EvilGeko

This x 10. Conserve Power is much better than Superior Conditioning. I agree with a minor few of the OP's points but, in general, the Scrapper epics are fine.

Psi Tornado is KnockUp. In theory they should just go farther up when you slot KB sets in them. Try it out though. Just slot the power with three KB SO enhancers and see what happens. If you don't mind the KU then put the Kinetic Crash in the set. If you don't like what happens, Positron's set will be there for you.

Brutes have a .75 melee modifier and surpass Tanker damage at 4% Fury, not counting Bruising. Basically, Brutes never really do less damage than Tankers since you can get to 20-30% Fury just standing there letting them shoot at you.

Yup, because enslaving young girls, committing extra-judicial executions, supporting a psychic vampire, and killing a former ally because he finally wants to get the truth out is SO nice.

If this person was simply inquiring about why you had picked ice, then no problem (see below). If he was criticizing the choice of ice on anything but conceptual grounds, he is a blithering idiot.

As the poster above stated, you gimped your character by ignoring one of the best blast sets in the game.

What if you have learned to use it, and are a melee player who vastly prefers some form of bubbler, but still think KB has issues?

I asked you to clarify your hypothetical. You refused. You said I was dodging the question. I warned you that I would need to make certain assumptions to answer the question. I get that you disagree that those assumptions needed to be made.

I don't try to be irritating.... *innocent puppy dog look*



You said everyone else was out of commission because of mez or whatever. Who else would the boss be mad at?

You're a good egg too. I'm just enjoying the conversation.

Shield Charge's DPA is high enough that using it in an attack chain against hard solo targets is often a good use of the power, especially when nothing else is around. An AoE, when nothing else is around and when you have no other powers ready is the proper power to use.

By the way, 'maximal' is Hyperstrike's term. To the extent I understand what HE meant, maximal means getting the most out of the power as possible.

But at this point you're just mad I Captain Kirk'ed your Kobayashi Maru scenario.

EDIT: Go to go home now. So you get last word Bill!

Kinda hard not to when the name of the thread is:

The KB argument is like the "RU Healer" arguments. It's a neverending battle like the Fir Bolg and the Tuantha. We are cursed to re-fight this fight for all eternity or when the game shuts down. Whichever comes first.

Nonsense.

No, it's like being asked how to handle a tactical scenario after being told. Somebody is going to shoot you and your friends. You have a bazooka and nothing else. What do you do? It's a biased question intended to lead to only one result. I didn't take the bait. Sorry.

As I said, take that out then. But again, you're arguing over my assumptions instead of my solution. My solution still works with your initial scenario with no changes. Jump to the SW. Don't use the 'high-damage AoE'.

Umm... Are you seriously complaining that I made up stuff in order to counter your made up stuff? And you feel no cognitive dissonance from that making that statement?

Nevertheless, my answer stands. You did say a nuke. By which I took you to mean one of the high-damage powers that drain you of all endurance. As for the Blasters, you said "generally unable to do anything" Let's just say they are recharge debuffed as well and so can't do anything.

It doesn't matter. Don't use the power. Jump and pull the aggro from the team, lest you burn all your endurance and make matters worse. Now as you changed it to "high damage AoE" then of course you use the power. If the power in question was Shield Charge, then hell yeah I'm going to use it. Gladly. But then, that's a maximal use of the power so my premise is maintained.

I note, that you did exactly what I said you would. When I filled in the facts, you quarreled with my fleshing out of the scenario and ignored that I provided a tactically sound solution other than what you suggested.

Flowery, rhetorical flourish. But it misses the mark. Building so that KB isn't useful is no denunciation to me. I consider it great praise.

OK. Here's my solution. Going to fill in a few facts. My character is a Peacebringer. The remainder of the team are all either Blasters, Corruptors, or Defenders. None have mez protection of their own. The boss at issue is a Dark Dwarf about to use Mire. We're on the second mission of the ITF. Why that boss and those powers? Well, I wanted to pick a character with a KB causing nuke as you stated. I also wanted to select a boss and enemy group that does -recharge. I am trying as hard to stay in the parameters of your scenario while still giving myself enough information to propose a strategy.

Legend:

1 - Me
2-8 - Teammates
B - Boss
X - Other critters

Set-up:

X X 5X 4 XX
X X 3 1 B 7
X 2 X 6 X 8

The only power I have available is Dawn Strike and Brawl. My solution....jump to the SW.

EvilGeko's proposed solution

X X 5X 4 XX
X X 3 B 7
X 2 X 6 X 8

1

That's my action. Considering that everyone else is mezzed/stunned/whatever, the aggro should be on me, at least the boss anyway. This should induce the following behavior in the spawn:

5 4
3 7
X 2 X 6 XX 8
X X
X B X
1 X

The NPC will move over to me. The Mire might hit me, which will hurt. But my teammates will be alive. As ranged based characters they will be able to attack immediately. The Blasters should be attacking with their Tier 1&2 powers already. If I had instead used Dawn Strike, it is entirely possible that I would have killed much of the spawn. However, I would be in a very vulnerable state. All endurance gone, the crystal either exploded (which would spawn the ambush) or close to it. It is not a good idea to use the nuke in that instance.

I don't think your scenario provides a reasonable test of this statement, nor do I believe your paraphrase captures the sentiment properly.

No, I'm not. There is no such situation. I'm talking about the game as it actually exists, not made up situations tailor made to make it so that using a KB power is the only option.

And the "dodging" accusation is poor argument. If such a situation exists, please define the parameters:

The team;
Your players AT; primary; secondary
The enemy group;
The mission.

Then I will happily answer the question. Because I suspect that once you define the parameters properly, that a more optimal solution will present itself. For example, once I know the primary and secondary, I can talk about what powers might be available to the character. If you continue to be cagey, then I'll just pick a situation that could possibly apply. Then, you'll complain that I changed the rules. So please give me enough information to answer your question.

What is going on in your scenario? Give me the facts.

I understand that. As mitigation, it's downsides far outweigh KD. As a tool for 'positioning' NPCs, I would offer that there are very few instances in this game where you need to position an NPC where a taunt power wouldn't do it better.

KD would work just as well. If an ally is surrounded, KD allows you to give them a breather and position YOURSELF to kill them more effectively.

KD avoids scatter. Scatter is the bane of AoE damage. AoE damage maximizes killing. Killing what is trying to kill you is and always will be better mitigation than anything KB offers. The only character that might need KB is a ST focused ranged character.

That's quite a lot of assumptions. Basically assumptions that would never apply to any character I would create, but let's move forward.

There is no such situation in the game that I am aware of. Could you please identify this NPC and what attack.

I can think of another option. Don't build/play to get yourself into such a situation. I'm struggling mightily to design this scenario in my head. Seriously, I don't have a character among the 40 or so I have that would ever have to wait 7 seconds before attacking.

Not flawed at all. The scenario you posit doesn't exist.

As you note, that's often not an effective strategy and it's never a more effective strategy than KD.

Didn't say it was 'useless'. Just that it can't be used effectively and that it's certainly not as effective as KD in the same situation. I'm glad you've acknowledged that. And very few situations in this game are not, "tank and spank". In the situations that are not tank and spank, I can think of very few where KB is more effective than KD.

By doing so, as I said, you've reduced a PBAoE into a cone. You must squander the essential nature of the power in order to use it effectively.

Nonsense. I rolled several KB heavy characters simply to 'learn to use KB effectively.' And the fact is I do know how to use it effectively. After having learned to do so it's clear to me, that KB is demonstrably less effective than KD. That's not saying "la la not listening". That's testing and observation. You have acknowledge the validity of that argument. Yet, your early posts in this very thread suggest that anyone who does not see the value of KB has not considered the question. I have. I'm not a zealot about KB. I just know that it's not as effective as KD.

Because that statement is self-contradictory. Maximal utilization of a power is always the optimal strategy by definition.

On thing to note about Shockwave and why it works as a power is that the KB magnitude is fairly small. This allows much tighter control of where the NPCs wind up.

Wasn't really moaning. We said specifically to Castle that he should just add a little icon and call it the inherent. VEATs we recognized by most testers to not need any form of real inherent. Their real inherent is awesome. Which is a bit hard to quantify.

Agreed. BaB is a great guy, but this was one of his more stubborn and silly decisions.

Make them all Spines/Fire or Spine/Electric Scrappers. Have them auto-follow a tanker, and farm whatever.