Gorgar

This is important. It also can help to slot the best attacks early on, and leave the others at the default slot for a while. Especially if you have a damage aura, which is more efficient vs many targets than single target attacks tend to be. Then, depending on how your endurance is at the moment, use every power available, or lay off the unslotted ones and just use the slotted ones. This way, every time you expend endurance to use an attack, it's doing max damage and costing less endurance.

DA is a strong set that can work well with probably most anything, but if you want to get hooked, try it with Dark Melee. It's also the best choice, I think, if you want to use Cloak of Fear. I'll take CoF and OG with DM, and just OG with any other set. Being able to stack the fear makes all the difference, and helps make the slot investment CoF requires pay off.

Aww, c'mon. That would be fun! Just have East Coast and West Coast server forums. Far fewer forums to scroll through, and the added entertainment of digging through a bunch of posts about servers you don't care about to get to the relevant stuff. Which is kind of how I feel about the prospect of dealing with Brute or Stalker posts when I'm looking for Tanker or Scrapper information.

The general ATs and Powers forum works just fine for discussion about powers that isn't specific to one AT. In fact, if I only were to read one forum, that would probably be the one. But I check most of the blueside AT forums as well, just less frequently, and a couple of the redside ones.

Sorry, I guess I didn't lay this out clearly enough. I'm comparing the first three single-target attacks in Axe to the three corresponding single-target attacks in Mace, which don't happen to be the first three. I was comparing the single-target attack with a high chance of knockup in Axe (tier 6) to the single-target attack with a high chance of knockup in Mace (tier 4), even though they are at different tiers. My point was that the sets are built pretty similarly, but Mace concentrates its secondary effect in those three in one reliable stun, where Axe spreads its secondary effect more evenly.


Depends on what you're fighting. Against fewer, harder targets, I use the single-target attacks more, because it's more endurance-efficient. In those times, I appreciate the chance of knockdown built into every attack.


Not looking for more radius, just trying not to lose the radius it does have. I'd love for Pendulum to hit more targets. It's my favorite attack in the set by far. Sometimes I have found in practice using this set on a tank that the mobs are not completely jammed up against my tank, because of a stun effect or immobilization. Sure, if you're running ambush farms at x8 this is never a problem, but in other content it's occasionally useful.

Completely agree about Cleave; I'm happy to hit two things with it. My guess is that attacks like this were meant to be considered single target with the occasional happy accident of hitting another target as well, rather than thought of as actual AoEs.

All I'm trying to do here is not lose the things I like about Axe in exchange for more damage. I do think it's odd that Mace has better chance of knockdown in its last two powers, but my point is that Mace seems to be a set with more extreme variance in the utility of its powers, and Axe is more consistent, which can be a strength.

Exactly. Given the choice between losing the ranged defense bonus from that sixth slot or not being able to keep driving mobs back with my attacks, I'd probably just quit playing my main.

Honestly, I'd rather be stuck with a flashing pink sign that said HORRIBLE KNOCKBACK BEWARE DO NOT TEAM SHUN SHUN EVIL EVIL than have energy blast "fixed" in some way that breaks my build.*

You could make a lot of these same arguments about Storm, which requires judicious use of certain powers in normal situations, but has a lot of power on tap if needed.

People being bad at managing energy blast isn't a reason to change the set.

* Now my search comment.

Axe offers plenty of mitigation via knockdown. On my inv/axe tank, I'll start taking a lot more damage if I stop attacking. I am at least one axe user who would not give up reliable kd for more damage. (I know, I know, "death is the ultimate debuff", but on a tank, death takes quite a few swings to achieve, and I'd not give up my mitigation to make it take a few less.)

Looking at the character creation screen, the last two powers in War Mace do less damage, cost less endurance, and recharge faster. They also have an 8 ft radius, whereas Cleave has 7 ft (!) and Pendulum has 10 ft. I suspect this is just so the powers aren't exact duplicates. If nothing else, it probably makes sense that the mace would be a bit quicker to swing about. However, it's true that those powers each have a 100% chance of .67 mag kb (knockdown unless you're fighting greens or greys), where the Axe powers do not. That *is* kind of strange.

However, you can't really compare powersets based on the last two powers alone; Axe has 40-50% chance of kd in the first three powers, Mace's first three don't compare evenly because the powers were rearranged and Mace isn't built quite the same. Both sets have a 70-75% chance knockup power, and Axe has three of these 50-50 knockdown single-target attacks where Mace gets two with a small (10-20%) chance of mag 2 stun and a 100% chance mag 3 stun (since the recent changes to Clobber). Otherwise they're roughly similar in that they have taunt, build up, and the three previously discussed AoEs. Whirling Mace has a 30% chance for mag 2 stun, and Whirling Axe has a 50% chance for knockdown.

To me, this means Axe is built around, more or less, the idea that 50% of things you hit with it fall down. That's pretty good mitigation. Contrast Mace, with its one reliable stun and three powers with stuns that range from occasional to sometimes. Also, these are 6 second stuns, which means less on anything other than an even-con minion, and only Clobber is reliable enough to be worth slotting for. The other attacks really aren't good for much more than shutting down a mob's offensive toggles before the stun wears off.

Mace might look better in its last two powers, but Axe is pretty good as it is. It may never be the DPS king, but the mitigation is effective. I agree that it looks like Cleave and Pendulum have their max targets swapped, as I have no idea how you'd ever hit 10 of anything with Cleave. I kind of like the bigger radius on Pendulum, though, and am not sure I'd prefer to have it hit more targets if the radius was shortened.

(Note: all these numbers were taken from the character creation screen, set to create a tank. Other ATs may vary.)

I agree. While it's probably rare for an MMO to have a fleshed-out alternate universe to go to, all I really wanted out of GR was the side-switching, and would have preferred that the art and story resources had gone into existing zones, or if new zones were necessary, another kind of non-pvp co-op zone that is part of the universe we're already in. I did like the sort of art deco feel of the bits of Praetoria I saw, though.

Her blaster buddy just got back from redside to pick up Soul Mastery and was using Howl->Night Fall->single target attacks after that until the cones recharged. The scrapper was fire/fire. Every spawn, the controller would get half the kills and the scrapper would get the other half, and I'd get one. I realize it's not a competition and starting with Howl made the other two's AoEs more effective too, but I really felt like I was on defender-scale damage around those two. I was also the only one still on common IOs. But my tactics probably sucked, too; I was mostly hanging back and not using either of the six-slotted melee attacks much, because targets kept dying before the animations finished.

I could see how you could build Earth/Rad for the OP's goal, since Earth has the sleep, the knockdown, and a mass stun I think, which don't do damage. Mind Control has lots of useful damageless powers too: two confuses, a sleep, and TK. Terrify does minor damage, so it might be disqualified.

If you're willing to skip most of your secondary, Dark Miasma has 7 powers that do no damage, a pet that does really minimal damage, and Howling Twilight does minor damage. Dark Blast has Dark Pit which does stun and no damage, so you could go with that, and if you couldn't accept the minor damage in HT, take Medicine for Stimulant and the rez (plus a prereq you'll never use). If there was DM for controllers, Mind/Dark would be a viable alternative to Mind/Emp or Mind/ally-shield-set.

Interesting idea. Would like to hear how it goes, if you decide to do this.