DarkMaster

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Onto the FM/SD Scrapper tangent, if you're abusing AAO to the point where it's that much better than Fiery Embrace, wouldn't Soul Drain put Dark Melee ahead?

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Going off of the times posted in the scrapper pylon thread, it appears that the answer is no. Meaning that DM + saturated SD and AAO isn't quite as good as FM + BU + saturated AAO.

However, I haven't sat down to figure out what the best attack chain for DM is and ran the numbers on it either.

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Do remember that "Brute" DM get's Gloom, which is a definate addition (and huge boon) to DM's attack chain and damage output. So that may change the output of DM for Brutes somewhat.

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It's balanced once you save up a billion inf to spend on your toon. Good luck going in with no sets.

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And this is different than WHAT games? In any MMO game with pvp, if you want to "be" the best, you'll have to have the "best toys/gear" to get there with. Add in your own personal skills, and you have a top performer. Yes, even WoW requires the "best" gear and classes to actually put up a good fight in pvp.


CoX is no different in that sense.

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You can guarantee that they were ignorant noobs huh? lol
Maybe ur SS/Fire just isnt that good. I didn't say "totally wreck a few chumps", I said they do well vs a few heroes at a time. By that I mean they don't get killed right away and can kill a cpl of heroes even though it's 1v3-5.

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Yes, I did say TOTAL N00BS and ABSOLUTE MORONS. I don't think I stuttered.


If you are actually able to go into a pvp environment and face off against "3-5 Heroes at once" and survive long enough to pull off a "couple of kills then YES, the players you are fighting against are either sorely sorely ill-equipped and ill-prepared to be dealing with you, or they are just total fools. There is no excuse for a "competant" team with 3-5 players to EVER go down to a "solo" and "single" Brute. Ever. Unless of course....they are simply fools or fit any of the clauses I just described.


Even a half decent healer/buffer will be able to save his teammate "indefinately" before you ever have a chance to flatline his green bar, and the rest of his team shouldn't just standing around with their thumbs up their rears either.


So basically, yes, if you are fighting total nubs/un-prepared Heroes, you can do what you described above, otherwise, no.

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I'm a bit curious what people's opinion of DM is for single target damage. It seems like it might do okay with the recent buff.

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DM is some awesome single target damage, especially when built correctly.

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I'm a new player so I know little about pvp. Is it balanced?

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PvP, like many other games, has its balance issues as well as more "pvp" centric builds/AT's, which you will have to build towards if you want to stand a real competitive chance. PvP in this game is also a little more fast paced than others due to travel powers of course.

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Been toying around with a /regen. I've concluded that with IOs + shadowmeld, you could get decent defense for 15s. This with MoG gives another 15s. Throw in instant healing and you got a bridge to the next MoG and shadowmeld. So that's 150s of pretty good survivability.

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That has always been known, but the biggest downside to Regen has always been it's lack of consistant Repel Protection (outside of a mere 15 seconds in MoG) and it's lack of in set Perception. Survivability has always been on Regen's side, it's the other stuff that makes it somewhat outclassed by other secondaries for many situations, especially WP.

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I believe the most likely "barrier" to switching is going to be content, not penalties..

Based on the survey last fall, I actually expect people with a sufficiently grey/neutral rating to be able to switch back and forth with some degree of ease. Maybe not just walk up to the portal and click it ease, but certainly not dramatic undoing of your character.

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This.


Uberguy has pretty much hit the nail on the head. The dev's aren't going to want to "extremely penalize" paying customers for even considering swapping factions. This would not only severely discourage anyone from ever buying their new expansion in the first place, but place more problems on themselves down the road through complaints and lack of profit.


The Morality Compass, which was discussed a very long while back, is the most likely scenario with side-switching. As discussed in the intros for CoH:GR, Heroes and Villains will be able to explore the "grey lines" between "good and evil." Combine that with the Morality Compass, and we can assume that we will not simply wake-up one morning and declare ourselves a "new faction" without having FIRST built up enough either "good" or "bad" points (to put it simply) to declare it. We can even assume that by this statement in the press release:

"Clearly marked missions, in addition to behaviors and decisions made by the player, will move a hero's or villain's moral compass, which could eventually change the hero's or villain's alignment"

Basically, we'll most likely be forced to run a hefty number of "clearly marked missions" in order to gain enough "Morality Points" for us to side switch. The exact number of missions and deeds that we must do are what we don't know. I'm betting that we're looking at a pretty decent amount of time investment required to be able to swap sides though. I'm SURE the dev's don't want people being able to swap sides on an hourly or "at whim" basis.


It might not be several "days" worth of mission hours, but most likely it will be more than just a "couple" quick missions. My guess would be about [u]2-3 Strike Forces worth in time investment[u] for comparison, since it is clearly stated as with enough missions you could "eventually" change your alliance. Eventually in the MMO world can mean a decent amount of time investment in many cases.


I do doubt, however, that you will lose your badges, money, levels, enhancements, etc. There's a chance that we may lose stored "loot" such as salvage/recipes, but even that may not happen as that in and of itself would be quite a severe penalty for any player.


[u]As far as Ancillary and Patron Pools are concerned, my bet is one of two[u]:

A.) We'll either simply "keep" our Ancillary or Patron Pools normally, as it was a time investment the dev's didn't care to apply right now.

B.) Or we will simply be allowed to respec into the new faction's Ancillary or Patron Pools upon side swap. This will either be handled as a "free respec" such as Villains gain when they complete their Patron Arc for the first time (meaning that each time you switch factions, you'll gain a "free faction respec"), or you will simply attain a chance to "respec" your lvl 40+ Ancillary/Patron powers upon side switch, in order to just choose new ones (heroes "may" have to run villain patron arcs).


The Dev's might even make it a "mission" which you'll have to complete in order to recieve your new factions Ancillary or Patron Pools, make it sort of a "Prove yourself to your NEW faction and gain access to a new Ancillary/Patron Pool!" type thing. However, I'm truely betting that upon faction switch, you WILL be granted a free-respec, in similar fashion to how the Villains are currently granted a free-respec upon completion of their Patron Arcs. Afterall, you will be putting in PLENTY of time (more than a regular respec missions worth) to make it a justifiable reward.


Also, I think that our "faction builds" will come into play with the recent ability they granted us to have "2" builds. [u]I don't think, however, that we will be given a total of 4 changeable builds.[u] I think that they dev's granted us the recent ability to have "2 builds" with CoH:GR in mind, and with full intent and preparation for faction swapping. Now, you can have a "Hero build" and a "Villain build" if you swap. It's that simple.


Anyways, those are my "predictions" on the table. Just a head's up, my logic is pretty sound on this

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So perma-dom is not needed to ensure extra damage...but what will domination do now?

Same as before? Protect against status effects and increase the mags of our controls?

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Ah, link please, I mustuv missed this

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Those numbers make sense and all ingame to what you get... but why does it work like that? Maybe try to get this changed to like at the very least a poertion of it unresisted (so say enervating field does -20 res, make it -10% unresistable and 10% resisted)

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Why change THAT? Are you serious?


Why not simply REMOVE the retardedly INSANE amount of "pvp passive +res" which most toons get? Why does a damn squishy need more "passive" resistance than a Tanker or Brute who's "running" all his shields!?! The pvp "passive" resistances are what the problem is there, and they have been screwing up pvp since they implimented them.


They need vastly reduced, or removed altogether, they're ridiculous.

It's mostly the "DM" side of this coin that's going to hurt you pretty badly in pvp. It's damage is so much lower than all other primaries in pvp that it might make you cry. Sad, but true. However, if you really really must play your DM in pvp, then dmg proc up like crazy, as they really do help to "increase" the damage which DM can put out in pvp.


Anyways, it'll be an uphill battle, but if you really want to do it, DM can be made at least acceptable, especially if you can get your secondary setup well.

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if you want to be able to soft-control mobs in range of rttc, stone melee just owns for this. and i mean OWNS

the duration of the stun on fault > recharge once you have the slots, the cash and the io's. all you need then is a patron immob and they dont wander out of rttc

free, neutered, regen fuel.

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That's all good and well for Brutes, but this is the Scrapper forum.

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bloody hell

never post after just waking up

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Wow Jupiter, you sure are creamin' over Stone Melee lately lol! Nothin against ya, but every over post you've responded to has included some sort of over-the-top praise about SM lol. I'm sure it's a "love" phase, haha, we all get into them, you'll get over it soon, but enjoy it while it's fun lol

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I would strip down my Widow, but I just don't give a [censored] anymore.

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lol same here. I generally just play with SO's, but in mid-I13 my quitting friend gave me a bunch of inf, and I spent it all on my Fort. Since you know...it was the best toon in the game. I understood that elusivity would be nerfed, but there's no way that the entire toon would be made into a joke, right?

Haha. The one time I spend money IO'ing a toon, it's made useless.

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With the way the dev's like to "flip-flop" with the pvp system, it's really just not very safe to IO out ANY toon, especially villainside. It's one heckuva gamble, that's for sure, one which I've utterly LOST a couple times now...very very VERY discouraging...

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Yep, you're right. I have completely abandoned my DM/SR with I14. He has a pure PvE build now. I13 made him viable...for just 1 issue. Then he was made worse than ever before in I14.

Genius game design, I tell you.

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Your viable was the rest of us accomodating with more bonus accuracy than necessary. Does it really bother you that much to take a hit just a little more than once a minute?

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What world do you live in?


It's ALOT more than "once per minute" bub. The problem with the dev's is they can't just gently "finess" something into "balance" they have to go either way to [censored] far with it to = OP or scale it way to [censored] far back which = Gimp. There is simply NO MIDDLE GROUND with these guys. For some reason they just don't know what that means...

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Well my MA/SR Scrapper was doing well enough under I12, and was quite good under I13, but now under I14 the bloom is definitely off the rose. Currently, you can't stack up Defense like you could under I12, and you effectively have no Elusivity at all (10 points may as well be 0), so SR is worse off then it has ever been. Not that it was at any point overpowered or uber, but under I12 and I13 it was at least playable.

Under Issue 14, forget about it.

Back to the drawing board.

P.S. My Bane was surprisingly good under I12, but ever since I13 he's been kind of a joke in PvP. Back to the drawing board with him, too. IIRC, Banes don't get squishy-Resistance or Elusivity, what little Defense they have Diminishes so they are essentially defenseless under new PvP. In I12, so long as you kited, you could do quite well.

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Defense based characters have no business in pvp anymore. So QFT.

My Widow use to be very good in PvP with soft cap defense + some, but now, I don't even try to pvp with her. Almost 1.5 billion infamy build is gone down the drain and now respresent 5 million SO build that can't perform for crap.

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I'm in the same boat on that one

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DDDDOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Oh and second after redname!

Ok, in all seriousness, I predict next Tuesday for open/closed beta. Because that's the day I will be unavailable, of course.

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There is no closed beta, only open

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It's clopen beta.

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I like cheese

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I don't see any reason to play EM right now, with how good elec is. TS is overpowered almost to the point of being a bug. Who knows...maybe it is. From what I've seen, it's basically a second AS. When it crits, it's so much more damage than energy transfer, it's not even funny.

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But only when it hit's it's 50% chance for the "energy" portion to crit. Otherwise, it deals just a little more damage than a Total Focus Crit. However, yes, half the time it will deal the energy crit as well and you'll get some pretty good numbers.


However, Elec probably has some of the just plain WORST follow-up attacks you could ever ask for, with Havoc Punch being it's best (and that doesn't say much). So in my mind, though TS is pretty darn good about 50% of the time, it's balanced by the fact that Elec is pretty anemic in all other attacks/areas. AS and TS, it's about all Elec has (unless you can get a lucky LRod on some distracted nub which is just TOO fun lol )

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Dueled a fire/storm. Office map was embarassing... 0-5. Lightning storm was everywhere it seemed.

Fought tech lap, was a little bit closer 0-2 no inspirations (per my request). Got a kill on me in last 20 sec.

Seems i've found my weakness. storm ftw.

Still think i could take a psi

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A Fire/Storm what? Controller? Corruptor?

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Well, by "design" I meant actually just programming stuff into the game. Not design as in creatively coming up with ideas to improve the game or anything like that. God forbid...we don't do that [censored] in CoH.

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Ok phew! I thought that's what you meant.


Hell, almost threw what I've been believing for the last 5 years ALL outta wack! K, back to normal again.

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Yep, you're right. I have completely abandoned my DM/SR with I14. He has a pure PvE build now. I13 made him viable...for just 1 issue. Then he was made worse than ever before in I14.

Genius game design, I tell you.

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Wait...this is game design?


I thought they just threw (crappy) ideas into a hat and drew for next issue content...so there's actually "developmental thought process" behind this game? Whoa...I learn something new every day...

To the OP, and from PERSONAL experience over the last 5 years of playing this game, capped defense (50%+ for safety) is definately better than capped resistance (90% cap).


The reason being?


Simple. On my defense capped "Brute" I'm being missed by several upon several types of "debuffs, mez's, damage types" and whatever else is might be coming my way. Even if a defense debuff "does" hit, my resistance to defense debuffs with provide enough "resistance" to them, that I'm still sitting with a pretty hefty amount of +defense, which means that a "second or third" defense debuff is alot less likely to land in succession. Also, -res powers which do happen to hit end up affecting me very little due to me not relying on "+res" for survivability in the first place. On top of that, same as with the defense debuffs, thanks to my good defenses it's alot less likely for a second or third -res attack to land and bring my resistances even lower. So the "stacking" of several -res powers, or even -defense powers, is very unlikely in most situations.


As for the "resistance capped" Brute, he has to fear...well...EVERYTHING. Every debuff will most likely hit him. Every mez. Every attack. It's ALOT more likely for even 1 Defense debuff attack to land on the +res Brute and cause a cascading effect of -defense than it is for a +def Brute.


Why?


Because the +res Brute is relying on basic MOB "chance to-hit" values for his "minor" form of defense. He also has no defense debuff resistance. So when even just "one" defense debuff attack hits him, his chances to naturally "avoid" attacks simply PLUMMETS, and fast. By the "second" simple defense debuff hit, he's pretty much being hit by almost every mob now. Furthermore, due to him "not" being good at avoiding attacks, he's more likely to be hit with most -res attacks, especially if even a couple "simple" defense debuffs have been applied (even just a assault rifle...). Because of this, it's ALOT more likely that the -res toon will experience a severe and painful "cascade" -res effect on himself, reducing his resistances to bare minimums and FAST. With how plentiful -defense attacks are, the base chance to-hit values of most mobs is going to go up very fast when on a +res toon. Add in +tohit buffs which some mobs have, and things get even worse.


To elaborate on this, +res toons will also have a slightly harder time getting off a self heal power such as "aid self" due to the consistency in which they are being hit.


Defense capped toons need only worry about the "unlucky" streak breakers, auto-hit powers, and being too cocky for the most part, and one of those is totally avoidable (<---being too cocky lol).


Trust me though, in this game: Capped Defense >>>> Capped Res

(if those are the only parameters.)

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There will be dual pistols and demon summonning, but no blades.

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Judging from the latest press release:

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Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game's lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.

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I'd say dual pistols and demon summoning are a very safe bet.

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I was JUST about to snip those exact things lol.


But yea, I'd say that Dual Pistols (maybe single pistol), and even Demon Summoning IS DEFINATELY in the VERY near future for us now Heck, they have the pistol popper dude in the Trailer (as is the Demon summoner) for the Rogue haha, and he looks pretty darn cool


I can't WAIT! The only question now is...which AT's? Blasters? Corruptors? Or the long favored Scrappers/Brutes? That is what we "don't" know right now. But we'll almost definately be getting Pistols with Rogue, that much I'm almost sure of.

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Mike Tyson versus Billy the Kid, mike will lose this fight 9/10 times but if some how mike gets into melee and lands a KO blow before Billy gets off his nuke than mike will win. Maybe they need to up melee damage OR TAKE THAT STUPID RESIST OFF SQUISHIES.

Sorry some of the new changes get me all emotional, but against a good kiter all you can do is run you won't win that battle. When you taunt them they'll just keep kiting until it wears off, and just wittle away at you. You have to think about it, most range fighters probably have more resist than you do, some have multiple heals and hybernoob.

I just don't see how that was a good idea either? making all squishies tank mages. But in response to you question, i find that you just have to hope the ranged attacker isn't experienced or else it's almost impossible to win that fight with this new pvp. In i12 a good melee could atleast give them some trouble but now not so much.

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Ive seen some SS/Fire brutes brawling off against 2-5 heroes at once in zone PvP and do pretty good considering the odds; must have some killer builds. Spammed use of Taunt/TP Foe/KO Blow seemed to eat squishies up.

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I'll guarantee that the hero's he was facing were ignorant n00bs who had no clue what the hell they were doing. On top of that he most likely popped Insps+Demonic.


I have an SS/Fire Brute which I pvp with quite frequently, and "at times" I can survive against 2-3 attacking heroes (while pretty much running for my life) but I'm not going to really "win" anything if they aren't total baffoons. Basically, if my SS/Fire Brute has all the conditions right (couple inspires on, Demonic, FE+Rage on, HF up, and a tad bit-o-fury) and my slightly above average opponent has it all wrong (Hibern00b/Phase not recharged, no inspires, no Aid Self/Self Heal, BU+Aim down, taunted, not paying "too" close attention by worring about a Stalker in the area) then yes, I can totally wreck a couple chumps before they realize what's going on or have time to react. But that's ALOT of clauses in there for this to happen, which basically means...it doesn't happen very often, at all.


Against complete nubs then yea, I don't need all those clauses to do well, but that goes without saying.


For the most part though, I am just able to "survive" a hero onslaught so long as it "isn't" a decent hero spike team. In those cases, I go down just as fast as any toon really. With SS/Fire, if I'm lucky enough to be playing with a couple competant Stalkers, I'm awesome at setting up Spikes for them. Rage+FE+KoB means that I can remove a GOOD chunk of health from a squishy, the Hold+KnockUp in KoB also means that I've just sent the squishy to his back. With a couple good Stalkers to do very quick follow-up AS's, the squishy usually has no chance to survive, even if he gets off a quick heal somehow as my first KoB already removed a good deal of health, the double AS's seal the deal. For the most part though, my Brute spends his time hitting someone a couple times, they then Hibern00b/Phase, and I run from their friends for my life haha, there isn't a ton-of-killin to be had Red side like there is Blue Side.


Anyways, I agree with those who think that a squishies global resistances should be lowered drastically in pvp zones. It's just pretty much ridiculous right now...

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taunt has - 75 range spam it. will bring them in KoB range

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I don't think it's the "range" advantage at all when it comes to melee vs. ranged toons. I think it has more to do with the sheer damage output of some ranged toons, the debuffs/buffs, mez's(sorta), and Hibern00b/Phase. Basically, most "villain" melee toons simply cannot deal enough damage fast enough to kill any half decent ranged toon before it either kills him, or hibernates/phases out to start at you fresh again.


Sure, the -range helps, but that's only a small piece of the problem for melee toons.

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Just edit the custom creature you want to remove from your group. Get to the creature ID page (where you enter in their name and biography) and then, from the Group dropdown box, select "New." Type in "removal group" or something as the name of your new group. That should move the custom creature from that group into the "removal group."

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Hmm...I've tried that, it doesn't remove the toon, instead it just makes a "copy" of him (even with the exact same name) in the "new" group...hmm...I'm still stuck.

Hey guys, I'm having a bit of a problem here....I'm trying to figure out how to delete a "custom" mob from my "custom" NPC group.


[u]For example:[u]

My Custom groups name is say "[u]RedBows[u]" and within that group I have custom critters. Minions, Lt's, and Bosses. Well, I have created a couple extra "Lt" critters that I do NOT want to spawn anymore when I select the [u]RedBows[u] enemy group for a map. Lets say the three types of Lt's are named: Curly, Shurly and Moe. I've decided that I want Curly and Shurly to still spawn...but Moe...I don't want no Moe (lol). However, no where do I see an option for deleting "one" or "any" of the custom mobs....am I missing something? I simply wanna delete a couple of them, I just don't see the option.


Any help would be greatly appreciated...thanks ia!