Iron_Vixen

I love this guide Mephe. I used it as the baseline for my Fire/Fire girl: Combustrana. I did take Breath of Fire (I like the animation), and am trying a non-fighting pool build for now. But those are my only real "deviations". I do plan for Pyre Mastery at 41+ for my epic for flavor purposes, and because I already have Energy Mastery on Iron Vixen. A very handy guide with a good sense of humor in spots.

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Though really, they need to nerf just Iron Vixen.

That costume could be quite distracting in combat.

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By nerf, do mean make it smaller? It can't get too much smaller than it is.

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Just highlighting this as statements like this have been known to cause fear, panic and flames on the boards.

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Yeah, I did kind of regret posting that after I posted it.

The reference was directly to PvP and not PvE.

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/em sigh of relief

I saw the 'principally' for PvP and was thinking:"Ack!". Luckily, I tend to post in a mellow tone, and not OMG! posts very much.

It's a loin cloth. If it's wrapped around between the legs, it's a loin clout.

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I asked about how PvP a lot. I'm sad to say Statesman said it was "off the record" meaning I cannot tell you much, but I can say that they're really thought in through and no AT is going to "suck". Several of the people there said Radiation Defenders and Tankers are "really nasty". Statesman said, and I quote "it's not that other sets are underpowered, it's that Invuln is, well, a bit over the top". That was in reference to PvP in particular.

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Well this is interesting to see. I just got done testing the new Invuln for Tankers and posting my guide. I have been pretty happy with the new Invuln, and hope Statesman was in fact more concerned with PvP here rather than PvE. Tanking some of the TFs can be a nightmare now, changing it in PvE, could make some of these untenable. I would be curious to see as to what he means here exactly. I have seen non-Invuln sets do some pretty amazing things, including soloing AVs apparently, something I sure cannot do. Admittedly though, Invuln is very good for raw damage mitigation.

Name: Iron Vixen
Powers: Invulnerability/Super Strength
Origin: Science

Iron Vixen was actually intended to be the first of a series of genetically engineering super-soldiers for a now defunct organization called H.A.T.E.. She was grown in a tank, and she is genetically engineered to be incredibly strong and almost unkillable. The intention was to grow her to pysical maturity and then use brain tapes to instill the proper personality for a cold hearted, ruthless, and totally obedient, living weapon. After they used the engineered fetus, she was placed in the tank of nutrients to mature to full growth quickly. They started the project and 3 months were estimated for her full growth time.

Three months went by, and the scientists knew that she would be mature soon. She appeared fully grown to roughly 20 human years in appearance, but was not quite ready. The beautiful naked woman in the tank looked so peaceful. Only after she emerged would she be the weapon of destrution they had planned. the skin tone was noted as an odd side effect of the genetic material they had grown, but was not considered a serious issue.

A group of heroes had tracked down the H.A.T.E. labs, and proceeded to attack. The base flew into panic, as the scientists in charge of operation: Iron Vixen, worked on getting her ready to emerge to help defend the base. They were too slow, and the heroes burst into the lab and disabled the scientists just as Iron Vixen emerged from her tank. The assembled heroes stared at the 7'6" naked beauty in front of them, unsure of what to do. She looked around in bewilderment and then slowly and clumsily hobbled over to the heroine known as Miss Liberty and uttered her first word:

"Mama?"

The heroes deciphered the lab work, and found out they had arrived in the nick of time. Had the brain tapes been used, Iron Vixen would have been a monster instead of the innocent child-like person they now had. As fast as able they educated her to at least be able to communicate and try to fit in (inasmuch as a 7'6" blue woman can!). It did not take long for them to find out about her amazing strebgth. One of her first "toddler" moments was destroying the couch in Miss Liberty's house. Eventually they were able to get her to fit in somewhat, but her innocent and naive demeanor endear her too many, and also mitigate the fear that such a powerful and imposing woman would otherwise cause.

It has now been three years since they first rescued her. And she is still helping Paragon City as best she can, while still being very much a child in a woman's body. The modern world confuses her to this day. She continues to adapt and learn, but still has the naive outlook that many love.

Very helpful Opus! I mean AnotherDeadHero! I refer to this now and again when making new characters I plan to get to 50. Like my brand new Fire/Fire Tanker, who wants Pyre Mastery.

We thought of that, but all Tanker attacks have built a in Taunt effect. Liquid and I discussed that, but the inherent Tanker aggro built into our attacks makes this harder to really test well. We also have a hard time getting people to test. Not a bad thought though, Lallendos.

Ok, I did more aggro testing with +3s and such today:

Aggro test continued.

Still better then expected.

Ah rats. I knew we needed more +1-+3 mob testing for this. But my baseline should have been a good indicator. I don't have any Taunt enhances, besides the 1 in the default slot of Taunt at all either. Looks like Rage may truly be "situational" now, like Statesman's PM to Archimedes said.

Credit to Crevab for finding this:

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Patch Notes sez: "Made all Tanker attack powers (secondary set) generate hate from all nearby foes. The more damage the power does, the greater the affected area. This effect does not kick in until after level 5, and slowly ramps up from there. The intent is to reduce a tanker's reliance on Taunt powers, and encourage the use of attack powers to keep villains attention on them. "


So, more damage=greater punch-voke radius.

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Hopefully this helps you out, ProcessedMeatMan.

Ok folks here is my aggro test results:

Iron Vixen aggro test

I am surprised and pleased with this result.

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After getting rage and using it on various enemies last night, not once did I have a problem. grouped, soloed, etc. with my final conclusion I express this:

Why in gods good name would you still complain about rage. Having a 400-500 hit knockout blow with two recharge SO's in it, is amazing. Also there is like LITTLE penalty. Most likely by the time you jump into a big fight you'll already have shot off a taunt and hit a few enemies, thus securing aggro for the few moments you're not able to fight.

By the time you get back in, if the aggro is broken, taunt will be up to the task.

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I will be on test here soon, checking aggro retention. I think Rage 3.0 looks workable. It is absolutely fine soloing. Just need to see if it's ok in team for aggro. If it is, then Rage 3.0 is far better then 2.0 would have become, barring the no end loss bug.

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This punchvoek thing makes no sense to me. Enemy aggro has always been based on amount of damage dealt. How is this anything new? A blaster tossing out a heavy AoE or a scrapper landing a critical will just steal the aggro from us... just like it used to.

Before you flame me for being "ignorant" on the subject of punchvoke.. keep in mind that the tank I play readily is Invul/Fire... Invincibility and my harsh AoEs have worked for me before punchvoke and I haven't noticed any real change since.

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Ah, let me cover how punch-voke works in a nutshell. As you know more damage=more aggro, this is why we used to have to use Taunt and/or Provoke like mad in the old days. We did tolerable damage, but not enough in many situations. What punch-voke does is it makes mobs in the "punch-voke envelope" get more aggro at you, the more damage you cause to any mobs in this area (I believe it's roughly equal to your melee area or slightly larger, although I know LBE has some of this too, since I can pull a half dead Boss off my BS/Regen Scrapper friend with one LBE shot, so it may also be a small area or just a single target for Tanker ranged attacks, which are few anyway) the more aggro you get against them all! It does not kick in till 5th level and then it scales up as you level. It still is more effective, the more damage you cause, just like normal aggro, but it affects all mobs in this area. It's quite nice in the 40s-50. I can hold a ton of mobs on me, by attacking and I also have Taunt to cement them to me.

Tomorrow, I shall be testing some Rage aggro theories, and shall report my findings. Let's see how this shall work out.

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Don’t forget eng blasters. Nems and sky raiders were a real pain for an eng blaster if they got a FF up.

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Yep , that's why I added (plus others). It actually helps a lot of people. More then I thought really, so it looks to be a good thing overall.

Well we can do that, I would love to have a few different high level Blasters help me test out some aggro theories. We can even hunt in PI and find large groups and see. I will get a date/time here ASAP.

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Hello- level 50 blaster with a penchant for AOE.

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Hehe
Heya Matches, if we can a chance to test this, it would be great. I just want to see if the 10 second period will allow me to hold aggro, while being unable to perform hostile actions. If we can get this tested I can post it, and let others know.

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Teaming on the other hand was a different matter. It was a large 'train' mission, lots of mobs. Difficult to hold all the aggro.

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This is something I would like to test out in a team situation too. If I can find ways to hold aggro in the 10 second period, I am going to add the methods to my upcoming Invuln/SS guide. The only thing skewing it will be my huge Punch-Voke at 50. But if I can get a 50ish Blaster to team with me, and possibly other 50s too, to test this, I will post how I held aggro, or failing it, how I lost it.

I really think Tankers feeling that we have poo-poo damage is more of a misconception then truth. Without Rage my damage is pretty nice (I posted the numbers in 2 spots for the number-crunchers). Rage is pretty nice though, and if I can keep aggro in the 10 second "duh" period, I like this a ton more then Rage 2.0. I do less then my BS/Regen Scrapper friend that is 50 like me, but he is supposed to do more anyway.

SS damage.

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just a question, but if taunting ability would remain, would that help?

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Personally I would not care if I can Taunt or not, if I can hold aggro by whatever means necessary in that 10 second period, Rage 3.0 could work while teaming, I have no trouble with it solo. The problem is, I was unable to get high level Blasters (I consider Blasters the key here due to high damage output that outstrips their defenses) to come to test with me. I was able to use it solo for a couple hours live yesterday, with no real problems. I just watched my end bar for the crash, which is a habit for me anyway.

I tried the perma-Rage no crash bug, it got interrupted and I got chain held by Malta and killed before my empath friend could get off one heal. Now, if you did not have your Rage 2.0 cycle cut into, it was quite effective but we knew that it would not stay like that.

For about 2 hours or so, I soloed in PI today after Rage 3.0 went live. And I switched it from 3 recharge SOs back to my old pattern of 2 recharge and 1 To Hit buff SO (Rage is perma with 3 SOs sans Hasten). So it is back to 15 seconds of downtime minimum from 1 Rage to the earliest chance to use it again. The 10 seconds down soloing is not bad, although I am unsure of how well it will be in teams at this time.

As for your toggle-crashes? I am not sure here. I lost no toggles in my multiple uses of it today. I simply watched my end more closely then I used to. -25% end is far more manageable then -100% end, even though yes, the no end loss bug negated that, but we knew that was not going to stay. Now I for one am not doing cartwheels over Rage 3.0, but after experiencing 2.0s total end loss a couple times, I find it far more preferable.

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Oh the other paw, it's hurting some ice, stone, and fire tankers who were getting double defense bonuses against some types of damage.

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Yes, we are wondering about that a bit on Tanker forums. Hoping that this isn't going to be a problem for them, especially Ice, which is more +def then +res, and would be hardest hit by this.

This was actually a big help to Dark Melee Scrappers and Energy Melee Tankers (plus others). Mobs were basically doubling their defense against the dual-"element" based attacks.

It's 25%, I just checked it on live.

I think a big part of why this went live is:

a) They did not get enough data from the test server (this is why I think a lot of stuff goes live and then gets tweaked), especially the aggro retention in the 10 second down period. I know that except for Tanker night, the test server is pretty empty.

b) It's a ton better then Rage 2.0, so even if people dislike Rage 3.0, it's vastly superior to Rage 2.0. And they wanted to get a better Rage live, even as an intermediate step.