Incubbus

If redraw bugs you so much, the "quick-draw" work around still exists. Hard to explain without breaking into steps, but what the hell.

You've thrown an Energy Punch and your other melee abilities are on cooldown, so naturally you go for your pistols. Before doing so, ESC - click ability - auto-targets nearest - mid-animation, at any time your character begins it, click the ability a second time:

Quick-draw, snip down animation time.

Yes, it's situational, and it's potentially a lot more to think about. But it -does- cutdown redraw -considerably- once you get the hang of it. Works the same for the Staves and makes a massive impact on hit delivery time, which is a big deal since you're usually going for a quicker kill if you're resorting to them.

The trick is to already be in the middle of the draw animation before the red cue graphic is placed on your intended attack. Clicking a power without a target does not actually cue the attack, it just acts as a primary and a means to auto-target the closest enemy.

With that in mind, if you're conscious about your positioning and that of your enemy, it's entirely possible to go through multiple pulls losing much less time on redraw (I won't say losing -zero- time, because the factor of human error is significant if you start getting into fractions of a second).

Does perma-Rage avoid the -DEF hit from the crash, or does this build take the 10 second hit into consideration?

What might be more efficient and informative, would be to take each primary and secondary from this list and construct a simple paragraph/half-paragraph consisting of exactly what key powers (or a statement that it's the entire set working in-concert) that makes it perform substantially better than other sets.. the things that set it apart, etc.

For instance:


Super Strength
In addition to having a viable form of mitigation baked into nearly every ability (Knock-down-, not up) you have access to two of the strongest abilities available to a Brute for their corresponding uses: Rage and Footstomp. With adequate recharge and endurance management, you're able to forgo most detriments to Rage's use (as well as easily stack it twice) and also pump out increasingly ridiculous damage (and again, mitigation) thanks to Footstomp and any other Epic AoEs you might have chosen.

Your To-Hit is top-notch, your mitigation from damage through your primary is solid enough to cover many potential holes in your secondary, your ability to buff your own damage is one of (is?) -the- best and, most importantly, your ability to kill large amounts of enemies is suitable, once you have Footstomp and preferably either enough recharge to keep pumping it out rapidly, or a back-up AoE to keep cycling in the interim.


.. Ok, so two paragraphs. But I'm not a guide-writer and most of you who've already posted are able to condense the primary benefits for any set for nearly any preferred use far more concisely than myself.

Echoing the sentiment that you just don't drop the CAK. And I'd have to disagree with the archaic assumption that MA is more swiss-army than specialized: I'm thoroughly convinced it can do possibly the highest spike damage out of all Scrappers, thanks to the animation times of its strongest abilities, sans Eagle's Claw. But even EC has a further +Crit self buff, to either exploit with CAK or DT for even more insane damage.

Really wanting to see some high-level comparisons run with the new improvements, backed by equivalently monstrous IO-set slotting.

More changes than I had gleaned initially, and a couple bits I missed entirely:

Martial Arts

* Cobra Strike:
o Decreased Recharge Time from 20 seconds to 10 seconds
o Increased Endurance Cost from 10.14 to 10.19
o Increased damage scale from 0.25 to 1.96
o Reduced Stun chance from 100% to 75%
(Note: the damage, activation and recharge become identical to Crane Kick)

* Stalkers Eagle Claw: Increased Recharge time from 12 seconds to 16 seconds, increased damage from 2.28 to 2.92, increased End Cost from 11.86 to 15.18

* Scrappers Eagle Claw: Eagles Claw now increases the Critical Chance of Martial Arts attacks by 33% for 2 seconds after it has been activated.

* Crippling Axe Kick - increased recharge to 11 seconds, and increased damage and endurance cost appropriately. Added 10 second scale 1 Defense Debuff.


The -Defense on Crippling Axe Kick is quite intriguing: that and it's damage and activation time makes it almost the best attack in the set as far as efficiency is concerned, second to most likely Storm Kick (because it's ridiculously solid DPA).

And as it turns out, Eagle Claw apparently is just a one-shot buff after the attack, so it'd be best to use it on either Dragon's Tail for 3+ enemies, or maybe CAK against a single hard-target.

Praetorian Sepia Eta

Non-Arachnos, ex-Malta (retains his call sign for nostalgia, and because the Praetorian fireteam no longer exists) and current self-employed mercenary and intelligence specialist. He's had his armor since well before the current generation of Bane Spiders were even conceived, receiving what was at the time a prototype that he has since customized to fit his preferences.

He's primarily Hunstman with a dash of Bane (Cloaking and Surveillance are essential).

Very fun character. Most likely going stateside.

An interesting tidbit is that, if ever there was someone who disliked the knockback mechanic of Crane Kick, Cobra Strike is now an EXACT number-clone of Crane Kick, and replacing the knockback with a 75% chance to stun. So it's feasible to replace CK with CS.

However, using Storm Kick, Cobra Strike and Crane Kick in the lower levels turns you into a boss-slayer, particularly if you have Hasten.

I can see dropping one of these in favor of the Crippling Axe Kick and Eagle Claw powers as part of the attack chain: animation be damned, CAK is phenomenal for DPS now, and additional crit rate on our T9?! I'll take it!

At this rate, I might just end up dropping Crane Kick so I don't have to be bothered with chasing down the random non-rooted/non-CC immune enemy.

Eagle's Claw
Storm Kick
Crippling Axe Kick
Cobra Strike

-seems like it could just melt away a hard-target like butter under a blowtorch.

My opinion, they should just make swap ammo alter the element of the -majority- of damage dealt, or the type entirely.

'Morning all you crazy, suicidal Blasters you. I've recently come back to the game a couple weeks ago and am beginning to dust off a lot of old characters from years past, one of which is an Electrical Blast / Energy Manipulation Blaster with a focus on single-target damage (and if there's any room, some group sapping potential).

Considering Defiance capitalizes on rapid-firing attacks to stack the damage buff, would anyone here happen to have personal experience with this combo and be able to recommend a build with some rudimentary slotting tips? The AoE from Elec/Energy is incredibly dismal, so I'd prefer not bothering with wasting resources attempting to to achieve "sub-par" AoE potential when I can specialize in destroying hard-targets within moments.

And again, if there happen to be some empty spaces, I can surely handle a random Short Circuit + Power Boost with the slotting and purpose of sapping groups, though as effective as this was back in the day, I'd rather have to bother with it unless our team lost a lot of AoE.

You are whatever you want your character to be. With Empathy as a secondary, you're than adequate for the role of "healer," and with your primary, you're more than capable of fulfilling the role of a "controller," which is to say you are capable of locking down an enemy force, either one at a time, or all at once (barring recharge limitations) and make progression safer for your teammates while they do more mundane things like blow things to smithereens, or get punched in the face repeatedly.

This game isn't as cut-and-dry when it comes to class "roles" as, say, World of Warcraft raiding, etc. At any time, given the proper powers at your disposal, you can weave in and out of back-row support and front-line scrapping. But for what it is you've made it obvious you want to do:

YES, you CAN be a healer, and a damn good one, too!

You will take slightly longer to mature than your blue-shield counterparts, yes. And they will hold the monopoly on largest green number ever, but Controllers aren't left in the dust. Your innate modifier will make your class a non-issue once you're able to spare some good quality enhancements.

I recommend you take advantage of the second build slot you unlock at level 10, however, and set that one to focus heavily on your primary for those ill-fated moments where you must solo. Unfortunately, you can't give enemies healing poison.. yet.

( Disclaimer: TL;DR after the --- | Post-posting props to user WhyNot, just noticed he had a few similar ideas )

HAHAH! I just had a deliciously wonderful comedic revamp for Time Bomb come to mind.. it takes a bit of what LOTS of people have suggested along with a slight element of Omega Maneuver to round it out...

So we go with the Sticky Bomb concept. Simple enough, you target a mob and, in the same vein as Omega Maneuver's bang, the end-blast doesn't occur until a few seconds after use (meaning if enemies enter/leave kill zone before blast occurs, they are flagged properly once the damage is dealt).

Here's the quirk: the target is inflicted with a mag 3 (or 4) Fear with the graphical affect of them flailing their arms around (as if they were on fire). The victim then begins pulsing ticks of a sort of no-retaliation taunt, that causes (some) of his comrades to close in and try to "help pull the thing off," while one or two others are struck with true terror and run for the ******* hills.

Damage would need to be far less than a true nuke, but with pretty close to the same radius. Damage could possibly be on-par with damage one would expect from T9s such as Full Auto and Rain of Arrows (maybe even Trip Mine.. bear with me). Detonation should take no longer than the default mez duration of, say, a Blaster's CC-specific disorient (Taser, Beanbag, etc.). Because of the potentially great damage mitigation of the enemy focusing on the threat of the bomb, the cooldown would probably be close to what Time Bomb already is, but the important aspect would be making the actual -cast- time of the power be VERY low, so that it can be used viably.

I propose the following: consider Swap Ammo for Dual Pistols. Currently the act of toggling on either ammo costs no endurance, but does technically have a cast time and a recharge. Also, the coding exists to make certain things happen only when one of these toggles is on.

Make the Time Bomb equivalent to Swap Ammo be a "Prep Demo Charge" -click-, rather than toggle. Have it be the full cost and cast-time of using the ability. THEN, have the -base- Time Bomb ability be a simple click to throw it (this one can have the massive cooldown, as you don't want people rapidly casting one bomb after another by "holding" their first prepped charge, waiting for the recharge, tossing it, then making -another- and tossing it a second time).
---
Devices isn't quite dead yet, but it's too close.
A single power change could completely turn the set around if done right.
Personally, I believe Time Bomb is our weakest link (albeit far-down progression list)
Omega Maneuver is incredibly close to concept, while adding modern functionality.
Compromise. Keep the set unique. Give the red-head a FUN power.

: ( There is so much "they" could do to fix this power to both bring it up to the current par for both team and solo performance, -and- keep it within concept.

This is a power that's within the Manipulation/Support trees.. we've got Trip Mines for the big damagers, why not add a bit of "support" to this one? Halve the cast/interrupt/detonation times (or more), remove the max-effect cap and give it an obscene knockUP magnitude (I'm talking like 1.5 full seconds of air-time, equivalent of an entire spawn getting hit with Levitation), that brings them right back down in a neat group just as they started, so that the team can mop up, and either keep its recharge, or make it a bit longer than your average Blaster nuke, since it's a secondary.

But then this is not a suggestion forum I guess. From personal experience, I have to throw in my hat to the "haters" side, if only because it pretty much falls within the realm of my characters getting Sands of Mu / Ninja Run, etc., only you have to expend a power slot on it. It's got potential for aesthetic and concept, ya sure, and it's not as useless as Brawl on anything but a Tank, ok. But unlike these other powers with benefits, it requires at least one power selection and most likely additional slots, for about the same performance as an afterthought ability.

Gameplay has evolved many generations beyond the initial conception of this ability, and more-so than damn near everything else, it has withered with time. Find me a solid, single percent point of people who would be against an update (of any sort) to Time Bomb, and I'll eat that very same hat I threw in.

In all the years I've played CoX, my experience "winging" it with a Huntsman during the first weeks of VEAT release was by far my most favorite and rewarding.

It's for this very reason that I anxiously await Going Rogue, so that I can do it all over again hero-side. And if for some unholy reason Paragon Studios decides to make Epics exclusive to their corresponding factions? I'll let the spirit of my veteran Huntsman take hold of me, clean out some hillbilly grandpa's arsenal and go on a speed run of the Paragon Studios Strikeforce! >_<!

Hello again folks, was just curious as to whether or not there's an updated listing of each of Dual Pistol's abilities with all types of ammo types. I'm wanting to see if the secondary effect stacking of Lethal/Cold/Chemical are anything special by comparison to other Defender secondaries.
(And if so, which of each is more powerful and would be better suited to build a powerset combo around!)

One suggestion if I may sneak one in:

Archery/Energy/Munitions w/ Hover

Just about every farm consists of mobs unable to vertically travel effectively. Taking advantage of this by Hovering just outside of their effective firing range and raining down -all- of your AoEs safely via Boost Range, you can also force those whose attention you have to pile all over your tank, which you should be directly above. Think of this as a reverse-repel function: you suck in all potential targets which the tank either can't or won't aggro by himself, and you don't have to limit what abilities you can use due to self-preservation.

-Get into position using fly, while cuing (Power Boost)Boost Range / Aim / Build Up
-Fist Full of Arrows
-Explosive Arrow (by this time you are directly above the mob and limit mob scatter)
-Fist Full of Arrows
-Rain of Arrows
-Fist Full of Arrows
-Explosive Arrow
-Fistful of Arrows
-LRM
= one very dead or dying spawn. Seamless chain that you can keep doing indefinitely, mixing up with your single-target abilities to mop up anything that's been missed by the AoE carnage.