Doomguide
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Some very useful links for more detail and understanding on many of the things mentioned in this thread:
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Exempl...n_Enhancements
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Table_of_Special_IOs
Quote:My last question is, how long should I wait to respec? Should I acquire all of the enhancements first? Some of them? What's the tipping point?
A thought about building your newest build: Don't use your current build unless you can afford to do most of it up front and have a functional build (or are willing to play alts for now). If you need time to accumulate the inf and Alignment merits to purchase all those IO's I'd recommend leaving your original build alone and using the second build (see a trainer to find this) adding those IO's to your second (or third even once your Alpha is unlocked which it sounds as if that's the case) as you go. That way you still have your original build available to play while accumulating stuff. -
For me it was a long while back now (well before IO's) but I kept trying to find a blaster that I liked. Ended up be a Fire/Nrg blapper ... closed while tossing the Fire then up into their faces with Energy Manipulation's melee moves to clobber anything still moving.
Gratz! -
How I do it (several mentioned by other posters):
1. Attack (particularly with any aggressiveness) when Regen and Recovery Aura are up and running.
2. Mez them first with Tesla Cage (in your case), Cosmic Burst, Screech etc. I do tend to like Electric Mastery for Electric Fence and/or Shocking Bolt for this reason. Footnote that Short Circuit plus PBU can be quite potent and that Power Sink is not in Electric Mastery but Mu Mastery. I'm probably a bit odd but I tend to get more aggressive not less when threatened ... it just gets directed specifically at what's threatening me rather than the team in general.
3. Inspires ... use them, don't hoard them (never full, never empty). But keep an eye on how many Breakfree in particular you have. The more I have the more readily I'm willing to use ... but if it's my last one they'll have to be a clearly mortal threat whereas a bunch sitting there means I want to keep being the mortal threat
4. Accolades - Eye of Magus and Elusive Mind in particular come in handy for giving you defense and resistance to pretty much everything between them.
5. Air Superiority - It either knocks the melee foe down in front of you giving you time to stack your mez of choice(s) or knocks the flier out of the air trying to get at you.
6. Stay mobile to give your self the time and space to mez the pursuit and/or lead them by and thru that teammate with a taunt aura.
7. Seems obvious but sometimes RUN AWAY! really is the best plan. Ideally towards a pre-selected cover or exit. -
Quote:Solo and on SO's perhaps. I think the -Recovery debuff is actually more important (and what one is really looking to leverage) than the -End and it really doesn't require much enhancement to be effective (at a base of 100%). Shutting off their recovery is what really hurts owing to how regaining endurance works (as outlined above by Arcanaville). Getting them to 0 End, ideally rapidly, is merely a step towards leveraging -Recovery. Note that SC also has above average Acc at 1.30. Now add in the usual self To Hit buffs and/or inspires and 1 Acc is probably enough leaving one 5 slots to play with Dam, Rech, Endred and Endmod.
In order to leverage Short Circuit's endurance drain you need to slot for end mod and recharge, and so you may end up skimping on your damage slotting.
On an IO build cap all 3 (Dam,Rech and Endmod) or at least put them heavily into ED territory. Currently I'm without access to Mids but something along the lines of 3 Obliteration (Dam, Dam/Rech, Acc/Dam/Rech) plus 3 Efficacy Adaptors (Endmod, Endmod/Rech, Acc/Endmod/Rech) or potentially purple (and/or use enhancement boosters) for the Dam, Dam/Rech and Acc/Dam/Rech portion. Toss in Musculature as Electric-Knight mentions and viola.
And going back to Gr33n's post and adding to Arcanaville's yes as far as I know AV's resist -Recovery and -End rather heavily and the purple patch would also apply (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Archvillain and http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Purple_Patch)
Have to run hopefully this post doesn't getting internet eaten like the last attempt. -
Quote:plus from Local_Man:Originally Posted by seebs
The one thing I use time bomb for:
* Mine corridor.
* Walk into enemy group.
* Drop time bomb.
* Run around corner.
* If something makes it to me, shoot it in the face once to take off the remaining fraction of a health bar.
Opening a fight without any chance for retaliation is surprisingly valuable.
Even more fun (and surprisingly valuable and near uniquely situational) is when this is done by one AR/Dev while the other 3 to 5 of us were busy dropping those mines in the corridor ... we pulled entire rooms into the death trap as one spawn was simply not enoughQuote:Time Bomb isn't useless . . . it is extremely situational. It could use some improvements to make it more useful and less situational. 
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Hmmm, think the issue at the core is that End Drain is an indirect Y/N debuff unlike most other debuffs which are direct and normally have some effect which scales against rank and level difference but always have some effect. An Electric is paying for the potential to totally shut off a foe's ability/attack X not simply reduce it xx% (which is what most debuffs do). In this respect it's more like a Hold. The Hold either works and the foe is held unable to do anything or the Hold does not work and the foe can do as it pleases until sufficient mag is stacked on the foe (or sufficient end is drained in the case of Electric).
Quote:Unfortunately the real problem (for the designer) is this isn't true. I've been on teams with multiple 'sappers' and seen them drain an AV/GM's endurance to 0 in well under a minute (often well within 30 seconds) and pretty much shut off their recovery leaving the AV standing around twiddling their thumbs. And it doesn't take IO'd to the gills Incarnate builds to do it either.The Endurance Drain is a problem because on the enemies it would matter on, it does absolutely nothing.
So while I'm not convinced the net amount of damage needs tweaking I could see some front loading of the damage (on SC) being a reasonable compromise as that would help solo play where end drain can be problematic ... couldn't begin to guess how often my Electric/Fire has died watching damage tics float up off the foe(s) around him, seems like his entire arsenal is AoE and DoT attacks. -
The only other consideration I haven't seen mentioned and will add for completeness -
Miracle +recovery, Numina +recovery/+regen, Regen Tissue +regen and Perf Shifter +End all only function when the power is active (and is not related to the level of the respective IOs). So they'll only work in Phys Perf as long as you don't exemplar more than 3 levels below the level which you took PP.
And as someone who personally exemplars frequently that makes Health (and Stamina) very much the preferred place to use them. -
Super Reflexes requires little to no set bonuses to reach the soft cap leaving room for using whatever sets you might wish in the build ... such as Crushing Impacts.
That said I mostly used sets for +max health and +regen (specifically 3 Mako + 3 ToD per 6 slotted attack) on my Claws/SR and while CI has +max health it is the same bonus as available in LotG which had me at the Rule of 5 limit already.
Shield, as Pyro indicated, would be the other set that jumps out at me. Shield also probable benefits more than SR from gaining recharge over a range of recharge rates primarily do to Shield Charge. More always helps SC whereas there's quite a jump in the needed recharge from solid attack chains to very high dps chains on SR (if that makes sense). -
A few thoughts that occur as I look as the build (without Mids unfortunately):
Dark Pit has rather low base accuracy, without more slots (or a lot of global accuracy) it will be very underwhelming and likely of little use to stack with your other stuns. OG on the other hand can be quite effective with just its base slot. I'd consider trying to rearrange slots to use the Absolute Amazement in Dark Pit rather than OG.
Without Mids I can't see your totals ... but I suspect the Kin Combats in Boxing are inf better spent elsewhere as overall you are mixing positional defense bonuses with typed defenses. Aim to focus on one over the other. Build on whatever native defense you have the most of.
Get the 5th Ragnarok in TT for the +recharge.
Gloom - slot a To Hit damage proc in here over the Apoc Damage, you'll average more damage as you are already well up against ED for damage. Procs bypass this limitation.
Have to run for now. -
Quote:I'd agree, the main point would be 1 slot should be plenty. I just find, at least in an IO build that the global is also plenty good to get it back fast enough and cheaper is cheaper and 26 end even heavily discounted can be a chunk if your Recovery Aura is down. Granted it's a bit like what to put in Clear Mind when you get right down to it.Originally Posted by Garent
I was leaning this way at first too, but I decided to leave it in because of its utility in keeping the team together during trials. I'm not big on aim, but it's definitely not a bad choice. If it were my character, I'd get irradiate, but then we start getting into different playstyles.
This is one of those situations where the defender's endurance discount comes in handy. That said, my two recharge reductions in the IO build are definitely overkill. -
I'd recommend:
Resurrect - 1 Endred, even with a very very high recharge perma Hasten build Resurrect still isn't really useable more than once a fight and in a fight is about the only time I'd use it (when I need a teammate back in the fight NOW) outside of combat use an awaken and hit them with CM etc to get them back in the fight, the slot saved is more important. If on the other hand your Auras are down near the end of a tough fight reducing the end cost of Resurrect, whose base cost is 26, to get that one teammate back in the fight could be the difference between wipe and survival, hence the recommendation to slot endred. See Rigel's comments on Resurrect and Vengeance.
Recovery Aura - max the recharge in the power - slot either 3 recharge (that slot from Resurrect, for example, could be used here). Alternately 1 Rech, 2 Endmod/Rech (1 each from 2 of the Endmod sets).
And to reiterate what others have said ... Buffs are far more important to your team (at least on a halfway competent team) in the endgame than healing overall. -
Quote:Agree with Psylenz. Even as is there's a fair number powers I'd slot different even if I were to make a buff/heal bot build ... Fort, for example, I would ED cap for both Def (first) and To Hit (second). And pretty much no matter how you slice it Medicine pool is a total waste of power choices and slots for an Empath of any stripe.Originally Posted by Psylenz
Personally, even on a team-only build I find a buff only build to be parasitic and non-optimal. If you took JUST ball lightning and short circuit instead of aid other and aid self, you could contribute AoE damage, and modest endurance drain. What in Statesman's name would you do with a spawn if you tp'd it to you and had no attacks? Resurrect and Resuscitation? Both? Are you planning to miss with heal aura and heal other?
Also consider the nuke. You can target from around a corner and dispatch stacks of foes without them being able to target you.
I know you were going for a gimmick, and I wouldn't kick a teammate for this build on a team, but I would think twice before inviting to a taskforce. It wouldn't be worse than an empath that didn't use powers they had. -
I'll stick to commenting on the Empathy side of things, far more playtime with Empaths than Plant Control.
Haven't been getting the play time of late ... so not familiar enough with Agility but it would have to really boost recharge to be of more value than Spiritual and Spiritual also boosts Heal a very hard to beat combo for an Empath.
Resurrect should only need the base slot. More recharge won't really prevent needing to pass a wakie (or rez some other way) should 2+ folks drop from one battle. I'd personally go with an end reduction in the base slot and let global recharge take care of the recharge rate of the power. If folks are really dying that fast that often to need more recharge something tactically etc., needs to change. The 26 End the power costs is a big chunk which might be problematic during or right after a tough hard fight.
Drop that slot into Hasten for another recharge better for exemplar work or other times outside of Spiritual's boost. (Can't view with Mids at the moment).
I have grown quite fond of frankenslotting 2 Endmod/Rech and a Rech into Recovery Aura. ED caps the recharge and yields a bit more Endmod than simply 3 slotting 3 Recharge. With plenty of other places for the +5% recharge bonus I wouldn't chase it here and I doubt any of the remaining set bonuses would be worth the slots here either.
I may have missed it but if you haven't got knockback protection somewhere I'd add a bit somewhere. My preferred place to drop it in is with a BotZ -kb in one of my travel powers or Recall Friend, but a Karma in CJ, Fort or Manuevers works well also.
Adrenaline Boost - I'd aim for 5 Doctored Wounds here as well ... unless I missed a +5% recharge set bonus somewhere (only seeing 4). And really like to keep a 6th slot for an Endmod/Rech to boost the +recovery over 1000% to help counter Nuke crashes and other -1000% crashes. The frankenslotting you have works though if I did miss a +5% set bonus somewhere (though I'd probably use a Doctored Wounds Heal/Rech rather than a Miracle). Seeing the set bonus in HA, HO, RegenA and EE.
A stealth IO + Super Speed + Recall Friend is a very nice combo for getting the team by foes to the ones that really need slapping. Add in the Confusion from Seeds and you're really golden for stealthing missions to get to yourself and teammates to objectives.
And one non-Empathy thought: Spirit Tree could get the same treatment as Recovery Aura (in this case 2 Heal/Rech and a Rech) to max out its benefit for minimal slot usage.
EDIT: comments refer to AJ EU's last posted build ... Sonic posted while I was typing
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Quote:*Oops*Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague
Memory loss or reading comprehension failure ... probably both on my part. -
One last footnote ... it delivers an actual +10% end. So +10 End if you have a total Endurance of 100. Or in the case of my scrapper who has 111.80 End (per Combat Attributes) gains 11.18 end with each tic (per "Healing Delivered" channel).
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Pretty much 8 of Level 50 anything/anything turn the game to mush in almost all cases ... it's more about the difference between coarse gruel and a fine paste.
And watching 8 heavily buffed Rockies emerge from the cloud of dust surrounding a boss is silly awesome. -
Quote:A few quick thoughts on Confuse vs AV as I understand it.
Confuse has a 79.04s second duration with a 3.21s recharge time so (79.04 / 3.21 = 24(Rounded Down) casts - 1 = 23 * 3 = 69 mag confuse!) At least if I am doing everything right then it should be.
1) Purple Triangles (of Doom) - They'll raise an AV's status protection vs Confuse to 50 plus whatever base protection they may have ... typically 3. So to truly keep an AV perma-Confused (while solo, or at least as the sole source of Confuse) you'll need to get to and maintain mag 53+
2) Level scaling i.e. Purple Patch modifiers. If it's an even level AV then no modifiers, but if it's say Lord Recluse on the STF then you're trying to Confuse a foe 4 levels above you. That'll cut durations to right around half (iirc it's a 0.48 modifier) with other level differences falling in between.
3) Lastly you need to account for status resistances. While it won't stop the AV from becoming Confused just like with a player Character resistance will shorten the effective duration. In the case of most end game AV's that resistance is quite high vs most status effects. Against something like Confuse around 85% or more (85% vs level 50 and climbing a bit with each level over 50)
The above means against a level 50 AV you'll need to exceed and then sustain mag 53 with a Confuse that has an effective duration of just a bit over 11 seconds (79.04 secs * 0.15)
Hopefully someone can throw some wrenches in my wrench for your perma-Confuse ideas. One potential wrench to my wrench is the Vanguard accolade.
Edit to add link: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Archvillain_Resistance <-- means 3) above should be much lower (if any) as there will only be some if the AV has some outside of the PtoD, the triangles only provide protection. Seems like the real catch is the sheer magnitude you need to reach as you'd need 18 applications of mag 3 Confuse to exceed 53. -
Agree with the above posters, Tornado over Thunderclap. I'd only consider going TC over Tornado in a build specifically designed to stack and stun spawns. And even then I'd likely be looking at skipping some other choice while looking to keep both TC and Tornado in the build.
Having capped S/L and Ranged plus Hurricane should be quite ample defense in the vast majority of cases (especially teamed). -
Don't currently have access to a computer with Mids installed (and this one isn't mine so installing it isn't an option) but I'll throw out some random thoughts.
Another vote for Tactics in the build, in addition to the already mentioned things I believe Tactics also carries Confusion protection. Love Leadership in general for defenders but all my Emps have it on anything resembling a team build. (And nothing cuts thru high defense foes like +To Hit). I'll point out that Vengeance will also take To Hit buff sets letting you add another bit of S/L def here with Rectified Reticle if so desired. That said I generally don't worry too much about defense on my team builds ... between inspires, teammate buffs/debuffs, +/- epic armor resists, RegenAura, HA, etc., I don't really seem to need it. But if you are going to build for defense try to do so without the loss of much global recharge and shoot to get at least 32% to be within a small luck of the soft cap for defense.
Quote:One place I might look to drop those 'extra' slots in a /Elec sapper build would be for a 6th slot in those blast attacks adding either a common Endmod or for more if a bit random draining the Tempest -End drain proc. Depending on teammates (i.e. if you have one or more who are reliably boosting your global recharge so you don't lose out there for not running Spiritual) consider having Musculature Radial Paragon available and potentially running. On top of slotting for damage and Musculature's boost to damage it will also boost Endmod so one can have, in 6-slots, the equal of 2 Endmod worth of -End per blast.Some of that goofy slotting In Voltaic Sentinel, Maneuvers and Tesla cage was just because i was swimming in slots by lvl 50 and i really didn't know where to throw them ...
Very much like Biospark's thoughts on slotting for Short Circuit. One can push hard against ED limits for recharge, damage and Endmod in the power with such slotting. And if you can get in a situation where running Musculature is doable, PBU+ Short Circuit is positively frightening for an AoE attack on a defender. -
Indeed my Fire/Nrg blaster learned early on that Hurdle plus CJ let her pull by leaping up, back, and around a corner firing the blast of her choice mid-leap. Hurdle would give her the distance and CJ the control to easily make the corner. Neither by themselves was quite as effective or make the maneuver as easy to pull off. Likewise she had Acrobatics from the days of pre IO's and anecdotally one mission in particular highlighted the difference between a Fire/Nrg blaster with and without Acro. Several of us in the SG were running an outdoor map and about 3/4's of the way thru I was noting the other blaster (also Fire/Nrg) was spending a not insignificant bit more time mezzed (this was pre IO).
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Just double checking in case it got changed on me when I wasn't looking but far as I am aware the passive scaling resistances of SR do not work against toxic or psionic damage.
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Quote:Yeah my first character to use SA is my Elec/Fire as a way to get into the spawn asap and start laying waste around me with his multitude of PBAoE effects.Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
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Spring Attack: Spring Attack's only real problem is that the recharge is too damn long. As has been noted, it's kind of a cross between Shield Charge (a teleport attack) and Foot Stomp (does knockdown). I have this on my Inv/SS tank and SS/Inv Brute. It's a nice combat opener.
- Enter a mob with Spring Attack.
- Foot Stomp.
- Judgement (if you're Incarnate) (this usually only leaves bosses or really tough LTs).
- Lay about with ST attacks while FS recharges.
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Quote:Visit any trainer from level 10 onward. Among the options should be one for another build (or builds>> you can earn a third one by opening your Alpha far as I know). It'll start you off as if you are a brand new character so you can level them up placing slots all the way to level 50. Those slots can be placed totally differently than your 1st build and you can pick totally different powers for that matter. Essentially it's another whole character with the same power sets. Any time afterward you can visit a trainer and make either copy the current active character. One way you can use it is to make the second copy take all the "expensive" best stuff such as Kin Combats as you aquire them allowing you to fill in the character over time while keeping the first build for actual play until the second is slotted well enough to become the "primary used build". Hope that makes sense ... believe there should be explanation in game at the trainer as well (my play time has been very restricted lately).
What is a second build option and how do I do it? I haven't tried this yet. -
Quote:In Mids it shows as 66% chance of 0.67 knockback not knock up (see Air Superiority for a knockup effect). Haven't used it personally in game yet (to confirm KB vs KU) but at that magnitude it will only knockdown unless the foes are lower level than you, weak to kb effects or if it combines somehow with another kb effect.
Spring Attack: is a mini shield-charge, with the teleportation and pseudo-pet summoning and all. It has 1/4 of SC's chance to knockdown (but it knocks up instead), about 2/3 of the damage and takes a bit longer to recharge. Shield Charge is a great attack. Spring Attack is slightly less great, but still not bad if you don't have a lot of AoE in your build. You might find better AoE in your patron pools, though... -
You'd still be nailed by the -1000% recovery debuff, but since it's DoT damage typically all ones foes are still upright immediately afterward making it much easier to use something like Power Sink to refill your bar (rather than say hunt around to find the one foe that was missed post Inferno or other Nuke). You'll burn up that end relatively quickly but it'll be from a full bar's worth making it easier to ride out the -recovery portion.