Col_Blitzkrieger

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8.chocking cloud (PBAOE toggle) foe hold(mag 1)(self +def Melee/ranged)

[/ QUOTE ]This will only be strong enough to hold Rikti Monkeys and other Underlings. The Mag 2 version Defenders/Corruptors/Controllers get is already unpopular.

Around 95+% enhancement in True Grit, and the three +maxHP accolades... It adds up.

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Good day job accolades

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Leveling up to Security/Threat level 2 at a Trainer no longer automatically places Rest onto your power bar.

Just a minor annoyance that I've noticed has crept into the game sometime after i13 arrived.

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with a 1 or 2 slotting with recharge, surely its still useable?

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Already had it with three recharge!

[/ QUOTE ]You had three recharge enhancements in a power with 3 seconds base recharge?

Do you people realize that this set is named "Assault Rifle" and not "Flamethrower"? It can shoot bullets and stuff too.

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Y'know the mini powers, like taser dart, mutgaen and the like? Them and brawl dont cause re-draw, why can't they simply work off that?

[/ QUOTE ]Because those power animations actually have several versions of themselves and it'd be an awkward coding nightmare to start engineering clones of each non-weapon click power in the game for each possible weapon powerset combination. Brawl in itself is one of the most complex powers in the game because of this. It's not as simple as simply ticking a box that says "don't put gun away when punching".

Outleveling arcs is not determined by whether or not they give exp - this would not make sense, because mobs scale up to your level until hitting the maximum level of the arc, which leaves several levels for them to turn blue, green, and light grey. More if you're not on Heroic. Arcs usually have hard-set level brackets of 5.

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The really awkward places to get around in the Rogue Isles are at the higher levels, so you could always take Flight, Superjump or Teleport later on, too!

[/ QUOTE ]Or buy a jetpack for 10,000 Infamy.

Okay. First of all, why people think it sucks. The main reason, as was the main reason with Shield Defense when it came out, was that it's not SR.
SR lacks any utility whatsoever. It's pure defense, with some passive +recharge thrown in for fluff. The scaling resists are rather low and only take effect at low HP, so they don't change this much. Because of this, SR has higher defense numbers. It should not be used as a yardstick for comparing other defense sets to, because it -has- to be better in terms of pure defense numbers.

Another reason is that it has holes, due to being typed and not positional defense. Actually, typed defense has always been unpopular, though there's much, much less reason for this at this point. Without sets, neither SR nor any of the typed defense powersets could softcap themselves anyway. Now, positional defense set bonuses used to totally outclass typed ones. They've now been equalized. Granted, there's still more sources of positional defense than typed defense, but we can assume that as new sets come out periodically, this will also equalize over time.
EA has three 'holes', which isn't really that big of a number considering most other sets have two, or one at the least. Ice Armor has Fire and Psi. Positional ones have a partial hole to Psi. Invul has psi, Granite has psi... (Taking into account non-defense sets as well, almost all of them have a psi hole, so this isn't anything uncommon.) Energy has a weakness to Negative Energy (which makes thematic sense; Elec shares this strength vs energy and weakness vs negative, though it is resistance based), and a total hole against Psi (very few armor sets lack this hole) and Toxic (lacks a defense type). It has access to some toxic resistance, though the number is somewhat low, and in my opinion could use a buff to match Force Fields.

Now, Energy's strengths. The heal looks tiny at first glance, but pretend you're in a fairly sizeable team as opposed to soloing. Using it with 10 mobs in range, assuming you've enhanced for the heal and recharge (which you should), it'll heal 40% HP every 30 seconds. This is without Hasten, of course. Comparable to Reconstruction, though it'll also give you endurance. Hasten and global recharge bonuses are recommended if you're a Brute, because this power has a taunt component.

This brings up another weakness of Energy Aura - the lack of a taunt aura. It is the only Brute secondary that lacks one. This may or may not be changed in the future - we can only guess, but my best guess is that this has been only the start of EA changes. Anyway, that's beside the point.
Not all Brutes are meant to be Tanker-wannabes. Elec Armor can tank the LGTF, sure, but it's rather non-tanky in general. It lacks a heal, regen, maxHP or any other health management power. However, it has a damage aura and the best endurance drain power in the game, so it works very well for a damage dealer playstyle. Energy Aura is similar - it won't pull too much agro onto you, and keeps your HP and endurance topped up. Being defense based and having a heal, it actually lets you survive in the chaos and do your own thing with your attacks.
Sure, I'm conflicting what I just said earlier - you'll want to spam Energy Drain to taunt -some- mobs onto you for Fury, at least. With an AoE heavy primary, against mobs that don't do negative or psi damage a lot, you could probably be a good tank, too. Brutes deal more damage than Tankers and have a single target Gauntlet, so AoE attacks will grab agro onto you just fine if you want/need it. Adjust playstyle according to situations.

Another strength is Energy Cloak, the stealth power. This is the only stealth power in the game that does -not- suppress in combat. This does not mean you can smack a mob without it hitting back, of course, but it -does- mean your agro radius remains reduced when you enter combat with a spawn, which means you can kill spawn 1 with spawn 2 nearby without agroing spawn 2. Combined with the lack of a proper taunt aura, this makes EA currently the safest secondary to use in agro-sensitive situations.

It's no squishier than any other defense set, though. As for its tier 9, it's one of the best in the game, if not the best +defense based one. It caps your defenses, gives you a hefty +MaxHP bonus, and only has an endurance crash.

Another upside to EA, though unimportant in terms of strict game mechanics: It's pretty. Though opinions may vary, it's often considered one of the most visually pleasing and attractive armor sets, if you care for such things.

So, to sum up, it has lower defense numbers than SR (but so does every defense set other than SR), has negative (sightly)/psi/toxic holes so you'd probably want to avoid mobs that are heavily based on those damage types, has a great longevity power in the form of Energy Drain, has a very strong tier 9 power, has the strongest stealth power available to Brutes, is shiny.

Softcapped to regular types and with decent psi protection, it'll outperform SR in nearly all situations, really. Except keeping agro.



It gets three and a half thumbs up from the Colonel, out of five - good set, room for improvement which is likely in the uncertain future. (SR gets one and a half, for comparison)

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Is it really as bad as people think?

[/ QUOTE ]No. (Will elaborate if this thread devolves into another retarded EA rantfest, too busy atm)

Got my Warshade to 50 the other night. Loved him from level 1 to the end, still love him enough to start working on IOing/HOing him up to as ridiculous levels as possible.

I just wish they'd make it so you don't stop shifting forms if you get mezzed in the middle of the shifting animation.

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You could just go to Kings and run a couple hundred yards to pocket D and avoid running though high level areas like Steel or IP though.

[/ QUOTE ]The Tailor is in the Tiki lounge. If you have to run instead of teleporting, you probably won't be able to access her anyway.

Pre-stamina feel free to ignore damage slotting. Enhancement bonuses are low before SOs anyway, and Fury makes up for the damage. Focus on Acc and EndRed.

I tend to open with my AoEs on my own Brute, but mostly because they have knockdown in them for nerfing the alpha. And, well, I usually don't let my fury drop below 60ish once I get going, unless the rest of the team is -really- slow.

Well, leaked hints did mention bats. And that texture looks somewhat batty.

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mistake from pack to come?

[/ QUOTE ]I'm guessing this. Screenshot? (Am on an ITF so can't check, heh)

Best solution on a VEAT is slotting a Steadfast Protection -4 KB IO into Wolf Armor, Crab Armor or Bane Armor, since you probably won't be slotting anything better into those anyway.

Even on a melee toon (Fire Armor Scrapper) I find that KB stacking happens once every full moon at the most. Mag 4 is fine against everything besides Cabal, Fake Nemesis, and some AVs.

[Edit] First paragraph obviously doesn't apply to Widows, forgot about those while typing it.

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valantine?

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Ah, now there's a thought... Could it be, possibly a NEW event for Valentines? God knows, I'm sick of the old one... Kinda like I was sick of the Baby New Year mish and didn't bother running it even once over Christmas. Events should be NEW each year, not recycled!

[/ QUOTE ] More likely than you might think, since the mission title was (humorously) changed with this patch.

Yes, I still have like 8 runs of 2008's Valentines mission left.

Not a secret plan, just trying to figure out any possible reason why Soul Extraction doesn't take Recharge Intensive Pet sets and Gang War does.

Apparently you can't slot them into Henchmen, since Gang War spawns Pets. I wonder if this is intentional for some reason I can't quite figure out, or if it was some sweeping strike against all MM primaries that accidentally missed Gang War... (unlikely based on Castle's comments on the US boards) ... or accidentally hit Soul Extraction.

This is my subjective opinion, not an absolute truth or anything, but defense sets feel pretty anemic before IO set bonuses. SR being the worst in that sense, since it has nothing to fall back on when things -do- hit you.

I prefer hybrid sets like Invulnerability, which have resistances to fall back on. But that's just me. Mileage may vary per user, paired powerset, playstyle, environment, etc.

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Bugs that affect the game to this extent

[/ QUOTE ]You mean, not much? I, and many others, have not been bothered by it much, at least.
And the tell bug is circumventable with /r, so that's also not much of an issue anymore aside from being a minor annoyance. Since I, personally, mostly send people tells through globals, which are unaffected by the tell bug, it actually ends up saving me from the countless "wana farm m8" tells I used to get.

Just reminding y'all not to blow things out of proportion. These bugs are hardly even close to "game-wrecking".

Hm, good point there. Sorry, it's a bit of a mental reflex that's developed over time to associate Stone Armor with Granite.

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Super Jump

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stone tankers

[/ QUOTE ]Just being mean and pointing out the little flaw there, sorry.

Anyway, most of these are common suggestions (dunno if they're on the frequent list right now), and some of the Super Speed ones fall under Power Customization.

[Edit]: Not that they're bad suggestions or anything, of course.

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but it seems redundant

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It's not redundant, the purpose of poor VRs is to space out the good VRs.

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And rumour has it (and also by that logic) that the 60 month vet reward will be Legend... wait for it...

[/ QUOTE ]The last of the four veteran attacks that you haven't picked yet.

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Edit: People are fairly impatient creatures, waiting six months for something, sure, waiting even a year for it, sure but if they have to wait, lets say four years for something, it may as well not exist to them.

[/ QUOTE ]Having only just recently gotten Sands of Mu myself, I weep when I look at the time remaining until I get those freaking Arachnos Helmets.

Once again, a thread title that disappoints upon clicking it.