Lord_of_Umbra

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I think I've said this before, I don't see why Dual Pistols will have anything more than even a passing semblance to Assault Rifle, besides that they both use weapons and do mostly Lethal damage.

AR has only a few real 'gun' attacks, the rest being things like flamethrowers and gadget-esque shots. Dual Pistols seems like it'll probably be less on the gimmicks stylistically, and probably faster, lighter and more single-target based than AR.

Pistols and Dual Wield will probably be the tier 1 and 2 attacks, with Empty Clips probably around tier 4 or 5. The other attacks will probably be another cone or two, a snipe, perhaps Aim, and maybe a crashless 'nuke' for a tier 9.

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While guessing what powers DP will have I can't help but think of Malta's gunslinger. One of his pistol attacks freezes. so I wouldn't rule out gimicks.

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The problem with that Daemodand is that not everyone wants the whole world to know their global.

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Wow, so to hide your global you never type in chat?

You do know that anyone can right-click your characters name in the chat box and select "get Global name" now don't you?

Reasons Iwould recomend DM with WP:

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1) Dark Melee has redundant tools when paired with WP such as Siphon Life (healing) and Dark Consumption (endurance recovery).


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Suplimenting WP's regen with a heal in your attack chain is only redundant if you fight weaker enemies then this build is cabable of handling.

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2) Dark Melee is mitigation light, it's only "real" mitigation being single target powers such as Touch of Fear (which is usually skipped) and Midnight Grasp (if you can call a single target immobilize "mitigation"). DM's toHit debuff, while a nice addition to WP, is a fairly slippery one and reactive (i.e. you have to get your hits off for it to apply).


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As for mitigation I think DMs attacks stacking ACC debuffs on all the enmies around you is nice compliment to the -acc in WP's aura. The idea you have to get your hits off is silly. I don't care what build you play, if you can't hit it won't work. DM feels it misses much less to me then most other sets. Most likely as many attacks are neg only and don't have to worry about getting by the huge smash/lethal and nrg def that the most common faced enemy has in abundance.

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3) WP has no attacks in it ... without supplementing DM's long AOEs with another AOE, it plays like a gimpy single target set

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Wha? You mean I would have to supliment a set that comes with 3-4 nice AoE attacks with another pool AoE? So to prevent having to do this I should pick a set like SS with only ONE AoE?

Uh explain this one one more time to me.. not getting it.

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Well, I know these emergency server maintenances happen. I've seen dozens of them in my time. But! They posted to look to the forums for info 20 minutes ago....

And I've found nothing so far. Anyone else know if there's a post up yet?

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Heh, found one.. yours :/

Honestly can't say. I tested it several times then to make funner testing would publish and play to test.. repuplish repeat.. can't honestly say how many times this set up failed as each time it was "wrong" I tweaked it some way. I'll have to go back and run more tests, perhaps even with some different lvled alts.

I love this idea.. is there a MA suggestion box? did you put this there? Would recomend you do if haven't.

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One improvement I'd like to see for test mode is the ability to set the level, team size and challenge level when starting the arc. That way I can see how things spawn under all conditions.


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What server? Freedom or Virtue?

If either, then...

...bah, I don't feel like getting modded today.

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I'm still making new toons on Freedom and haven't run into this "name problem" in like... hm, two years? No, wait, that was on Guardian, never mind. I've only really faced it once with my 30-odd toons.

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Ahh, I see thru your veil of half-truths grasshopper. Deceiving me thru omission huh? How many times have you faced it with your 30 EVEN toons. Uh huh, thought I'd miss you only tallied results from the ODD ones ay?

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People that farm all day everyday burn out.



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Yeah, this is opinion. I can vouche personally for 4 players wwith extensive vet badges that not only do not get burnt out from farming, but in fact are thrilled more by it then most other aspects of the game.

I will say from point of view of one who loves to farm and does not want it to go away.. MA farming does ruin the rest of the game. In more ways then one. Wait, hear me out.

Since I been boss farming alot with my 50s, I decided to roll up couple new guys to play non-farm up too. It's almost unbearable to play this way now for me. Last night I logged on to my new blaster.. he's lvl 14 now. I was beginning midnighter's arc. I was sent here and ther to "talk" to some people about some boring crap that I had learned years before the "tutorial" was added to live game. All the sudden I was about out of playtime.. yup, just spent 45 freaking minutes running around talking. Not one mission, not one kill. Found myself going.."why am I punishing myself by not farming these guys?" lol

option a: log on. join team within minutes.. kill hordes of enemies with large team of friends having a blast.

option b: log on. Spend 45 minutes sprinting contact to contact and hope that when I log on tomorow my character will be close to a mission or at least something interesting.

You see there are solid reasons why MA xp has to go. I mean who's going to want that cold left over slice of pizza as long as the pizza shop is open and right there in front of you offering free samples?

Edit: Was thinking of my brute when wrote this.. 45 mins of talk to this guy about that crap.. but blaster is also having similiar "growing pains" as he spends more time sent on meet an greet than arresting bad guys also.

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Sorry, I hadn't noticed these glaring design flaws.



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Fair enough. I accept that there are different playstyles, and the things that bothered me may not have bothered you.

Here's what I saw as the serious design flaws at the time.

Too much travel. COX has these large open zones, with nothing to do other than go from contact to mission door and back again. Other MMO's have large open zones, but they automate travel through them so you only have to travel them on foot once with each character

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You know, I was totally against you with you first post of design flaws. But you starting to win me over lol. If there is one thing I can remember complaining about since i2 is the fact that all my heroes have to spend months as "pizza boys"

I mean you think just once that lazy desk jocky in Steel could call their cell phone to get info from chick that stands around doin nothing all day in Atlas, instead of making you take the noon train and jog across town? I dunno maybe you could be out saving lives or something instead? What we can buy hidden fortresses with ddeathrays for our Super Groups, but can't hire a freakin courier service?

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2) GROUP W/O MINIONS: I make a version of the custom group without minions, using it in details where I can't force a "boss" of my choosing. Definitely keep it to Easy spawn size. You can swap a capital I with a lowercase l to camouflage the minion-less group, making it appear to be the same as the regular group.



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I have use the forced LT spawn before, but was using the above suggestion for the patrols in question. It fixed my problem of not having any LTs in my custom groups spawn... for me anyways. Recently tho while duoing with friend to help catch story flaws etc. My friend asked this about halfway thru.. "So, why are there no minions?"
I told him all my LTs would not spawn so I just mad all my minions LTs lol. Afterwards tho I thought, hti is not reallywhat I wanted for my story. The enemy groups I made are meant to work with each other. In one group the minion shield guy has no attacks really, but offers Grant cover, so while 1 is nothing, 2 or more make their allies really hard to hit. The LT shield guy in same group has no grant cover or personal mezz protection. He's all attack with the idea that all his def comes from allies, like the minion version of self. Both are mace and similiar in costume.. both being LT (which appears only option to get both to spawn :/ ) looks somewhat redundant as only real diff is which powers in set they chose and one's name is X Gaurdian and others is X Warrior.

TY for those answers, but was hoping for something more along the lines of making my patrols spawn evenly from my groups. In reg content I see alot of patrols with LTs and even some with bosses/LTs AND minions. I was hoping I also could do the same.

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So here we are.

Two weeks from my initial post when I inquired about the viability of Bots/Dark for killing AVs and without a doubt the single fastest levelling blitz I have had in 3 years of playing this wonderful game. All without Com Officers too.

Now, to the OP!

Yes, Bots/Dark can definitely solo AVs.

This fight isn't pretty. In fact it's pretty haphazard. Not at all what I wanted.

But here's the thing.

I never expected to win this fight at all. The fight in the video is actually my fifth attempt because I defeated her on my first try and was totally unprepared so I didn't record it. Like many AV fights there is a certain element of luck involved so, while follow up attempts were still strong, I had to try a few more times to get it right. It's actually rather funny to me that I won this attempt as I forgot to toggle on several powers at the start. I don't have a single set IO in this build atm, although those are coming.

So what did I learn from this initial trial?

Well, provoke would have been useful to be sure. I've already decided to respec into that. Otherwise I think the initial strategy of getting enough recharge to immobilize whoever I am fighting, softcapping my defense to range and having perma fluffy is the way to go.

It's really quite fun. My poor brute sits completely unplayed. Oh well, he does have a full bar of patrol XP. That was my goal right?

The gameplay mechanic is so different. I really like how busy I feel. Very reactive as opposed to my normal scrapperish "repeat the attack chain/Heal when needed" process. Not that I'll ever forego my scrappers either, but it's truly a wonderful addition to a game I thought I knew inside and out. I'm sure Technogeist will go through a few revisions still, if not a bunch.

Always learning. Thank you everyone for the advice!

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lol

And thaT video shows the flaw in dark MMS

Saw no threat to the MM, in fact don't think they even lost aminion hehe

So the problem one is faced when playing MM.. what else do you do while playing.. you only need one hand and really don't need to keep eyes on screen.. Oh I know.. log your brute on seconf account to play the game while your MM kills the AV without much need of an operator

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On the one hand, I can see eliminating exp from the Architect. It would certainly end the powerleveling and make it almost entirely a playground for level 50s. It would still be useful as a creative tool for players, and it would undoubtably still be used to farm salvage and recipes and whatnot.

On the other hand, how do you put the genie back in the bottle? The universe might well explode if exp were removed from Architect missions.

On the other hand, the more I think about it... I'm not against it.

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Yup, playground for 50s lol

And having reduced it to being only a tool for ticket farming or story creation, sadly most 50s would only use it for the former as not many if any stories are good enough to play for no rewards IMO.

For me MA would become like the arena. Out of my 100s of characters over last 4 some years I've played the arena maybe twice. Ussually when someone asks me to join them in arena I go "Why?"
lol Don't get me wrong, I like PvP, but when game offers PvP zone that gives rewards see no point in arena's rewardless version

So I'm against removing xp from MA. Sure MA farms have produced alot of bad high level players. But poor players with high level toons is not new. Sure they are easier to find, but only if you are looking for them. In otherwords if you log your toon that should be in Talos or Nerva for their lvl content but "LFT" in atlas or mercy or Cap, try not to be shocked you get inved to farm teams full of noobs. I always get a chuckle out of all the lvl 40+ or lvl 50s in lvl 1-10 or 15-20 zones that say lookin for team non MA.. uh dude if you really are then maybe you should say LFT to exemp me.. instead of non MA hehe

OK, when MA first came out I had lots of story ideas. First having to cut stories for size, then worse find that even completed stories would "grow" in size after publishing to point they no longer worked frustrated me into giving up on MA story-writing. Now with the new features am trying again but seem to be missing knowledge that is frustrating me again.

What is the secret to spawning LTs?

My final custom goups look like this: 2 minions,2 LTs, 1 Boss and other group has 3 minions, 3 lts, 2 bosses, 1EB

I set patrols and any diff options to hard.. (tried both th lower settings already)

While solo I tested set to diff 1, then 3, now am on 4. Yet NO LTs spawn in my mission. Is there a way to get LTs to spawn solo short of max diff setting or making all new "minion-free" group?

Sorry if this was answered before, been searching but cannot find answer to this.

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Of course, usually that's my brute. 3-slotted stamina and 3-slotted end-red in all my attacks and at level 21 I'm only just now getting to where I can run for long

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yeah in the early level you are forced to wait and pause much more then higher levels. This of course kills your fury bar and gimps your damage. For me that is because early levels all my attention goes into attacks. Offense as best defense approach. By late 20s or early 30s you will have most of your key def/res and will find hopping group to group and keeping fury up not only very easy but alot of fun.

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Remaking toons is easy and fun. You may want to keep the vet badges around for various things. Also reworking the friends list and having the 2nd one's global name change to the retired first one might be annoying. I'd keep my first account if it had my Global name I consider "me", my friends list, and my Veteran badges.

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I agree. I would go with most toys (vet badges). All characters can be remade and for me most likely will be over and over again as my Altitis flares with new ideas.

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But I was unsure because it sure seems nearly impossible for him to line up an assassin's strike in the moving mass around my Brute if I strike first. I'm thinking that makes him frustrated and that's why I'm asking here. Maybe I should get a stalker's perspective.



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It shouldn't be a problem for the stalker. It could be the person playing a stalker is trying to play him like a scrapper. If this is the case you may want to recomend they roll a brute. The brute plays much more like a scrapper then a stalker does.
Another common mistake I see, is people used to blue side tend to want to play their brutes like tanks. Even some non-brutes expect it. I saw a post by someone on these boards that claimed he teamed with "bad" brutes that would not pause inbetween each fight to let party rest, when in fact the "bad" player would be the party that rushes after the brute when they should rest. Be assured that my brutes will not jump into anything they cannot handle and can (if not solo kill the next group) easily hold the aggro and remain alive while the party rests.

again from Prima's strategy guide"

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Brutes are often mistaken for tankers. They cannot cannot take the same kind of punishment. But they more then make up for their "glass jaws" by dishing out more pain and suffering once their rage kicks in.

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Maintening Fury is the brute's greatest strength- and his greatest weakness as he quickly moves from one fight to the next to keep his rage up. This can sometimes get his allies into trouble if they're not ready.

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Well when I'm bruting I'm ussually in a killing frenzy, moving group to group keeping my fury max with little effort. I generally pay little or no attention to the stalkers on the team assuming they will take care of self and do whatever it is they feel they do best. It sonds to me like you jsut had bad luck and teamed with stalkers that are not very good team players.

This is not to say they are not good stalkers. Stalkers are a very independant AT IMO, but a good team player wil know not to trigger ambushes and pull more aggro then a party can handle even if his urge to "scout" gets the best of him.

Long ago I got the Prima's Official Game guide, and while most of guide is outdated the role of stalker and teaming startegies may not be. This is from duoing with a brute/dom on your stalker and is considered best duo match up from Stalker point of view:

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These ATs are great for keeping the aggro away from you so you can strike from the shadows without risk. If you can reestablish stealth while the attention is not on you, you can make repeated Assasin Strikes. Brutes step up and take the damage as they thrive on aggro to build fury,whereas Doms lock down enemies w/ holds so you can get in cheap shots.

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Brutes also think Stalkers and Corruptors are prefered for teaming and it says this:

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This is a good pairing for fast and efficient street sweeping. You charge in and take all of the aggro from the minions while your buddy softens up the big bads. Then you rush in with your fury and finish them off.

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Howling Twilight isn't just for dead teammates anymore

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hehe anymore?

Since first playing /dark when CoV first went live I always view HT's rez as abonus not the powers main purpose.

Everyone would would tell me it shouldn't be used in attack chain and saved for rez, but used in attack chain, no one would die. So I never listened to em. Why not?
keep in mind HT has seen some "balancing" since then so is not quite what it used to be yet still this is what it does:

AoE 15 ft radius
max target=16
rech -50%

fear mag 3 - 15s..(hate that addition, makes you need more skill and timing to effectively use this power lol)

stun mag2 15 sec (used to be higher mag and unressitable, not sure if still unressistable. In first year CoV I often used it to detoggle granite/rooted tanks in pvp)

fly/run/jump -50%

regen -500% 30 sec

sure it just so happens to have secondary ability of bringing entire party back to life and full of hp and end.. but heck with all the enemies wandering around stunned in your tarpirt, who dies?

Once /dark gets fluffy he really becomes abeast. Dark Servant stacks his holds and fears with yours and spams the party with heals so you no longer have to except in extreme situations.

Iv'e never really found a reason to take taunt with my /dark MMs, not saying that is not the way to go... just a different way to build him.

but /dark comes with so many debuffs and mezzes, taunt feels wasted to me. Fear/Petrifying gaze/TP/ the heal TG comes with -50% regn,-3.75 to hit,-7.50% dam and just happens to heal your troops 209.9 hps (all stats unslotted)

On top of which Fluffy stacks his.


as for def for /dark Shadow fall is nice
+3.75 def across the board (unslotted)
15% res to psi/nrg/neg (again unslotted)
129.75% ress terrorize
5.19 terror prot
AND stealth

I think all MM sets are pretty good but dark has always been one of my favorites.

PS. Did I ferget to mention the glowing red-eyed skulls you throw?

Edit: nvm the skulls, been playin a dark/dark... so I have skulls hehe.. still throwing skulls is cool

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Are you tring to compare actors who get paid millions to act to people on the internet paying $15 a month?

lolz

Oh.....my......lord.


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Ignorance..the point had nothing to do with money and if it had...MMORPGs yearly net far excedes the "milllions" made by Robin Williams

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I try me damn best to keep my team SB'ed on top of FSing, transferencing, healing, siphon speeding (and even short circuiting and thunderballing with my kin/elec) so don't give the excuse there's no time or that your team has no downtime in between groups.


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So if another player does not possess the same level of skill you have or their reflexes are not quite as fast as you, he is a poor team player? 0.o

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RP has nothing to do with saying you are someone else or even pretending to be someone else.

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lol


I agree with the spirit of your message, however the words....

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We (The Stoned Templars) had 2 members who told us they were female and even went out of their way to maintain that "sex" in pretty much everything they did and said. Of course...they were "lesbian". *rolls eyes*

It wasnt until we added Vent and invited them that we came to the conclusion that they were both dudes. They both declined to use Vent every time we asked them to join it.

From that point on...I just assume punch RPers in the face. They're useless if you ask me. Dudes RPing as chicks......get a life. Seriously.

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That's painting with a pretty broad brush, isn't it?

Light RP can be a lot of fun. We have a regular TF team on Saturday where the leader pretty much stays in character throughout, so I try to do the same. We talk about how Sister Psyche has enlisted our aid, etc.

Assuming that *all* female RPers are "dudes" is flat out wrong. I'm female, all my characters are female, and I RP as female.

So try not to overgeneralize, mmkay?

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They were males pretending to be females. Not the other way around. I really doubt too many females pretend to be males while RPing, but since I'm not a RPer, I could be way off base in my assumption.

My guess is there are A LOT of guys running around pretending to be female. Those are the people I wonder about.

If you're wearing those shoes, then I feel really sorry for you. If you dont, good for you and enjoy your RP. mmmkay?

I don't get the entire "RP" thing anyways. You're playing a video game...and its not exactly text based. So I guess I'm missing the part where RP can be "fun".

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It's just another way of enjoying your character. I sometimes like to RP myself. I'm a guy and all my characters are guys.

However, typing in missions interferes with my kill rate which is my first love.

So I would say I'm a light RPer. In order to stay in character, I make several macros. Something that would fit the character to cover, whatever needs saying.. like resting or if I'm getting ready to use a PBAoE.

It's fun actually, I'd get into it more if I was coordinated enough to type without stopping my flow of carnage

And I always thought it odd that people would play this game and wonder why there are people who like to RP.
It's like going to the nude beach and wondering why people aren't wearing clothes

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Massively multiplayer online role-playing game

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (commonly abbreviated MMORPG) is a genre of computer role-playing games in which a large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world. The term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott,[citation needed] the creator of Ultima Online, the game credited with popularizing the genre in 1997.[1][2]

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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I'm still trying to convince myself to make an Elec/Shield Brute so I can Shield-charge + Lightning Rod.


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Oh man, forgot that. That finish rocks.. shield charge into the group and while they still getting up you turn to red bolt of lightning they're done

The pose you do coming out of Lightning Rod plus being surrounded by dead bodies is epic.

Edit:

If I'm real lucky someone hit me with the Fortune Card that makes either the wolf howl or that deap garbled voice. As you come out of LR and you're in that half squat arms out to side looking up thing the sound triggers.

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Not what I claimed at all. About the taunting at least. You don't need a taunt or to taunt in any way to brute.

I can't help it if someone repeatedly brings up Footstomp and Consume every time they speak about punchvoking and fails to explain how this makes all brutes tanks. Now, if he were to, say, suggest that Super Strength is good at holding aggro, I'd wholly agree.

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See, I thought it was just misunderstanding. Bet if yall weren't hampered by the problems of being understood in chat columns as apposed to say talking.. bet ya'll find you agree on most things, if not all. But that's part what makes game cool for me, that difference in play style that make one person build this way the other that.

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i solo'd the terra volta respec trial at level 33 as that tanker while the rest of the team just watched.


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WOW, that's nice.

Wish I knew back then things I know now and may have tried fire tank. I tried few "concept" tanks none fit fire and was less then thrilled with the DPS very fast on those I did try. Sadly I gave up on ALL tanks because of it. Even before getting one to their big attacks and stuff.

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i have a feeling the side affect of having taunt affects, higher hp and the tanker hp and resist caps on brutes was they were designed to be a villain groups meat shields when a meat shield was needed.

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Lies!!

They did it for me. When I first started playing was always upset that I couldn't build IMO a "superman-like" guy. Tanks had the survivability lvl of supes.. but to me scrappers the DPS ability.
So no, they were NOT made to be meat shields if needed... I made a Christmas wish