Hopeling
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Posts
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Joined
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The version of Melt Armor that Brutes get is a pale shadow of the Thermal version. There are at least occasionally situations where it's nice to have a ranged attack, but a high-cost, low-uptime weak debuff is less useful.
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I see a lot of positional defense set bonuses, but /WP usually benefits more from typed defense (to stack onto Heightened Senses).
I've found Resurgence pretty useless. It does nothing to prevent enemies from killing you as you stand up, before you can even retoggle. Combat Jumping, for example, would be much more helpful, and even give you another place to slot a LotG.
Tough deserves more slots if you can spare them. You can put a Reactive Armor set there, too.
By the way, a short forum export (or even just a data chunk) is sufficient when posting a build. The set bonus summary and list of sets just makes it really long to scroll past, and you have to load it up in mids anyway to see the total numbers. -
No, red is not bad. Think of it more like a traffic light - red means "stop enhancing this attribute, you are already at the cap." You WANT your important attributes like damage to be red, but you don't want to keep going far after you reach red.
If you can remove an enhancement and the number stays red, you've probably slotted too much damage. -
Quote:Well, it sounds silly when you put it that way >.>Originally Posted by UberGuy
Late to the thread, and it's already been covered, but I was blown away reading the original post then seeing it dive into whether or not the SO build could manage +1/x6.
If anything, though, it proves the point more strongly. Using only SOs, I was easily able to solo something more than six times as difficult as what a solo player is expected to face. -
Quote:I'm not sure which reply you think told you that. TW/Inv will be a fine combo.Originally Posted by Angelxman81
I love TW concepts, and I though /Inv would be a good choice, but seems like I was wrong again.
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Quote:Yes, this and all the subsequent comments along the same lines are absolutely true. I mostly fixated on +1/x6 because it's what this guy was doing, and seemed to me a reachable goal for a decent melee build, as long as the enemies aren't particularly nasty. And apparently I was correct.Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Well, there's your problem.
The game is balance around SOs at ordinary level of difficulty.
Cimerorans absolutely destroyed me just now when I tried them on the same setting, which I also rather expected. -
Probably wouldn't be worth it, although it depends on which 4 and what levels. If the pre-ED number is much higher than the post-ED number, you can afford to remove some enhancement.
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Quote:TW's defense power doesn't stack terribly well with typed defense sets. If you want to stack it with your typed defense, you get a lethal damage hole; if you want to use the melee defense portion, you need to stack it a couple times just to get any improvement at all over the typed defense /Inv already gives you, which is quite often to be using your weakest attack. It's a perfectly valid build decision to forgo it and use attacks that do better damage.Originally Posted by NecroOmNomNomicon
I figured when we were gonna discuss synergy between two powersets it would analyze them entirely, not just skip a power and toss it out of the equation.
Not to say Defensive Sweep is useless to /Inv, but it's not ideal for synergy. DS is hardly the only redeeming feature of the set, anyway. I'm not talking from pure theory - after much play time, my BS/Inv scrapper reached pretty much the same conclusion regarding Parry years ago, and my current TW/WP is borderline invincible without DS now (and the things that kill me wouldn't be prevented by DS anyway). I would, however, consider DS more useful for a build using only SOs, or lower-end IOs.
That tangent aside, /Inv should combine fine with TW. Like you said, it's not too clicky, which lets you use Momentum for hitting things, as it should be. TW also has a ton of knockdown, which helps any set stay alive. It doesn't trivialize endurance costs the way /Elec does, so you'll need to address that somehow of course. -
Damage bonuses add together directly. So, that part at least is straightforward.
Mids calculates all the damage bonuses for you and shows you the final total damage of the power (although the number it displays by default is the total average damage; you have to mouse over the damage to see it broken down into the various hits and probabilities).
You can have up to 5 of any single set bonus, so you can have 5 huge damage bonuses, 5 large, 5 moderate, and 5 small, and benefit from all of them (if you somehow find enough slots for all of that!).
ED is short for Enhancement Diversification. Wiki link: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Enhancement_Diversification
Basically, you get diminishing returns on slotting a lot of the same attribute in a single power. These diminishing returns don't get really severe until after you reach 95%. Alpha powers partially bypass ED - at tier 4, 2/3 of the power bypasses ED, which means 30% here. Damage buffs, such as from powers and set bonuses, are not subject to ED at all. Mids makes the attribute turn red once you've reached the most severe level of ED.
Finally, there is the damage cap, which is +400% for a stalker. That's 400% total from enhancements and buffs, but this is generally impractical to reach without outside buffs or lots of red inspirations. -
We hear and say variations of that phrase a lot, right?
Just earlier, somebody in help chat was talking about their struggling build, and concluded that his character couldn't work well on SOs. He was soloing on +1/x6 and quite disappointed with his performance. I offered what help I could, but also got to wondering just how well the game really is balanced for characters on SOs, because this was not the first time I'd heard such a complaint. I was playing my TW/WP scrapper at the time, so, curious, I switched to my third build, and filled it with SOs. I un-equipped my Incarnate powers, and put no temp or vet powers on my bars. This was the build I ended up with:
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Then, I set my difficulty to +1/x6, grabbed a door mission from Borea, bought a mix of insps from the RWZ combat medic, and put the build to the test.
I was in little or no danger for the entire mission - nothing a few insps couldn't handle. I certainly noticed the pressure on my blue bar in heated fights, but it wasn't unmanageable - Conserve Power and blue insps kept it under control well enough that I always ran out of enemies before endurance. The most difficult part was actually the drones, against which I had only a 40% hit chance without Build Momentum or yellows, and that was really more annoying than difficult. Overall it was quite easy, despite running at a fairly high difficulty.
Of course, I can fight even tougher things even more easily using my main build with IOs and Incarnate powers, but SOs alone were plenty to get the job done. So far, I must conclude that the game is balanced pretty well for characters on SOs.
Now, this is just one mission, against one enemy group (and not an especially difficult one), using only one character. I will try some other missions and characters tomorrow.
Has anyone else tried something like this? What were your results and observations? -
Awesome! Thank you for your hard work, on a holiday no less!
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That looks much improved. You've still got one too many 5% recharge set bonuses, and I think you'd be better off with the Radial interface than Core (really, +50 damage to every attack is better than -2.5% resist), but it should be perfectly playable even as-is.
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Yes, Vigor would also work nicely, especially if you plan to get Rebirth (which is my preferred Destiny power on a /shield).
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I believe Power Boost can be slotted with Membranes/Cytoskeletons/Enzymes to make it provide a larger defense boost. That should allow you softcap quite easily.
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For some reason all the auto and toggle powers are turned off in the build you posted, but turning them back on shows you're softcapped to melee, and a little below the softcap for ranged/aoe.
With little or no endurance reduction in your toggles, and several Oblit sets, I'd expect endurance problems, so I say go Cardiac. Also, if you can free one slot somewhere to put another defense enhancement in Deflection, you could trade the Touch of Death for a Mako's Bite and cap your ranged defense as well. -
What is Ayers Rock? I can't find anything mentioning it on Paragonwiki, and google doesn't turn up any CoH-related results either.
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Single-target damage, yes. Overall throughout a normal mission, probably not.
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Quote:Six months ago I wouldn't have been able to disagree with you. But now things are shaping up rather more concretely than they have before. The Coming Storm storyline appears to be actually moving forward. I still can't say for sure we'll ever see it, but I think it's much more likely now than it once was.Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
I don't believe we'll EVER see them before the end of the game.
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I see you've got Reactive Core Interface, which is okay, but Reactive Radial is better for most purposes.
You should include a Steadfast Protection: Res/Def somewhere. 3% defense to everything for one slot is fantastic.
You've got six 5% recharge bonuses, so you could drop one for something else.
If you pull the LotG: Defense from Combat Jumping and use the slot for a LotG: Def/End in Weave, you'd get the same total defense with slightly lower end cost.
Fire and cold attacks are far less common than energy/negative energy, which are in turn far less common than smashing/lethal. So, consider trading those Aegis sets for 4 pieces of Reactive Armor.
If you find end to be a problem, you might need to put more slots in Stamina/QR. A third slot with a plain 50 endmod IO would get you much closer to the ED cap.
The heal enhancements in Health aren't providing you a great deal of benefit; you could save a slot there and/or drop a Miracle: +Recovery there if needed.
Overall though, this looks much better than the first builds you posted. -
Quote:Testing this just now with a t1 lore shows that single pets still spawn at 49. I'm 50 (+1), the pet is 49 (+1).Originally Posted by gameboy1234
Do you have one or two lore pets?
Mastermind pets spawn at level-1 when you get two of them. I wonder if the code is confuzzled. -
Well, technically it was a gift to my brother, but since we mostly share our collections, I think I can count the copy of Cable & Deadpool: Volume 2 that he got. We've had all the other volumes since forever but somehow couldn't find volume 2. ^.^
I also received a Maltese Cross keychain, which goes nicely with my love of crusaders and Black Templar space marines. -
Quote:Yeah, so would I. CC is definitely the superior attack. But I did specify:Originally Posted by JayboH
...although I would probably prefer CC over Tremor even after you said that, but that's just me.
Quote:Originally Posted by Hopeling
If talking just about mitigation: -
Vorpal is a Judgement power, not an Alpha.
I don't think any of the new Alphas are especially good for an elec/shield. I'd go Musculature (moar dmgz) or Spiritual (moar telenuking), or possibly Cardiac if you have endurance problems and don't want Body Mastery. -
I've played both Stone Melee and War Mace to 50. I'm not guessing based on the numbers in Mids, I am speaking from observing firsthand how well each set mitigates damage. If talking just about mitigation:
Seismic Smash beats Clobber handily. Seismic Smash holds a boss immediately; Clobber will not stun a boss at all unless you also proc a low-chance stun from one of your other attacks - and the power most likely to proc a second stun is also your slowest and worst attack for single-target.
Tremor beats Crowd Control. It has more than six times CC's area, and only slightly less chance to knockdown. It is far easier and far more common to hit everything or nearly everything with Tremor than with CC.
Fault is really the crowning jewel for SM's mitigation, though. It has a large radius, a guaranteed minion stun and a fair chance for lieutenant stun, and can even be used from 20 yards away. Its duration and recharge are such that you can make it perma, or even double-stack it if you want to, which will control everything including bosses. WM does not have anything that even compares to this.
I'm not sure how they compare for single-target and don't care enough to crunch the numbers for attack chains. Both are quite good at it, in any case. War Mace definitely wins by a mile for AoE damage, and I would probably give it the edge in overall performance for most things. But it does not beat Stone for mitigation. -
That IO has the same effect regardless of level, yes. It is also Unique, which means you can't use more than one, even of different levels.