge in it, that's 200.2/(46 + 1.716) = 4.2 base damage per second. Assuming a +375% damage buff from full AaO, +95% damage slotting and using BU with SC (same timer), that's 15.75 damage per second to one target.

Max is 16.
Total damage : 15.75 * 16 = 252 per second.

That's right, in pure damage Shield Charge is better than damage auras with SOs, in a scenario where damage auras would be in the same set as AaO and would have ten targets in range at all time. That means no travel time at all and nothing at more than 8 feet, ever, compared to SC which only needs the targets in range for a few seconds every 46. That also means for Blazing Aura you'd have to have new mobs jumping in everytime the previous mobs die, otherwise the damage figures would be lower.

Again for emphasis : this is the absolute best case scenario for Blazing Aura. Such conditions actually CAN'T happen in real gameplay for Blazing Aura ; we're comparing theorycraftland Blazing Aura to real CoH gameplay SC, and SC still does ~23% more damage. We're not considering the AoE KD SC gets, we're not considering the greater radius SC has, it's just pure damage and SC wins. Period.


2/

Now using IOed out values, still under the impossible assumption that Blazing Aura will have ten targets in range at all times. Assuming Hasten is a few seconds away from perma, giving SC and BU an averaged 30s recharge time, with +15% damage bonus from sets.

Blazing Aura : 6.88
Damage mod : 1 (base) + 0.95 (enhancements) + 0.33 (BU on a 30s timer) + 0.80 (maxed AaO) + 0.15 (set bonuses) = 3.23
Final damage = 6.88 * 3.23 * 10 = 222.2 per second.

Shield Charge : 200.2 / (30 + 1.716) = 6.31
Damage mod : 1 (base) + 0.95 (enhancements) + 1 (BU) + 0.80 (maxed AaO) + 0.15 (set bonuses) = 3.9
Final damage = 6.31 * 3.9 * 16 = 393.7 per second.

Best case scenario for Blazing Aura when comparing IOed out builds, SC does ~77% more damage.

--

That should be enough, for that particular argument. Now I'm just going to run numbers based on my own experience, playstyle and datamining, which can be completely different for other people so I'm not using this as a data point.


3/

Same IOed out values as above, assuming "realistic" situations for me :
- Blazing Aura hits 5 targets on average, as opposed to the potential max being 10.
- Shield Charge hits 12 targets on average, as opposed to the potential max being 16. AaO still gets all 10 targets.
- Travel time takes 10% of the total time (killing groups in 27 seconds, taking 3 seconds to go to the next group, for example). That's time during which BA doesn't do damage.

Blazing Aura : 6.88
Damage mod : 1 (base) + 0.95 (enhanc) + 0.33 (BU 30s) + 0.15 (set bonuses) + 0.41 (Fiery Embrace on a 60s timer) = 3.51
Final : 6.88 * 3.51 * 5 * 0.9 (10% of the time is spent traveling) = 108.63 damage per second.

SC : 6.31
Damage mod : 3.9 (same as before, nothing changes in that regard)
Final : 6.31 * 3.9 * 12 = 295.3 damage per second.

Making SC do 272% as much damage as Blazing Aura over time.

--


In conclusion, SC is stronger. Even if you don't consider the KD. Even if you don't consider the radius. Even if you use SOs. Even if you're comparing it to a hypothetical powerset that has AaO on top of a damage aura, in a hypothetical situation where that damage aura hits ten targets at all times in a 8' radius.

When you actually consider the KD, the greater radius, the advantage of burst over DPS here and the fact that SC is in the Shield powerset, yes, SC is most definitely overpowered.

Originally Posted by Katten

I've got a spines/fire, and elec/shield, and a bs/shield (no elec/not shield yet). I've gotta say, elec/shield just knocks everything out of the water. Spines/Fire (and /dark, /elec) Have a maximum point to what they are efficient taking out, at +0-+1, spines/fire is comparable to faster since there is no reason to ever wait, safety isn't an issue and you can roll the groups.

However, less noticeable at 52 and then very noticeably at 53-54, the telenukes prove just how incredibly ridiculous they are. Spines/fire at full fulcrum has slowed down, but it hardly even phases a elec/shield, the higher base damage means it scales much higher up with each +%damage and of course shields usually have the highest applicable damage buff (since FE is down half the spawns). Both LR and SC Also provide knockdown which means enemies often never get a shot off before they die, which is another a reason it scales up so well.

Playing with shields now and then just reminds me that shield charge/AaO is way overpowered compared to other the other secondaries (as far as AoE is concerned). The combination of a crashless nuke that is comparable to a blasters, and the huge damage buff, and the damage mitigating knockdown along with an already reasonable defense and even team buff is just over the top.

So I'm putting my vote in at spines/fire +0,+1 [] Elec/shield > +2

Originally Posted by Jabbrwock

You not liking the reason does not negate its existence. It's pretty clear from the way it's coded that the devs regard NR as more of a substitute travel power than an alternative Sprint. That's not simple stubbornness, that's the power being what it was designed to be.

Originally Posted by Silas

Energy Torrent with FFB proc for the justice. My Spines/Regen has Ragnaroks with the proc in Throw Spines and Posis with the FFB proc in Energy Torrent and its knockdownalicious.

Edit: To answer your question Neuronia, I would say Blaze for a better AoE or Body for more mitigation and end management.

Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba

I went with the easy solution.

g for sprint
b for ninja run
h for combat jumping or hover
v for self heals if one exists
j for super jump or fly or superspeed

Since it's the same on every character I have, it's become second nature.

Originally Posted by Jabberwock

That's a complete non-sequitur, frankly. There's a simple reason CJ doesn't work with Ninja Run - CJ doesn't work with any +jump toggle other than Sprint. Ninja Run is obviously and hugely superior to Sprint, giving it the same treatment as Sprint would be completely absurd. CJ being exclusive with Ninja Run is just the devs following the basic balance rules for powers they've always followed. Quickness being inferior to Hasten, however, is a fairly significant violation of the general balance rule that powers in power sets should be superior to pool powers.

Originally Posted by Silas

I get what you mean now. The main villain farming map is the TV map with the wrecked city full of Nems. On that map there are fairly large spaces between spawns so dragging mobs between them would take time.

I guess on smaller heroside maps (steel canyon one for instance, that one is infamous for double aggro because of clumped spawns) its not a big deal. Having AAO maxed out is certainly a huge advantage for scrappers.

As for making an Elec/SD, I've managed to restrain myself thus far because while my resources are fairly sizeable villainside, I'm pretty broke heroside so I wouldn't be able to pimp it out as I'd like. And I wouldn't make an Elec/SD brute because the combo is just so, so much better on scrappers

Maybe closer to when GR comes out...

Originally Posted by Silas

t Windenergy21, While it is true that you're technically wasting the recharge if the power is up and you're saving it for the next spawn, if I was using the Elec/SD combo I would rather use one nuke each spawn and use other stuff (Fireball/Thunderstrike/whatever) to finish them off.

That would give you much higher constant damage (more competetive with Footstomp/FSC) as well as not being huge overkill on the minions/lts. You're also much less restricted by the recharges, as you're only waiting about 13 seconds between nukes rather than the full 26. Killing a spawn every 15-20 seconds (nuke + clean-up) is much, much better than one spawn every 30.

Edit: aaaand all this talking about it is making me want an elec/sd. Noooooo