EmperorSteele

We usually have them on sundays and monday nights. Also, the server is populated enough that if you're willing to team-lead, you can probably organize one whenever you'd like. Use the channels VU2009 and VirtueBadges. Maybe even VirtueLFG.

Anyway, welcome to Virtue!

Count me in!

Well, if you have two Mind controllers, by level 32 not interupting sleep won't be an issue. Especially if both controllers have Hasten or some IO Set recharge bonuses. They can just pretty much spam Total Dom and Mass Confusion between the two of 'em.

Something to chew on.

Speaking of which, Zomg, Fix Elusitivity!

I demand that this game be made to obey the Conservation of Ninjitsu! One stalker I can handle. 2 is pushing it if i'm lucky (otherwise, im just dead). Throw in a corr or a dom, who i usually have no trouble with, and bam, dead before i can click a single attack. I mean really now, how's that anyone's idea of fun? Might as well hunt Level 1 Skulls for all the challenge a single player can put up against multiple opponents.

Though as far as Stalkers go, i thought they were a hit-n-run melee class... so how come they have access to Ranged(!) Holds(!!) that do MORE damage than a Blaster Snipe(!!!) (at least, if they're hidden)? I wish my CONTROLLER could whip out a CONTROL that good!

=P

If it means anything, I was 4 for 4 when dueling in RV tonight with my Mind/Kin. Mostly beat opponents by sapping their end.

I noticed you had reservations about Kin only being good against Melee foes. Like i told another poster in the Controller Forum, do not think about it this way. Think of Kin as a DEBUFF set instead. Floor their damage, recharge, regen and recovery. After that, just pound away with your attacks. If you happen to need a heal, hold them in place and then get close.

Of course, my build STINKS in open zone against multiple opponents. Then again, Elustivity doesn't seem to work at all in the way that it was advertised, so that's no shock.

Closed Beta isn't for "taking peaks". It's about looking for bugs, exploits, and other problems. Thousands of people all logging on to ONE server just to play with the Character Creator would probably hamper the Beta Test invitees' ability to look for bugs, let alone even get into the server in the first place!

True, this hasn't happened in the past... however, in the past, we also havn't had an entire issue's worth of changes that revolve mostly around the Character Creator itself.

So just relax =)

There was some pretty kick-butt action in RV on Virtue tonight. Multiple battles happening everywhere, though the vills eventually got overpowered due to heroes having superior numbers (and a trio of fire/regen scrappers from Korea. I kid you not).

All I13 did was get Widows out of zones and force people to team more. At least on Virtue.

To be honest, you ARE a sitting duck just by virtue of being an easy kill. A Stalker can AS you, and if you don't react quick enough, can kill you in the next blow. Also, many Stalkers have a ranged, damage hold from their Patron pool which, if they open up with it while hidden, will not only do a load of damage, but leave you helpless for the follow up (kinda Over-Powered as neither mez nor ranged damage is supposed to be their forte). A Widow can probably deflect most of your attacks, then hit you hard. Dominators can be frustrating if they get a jump on you.

However, your main prey will be Corruptors and Masterminds. ESPECIALLY if you open with Mass Confuse. You can also use Repel to cause huge amounts of havoc, as most MM pets dont have good KB resist. Brutes can ALSO be easy if you don't get close to them. Bring some mez protection because most of the time they WILL have a ranged attack that WILL stun you.

PvP is all about striking first while the opponent is distracted. I'll use my experiences tonight as an example.

I tried solong in RV... didn't work at ALL. 3 stalkers, one dom, and... yeah. So i joined a team of heroes, and I found that as long as the Stalkers didn't try to come after me first, I could easily hit them while they were exposed (after they tried to AS a teammate), and finish them off if they didn't hibernate or run. Dealing with the Dom was simply a matter of who saw who first. Of course, then she'd cry for help and I'd get AS'd, so i stopped going after the Dom until her HP or end bar were low.

The best thing for me to do was sit, wait until a stalker tried to attack me, then my teammates would gang up on them. The stalkers tried hitting all at once, but that just let me use Fulcrum shift or Mass Confusion, and the tides would turn.

Then we found a group of vills that consisted of a corr, 2 MMs (thugs and bots) and another Stalker who apparently doesn't use Hide. Did I mention how FUN it is to use Mass Confusion on MMs? The group piratically killed themselves! Using TK to shove half of the MM's protection away probably cheesed him off to no end... Of course, then i used Fulcrum shift and took out the MMs themselves.

Another item of note: "all" PvPers take Superspeed. And combat jumping. Especially melee types. So, you should get flight so you can play keep-away. Of course, then they'll bring a jetpack... Bad move. One hit of Levitate and they'll fall to their near-deaths. Gravity is also great for this: wormhole and Lift will negate even Hover's Fly magnitude, allowing you to turn the most fearsome foe into street pizza. Also, if you DO meet another flier, kill their end bar. You can't use a flight power without endurance!

Mind/Kin isn't a -great- combo for PvP. Your kills won't be terribly quick, and you only have limited mitigation against various foes, and simply by virtue of being a squishy means you'll be at the top of the villains' hit-list. However, it allows you to be a HUGE disturbance if no one is paying attention to you. Repel, TK, Confuse/Mass Confuse, Transference... these things will TOTALLY disrupt an enemy if they're fighting someone else... however, they stop doing you much good once someone comes gunning for you.

To be honest, most of your mezzes will be nerfed hard (base duration is only 4 seconds in PvP, and most people will have resist, which cuts down the time they're affected). Slot them as attacks. This basically makes you a weak blaster with a touch of mez and some defender effects that don't work as well as you're used to. But you can make it work!

Power suggestions: Tactics, maybe some stealth (both the power pool and a stealth IO). IR from Kinetics might save a pool power choice. Hasten, especially if you take any long-recharge powers. Mass Hyp and Total Dom won't do you any favors unless you run into NPCs in the zone. TK shuts off after a short time, yet is still an end hog. It's a decent panic button but if you're deciding between that and something that seems more useful, go for the other choice.

Phew, that was long winded, sorry!

Forsticus: Hunt Cimerorians. They're pathetic agaisnt Psi damage.

All I know is that I could clear the *entire* Cim wall in only a few minutes before -for some reason- they spawned in agro-ready mode. Good times. Usually only took two hits to wipe out the entire spawn.

As for +2s? That's what your single target attack chain is for. Put them all to sleep, whittle them down individually, then AoE them all to death in one glorious stroke.

Yeah, it's slower, but it's safer and you don't need no 45% defense bonus. That's the main tradeoff. Slower XP gain for No Debt, Evar!

Yeah, try standing inside a building with lots of foot traffic (like Steel Canyon's icon). You'll eventually witness the following:

Door open sound. Character's name appears.

Door close sound. Character's name disapears.

Door open sound, then *both* doors open, and the character finally hops in.

I sat in icon watching this for a while... mostly cuz i like the new door sound.

Hmmm

Ok, let's take a step back here. Do Defenders have tools that help them increase their damage? Yes, BUT, not ALL of them. And some defender builds do this better than others.

Cold Dom: Two powers that give -def, and one that offer -res. Two of these are AoEs.

Dark: one AoE - res, and a pet.

Empathy: Nothing (you can cast fortitude on a pet, though... if you're a controller!)

Force Field: Nothing.

Kinetics: Siphon Power, Siphon speed (indirectly), Fulcrum shift (Note: FS for controllers currently gives Defender numbers)

Rad: Foe -Def, Self +Recharge/damage, - 2 res AoEs, and some - regen powers which really only factor against AVs.

Sonic: ST -res, a -res that you need to cast on a pet or teammate, AoE -Def

Storm: one AoE -Def/Res, two psuedo-pets that do extra damage for you.

TA: 3 AoEs; one does - res, one does - def, and the other does -res AND -def.

So overall, it looks pretty good for defenders, right?

Wrong.

Assuming you get an average of 40% -res, you still have pitifully weak attacks. Check this out: Power Bolt (along with many other tier 1s) does 36.1 damage for a defender (at level 50... three other sets have T1s which do less damage than this). With a -40% res debuff, that number becomes 50.54... which is still less than the Blaster number for the same attack (62.6). AND you have to land your debuffs first just to get that number!

Incidentally, the first 2 controller powers in any primary do between 24 and 40 damage (average of 30), WITHOUT any outside buffs. Add containment, that's 48-80. Add the EXACT SAME debuffs that defenders have, (but at a slightly lesser value), and we start reaching triple digits.

Let's look at secondaries.

Rad Blast lowers defense, which adds to your damage over time, but you don't get any immediate + damage benefit (unless you happen to make an attack roll that WOULD have missed if the foe were not debuffed... of course, only way to test that is to watch one's combat log like a hawk and such tests would not be reproducible thanks to the nature of the RNG). Sonic blast has 4 or 5 -res powers, which can stack up to a pretty decent - resist numbers IF you chain the same 4 attacks over and over in the right order.

Each set has a token "Aim" power... which isn't all it's cracked up to be. Arcanavile recently crunched some numbers saying that ones Damage over time actually DROPS by using such powers because essentially, that's 2 or so seconds that you're not attacking. If one stops to use Aim every time it's up instead of attacking, it really becomes detrimental.

But that's IT.

I mean, if you roll a Kin/Sonic, you can debuff a foe by 80% Res and reach the damage cap if you got plenty of minions around. And since Sonic has an AoE sleep, it would be very easy to do this. I would call this an OUTLIER as opposed to the AVERAGE.

And Emp/Archery? Not so much. FF/Dark? Well, you'll be very safe but you won't be doing that much damage. Any other combo not listed will do some debuffing and get some solo benefit, but not as much as a Controller.

Why?

Because Controllers can BUFF their PETS (Except Mind, but it has some of the best direct control options, allowing for total safety AND some extra speed while soloing). Any AoE Self buffs (like FS or AM), Fortitude, Sonic Dispersion, Leadership buffs... it goes on.

Yeah, 'Fenders need some help overall, I'd say.

asdfghjkl the formatting got mucked up >=.

Ah well, a good excuse to fix a few things. I'll edit it later in the week.

There's a temp power called "Power Analyzer (Mk 1, 2, and 3) that will let you look at an enemy's stats (much like your own Power attributes window) so you can see what effect your debuffs are having.

I should note that the FULL hami took ~50 Warburg Nukes JUST to bring down to 75% resistance as opposed to 99% (the effect capped at 10 nukes, i believe... we have fun like that on Virtue). He has HUGE debuff resistance. The weakened hami, I imagine, would be a little more susceptible to debuffs as its only 8 on 1 as opposed to 50 on 1... but still probably not much.

Best way to neuter hami is to bring EoEs ahead of time (inspirations you get from defeating the giant monsters in the Hive or north of PI) and pop them one at a time before going into the goo. Once the mitos are down, give the rest to the taunter and just let him take potshots while the rest of the team wails on that uni-celled jello mold.

All this proves is less people play Defenders. Not necessarily that they're underpowered. A GOOD defender can still bring a lot to a team, especially when dealing with GMs and AVs (where crowd control is moot).

Are Controllers more powerful? For the most part, yes. And with Corruptors being able to cross over soon with their higher damage numbers, Defenders probably do need some help to be seen as "viable". Funny thing is, people will take a rad, any rad, not realizing that a Defenders Debuffs will function significantly better than that of a Controller. What Defenders need is better PR... and if that has to come in the shape of Devs announcing a minor buff for them, then so be it.

Okay, so it's not that Controllers are more powerful just because they're designed that way, no, it's ONE power in ONE set. Gotchya.

Nerfing Kinetics wouldn't stop Controllers from being a larger asset to the team than a defender. You know why? Because they can still CONTROL. With ONE click, a Controller can neuter an entire mob of 16 foes. Enemies not attacking at all trumps healing, defense buffs, resist buffs, and mez protection buffs. But of course, Controllers get the ability to do just that, too. The only time Defenders > Controllers is in the early to mid levels when thier buffs come earlier and put up higher numbers. By the end game though? Tough to say.

I say, give Defenders better values for their buffs and debuffs, a little better damage, and better AoE control options. Nerfing every other AT in the game isn't the answer (Rememebr how much everyone LOVED ED?), nor is crying about one power (though FS for 'trollers/Corrs SHOULD use Controller numbers, or maybe even a touch less).

Actually, Mind is great at tearing down multiple targets. Especially if you take an AoE from your APP of choice. I've solod the entire Cim wall (all 10 spawns of 10 dudes) in only a few minutes.

I've held AVs through the PToD without outside help.

I've had to have my Mind controller TANK missions because the team didn't have a tank that could stand up to psi damage (we also had a fire controller who, surprise, was worthless in taking the foes down fast enough or keeping them from attacking anyone). Yes, that includes the AVs at the end.

Could Mind use some help? Sure. But i'd hardly call it gimped.