Moonlighter
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Posts
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Quote:Of course. My SR isn't even close to my Invuln tank? Seriously, is your tank IO'd?Originally Posted by JusticeisServed
Are you softcapped to all positions??
Every SR character I ever made once I hit softcap ends up becoming like my hardest toon to kill...
My SS/SR Brute can survive way way way better than my INV/SS tank.. it almost seems unfair!
I love my SR, but the line between indestructible and faceplanted is thin. Maybe you are playing at lower settings? My standard is only 4/+2.
Generally I find that /Shields performs better in most situations, with the advantage going to SR when the defense debuffs are extreme. The extra hit points and resistances in Shields make a huge difference.
The only thing unusual about my SR is I don't run Tough, so the 17% resistance might have made the difference... -
My only problem with my SR is I just get one or two shotted just often enough to be really annoying. Last week it was a Arachnos boss with Assassin's Strike and a pair of Rikti bosses. Both times I went from full to face plant in less than a second.
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With SR + fighting I don't know that I'd get fancy with all the set bonuses being thrown around. The nice thing about SR is you can cap without any of that.
Your best bet for SR is Tough with the Steadfast Def IO, slotted Weave, slotted Combat Jumping, and a full set of Gaussian's in Focused Accuracy or Build Up. That's all that's needed to soft cap.
As much as I like Red Fortune, it isn't good or needed for SR. You'll want most of your toggles 4 slotted with LotG. It's better for SR - more recharge, better hit points and it saves slots.
The big question for SR builds tends to be Hasten or Aid Self. You only have one extra pool after Fighting and both of these are great. -
The hidden strength of DA is that it has a Weave level defense boost built into the set on top of the best PvE heal in the game. That brings you another 5% closer to soft cap defense which at high defense values is a lot of mitigation, and at low defense values is not much mitigation value.
I go for positional defense for the following reasons:
~ Gaussian's provides the full defense value to positional defense.
~ Chasing positional defense in attacks uses Mako's and Obliteration which has excellent set bonuses. Hit Points, Damage, etc. Chasing typed defense requires Kinetic Combat which provides squat in terms of extra benefits.
~ If you have the slots a full set of Red Fortune is underrated.
With Dark Armor if you aren't going after AVs and farming you can stave off stragglers with a high Ranged defense and knock off melee combatants with Obsidian Gloom or Cloak of Fear.
On the other hand if you can only chase one type of defense in the game Smashing/Lethal gives you the best bang for the buck because so many ranged and AoE attacks have a smashing or lethal component. -
Quote:I believe there comes a point when burst damage comes into play. Sustained damage aside, burst isn't an issue for Tanks because the damage is lower, and less of an issue for Brutes because Rage + Fury + Build Up is additive.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
If so, then a straight port of super strength should also be acceptable. If it is not, then *something* is broken. If tanker SS is so broken that it is pushing itself into scrapper level damage output, (something I haven't seen) then it's a fair bet that SS is currently broken.
With scrappers, however, having such high DPA attacks in one go means there comes a point where they can run up and one shot certain enemies. Crits exaggerate that even more. Even setting aside PvP, that's really a Stalker thing.
I noticed that the sets that haven't come over seem to generally suffer from this giant burst in the form of an over budgeted top tier attack. Sustained damage aside, I don't think the devs are comfortable with scrappers being able to one shot enemies to that degree. -
Quote:This. While I can see the argument that Super Strength's single target damage is manageable (but still excellent) for Scrappers even adding in Boxing and other outside single target abilities, using rage to boost not only Foot Stomp but also Fireball and god forbid Shield Charge would be obscene.Originally Posted by Umbral
One of SS's greatest strengths is not, in fact, single target damage. It's the fact that it performs incredibly well in both ST and AoE damage. Footstomp, even by itself, is an incredible power. Augmented by rage, it provides obscene performance. ST damage cannot be taken as the only mechanism by which a set is measured. Honestly, AoE damage is arguably the more important measure of performance considering the way PvE ends up operating.
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Quote:People still think of it as a ToHit and Accuracy boost. For that it isn't good. To combat ToHit debuffs it is very good. In fact, it's the only power in the game as far as I recall that offers substantial ToHit debuff protection.Originally Posted by Postagulous
I've never taken it, but didn't we just have a thread about how FA totally blows?
Plus, we are comparing it to Conserve Power which is utterly useless in this build. I am not suggesting taking it or slotting it outside the concept of the build.
Personally I would rather be Endurance neutral then rely on click powers that eat up activation time and thus DPS. Although DC is slightly nicer as an on demand End recovery against end drain.Quote:And if you're happy with DC, then why even get PP? Conserve Power, DC and PP are all about Endurance. Two are click, with one being a suck stuff up and the other a meter it out slow. The auto is a recovery. I see no conflict in any of them.
FA only blows if you are using it as an expensive Tactics for the small ToHit and accuracy bonus coupled with perception. In that case FA is worse than Tactics and overall not very good.Quote:Plus, I trust the members here that convinced me that FA was a turd.
Edited to Add: Now that I read the rest of your post I see that you're talking about all the mqassive Endurance gain of the build. I'm guessing it's a kneejerk to seeing the word Dark. In context, everything you said was totally valid, except FA blow.
FA is good against ToHit debuffs. Sure they are rare in the end game since you graduate from Spectrals and Sorcerors just as you can finally get it, but in the context of this build it is infinitely more useful than CP. Even against Rikti drones or Force Field longbow types it offers a small ToHit buff and 20% accuracy. Compare that to CP which offers, um, nothing to this build.
Should you forsake other pools to get it? No. Should you slot it or keep it on all the time? No. It is more useful than CP in a build with DC? Yes, definitely. -
If you are going to take a power on the way to Physical Perfection, take Focused Accuracy with a single EndRed. Conserver Power does nothing for you, especially with Dark Consumption. FA can be clicked on demand to dramatically reduce ToHit debuffs or a small ToHit buff just to finish Rikti drones so it is actually quite useful with the default single slot.
A fully enhanced Dull Pain plus accolades should take you close enough to the Hit Point cap that you are wasting bonuses while it is up. Therefore I really have to question whether 3 extra slots in Dark Consumption where you slot Perf Shifter are really worth it. With +End procs in both Stamina and Phys Perf and your IOs do you even use Dark Consumption? I am surprised you aren't Endurance neutral without it.
Those three extra slots could be used elsewhere. For example, for one of those you could slot a Hecatomb A/R/D and a Hecatomb proc in Smite or Shadow Punch for extra damage and a 4% end boost.
Another thing you could do with extra slots is to swap the Mako's 4 bit with two Pounding Slugfest for 8% regen for each slot. Or simply add procs to the short attacks for extra damage.
Hell, if you can get your Endurance neutral drop Dark Consumption entirely for Shadow Maul and slot that with Obliteration and Cleaving Blow for 4.5 E/N defense. With the lack of AoE I find a 3 or 4 mob Shadow Maul is well worth the animation time. -
Quote:I'd like to see this attack chain. (I didn't see/couldn't find your post pylon post). From what I can tell as soon as you hit Eagle's Claw not only is that attack's DPS bad but more importantly you are delaying the use of Storm Kick.Originally Posted by American_Dynamo
I have found (and posted in the pylon thread) that I had higher dps with EC than with CAK, 166 to 161, with a high recharge buildbut that is just me. My recharge was high 117 without hasten.
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Quote:This.Originally Posted by Rieze
FA also has res to to hit debuff. Kismet nor tactics or kismet + tactics will help you deal with the horrid amounts of to hit debuffs you run into in cov. As far as the math of your question, I'm not sure on but I don't think it would matter. Every alt I have that has foc acc laughs at all to hit de buffs and can hit everything with ease except triple stacked veng buffed nems, and a Lt+ cim in huge mob. So what if it cost a little more end. You are a /kin.
If it's a hard to hit mob like Vengeance stacking or Rikti drones look elsewhere. If your accuracy is debuffed all to heck then FA is great. Except...
You can get FA at 41, the same level you graduate from all the ToHit debuff auras. So by the time you get it you really don't encounter the problem.
In my opinion they should really change up epic pools so they first become available at level 25. 30 at the latest. Not only will this make powers available when you actually need them, but you can actually work the attacks into an attack chain. -
Quote:Doesn't that cause Evasion to turn off every time you get stunned like Willpowers -ToHit aura? If so, no thanks. I like to PvP on occasion and really don't want my defense toggle (even AoE) dropping over and over again in combat.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
There's only one thing dead sexier than Bill Z Bubba scrapping:
Bill Z Bubba scrapping with more hit points and a taunt aura in evasion.
/shakes large fist of rage at Castle for not giving scrapper SR evasion a taunt aura -
Quote:A combination of doubles and cheap triples is fine for leveling and often cheaper and more effective than straight IO builds if you are patient. You don't need triples and quads; if you are using those to min/max then you are no longer bargain shopping and are usually better off with sets at that point.Originally Posted by Wondering_Fury
There's a common misconception amongst players that frankenslotting is cheap, if you want a basic, just above par-SO build then sure the IO's you will need for frankenslotting is cheap. However, good frankenslotted builds use the Tri/Quad enhancements out of each individual set which coincides with being the dearest IO of the set - excluding any good "Chance...". Then again, that's assuming Level 50: IO set frankenslots, I'd say Fire/SD is a bit too intricate to be frankenslotted efficiently. Either go with SO's or look to invest up to 200-300m for a good build, or quite literally break the bank to make an extreme Fire/SD - which personally are like gods.
Fury -
Quote:Sets with long animations *are* worse in click heavy defensive sets. I agree with you on that. I have face-planted plenty, for example, during Shadow Maul on my DM/Regen and during Eagle's Claw on my MA/DA.Originally Posted by Nihilii
Looking at the big picture involves considering the negative impact ET has on your survivability, the overkill damage on teams because of long animations, and so on. Ideally, it also involves playing the set as some flaws might not be immediately obvious.
For example, I used to believe EM/DA would make a good combo, thanks to stacking stuns and DR nullifying ET's -health. As it turns out, after playing it, it's not so hot ; using DR efficiently involves waiting for your life to go yellow/orange, and using ET in these conditions can sometimes make things go very bad very quickly. Either I waste damage output by not using ET (which can eventually lead to my death, if I do too low damage and die before my enemies), waste heal potential by using DR too soon (which can eventually lead to my death a few seconds later, given hard enough foes). Add to that the long animations on ET and TF can make it easy to take too much damage and die before having the time to hit DR.
Cue in "you don't know how to play blah blah blah" people. Thing is, I wouldn't need to "know how to play" if I picked any other primary, and I would put similar if not higher damage numbers while enjoying superior survivability.
I wouldn't say that the inherent disadvantage of long animation times is so critical that the set is unplayable or even at a substantial disadvantage behind other melee sets. I believe EM in it's current incarnation is better than Martial Arts for example and despite my desire to see that get fixed up it is certainly playable.
Claiming that the current incarnation of EM is a critical design mistake on par with, say, the PvP changes is overstatement at best. -
Quote:I find that it's often cheaper to frankenslot than it is to use 25 common IOs.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Too much. I prefer level 25 common IOs (and then level appropriate commons as you rise above 22), cheaper over the long haul.
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Quote:Um, why are we even arguing about EM? It does *6* DPS less than Fire in Bill's thread, is has a typical AoE attack, and it stuns the $%^& out of anything it touches. Anyone who claims that Castle's adjustments on the set were out of line needs to look at the bigger picture.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In any case, to say that EM was "asymmetrically balanced" just because it did more single target damage and less AoE is missing the "balance" part of "asymmetrically balanced." That's just asymmetrical. The balance part would have ensured that its strength sufficiently counterbalanced its weakness relative to peer sets for the net overall value of the set to be the same to within the margin of error of the balancing system. There was (and is) no system that currently can make that statement about either version of EM.
Which is the problem in a nutshell.
)Edit: Looked at wrong thread for single target DPS) -
Quote:It's a bug. In the damage multiplier of one power.Originally Posted by Frosticus
The Standard Code rant does not apply to SC, but rather the Standard Not Doing Your Job rant does.
Seriously if that is going your benchmark of failure for an MMO developer good luck finding a game to play. I am all for promoting excellence but come on. If you do run across a game that has eliminated minor bugs like this from their development cycle and is still well designed and has compelling content then by all means please PM me! -
Why are we punishing Castle for posting in a balance thread? It seems to me that behavior is extremely counter productive to, well, everything.
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Quote:Yes, and... at this point I would take great glee in discussing lackluster single target damage, no second AoE power, how buffing the heck of of SK while nerfing TK made the set overly reliant on Hasten for its lackluster smashing damage, and the fact that hitting the long recharge top tier attack substantially reduces the set's DoT *but* that would be a threadjack so let me say this:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
When they tried to buff MA in I6, they also corrected that bug. Unfortunately, the devs really didn't have the numerical tools to properly buff offensive sets at the time, and their buffs didn't so much improve MA's damage as it did make ridiculous powers a little less ridiculous (CAK, EC). So the net result was that MA's single target damage went *down* after the buff to CAK and EC and the nerf/correction to TK.
While I agree that Shield Charge is probably too good, I still think AAO is more the offender than SC if the issue Castle is concerned about is pylon damage. At it's best AAO is roughly 8 times as effective than Assault for toggled damage. That's more toggled damage than any other power in the game. Take away Shield Charge and /Shield characters are still blowing away other scrappers in single target damage on pylons or other places where they can leverage the extra foes. -
Quote:It was sort of like the time I played a MAN build (no primary or secondary powers allowed) just to see how hard it was.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
MA/SRs that played since release deserve a special veteran reward or something. A machine gun storm kick would have been fine: what we actually had was Flurry for Feet.
There is *nothing* to compare to MA/SR at release. If release MA/SR was a difficulty level, it would award a MasterOf badge.
Here's how you can come close to simulating MA/SR at release today:
1. Replace Storm Kick with Flurry (Storm Kick used to do a lot less damage with an animation time comparable to flurry)
2. Replace CAK with Boxing (Boxing actually does *more* damage today than CAK did back then)
3. Replace Eagle's Claw with Sands of Mu (Eagle's Claw used to do Crane Kick damage with Sands of Mu timing)
4. Take only the SR toggles, no passives
5. Take no power pools
6. Slot no inventions
7. Figure out a way to fight even minions, +1 Lts, and +2 Bosses all at once.
8. Whenever a foe casts a pet, turret, rain, or patch, if you don't have at least two purples just use Self Destruct immediately
(SR at release: 5% passives, 10% toggles, vs even con minions: 50%; Lts: 62.5%; Bosses: 75%; AVs: 90%; turrets/pets: 105% base tohit)
That would probably be in the general ballpark.
Oh yeah, and Quickness used to cost endurance (0.01 eps or something like that). Rather unique for a passive.
I think I got through a lot of the levels by using Aid Self as my primary defense and running at base difficulty.
One thing to remember though, at that time Thunder Kick was actually a decent attack before (in a move that still baffles me) they nerfed it. So I used Air Superiority, Thunder Kick, Boxing, and Crane Kick and just kept the bosses juggled the entire time. -
Quote:If they have the tech I like that solution. Though since they couldn't make it a teleport-to-target effect, I suspect they don't currently have that tech either.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's assuming the devs look for a purely numerical way out of this. There is an alternative if they decide its worth asking for tech time to add new mechanics. They could make the damage of SC scale based on the distance of the teleport. After all, its intended to be a charge: presumably its conceptually consistent for the damage to be lower if the player has less distance to build up momentum. Have a base level of damage if the teleport distance is basically zero (hitting a target right in front of them) and increase the damage to a maximum of somewhere not too far from its current value if the teleport distance is at least some distance, say 30 feet. This way, you couldn't use it as easily to min/max damage on a stationary target like an AV or a pylon.
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Quote:Hmmm. With a MA/SR main I was not so lucky. Picture leveling an SR with the machine gun Storm Kick!Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If you've played SR from release to now, you've had a rollercoaster ride unparalleled in the history of the game.
But then again, BillZ plays Claws. -
The whole point of Physical Perfection on a Regen is that you can drop the Stamina pool entirely and get Hasten and more defense through Manuevers. The sweet part about Physical Perfection is to get another tasty Performance Shifter +End proc. With two PerfShift procs (one in QR and one in PhysPerf) you should be fairly well off.
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Quote:Shield Charge is great no doubt, but I could also get extra AoE with Fireball. It's AAO that puts Shield Defense over the top. It turns an excellent mitigation set with extra AoE into a set that surpasses the top single target DPS by not just a little, but by a ridiculous amount.Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
Shield defense is a great secondary, but the reason it's so popular is because it's got 2 things that are huge in this game right now - the ability to softcap defense with IO's and a great aoe attack in shield charge. And these both work great for wiping out large groups of enemies, which is obviously advantageous in a game like this.
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Quote:Once you have a basic understanding of what sells then set prices are irrelevant. Some players do play the market, but that is totally dependent on people actually generating the IO recipes and salvage and selling them in the first place. If that doesn't happen the market just dries up entirely (like at times trying to purchase level 25-35 IOs).Originally Posted by FrankDaTank
well at the moment all i am using is basic IO's, but the sets seem to be well very out of reach. i played with them on mids and its nice to see the numbers but i dont gross the influence to make it a goal that would well be fun. Player run markets tend to trun great game mechs into grind fests it seems.
Star Wars Galixies was a good example. full set of server cap armor was about only 250,00 credits. now you would be lucky to get a set of like quality for less than 5 mill.
The higher the market goes, the more influence you make from selling desirable recipes and salvage at Wentworth's. You should be making more and more influence by just playing the game and selling recipes at Wentworth's. -
Quote:On the other hand, I can't tell you how much *better* the new interface is to me.Originally Posted by Hydrophidian
It was much worse in beta. They did a lot to improve it.
But I find its fundamental design to be poor, so, from my perspective, there was only so much lipstick they could slap on that pig.
While I'll still use the market, my marketeer days are over. With the introduction of this UI, the market aspect of the game has ceased being a draw for me.
Which is a shame, 'cuz it was a rather significant draw.
I run to Wentworths, drop the recipes I have gathered into the slot, and hit Find so I can sell them. OMG that's so much better then typing out the name and then scrolling through all the various recipes with the different enhancements and levels. Or worse opening each little tab under recipes and going to each recipe in turn. Selling things previously sucked.
Since I generate a lot of recipes and salvage from doing missions and just want to sell them off the new interface is awesome.