ClawsandEffect

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  1. My main, Claws and Effect, would be voiced by Steve Blum, using his Spike Speigel/Mugen voice.

    My DM/SR brute, Tsepes, would be voiced by Crispin Freeman (Alucard from Hellsing is his best known voicework)

    My BS/DA scrapper would be voiced by, well, me. Since he IS me, only with a demonic soul-sucking sword.
  2. ClawsandEffect

    Best DPS on ST?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Vauluur View Post
    MA used to be the ST scrapper damage king. It's very appealing for Tankers because of the defense from Storm Kick. I have a Shield/MA Tanker that is enjoyable. I would pair MA with a set which is based on positional defense, as the extra 10% from Storm Kick would be most helpful there. For instance, my Shield tank most likely won't need IO bonuses to softcap (haven't done the math yet, he's level 15).

    Street Justice has great ST damage from what I know of. However, MA shouldn't be far behind and the defense bonus may make it worth picking over StJ.
    I'm seriously considering a Dark Armor/Street Justice tank.

    I already know I can soft cap it to at least S/L/E/N, and maybe F/C if I get creative enough with my slotting, and Street Justice appears, on paper at least, to be one of the better sets for taking out AVs and such (potential for 70% -res, 30% guaranteed). I also believe I can cap Psi resistance, or at least come close to it, on the same build. Should be a pretty beastly combo if my build-fu is strong enough.

    Unfortunately, I'm already playing a character with the name I'd use, and I refuse to re-roll him yet again, so my DA/StJ project will be on hold until I figure out a good name for it.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by xhris View Post
    Any particular reason why Dark Armour always seems to get the cold shoulder?
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Honestly? I think its because while Dark Armor can be a very strong secondary, that strength comes with a lot of caveats in terms of both build and playstyle. And there is a lot of debate about the effectiveness of the toggle auras. And the bottom line is anyone actually asking about strong scrapper secondaries without a strong working knowledge of how they all work is probably better off being steered away from Dark Armor.

    Dark Armor comes up more when people ask for suggestions on sets to try that are off the beaten path, or when knowledgeable people toss ideas around within the context of people with a lot of experience playing melee. Dark Armor tankers, for example, are monsters when built and played right. But just managing the endurance burn of Dark Regeneration is something that takes some getting used to, and is a kind of skill most powersets don't demand.
    Arcanaville nailed it (as usual).

    I LOVE Dark Armor, it's one of my favorite secondaries. But, I am also aware that I love it because I spent over a year hating it until I figured out all of it's ins and outs. My BS/DA scrapper, who is one of my strongest characters now, was almost deleted countless times before I figured out how DA works best for me.

    It's not that Dark Armor is getting the cold shoulder, it's just that it requires a little more effort and knowledge of how things work to be as effective as some other sets. Willpower and Shield Defense are very straightforward sets. As are SR and Invuln. They're very simple: Soft cap it, toggle up, and go to town.

    DA requires a bit more forethought while playing. Timing it to get the most benefit out of Dark Regeneration is one of the tricky parts. There will be a lot of faceplanting while you're trying to get that down (wait until you're almost dead to fire it). Deciding which control aura you want is another decision other sets don't have to make.

    I believe, out of all available scrapper secondaries, that Dark Armor gets the most benefit from slotting it to the gills with IOs. Once you have a soft-capped DA scrapper who shuts minions down just by his presence, you are a force to be reckoned with, and are very much approaching completely immortal (and they have to kill you twice to boot!)
  4. See, I don't really shoot for massive recharge on my builds. The higher my recharge gets, the more likely I am to have enduarance problems.

    I'm generally happy with around 50-60% global recharge, and maybe Hasten for those times I want stuff coming back faster. I know I'm an oddball among scrapper players, but I'd rather build for survivability and have my damage a few points below optimum DPS numbers. I like knowing that when the feces hits the rotating blades, I'll survive it.

    Nothing wrong with lots of recharge, just not my style.
  5. Looks much better.

    You don't need the 6th Armageddon in Spin though. I'd drop the Dam/End or the pure Damage (on a Regen I'd lean toward dropping the Dam/End)
  6. ClawsandEffect

    No Headsplitter?

    There's very little point to soft-capping both Melee and S/L.

    If you're going to lean on Parry for melee defense, consider focusing other slotting on Ranged defense instead. S/L covers just that, S/L. Many ranged attacks are pure energy, which the way you are slotting you will have very little defense to, and not a great deal of resistance either.

    Since many ranged energy attacks are electricity based (clockwork, Mu, Freakshow), you will have issues with being drained. Also: Sapper attacks are flagged ranged/energy as well, so they will have no problem hitting you.

    With Broadsword/Fire you probably won't be able to soft-cap all positions, but you should be able to get melee and ranged at least. I'd take your 4 AoE powers (Slice, Whirlysword, Burn, Head Splitter) and slot at least 4 Eradication in them for the ranged defense (1.56%) and max HP bonus (2.25%, largest non-purple bonus) or split the difference and slot 2 Oblit sets and 2 Eradication.

    Just my 2 cents, but I really think ignoring ranged and energy defenses are going to hurt you in the long run.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by The_Spad_EU View Post
    And please, no "It's only $5" arguments. I've made the same myself but ultimately some people either don't have any disposable income or don't have access to a supported method of payment.
    See, this idea will eventually become "Give the entire game away for free"

    Maybe not from you necessarily. But every additional thing given to free players is one less thing the devs can make money off of.

    The less money they make from things, the shorter the lifespan of the game will become.

    Whether you realize it or not, implementing your idea is the first step toward giving into demands that will eventually kill the game.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Soul_System View Post
    Trainers are not your issue. Your issue is that they need to make running missions worth it and make them keep you in the same zone instead of sending you 3 zones away every other mission.
    See, I don't mind traveling between zones.

    To me at least, it stretches credulity quite a bit when an enemy group has plans to dominate the entire world.......yet their whole operation is contained in a 10 block radius.

    Setting up shop in zones like Boomtown and Dark Astoria makes perfect sense. They're out of the way, and your plans for death and destruction will stand a better chance of going unnoticed until they're too late to prevent.

    "Lets set up everything we plan on doing within a few blocks of where one of the premier heroes of the city tends to hang out, they'll NEVER find us here! It's genius!"

    Then: "Hey, why do people in spandex keep busting down our door every few days?"

    Traveling between zones just makes perfect sense from a storyline standpoint. How many villains go out of their way to make sure their base of operations is conveniently located for the heroes trying to stop them?

    "Oh, we can't use THIS warehouse for our evil cloning project, it's too far from the train! The heroes won't want to bother with us if we're too far from convenient transport! ......Hey, wait a second, I think we're on to something here."
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
    ... you're not finished with them yet, right? 'Cause right now I can't make, e.g., a minotaur wearing a bowler hat and a monocle, or a tiger man with a mohawk and mirrorshades, and I have to say that's really a bit disappointing.
    The problem is all those things are accessories added to the default head.

    The animal heads actually replace the default head.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sailboat View Post
    Are the characters roughly comparable in global recharge? An older character with lots of global set bonuses can probably get a faster chain and thus pile up more Fury..could that be what you're seeing?
    The Claws/EA is only level 9 and doesn't have Entropic Aura yet. The Electric/WP has no global recharge bonuses at all yet, his build isn't complete, and I focused on defense first.

    The numbers with Street Justice remain the same no matter how long I fight for. 139% seems to be his max, regardless of how long I fight or how many enemies are attacking me.

    The really interesting thing is that the fury bars of all the characters in question are at roughly the same point and have different bonus amounts, which is what made me think there was a problem somewhere in the first place.

    At the moment, I'm inclined to think there's a bug somewhere, but I don't know where or why. I don't have enough data to conclusively say something is broken, but it does look that way to me so far.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy View Post
    Also, is Dark Regen worth slotting for damage? I hadn't even considered doing that.
    The damage from it isn't the reason Eradication is in it. Even when hitting eth ED cap for damage, DR's damage is pathetic.

    It's slotted like that for the E/N defense bonus and Max End bonus in Eradication. You're going to be in the middle of a crowd most of the time when you fire DR, so the amount you heal per enemy isn't particularly important, as long as you get decent recharge and end reduction along with the ToE proc, you can slot it with whatever you want and it will remain just as useful. The fact that you can slot it with a set like Eradication for the set bonuses is just icing on the cake.
  12. Okay, maybe it's just me, but Street Justice seems to be having problems attaining the same percent damage bonus as other primaries.

    I played my StJ brute for a while, and the entire time I was playing, I never got above 140% damage buff (I monitor it constantly). It tended to hover in the 135-137% range, even when I was attacking all out and being attacked.

    Just to make sure it was an isolated problem, I logged in with my Claws/EA brute and my Electric/WP brute. Both of those characters performed how I remembered as far as Fury is concerned, tending to hover in the 157-160% damage bonus range. I will try my DM/SR brute later today to see if his performance is similar.

    Has anyone else had a similar problem, and is it actually a problem or was Fury adjusted for Street Justice to take into account the bonus damage on Finishers?

    It just seems kind of odd that a single set would produce so much less of a damage boost via Fury in similar situations as other sets. And to apparently do so consistently.

    Any information anyone has to share on this would be appreciated.
  13. Honestly, if you need to be convinced to play Regen, it's not the set for you.

    We could go on 'til we're blue in the face, but if you just don't like it, well, you just don't like it.

    I know how awesome Stone tanks and Masterminds are, but nothing anyone says is going to convince me to play them, because I just don't like the way they play. That's exactly why the game has so many options of things you can play. What I like, the next guy might hate, what I hate might be someone else's most awesome thing ever. And there's nothing wrong with that.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jasra View Post
    The single biggest way to improve this fast is to have Matthew Habashy (and the redside equivalent) introduce you to one of the old school contacts. Effectively locking all of the original content behind radio missions was a huge mistake.
    I suspect they are slowly working on getting rid of a large chunk of the original content.

    With the number of ridiculous "Kill 5 billion of enemy group X in a zone where they only spawn in certain areas at night" missions handed out by old school contacts, I can see them wanting to do that.

    They've effectively gotten rid of the low level original content already. They need a few more arcs that will take you from 10 to 20 while introducing you to some of the enemy groups and they're largely good to go. They also need a little more variety, but that will come with a little more time I think.

    There's a LOT of stuff to do from level 20 to 30 nowadays. I don't even recall the last time I ran any of the original contacts in that level range. Striga and Croatoa are still viable, and I think some of the new contacts should introduce you to those contacts at the end of their arc. Give us an actual story arc or two taking place in Dark Astoria and Boomtown and I'll be satisfied with the 20-30 range.

    30-40 needs new content, and there should be more options in the 1-20 range, but I sort of like the direction they are going with the new content. Any new content that doesn't force me to run 7 kill all missions in a row in gigantic warehouse maps is great in my book.

    40-50 needs some help as well. Some of the longest, most grueling arcs in the game are in that range, and a few of them could stand to be streamlined. (Harvey and Unai come to mind) For the most part, 40-50 is setting you up for high level TFs and Incarnate stuff, but the people who don't care about that stuff need more to do that isn't so mind-numbingly tedious.

    One thing I have to add: PLEASE don't make any and all new content revolve around Praetoria and assorted silliness. There are plenty of bad guys on Primal Earth in need of a good drubbing (and good guys in need of the same). I'd rather not see CoH become Us vs. Them for 50 levels.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aggelakis View Post
    ...Ooohhh, I seeeeeee that now. I saw Defense and didn't even drill down into it thinking it would be, obviously, for Defense sets - since the rest of them are placed within categories that match their type. Derp!
    Well, it sorta makes sense. Seeing as how Melee, Ranged, Targeted AoE, PBAoE and Pet Damage sets are all lumped into "Damage".

    Think of it in terms of offense and defense and you'll be fine.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by the_postman View Post
    Only thing that's putting me off is worries re low resists to energy damage, especially with iTrials full of it.

    How do others handle it? Scrappers take Shadow-Meld maybe or is there another way?
    Lots of ranged or energy defense.

    My BS/DA scrapper is softcapped to ranged, and I seldom even notice when lots of energy damage is coming my way.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by scout_masta View Post
    Does it increase the regen as more are in melee range? I thought it just added the taunt effect.
    No. You're thinking Rise to the Challenge, which is a Willpower power.

    Integration just adds to regen, and it has a taunt component on brutes. Scrappers lack the taunt component, but get the same regen percentage. Brute regen works better though, because they have more HP to work with.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kangstor View Post
    Actually this is not true. Last time I tried to softcap SR with SO's alone it required weave, combat jump and maneuvre all at least 3 slotted with defense including all SR power being 3 slotted with defense SO's it makes a total of 27 slots put on nothing but defense no other bonuses. This makes around 1/4th of actual slots. This also means although you can fit LoTG's in the build somewhere you can't get recharge bonuses from red fortunes.
    But....if you softcap without having to use Mako's Bite and Touch of Death, it means you can 5 slot your attack powers with Crushing Impact instead, getting the same recharge bonus as Red Fortune without wasting slots in a defense power that doesn't benefit much from having 6 slots in it. That saves you a slot in every attack power that isn't 6 slotted for defense bonuses.

    If your endurance is under control, you don't need more than 3 or 4 LotGs in your SR toggles. Anything more than that is wasted slotting.

    So, take Weave and add 2 slots to it. Take Maneuvers and add 2 slots. Now, since you have 3-4 slots in your toggles instead of 6, you've saved 6-9 slots total.....and only put 4 slots in 2 extra powers, thus giving you a net savings of 2-5 slots to use somewhere else.

    Softcapping without relying on defense bonuses from sets like Mako's Bite and Touch of Death actually SAVES you slots in the long run, even though it costs you a couple more picks. Since you're probablt going to take Tough anyway for added survivability and a place to put a STeadfast Res/Def, you already have that pool started. Maneuvers opens up Leadership, which lets you take Tactics for a place to slot Gaussian's for another 2.5% defense bonus to all positions.

    Believe it or not, I know what I'm talking about here. If you can softcap an SR without relying on 6 slotting attack powers for defense bonuses, you can spend those slots on OTHER set bonuses, and your character will be stronger for it.
  19. Also: Super Jump or Super Speed. Pick one and drop the other.

    Unless this is a PvP build, which it doesn't look like, you don't need both. Whichever one you use less is a wasted power pick that could have been used on, say, Hasten. Or Spin. Or one of several powers you skipped that you shouldn't have.
  20. A few points, I'll list them as they occur to me.

    You 6 slotted Quick Recovery with Efficacy Adaptor. Why? You way overslotted that in my opinion. Whatever set bonus you're getting is not worth wasting that many slots on a passive end recovery power, at least in my opinion.

    You 6 slotted Resilience. Another mistake as far as I'm concerned. Yes, Resilience is worth slotting now, but not 6 slotting. Lose the End/Rech and EndRed from Reactive Armor, they are useless to the power (since it is a passive), and the set bonuses aren't worth it. You could maybe keep 5 slots in it and slot the Steadfast there instead.

    Tough slotted with 3 Titanium Coating. Replace that with 4 Reactive Armor, and move the Steadfast to Resilience as I noted above.

    If you're not going to slot Shockwave, skip it. Slotting the Force Feedback proc is all well and good, but if that's all you're going to put in the power, skip it and take something more useful.

    MoG at 49 is way too late. You want that as soon as it's available, and you want more recharge in it.

    Slot all 3 click heals (Recon, Dull Pain, IH) with 5x Doctored Wounds. You've wasted opportunities to slot recharge bonuses all over the place, and 5x Doctored Wounds is a cheap +15% recharge if slotted in all 3 powers.

    You. Skipped. Spin. Spin is one of the best AoEs available to a scrapper. In ANY primary. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a mistake skipping that power is. Dump Spring Attack instead. Spin will do more damage than Spring Attack, and it recharges in less than 10 seconds slotted, as opposed to Spring Attack's 60 second recharge. It's kind of obvious which is the better power to take if you want AoE. Put 6 Obliteration in it.

    Add another Obliteration to Eviscerate.

    Add one more slot to Focus and put Decimation in it instead. You want as many recharge bonuses as you can cram into your build.

    Add a few more slots to MoG and make sure one of them is filled with a LotG +recharge.

    You WAY overslotted Physical Perfection. If you want more end recovery, put those slots in Stamina instead. PP gives you 12.5% recovery base, compares to Stamina's 25%. You will benefit more from slotting Stamina than PP.

    Move the Numina's unique from Dull Pain to a passive, either Health or Physical Perfection. It is only working while the power is active, so you only benefit from it when you click Dull Pain. Since your Dull Pain is not perma, you will be better off with it in a passive (you're always better off with it in a passive)

    That's about all I see immediately. I'm sure there are a few things I missed, but I've busted your chops enough for one post

    You had the right general idea with your build, but your slotting was pretty inefficient, and you made some questionable choices (skipping Spin and taking Spring Attack instead, for example), but I've seen worse builds. Much worse.

    Edit: Just noticed you don't have Hasten. You want Hasten. If you follow my advice in the rest of the build and have 3 slotted Hasten, your Dull Pain will be perma, or close to it. (Assuming you click Hasten as soon as it comes back up)
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Linea_Alba View Post
    For completeness, and as a more universal advice.

    Unless you're going sword/wp, you will indeed want to build for typed over positional, but if someone comes up with a build that mixes vectored and typed and does it well, more power to them.
    I've never seen a WP build that added enough positional defense to be more than a waste of slots.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Deacon_NA View Post

    If you don't mind Werner, I do have a follow-up question for you. The build you provided put Gaussians in Tactics and left build-up with just the base slot in Build-Up with a Recharge IO. Would I not have better DPS putting Gauss in BU (increasing it's recharge) and just an End Redux in Tactics? Or even Focused Accuracy (assuming I'm Cardiac Alpha and can deal with the cost)? I'm really a fan of FA's -tohit resists. Making that modification makes BU's recharge 44.7 seconds. With just a recharge IO BU takes 52.97 seconds to come back up. A "gut answer" is sufficient, I certainly would never ask someone to crunch numbers that I am simply too lazy to.
    Gaussian's is in Tactics for 2 reasons:

    A) It will check for the build up proc every 10 seconds in a toggle power, so over time it will fire more frequently than if it were in Build Up. Tactics is a better power to put it in mostly because FA's end cost is so high.

    B) Gaussian's does not have a great deal of recharge in it, but it does have a significant amount of end reduction. That means it makes more sense to put it in a toggle power over a long recharge click power.

    Now, having said that, I put Gaussian's in Build Up on my Broadsword/DA for a more practical reason: I just didn't have enough room for Tactics in my build, or enough slots to give Build Up enough recharge AND slot Tactics up. I had to choose one or the other, so I made the choice that worked best for my build. It was no big loss for me because I only use Build Up before AoEs or in AV fights anyway.

    Look into putting Eradication into Flashing Steel (I'm presuming you are slotting for positional defense? Yes?). Eradication gives you: 1.8% max End, 1.56% ranged defense, 2.25% Max HP, and 3.13% AoE defense if you six slot it.

    My build has Eradication in all 3 primary powers that will accept it, and i have 4 of them in Death Shroud with a couple Multi-Strikes for end reduction.

    Doing it that way my build is softcapped to ranged without Hover, and is sitting at 43.9% to AoE, which is close enough in my book.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    If I was going to alter Broadsword with an eye to differentiating it from Katana, I might consider doing something like adding smashing bonus damage to Broadsword, to make it a harder hitting crunch set. In fact, perhaps the best way to do that would be to give Broadsword build up the Fiery Embrace treatment, and have Broadsword Build Up add a large smashing bonus damage component to Broadsword attacks rather than just buffing damage strength. The numbers could be fiddled with to provide Broadsword with an edge in periodic burst damage without being unbalanced.
    I like this idea.

    Broadswords are big and heavy, it would make perfect thematic sense for it to deal some smashing damage as well.

    Setting it up like Fiery Embrace would work nicely as well, representing that you put everything you have into your strikes for a short time and the sword almost turns into a bludgeoning weapon.

    A small -res debuff on some of the attacks would be thematically appropriate as well (a small one, like 5%), since broadswords were made so heavy in order to be more effective against armored opponents. Hack, Disembowel, and Head Splitter would be the attacks I give it to.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Obsidius View Post
    That being said, I'm not sure if the engine could handle that mechanic.
    It can't. Vertical surfaces in the game are not programmed or designed for characters to walk or run on. They would have to go through and alter literally every vertical surface in the game in order for wall crawling to work.

    In short, not going to happen, that's a huge amount of work for a trivial addition.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by IanTheM1 View Post
    Unless I'm forgetting from beta (and possible red name posts along these lines), it does use a slightly altered stance, which would require rebuilding the entire animation library for it. Not to mention how goofy melee attacks probably would look, especially anything with kicks.
    The melee attacks are probably the reason. Things like Storm Kick and Eagle's Claw would look ridiculous on the Rocket Board.

    Ranged attacks would work alright, but that's just a matter of fairness. It wouldn't be right to allow ranged characters to attack while using the board but not melee characters.

    The fact that the stance is different than standing on the ground is a BIG factor as well. It really would require them to re-animate every attack in the game, because the animations in this game do not have a separate legs and torso component, it's all one full-body animation.