Gilia

Oooooh! Now I get where your confusion was coming from and where you were headed. Huntsman actually never draw a mace. They just hit you with the rifle like this:



Maybe you're thinking of tac ops, though I don't think they use the assault rifle. http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Arachnos...Spider_Tac_Ops They are the only ones who have a mace and not the word "bane" in their name, though.

These are Lieutenants cause of my difficulty settings, but normally they only come in boss form.

That is true. A well IO'd teammate can make a slow, tactical SO build look obsolete. At the same time, lots of power sets benefit more from IOs than others. Similiarly, a team that is strong on AoE's steam rolling isn't going to much notice if their ST scrapper, blaster, or stalker disconnects. Some builds work better for some situations, and some people have IO builds. If you look at that and decide the standard is going to be steamrolling +4 teams, then yeah... AR/Dev is left wanting. It isn't the only combination that will be left behind though.

As I recall, they saw an issue only because of murmurs among the players, but data mining showed that the noisey minority was misinformed. That said, I would venture to guess in light of the previous talk about IOs they might find different results if they looked now. That's because in the past, an incredibly safe build (ar/dev, ice/ice, etc) would look just as good as a unsafe, fast killing build (fire/fire) on paper/data mines. Now that the latter can be made safe (see Another_Fan's logs, where his opponents only have a 6% chance to hit), and nothing can be done to make the prior do more damage.

Bosses typically have 45' perception if I recall correctly. Smoke Bomb brings that down to 4.5' if they can't resist, and about 8' for those that do (e.g. drones). You don't need more than cloaking device + smoke grenade. The only people that see through that are immune to stealth and will see you anyway (again, drones). I have played three /Devices blasters through without Superspeed or Stealth IOs.

Yeah, being able to move quickly even while travels are suppressed is what it takes for a cone & pbaoe reliant setup to be as effective as possible. What about Radiation/MM though? Back to the situation though, I would probably follow Trip mine with M30 if I were toe bombing. THEN hop out and use my cones. Depending on the difficulty, FA might be a waste though.

But... why not put the mine down at your feet then fire cones from where you're at? If Full Auto's up it's not going to take much to melt a mob anyway. I didn't think that word was okay anymore...

I didn't :-(

That was actually answered a couple times as DP/Devices.
For my personal preference, I would also toss in builds that are really good at one thing to the point that it's a waste. Psy/Ice, Ice/Ice, which have survivability to the max, but could stand to do more damage. Electric/Devices is probably worse too. Elec/Fire I'd put below AR/Dev.

I don't know, AR/Dev has awesome AoEs and can be played with extreme survivability pre-IOs. It's rounded nicely enough that I'd put it at average for most combinations. Again, if you start talking IOs where others are more survivable and do more damage that's different.

I would like to commend you on being specific in your concerns and not seeing a disagreement as a prompt to resort to personal attacks. Perhaps there is a forum in which this could be discussed in a helpful, unbiased, and respectful way that could catch the eyes of developers, and they could give it another look over.

Just to clarify, I have played Fire/Ice, too. That's why I knew the examples was such a poor one. Like, of what I've played it may have been the worst example of a chain to compare that you could have come up with.
I have also done Archery/Energy, Archery/Devices, and Energy/Energy. I spent a while with Ice/MM, too. I like blasters, but I'm particular about the sets. I guess I've done a few others, but the first 4 there are the only 50's, and the last the only 40's. Only a few of them are IO'd out.

But, yeah, it's senseless trying to explain this. You consistently only respond to about 10% of what we've said even while we debunk everything you've said. It's clearly subjective to a point, but to say AR/Dev is somehow inviable or a non-option defies all sense, logic, and observation. I don't know how it could be spelled out any simpler than Warkupo already has.

I'm not big on denouncing the DoT aspect on either, especially because to really notice the difference in play styles the difficulty is probably turned up and the mobs probably aren't going down in one attack chain.

However, I thought juxtaposing these two comments might illuminate why "you must put flamethrower first" was a silly comment. EVERYTHING in fire is a waste when put at the end of an attack chain if this is the case. I'd still put FT third cause I know how to (and love to) use knockback as mitigation. I'd still rather be the living Blaster than the one who kills almost everything fast then dies.

Nice analysis, Warkupo, even if it was slightly snarky. 8P

Wow. I wasn't aware attacks did less damage if they were later in the chain rather than earlier.

Perhaps you should read what I wrote. You may be confusing what I said with somebody else. Either way, cleaning up the aggro was more relevant for the Fire/Ice combo which you laid out which gave no regard for mitigation. The AR/Dev may be able to facilitate way better alphas by leaving some of the mob behind, but that's not to say it's the AR/Dev's aggro. Besides you ended your chain with rain of fire lol... Making the team clean up your mess is clearly not a concern for your example.


Actually you are again comparing apples to illusionary oranges. Please consider real world attack chains. You may want to give AR/Dev a try, cause I know you could build a better case against them if you had an idea of how to play them.

I don't know what the it is. I think based on the second paragraph that I may have not made this clear: a huntsman does not have mace attacks. Just like a huntsman does not have a crab backpack. Again, I get why you may-as-well take Fortification, rather than Cloaking device or some other Bane secondary. I'm sorry if that isn't clear enough. I guess I'll try one last time in another way: a Huntsman takes the training primaries, but not the Bane primaries, then the Huntsman can take training or Bane secondaries. The patron power pools are not part of the discussion, I don't know why you brought that up.

I think that will exhaust my ability to explain it, so I'm sorry if you're still confused.

I get the rationale. You have the backpack anyway, might as well take some crab powers, because it won't change the appearance your Huntsman build would have. But, there's just as many Bane secondary powers as there are Crab. If you did Bane, you could take those powers instead and not be forced into unwanted power pools. So it's not really a matter of being fair.
I believe you're confusing what a Huntsman is again. Lisa is asking which order to play these builds in, not which order they come about in the game. Fort, Huntsman (a bane w/o the mace), and Crab ALL come after level 24.

I don't know... you thought of "counter every single argument" first. I think that makes you the winner.

Okay, this is the only response that actually addressed what I had said, so I'll speak to it.

This is just more evidence that you've not played AR/... I'm guessing not Energy/ either. M30 and Buckshot have what's called knockback. People who are knocked back cannot attack back for a few seconds. My point before about lining up your shots is you get set up so they are between you and a wall. Now, if you're that close to them and Flame thrower, you die! How does having them on the ground before you torch them make you *less* safe?

Your bias is overwhelming your responses to where they don't address the point in the first place. I mean, you commented before that Fire is safely firing all of its attacks from 40' away. But from 40' Fire Breath only hits the front line of a mob, and you're completely within range of ALL their ranged attacks.

That's cool. I was just clarifying what a huntsman technically is because the OP sounded new to VEATS. We really should have a name for crabs who use the assault rifle anyway. I mean, you're talking about taking every single crab secondary to dip into it. Fortified Huntsman maybe? Or someone-broke-my-cloaking-device-man! Haha! I really have no good ideas for it.

VEATs were created entirely after the redraw penalty was compensated for. If the weapon is already out, there will be a slight pause after the attack. It does not have lingering redraw issues some people say that some sets do (most often Trick Arrow).

If you, for example, Web Envelope from Mace Mastery then Wide Area Web Grenade from the assault rifle, they will fire almost simultaneously. One, then the other. The rifle won't even finish its drawing animation.

Some chains are not as smooth. However, you're not losing out if you throw Heavy Burst into an otherwise all-crab attack setup. I wouldn't suggest alternating every other attack but that's more because it'd LOOK silly.

Redraw's still a concern for some sets, but these aren't those sets.

I'm pretty sure a "Huntsman Build" is a Bane career that uses the assault rifle instead of the mace. The build gets that name because the Huntsman NPCs use the AR and have no Crab Backpack.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/File:Ohanko1.jpg

Those powers you mentioned are Crab, of course.


For the OP I'd actually suggest you look at Fortunata if your partner is going /poison mastermind. You could play her stalker-ish and splash confuse, dominate, or disrupt thoughts. Or you could play her straight Mind-Dom style, just with team buffs to boot.

All the VEAT careers would work nicely with an MM though, I would imagine.

Electric or Psychic?

You should have asked YOURSELF that. Even though it's evident to me that you have not played AR/Dev at any length, you still presented an attack chain that was significantly safer for the AR/Dev blaster than the Fire/Ice.

This is what makes me think you haven't played AR/Dev. You Gun Drone and Trip Mine for aim-level defiance damage, then Full Auto. You don't HAVE to toe bomb with Trip Mines. The fact that AR/ is wicked with AoEs means you will draw people to where you're standing. With CJ+Hurdle for example, you hop a few feet back and they will run through your mines.

Yeah this is a concern with cone-heavy sets. The problem is the comparison in this matter was one of the worst. Fire's best AoE damage is Fire Breath. (Curious you mentioned that Full Auto roots you and is DoT, but not Fire Breath even though it's 2/3s the same time with shorter range.) Rain of Fire undermines Fireball because it scatters the mob. Without outside help, Fire is NOT some AoE goddess that so many people want it to be.

The problem with pointing to Full Auto is AR was on par for AoE attacks with Fire/ BEFORE Full Auto.


Really the attack chain comparison was just silly. It is very plain to see that it was stilted and the times were biased, and if that weren't enough the AR/Dev chain was not the best nor most realistic.

Compare it to something like this:

Fire/:
Fireball 2s
Inferno 5s
Rest Until Endurance is Back 35s
Fireball 37s

AR/:
Cycle between Buckshot, M30 Grenade, and Flamethrower with them between you and a wall until they die. Way less than 37s.
Oh and Full Auto if it's a good set up for it.

I'm being facetious of course, but that's the sort of strawman argument that was put up before.

Nope.
Snipe's are entirely situational, and most effective when used to drop a minion who might cause trouble. Communications officers, engineers, that sort of thing. Without Aim or Build up that's too hard to pull off. You do *not* put extra damage in the most situational damage power to increase DPS. That makes no sense. They got a bonus to help with that single situation.

AR/Dev is viable. There's already been a dozen reasons given here, but I would just add that it's more strategy. Yeah, as Fire/Ice you can BU+Aim and go nuts. Hopefully you don't die. AR/Dev you cloak, smoke grenade, get into place, drop a trip mine then use your AoEs knocking entire mobs against the wall repeatedly. Anyone who gets close is blasted away. Caltrops to follow trip mine if the group lasts that long.

Not team friendly? Do what I see tons of scrappers doing. Skip to the next mob and set up when there's only a few targets left in the previous mob.

Even if you could squander up an argument that these sets don't synergize, or not well enough, the counter argument would be "use a different combination if you don't want the challenge." Honestly though? The other thematic obvious pair ups don't appeal to me as much. Ice/ has enough slows and holds that pairing with /Ice makes you more survivable, sure, but you were going to survive anyway. I'd rather /Mental or /Fire to throw some AoE oomf in there. AR/Dev doesn't give you way-more-than-enough in one department then not enough in another. Like others have said, DP/Devices would be worse. I am probably going to roll one soon anyway cause I just can't resist.

Ghost Slaying Axe is amazing. Take it on ATs that already have a lot off attacks, and take Mu on the ones that don't. Then when ghosts come out, you fire this off instead of your regular attacks. For most of one of my stalker's careers this did damage on par with an assassin strike.

Plus its recharge and endurance cost are closer to a regular attack so it fits better into an early level chain than Mu does.

It's not the best, but it's no where near the worst.

It most certainly is! If I recall correctly most bosses and high-perception mobs have a perception of 45'. Smoke Grenade will send that way below Cloaking Device's 35 feet. In fact, the only things you won't be able to stealth aren't going to be helped by more stealth anyway.

Smoke Grenade takes Advanced Drones down to like 5.5' I think. Something within melee range. With that in mind, I just keep out of melee range of anything that'll see through stealth once I've smoked them.

You could solve this problem the easiest; just use binds instead of macros.
/bind 1 "powexecslot 1 $$ Powexec_toggleon cryo ammunition"
Etc...

Another idea, if you're open to that...
If you're a blaster you could also reassign your shift+# to the ammo you'd like to use in that slot. So like /bind lshift+1 powexectoggleon cryo ammunition" then whenever you're interested, you do shift+1 then 1 instead of 1 then 1. That way if it's not recharged, you just don't swap ammo for this round. This might also work better for close fights against a single target, when you wouldn't want to be swapping ammo every attack. Then you could put whatever you want of Cryo ammo into 1, alt+1, ctrl+1, and then repeat with another ammo for #2.

Shift+# right now selects the teammate of that number, so depending on the primary/secondary I wouldn't give them up so readily on a defender/corruptor.

Because all of Energy Melee's attacks have a stun component, Dark Armor might be the best "synergy." With Oppressive Gloom you could have everything around you disoriented all the time. Disorient can be annoying though.

Other than that, I would base it on what direction you're going.
If you plan to solo and not dump much (or any) infamy into IOs, my first choice would honestly be Energy Aura. I'm sure that's not the popular pick, but it's good defense combined with a stealth and endurance-managing utilities make it a good candidate for SO solo builds.

If you want to play more tanky /Electric /WP and /Invul are your best bests, I think. The first is IMO the most SO friendly, while the later are probably better when IO'd.

/Fire /Electric and /Dark have damage auras, /Shield has charge, so any of those could help make up the lack of AoE in Energy if you're interested in that.

So yeah, I guess it depends. /WP is almost always a good choice though.

Wow. This is the first time I have seen a forum user actually believe this myth in a very long time, so I don't have screenshots on hand at the moment. I suppose if they fixed it now, it really wouldn't matter.

I will test the new setup to see if it's fixed.

You don't even have to look at CO. Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, and that soccer noise were all major flops by PlayNC in the last couple years. TR followed the MMO formula to a T and it lasted, what? 5 months? Lineage 2 to my knowledge still has never had more subscribers at any time than Lineage. Oh and how about Everquest 2?

There is no argument from what other MMOs have done, because the model right now is like shooting in the dark. The games that have started and stayed strong mostly share one thing in common: low hardware specifications. Not being a sequel certainly helps though.

The idea that new content with transferable characters (or any such in game resource) must be in the form of an expansion and not a new game is silly. The idea of transferable characters has crept, with varying levels of success, into most platforms and genres of games. Game creators aren't bound to some code of conduct that dictates how they spend their production money and what the final product will look like. All having players start with a blank slate is reduce the disparity between new and old players. City of Heroes has doused the problem of this disparity so well though, that any similar line up wouldn't suffer for it. At WORST it would suffer something similar to what was lovingly called AE babies in this game, where players have the levels and in game resources that do not accurately reflect their knowledge of the game (or ability to play it). However, people moving directly from one MMO to the next would likely adapt and know well enough to start over if they were disoriented.