ClawsandEffect
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Really?Originally Posted by Nightchill_EU
- Defenders can deal damage.
Not really. Secondary on defender should be oriented toward debuffing on a team build. Debuff effects on defender attacks is considerably higher than the Blasters or Corr vertions.
My Rad/Sonic GM soloing damage machine LAUGHS at your assertion.
Giant Monsters. Defeated. While SOLO. No temps. No inspirations.
Can't do damage indeed. HA! -
You should care if you have Blinding Feint. It's a stackable damage buff that boosts your damage aura as well.
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Quote:Yeah, Dechs' build is stupid good.Originally Posted by Justaris
Actually, I believe Dechs_Kaison's tank is Dark/Fire (build here) and he has a rather lenghtly thread dedicated to Dark Armor in general and that tanking build in particular. It works just fine.
Dark Armor in general is an awesome set, but it catches a lot of flak because many people don't understand how to build and play a DA effectively. It's not quite as straightforward as Invuln or Willpower and it requires you to think outside the box a little bit on your slotting choices, but the end result is very worthwhile.
Edit: forgot to answer the question in the OP.
I don't like Cloak of Fear personally. If the end cost were lower or the accuracy higher I might feel differently, but as it is right now it's largely a waste of endurance for me. Looks cool though. -
Also worth noting is that I stress tested my build recently, and I can solo Marauder as an AV, which is somewhat impressive because Marauder has a significant amount of resistance to Lethal damage. I only had to pop a couple blues late in the fight when my end finally started dwindling.
It took over 10 minutes for my end to run down that far, so while it's not infinitely end sustainable, it will sustain through probably 99% of the situations you're going to find yourself in. Provided you don't spend a lot of time soloing Lethal-resistant AVs this build will do fine on end.
Couldn't take Nightstar as an AV, her resistance to letjal was just to high for my lack of DPS to overcome. I believe she has 50% resistance to Marauder's 30%, so that will give you an idea of just how long it took me to kill Marauder.
Chimera was a chump, and Malaise was actually pretty easy as well. I couldn't kill Diabolique simply because she runs too much, no problems damaging her. I haven't attempted any other AVs yet, but that's how I did against the ones I have faced so far. -
Okay, here's my build, more or less how it is on live. I had to recreate the build from memory, because I lost the original. There are a few differences between this and my live build, mostly because I don't recall for sure exactly what I did. This build is short of the soft-cap by .6%, while my live build is .5% above it. This build's HP total is slightly lower as well, my live build has over 1,900 max HP. Interestingly, this build would seem to indicate a minore endurance problem still, while I don't have that problem live. Maybe playstyle has something to do with that as well.
I'm slotted the way I am with a lot of full sets of Eradicaton because I love the bonuses in that set. It has a lot of things a high end DA wants: Max End, ranged defense, max HP, AoE defense. I'm well aware that Eradication has very little in the way of end reduction in it, this build is capitalizing on the Cardiac Alpha I have slotted (tier 3 at the moment).
It's also end-friendlier than it appears at first glance because I have 119 endurance, so my recovery ticks are giving me back more end than normal. My live build also has over 1,900 HP, which is awesome for a DA build with this much defense. Don't remember exactly what I did to get the last 30 HP or so the mid's build is missing.
It has it's drawbacks for sure, only 8 points of KB protection in there, so Fake Nemesis staffs will knock me on my butt, and I don't have much recharge (the lack of recharge actually contributes to my endurance sustainability, if you can't attack as fast you burn less end). It has minor accuracy issues when fighting +4s, but it still hits consistently enough that I'm not too pressed about fixing that.
Interestingly enough, some of my slotting choices lead this build to be the best of both worlds as far as defense goes. Out of Energy, Negative, Fire, Cold, Ranged, and AoE defense.....none of them are under 39%. I also managed to get 20.4% Psionic defense to go with my 63% resistance. Once you add double-stacked Parry the only defensive totals that are under 39% are Smashing and Psionic.
Also of note: this build was not particularly expensive either. I built it over the course of 6 months or so and it cost me under 300 million cash expenditure.
Here's the build:
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.94
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Natural Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Broad Sword
Secondary Power Set: Dark Armor
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Hack -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(15), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(25), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Mako-Dam%(36)
Level 1: Dark Embrace -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(3), Aegis-ResDam(3)
Level 2: Slice -- Erad-Dmg(A), Erad-Acc/Rchg(15), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(25), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Erad-%Dam(37)
Level 4: Murky Cloud -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam(5), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(5)
Level 6: Death Shroud -- Erad-Dmg(A), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(7), Erad-Acc/Rchg(7), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Erad-%Dam(45)
Level 8: Parry -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(9), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(9), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(42), Mako-Dam%(42)
Level 10: Obsidian Shield -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Aegis-ResDam(11)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(13), Zephyr-ResKB(48), LkGmblr-Rchg+(50), Ksmt-ToHit+(50)
Level 14: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Dark Regeneration -- Theft-+End%(A), Theft-Heal/Rchg(17), Erad-Acc/Rchg(17), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(31), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46)
Level 18: Whirling Sword -- Erad-Dmg/Rchg(A), Erad-Acc/Rchg(19), Erad-Dmg(19), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Erad-%Dam(40)
Level 20: Cloak of Darkness -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(21), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(21)
Level 22: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(23), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(23), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(42), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(43), GSFC-Build%(43)
Level 24: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 26: Disembowel -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(27), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(27), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Mako-Dam%(39)
Level 28: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(29), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(29), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(31), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(46)
Level 32: Head Splitter -- Erad-Acc/Rchg(A), Erad-Dmg(33), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(33), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Erad-%Dam(34)
Level 35: Oppressive Gloom -- Empty(A)
Level 38: Soul Transfer -- Empty(A)
Level 41: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), P'Shift-End%(45), P'Shift-EndMod(45)
Level 47: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(48), Zephyr-ResKB(48)
Level 49: Confront -- Empty(A)
Level 50: Cardiac Core Paragon
Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve
Level 0: Portal Jockey
Level 0: Task Force Commander
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(31), P'Shift-End%(46)
Level 4: Ninja Run -
Drop the 5th Reactive Armor, it's largely useless and you can use the slot better elsewhere.
No wonder you're having endurance problems. Death Shroud and Cloak of Fear are WAY underslotted for end reduction. Between those two toggles and attacking I bet your end drops in 20 seconds or less.
If I get a chance I'll throw you my BS/DA build. It's soft-capped to melee (with double stacked Parry) softcapped to ranged, and nearly softcapped to AoE. It is also endurance sustainable enough to solo an AV without needing a bunch of blues.
It'll have to wait until I get home though, no Mid's on the work computer. I'll post my build and look at yours a little more thoroughly while I'm at it. Werner would be a good one to ask for advice as well, he has a truly sick Kat/DA (virtually identical as far as slotting choices go)
There are definitely some odd choices in your build though. -
That dog'll hunt.
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Quote:See, now I have an interesting character that is kind of the opposite. He sees himself as being inherently evil, and is rebelling against his own perception of himself by being one of the good guys.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I think you misunderstand. When I say someone is "evil," I don't mean anything in particular. When I say "He is evil willingly and knowingly" I merely mean "He is what he is by conscious choice." This doesn't have to be a Dr. Evil type of parody villain who wants to "Rul ze vorld mit science!" who has an otherwise realistic personality.
The thing to remember is that there's a very real difference between giving villains "justifications" for being evil and giving them excuses. "Your world is chaotic and I can rule it better than you can" is a justification. The villain feels that the world needs order of the kind only he can provide. "Mommy didn't hug me so now I stab people," on the other hand, is an excuse. The latter doesn't follow from the former. Instead, this is a person who couldn't handle the former and is doing the latter out of spite.
What I'm saying is I try to make villains who have solid justifications for why they chose to walk down the road to villainy, but specifically and intentionally NOT give them excuses for why it's OK for them to do so and why we should feel sorry for them and sympathise. Every villain deserves a motivation, but very, very few villains (and I dare say none of them) deserve actual sympathy.
This isn't so much about a villain being evil for the sake of being evil, merely a villain whose actions make sense but still cannot be excused or forgiven. That, to me, is what makes for a good villain and where the border between villain and anti-hero is.
The rest of the world sees him as a hero, while he sees himself as a flawed, dangerous, horrible, evil person.
Then there is another one (one of my favorites actually) who is in possession of a demonic sword (kind of the other way around actually). The sword has a need to consume life force from those it wounds. My character found himself the bearer of this sword by accident (ordered a sword on Ebay for his collection and ended up with this one instead). Now, the catch of this parasitic relationship is if the sword goes too long without draining someone's life force, it starts to feed on it's wielder. He can't simply get rid of the sword because it's bonded to him. It either drains life force from others or from him. Now he COULD just let the sword kill him, but he doesn't want the sword to end up in the hands of someone with less ethics than him. So, he's doing the heroic thing by ensuring that if the sword HAS to drain people, they will at least deserve it.
Sure, what he's doing isn't technically good, but it's better than letting this sword end up in the hands of a psychopath, which the sword actively seeks out because it absorbs more energy when it is used on the innocent. The sword is constantly trying to wear down his willpower and turn him into the kind of cold-blooded killer it wants to be wielded by.
(My Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper) -
Quote:See, to my way of thinking, nothing is more evil than the person who commits evil acts in the unshakable belief that they are doing what's best for the people they are committing the acts against.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That's actually the one thing I would NEVER do for a villain, for no reason other than I consider it to be the "easy way out" in making a villain. Why is she evil? She's crazy! Reason enough? I think now. I try to make my villains be willingly and knowingly evil. Evil by choice, rather than evil by circumstance, as it were. Villains who were made into villains but could become heroes if the world would just stop being mean to them just aren't villains to me, not in the sense of characters I'd like to make as villains. If I do make characters like these (and I do) I start them straight onto hero-side.
An example would be wholeheartedly believing that you are doing a race of people a favor by exterminating every last one of them. And being honestly confused why these people don't love you for it. Genocide is undoubtedly an evil act, but it's even more evil if the person doing it believes they're doing something GOOD.
I hesitate to bring real world examples into this, but Hitler thought HE was the one in the right, and that his domination of mankind was the best thing for the world.
There is also something to be said for different cultures. What you and I see as evil may be seen as not only acceptable, but actually virtuous by a different culture. If you were brought up to believe certain things and found that you were considered the bad guy in a different place for your beliefs, it could cause a significant amount of culture shock.
I try not to pigeonhole my characters into MY idea of what good and evil are, I try to explore the idea that not everyone has the same definition of those terms. I've always found that some of the best villains are those whose idea of what constitutes right and wrong differ from the real world norm.
Sometimes the answer to the question "Why is this person evil?" is "Because your idea of the term differs from theirs."
Also: I've always thought the villains who are knowingly and intentionally evil are a little one dimensional. Evil for the sake of being evil is the most cliched motivation there is, and i lose interest in any story that has a villain like that.
Why is he evil? Because he's just a dick! That isn't any better than because he's crazy. And in my example above, she's not crazy, she's just justified some horrible things to herself in order to be able to live with things. When you are killing "evil" people, it will get easier and easier, until eventually all you need to callously murder someone is the barest hint that they've done something wrong.
Say, something like murdering a single mother on welfare because taking money and giving nothing in return is evil would fall into that kind of justification. -
Quote:This story could easily turn into her becoming a monster, killing innocent people because she's twisted it in her head that she's actually doing the right thing. If she twists her definition of what "evil" is enough, she'd be a mass murderer in short order, all the while completely convinced that SHE is in the right and the rest of the world is evil and twisted.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
For example, a recent villainess I wrote a story for was an engineered super soldier who was compelled to killed and exhibit aggression because that's what she was bred for. A hero might look for a way to control those impulses. This villainess, instead, found a cause (abovementioned "fight against evil" villain) where she could indulge in her compulsions AND feel morally justified in doing so, because her "saviour" insists it's OK to murder "evil" people brutally and in cold blood.
People can justify anything to themselves in order to feel better about things they've done. -
Looks much better.
I usually shoot for 32.5% S/L defense on my /Regens, that way I can soft-cap with a single small purple inspiration.
The only thing I see that I might be concerned about is the lack fo slotting in QR and Stamina. Granted, Claws/Regen goes pretty easy on the end bar, but I'd want a little more slotting in there.
I would try to get a couple more slots from somewhere to put in them. You have room for 3 Performance Shifter Chance for +End, and it is NOT a unique, so you can slot as many as you have places for.
Put the Numina's unique in Physical Perfection. The heal bonus you're getting with it in FH won't help you much, since it only affects Dull Pain.
Other than that, it looks much better this time around. -
If Boost Range isn't perma, make it perma. Outranging people is an /Energy blaster's specialty. If you have Perma Boost Range, you will outrange anything but another /Energy blaster, so you will end up having an advantage over a lot of other ranged characters.
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A few things for you to ponder:
1) Flares is actually a good attack now. It got it's animation time reduced to 1 second.
2) You can use your first 2 Primary powers and your first secondary power while you're mezzed now, due to the changes to Defiance a while back (you don't have to be almost dead to benefit from it now), so there's another reason to pick up Flares.
3) If you are going to 5 slot your single target attacks, go with Decimation. It doesn't matter if the set only goes to 40, you can't outlevel Inventions like you can SOs. 5 Decimation will get you more recharge bonuses.
4) If you take my advice in point 3, stop when you have slotted 2 sets of Decimation. You can only have 5 of any given bonus, and Decimation's recharge bonus is the same as Positron's Blast's bonus.
5) Time Bomb sucks. No, really. Unless you have some way of staying completely invisible to plant it, or can immoblize or put the entire group to sleep for more than 23 seconds it will go to waste every time you try to use it.
Those are some tips for your current build. Here's some for what I would do with it.
-Lose Combat Jumping and Super Jump play as a hover-blaster.
-Slot 6x Thunderstrike in all your single target attacks.
-Slot 4x Eradication in your PBAoE attacks (Inferno and Trip Mine)
-Take Tough, Weave, and Maneuvers. Slot a Steadfast Protection Res/Def in Tough and don't run it. Acquire Luck of the Gambler +7.5% Recharge IOs for your defense powers.
What that will do is crank up your defense to ranged attacks. And if you are hovering all the time, they will HAVE to attack from range (unless they fly too, then just hit 'em with Webnade)
Unfortunately, you aren't going to have much success farming with this character. Fire/Devices is not nearly as overpowered as it used to be. It is much more balanced with everything else now, and /Devices is viewed as kind of the red-headed stepchild of blaster secondaries. (yeah, those melee attacks that used to get laughed at in other sets? People LIKE them now, they hit really hard)
If I get a chance later today I'll post a build for you showing you what I'm talking about. -
It'd be nice to see PvP get some love.
I'm not going to hold my breath on it though.
I dislike some PvPers attitudes, but most of the ones I've actually met in-game were decent enough. (A few jerks here and there, but you'll find that anywhere)
I rarely PvP these days, maybe I would do so more often if it got some attention.
Oh, and HELL NO to the whole "stay your own level" thing. Even if you can't target them, you can still kill them with an AoE power. It'd be far too griefable.
I can see it now: a level 50 attacks another 50, and just before the other 50 returns fire the attacker joins the team that he left the invite window open for, suddenly he's level 20 and can't be targeted by the person he attacked. People would do that all the time, it would let you attack people pretty much with impunity and join a lower level team so they can't hit you back. They'd just keep hopping on and off of teams in the zone so their intended target would never be able to effectively fight back. -
Quote:Gee, you're going to be fun for new people to play with, given the attitude permeating your posts.Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
Freeloaders can see tells sent to them and they can read Broadcast. They can't send to Broadcast and they can't send tells.
Really, calling them "freeloaders"? No, someone doesn't have a superiority complex. -
Both, really.
I can't pick just one cliche to make all my villains, it really depends entirely on the character.
Some of my villains are glamorous swashbuckler types, some of them are just depraved killers. The story I come up with for them determines whatkind of villain they are, and it varies from character to character. There's no overall "type" of villain I prefer to play as, since my characters cover pretty much every villain type there is. -
They just have to be level 47 or higher.
If they are capable of dropping a reward of any kind, and it actually says level 47+ in the target window, they'll be able to drop purples.
And you only have one level shift. The other two level shifts available to us only function in trials, not in the rest of the game. -
A few things stood out.
1) You didn't slot Fast Healing. You may not have known this, but Regen is getting enhanceable Regen Debuff Resistance in issue 21. It is contained in Fast Healing, so the more you enhance FH, the more debuff resistance you get.
2) You slotted Reconstruction with RESISTANCE SETS. That power, above all others, needs to be slotted for recharge and healing. Screw the set bonuses, that is the power that will keep you alive when defense fails (and it will). If you were trying for more S/L defense, you needed one more Reactive Armor anyway.
3) You took Boxing before you took Slash. I take Slash at level 2. I would advise taking it NO LATER than level 12. That power is part of why Claws has a full single target attack chain by level 18.
Put Boxing at 20, and take Slash at level 4. That means you can put off Quick Recovery until level 14. You really don't need QR at level 4 on a Claws/Regen anyway. Claws is light on endurance and you don't have any toggles until level 16 (Combat Jumping is so cheap I don't count it as an end drain)
4) Reconstruction and Instant Healing should both be slotted how you have Dull Pain slotted here.
5) I would not put Eviscerate off until level 47. It's far too good of a power to push back that far.
6) The other change that Regen is getting in i21 is Resilience is getting buffed and spread out to ALL damage types (except Psi). It will be approximately 10% resisitance to all when slotted. It's worth taking earlier than 49 now. You could consider slotting Reactive Armor in it, or use 2 Steadfasts and the Glad Armor + a generic resistance IO.
7) Take Hasten sooner.
8) Focused Accuracy doesn't need that much slotting. I'd go with 2 Rectified Reticle an end reducer and the Gaussian's BU proc.
9) You slotted MoG with Reactive Armor, which enhances resistance (which MoG caps out of the box) and gimps it's recharge.
The biggest mistakes you made in your build, is you ignored the primary function of a lot of your powers in order to cram more set bonuses into the build. Examples of where you did this: not slotting Reconstruction for healing to get more defense bonuses, not slotting MoG for recharge, again to get more defense.
You're also forgetting that Regen has absolutely no defense debuff resistance at all. None. Nada, zip, zero, zilch. What are you going to do when your defense gets debuffed into the negatives, and your heals can't keep you alive because you gimped them chasing the defense that is now gone?
That's about all I got for you. Main point of my post: Never ignore what a power is supposed to do in order to get set bonuses of questionable worth. I say questionable worth here because of the aforementioned lack of defense debuff resistance. Defense on a Regen is great.....gimping your healing ability to get it is not so great. -
Quote:Cloaking Device isn't really there for the defense. It's a stealth power first, with a little bit of defense added as an afterthought.Originally Posted by Jibikao
One thing I've noticed is that endurance cost is pretty heavy I run both Cloaking and Targetting Drone. Cloaking's defense seems very very very low. Endurance cost should be less?
Some moderate IO slotting later on will eliminate any end problems you have now. I have a Sonic/Devices that runs 5 toggles and I have to actually TRY to run low on endurance.
Thunderstrike is going to be your best friend on a Devices build. That set gives you all the things you want on a ranged /Devices blaster. -
Quote:Just having hover should be enough.Originally Posted by Papaschtroumpf
I am taking Hover at lvl22 in my "current final" build. did you mean to say I need to make some adjustments to the build to make it more of a Hover Blaster? (such as additional slotting in Hover?)
I like to add an additional Flight enhancement to it for greater mobility, but that's optional.
I have a Sonic/Devices that, except for when I log him in or he gets hit with -fly, hasn't set foot on the ground since 2008. -
Quote:This post.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I believe you are in the lead, sir.
I'm not sure if anyone else runs forum searches to find out if anyone has talked about them
'Twas in jest. -
Lately it's been Praetorian Police boots.
I go in cycles, sometimes I'll be overusing one pices, then I'll switch to a different piece for a while.
I use the Clockwork chest detail quite a bit too. It blends nicely with one of the chest patterns, but I forget which one it is. -
Mind/Fire is a very popular combo.
They can be nasty with a good build and it the hands of a competent PvPer.
I was working on a Mind/Energy, just to be a little different, but I lost interest in PvP for the most part, so he's been languishing in the late 20s. -
Honestly, if you build to be tough enough without it, you won't even miss OWTS.
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Since you're not really taking any of the Devices powers, I would build it as a hover-blaster instead.
Ranged defense is a nice thing to have. It's even nicer when they HAVE to attack you from range because you can fly and they can't.