Maelwys

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power is listed as having a base recharge of 60 seconds, duration of 15 seconds, 3 recharge SOs and hasten means recharge of 22 seconds at best without outside buffs

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Energy Manipulation > Boost Range

+ Recharge Time 60 seconds
+ +59.6% Range Enhancement to Self for 30 seconds [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]

Nofuture says its a 30 sec duration, with a 60 sec recharge.
So with three Recharge SOs it'll be just short of perma.

Maybe you're confusing it with Power Boost?

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The attraction for me as a mainly human-form PB was the near-blaster level single-target blapping damage output, along with respectable AOE damage output.

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Not nearly, at best about 30% of my blappers output.

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"Objection!"

(Peacebringer) Incandescent Strike at 50:
65.06 Smashing Damage
83.42 Energy Damage
Total = 148.48 (along with a Mag 3 hold, -defense and -fly)

(Blaster) Total Focus at 50:
55.61 Smashing Damage
142.36 Energy Damage
Total = 197.97 (along with a Mag 4 stun)

Now granted that's considerably more for the Blaster when soloing, and the figures are for unenhanced base damage. However factor in a PB's Cosmic Balance +damage on teams and it gets a little closer!

Radiant Strike is a PB's other main blapp, which does -fly and is a little under "Energy Punch" in terms of damage output. PB's don't get a third blapp where /NRG will get Bonesmasher, instead PB get Photon Seekers, Solar Flare, Glinting Eye and Gleaming Blast which are all solely energy damage. I imagine that the PB bias for energy damage would help offset things towards PvE endgame.

The "Blaster comparable damage output" comment is from personal experience in PvE, level 35+. I've found that the PB is decent at AOE and very good at single-target damage in that bracket. Outdamaging scrappers is easy at that level and on large enough teams Unit has been able to match or outdamage /elec and /nrg blappers. Usually on large endgame teams you're recieving a constant +60% to +100% damage from Cosmic Balance, the highest possible boost is +140% (with all 7 teammates either tanker or defender).

In pvp Blasters will far-and-away outdamage PB's due to their unresistable damage effect. Despite his two uninterruptable heals, Light Form and Pulsar I doubt Unit'd be able to match Cap Skyfire in a pvp match... wouldn't dream of trying!

(Pulsar/Seekers/SolarFlare/DawnStrike can really ruin a Mastermind's day though- Unit's actually becoming a lot of fun for me in zone pvp... just need to remember to bring loads of yellows/blues/breakfrees!)

Numbers are from http://www.nofuture.org.uk/cox/

Fair enough. I had assumed that you were big into 'large teams and AoE damage' due to your posts on Spines/DA on the scrapper forums.

I have to admit I didn't like the 'alien energy squid' concept either, so I completely rewrote my characters back story for my PB "Unit Omega".

I'm sort of expecting the other "epic ATs" to be the same though. Coralax etc. will all presumably have prewritten backgrounds already attached.

The attraction for me as a mainly human-form PB was the near-blaster level single-target blapping damage output, along with respectable AOE damage output.

To offset the slightly lower damage output you get two uninterruptable heals (one of which boosts HP), a "God mode" button which includes mez protection and an AOE disorient that can perma-mez minions. Other nice toys include an "immediately activating" Phased Flight for an escape button, inherent travel powers and Conserve energy. Dwarf form can Psuedo-tank and gets a 3rd uninterruptable heal.

When soloing your damage output will not match Blasters, and you get Voids and Quantums which are hard to handle. That's something you have to live with. The flip side is that in an average team with two defenders and a tank, you'll be sitting at +60% damage with Cosmic Balance... that's when you will consistently start to outdamage Blasters.

True Khelds are meant to be "epic" not "uber" (read: CoH in Hard mode) but due to the wide array of powers you get you can produce a build that does start to excel. Particularly in large teams.

PB's Dwarfie is even one of the better options to tank psi damage enemies due to Essence boost's "dull pain" and two +50% heals that are each up every 20 seconds with Hasten. I've tanked the Psi CW king on my dwarfie several times now without an empath backing me up. With Quantum Flight you don't even take any damage from the Alpha strike.

Tri form Warshades can be even better than Peacebringers at high levels. Without any outside buffs they can hit the damage cap with Double-mire, and the resist cap to all damage types including Psionic with Eclipse, then switch to Nova form and unleash AOE carnage that blasters can only dream of. And they can do it regularly: I've seen some 'shades built that way which I can only describe as "uber".

I can understand being discouraged by the initial hard road that greets a new toon, but if your Kheldian doesn't feel very powerful by your late 30's, there's something seriously wrong with your build. My first toon to 50 was a regen scrapper, and my Peacebringer is *much* more powerful than that toon. The only toon I have that comes close to matching my Kheldian is a Bot/Dark Mastermind, and he's INSANELY overpowered.

Perhaps the reason would be that you're trying to make all your powers individually produce "acceptable results" instead of combining some of them to produce "great ones"? Power synergy can truly make Khelds great! There's a terrific tri-form Warshade Guide that illustrates this point perfectly.

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3. Get completely fed up with how awful they are by level 10-20.

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Think that's the crux of the matter, unless you go nova-form-heavy, PB's don't get good until the 20s. I had REAL problems Human-only until level 18 and Incandescent Strike.

Human 'Shades won't have their controllery powers slotted up till much later, and most of Shade Tri-formers damage comes from a good double-mire which you don't get until at least 20 (dwarf form).

It was mid-30s that I started really loving my PB... in his 40s the carnage he could do just got silly!

GRATS Dis man! (been a while in coming)

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Now you know what Mael goes through when he's up against Freakshow tanks or mech enemies...

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Why's that?

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ps. if youre referring to lethal resistance, then what damage type do you think war mace does

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Given it's a Mace and therefore a blunt weapon, I think it does Smashing damage!

Smashing damage > Lethal damage on Mech mobs.
And most other armored mobs too, come to think of it...

I particularly hate it when I'm trying to clobber those darn Malta turrets.

Ever tried to cut a tin can with a sharp knife?
You can dent it with a hammer though.

Bah! You and your 1337 War Mace!!

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Seriously, bosses that die in 2-3 hits from a Katana?
Always wondered why people found them difficult...


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Because they played with war mace? :/

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Aww, diddums ^^

Now you know what Mael goes through when he's up against Freakshow tanks or mech enemies...

Oh, Villain bashing!!

And the villains are organising a counter-offensive no less.
Sounds fun. If I'm about on Sunday, will join in for a bit of evildoer-stomping.

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Ps. if you worry about psi damage, Rularuu wisps are 100x worse than carnies. Damn things are mez-resistant too.

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Hehe... wisps are Maelwys' favouritest enemies ever!!

Seriously, bosses that die in 2-3 hits from a Katana?
Always wondered why people found them difficult...

Once you get past the phasing thing they're yummy exp-fest chocolately goodness.
Well... If you don't mind the heavy psi damage. And their taunt-resistant brute friends.

From Mael's recent extended period in the Shard with a certain red-haired defender, he could quite happily solo his way through 2-3 man mobs of +2/+3 Rularuu as long as he remembered to take out the floating eyes first. The eyes seem to have some kind of mega-strength allied +tohit buff that lets the other Rularuu cut right through a double-stacked Divine Avalanche. Given that Mael would have had about +46% defense, I doubt that an INV tanker could tank Rularuu mobs based on +def.

I think if Womble ever needs to go up against Rularuu I'll switch to Mael and scrank 'em!
'bout time my Katana/Regen felt useful again...

If you're going for a soloist build then I'd build up attacks.
If you're going for a team-tanking build then the fighting pool is golden if you're fighting more than +2s.

Invincibility + Tough Hide + Weave (+ combat jumping?) can get you some decent mitigation against non-Smashing/lethal damage enemies. I've found +def tanking particularly fun vs CoT and Crey.

Personally I tried to make my tanker a good team tanking build, so much so that originally I didn't even take Rage and KO blow, preferring Tough/Weave and the three passives. Halfway through I got a bit bored of just cycling jab, boxing and haymaker over-and-over... so I respecced him to the build below.

The new build doesn't have two of INV's passives and takes weave late, but is a solid team tank, can solo reasonably quickly and has enough accuracy for a bit of casual pvp. The two taunt duration slots in invincibility might get moved to taunt eventually... will see how a fully-slotted FootStomp works out for AOE aggro control in a level or two (38 currently). End drain isn't that bad solo (since I usually just run perma-rage, unyielding, temp invun and combat jumping) and is usually a non-factor on teams.

On teams I usually run all my toggles and spam taunt and footstomp as needed, along with boxing + jab to hold gauntlet aggro. If there's less damage output on the team I can switch to running rage and using heavier attacks, at the cost of higher endurance use. If I'm getting speed boosted or AM, I can usually spam attacks as they recharge and stay in "heavy blue".

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder - (http://sherksilver.coldfront.net/index.php)
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Name: tank_womble_final
Level: 50
Archetype: Tanker
Primary: Invulnerability
Secondary: Super Strength
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01) --> Temp Invulnerability==> DmgRes(1) DmgRes(3) DmgRes(3) EndRdx(11) EndRdx(13)
01) --> Jab==> Acc(1)
02) --> Dull Pain==> Rechg(2) Rechg(5) Rechg(5) Heal(7) Heal(7) Heal(48)
04) --> Haymaker==> Acc(4) Dmg(15) Dmg(15) Dmg(17) Rechg(19) EndRdx(19)
06) --> Hurdle==> Jump(6) Jump(46)
08) --> Unyielding==> DmgRes(8) DmgRes(9) DmgRes(9) EndRdx(11) EndRdx(13)
10) --> Boxing==> Acc(10)
12) --> Combat Jumping==> DefBuf(12)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Health==> Heal(16) Heal(17)
18) --> Invincibility==> DefBuf(18) DefBuf(23) DefBuf(23) EndRdx(36) Taunt(37) Taunt(40)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20) EndMod(21) EndMod(21)
22) --> Taunt==> Rechg(22) Rechg(37)
24) --> Tough==> DmgRes(24) DmgRes(25) DmgRes(25) EndRdx(27) EndRdx(31)
26) --> Hasten==> Rechg(26) Rechg(27) Rechg(37)
28) --> Knockout Blow==> Acc(28) Dmg(29) Dmg(29) Dmg(31) Rechg(34) EndRdx(34)
30) --> Rage==> Rechg(30) Rechg(31) Rechg(34) TH_Buf(43) TH_Buf(43) TH_Buf(50)
32) --> Unstoppable==> DmgRes(32) Rechg(33) Rechg(33) Rechg(33)
35) --> Tough Hide==> DefBuf(35) DefBuf(36) DefBuf(36)
38) --> Foot Stomp==> Acc(38) Dmg(39) Dmg(39) Dmg(39) Rechg(40) EndRdx(40)
41) --> Weave==> DefBuf(41) DefBuf(42) DefBuf(42) EndRdx(42) EndRdx(43)
44) --> Focused Accuracy==> EndRdx(44) EndRdx(45) EndRdx(45) TH_Buf(45) TH_Buf(46) TH_Buf(46)
47) --> Resist Physical Damage==> DmgRes(47) DmgRes(48) DmgRes(48)
49) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(49) Rechg(50) Rechg(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Power Slide==> Run(1)
01) --> Sprint==> Jump(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Acc(1)
01) --> Gauntlet==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
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Only problems I forsee are carnies and sappers.
But carnies don't all do psi damage and sappers are squishy!!

I've found that using the Geas-the-kind-ones accolade (and/or unstoppable-like powers) as an emergency +end boost against sappers very useful on other toons. I don't imagine they'll be unsurvivably bad.

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I would, however, ask that you not criticise other posters' use of English on these boards. It serves no useful purpose, and frequently derails threads or leads to flaming.

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Fair enough B.

Was mainly responding to Hammer's "really bad words to say" about people that link wikipedia.

Point's been made.
Moving swiftly on...

I dislike trying to decipher nearly unreadable posts, whether the original poster has dyslexia or not is not really a factor. From what I could dissect, the OP was confused when a player told them a 'n00b' was not a 'new player'... the wikipedia quote is accurate and clarifies that point.

n00b != newb.

In well over a decade of using the 'net I've yet to see this contridicted... in IRC, chatrooms, game prompts, online forums or MMORPGs.

+ "newb" is a newbie, or new player.
+ "n00b" is an INSULT, and it's easy to see from that context why it was used. Assassin Strikes rarely result in recieving congratulatory messages from your victim.


As an aside, and on the dyslexia thing:
I've worked a fair bit with kids with learning disabilities and it's usually the ones with dyslexia that submit the clearest, most readable work. This is because they know that they're not likely to get it right first time and so spend more time checking their work before they submit it. My best friend through college had heavy dyslexia and we usually made him do our group coursework write-ups because he did a better job than we did.

"Dancing letters syndrome" does not prevent you from using the return key or a spell checker.

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Again I have been branded a (N00B, NEWBIE etc...) Just because i AS'ed him into the ground needless to say he wasnt a happy camper but the best part is when he called me a n00b i relpyed with i am lvl 28 not excatly a and i quote "NOT REALLY A NEW PLAYER" to his replay being n00b doesnt mean new player which has now left me confussed does any other pvp stalkers out there that get branded this or am i the only one

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[Removed - Bridger]

#3: From Wikipedia:

"Newbs are simply newcomers—noob and n00b, on the other hand, generally mean someone who is obnoxious, annoying, or breaks the rules or cannot play effectively; whether they are actual newcomers or not is mostly irrelevant. Therefore, a noob may be someone who has been around for a long time but still engages in behavior that he or she should have learned is unacceptable. Noobs are generally confident in what they are doing, but in reality are annoying others. "Newb" is not necessarily an insulting word, but "noob" usually is. If someone makes an unintelligent comment on a forum or asks a question that even other newbies could answer then it is said that they are making a "noobish" comment or asking a "noobish" question."


(Emphasis mine...)

And couldn't that sentence be taken to mean that ALL stalkers are n00bs, since they're usually both confident and annoying? (at least in Sirens...)

I think FF is generally better with ranged Primaries tbh, the rest certainly won't get much use out of the level 38 Repel bubble.

Poison's meant to be one of the better melee Secondaries (and great for pvp) but I've not tried it yet.

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I knew by looking at the powers this was gunna be a tight build....but man! To think i had thoughts of trying to fit the fighting pool in here too


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Looks great, and just be glad that Kheldians don't get epic pools!

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Dammit, I should have bothered to read the build.

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Hehe... your crystal ball must be getting interference from somewhere...

Nonono! Whatever you do, DON'T go Bot/Dark.

They're far too overpowered, particularly when you pick up the AOE immob from the Mace patron pool.

You won't be able to play another toon without thinking "Bah, my MM could clear these mobs twice as fast".

Seriously though: think Fire/Kin/Fire troller, but with giant robots and a pet dark defender.

Well you've left out Essence Boost now which is pretty much a required +survivability power, but aside from that it looks solid to me! Hasten's great for getting Conserve Energy and Essence Boost up sooner...

I've had both the stealth pool and the leadership pool on my PB and never really got much use out of them. Photon Seekers can be useful as a "mini nuke" or for fighting bosses, but tbh these days they usually don't go off when you want them to and for PVE you'd definately get more milage over time from Solar Flare.

I quite happily managed from 1 to 50 without any shields and took dwarfie at the ripe old age of level 35... The 30-40 stretch is very tough on toons with no mez protection though, so I'd not advise grabbing dwarfie any later than level 30. The S/L shield is a nice resistance boost and many love it... personally I never saw much need for it since for the most part I played my PB like a /regen!

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Might consider swapping Conserve Energy with Thermal Shield?

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Surely not..

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Swapping idea Seconded! Human form PBs have very high endurance usage.

Get conserve energy in ASAP, you can leave the shield till much later.

The energy shield is largely useless since many energy blasts will stun, sleep or hold you, thus dropping the shield anyway. Fire/cold damage isn't regular enough hero-side to warrant taking Thermal Shield...

I'd suggest taking Glinting Eye instead of Gleaming Bolt and slotting it for acc/dam/dam/dam. It's decent enough energy damage and your attack chain will have a noticable gap otherwise.

With that build you will have a LOT of trouble with voids and quantums. I took pulsar much earlier and 6-slotted it (will perma-mez minions) and took Quantum Flight to sneak up on voids and sappers with an RS>>>IS combo.

I started my PB out as Human-only but TBH I found that you're gimping yourself unless you take dwarf form; for the sake of one power pick and 2 slots for maximum Damage Resistance it adds so much to your survivability it's not even funny. With another 3 slots in Dwarf's self heal for 2recharge/2heal you'll be very hard to take down.

I'd post my PB's build but it's been subjected to a good few respecs since I initially levelled it. It's currently sitting about halfway-to-pvp-land with some odd slotting and no Solar Flare...

Decent in Parry/Divine Avalanche too IIRC...
(since HO defence debuffs also count as defence buffs and vice-versa)

Depends what time it finishes at, but should be game for a short arena session on Red...

(got to get the practice in somehow... now *where* did I put that acc/mez HO...?)

Ahh... I see now.

The new link seems to be in Prov's sig further down the 1st page.
The linky on the **first post** on the first page must be to an older edition...?
(and the 1st post is also missing Prov's sig for some reason...)

Bit of thread necromancy here, but I'd like to throw an idea out there.

Photon Seekers don't seek enemies well, this appears to be a known problem with their AI.

How about making them automatically home in on your current target at maximum speed instead whenever you release them? This would make them a lot more useful than they currently are, whilst still allowing for the point-blank release 'mini nuke' method that many PBs prefer.

The Seekers themselves can already fly at a very decent speed, but they currently usually seem to choose not to until they actually lock onto an enemy (which may never happen until they expire even in a crowded mob).

In keeping with the 'pet' idea though, if the seekers were fired off without a target currently selected then they could behave as they do right now and hang about waiting for a target to come into range (though preferably with slightly "tweaked" AI... Fire Imps seem to home in on nearby targets perfectly easily!)

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Add Red Noise - sonic/elec/elec defender

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Doesn't look like your "Captain Skyfire" is on it yet either Hammer
He's an Energy/Energy/Primal Blaster isn't he?

Might as well add my other two 50 heroes to it as well then... "Maelwys" (Katana/Regen/Body Scrapper) and "Unit Omega" (Luminous Blast/Luminous Aura Peacebringer).

Cheers Prov!