Frostweaver

Fortunatas and tarantula mistresses are almost universally in a group of other arachs, and taking them out first seems to be a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with them. It's not as much of a kryptonite anymore with the heal (it's still much worse of a kryptonite for several other sets)

rularuu, quartz, and other nonresistable defense debuffs are just as much a threat as for any defense sets. It's endemic to defense, not to /ea in particular. The heal is definitely helping with these threats, though, and havign an almost reasonable level of resistance (especially to toxic now!) means that the heal can pick up the slack.

I agree that the heal should be front-weighted to fit more thematically with the rest of the set (stealth) but I have noticed that even against primary threats it seems a ton more survivable.

Well, to test the changes I ran Darkness Bound on Test... I had an older version of her shelved there, level 37. She is a DM/EA brute.

I respecced her into an all-SO build and built her as close to 'default' as possible (no pools other than flying and fitness)

And then, just to make things interesting, I cranked the difficulty up to max and ran Johnny Sonata's chain.

So far, several missions into the chain, and she is having NO problems. she takes a few hits now and then (with only 25% defense that is to be expected) and her killing speed is far faster than it was previously. She has both of the passives, and they are making plenty of difference. Between having siphon as part of her regular attack chain and popping energy drain frequently, her health bar has yet to bob below 50% in some of the most brutal standard missions available for dm/ea (CoT and arachnos)

I have noticed though that I can actually run my blue bar empty, now, even without tough/weave. Touch of fear has lost some usefulness except against the toughest foes (even bosses die too fast for it to be worth TOF'ing them generally) but that may be due to my slotting. Without pool defenses, though, it plays a lot more like a regen than it did previously, although it feels quite a bit tougher than my regen scrapper does.

In general, it is a lot more confidence-building to play, although some of the challenge has been lost, solo.

In a team however, the difference was HUGE. I ran about 6 radio missions with a team, and was quite easily capable of semi-tanking for them with taunt... No worries whatsoever about getting more aggro than I could handle, since the healing easily kept up with HP loss. This was, once again, with an SO-only build and with some power choices I probably wouldn't take on a normal build. In a team environment, even without any buffs, I was easily holding my own and contributing significantly, as well as consistently dealing with the alpha.

Of course, my teammates did keep griping about the ed special effects. They are nasty.

This IS getting worse each time the AI is 'tweaked'

What the heck have these guys been doing? It's down to the point where, if you engage 5 hellions, 2 of them run away the moment you aggro them, 2 more run away the moment they take a single point of damage, and every single one runs straight for the drones, every time (as an example)

If you are going to have mobs run away the moment they engage, then you really ought to give players the experience for 'defeating' the mobs. After all, running away takes them out of the action just as surely as being rendered unconscious, and the mechanic that is making the AI perform in this fashion is NOT FUN!!!

[ QUOTE ]
I was playing my WM/EA last night running 8-man team as the only brute. Everything was going great till we got to Serafina. I run in and aggro and died in less than 3 seconds. Corrupter rezzed me, so I retoggled and jumped back into the fight. I through a taunt to get aggro back and promptly died again. I wasn't feeling STRONG or PRETTY at that moment.

[/ QUOTE ]

The real problem is that you cannot be strong and pretty and beat up a girl. Beating up girls is bad, and your strong and pretty deserted you.

Don't try beating up Swan either.

But you can beat up whatsername, statesman's cousin, all you like... She doesn't shave her hairy pits.

[ QUOTE ]
Warwolves (and clones) only require two applications of mag 3 immob, not three. (They have boss level immob protection regardless of rank.)

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

Two applications of webnade/webarrow are NOT enough to stop them from running. believe me, I have tested this dozens upon dozens of times. Test it yourself (easy enough to do, blaster immobs mostly stack out-of-the-box)

actually, I imagine more people will be trying out new /ea and mace with the changes than *snicker* 'shields'.

Hero Day Jobs-
Gardener/landscaper- Logging off in perez. Tiny resistance to toxic (and hamidon!) damage.
Playboy/girl- Logging off while standing on immobile pleasure yachts
Gambler- logging off in/near arenas OR monkey pit
Pumpkin Farmer- Logging off in pumpkin fields in croatoa.
Fire Inspector- Logging off near 'burnable' buildings in SC
Plant employee/foreman- Logging off in Terra Volta
stevedore/wrangler- Logging off in independence port.



BTW- anyone else notice that the new uniforms make you look a LOT more like one of the village people than actual police?

Can we have some LONG sleeved shirts please?

I went ahead and sent castle a pm asking if he ever considered adding f/c resistance to resist energies.

and yes, I was very polite.

but heat and cold are energies, right? I mean, They are both based on electron movement, same as electricity?

*sigh* still no fire and cold resistance in energy protection *mope*

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To those saying the mitigation from /EA beats out /ELA i say no way. the reason being /EA is DEFENSE where as /ELA is RESISTANCE you can't compare apple to oranges people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi. You're completely wrong.

Defense and Damage Resistance allow X amount of damage to affect your health bar over Y amount of time.

They are completely comparable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Earlier today I was on a Battle for Television farm with a SS/WP. She was getting clobbered, and I was nigh-invincible. And I was spamming taunt the whole time. She mentioned that the stuns were getting to her. My response:

"Nemesis Have Stuns?"

[/ QUOTE ]

aww man, I have been levelling up a dark/electric.

Holy moly, I had no IDEA the kind of status effects redside had to put up with.. all my brutes before had hefty amounts of defense, but my /ela got toggledropped by LONGBOW. Not just any longbow, either, WHITE CON MINIONS and LUTS

Admittedly, there were about 14 of them on me but still... getting toggledropped by luts and minions? geesh. Riflebutts are nasty things, I guess.

If I let that happen in my champions game, my players would probably staple me to the ceiling.

Hmmm...

a -dam debuff in energy drain....

energy isn't strictly an elemental set.

I understand that they call it 'energy' but energy isn't really an element in this game... it covers too many bases. From kinetic to magnetic to radiation to electricity.

Electricity is very easy to quantify. It IS an element in this game. electric is the energy that does not have a defense defense debuff or smashing component, and drains endurance.

If energy aura were 'radiation aura' then, thematically capped defenses against energy and scads of defense debuff resistance would logically make sense to the set, but stuff like endurance drains and kinetic shields wouldn't.

Energy aura is, realistically, no more 'themed' than invulnerability. It is described by it's appearance more than by it's effects, and it might have more appropriately been named 'personal force fields' if that name hadn't already been taken by something else.

I consider 'willpower' one of the most strongly-themed sets in the game, and I think it gets away with a lot more power than other sets do specifically because of that strong theming.

I didn't understand the two fail comments either. I thought it must be a guy thing, but I guess I was wrong, It was a [censored] thing.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

You run an EA and an Elec into a mob of Mus and tell me who survives longer, even without Weave and CJ.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have, it was the /EA. But not for the reasons you are thinking.

It was the mez. The mu luts were easily able to stack holds and stuns to massive toggle-drop proportions in a matter of seconds, causing toggle drop on the /ela while most of it missed the /ea (although she was struggling a little more for end, but not that much)

then again, it's the same reason that 15 tsoo green ink men can make an /ela cry despite their incredible energy protection while an /ea sorta shrugs and keeps on killing. It's an inherent weakness of resistance-based sets to make up for their far more stable performance. Honestly I think that's one of the best reasons to choose a stone-out-of-granite brute... a damage shield plus an almost total lack of weakness to stacked mez from herds.

[/ QUOTE ]

So my argument of Defence making ALL (including mez's) energy typed attack miss more compared to Being hit almost all the time with a Resistance set is not the reason EA would win out?

FAIL

What you said is the end point I was making, reguardless if it was due to mez, -end or damage EA will still be standing long after Elec in a spawn of Mu's or Green Ink's. Add in Pool power's (Aid Self) and elec can stand there all day, or atleast until Lightning Field kills the spawn.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you should rephrase that post. I mean, the words were mostly in english, but the sentence structure was so confusing I have almost NO idea what you just said.

I know, but I don't like what granite does to my speed and recharge. That's why I specifically mentioned out of granite.

[ QUOTE ]

You run an EA and an Elec into a mob of Mus and tell me who survives longer, even without Weave and CJ.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have, it was the /EA. But not for the reasons you are thinking.

It was the mez. The mu luts were easily able to stack holds and stuns to massive toggle-drop proportions in a matter of seconds, causing toggle drop on the /ela while most of it missed the /ea (although she was struggling a little more for end, but not that much)

then again, it's the same reason that 15 tsoo green ink men can make an /ela cry despite their incredible energy protection while an /ea sorta shrugs and keeps on killing. It's an inherent weakness of resistance-based sets to make up for their far more stable performance. Honestly I think that's one of the best reasons to choose a stone-out-of-granite brute... a damage shield plus an almost total lack of weakness to stacked mez from herds.

I am confused.

/ea has more combined defense and resistance to energy damage than most tankers, and all other brutes except electric armor and stone in granite. _I_ feel protected from energy damage, and pretty much laugh at Mu, freakshow shockers, wailers, most arachnos, and if redside had katie hannon I would probably be running it constantly... what is it about energy aura that makes you feel weak to energy? Comparisons to electric armor?

[ QUOTE ]

With 3 level 50 Defense IOs in the shields /EA has 26.7% defense to Energy and 16.6% to negative energy.

With no toxic or psi defense.

While with electric if you slot the shields with 3 level 50 IOs, you're looking at capped Energy resistance, 31.3% resistance to negative energy, and 41.6% res to Psi. And you've got resistance to end drain and recovery debuff in Static shield. And some more end drain res in Grounded.

I still don't think it'd be overpowered to give /EA a bit more defense to Energy and similar end drain resistance as elec.


[/ QUOTE ]

actually, with energy cloak slotted you have 32.2% defense to energy + 14.6% resistance.

The thing is, and here is the sticker, that energy's 'potential' energy mitigation is actually higher than electric armor could ever hope to get.

With overload, energy defense can become 102%. That will floor even a +3 AV's to-hit chances, providing 95% mitigation to energy damage. Add in resistance and that becomes almost 96% of all energy damage shunted aside or ignored. The same AV (if it doesn't have defense debuff... much worse if it does) will have a 25% miss-chance (I could be wrong on that) against the electric brute, which makes their energy mitigation only about 92%.... Which means, situationally, /ea can have almost twice the energy mitigation that electric armor has. (against enemies

it's a weird question, but considering that AV's are pretty much the only energy damage that can really threaten an /ea brute consistently, I consider the 'situational' mitigation more valuable than the all-the-time 90%.

there's also the fact that defense debuffs (Like shivans) will likely drop them down to the 5% defense floor, and like someone else said, energy defense blocks ALL of an energy attack, not just the energy portion. It blocks the bashing and lethal and toxic parts of an attack if it has typed energy in it as well.

Bah, you just want me to get rid of the scathing commentary :P

The most common energy drainers change across different levels.

freakshow stunners actually can drain a TON of end, as anyone who has ever played a resistance brute without end drain protection can tell you. They are usually a priority target when you first start encountering them, and if left alone can wind up making incredibly hefty inroads into your blue bar, nearly as much as Mu Minions. (although not as much as mu luts and bosses)

clockworks are hefty end drainers, as are outcasts, but they do not appear redside much.

the only end drains that are NOT energy-defended (aside from player powers) are the death cries from carnies. (I believe that they are actually negative energy)

mask of vit is negative energy, but doesn't actually drain end, it suppresses it and recovery.

I would much much prefer end drain protection over more energy defense.

Well thought out reply, thank you. Although I do have to say that the 'genius utility' of balancing all three important aspects is really simple... 6 slot level 50 IO's for 2 rech, 2 endmod, 2 heal gives you close to 90% of each until I frankenslot, that's going to be my gold standard.

I would like to address particularly one point of your post instead of addressing all of it, the concept of 'situational utility'. The closest comparison I can come with is RTTC.

RTTC is NOT a situational utility. It is going all the time, (and actually suffers in the # of mobs that affect your healing because it's only an 8 foot radius). I think one of the new alteration's greatest strengths is the fact that rather than providing a flat 1.33%/sec scaling down as you lose mobs, it IS bursty, which means that you can choose when to use the heal, repositioning yourself as neccessary to ensure the maximum number of mobs affected.

As a long time player of /ea, situational awareness has always been a BIG deal on my part. One has only to look at ice armor to see what a truly big deal properly positioning yourself for a mob-dependent self-buff to be maximised. that was kind of why I was comparing it strongly to electric armor, which used (until now) a lot of the same tricks.

While I agree, in theory, with the idea of greater energy defense, based on How I typically play and the damage frequency I am considerably worried about it stomping electric armor's toes. not just stomping them, grinding them into the ground. With this heal in place, electric armor will occasionally have higher protection from energy damage than I do... but since I tend to maximise overload, I often have a layer of energy mitigation that electric armor can never touch: resistance on top of massively-soft-capped defense in overload. my 'energy mitigation' is often at least 30% Higher that energy armor is never, ever going to be able to touch. and in fact, in normal, no-overload situations, it is easy enough to soft-cap energy defense that I STILL have greater energy mitigation than electric armor can ever hope to approach.

Energy aura's 'thing' is that it IS situational. It is random, like all defense sets. while I would not disagree with a greater degree of endurance drain protection (It IS the endurance/energy set, after all) I personally do not feel that higher energy defense or resist is neccessary to make it feel like tru energy protection. It would be nice, but like so many other things, not really 'necessary'

I just did a little math, and did anyone realize that fully saturated, the heal will give 1.33 % health per second?
in comparison, Dull pain/earth's embrace/hoarfrost only gives .685% (accounting for boosted hp) per second,
rooted only gives .8% per second (for a total of 1.484 for stone out of granite)

and even fully-saturated RTTC only gives 2.85%/sec... That's only a little over twice the healing bonus

healing flames is 2.37%/sec. That's a little UNDER twice the healing bonus.

of course, at over 6%/sec, dark armor's healing blows away every set, including regen (if brutes had it) and willpower... if it weren't for that whole 'blue' thing.

but still... That healing is enough to make me start thinking of new /ea as a 'regen' set :P

edit- on thinking about it, I think that the heal should be 'curved' a little so that it's not quite so powerful at the high end, and a bit more powerful at the low end. say 6% heal, +1.2% per additional opponent. That would make it about a quarter as powerful as siphon life against a single opponent (14.4% heal every 30 seconds capped) and fully-saturated it won't turn /ea into as much of a heal set (18%, 36% every 30 seconds capped, or 1.2% hp/sec.)

I mean, just an idea.

I am still pushing for an extra 7.5% resistance to fire/cold in energy protection. Our combined energy defense/resistance IS good, (although not perfect) but I would rather get a little mitigation for the damage types that are 'almost' holes rather than making our strongest mitigation stronger.


Other than that I think the set is almost perfectly balanced, the only other changes I could see would involve IO sets having better typed defenses, and that's not just an /ea Issue. a taunt in ed would be NICE, but is not really a necessity, just as a slightly boosted heal % would potentially overbalance the set's mitigation. although 3% per target would (probably) not be out of line, if there were any error in the % it was definitely on the side of caution. The beta will definitely be able to tell if the % is enough, not enough, or even too much.

I do, in fact, understand the crowd that think that /ea should be as strong or stronger than wp due to it's lack of an aggro aura, I am just not sure I agree... I was around during the regen nerf-magnet, and frankly I'd rather they just rather get the balance slightly under where it should be rather than making it so powerful that round after round of nerfs start coming down the pipe.

You know, I think changing the taunt cap to 10 targets would polish out a lot of problems across all sets. but once again, that is not strictly an /EA problem.

Due to some TREMENDOUS changes to /ea AND dark melee coming in I13, I am going to add an addendum to this guide. From what I understand, the changes will not alter the basic advice significantly, but will certainly add appreciable levels of both survivability and tactical potential to the build. The changes do not seem to be massive enough to warrant a re-writing of the guide, but more info to come when I13 is released!