JadKni

Why? It's not written in stone, but aren't blasters generally the gods of AoE..?

[ QUOTE ]

You haven't been reading much of the constructive criticism then. Many, many of the posters who have left feedback in their testing of the changes have said Domination builds slower, they have pauses in their attack chain that aren't there on live, and they are burning through endurance faster. Hopefully these issues are addressed before I15 goes live (I'm guessing they will be - I'd expect to see the early-tier recharge/damage/endurance dialed down a bit, to a comfortable medium between what's on live and test).

Other than what I've listed above, my only concerns about the Dominator changes have to do with Psi Assault:

* The change to PSW also changes the feel of the set. Peopled generally played Psi Assault because they wanted to have really good AoE. Now, they have "ok" AoE. Psi is no longer the AoE assault set (that probably goes to Fire now). You can leverage the buffed Psychic Scream to make up a bit for PSW's being gutted but that requires a lot of extra positioning and the cone on Psi Scream isn't very good.

* Dominator PSW now costs 18.5 endurance. The Blaster version on live, which is essentially the same thing in terms of recharge, radius, max targets, and animation/activation time, costs 10.2 (same end cost as the Dom PSW on live). Either the Blaster version gets adjusted upwards or the Dom version gets adjusted downwards. Having what essentially amounts to two identical powers with very different endurance costs just sticks out badly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm afraid I don't agree that a clearly overpowered power being nerfed is a nerf to all of dominatordom. These changes are a pretty clear buff, even if they change the feel of a powerset.

Now, if you were to say that the changes were inconvenient for some dominators because they required a respec/change in playstyle, I'd agree. Nerf, though? Pass the pipe.

What I do agree on is that the lesser powers should probably be reverted to more the rules that live dominator attacks follow instead of this new "burst damage" feel, if only to fill in gaps in chains. Just their T1 and T2 attacks would be swell.

The complaints directed towards the buff (yes, it is a buff. No, if you think it's a nerf, you're wrong. Period) have been so half-baked and ill-informed/thought out that it's been comical.

Is there any reason *not* to juggle your toggles?

If you're packing 3+End/Sec recov, then hats off, but most of us aren't. :P

/Dark is an excellent set. Learn to manage endurance and you'll be amazed. More than anything, don't just run around with every toggle on at all times. Run the toggles you need at the time. IE; toggle on CoD fighting immobilizing enemies, toggle on Obsidian Shield when actually fighting enemies that mez/heavy Psi damage users. Try not to indiscriminately mash your way through your attack chain and blow all of your endurance. Yes, I know you're a scrapper, but hear me out here. :P

My Willpower doesn't feel like the be-all-end-all of survival. Given, he's a brute, but unless there are significant differences between brute and scrapper Willpower, I'm going to have to say that there are plenty of reasons for Regen.

I've largely given up running TFs that I or someone that I at least somewhat trust don't start for the above reasons.

You use Pangean Soil in your common IOs? Wow, I want to know what type of IOs those are. Seriously, I buy from the table all of the time out of impatience. It's expensive, but not overly so. I swear that every time someone finds an easy, reliable way to make money, you've got people up in arms about "EXPLOITING THE COMMON PLAYER" and whatnot. Do you seriously think that they post their common IOs on the market for under 1k because of a lack of knowledge? Most of these inexperienced victims of yours are offloading their rare salvage and recipes they don't need to vendors, more likely than not.

I've tried this. It's better as a side-method to making money, but it works. Thanks for the guide, it's quite informative.

I'm leveling this build currently, it's one of the more entertaining scrappers I've tried. Good guide, but there is one thing that stuck out and is bothering me. Eviscerate can be far less situational if you jump prior to the attack. The cone will often hit 3-5 enemies if you do this, making the damage more than worth it. Just thought I'd point that out.

EA/ isn't broken, alright. Still massively underperforming and no 'fun' powers to compensate.

Perhaps I'm way off here, but I'd like to see EA as being an offense-oriented alternative to FA, not SR with typed defense. Maybe replace cloak with an inverted Invincibility that adds RES and damage instead of tohit and DEF. Instead of being a pure defensive set, maybe a hybrid def/res set?

Good thing too, or magic salvage wouldn't be worth jack anymore post-35...

Perhaps branded onto the Sclera of all forumgoers.

Very nice, never knew that. And that is what I had it down as originally, though someone mentioned that it had a Sunless Mire clone, and I changed it.

Updated again, thanks all.



GENERAL

Traitors showcase the hopefully upcoming Shield set. The shields are probably the most annoying and dangerous thing about the Traitors. These add Magnitude 3 mez protection to hold, immobilize, stun, sleep, and all of the usual crowd, but not to confusion (which makes powers that cause this handy when fighting them) or fear. However, the shields seem to be a toggle, and will drop if Traitors are held/stunned/whatever though them. This makes getting alpha on Traitors very handy to ending encounters with minimal trouble, as if you land a hold on them before they draw their shields, they are just as mez-susceptible as every other faction.

These shields provide repel and knockback resist as well, enough for bosses to stand right in front of a Tornado without flying away. This is both a blessing and a curse, as knockback won't throw them around as much, but Air Superiority is ineffective on them. The shields provide a healthy defense buff to themselves in addition to a defense buff in a small-ish radius.


MINIONS

[u]Legionarii[u]: The run-of-the-mill minion of the Traitors, they are armed with a shield (above) and a gladius, AKA broadsword. They possess the slash attack, a highly damaging Shield Bash attack, and a ranged Pilum attack which is perfectly identical to Lightning Bolt, minus the damage type and name. Not much else to say about these.

[u]Immunes Surgeon[u]: These things are a PAIN. They are essentially attackless empaths, packing heal aura, heal other, and ressurect. They should be the first things you take out when fighting Traitors. Important to note is that they do not have shields, unlike all other Traitors, and are susceptible to mezzing.

[u]Immunes Engineer[u]: These are identical to Legionarii, but have an additional firebomb attack that leaves a burn patch for a few seconds. They have high perception as well.




LIEUTENANTS

[u]Centurion[u]
The Centurions are similar to the Legionarii. They have gained the Hack attack, and have a variant of Clarity renamed "Shout of Command" that is used at 50% health.




BOSSES

[u]Praefectus Cantorum[u]
Another upgraded Legionarii, the praefectus have gained Whirling Sword. Their normal boss-level mez protection combined with their shields makes them very difficult to mez, but their version of the shield seems to have an immobilize hole (Thanks Uberguy)




ELITE BOSSES

[u]Minotaur[u]: One of the two Mythical Beast enemies, Minotaurs use Battleaxes in addition to unstoppable near death and a "Fetid Howl" cone attack which does 50/50 smashing and toxic damage which has a chance (around 20% from what I've seen, I'll test this a little more) to give you an autopower called Disease which is similar to the Vahzilok Wasting Disease. It lops 20 off of your max endurance, something like 25% off of your max health, 0.06% off of your regeneration, and 0.25% off of your recovery. This one is very temporary however (I counted it at ~5 minute duration).

[u]Cyclops[u]: Cyclops use Super Strength attacks, including Knockout blow and Hurl, and also use Unstoppable when near death.

[u]Romulus' Generals[u]: These are essentially Praefectus scaled to elite boss strength.




ARCHVILLAINS

WARNING: Possible spoiler




[u]Romulus(Human)[u]: Romulus is essentially an archvillain Praefectus when you fight him the first time. Nothing special.

[u]Romulus(Nictus)[u]: Romulus is a much tougher customer this time. He possesses many warshade attacks, the normal sword and shield attacks, and hits *extremely* hard. He is assisted by three Nictus Essences that each perform a specific function (see below). He will ressurect himself by killing an essence and using Howling Twilight (Called Death Throes) if one of his essences is in line of sight of him while he is killed. The difficulty of killing the essences means that you do not want to prevent him from rezzing off of them. Essences do not provide experience when killed, making Romulus the preferrable target.

[u]Nictus Essence(Left)[u]: The 'healer' essence, this spams a multitarget version of Twilight Grasp in response to damage. Avoid hitting this one.

[u]Nictus Essence(Middle)[u]: The "blaster" essence hurts quite a bit and autohits with a cone AoE.

[u]Nictus Essence(Right)[u]: The "summoner" essence acts as a mobile, difficult-to-kill Shadow Cyst, and quickly floods the battle with Unbound Nictus.



I haven't tried this tactic yet, but it is much easier to just kill Romulus repeatedly instead of attacking the essences (that's just been the way I've done it, sorry.) Thanks to Turbo_Ski, Yorukira, and Smurphy.

That sounds like fun. Death Throes is used when he rezzes though? Wasn't aware of that.

Not entirely clear on why you kill him four times though. Are one of the essences used up whenever he drops?

Thanks Uber. Updating.

Never knew that, thanks Kailure. And I haven't been able to see any pattern there, so I'm going with 'luck'.

*updated version*




[ QUOTE ]
After messing around a bit in Cimerora, I decided to throw this guide together on the new and very well-designed Cimerora Traitors faction. Note that Issue 12 has not gone live at the time of writing this, and things may change in between here and then.

GENERAL

Traitors showcase the hopefully upcoming Shield set. The shields are probably the most annoying and dangerous thing about the Traitors. These add Magnitude 3 mez protection to hold, immobilize, stun, sleep, and all of the usual crowd, but not to confusion (which makes powers that cause this handy when fighting them) or fear. However, the shields seem to be a toggle, and will drop if Traitors are held/stunned/whatever though them. This makes getting alpha on Traitors very handy to ending encounters with minimal trouble, as if you land a hold on them before they draw their shields, they are just as mez-susceptible as every other faction.

These shields provide repel and knockback resist as well, enough for bosses to stand right in front of a Tornado without flying away. This is both a blessing and a curse, as knockback won't throw them around as much, but Air Superiority is ineffective on them.


MINIONS

[u]Legionarii[u]: The run-of-the-mill minion of the Traitors, they are armed with a shield (above) and a gladius, AKA broadsword. They possess the slash attack, a highly damaging Shield Bash attack, and a ranged Pilum attack which is perfectly identical to Lightning Bolt, minus the damage type and name. Not much else to say about these.

[u]Immunes Surgeon[u]: These things are a PAIN. They are essentially attackless empaths, packing heal aura, heal other, and ressurect. They should be the first things you take out when fighting Traitors. Important to note is that they do not have shields, unlike all other Traitors, and are susceptible to mezzing.

[u]Immunes Engineer[u]: These are identical to Legionarii, but have an additional firebomb attack that leaves a burn patch for a few seconds. They have high perception as well.




LIEUTENANTS

[u]Centurion[u]
The Centurions are similar to the Legionarii. They have gained the Hack attack, and have a variant of Clarity renamed "Shout of Command".




BOSSES

[u]Praefectus Cantorum[u]
Another upgraded Legionarii, the praefectus have gained Whirling Sword. Their normal boss-level mez protection combined with their shields makes them very difficult to mez, but their version of the shield seems to have an immobilize hole (Thanks Uberguy)




ELITE BOSSES

[u]Minotaur[u]: One of the two Mythical Beast enemies, Minotaurs use Battleaxes in addition to unstoppable near death and a "Fetid Howl" cone attack which does 50/50 smashing and toxic damage which has a chance (around 20% from what I've seen, I'll test this a little more) to give you an autopower called Disease which is similar to the Vahzilok Wasting Disease. It lops 20 off of your max endurance, something like 25% off of your max health, 0.06% off of your regeneration, and 0.25% off of your recovery. This one is very temporary however (I counted it at ~5 minute duration).

[u]Cyclops[u]: Cyclops use Super Strength attacks, including Knockout blow and Hurl, and also use Unstoppable when near death.

[u]Romulus' Generals[u]: These are essentially Praefectus scaled to elite boss strength.




ARCHVILLAINS

WARNING: Possible spoiler




[u]Romulus(Human)[u]: Romulus is essentially an archvillain Praefectus when you fight him the first time. Nothing special.

[u]Romulus(Nictus)[u]: Romulus is a much tougher customer this time. He possesses many warshade attacks, the normal sword and shield attacks, and hits *extremely* hard. He is assisted by three Nictus Essences that each perform a specific function (see below). As dangerous as Romulus is, he is also the hardest to kill, and thus should be your last target. Additionally, he will ressurect himself if he is not killed after his essences, using a high-magnitude stunning and damaging attack on anyone in Line of Sight on the map. [Thanks to Kailure]

[u]Nictus Essence(Left)[u]: The 'healer' essence, this spams a multitarget version of Twilight Grasp and MUST be your first target if you want to beat this encounter in any reasonable amount of time.

[u]Nictus Essence(Middle)[u]: The "blaster" essence, this should be your third target, before Romulus. It does hurt quite a bit, autohits, and has a lot of area of effect attacks, but arguably less dangerous than the other two essences.

[u]Nictus Essence(Right)[u]: The "summoner" essence, this should be your second target, after the left essence. It acts as a mobile, difficult-to-kill Shadow Cyst, and quickly floods the battle with Unbound Nictus.



THINGS I WANT TO ADD TO THIS GUIDE

<ul type="square"> [*] More in-depth tactics to fighting Traitors[*] More information on the EBs and the Romulus encounter at the end of Time's Arrow[*] More information on the powers used by Traitors[/list]

If any of the info here is wrong or missing, please let me know and I'll change it. Thanks!

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, hey, didn't notice my guide was up there till now. And here I thought it had fallen by the wayside.

Anyway, very helpful. Many thanks

The menders lying to us?

No waiz. :P

There is an introductory arc, an "infinite missions" contact, and Imperious, who gives a task force.

I believe Cimerora is 35-50. The entrance is in the Midnighters Club, the Oroborous crystal.

[ QUOTE ]
What would you suggest if i want a PVP toon?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not Claws/Dark.

To reiterate, where the heck is dark regeneration?!?!!!@?!@!(&amp;$()@#$MOO

Dark Regen is a very potent self heal which recharges very quickly. I don't see any reason to skip it.

Air Superiority is a far better choice than Hover, as you can easily keep things locked down between Focus, Shockwave (lulz), and Air Superiority.

Confront... just... no.

After messing around a bit in Cimerora, I decided to throw this guide together on the new and very well-designed Cimerora Traitors faction. Note that Issue 12 has not gone live at the time of writing this, and things may change in between here and then.

GENERAL

Traitors showcase the hopefully upcoming Shield set. The shields are probably the most annoying and dangerous thing about the Traitors. These add Magnitude 3 mez protection to hold, immobilize, stun, sleep, and all of the usual crowd, but not to confusion (which makes powers that cause this handy when fighting them). (I am not sure at this time if they resist Fear, could someone clarify this?) However, the shields seem to be a toggle, and will drop if Traitors are held/stunned/whatever though them. This makes getting alpha on Traitors very handy to ending encounters with minimal trouble, as if you land a hold on them before they draw their shields, they are just as mez-susceptible as every other faction.

These shields provide repel and knockback resist as well, enough for bosses to stand right in front of a Tornado without flying away. This is both a blessing and a curse, as knockback won't throw them around as much, but Air Superiority is ineffective on them.


MINIONS

[u]Legionarii[u]: The run-of-the-mill minion of the Traitors, they are armed with a shield (above) and a gladius, AKA broadsword. They possess the slash attack, a highly damaging Shield Bash attack, and a ranged Pilum attack. Not much else to say about these.

[u]Immunes Surgeon[u]: These things are a PAIN. They are essentially attackless empaths, packing heal aura, heal other, ressurect, and clear mind. They should be the first things you take out when fighting Traitors. Important to note is that they do not have shields, unlike all other Traitors, and are susceptible to mezzing.

[u]Immunes Engineer[u]: These are identical to Legionarii, but have an additional firebomb attack that leaves a burn patch for a few seconds. Not really much to say about these either.




LIEUTENANTS

[u]Centurion[u]
The Centurions are similar to the Legionarii. They have gained the Hack attack, and have a variant of Clarity renamed "Shout of Command".




BOSSES

[u]Praefectus Cantorum[u]
Another upgraded Legionarii, these seem to be packing some sort of maneuvers variant. I'm not positive on whether this is actually maneuvers, how big the benefit is, or whether they have other "leadership" type powers. Info here would be great.




ELITE BOSSES

[u]Minotaur[u]: One of the two Mythical Beast enemies, Minotaurs use Battleaxes in addition to unstoppable near death and a "Fetid Howl" cone attack which does 50/50 smashing and toxic damage.

[u]Cyclops[u]: Cyclops use Super Strength attacks, including Knockout blow and Hurl, and also use Unstoppable when near death.

[u]Romulus' Generals[u]: These are essentially Praefectus scaled to elite boss strength.




ARCHVILLAINS

WARNING: Possible spoiler




[u]Romulus(Human)[u]: Romulus is essentially an archvillain Praefectus when you fight him the first time. Nothing special.

[u]Romulus(Nictus)[u]: Romulus is a much tougher customer this time. He possesses many warshade attacks, the normal sword and shield attacks, and hits *extremely* hard. He is assisted by three Nictus Essences that each perform a specific function (see below). As dangerous as Romulus is, he is also the hardest to kill, and thus should be your last target.

[u]Nictus Essence(Left)[u]: The 'healer' essence, this spams a multitarget version of Twilight Grasp and MUST be your first target if you want to beat this encounter in any reasonable amount of time. All Essences use a stunning, damaging attack called Death Throes when killed. This affects every player on the map (it has hit me from clear across the map before), is a high-magnitude stun, and lasts for a considerable amount of time.

[u]Nictus Essence(Middle)[u]: The "blaster" essence, this should be your third target, before Romulus. It does hurt quite a bit and has a lot of area of effect attacks, but arguably less dangerous than the other two essences. All Essences use a stunning, damaging attack called Death Throes when killed. This affects every player on the map (it has hit me from clear across the map before), is a high-magnitude stun, and lasts for a considerable amount of time.


[u]Nictus Essence(Right)[u]: The "summoner" essence, this should be your second target, after the left essence. It acts as a mobile, difficult-to-kill Shadow Cyst, and quickly floods the battle with Unbound Nictus. All Essences use a stunning, damaging attack called Death Throes when killed. This affects every player on the map (it has hit me from clear across the map before), is a high-magnitude stun, and lasts for a considerable amount of time.



THINGS I WANT TO ADD TO THIS GUIDE

<ul type="square"> [*] More in-depth tactics to fighting Traitors[*] More information on the EBs and the Romulus encounter at the end of Time's Arrow[*] More information on the powers used by Traitors[/list]

If any of the info here is wrong or missing, please let me know and I'll change it. Thanks!

Awesome guide. I'm greatly enjoying my offensively-geared Ill/Storm so far. PA and FR pack an almost ludicrously strong punch together.

One thing I do have to ask is, wouldn't GI be better than SI for a /Storm, since SI doesn't stack with Mist when GI does? I guess this really depends on whether you took Mist to begin with, but I thought it was worth asking. Thanks!