Little_Whorn

Between nukes, new snipes, and whatnot, I'm somewhat concerned about the future difficulty of the game. At that point, +4 enemies won't be lasting long at all, especially on a team.

The funny thing is, I absolutely love these changes. Turning useless powers into useful is always A+ in my book. But what about the enemies? This game is already widely regarded as fairly easy at high levels, especially on teams. Any easier, and I'm unsure how much fun the game will sustain for me over any extended period of time. Being a superhero/villain is great and all, but not if taking down hordes of villains/heroes is as difficult as punting kittens or playing ping pong with a blind person.

Hyperbole aside, what does everyone think? Is the difficulty too easy? Should it change and if so, how?

Personally, I hope they let us up the difficulty past +4 or something like that. With incarnate levels, we're already maxed out fighting mere +1s in Dark Astoria. I'm all for more difficult factions such as those in Night Ward, but implementing more difficult challenges in this way limits what enemy groups we can sink our teeth into, further relegating old enemy factions to "Council" status (i.e. good for farming, but not any challenge for most).

I'm not too mature to admit I giggle every time MesmerLune says "bonefire" instead of "bonfire". Sounds like a VD.

"Can't come in today, boss. My bonefire's been flarin' up!"

Defense debuffs got you down? Tired of seeing all of your stats in the red?

Roll a DOMINATOR!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5-NW0a2OBc&feature=plcp

This is my Plant/Psi Dom taking on a few +4/x8 spawns of Incarnate BP. To add to the challenge, I deslotted my Hybrid, Lore, Destiny, and Judgment Incarnate Powers, removing both my ability to use them as well as the incarnate level shifts Lore and Destiny provide. I kept Alpha as I built specifically with it in mind. Somewhat arbitrary, I know, but w/e.

In the spirit of Werner's DA thread, I also set the mission to no inspirations and no temp powers.

I hope my video will inspire someone who is tired of chasing the same ol' defense, resists, and healing build goals to instead think outside the box and try a Dominator.

Wait a minute. You have a plant/psi dom. Just confuse every spawn and you'll never have to worry about their autohit attacks, debuffs, or whatever. I honestly don't know how to not solo 54 mobs on that combo. Seeds of Confusion + "Being awake and mashing your forehead on the keyboard" = Profit. It may or may not be the fastest, but it's that simple.

Hard to give any specific advice without knowing which ATs you're playing with. But speaking generally, try to identify the particular enemies that tend to debuff you the most and attempt to take them out first, either with heavy single target damage or mezzes. A mezzed enemy obviously poses the least amount of risk to you. Even knockback or knockdown may give you the few seconds to take out an enemy debuffer. If you have a pet, let them soak a particularly nasty alpha. If you are straight up melee without any form of crowd control, try to time your destiny buffs with each spawn so that you are strongest when facing their first volleys of attacks.

Another tip is that Knives of Vengeance have some attacks that are targeted AoE attacks. Thus, once they use them, be vigilant and immediately get out of their area of effect.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

I actually find the -rech to be more crippling than the -movement or -jump. I like teleporting around on my Stone Tank. In fact, he's the only character I have in which teleport is tolerable due to the -fly debuff (I can't stand the momentary floating after teleport).

But the -rech is the deal-breaker for me. It almost single-handedly keeps me from establishing any decent attack chain or relying on Earth's Embrace more than once per mission. I don't mind being slow or unable to jump, but when a debuff turns all of my fun powers into "one use per mission" powers, it just sucks the enjoyment out of them.

+1 to giving Fast-snipe to Dominators upon Domination.

My dom will like these changes. Higher damage snipe than a blaster and all i need is one yellow inspiration and I have another extremely high DPA attack.

I'm interested in this as well. I can't recall how many times I've toggled on Combat Jumping only to get defeated by a boss. If only I had that ~2.5% more defense half a second faster, I'd totally have won that fight!

Here's my current build in case anyone was wondering. I'm thinking of sacrificing the last few percentages of ranged defense to fit in the Pet +def and +resist uniques in an effort to increase the Tarantula's survivability against heavy AoE bosses such as Pylons and GMs. I'm not entirely sure of whether that would help much though. At most, I could only maintain 42% defense on Phanty and the Tarantula if I did that (~26 from Cold Dom/Manuevers, 10 from pet uniques, and 6% minimum from Agility-boosted Barrier). That might be enough... I don't know. I need more influence and respecs!

I'll be sure to record the results from a few runs once I finish my incarnating (that is a word, right?).

The reason I tested against tough single target enemies is because that is what Illusion tends to be best at dealing with. While Spectral Damage no doubt technically benefits most by focusing fire on weaker enemies, I'm not really out to play an Illusion controller with the intent of taking out minions or lts. Let's face it--there are far better choices for that.

Rather, as we all know, the indestructible nature of Phantom Army is the biggest part of what lures me to Illusion and it makes for a great AV/GM solo'er.

From what I gather from peeking into the massive Rikti Pylon Results thread from time to time is that Illusion/Cold tends to lead the pack in terms of DPS including debuffs. But they all used the Fire APP for Fire Blast whereas I'm rocking Mace Mastery.

After taking on a few high level AVs, I'm beginning to question Mace Mastery more and more though. Even fully shielded and buffed with Frostworks, the Toxic Tarantula struggles to survive very long against the frequent PBAOE attacks, nullifying a big reason to take Mace Mastery over Ice. Granted, I don't have Barrier or Rebirth yet, which may make a huge difference when combined with the Ice Shields and Frostworks. So I'll wait to respec into Ice until I can properly test Mace with the full gamut of Incarnate powers. But as of now, keeping the Tarantula alive long enough to deal enough dps to make up for the lack of a proper attack chain is a real challenge.

Once I finish incarnating Dr. Von Freez and give Mace Mastery a proper test, I'll switch on over to Ice to compare. And good point about Ice Armor's appearance making me look like my teammates. I never thought of that, but now that I do, that WOULD be really nice. I feel so naked without any ice on me. <.<