Nihilii
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Posts
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Joined
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I took FA for my Katana scrapper, but to be honest if ELA was available at the time I wouldn't have. While Healing Flames is clearly superior, I don't like relying on fast recharging heals for mitigation with a sword set, and I'd rather have the slower (but slightly stronger) heal in ELA coupled with the slighty higher resistances. I found Burn didn't work for me and Fiery Embrace isn't enough by itself to make up for the superior end capabilities, passive recharge, psi and debuff resistances ELA gets to enjoy.
That said, I'm fine with the performance of my Kat/FA.
As for the rez, your first suggestion appeals to me the most. In this world of Shield Charge and Lightning Rod, a tier9 that requires you to be dead to use should do blaster nuke damage... and by that I mean the damage should not only be upfront, but higher as well, because when you use something while dead you can't use damage buffs such as build up and fiery embrace with it. -
Doubtful. You could probably focus on melee defense without gimping it, but softcapping all 3 or even 2 for an elm/reg would be hard on the build.
Complete theorycraft here, but I'm thinking if it was my toon I'd just go for ~13% def to all and as much recharge as possible, then I'd pick Shadow Meld. This way, between MoG and Shadow Meld I'd have bursts of defense as needed. Another bonus being, of course, that both elm and regen are sets that benefit heavily from recharge. Having TStrike knocking things down more often can't hurt survivability.
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I don't think EM should get AoE damage. I'd rather have it do the ST damage it's supposed to do. To have a ST oriented set with a -HP power roughly equivalent to -200% regen if you use it often ending up in the bottom for DPS is completely laughable.
I'm talking IOed out. ET hurts you more the more you use it, and EM benefits less than any other set from procs because of its long animations and lack of powers to slot -res procs. The disparity isn't that big on SOs, but even there I'd still argue having a -HP power and a sorry excuse of AoE should automatically put that set in the number 1 spot for ST DPS, and it isn't. -
Fire/Shield.
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All powersets aren't created equal. Fortunately, even the weakest powerset can be made strong enough to take on team spawns and solo some AVs.
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I've experimented quite a bit during the AE defendable objects craze, and BF -> TE -> 1KC -> TE -> SS was the best AoE chain for me. I suspect it'd be the best during normal gameplay as well, getting 7 or more targets in the 7" 90° cone without losing a millisecond for 1KC to be competitive with TE is pretty much impossible there, and SS being capped at 5 is always below TE.
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If you don't want to use inspirations, you will want defense. Tohit debuffs are heavily resisted by AVs, and while you could survive most AVs by only using EF, your heal and kiting, doing so would most likely result in not doing enough DPS to take them down.
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Making a forum post on a video game message board about the dangers of pollution and resource exhaustion might possibly be the most ironic thing I've seen this week, and for this I thank you sir !
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Quote:*raises hand*
Well....first show me another brute that actually do the Phalanx part absolutly solo, with invincibility without unstoppable. =P Invincibility doesn't help much when all the robots are outside your aura for the last wave.
*checks AT*
Aw crap, scrapper. You know, that AT with (mentioning what is relevant to this conversation) a much lower HP cap and lower base HP.
Invincibility helps there just as in any other situation, the biggest buff you get is from one enemy in range (~7% slotted). Now the thing is, this isn't even a challenge. Seriously. That you consider it to be a potential one should tell you how much stronger you could be if you picked Invincibility and built for typed defenses (because Invul also has Tough Hide, so you're starting off with 13% S/L/F/C/E/N with one target in range, as opposed to 0% M/R/A).
KC is definitely a costly set, there's no denying that. Part of it is because S/L defense is so good and more and more people are becoming aware of that. Most attacks have a S/L component ; especially for melee attacks, there's only a few that don't check for S/L defense.
Now I'm not saying all this to belittle you, your character is your own and you can build it as you wish. However, I believe if you care about efficiency at all, skipping Invinc and going for melee defense is wasting a lot of effort and money that could be invested in S/L defense for much better results.
I think my own situation mirrors yours to an extent, because up until a month ago my build strategy for invuls and WPs was to get equal defenses to S/L/F/C/E/N. I just couldn't get, understand, admit, whatever, that focusing on S/L defense would yield higher performance. I'll argue I had a point - getting everything to 32.5%+ so everything would softcap with one luck, to cover all situations ; but once I tried just going for the S/L softcap, there's no looking back.
I'd encourage you to give it a shot on a dual build, or, if your dual build is used, on the Test server. As for KCs being too costly for Live, you can use Smashing Haymaker as a cheap placeholder ; half the defense for 1% of the price. Rectified reticle in a tohit buff power, reactive armor in toggles, CJ, Invinc, Tough Hide, Weave.
To illustrate, here's a SS/Inv build with 40% S/L defense with one target in range. Defense would be softcapped with 5 targets in range or kinetic combat sets instead of smashing haymaker. It also happens to have 25% F/C, 31% E/N. There's no real sacrifices involved in my opinion, 2 slots are left on attacks to improve accuracy, damage, endurance and recharge as needed, there's 7 power picks left (3 of which would most likely be Fitness, 1 for a travel power eventually... leaving 3 to get other stuff).
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My only reason to switch would be if any particular build of mine gets a specific advantage on the other side. In example, if brutes get access to scrapper epics after switching, I'll move most of my brutes heroside for conserve power.
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I think you probably have seen them at 50 a few weeks ago during the bug that made rep affect AVs (same as in STF, level 54s going to 50). That's why we're stuck with rep not affecting TFs at all now...
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My beef with WP is I can't seem to make the set work *and* I keep hearing people saying how awesome it is.
WP makes me feel stupid. Curse you, WP ! -
Coupling a primary without any regen/heal ability with a secondary hurting your hit points doesn't strike me as a good combo. It's probably workable just like everything is, and possibly fun seeing high damage numbers from ET and TF while AaO is saturated ; I doubt it's as efficient as other choices though.
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Level 51 is the normal minimum level for these AVs.
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Quote:I never said that ! My whole point is that the set stacks perfectly with inspirations and getting these inspirations is a non-issue.
Well, I find it hard to believe anyone could tank with only genric IOs and no inspirations (and a steadfast).
Slotted toggles, Phalanx Fighting, Cj, Weave, a steadfast = 33% def.Quote:Even with that, and some pool picks to raise defense you're still looking at around 30% defense.
At level 22, on SOs / common IOs ? +2, +3, +4 spawns for teams of 8 ? Now this is me having trouble to believe that, having played both these sets and having tanked with both while leveling. For me, it required inspirations or team buffs/debuffs just like Shield, and it was impossible for Invul pre-28 as Invinc only opens up at that point, and way harder for WP as RttC is pitifully weak for aggro control compared to Invinc and AaO.Quote:However, I prefer using sets like WP and invuln that do not require inspirations to tank.
Now if you specifically mean DA + Invul/WP + cornerpulling, that's another story (a story that is specific to katana and BS, and not relevant to all invul and WP builds), but nothing's stopping anyone from making Parry + Shield + cornerpulling either... I'd argue DA/Parry and cornerpulling stack much better with Fire or Dark anyway. -
You've got odd slotting choices. One thing I'd change for sure is Tremor, slotting it for maximum accuracy, damage and recharge. A PBAoE on auto is great to have while AFK.
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You need to PuG more.
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Quote:Well, not to start an argument, but now I feel I have to defend my case.
Not to just shaft Nihili here, but I wouldn't suggest shields. It blooms very late which makes it difficult to resist the urge to delete it. I've also found it to be a bit squishy for my liking, until it is totally IO'd out and at the softcap. I also don't like that you pretty much have to take every power in the set, and it doesn't leave much room for power pools.
Shield being defense based, it stacks very well with team buffs/debuffs and inspirations ; these same inspirations rain from the sky seeing how fast Shield scrappers can kill stuff. The resistances / max HP aren't too shabby if you slot for it as well. AaO is also a great aggro aura, making the toon capable to tank for teams on SOs.
I did just that the whole weekend (with the exception of a steadfast +3 def, everything was common IOs), either on PuGs or soloing, so I know it works.
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If you have a scrapper that can handle staying in the middle of a mob of 25 +8 enemies for five minutes, I'm afraid my game knowledge isn't enough to know of anything better or even equal, performance wise.
Nonetheless, I think you should try shield scrappers. I could go ahead and list their numerous strengthes, but "it's fun" sums up the whole thing (especially Shield Charge) pretty well. -
Hasten being too efficient :
Most of the pool powers represent enormous boosts to builds. Why single out Hasten ?
I see many more builds with Stamina than Hasten. I see many more scrapper builds with Weave than Hasten. I'd argue both of these powers are much more important - or gamebreaking if you want, it's all a matter of perspective - than Hasten.
I'd argue CJ is much more important than Hasten too for some people ; I certainly wouldn't make a build without CJ. Ever.
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Skipping Hasten being a big DPS hit :
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.
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.
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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. -
Not only that, but he's also running the best DM attack chain.
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Quote:Agreed and agreed. Ultimately, sticking with CB HP CB JL with conserve power is probably the best choice.
It looks like most of the Elm/SD/Blaze builds I've seen are more for general/farming play; I'm not sure how they're able to sustain the End Recovery necessary for prolonged AV fights, which is really where an ST chain would matter anyway. -
Not sure. It'd probably break even.
However, use Fireblast instead of Havok Punch and it'd increase the DPS quite a bit in the first chain, bringing it close to the second chain, requiring much less recharge and being efficient with 10 targets in range. -
(All on paper, haven't actually tried those chains)
CB HP CB JL with a hecatomb proc and normal proc in CB, normal proc in HP and normal proc + arma proc in JL gives me ~147 DPS with 1 target in range, ~183 DPS with 10 targets in range.
The best chain I've found with reasonable recharge (+~250% in CI), CB JL CB CI with a hecatomb proc and normal proc in CB, normal proc in CI, arma proc + normal proc in JL gives me ~162 DPS with 1 target in range, ~202 DPS with 10 targets in range.
CI jumps from target to target and is bound to kill some of the mobs fueling AaO during a long fight against a tough target such as an AV, so if you can survive the AV + 9 targets the first chain is probably the best one. -
Quote:So you took on the 3 nictus and Romulus and stood there until they all dropped dead? Damn impressive if so.
That ITF run was done under the RWZ Challenge rule
(Still quite a feat even if I misunderstood. )