BrandX

Originally Posted by Megajoule

galadiman: Pity that two of the four characters I planned to make Incarnates are tankers, then. (And one's a brute.) EDIT: Sucks for the masterminds too, I bet.

SPT: It's not that I mind the debt, or even the dying per se. I mind spending so much real time pecking an overpowered enemy to death because we can't use our more powerful attacks without getting rooted and killed. A half hour of hopping around with Taunt on auto watching one AV's health bar inch downward, interrupted by occasional wipes and near-wipes which lead to further delay, is not fun for me. (See also: Reichsman.)

Charcoal: Well said.

Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards

Net changes:

Lost
3% Global Resist
Performance Shifter Proc
Lost the (admittedly low) Recovery set bonus from Gladiator's Strike
Energy/Negative Defense at 0.4% under soft-cap. Close enough it might as well be 45%.

Gained
Attack chain costs slightly less Endurance
Went from Smite (~180 Damage @ ~1.0s Cast) to Fire Blast (~318 Damage @ 1.2s Cast)
16% Regen
~40HP
4% Global Damage
10% Global Recharge

Originally Posted by protector_knight

I can vouch for this. I have a ice/electric/pyre tanker. and if Sheild scraps are on the team. I must gain agro not only by aura, but by punch voke, then often times have to regain my agro off of the shield scraps with a taunt.

AAO has such strong agro control it is really insane.

Originally Posted by Celestyna

Hi guys,

Trying to decide between brute or scrapper for my Elec/SD. It seems like scrapper is the superior choice for LR/SC damage, but I hate how mobs tend to run from most of my scrappers. None of my brutes have this problem.

Is the taunt in Scrapper AAO sufficient to keep them from scattering? Or is it the brute taunt-attacks that keeps them clustered up better?

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

Perhaps we run in different quarters

Originally Posted by UberGuy

Yeah, that's a really good point. It didn't even sink in that SP is in there. I don't even have that power on my DMs. You should be able to run MG, Smite, SL, Smite with only a small gap while Hasten is up - I was doing that on my DM/Regen with the Spiritual Radial boost and 60% global Recharge. (I19 gave me more recharge, though.)

Stealing the last two slots from that sounds really good to me. That opens up room for an end mod in Fire Ball, a Panacea, and then possibly:

• A Regen Tissue in Health OR
• A Perf Shifter proc in Stamina

Additionally, if you could drop SP completely you could move the KCs in it to boxing, and take something else all together. Thoughts on good one-slot wonders are Assault (maybe hard on your blue bar), Tactics (you probably don't need the toHit, but you could use the extra slot from SP to slap two pieces of Rectified Reticle in it), Super Speed (with a Stealth IO or Winter's Gift unique) or Super Jump for some extra vertical. (I'm a SJ addict. I gotta have my 3D movement.)

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus

In my experience is still works out to 200-250 HP or so.

It's nothing to sneeze at, but it doesn't suddenly make you a "tank" either.




Brutes are tougher, I've not gone against that.

But on constant teaming and TF situations my brutes clearly take a much larger share of incoming attacks than even my most heavily AoE focused Scrappers do (Elm/SD for example).




That's not really the point I'm making.

There are quite a few bits and pieces that I feel under perform well beyond the simple differences between scrappers and brutes.

Even without the damage cap reduction, Brute SC and LR are quite frankly sad imitations of the Scrapper versions.

This is why when Elm or SD are ever considered in any thread about "scrapper or brute?" the answers are almost universally "Scrapper".

Here's why (2 of my own characters)

• SS/SD Brute with more than 400% Damage bonus(AAO, 2x Rage, Frenzy): Shield Charge for 284

• Elm/SD Scrap with 200% Damage bonus (AAO, BU): Shield Charge for 423

Do you think the SD Brute, with 2288 HP is so much more survivable than the Scrapper with 2024 HP that it warrants the Scrapper's SC to do nearly 50% more damage over the Brutes?

In addition, the Scrapper's Shield Charge can utilize another +200% damage to increase that even further.

Originally Posted by Xzero45

Tights tend to look goofy depending on how they're used. Plenty of villains wear costumes, however, but villains wearing basic tights just wouldn't fit into the universe of CoX that well as a serious threat. They'd get laughed out of the city before they could even pull off their scheme.

Originally Posted by Xzero45

Arachnos. Nemesis. Fifth Column. Carnival. The Family. Tsoo. Not to mention all the Rogues Gallery villains.

Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards

I have given that some thought, but it doesn't exactly help with my Endurance Recovery issue. Now... if it gave out something like 10% Resistance, I wouldn't be here asking for everyone's input. That would've been the IO of choice to replace the Kismet 6%.

Originally Posted by AnElfCalledMack

Wouldn't they badically be Widows with DB or BS instead of Claws, and no Mask?

But, yeah. PEATs could be really awesome, and PPD (Justicar/TEST) and Syndicate (Sword Master/Suit) look like two easy factions to base off.

Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards

I've tested it out before and Dull Pain actually is perma with my current build + Spiritual Radial Boost. You can tell that I'm very happy with the Incarnate system, even if we only have a taste of it currently. Can you imagine perma Dull Pain, perma Soul Drain, perma Hasten, and these stats? Holy crap!

Even though getting a Panacea or other IOs won't help in a big way, this is still part of min/maxing that I love so much about the game. This is why I am considering removing the Kismet 6% for something that has more use to me. I have given thought to getting a Performance Shifter Chance for Endurance but the allure of having one slot giving (the same, albeit slightly lesser Endurance) Chance for Endurance/HP has caught my eye. Price is not a concern for me, if the build is any indication.

Originally Posted by Shadow State

That's what I recall from Beta too, people came to the conclusion that the unlock occurred at the level ding of 20 and was dependent on the characters faction at that point, so side switching and Praetorians are out of luck. Part of the confusion could be that people still get the you have unlock EATs text, even if they've already unlocked EATs, I even got it on my Praetorian characters, and those who are inclined to test and post to Wiki are more likely to be the established players who already had the EATs unlocked.

Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards

I don't feel like I miss too much with this build. Would I suffer greatly on a +4 if I removed that Kismet 6%? I usually am jumping into a pile of enemies and with Invulnerability saturated, the power gives off something insane like 28% ToHit. I'm thinking ahead too, where with the Rare and Very Rare Spiritual Alpha Boosts I am close to, if not perma on Soul Drain, which would be giving me that much more +ToHit.

Originally Posted by Silverado

Tough and Weave are both excellent choices for Blasters IF you're stacking Tough with your (resistance) Epic/Patron Shield AND Weave with defensive set bonuses.

Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards

I would prefer consistency so the second Endurance Modification is there. The option to have a Panacea HP/End proc in Health is still possible though. My build lacks Regeneration and Endurance Recovery so that IO, while not too significant, would be helping along both areas.

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

A few of my own.


Sonic Resonance
There isn't any set in the game that performs so badly, IMO, that I would never play it. But at least of the "buff/debuff" sets out there this one comes the closest for me. And while it doesn't exactly have an army of PR reps on the boards or in game trying to sell it, for some reason the set seems to get a free pass from a lot of people because it "has debuff."

There also appears to be what I can only describe as a kind of cooperative mythology surrounding Sonic Resonance, as it is often said that it is "good on teams that are already soft capped." Well, ok, if you did happen to min/max your team or got lucky in that way Sonic R might add... something. That is if Thermal Radiation didn't exist. Sonic Res, for what it's worth, feels like the off-tank of buff/debuff sets. The only time it's good is when you probably didn't need it.


Cold Domination
Actually Cold Domination is quite a nice set. What I want to address specifically is the notion that Cold Domination is a replacement for Force Field. It's not. I'm not going to say Force Field isn't a set that could use some buffs. But anytime someone says they would "always take a Cold over a Force Field" I'm left with the immediate impression they are someone who has little first hand experience with the relative strengths and weakenesses of an actual support set, and is viewing both sets only in light of what they would provide for their best characters on the toughest fights in the game. Ironically, it is this same focus that IMO tends to elevate Sonic Resonance higher than it really deserves.


Defender Blasts in General
I'm going to catch heck for this, but I guess I'm a risk taking guy. Defender blasts are not exactly "low damage." But over and over again I see statements about "Defenders who know how to buff and also do damage." Well, truthfully, Defender damage is not that great. It is not even kind of great. Like it or not, when you play a Defender, you become a buff bot of sorts. It's not that you shouldn't blast--especially if your blasts have useful debuffs. But the notion that the average team really cares whether their Empathy or Force Field Defender is constantly blasting is at least partially unfounded. At the least, you could probably get away with having ~2 good single target attacks and an AoE or 2, and the only people who would really care are the ones who troll power selections in order to bait you with insults. Anything you add above that should be viewed as more less what they are, tools for soloing.


Fire/Kin Controllers
Already brought up by others. It's not that this is a bad character. It's just that what it's good at is pretty lame, and once you hit 50 even a poorly run toon could outmarket what this guy spends hours earning the hard way.


Illusion Control
Actually Illusion Control is a great set. But I agree with others that what it's good at is not really control. This character is basically a type of Mastermind. We can quibble about the definition of what control is all day, but in the end Illusion still can't lock down a series of ambushes like the other Control sets can, and that is becoming more and more necessary in newer content.

Originally Posted by PhroX

I don't mind things being hard, if they're hard in an interesting way. BM, Director 11 etc, they're fine IMO. They mix things up, add new challenges. Maybe a few tweaks needed, but overall, I have no real issues. Level 54 Malta aren't. Bobcat suddenly hitting me for 10 times what she used (ie in the pre-incarnate content) to is not. Just boosting enemy stats purely for the sake of "challenge" is, IMO, unfun, particularly if, as in this case, there's no lore reason for it. The devs were going on about us being more powerful, but instead, we feel weaker, as stuff we could easily beat before is now, without any explanation, much stronger than us.