Kenshinhan

I'm looking for a secondary from either Blasters or Corruptors that provides the best ranged AoE damage compared to all other Blaster/Corruptor secondaries. (if this even exists)

Once I get enough opinions I'll make a decision and post a build. If you want to go ahead and post a build of what you have with Arch/ I'll definitely not mind.

the best fire/kin trollers are /ice or /stone for soft capping, don't bother using flashfire for faster kill rates on spawns, and probably have around 90% global rech thru io's. The purpled ones get 102% global rech with soft capping. What remains the heated debate is if hotfeet and fire cages should be dmg proc'd or purpled.

As someone who has both a 50 fire/kin/stone(soft capped s/l) and a ss/fire/mu brute (needs work only +50% global rech), I have to say the following:

I experienced a lot more consistent purple dropping on my Liberate Nemesis Farm as opposed to my Defend Warriors from BM farm at -1/X8 & +0/X8. The fire/kin/stone can handle the +3/X8 a lot easier than an ss/fire/mu brute can without +max hp accolades. Granted I don't have the best global recharge on him yet, but the brute is just far more expensive than the fire/kin as the above poster said. I'd wager to say Liberate farm is a better mission for purples and enemy count than Defend Warriors from BM. Nemesis are a lot harder given their double stacked vengeance as opposed to simply softcapping s/l vs Praetorians in Warriors.

Seconding Earth/Fire Dom over Fire/Earth Dom. Earth primary has the most non-sleep/confuse aoe control. /Fire secondary is the most damaging Dom secondary in the game.

Runners up:
Fire/Kin/Stone Controller: The best farmer in the game when soft-capped to smashing/lethal defense. You can run around with rock armor and hot feet for a volcanic appearance.

Stone/Fire Tank(Fire/Stone Brute) One of the best tankers in the game for a combination of taking damage and dishing it out. The Brute version is a great +3/X8 farmer for Nemesis Farm. Also Rock Armor and Brimstone Armor make a great Volcanic design when you change the color tints. (You can actually see the lava flowing on their rock armor)

Hand Clap should be far more useful. Its KB on top of its 30s rech and no damage make it highly undesirable. (aside from the PbAoE 15' Radius)

Hand Clap should be changed to Cone:
PvE DMG Scale: 1.42
Range: 15'
DMG: 31.28 up to 7'
DMG: 31.28 DMG up to 15' (so it hits twice within 7' and once within 15')
Arc: 90 Deg
Keep current disorient effects
RES -13% for 8s. (Stackable from Same Caster)
(No more KB)

As for Rage, while we're throwing out opinions I always envisioned Rage as being an ability that increases damage and damage resistance(8% RES to All DMG but Psi, Stackable) at the cost of some (-5% To-Hit Self) accuracy and an energy crash when it falls. However, the crash should only happen if you're not fighting, not at a fixed timer. The best way to simulate that would be to turn Rage into an attack, but without damage. Rage can be a mini-taunt(Targeted AoE, 15' Radius, 40' Range, Mag 4 +13.5s), and would only crash when the duration expires and hadn't been renewed on targets(max 10). Being enraged should also intimidate your opposition to some degree with a minor to-hit debuff(-10% To-Hit Targets)

so at what date can we start emailing (global mail) between villains and heroes? The Global Message of the Day is making me itchy everytime I read that.

Let's not forget Dominators get outdamaged by Containment Controllers. The Controller AT melee/range dmg mod can be treated as 'double' when containment works, which is all the time after mezes of any kind hit. If you do that the Controllers Mod > Dominators, so they will out-damage dominators with Containment in question in terms of AoE. (assuming both were able to use the same exact powers). Add to that, Controllers get access to Kinetics and will definitely out-damage Dominators at that point. Dominators just have better ST damage on average, outside of Earth PPP for Trollers.

I haven't done official tests on FM vs DM. But FM is more DoT centric and thus shines best with the more +DAM you have. (Which is why a FM Brute > FM Scrapper because Fury affects DoT while Critical doesn't, and the +850% damage ceiling on Brutes)

So without Shields, FM loses the AAO +DAM Buff (and the KD AoE for some mitigation) and might lose out its king of ST damage without it(DoT ticks lower damage). Whereas DM has known to be king with or without it now ever since EM lost its effectiveness in Energy Transfer. It makes sense though, DM has very little if not any AoE, but a ton of utility. FM has barely any utility or mitigation and is straight damage and DoT.

Fiery Melee: Best ST primary when paired with Shield Defense, with very respectable AoE In Fire Sword Circle.

Dark Melee: Best ST primary with or without Shield Defense, very little AoE

Super Strength: The best AoE Primary for Brute, hands down in Footstomp with Forced Feedback Recharge Proc

Electrical Melee: Second to Super Strength with Thunder Strike and Lightning Rod, best paired with Shield Defense

Dual Blades: Another decent AoE set, best paired with WP and Elec Armor.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned MM's Bots/Traps, considering how well they can solo AV/GM, and have decent AoE farming capabilities. Add to the fact they're easier to softcap with and have decent mez protection from protector bots. Tankerminds seem to be able to take alpha's just as well as tanker, especially with seeker drones.

Granted, they're not as team friendly considering that /Traps has "set-up" time. But I do like the Solo'ness of this type of MM.

I've a Fire/Ice/Fire Blaster named (The) Cryo-Phoenix. He's mutant whose powers have turned him into a winged beast, but can disguise himself in a human form. (Looking much in the way of Khelds with glowy eyes). He turns into the Cryo Phoenix when he uses the fire APP power, Rise of the Phoenix. It's an awesome concept but I haven't really restricted his power uses, save that one, in terms of switching to and from human form.

That's a good alternative. However, a lot of the times I've noticed that things run away from the burn patch and come back just outside its radius, making doing aoe damage tougher for a tank/brute/scrapper/stalker. No power should deter your aoe damage defense set, when said power is a part of that defense set, because of an avoid affect. I would much rather prefer disorient than avoid, and you could keep its radius small at 8' if you put up a disorient effect or a built-in Hand-Clap(9.536s Stun (mag 2), +9.536s Stun (mag 1) (50% chance) PvE only). Disorient isn't hard to imagine on a combustion-like power, since Flashfire and RoTP are good examples of fire doing this in aoe. Burn could certainly use a better animation to rationalize a stun effect. I'm hinting at how it should look if you were to burst out of confines as strong heroes do. (similar to the power-up animations of the Fire and Plasma Shield)

RoTP is great in concept. But the DoT is centric in one area and it also scatters mobs! On top of that, they're mostly disoriented so they're NOT comming back into the RoTP pet for more damage. (Just like Burn's avoid) I can't stand that an aoe/resist centric defense set has powers that disrupt that aoe potential with knockback or avoid. Take that off, please. Knockup. Making those changes alone will make Fiery Aura do more damage because it will have more reliable DoT with no counterproductive avoid/knockback.

If there is an official thread for giving Devs/Castle ideas on how to change/fix a powerset, let me know. Otherwise I'm looking for other's ideas while projecting my own.

The following changes I think will up the playability of Fiery Aura in general gameplay on Villain and hero side, while also upping the damage with changes to certain powers.

- Consume: RES (Endurance, Recovery) +69.2%* for 30s. Recharge Time: 60s* (It should be on par with Energy Aura's and Elec Armor's +END moves, considering Fire has no inherent RES End Drain so they need Consume more often)

- Temperature Protection: RES(RunSpeed, RechargeTime, FlySpeed, JumpHeight, SpeedJumping) +69.2%* for 10.25s, +0.15 Recovery for 10.25s
(Temperature Protection should insulate you further and help keep warmth in, thus added recovery rate)

- Burn: -10.38 Terrorize*, Immobilize for 100s. RES(Terrorize*, Immobilize) +103.8% for 100s. Flames(minion class pet): Radius: 15'*, Remove Avoid* Max Targets: 10*
(This will make Burn's DoT far less avoided and reliant enough to take for an attack rather than just mez protection. The only other route is to make Burn immobilize or slow if it keeps the Avoid on the Flames Pet)

- Rise of the Pheonix: +8.308 KnockUp* (Changed from Knockback. Knockback + Stun makes most of the DoT avoided


* = ammendment to value or power mechanic

Problem solved.

I just leveled an ss/fire brute to 50.

My largest concern defensively about Fiery Aura are the amount of holes it has to general gameplay content compared to all the other defensive powersets.
FA is a resist defense powerset that lacks: -Resist Protection, KB Protection, Immob Protection sans Burn+RoTP, End Drain Protection/Resist. The End Drain is a killer for villside /FA's leveling up outside AE. Mu Strikers, Carnies, Maltas. On top of that Consume has one of the longer recharges of endurance recovery powers, compared to all other defense powersets.

It'd be nice if Consume had a 60s End Drain protection or a 30s one with a much quicker recharge. Fiery Embrace could last longer or have less recharge to facilitate boosting /FA's average damage output to some degree. RotP is nice but a lot of the damage misses because of it's KB. It'd up the damage of the /FA set if RotP for /FA only had KnockUp.

Does a scrapper crit off of High DoT that is Gloom? If not, the Brute will pull ahead overtime due to Fury boosting Gloom's DoT while the scrapper can't crit off of it.

I think that when devs make powersets, they don't always keep all AT's in mind that can use that powerset, when its being designed. Rage by premise fits in Super Strength and its mechanics of +DMG make a lot of sense to make Super Strength compete with other Tanker secondaries. Rage may have been intended to last as long as it does and the ST powers (other than KoB) were made weaker on damage scale to compensate for this.

Build-Up isn't really a problem across the AT's in melee powersets because it doesn't have a chance to stack for more Scrapper DMG discrepency compared to Brute/Tank. Only with rage stacking is it noticeable that the Scrappers glean an additional 40% damage vs Brutes and Tankers. This was either oversight, or with any several assumptions: Rage would work differently with Scrappers, SS would never go to them (or stalkers more or less), the extra 40% damage is not seen as overpowering enough.

Any melee powerset with enough self +DMG boosts are going to favor Scrappers over Brute/Tanker in damage output when in burst damage and little/no DoT. We've seen that SS on scrappers as is won't overpower them. They will be the new AoE kings only because SS was designed to be the AoE king of melee powersets given the moveset it has and the lack of AoE until Footstomp. I don't see that as imbalanced or overpowered if that's what SS was intended to do, especially given that it is 10th in ST damage of the top 10 ST melee damage dealers. You see sets like Fire Control and /Fire Assault which place top 10 in more than one category within a list of similar powersets.

I think, rather than asking the question will SS be OP on Scrappers, we should ask, "If we give SS to Scrappers, do we want Scrappers to be best with SS, or should that remain with Brutes (due to fury)?"

I think SS will need to be changed for Scrappers only because I'm of the opinion that powersets should be best on their native AT's, or rather, should perform the best overall on their native AT. If there was anyway to make it so SS originally came with DoT powers and w/ Build Up duration Rage we'd not be having this discussion of SS Scrapper OP, but a different one entirely. You can't do a blanket statement of "If not OP on Brute, then not OP on Scrapper" because mechanics in a powerset that normally compensate the native AT's weaknesses(lower damage mods) will only stretch the discrepency in DMG on the new AT, in comparison to its other powersets and the native AT.

A list of ways to change SS by power, for Scrappers:
Footstomp change: Radius: 7', End Cost: 11.125 (It is now their smashing version of Thunder Strike with more AoE damage, 2s more of recharge)

Knock-out Blow: Range: 7'. The previous 13' range makes sense for thematically and traditionally 'larger' AT's like Brutes/Tanks, compared to Scrappers, and this brings KoB to seismic smash range while taking 5s more recharge, and longer cast time to give a MAG 7 KUp. Don't ask me why Seismic Smash has 7' range when you're wielding a stone mallet vs KoB barehanded @ 13'.

Rage: Affects for 60s. The duration is halved, simply put, making it harder to stack it for a sizeable duration, if at all. Someone do the math to figure out how much 90% global recharge from IO sets, +70% from haste and 100% FF procc'ing. would do for your Scrapper Rage.

For Farming:
SS/fire better than SS/SD or Ele/SD?

Ele Melee has an AoE = Footstomp in Thunder Strike, where Footstomp has double the radius but 20 less damage @50 and a less PvE DMG Scale than TS. TS has a 18s recharge vs FS 20s, but TS has a cast time of 3.3s vs FS 2.1s.

Ele Melee also has another nuke-like AoE in Lightning Rod, and a cone.

SD seems better than Fire in AoE damage with Shield Charge which is very much like Ele Melee's Lightning Rod. (90s recharge, less damage)

So many advocate ss/fire as the best farmer but I'm skeptical. How is it Ele Melee isn't the primiere primary with /SD as the secondary for Brutes?

If /Traps is the best for AV/GM soloing, what's the best primary? I heard that Ninja/ is the most ST damaging MM primary. I've heard Thugs/ is the overall best Primary for having all but the top end pet being ranged.

Furthermore, how quickly and safe is it for a */Traps MM to solo AV and GM's compared to your Ill/Rad? I also predict that on i18 they'll give /Rad to MM's.

SS/elec. SS/fire is good with a mini-buildup in it to stack with rage, and their damage aura is slightly more base damage than /Elecs, as well as Fiery Embrace boosting it to double. SS/elec is far more survivable in a majority of content in the game because of larger resists and a psionic resist, but SS/fire edges it out in farming damage/speed. Not to mention the self-rez it has that, with enough global recharge will be ready often enough (and if not then you're probably in over your head). SS/fire has far more healing consistency considering 120s recharge on energize vs 40sec recharge on Healing Flames. SS/elec has its God Mode.

Fire Melee primary seems lacking in mitigation which is great for resist defense sets. SS is kind of endurance heavy and /Elec handles that.

Comparing AoE's and DMG Boosts:
Footstomp has a 15' radius, KB, 59.23 Smashing DMG @50, 1.42 DMG scale, 20s Rech, 2.1s Cast Time. (Less damage, more radius, KB)
Rage lasts much longer than buildup and is permanant dmg boost when IO'd rech for all but 10s gaps (in which DMG is SET to -300% from the -9000% DMG debuff)

FSC has 10' radius, 32.32 lethal and 32.32 fire DMG @50 and 80% chance of 4 X 4.7 DoT DMG @50, 1.87 DMG scale, 20s Rech, 2.67 Cast Time. (More damage, less radius, no KB)

Build-Up won't be up all the time so damage drops to normal.

Is DS/Poison the best MM's have for this solo'ing feat?

And coincidentally are they the best 1v1 PvP combo of powersets?

I'd like opinions and conjecture on which is the best MM for AV/GM solo'ing and how competative it would be compared to your Ill/Rad troller.

I'm fairly new to the end content of this game. Still haven't done half as much as you all.

But I read the forums regularly. And I think what matters are things like Farming and AV/GM solo'ing to most people, as the rarest things in the game are best attainble in these events (badge hunting excluded). As I've read the best at doing either of these are Troller builds Fire/Kin and Ill/Rad respectively for various reasons in their builds. (FS, or perma PA and Rad Inf). Though I've heard /poison MM's might take the AV/GM soloing crown?

For Dom vs Troller arguments, containment is key here. It pretty much doubles troller damage constantly on targets afflicted by mezs, and closes the gap at the base damage modifier (According to Paragon Wiki, Trollers have a base damage mod at lvl.50 of .55/.55, and Dominators have 1.05/.95, melee/range respectively), on top of doing your 'critical mag' for mezs. Domination will do your constant double mag and heal your endurance but you're stuck with you 1.05/.95 damage mod (vs 1.1/1.1 if you double .55 of trollers) and the same damage cap as Troller. (+300% damage, or 400%cap)

As for Dom curiosity, I'm very skeptical of making a Dom until I see Electric Control released for them. If it boasts either of the better AoE damage and/or AoE Holds for Dom/Troller Primaries, I think it will end up pairing the best with /Fire and be a beast for Dom's, and be a beast for /Kin Trollers.

This is why I hate Paragon Wiki. Are their any websites that list the actual values of powers without me having to go make an AT just to compare powers? Paragon Wiki listed Slow recharge on both Footstomp and Lightning Rod yet apparantly 20 sec recharge and 90 sec recharge are both "slow". :P

As for farming on Vill Side, is SS/El Armor better than SS/FA (Inclu Nemesis)

On paper (based off Paragon wiki) Electrical Melee / SD looks like the best powerset pairing for Brute farming.

I'm confused as to why El Melee is not chosen over SStrength for farming in general, with both of the Ele Melee AoE's having knockdown just like Foot Stomp.
El Melee has Build Up to make up for no Rage, and Rage has its 10 sec crash.
El Melee's AoE Lightning Rod is listed as Superior DMG (vs Footstomp's Moderate DMG) and has the same recharge speed as FootStomp, and can take a Forced Feedback Recharge Proc. The only gems SStrength has to write home about looks like Knockout Blow for ST Extreme DMG, along with Haymaker for High DMG. Although with the more powerful AoE's from El Melee you'd think the gap would be eclipsed in ST damage when AoE's are cycled in constantly on one target.

First of all I want to know if most people believe this combo is solid for AV/GM solo'ing and then if it's a viable PvP build for Redside teaming and/or arena. I'm fairly new to the forums so if I'm breaking any posting rules let me know. I'm looking for a build for either av/gm solo'ing or PvP with what IO Sets I'll need. I don't have that Hero Planner people use.