Dechs Kaison
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Call me crazy, but when it comes to an SO build, I put two end redux in every attack. Few people realize this, but your attacks use far more endurance per second than your toggles ever will, with the exception of Death Shroud and Cloak of Fear.Originally Posted by Soul_Stormer
oh, definitely waiting until 20% HP unless fighting a lone boss, then waiting until 50% or so. i have 1 end SO in all of my attacks as well, and i think 2 in all of my end heavy toggles.
Speaking of that, I do not recommend Cloak of Fear unless you are playing Dark Melee, doubly so when you're on SOs. The power takes too many slots to be useful, and costs too much endurance. Take and use Oppressive Gloom. It costs as much as Combat Jumping (0.07 end/s) and is useful with just a single accuracy SO. -
Quote:It's interesting that you would say this, because we're certainly not massively huge. The base is huge, because it's been around for 7 years. But when you get down to it, there's only a few of us that are regulars.Originally Posted by Tramontane
I've looked at Paragon Universe previously. It's intriguing, but I'd rather avoid any massively huge SGs.
Primal Thing
Arch Mage
Myself
Atheist Agenda
Dark Quill
Zethustra
Cylar
K'aji (well, she's half in the SG. She kinda belongs to Next Gen more.)
Dr. Stan (when he's on)
...
I think that's about it. -
Quote:I tend to build my characters the way I build my Magic decks: well balanced and with an answer to everything. I absolutely despise the feeling I get when I am forced to say "I can't win this because my build (deck) can't handle X type damage (decks that run Y combo)."Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
While I would personally do the build quite differently, Dechs is clearly no stranger to DA. If he's building it like this its my assumption that this fits his playstyle best.
I didn't go whole hog for recharge and I didn't sacrifice good attacks for softcapped defense. I'm quite happy with how this balance appears. I hope the finished product plays just as well as it looks.
Thanks, I needed that. Rough day here at work and you made me smile.Quote:Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
I'm going to quote a really awesome guide on another AT here.
I'm learning this Brute thing, so I could use nudges in the right direction like this. Let me know if I have any of this wrong:
Right now, this brute at level 31 plays like a swirling mass of sand, blades, and blood (he's an evil counterpart to my Sand tank). When he's on a team, he plays like a swirling mass of sand, blades, and blood while racing 2-7 other people to the next spawn.
My thoughts on holding aggro: I only need enough to keep Fury topped off, and considering that I've seen brutes keep full fury simply by attacking RWZ dummies, I'm not worried about holding aggro at all. I'll take the alpha and kill things. Before the spawn dwindles, I will be moving on. -
Quote:Shockwave, for scrappers, does knockdown against +4s. Level shifted claws scrappers soloing +4s are now at a distinct disadvantage because enemies get knocked back.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Quick Strike is, so far, the only confirmed power where -1s get knocked back instead of down. I think it should be fixed. Are there any others?
*There is snark here. -
You're most welcome to check out The Paragon Universe; it sounds like you'd fit in with our crowd. It's my hero side hangout for RP, and we've got regular teams monday and thursday nights. There's also a redside version that we occasionally hop to.
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Throw the Theft of Essence proc into Dark Regen. That thing has made Dark Regen fill both of my bars. It will cost you two villain merits, but it is well worth the cost.
You can do fine on SOs alone, but if you want to look at higher end expensive builds, I've got a few for you to look at.
Here's my old Dark/Fire build; it's a tank, but it should give you some ideas. The build is pre-i19 as well, so it'll take a bit of tweaking.
There's another thread in this section with my current plan for a Claws/Dark brute. It will give you some good ideas as well.
Out of curiosity, when are you using Dark Regen? Are you waiting until about 20% health every time, or firing it as soon as you get under half? Do you slot endurance reduction in your attacks? -
Quote:Influence per enemy and SO drops will be one level higher as well.Originally Posted by Hercules
And I'm curious what extra rewards, beyond extra XP, +1 provides. Drop rates are effected by more Lts and Bosses, not by increasing the level.
Remember that the level shift isn't the only thing that comes with a high tier alpha. If you really have problems with KB, turn the difficulty up one. You will have an easier time at +1 than you did pre alpha at +0. -
Quote:I intend the character for two things: Solo Villain Merit Farming at x8 (yeah, that's counterproductive, but I'll get more chances at purple drops and it'll be fun) and blazing through TFs.Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
Will you be soloing or teaming?
On teams, it'll play less like a tank and more like a scrapper with a taunt aura that gets to every fresh spawn first.
I'm slotting for 33% defense to S/L/E/N to have average defense to just about everything that matters. To me, there's no difference between 33% and 40% defense because if I get in over my head, I still pop a purple inspie. By only building to 33% defense, it has allowed me to build much more offensively and get enough recovery to not need Cardiac.Quote:Originally Posted by PBaRmy
what makes this so solid?....im confused on what defense your slotting for...you seem to have middle def on everything....
And id go cardiac on dark armor.
That and I have a softcapped Dark Armor tank already. He's bloody indestructible, and if I want to be bloody indestructible, I'll play him. This character intends to play by the "Live just long enough to kill them" strategy.
Silas gets it. I don't intend to need a purple inspiration running all the time because the 33% defense will be enough to survive almost anything I intend on doing.Quote:Originally Posted by Silas
It's not how I'd personally build it but even without the purple insp, defense in the 30s will have a large impact on his survivability.
Thanks again for all the help guys, I'll probably update as I go. And I'll put out a Dark Armor Sucks on a Brute video sometime after I finish leveling and slotting the character. -
Quote:I've got one -KB IO already; Acro is just for the times that's not enough. I suppose I could drop it for a LotG mule, but that's all it would be.Originally Posted by DoctorWhat
My only suggestion is to dump Aerobatics and use the -KB IOs for protection, it's good for 90%-95% of the crap out there. You can pick up Taunt for additional aggro control or Cloak of Fear/Stealth with a Stealth IO in sprint for a stealth option (And the ability to slot CoF/Stealth with another LoTG Proc or another -KB IO).
I didn't plan to make this build for tanking, so taunt isn't one of the things I want to have. Cloak of Darkness already provides stealth, and the IO in sprint will be enough to go invisible. -
Thanks much for all the suggestions. Here is the latest iteration.
I put more of a focus on +HP than either of you did, I think. I'm at over 4 end/sec recovery, which I still think is overkill. I may swap the Miracle set in Health out for Numina's (including proc) and put Regenerative Tissue proc back in Physical Perfection. Yeah, I know it's not that great of a proc, but I keep thinking it would do more for me than endurance recovery that I don't need.
And yes, Spiritual is definitely the way to go, I'm thinking Core Paragon eventually. I look forward to the day when I can throw out one Spin every four and a half seconds under double stacked Follow Up.
EDIT: Also, I swapped swipe for strike. Dunno why I had the weaker one in the first place. Probably because I'm terrible with attack chains and thought I needed something super fast recharging.
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Quote:That's what she said?Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
This thread is hard.
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Quote:I'm guessing it would be the /Fire part. [Trollface]Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
May I ask why? I'm currently experimenting with a Grav/Elec Dom and I'm impressed so far. What would make Grav/Fire good or even better?
Really though, it has Fiery Embrace. Whether the combo is better is not exactly the question. The OP was just asking for a Grav build that dealt damage. -
Quote:I beg to differ. The catgirls have been multiplying since Launch Day.Originally Posted by Johnstone
Dude, come on, we all know knock up is a lie. You can't knock anyone up in this game. The proof is that there are no children.
No it wouldn't. You still get the heightened rewards of fighting +1s even though they con white.Quote:Originally Posted by rsclark
That would defeat the purpose of getting the +1. -
Quote:No, it shouldn't be ignored, but you can't say "Fire/kin does more damage than any other controller, therefor Fire/ must be the most damaging primary." It's not a logical leap. If we're defining the damage dealing capabilities of Fire, it should be without regard to the secondary.Originally Posted by Psiphon
However if one Primary has an espect that can be enhanced by the usage of a particular secondary then personally I feel that it should be considered.
If some one asked what the most damaging AoE Controller Primary is it would probably be between Fire and Plant. However due to the direct nature of it's damage Fire makes better use of Kinetics to move ahead of a Plant/Kin.
Should the synergy of Fire and Kin be ignored?
Think of it this way:
All Dark Armor tanks can stun or fear minions.
All Elec tanks can sap bosses.
All Shield tanks have a PBAoE knockdown.
A subset of Dark Armor tanks can stun bosses and LTs.
A subset of Dark Armor tanks can recover endurance and fear bosses.
A subset of Shield tanks have a heal power.
Which points are fair for comparison? -
Quote:The last unofficial poll that was conducted shows that about half of the people playing hide from searches (I'm one of the hiders), but fear not. Pick up groups are far from dead.Originally Posted by Steamee
Looking at /search shows few people of any level interested in teaming and surprisingly few people in general I can even send tells. Is everyone just hidden these days? Pick up groups all but dead? What am I missing? I've tried to ask the few I have teamed with over the last few days what's going on but no one seems to know.
What you need to do is join the server's global channels. Depending on when you last played, global channels are new. They're like broadcast, but they are cross zone and even cross server. People in other zones and even in missions can see your messages, making teaming a great deal easier.
Redside is a bit barren, but it's not impossible to find and create teams there. Just this past week I've been playing a low-ish brute through the Isles and I've not had issue finding a team.
I never once used /search, though. -
Quote:Replace with Thugs/. I suggest one Thugs/Dark and the other Thugs/Traps.Originally Posted by streetlight
How about a pair of Bots/Traps MMs? Buffs, debuffs, controls, and damage - all wrapped up in one neat little package.
In my opinion, Bots is the clear winner when you're talking a solo MM. Thugs, however, benefit from another character's enforcers, so they pull ahead when you duo or more. The leadership stacks across the team's henchmen. -
Quote:Fair enough. I was just guessing, because the softcap alone isn't enough because her vengeance includes +tohit. As long as some people on your team had maneuvers, then you'd be in the clear again. Still, she's a +3 AV if you're level shifted, which is just under a 10% chance to hit you at the relative softcap. You were lucky to not get hit.Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
When you whack down Neuron first right?
If so, again, she never touched me. Then again, my team was ridiculously damage-heavy. So it's not like there was a lot of time for her to take swipes at me.
Of course, with Invulnerability, you should also be hard capped to S/L damage. So even if she did hit you, it should have only tickled. -
Quote:Slotted well, it takes two uses of Power Sink to completely drain everything that's not an elite boss or higher. If you're fighting +0s, they don't last long enough to be drained, but what's the point when they don't pose the challenge to begin with? You only need survivability against +3s or better, and they certainly last long enough to get use out of the -end.Originally Posted by Psiphon
That's true but -End takes a while to work, stuns are instant and can be stacked with stuns from the Secondary, if going against mobs with debuffs this can be very important.
Is it immediate control like Dark Armor? No. Is it limited to minions like Dark Armor? Also no.
Slight clarification, I didn't claim to be the expert. I claimed to be the Dark Armor proponent, i.e. "Usually I speak very highly of Dark Armor, but..."Quote:Originally Posted by Psiphon
As you said though, you're the expert
In a debate between the survivability of primary powersets, I do not believe the secondary should be considered at all. It introduces too much variation.Quote:Originally Posted by Psiphon
Currently I'm running a DA/EM (only about L28) and stacking stuns negates a mass of damage. -
Quote:Yeah, it was pretty surprising when she hit me and took half my Dark Armor tank's health. Then I healed it back.Originally Posted by TheBruteSquad
Anyone else taken by surprise by her first time tanking?
I think you didn't do it with her in Vengeance mode.Quote:Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Tanked her on my Inv/SS Tank. She never hit me. Then again, I'm soft-capped. So that's not surprising.
My Dark Armor tank is also softcapped. -
Quote:Hold the phone!Originally Posted by Psiphon
I would put Dark above Electric.
They are quite similar in numbers but Dark has an additional layer of mitigation that Electric doesn't posess - control.
I may be the resident Dark Armor proponent here, but I have to let you know that Electric has control: Power Sink and Electric Field. Used together, these powers can eliminate enemy endurance, effectively "controlling" mobs much higher in rank (LTs and bosses even). Dark Armor can only hit minions on its own.
That said, I still put Dark over Electric. You only get 15 seconds (or sometimes less) to kill a Dark Armor character. -
Quote:I'd call that close enough to capped. Anything over 43% is "good enough" for me. I do notice that you're over the limit of 5 for the 3.75% S/L defense bonuses, and several over when it comes to the 1.25% E/N bonuses (Cleaving Blows). I don't like how you lost a few of the larger +HP bonuses, but that's not a big problem because I can dump the Cleaving Blows and not actually lose any defense. I think the Hami-Os are out of my budget as well. I haven't checked them in a while, though. LotGs and Miracles and whatnot I can get easy enough with Villain Merits (I also have a fair amount of these saved up).Originally Posted by EJI
not capped, but not far from it. on most teams these days you'd be capped. gave up some goodies to get there, though. anyway, food for thought.
http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...C6FF007C5CDE4A
My biggest issue with your build is that you dropped Shockwave. I know it has knockback, but the area of that attack is so large, and the damage is no slouch either. I don't have the power yet, so I don't know how I'll feel about it then, but I imagine I could jump and turn it into knockdown easily enough. The mitigation from it would also be great.
Regardless, you've given me a lot of good ideas and stuff to think about. Thanks! -
The character's only level 22, but he already rips faces off. At level 20, I set the difficulty for -1/x3 and have been breezing through ever since. Oddly enough, the most trouble I've run into was Council and the -recharge from Marskmen.
Anyway, here's the final plan. I'd love to have someone else look it over and let me know if there's anything obvious that's missing.
It's within a small purple of softcap for S/L/E/N defense; I don't care to go any higher unless I can actually softcap something. Right now, there's no weapon redraw Ancillary, and I'm not convinced there's enough benefit to getting one (even for something like Fireball). I think I went overboard on endurance recovery, as I count three +endurance procs.
I don't intend to run Acrobatics full time, or Tough, for that matter, but I think I wouldn't have a problem doing so with all the recovery on this build.
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First, check out my guide (link in sig). I've got an entire section dedicated to how to build a warshade on any budget.
Second: Well, I'll just throw out some general advice. You're using all level 30 IOs, which is odd, but understandable if you want to keep your bonuses. I would recommend using level 50s when it comes to the common IOs, however, as you can't lose any set bonuses from them. Health and Stamina are completely unnecessary, let alone the extra slots you have in them. Eclipse is way underslotted. It needs accuracy and resist, along with capped recharge, and you barely have any recharge. I've got a few great recommendations in the guide for frankenslotting. You can get everything you need in four slots. I agree with you that Dwarf Drain is a good attack. I have mine slotted a bit for damage, but also heal and recharge. Basically, I use a few Crushing Impacts for accuracy and damage, while using some of the heal/recharge and heal/endurance/recharge from heal sets. Dwarf Drain actually does more damage per activation than the Dwarf Strike, so I figure it's worth enhancing. Also, the damage is purely negative energy, much less resisted than smashing.
Gravity Well: Use four Basilisk's Gaze to get the recharge bonus, then throw in two common Damage IOs in the end. Almost ED capped damage, plus some great recharge/hold/accuracy out of Gaze.
Finally, Dwarf and Nova should have the performance shifter proc instead of end mod enhancement. The proc will average more than double the endurance bonus that the end mod enhancement would. -
Quote:Ack, this was posted a while ago, but in case you venture back into the topic, Chill Mastery for Hoarfrost.Originally Posted by Master_Templar
Dechs, what APP/PPP are you using?
MT -
Quote:The soft cap refers to defense. Most enemies have a 50% chance to hit you, and the absolute minimum they can have is 5%. That means any amount over 45% defense doesn't really do anything. You can go higher than 45%; the game allows it, there is just very little benefit to doing so. Thus the soft cap is 45%. For more reading, I suggest the softcap guide in my signature.Originally Posted by BigBoss Eyepatch
Can I just ask, not being rude, but, without all the fancy numbers and acronyms... if one of you, my learned colleagues, could explain for me in, complete and utter buffoon terms (thats me), what this softcap and hardcap is you speak about?
The hard cap most often refers to resistance, but every quantity in the game has a hard cap. Tanker resistance cannot go above 90%; the game will not allow it. Defense, hit points, regen, run/jump/fly speed... all of these values have a hard cap.
TL;DR Soft means you can go above, just no reason to. Hard means no matter what, you cannot go above.