Iaculus_EU

Happy gamers don't post much on forums. The devs should take this as a compliment.

Another person having the problem. Bug report filed, BTW.

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Scrappers Kings of CoX????

They are last on my wishlish for any SF. Does anyone actually have them top????

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Shh... don't burst their bubble.

As we all know, Scrappers are the self-proclaimed elite of CoH/V. Whilst the other AT subfora engage in rather dry discussions about builds and powersets (and the defenders mutter darkly about h34lz0r5), the scrappers cheerfully brag about scrapperlock, the Six Second Rule, and the Scrapper Challenges.

This, I believe, is unfair.

We're better solo, we're better in teams, and furylock>scrapperlock, yet we continue to hide our diabolic light beneath a bushel. In an attempt to redress this, I have created this thread as a home for the unashamed and deserved self-aggrandisement of Brutes across the servers - a place to boast about the improbable achievements that you yourself have managed.

Allow me to begin with some fond memories of my DB/WP Brute, Ghazrak Khan, and his career.

- Mid-level 40s, Oranbega map, Unyielding, six players. The group had split up, but I pushed on, determined - everyone else seemed to be doing OK, after all. Charged into the nearest mob of Thorns after popping Inspirations, and proceeded to chop all of them into sushi. Checked to see who was backing me up... and found that the entire remainder of the group was several rooms away. I'd just carved my way through a dozen or so assorted mages, cultists, and daemons entirely unsupported. Grinned evilly... and charged into the next mob with similar results.

- Duoing the Zenflower mission with an SS/Inv Brute. Encountered a grey mass of roughly thirty stone DE shambling around happily - presumably several mobs had merged. Another evil grin. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking...?" Charged straight in, didn't bother pulling. SS/Inv eventually succumbed, I kept fighting. By the time he'd returned to the mission, all that was left of them was a pile of rubble and one or two who'd had the wit to run away. Later repeated the feat in the same mission, only with the aforementioned Elite Boss thrown in for good measure. My poor compatriot fell even faster this time, but I avenged his demise with interest. No deaths on my part. Ye gods, I love Rise to the Challenge.

- Cimerora Task Force. Mission with the two giant mechs. We'd carved our way to Romulus and Requiem, but were scuppered by hasty preparation. Everyone on the team died or fled... except me. Tanked Romulus and associated minions for roughly five minutes, solo, whilst Requiem took potshots from the back and the deceased comrades around my feet handed me Inspirations. Eventually succumbed, but not without reducing the two Archvillains' bodyguard mobs to shadows of their former selves. The team returned from the hospital, awed, and mopped up the survivors easily.

- Most recent Rikti Mothership raid. Started up a kill-tally with Searing Empress of how many Rikti Magus scalps we'd claimed during the battle for the ship itself. Final score was twelve, plus innumerable lesser aliens.

As a postscript, I will mention that during all of this, I was kitted out with nothing better than white IOs.

So, how about you? What spectacular stunts have you pulled during your sojourns in the Rogue Isles?

So, my Wolf Spider is creeping towards level 24 and that tastytasty backpack, and I was intending to create a 'pure', petless Crab. Seeing as I also intended to use the Teleport and Fitness Power Pools, which powers from the three core pools (Training and Gadgets and the two Crab pools) would you personally consider to be most skippable?

Silver Mantis is a serious toughie by EB standards. Took me six deaths for Ghazrak to solo her at level 42, and she was only orange.

Red-conning Manticore, on the other hand, I wiped the floor with.

Fair enough. I take it that Night Widows will gut EBs no problem, though? That was the other VEAT I was intending to try out, though after the Crab of course.

I was going without pets because I'd heard that they were only really useful with all those Leadership powers I was forgoing - is this correct?

So my DB/WP Brute, Ghazrak Khan, has hit Grandville, and it looks like the most likely VEAT I'll roll once I get to 50 is a Crab Spider.

Now, one of my favourite hobbies in this game (and a useful one, given their prevalence) is duking it out one-on-one with Elite Bosses. My AT and powersets make this fairly straightforward, though still a challenge, and I was wondering just how good Crabs are at this sort of thing in comparison (for reference, I was probably going to make a Crab soloist who skips out on most of the Leadershippy powers and the pets for straight-up individual durability and damage output), given that I tend to build in a slightly suboptimal manner and don't really bother with IOs until about level 37.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

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theres been no word by the devs which states "we are looking into buffing banes in the near future" so until then i sont expect threads like this one to end.

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So... the devs not having yet announced a fix for a single sub-archetype that's only a couple of days out of the Test server is sufficient justification for a 'devs h8 villunz' whine of epic proportions?

Report the problem, sure, and hope for a fix, but for the love of (insert appropriate deity here) ease off on the paranoia and let the poor devs get n with their jobs without a torrent of abuse.

NOTE: Second paragraph was less a response to the guy I quoted, and more a response to the thread in general.

I realise that banes are flawed, but that still isn't an excuse for a foamy-mouthed 'devs hate villains' rant, which are distressingly prevalent on this thread. Isn't it remotely possible that they might have made an honest mistake which will be rectified in a later patch?

In the meantime, might I suggest a Night Widow while you wait? From what I hear, they're rather similar to banes with the salient exception of not currently being underpowered. It's your call, though, and your tastes may differ.

For goodness sake, people, cease thy paranoid ranting. OK, so we got one suboptimal Villain Epic. We also have three which, according to general consensus, own face and look cool whilst doing it. Furthermore, it has been explicitly stated that the introduction of this stuff to the live servers is a final testing period for the content - it's not as if Banes' shortcomings are set in stone from now until eternity. Way to accentuate the negative.

We've got the coolest content, the best epics (overall), and we get to be evil. Stop looking the freakin' gift horse in the mouth and go terrorise some innocents, will ya?

Perhaps so, but it's nice to get the other Fitness powers (Health and Swift) early on as well, and I prefer to get stuff like Rise to the Challenge only after sorting out my endurance to some extent.

Besides, it worked for my Scrapper.

I badly, badly wanted to get my hands on a Crab Spider, but was having difficulties with the various villain ATs and hadn't yet got one anywhere near 50, so after having huge amounts of fun with my DB/WP scrapper, I decided to roll a Brute with the same powerset. On-paper, it looked like a match made in heaven (massive AoE spam plus fast animations plus tons of attacks plus Rise to the Challenge plus Stamina and QR plus fury = awesome), and I'd come up with a great-looking concept for it - a raging berserker-type called Ghazrak Khan with a Huge body-type, topknot, moustache, lots of tattoos (Tribal-pattern on bare skin), and a pair of Fantasy blades.

Up until about level 20, he was decent but not exceptional. The animations and the costume synced nicely, and he was dishing out a decent amount of damage, but the endurance-drain was crippling. Stamina alleviated that to a certain extent, and buying a full set of SOs at level 22 turned him into an absolute god of war.

Not only was he now nigh-impossible to kill, but Endurance was barely an issue no matter how much I spammed Empower and Weaken, and as a result, I had Fury almost permanently maxed. He's a hell of a lot of fun, and I really am looking forward to the remainder of his journey to 50.

In short, DB/WP is a godly set, but only really shines once you've sorted out your Endurance and slotted yourself with SOs. Have patience, and thou shalt prosper.

Actually, heroes work (loosely) for the Freedom Corps, of which Longbow is the military arm.

I am pleased that the devs remembered the Crab Spiders' natural place as the coolest Arachnos troops in the Rogue Isles.

One question, though - how will a Fortunata be differentiated from a regular psi Dominator?

Question is, will it outdamage my beloved DB/WP?

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Hello. I'm looking to do a 'City of Musical' in April. It'll follow a storyline and have lots and lots of songs. Like a real musical, eh?

So I'm looking for plot suggestions. I've already made a quick one. The story follows 2 buisness collegues who have alter-egos, the man being a hero and the woman being a villain. And in there, they're rivals. But in real life, in their office job, they don't know that they are actually rivals. I hope for some players to take part, as I was thinking Mother's Love could be the man's mother and FFM as the boss of the buisness.

So heroes and villains, put your suggestions for the...

CITY OF MUSICAL!

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Be honest, you know that there's only one option here: WEST SIDE STORY.

A pity that my own skills as a lyricist aren't sufficient to do it, but the villain version of 'America' would be a thing of such transcendent awesometude as to shake the very heavens.

Win.

I must say, this forum does seem to be effusing a much higher quality of randomosity these days...

When you're a DB/WP scrapper who's just gotten Stamina and magically transformed into some sort of blender on amphetamines.

I made a lot of Lost very unhappy...

OK, another one - which powersets are the late bloomers, and which are instant-gratification carnage from the get-go?

Iaculus

Ah? Much obliged. Thought I heard that SR drank end like there was no tomorrow, but I guess I stand corrected.

Iaculus

OK, one last question - in order, what are the most-to-least endurance-expensive powersets (primary and secondary) for scrappers?

Iaculus

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Wait, whats the idea with Status effects on a brute? You let things live THAT long??!

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Well, yeah. Gotta build up that Fury somehow...

DISCLAIMER - I do not have any 50s, so this is entirely based on second-hand knowledge.

Anyhey...

Kheldians, as you probably know by now, have three forms - Human, which is a scrapper with a low damage output and several ranged powers (translation - jack-of-all-trades WITH LITTLE/NO MEZ PROTECTION - BEWARE), Nova, which is a pure damage dealer with inherent Fly and even less damage-mitigation than a blaster, and Dwarf, which is essentially a Tank that's geared for resilience rather than aggro-collection. Peacebringers have an inherent human-form Fly, and several of their attacks cause knockbacks, whilst Warshades have TP and Immobilise respectively.

Both ATs are oriented towards teaming, getting bonuses to their attacks and resilience based on how many of certain archetypes there are in their team, but Peacebringers are generally viewed as being the better solo artists since Warshades require big spawns to use their powers to the optimum.

As an overview, Peacebringers are the 'vanilla' Kheldian AT - better at soloing, more defensively-oriented, and posessing (relatively) simple, straightforward, easy-to-use powers. Warshades are for the more demented (and skilled) players among us. They're capable of achieving a much higher damage output, but are more fragile than PBs and only really come into their own in teams. Furthermore, their mass Immobilises make them passable Controllers, and they have a wide variety of completely off-the-wall powers including either exploding corpses or raising them as terrifyingly lethal pets, as well as a low-level mez that also massively boosts your bars and your damage output.

Much obliged, Maelwys - can't wait to get my computer back and start impaling people with poisoned bananas now.