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Auroxis

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  1. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
    Sold.

    Thanks, Auroxis. I knew I wanted a BR corruptor, but I didn't know what secondary to give him.
    You're welcome!

    Sonic is end heavy much like DA, so you'll feel right at home!
  2. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus View Post
    Corr, Rad or Traps.
    Sonic!

    Sonic has even less redraw, and lacks a regen debuff.
  3. Auroxis

    Best Buff's?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski View Post
    Funny how you are ignoring the other 3 teammates that going entirely unprotected by the empath, but are protected by the Thermal.
    I didn't, I listed it. Fortitude being a more powerful protective buff simply makes up for it.

    Quote:
    Empathy is less effective once you go past that 5 player team size, a fact that is blatantly obvious on 16+ man Trials.
    It does get less effective, but it's not nearly as dramatic as you make it out to be, especially on an 8-man team.

    Quote:
    Also resistance yields itself more suitable for a healing set since damage doesn't nearly spike as hard when even +Def fails, saying Def is doubly effective shows a gross lack of understanding of how Thermal works.
    Defense is doubly effective because of how the defense mechanics work. Since enemies start off with a 50% chance to hit, any percentage you get from defense buffs up to the softcap will reduce damage taken by twice of what a resistance buff percentage would.

    Resistance might let you deal with spikes more effectively, but defense lets you deal with less spikes. Assuming resistance gets double values, neither has a superior synergy with heals.
  4. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John_Printemps View Post
    I'm sorry, I'm not following...

    It sounds like you're asking: Power Siphon, trigger five seconds worth of ramp-attack, trigger fiery embrace, laugh in mad glee at 20/s of awesomeness?
    Ok, so you have 20 seconds of FE+5xPS, and then you activate Power Siphon right as it recharges. Guess what, you have 10 seconds of awesomeness next time instead of 20, unless you get a CS crit.

    I'm not denying that FE is better when buffed by PS. The point I'm trying to make is that even if PS was perma, it wouldn't help make FE any better due to some special synergy, it would be better simply because you do more damage than others before FE comes into the equation.
  5. Auroxis

    Best Buff's?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski View Post
    You're not going to be keeping fort on that many with just SOs, best you can hope for is 4 at most.
    Well, leaving IO's out of the picture isn't really fair to Empathy.

    Quote:
    Even then the focus on empathy built around supporting individuals, you're not going to be effectively keep an 8 man team alive without additional tank/support mitigation. Thermal doesn't have that problem because its shields scale to any team size, which makes it easier to heal on an 8 man team than it would on an empath. Which is the point, empathy is a great set but it doesn't scale well with larger team sizes as other sets.
    Let's assume an 8 man team, with both Empathy and Thermal on +3 SO's.

    -Thermal Shields will give +31.5% resistance against everything but Psi, Toxic, Fire(which is double), and Cold(which is half), to 7 people.

    -Fortitude will give +23.6% defense against everything to 4 people.

    Due to the fact that defense reduces incoming damage by twice as much as resistance does(Of course, depending on the team composition YMMV), and that it reduces the chance of being hit by debuffs, I'd say Fortitude and Thermal shields are quite even at the SO level on a full team. With wise use of Fortitude I'd say it's better.

    Then you add the other buffs Empathy offers and it wins over Thermal for mitigation by quite a large margin.
  6. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John_Printemps View Post
    Within the practice of those who, you know, do it? But I'll be fair and break it down from personal experiences. Power Siphon is capable of being pushed down to (at least) a 30/s timer, which results in 20/s up time, and 10/s of "downtime" (which is really the declension of your power from the 156%); and if I account for a duration like that, you get more of a 78-80% +Dam compared to a more normal average of 60% like Arcanaville notated earlier from longer average (non-heavy IO'd) builds. We're getting a pretty significant up-time out of Power Siphon in that case, and with the Critical piece of Concentrated Strike, it is even more likely that PS is going to be around more often, quite possibly even to say up 100% of the time from that point forward with only momentary breaks for things like Hasten and Fiery Embrace to be activated.
    Assuming Power Siphon has a 30 second recharge timer, and Fiery Embrace has a 45 second recharge timer, how would you manage to keep Fiery Embrace up during the time Power Siphon is up, without losing out on the potential up-time of either?

    And if you can't overlap them both at the same time on a regular basis without losing out on potential up-time, is it worth waiting for one or the other to recharge?
  7. Auroxis

    Best Buff's?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski View Post
    Depend on what team size we're talking about. Empathy excels at small teams (4 or less) but really isn't very good on larger groups(5 or more) like Thermal is.

    That said for mitigation...
    First off, welcome back!

    Now, I can't really agree with placing Empathy that low for mitigation. On large teams, Empaths with a recharge build can keep Fortitude on 6-7 people at once. On leagues they have RA's and Healing Aura, and their other tools remain viable in those split-off situations, and for when someone gets spiked by an AV.

    Empathy is a mitigation focused set, so if you're placing it that low on a mitigation list then something's wrong.
  8. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tenzhi View Post
    It's the same as the difference between Batman and Batman with a Green Lantern power ring.

    The more the importance of the AT and Primary/Secondary powersets is diminished, the less impressive the victory becomes as it's no longer a victory for the character but rather a victory for extraneous powers.
    Yep. Whether it's a temp pet or not is irrelevant, if there was an incarnate giant beam of doom power that made soloing AV's a breeze, the same would apply.
  9. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chaos Creator View Post
    Clarion Radial can also boost Farsight.
    Personally I'd rather have Clarion Core instead, as you're practically at the softcap already with HO'd PB/PBU.

    Then again if you go Dark Mastery for Soul Drain, Clarion Radial is a good choice.
  10. Auroxis
    You can use Power Boost/Power Build Up to make Far Sight better. Furthermore, you can slot PB/PBU with +Def HO enhancements to make it even better.
  11. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle View Post
    Rage crash?
    That's a synergy issue with SS and FE, it doesn't mean FE is particularly good with KM.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    That doesn't seem to be the case in practice; specifically getting PS to buff FE on a regular basis by enough to generate a large overall benefit.
    How would you go about explaining that?
  12. Auroxis

    Scrapper or Brute?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sailboat View Post
    I see a lot of repetition that "Brutes are better with resistance buffs, because of their higher cap."

    While that's undoubtedly true, do you guys find a lot of resistance buffs on the teams you play on? Sonic Resonance is the king of resistance buffs, but it seems pretty rare and not well-liked. Increase Density, from Kinetics, is often skipped, and even when it's not, it seems to be infrequently maintained due to the short duration. I would guess that the most common ones I see are the "clouds" -- Steamy Mist, Arctic Air, and Shadowfall, but those give fairly narrow types of resistance, and the buffer would have to keep close to the Brute during alpha strikes for it to be consistently useful.
    You only really need extra resistance for when you're tanking AV's, and seeing as these scenarios usually take just a few minutes, you can rely on orange inspirations to keep you capped most of the time.
  13. Auroxis
    Everything works, as long as you like the concept.
  14. Auroxis
    Have you tried it without the pets? You might be able to do it without them seeing as you can tank just fine. Reactive is awesome.
  15. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MisterD View Post
    All SEVEN people on my team. Yes, all seven. Fender damage is crap, however you cut it. Sure, some of the debuff effects can be nice (sonic, dark, ice blast) but really..if the team you are on is NEEDING those debuffs, there is something seriously wrong with the team make up.

    I look at it like this..am I helping the team more by using my weak blasts (are fender blasts the weakest in game? besides maybe mm attacks) or...am I doing more for the team by keeping everyone fort'd and anti mezzed? Not to mention, watching constantly in case someone does start taking more damage than they can handle.

    No matter how well you time your attacks, there will always be some point when your mid animation and a team mate gets slapped down to 5 hp by a boss. Is it your job as an emp fender to shrug and think, 'oh well, he should be awake too, I will just leave him,' or should you have been ready to heal him up as soon as he took damage.

    If I invite an emp to a team (which I very rarely do, since 90% are just crap) I expect them to buff first, then heal. If an emp is buffing, they can remove many situations where people even TAKE damage in the first place, due to more def, faster killing, never getting mezzed.

    That said..if you like playing an emp and mixing it up with blasts, that isnt 'wrong.' But if you like attacking SO much that you find yourself getting carried away and blasting more than buffing (which it doesnt sound like, from the OP) do everyone a favour and go roll a blaster, or a corr.
    I was a lot like that once, just focusing on Forts, Heals, AB, and CM's(if needed), rarely blasting in large teams.

    The thing is that after a while, I found I had spare time. And in that spare time I started blasting, and defender blasts are not terrible by any means. I mean, if I can solo an AV with them, just how weak are they really?
  16. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GravityBlaze View Post
    Thank you for the responses to this. I was mainly considering post-IO play when comparing WP to Invuln and I suppose it can all depend on the build. I've just tried Invuln once before and simply couldn't get into playing it. I suppose my biggest complaint being that Invuln lacks any solid heal (assuming dull pain is more of a +HP/resistance boost as opposed to a healing flames/energize type click heal). While aid self could fix this, Invuln can also suffer from cascading defense failures making aid self rather useless (most notably against arachnoids, arachnos, and rularuu). It is during the time that dull pain is recharging that mobs will have a 2 minute window or so to kill an Invuln tank.
    While getting a defense fail-cascade on an Invuln is possible, it's not very likely. Invuln gets significant DDR, and more defense with foes in range.

    As for self healing, Radial Rebirth with Spiritual makes it almost a non-issue, and you can IO for regen as well.

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  17. Auroxis

    Best Buff's?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Psylenz View Post
    It depends on how much time you are playing malta, freaks with super stunners, or carnies. And no, I don't think that FF is BETTER than COLD, but it offers more than 38% and/or soft cap defense.
    Another example of sapping I can think of is Lord Recluse in the STF. I've seen many Invuln, WP, SD, and Ice tanks get into trouble with their lack of end drain resistance. Sure the Ice shields get a bit of Fire/Cold resistance, but FF gets a lot of toxic resistance which is very handy in the Apex TF.

    To me, the highlight of FF is how passive it is and the fact that you get an extra AoE power. The damage of Repulsion Bomb might not seem much, but with Reactive any AoE attack is welcome.
  18. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ultrawatt View Post
    SS/fire/soul brute.

    They can farm (if you really care about your time that bad you can make a mu build for just farming), solo most of the TFs in the game (not just the high ones lvl either), are damn near unkillable and can play tank really well, have enough dps to kill AVs with only AoE attacks, and over 300 STdps before you throw in lore pets.

    I forgot to mention they arent that bad at PvP either, if you want to make a build for that too.

    Of course, it aint cheap.
    This.
  19. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cohRock View Post
    Incorrect concerning the "eggshell" characterization. My experience playing on Beta is that SR tank may be 2nd to Stone in survivability.
    Let's not get silly.
  20. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kangstor View Post
    I wonder something in that spreadsheet. Are those optimum chains? Because it looks like katana and dual blades share top of damage among those sets but what catch my eyes is kat/sr having pretty close DPS to top. If possible can i get your kat/sr build to compare with my own (since I couldn't manage to beat a pylon yet)

    EDIT: never mind i saw build in the sheet. but it seems the one with body mastery is not in the spreadsheet if possible can i see that one?
    As long as you can run the top attack chain, get the right procs in, and pump as many damage bonuses as possible you should be soloing pylons with ease. A softcap and T4 Radial Rebirth take care of survivability in most situations, and for everything else there's inspirations.

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  21. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Power Siphon synergizes better with Fiery Embrace on Scrappers than things like Rage does due to its mechanics. Specifically, PS tends to average around 60% total buff, but that's averaged from a high of ~150% to a low of zero when its down; if you sync PS with FE you'll concentrate a huge buff on FE's extra damage while its there, which improves the performance of PS over things like Rage, which have a higher average buff in general.
    Ah, but if you do that you're sacrificing overall performance. Instead of having damage all the time, you'll have a roller-coaster ride of performance. Also, PS and FE have different recharge times so getting it right without wasting PS would be a hard feat.

    Quote:
    As to SS/FA, I find SS/FA brutes to be a bit one-dimensional. They can be fantastic (PB)AoE powerhouses, but outside of burn farming they aren't all that great. YMMV.
    Well, SS/FA/Soul brutes have been owning up scrapper Rikti Pylon times, and soloing ITF's.


    Quote:
    Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
    Not really. I mean, yes, it's amazing on everything, but it's particularly amazing with anything that provides +damage on top of Scrapper damage scales, because that +damage buffs the bonus damage from FE. (On a Brute, much of how a Brute reaches Scrapper damage levels is due to +damage, so the +damage of PS doesn't benefit the Brute as significantly as it does the Scrapper. Basically, what Arcanaville said.)

    The grossest thing I could imagine would be if somehow you could have both Against All Odds and Fiery Embrace. Well, and some proper attacks too, since a Shield/FA Scrapper wouldn't be very offensive. (But more offensive than most things you could get by combining two mitigation sets.) Barring the impossibility/impracticality of that, the closest we can get is something like KM/FA or DM/FA. KM/* can get to its peak +damage with just one target, while a DM/FA is more inherently survivable.
    The +damage buffs the bonus damage from FE, but so does your base damage. Your overall damage directly translates to how good FE is, not how much damage buffs you have or what your base damage is.
  22. Auroxis

    Best Buff's?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent View Post
    If you can afford that, you can afford to get the same results, and much more (like a -regen debuff big enough to matter), by perma-AMing and softcapping a rad defender. Copy, paste, and save for future shaming if I'm wrong: By New Years 2012, Time will be buffed, or Time will be as rare as Poison.
    You can't softcap a rad defender to everything(either ranged, or S/L/E with no resistance shield), and you can't softcap everyone around you with a rad defender either. Also, Rad isn't really a "buffer", as awesome as AM is.
  23. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
    It's a good set. It is kinda ridiculous with Fiery Aura, since you get to mix strong +dam with Fiery Embrace. The animations are on the long side, but the DPA is still good. It's probably not top of the heap, but it's pretty good.
    It is good with Fiery Aura, but more due to Burn and Blazing Aura than Fiery Embrace. Fiery Embrace is equally amazing on everything.

    The problem with KM/FA Scrappers is that uhm... SS/FA Brutes are better. SS is a smashing type melee set with superior attacks and a better damage buff mechanism(Important with FA), and Fiery Aura works better with Brutes mainly due to the aggro mechanics. Then again SS/FA Brutes are pretty much better than everything so that doesn't really say much.

    On a more personal level, KM feels slow to me. Slow to get the damage buffs going, slow to get CS hitting... It's just not my cup of tea.
  24. Auroxis

    Best Buff's?

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent View Post
    Some notes from test server:

    A lot of Time powers are lookalikes to famous great buffs and debuffs existing in other sets. It also features a combo system that makes its buffs and debuffs more effective on certain targets. This makes Time look awesome on paper: 1/2 empathy plus 1/2 rad plus 1/2 storm plus critical heals and debuffs on demand equals godly.

    In practice, the Time version of these powers often have double the recharges of their lookalikes in other sets, and/or greatly reduced effectiveness. Also, the extra numbers added by its combo system are small. 1/10 empathy plus 1/10 rad plus 1/10 storm plus better heals on 1 teammate at a time and marginally better debuffs on 1 enemy at a time equals meh. Conventional wisdom on the test server is that Time is okay for soloing, though it needs changes if it's going to be on the same level, soloing or teaming, as the other debuff sets.

    Also, anyone who gets Grav/Time to level 50 without powerleveling, I will buy you a beer if you're ever in town. And then have you committed. Have a nice day.
    Perma Chrono Shift. Perma Power Boosted Far Sight. Nuff said.
  25. Auroxis

    Best Buff's?

    POST-ACTION

    I remember a quote that goes something like this: "Empaths can turn several people into Jesus, one person into God, and everyone else into the twelve apostles."

    That said, I'm thinking Time Manipulation will be a really good buffer. It can softcap and give a recharge boost to everyone including its user, can buff the damage+recharge+regen of a few people, and it has heals and debuffs on top of that.

    And if you prefer offensive buffs over defensive ones, Kinetics all the way.