Laevateinn
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Posts
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Quote:I'm interested. Can you please show an example icap build? It might be the way I build, but I haven't been able to icap any nin stalker.Originally Posted by Auroxis
No, but I would purposefully build /Ninjutsu with an incarnate soft cap, and rely on purples in high -Def encounters like heavy Vicky spawns.
The icap is all SR's got going for it, if I can replicate that on Nin, I'll switch sets at once. -
The best solution I have found is
Mass Hyp > aoe attack > Total Dom > aoe attack
This lets you get off both Terrify and your APP AoE. Typical permahasten builds will have 55s-65s recharge on total dom. It's a glacially slow kill rate compared to top-tier builds, but at least it's something.
Add a DoT interface and PPM procs in both your AoEs and Total Dom for best results. -
Quote:That would be a great change, and if the recharge and tohit of aoe holds were improved as well, I'd love having it applied to critters. It'd add a little strategy to mezzing - that guy can't be stunned anymore so here comes the aoe confuse!Originally Posted by Garent
If we're going to talk about changing mez balance in general, what I've been thinking is that mezzes should use the mez suppression mechanic from pvp. You can't be affected by mezzes or knockback until a certain amount of time after recovering from one, and there's a limit to how long you can be mezzed.
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Quote:Plenty of ATs exceed, match, or come reasonably close to Blaster damage. Brutes, scrappers etc, or endgame controllers if you're only willing to consider ranged damage.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
To be a tankmage in City of Heroes, you have to be a Blaster with high defense. As the other archetypes either lack high defense or lack being a blaster, there are no other tankmages in City of Heroes.
Conversely, the ability of Blasters to build for defense is much lesser than any of the above ATs, even among ranged squishies alone: Blasters get the worst modifiers for both tough/weave/APP toggle and leadership, and do not have PBAoE ally buffs that give mitigation or heals. It's not exactly clear what Blasters have got in exchange for these disadvantages. -
I never figured that one out either.
Luckily in the case the grenadier DCs, unless you're a freshly minted +0, it's straightforward (if annoying) to blow up the weapons crates and get more. -
1. Change all KB to KD.
2. Give -Res to all human form attacks.
These two would allow PBs to fill a support role by contributing to team defense and offense.
3. Toggle suppression while shifted -
Quote:It's a small advantage which does not compensate for their lack of versatility. It must be weighed against other more significant advantages that successful ATs bring.Originally Posted by MisterD
Ok maybe 3 attacks isnt slinging pain..but compare it to how much damage the other ATs do when mezzed? Go on, add up all those strings of 0.0s. And the argument about other ATs not being mezzed does not hold water..they still CAN be mezzed.
Also, how can blasters being able to use 3 attacks be a disadvantage? Does any other AT have that? Did blasters have it, before? No. So surely it would be an improvement on what they had. Again..dont see the disadvantage.
In practice all ATs vulnerable to mez will counter that weakness, whether with breakfrees or clarion. Defiance doesn't change this equation - blasters will still need to carry breakfrees and clarion to use their full offensive power, the only really good tool they have. Therefore, it provides negligible benefit. -
Quote:Correction: they can use up to three attacks while under mez. They still lose most of their AoE power, a significant chunk of ST power, mobility and detoggling of offensive auras. However you spin it, it's still a significant disadvantage.Originally Posted by MisterD
Need to be able to keep slinging pain all the time? Wait, you mean like..attack when under mez? So..like they ALREADY can do? Not this stupid argument again.
Blasters have been shoehorned into having damage and only damage, but their damage is not significantly superior to that of the damage ATs. Most blasters don't have significant support power, survivability, mez protection, aggro control or good herding ability. I do expect them to get something in return for not having all of that - it doesn't necessarily have to be armor and mez protection, but it needs to be something.
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.Quote:If you cant play a blaster, go roll something else. -
Quote:Proper ones i.e. fire sword circle. Jousting is this trick/bug/exploit where you stand in melee range of the enemy then fire the PBAoE and jump away at the same time. Rooting apparently does not stop you from falling/jumping/drifting in flight, so the animation executes while you're in mid-air rather than within melee range of the enemies, and you take less damage.Originally Posted by Leo_G
Which PBAoEs are you talking about? Proper ones or cone ones? And I'm not sure what using such attacks have to do with survival.
The downsides are that you lose animation time and that you're out of position for further melee attacks. -
If you're talking about gameplay tips, it might be that there just aren't that many to share, and those that exist have little effect (I'm not convinced jousting PBAoEs actually does anything for a blaster compared to, you know, a proper defense build). This game is very easy, with simplistic mechanics and gameplay.
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Quote:That would certainly do it, yes.Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
So "fixing" Blasters comes down to giving them full on mez protection and armor?
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Alpha - Should be considered part of the IO build since it has such a big impact on slot efficiency. Try putting together some builds and see which one produces the best results in terms of enhancement values, rech/def, endurance usage and damage. The most commonly taken ones are Cardiac, Spiritual, Agility and Musculature (probably overkill for you since you can cap your own damage).
Judgement - any will do, although void is notable for -50% damage which stacks with the already high -Dmg that kin outpits.
Interface - any of the ones that deal damage are good; the non-damaging ones don't offer anything worthwhile in exchange. Note that while some people advise against reactive on the assumption that it will be stacked to the limit in team fights, I consistently get reactive procs against trial AVs and have yet to see evidence that this reduces reactive's damage output.
Destiny - all except the teleport one are good (and even that has some niche uses in speed/badge runs). If you're not taking the Psi APP, the mez protection from Clarion is hard to pass up.
Lore - Try any of the high single-target damage pets (Cimerorans lead the pack by far, but are the least mobile and have the worst damtype; Phantoms, Rularuu, Warworks are other top contenders, and Longbow lag in raw damage but output large amounts of -Regen). I've tried both ST and AoE (Vanguard, Storm elementals) pets and found the AoE ones to be disappointing. Dumb pets don't herd and decimate hordes of enemies the way players do unless you're really good at micromanaging them. As a fire/kin you already have AoE damage in oodles anyway. Few of the support powers do anything worthwhile so in in doubt, pick core. -
There's no consensus and I don't think one is needed - you would have to look real hard to find a build that can't cherry pick an AV to solo in this day and age.
There's also more to the act than difficulty settings. I'm not impressed by anyone soloing Chimera no matter what settings they do it on, he's really that easy. -
With developer content there's common knowledge floating about regarding what's in each TF/trial/etc., how long it is and roughly how hard it is. I know an ITF will take 40-50 minutes and I need a character who can hold aggro to handle the regenerating war walker in UG. No such thing with AE arcs. I can't plan my play time or strategy and I don't know if I'm walking into someone's 2-hour slogfest or if there will be a self rezzing, immune to -regen willpower AV in it.
AE arcs use the TF mechanic so I can't do 2 missions, take a break to ITF then come back to do the other 3. I have to switch characters or abandon it and try again which is annoying.
"It's all virtual reality" which detracts from the impact of the stories presented in it, however good.
I would actually be interested if AE were developed in the way TonyV suggested, but it sounds like a lot of resources and effort that I'd be happier if they put it into promoting trials and incarnate content. My suggestion is to drop the pretense of going after farmers and increase the XP in AE. At least then I would have a tool to powerlevel my characters when I'm rerolling them into new FotM powersets, which would increase my enjoyment of the game. AE currently does not contribute to my enjoyment of the game. -
Quote:I don't see this as prejudice, rather a player exercising their right to play or not play with whoever they chose. What criteria people use to decide when to leave a team is their business alone.Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid
Sorry, but helping someone else doesn't suddenly negate unbound prejudice. It doesn't work like that, and it never will.
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The reason you were able to accomplish this has already been stated: most of the difficulty in soloing a GM is in beating its 350+hp/sec regeneration, and DP properly slotted outputs more -regen than even debuff sets can manage. Any character can make itself seem strong by cherry-picking situations tailored to its specific strengths (e.g. the emp defender that soloed a pylon with buffed warworks pets, trying to prove that empathy is a good soloer), but performance must be measured against a wide variety of content and situations.
This video is an impressive-looking soundbite meant to stifle mention of the AT's weaknesses, but it doesn't address any of the issues that blasters have, mainly offering only damage where other ATs offer comparable damage plus much more (e.g. aggro control, support power - little of which is required or evident in this video). You do have some worthwhile suggestions that would be a good first step to making blasters balanced again, such as the changes to blaster nukes and secondaries in general. -
Endgame, Fire procs interface more effectively with 3 pets and a damage aura. Even flashfire procs interface. It has the fastest-animating ST hold, ST immob and aoe immob of all controller primaries, and does good ST and aoe damage. Fire's main weakness is that since it has no spawn breakers other than flashfire and cinders, it's weak against enemy groups that pop dispersion bubbles, which neutralize both of them. This is really only a problem vs IDF, but they are everywhere in trials.
Plant has 2x damage on the aoe immob, making up for its poor damtype, and has lower base recharge on its aoe mez (seeds). While most controllers have a base recharge of 90s on theirs, Plant's is only 60s, meaning that you can make it an every-spawn power with minimal slotting, and even elite trial leagues struggle to kill fast enough to run a Plant controller out of aoe mezzes; Seeds also does not have the lower base ToHit that many AoE mezzes have. It has creepers for even more damage/control, and does not run into the problem with dispersion bubbles that fire has. The main downside is poorer ST damage than Fire.
Either will make a strong combination, really, but I'm partial to plant since it's more balanced than fire.
(edit) Don't know anything about pvp so can't comment on that. -
To get that 1.25 S/L def, heavily overslot frozen armor by moving your red fortunes there and/or take agility. You have more rech than needed for perma-PA so you can afford to lose some rech.
Here's an example using agility core paragon that keeps perma-PA and capped S/L/R, while adding much better slotted shields, better recovery and well slotted/procced attacks. Do not run tough, use it as a slot mule only.
(edit) As a footnote, on an illusionist I found capped Range/aoe more valuable than S/L/R. You have no damage/debuff auras and thus no need to survive in melee, and you have plenty of tools to avoid being caught in melee. Aoe is much more dangerous to a controller.
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Mind Control - Lacking in hard and soft control and damage. The 90s aoe mez inflicts sleep rather than the more conventional stun. Both of Mind's TAoE hard controls combined have less uptime than Flashfire; in exchange for this disadvantage you pay twice the power choices, slots and IOs. It doesn't have either an ST or AoE immobilize, so it lacks persistent containment, benefits less from proc/interface damage, and cannot lock AVs in place for Lore pets to chew on. So not only does it have craptacular damage, it can't use many of the best tools that players have to fix craptacular damage.
Blasters - have the weaknesses of both squishy ATs (no mez protection, weak inherent defenses) and melee ones (little force multiplication, little support power). They're pigeonholed into being good at only damage, but don't do more ST or AoE damage than the high-damage ATs and receive few advantages in compensation. Many powersets are poorly designed e.g. Elec - no T3 blast; energy - unreliable KB; fire manip - melee attacks (on a lower damage scale than the ranged ones no less) on an AT whose unique advantage is high ranged damage. -
Some sets can hit 45 def without fighting pool (e.g. powerboosted Time, SR, SD, Dark affinity, etc), while some can't softcap even with fighting pool, so I wouldn't call it mandatory. However, the majority of characters are better with it than without.
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All my characters (yes, every one of them) has the same layout:
Speed - permahasten vastly improves performance for nearly all characters, and can be achieved cheaply and easily
Fighting - I consider softcapped defense mandatory; tough/weave are key to survivable, versatile heroes
Leadership - Benefits yourself and teammates, stacks with your armors or ally buffs;
Travel power - usually rangers will get hover/fly, while melees will take leaping (for CJ's defense boost)
Others I don't use:
Medicine - Great for characters without heals, but not so good in the DoT-heavy endgame, can be replaced by Destiny
Presence - I've always wanted this for my squishies, but short duration, tohit check and lack of power pool slots always get in the way -
Quote:I don't agree at all. Top-tier builds, correctly played, can solo crates, clear terminals, pull NS/Siege, tank the LIWW, tank the Avatar, control Olympian Guards, survive alpha and wipe out spawn after spawn at high speed. While 1 good character may not be able to carry the entire trial, they nevertheless fill critical roles and can mean the difference between success and failure.Originally Posted by Garent
You're experiencing the same feeling that everyone else on the trial is feeling. People's individual contributions become less and less important the more people you add to the team. This is more of a trial thing than an incarnate thing.
Emp/rad just lacks the power to make that sort of contribution, since -def and emp do little to boost offensive power. Try something like a time/sonic - it's like empathy except your buffs work on you. You'll have massive heals, have 45% def to 2 or more positions, and can stack vast amounts of -res on AVs. My rad/sonic has 900 DPS incarnate offense with lore pets, a time/sonic ought to be able to at least match that. -
Quote:It isn't; it isn't.Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
Other issues, like whether Voltaic Sentinel is a fair substitute for a "tier 3" style blast, are up for debate.
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I still haven't found the person in question. If you sent a tell and I somehow missed it, please resend.
If you know of anyone who lost 1bn in this manner recently, PM me. -
Someone paid me 1bn for a 100m item on the market sometime within the last 24 hours.
If this is you, send me a PM and I'll return you the money. (You'll need to answer a few questions first.)
@Laevateinn