Cybercel

Yeah, the pulls today were fantastic, after the resets. I'm all for resetting and seeing if we can duplicate something like that - the time saved, and the frustration avoided, is really worth it. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
Personally I've got 5 Hami-Os which I have accumulated over the last 17 months...Bludd has gotten 5 in 2 months...anyone but me see a small imbalance here?

[/ QUOTE ]

On the other hand, each successful Hami raid dumps rather large numbers on HOs into the population, whereas a successful Recluse SF creates a total of eight.

I don't see it as any sort of massive imbalance, really. And I say that as someone who actually plays more heroes than villains, and has exactly zero HOs on CoH. What I'd really like to see is something similar to the Recluse SF put into CoH alongside, or as a replacement to, Hami. The huge raids don't seem particularly fun, or even really challenging from everything I've been told. The Recluse SF is both, and I'd just like something along those lines to do with my high-level heroes. I think I'd level more up, then.

If you're willing to take a Dark Corruptor (not quite Rad, I know, but the debuffs are still very useful on this SF), then I'll sign up for this run as well - Aphotica, level 50 Ice/Dark Corruptor.

[ QUOTE ]
A run on saturday morning. 11:30 start if possible (as i want to go and get ratted up the pub after ;p)

Again, will need the key components, which are debuff corrupter
/kin corrupter
/stone brute
and secondary brute

after that corrupters preferred but all considered.

interested parties?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, why not.

Aphotica, Ice/Dark Corruptor, signing up once again.

We were indeed.

Pulling certainly works well to speed things up and make it a lot simpler, but it still looks like you need a team capable of brute force when neccessary. Thankfully, we could do both, and do them well. That really seemed like a near-perfect mix - I was impressed by how long we could keep fighting.

Well, we smashed through the Vindicators base so well (and without using any nukes), that it looked like charging in was going to work really well. And sure, we got through Numina and Psyche... and then started having trouble. As much as anything, I think people were just getting a little tired, and we weren't always sticking close enough together... that kind of thing. We took a nice long break, got fresh nukes and Shivans, went back in and smashed them all some more.

Also, a fair amount of the time was spent just trying out potential methods - plenty of the team hadn't tried it before, so I think it was a very good run, even if it sounds like it took a long time. We did play around trying a number of possible ways of doing things, and all of that helps for future runs. We also had to deal with a bug in the first mission that slowed us down. (Our tech kept running away through the map whenever we tried to enter or exit side buildings.)

The main thing I'm noticing is that it seems like different methods work well depending on the team setup. We ended up taking the Freedom Phalanx out in a slightly different order this time from my first attempt - and we tried it other ways, but it just wasn't happening.

Anyway, thanks again for the team - the Vindicators fight was a huge rush, with it being the first time I'd been on a team that successfully took them all on at once like that. I think everyone was really shining then, with heals, debuffs, and ressurects being thrown around at just the right time to keep everyone going. Really felt like I was getting some vengeance for all the hours I've spent in that mission.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, the time and day works so well for me that I feel like I have to sign up.

Aphotica, Ice/Dark Corruptor

[/ QUOTE ]

/em crosses fingers, hoping that you have Darkest Night, unlike the last */Dark Cupptor we did Recluse with

[/ QUOTE ]

Ooooh dear. I have Darkest Night. What I do lack tht might be kinda handy is Howling Twilight, as when I respecced, I was thinking I'd be PvPing more than trying to farm the Recluse SF. Past that, though, I think I have a pretty solid build, you'll be glad to hear.

Well, the time and day works so well for me that I feel like I have to sign up.

Aphotica, Ice/Dark Corruptor

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but you have to go where the people are if you want to PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I go sit resolutely atop the Globe in WB, I also "won't accomplish much beyond earning the "time in zone"-badge". The best I can do is try to drag people back into the island with me, which is usually to no avail if there's the usual retinue of 5 regens sat making sandcastles on the beach - as new people entering the zone will also (naturally) gravitate to where the action is, even if the action is dull and predictable.

[/ QUOTE ]
That just means you'll be able to get a bunch of nukes, almost for free.

I see no loss for you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, that'd be great if he wanted nukes, but we're discussing this on the PvP forum. That may give a hint as to why the situation annoys him.

Despite the many comments about Fly not being good in PvP because of all the -Fly going around, the few Empaths I've seen and really rate in PvP use Fly. I've gone through several builds without it on my Empath, but the more I started to go into PvP zones, the more I realised I needed it - slotted Hover is just nowhere near fast enough. So I've gone with Fly AND TP - Fly for moving around to heal and buff people, and TP for long-distance travel, and as an escape power. You can TP even when immobed and when there's -Fly on you, so you'll get away from the Spines users with Impale that are so prevalant in PvP. If you TP when someone has started an AS on you, you can be half a zone away and healing yourself by the time the damage comes through.

I have both Hover and Air Sup, as well. I switch to Hover whenever I'm not moving around so much to conserve endurance. Air Sup isn't slotted for damage - it's just for knocking people who are chasing me out of the air. I don't have recharges in it either, because using it for that, there's no need to have it back right away, really.

Looking at slotting... I wouldn't bother with the endmod in AB, I've yet to see anyone but an I4 Dark/Dark Scrapper get through the endurance from an unslotted AB. (I don't really bother much with endmods in RA, either.) If you slot it with three heal, especially if you also have Regen Aura slotted with three heal, you can put them both on someone and have a temporary Regen. Even with with Power Build Up beforehand. It's fantastic in both PvP and PvE - I've used it to turn my boyfriend's SR Scrapper into an AV tank, and make his Ar/Dev Blaster nearly unkillable in the face of two MMs and a load of turrets in Recluse's Victory.

I slot Fortitude as you have, 3 recharge/2 def/1 tohit - the tohit is really for PvP. I always used to go with 3 def until I started PvPing more.

Recall Friend I have an Interrupt Reduction in, to try and shorten the time it takes in case I need to use it to save someone, and nothing else. I've run into the range limit once in well over a year, and it's always avoidable by just stopping and TPing someone part way, and then TPing them again. I feel it's not enough of an irritation to deserve a slot. I can't think of a situation where I've ever felt a recharge in it would have saved someone, and I'm happy to wait the extra 1.7 seconds or so for it to come back up. At high levels I rarely find myself TPing multiple people, anyway.

Three accs and a knockback in Power Push seems like overkill, but the knockback could be funny. Mine just has two accs in it, though.

Some of those extra slots in Power Push and Air Sup could always go into Power Bolt - seems to me like if you're going to start slotting it, you might as well get the other damages into it. There have been times in PvP where someone's escaped my teammates with a tiny bit of health left, and a small, ranged attack would have done the trick.

Recharges in Clear Mind are another option - it's fairly slow when Hasten is down, especially when you have 6 teammates who all want it so they can see people in PvP.

Worth noting, all my PvP experience is in the zones, not the Arena - I've no doubt that the way I have my Empath built and tend to play her would be instant death on a small, indoor map, so take that into account if you like the Arena.

[ QUOTE ]
One thing I've noticed with running just Steamy Mist and Snow Storm at lv 6 is that my endurace is going like crazy. This will naturally be improved with stamina and endreds, but makes my "out-of-end"-phobia more sever...

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, my Stormy was like that at low levels, and I freaked out and made a build for her with three end reds in all my toggles, until Syn leaned over and pointed out how little the third one was really even helping, especially in Hurricane.

With Stamina, SOs, and Vigilance, I honestly don't find Storm to be the horrendous endurance-hog I was convinced it would be, and that it seemed to be for the early levels. Yes, you'll run out of endurance eventually if you leave all your toggles on and spam all your attacks, but you may well find you don't use everything all the time. Obviously, everyone's playstle is different, so in part this is just going to be a matter of seeing how it plays out for you, but I'll often find I don't need Snow Storm at all, or go through an entire mission without turning Hurricane on once (especially now that it pushes mobs about twice as far as it should). Or I'll find myself so busy debuffing things that I don't really attack a whole lot. Either way, before I can get anywhere near running out of end, everything's usually dead.

Of course, maybe you'll find some way to run Storm/Psy into the ground. I've had people telling me they don't find Ice/Dark Corruptors bad for endurance use, when I can regularly be found practically sobbing over how bad mine is - perhaps Storm/Psy will be your Ice/Dark.

I think you're overdoing it with the end reductions in your toggles. I have a Storm/Rad and a Rad/Psy, and going from my experiences on those, I really don't think you'll need anywhere near that many. Even before Vigilance was added in, I wouldn't have slotted that many. And since Vigilance came in, I've really found my Defenders to be quite light on end - I considered not picking up Stamina on my Rad, but kept it for soloing and AV fights. And keep in mind, I almost never slot endurance reductions in my attacks, so I especially doubt you need that many in both the attacks and the toggles together.

As it stands, in my Storm/Rad's current build (a recent respec after player her for 20-odd levels), I'm planning on putting two endurance reductions in Snow Storm and Steamy Mist, and one in Hurricane (which uses less endurance, according to everything I've read on it - does seem that way). Honestly, I could get by with less (I find that the more powers I have, the less time I leave any given toggle running), but I like to plan for when I'll need to be in a long fight and have all my toggles running. I'd pop one of those slots into Stamina instead - the third slot makes a reasonable difference, and you're better off with it there, and helping you in all situations, rather than just benefitting one power.

Past that... I don't think I'd bother slotting Total Focus with disorient duration, but hey... personal preference. I wouldn't bother rushing to slot Snow Storm with slows at a low level - it's good out of the box, and extra slows are nice, but I'd say it's less important than getting other things slotted early. Fine for a respec build, though. If you find you can spare more slots for Psionic Lance (interrupt reduction, maybe even a recharge?), I find that as a Stormy I can often get away with sniping quite a bit. It's always satisfying to do that much damage on a Defender.

Oh, and I want a Storm/Psy now, just so I can have Tornado and Psionic Tornado at the same time.

I'm having issues with my hosting at the moment, as I mentioned on the hero thread - until that's sorted out, I can't get anything updated. Either way, I have a hero update ready once things are working again, and then I'll do this side of things.

I have a Sonic/Elec at 38 - it's a very fun build. I have to agree with Plight that you can't really go wrong with anything from Elec. Power Sink is one of my favourite powers in the game now. Lightning Clap is probably the most missable (in that I'd probably take it if I could fit it, but it's the lowest priority)... but I've not heard anything that makes me think it's completely useless.

As far as Sonic goes... I think it really depends what you're going for. Sonic has some nice single-target damage, some control powers, and the one damage cone. If you just want to go for damage, the three single-target blasts (even the small one - it fires of very quickly) and the nuke are nice. Shout has a long animation, but it does do quite a bit of damage. I don't like Howl very much... the noise is annoying (like a wolf noise - doesn't fit with the other sounds), and the damage honestly doesn't seem great. I had it on my Sonic/Dev, not taking it on either of my current Sonic Blasters. Some people seem to like it, though.

If you want to look at the control side of things, Screech is great - I love disorients though, so I'm biased. Really handy for taking out a Lt. that's causing you trouble, or knocking a squishy out of the sky in PvP. You could possibly stack on bosses when using Lighting Clap? As it is, I help Syn's MA/Regen disorient bosses with it. It also has the best sound effect in the entire game, which causes me to giggle madly every time I use it. Siren's Song is very nice, as long as you have a team who understand sleeps, and won't wake everything right back up. It's great solo or in small teams to send things to sleep, and then finish them off with your melee attacks quickly, one by one. Shockwave is less useful (cone knockback), but if you're a fan of knockback, it's fine. Nothing horrendously wrong with it.

Amplify is just Aim, and is as good as ever.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Dark Blast: Dark Pit (AoE disorient), Tenebrous Tentacles (AoE immob), Life Drain (tohit debuff and small self-heal)

[/ QUOTE ] Just...no, that power is very, very bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wasn't saying anything about the quality of the powers in that list, MaX. I was just pointing out which utility powers are in each set. I've heard it's awful (though I've never tried it), but more importantly for an Empath, as I pointed out, there's just no need for another self-heal anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
thx for all the replys, think ill go with emp but dunno wich secondary to pick yet :P

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends what you're going for. Some Empaths choose to concentrate almost entirely on their primary, while others like to get a mix of powers.

I would really stick mainly to your primary if you're planning on being a PvP Empath. Of course, you could choose to level first with a different build, and then respec into a PvP build later on, but PvP Empath builds work perfectly well in PvE. And seeing as you already have a solid group to team with, you probably don't need to worry about being able to solo.

So, for a PvP build, I would look to choose a secondary with one or two utility powers - by this, I mean powers that have a use other than damage, that you could use to protect yourself:

Archery: Stunning Shot (disorient)
Dark Blast: Dark Pit (AoE disorient), Tenebrous Tentacles (AoE immob), Life Drain (tohit debuff and small self-heal)
Electrical Blast: Short Circuit (endurance drain), Tesla Cage (hold)
Energy Blast: Power Push (knockback)
Psychic Blast: Telekinetic Blast (knockback), Psionic Tornado (knockback), Scramble Thoughts (disorient)
Radiation Blast: Cosmic Burst (disorient)
Sonic Blast: Shockwave (cone knockback), Siren's Song (cone sleep), Screech (disorient)


Those are from a quick look at a hero builder program, I'm sure someone will point out if I've missed something. There are a number of other powers with a chance to take some effect (like a 30% change of knockback, for instance), but I'm just referring to the ones that are specifically meant for their status effect, rather than it being secondary to the damage. The only one I'm not sure about there is Telekinetic Blast - the description makes it sound like it always knocks back, but having used it quite a lot, it seems like it sometimes doesn't when I would expect it to.

If I were making an Empath now, for the purposes of PvP, I would probably avoid Archery (redraw time on bow, nothing you can't get from other sets utility-wise), Dark (AoEs aren't great for PvP, and you hardly need another self-heal), Energy (just one knockback doesn't really stand up to the other secondaries utility powers), and Radiation (the disorient power is very short-range). That leaves you with Elec, Psy, and Sonic. I'd probably go with Psy or Sonic on the basis that a lot of people with no status protection are picking up Acrobatics for PvP, which means they can resist one of your holds. They won't, however, resist a disorient. In an arena match you can probably expect everyone to have Break Frees or an Empath Clear Minding them a lot of the time anyway, but status effects can really save you from people chasing after you in one of the PvP zones, especially if you use Fly to get around.

If, on the other hand, you really want to do some damage... Archery still has the redraw every time you switch between your primary and secondary, and it's mostly highly-resisted Lethal damage. I'd probably still avoid Dark, too (again, AoEs aren't so great in PvP, and it's not the best damage anyway). Radiation has a couple of AoEs which won't be so useful in PvP, but you could pick and choose from it - the disorient is very short range, though. I think the others are perfectly viable choices, though, for dishing out some damage. Much like in PvE, psychic damage isn't resisted by most people, and the attacks have a nice secondary effect (-recharge), so I'd be very tempted by that. You might have trouble if you run into one of the few people who do have psy resist, but since I doubt you'd be soloing in PvP with any Empath build, it wouldn't really be a problem.

That got ridiculously long, sorry. I've played my Empath in PvP a fair amount, although I really stick to the zones. If you have any specific build questions on that end of things, I'd be glad to make another stupidly long post.

And here is what may well be the only existing (now, or the the past or future!) screenshot of a batcow hitting level 50.

Yeah, it's a bit crap, but I play with my settings on minimum these days. And hey, he's only a Dom anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(inmob, kb and hold)

[/ QUOTE ]

(imho)The hold protection (mag 1) in acrobatics is useless in both pvp and pve. i dont know any numbers, but i get held a lot in pve even with acro active.

[/ QUOTE ]

Acrobatics will prevent anyone except Controllers and Dominators from being able to hold you in one shot. It can come in handy against a Blaster who only has one hold - normally they'd be able to hold you and then make quick work of killing you. The best part about it, though, is really the knockback protection.

If you're being put off purely because you saw other Iec/Darks around, I wouldn't worry too much. What you saw may likely have just been a fluke - it's not really a flavour-of-the-month build. I can't say I've ever teamed with another Ice/Dark, in fact. There do seem to have been more posts from people asking about Ice/Dark recently, but I still don't really see a lot of them around. Ice/Rad seems to get more attention for PvP and things like the Recluse SF, and I see far more Thermals and Kineticists around in practice. If you do go for it, you get the Corruptor build with the most control, and lots of nice debuffs.

Sonic/Cold sounds perfectly workable though. In fact, my boyfriend actually has one, but he's only at a fairly low level so far. I'm point him this way anyway, in case he has any thoughts on it for you.

I've not played a Dom up to high levels yet, but from lower-level experience of two different Doms and a ton of Controllers, I can't say I generally bother with the AoE immobs. Especially for Doms, where they last less time when you're not in Domination. They use up quite a bit of endurance, bring in a load of aggro, and don't actually incapacitate the enemies. The best uses I've seen are either stacking them with AoE disorients, or immobing a group while the team escapes if you all need to run. I generally find my single-target controls and keeping moving is enough to make sure I don't take too many big melee hits.

[ QUOTE ]
Sonics..Even with tactics I personally would be slotting 2 acc as it has a -5 penalty

[/ QUOTE ]

Just so you know, pretty sure this is actually a myth. I found something about it on the US boards some months ago now - what was said was basially that Sonic is like any other set. Some of the cones have -acc (Siren's Song and the knockback, I think?), but the normal attacks don't at all. There were apparently some misunderstandings over something a red name said that led to the belief that all attacks had a penalty.

Obviously, I could have heard wrong, but it's certainly at least worth looking into. It always struck me as a bit odd that the entire set would have -acc, as it's not particularly better than any others out there. And none of the four Sonic Blast characters I've played have ever felt less accurate than normal.

[ QUOTE ]
If there's not room for you on that team, I'll have to bump one of the members from mine as you signed up first...

[/ QUOTE ]

I can hop to team two if need be. Either way, I'm going to be around, and I'm all set to go.

If there's space on one of the two teams, I'd like to do another run of it on Aphotica, my level 50 Ice/Dark/Mu Corruptor. The morning team would probably be best for me, but I could do either.

Alright, all villains updated, up to here.

[ QUOTE ]
The 2nd time we tried the vindicators we rushed them, didnt use any nukes or shivans, it seemed to work fine, nice debuffs from kinetics and rad helped alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that mission is largely going to come down to team make-up. I wouldn't say we really had an ideal team AT-wise, and we didn't have much luck taking on more than two of them at a time.

I certainly think next time I do it I'd want to try just rushing them, but for any group who finds that's not working, it's good to know that they do sometimes seem to be pullable.