Moonlighter
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Posts
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Whenever anyone asks what secondary to pair with my answer will be /Shields, with the caveat that if you want a cheap build then /SR. But really, taking the time to fully outfit a /Shields scrapper is worth it. All other secondaries fall behind it. It's that good.
Now, I have a kick *** Invuln, Dark Armor, and will be working on Willpower. All can reach that level of survivability with some work, or at least within the ballpark, but none compare the survivability with the best scrapper damage boost in game and a kick *** AoE attack to supplement offensive ability. -
Quote:I agree with most of your points. I would love a CoH where Stamina wasn't required. I have long ago accepted that one power pool will be dedicated to Stamina and that's that.Originally Posted by Nihilii
Hasten being too efficient :
Most of the pool powers represent enormous boosts to builds. Why single out Hasten ?
Weave and Combat Jumping are more of a gray area. The importance of Weave and Combat Jumping is just a reflection that +Defense is broken. If non-defense builds were capped at 40% defense, or if set Resistance bonuses where normalized and fixed to be competitive with defense then these powers aren't as unreasonable.
In addition to my SR, my Claws/Invuln has Hasten and has 35/40/40 so still caps at 3 opponents. My DM/Shield is capped with Hasten. Both have some downtime, but they are still ridiculously survivable. The funny thing is it's my MA/SR where I would rather drop Hasten.Quote:Taking DB as an example, BF -> AV (doesn't require Hasten) is about 200 DPS. BF -> AS -> SS -> AS is about 240 DPS and requires extreme recharge focus. That's a ~20% difference in damage, which can be considered significant. Consider for a second the survivability sacrifices you're going to have to make for any secondary except SR to be able to run the second chain, though. Forget the softcap on Invul and WP, for example - that, right there, is an enormous difference in mitigation even before considering defense debuffs.
Many builds willing to have some downtime (20 seconds) can still near cap and have Hasten. SR and Shield can certainly do it. My Invuln runs Hasten and still has 35/40/40 defense without the PvP IO. That caps with 3 opponents I think. It's harder to do with other sets that were never meant to focus on defense but that's as it should be. The fact that those sets can cap at all is probably questionable.Quote:I see the same trend on most builds, taking Hasten and focusing on recharge to run the best attack chains always involve a proportionally bigger drop in survivability. The outlier here is SR ; it can reach maximum survivability and still have plenty of room to work towards high recharge bonuses and the best attack chains for any build, partly thanks to, you guessed it, Quickness.
Just because defense stacking is powerful (maybe too powerful?) in this game is no reason to justify the state of Hasten. Are there things more broken than Hasten? Yes. Do I wish I could create attack chains without Hasten that don't feel gimped? Yes, despite the other conditions of the game.
I disagree here. If some more attacks were brought up to par in terms of DPA there would still be plenty of powerful reasons to get Hasten.Quote:If all DPA were identical or close enough to make the difference irrelevant, there'd be hardly any point getting Hasten or going for +recharge bonuses for sets with passive mitigation, allowing people to grab everything without any drawback. Most likely every SR, WP and Invul builds would look the same, and the case could be made even for other secondaries, because let's face it, defense is so broken in the right situations, and content is so easy to manipulate so you only have to face the right situations for the best rewards, getting a bit more defense is often more beneficial than lowering the recharge on whatever click heal you've got even on a build starting with 0% defense and 0% DDR.
~ Build Up powers recycle faster. This would provide a boost to overall DPS, just not as extreme.
~ Stacking buffs overlap. Claws and Super Strength would still benefit from Hasten to stack buffs.
~ Defensive clicks are up faster.
~ Controllers/Defenders get their control/healing/debuff/pet powers up faster.
In fact, Hasten would still be a must have for many builds. It just wouldn't provide an unnecessary boost in DPS on top of its other benefits. -
Quote:I don't think it's quite fair to simply average out Hasten's effect and say it's comparable to Quickness in terms of recharge. The simple fact that Hasten's uptime can be buffed and in fact made (with some sacrifice) permanent puts it far beyond Quickness in overall effective because Quickness can't be modified for better performance.Originally Posted by Umbral
Well, I would probably argue, for all the same reasons and a few more, that Quickness is balanced. Quickness provides only slightly less recharge than completely unslotted Hasten for no endurance cost whatsover and at all times, while simultaneously increasing movement speed (a QoL improvement) and resistance to -move and -rech debuffs (an improvement to situational stability of the character). It provides 44.7% of the benefit of slotted Hasten (44.75% +rech) while costing 2 power slots less and being completely unaffected by state changes (dieing and resurrecting, -rech debuffs, etc). The cost in power choices are functionally the same, but Quickness comes out rather far ahead in terms of required additional slotting (none v. 2) and permanence, not to mention the additional QoL value (which is probably the only thing making it arguably "better" and thereby more "powerful" than a pool power). I'd argue that it's actually reasonably well balanced, though, I don't think it would be untoward to increase the +rech by a small amount (most likely 5-10%) in order to account for its presence in an AT power set, but not much more.
While you could argue that Hasten takes a power pick and two slots, in fact the Hastened attack chains can often drop an attack power or even two, and those missing attacks represent a far great slot investment than Hasten itself.
The real cost of Hasten isn't in power picks or slots, it is the loss of a power pool.
The big problem with Hasten is that it not only represents a huge boost in defensive clicks coming back online, but for most sets it represents a significant increase in DPS. The second function is where I have a conceptual problem with the power; it shouldn't represent such a large gain in DPS. The problem here is that most sets have attacks that are wildly out of whack in terms of DPA. What I would like to see it some of the lower DPA attacks buffed so attack chains without Hasten would not sacrifice so much to involve other attacks in their chain.
Looking at MA for example, the loss of Hasten is a big DPS hit. But bring Thunder Kick and Eagle Claw up in DPA so using them wasn't so... bad and the lack of Hasten is more acceptable. Though one reason MA is so drastic without Hasten is Storm Kick is so good compared to all the other lackluster attacks that anything you can do to get it available again really boosts the attack chain.
I don't mind Hasten providing a huge boost to defensive sets like Regen that are highly dependent on recharge, but a scrapper with SR or Willpower should be able to skip Hasten without a huge loss of DPS.
TLDR version:
To soften Hasten's effect, make another pass through attack powers and bring up the DPA of some of the lackluster powers so longer attack chains that do not depend on Hasten do not take a DPS hit. -
Quote:I assume you didn't bother with Cloak of Fear or Obsidian Gloom?Originally Posted by Werner
Me, I've seen enough. Alexei won't be running Cimeroran missions on +4x8.
If you have a free respec and can copy to test, I'd be interested to see if Obsidian Gloom slotted with lots of Acc basically solves the problem. (For some reason I think they are resistant to fear but I can't remember why I think that. I think I tried them on my Dark when I hit 40...) -
Quote:My main is /SR and I'd love to see a Quickness buff, but your analysis says to me that Hasten is way too powerful and needs a nerf, and my play experience pretty much bears this out. Leaving out Hasten for concept is a pretty serious sacrifice to most builds.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That doesn't account for the other buffs in Quickness, but Quickness is already starting off essentially in the hole to a power pool power *before* I slot it. I'm pretty sure if I did the analysis again today, I'd come to the same conclusion. You can't make that sort of argument with analogous QoL powers like, say, Quick Recovery.
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Quote:Romans probably won't be an issue since a Kat/Dark with 30 melee can double stack DA to compensate. It's the ranged Def debuffs that are the problem.Originally Posted by Werner
Yeah, mine kinda gets stomped by Arachnos. Is the 25% defense debuff from the Tarantula Mistresses auto hit? It sure feels that way. I go from epic to kitty cat in one hit, and I can't be burning purples at that kind of rate through a whole mission.
I don't have the problem with accuracy on mine. I fit Tactics into the build, and between it and the Kismet, I'm normally 95% against +4s, and the defense debuff from the swords takes care of anything worse fairly quickly. I also didn't sacrifice all global recharge, but at 40%, it's pretty low. I haven't really had a problem with -recharge, probably because of that and because it's hard for them to hit me with recharge debuffs.
I do think he's very strong, but definitely has a serious weakness to defense debuffs, which makes him not the toon of choice for many enemy groups. Sergei (Dark Melee/Super Reflexes) feels weaker on +4x8 groups without defense debuffs, but his performance doesn't drop in the toilet against debuffers, so he feels more solid in general, more of a jump into any group any time any where sort of toon.
But I know I need practice, which might make a lot of difference. I need to get better at timing Dark Regeneration. I need to better map out what I can and can't do, and how best to do what I can do. Heck, I need to fight Cimerorans AT ALL. Don't think I've even been there with Alexei yet. And I haven't started in on AVs.
I feel like I'm part of a tiny little club of soft-capped Sword/Darks, and that we're starting to map out what is good and bad about them. That's fun for me, even if we end up concluding that something else is better.
Arrrgghh. Nuons. They just suck.
One big issue with /Dark is that is has no Health boost. The /Dark resists tend to be no more effective than Dull Pain but take up more power slots and IO slots.
My initial design wasn't about totally capping Defense. It was about a high enough defense so that Cloak of Fear slotted out for ToHit Debuff met in the middle. I got away from that because it doesn't work on ranged and AVs tend to resist the ToHit Debuff. Even so, it might be worth going back to if dropping that last bit of defense nets the character lots of +Recharge and maybe decent +Health or Resist. -
Quote:Sorry the initial attempt to import didn't actually take, leaving the current Kat/Dark build I was working on without Hasten.Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
wierd...
did I post a different build?
Hasten should be there on a 25 seconds down time though.
Can't open it up at the moment but I might have posted a different build if you don't see it there. And I think I paired it with BS, but that shouldn't matter. -
Quote:I really have no issue using the PvP IO in "test the limit" builds.Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
30 melee, 45 range, 40 aoe
Something like this maybe?
I know, I know... using that PvP IO
As for that build, I like it but the idea was doing it in a build with Hasten. -
Quote:The best I have been able to do is ~27 melee, 45 ranged, 42 AoE using the PvP defense IO, but Hasten has a 27 second downtime IIRC, and my resist toggles are not quite saturated since I only had them three slotted with Aegis.Originally Posted by Werner
Yeah, I don't have Hasten on mine. I'll be interested if you can figure out getting both the soft cap and Hasten without big compromises, though.
I'd like to see 30% melee so a single DA caps me, and 45 ranged. I think 40% AoE will be fine with the resists and the frequent heal. Plus, I hate designing with the PvP IO since I will probably never actually get one. -
Quote:Soon redraw won't be an issue, so keep the long term in mind when deciding.Originally Posted by Umbral
I know I'm a major proponent of all things */Regen, but I'm actually going to have to recommend */WP, especially if you dislike redraw (which all of those clickies in */Regen will force). The lack of redraw, the set-it-and-forget-it mentality behind */WP, and the overall better average performance of */WP all add up to make it the better option, in my view.
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Nice. Even though my Spines/Regen and Katana/Dark aren't affected yet, I think I'd rather see them do as many sets as they can get in and finish the rest later than hold off all of them. My Claw/Invuln isn't that affected by redraw currently, but hopefully this will make it smoother.
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Quote:As good as DM/SR is for single target killing (though I prefer DM/Shields) it's AoE is terrible for TFs, SG events, etc. I'm getting pretty good at lining up Shadow Maul but still it is not a big AoE set. I see that more of a solo build.Originally Posted by Larac
I've only got the 3 /DA 50 scrappers, one was my 1st toon who I role out for TFs SG events etc. The rest I very rarely play.
The main reason for me not playing them any more is the fact that when you come to the really big end game stuff especially solo the perma-hasten softcap DM/SR wins out.
The BS/DA is the only one that comes close and thats because it has more cone/aoe attacks for TFs etc. Otherwise, it'll be the deff based toon.
To me a defense capped Katana/DA would blow that away in group play. The damage aura combined with Katana's AoE would just kill groups faster. -
Quote:You don't think Katana with the -Resist proc combined with the damage aura doesn't provide DPS competitive with most scrappers? I think the only two things that can significantly out perform it are sets combined with Shield's damage buff or a well slotted saturated Soul Drain.Originally Posted by Werner
It's very solid, but I don't think of it as the kind of flashy, destroy everything in your path combo that people would flock to. There's nothing exciting like Shield Charge. There's no top-end DPS. There's no amazing farm-destroying AoE.
It seems to be a hastened Katana with a damage aura could cycle Lotus, Dragonfly, and Flashing Steel pretty much all the time between DA. For a player that knows how to line up the cones, I think that's the best AoE option outside Spines and Claws. And with Claws shockwave will play havoc with the damage auras so I don't know if that would work well in practice. I know my Claws/Invuln just spams Spin so mobs stay tight since the back hop + Shockwave would mess with Invicibility.
Once I cap defense I expect this character to be a beast. Not DM/Shields mind you, but what combo competes with that? My biggest challenge right now is that I can't seem to cap defense and still keep Hasten. Note that I haven't tried particularly hard because the Hasten glow would look bad on my character. It looks like I will be dropping the control auras entirely, and have a defense capped character with an excellent heal and decent resists coupled with Katana's single target and AoE capabilities. -
Quote:Why is it that every time I pick up an old character and decide to trick it out Werner happens to choose the same combination to pimp and I end up looking like FotM?Originally Posted by Werner
Don't know. Katana/Dark is great. So is */Dark and Dark/*.
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Quote:It depends on what you are doing. If you aren't doing challenges that specifically forbid inspirations it should be fine. Now that you can combine 3 unneeded enhancements into heals you should be able to keep up your greens for the rare occasions when you get hit. If you are pushing the envelope (regularly grinding through 54 Rikti, etc.) then your green usage will be higher than the drop rate and then Aid Self is nice.Originally Posted by Vitality
I'm trying to decide between MA/WP and MA/SR.
I've have played both WP and SR to level 50 with Dark Melee.
I know how great soft-cap /SR can be...but I'm worried about MA/SR because the lack of a heal.
Are there any MA/SR, without Aid Self, that can comment on this?
And if you are going to PvP you'll want Aid Self.
The hardest choice for SR: Travel Power, Tough/Weave, Hasten, Aid Self. Pick 3. -
Quote:Wait, you got a 10 second Crane Kick recharge down to ~1 second Storm Kick activation time? Is that even possible?
the best damage per second and the best damage per activation time is going to be crane kick -> storm kick -> repeat. only available to extremely high recharge builds. -
Quote:Yes. You mean it isn't clear that "TK" refers to Storm Kick?Originally Posted by Swift_Frost
i thought it was storm kick?
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The best single target attack chain is:
SK -> Crane -> SK -> CAK (Fixed)
It takes a lot of recharge. Basically you need perma-Hasten which is kind of a pain in the butt to get.
Once your defenses are matured you shouldn't need Cobra Strike. Eagle's Claw is a better bet if you want a stun for PvP or to knock off toggles from annoying Lt enemies. -
Quote:No John Woo love? The Killer? Hard Boiled?Originally Posted by je_saist
Two movies. Equilibrium and Ultra Violet.
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I wish that this game were more solo friendly. Seriously, I figured when I was still running around as a minion that yes, I'd need two friends to equal one frikkin' hero running around. I can accept that.
And when I finally make it to Lt. status, and I expected to finally be able to solo a hero yeah, I got my butt kicked. By hey, the game is hard.
So I was thrilled when I got to boss status. Sure my average wasn't great, but I got to agro a few times on blasters engaged with groups of my friends, and occasionally pounding some hero's running on yellow SOs. And when I was running around in early AE missions hitting unprepared players with Build Up? It was all worth it. Heck, I even got assigned to an Arcanaville arc. Good times, good times.
But this is crazy. I worked hard to get the Elite Boss / AV status. Every now and then some Hero would forget to adjust their difficultly and I'd get to pound on them solo as an AV. I mean, I'm not so egotistical that I can handle losing to some build that is IOed to the teeth. I understand some Masterminds will come romping through the place, or those annoying flying blasters with capped ranged defense.
But the game was mostly soloable. At worse I'd need to grab help from Marauder or something.
This, however, is ridiculous. I worked hard to get to AV status. Now you are telling me that me and *8* of my buddies can't bring down one hero? Come on. I realize we are heavy on S/L damage but this is ridiculous.
When are the devs going to nerf this Nihilii guy? I mean seriously, stick him over in the Defender area. Not those damage and control heavy DDDs or Kins either. I mean like Mind/Emp or something. Or just nuke this guy's IOs. Hmmm. Maybe I'll start the "No IOs for Nihilii" union. If I can get the Praetorians on board, we can organize a strike right as Going Rogue is coming on line. Yeah, that should get some Dev attention... -
Quote:I tried the Hurdle + CJ route myself for a while, but I can't stand the bunny hop. So now I usually take Swift and CJ; CJ for the extra height and the defense and LotG mule. I think the only character who uses Hurdle + CJ is Iron Mantis, and that's a concept thing.Originally Posted by KingSnake
combat jumping/hurdle is faster then swift if you get used to hopping where you go. and if you do like me, and bind your travel power to a button, i use "q" myself, it's EASY to toggle on and off quickly as your jumping around your mission.
I'm a sticker for speed myself, and i rarely take swift at all unless my guys a flyer. It's not worth it, IMO.
Plus I'm lazy, so my target + follow bind gets me to the next enemy with one keystroke, and Swift gets me there faster without needing to hop and press the space bar.
I totally respect the advice though. If you can get used to the bunny hopping every where Hurdle + CJ makes more tactical sense. I just find it interesting to see the divergent play styles. -
Quote:Yes. With SR/Quickness and Sprint, running through RWZ I could easily moving from building to building with the jump distance, and double jump tp get up most of the higher jumps. You will run around if you are going through Boomtown though. The jump distance wasn't high enough to jump up onto the building where the base portal has been placed from the ground in portal square in Peregrine Island though, so you'd have to run around to the slop behind the building.Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
now...now... be nice
so does it increase jumping as well?
The power does not work with Combat Jumping; it toggles it off, but it does work with Swift, Hurdle, Quickness, and Sprint.
I could live with this power as my only travel power. If most of my characters weren't using all their slots I could really punch this home with Swift 3 slotted and Hurdle 3 slotted to save on travel powers. Or use this and have Teleport to get over problematic terrain. (I hate traveling with TP)
It reminds me of when I used perma-Elude as my travel power, except this power basically replaces the run and jump animations entirely. Since I don't particularly like the default run and jump animations this power is just great for me. That's the real win; the default run/jump animations bug me and this power fixes that.
Oh, and shodden after 5 booster packs or so you should know by now that the company not only will put cool things in booster packs that you will want to buy, but it's their job to do that to lure us to spend money. They are constantly designing things that we *can* live without (so people don't complain) but don't want to (so people spend the money). That's part of the way the company makes its money. CoH is a hybrid subscription + microtransaction game. Once you accept this I think your stress levels will be much lower. -
Devs, Seriously?
You did not just add something this awesome. For me, Ninja-run is by far the best graphical tidbit added to this game in the history of the game.
Although I like the game, I'll be honest. The run and jump animations always kind of bugged me. I found myself making characters that hid the torso and pelvis with long coats and capes just to mitigate those animations. And even though I like the jump animations for the large body type, I happened to make a Shield, a Spines, and a Claws character and all of them switch to the "normal" jump with weapons out.
I knew it was a selfish, nitpicking thing to complain about. What, the devs were going to completely revamp the run and jump animations to something different because I personally didn't like the animations? Hey, I knew that wouldn't happen. It wasn't a reasonable request.
As for travel powers, my favorite characters are natural types. None of the travel powers really fit. The best times I had for my natural character was actually perma-Elude, not because of the power of it (it capped Defense, even though the energy drop was annoying) but because I liked the speed/jump combo.
Then out of the blue unexpectedly you provide a Elude-like movement power available to all characters with completely new and awesome run and jump animations? Are you kidding me?
I am stoked. I am so stoked that my only complaint is that I want this on all the time. I want this power enhanceable and lower on Endurance not because of the power of it, but because I want the awesome all the time. I would gladly take this in a power pool if you provided a slottable version that stacked with Combat Jumping.
This power does so much to enhance my personal game play. I was using Ninja Run + Swift + Sprint to travel through the RWZ. It is fast enough and has enough jump height that I could use this as my only travel power. I wanted it to allow Combat Jumping, but that's just because it is so great I want it on all the time. Another advantage to this power is that I can make Teleport characters since when I get sick of TP for traveling (or I don't feel like getting to the mission out of endurance) I can just Ninja run instead.
Thank you for this. Seriously. -
Quote:I am not looking forward to Fire/Shields builds adding -10% Res to their already ridiculous pylon times. Or was it that I can't wait? I can never remember.Originally Posted by Nihilii
You're either seriously underestimating -res or have a very, very different playstyle than mine to consider a 40s -10% res AoE on 10 targets to be terrible.
... I'd put my money on different playstyles, as endurance is never a concern on any of my builds by high levels, especially on a regen.
If Melt Armor was a first level epic pick, I wouldn't use anything else. Ever. -
Quote:If you soft cap without it you free up a lot of Endurance use. It's not like you need Def debuff with good slotting and accuracy set bonuses against most things. You can probably break even on endurance usage without it freeing up CP.Originally Posted by Chaos_String
Regarding the ongoing debate about softcapping with or without RI: I advise to softcap without it.
(I would suggest dropping Mutation as well and keeping a TF group build around with frankenslotting for groups.)