Filth_EU

Just a comment on PvP defence changes. Currently on test server I'm going from 48.59% Def in Grandville to 34.09% in Recluse's Victory, this is with a level 45 Bane.

Not sure what Cryptic are playing at here - fix it Emmert!

So if that stays the same I would keep Elude for PvP.

I do think you don't have a clue about VG, since you said:
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you can no more make the debuff of Venom Grenade debuff perma than you can make every attack from stealth


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You're getting basic information wrong.

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You mean I should ignore what it actually says and just read into it whatever I want like you do?

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Yes, that is what I mean, I know it's hard but sometimes try to read with a sense of humour, irony, instead of as previously mentioned, as Mr. Logic. I thought you would rather enjoy the comparison.

My point about redraw is it's definitely noticeable going between Plant & Thorns and I say that since I'm aware of redraw! No I haven't had a regular account for a couple of years so I haven't been reading patch notes too much, if you have one of your handy URL refs I'd be most appreciative. Plant/Thorns was a PITA to play because of redraw so it's not like I'm not aware of it.

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Tell me, have you actually played this Venom Grenade wonder build?


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It's very simple Praf, taking VG and using it with PR gives you more options...which is all I've said - it's better, I think, than going with a pure melee build. I think saying that is a good deal more sensible than most of what you have said about the bane (see above) and:
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If you want a real team orintated bane, I would take double leadership, Venom Grenade, and zero mace powers.

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Actually at the time you wrote that I assumed you were joking...but maybe you're serious.

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When someone resorts to insults it is a sure sign that they have lost the argument
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Why don't you post your build here so we can all see it? We promise not to laugh


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...ahem...

Since you're going to be short on attack powers...you could take Acrobatics. A very cheap way of getting some KB protection is 4 slots of Kinetic Crash (a KB set) into Frag Grenade which gives you mag 3, this doesn't have to gimp your damage in Frag either.

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Wait wait wait, so although you don't believe redraw exists, you think it has a noticeable effect in Thorns? Riiiiight.. nice logic there...

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;facepalm

Praf you do make Mr.Logic look like Omar Sharif, but as entertaining as this is for me, try reading less like a text parser. BaB is actually saying using some of the SoA powers, specifically VG means you are maximising your effectiveness at the expense of "bane purity". So I'll take the Eddie Izzard route.

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if you are using thorns redraw will have no effect


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:cough: You think the redraw on Thorns isn't noticeable? I suppose being clueless about VG also makes you an authority on Thorns as well.

So the original scheme was changed to the current one...so that no one would choose venom grenade? oh ok...doesn't this demonstrate what I've been saying?

Curiously though, my Bane toon now feels more like Eddie Izzard, thanks for ruining my immersion (again).

PS. redraw doesn't exist, it's all in your imagination. I played a Plant/Thorns dominator, not once did I notice redraw, every single time I switched from control to assault, and back, and back to assault over and over again for 50 levels, imperceptible.

So how about those Banes? are they fun or what?
...but over in Praf world...
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it's also true that Venom Grenade is buffing every melee attack by at least +20% plus the +40% to the toxic component in the melee attacks.

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Wich you have to thow away +67% damage on your most powerful attack to use. And you can no more make the debuff of Venom Grenade debuff perma than you can make every attack from stealth.

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uhhhh...yes Praf of course I'm not saying you should throw away the opportunity to make a stealth strike. You can easily make the debuff perma if that's what you want. Have you used the thing? Two recharges without Hasten is enough.

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And it's not "at least" +20%. If you target is an AV or has tox resistance the debuff will bre greatly reduced. +DMG > -res.


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It's "at least" because a substantial portion of your mace melee attacks are toxic themselves, which will get the +40% instead of +20%. Yes, AVs and others get sliding resistance to -Res...because of course no one wants people to bring -Res to an AV fight...


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Yes, you can take Venom Grenade on your Bane, but it is far from the must-have-you-are-teh-gimp-if-you-don't-take-it that you imply.


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:rolls eyes:

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If you want a real team orintated bane, I would take double leadership, Venom Grenade, and zero mace powers.


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Because what people want in a team member is someone who doesn't take their most powerful abilities.

Venom Grenade isn't something you spam religiously since clearly most of the time you don't need it; my point is - Banes have a potent kiting weapon which given their superior ranged Def makes a lot of sense to use when needed, VG also happens to be a great team buff.

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A so-called Wolf/Bane hybrid isn't, it's a Bane.

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Actually I'd maintain the assertion that it's a hybrid, as it makes extensive use of the Wolf Spider attacks - without stealth it would actually be closer to a NPC Wolf, as they do use a mace whereas NPC Banes don't use a rifle.

That said, you would technically be a Bane in the eye of the game in that only Banes wouldn't have access to the Crab line of powers, whereas a Wolf would (consequently becoming a Crab) - it's all just semantics.


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YOU'RE RUINING MY IMMERSION. In fact there is no "Wolf Spider" powerset, the ones people are talking about are in the "Arachnos Soldier" powerset. My point as far as this goes was addressing the OP - in building a 'pure' wolf with no Bane or Crab choices which since my levelling experience to 24 with the Wolf was possibly the most underwhelming time I've had with CoV, I can't imagine anyone wanting to prolong the torture...or maybe someone would. But yes, I'm pedantic - that said, why not describe anyone who takes powers out of "Training and Gadgets" a hybrid?

(I didn't think Wolfs existed past level 30 in any case?...which I thought was part of the point of the divide at level 24, part of the fiction is that all the NPC wolfs become Crabs or Banes...but anyway...)

Praf:
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Venom Grenade is not a bane spider power. You have to redraw (twice) to use it, significantly stalling your attack chain.


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You're right it isn't and neither is Tactical Training: Maneuvers which is a significant drain on your endurance. It even has "Wolf Spider Armor" at the top of that powerset to flag up that powerset is for Wolf Spiders only ;P.

Praf:
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However, niether Venom Grenade or Poison Ray benefit from the +67% damage from hidden that melee attacks get, and they both have long animation times and long recharges, and that isn't even taking the redraw into account .

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True the ranged attacks gain no benefit from being used from stealth, it's also true that Venom Grenade is buffing every melee attack by at least +20% plus the +40% to the toxic component in the melee attacks. It's not as if every melee attack you make is from stealth, VG+PR beats all melee attacks out of stealth bar Shatter which it equals, and it's pure toxic damage.

The animation times of Venom Grenade and Poison Ray are actually both shorter than Shatter and Crowd Control. The recharge for Ray is quite a bit shorter as well. You're right in so far as a Hastened Bane with the (of course great) melee attacks who also uses Venom Grenade and Ray is going to have more attacks than can be used in a "chain" but for me it's about a) potent ranged attacks and b) group utility and c) options. Against something which does have high smashing resistance VG+PR is going to be even more potent.

It seems completely reasonable for a bane player to focus entirely on being a stealthy melee attacker but I think this is one of the reasons Banes are perceived as a bit gimpy - their strength is in a mix of big hitting melee attacks, AoE debuffery and ranged attacks. The Venom Grenade / Poison Ray synergy seems pretty clear to me.

A so-called Wolf/Bane hybrid isn't, it's a Bane. Venom Grenade is a key power in the Bane toolbox since Banes have the extremely powerful Poisonous Ray in their primary powerset - Venom Grenade gives you -40% poison res making the Ray attack the most powerful attack you have outside of stealth criticals, and the most powerful toxic attack in the game(?)...

The yarling I've read about redraw is pretty nuts, Surveillance causes redraw for god's sake and VG is a (big) AoE debuff not just single target. If you PVP the bane is one of the few villains with a slottable web grenade attack at low level, which is also in the "Arachnos Soldier" powerset.

For me I'd go for Leadership instead of Medicine Pool at high level because Hibernate does well keeping you alive. Tactics + Glacial (and + IO?) gives you good +perception. Not sure I rate Presence that highly since Fear works out as more of a defensive power than an offensive one - in that it's easy to escape from, I see it as a bit like Sleep.

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Also, cant u slot res sets in Frozen Armor? iirc it has res to cold.

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It does have Cold and Fire damage res but you can't enhance it [or to the point, sneak in a Res IO]. You end up with 90% Ice res with Frozen Armour, Chilling Embrace and Glacial Armour anyway.

On the subject of Energy Absorbtion - I would never respec out of it for PvP - it's not something you spam constantly but it can be a real killer if slotted enough and used at the right times; I have toggle dropped people with it. It's also worth noting that it will add another +20% slow resistance if it hits.

Another FoTM PvP build from Alvan. Sad.

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So fire and ice got the less cast time with more damage? and psi? is this last faster than ice?

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Fire gets Fiery Embrace as a damage buff whereas Ice has none (it has Power Boost instead). Psionic generally does less damage but it is almost all pure Psi, which is good or bad depending on what you are attacking. Psychic Shockwave is a good attack for an AoE but not especially great as a single target attack as far as damage goes - it does have huge -recharge and stuns though.

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I was looking "on the paper" and didnt found Ice got this high numbers, excuse my ignorance, but, why it give you more damage than energy or psi?¿

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You have to work out the cast time and recharge time of the powers as well as the damage. If I reference Mids' Villain Designer, Total Focus has a cast time of 3.3 seconds and base damage of 148.5 - in less time than that Icy Assault can do more damage eg. Bitter Ice Blast and Greater Ice Sword do 81.8 + 82.4 = 164.2 in 2.9 seconds.

It gets worse - the base recharge of TF is 20 seconds compared to 10 and 12 seconds of those two ice attacks. This means Icy Assault has much higher damage potential than Energy. Looking at the other Energy attacks - say Bonesmasher, well that has identical damage to Ice Sword; the other Energy attacks? None of them are better than anything in Icy, except for the snipe attack and if you start using snipes you will mess up your attack chain and start doing less damage over time.

Does this mean Energy Assault is no good? no, because it has other things going for it namely the stuns, power boost and knockbacks.

For the Assault sets Fiery is the highest damage. Icy and Thorny are about even with Thorny maybe being slightly higher, then Energy then Psionic. Why doesn't Energy do better? well for example, Ripper used with Aim from Thorny does the same damage as Total Focus from Energy, even without Aim Ripper has half the recharge of TF.

If you're just interested in damage then it's Fiery Assault but that ignores all the other things like which sets have Power Boost, secondary effects, synergy with the control sets and so on. Ice, as usual, works out stupidly powerful when you factor in all these other things.

It varies with the powerset - Ice, Mind and Plant are all easy going, Fire and Grav are hard going early on. The AoE Hold is much more useful if you have Power Boost from one of the assault sets since it will last longer.

A top tip with Grav is to use Dimension Shift on groups slotted with no ACC so that you count on it missing a few who you can then beat up whilst the others are shifted. I'm guessing you have Psi Assualt as secondary? not especially hard hitting early on, but at least you have the Psi Dart machine gun which will build Domination insanely fast.

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Mind Probe has a range of 5 feet. 5 feet? WTH am I doing there? Also as a Dom I builds dam and survivability with control and some ST controls may work out better DPS than some of the attacks in the Assault secondary. Mind probe wouldn't interest me.

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o_0

A Dominator without melee attacks is half a Dominator. The damage of Mind Probe will exceed the damage of any control power by a mile.

If you want a high level PvP zone Recluse's Victory is the best - Warburg gets my vote as worst designed PvP zone.
Most of the griping about Epic Vs Patron powers come from Arena carebears, villains can do well at level 50 in the zones.

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i have all the shield for my tank and all but 2 of attacks , hurl and hand clap, i also have the speed pool, jump pool, fitness pool and also hav conserve endurance as i use alot of it , but i would like to no witch power would i lose to make my tanker a PvP monster

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Maybe post your tanker's build Duggy using mids' Hero/Villain Designer. What you've done sounds ok but tanks aren't PvP monsters for a number of reasons - their damage generally isn't great, (effectively) no ranged attacks, very few debuffs, only a little bit of mez power. Their defences are pretty good but this only means that tanks are last on the list for preferred targets since a)they take a long time to defeat and b)they aren't much of a threat compared to say, any other AT.

If you like playing a Taunt-Bot then you can do this well since you can survive better than most. I've had fun as a Stalker hunter in Siren's using Ice/SS though and that works OK if you're teamed up with someone else.

Viable? yes, but it plays very differently from the PvE game. As hammerfall says you can play it as a taunt-bot and just annoy people, if you actually want to fight you need to pick your powersets carefully.

From the primary anything but Stone will do ok, from secondary I wouldn't recommend ice,fire,mace or energy. You'll find Energy listed as the top PvP attack powerset, unfortunately if you play a tank you will probably quit the game before you get high enough to use those great attacks - the first one available at level 35...it's the last thing I would recommend for a newbie player.

The big problem with tanks in PvP is almost all their attacks are melee, and even if they do get to attack they don't get the damage advantages scrappers do ie. criticals. This also means tanks can generally be destroyed by any ranged attacker given time.

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Even if it didn't hit, it would still show up as the attack missing, which would tell you a stalker is near
SC

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I hadn't thought of that ;p although I can't think why you'd stand around waiting to find out. My point about slotting Rage too much is that there's little benefit overslotting the recharge but the IO set does make 5 slots probably worth it.

On the issue of no Hasten and Tough - do you really think it's worth not having Hasten and taking Tough instead? Hasten makes a huge difference to how much Dull Pain is up (take off 50s of recharge which makes it almost always up, with about 10 seconds downtime) - and improves the recharge of KnockOut Blow from 25s to 14s, as well as everything else - Aid Self, Foot Stomp etc. Bearing in mind that Tough will only help with Slashing/Lethal and no other damage types.

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Rage + Foot stomp slotted can very likely unhide a stalker without its tier 9 on or other buffs.

SC

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Hide has over 60% AoE defence with 3 slots.

It's not bad as powers go, I would swop out Swift for Hurdle. The thing to remember about PvP is that you can't behave like a tank - you're more of an annoyance so that other members of your side/team can attack. Your standard armours become much less useful in PvP since most other players will hit straight through them, and if you don't have support a dominator will break your mez resitance in a few seconds.

The +Per of Glacial Armour is handy and the capped cold resistance you end up with is nice.

More importantly ice tanks have some good debuffs - Chilling Embrace and EA - it's possible to detoggle someone by using EA if you pay attention to their endurance bar, it will drain about 30% of End if slotted correctly.

AoE attacks will not unhide stalkers because of the massive AoE defence Hide has, not that Foot Stomp is a bad attack.

I'm not sure why you would want to 6 slot Rage since you don't need more than one recharge if you're also using Hasten, unless you are slotting a whole IO set - a 5 slotted Adjusted Targeting would be a nice fit.

The main problem with SS is the slow recharge of KnockOut Blow; it's a pretty good set for Siren's Call as a hit & runner.

Hola, I think that view is just out of date now, a long time out of date. When the domination buildup in PvP was changed to +8 per hit with assault powers, and gave the mez resist - bang that was it, Dominators were then viable. Before that time it was very very hard going in pvp, but in fact not impossible by a long way, underpowered yes (this is pre-RV). Domination slow to build now? you're kidding.

Alvan is on the money. Dominators might be the AT with the smallest margin of error to play but all else being equal they are pretty well balanced. I don't agree that you need a certain build - maybe this is partly true of the power pools but not of the powersets.

Kiting is possible if you can slow down your attacker, almost all control and assault sets offer ways to do this. Mixing melee and ranged constantly is the way I play, parts of my powerset that are generally regarded as useless in PvP - like a pet and the patron powers are a big deal in level 50 pvp. It happens Dominators get a pretty good deal out of patron powers; I wouldn't trade the mez buff in domination for an equivalent Epic Power set which gives that benefit for heroes.

Cryptic don't know how to design PvP zones. The micro level design is pretty good, they've managed to fudge their way through the PvE powersets to something that's surprisingly good for little fights between players; but they can't or won't for whatever reason create fun zones in the mold of the WoW battlegrounds - which whatever their faults are way ahead of the CoH/V zones.

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