Zem

[ QUOTE ]
And if I recall right, Vahzilok poison darts are typed LETHAL, not Toxic for defense.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no toxic defense type. Attacks that deal ONLY toxic damage will have just a positional type wrt/defense. e.g. Acid Arrow.

I think I'm in the same boat. I love Corruptors and my AR/Dark is a beast. Dark/Archery was the closest thing I could think of blueside, so I went for that. Actually I also went Dark/Rad but Archery seems more interesting so I haven't played the other much.

Sadly, the advice about Vet powers is quite solid. It is VERY nice to have -def, even the little bit I had in Burst on the AR corr was enough to enable vet attacks at a reasonable hit rate once the Beginner's Luck newbie acc bonus faded away. I'm liking Archery, but I'm missing that -def.

I'll probably stick with it for awhile, but when Going Rogue hits, I'm more likely just to roll up a Pistols/Dark and bring it over to blueside.

25% smashing/lethal defense will cut in half the damage you take from even-con minions who deal that kind of damage. So that includes most melee attacks as well as most guns (flamethrowers and void hunter rifles and such being exceptions) and even most ice bolt type attacks since they do both cold and smashing. If any part of the attack does smashing or lethal, you'll have decent protection. A bit less for purely energy-based attacks and pretty much just the 5% from maneuvers for anything else like fire/cold/psi.

That's if nothing else is in play like tohit bonuses on them or defense debuffs on you. Unfortunatey enemies with guns typically do debuff defense. Longbow, Council, Family, etc. You might want to put lethal defense in your monitor window so you know when you've been heavily debuffed. Course... getting hit all the time is another indication.

As for power animations. I don't know of a site offhand that shows them. Scorpions Patron shield is pretty light on graphics. You'll notice a faint purplish aura but that's about it. The patron shields occasionally flash a glyph that supposedly is unique to each patron but that's also pretty understated. Activating the shield is a similar animation to Hasten, but without the firey hands effect. You get some pulsing energy field kind of effects and then they subside.

Scorpion's Web Envelope uses the Arachnos Mace, which you can customize a bit if you want at the Tailor. You draw the mace and hold it two handed pointed at your targets and the grenade fires, with the web strand effects showing up briefly around your targets and then staying there if the immob affects them. Similar animation with the hold. Summon Disruptor is fairly self-explanatory if you're into pet summoning. Arachnos mechanical spider blaster thingy. Noisy.

Ghost Widow's powers mostly resemble things you'd see in Dark Armor or Dark Miasma powersets. Soul Storm, the hold, is fairly unique though and picks up the target, spinning them in the air with white energy streamers swirling around them. Very much a magic themed effect.

Scirocco is all about the Mu red lightning and Mako has you throwing fish at people. It's really kind of ridiculous looking.

[ QUOTE ]
Because it checks accuracy on each tick, it also can miss one or more ticks against your targets, meaning sometimes you get all 3 ticks vs a specific foe, sometimes you only get 2, sometimes you only get 1. This functionality has the potential for lowering it's total damage. (Where with FA you're guaranteed full damage against all targets you hit.)(Resistance notwithstanding.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but you're also guaranteed zero damage when you miss a target with FA. RoA can hit for no damage, 1/3, 2/3, or full damage to each target. RoA is less likely to do full damage to each target but also less likely to do NO damage to any given target. On average over time it would perform just as well as FA if the two powers had the same max damage output... which of course they don't.

Unless I have forgotten more about probability than I think I have, anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
both AR and Dark have end issues though so it's a somewhat slow build before heavy slotting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not sure I agree. What is endurance inefficient about either of these powersets? If anything, AR with its many AoEs gets a lot more bang (no pun intended) for its endurance buck when used properly than most sets which favor more single target attacks.

In the upper levels, lethal resistant enemies can cost you more endurance to defeat, certainly, which is where it's good to have an immob/hold + ignite combo. But otherwise unless you're using buckshot on single targets or M30 on less than 3 or 4 at a time, you should be good.

[ QUOTE ]
I always thought that FA should just be a TAoE so it'd be like a faster, lighter version of Thunderous Blast. Plus if you're gonna get locked in that animation you better be hitting the whole mob.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can see why it's a cone. Wouldn't make much sense to target someone right in front of you and then hit someone standing behind you, the way you can with a Fireball, for example. I'm fine with that. Just don't see why it's such a narrow cone AND has a lower target limit. I'd say if you can, by some miracle, actually fit 16 mobs into that cone your reward should be hitting all of them.

I can personally attest to Dark being an excellent complement. You can do all your stuff at range, which is where you need to be to use AR's cones. Storm and Rad should work well. Kin does what it does for anything... stupid good damage buffing but less effective on defense. Also you have to be close to get the most out of Fulcrum Shift and to heal yourself or use Transference... then pop back out to range to line up a cone.

But overall I think AR is fun. It's no Fire Blast, but it compares favorably on overall AoE potential. Not as good at single-target but not too shabby. The -def in Burst is a nice little side-benefit that can enable the use of vet attack powers early on, if you have them, and also allow for slotting Achilles' Heel -res proc if you want to do that. Lethal damage is a downside, but is helped by Flamethrower and Ignite (and Black Scorpion's Web Envelope is fantastic with Ignite).

[ QUOTE ]
Full Auto tags everyone in the cone from the very first

Rain of Arrows requires the mobs to still be there, which means tema-mates knockback, or mobs running can very much affect the damage out put.

[/ QUOTE ]

True, but this is a side-effect of how RoA is implemented (pseudo-pet drop). Other sphere AoEs that are direct attacks also have the 16 limit, so it still just seems like "reason" for the difference is simply... habit. Unless someone knows why cones are inherently superior and thus need a lower target limit. Unless my math skills are rustier than I think, not only does RoA have a higher limit, it's area of effect is 75% larger. And that's just square feet. Practically speaking, more of a cone's area is "wasted" when you're not attacking mobs that are arranged in a narrow line, which is most of the time.

[ QUOTE ]
Remember herding into dumpsters? I do. I found it boring as hell to be told "wait for the tank and don't shoot until we say so" as he rounded up a map worth of critters.

[/ QUOTE ]

That explains why AoE's in general have target caps, but not why cones have lesser caps than targetted AoE or PBAoE attacks. Anyone know?

[ QUOTE ]
I have a build maximized for recovery on my stormy (3.87 end a sec) and I still bottom out on big spawns. This is only with the storm toggles and patron armor.

[/ QUOTE ]

Toggles are cheap. Almost any click power with a reasonably short recharge time is going to use more endurance than any one of your toggles, if used every time it is available, that is. Sometimes more than any two toggles put together. Worse if your build adds global recharge with IOs or Hasten, which don't affect the cost of running toggles but can let you burn endurance faster with click powers.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm wondering, does the global acc bonus's affect his acc?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm almost positive it does not. I recall testing him before slotting accuracy and he was hitting even con minions at 75% chance, according to the combat window (remember to add Pet Tohit and Combat messages to it) and I know I had at least some accuracy bonuses in sets. A decent bit actually.

[ QUOTE ]
Also, its my first time with dark powers, which is why it's been a tough sell on how amazing fearsome stare is over stamina. Maybe a good description of the power. Because on paper, it just seems to be another -tohit and fear

[/ QUOTE ]

You roll up to a team-sized spawn cloaked in Shadow Fall. You make your scary face. The entire spawn cowers in fear. The Brute on the team gives you a dirty look of his own for taking away his alpha strike.

What's not to like? And the base 15% tohit debuff is nothing to sneeze at. Bosses will be able to shoot back after the Stare but they'll have a reduced chance to hit you even if they aren't terrorized. Stack this with all of Dark's other tohit debuffs, and then drop Fluffy in the mix so he can do all of that too and your foes are shooting blanks.

By itself you won't notice much protection. When something gets past defense, you get all of it and Scorpion Shield slotted will only add about 20% smashing/lethal and 12% energy. Even-con minions will still hit you 30% of the time, which is better than 50% of the time but not by much.

Whether you go defense or resistance they are best when stacked. Defense stacks with more defense and, effectively, also stacks with tohit debuffs on your foes. Dark primary and secondary as well as Rad secondary are great with Scorp Shield. It'd be almost overkill with a Dark/Dark corruptor but I use it on my AR/Dark together with defense stacking from CJ, Shadow Fall, Maneuvers, and IO bonuses. If I start a fight with Darkest Night or Fearsome Stare, most of what shoots back will be doing so with floored tohit chances. And when something hits, there's a big heal waiting. You don't want to rely on defense without it because even at the tohit floor, the things most likely to get past your defense are also the most likely to be coming from heavy-hitters who can put you below half health easily with one shot.

Okay, for defense with my toggles going as described above, here's what the in-game numbers are showing...

34/16/16 for ranged/melee/AoE
32.5 smashing/lethal
39.4 energy
27.5 negative
14.7 fire/cold
13.4 psi

I mainly went for ranged defense bonuses with IOs and this is just where everything ended up after figuring in the toggles. As I said, with a /Dark this plays a lot like soft-capped defense against most enemies once I start stacking tohit debuffs but it's decent just by itself too.

Here's the Mid's data if you want to see the sets. Except for the Steadfast unique in Shadow Fall, which you can do with Steamy Mist, none of the actual defense slotting comes from sets placed in /Dark powers.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1434;731;1462;HEX;|
|78DAA593496FD35010C79F9DA4D9E3A66996A6FBDE501A1AA 0884D42D0825468A45|
|2560122B25A37B5087664BB12DCF8009C59D555AC47D455E5 C82A7160BB41818F52|
|E6CDBCA6078E58C9FF178FE73F6FDE9B387F6B28C4D89D634 C52064BAA6D17064DC|
|B9A2E3BA6E5C9AB457D5C3963E8C529A725AF5A37EC9BAAE1 658C3555720A63AA51|
|D426B2C76D5B9D2E3985317DB2A4A5771E9F989E9CCC0E81B 590D755B047878D29C|
|DD20C27BBFDA366D4344BD9F35A492B9B96A33ABA69843074 4A770CCDB6E9664453|
|CBBA5154B66F2634CB9ED2CBF527CBFA787667B9BC3AAE81D 88E66DD4E41A319F8C|
|A3213D79687CD00BA993C8BF0CD21AAE7111D0B88CC22E28D 5471B959CC85AE5A84|
|2F8E8824018DAC3A81776E5844128B484B801C732F23AA561 0A155C21A22B28E780|
|71617B95CAE55190BAD21AA3610817599E7BD853C0FE5499E 5EB406089D300E2F3D|
|615E0A55C1BD5FA290BF07D0C612100A52480AFEC0CA1D9B8 8F7100D0B7F98FC5E4|
|85644B2725AE2FED445893FF181252ACE24BA84956B96092B 88DA55C21AE2039862|
|54488EB5E2A92692123FB45C1C90621F41E3A25EFCA784099 B88D42F44C36F44D31|
|F840F1A4B8AC6922D58AF8BE087C6EAC4E9D71D05B85D2C8D 642C4DD368A031B4D3|
|1EBB0949A8582F765F4F47E592798354AA7106B39A6609738 8D679C202A26391A60|
|1AE66B193E6BD38B3967D84FD840144EB014414D66DA39D78 DA02B8B9F6202184E8|
|0A23BA230405F109B49316913BD3B86ED72B9C62660561C27 FA947F4DE730F3D99F|
|B885D0F080F098F107D8F71AA3168A65734D3FB040BED7E4A 7846788EE87B417889|
|F08266C58EB39F710A7BBE10BE12BE2172DF116568AD5FCCA E7F802694136C70575|
|E35F8C0C546FE898CBA2BEF17933032BC93F35FD74668BB8E FF6C00F41C970B5C2E|
|71B9CCE50A97AB5CAE71B9CEA5C065EB75C5AD1CE40D1DE27 298CB112E777992370|
|812E412E212E612E1A270A9E612E392E092E632C365EB2F14 B70BDB|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

[ QUOTE ]
How are they pretty much annouced? link?

[/ QUOTE ]

Positron Interview

Specifically, this bit:[ QUOTE ]
04-28-2009 18:33:30 [Local] Sicari: Can we expect to see mor epower proliferation in new issues to come?
04-28-2009 18:33:34 [Local] Positron: Demon Summoning? Dual Pistols?

[/ QUOTE ]

... and the fact that in the press release and teaser info for Going Rogue, there are two new signature characters mentioned, a villain who summons demons and a hero who uses pistols, both of whom "go rogue" and switch sides. I don't know if they've actually committed to these as player powersets yet, but it seems all but certain. That Blasters, Defenders, and Corruptors will all get Dual Pistols is, so far, speculation, but it seems likely.

[ QUOTE ]
What if the MA missions counted for this?

[/ QUOTE ]

/broadcast Morality farm LFM! PST!

You might want to ask your question in the general AT forum rather than cross-posting it in Dom, Stalker, and Corruptor forums. Unless you plan to alternate between three characters, that is.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyways, those are my "predictions" on the table. Just a head's up, my logic is pretty sound on this

[/ QUOTE ]

It's the logic the devs use that I'd be concerned about. At times they seem to stand on principle about things that concern RP-integrity and concept and at other times look the other way. Anybody's guess which this will be.

That's not a knock, exactly, by the way. They have to strike a balance between the two. After all, it's a business.

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the advice. Could you give me a rough idea of what type of defense I'd be looking at with your suggestions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately I don't have my build on this computer. I'm ah... supposed to be "at work" on this one.

Admittedly, it's also a /Dark corr, so anything I do with defense is made that much better by debuffing enemy tohit chances. But... with CJ, SFall, Maneuvers, Scorp Shield, and my IO slotting I am sitting around 32ish s/l/e defense (bit better energy defense actually thanks to slotting ranged/neg/energy defense bonuses, I think). High 20s on everything else.

That's just my recollection. If I remember to, I'll check Mid's or take a reading in game and post it along with the build tonight. I'm also fairly biased about defense, I'll admit. I just prefer to get hit less often, suffer fewer side-effect debuffs and mezzes, etc. than rely on resistance to keep me standing. Of course, with no defense debuff resistance this is very susceptible to cascade failure against certain enemies.

[ QUOTE ]
Not everyone will agree here either. Mostly people say to slot for damage resistance, and end redux of course because it's an expensive toggle.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some endrdx is nice, but I wouldn't go out of my way. With no enhancements, it uses 0.52 eps. With a single SO endrdx... about .40 eps. Most attacks use at *least* 1.0 eps if you use them every time they are up. If I had an extra slot to put somewhere and I had room in an attack (which was already slotted for decent acc and max dmg) then I'd put the endrdx there instead of in Shadow Fall.

[ QUOTE ]
With common IO's Mids is showing some really nice defense and resists using tough weave steamy mist and dark embrace. In the 15 seconds power boost is up I'll be at 18.9 defense, with 17-50 DR. I played around with slotting sets, and it's nothing to sneeze at, going by the numbers.

[/ QUOTE ]

I prefer just defense on a Corruptor. DR is nice, but it doesn't stop things mezzing you. Defense does when that mez is attached to an attack that needs to hit... which most do. Get DR when you can, but not at the expense of defense, in my opinion.

Also, you've got Steamy Mist as a place to slot the +3% defense IO from Steadfast. If you drop Fighting for Leadership you could pick up Maneuvers and Tactics. Maneuvers is about 3% less defense slotted than Weave, but it doesn't have any prerequisites and it adds defense to all around you. Nice on teams for stacking. Tactics is a place to six-slot Gaussian's for the def(all) set bonus, since you're not taking Aim. Also provides constant +percep, which is handy when a Widow smoke-bombs you or if you just want to peg that fleeing spectral.

Black Scorpion's pool has a nice typed-defense shield against the three most common damage types. Also has Web Envelope, which can immobilize enemies inside your Freezing Rain without interfering with the knockdown. Adds yet more -recharge as well.

After not wasting a slot on Boxing and if you took just two of Scorpion's powers instead of the 3 Widow you have now, you could also squeeze in Aid Self. People can talk about mitigation all day, but when a +3 boss nails you for 500+ through all of that, it's still nice to punch a self heal and say, "Okay, let's see you do that again."

[ QUOTE ]
Those who think there need to be huge restrictions against using an expansion that is heavily hyped make my brain hurt.

[/ QUOTE ]

I certainly don't believe in penalizing side-switchers by disallowing access to epics. That's just silly. But continuing to allow ONLY the Patrons/APPs that have always been available on each side seems to me the most interesting choice. It makes rogue ATs slightly different than those who remain on their original side of the fence. Some will argue better/worse. Quite frankly, I think if I switched my AR/Dark corr and lost Black Scorpion's pool, it'd be for the worse. Still... I'd support the idea, just because it adds something new.

Give everybody access to everything or just leave them all with their current epics, even if they change sides and... you have a recipe for *boring* when you had an opportunity to mix things up.

[ QUOTE ]
a few kind words on the forums

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you new here?

PuGs are more often just fine, in my experience, than not. In fact, this is why I figured he was kidding, because Corruptors and Empathy Defenders have been "competing" (if you want to call it that) for teams in the co-op zones for quite some time now and I, at least, have had no difficulty whatsoever joining an obscene number of PuG ITFs on my Corruptors. Never been told, "Sorry, we're looking for an Emp Def."

Not even once.

I don't know if "No one cares", as Transhade put it near the top of this thread, but certainly not enough people care to make an issue out of the presence or absence of Empaths.

[ QUOTE ]
They'll care when non-Empaths don't get teams red-side.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're kidding... right?

[ QUOTE ]
How are the Patron Powers granted? I assumed that the Patrons more or less just taught you how to use the powers and how to access their source (like a master wizard teaching an apprentice).

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know that this is actually explained but it makes sense.

[ QUOTE ]
However, if the Patrons just taught you the powers, then I don't see keeping them as a problem if you switch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Keeping them isn't the problem. Getting new ones is. What if you're not 40 yet when you switch? Tough luck? While that would make RP sense, it wouldn't exactly be fair. I can see the devs not wanting it to be too easy to switch sides, but not actually discouraging you from ever trying it. The Patron/APPs aren't a game breaker if you don't have them, but they can also be quite an advantage.