Generalissimo

Nofuture seems to be down at the moment (I haven't been able to get it to load for a few days now).

Looks like I'll have to do some testing on the test server before I respec

I'll be there and up for leading a PA dropping team, if required. I'll be respeccing Righteous Bob into a group-fly, Power Boost Hami-specific build over the next couple of days.

I have a level 13 one that I'm working on and I must say I'm disgusted by the effectiveness of the disorient of the low level attacks. 95% of the time you will disorient a minion if you fight them one on one. Often times you'll disorient them more than once before they're "arrested". Sometimes they'll be disoriented for the whole fight. As a long suffering Mace tanker I would kill to have disorients as effective as that on my attacks. The damage of the first two attacks isn't all that great though: Barrage is poooooor, with Energy Punch being only slightly better - Bone Smasher is the first attack I can say I really find effective. That's just my low level experience anyway. At high levels the final 2 attacks in the set are supposed to be godly. I'm looking forward to getting my guy up to that level

The more raids you do, the easier it gets. The problem with running them as irregularly as Union does currently is that at each raid there are a large number of people turning up to their first raid. New raiders tend to be more disruptive than seasoned raiders. If they were run once a month the proportion of "uneducated" raiders would decrease raid by raid. You will still get disruptive know-it-alls who'll try and hijack the attention of the raiders but their numbers do decrease with time. On Defiant now there is a sizeable number of experienced raiders who know exactly what their role is. Having a large group of people moving in the right direction during the raid tends to rub off on those new raiders who are willing to learn. As an outsider looking in, it would appear to me that the only thing holding you guys on Union back from doing regular, successful raids is the fact that you're not doing regular raids.

Flash has a base recharge of 240 seconds now. It used to be 120 but they doubled the recharge of aoe controls and halved their duration at the same time.

For accurate power information THIS is the best place to go. It would appear they've been naughty and pulled the power information directly out of the game files.

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? hows empathy gonna help you ?


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He's trying to build a support character so the intent would be to help others

From the first post:

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i need some help with my support toon.

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If any bubblers want to test this out I'd be happy to hop on the test server or meet you in the Defiant arena with my illusionist.

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Tested it briefly for the same reason. It very rarely disorientates from what I found (which is why I never took it).

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Hmm... The Earth aoe powers seem to have very long recharges too. I guess I'll go back to the drawing board and take another look at Pyre.

Has anyone any experience with Stalagmites from Earth Mastery? It's looking kinda attractive to me at the moment as my hero planner says it can disorient so should be effective damage mitigator when combined with the disorients from my Whirling Mace.

Just from reading the power descriptions you would think that Earth would be the best for attracting aggro due to all the aoes. Fire would be more for causing damage I would think.

Edit: "All the aoes" could perhaps be changed to "the two aoes" . Personally, I'm still trying to figure out my final, final respec build for my tanker for when Issue 7 hits and had been thinking of going fire but having thought about it a little more I may go for Earth.

Force Bolt = a very fun power to use in PvP If you find a brute or stalker without knockback protection the enjoyment factor multiplies exponentially It's very useful in PvE too, as a control and mob positioning tool.

For slotting I find that it has a high base accuracy so doesn't need a huge amount of accuracies thrown at it. I tend to slot mine with one accuracy and then a couple of recharges so I can keep someone permanently knocked back (very handy when fighting tough foes). If I ever get to high levels with my FF'er I'll maybe throw a couple of ranges in there just to make it all the more annoyingly useful in Recluse's Victory when I've set up my bubble fortress in a pillbox

If you want a high damage, soloing tanker I would suggest you remove all thought of picking mace as your secondary The first two attacks are fine but your third "attack" is a low damage disorient and you have to wait until lvl 20 to pick up another actual damage dealing attack. Getting to 20 with just two damage dealing attacks (plus maybe a pool attack) can be painful. Axe would suit your needs a lot better.

As for a primary I have experience with stone, invulnerability and Ice (to a lesser degree). If you've discounted Inv I would recommend Ice over stone. It sounds like you have a firm concept backing up your character and I think stone might work counter to that. Once you get to 32 Granite armour will obliterate your costume - no one would even know you're supposed to be a knight once you're in Granite. Also, your mez protection in stone armour would be Rooted which means you'd be crawling around missions from a low level (chasing down runners is a huge pain) - this might slow down your soloing rate a tad.

All in all, I'd suggest Ice/Axe for a mobile, soloable, damage dealing tanker (just be prepared to slot heavily for endurance reduction until you get to Stamina).

Yup, I've always told people that mace is fine as a powerset if you want to tank. Ice is another pretty nice secondary (in my limited RV level bump experience anyway) that seems to get a lot of stick just because it doesn't do a load of damage. The ice/mace tank I was mulling over creating in Issue 7 is now going to be an ice/ice tank instead.

Heh, it's nice to see positive reports about Mace coming out of RV testing. I almost collapsed in laughter yesterday evening while trawling through the US forums and I saw a thread entitled:

Tried level 40 Mace on Test...ROFLMAO!!!!111!lol!!

Edit - read something wrong so posted advice that wasn't really relevant to the question asked

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Please tell me about this event as this is the first time I hear about this..?

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LINK

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not really sure how that will be never know where i end up, hehe..

Have also come to the great idea of a bubble defender
Being able to give those defenses in PvP must be nice especially since it has an PBAoE def buff against mezzes. thoughts?

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I have a lvl 20 bubble defender that I've recently started PvP'ing with but so far he only has PFF and Force Bolt from the FF set so I don't know how well the 2 small bubbles and dispersion bubble work out. I can tell you however that repeatedly using Force Bolt on stalkers and brutes who don't have knockback protection is one of the most fun things you can do in PvP. Making a big bad brute turn tail and run from a defender is very satisfying

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Death throes


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Very nice shot - I hadn't seen that moment captured before

I'll be there too

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People are forming outside the hive already! Lets take him down, folks.

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Be right with you...

Mmmmmmm, Ripper...

The knockup power with the "pants" damage (Jawbreaker) is a macer's second most damaging attack Avoiding both the knockback attacks might also be a bad move as one of them (Shatter) is a macer's most damaging attack and the other (Crowd Control) does damage comparable to Pulverise, but to up to 5 foes. Jawbreaker, Shatter and Crowd Control are probably my three favourite mace attacks - my mace seems somewhat powerful and dynamic when using them.

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Finally, Maces rule!

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I probably need to get my head examined but I'm very tempted to start a second macer (ice/mace this time) in Issue 7

I'm soloing a forcefield/dark at the moment and finding it pretty good so far at lvl 18 (although I did hit a hump between lvl 12 and 14 where I was close to giving up and waiting for the freespec to change to a team build). Dark gets a snipe at lvl 4 and force bolt is available at lvl 2 with an almost guaranteed knockback so it's very easy to fit a snipe into your attack chain in a one on one situation. Picking up Dark Blast and Personal Forcefield at lvl 1, Gloom at lvl 2, Moonbeam at lvl 4 and Force Bolt at lvl 6 you have a reasonably good attack chain, a crowd control power and the ability to escape near death by turtling up in PFF. Granted, you're not a lot of a good to a team but if you're going to try soloing a defender you may as well commit yourself to the endeavour

Edit To make a hybrid team/solo build you could pick up Deflection Shield at 8, travel pre-requisite at 10, Dispersion Bubble at 12, travel power at 14 and Insulation Shield at 16. You'd be able to solo and contribute pretty well in a team too that way.