Maelwys

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Maelwys - pls explain why stalkers and most regen scrappers are very effective in pvp

and also if they are ranged or meele

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Since when?

Currently stalkers are only effective if their prey is stupid enough to stand still. They're entirely based around the Hide mechanic and Burst damage- since the Energy Transfer nerf, even EM Stalkers have virtually become ignorable if you have jump on Auto (/bind KEY ++up) and occasionally tap W/A/S/D. That's why many Stalkers have resorted to teaming up and using TP Foe.

Regen Scrappers are a joke. The only "effective" ones in PvP are Spines/ and that's due to the range. Scrappers get one set that has any decent form of range in it, and that's the one that's always taken. And for Good reason. When's the last time you saw a Broadsword scrapper that's able to catch a good ranged damage dealing kiter? Heaven forbid the kiter has any -regen or enough mez to break through Integration.

For the record, my first toon to hit level 50 was a Regen Scrapper. I also have a level 50 Spines Scrapper, and a level 50 EM/Regen Stalker (plus a myriad of other ATs including many "ranged" ones). All of which have seen some PvP action over the years; I actually even bothered to get the 400 rep badge on the Stalker.

The above paragraph is not intended to be a form of bragging, but to show I'm not unfamiliar with the sets. Regen is a rather weak set these days without any mez or ranged attacks to back it up. Personally I have a /Traps Mastermind that simply eats Regens, and it (the MM) is not even one of the better PvP builds.

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Thats all well good and nice, except not all AT's were ever supposed to stand toe to toe and "duke it out".


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Who said "toe-to-toe"? Did I say "Toe to toe"? Really? I don't think I did...

In PvE, this is certainly true. The new PvP is turning into a completely new ball game however. It's not quite a case of "toe-to-toe", but it certainly [u]IS[u] a case of "less running away and more fighting dammit".

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FFM you really dont understand how fast paced PvP works do you? If you did, you would realise that supression, even for a second can mean death. Now I understand they are making everyone have better resistance in PvP and lowering damage so that may not be so true, but the issue is that being slowed to a snails pace, doesnt really seem fitting for a game like this. And my personal issue is not with the supression, but the amount of it! Coupled with all the other nurfs, it just seems to me that balance will shift from ranged attacks to melee!

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Suppression will not mean instant death when both the attacker and the attacked are suppressed. It encourages them to stick around and duke it out rather than chase each other across half the map.

And yes, it's moving from ranged to melee. Every toon has attacks that work in melee range but far fewer have a decent number of ranged attacks. As it stands, melee toons have little or no effectiveness in PvP. So of course any change that promotes variation will need to move away from "ranged-only" viability.

To this end, they're increasing the survivability of toons so that the ones that normally rely on kiting/jousting or staying at range to stay alive (eg Blasters) can survive for longer in melee range.

In other words, it's moving away from a "Ranged Spike damage always wins" model to something more balanced, where a clash between two toons actually gives you enough time to trade blows before one of you dies.

...makes perfect sense to me...

One thing that hasn't been commented upon yet is that if these changes go live, the ONLY way to actually reliably toggle-drop someone will be to drain their blue bar. Combined with the "DPA normalisation" Damage buffs, perhaps this might provoke another rise of the Kin/Elec/Power sapper? :-)

Lets see... Tough is being rounded out to increase all damage types. And likewise Sets without Defence/Resistance of their own are being granted some. And Max Movement speed (including jump speed) is highly reduced which increases the effectiveness of slows... a Kin/Elec with Tough and an Epic armor would be quite tricky to kill, and would be able to keep the heat on a toon with Siphon Speed and Tesla Cage whilst sapping them with Transference and Short Circuit and halting Regen with Transfusion (it'll only actually inflict a healing debuff on you if you get healed, so just dive into melee when you need to).

Heck, Aim + Siphon Power plus the snipe in Elec might even be overpowered on its own now...

Ninjitsu is a tight build. Ninja Blade, on the other hand, gets Divine Avalanche at level 18. Take it, Slot it (2 Acc, 1 Rech, 3 DefBuff SOs, or a mix-match of IO sets to get some damage in there too) love it.

DA on its own will soft-cap your defense to all melee and lethal typed attacks. When double-stacked, it will let you solo EBs with ease even if you don't count all of Ninjitsu's tricks (realistically speaking, Hide plus the two defence armors and Kuji-In Rin and Kuji-In Sha are all you actually NEED... but Caltrops and the tier 9 "Retsu" God Mode are certainly useful. Smoke Flash too.)

Yeesh. There's a lot of inaccurate information flying about like nobodies' business here.

1. The damage numbers listed there are NOT accurate. They're taken from the character selection screen on the very first closed-beta US test server build, and are severely borked. Ignore them. Everything has been adjusted based on animation time, so long animating attacks are VERY powerful. In general, most ATs (such as controllers, tanks and defenders) got a respectable damage buff.

2. Castle has stated that EVERYTHING regarding PvP rebalancing is subject to change, except for the introduction of some form of movement suppression (the extent of which is still subject to change).

3. Castle has stated that at present the "you are hit by an attack" movement suppression only kicks in if the attack actually hits you. So "LOLDefence" actually just became useful.

4. Movement suppression is NOT like the PvE supression. It will affect all powers including Fitness pool passives, sprint and Combat Jumping. It works by setting a maximum speed value to a very small number - in the region of 30FPS. Teleport is the only thing NOT suppressed, since its range cannot be scaled back without affecting the range of all other powers, and Castle's only other option was to completely disable Teleport.

5. There have been many, many suggestions on the US threads about how to balance this movement suppression mechanic, the current favourite appears to be:

[ QUOTE ]
>100' attack does not suppress the target but suppresses the attacker for 4s.
80' attack always suppress the target for 1s and the attacker for 3s.
40' attack always suppress the target for 2s and the attacker for 2s.
7' attack always suppress the target for 4s and the attacker for 1s.

These numbers would have to be the total buffed range of the power. So Boost Range and range enhancements will be included in the suppression calculation.

[/ QUOTE ]

6. The "Healing debuff" thing is currently intended to work along the lines of "-25% heal for each heal applied within X seconds". Depending on the way this is set up, it may or may not affect the "unresistable" heals such as reconstruction. Castle has stated that this change might get repealed due to how Spectral Wounds operates. Even if it goes ahead, we can probably expect anti-griefing measures such as a "accept allied heals" configuration option.

7. Apparently all sets are getting a Resistance and/or Defence buff if they don't already have them. So the likes of /Regen will still be viable even if its healing potential is affected by the "heal debuff" change.

8. Patron and Epic pool powers are getting rejiggled anyway, so this isn't likely to overly favour any particular epic set. For example, Weapon Mastery's Web Grenade is getting replaced with a Focussed Accuracy clone. It remains to be seen just what all these changes will entail, but it's likely that powers that aren't taken very often will be replaced with better alternatives.

9. The power scaling effect works along the lines of ED, although the value "curves" differ from AT to AT. In theory, it's meant to stop characters from getting allied-buffed to sky-high levels of defence/resistance/damage/etc. Someone with a +100% Damage buff might get 95% actual buff, but with +200% they'd get 110% (numbers randomly invented to illustrate my point).

10. Castle has stated that the general intent of these changes is to level the playing field between high-end optimised PvP builds and lower end unoptimised builds. In other words, someone who is new to PvP should have the capacity to be reasonably effective when fighting veterans. If this doesn't happen with the proposed changes, expect major alterations to those changes.

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Frankly I could easily stand to drop "Focussed Accuracy" too for all the times I ever need to use it (PermaRage + Perception IO), but it's handy occasionally, like when fighting Mako or with about twenty -tohit debuffs on me from fighting Arachnos widows. I've thought about switching to "Conserve Power" a few times though.

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With your slotting I would switch to hurl.

I remember you dont like hurl

I don't get the +hp bonusing btw, I include my accolades in my build.

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I hate Hurl...

HP Bonusing? I remember going specifically for +Regen, but I suspect the +HP is leftover from the days when I didn't have TF Commander yet and was slightly short of the Tanker HP Cap with Perma Dull Pain running...

On the "Resist Elements and Purples" bit, if Fire and Cold damage was anything like as common as Energy/Negative in PvE I'd probably pick it up. But honestly, at 50 the only thing that does significant Fire/Cold damage to my INV is Infernal. And he's tankable with Tough + Perma Dull Pain even without any support; just make sure you're standing in the middle of all his henchmen to buff up Invincibility's defense numbers.

Can't say I've ever been in a situation where I think "I wish I had 8% more Fire/Cold Resistance"... it's either tickles from a minion's Flamethrower, or something like a +4 Envoy of Shadows AV (Hello, Unstoppable...).

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And seriously you think its skillfull to kill a MM while he is setting up?

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Not skillful, intellegent. The set up time is an intentional weakness of MMs. Not to take advantage of that weakness when you have an oportunity to do so is shear stupidity.

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Q.F.T.

I have two level 50 MMs, one of which I've PvPed with.

On the one I've PvPed with, the time taken until it is at 100% effectiveness is just under 60 seconds.

The time taken until it is at 100% DEFENSIVE effectiveness is just under five seconds. Summon Henchmen x3, Summon FFG. Pop Accolade Shields and proceed to upgrade and/or setup fully whilst under fire.

I would never expect anyone to give my Mastermind any leeway at all. If you give me time to fully set up, I will very likely beat you, and after I beat you I will *still* be fully set up and ready to beat you again.

Even if I was somehow stupid enough to agree to fight in the Pocket D Monkey Cage map, I would still expect no leeway. It'd just mean I need to be FASTER at summoning henchmen and popping shields/purples.

"Zonal Fight club" is not a duel, and "Chivalry" is for heroes only.

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Dwarf atm is ok at best. An em stalker will kill you in two attack chains. Any one of the countless ss/wp/soul brutes running around with perma 2x rage will destroy dwarf very very quickly.

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I have an EM Stalker on account #2. He cannot scratch my Peacebringer in Dwarf form on account #1, assuming that said Peacebringer is in "evasion mode" or Perma-Essence-Boosted with Hasten running and his Self Heal ready.

When IO'ed, a PB Dwarf sits at 59% Resists to all but Psi (74% to Toxic actually, with Essence Boost), caps out at 2409 HP (which can be attained permanently), has an uninterruptable 50% Self Heal that is up every 18-19 seconds, and can Teleport at will.

Why exactly are you arguing attack chains? A good PvPer will NOT let you get attack chains off. EM is melee and therefore kitable.

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We are talking lvl 50 here? Lightform is great while its up but once that drops you have a second where you will die in one hit. Any pvp'er with awareness of that will kill you. And that covers almost any casual pvp'er. I always watch for god mode drops against anyone that uses them.

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Which is why you KITE. the other player can't hit you when he is nowhere near you. The Light Form crash is pretty heavy but it's quite possible to live through it. Even if you don't want to kite, you can still pop Purples, chug a blue and heal to full in considerably less than it takes either Energy Transfer or Total Focus to animate.

Against ATs that can shoot you with a fast-animating and fast-flying-projectile ranged attack when you're kiting, either make sure you will have an opportunity to break line of sight during the crash, or simply don't use light form until you're less than 3 minutes from the end of the 10 minute arena match.

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And yes if you go that far with it what you are saying is practically true for any AT whatsoever. Quantum flight is just phase shift and lightform and dwarf to a lesser degree are god modes. All ATs get access to one or both of them?

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Yes, and this is my point. Other ATs can get them TO A LESSER DEGREE. No other AT has access to two God modes, a self-tp and a phase shift in just three power picks. And incidentally, a Peacebringer can get the standard power pool Phase Shift as well.

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For instance a fire/em blaster can get phase shift and force of nature and tp. So whats the difference? Oh yeh a blaster outdamages a pb in any form by a huge factor.

[/ QUOTE ]
The difference is that the Fire/EM does not have Mez protection, its Resist cap is 75% not 85%, it does not have two uninterruptable self heals whilst using Force of Nature, FoN lasts two minutes as opposed to Light Form's three, and it does not have the capability to transform into an alternate form with mez protection, Base HP higher than the Blaster Max HP Cap, large resistance to all forms of damage, ANOTHER uninteruptable self heal and inherent Self-TP. Oh, and Phase shift recharges in double the time that Quantum Flight does.

And yes, of course a decently-built Fire Blaster outdamages a Peacebringer.
Caveat: in everything except
(i) At lower levels (when a Peacebringer is in Nova form and a Blaster has no SOs and/or few powers)
(ii) On a large team with lots of Tanks/Defenders for PB +damage but no actual allied +damage buffs.
(iii) When the Blaster is dead from actually believing themselves to be as survivable as an AT with a proper Defensive secondary powerset, and the Peacebringer still attacking.

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And further where are all these unbeatable PBs anyway? In all my time in zones or arena I have seen very few. And those i do I only remember one who was actually ok but that was in sirens. Please come out and play and put me to shame.

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They are exactly where you'd expect them to be. In storage or PvEing, because Peacebringers can't actually kill anything. You seem to *STILL* be associating "Virtually unkillable in PvP" with "Good/Enjoyable in PvP", which frankly speaks volumes about your experience and makes me wonder why you're not trying to PvP with a Stone/Ice Tanker.

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Please come to RV!

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No, thankyou. Even if I were inclined to PvP on my Peacebringer for pleasure, Duels take place in the arena, NOT in RV. And neither does much actual PvP... RV is for Farmers, Badgers and the insanely optimistic.

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PBs can survive well in pvp but to say only two builds can beat them is so far from the truth.

Offhand - Any rad/cold debuffer, ss/wp brute, em/wp stalker, fire or ice/nrg blaster, any domi. Probably a bs/fire scrapper.

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Cold I've covered. Rad hasn't a hope, simply not enough -recharge to counter either Quantum Flight or the uninterruptable self-healing potential (Essence Boost 80% heal and HP Buff, Dwarf 50% Heal, Human 50% Heal), and not enough -resistance to counter Dwarf or Light Form. Super Strength has no worthwhile mez and is melee-only and therefore ignorable, ditto for Energy Melee (even with the stuns. Breakfrees, Dwarf and Light form will negate them if they ever actually manage to get within melee range of the PB). An Ice/NRG Blaster has not got enough -recharge to counter Quantum Flight nor enough unresisted damage to hit through Dwarf or Light Form. No Dominator except for /Psi is relevant; since they will not be able to stop the PB from TPing or shifting into Quantum Flight, they will stop building Domination and become easy to kite.

You have to remember that in a duelling situation a Peacebringer has greater survivability than a Regen Scrapper with Phase Shift even before you consider Light Form or Dwarf Form.

Two self heals - clones of Reconstruction and Dull Pain - and over 35% Resistance to everything but Psi, plus Quantum Flight, which is effectively Phase Shift on steroids with half the recharge time. Add in Light Form, Dwarf Form, and the inherent Dwarf Form Teleport and you are virtually unkillable.

It may technically be as cheesy as a Stalker staying in Hide the whole time, but with a Peacebringer you are visible the entire time, and in many cases actually trading blows. Unlike most other classes with uninterruptable self-heals, you also have ranged attacks and can annoy your pursuer and goad them into chasing you.

Yes, you can do a similar kind of "force a draw" thing on other ATs, but Peacebringers will do it better; and will be beatable by far fewer combinations. The only thing more survivable is a mobile Stalker that just sits at the stealth cap for the full ten minute duration of the duel.

Resist Elements is still completely skippable, and I'm not changing my (Issue 9) build at all.

Frankly I could easily stand to drop "Focussed Accuracy" too for all the times I ever need to use it (PermaRage + Perception IO), but it's handy occasionally, like when fighting Mako or with about twenty -tohit debuffs on me from fighting Arachnos widows. I've thought about switching to "Conserve Power" a few times though.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.4006
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Womble: Level 50 Mutation Tanker
Primary Power Set: Invulnerability
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Temp Invulnerability -- HO:Ribo(A), HO:Ribo(3), ResDam-I:50(3)
Level 1: Jab -- Acc-I:50(A)
Level 2: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx:50(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg:50(9), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg:50(11), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:50(11), Dct'dW-Heal:50(13), Dct'dW-Rchg:50(13)
Level 4: Haymaker -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg:50(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:50(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(7), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(7), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:49(17)
Level 6: Hurdle -- Jump-I:50(A), Jump-I:50(45)
Level 8: Unyielding -- ImpArm-ResDam:40(A), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(9), HO:Ribo(15), Aegis-Psi/Status:35(15), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:14(40)
Level 10: Boxing -- Acc-I:50(A)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- Ksmt-ToHit+:30(A), DefBuff-I:50(34), LkGmblr-Def:44(43), LkGmblr-Rchg+:35(46)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I:50(A)
Level 16: Health -- Numna-Heal:50(A), Numna-Heal/Rchg:50(17), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+:50(34), Mrcl-Heal:40(37), Mrcl-Rcvry+:40(46), RgnTis-Regen+:30(46)
Level 18: Invincibility -- RedFtn-Def:50(A), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(19), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(19), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(37), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(37), LkGmblr-Rchg+:35(50)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod:50(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg:50(21), EndMod-I:50(21), P'Shift-End%:50(31)
Level 22: Knockout Blow -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg:50(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:50(23), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(23), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(25), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(25), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:49(34)
Level 24: Taunt -- Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng:50(A), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg/Rng:50(36)
Level 26: Tough -- HO:Ribo(A), HO:Ribo(27), ResDam-I:50(27)
Level 28: Rage -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(29), HO:Membr(29), Rec'dRet-Pcptn:20(48)
Level 30: Tough Hide -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:35(A), LkGmblr-Def:50(31), DefBuff-I:50(31)
Level 32: Unstoppable -- ImpArm-ResDam:32(A), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(33), RechRdx-I:50(33), RechRdx-I:50(33)
Level 35: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(36), RechRdx-I:50(36)
Level 38: Foot Stomp -- Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg:50(A), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(39), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(40), FrcFbk-Rechg%:50(40)
Level 41: Weave -- RedFtn-Def:50(A), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(42), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(42), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(42), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(43), LkGmblr-Rchg+:35(43)
Level 44: Resist Physical Damage -- ImpArm-ResDam:39(A), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(45), ResDam-I:50(45)
Level 47: Resist Energies -- ResDam-I:50(A), ResDam-I:50(48), ResDam-I:50(48)
Level 49: Focused Accuracy -- HO:Cyto(A), HO:Cyto(50), HO:Cyto(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I:50(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- ULeap-Stlth:50(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]4% DamageBuff(Smashing)[*]4% DamageBuff(Lethal)[*]4% DamageBuff(Fire)[*]4% DamageBuff(Cold)[*]4% DamageBuff(Energy)[*]4% DamageBuff(Negative)[*]4% DamageBuff(Toxic)[*]4% DamageBuff(Psionic)[*]3% Defense(Smashing)[*]3% Defense(Lethal)[*]3% Defense(Fire)[*]3% Defense(Cold)[*]3% Defense(Energy)[*]3% Defense(Negative)[*]3% Defense(Psionic)[*]3% Defense(Melee)[*]3% Defense(Ranged)[*]3% Defense(AoE)[*]55% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]14% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]4% Enhancement(Heal)[*]5% FlySpeed[*]112.4 HP (6%) HitPoints[*]5% JumpHeight[*]5% JumpSpeed[*]MezResist(Immobilize) 8.8%[*]MezResist(Sleep) 1.65%[*]MezResist(Terrorized) 2.2%[*]20% Perception[*]10% (0.17 End/sec) Recovery[*]42% (3.29 HP/sec) Regeneration[*]3.78% Resistance(Fire)[*]3.78% Resistance(Cold)[*]1.26% Resistance(Toxic)[*]4.26% Resistance(Psionic)[*]5% RunSpeed[/list]<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
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[ QUOTE ]
So basically you have never fought a duel with you PB?
TPing away is not dueling. And usually its good form to let your opponent set up to some degree.

I have beaten Crabs easily in a rolling zonal battle but in a duel I have found them to be a lot harder.

I really want to duel your unbeaten PB. What server do you play on Praf?

[/ QUOTE ]

Duelling is fighting one-on-one with another toon in the arena. And I can think of only TWO combos in the entire pantheon of possible CoH and CoV characters that could actually beat a Peacebringer.

One is a /Psi permadom that is set up to exploit Drain Psyche. The first thing that can possibly beat a properly configured Peacebringer one-on-one is keeping their endurance bar at precisely zero (as soon as it rises above that, they'll just slip into Quantum Flight).

The second is a Cold Defender that exploits the insane levels of -Recharge which that build brings to bear. And even then it could be a close call if the Peacebringer is very good at Teleport Kiting in Dwarf form, is built for +regen or has taken Phase Shift on top of Quantum Flight.

The rest of the times the Peacebringer will always be able to force a draw. Mainly by simply kiting in Dwarf/Light form or Quantum Flight. It used to be that you could keep Quantum Flight up for well over two minutes at a time (before the nerf to 30 secs). Back then I'd say not even those two builds could have managed it.

Note that I said "force a draw", not "force a win". Peacebringers are [u]incredibly[u] survivable, but no ranged mezzes and no insane damage output makes for all the offensive effectiveness of a wet noodle. Which is why nobody in their right mind ever actually duels with them for anything other than a laugh at the challenger's expense.

PBs CAN be effective in small PvP teams, but in larger ones they typically just take up a "Damage Dealer" slot that could be better filled by another AT. The few times I've been GLAD of PvPing on my PB have been on small casual teams when I'm not getting noticably buffed. In those cases if another toon can ground or slow an enemy, then a Peacebringer can contribute some nice damage without being at much risk of dying themselves. I have soloed and killed a Granite Brute one-on-one on my PB, who made the mistake of staying toe-to-toe with me. But it took well over five minutes, and there was no way I could have stopped him from moving.

All that said, Crab Spiders are not really terrible duellists if they're well set up. You simply need to build them for pets + survivability (Tough/Aid Self helps) and exploit WA Webnade or the BS Patron immob lots.

Favourite Scrapper?

Does a Human/Dwarf Peacebringer count? No? Rats.
How about a EM/Regen/Mace Mastery Stalker? Still No?

Fine then. For AoE and general teaming I'll go with "Nightdagger", my Spines/Dark/Body Mastery lawnmower, and for Single Target AV/GM/Elite Boss Killing fun, I'll go with my namesake "Maelwys", a Katana/Regen/Body 'Damage Proc Cannon' build.

Night can tank the Psi Clockwork King or Babbage... but skipped "Tough" for Energy Torrent and Focussed Accuracy, and thus tends to die to the likes of +2 Freakshow bosses. He can two-shot or three-shot most normal mobs though, and tends to put Fire Blasters to shame unless they're /Fire rather than Fire/ and dive into melee range a lot (and somehow manage to survive whilst doing so).

Mael can withstand being pummelled by stupidly high numbers of Melee or Lethal damage mobs assuming he has something to plink with Divine Avalanche (like 40-50 mobs in the final Ouroboros 5th column mission). He's light on AoE (having just the two Katana Cones) but if there's a decent Tanker on the team then thanks to all his damage procs virtually nothing can catch him in sustained single-target DPS, even a VERY min/maxxed "machine gun" DM build.

They both have Scrapper taunt (confront, the single-target one). More for the look on the tankers face when they end up tanking the AV instead of him than out of actual necessity though. Back before there were any Willpower or Dark Armor Tankers, Nightdagger was one of the best Psionic Damage tanks around.

I've had my eye on a Fire/Fire (or possibly a Fire/Regen) scrapper for the next one. Same basic idea as Nightdagger, but with Emphasis on Fire Damage rather than Lethal Damage, and little or no tanking ability. It may end up as a Fire/Fire or even EM/Fire Tanker instead though...

ITFs are very nice for Recipes and Salvage. Particularly if you run it with a character that's high on wide-area AoE damage output like a Fire Blaster, Spines Scrapper or Bot/Thugs MM. Scores of mobs to kill.

I've heard of people forming the 8-man team to start it, then 6 people quitting and one logging off so that the remaining guy can solo the first few missions and horde all the drops. If memory serves, I think my best (normal 8-man) run so far netted a purple Ragnarok recipe worth 40mill+, a Numina +Recovery/+Regen from the TF reward, plus the odd rare salvage drop and some negligable (&lt;5 mill) influence from the mobs themselves.

Back in the "good old days" (pre-romans) I could easily net well over 40 million inf just casually running missions for a few hours. These days it's closer to 20-25 million, assuming I don't get any lucky purple drops.

My best day was a Saturday where I got 240 million in drops, in the first few days of the purple IOs coming out. However I only farm when I actually need inf, and it all goes straight back into the economy for IO builds. I only ever keep about 100 million influence for "emergencies". All heroside, not too fussed about my CoV toons.

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And BAM you are completely useless to all. No damage, very poor aggro control. You STILL have to retoggle back in human form.

I have a human/dwarf pb and i know full well how useless dwarf form is. That argument is old. Try fighting a map of CoT or any of the other non stop mezzers and tell me that a pb is contributing anything bar novelty to a team.

They will continue to be such. Novelty AT that gets invited to teams out of pity. Until the CYST turns up and the team breaks up or they force the pb to change toons.

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Perhaps useless to you, but that might just be down to build or play style. Personally, my triform PB steamrolls through pretty much ALL mobs, only slowing down a little for EB's and Malta sappers. Dwarf form is FAR from useless either. I can quite happily tank AV's as long as there's an empath around to throw a heal at me every once in a while.

TBH, your comment about Cysts is kind of telling. I don't have ANY problems dealing with those things, and usually solo the buggers even when teaming.

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I'll back the Floating Fat one up here.

Kheldians are an asset on teams only if your playstyle suits being the "jack of all trades master of none".
Go in expecting to be as damaging as a Blaster or as survivable as a tank and you'll be disappointed.

Warshades are better at PvE gank steamrolling squads than PBs. They can mow through mobs like nobodys business and can actually rival a Fire blaster at higher levels. They aren't so great at backup tanking in Dwarf form though, no Essence Boost or Footstomp and their self-heal requires a tohit check.

Peacebringers are more single target damage dealers, they have some AoE in Nova (which is nearly as good as a Warshades if there's a Kin on the team, and I say "nearly" only because of the WS pets) but their main strength lies in balancing damage with backup tanking. The PB Dwarf tank is VERY effective if you have the Heal, Taunt and Footstomp well slotted and decent levels of accuracy for the taunt/stomp.

Cysts should not bother any decent higher level team. (Read: anything above level 20 that has at least one well-built melee or ranged damage dealer, and at least one player that uses a targetting macro).

My PB for example has also successfully SOLOED two +2 cysts and a +2 Elite Boss. All at the same time. The only thing that poses a decent threat to a Kheld these days is a Boss level Void (and even then these days you can actually resist their "quantum" damage type... in the old days they'd just one-shot you even in Dwarf form with Essence Boost up!)


----------


And in case you don't think a damage-dealer-with-backup-tanking-ability is a nice addition to a PvE mission team, what about when you hit a T junction and you split? Or your Tanker goes over the aggro cap? Or the Tanker faceplants when fighting an AV? Or you HAVE no Tanker? Or you get an ambush whilst in the middle of fighting another mob?

My Peacebringer regularly out-tanked dedicated tanks when I was levelling him. He almost always out-tanks regular tanks now that he's fully IO'ed up and sitting at level 50. The ONLY thing he has problems with are certain AVs (which the tweaks to Cosmic Balance will fix, making him stupidly survivable) or ToHit/Recharge debuffs and endurance drains whch limit his aggro-grabbing (a FF +recharge proc in Footstomp fixes the recharge problem).

He has even Tanked the Psionic Clockwork King on at least four occasions, taking the Alpha in Quantum Flight then tanking in Dwarf with Essence boost up, even though PBs get zero defence and resistance to Psi damage.

This is not to say that he's better than any given Tanker (which would be silly looking at the numbers, I have an INV tanker that is generally far more survivable and is certainly much better at aggro control) but he's by far better and more reliable than most PUG tankers I've encountered, simply because there is someone behind the wheel that is alert, knows the game mechanics and knows how to use his own powers effectively.

...and if your team doesn't happen to need a tanker at that precise moment, you can always just stay in Human or Nova and give any of the S/L-damage-dealing Scrappers a run for their money...

My PB is not as damaging as my Fire Blaster/Katana Scrapper or as survivable as my INV tank. He is however NEARLY as damaging and NEARLY as survivable (when teamed with Cosmic Balance running), and can flick between the two states practically instantly. Such diversity has saved the day in manys-a-PUG.

I think most of us have tried PvP in CoH at one time or another anyway. I know I have, and I've even rolled a total of three (since-turned level 50) toons specifically for PvP.

I just simply don't enjoy it as much as a good PvE steamrolling team. And I don't want to gimp a character's performance in PvE for PvP viability. Which is why I tend to roll "Hybrid" toons.

That said, the dual-builds idea is an EXCELLENT boost to PvP viability on its own, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Castle has in mind for other PvP power changes in the coming weeks.

Kheldians PvPing? Traditionally PBs are hellishly difficult to kill, but have poor attack strength. Whilst the damage buffs have helped here, I don't think thye've helped THAT much. Still no big ToHit buffs or fast activating spike damage + little in the way of slows, -jumps or ranged mez. The most viable builds I've seen are Human form Blappers built like an EM blaster, or "Nova heavy" snipers. Nova's unaffected, but Human's better now.

My own Human/Dwarf has all four travel powers (SJ and SS from pool powers) and with Dwarfie, Light Form, all the heals and Quantum Flight, he's essentially virtually unkillable in PvP. Unfortunately he still just tickles any toon that isn't trying to go toe-to-toe. I can't see the base damage buff helping THAT much.

And although I hate this type of thing, unfortunately in PvP it really is a case of "lolwarshades"...

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The reasoning for this is that whilst it DOES generate a lot of "new" influence (primarily from selling level 50 common IO recipes these days rather than from kill rewards)

+ Same-map-grinding increases the supply of all types of salvage, normal "kill" drop pool recipes, wings/costume bits and Purple recipes.

+ Repeated-newspaper/radio grinding does the same as above at a slightly lower rate, but also increases the supply of the end-of-map pool drops.

+ TF-Grinding increases the supply of multiple-levels of salvage and Pool A drops (albeit at a fairly low rate if you're not doing "kill-alls") and the supply of end-of-TF pool drops.

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I thought your maths was better than this.

You get an inf bonus based on the number of people in the team. You do not get an equivelent bonus for drops. Thus, the greater the number of people in the team, the greater the inf/recipe and inf/savage ratio becomes. So, unless people have started farming solo, inf will be generated faster than drops, leading to inflation.

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Most people farm solo, that's the whole point.

The vast majority of earned influence will come from selling earned salvage/recipe drops, and unfortunately (as you've noted) drop rate does not scale with team size as experience/influence drop rewards do.

This is why you get lots of people asking for lower level "fillers" to join their team until they get a map that's spawned for 5-6 people, then they kick them all and farm it solo...

Personally, I just run maps with two toons on my two accounts. I don't like bothering people to get them to join to increase my spawn size, and running on Tenacious gets me plenty of drops to sell.

As far as I know, the only type of farming that's better in teams is when you're going for maximum Experience (eg. a Powerlevelling team rather than a farming team) or when you're trying to rush through a TF as fast as possible (Katie Hannon runs and the like). If you're just going for maximum influence per hour, then farming large groups of even-level (level 50) minions and LTs solo is where it's at. Just farm away, then sell all the common IO recipes at the NPC vendor, and everything else you get that you don't need at the Auction House.

Note that in this instance most of the inflation comes from selling common IO recipes to the NPCs (for &gt;100,000 inf a recipe) rather than the 1000-ish inf you get from killing an even-level foe. The tradeoff is that it also generates a LOT of salvage and pool A recipe drops which mostly just end up on the Auction House (which both increases supply to players, and decreases inflation via getting "taxed" for 10% of the sell price).

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Maybe I am just negative as the khelds will still be a non option for pvp while some VEATs seem tailor made to be highly effective all round pvp'ers.

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This doesn't bother me in the slightest, seeing as PvP is complete carp anyway. This game is primarily PvE, and always will be, no matter how much they try to glue PvP elements to it.

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The day we get a "Carp Melee" set is the day I roll another dedicated PvP toon...

This is actually one of my favourite things about CoH. It's just made for PvE. It means we can have fun things like autofollow and attack-target-of-my-target and running-at-the-same-speed-regardless-of-what-way-you're-facing without people screaming about how it kills PVP balance all the time.

(I've just come back to CoH after checking 'Warhammer Online' out for a few weeks. I'm still bitter about hanging around fansite forums that are almost exclusively populated by people that were too thick, offensive or annoying to be accepted in World of Warcraft. Despite the whole "PvP Balance" game angle... )

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Myth.

Farming does not produce drops at the same rate as inf.

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Actually (and this is not intended to just pick on PRAF!) farming reduces the cost of loads of stuff.

The reasoning for this is that whilst it DOES generate a lot of "new" influence (primarily from selling level 50 common IO recipes these days rather than from kill rewards)

+ Same-map-grinding increases the supply of all types of salvage, normal "kill" drop pool recipes, wings/costume bits and Purple recipes.

+ Repeated-newspaper/radio grinding does the same as above at a slightly lower rate, but also increases the supply of the end-of-map pool drops.

+ TF-Grinding increases the supply of multiple-levels of salvage and Pool A drops (albeit at a fairly low rate if you're not doing "kill-alls") and the supply of end-of-TF pool drops.

You can see this in effect, the price of all pool A recipes and virtually all types of salvage has gotten lower and lower since the introduction of IOs and has stayed fairly low. The Magic salvage glut after the ITF was introduced has drastically helped there too.

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The problem is that there is a runaway affect on certain very sought after, very rare IOs. Such as LOTG +Recharge, and Miracle +Recoverys. Purples, whilst sought-after, are pretty easily farmable and the prices stay comparitively low (notable exceptions for the four sets of "damage" Purple IOs Melee/Ranged/PBAoE/TAoE since "everybody wants them").

These IOs are quite often the reason for people turning to farming in the first place, and with more people farming purely to generate influence in order to buy them, the supply gets used up, and the prices get higher. There is very little chance of a "farmer" actually getting one of these IOs during their farming session, which is where the problem lies. The vast, vast majority of other purchasable goods is reasonably low cost by comparison, simply because a lot of excess supply gets generated during normal gameplay and by people that are farming in order to earn enough inf to buy the "big ticket" items. Miracles in particular are out of a person's reach once they progress past level 40.

The result is a price increase spiral for the few "big ticket" items, but a glut for the rest of the market, which is extremely profitable for the average "non min-maxxed" player.

I'd wager that if they increased the availablility (eg. drop rates) for LOTGs, Miracles, Numinas and certain purple sets, nobody would really have any problem with the current pricing situation. That's something that I hope the merit system is going to address.

As it stands, it's currently very easy to fully outfit a toon with very effective (but less than "Best possible") set IOs for a comparatively small amount of investment (say, less than 100 mill total). The reason this is the case is mostly due to increased supply from farming.

We're certainly far better off these days than we were in, say, issue six...

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If you are already at 50 you will be encountering KoA. And when Frosty was my only high level character I used to wonder why people made such a fuss about them-the effect was barely noticable with Ice tanker level -speed resistance.

Then there are the the Earth thorn casters...

And -speed is much more common (and dangerous) in PvP.

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Which is true. However comparing INV's 20% resistance to Ice's 100% (60% resistance from Wet Ice + 20% from Permafrost + 20% from Energy Absorption) is a bit unfair. Even an SR Scrapper has 40% resistance, which would still be double that of INV...

And consider that you can get exactly the same effect, permanently, PLUS recharge debuff resistance by slotting one of the new Halloween "Winter's Gift" Set IOs into a prestige sprint. (see here and here)

And yes, I'm aware that they'd stack. But to me, 20% slow resistance is NOT worth taking a power pick over. If it was 20% recharge debuff resistance, perhaps... but I'd not even take it if it was 60% or 80% runspeed resistance simply because I find runspeed debuffs to be so infrequent (Disclaimer: in PVE) and therefore of negligable effect.

The other thing to note is the "free breakfree" aspect of Dwarf Form now.

If you're fighting in Human form and you get mezzed, you can switch to Dwarf and keep on fighting. Realistically this means that if you're a "pure Human-form player", you're now going to be gimping yourself if you don't at least take Dwarf form for those "oh [censored]" moments. Seems that the Human form Peacebringer might be relegated purely to 'concept build' territory.

I'm not sure if this works for Nova though. I suspect that what might happen is that Nova will not get detoggled when you're mezzed, but you'll still be slept/held/stunned. In other words, you might not be able to turn Nova form OFF in order to switch into Dwarf form for the "free breakfree".

I don't think Nova is hands down the best for damage after this. Human still has a lot of utility and Build Up, which Nova doesn't, as well as access to pool powers. I'll be happy sticking with Human/Dwarf for my main build, since the ranged attacks and melee attacks will both be getting a nice base damage buff, and "Cosmic Balance" will still work on Human Form as well as Nova Form.

Given the damage cap limitations and Nova's inherent +45% buff watering down the effectiveness of more buffs from Cosmic Balance... for single-target damage, I think Human Form could still have the edge. Nova has always been and will always be better for AoE damage though.

My NEXT Kheld will certainly be going triform...

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You can't jump in KoA caltrops.

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Knights of Artemis comprising, of course, at least 95% of the foes you'll face whilst levelling...

Even in the two or three missions you'll actually encounter those girls, their caltrop patches tend to be stacked many, many times. Given that they can be quickly stacked enough to make you crawl even in SuperSpeed (which is upwards of 600 feet per second IIRC), I'm afraid that +20% movement debuff resistance isn't going to do much to help you there. You'd be better off just saving one of those temporary power flight packs and toggling it on for the 0.5 seconds it'll take you to fly out of the patch...

[u]My Tanker before changes: [u]
(everything except Resist Elements from INV, plus Tough + Weave)

+ 90.14% Resistance to Smashing (capped at 90%)
+ 90.14% Resistance to Lethal (capped at 90%)
+ 27.6% Resistance to Energy
+ 27.6% Resistance to Negative
+ 19.4% Resistance to Fire
+ 19.4% Resistance to Cold
+ 4.3% Resistance to Psi

+ 9.9% Defence to Melee/Ranged/AoE/Psi
+ 49.6% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 10 foes in Invincibility)
+ 44.9% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 8 Foes in Invincibility)
+ 37.7% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 5 Foes in Invincibility)
+ 32.9% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 3 Foes in Invincibility)
+ 28.1% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 1 Foe in Invincibility)


[u]My Tanker after changes: [u]
(everything except Resist Elements from INV, plus Tough + Weave)

+ 92.53% Resistance to Smashing (capped at 90%)
+ 92.53% Resistance to Lethal (capped at 90%)
+ 30.00% Resistance to Energy
+ 30.00% Resistance to Negative
+ 19.4% Resistance to Fire
+ 19.4% Resistance to Cold
+ 4.3% Resistance to Psi

+ 50% Defence Debuff Resistance
+ 25% Endurance Drain/Recovery Debuff Protection

+ 14.9% Defence to Melee/Ranged/AoE/Psi
+ 46.7% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 10 foes in Invincibility)
+ 43.5% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 8 Foes in Invincibility)
+ 38.7% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 5 Foes in Invincibility)
+ 35.5% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 3 Foes in Invincibility)
+ 32.3% Defence to S/L/E/N/F/C (with 1 Foe in Invincibility)


In other words, the "old" INV had more defence when you have above 6 foes in range of Invincibility, the "new" INV has more defence up to and including 6 foes in range of Invincibility. Given that Invincibility has a radius of only 8 feet and I personally have trouble fitting more than 5-6 foes in it even when I'm herding "skinnier" mobs... I think we're better off...

The +25% Endurance Debuff resistance and 50% defense debuff resistance is icing. +25% isn't going to make that much difference when fighting Carnies or Lord Recluse, but the Defence Debuff Resistance is very nice when fighting foes that use swords such as Romans, and the extra 5% global Defence will help a good bit against Psionic and Ranged attacks.

I'm liking the changes. I don't think Resist Energies is quite into "unskippable" territory yet, but I'd rank it fairly closely behind RPD and Tough Hide now, and I personally would rather take it than "Conserve Energy". Resist Elements however is still completely skippable. Fire/Cold damage is rare in PVE... and it just resists movement speed debuffs NOT recharge debuffs, which are negligable if you've got the Jump travel pool.

Saw this on the US boards, is certainly a VERY good change for khelds.

Three things immediately sprang to mind when I saw these, the first was the effect that the toggle dropping changes will have. This in itself is a very nice change for your average Kheldian. The +Resistance shields just became worth taking!! (Providing you can justify the endurance drain...)


[u]Firstly[u]

The shields provide just over a 35% resistance buff, which will also stack with the first auto power (Incandescence on PBs, Absorption on WSs). Granted you'll lose the actual protection itself when you get mezzed, but you won't need to retoggle afterwards to they'll pop back to full effectiveness straight away!


[u]Secondly[u]

Next up was the damage buff. I've been wanting this practically forever on my Human form PB. Human form blasts in particular have always been a bit on the weak side, and the recent defiance changes to blasters have left us completely in the dust regarding both blasts and blapps...

On my Peacebringer, the tweaks would correspond to the following changes:

Glinting Eye damage from 70 to 90.
Gleaming Blast damage from 114 to 147.
Radiant Strike damage from 165 to 187.
Incandescent Strike damage from 299 to 339.
Solar Flare damage from 119 to 135.
Photon Seekers damage remains the same at 550 (uses the pet scale)
Dawn Strike damage from 339 to 384 (if melee modifier, 437 if ranged modifier)

For reference, that takes the standard opening "Blapp" (Build Up + Radiant Strike + Incandescent Strike) from 630 to 714 damage. Not overpowered, but certainly pretty useful.

That's a sweet buff. but it doesn't stop there...


[u]Thirdly[u]

...and what I'm looking forward to the most, is the inherent balance buffs in ALL FORMS.

Kheldians get +20% Damage or +10% Resistance depending on their teammates. Or light, fairly negligable mez protection.

Lets take a standard 8-man team of, say, You, a controller, 2 defenders, a tanker and 3 blasters/scrappers. In such a team, a Peacebringer would be getting [u]+60% Damage[u] (from tankers/defenders) and [u]+30% Resistance[u] (from blasters/scrappers). And a Warshade the same buffs, but from the opposite ATs.

In Human form this has always been a nice buff, if a little underpowered. The +Damage is quite noticable, but the +Resistance has had little to stack with. Human form shields after all have not really been worth taking. This is now going to change.

Considering only the toggle drop changes... assuming you take the three shields, that's +35.3% Resistance when slotted. Combined with the +30% resistance, that's 65.3%. Or over traditional Dwarf Form levels of resistance (59%) in Human form, permanently.

But that's not all. Consider these carry over into ALL FORMS now.


---&gt; Lets look at Nova form first.

Nova form gets a 45% +damage boost as part of the form itself, so any stacked +Damage is going to be slightly less effective then it would be in Human form, but a free +60% is still going to be a noticable buff. Unfortunately the Kheldian damage cap is only 400%. With 100% base, just under 100% from slotting and +45% from the inherent, Nova form is going to suffer a little bit from "early-damage cap syndrome". Considering that with +60% damage from the Cosmic Balance, they'll only be able to be buffed a further 95% from other sources such as Fulcrum Shift, Build Up or Mire. Warshades that double-mire are used to hitting this cap. Peacebringers not so much. But hey, a permanent +Damage buff is not really something to get upset about!!

Nova form's traditional weakness is its lack of defences... so +30% Resistance is nothing to sneeze at, especially combined with Nova form's own inherent +15% resistance to Energy/Negative and the fact that it's rarely going to be within melee range for all the usual spikes of Smashing/Lethal damage.

So that's all good so far. More powerful blasts, better defenses in Nova form.


---&gt; Now we get to Dwarf form.

The damage output buff? It's a nice idea certainly, but Dwarf form attacks have very low base damage to start with. The increased base damage plus the increase from Cosmic Balance might make them scratch rather than tickle the enemy... but that's not what I'm excited about.

Lets look at the Resistance numbers for a second.
+ For reference, Kheldians get a 85% damage resistance cap.
+ Dwarf Form when 3-slotted tops out at just over 59% resistance to all but Psionic damage.
+ Add 30% resistance from Cosmic Balance to that. Go on.

89% You say? When the cap is 85%? And that's achievable permanently on a team with three damage dealers (for PBs), which is practically every endgame 8-man team?

Ladies and Gents, we have a new challenger for Granite Armor.

Peacebringers in particular are going to be nigh-unkillable on teams when in Dwarf form now, with the self-heal that's a clone of /regen's reconstruction and the highly-spammable knockdown footstomp.

After this change the only things that're going to be holding Dwarf form back from being able to tank everything under the sun are

(i) No Recharge or End drain protection, which is coverable with buffs (such as SB, AM and FF Bubbles)
(ii) No Autohit Taunt. In both PVE and PVP, Kheldian Dwarf form Taunt requires an accuracy check.

Now I've been an advocate of changing the Dwarf form taunt to autohit for ages, but with this change to the inherent I think it's the only thing that's going to balance it as a Tanker. I know I'm going to love taking my Kheldian out for a spin versus AVs now... given that with a bit of effort I could tank most of the Preatorian AVs before these changes, and that with 85% resistance I will be taking only around a third of the damage I was taking at 59% resistance, it's going to be a doddle.

Big changes. Good changes. Kheldians will no longer be taking a "pity spot" in teams after this.

Major Kudos to the Developers, especially since they've been telling us for ages how difficult changing the whole "toggle drop" mechanic would be...

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Bare with me here with the quoting I am not on a warpath tearing posts apart, I just felt it helpful:

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IIRC soloing on Invincible will get you AVs though, so it'd not exactly be a small step up from Unyielding.

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Yes I was hoping for AVs, this will then mean I have to go about it very carefully, not saving each NPC as I come to them but saving the NPC in a good order, then tanking the AVs in turn whilst that NPC supports me with their AI.


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I think that it'd be just about possible for me to do it on Invincible providing that I'm very, very careful with the order I fight the AVs. It'd certainly be possible with Temp powers to get as far as the Spider... but I'm not sure if it spawns as a proper Monster or AV on invincible, and I doubt I'd beat the second form of an AV version solo since surviving the attacks of the EB version was touch-and-go without the odd bit of kiting.

To try and steer this back vaguely on-topic, I'm honestly not sure how a Fire/Regen Scrapper would be able to solo an AV without temp powers. Divine Avalanche is about the only way I can weather the Damage Output of an AV on my Regen, Fire Melee is typically slightly higher damage output than Katana (assuming you don't factor all possible Procs into account!) but at the cost of survivablity. For an AV, you need survivability. Regen is great at having no downtime under sustained medium damage (Bosses, some EBs), but buckles under bursts of heavy damage (AVs, GMs).

*** Note that I do have the new version of MoG, and it's great for the odd big damage spike or alpha strike negation... but it alone won't save you. Dull Pain, again, simply won't save you. I've had plenty of AVs that simply 2/3-shot me at the Scrapper HP cap (little over 2400HP) with Instant Healing running!! ***

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You say 12 NPCs but I think if you lost no one before Jade Spider you would of surely had 13. Like I say, I myself had 12 with the loss of Numina. But it was hard keeping a headcount, so hard I made macros like...

1) /Macro BAB "$$Targetname Back Alley Brawler"
2) /Macro Cit "$$Targetname Citadel"
3) /Macro Inf "$$Targetname Infernal"
4) /Macro Man "$$Targetname Manticore"
5) /Macro Mal "$$Targetname Malaise"
6) /Macro Lib "$$Targetname Ms. Liberty"
7) /Macro Myn "$$Targetname Mynx"
8) /Macro Num "$$Targetname Numina"
9) /Macro Pos "$$Targetname Positron"
10 /Macro Sta "$$Targetname Statesman"
11 /Macro Sis "$$Targetname Sister Psyche"
12 /Macro Swa "$$Targetname Swan"
13 /Macro Syn "$$Targetname Synapse"


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Bah, 13 then. (I've a feeling I wasn't counting Synapse. All the NPCs were alive until the spider morph though, Synapse had probably just decided to do his usual party piece of managing to get stuck running across perfectly flat geometry...)

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I don't know what to expect when I try Invincible. On Unyielding with Katalina I felt I could rely on facing Ghost Widow and kiting if needed, because needs warranted that. I knew I was saving insps for Jade Spider whose Psi versus my SR. The thinking was, if the NPCs don't immob GW, then they may -fly her and it's Kats build which gives me more than 2 choices of kiting (That's why I chose to use Kat before Shan). In the end with only a small bunch of NPCs to back me up as some were snagged on the boat twiddling thumbs (hence the headcount macros made after) - well anyway, I found she was going to take a bit to beat and I ever the experimentalist kited her finding I could rely on an NPCs -fly. When this goes to AVs on Invincible I will find out how well she resists the Vanguard/Phalanx pets powers.

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At the risk of derailing (further!)...

I know from experience that my scrapper has enough damage output to physically beat an AV's regen when going toe-to-toe, even something with high resists or a self heal like the Preatorian "Shadowhunter". The only problem (for my Kat/Regen at least) is surviving the onslaught of spike damage that an AV is capable of putting out. In the aforementioned Shadowhunter fight my resists were buffed to about 50% by my second account's Sonic Defender, that plus either a single purple insp or a single Divine Avalanche buff was enough to keep me topped up indefinately against SH's damage output. I could have whittled him completely solo down using Double-stacked Divine Avalanche if he didn't use Dull Pain so often.

Katana got that nice DPS boost a while back due to the animation changes, but a surprising amount of my character's DPS comes from procs. Every attack apart from DA has at least one (-defence) damage proc , and the three most often used attacks (Gambler's Cut, Golden Dragonfly, Soaring Dragon) have two damage procs (-defence plus Mako's bite for GC, -defence plus purples for GD + SD). Gambler's Cut also has the -defence resistance debuff proc. Along with enough global recharge for Perma dull pain, it's a complete single-target DPS monster.

Stacking Divine Avalanche increases my survivability greatly whilst sacrificing some DPS (though not as much DPS as pre-IO sets!) and generally lets me tank anything that has "prefer melee" AI. However Ranged non-lethal attacks and AoE attacks still hurt a lot, even with perma Dull Pain. Any -Recharge or -Recovery/End Drain stacked on top of a non-melee AV's damage output will kill me (so Scirroco's fine since he melees me once I get in range, but Recluse's pets + sustained ranged end drain/-recovery and Jade Spider's ranged attacks are pretty deadly).

On Rugged, everything up to the second form of the spider was completely ganked in less than thirty seconds. Even GW and Recluse. "Enter melee range and hit it with a Katana until it stops moving" isn't much of a strategy, but it's a lot of fun and it definately works when they're only EBs. I made a point of waiting until I had Numina before taking on Recluse though, as a Fortitude helped versus his End Drain.

Unfortunately I doubt the Boss-health level NPCs would survive more than an AoE or two from an AV-level Scirroco. If they were all the same HP as Citadel, or someone else along with Numina was buffing + healing, perhaps. If it was just myself, Citadel plus the ranged attacker NPCs on him I think I'd be OK though.

Mako is a sissy, I've practically soloed him before as a +4 AV on STF runs. Likewise, Black Scorpion is just a big bag of HP waiting to be emptied. GW is the main problem (as ever, given how notorious she is on the STF).

I'm reasonably sure I could kill Ghost Widow using NPC zerg tactics plus a shivan and a chemical warburg nuke, but that'd be cheating a tad too much for my liking. I just don't think I could kill her in a straight-up fight with the NPCs due to her healing spam and that darn overpowered hold. And I really hate "out-of-range" ledge/hover/geometry taunting, since it's just not my Scrapper's style. Recluse is solo-gankable assuming I have purples and can avoid his End Drain ranged attack.

Jade Spider as an AV would just plain tear me a new one without Citadel, half a tray of purples, Warburg nukes, a Shivan and a lot of kiting. The reason I think that nasty attack that killed my NPC buddies was a PBAoE is that even when I was kiting the spider from range (jumping around the struts of the oil rig) there were big grey numbers floating above the heads of all the NPCs within melee range of it every two seconds or so. It seemed to act like a big damage aura. I've managed to beat the spider in the past whilst keeping several NPCs intact, but that's when playing a buffer character (Sonic Defender) and I'd always assumed their major HP loss was due to some sort of delayed nuke (like inferno) from morphing into the second spider form.

I think I could probably duo the TF on Invincible with, say, my Inv Tanker and my Sonic Defender... it's just not as much fun as scrapping my way through it completely solo. There's something about a scrapper's unadulterated in-your-face mindless violence that's incredibly theraputic after a long day at the office.

Especially versus Supervillains or Nazis. Nazi Supervillains are like scrapper magnets...

IIRC soloing on Invincible will get you AVs though, so it'd not exactly be a small step up from Unyielding.

Did the Ouroboros one for fun on Rugged a few nights ago myself and saved everyone up until Jade Spider. Was playing for fun, so when it appeared the twelve NPCs and myself all just dogpiled on it. I kept aggro, naturally, and they were all at full HP until it morphed... then they all died due to the big damage PBAoE DOT except for Citadel, bunch of low HP pansies!!

I'm convinced that the best way to do the spider is just to SJ away and solo it then rejoin the NPC group afterwards. It does a fairly annoying high -recharge attack, but if you're waiting for an attack/heal to pop back you can kite it around the Oil rigs fairly easily.

I'd prefer the mid level arc myself though. The last mission where you fight over 100 Nazis whilst simultaneously beating down three EBs is far too much fun. Did that one last night. Left the friendly NPCs in another room and soloed the lot on my Kat/Regen. Died once, and that was due to network lag making me miss a Divine Avalanche and letting a 10-second string of hits appear instantly. Inspless apart from three small purple insps at the very start and a wakey + BF in the middle, but Kat is pretty well suited to fighting them.

Nothing like beating on unending hordes of Nazis for relieving daily work tension...