Demosthenes_II

This must be a new problem caused by a recent patch. I just came back to the game after a several month hiatus. I have had several bot mms before and while the bots would occasionally run into melee range it was nowhere near as bad as now. I don't think I've had a single fight where I haven't felt like i'm yo-yoing my bots around with the Goto command because they are entering melee.

Personally, I'm excited for thugs/thermal. Forge on the enforcers and the bruiser (possibly arsonist haven't decided yet), shields on everyone, warmth for healing punks/enforcers cauterize for the bruiser.

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I wanted Cold...

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Thermal>Cold. Nobody wants those retarded looking shields.

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First of all, cold performs a LOT better than thermal, and second, this is the issue where you get to color customize your power effects, perhaps even making them far more translucent!

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I didn't say cold wasn't a better set....it is. But to me aesthetics are very important which is why I have an energy blaster, will keep playing storm summoning no matter how many nerfs it gets, and why I love thermal. Cold is a fantastic power set performance wise but man, those shields look ridiculous and I don't care whether or not you can customize them to be "more transluscent". Unless you can make them look like 'cool' frozen shields I'm staying away from cold. But that's just me. I understand WHY you're disappointed they didn't proliferate cold but I am glad thermal was proliferated instead.

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I wanted Cold...

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Thermal>Cold. Nobody wants those retarded looking shields.

Willpower is better as a stand-alone set but combine invuln with dark melee and it is really, really, hard to kill simply because you are at or near the softcap most of the time and have nice resists especially to sm/l. Combine that with a self heal that is roughly equivalent to reconstruction (the way I have it slotted) and you are srsly difficult to kill. My dm/invuln brute is tough enough where against anything short of multiple AVs I don't really have to worry about dying. I doubt willpower can say the same.

Well both are great.... BS/Regen is more clicky but has the potential for a lot more survival since...(i believe) you can softcap defenses and have a lot of regen and heals on top of it. BS/WP is also great as you can softcap to all but Ranged Smashing and has regen and resistance as well. BS/WP is also toggles not clicks so there isn't any redraw which...while it doesn't matter performance wise always breaks the flow of combat for me. Honestly they are both very strong combinations.

I know this isn't on your list but one vote for BS/Shield here. It may not have as much synergy but for me my BS/Shield has been one of my smoothest scrappers leveling up and it is nice to be able to softcap melee as early as level 12. BS/Shield also makes it much easier to softcap shields if you rely on parry for at least part of your melee defense. It also looks great. This may not be as much of an issue for you but I like the sword and shield look. Plus you get shield charge and AAO which are both very nice for added damage.

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Cause God hates you, that's why.

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i would never make an invuln brute myself outside of upre concept. they cant even cap smash/lethal WITH tough and has major holes to exotic dmg unless io'd the hell out to softcap said exotic in the form of defense.

if your granite brute died, odds are it wasnt built to actually tank

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Um, My DM/Invuln brute is nearly indestructible please explain.

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I want to say that I am happy with seeing a WP post in which the OP isn't complaining about the survivability of the set. It's like a breath of fresh air. Also, I want to say that your current plan is fairly solid, but I will tell you what I would do differently.

Tough and Weave could use 1-2 more slots. RttC can lose the to hit debuff. I'd drop Hover and look for a way to add Chain Induction. I'd skip Mu Lightening, and go with Electric Fences + Ball Lightening. For the most part I think you are on the right track. Good luck!

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This.

Fire/Fire all the way. Blazing Aura + FSC= solid Aoe damage, FS,Cremate, Incinerate,GFS= Sick single-target damage. Oh and thematically it works well too. You don't look like you are made of flaming plantains.

However, if you JUST want great aoe damage then *grumble* spines fire IS better. Spine burst+throw spines+quills+blazing aura +two build ups=absolutely disgusting aoe carnage. Nothing short of a boss will last more than a few seconds.However bear in mind that it might ruin your concept unless your character is named Blazing Banana Man.

My only question is how did this thread get to be so long? Don't feed the trolls people. The thing trolls love most is attention. Make them starve.

While we are wishing for impossible things....like PUGs having good tankerminds. Could we please get a tanker taunt level power in our primary? Because provoke sucks.

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It really is the most shippable of the first 3 leadership powers.


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Definitely a shippable power... On a serious note, you will a lot moar bang for your buck out of assault especially and tactics to a point. If you have two or three people with tactics there is no reason to slot for accuracy in your minions.

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Take solace in the fact that 99% of PuGs and 54% of your VG won't want you on their team due to super-accurate KB. People don't get it, they don't want to and no amount of education on the matter will sway their walnut sized dinosaur brains. Such is our "burden".


I intend to roll a delicious Mind/Nrg in honor of both awesomness and Vid-Jeet-Tah, the patron saint of Mind/Nrg goodness.

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Single-target kb isn't bad on teams tho. Nobody cares if you fling a lieutenant across the map if it's dead.

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Overall the ST damage seems to be an improvement. Starsman's chart in the other thread shows this. I'm just a little let down by the piddly AoE portion of TS.

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Well, the set is not really oriented towards AoE damage. It's a more ST centric set.

PATCH NOTES:

Power Boost from Energy Assault has been changed to a 25ft radius "Extreme" PBAoE with 8s recharge and 10 end cost.

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I am, of course, full of poo.

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*gasp* its Psychic Shockwave returned from the dead!

Now don't get me wrong here I'm not saying that shield defense is bad for brutes or that it can't be amazing ioed out but I don't think it is as good for brutes as it is for scrappers and tankers. My reasoning is this. SD is great for tankers seeing as it is trivial to softcap and has decent resistance and +hp. It also has has the thing tankers need most....extra damage in the form of AAO and to a lesser extent Shield Charge. Scrappers get the same defense numbers as brutes which makes it more difficult (expensive) to softcap. However AAO's considerable damage bonus builds on scrappers already high base damage and of course they get shield charge as well.

Brutes on the other hand....well they have the same low defense/resistance numbers as scrappers. However, the set's signature power AAO does much less for brutes than it does for scrappers or tankers because of the fury mechanic. A brute with 95% damage slotting +200% damage from fury is looking at 395% damage. AAO grants a 65% damage boost fully saturated with full fury plus damage enhancements AAO is really only boosting your overall damage by 16.4%. Whereas on tankers it boosts their damage by 33% and on scrappers by 41.66%.

Obviously with +hp and okay resists if you softcap SD it is going to be very strong on brutes and add significant AoE damage with Shield Charge. However, it seems that the signature power of the set is tailored more to scrappers and tankers and does much less for brutes.

To the op. Arsonist dies a lot pre-32. Post-32 you kill stuff so fast with thugs he doesn't have time to get in trouble. Minions exist for a blink of an eye, liutenants for two, and you only know you hit a boss because their hp bar lasts a whole five seconds. Elite bosses are a walk in the park. The only thing that takes you time and and/or tactics to kill are archvillains. That is the beauty of thugs/.

+10% resist and 5% defense for my zombies.....sweet. Considering they aren't the toughest pets around anyway.

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I'd say go SR if you want to be really tough, if you want to sacrifice some of that toughness for extra damage and an AoE attack go with shields.

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If you have the budget you are actually much tougher as a /SD than you are as a /SR....and you have the extra damage and AoE attack.

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I think it's mostly down to budget. On a low to mid level budget, go with Super Reflexes because it's easier to soft cap. On a high budget, go with Shields because maxed out, it's frickin' amazing.

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this

If you want feedback on how to make ur build better look somewhere else besides me. If you want me to tell you that moderate resists on top of nearly softcapped melee and ranged defense combined with DR is going to be freaking tough....it will be.

No, it is not. Invoke panic is a mag 2 (only affects minions) 10.43 second fear (at level 50) with a sixty second recharge, low base accuracy, and a hefty endurance cost. Even if you were able to double the duration of the fear, half the recharge, and half the endurance cost with slotting you would still be left with a non-perma minion fear with no to hit debuff. Arguably one of the most terrible powers in the game, up there with temperature protection. Srsly don't take it.

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Well Solo means just that...you dont have people around to tick off so you can play at your own pace...a team is just that, a TEAM. Just like when I was in the Army, they pretty much beat it into our heads (and our muscles) that there is no "I" in team. you stick with the team, you follow the leader and you do what your told.

I too would kick someone from a team if they pulled solo crap on me, and I would urge the leader to do the same if I wasnt the team leader.

Yes, this IS a game, and games are meant to have fun in, but reclessly endangering your "TEAM" makes the rest of the team usualy annoied. Which means that they arent having fun.

Sure, some of you can solo ITF, if thats your bag of tea, then you have no need for a team. Go get a bunch of fillers for your ITF or what ever and boot them when yoru ready, dont endanger everyone else and make it UNFUN for the rest of the people.

Thats my 2inf

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Yes, because every organized unit operates by walking in huddles groups within arms reach of one another. Last I checked, team work did not require holding hands. I fail to see why people insist the only viable teaming option is for 8 people to aim at the same target. In a game where so called support characters can clear 8-man spawned missions single handedly; folks still insist running missions like a mobile campfire. This isn't Voltron or Captain Planet. You're not going to turn into some giant super powered robot by holding each other's tails and ears.

Declaring you take the spawn on the right while I take the 3 on the left is still teamwork.

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Exactly. I don't need to team on my DM/Invuln brute, or my Claws/Willpower scrapper, or even my Thugs/Traps mastermind. I don't like it when people get on my case just because I'm steamrolling 8-man mobs by myself. Desmodos is right as well this is a really easy game. There is almost no death penalty. I appreciate teammates much more when they don't take the game so seriously. The other night on my Thugs/Traps mm I was on an AE..erm..'quick xp' map. I aggroed three mobs of purple bosses and killed about one and a half myself before the team got wiped. Everyone just loled, hit the hospital, and went back in...not a big deal. That's the kind of team I like to scrap with....the one that enjoys carnage and risk and doesn't throw a hissy fit about dying once.

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I dont believe in shapes.

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Actually, I may be one of the few people who actually like the kb in energy blast, well, at least in the single-target attacks. I don't mind it terribly in torrent because its pretty easy to position the cone so you knock stuff into walls etc...but whose idea was a targeted aoe with knockback? I mean srsly, the only think worse you could do to a spawn other than scatter it is dimension shift it .

Honestly, for me the kb isn't a big issue. The biggest issue is that energy is rather....mediocre on damage. Most primaries have strength's that make up for a weakness in a particular area. Energy has OK single-target and mediocre-at-best aoe damage. Unlike sonic it doesn't have control and -res to help it out, or control and good single target like Ice, or sick damage like fire. The only set I think that is 'equal' to energy in terms of effectivness is electric blast. Both cool looking sets with mediocre damage and good-looking nukes.