EricHough
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Quote:Well, I am fairly sure that if you click on all the glowies in the 30 second window the warworks ambushes do NOT come, so there would be no reason to stick outside and deal with them. What you could do is designate 1 person as glowie clicker and have everyone one else fly up above trip mine level and then try to kill director 11 with ranged fire. That could work but would still be a lot more iffy than the pet assault + nukem from orbit method as it takes a lot of damage to kill Director 11 and the longer it takes, the more chance of someone getting to close to the ground and hitting a trip mine, or getting hit by something that cancels fly (don't malta throw web nades?).Originally Posted by StarGeek
Wasn't there another method, in which you could get both? I seem to recall on one run where one person stayed outside while everyone else ran in and clicked. The person outside would then Assemble the Team and then we'd deal with the ambushes as they came out. After that, we went back in, flew to ceiling and then dealt with Director 11 from there. Does that not work anymore? -
Quote:You know, I bet the options Sam proposes would be easier to implement than full pet customization - just offer several different models for each tier of pet, or even just 2-3 different 'styles' for all the pets with pre-designed costumes - saves on having to pass around a ton of data on each pet to all who can see them, you just pass a model code.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
When it comes to customization of the actual henchmen, by the way, I want to see something more exciting than getting the same soldiers with different faces. If we do indeed get the choice to pick from a variety of henchmen models, I'd like for the customization options to span as wide a thematic field as possible. Off the top of my head:
Soldiers: The current soldiers we have resemble generic modern-day armed forces, SWAT dudes and an Arnie-style Vietnam era commando. An alternative could be WW2 soldiers, Star Wars reminiscent storm troopers, black armour clad faceless goons and even alien soldiers, like lizardmen. Bonus points if each model comes with its own custom weapons.
Thugs: We have modern-day gangs. How about Freakshow-inspired cyberpunk gangs? How about Wild West bank robbers and gunslingers? How about la resistance?
Robotics: We currently have largely Malta-inspired robots. How about more human-looking androids? How about less human-looking Rikti-drone-inspired things? How about WallE style torsos on caterpillar tracks?
Ninja: We have B-movie ninja filled in with what looks like esoteric stuff. So how about techno-ninja in the style of Metal Gear Solid's Grey Fox? How about orange jumpsuit wearing ninja?
There's room for more options.
Not touching Necromancy at the moment. I'm happy with them right now, which blocks my imagination on the subject. -
Quote:You generally have to make a choice between getting the Midnight dodger badge and the hacker badge because getting one makes it extremely difficult to get the other - specfically, if you are running around clicking on the glowies in the warehouse to beat the 30 second timer you are not going to be able to set up so that you can take out director 11 without any deaths to tripmines, so you usually have to pick one or the other.Originally Posted by Zaloopa
For the Tin Mage run this saturday we're probably going to try for all the master badges like we did with apex, but I'm not really going to worry about midnight dodger. I know many people have already gotten it, but I never have so I don't really know how to go about it. I'll probably still try for it, but not very hard.
The only way to be SURE to get the dodger badge is to have a large percentage of the team bring all 3 warburg nukes, shivan shards, a vanguard heavy and everyone have some form of flight. You enter the warehouse and to NOT clear the glowies. Instead, wait for all the ambushes to spawn and clear them. Then you click all the glowies but one on the center and gather there. Summon your shivans + vanguard heavies, buff up the group and all the pets with bio nukes + any group buffs, have everyone hover far enough off the ground so that they won't set off director 11's trip mines and click on the last glowie. Taunt director 11 to the group of pets, drop chem nukes and regular nukes on him and let the pets finish him off - all the players need to stay in the air and only use ranged attacks, if even that.
You can get the dodger badge by luck as well - but you have to be really lucky. The above method is the only way I have done it. Not everyone has to bring nukes+pets - but I would probably want at least half the team to do so. If you are not sure you have what you need to get the dodger badge I would suggest just going for hacker. -
Quote:There is no decent way to build up resistance with IO sets - most of the resistance bonuses are scattered and very small. However, you can take tough and an armor power from an epic pool in the high 40's and get decent resistances. Tough + temp invulnerability from the force mastery pool will give you 30% resistance. Force mastery also gives you access to personal force field - while this is not exactly like any of the powers iron man shows, it is very in line with an armored power suit type character.Originally Posted by roborg
ok i was wondering what would be the best at, primary, secondary, and build for an iron man type toon? i am having truble with this as iron man type guys have melee, ranged, and armor. i was thinking about a rad/em blaster with io sets geared for res. what do you think about this?
As for powersets I think energy blast will be a closer match to iron man's blast powers, although that will make you a lot less attractive to a groups due to the knockback. energy melee is a good option as a secondary.
I would recommend avoiding the look/name of iron man unless you want to be genericed - go with a power suit type look but make it your own. -
Quote:What is your damage setting in the effects & maths window of mids (options -> configuration -> effects and maths)? The default is for mids to calculate average damage for any attack - which means that for any attack that has less than a 100% chance for a DoT to go off it will calculate in some percentage of the damage. As every attack in fire melee but incinerate has bonus DoT damage that is on an 80% chance per tick, the damage mids shows you is going to be an average at best and I am not sure it is a good average.Originally Posted by firespray
If that's the case then I'm still confused as to why my DPS is so much higher than on paper. I'm calculating DPS from the mids numbers and not doing anything myself to account for the level shift. I had assumed that if you were level shifted, then mids gave damage out as if you were attacking a -1 enemy instead of an even-level.
For example, mids shows 57.81+5.005x3 damage for scorch (total 72.82). They arrived at this by multiplying the dot damage of 6.26 by 0.8 - however I am fairly sure that the fire melee dots stop ticking after a failure is rolled - which means that you don't get a full 80% of the dot damage, even on the average.
I could be incorrectly remembering how FM DoT's work - but the numbers in Mids are pretty clearly a simple average which is unlikely to show up in the game except over a VERY long run of attacks. -
Quote:Get some damage in siphon life - its one of your best attacks and in a high recharge build you are going to be spamming it often enough that even unbuffed, the heal is going to be impressive. One suggestion I have seen on the scrapper boards is 3 golgi's and 3 nucleolus (hamidon enhancments) - that takes 6 slots but will cap accuracy, damage, heal and end reduction - it does rely on global recharge though. If you have to stick with 5 slots I would recommend dropping one of the golgi's - that would drop you to 66% heal and end reduction but leave accuracy and damage capped. With that slotting and your current build siphon life would still have a 3.7s recharge.Originally Posted by Quill_Reaver
Here's my attempt at a def-capped, perma-hasten build, with cardiac alpha, let me know what you think
Check on the scrapper board for other siphon life slotting suggestions - since you went with the pyre mastery pool you could pretty much adapt any of the scrapper DM/SD builds - here is a thread where they kicked around DM/SD builds a lot:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=192252 -
Quote:Which epic pool/alpha power could vary. For instance, you could go with the energy mastery pool, take superior conditioning (bonus end) and physical perfection to boost up your recover/end and then go with the spiritual alpha to boost your recharge. Then slot a bit more end reduction in your attacks if you need it. Or you can slot mostly recharge in your attacks, go with another epic pool and take the cardiac - if you do that soul mastery is probably a good epic/patron pool to take - gloom is pretty much the best DPA attack a brute can take and darkest night is a nice debuff, mostly for the -damage in it, as AV's will resist the -to hit.Originally Posted by Quill_Reaver
I guess I never really thought of it that way. If I want to be able to solo AVs, what do you think would be the best alpha slot and epic pool? I would assume cardiac so that I can last the 20-30 minutes it takes to solo an AV?
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Quote:From what I understand, the level shifts beyond the first will only be active in actual incarnate content, so the most you should see in the current L50 content is the +1 shift from the alpha slot - the shifts from the other slots will only be seen in the two new incarnate raids, which require you to be an incarnate in the first place. I don't know if they will be active in the apex and tin mage TF's but those also require an open alpha slot to even start and something in the slot if you don't want to be at -8 levels to all the mobs.Originally Posted by newchemicals
+1 level shift is only a minor boost so its not a huge deal. There isn't much pressure to get it.
However, when we get +2 and +3 level shifts then incarnates starts to become a big deal. My concern is that it will lead to "loot eliteism" where we start seeing "Forming X TF, level 53s only, pst"
Worse, calls for lowering minimum numbers for TFs since X AT can solo it since enemies con at -3.
Just saying, I hope this is carefully worked out. -
Quote:Most of a WP characters healing is IN RttC and boosting the healing is going to be WAY more important than boosting a tiny -to hit which is likely to be resisted and only going to affect foes in melee range anyway. If you really want to boost your def, take maneuvers and/or weave and slot them up - then you get a boost to your def that is not resisted and in the case of weave for a tank is going to be much higher (5% unslotted, about 8% fully slotted).Originally Posted by Socorro
A WP Character is gonna have pretty good healing already. Yeah, you can choose to beef Healing/Regen up a bit more, but I feel that if you have a choice between extra healing and more Defense (or its rough equavalent, -ToHit), you go with Defense. Overall, it's best to have layered defenses (Defense, Resist, and Regen), but when you have to choose, go with Defense. Just my feelings on the matter...
So, 4 Dark Watchers for that little extra (maybe even a full increment, which matters near softcap). Plus, that 5% recharge comes in handy if you skimped on Crushing Impacts because you went with Kinetic Combats instead.
Again, I don't worry about Taunt on a WP toon. It's not WP's theme. If Taunting was really a priority for me, I'd go with a Set that simply taunted better.
RttC gives you 125% regen for 1 target, +25% per target after that. You can nearly double that by capping the heal enhancements - that is a LOT of regen that you are giving up for a measly amount of -to hit. -
Quote:My apologies then - my sarcasm meter must have been broken this morning.Originally Posted by Bright
Actually, I did read it and understood it just fine, thanks. My post, if you didn't notice, was posted with tongue firmly in cheek.
I like stalkers. I play them often myself, and team with others who do as well. I just find it funny when those threads come up (and they do pretty often-) how adamant some posters are about their "brokenness". -
Quote:Originally Posted by Bright
You've been reading the "Stalker or Scrap?" thread, haven't you?
According to some of those guys, Stalkers are apparently utterly useless on teams. Total slackers. The most worthless piles of gimp in the entire history of gimpishness.
Why, you ask?
Because (*gasp*) they have lower cap HP than Scraps and don't do quite as much AoE DPS.
The shame...
The horror...
Oh, the HUMANITY!
Personally, I think that's a load of bull. My own stalkers do pretty well when I team with them, even if they're not quite as "good" as Scraps... But I like the sneaky little jerks, so maybe I'm blind to my own hopelessly-broken-AT suffering or something.
Derangedpolyglot may have read the stalker vs scrapper thread but you just proved that you didn't read it - or you didn't understand it. The primary conclusion in that thread was that most folks would invite whichever player asked first to their group and pretty much ignore the AT, other than to note that it filled a damage dealing slot.
Yes, there was a lot of discussion about how a scrapper with the same powersets came out somewhat ahead of a stalker due to the higher HP, higher base damage and better AoE choices (in most cases) and a few posters tried to portray that discussion as a 'stalkers suck' rant but that wasn't the primary discussion, just a very long sideline. Only a few folks said they would not take a stalker on a team and most of those pointed to bad player behavior (sneaking ahead of the team and dragging aggro/getting killed, AS'ing then running and waiting to AS again,etc) as the primary reason.
Back to the OP's original question, it seems to me that based on my experience and most of the posts here that there is no such thing as an anti-team character, just anti-team players. All the 'anti-team' activities I have seen are power choices and how you use them, not a specific AT or powerset. You can have an earth/storm troller who keeps hurricane on all the times, randomly and frequently throws out tornado's and fires off gale at the start of every fight, spreading out the enemies before the other AoE's hit. Alternatively, the same earth/storm controller can be dropping quicksand as the mobs gather around the tank to keep them from fleeing, locking things down with volcanic gasses or stalagmites, dropping thunderstorms above the mobs with hover so the KB knocks them down rather than away and keeping the mobs he hasn't locked down on their buts with earthquake and freezing rain. -
Quote:Crabs are scary - you just gotta learn to love the legs :-)Originally Posted by Exxar
Heh, just made a hybrid crab/huntsman build with 164 ST DPS vs the bane's 155, but with no Surveillance or Shatter Armor. Unlike the bane, however, this toon has massive resists, 2000 hp and 25 hp/s regen, two arachnobot disruptors and a excrementload of AoE. So much for banes.
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Quote:Hmm, it may be that the reason our experiences differed is that I only ran my mace bane solo - I had a huntsman build as his primary build that I ran in groups, so I couldn't say how the mace single target damage compared in a group. All I know is that I soloed with bosses on, level set to +2 or +3 and had no problems with any bosses or EB's. I have never tried soloing AV's with him or any other character - I consider soloing AV's to be a gimmick/not worth the time. I get that some folks like to do it and want to squeeze out huge amounts of DPS in order to do that but spending inordinate amounts of time to kill a single target isn't really my thing.Originally Posted by Exxar
I must confess my experience is a bit outdated. It stems from the time before Shatter Armor when I just ran double Assault. But let me do some fresh calcs.
Ok, running double Assault and using the attack chain Shatter Armor -> Pulverize -> Shatter -> Pulverize -> Crowd Control -> Shatter I'm getting 155 DPS on paper. That's the same crap I was getting before. Adding in Venom Grenade instead of CC every two cycles drops the DPS to 150, but with the benefit of an additional -20% to the opponent's resists. I don't know how precisely the resist penalty from SA, VG and Surveillance increases damage, so this could either be crap or actually awesome if the increase is somewhat linear with the resistance penalty.
Hrrm. I never did a pylon run before I respecced my bane into a crab so I can only really say 155 DPS on paper is crap by itself and that I felt extremely sluggish, as well as useless in AV fights. I'm tempted to spec him back now to check if my feeling was just a feeling or not. It would really be awesome to run as a bane again doing good damage, but the no DDR bit is still bugging me greatly.
EDIT: Deleted a bit where I thought you were comparing Eviscerate with Shatter instead of CC like you did...
However, I question the declaration that 155 dps is crap - that puts a bane mace user firmly in the middle of most brute scrapper primaries with normal amounts of recharge and while it leaves them at the bottom of the heap when you throw in a ton of recharge, its still in the ballpark. I am referring to the DPS numbers that Bill Z Bubba calculated in the following threads: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=132369 and http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=132894
IN the first thread he calculated DPS using insane recharge values (250%) and included gloom in most of the brute chains. In the second thread he calculated DPS with attacks slotted with either 1 or 2 recharge reduction IO's (L50). In that second thread the values he got where:
Powerset DPS EPS
Brute Fiery 172.6 3.1
Brute Energy 157.5 3.3
Scrap Energy 151 3.3
Scrap Claws 149.6 2.9
Brute Claws 149.5 2.9
Scrap Fiery 149.3 3.1
Brute Warmace 148 3.7
Brute Dark 143.7 3.1
Brute Martial Arts 143.7 3.6
Scrap Strength 142.1 2.9
Scrap Dark 141.6 3.1
Scrap Martial Arts 141.5 3.6
Scrap Warmace 141 3.7
Brute Stone 137.5 3.5
Scrap Dual Blades 136.3 3.5
Brute Dual Blades 134.8 3.5
Scrap Stone 131.8 3.5
Brute Katana 131.2 3.2
Brute Battleaxe 129.3 3.2
Scrap Katana 128.6 3.2
Brute Strength 127.3 2.9
Brute Broadsword 124.9 3.1
Scrap Battleaxe 123.3 3.2
Scrap Broadsword 121.7 3.1
Brute Electric 106.6 2.9
Scrap Electric 103.6 2.9
Brute Spines 93.4 1.6
Scrap Spines 80.1 1.6
Which puts 155 nicely towards the top. -
Quote:On an AV, sure - keep in mind, however, that the debuff from AH does not stack at all, so having multiple AH procs only increases your chance of debuffing a target, it won't increase the amount. If you have the spare slots and spare IO's sitting around go ahead and stick it in tornado as well. However, against a single hard target like an AV you probably also want to cap damage on tornado, as it does a ton of damage if it can focus on one target. If you have AH procs in freezing rain and earthquake I would make sure to put damage in tornado first.Originally Posted by Mortimer_NA
Would it be a reliable proc though if used on AVs that will not be getting knocked around?
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Quote:I ended up dropping placate on my bane as well, for this very reason - I picked up a second assault from the leadership pool instead. Even on my stalkers I only used placate when I could follow it up with a fast activating, high damage attack other than AS - such as on my dm/regen stalker who loved to open with BU-> AS-> Placate-> Midnight grasp.Originally Posted by Jibikao
I've played many Stalkers and I just recently try to use Placate as a "defensive" power, rather than as an offensive critical power.
Let's say that I am soloing and there are 3 minions, I would put Placate on one of them at first and then BU + Shatter the 2nd minion and once the 2nd is dead, I work on the 3rd one. This is funny because the first minion that I placated still doesn't know I am there! It is almost like Dominator's strategy where you Hold One and Attack Another.
I normally only use Placate for Crowd Control because there is 50% chance for critical damage.
Is this just a 'feeling' from playing, or do you actually have real numbers to back it up. I actually consider the banes burst damage only OK at best, due to the fact that their build up was only 80% and crits only did +50% damage. However I put out constant single target damage that felt pretty good, especially with double stacked assault and the debuffs from surviellance and shatter armor magnifying the fairly good DPA from the 3 melee attacks.Quote:Originally Posted by Exxar 
Banes have awesome burst damage but their sustained ST DPS is crap. They are also melee toons purely based on defense with no DDR whatsoever. Because of that, I ended up speccing out of my bane build. He was awesome while leveling, weak in the endgame when he was all pimped out and softcapped (compared to your usual scrapper or whatnot experience). Sure, the buffs are nice, but I can have those with a huntsman or crab too. The only thing banes have going for them are the extra ST res debuffs in Surveillance and Shatter armor (although technically you can get that one on huntsmans and crabs too), but even with those, I was not satisfied with my sustained damage output (felt sluggish as hell too).
Seriously - the DPA's on the 3 mace attacks, even on crowd control, are pretty good. Just for giggles I did a quick comparison of DPA values between those attacks and ones on my claws scrapper - not counting crits (for either one), using Arcanatime and with roughly ED capped damage I saw the following DPA's at L50:
Bash: 89
Pulverize: 137
Shatter: 122
Crowd Control: 102
Strike: 98
Slash: 100
Focus: 126
Eviscerate: 112
While bash is a little on the low side, pulverize actually beats anything in claws for DPA and shatter is nicely in the ballpark. Crowd control also compares nicely to eviscerate - which does more individual DPA but is a narrower cone. While it certainly takes more recharge to get a sustainable attack chain out of the mace attacks than the claws attacks, once you do it is certainly a good contender. I picked claws for for the comparison as its usually considered an excellent sustained DPS set. -
Quote:The hit points make a bigger difference than you would think. I used to wonder about that as well and pretty much never played tanks, only scrappers and brutes. Then I levelled up a fire/shield scrapper and shield/ss tank just so I could see if the tank was worth it. While my tank doesn't have quite the kill speed as my scrapper (although she dishes out impressive damage for a tank) the difference in survivability is amazing. I use my fire/sd scrapper for levelling alts in AE past the ugly levels (usually to 12) and run on +2/x4 rikti maps - normally I go along happily, taking little pings here and there but usually at least once on each mission the RNG decides to streak on me and before I know it I am in the red. That almost NEVER happens on my tank - and she tanks for full teams on TF's, including the ITF.Originally Posted by Soulwind
Just an open comment/question:
Not that I'm against the idea of an SR Tanker, I'm not (I've got 3 SR scrappers), but...
What exactly would an SR Tanker bring to the table that an SR Scrapper can't?
Given Tanker numbers, an easier soft-cap, but it's not exactly hard to cap SR now.
More Hit Points, but does it really make much survivability difference after soft-cap?
More AoE capability, but that's the attack powers not the SR powers.
Less Damage, More End, No Crits; again attack set not SR set.
Actually, I guess the same question can be asked of Shield Tanks vs Shield Scrappers.
Now, it certainly helps that I picked up most/all of the +hp accolades, slotted up all the resistance powers on my tank and went with the cardiac radial alpha for extra resistance boost but the that mostly acts as to magnify the extra HP when damage does get through - even before I had those my tank was amazingly tough compared to my scrappers.
That said, I am not sure they can port SR over without either overpowering it, or raising a huge cry over how much they nerfed it. The problem is that just porting SR over with the scrapper numbers would probably result in a softcapped set with just the base powers, or nearly that, but reducing the values so they are closer to the tanker version of SD would result in a set that was no better than SD, defensively, and does not offer nearly as much extra effects. While I am sure there are folks who would be happy with even a reduced def SR for tanks I expect enough would be unhappy with it that the dev's are hesitant to port it. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Bet you're looking forward to Manticore in a couple of weeks timeI have to agree with Carnifax that Citadel is worse than Manti. The manticore TF is easy to speed run, the majority of the missions are either kill the boss/click the glowie. Prior to all the incarnate stuff there where folks on my server who ran daily (or more often) speed manticores for the merits. Citadel on the other hand is nothing but kill all missions on the worst maps in the game - council cave maps. Most of the maps are absolutely identical, which makes it even more mind-numblingly boring.Quote:Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Nice analogy
Personally I find Citadel just trumps it by virtue of playing the Groundhog Day missions in a series of bloody council bases.
Mind you one of my worse ingame experiences was a 4 hour Manticore which I just had to give up on as my then-girlfriend (now wife) was going to leave me if I didn't get off that "damn computer" (I told her what I'd been told, that it'd take me 2 hours or so).
I don't think the Manti TF is an awesome TF, but like the khan you can get through it quickly and relatively painlessly. Would I like them to give it the same treatment they gave the old positron, sure - would cheer that on. However, I would rather see Citadel, Numina and Sister Psyche cleaned up first and see redside get a 30-35 SF. -
I think that folks who don't like speed runs should do the one thing that avoids speed runs - form your own teams, announcing when you recruit for them that they are NOT speed runs. That way you will be in charge, since you formed the team, and you won't be 'peer' pressured into doing a speed run since you announced ahead of time that it was going to be a normal run. I find that folks will sign up for those just as readily as they tend to want the shards that drop as much as the end reward.
As for me, there are certain TF's and parts of TF's where I prefer to do speedruns. Moo mentioned the twisted sisters on the LGTF - I actually HATE keeping them alive and doing that entire mission. The map is HUGE and far to spread out, you have to clear a ton of mobs AND lead 2 annoying NPC's to the door, then finish off an AV that always seems to take longer to kill than the final 2 at the end of the TF. I have done LGTF's where we complete that mission - the team was always splitting up, spreading out, missing hostages and it took forever. If folks want to kill for shards, I prefer to do it on the other missions. On the first mission freeing penny and then assembling back at the mission door is actually faster than getting her killed - even if you have the entire team carve their way to her. ON mission 2 the path to the riders is nice, straight and full of nicely grouped up mobs that are easy to steamroll. On the last mission its a pretty straightforward run to the end as well, so killing on the way takes only slightly longer than bypassing them.
I felt the same way about the khan - fighting spread out groups of 5th column on an open map is mindlessly boring, as is trying to fight through crowded tunnels on the underground maps. Its not like there is any challenges in killing 5th column mobs - so why not just destroy the troop portals in mission 2, then stealth to the end boss in mission 3, click on the glowies (ignoring the troops as much as possible) in mission 4 and go straight to reichsman in mission 5.
Now this week will be different - you can only speed run sister psyche so much (mostly on the 2 click the glowie missions) and I plan on running a lot of lower level characters for the XP anyways. When we do the ITF I forsee a lot of non-speed runs as well - shard drops are nice on ITF's and I like killing cimerrorans.
Ultimately though, I think my initial advice is the right way to go. When I am in the mood to run a TF the way I want, I just form up a team myself. When I join someone elses TF, I expect to run it the way they want and am usually happy to do so. -
Quote:I will bow to those in the know on this - however, I still hold out that fixing the set from 32+ is not good enough, although it would be a start at least.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Actually Singy is not that potent. He is fine and all, but I would love to have 2 Sings again. Having two of them would be like having a mini-controller backing you up. Having one is not like having an awesome backup controller that fills on all the holes in the set. Having two is not even that good, but it would be a fair bit better than now.
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Quote:There are 3 pools I might take on a VEAT, depending on how I was building and my goals:Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Better question for the VEAT is this, why would you want any of the epics when your entire powerset is so full of win that its over flowing with it? I can not think of a single power in those pools I would want on a VEAT if going by what brutes get.
1) Mace mastery on a melee bane - shatter armor is a very nice, high damage attack that adds another 20% resistance debuff. Stacked with surveillance and venom grenade (if you chose to take it) it speeds up hard target kills considerably. As there is no redraw when you go from the bane mace attacks to the pool mace attacks, it makes for a very nice 1-2 punch when combined with shatter from hide.
2) Soul Mastery: Gloom is a very high DPA single target attack, Obliteration is a decent AoE that adds a third damage type to all VEATS and if you are not into IO sets darkest night adds good survivability when you aren't at the DEF softcap. I could see taking it on a crab to fill out the single target attack chain and on a fortunata.
3) Leviathan Mastery: on a crab or hunstman taking arctic breath + bile spray lets you stack an extra 15% resistance debuff (arctic spray) on top of venom grenade and since bile spray is toxic damage it will get double the benefit from venom grenades debuff (plus - toxic is rarely resisted).
While none of these pool powers are hugely better than the VEAT powers, they are not really any worse and offer some variety in damage types and debuff that VEATs don't have. -
Quote:Except this wouldn't really fix anything. Once you have singularity, the set is decent, perhaps even quite nice (have to work on hearsay right now - my highest level grav is a 22 grav/rad controller) - Singy is an awesome backup controller that fills on all the holes in the set. The problem is the run up to 27/28 when you have no reliable AE control and nothing to make up for them but single target damage powers, one of which is basically useless to dom's thanks to the long animation (its ok for controllers, but still not great).Originally Posted by Silencer7
I think a decent sort of a quick fix would be to have singularity spawn two pets, rather than just one.
Something desperately needs to be done to the set so that, like all other control sets, you have some form of hard control other than a one single target hold by L12/18. I mean, even illusion control gets deceive and blind, which tide you over until you get PA at 18. -
For a melee bane you want all the melee mace attacks, as the ranged mace attacks all pretty much suck except for poison ray, which makes a ok filler attack at low levels and a way to take out runners. Some folks take venom grenade because it is such a great debuff but I only played my mace bane build while solo (had a huntsman as my alternate, group build) and found that it was better to stay concentrated on single, hard targets. Then you take surveillance for the resistance debuff and at higher levels pick up shatter armor from the mace mastery pool for another heavy duty attack that also debuffs resistance (20%).
From level 24 on your attack chain will be (from Stealth for the large stealth strike) Shatter -> Bash->Pulverize with poisonous ray as a filler. I took Placate for extra crits from shatter, but I am not sure it was worth it - the crit on shatter is good, but not as good as a stalkers crit. Add surveillance at 28 (which you can use without breaking strealth) and Crowd control at 32. Then you can keep mobs bouncing around with shatter + crowd control. Once you get shatter armor at 44 you will be able to do a ton of single target damage (there is no mace redraw between the bane mace powers and the patron pool mace powers).
Defensively try to get as much melee def as you can - now that the fitness pool is free its fairly easy to fit in tough + weave and well worth it as banes DO have some resistances to stack with tough (7.5% to all in the bane spider armor upgrade). I found my bane to be a good solo char who worked best when I turned on bosses and cranked up the level, as they do a lot of hard single targets.
For the huntsman the general strategy is to try to cap ranged def, push up recharge and take all the huntsman attacks: single shot, burst, heavy burst, venom grenade and frag grenade. Add in WaWG and your strategy is to web mobs in place and mow them down from range. The basic soldier gun attacks are all fairly fast activating and do good damage, get a decent amount of global recharge (or take hasten) and you will have them up most of the time as well. From the bane trees you take the bane spider armor upgrade, cloaking device (for the def and stealth), surveillance and maybe build up if you don't mind the weapon swap animation at the start of a fight (you have to draw the mace to fire off build up). I decided that double stacking assault (TT:assault + leadership pool assault) for 30% damage buff all the time with no redraw was better, but YMMV.
At higher levels another option for the huntsman is to add in more area attacks from the patron pools. On mine I dropped frag grenade (due to its small area - its a nice attack otherwise) and picked up arctic breath and bile spray from leviathan mastery. Arctic breath adds another -15% resistance debuff to venom grenades -20% (for -35% to all resistances) and bile spray is toxic damage, so it gets double the debuff from venom grenade (40% instead of 20%). Personal choice here - I think this option does a little more AE and adds more to the team but it isn't as fast and you have to be ok with your character spewing all over the place. -
Quote:Assasins strike DOES have a good debuff against AV's/EB's/VG's - it offers an unresistable to hit debuff and has since the last round of stalker changes. Its only -7.5% but thats a lot against AV's that resist 85%+ of normal to hit debuffs. I think a better solution to the utility of AS is one I propose below:Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
I kind of agree with this even though I think Stalkers need a buff. More damage isn't necessarily needed. Two things should happen, however:
1: Assassin Strike should offer some kind of debilitating debuff against AVs/EBs/GMs. Stalkers don't necessarily need to do more damage, but when they take the time to attack the vitals of a powerful opponent it should hinder them drastically. If it were up to me, I would basically attach [Benumb] to the bonus damage from Assassin Strike, but limit it to a 5-10 second duration.
Complicated solutions like this add coding complexity and server processing time that tend to make them not worth implementing. I would stick to the KISS rule and instead look into increasing the radius on crit buff so that allies don't have to be so close - make it the same size as the leadership powers (what, 40' radius) and you will get a lot more benefit out of it. I also think that interrupt time on AS needs to go away - the long activation makes it impractical for use in a regular attack chain as it is, the intterupt time just means that def based stalkers have a better time getting placate->AS off and is unfair to res/regen based stalkers.Quote:2: A Stalker has very little control over Assassination's ability to augment your critical rate by having players nearby. Allow for the first player within 15' of the Stalker to add a 10% critical rate. Allies 3 through 8 within 30' should add 2%. This would allow players to "flank" enemies and offer a sense of reward for strategically attacking foes that are distracted by a nearby ally. Front loading 10% and having 2% added by other allies would leave maximum performance pretty much the same-- 32% versus 31% under ideal situations, including the 10% base.
Personally I think almost ALL the interrupt times on most powers are outdated and unneeded, with the exception of pool powers like aid self which would be far to good if they didn't have an interrupt. However snipes, AS, trip mine, and many other powers with interrupts have other drawbacks already built into them (usually animation time) and removing it would not in any way over power them.
EDIT: To keep this post a little more on topic, I have to agree with Memphis_Bill - I would always take whomever asked first when recruiting for a group, the proposed 'situation' is bogus and would never happen to me. I never look at AT's when inviting anyways, I only look after the group is formed and usually then because I know that I or someone else might be willing to alt if we need to balance things out. -
First day of the new strike task I run 4 khans (different 50's). The first two are unremarkable, 45-60 minutes each, no problems but nothing special. Then after a food break I log on my huntsman and form up a team. At first it seemed a normal team, there where even a couple of folks who had never run khan before. However, everything goes completely smooth and we finish in 27 minutes, which is probably as good a time as I have ever seen. Khan drops so fast we end up with 2 AV's left to finish off (usually they all get eaten up in AE's before khan drops).
Than I am finishing some crafting on him and another khan starts to form, I swap to my ill/rad and join it and the leader suggests we try a master run as we have a ton of buffs/debuffs (two ill/rads and a rad/dark? defender - not sure on blast set). 47 minutes later I have my Master of the 5th column task force badge on a run that is no slower than many of my previous speed runs.
All in all a very successful day and a lot of fun at what can frequently be a boring task force. -
I have had this happen to me a couple of times - the most recent was last night, I finished a Khan run on my ill/rad, went to oro and finished crafting a spiritual rare then tried to slot it in place of the cardiac rare and got the timer error message. I figured it was due to just finishing the TF, so I logged out to get some dinner. I logged back in again after dinner, got the same error. Then I exiting oro to dump some stuff on the market and I could swap alpha powers.
So it looks like it isn't JUST being in oro - it looks to be a problem with the timer not running out in oro, or something along those lines.
EDIT: I got curious so I ran some more tests - I was able to confirm the following:
1. Just summoning an oro portal does not count as "activating a power" - I was able to summon an oro portal and then swap alpha powers.
2. Being in oro seems to be enough to block swapping - it doesn't appear to be a timer issue. I know this because I swapped powers in talos (to make sure it was working) then stood around for 5+ minutes (waited extra time to makes sure) and went to oro. Attempting to swap alpha powers failed with the "you have activated a power to recently" error. Immediately exiting oro allowed me to swap again.
There is a second error you can get if you have tried to equip/unequip an alpha power to frequently, it is "Incarnate ability Spiritual Total Radial Revamp has not been equipped because the cooldown on equipping/unequipping Incarnate abilities in that slot has not yet expired.". Interestingly enough, being in oro will always give you the activate power error instead of this one, even if it is applicable. I ran one test where I summoned my oro portal, swapped my alpha, then went to oro and attemped a swap. Instead of the "cooldown" error I got the "power activated" error.
I do remember in the past being able to equip/unequip my alpha slot while in oro, so as a final test I checked to see if this was a problem specifically with the rare component, so I logged on 50 I hadn't bothered to upgrade to rare yet and got the same error when attempting to equip/unequip the uncommon alpha. So it looks like some change was introduced recently that prevents you from changing the alpha slot in oroborous.