Jack_NoMind

Eh. I'd take Energy Whips as a Dom set and as a Sc/St APP (assuming even if they forced redraw of other weapons that the whips themselves wouldn't have it). Don't really need a whole Whip Scrapper.

Hrm. I've been following this bemusedly for a while. I'd like to interject at this point. I think the advice to the OP is solid; Hover should be skipped because and only because it interferes with the functionality of Super Strength. And yet, there is still an evident disagreement about layered mitigation. So...

Zombie Man, you made three errors. First, you don't "risk" invoking Arcanaville when you actually use her name. Arcanaville is basically the devil. (Elsewhere I may have called her an engineer, a sapient dolphin, or the very best thing ever. I wholeheartedly believe each of these five things.)

Second, it's fewer. Hits is a particulate quantity, not a fluid. So it's fewer hits, not less.

Third, and this is where I am actually annoyed, you used two true but unrelated statements in a directly comparative fashion in such a way as to give yourself mathematical-seeming credibility despite an argument you subversively acknowledge even as you dismiss it. There's probably a real name for this fallacy, but I call it Beckonomics. As in, economics according to Glenn Beck. It's a horrid, horrid thing. It's even worse than how Hopeling calls -mahp equivalent to a res debuff, despite behaving only very slightly like how an actual res debuff behaves, and it drives me nuts whenever he does that to another new player or non-statistically-aware-individual.

Edit : N.S.A.I., for short, or phonetically, "En-sigh." It's not supposed to sound like anything.

Edit 2 : OP, if you're still reading, the correct answer is always cheating. There are a number of ways to get on-demand Defense; perhaps the easiest is the store items (team insps or Amplifiers). Of course, the temp powers are a bit cheaper. I haven't found a good way to shoehorn on DDR, but KD/sapping/-rech are passable "effective DDR" against a lot of things. That pesky 5% to-hit floor is always there, but it's all about the incoming-over-time. Be creative!

This is kind of both VFX and costume, but, would it be possible to have a "All Sword" and "All Punch" options for Fire Melee?

So Fire Sword, Greater Fire Sword, and Fire Sword Circle would have fire punch or fire plume animations, and Scorch, Cremate, and Incinerate would have sword attack animations. Breath Of Fire, Build Up, and Confront/Taunt would keep their current animation options (although a 'flamethrower from hand' option would be kind of neat for Breath of Fire).

To me, this seems fairly significant, so I understand if it's a bit much. But it would be really great for a lot of Fire Melee players -- there are already quite a few vanity builds that skip half the powers in the set to get a particular 'look.'

You will probably have a larger DPS increase from Core, unless you team with a Kin or are otherwise boosting yourself well above the +200 (enh, maxed perma soul drain, and misc buffs) I'm basing my estimations on. You have a higher potential damage with Radial, and the higher your global damage buff is already, the better it will work for you.

Honestly, I don't see why we need unique names in the first place. We can identify characters uniquely by name+global. It might be nice to get a little, "There are already 17 people with that name, are you sure?", though.

Of course it's a bit late for this now. But City2 is only, what, five years away?

Mind blown.

Orign here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFKvgo7q6lw

You're only saying that because you're afraid that they won't roll out a Pirates mastermind primary along with it.

I share your fear. But imagine the delicious irony of a Ninja/Plunder MM!

...On a more serious note, I was thinking of another corsair group in-universe -- the Sky Raiders.

Obviously, if this suggestion was put in, we'd need to update the hips slider.

Looking over it I'm a little unhappy with how much clicking it forces players to do (or how much 'ignoring their powers until the boss'). I'd probably want Marque or Spot to chain -- maybe something like Disintegrate from Beam Rifle (whenever the effect is triggered, there's a small chance for it to jump to a nearby enemy). And I'd probably make Parley and S&D fairly short cooldowns, or adjust Kiss to be weaker but refreshable.

Actually, making Kiss a weak but stackable chain power is kind of a neat idea. Hmmm.

The... boys' junior high schools?

You might want to update the system clock, Arcana.

Well... I mean, Fire Melee has sword attacks, even though Fire Melee isn't a sword set.

So just sayin'.

Isn't that what's been discussed all thread?

This is a Mastermind, Corruptor, Controller and Defender buff set with an offensive bias. Basically in that order, too. Most of its powers place an effect in an area or on a target which generates buffs for allies when they move to that area or attack that target, rather than directly casting a heal or buff on an ally. This in some ways makes it more skill intensive than other Support sets, but also hopefully very interesting and rewarding to play. Of the existing sets, I feel it's most like Traps and Radiation, but focused on buffing allies rather than debuffing enemies. It predominately generates damage, recharge, and defense buffs; the lack of *sustainable* recovery buffs is an intentional hole of the set.

There's definitely a "pirate" undercurrent to this set, but really it's mostly evolved out of Pain Domination. I do like PD, but it was described as a 'villainous healing' set, and I feel that it doesn't deliver on that as well as I'd like; Poison is closer but kind of weak. I want it to have a sort of Natural feel; while direct heals and the like are obviously going to require a bit of handwaving, I imagine a character executing these powers to look like they could convincingly be an infamous corsair, rogue, or mercenary captain yelling, "A THOUSAND DUBLOONS TO THE MAN WHO BRINGS ME HIS HEAD!"

Since this is a loosely "villainous" set, there is something of an intentional lack of synergy with other Support sets: there be only one captain on this ship, mate.

NOTE : I do not know if my "effect-spawning effect" suggested functionality is actually doable. It's by far my preferred methodology, but there are two alternatives I can think of that are similar. The cop-out version is having toggles or effects that simply radiate an AoE to targets hostile to the target of the effect -- so like Soothing Aura but anchored on an enemy, for example. The other is having the powers spawn a daemon psuedopet that monitors combat and doles out effects as necessary.

Other than that, though, it's kind of conventional. I wouldn't mind a bit more rum and vinegar if folks have suggestions.

1) Letter of Marque. You place a mark on your target that promises your allies great rewards for their demise. Any ally hitting the marked target with a damage or control power is healed directly for a small amount and gains a short-term regeneration and recharge buff. (Buff stacks to #.) Each time this effect is triggered, you are also healed for #, but lose a small amount of Endurance. (Internal cooldown/diminshing returns/cost on this effect.)

2) Parley. You placate an enemy with a goodwill gift, which explodes after a few seconds, likely knocking down, stunning and blinding them and any other enemies nearby. The explosion is mostly sound and flash, so it deals little damage, but all affected targets have their accuracy reduced for a while.

3) Berate. You berate one of your allies, briefly unnerving them but allowing them to return to combat with renewed resolve. (Direct heal, grants low-magnitude mez protection of moderate duration including recharge rate debuff resistance, but imposes a brief accuracy debuff on ally.)

4) Black Spot. You place a mark on your target that promises their demise, eating away at their confidence while that of your allies grows. Any ally hitting the marked target with a damage or control power saps some of the target's strength, reducing their damage and regeneration rate for a time; simultaneously, the ally's own damage improves and they gain some absorption.

5) Stand And Deliver. You direct your allies to an area you place on the ground. Those inside have their attack rate, accuracy, and defense increased. (Psuedopet w/ aura.)

6) Fortune and Fame. (Subtitle : But Mostly Fortune.) You radiate an inspiring aura which enhances you and your allies' damage and defense and debuffs the damage of nearby enemies, as well as making you and your allies resistant to defense and tohit debuffs and taunt, placate, and fear.

7) An Example To Us All. Targeting a fallen ally, you attempt to motivate your surviving companions to do better. All nearby allies are healed for a moderate amount and gain full Endurance and significant Absorption. In addition, they speed and recharge rates are greatly increased, and they gain great resistance to recharge rate debuffs.

8) Scurvy Kiss. You blow a noxious wind into the faces of your enemies; all targets in a cone in front of you have their resistance, regeneration, and damage greatly decreased for a while.

9) X Marks The Spot. You place a mark on the ground and allies within a large radius have their attack rate, recovery, and damage increased; this increase starts out moderate but ramps up over the next twenty seconds. After this time has passed, an enormous fireball lands on the spot you've marked; your allies are pushed back unharmed but any enemies within the area take severe damage and will likely be knocked down and may be stunned or terrified by the ordeal. This power is extremely expensive to activate (50+ END) and leaves your recovery rate briefly reduced. While you can increase its recharge rate with enhancements, it is not affected by cost discounts.

Scrappers are pretty loved. I'm okay with taking the back seat for a bit to get Blaster2s, Dom2s, and MM1s some attention. Maybe even Khelds. Ahahaha...

A few points.

1) It's illustrative to set your base Accuracy in Mids to 39%, which is what it's at when you're fighting +4s. Your overall accuracy is a little low; I would recommend chasing another +acc set bonus and using a Kismet. You caaaaaannn get away with what you have, but it's below my comfort level -- all those wasted swings and aura ticks!

2) Fiery Aura benefits enormously from +Recharge simply because of Healing Flames, and Consume, Burn, and Fiery Embrace (if you take it, perfectly acceptable to skip on a tank -- although FA/DB seems more Brutey than Tanky to me) all benefit from it as well. Hasten functions as a mitigation power for this set.

3) MaxHP is always worth it on a tank. (It's almost always worth it on any character, especially melee.) You break up set bonuses, New Dawn, that would be extremely beneficial to your character in order to slot slightly better single enhancements, but you're running into ED anyway -- especially if you are willing to consider using enhancement boosters (you can get them dirt cheap if you wait for a sale and I assume you get a VIP stipend anyway). With just a few tweaks I was able to work out significantly better healing and regeneration.

4) You may have explained this in the thread and I missed it, but is there a particular reason you're using level 40 IOs rather than level 50 ones?

It's impossible to know absolutely without knowing your recovery rate, but in almost all cases the proc will yield more average over time. In fact, the average recovery provided by the proc is almost an order of magnitude higher than what you'll likely get from the boosted IO.

FWIW, though, I tend to prefer steady recovery over the proc in a toggle or auto.

Rangle : 5% of that is the base value of Superior Conditioning, so the value of the enhancement is only 2.65 maximum endurance.

Earth/Storm/Fire controller. (Edit : That's basically what Kyriani suggested, so I guess I'm seconding it.)

Among other things, a blast to play on a team and you can alternate Earthquake and Freezing Storm to get good uptime even with SOs.

I'm sad I wasn't really active during the beta period, although I don't know that I could have really made a difference. Contrary to what others are saying the Hybrid slot can be quite powerful -- many fights don't even last two minutes, so for certain purposes it has a 100% effective uptime -- but the mechanic *is* very annoying. I can think of a much better way to handle a surge-and-crash mechanic but any change of that nature is at best still borderline cottaging.

Oh, I just plugged a couple changes into my initial build. No particular reason at this point.

Given the name, I would certainly believe that.

To be perfectly honest, I only ever slot the proc to fill out the set bonus.