Nihilii

If you're not in a rush you can probably get it for a lot cheaper, not to mention I16 might drop prices a bit.

Looks like you could almost run Smite SP SL Smite SP MG and I recall Werner saying this chain is almost as good as the top one for DPS (too lazy to check myself), so you should be fine for most AVs if you changed one of the makos in MG for a common recharge IO - there might be better ways to get there, I just took a quick glance at it.

I think there's stuff you could do better, though. A kismet in IW, some acc slotting in DC.

Also, I didn't notice you mentioned the +3def PVP IO. Keep in mind this IO alone is worth between 1 and 2 billions at current market price, more than your whole build minus it, basically.

At current market prices, I'd estimate it at around 1 billion. Actual price might vary a lot depending on your patience - my estimation isn't on "buy it now!" prices nor on "let each bid sit for days or even weeks", but somewhere in between.

I don't think this build can do it.

You're missing Pulv and Poison Ray which are respectively your best and third best attack (best attack chain in the constraints of a workable AV soloing build being, imo, Pulv PR Pulv Shatter). You're missing the healing pool. You're missing pets, they're big in DPE and Banes lacking any end management tool, DPE is important.

I made a (Mids) build softcapped with that chain, the medecine pool, the pets, and IIRC more regen and mez protection as well, but even then I wasn't happy with it. I think it'd be able to solo some AVs without insps/temps, but for me it's not worth blowing billions on a bane to basically attain the performance a brute could reach with 100-200 millions ; granted, you could say any debuff AT would beat a multi-billion inf brute build too, but the thing is with a WM/SR brute you can get pretty close to a bane in feels and looks, with better performance (for the specific task that is AV soloing) as well.

Yes, it is a mistake. Fire blast is weaker than Smite ingame, doing less damage with a longer activation time.

Fireblast doesn't belong in a high DPS DM chain.

Without being able to look at the build, if you have perma-hasten you should be able to run Smite SL Smite MG as long as all the three attacks are well slotted.

The increase in +damage for Claws and DB would be relatively lower than for other powersets, because of FU/BF. Their damage being on par with other primaries without Shield, they'd most likely end up with slightly lower damage compared to other primaries if all of them had maxed AaO.

In example : normal powerset, operating at 230% damage (BU loosely averaged), getting +80% from AaO = 35% increase.
DB or Claws, operating at 250% damage (1.5x FU/BF) getting +80% from AaO = 32% increase.

With faster attacks chains using FU/BF more often, the damage bonus from AaO would be even lower in comparison. Though to be fair the difference is really small, but my point is if anything, DB and Claws get less from Shield than most other primaries, not more - particulary in a team environment where a DB or Claws /Shield would be more likely to hit the damage cap and end with "wasted" buffs than any other primary except DM.

As for Spines having too strong AoEs, with Blaze mastery and ElM coming in I16 I'd have to go with "eh". I'll give you that a Spines/Shield/Blaze would have more AoEs than anything else, but I'm not sure the difference would be that big (as, past some point, animation times act as limits).

I've been lagfree since saturday. That's strange, looks like I started lagging while many other folks stopped lagging (monday maintenance) and vice versa.

That argument never meant much to me. They could just as well make an invisible shield option, or let it clip and call it a day. A DM/Shield uses the left arm for MG and that doesn't seem to bother anyone. Tons of costume parts are clipping and I don't see that being a problem either.

Elec armor having resistances to many debuffs, while a great thing, is a moot point, because it still gets hit by these debuffs and doesn't resist all of them. SR and Shield simply don't get hit, and the only debuff that could change that (-def) is heavily resisted as well. To a lesser extent, Invul is in the same boat.

It's definitely arguable the damage options (I consider +rech and end management tools "damage" as well, here) in Elec make up for the weaker survivability ; that's a point of view I share, although I believe there's a much bigger gap in survivability between Elec and SR or Invul (avoiding Shield as, if you ask me, it's completely overpowered and can't be compared to normal scrapper powersets) than the damage difference. Of course, that's a pattern we can see everywhere - tankers are multiple times more survivable than scrappers and only lose a third of their damage for it, given the same powersets for both and give or take a few for specific powersets.

Whether that's fair or not is up to each individual to decide, personally I'm fine with it. Mitigation is quite often overkill, especially with insps being so strong and dropping so often, while more damage is always useful.

Still, ELA is nowhere close to SR, Shield or Invul for general survivability, that point can't be argued. To compare these powersets while ignoring debuffs is just as bad as completely ignoring resistances, defenses, regen and max HP. The reason debuffs aren't on spreadsheets isn't because they're meaningless, but rather because they're too hard to quantify in any reasonable timeframe anyone would want to invest for a video game.

I'm going to pretend I agree with the OP. Any excuse to get I16 on Live as soon as possible.

That game is kind of fun, especially the drama popping up in every AT forum.

In my opinion, set bonuses don't tell much without seeing the individual slotting in each power.

Barb Swipe and Flurry are powers you usually want to avoid if building for performance. Throw Spines is the best AoE Spines has, and skipping it would be a mistake.

*reads post*
*reads sig*

For what it's worth, my Shield/DM tanker has no trouble soloing, including most AVs or +4/x8 spawns without insps or temps (although I will face the occasional defeat if I never use insps).

A DM/Shield scrapper will go much faster, but in damage mitigation it's not even close. The thing is, this superior damage mitigation is arguably wasted in most situations if you're willing to use inspirations (or if you don't want to push the envelope).

I don't know what the ":3" emoticon is supposed to mean but it makes me think of someone with... something inappropriate for teen-rated forums in his mouth.

I couldn't care less, as long as the result looks good.

From the posts you mentioned I'm getting the idea each party blames the other. However, what I notice is everytime new lag problems appear for me, it's right after maintenances (and I don't mean "approximately", I mean I'm logged 5 minutes before it shuts down and it's fine, and then logging 5 minutes after maintenance is done there's tons of new problems). So maybe there's something that I'm missing being unexperienced with network issues, but given the information available it seems more likely to me that NCSoft is at fault seeing as the problems always pop up after their maintenances.

I'm getting so much blank pages and error messages trying to navigate on the forums or even NCSoft sites, if it keeps going that way the problem might sort itself as the loudest complainers like me won't even be able to complain or read the forums for any eventual information or progress report (yeah right) on the problem.

This is getting ridiculous on Freedom for me. Again, a maintenance that adds more and more lag and problems. Now I'm not a techie guy, but is that really the point of maintenances ?

Instead of short red spikes making the game incredibly tedious to play, now I'm getting huge yellow spikes lasting for 10-20 seconds during which I can't do anything serverside (can still move and so on clientside, but of course I'm warped back when the lag ends). It doesn't seem to be just me either, other people around me seem to get stuck at the exact same times. It seems to be on a cycle, for a few minutes everything is fine, then the yellow spikes hit during a whole minute or two. Seems to affect login servers too, as I'm getting "can not connect to servers" messages (loosely paraphrasing ; it's the one you get while servers are down) sometimes.

I know I'm being whiny, but the total lack of official communication on such an important issue is unacceptable.

I don't know about "best", but anything with elec armor should be pretty good, as with SOs alone you have capped resistance to end drain, great energy resists, good psi resists and good end management tools.

Apparently, in the alternate reality Venture lives in, editors are only for traditional paper newspapers and there's never any reference to other articles, papers or books in any article.

People who haven't the slightest clue on a specific topic should really stop talking like they're an expert. Or just stop talking altogether. I'm hoping the irony of someone quoting specific parts of posts and failing to use the quote feature properly complaining about something not being conform to what he thinks is traditional storytelling isn't lost. Moving on...


OP, it sounds like a nice concept. On top of the technical concerns, I'd also add you might want to provide subs if you actually do it (as it is easier for non-english speaking people to understand).

As Silver Mantis only appears in missions with arachnos, wolves are a bit out of the norm if you ask me... Granted I should have mentioned it, but in my mind I thought "Silver Mantis in a normal dev mission, or one that replicates one." You could herd tarentulas which is pretty much the same thing except they do fire sometimes.

How many defense do you end up with in this video ? 50% ? It's weird how she hardly hits you after connecting the first hit, but hard to tell as you don't monitor defense. I know she has some ~20% and ~30% defense debuffs on some hits though (resisted to 10 and 15% as an invul, but still), so I'm guessing you're either above the softcap or rather lucky.

Looks like you got her stuck in a AI glitch too, she never used build up in the parts I watched (did skip forward a bit though, so correct me if I missed it). I didn't even know that was possible without attacking constantly (like Powerforge discovered first). If it is possible to get her to not use build up without having to attack constantly, that does change things quite a bit - my own defeats at 48% def were usually after I missed the AV combo and then missed VS with its 2.4s animation, letting her pop BU and waste me.

Even with BU properly working I'm not saying it's impossible, but rather than it'd probably take so many attempts or such a focused build I'm doubtful I'll ever see it.

Though to be completely honest I didn't expect at all to see something like your vid. Nice.

Having tried to take on SM with 320% regen, 48% def and 73% S/L res, I can attest it isn't enough, unless exceptional luck. With 30% S/L def on an inv, you're not even going to last one minute, as her defense debuffing will bring you to about ~-50% in a matter of seconds after her first hit connects.

I wouldn't mind seeing somebody prove me wrong, though. I'd still ask him how many attempts did that take.