Dess_

Help, what the thread title says. Every mish I've made has had this issue where a custom boss won't say ANYTHING for 3/4 1/2 1/4 defeat despite being typed into the field...what am I doing wrong?
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I wanted claws for brutes ever since the animation change, yet after slowly getting my villain experience up (always been on the heroes side), I don't think it would do well, honestly I just don't.

Conceptually I still think its perfect...its the fury builder....nuff said. But I highly question the damage capabilities. Its not a hard hitting set, so you'd be relying entirely on fury to keep your DPS up and plain and simple mid-late game, if your on a team, especially a steamrolling one...fury is not that easy to come by and keep up. For the set to function late game, IMO moves like eviscerate/shockwave actually need a dmg boost, especially when you factor in knockback/animation time costing you fury...I can picture watching the fury bar drop 1/4 in one evicerate animation.
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At a glance that looks expensive >_<
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how is the 360 move? I was debating dropping it and relying on crowd control for my AoE style damage.

Did you bother with Taunt? I'm accustom to using punchvoke/auras for keeping aggro, but with brutes...I don't know how dependant I am on fury (my highest brute was like a 26 nrg/elec that I've let rott...nrg dmg SUCKS early on heh), so I don't know what to do for fury since SR doesn't have an aggro aura.
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Looking for some pointers...I'm new to bruting for the most part. Unfortunatly I didn't see any guides to Mace or SR.

Only other def based toon I have is an ice/ss tank, which I maxed out with fighting/aid self setup. I'm trying to do a build for this, but I don't know which powers from Mace/SR are skippable and which ones are even great...I just know I want Crowd Control lol. any help would be appreciated.
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Yeah, I've done some great things for my tanks and my blaster...but trollers are getting the short end of the stick. I can up my regen a decent amount, but on a troller that doesn't amount to much because of our general HP lvl. Most valuable thing I've seen thus far have been the tohit buffs and random mez resistances, but the tohtis buffs seem scattered thruout the dmg dealing sets, and while I can use the partial set concept to tuck them into my holds, I feel as though I'd be nerfing my current setup *80% of my holds are capped out acc/mez/recharge*.

As for the end issue I used hotfeet, which burns mroe end than leadership - which is why end is always an issue.

I guess since Liberty is 'virtually' down right now I'll toy around with a fire/storm/fire PLer/dmg/control set and see if I can work any magic.
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First thanx for the shot out - put a much needed smile on my face.

Good job breaking things down, however...

I'd avoid leadership as much as possible on a fire/storm. The buffs are great - don't get me wrong, but unlike kin or rad - we have no end bonus outside of IOs and/or consume - which has such a long recharge its comical *you can do CP also if you go the primal route but this is fire/storm/fire*. With IOs offering near 1.5% of SO values - I've started subbing 3 slots with two - allowing me to do things like toss an extra acc where I feel its needed.

I'm still digesting the IO sets myself, but I ahven't been "OMG" about alot of them for my fire/storm. There is some potential there, but nothing that seems to make me want to go back to hurriherding or farming family or council >_<.

BTW for those who are 'meh' about cinders - the solution is simple. Before you cast cinders - use hasten...it works out pretty well.
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Sigh...so controllers become 2nd rate defenders and get to be controlelrs for 1/3 of an AV fight.

Tanks simply need to use taunt/provoke - moves that are EASILY accesible to them - for them to do their job. Maybe because I'm an old schoo ltankl thats accustom to provoke > taunt, and eventually vice versa - to me having punchvoke was a + allowing me to do my job easier, but its not an end all to being a tank. Like I said if you want to take the aggro of an AV use taunt, you don't have to slot it, and if you doslot it you get even MORE time to attack still. Tanks are still herding huge amounts of minions and lts like nothing - so whats the problem? Its merely a balance thing, its become enritely TOO easy to beat Avs with a tank on the team who doens't even have taunt. Thin kof it in the classic comic book terms - Fantastic four - fighting a bunch of doom's henchmen - Thing will aggro them all and they will attack him - even though Johny Storm is doing the real dmg with his fireblast. They get to Dr. Doom - the 'AV' is he really going to focus on thing simply because thing hits him a couple times? Hardly - he 'knows' better.
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While the animation for taunt isn't 'short' by any means, it does NOT make you a pure taunt bot. sure it will suck to some tanks to 'have to get taunt' now to actually tank AVs, but live with it. this has been around - my ice tnak with icicles and CE couldn't hold Nemesis attention at all, I was upset but figured I should have taunt as a tank on some level. sure I can design my toon around owning up mobs without taunt, but then the yin to my yang would be AVs - just like fire trollers being more AoE heavy - while illusion is single target - you can choose which mobs you will own up.
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http://www.unreal-music.com/002.jpg - Me on stage at Illfest in Atlanta a couple years ago...

http://www.unreal-music.com/009.jpg - Just grillin'
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hmm - didn't realize I never put MDK up here
SG - MDK and MDK Reserves
Founder: Unreall (same person as Dess and Insta O)
Founding date: May 24th 2004

We specialize in tactical combat, and personality. We can murder, and we can joke. Very personal SG, where we strive for everyone to be friends.

MDK leaders - Dess, Cylver, Nurse April
MDK Reserves leader - Insta O

We do not actively recruit people, nor invite those who just ask to join. Our pride in "personalty" dictates a meshing of personality...if you play with a few of us a couple times and we like...then we'll invite. Current roster is over 70 - every single one active.

Website is still under-development *I've got a life outside of CoH* address will mostly likely be
http://www.MDK-CoH.com
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Here is a question. My SG is slowly but surely getting to the "hamidon" levels - with peeople building alts specifically for taking hamidon etc. My current is an illusion/kinetic - but with the quick glut of fire controllers and the other illuion controllers - I figured we needed a real controller - so I rolled a grav/storm. I'm curious to their affect on hamidon - and more importantly - their defense against him - I've read that he does *unavailable* damage - and was curious if anyone knew if the sings would possibly be resistant to it - if so I may go the 4 sings route for tanking purposes - since I heard he 4 shots tankers since he tears thru their buffs.

Also from experiance with my ill/kin - phants will often play the aggressor and move in front of you to attack - or ocntinue attacking - however phants don't follow your path - they do what they want - but sings on the other hand will stick to your path - so does that mean if I wanted a wall I'd have to move foward and then backwards?
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Fair enough, and this should clean up the boards - I feel sorry for you - they got REAL littered with the update hitting test...

Well to some it up We are shocked. All the other ATs got plusses while controllers got minuses. The two main ones to note are FC and Illusion *I'll discuss fulcrum later since it is truly a def main and only our secondary*.

FC were overpowered - everyone and them knew that - even so a 50% hit to damage is extremelt harsh - and very much a "low blow" to those who worked their way up to lvl 32. However even so FCs aren't too bad off since they still have excellent control powers, and imps are still effective - soloing just takes a bit longer - but far from really "breaking" the primary.

The main concern right now is Illusion. PA was hit with the nerf bat HARD. 50%? They don't do as much damage as people think. I remember the first time I saw them in action was in DA - a guy was teamed with me and I loved the damage I saw them initially do - but the guys werne't falling - the guy explained to me it was illusionary damaged and healed back. Eventually I still rolled a ill/kin because I was in love with the idea of having so many pets and Flash. Well Illusion is considered by most to be the ******* child of controllers - delving more into damage than CC - I've tried to show people the controlling powers, but even at that it still pales in comparison to the others. Well our main CC cornerstone is Phantom Army - but with the change to them - they have become...not useless...but their value has dropped TREMENDOUSLY. Dropping the damage on them affects us in every single way. They have a long recharge - we can't pull it out every fight - and the damage heals back *90% without enhancements I believe*. Wether we are soloing or in group play - we can't hold groups like other controllers, and now we can't even use damage as a form of CC - thinning the crowd so they are "beatable". Increasing the ACC is oh kai - but the trade off is definatly not worth it.

Illusionist adapt to the situation - we are good at it - so some of us have looked at how to make light of the changes but several things have come to light. If PA is to be used PURELy for CC instead of damage - then more needs to be changed to them - for instance a shorter recharge, longer time "out", or even attack a bit quicker - but in their current form - they really are lack luster - which is unfortuante for a class defining move. Please - reconsider the damage drop - or if te devs are persistent in dropping the damage - try to balance it by giving us the ability to use them when needed - our only other AoE hold not only is point blank - but has a 2 minute recharge - that means effectively we are only good for a hold of more than one person once every 2 minutes on average. We also drop off in fights as is because of the long recharge on our holds - so making our moves weaker makes us drop off even HARDER - turning us into second rate defenders.

Thisa leads to my other dislike - the change to fulcrum shift. This should prolly be discussed elswhere - but it is still relevenat since FC and Ill use them alot to help their pets. Essentially it has been ruined for ill. Phantasms are not "nice" in terms of staying close to the mobs - and you don't want to get in close to a mob to use fulcrum shift either - since you will eqsily get one rounded. If balance is an issue - get rid of double buffering - but essentially all that has done is FS has become a second siphon power that debuffs several mobs instead of one.

Throw in the new anti-stealth bad guys who can discover us trying to sneek a flash in, the ruomrs of blinding lts needing to be cast twice like they are bosses - and things just went down hill for arguably one of the arguably "most rewarding AT" - which according to the books etc - are suppose to be weak ealry on - but blossom into something special later. With the incoming raise in minion HP - I don't see us blossiming at all.
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