Deus_Otiosus
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Posts
1752 -
Joined
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Quote:There's not much to attract me to EA.Originally Posted by dave_p
Thanks for the advice. Seems to reinforce what was wore nagging at me. Quick followup question: how's Energy Aura? I've heard absolutely no good things about it, but it'd be pretty unique at least (I play a lot of tanks too). Would WM/EA be at least viable?
Viable? Sure it's viable.
The lack of a taunt aura turns me off the most.
There is however, this thread:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=124689 -
Quote:Looking at your list there and your "no repeats" rule, you might try WM or SM / Ela.Originally Posted by dave_p
Current scrappers are: Fire/Fire, Kat/Regen, DB/WP, DM/SD, Spines/DA, ELM/SR, Claws/Invul. I'm clearly biased towards scrappers, but I'm out of powersets to play for scrappers (no repeat rule), cuz I don't like ELA at scrapper levels, and I'm pretty meh about MA, BS & KM anyway.
Opinions?
SM/Ela in particular seems like it could be a fun and thematic combo. -
Quote:I'm not saying that you don't move through missions fast.Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
It was a metaphor. I was saying that a slightly faster run through a mission isn't worth taking 3 powers for; I already blaze through +2/x8 at a pretty respectable speed.
But how fast is fast?
How fast is 'blazing'?
What's a "respectable speed"?
If you're soloing, your pace through a mission being fast or not is totally subjective.
Out of curiosity, what do you generally take in place of the 3 fighting pool powers? -
Quote:This is the difference.Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
I know it provides more blocky-blocky, but I never find myself thinking "Gosh, I wish I had Tough and Weave." I find myself thinking "Well if I die I'm just going to use my self-rez and shatter this group anyways."
I never, ever, consider what will happen if I die against anything but extreme scenarios (ex: full frontal, solo, assault on all 4 Riders on mish 2 of the LGTF, before my team has had a chance to catch up with me).
I plan on dying as little as possible and have no use for a self rez on any Brute I give a top end build to.
Even if I were skipping defense for a FA build, I would want Weave to stuff an LoTG 7.5 recharge in and the extra resistance from Tough.
Not sure what this means, entry into the fighting pool is either Boxing or Kick.Quote:Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
An added +5mph to my runs doesn't seem worth hashing out 3 power slots for. -
Quote:This already exists in this game.Originally Posted by Streeja
And cetain combantions of powers were far more tougher than others by far.
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Quote:Only if the purpose of being a lowbie is to not actually have fun as you pay more endurance (non-scaling costs) for less damage (level scaled amount) with the very few attacks you actually have.Originally Posted by Jibikao
So we get Stamina at lvl 2 or something? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of being a "low-bie"?
I agree.Quote:Originally Posted by Talen Lee
I have to fall back on the wise words of a friend of mine; when a thing becomes so commonplace that its absence is a form of aberrant behaviour, and where that aberrant behaviour is unhindered by being given the thing, the thing should be standard.
@The_Cheeseman: You win the forum hero award. Those posts were fantastic. -
Quote:This is why I favor Warmace.Originally Posted by BunnyAnomaly
Oh, I just noticed in the numbers the following:
T9 of Battle Axe does more damage (10) but hits 5 instead of 10 and has a chance it won't knockdown.
T8 of Battle Axe does more damage (20) but a slightly narrower (20 degree instead of 45 degree) cone.
On the basis of the T9 (10 targets is beautiful) I'd probably favour WM. The damage is too close to call but the extra targets and mitigation is fantastic.
I stand corrected, sorry. Axe has better base damage, WM probably is better overall. I'd still say go with what you think looks better
A T9 that can only hit 5 targets is not justified by the very very minor amounts of extra damage that Axe does, and a 20 degree cone might as well be a single target attack on a fast moving team (the only kind of team I want to play on).
The first time you use Crowd Control, you will be totally sold on WM. -
Quote:Out of curiosity, what kind of ST DPS numbers are you running and what is your chain?Originally Posted by Silas
Hey Deus, thanks for the feedback.
I do still stand by what I said though. While you can make a melee Fort and put out some good DPS or an AoE Fort and put out good AoE, my opinion and experience says that's not the most effective way to build one.
I am coming from this from the perspective of someone who has one of every Corr so I prefer building to their individual strengths and specialities. If I wanted to bring AoE damage and defense to a team, I'd bring a Fire/Cold Corr.
I'd love to improve what I have right now, Gloom > Dom > Subdue was
mostly just a bi-product of my global recharge - but my pylon test went so poorly that I just gave up halfway through and consoled myself that the Psi/Neg damage would do the most DPS where it counts i.e. vs. all the Invuln type AVs.
Yeah that was the main point, although I should have been clearer.Quote:Originally Posted by Silas
Still, though. I'm assuming you're approaching this from the stance that you don't have to specialise on a Fort to begin with, which is a valid one. Honestly, I've gotta update a bunch of the guides, Fort one specifically because one of their main 'roles' so to speak I didn't touch upon at all in my guide.
Basically you can have your ST chain, perma-hasten global recharge, group friendly buffs, recall friend, softcapped defenses and still have room for several AoEs.
Yeah, if you don't like a particular playstyle or power, no sense banging your head against a wall and using it anyway.Quote:Originally Posted by Silas
A few quick things to help you understand my viewpoint better though: I really, really don't like long animations
ET may still hit like a train, but I don't like being locked in that long animation (though its less bad on a lolmelee character) and in all honesty, my Fort doesn't get a lot of play these days.
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Quote:I wanted to get some time playing my fort before I commented on this, but after a good amount of time logged on the character (primarily TFs, some tip missions), I feel pretty confident in my opinions.Originally Posted by Silas
XI: Fortunata
For the purposes of this guide, I’ll be writing it for the way I built my Fortunata. That is to say, for ranged mostly ST damage, team/self buffing with leadership stuff and defense. While you can make a melee Fort, you can make an AoE Fort, you can make a controller Fort, I don’t think it’s the most effective way to build one.
Here is the build as I'm playing it on live:
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Permahasten, Perma ML, Aim on 23.5s recharge - all positions are softcapped when Mask Presence is active and combat surpressed.
My ST Chain is Dominate > Subdue > Gloom, and is nearly seamless (I think gloom is off .4s or .2s or something like that).
The only time I ever actually use that is when the team is facing EBs/AVs and some bosses.
And to be honest I'm less than impressed with the DPS of that chain.
Generally vs. any group larger than 3 or 4 it has been much more effective to chain my AoEs than use ST attacks.
Against larger groups, it continues to scale better and the FF Proc in Psi Nado activates more and more (I usually lead off with Psi Nado due to this). This allows more use of AoEs and more importantly faster recharge of Psychic Wail.
The mobility is still there, even with 3s cast times, but even during the 3s root standing in the midst of your enemies and losing the ranged advantage for a few seconds is generally not a problem due to having softcapped defenses.
On top of this, Psi Nado's and Psy Scream's stacked -Rech, plus Psi Nado's KU are a more effective means of dealing with Cimerorans than typical controls such as holds and immobilizes due to Shout of Command.
I had Confuse in the original build, but I respec'd out of it because when you're softcapped with this much recharge, I found it to be at best a parlor trick.
Instead I went in favor of killing more people faster, although I did have to drop Vengeance which was a shame - but I felt the switch to all the time more damage to a situational buff was a fair trade overall.
I was impressed with the AoE damage output in the herostats logs I have for the ITF.
Over the course of a Speed ITF, I put out about 350k damage from AoEs alone.
To put that in perspective, my SS/SD/Soul Brute (not including SC) puts out about 400-500k damage with Footstomp and Dark Oblit.
It's a very respectable amount of AoE damage. -
Quote:Originally Posted by UberGuy
I have to say, I don't really understand why so many NPC -Regen effects are in the format of "minus multiple thousand percent regen".
I have a completely unfounded suspicion of why they're like that. I think they were specifically designed to counter old toggle Instant Healing. Barring massive burst damage, there wasn't a lot out there that would clearly challenge an old-school Regen Scrapper's survival unless you could somehow turn IH off.
From then on, I have a further suspicion that these really strong effects were basically just copy/pasted into new powers that got -Regen.
If there's any basis for those suspicions, I think it would mean those powers need to be revisited, because the assumptions under which they were created/modified back in the day have since changed fairly dramatically.
As has been pointed out a few times in the thread, almost no level of -Regen Debuff Resistance (RDR?) would actually matter in the face of the debuff magnitudes NPCs deliver. Whether having your Regen floored is a serious issue is somewhat decoupled from the question of why so many -Regen effects are so incredibly strong. The whole comparison to DDR really doesn't apply, because everyone would usually be better off if somehow cascade failure applied. Instead we often get fully binary failure - we have some +Regen or none at all.I still don't understand the amount of resistance to this debuff granted in Fast Healing for WP.Quote:Originally Posted by StratoNexus
That assumes the game is all about scrappers and the primary reason devs made NPC powers was to counter scrappers.
The Regen debuffs that are so strong are supposed to conceptually STOP all regen. They are not there to just slow you down a bit, they are intended as a dead stop. Therefore they made them so very high to make sure no matter how many buffs you had (AB/RA/IH) your regen was still stopped cold.
IME, this is actually a very good type of debuff. It is strong enough to have a noticeable effect and yet it is not an instant gank on the player once you are hit with it. It makes you have to think about how to proceed, instead of just insta-splatting you (which can happen real fast with defense debuffs).
It's something like 32% for tankers and 26% for Scrappers/Brutes.
I have no experience with the Tanker version, but every time I've been hit with it on my WP Brute (LGTF, LRSF for example) that amount of protection seems to do nothing and I'm reduced to 0.00% regen anyway.
It's like getting a cardboard box to protect you from car collisions - no one else but you got a cardboard box, but your cardboard box isn't helping anyway. -
Quote:It's been pointed out, but I'll say it again for fun.Originally Posted by firespray
As far as enemy groups go, sure longbow and arachnos are hard, but heroes have plenty of difficult enemy groups too. Things can go wrong real fast when fighting malta or carnies, and anyone who's fought soldiers of Rularuu knows what a nightmare they can be.
Redside play will see you regularly face off against Arachnos, Carnies, Longbow, Malta & PPD.
Now on GV tip missions, you sometimes have the joy running into some of those enemy groups on the same map, even Rularuu can show up to the party. -
Quote:As much hate as it will probably generate, I hope a handful of sets do not get proliferated.Originally Posted by Faolon
Fun is subjective.
I'm with Claws, I like them both.
Although, to be entirely honest, if every single Scrapper powerset were given to brutes, I'd never play a Scrapper again.
Now that Brutes and Scrappers all play in the same sandbox, it would be nice to let them each keep some unique possibilities in their powersets. -
Quote:Redtomax is showing me Mag 1 Stun for Brutes and Mag 2 Stun for Tankers.Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
I'm pretty sure the Thugs' MM Bruiser's Hand Clap was changed to do just that.
I suspect, though that the problem is in the hands of a player the devs feel that would just be TOO powerful. It would essentially be giving a Tanker or Brute a 100% AoE Stun or Hold. And Hand Clap already has a Stun, which I believe is 100%, with a 50% chance of it being mag 3 instead of mag 2. So the knockback may actually be seen as a penalty for the disorient being so powerful.
It's also 50% Stun, not 100%.
I can't confirm in-game if that's accurate.
My problem is, from a Brute perspective, I don't need a mag 1 stun + 5.193 KB for anything - a mag 0.67 KB or even better 5.193 KU (if the KB were changed to KU) without any stun would be a much more useful power - I wouldn't include it in my final builds but it would at least be useful for levelling.
Or barring that, a Mag 3 60-80% stun that did no KB of any kind.
Either of those would be much more useful.
As it stands now, I can honestly say I have never grouped with any SS Brute (one of the more common primaries) that actually took handclap.
I took it once, on my SS/FA Brute, thinking it would help while leveling due to FA's squishyness and I dropped it because even though the mitigation was there - scattering all of my opponents was just horrible in terms of enjoyment as well as not meshing with my playstyle at all.
It also didn't do very much. Yes, it gave me breathing room, but enemies not near me are enemies not becoming dead.
From a tanker perspective, I still wouldn't want to scatter my opponents. I want them locked in combat with me.
I don't know if the devs would deem stun + KB 0.67 too powerful vs. Stun + 5.193 KB.
I do know that the vast majority of players I know consider the power totally useless and skip it without a second thought.
It's a power you will be made fun of for taking, it's that bad. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Kheldarn
WM has 1 AoE: Whirling Mace. Everything else is ST, except Crowd Control, which is a Cone.
"AoE" means Area of Effect, so any attack that can hit more than one target is basically a type of AoE, this includes "cones". (I think you're going by the idea of not needing to target, so perhaps we could call these TMAoEs for Targeted Melee AoE).
Shatter is a Cone, and Crowd Control is also a 'cone" but to call it that does a disservice to the actual size of the thing. I call it a REALLY wide arc.
Whirling Mace is a PBAoE, "player based" or "point blank" depending on who you're talking to.
So that makes 3 attacks in the set, all capable of hitting more than 1 target - which is what i think the OP was looking for.
There are other tools to holding aggro.Quote:Originally Posted by ChrisUlrich84My secondary I finally decided is gonna be Fire. So that way I am always doing some type of AoE damage to bring down potential attacks to my brother who is a Fire/Kin Corruptor.
Both Invuln, and Shields have very strong Taunt Auras.
In fact, every Brute secondary (except Energy Armor) has a Taunt Aura of some kind (with Willpower's being the weakest of the bunch).
Now, pairing SS/FA Brute with Fire/Kin Corr should be whole sale mass damage to everything, however that's if it's played well between the two of you.
FA is easily one of the squishiest of all secondaries, and would not be my first choice of soaking incoming damage.
If you're going to have a kin backing you up and one who you intend to keep aggro off of, I'd probably chose one of the tougher sets that have no end recovery tools.
Invuln and Shield would be good choices, and you could even make a case for Dark Armor, but you need to be prepared to deal with it's holes.
So if you think you and your brother are prepared for a high risk, high damage playstyle Fire/Kin and FM/FA or SS/FA (I would choose SS for the KD/KU & because you have perma speed boost) would be an extremely high damage combo, but also a very squishy one depending on what you're fighting. -
Quote:Originally Posted by SpiderTeo_OC
Willpower's Fast Healing has a -regen debuff resistance...Quote:Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
One of these days Regeneration will be up for proliferation and it is going to get some nice buffs. On that day, I may even play the set again.
Generally, when you get hit in this game with a -Regen debuff, you get hit with such a massive amount at once to make the -regen debuff resistance in fast healing feel like it's non-existent.
And /Regen as a set would be better off with -recharge debuff resistance than -regen debuff resistance. -
Quote:The radius of FSC is smaller, but is by no means "small".Originally Posted by Kepaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I still need to try fire melee. It seems to have a lot of potential, though I'd need to get used to losing the huge radius of footstomp.
I have an FM/SD Brute and it's an excellent combination, you won't be disappointed. -
1) I don't agree with most of the OPs assertions.
2) I'd like to see Handclap changed from +5.193 Knockback to +0.67 Knockback.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
...I know well played Masterminds are a powerful AT, but the number of wipes and near-wipes I've experienced on blue side teams due to out of control aggro over the course of this week is hilarious.
Quote:Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
There's also the "first time a group of hero players encounters Longbow" comedy hour that plays regularly on Vigilante tip teams. This is also known as the "disappearing Tanker" trick.
As a nearly 90% Redside only player, I not only approve of this message but derive perverse joy from it.
Carry on.
I only wish WW had less representatives so Blueside could also enjoy the fun of 2+ MMs all crowding a tiny market outpost, with all of their pets jostling to be directly in your pants, and possibly several frame rate munching auras.
Bonus if it's endlessly roaring demons. -
You do not want Dark Melee to work in tandem with a Fire/Kin.
You want AoE damage, and Dark is without a doubt the absolute worst at dealing AoE damage in any situation where you have an aggro making machine like a Fire/Kin.
Dark Melee is the premiere set for the solo survivalist, but that's not what you're looking for since you have a permanent support partner.
For a Fire/Kin partner my personal recommendations would be FM/SD or SS/SD.
Both will have softcapped defenses, great AoE output, great threat generation, high ST damage + a kin to provide you with endless endurance and a ridiculous amount of +Damage.
For patron, you want Soul or Mu - either will work with either primary, but for SS I prefer Soul for Gloom to shore up the weak ST chain that SS has on it's own.
There are other options, these would be my first choices. -
WP and Invuln are both very tough sets.
Both work well for Brutes on teams.
On SOs - I prefer Willpower, faster recovery and the ability to maintain a faster pace in missions due to Regen.
Top End IO set Builds - Both are excellent, Invuln will shine and excel vs. SM/L enemies (especially the ITF), Willpower becomes a relentless attacking machine but will suffer on the ITF vs. massed -DEF debuffs coupled with heavy spike damage.
My preference is Willpower combined with Darkest Night. QR mans you have the recovery to run DN when needed, and DN means you can face down massed Cims, Arachnos, Lognbow & Malta, etc. with little fear. -
My opinion:
#1 Plant/Fire
#2 Earth/Fire -
Quote:Originally Posted by Smersh
So... a brute hits harder, and a tanker survives longer.
I think this is as it should be.
I'm trying to figure out what argument you're trying to make here, Johnny.
His argument is that Tankers should keep all of their current resilience and survivability levels and should have their melee damage output be on par with or greater than both Brutes and Scrappers.
Yes, it's as ridiculous as it sounds. -
I'd like to see new animations for the VEAT Tactical Training powers.
It's minor, but the current ones are very boring and repetitive. -
Just as a quick point.
I Like Ghost Widows arc, and as a Scrapper you should be completely fine.
But just as a tip, you can do any patron arc and it will unlock all of the patron power pools regardless of which patron arc you did.
Generally speaking, Black Scorpion's arc is the fastest and easiest overall. -
Quote:I just want to clarify, I believe that Fury bonus is for successful attacks, and not for attacks that miss.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Also, as an aside, Going Rogue finally fixes (to a degree) the bugged-since-the-beginning-of-time Fury bonus for hard targets. Brutes generate bonus Fury for every attack against either an AV or another player in PvP.
I am very happy about that getting fixed though.