Lord_Thanatos
-
Posts
311 -
Joined
-
Quote:Its not a power with a resistance component, FF shields have some resistance in them (like toxic). Its if a power has a resistance component that is enhanceable. Its a important distinction.Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Note that Power Boost > Ice Shield does not work. The shield powers in Cold Domination cannot be boosted because they have a Resistance component in them, and I believe any power with a +Resistance component is automatically flagged not to work with PB.
If the devs want the resistance part to not be affected by any boosts, they have to turn off the entire power to those type of buffs. This doesn't matter if the resistance component is already unenhanceable.
Sadly, Ice shields can be enhanced for resistance, and FF can't, which is why one can be PBed and the other not. -
Quote:My Tankermind only uses Provoke, I have enough global recharge to get a decent recharge in it with Hasten, and between all my debuffs, and seining provoke, i wouldnt have any time to use challenge. Just Provoke has been working fine for hard targets like AVs, just don't expect to taunt off a tanker or brute.Originally Posted by Vessel of Light
Quick bit of background. I recently put together a tanker mind build for my Bots/Traps. It is almost complete ( 1 set away ) and doing wonderfully. It has been great fun running ahead of the group to soak alphas draw aggro and simply laugh at the mobs attempts to kill me. But in my current build I do not have trip mine, this is a power that I had a lot of fun with while playing a more supportive role so I am trying to fit it back into my tanker mind build.
The power I would most likely switch out is challenge which leads to my question. If I have provoke do I really need challenge to keep aggro? It seems that sometimes I need to be taunting every couple of seconds to really keep a tough boss/eb/av on me instead of going after my pets or team. I would love to hear from seasoned tanker minds out there based on their in game experiences. I guess I should note that I have almost no direct attacks on my current build. -
Quote:Going Mako for water sprout and Hibernate here on my spine/dark.Originally Posted by Santorican
I just had a really great idea for an I19 build. I'll be going villain side to pick up shadow meld
-
Excellent guide, but one point, you might want to mention Patron powers as well, especially Soul Mastery since Gloom is an excellent ST power for Ice Melee's lackluster ST damage. And Dark Obliteration isn't too shabyy for AoE as well.
-
Quote:TP Foe doesn't really matter anymore since it gives intangibility to the target for a short duration afterwards.Originally Posted by Wooden_Replica
I haven't played a MM in PvP, but I have both seen and faced them.
I believe at one point the Dev's mentioned they thought MM's would fill the role of tanks redside in PvE, which isn't precisely how things evolved there.
I mention this because thats sort of how they are in PvP in a way.
With bodyguard mode active they won't go down quickly generally, and PvPers often don't bother with AE's( which are generally weaker in pvp anyway), which is the one thing MM's are vulnerable to. If you catch a MM not in Bodyguard or too far away from their henches their usually toast. What this means often their comparitively slow moving( since their not constantly jumping around), they have an excellent reason to have TP Foe. On the other side, they would be the first ones who would want a TP Protection IO if the dev's ever made one, since that is one tactic that works great with them. -
Quote:Performance Shifter averages out to be .2 end per second. And since it actually gives you endurance, its not affected by recovery debuffs.Originally Posted by Tsuji
Performance shifter will actually only function properly in stamina, quick recovery, or physical perfection. In all of the others it'll give the enemy endurance. So yeah, it does do something, though I'm not sure what it averages out to.
-
Quote:Ice, harder to softcap? You mean easier since it can softcap with just Ice's defense powers, weave and a steadfast +3% def IO?Originally Posted by streetlight
I would ask what your other options are? Compared to a Shield, you'll do lower DPS, have a harder time softcapping, have worse resists, and be down one monster of a PBAOE. However, Ice has gobs more utility and toggle mez protection. Which seems more fun to you?.
On a related note, once you hit softcapped defenses, how helpful is the to-hit debuff from Dark? Isn't there a minimum chance to hit, no matter what the to-hit vs. defense is? -
Quote:Soldiers and Widows are the same ATs like how Warshades and Peacebringers are the same AT.Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Hmm... I thought this was the Soldiers of Arachnos forum. The SoA are one AT. This is like comparing Nin/Regen Stalkers to DM/EA Stalkers. Same AT, different abilities.
They aren't. -
Quote:The Assault bot also does massive -regen and all the robots stay at range (when you can make them) avoiding all the high damaging PBAoE attacks from AVs and GMs.Originally Posted by StrykerX
I'd say Bots are the best for AVs if you have a -KB immobilize. They tend to use less-resisted damage types and the Assault Bot's burn patches are extremely damaging if you can keep things in them (at least they are when working right... hopefully they'll be fixed soon).
If you don't have a way to keep the AV from being knocked out of the fire Demons may be a good option. They do a wide range of damage types and they have some -resist on the Hellfire using demons.
Also, both Bots and Demons have healing and some added mitigation. Dead pets do no damage, so being able to stay alive against an AV helps a lot. Bots are the toughest pets, but Demons aren't exactly fragile. Ninjas may well be the best for pure single target damage, even with the more resisted Lethal damage type (they hit hard), but they also die really easily and don't provide any buff to the MM to help them tank. The other reason Bots are so good on AVs is that their force bubble can help the MM softcap and tank for them. -
Quote:Its damage is also very respectable for a Cone attack, Its about equal to havoc punch, with a better DPA, a melee cone and pure energy damage. Whats not to love. :POriginally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I like Jacob's Ladder simply because it's one of the only attacks in the set that is pure energy damage. Out of all the NPCs you encounter that have defense to anything, smashing and lethal defense are by far the most common, and the pure energy nature of Jacob's Ladder bypasses their defense completely. (I take Scorch over Fire Sword for the same reason if I'm forced to choose between them)
If I have room I take everything from the set except Lightning Clap. 3 PBAoEs and 3 single target attacks means I can build up my defense to S/L/E/N pretty easily using Kinetic Combat and Eradication. (Yes, Jacob's Ladder is a melee cone, but it takes PBAoE IO sets) -
I play my MM as a pure support toon that has meat sheilds to absorb Mito aggro. Any damage they absorb is most likely damage that the rest of the raid doesn't get. Very nice for soaking the Blue Lightning and Green Beams.
I also have my pets on passive mode to more easily control them, since BG-Mode isnt going to be that helpful considering all the large radius AoE damage being thrown around.
More Controllable henchmen > Henchmen attacking every mito in range but in BG-Mode. -
Quote:Um, your incorrect, NWs have the highest ST DPS, Banes have the highest burst with stacking -res and stealth strikes.Originally Posted by Thinkso
Why do you keep saying this when it isn't true? My bane can kill single targets faster than your NW. In a team where aoe makes more of an impact the team with my bane can kill things faster than the team with your NW.
How is that significantly less damage?
Banes have the highest st damage output and they are the best -res debuffers. There is no perhaps about it.
The actual truth is that NW's are the ones that don't dominate at any single category. Crabs have the highest aoe and are the tankiest. Bane's have the highest st damage and the best -res. Fort's have the highest team mitigation.
NW's are really good at a lot of things, but I'd say Forts win at being the most flexible. -
Quote:They have -regen because malta robots have -regen and they use similar powers RP-wise. Plasma Blasts so probably during development they thought it made sense.Originally Posted by Jibikao
You know I was thinking.. how come Robot gets to have -regen?? They already survive very well and deal very good aoe damage.
Shouldn't Merc or Ninja have -regen? I mean Tear Gas from Spec-Ops is a perfect power to have some -regen IMO.
Poor soldiers. They get over shadowed by everything Robot does. Soldier's damage type is mostly Lethal, more narrow cones, don't have as many resistance types, and relying on very infrequent controls from spec-ops. -
Quote:Redraw from Mace -> rifle is just about nonexistant, its only the other way around that causes problems. Heavy Burst + Venom Nade + Crowd control easily does more AoE damage then your chain and takes less time to animate even when you include redraw. Its not about the number of AoEs, its about how effective they are.Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Well, I take issue with the AoE thing. Spin, Eviscerate, Dart Burst, and Psy Scream give you some very good AoE, more than a Bane who's switching between his mace and gun trying to keep up. And if you're going to add in PPPs, then Widows can take their boss's lovely Dark Obliteration for even more AoE with none of the annoying scatter that Banes have to deal with in Frag and the Mace AoEs.
As for the -res provided by Banes, I have no quarrel with that. You all are right. In a team that certainly provides a great advantage to Banes. Whether is worth doing significantly less damage and having significantly less mitigation is up to the player.
Edit: Also realistically most NWs are not going to take every AoE they can pick up, and Banes don't need to in order to match their AoE. -
Quote:Dark can easily stack just as much -damage with TG, DN and your Dark Servants TG and DN.Originally Posted by Silverado
It has better -damage (Seeker Drones can also be stacked 2x, which combined with the -res mortars, can nearly floor an AV's damage)
Triage Beacon is also worth mentioning as it's an excellent tool to keep you alive.
TG > triage for keeping yourself alive.
Your other two points are spot on and also FFG gives mez prot against the AVs that mez. -
Quote:My Bane provides more AoE damage then NWs with Crowd Control and Venom Nade. Provide more force multiplication with surveillance, venom nade and shatter armor (its a PPP, but what VEAT other then Bane is going to use it reguarly) Also the stacking res provides so much more burst damage for killing things like bosses during teaming compared to my NW.Originally Posted by EvilGeko
That, and any reasonable analysis shows that Night Widows do more damage and are substantially more survivable than Banes.
Thankfully if Banes use their Huntsman powers they do provide some decent debuffing and AoE damage, so it's not all bad. It's just that they'll never be as good at NW in melee or as good at AoE as Crabs. Nice path, taken in isolation Banes are fine. But NWs are better at just about everything Banes do. And for what they aren't, it's better to switch to a Crab build. -
Quote:Spines aren't a weapon set, which is why it took full power customization to allow us to change them. They work like other non-weapon power sets. Each power has its own GFX, instead of an animation that then adds the weapon. You can tell because for the thrown spine powers, the projectiles change to your chosen type as well.Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
You can actually color them differently based on power?
I was thinking they were acting like other weapons. I believe the devs said at one point that you could either change the spines' color, or change the effects color. Maybe they decided to make the effects editable and copied the color over to the spines.
I want to look into this now. Can't you set the color when you select the spine type? -
Thug leadership, besides maneuvers, have pitiful numbers, assault is in the single digit range, even with both, due to how damage buffs work, the extra damage is just about unnoticeable. Especially after supremacy and/or the MM's assault.
Ther are many other ways to improve merc damage that would have a larger effect. But the defense would make mercs very survivable. -
Quote:Only the psi mez powers tend to be typed, and spectal wounds.Originally Posted by AllYourBase
Shields and SR have Psi protection? I thought most Psi attacks were positionally untyped.
The blasts have the usual positional tags. -
Quote:There have been people trying to argue that inherent fitness will cause slot starvation and that the devs SHOULD give us more slots varying from 4 to monstrous 10.Originally Posted by Finduilas
It isn't necessarily true that people want more slots for set bonuses; if you really, really want to add a couple more attacks and now can do so, you may want more slots just to slot them out properly.
And even if people are slotting for set bonuses and that's why they're slot-starved, so what?
I think what's more important is the attitude people have toward the change. "It would sure be nice to have more slots" is a very different from "Making Fitness inherent is USELESS unless I get more slots!"
Also, "So what if people are slot starved if they go for set bonuses instead of slotting power?", that is precisely the problem, if you choose to slot for set bonuses, then you have to live with the consquenses if you slot starve some of your powers. The game isn't ATM balanced around needing IOs, the needing more slots argument will only work if there isn't enough slots to do normal content without using IOs or when/if the game slbecomes balanced around needing IOs to function.
ATM people have been doing fine without IOs OR the three extra powers gained from inherent fitness, when that changes then people might have a decent argument for needing more slots.
Also the word need vs want is very important, both have been used in the conversations about the topic, my responses are regarding the "need more slots argument". I myself would want more slots but I dont 'need' them to function with the update. -
Plain and simple people are being greedy, people are mixing want they want over what they should get.
The devs give us inherent fitness and that somehow translates into requiring to fully slot out the replacement powers.
Asking for something is fine, demanding something because this change is going to cause problems us nonsensical.
Also, I'm sure the devs WANT people to have to make slotting choices, that's part of balance, you don't get to 5-6 slot every power you get. It's called making tradeoffs, if you underslot a power because you want more setbonuses from another or another power is more valuable, then that is your choice.
I've said many times, many of these arguements for more slots can be rewritten as "I want more set bonuses." For many builds is people werent building for set bonuses they would have enough slots for most of their powers. -
Quote:I dont see anything about Fearsome Stare, Dark Servant, and btw Howling Twilight is more then an AoE rez its also a heafty debuff power. My Dark MM was my first character and he was soloing AVs with just SOs.Originally Posted by Firewasp
As I said on the original post I have played /dark all the way to 50 (my first 50 villain) so if you are saying that I am doing something wrong to be losing my pets that often and you never do, well you must have a couple billion in your IO sets (I just had SO's on that 50). My 33 demons/dark uses regular crafted IO's (no sets).
I was just playing him an hour ago. Came across 6 yellow waler's on a beach. Put the tar patch on them, darkest night and spam'ed the heals. Killed them all, but in the end of that short fight I lost one of the little demons.
If Forge means so little to a pet and I solo 95% of the time on mm's, should I respec Forge out?
Petrifying gaze is a nice hold, but only works with one guy. That doesn't help much when I generally solo X5-6 missions. X1 is dead boring on an mm.
Since I solo, Howling Twilight isn't trained.
As for my keyboard game experience -- lets call it 35 years (1975 on Apple II) playing comp games and 12 years on mmorpgs. Like I said I don't use sets. If I make the game too simple to play it becomes boring to me.
And what is this nonsense about Forge. Did i ever say it was useless? No, I said it doesn't make as big of a difference as you think, stop with the strawman arguments please.
Fearsome stare and darkest night both slotting with to hit debuffs means -17.5 tohit each, which comes to -35% tohit debuffs on even con. With leadership buffs and Shadowfall my pets come close to the softcap without anything else, and those two powers should be the first powers that you use, NOT tar patch.
This also ignores how Fearsome stare keeps all of them cowering until I decide to kill them after laying all my debuffs down, OR how DN debuffs damage.
Using offensive only powers as your opening move isn't the smartest thing in the world. -
Quote:Really? my /Dark MM rarely loses his pets and can easily solo everything the game throws at him. Including AVs and GMs.Originally Posted by Firewasp
I have read many times on here that Thermal is not the most damage causing secondary and the debuffs are not as good as others. I have a 33 demons/dark and a 50 bots/dark. Also have a 36 demons/thermal and a 42 bots/thermal (and a couple dozen other mm's over 25).
Damage
Dark has a nice -res (tar patch) @ -30% which would mean all your pets do 30% more damage if the npcs are stuck in the patch. Melt Armor has a 22.5% that is ready to use almost as often as tar patch. But dark doesn't have Forge which adds 30% more damage to the top 3 pets (need to keep it casted). So 30% + 22.5% is a bit nicer than the 30% on Dark.
Damage Bonus
Thermal: When you couple Supremacy, Forge, Hell on Earth and Leadership's Assault you get 103.75% damage bonus on the big fella and 66.25% on the 2ND tier pets.
Dark: When you couple Supremacy, Hell on Earth and Leadership's Assault you get 73.75% damage bonus on the big fella and 36.25% on the 2ND tier pets. Notice the drop in damage.
Survivability
Thermal: With the thermal shields the pets have never died in at least 20 levels and only need healing when they are fighting a large group of oranges or higher. I rarely have to heal them otherwise. With this secondary you can send your pets in to attack up to 3 purples and live to tell the tale.
Dark: My pets die often. So much in fact its a real pain. You think taking 15 seconds every 4 minutes to put thermal shields on your pets is a pain? Doing that sure beats re-summoning them just as often. Oh and if you send the pets into a large group of reds -- you better kiss them all goodbye because they will all die. They need healing often and if they run off from your Twilight Grasp... well its like playing an EMP Defender and the team splitting up in a hard mission -- someone's gonna die.
Passive Damage Bonus
Pets that stay alive do more damage than dead pets.
AV's and Heroes
Thermal can solo these guys at level 35 and beyond.
Dark? Try to solo them with dead pets.
You seem to just bring up points that suit your arguement.
First. Pets dont scale well with +dmg, they have low base damage for their powers. +Damage only works on base damage, the different between 100% and 70% is almost very small when you compare actual damage numbers.You need massive amounts of +damage to start seeing a great different in damage, like with a kin. The resistance debuffs add more damage because they work on total damage and you forget that with enough recharge, you can easily double stack Tar Patch. Melt Armor doesn't stack from the same caster.
Second. You bring up thermal's shields and heals but only bring up dark's heal? What about the fact that dark can stack -tohit debuffs to bring enemies down to their minimum hit chance? How some of the debuffs have -damage to reduces the amount of damage that the enemies do? How Dark has soft control and hard control with Fearsome Star (which also has a very sizable tohit debuff) and petrifying gaze for a hold?
You also forget about Howling Twilight having a sizable slow and minion level stun along with being an AoE rez. And how most of your debuffs are doubled because you have the Dark Servant which also heals and has a hold. Your entire argument was based upon taking the entirety of Thermal and pit it up against two powers in Dark.
Both sets are good for MMs. If your /dark is losing his pets more often, then the problem isnt /Dark, its the one sitting behind the keyboard. -
Quote:Considering Stalkers reduced HP mod and reduced max HP compared to every other AT that gets SR, stalkers made the least use out of the scaling resistance even if they had all three of the passives.Originally Posted by EvilRyu
I would never roll SR on a stalker. Mostly due to that one passive being gone. It makes a huge difference if you ever get to low health. For me its been pretty much */nin. I cant stomach the other secondaries because it takes too long for them to bloom or be useful until you get IOs. Nin can do almost everything that SR can do except the scaling resists and defense debuff resists but you have a heal and caltrops to make up for that. Soft capping is easier than ever since the alignment system so thats definately something to shoot for in the future. The only other secondary I would touch at the moment is WP but thats only with alot of IOs spec towards melee defense and recharge. I think the other secondaries might get easier once we get inherrent stamina and I have more build space to squeeze in tough and weave to make them more survivable. For primaries only pick the ones with 2 or more aoes or 1 that has a gimmick to it. On my ninja blade stalker I have the pbaoe sets that are for recharge and I get alot of GD and FS during the fights. If only stalkers got lotus drops I would have the perfect toon. I can see possibly working martial arts in now because you get one of the highest damaging attacks that can crit now. The only problem is the insane recharges. You pretty much have to spec for recharge if you want to leverage that some what.
Of the three ATs, Stalkers would be at a much lower health when the resistance kicks in compared to the other two ATs. By that time, getting hit would be death no matter what you would do. (In a normal situation) -
Quote:Funny or scarily enough, there was a point in this very thread where people were asking for up to 10 slots along with inherent fitness.Originally Posted by dave_p
What are you talking about? Can't you see free Fitness is going to force me to take on new toggle powers that will require yet more endurance! Double (free) Stamina's effects and give me like 10 more slots or this change sucks!
