JuliusSeizure

^^Yup. Firstly, Shadow Punch was increased from 0.57 to 0.83. This change impacted a proc build that cycled SP, ie buzzsaw builds, significantly. Secondly, Midnight Grasp and Siphon Life had their damage greatly increased while Soul Drain was reworked to be more effective.

The end result was that DM changed from being more effective as a speed based proc set to a ST facsimile of Broad Sword (Siphon/Disembowel and MG/Head Splitter being quite similar.).

This skill doesn't look nearly as powerful as some of you guys make it out to be.

Just a pointer, jump straight up with Shockwave, targeting an enemy close to you, and click the ckill at the apex. You will ragdoll everybody as if it were a PBAOE, throwing them against the floor, providing much more mitigation than knockdown does and limiting scatter. It's easy, it mimics a PBAOE, and with range enhancement it's a MUCH larger AOE than anything else you can have.

Claws has some of the best soft control, and ragdoll is far more potent than knockdown, by a factor of 3 at least.

The cone and PBAoE issue is a matter of preference, especially when Shockwave is 90 degrees or arc. Of those skills, only Fault has 100% soft control. Shockwave and Focus are both 100%. There arguably isn't a better single target soft control skill than Focus in the entire game.

To state that Claws lacks soft control is wrong, and there's just no way to dance around it. Good try.

[ QUOTE ]
Claws lacks soft control, so you'll likely be better off with something else.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm, there probably isn't much better soft control than Focus and Shockwave.

Herding pretty much died when the agro cap of 17 was implemented. Was this before CoV came out?

This complaint comes across as: "I want to shoot fish in a barrel and now I have to shoot them in an inflated kiddie pool-- do I really have to move my wrist this far?"

[ QUOTE ]
I'm hoping to see something similar make it into a ranged set (Dual Pistols? Cross fingers!)

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what I'm hoping for too!

Congrats HotFlash!

[ QUOTE ]
After all that enchanced damage being dished out for a long two minutes, ten seconds seems like a very minor if not negligable drawback to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fun fact: 120 seconds of Build Up has more rooted/no attacking penalty, due to animating the skill 12 times, than the 10 seconds of -9990% damage in Rage. It also costs more total endurance for 120 seconds of Build Up. Rage's only real penalty is that its costs are condensed.

So, even if Build Up could be made perma, it would STILL be arguably worse than Rage. This $#!% has bothered me since issue 1.

120 seconds of Rage:
<ul type="square">[*]30.2 endureance (5.2 up front, 25 after 120seconds)[*]10 seconds of -9990% enhanced damage, with ~1.4 seconds of rooted animation during initial cast.[*]10 seconds of -20% defense, which can be ignored even with just SOs.[/list]120 seconds of BU:
<ul type="square">[*]~14 seconds of rooted animation, 0 damage, 0 control, 0 temp powers activated for full damage with a generous 20% toHit buff from stacked *cough* Rage.[*]52 total endurance[/list]

[ QUOTE ]
/EA gets a group heal that does just 3% per enemy, and it can miss (IIRC).

[/ QUOTE ]

Power Sink and Energy Drain are both auto-hit.


The catch with any buff to ELA being attached to Power Sink is that endurance drain is the set's second layer of mitigation. Power Sink must be used as early as possible in combat so that Lightning Field and enemy attacks will cause them to bottom out on endurance. Power Sink also must be used early so that a second application can be applied if necessary.

This dynamic basically means that a heal attached to Power Sink would be bad-- the skill must be used early in combat but heals are generally required later. Adding +regen or +resist to Power Sink, on a per target basis, would be much better for ELA. These effects would synergize well with the need to use Power Sink early in combat for endurance drain purposes.

[ QUOTE ]
The first fix to rage had a -recovery component when it was on test.

It was terribad and the change wa reverted to back except the -99999% damage was added and the "affecting self only" was removed.

[/ QUOTE ]

I still LOL over this. The forums whined so hard that they just ended up buffing Rage.

[ QUOTE ]
I always assumed it was that room in their caves with the big hive-shaped structures full of little cubbyholes.

[/ QUOTE ]

My impression of that room is that it's where they keep the Rikti Monkeys.

[ QUOTE ]
If you find ElA lacking in survivability, you can easily stack 30% positional defense to it using the available power slots and slotting. Top that with Darkest Night and you have yourself a living breathing terror that is extremely survivable, never runs out of endurance.


[/ QUOTE ]

Do the same with WP. Dark, Fire, Invuln, EA, Shields, or Stone and you will have markedly superior results. Also, you shouldn't have to do all of that just to equal WP with the fighting pool...

Providing a laundry list of epic powers and IO set bonuses is not a solution for ELA. The set is very poor from 1-36, even while solo.

It's broken. It was grandfathered in. The last time a harsher crash was tested, the b!$%^ing on the forum was deafening.

People like overpowered skills? Duh. The current crash is an utter joke, having a lesser per second cost than buildup-- particularly considering that the -defense is ignored when rage is stacked, which is incredibly easy to do.

You're welcome. Enemies and content added:

Cimmerorans
AE spawns with full powersets, potent bosses/EBs/AVs
LRSF
ITF
LGTF
Reichsman TF

Nothing was changed to existing enemies, significantly more difficult groups and missions were added, however. As usual, I think the potency of SS has tainted your perspective on this issue.

Since issue 7:

EA, buffed
Invuln, buffed
Fire, buffed
WP. introduced
Shield, introduced
SR, ported
Invention Origin, soft capping for defense is a joke


I think a bit has changed regarding armor sets since then. ELA has been stagnant and, being resist based, gets borked through IO bonuses relative to defense sets.

Pairing resistance types across the board, like how defense types were paired, would require a modicum of parity between resistance and defense bonuses in the IO system. There is but one rule in the IO system with this regard: resistance shall get the shaft. Always the shaft.

So thus, it didn't happen and probably never will.

"But the worst thing I ever done - I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa - and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life."