Desmodos

For the most part, it will hinder on concept. If either AT will fit the concept, I'll go scrapper every time.

I strongly recommend VEATs. They are hands down the best AT I've seen villain side. They're a lot of fun to play and offer good buffs to the team. I've seen several ways to play them and build them. I play my night widow just like I do a scrapper and I'm having a blast with her. I've seen both played as ranged characters and melee, just build it to your preference.

Lady Judgment does not currently have an active account with CoH, but most of you here know him very well. He was working on a piece for me before he left, but had to move since then so there were a few unforeseen delays. He kept me updated, so I didn't mind. Besides, it was worth the wait. Desmodas vs Baphoment turned out great. Dynamic pose, Baphomet getting his "comeupence", and my girl looking vicious.

Thanks Bobby.

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In other words, it's not a position that I find relevant.

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Fair enough, I can respect that position, but it's part of the reason while the debate will remain unsettled. For me, it remains highly relevant as my DM/DA scrapper will by far out damage my DM/DA brute due to the poor combination, as DA also creates limitations on fury generation.

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On top of that, while I do tend to utilize low tier attacks more often on brutes *while leveling them up* once they get into the late game, they tend to utilize only optimal DPS chains as fury generation is just not a problem for me due to soloing.


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I'm looking at this discussion here, where Siphon Life and Midnight's Grasp are labled break even attack (nor fury lost or gained). So in an ideal DM attack chain of using Smite, Siphon Life, Midnight's Grasp, and some filler, SL and MG do not contribute to your fury. No matter at what level of recharge you achieve, the problem would persist.

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Even with the assumptions in place (and I'm unsure what assumptions could be further reduced or removed,) shouldn't this analysis show enough parity between the damage output of the two archetypes that we can dismiss the topic?


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As I understand it, your using identical attack chains across brutes and scrappers. For example, the ideal Dark Melee attack chain is not ideal for Fury Generation. Meaning a Dark Melee Brute would have to use a different attack chain to build fury and then shift to the ideal DM chain. That kind of variable affects the overall damage when measured over time. I suspect this would not be true across all shared primaries, but these minor disparities will always fuel the debate.

Ok, I tried to incorporate several of the suggestions made here. Something still seems off though, but I think it's closer to what I was going for. I changed my mind about the blue, but I decided go a dark shade to contrast with her skin.


Mithril costume?

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Is the Brute versus Scrapper damage argument put to rest? Can we all agree that 3% damage difference is low enough to ignore?

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I think the appropriate question to ask would be "should Brutes be doing as much damage as Scrappers if they're harder to kill?" not "do Brutes really do more damage than Scrappers?"

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Gonna disagree with this position as well. While it's possible for Brutes to obtain and exceed scrapper level damage, it's neither guaranteed nor absolute. That alone makes the ~15% (or higher) superior survivability balanced from my perspective.

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So here's the real question:

Is the Brute versus Scrapper damage argument put to rest? Can we all agree that 3% damage difference is low enough to ignore?

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From my point of view, no not really. While I do place a high value on this type of analysis, I still feel it still requires too many assumptions to make a clear cut statement of Brutes = Scrappers or one is superior to the other. I recognized you are partly addressing concerns brought in the first thread.

How much fury does this assume?

Curious as to how you treated Soul Drain this go around. You assumed 1, 3, or 10 targets?

Thank you mistformsquirrel.

Looks good, but unfortunately that won't work for my character. Since her skin is blue, it would end being too much blue.

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I usually make mithral a light sky blue; not because it's accurate, but it helps distinguish it from steel >.>


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Do you have a screen shot as an example?

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Are you using Shadow Maul a lot? Your fury degrades more during the Shadow Maul animation than it increases from using Shadow Maul. So if you're using the mez shields from DA to reduce incoming attacks, and frequently Shadow Mauling, I could easily see a net fury loss.


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Actually, yes I do, but mainly for hitting 2-5 targets. You're the third person to mention this to me. I had initially dismissed it as the usual "Shadow Maul hatred" but perhaps it has more validity for brutes? If this is true, it's rather disappointing. I'm being told that Fury generation from Shadow Maul is the same regardless if 1 target or 5 are hit by it. Is that correct?

This has probably been discussed to death somewhere, but my searchfu is weak, so apologies in advance.

Presently, I have 3 brute projects I am enjoying.
<ul type="square">DM/DA level 50
ElM/DA level 42
DB/WP level 27[/list]
Of the three, DM/DA struggles the most at generating or maintaining any decent amount of fury, which makes no sense to me. At first I thought the issue was Dark Armor but my brute loving friends assure me attacks alone were enough to generate and maintain fury. This seems to hold true for my ElM/DA. Thus far, my DB/WP seems to maintain fury the best, which seems at odds with what I was told about Dual Blades and brutes.

So, is the problem Dark Melee? Perhaps I need a better attack chain? Is this less of an issue for DM when paired with a different secondary?

A ways back, I designed the character Desduende (DB/WP scrapper). The word duende is Spanish for elf. Her concept was my imagining of how elves would come to walk among us in a contempory setting. I got the idea years back after watching The Santa Clause. There's a scene where a group of elves has to rescue the new Santa ala special forces style. Basically I've extrapolated that idea to a arrangement made long ago by ancient elves with Santa Clause. In this arrangement, smaller more creative elves (maybe really young ones) work to help Santa make and/or procure toys for the children. Older and more aggressive elves chose hibernation instead. Waiting for a time when they would once again have a place in the world of men. Santa's secret task the rest of the year is to safeguard these sleeping elves. Desduende was thawed out (frozen for several millenia turned her skin blue) to aid Paragon City and prepare man kind for elf kind's return.

Yes, it's silly and campy but it brought a smile to my face when I came up with it. Besides, it's a departure from my usual "dark" characters

OK, back to the point. I created Ivory (DB/WP brute) to be a rival character. Ivory was a part of an ancient group of humans that made a deal with the elves prior to the deal with Santa. The humans wanted elf powers for themselves but when the elves deemed them to corrupt the deal went sour and the rivalry ensued. While I am pleased with the sexy elegance of Ivory's costume, I wanted an equivalent "counter costume" for Desduende.

I originally thought I could create a mithril inspired costume but I could never come with anything that looked like silver. I eventually came up with this white and gold costume. I like the costume, but gold doesn't seem very elven.

Anyone want to offer me some suggestions?

Am I the only one who thinks of ice cream in this shot?

Baby got back!

Imagine the embarssment during the Longbow debriefing...

Dual Blades just looks cool.

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I already have the Mcafee Internet Security suite, which supposedly protects against spyware - I havent had good experiences in the past with having multiple security tools installed.

I'm now inclined to think it's an IE issue. The IE that comes with Vista is a buggy pile of crap. Tends to lock up at times, regardless of the site. Don't even get me started on Vista itself.

Thanks for the help.

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2 things.

McCaffey sucks, always has. Over priced and offers comparable or less protection than free software such as AVG or Avast.

IE has always been buggy. It was buggy on XP when I abandoned it. I suggest trying Firefox or Chrome. Chrome is newer so there are a few sites you can't use it for but that list shrinks daily. Chrome is powered by Google.

I haven't use IE at home in years, but I've never had issues on dA with either FireFox or Chrome.

IE is notoriously buggy on a number of sites. At work, CNN.com or Foxnews.com crashes IE 2-3 times an hour.

Locking up your entire PC, that's probably more than just a website. Might want to check all or Virus and firewall protections are up to date. If the problem persists, I'd seek help in the CoH tech forums. Those folks are both knowledgeable and helpful.

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what the op has shown us is that - perhaps - the buffs to dark melee were just a little too good.

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No, not really. Those numbers show DM when hitting 10 targets with Soul Drain. For a set that so few AoEs, it seems right where it should be. The environment where maxed out Soul Drain is possible is where AoE sets would shun single target attack chains.

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steamroller

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Gonna add a slash to this one.

steamroller/speedster: A group of players looking to complete TF/SF/Trials in the fastest most efficient way possible.

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dude..... its a game, try enjoying it.....

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He is enjoying it, that's why he bothered to post it. For many of us, these discussions are as enjoyable as the game it's self.

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You do know that paragonwiki's advertised in the load screens right?

But I suppose that to people who don't want to read stuff won't read THOSE either, even though there's nothing else to do while the screen's loading.

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I hope you don't mean the updater screen. I haven't looked at it in 3 years. Most the folks I play with bypass it entirely.

As for mission load screens, I alway thought they were there for fridge runs.

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Getting into teams with people, who have really no clue of how to play the game, don't understand teamwork, following the Tank, the concept of pulling, or looking at your team roster to see how everyone's endurance is doing before aggroing the next mob,

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While I have seen an increase of both Noobs and Newbs, you might want to consider redefining your definition of skilled player. Not all teams will function in the same fashion. I rarely if ever do any of the things I highlighted from your first comment. Mainly because when teaming with competent players, such tactics are unnecessary and only serve to slow down the team. That's not to say they are bad tactics, just no necessarily the route "skilled players" would chose to go.

I think many of us 'veteran' players have been accostumed to only teaming with other 'veteran players'. In influx of noobery and newbery can been annoying at time, but we need to be curteous to these folks. Yes, I acknowledge there was/is a lot of MA abuse, and folks buying existing accouts with 50s they have no clue how to play. We still need to welcome the new blood that's coming into the game.

Now I can't recall kicking someone off my team in nearly 2 years, but I won't hesistate to kick a noob who won't listen to sense or reason. I try to be upfront about expectations on a given team. If asked to slow the pace down I will. If I don't have the time or patience to deal with slower/conservative tacitcs I gracely bow out with aplogies.

I was a newb once. Folks took me under their wings and showed me the ropes. Odds are most of you experinece the same. Lets not alienate newbs because of noobs.