FromBelow

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Any other perceived problems with /ea stem from misuse, assuming that a brute is a 'redside tanker' instead of a single-target high-endurance killing machine.

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Let's just assume that another brute is on the team and you are competing for fury building because that's where the power of the SMASH! is.

I would agree that /EA (the only brute secondary that wasn't originally a tank primary transplant) would be good if it had *something else*. Obviously it doesn't.

Some of its powers are truly uninspired (auto +res) and didn't get a change since they were introduced.

IMHO, /EA wasn't proliferated because it needs some adjustments before. Hints seem to indicate that some are coming. There is hope.

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When two brutes on a team are competing for aggro - the one who took 'taunt' wins, followed by the guy who has the best set of AoE attacks. The guy with the damage aura, sitting there all proud thinking their passive aggro control is all that they need is only going to beat the guys who threw up their hands and gave up because they don't have an aggro aura of their own.

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With the new ET animation slowing down the chain I have been noticing fury comes a little slower with my normal usage. I am planning on respeccing into taunt with my next vet badge.

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Any other perceived problems with /ea stem from misuse, assuming that a brute is a 'redside tanker' instead of a single-target high-endurance killing machine.

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Let's just assume that another brute is on the team and you are competing for fury building because that's where the power of the SMASH! is.

I would agree that /EA (the only brute secondary that wasn't originally a tank primary transplant) would be good if it had *something else*. Obviously it doesn't.

Some of its powers are truly uninspired (auto +res) and didn't get a change since they were introduced.

IMHO, /EA wasn't proliferated because it needs some adjustments before. Hints seem to indicate that some are coming. There is hope.

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I would love to play my EA brute heroside. Can you imagine an EM/EA scrapper?

I personally like to see them just tweak it a little myself.

Does NOBODY but me play staminaless?

Conserve power is important if you are staminaless. You don't necessarily want to pop overload just because you whiffed and accidentally fired off energy drain to inadequate gain because for some reason (like a corruptor waxed your target just as you were about to drain him) there was only one or zero targets around.

Don't use conserve power very often at all, but I still 3-slot it because of those times when I do need it up. When I talk about EA having unlimited endurance, I am speaking of a three tier endurance package. Energy drain, conserve power, overload. Missing any one of those three is going to hurt.

If we are going to talk about conserve power going away, we need to ensure that the devs replace it with an endurance system that is just as or more effective to play STAMINALESS.

I think most people think EA has way more endurance management than is necessary and speak lightly of giving up conserve power. But most people take stamina. It would crush me if some 'improvement' to EA made the set need stamina.

I am quite comfy with conserve power. It is there to get rid of the annoyance of endurance derived solely from mobs that can get annoying.

What about stealth buffing?

Does anyone advocate making the stealth from energy cloak stackable with stealth from the concealment pool? With a stealth IO that would give 1078 feet of stealth in PvP. Not enough to hide from an SR scrapper running focused senses and focused accuracy, but enough to hide from standard toons running focused accuracy or tactics.

Really, PvP is rock paper scissors. Now the ultimate enemy of the EA brute is the blaster. Primarily because you are running around the zone looking for a rock to your paper and you are about to engage when BAM a nearby blaster sees you and toasts you. But blasters are not an AT with a bunch of +perception. So you could take care of business, running from the broadsword and katana scrappers and finding some martial arts scrapper or something without having to worry about getting torn to pieces by a blaster who sees you from a mile away.

Any thoughts?

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Once again, thematics. Force fields are the name of the game for /ea, kind of a 'melee force field' set. On the whole, that implies kinetic manipulation (ie. stopping incoming damage on an atomic scale) fire excites molecules, energy passes molecular vibration from one molecule to another, cold slows molecular motion, s/l moves molecules directly. What does psi do? it screws up your brain with some kind of 'mind force' that has pretty much nothing to do with molecular motion or fields at all. Dark is the same way... it's not something physics has an explanation for, and energy aura is all about the 'spurious physics'. Also, every set has a hole, and I'm much happier with a psi hole for a brute than I would be with...say... a fire hole. And the lack of confuse and fear protection kind of go hand in hand with the whole weakness to non-spurious-physics thing.


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Honestly I do not think of EA as force fields. I think of it rather as becoming energy. Like you are only partiall physical and partially energy, so there is a chance the attack just passes through you. And I would put the psi defense in energy cloak. Kind of like they can't mess with your mind if they can't see you because you are an invisible only partially material phantasm.

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I found an old level 18 Fire EA on a server I'd forgotten about. Maybe I'll play him after changes... my first Fire EA was... er... well deleted.

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NEVER play a fire/EA under any circumstances. NEVER. EA as it is is just weak defensively. Strong in ultility, weak in defense. EA must be paired with a primary that assists in mitigation. This leaves you with SM, SS, EM, DM, WM, and just barely Axe. FM is strictly off limits.

Even if the set gets buffed, the changes I would like to see should benefit in the area of CONSISTENCY, not overall toughness. Better defense debuff resists and psi defense (and maybe some more mez protection) serve to let EA function with its mediocre shields against a wider range of opponents. Fill some holes, so to speak. Not really toughen. The only change that I recommend that would actually toughen the set would be increasing energy defense. While this would make the set considerably tougher, it would not be the be-all-end-all. There would still be plenty of non-energy users out there that EA would have to contend with via its relatively weak shields. Because of the set's utility, I believe that in most cases it SHOULD rely on the primary for some damage mitigation. Therefore fire is just a nogo.

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No, ice doesn't get EA's perks. EA can roll without stamina easily, ice can't without self-weakening or expensive IO slotting.

It's not just the end cost of running the toggles that are the problem, it's ALSO the fact that /ea has more resistance to s/l than ice (ice has none), is able to put out almost the same defense as ice armor against more damage types (about 1.5% less, plus realistic fire defense) PLUS has the anti-aggro of energy cloak to compensate for lacking CE.

don't get me wrong, as my forum handle implies, I am an ice tanker first and foremost, and as my sig implies I am probably the strongest supporter of /ea out there (I find a LOT of similarities to the sets that suit my playstyle) but what I DON'T want to see is ruining the feel of /ea by giving it a recon or dp clone and massive defense bonuses to make it exceed ice TANKER defenses significantly... It's a brute set here, not a tanker set, and it doesn't NEED a heal to make it viable. and all the people agitating for a self-heal are basically agitating for something that will not happen and should not. You are muddying the waters when what we should be looking at is a way to IMPROVE the set without turning it into what it isn't and ruining the way it plays.

NO psi defense for /EA
NO heal for /EA

Changing that would change the entire focus of the set irrevocably. So let's see what we can do to make it better WITHOUT changing those two concrete facts around which the set is built.

+HP in the passives instead of the tier 9 is a good idea.
a taunt component in energy drain is a good idea.
Beyond those ideas, I have seen very few ideas that don't simply turn /ea into stone armor without granite.

And no matter how many snide comments you make about people's ability to read, so far you haven't added anything useful other than 'make /ea more like ____'.

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OK what do you think about enhanceable defense debuff resists? I personally love this, but I've now checked and found that ninjitzu and ice do not get these either. So I am thinking that it probably won't happen. The thing is, ice gets all kinds of slows and damage reduction in addition to defense, which directly affects combat. EA's 'perks' are non-combat. What good is having all the endurance in the world if you are dead? And sure there's the cloak, but once the mob is aggroed, what good is the cloak? The issue to me is that all the other sets have other aspects that form a second or third tier to the protection package. EA's benefits make the set totally cool and unique, and offer all kinds of play options, but they don't contribute to protection.

Don't get me wrong. I ran the ITF for the first time a while back on my EA brute and only recently found out from reading the forums that people consider it hard. My EA rocks. But when I come up against a mob with heavy defense debuffs and my already below par shields are gone, I would like to have something besides stealth and endurance. That's why I thought of enhanceable defense debuffs. But giving those to EA might be thought of by the devs as robbing SR of its glory of defense set par excellance. What are your thoughts?

What about capped energy defense? This is borrowed from comparisons to other themed elemental sets. Fire is immune to fire, ice to ice, elec to energy. Why not make EA immune to energy also? What are your thoughts on this possibility?

I actually do think the +HP in the passives is a good idea as well.

But I went back and read the first post on all this thread and got kind of scared. People want to warp EA into something that it's not. If I logged on one day and found out that From Below, my EA brute that I made back in 2005, my first toon and first 50, with his 300 badges and hundreds of millions of infamy worth of IOs, could not cloak anymore, I would cry. So I don't want to see the set radically altered either. But a few perks here and there would be nice.

I agree no heal.

Why no psi defense? Tons of sets have psi protection these days. Others have positional defense. Others have heals. Others have slows. EA has a cloak and endurance. What does this do for anything against psi? I agree no heal. So this kinds of leaves us with the option of just flat getting rid of the hole with some defense or something. Why would psi defense ruin the way EA plays? I agree a heal would. But why would getting rid of the psi hole make EA into something it is not? I am talking about giving it the same low defense numbers as smashing, or maybe even as low as negative. This would make EA play like EA does now against everything else.

Those have been my suggestion:

1 - enhanceable defense debuff resists
2 - capped energy defense
3 - no psi hole
4 - add confuse and fear to mez protection [this one I edited in because I did not discuss it in the post]

What about these? Why not? And if all three are too much, then why not one or two of them?

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EA does not need stamina. It has resistances that are totally optional. If you guys start talking about making the set mimic ice to where you start giving it heals, HP increases, and massive global defense increases, AND THEN let players start building manuevers, weave, and aid self into the build, the set will be over powered.


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I just want to point out that, in my opinion, when you take a set and add pool powers to make that toon overpowered does not make the set overpowered. A set is overpowered when it does not need to take a pool power to perform at the levels of a set And a pool power.

Also when the Devs are considering balancing a set within it's self the consider all 9 powers that are available to the set. wiether or not a player may decide that any one power is not worth the time to take.

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Well that's not just the end of it. It is not that EA can be buffed with pool powers. It is that EA can take tons and tons and tons of pool powers.

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All good points indeed, but the fact that its compared to other sets for one reason or another brings alot to light then people get lost in the base ideas between Sets.

Thematicly SR way of dealing with incomming damage is Dodging it, Thus the positional defence. They found that it wasnt enough so they added scaled resistances based on the amount of damage youve taken.

Invulnerability, when played to its strengths, is pretty good at everything. Its an ageing dinosaur from the start of the game thats had few adjustments to it. But many people i know feel that WP, even basicly, is what invuln should be (maybe move the Psi to Smashing and leathal and it would be). Thematicly Invuln is ment to be a broad and good overall protection.

Elec, some say, is the Resistance equivilant of what EA should be. I disagree because while both are forms of energy they are thematicly different. Elec, to my summation, is more a field of electricity that Destroys incomming damage rather than stopping it dead in its tracks.

EA, to me, Thematicly is an Armour not unlike Personal Force Field yet still different. Because EA is typed damage it can easily have its strengths and weakneses balanced to those. But it is still a power set that is ment to Deflect and Stop the damage. Looking over its present state it does this in similar ways to Personal Force Field, albeit to a lesser degree.

And rightfully so, its an energy field that the user can attack out of. So its different to Personal Force Field there. Playing to its established abilitys that differ to Personal Force Field (and other sets for that matter) we look at Overload;

+Max HP: Representing the Massive reinfocement of the shields, more the 'Ablative' nature of an overcharged Shield.

+Def: Also reinforcment to the shields but more to the capability of them, Meaning the shere stopping power. any over all Buff could make this drop a little IMO tho.

+Recovery: Expending all this energy at once, surly its gonna result in an increased Recovery.

Coupled with the resists underperforming I came to the realisation to have similar forms of fixing it to its original Power form Ice. Ice has +HPs, Resists and Defences, some are not worth slotting and some are not able to be slotted.

So Follow PFF as an idea with Fixes from its Parent Set and you get. Small, Stacking, unmodifiable +Max HPs, Resists and even Defences (im not 100% great with numbers so im not gonna try to get a balanced example lol) to make an overall Protection that Stops damage in its tracks or ablates Damaging the shield itself. Which IMO is what EA should be.

So SR dodges, Invuln takes it on the chin, Elec Destroys the incoming blows, PFF just stops and slows the damage coming thru and EA Stops and takes the damage to the shielding. Thematicly to me.

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Your suggestions still amount to basically toughening EA. My suggestions were actually more along the lines of keeping EA as a utility set, but making its protection more consistent. I would keep the shields low. Keep the set kind of squishy. Just make it more consistent via enhanceable defense debuffs and removing the psi hole (after reading other posts, I would leave the wekness to negative as it is). The only true toughening of EA I recommended was capping energy defense and increasing the mez protection. So essentially I would change EA from a toon that is kind of squishy against most damage types and totally vulnerable to psi and defense debuffing mobs, I would change it to a set that was totally tough against one damage type and kind of squishy against everything else.

For me, the way to make EA tough, if a person really wants to make an EA tank, is to use power pools. Don't forget, people, that EA has the capability of running weave and manuevers WITHOUT NEEDING STAMINA.

EA does not need stamina. It has resistances that are totally optional. If you guys start talking about making the set mimic ice to where you start giving it heals, HP increases, and massive global defense increases, AND THEN let players start building manuevers, weave, and aid self into the build, the set will be over powered.

To recap:

1 - bring energy defense to the soft cap. Perhaps add this extra defense to the passive resists to give players a reason to take them other than as a mule for steadfast protection.
2 - add psi defense to the same level as smashing, lethal, fire, and cold.
3- make the defense debuff resistances enhanceable
4 - add mez preotection against fear and confuse

If you do these things, the toon will have the best mez protection in the game and will be a bastion of consistency against virtually every mob type out there. It will be the best toon to solo with in the game. it will be able to stealth missions. There will hardly be any mobs that can make it totally squishy. You can build it into a tank via power pools. it will be a great, extremely flexible utility set. But if you start making it into a tank on its own via the powers in the set by giving tons of +HP, heals, etc. then you will overpower the set.

The devs conceived of EAQ as a scrapper/stalker combo utility set. Let's concentrate on advising them how to make it a better, more enjoyable utility set. Let's not just throw out random 'wouldn't it be cool if EA were totally untouchable and uber on top of not needing stamina and being able to take 8 powers of any kind from any pool the player wishes.'

Here's a post I put on another thread. I want it on this thread because this is the main thread for EA buffs. So here it is:

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Since nobody pointed this out yet:

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Any other defense based power you can take, from a secondary does NOT stack with the majority of your defense powers. Combat jumping, weave, or even leadership. Nada. They do add defense, don't get me wrong. Just not where it'll do any kind of good.

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Not true. All of the pool powers that add defense add defense to all, both positional and typed. So everything from Hover to Maneuvers will improve your overall defense numbers.

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That's the thing, it's numbers WOULD be great for a scrapper. Only thing is, it's on a brute. And I do believe the defense numbers on brutes, across the board, are higher on brutes than scrappers. Why should this one be gimpy?


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Not exactly. The base numbers on mitigative powers (defense, resistance, and regen) are the same between Brutes and Scrappers. Brutes have a higher resistance cap than Scrappers do.

As for EA, it has a few key problems. It gets less S/L mitigation than either SR or Ice. It has less Psi protection than Invuln. It's Toxic protection is odd; the only way it can protect against Toxic is through the positional defense in Energy Cloak (making it unique in this aspect; Ice has Toxic resistance in Hoarfrost). For a set whose thematic weakness is Negative, it has a disturbing number of holes (why the frack does Elec get capped energy resistance and end drain protection, but EA gets neither?).

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To your first point in response to your first quote I'll say that it's just amazing that someone would make a statement like that given the new combat monitor options available. Obviously someone has not played a defense toon of any type that has ever taken combat jumping or hover or any other pool power that ups defense and bothered to check it on a combat monitor, yet still feels qualified to speak on the forums. Just goes to show you.

Now on your second points, you make some common assertions used by thhose who think EA needs to be buffed. You know, I used to be staunchly opposed to seeing EA buffed until I learned that SR has enhanceable defense debuff resists but EA does not. I just broke out my level 30 SR scrapper after not playing him for over a year and checked the combat monitor on him. He only has two defense toggles and two of the passives and not everything even has 3 defense enhancements in it, and his debuff resists are just as high as my totally IO'd level 50 EM/EA. That was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I am casting my lot with those who think EA needs a buff now.

But because of everything I have learned as an EA defender, I have to admit I am not really sure what exactly the buff should be. Either to just give it more protection or to buff it in some new way that compensates to its general protection plan. I'm really not sure, and the reason I am not sure is that EA is so hard to compare to other sets. Even defense sets.

Comparisons to resistance sets must consider the inherent superiority of defense in PvE. You say that invuln has more protection from psi than EA, but you need to consider that a number of psi attacks have combined damage types. This combination does nothing for the resistance set, but the defense set treats all the damage as energy or whatever if any of that damage is psi energy and the defense toon has energy defense but not psi defense. Just food for thought. comparisons between defense and resistance are always sticky.

Then comparisons between positional and typed defense are sticky. You could buff up EA's defense statistics considerably in order to make them comparable to SR, but EA would STILL be inferior in protection to SR because positional defense is just better than typed.

Then there is the difficulty in comparing EA's playability with other sets. The ability to stealth missions and aggro what you want has to count for something. But exactly how shoddy should EA's protection be in order to balance it with this non-combat type of benefit? Then there is the fact that EA does not need stamina and can therefore add all kinds of tricks to the build through power pools. My EA has had 3 travel powers, fear, ranged attacks while keeping all the primary attacks, and had 40% S/L defense as of issue 7. Exactly how much should this benefit count? How shoddy should EA's protection be in order to compensate for this non-combat benefit?

Then there is the godmode problem. Exactly how much should EA's tier 9 count? It is one of the only tier 9s in the game, ok the only one as far as I know, that synergises so well with other powers in the set that there is virtually no crash from it, and it's benefits to the playstyle are enormous. I have about 40% recharge (110% with hasten) and my godmode is up A LOT. But you only get it at level 38 and without IOs it would not be up so much. And for a set that depends so muc on the godmode, why is there not a recharge boosting power in the set like /elec has? So exactly what the heck are they to do with the godmode problem?

In the past, I've thought all these vagaries and non-combat benefits were enoughh to justify EA's defense being what they are. But now I am not so sure. But I really don't know that much. I've only played a /fire brute to level 30 and an /SR scrapper to level 33 other than my EM/EA brute to 50.

So my question is, for those who have played their EA brutes to 50 AND their brutes with other secondaries to 50, what's so much better about the other brutes? I mean I have been on missions with a level 40 EM/elec brute where the guy just started complaining to the team and asking if he should just delete his /elec because it was so squishy. This was on a relentless CoT mish. So for those experts out there, what's the problem with EA? Most of the people who have actually played EA's to 50 really don't have a problem with them. Those that do seem to have problems building toons in my experience. Should we ask the devs to take guidance from those people?

For me, it's really hard to talk about my EA anymore because I have im IO'd out and I've become a real expert at playing him. One thing I know is that SR seems to be a bastion of consistency. ONLY massive tohit buffs really jack up the set. Against just about every other type of foe, SR performs just the same. EA seems much less consistent. great against some mob types but not great against others. My EA seems to lack consistency. So here's a couple of suggestions I have:

Make a true hole against negative and get rid of the psi hole. Psi is probably more common in the game these days thhan negative and the hero epics navigate the game just fine with problems from void stalkers. Yet conceptually, if there is anything that will foil a foe attacking you with its mind it is the fact that you are shimmering and translucent if not invisible. Kind of like the old vampire characteristic of needing to look you in the eye to control your mind. So my suggestion would be to just accept the negative weakness and drop the defense against it to zero. Then give a full on complement of defense against psi IN ENERGY CLOAK. Also give energy cloak status protection against fear, confuse, and other mezzes generated by psionic energies. In the old game, all kinds of sets were totally out of balance and their only weakness was psi. Now we have /elec, /WP, some VEATs, etc. sets with no psi hole are a part of the game now and are not overpowered. Make EA one of those sets. But keep the negative energy weakness if not create a full-blown hole against negative. Those who know how common negative is (pure negative - not negative combined with smashing or some other damage type - remember we are talking about a typed defense set) should make the call to just exactly how bad the weakness should be.

Next, give EA truly uber protection against energy. Either soft cap the defense or give it a massive resistance like ice and fire have. I'm not really sure which would be best, but a number cruncher could tell us.

Finally, give EA enhanceable defense debuffs. I really think that they are not enhanceable because of the ease of use of the EA godmode. But in my opinion this is an unsatisfactory justification. Yeah, SR's godmode comes with a heftier crash and does not buff HP, but it DOES have a godmode and it needs that godmode about 90% less often. EA really is ultra-dependent on that godmode, much more so than any other set I know of. Whether EA's defenses are strong or weak, they should stand regardless of mob type. Conceptually, EA deserves the resistance as much as SR does. I don't think it would overpower the set. Just reduce the number of mobs that give a headache. Also, if the above benefit of max protection vs energy is combined with enhanceable defense debuff resistance, then a cap of 45% vs energy would be a sensible solution to me.

Basically, the EA set does not need any more distinctives. But I really think the logic of saying that EA has all these non-combat advantages that sould compensate for EA's low-par combat stats is kind of weak. Brutes need to hang around a while in a fight in order to do what they do. EA's weknesses are not as bad as the naysayers say, but they are there. One small enhancement to make the set more universally effective (enhanceable defense debuff resists) and a couple of tweaks to make it truer to concept and on par with other sets with similar concepts (true immunity to energy damage and a hole vs. negative rather than psi) would probably make the set a whole lot more satisfying. Keep te defense numbers fairly low. They can skip the fitness pool and takt the fighting pool (relying on the non-combat advantage of unlimited endurance) if they want higher defense numbers. Given the amount of energy damage and psi damage in the game, if the benefits of capped energy defense and no psi hole were actually usable (via enhanceable defense debuff resists) then the set would be plenty strong.

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For defense debuff, it is actually more common than you thought. For example, the gun shot from council and family has -def. Defense debuff is in fact common, and often comes as a secondary effect of mob's attacks. Usually, one or two defense debuffs are not noticeable, but they can stack up pretty quickly if you have the aggro.

It really depends on your playstyle and your team. Energy aura brutes are pretty stealthy, they have to make an effort to draw aggro. If you just play a stealthy brute, you most likely grab the aggro of a mob or two. In this case, you probably won't notice the debuff much. There are some people who do play an aggro brute, then all the little defense debuffs can be significant.

There is a good reason that super reflex has good resistance against defense debuff. Because the set is a one-trick pony. The defense debuff resistance and scaling resistance are added such that if the defense are going to be overcome, super reflex still have some tricks in its hand.

For energy aura, it is technically not a one-trick pony. The powerset has defense and passive resistance. And you can argue that stealth helps. I think it's not an unreasonable request for EA to have similar defense debuff resistance as SR. Because passive resistance is kinda small, and not every EA brute has a stealthy playstyle.

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Not only passive resists, remember the Godmode drains only endurance, which EA has an infinite supply of. I've crashed overload in the middle of AV fights and had no problems. I was back in the fight in under 10 seconds.

I honestly did not know that SR had such incredible defense debuff resistance. Now while I am sure that the devs were considering the godmode when they were thinking about whether to give EA enhanceable defense debuff resistance, I am not sure the godmode is a worthy substitute. Given the extra protection of other sets, I think EA should have enhancable defense debuff resists.

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And the debuffs are not that common to begin with.

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Those defense debuffs are just so incredibly common and insurmountable that, like my EA brute, no defense toon is worth playing ever.


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First you said, Defense debuffs were not that common, now you're saying they are? Which is it?

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The hole against psi is the hole against psi. If you are going to complain about it for EA then you need to complain about it for invuln, fire, and ice as well.

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Invul has dull pain, Fire has healing flames, Ice has hoarfrost. Ea has an expired jar of headache pills.

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Something no one has pointed out yet, is that Ninjitsu comes out on top (in my subjective opinion). Sha, your self heal, give toxic resistance. Rin (status protection), gives 29.14 resistance to psi (numbers taken from the combat attributes on my stalker). I'll also add, Rin can be double stacked with hasten and 2 recharge IOs. That's 58.28 resistance to Psi damage right there. Which I've managed to double stack it for about 45-48 seconds. Pretty good resistance to Psi if you ask me. (Not to mention you get mag 20 resistance to confuse, fear, etc while it's double stacked)

This is completely irrelevant, but if I team with a VEAT all they have to do is pop mind link and my Res to psi is capped out at 75%. The Psi hole is basically completely negated in my opinion.

According to what you said,
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no defense toon is worth playing ever.

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I'd beg to differ. Nin seems to a pretty damn good defensive set.
Especially when you put it side by side with EA.


Nin is able to heal up lost HP, resistant against Psi, SR has the scalable resistance (which can be enhanced. Let's also not forget to mention it's a heck of a lot easier to soft cap an SR than it is a /EA imo), invul's got dull pain, Ice's got hoarfrost (res to toxic), Fire's got healing flames (which also has resistance toxic).


What does EA have to handle toxic or psi?

Jack [censored].

I'm well aware of overload granting extra HP, but before someone calls me out on that one, does that extra HP, really mitigate the incoming psi/toxic damage as well as other sets? The way I see it you were able to increase your max HP.......great. But unlike dull pain or hoarfrost, you didn't heal any of your current HP. The extra HP granted from overload is not good enough to use as a mitigating factor in the set, against Psi or toxic(in my opinion).

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Well I wasn't entirely clear, but basically about the defense debuffs, my opinion of them is that while defense debuffs are extremely common, in most cases it is a small number of mobs in the groups that have them, they are often fairly small and do not last long, and they generally require a hit in order to take effect, which they don't often get with a well-built defense toon of any set. Plus with the defense debuff resistances that defense sets have, they really are in most cases not a problem. What I meant to say was that instances where defense debuffs are a problem are not that common. There are indeed instances where they are a huge problem, but those really are not that common.

And I was being sarcastic about no defense set being worth playing. I thhink they are all worth playing. It's just that people constantly complain about EA being by talking about defense debuffs and psi. Well, defense debuffs affect a whole bunch of defense sets, and a whole bunch of sets have a psi hole.

So that's what I was talking about.

Right Spirit Chaser. Your comments are exactly the reason that I have been coming on these forums for years saying that I have no idea what the problem is with EA. They are exactly why I poke my head in regularly and talk about how much tail kicking my EA does on a regular basis.

Your comments are exactly why nobody would ever play an SR toon or an ice toon or a ninjitsu toon. Those defense debuffs are just so incredibly common and insurmountable that, like my EA brute, no defense toon is worth playing ever.

Actually, the long and exhaustive post and the seemingly wire tight logic of spirit chaser would be more than enough to get playing a defense toon in CoX banned by any normal court of law. Of course it does not translate into real playing experience.

Yeah. Nobody has problems with masks of vitiation at all except EA toons. We need to buff EA.

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EA has a psi hole and a toxic hole.

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Lets not forget a vulnerability to negative as well as to tohitbuffs, as well as to defencedebuffs.

Also, remember that even against things that you're good at dealing with?

3 slotted rest is probably better.

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Have you ever played an EA or a defense toon at all?



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um, actually, yes I have.

Fighting Rikti arn't all that of an issue for an EA, like90% of the damage coming from Rikti is energy/smashing with a little leathal. only the monkeys really through any psi into the equasion.

why don't you go watch your combat atributes while fighting, oh say Shivans. see how much defense you have after that. or even maybe some romans. lots of defense debuffs from them.

I've been playing EA since early beta of CoV, my 50 EM/EA brute was made on the 2 day head start when CoV launched. and in my expericance EA suffers the most from Psi, Toxic, Fire, Cold, defense debuffs, and to high tohit/acc. the later more in PvP than PvE

Please Don't come in here and insult myself or anyother person discussing the issues of EA just because you have no issues with your brute/stalker. while how well EA performs is subjective it still doesn't invalidate the point of this thread. which is that when compaired to other brute secondaries EA is Subpar and here are some player Ideas to increase the performance of the set.

So lets stay on topic and leave the weakness of other sets out of the argument

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How about you not come in here and tell me what I can and cannot say? There's no need to come at me with your pedigree either. You were not the target of the question.

I honestly did not think of shivans because I have not encountered them in an eternity. But Spirit Chaser's tired old list of complaints about EA could be applied to just about any defense toon. But defense is balanced and effective in CoX.

Stay on topic and leave the weaknesses of other sets out of the argument? How is that not on topic? All sets are balanced with strengths and weaknesses. EA's strengths and weaknesses MUST be compared to those of other sets in order to determine if it is balanced.

My original point stands. You are all wrong about EA being broken. EA will never be buffed because it is not broken.

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EA has a psi hole and a toxic hole.

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Lets not forget a vulnerability to negative as well as to tohitbuffs, as well as to defencedebuffs.

Also, remember that even against things that you're good at dealing with?

3 slotted rest is probably better.

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Have you ever played an EA or a defense toon at all?

I play my level 50 EA brute daily with the combat monitors up and the defense debuffs just don't cause a problem. EA's defense debuff resistance is just 10% less than SR's. And the debuffs are not that common to begin with. They may be common on mobs, but generally those debuffs have to hit me once to cause the debuff, which they often don't, and when they do it's usually just by one mob, and the debuff does not last that long, and it only amounts to a few percent decrease. Go out and get a defense toon and look at the combat monitors for crying out loud. Defense debuffs do not spell the end of the game in 99.9% of cases.

Tohit buffs cannot be monitored by me on the combat monitor so I can't speak with the same specifics. All I can say is that in 99% of the cases my toon avoids and deflects the damage. Now I recently respec'd to give my toon a little more defense and am running 43% smashing, 34% lethal, and 41% energy. So it's kind of hard for me to talk about EA's wek defense at this point. However, My I7 build had a 39% smashing defense from CJ, weave, and maneuvers, and I felt it was really overkill. I respec'd out of manuevers and went with 35% and that was fine for the game.

My defense against negative is 28% and Mids is telling me I have a total of 3% set bonuses to negative. Negative is not a very common form of damage and it is just never a problem.

The hole against psi is the hole against psi. If you are going to complain about it for EA then you need to complain about it for invuln, fire, and ice as well. Being a defense toon, there is the bonus of being able to use energy defense against combined psi/energy attacks. All I know is my level 50 EA brute spends all day in RWZ and has no problems. Lady Gray - no problems.

I am sick of these threads. I have been responding to them for years. The devs have not made one change to EA in the 2 years I have been playing my EA toon and you guys have been complaining about EA. The reason is that you guys are just wrong. This complaint about tohit buffs and defense debuffs just goes to show why. You guys must just be completely in the dark about ow EA actually plays. These complaints are off base.

But I am just not going to get involved in this thread anymore. I have answered these questions a thousand times. The EA sucks threads will never go away. And EA will never be altered by the devs. So why keep this mad cycle going year after year?

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Well first, if you look at my previous posts, my position is really that EA is not broken with the exception of PvP. So this post was more just to reinforce that by illustrating how cool CoV is for defense sets now.

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I still find it hilarious: All the sets ported from tankers allow Brutes to breeze through the game, the Scrapper set requires more slotting and work, and the brand new sets are dead last.

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Is Willpower ported from tankers or was it given to Brutes, Scrappers, Tankers, and Stalkers at the same time? I took a break from the game so I really don't know.

Anyway, you are saying Invuln, WP, Fire, are awesome, SR, DA are OK, and EA is the suck?

Honestly I have not played a SR brute. But really, SR has extra speed, extra perception, and better protection. But you have to take all 9 powers to have a tight set. EA gives you stealth, unlimited endurance, and you really don't have to take many of the powers to have its advantages, but at a cost of less protection.

The kicker is that brutes actually get a ton of their protection from their primary. Any good brute is going to protect himself by killing and mezzing his enemies before they have a chance to do a ton of damage. So really, the fact that SR has better protection is really kind of worthless. Especially when in today's game it's the VEATs and Corrs that make a defense toon really great. So really you are stacking speed and perception against endurance, stealth, and flexibility in the build. Personally I would take the endurance, stealth, and flexibility.

The only thing I really have not considered here is EA's psi hole. But since I have been spending all day in RWZ these days and have really not been hit too hard by the psi hole (they must combine psi with smashing or something), I really don't think it's a set killer. It is a hefty advantage for SR having positional defense, though. But with regard to that, I would say that if they want to sit down and fix the psi hole for invuln and fire as well as EA, I would be all for that. The sets that have a psi hole are given no advantage for their psi hole. But this is a game wide AT wide multiple set issue. Not a problem unique to the EA brute set.

Well first, if you look at my previous posts, my position is really that EA is not broken with the exception of PvP. So this post was more just to reinforce that by illustrating how cool CoV is for defense sets now.

The last few days I have come to realize how the devs fixed EA. Yes, that is right. The devs have been hard at work fixing EA and they have finished the job.

The fix is the VEATs.

Several times now I have been on teams with multiple VEATs and also the occasional bubbling MM and cold corr with their defense buffing bubbles. In fact, just about eery night I have played since I have been back on there has been a large amount of time, if not the whole night, where my defense has been up in the 70% range. A couple days ago it was averaging 95%.

Now without external buffs, just with my IO sets and basic powers, my best defense stat is vs. smashing with about 43%. My friend, has a SR scrapper and his best stat (vs. ranged I believe) was 47%.

Yet with all the buffs, if he is 77% while I am only 73% who gives a flying flip? Nobody is hitting either one of us more than 5% of the time. Yet other than a few lousy points of defense that really don't matter in today's game, what does his SR set have? If you take all 9 powers you get a slightly higher amount of def debuff resists and some scaling resists and a recharge enhancer and some increased perception. Now the recharge enhancer is really only useful for PvP builds and those who want to build an entire attack chain out of their higher attack powers. The +perception is only useful against a small number of mobs and stalkers in PvP. Villainside, there is no hope for defense sets in PvP. Too many blasters and too muc focused accuracy. So while a scrapper can make use of those PvP advantages, and SR brute is still screwed. So the SR brute really has next to nothing other than his few percentage points of increased defense to offer.

EA gets TONs of open slots to put all kinds of powers in and unlimted endurance to free up still more power slots and stealth.

EA has tons more advantages than SR if you ask me.

So let's thank the devs for the VEATs. No defense toon has to spend much time at less than the cap any more. That considered, the defense toon with the most utility wins. That would be EA. I would take my EA brute over an SR brute any day.

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aside from being horribly unbalanced and completely divergent from the concept of Brutes, sure that's a great PvP idea.

I won't address your opinion about EA since this thread isn't the place.

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Well, I honestly cannot say that I have stayed awake too many nights trying to end world hunger by fixing the EA set. But what I have noticed is that in my 2 years of playing my EA brute and respecing into three radically different build concepts is that at no point is the EA set really underpowered or unbalanced in PvE. My final build actually took the LRSF by storm, in fact.

But PvP has been another matter altogether. Even with my current build and its web 'nade, fear, teleport foe, three travel powers, and stealth IO, I am still stomped in PvE by pretty much everybody built for PvP. Totally ignorant players or toons that are just in no way optimized for PvP can be bested, but the fact that defense is screwed in PvP villainside and the distinctives of my set, the stealth, and endurance drain, are both totally useless, has made PvP the only milestone that I just cannot cross. PvP is the final frontier for the EA set. No man has gone there before.

Now you mentioned that my idea is totally contradictory to the brute concept. I will give you that my idea may be completely unbalanced. I really have not thought about it enough to know. But totally contradictory to bruting it is not. EA is a set built to make a brute that is an invisible energizer bunny of death. The concept of the EA brute is completely unlike any other brute.

That is why the EA set is like gold on the LRSF in a way that no other damage dealer is. I can get the code key just like any stalker can, but my overall damage output will put any stalker to utter shame.

So all I am asking for is that my invisible PvE brute actually gets to be an invisible PvP brute. I'm not asking for anything contrary to the bruting concept. At least the EA brute concept. I just want to be able to do in PvP what I do in PvE.

That being said, I would ask any of you who have any interest in the idea to come up with what stupid fanboy would think is a fair and balanced way to make EA stealth relevant and valuable in PvP in such a way that an EA brute can be survivable and effective in PvP while still maintaining balance.

I honestly think that once this is done, all these threads about EA being gimped will just go away.

Well seeing as you guys will never figure out that the devs are not going to fix EA because EA is not broken, I guess I will chime in with a dream modification.

The only thing I think EA needs to be fixed is for the stealth power to be as effective as stalker stealth in PvP, yet remain unsupressable to everyone but the target. Basically, the EA brute could force 1v1 situations and have some time to build some fury and do damage to toon types that are not instantly able to kill it without the target's buddies jumping right in and obliterating the EA brute.

What do you guys think?

And for the record, EA needs no change for PvE. My brute is a PvE deity and any changes would just make him too powerful.

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^ No thanks. I like CP, "doesn't like it appeals to everyone" isn't an entirely accurate statement. Everyone on these forums isn't even an accurate assessment of the player base and I like having CP for the overload crash, makes the crash so much easier to bear.

Keep CP. If elec can have it, why can't /EA?

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As a staminaless EA brute, I absolutely love CP. If I did not have CP, then I would probably be forced to take stamina like just about every other build out there, and this would cause me to lose my 3 travel powers, their prerequisites, and my web mace. So for me, CP gives me a lot of bang for my buck.

It's funny to come back to the forums after being away for a long time and everybody is still whining about EA. But the devs never change the set. They never will.

I like the set just the way it is.