Dechs Kaison

That's actually misleading. Claws is light on endurance, but the powers recharge faster as well. You end up burning endurance just as quickly.

What he meant in the post you're referenceing was permanently, i.e. softcapped to all that stuff at the tail of Barrier, not the beginning huge amount. That tail end is actually the largest portion of the duration, and with the right Barrier it is a permanent effect.

Hey, I got that UI picture you wanted.



When I press Q, that bottom tray becomes tray 8 and has all four of my Nova powers.
When I press E, that bottom tray becomes tray 9 and has all five of my Dwarf powers.

I have Organica to thank for those. I've since built up the budget to be able to afford builds like this, though. It's amazing what you can do by selling one PvP IO farmed through tips.

I can see the benefit to this, but I still can't say I'm willing to drop what I have to get it. If I really need to heal myself and there are no more dead bodies around, I'll just use Stygian Return.

There is no R in my name.

Alien One is the human form purist you're looking for. He has done some crazy things with that build, to include a video soloing +4/x8 Arachnos.

As for your questions about the best build in certain situations: You already answered this in the quote above. Nothing's perfect. I wouldn't want to play the "best" farming build, even if I wanted to farm, because it's not my build. It will play differently than my build. Each version does have its strengths, though.

True tri-forms are generally the best to exemplar with, because the lower level you go, the more the forms shift to "overpowered." No one has the powerful AoE attacks at level 6 that a Nova does. The other benefit to tri-forms is that they generally offer usefulness in the largest number of scenarios.

True Human forms tend to be the most like a Controller. This can allow for the most sturdy builds, as you can use things like Leadership and Weave to bring a build to the softcap. The damage will be lessened without Nova's AoEs and you don't have the Dwarf safety net. Without forms, all the human powers can receive a significant number of slots.

Dual Builds allow you to blend the benefits of the two. By taking one form away, there are more slots per power than a tri-form, allowing some finer specialization.

Allow me to rephrase. I can't do more damage in human than nova, without taking more slots away from stuff I don't want to take slots from.

Also, I'm not a reactive person.

There are rare occasions where it is beneficial to stay in human form. Mostly, these cases are just "when the team needs control." As I've said, I can be the guy that immobilizes an AV if that's what we need. Further, when I'm running solo and get stuck with just a few bosses to beat up and no other food, I can keep them all stunned permanently between Inky Aspect and Gravitic Emanation.

In these situations, it is very beneficial to have a workable attack chain. I also worked in the leadership powers to be able to act more like a controller in these scenarios and less like a dominator.

This was certainly not my goal. I just always got this feeling that Nova form against an AV wasn't doing enough, so I tried to see if I could work up a "good" human chain that somehow miraculously outperformed Nova's ST damage.

It wasn't until I sat down and did some math that I realized Nova is just always going to be the best when it comes to damage of any sort.

At this point, I'm happy with my "passable" human chain.

Ok, this explains a little bit. When I did try making a "good" human attack chain, Shadow Blast was in the build. The best chain I could come up with, though, was G.Well>G.Snare>S.Blast>G.Snare, which is pretty bad. In fact, it's terrible.

Like you said, though, I could bring it up to about 138 DPS. [Ben Stein Voice] Woohoo. I may die of excitement here. [/Ben Stein Voice] No. I think I'll be happy with my mediocre chain if I decide to stay human form for any extended period of time.

I can't really say anything about your build right now (I'm at work, no Mids'), but I want to call attention to this, as it may be my fault you've been mislead.

LotG is a global bonus, not a proc, so it doesn't matter what power it is slotted in or whether you have that power available to you or not. If you exemplar more than three levels below the level of the IO, you will lose the bonus. An LotG in a level 41 power can still give you a bonus at level 22 as long as the IO is level 25.

Can you set aside the rage just long enough to tell me what your human form attack chain is? I know you've posted numbers that show around 200 DPS.

I mean, my Gravity Well recharges in just over 5 seconds. It cannot get much faster. I'm not even to 100 DPS in human, so I'm either doing something terribadwrong or your T4 Reactive is 100 DPS alone.

I did some number crunching. Trying to use Orbiting Debt and my Human single target attack chain brings me to 85 DPS against a single target (including Sunless Mire). If I stay in Dwarf Form, I can easily reach 100 DPS against the same single target.

It is possible I made a terrible attack chain. It is also possible that two out of three attacks in the dwarf chain have purple sets.

Great idea, I'll try to get this posted by tonight after I get home from work.

... or anyone who can get back up once every 81 seconds.

Bwahahahahaha I got one!

I'm not being harsh. I have not used the term "ignorance" as an insult, mind you. I specifically said "ignorance on the subject of," which is to say:

ig·no·rance /ˈignərəns/
Noun: Lack of knowledge or information: "he acted in ignorance of basic procedures"

You've demonstrated that you are ignorant to how a Warshade performs, particularly highlighted by your comment that "even if the Warshade is better when IO'd out at higher levels." I have refuted your claim with the math that has been done to prove that Warshades are indeed superior to Peacebringers on SOs. It has nothing to do with outliers and high end builds. The AT is just broken.

Damnit that's a good one!

Worse than that, he'd probably wreck it in his driveway. All that power without any control or understanding is a terrible combination.

To be honest, I've gotten this second hand, so I can't be sure. What I read was that it was a comment made in passing, and made no specific mention as to whether it was "Kheldians being looked at" or "Peacebringers being looked at."

I realize this is a joke, but just in case anyone else does not:

You shouldn't worry about Warshades getting a nerf. They are not demonstrably better than any other AT consistently. A lot of their power lies with "the right conditions," and it is the existence of those conditions which keep us balanced.

Insanely more difficult.

A Warshade can be a great many things, but "simple" and "easy" are not among them.

To counter Irresponsible's complete ignorance on the subject, I submit this as my evidence. In virtually every quantifiable aspect, Warshades outperform Peacebringers. The builds this math is done on are completely SOs.

Warshades are better than Peacebringers, but not because of outliers that spend billions of influence on their builds.

Warshades are just better than Peacebringers.

One of the more recent USTREAMs, however, has a developer admitting they are aware of this disparity and Kheldians are "to be looked at." There is yet hope.