Dechs Kaison

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  1. Have you seen my guide? I'm told it's pretty good for this.
  2. Staff or TW for sure, and paired with Fire. I think TW is heavier on damage, even considering the redraw affecting momentum. Staff would get the edge if Fiery Aura didn't have a recovery tool.

    That's my vote.
  3. Aye, nice look. You know, Dark/Fire is my tank of choice. I have a few builds posted, even.

    I'm told they suck, though.
  4. TW was fun the moment I smacked somebody with a concrete lollipop.

    To echo Hopeling, keep at it until Whirling Smash. If you still don't like it then, you never will.
  5. My brute is a Claws/Dark. I already don't find problems with endurance, so form of the soul would be a waste in my mind (see what I did there?), but the redraw is occasionally annoying.

    Staff is a great pairing with dark, though. Build end reduction in the attacks and you can start using the other forms to good effect. And of course there's the defense bonus.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by LordXenite View Post
    I go away for two years, and I see that despite the changes, nothing really changed... Awesome!

    I knew you'd be back! Been too long, friend. How be you?
  7. Bots/Traps, but most anything will work. See my guide for more info (green link in my sig).
  8. Dechs Kaison

    Merc question

    Still an issue. No MM is free of this problem, though. My guide goes over some ways to minimize it, at least.
  9. MFing Warshade.

    Hands down the most fun experience I've ever had playing this game.
  10. Or you could try redside.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by EnigmaBlack View Post
    Where do people's inability to detect sarcasm fall into place?
    I see your claim of sarcasm and raise you Poe's Law.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Garent View Post
    The damage is nice, but I suggest it for the end drain.
    Honestly, I could do without either. This is the Tank forum. A damage aura's primary purpose is to Taunt. Damage and end drain are tertiary. A tank without a taunt aura is a sad tank indeed.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy View Post
    Obviously I'm an outlier.
    Of course you are.

    The way you play the game is pretty abnormal, too.

  14. While you were soloing, what difficulty setting were you at?

    I'd like to have a frame of reference for how these tactics perform.
  15. Dechs Kaison

    Reworking Mez

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood View Post
    The one thing that I think would be annoying is detoggling.
    Agreed; suppression for toggles, unavailable attacks.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood View Post
    The other concern I'd have is that it seems to unduly penalize low level characters compared to high levels. A low level character could easily end up in a situation similar to today where all powers are disabled while a lot of high level characters would be barely impacted by it. Blasters would be ok assuming that Defiance continued to protect their low level powers but other ATs might not.
    That could be addressed by adjusting the mez magnitudes that low level enemy groups have. Drop them to mag 1 or even 0.5.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DSorrow View Post
    Sounds good to me, but I might make mez just a little bit more powerful. It shouldn't need to be mag 24 mez to take away all your powers, but rather something closer to mag 10 I think. I just can't think of any situations where you would actually end up hit by mag 20+ other than fighting GW or intentionally going solo x8 against an enemy group that only uses one type of mez.
    This is also addressed by changing the magnitudes of mez that enemies have. Either make high level groups do larger mag, or actually make magnitude scale with level.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DSorrow View Post
    There's only one thing I really haven't found a good solution for. How do you differentiate the different types of mez? Immobilization and fear could surely stay as they are because they still allow you to do something, but what about hold and stun?
    I think Hold and Stun would stack exactly as they do now. They're separate effects, and really only the highest magnitude one would be applying in my method.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kelenar View Post
    Another thing: I'm thinking it would be better to make Mag X mezz take away X random powers, instead of the last X power picks. Otherwise, you'll just see people back-loading their builds with their IO mules, long-recharge clicks, and gimmick powers, which would make low-mag mezz a joke. It would also give it a bit more punch—losing a random power almost always has the potential to be dangerous or a major inconvenience, whereas very few of my builds have important powers near the end.
    This is precisely why I suggested my second method. It wouldn't matter when you took your powers, you just lose access to the highest tier powers in order.

    Then again, people already game the system with regards to power order. I know I already take the mules as late as I can. Some Tanks put Taunt off until level 49; perhaps this would change. Maybe that's not so bad.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy View Post
    Are you sure? I've never noticed my resistance totals change in my combat attributes when i got mezzed. Maybe I'm just not attentive enough though.
    Pay attention to it sometime. Suppressing toggles is the reason GW's hold is so fatal. Even my Dark tank sees full ticks of damage. If toggles didn't suppress, she would only tickle.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy View Post
    I like it as long as you only mean epic attacks and not epic toggles (or any other survivability powers, ever.) That would be even worse than mez is currently- At least now I can hope that my toggles and set bonuses will be enough to keep me alive until the maz wears off. Start dropping those and more often than not we'll have no chance.
    It wouldn't be worse because those toggles already suppress when mezzed.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by DSorrow View Post
    Interesting, I had a very similar idea of how mez could work

    However, if taken to another direction than radically changing the system, I guess I would just be in favour of stronger but shorter mez powers on NPCs. Instead of the current 50 sec mag 3 stuff the Malta use, I'd rather have 5 sec mag 5 mezzes. That should remove being stunlocked for longer periods of time on squishies and also make mez more dangerous to melee characters who might actually spend a second or two mezzed every once in a while.

    Whatever they do, I just wish I never had to deal with not being able to do anything while the enemies more or less slowly tickled my character to death.
    I just put a more detailed suggestion together in the suggestion section of the forums. Let me know what you think of that.
  19. Dechs Kaison

    Reworking Mez

    Sparked by Johnny Butane's thread in the AT forum discussing a way to rework how the game handles mez, I'd like to present my own idea.

    First, I would like to define what I feel are the problems with the way mez currently works.

    1. It is binary. Your character is either stunned or it is not.
    2. It shuts down your ability to stay alive. A melee character who is mezzed loses his resistance and defense. Aside from one exception, any mezzed character cannot activate inspirations to stay alive.
    3. The combined effects of 1 and 2 lead to a situation that is neither fun nor challenging. It just sucks, particularly so when chain mez occurs. A character that cannot react to what is creating the mez condition has to suffer while the mez is reapplied. This often creates an endless loop until the character dies.
    4. It is not thematic. Superheroes are rarely completely incapacitated.

    My solution is to rework mez so that it works in degrees similar to how a character is exemplared. Each point of mez magnitude would reduce the pool of powers available to the character. I could see two implementations of this.

    This simplest method is to use the way the character was built. Each point of mez would take away one power selection, starting with the most recent. For example, a level 18 Fire/Fire blaster who is hit by a mag 3 stun would lose access to Blaze, Build Up, and Fire Sword Circle, assuming those were the three most recent power choices. The same Blaster at level 50, now with Flame Mastery, would lose Rise of the Phoenix, Fire Shield, and Bonfire.

    The other method would be to disallow powers based on the level those powers become available. Let's take the same Blaster as an example here, but assume that he chose his powers in a different order. At level 18, the mag three stun would make it so he couldn't use powers that require him to be 14 or higher. He would still lose Blaze and Build Up, but Fire Sword Circle has a minimum level of 10, so it stays, despite being chosen as the level 14 power. At level 50, he only loses Rise of the Phoenix, because that power isn't available until 44. The other two can be chosen as early as 41 and 35. This is by far a more complicated way to do mez, but I believe it is far more thematic.

    As far as theme, imagine this situation: Spiderman gets surprised and clubbed in the side of the head. The hit has thrown him off balance, enough that you might call him "stunned." Spiderman is a pretty resilient guy, though, so he's going to try to fight back. He won't be able to do any backflips in this condition, but he can still throw a few kicks.

    This translates very well to the Blaster analogy I've been using. If your Blaster is stunned, it makes sense that he can't do some of the more complicated things like Inferno or keep focused enough to maintain a Fire Shield. But I'll be damned if he can't still throw a fireball at the guy that hit him.

    So in conclusion, I believe my idea will make for a more fun experience when dealing with mezzing enemies because it addresses my defined problems. Mez would no longer be binary, which could lead to more varied enemy groups. Some enemies could be very strong at mezzing while others could be weak, outside the limits of "there's seven of them stunning me." Characters would be able to react to mez. A Defender leaves his toggle debuffs on the enemy and a Tanker keeps his armors active until they become completely overpowered. This creates an environment where there is more than one option (use a Break Free) to respond to mez. With options comes the chance to intelligently interact with your environment, creating the challenge of choosing the best option and the fun that goes with it.

    Thanks for reading.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Roderick View Post
    Whether or not Hasten can still stack that way, I don't know. I don't have any characters with enough recharge to double-stack Hasten long enough to test.
    It's ok, I have a warshade.

    I'll check when I get home, but last I played him (been a few weeks), it stacked as long as I had zoned.
  21. What if mez just worked differently on players than it did on NPCs? Here's my idea to make it not binary:

    Each point of magnitude would lock you out of one power, similar to exemplaring. Also similar to Defiance 2.0.

    So a level 50 blaster with a mag three stun would lose his epics. A level 22 would lose the three most recent power picks. Defiance for blasters could still work as normal, just preventing the last three powers from being mezzed away.

    Brawl and the origin temp would be exempt from mez, so no matter what, you could always do something. Incarnate powers might be exempt. Mez protection would work the same as it does, reducing the mag applied.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by DSorrow View Post
    It does self-stack if the activation of Hasten happens in a different zone from the one where the previous activation happened. Even then the self-stacking is usually brief - a couple of seconds at best.
    This is what I have seen to be true.
  23. I'd vote going with a Shield Defense / Martial Arts Tanker.

    Storm Kick will give you 10% defense to all positions, which will be enough to softcap the SD on SOs.