Chaos_String

[ QUOTE ]
3. You have to understand IOs. This isn't terribly complicated, but if you try to explain them to a new player, you realize that it's not terribly simple either.
4. You need to use a hero designer, and use it well... mid's is the obvious choice.
5. You need to know what to build for (generally, defense and recharge).
6. You know to know how to achieve high levels of those things in your build.
7. You need to play your toon up to level 50.
8. You need to know how to make money on the market.

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While these stipulations may apply to soloing AVs with scrappers, brutes, blasters, defenders, etc., it's actually possible for some masterminds and controllers to solo AVs without temps or inspirations at intermediate levels (ie, in the 30s and possibly earlier) with just SO builds.

I know this because I was soloing AVs on my Thugs/Dark mastermind and Ill/Rad controller before inventions existed.

So, depending on the AT and build, those requisites aren't necessarily barriers to entry.

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I've been trying to work up an SO build for Sergei. I should probably be working up an SO build for Werner. Basically, only go up against lethal AVs, and soft cap using Divine Avalanche and some pool powers. The regeneration secondary should then handle the rest of the survivability plus the endurance recovery. I don't expect to kill nearly as many. I just want to kill a few. I bet Manticore goes down pretty easy. Hmmm.

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Manticore's Acid Arrow might cascade you. I don't think it does a speck of lethal damage. Might still be worth a shot though. GL.

"Facing the Toughest in CoH" was just hyperbole from the very beginning. The point of the thread was always to tune for xp/time and sell pacts.

Truly facing the toughest in CoH is to create a custom group with only AV Ghost Widows and Lord Recluses, or maybe one with nothing but an extreme/extreme Fire Blast/Ninjutsu AV, and to play against it on the highest difficulty. This, however, will not be economically lucrative.

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Idono. I'd be pretty impressed with soloing an AV using only brawl and TOs, even if you did bio nuke it from space and sick everything on it. Or can you pretty much sit back and do nothing and let temp powers do the job for you?

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Yes, you can solo an AV with temp powers only. Nothing from your primary, secondary, or pools.

It goes like this: summon Shivan, HVAS, Longbow Mech, Warwolf, Amy, Clockwork Gears, etc. (Vills get different pets but they're as effective). Drop Biological Mutagens on your little army. Drop Chemical Burn on the AV. Hit Hyper Phase.

The AV will be butchered in seconds.

So, obviously it's possible for any build from any AT, however poorly specced, to solo an AV. It might be more impressive without temps or inspirations, depending on the AV (and on how easily impressed you are).

Prior to inventions in i9, I had a mastermind and a controller who could (and did) beat AVs with no temps/insps. With IOs, I've added a blaster, scrapper, brute and corruptor to the list.

And although I continue to build toon after toon with AV soloing in mind, it's only to solve the problem: "How do I set to the highest difficulty, and then go wherever I please and do what I please, whenever I choose, with or without teammates, and stand a reasonable chance of succeeding without having to make a lot of preparations?"

Generally speaking, if you're prepared to take down AVs without temps or insps, you can beat most missions the game will ever throw at you, including most (but not all) AE missions.

Nevertheless, I see no reason to brag about soloing AVs and have said so in this forum, to the ire of regulars and my ostracision. I've observed also that this forum is pretty obsessed with soloing AVs, which is fine, boss killing being the specialty of scrappers and AV killing being a logical extension of that.

But I've been over it for a long time. And being over it, I recognize that there are other, equally impressive ways to build.

I'm not sure, in the end, how many players can solo AVs and choose to do it for its own sake. I'm certain it's more than apparent in the forum community, but probably still less than 1% of the playerbase.

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While you might have defenses good enough to survive multiple things shooting at you, I and the rest of the squishies generally don't, and a Scrapper's ability to protect me if I miscalculate aggro is about zero.

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That depends very much on the scrapper, how good his taunt aura is, and how much threat he can generate with his first couple of attacks.

My BS/SD has tanked entire TFs. No tank, just me, and no deaths. You see, with AAO on, once I hit a pack of enemies with Shield Charge, nothing short of Taunt is going to peel them off me (nothing they can survive, anyway).

As a scrapper, I stay on task. And I go where that task takes me at whatever speed it takes me there. If a tank stays ahead of me, fine; but if not, that's fine, too.

I'm no Leeroy, as I actually succeed in my objectives and don't get my teammates killed; but I do pretty much go where I please and kill whatever is there, at the time of my choosing; unless the particulars of an unusual mission dictate otherwise, I don't wait for the tank.

Yep, good to meet you. /SR is probably the right choice since A) you already have it and B) it doesn't suffer from some of the weaknesses that /EA has. And /SR gets a leg up in the recharge department, too. Just watch the endurance use of your attacks and toggles and offset it with +recovery and +endurance bonuses.

Here's my DM/EA build. More vulnerable to negative energy, but with higher hp, damage resistance and regen. And probably a fair bit higher damage output as well, even though the global +dam is lower (since mine has faster Soul Drain and procs in every attack, including purple procs in Gloom and MG and a chance for buildup in Gloom).

Mine doesn't have ToF or Darkest Night though, and those are awesome powers--but I leveled to 50 without a debt badge and didn't use them.

I'm willing to accept negative energy as kryptonite for all the goodies I was able to build in, but I have to be aware of it on ITFs and use purples against the Cysts and their spawns. And I will need to use the same strategy against AVs with negative energy attacks, assuming I ever actually encounter one on redside.

All in all, it's a fun departure from SD and SR, while still being a defense-based set.

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Personally, I went with /EA. Partly because I'd already soloed AVs with /SR and /SD, but also becuase brutes don't get Conserve Power in their epic pools like scrappers do, and /EA gets not only Conserve Power, but Energy Drain, too. Endurance management is one of the critical issues in fighting AVs, and it's possibly the most easily overlooked.

People who forget that brute /SR and /SD don't get Conserve Power the way scrappers do, will likely find themselves disappointed. Softcapped defense and a high DPS chain mean squat if you have to let up because you're running out of endurance, allowing the AV to regenerate lots of the damage you've done.

Dark Melee brutes may find some solace in Dark Consumption, but it's not nearly as useful or reliable as the tools provided by /EA.

Now EA is more vulnerable to defense debuffs than /SR or /SD, which can be a problem while fighting some AVs, and it's weak to psi and negative attacks, which several notable Freedom Phalanx and Vindicator AVs use. So it's by no means perfect for redside AV soloing.

But it does come equipped with the tools you will need to sustain a high DPS attack chain indefinitely, which is one of the keys to beating AVs. Brute /SR and /SD don't have these tools available, unless they're DM/, in which case the tool they have is inferior.

After a while, you know what's junk and what isn't just by name recognition. At that point, you just roll bronze until recipes are full, delete the junk right there at the ticket counter, roll bronze until full again, delete, roll bronze, etc.

Until you have a sack full of goodies to take to the market.

Thanks very much for your reply. I've played the combo to 20 and I'm pretty sure it's a keeper.

I'm still working out an IO build, but my goal is to softcap both S/L and Ranged defense, using Scorpion Shield as well as Tough, Weave, and Maneuvers if necessary. I'm 100% certain it's within reach; the question is whether the tradeoffs I'd have to make are worth it. Presently I'm undecided on that score, and not quite satisfied with my projected builds.

But I'll iron it out as I level the toon. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the unusual playstyle.

[ QUOTE ]
It shouldn't be about prevalence, but about maximums--after all, we *are* talking about ideal conditions and maximum potential of Scrappers and Brutes.

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Ideal conditions and maximum potentials don't, and shouldn't, inform the balance between ATs.

This is why the comparison here looks so slanted in favor of Brutes--we're only comparing peak performance of Scrappers vs. Brutes. And in that case, yes, Brutes are clearly better. One might say that when pegging out at full Fury, a Brute is just like a scrapper, but superior in every way.

But Brutes' baseline performance is clearly worse than that of a Tanker. Lower damage multiplier, fewer hit points, lower resists. One might say that at zero Fury, a Brute is just like a Tanker, but inferior in every way.

In practice, of course, a Brute is going to spend most of its time somewhere between the two: doing better damage than a Tanker but with less survival; also doing less damage than a Scrapper but with more survival.

The question is, what's a good "average" level of Fury for a Brute, around which the AT is, or should be, balanced? For the sake of argument, let's say it's 75%: that the average brute with the average SO build inside the average door mission will average about 75% Fury.

Now, the Brute has at least 12.5% better survivability than a scrapper. So, the question is, does a scrapper do at least 12.5% more damage than a brute at 75% fury?

If indeed 75% is a reasonable figure (again, average player, average build, average situation), then such a comparison would be more compelling than one which stipulates that the Brute wakes up in Mercy at 90% fury and stays there for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, since we're all up in arms about AT balance, let's remember the fact that we've got lots of Scrappers with enough survivability to fight multiple AVs, and enough damage to defeat them all. Tankers? Stalkers?

*tumbleweeds*

Not doing that, as far as I know.

The argument in this thread sounds a bit like scrappers getting all in an uproar because one AT in the game might be even more broken than we are.

Be careful. When one gazes long into the nerfbat, the nerfbat gazes into you.

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I'm beginning to seriously doubt the belief that the two different types of DR debuff procs stack.

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They stack.

You're just doing it wrong, Bill.

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ChaosString:
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Oh, I reach 90% all the time during missions, and exceed it during some types of encounters

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You don't "exceed" 90% Fury, I think at best Fury caps out at 95% (I actually believe it's 90%) due to either a "bug" or design. So you're not going to "exceed" 90% Fury hardly ever, IF ever for that matter.

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Actually, you do. You just don't get Fury from attacking if you're over 90%. You have to get it from being attacked which, if you're on a team, isn't a difficult thing to do unless you're */Energy.

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Hence, "during some types of encounters."

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for the instances where having that dps is important - mostly fighting eb's, av's, pylons, etc - 90% fury isnt hard to get to or maintain

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Like I said before, when we were obviously talking about soloing AVs/pylons, I didn't have the faintest qualm with the 90% number; in fact I think it's kind of conservative.

But the discussion appears to have veered into the realm of AT comparisons, and discussion of "normal" recharge slotting, which, to me, implies "normal" builds in "normal" situations, not AV/pylon battles.

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How about we split the difference and go with 75%? I do so only at gunpoint though. While I accept that fury drops between spawns, I just don't understand how my fellow brute players aren't slamming against 90% with every spawn they encounter.

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Oh, I reach 90% all the time during missions, and exceed it during some types of encounters. But using that figure as an average for PvE implies that 90% is the balance point around which the AT is adjusted, and that for typical players in tpyical missions on typical maps, fury will fluctuate around that mark.

And that's just not the case.

But for experienced players who have endurance management and survivability under control, 75% may be too low. For such players 80% is probably a nice, conservative estimate.

[ QUOTE ]
But I can guess how that's going to turn out:
Scrap Dual Blades 169.7
Brute Dual Blades 168.3

Just like that. I honestly think folks need to pay more attention to that data chunk right there. The scrapper and brute used identical chains and the scrapper won by a measly 1.4DPS.

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As long as 90% fury is a resonable average for Brutes in normal PvE play--which is to say that fury fluctuates equally above and below 90%.

90% may be a resasonable watermark for AV/pylon soloing, but in normal mission play, I think it's too high. I've played three Brutes to 50, one to 32, and one to 46, and even though I chase the hell out of fury, I can't keep it pegged at 90% for an entire mission, especially when there are glowies to click, hostages to escort, or sparse parts of the map (long hall to elevator, long hall from elevator to next spawn).

When you first started these comparisons, you were asking for top-end, high-recharge ST attack chains, and so I didn't have a problem with the 90% figure, since you were pretty obviously talking about optimizing for pylon/AV soloing situations.

But now it looks like you're trying to draw comparisons between Brutes and Scrappers for "normal" content in "normal" situations, and for that, 90% is simply too high an average.

I've been thinking of rolling a new Corruptor, one which will be good for both solo and team play. I've played both Sonic and Traps to 30ish on a defender and mastermind, but not quite sure how they'd work together as a corruptor.

It seems like the combo could place huge amounts of -res on hard targets like AVs/GMs in addition to gutting their regen; and it looks like Seekers &gt; Howl &gt; Siren's Song &gt; Toebomb would be a good way to lay waste to large goups.

Can anybody who has played Sonic/Traps shed some light on this powerset combo for me? What are your impressions? What tactical "tricks" work well?

Any insights would be helpful.

Bah, editing my post.

Yep. Jab is very nearly identical to Boxing. And we all know what place Boxing has in a serious DPS chain. Punch isn't much better, frankly.

They're decent fury builders for Brutes, but that's not even a consideration for Scrappers.

OTOH, a big advantage to Rage (esp. stacked Rage) that hasn't been discussed here is the ToHit buff. Since it's a big ToHit buff which is there 100% of the time, attacks can be slotted with less accuracy to achieve a similar hit rate. Also, KO Blow has a big base accuracy buff.

This allows SS powers to be slotted with relatively more recharge (and/or endredux as needed) than powers in other sets.

Knowing this, I'd be inclined to allow the SS set more +recharge than the others when comparing top-line DPS.

Edit: fixed dumb error.

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You don't need any of your powers recharging as fast if all the enemies are defeated within five seconds of the team reaching them.

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On the contrary, that is when you need fast recharge the most. Foot Stomp, RoA, Shield Charge, Full Auto, and other heavy-hitting AoEs up for every spawn, even when the spawns are going down in seconds. That 5-second-per-spawn kill rate doesn't often happen with just FS. But it often does with FS and SB.

Perhaps your argument would hold a thimbleful of water if the two buffs were mutually exclusive. But, they aren't. A kin can SB and FS, and good ones do just that.

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&lt;QR&gt;

Everyone [censored] about kins not using speed boost is an idiot. Fulcrum Shift is much more important. lrn2ply

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Fulcrum Shift only applies a large damage buff to those in melee range when the power is activated. Everybody else gets a small buff, or none at all. Additionally, those (like DM/SD scrappers, blasters with Aim &amp; Buildup) who can get very near the damage cap on their own get little benefit from FS.

SB benefits everyone all the time--and not just damage output, but AoE controls, heals, buffs, debuffs--everything.

Fulcrum Shift is awesome, but it's a one-trick pony. SB is not.

l2think before you spout more nonsense.

-res debuffs, and Buildup with the Gaussian proc

I fell in love with Broadsword, just for the sheer CRUNCH of its attacks. No kidding, it's the sfx that hooked me. Well, that and the big orange numbers. After you've critted an AV for 1600 damage with Headsplitter, other sets start to feel ticky-tack.

Granted, those other sets can add up their ticky-tack hits to do more damage than Broadsword can do, but man, those big hits and one-shotters with all the knockdown and knockup... they feel real macho.

I paired it with shield for concept (sword&amp;board), but it turns out that Shield Defense is made of pure awesome.

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Oooh for cones, I may have to rethink my Flashing Steel slotting. It'd be a great time to switch up to 5 purps and that.

Oh man I want to go home and play with builds now.

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I'd suggest putting those in Golden Dragonfly, rather than Flashing Steel.

-Res procs are really best against hard targets like bosses, EBs, AVs and GMs, since they're the ones that will stay up long enough for the -res to go to work. Flashing Steel is a minion shredder, and a little -res on targets which are either dead or gonna die in another hit anyway, doesn't have much impact.

It might be optimal for boss farming though, if that's something you're into.

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Yes, in some instances, the team will perform sub-optimally. In others, it won't make a difference.

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See, this is just horse [censored].

It doesn't take a sub-optimal team or a sub-optimal build to benefit from Speed Boost.

Anybody with a click heal benefits. Anybody with powerful attacks benefits. Anybody with Aim or Buildup benefits. Anybody with buffs that can only be kept perma on a couple people benefits (and so do those they buff). Anybody with AoE controls benefits.

Anybody and everybody benefits, except in the case of those who can't adequately control the unsuppressed movement. Generally this is a product of being buffed with SB that's slotted for run speed, which a lot of kins mistakenly do, but I suppose that even the base movement speed buff can be difficult for those who have framerate issues or lots of unsuppressed +runspeed, or those who need very precise positioning for one reason or another.

As for the nonsense about running out of endurance because of too much recharge, SB slotted with just 1 endmod will provide more than enough +recovery to offset the +recharge.

This nonsensical implication that only "sub-optimal" teams will get any benefit from SB, and on better teams "it won't make a difference" is just bull.

Kid yourself all you want, if you need to fool yourself to justify skipping SB.

But you're not fooling your teammates.