OVWyx_EU

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Odd thing...I tried to click reply to Syn's post...and it just kept timing out, but it worked fine replying to everyone else

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Strange, but I just tried and couldn't reply to it either.

I prefer not to for much the same reason, although I can see the advantages.

I like to move around a fair bit, I use fly through most fights (slotted hover if I'm attacking as well, but that's unlikely to be the case in any situation where putting healing aura on auto was a consideration) to allow me to quickly position myself where healing aura is going to do the most good at any given time. I prefer to wait a split second and fire it manually to get the most out of it. The other reason is that I don't want to suddenly find myself needing to use either heal other or AP urgently and be unable to because I'm mid way through a healing aura that's totally uneeded.

I'm a control freak, what can I say

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Unfortunately people don't often see the effect of debuffs and buffs but notice heals more.

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True, it's a bit of a digression but I think it's also to do with healing being reactive.

Most more experienced players will hopefully understand the relative value of debuffs, buffs and healing, most will appreciate playing with a good defender/corruptor/controller/mastermind who's using their set well, but when I'm playing a blaster and I suddenly get stunned and wacked to about 5% hit points and someone instantly hits me with AP to put me back to full before I've even had chance to think "break free" let alone start mashing the inspiration tray then I'll say thanks. It doesn't mean I don't notice the debuffs or appreciate them, it just means that, well, someone just saved my [censored].

I used to use the one on victory all the time, very handy, particularly for monster teams at quieter times. I'll definitely use it.

Got to agree that the reactor room is fairly dull if you've got a well balanced team. Ran the first respec last night as well with an SG team (think I was chatting to some of you before we started) and almost dropped off in the reactor room a couple of times. Although to be fair I don't really think there's any cause for changing the first respec, it's hard enough for what it's meant for I guess - a whole team of people who've mucked up their character builds would probably have a slightly different opinion on difficulty. What I'd love is if they seriously speeded up the time between waives on the freakshow and the rikti ones, or made it so increasing your rating slightly decreased the time between spawns with each notch you go up.

I really enjoy the respec missions but it's often a bit of an anti-climax when you get to the last couple of waves and find yourself twiddling your thumbs for a couple of minutes between each one.

Wyx (Buffem and Run)

Yeah, back in beta I used to team my fire blaster very regularly with an ice controller and I had RoF then, I found it fairly effective, particularly at lower level when it's generally taking a little longer to kill the mobs. However he didn't buy the game though so I never took it on the retail version - it wasn't appropriate for the team I was playing with and I've not had it since. In CoV all my corruptors are taking the rain powers though - I cant remember the last time I played in a team that didn't have at least one member with tar patch, usually two or three. Very good fun to use

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As far as I know this is quite fast TF. The visit location missions are just that, you go to a place in the shards and click a plaque.

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You do have to watch out for the ambushes which can be quite interesting on an 8 man team

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I have no idea what you're talking about

(I seem to remember this TF being short by the SS standards, I'm sure it still took over 3 hours though - although that could have been partly due to half the team getting quite drunk during the first part of the mission while we were doing the "go to" missions.)

Couple of points on the elec side of things (bear in mind I've got an elec blaster not a defender so please disregard anything not relevant, my only experience with playing dark is a fairly low level corruptor).

Both Zapp and Thunderous Blast have a very high accuracy, even with how late you've taken aim on there you wont need more than one accuracy in them, after you've got aim you wouldn't need any. Short Circuit also has a high accuracy, I wouldn't recommend more than one acc in that either. If you're looking for drain it takes two applications of Short Circuit to drain even level, so slotting 1 acc/3 end mod/2 recharge, or 3 recharge/3 end mod, will give you the best results. It would then be availabe about once every 12 seconds with 2 recharge or every 9 seconds with 3 if I remember correctly. I don't know exactly how much drain you'd get from two applications on a defender (it's a little higher than the blaster version) however the blaster version will do +1s with two hits so you'd get at least that.

Aim already gives a high accuracy boost but has a long recharge, you'd get more mileage with slotting it for recharge rather than to hit. I would take aim earlier, nice for the extra damage, and those moments where you really do want to hit.

As Ohms already said, you get almost nothing at all from slotting your regular blasts with endurance drain. Short Circuit has a high base drain, 3 slotted with endurance drain and you'll start to drain mobs in two hits. At an absolute outside push you may get a slight benefit from Zapp and Thunderous Blast which both have a higher base drain than the rest of the attacks (Blaster version of Zapp is 15, the defender one will be a little higher, Thunderous blast is higher again but I can't remember the figure off the top of my head) but I'm not convinced it'd be worth it. If you really want to go for drain I'd take short circuit and then eventually take power sink from the ancilliary pool to combine with short circuit.

Edited to add a little more information on short circuit now I've woken up.

All electricity attacks now have a chance to return some of the endurance drained. It's a relatively small chance to return a relatively small amount of endurance, but it is there so in theory at least short circuit can return some endurance to you. I really don't notice it however this could be due to the fact that my elec blaster is definitely tighter on endurance all round than she was pre-ED when she was running 6 drain slotted power sink with perma-hasten. It could be that the recovery on it is in fact effective, but I'm just not appreciating it due to the fact the whole build has had a significant change on the endurance front, I find it hard to tell, I just see the overall effect in comparison to what I'm used to which may be slightly skewing my opinion on it.

Follio regarding slotting your attacks, I personally find that the best way to save on endurance and get the most damage out is to hit first time. When I'm using TOs or DOs I generally slot one or two accuracy in everything, plus one endurance reducer in any AOEs, then I'll start sticking damage in. By level 20 I usually have 2 or 3 attacks 5 or 6 slotted, generally with 1 or 2 acc, possibly 1 end reducer, and the rest damage.

Slotting CJ isn't that useful for defence even when they're SOs, training enhancements wont do much good at all

The secondary effect of elec is pretty near useless in PvP in most circumstances, but you get the odd instance where it isn't, usually when someone is low on endurance anyway, it's a little unpredictable for my tastes although I definitely wouldn't say it couldn't happen. I was actually thinking more of the relative merits of the ranged attacks though, in comparison with, say, ice, or energy - or the comparison of tesla cage to freeze ray. Anyway, as I said, I was merely curious, personally I love my elec/elec, she's always been my favourite, and I have what would probably be classed as a fairly unusual build on her although less so than I used to before ED pushed me a little towards the middle road, but most people who build a character specifically to PvP with don't pick elec primary, it's usually very low down on the list of choices, it struck me as interesting.

Hope you enjoy it.

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Even though you're an Electric blaster going without stamina for so long is not a good idea. I'd only take a no stamina build if I had both Electric Primary and Secondary.

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I'm not saying it's not possible, but you'd have to make some fairly hefty compromises on build to pull that of with elec/elec too, I've tried a lot of alternatives and if you want to maintain a reasonable attack chain and fast paced play, particularly using a lot of mele attacks, it just doesn't work that well.

Deluge, just out of curiousity, what was it that made you decide on the elec primary for a PvP character?

Wouldn't touch rain of fire in CoH on my blaster as it tends to mess up teams somewhat, however in CoV with the fact there are no tankers but a large amount of people, both corruptors and masterminds, with dark secondary, I find rain of fire and ice storm both quite useful.

Personally I don't rate flares very highly, the long animation time/rooting for a comparatively low damage attack make it probably the least desirable power in the set for me.

I've been running/playing in a corruptor team and it's exceptionally good fun - probably the best team mix I've seen yet in CoV, the combination of buffs, debuffs and attacks is excellent. We've been running about 3 rads then a mix of kin, dark and thermal (primaries are mostly fire and ice, with a rad in there too), at lower levels it's really amazing to watch the speed of it - I think with a couple of thermals there's not going to be too many problems with the alpha strikes prior to getting debuffs in as we level up - waiting to see how it goes but so far so good. I love fast paced play and watching characters that work well together and this team mix really does that for me.

Definitely the most fun I've had in CoV so far.

I look at both the archery and trick arrow sets and I picture the devs sat down the pub chatting over a pint. They're all congratulating themselves on the two new sets they've made. First on the list is the sonic set, they realise that as power sets go they've made something which looks really rather naff, it's a friday, they don't want to go in to work on the saturday to sort it out, so they just think sod it, leave it as it is but make the powers pretty decent and noone will moan too much! Then they move on to archery and trick arrow! There are general all round congratulations on what a cool looking set they've made, how great the bow is, and how everyone's going to want one. Just to make sure not everyone makes one they then reach a general agreement to make the powers a load of rubish, so only those with a serious bow and arrow fetish will actually play one past level 10.

[I tend to find storm's main problem is that it sticks out like a sore them when played badly in a team, when played well, I love teaming with them].

Most of my experience of the ice blast set was with the ice manipulation secondary, so just a few comments mostly about the primary there.

Ice bolt, Ice blast and Bitter Ice Blast are the three main blasts, ice is fortunate in that you can keep a ranged single target attack chain going pretty well, it seems a little strange to take Ice Bolt so late.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of blizzard unless you're going to be combining it with AOE slows, the damage is unnaffected by any buffs so it took a bigger hit than the other nukes to ED, and without a slow things are going to run out of it. Also, it has insane accuracy, if you do take it, you wont need to slot for accuracy. Perhaps if you do want to use it you could slot 3/3 on damage/slow?

Of the two holds Freeze ray is far superior. Bitter freeze ray has a very long animation time which makes it a good opener - especially to double stack holds on bosses - but not so great for mid fight. In addition while the damage is higher than freeze ray, it's not actually that spectacular compared to the DPS you can kick out using your main blasts. In other words you really don't need the recharge or damage in there. Freeze Ray on the other hand has a very fast animation time, if you are only going to 6 slot one of the holds I'd 6 slot that one (either 2 acc/2 hold duration/2 recharge or 2 acc/3 hold duration/1 recharge), combine it with power boost (maybe more slots in there actually?) and you're going to be able to lock most things down for long enough to kill them.

I'd probably slot my blasts slightly differently, I like to run 2 accuracy where possible, I also think that even with conserve power, and certainly before it, you'll struggle to run 2 recharge in every power without slotting any end reducers. But that's personal choice and it's not like you can't rearrange enhancements easily enough at any point

Personally I probably wouldn't put cold mastery with that set, and I definitely wouldn't slot frozen armour that heavily, but I figure by the time you get to level 41 you should be in a better position to consider which epic would fit best. I like the cold mastery set on my ice/ice for the extra slow, but she's a very very controllery character anyway. I would only take cold mastery on a character I felt didn't really need any armour, frozen armour just doesn't cut it in my opinion.

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Just remembered. Woke up this morning from a dream where a new Corrupter set was made up.....

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You know, that's probably not very healthy

Regarding the original topic. Not everyone wants to read a manual before picking up a game, I personally wouldn't expect them to. At high level I'd hope someone has a reasonable knowledge of their set and plays it well, and in general I don't tend to team twice with people who aren't at least trying to contribute something to a team, or people who put their pets before other players. However even with my personal build obsession I find it hard to judge someone too harshly for picking up a game, making a character that looks fun to them, and not knowing the ins, outs and relative merits of all the powers within a couple of weeks of play.

I can see no way how ED could possibly have directly improved any character. It may have forced some people to think more about their slotting, but all the options that are available now were available previously, it's not actually added any new better options, simply rendered some of the older ones no longer useful.

All my blasters are weaker than they were before in varying degrees, I'll admit that despite being a lot less fun to solo they're all still very playable, but they're all weaker to one degree or another.

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I took acrobatics recently, and the hold resistance thingy seems to work well, as well as the immob one on CJ. I like 'em.

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It protects from one hold which is pretty useful, two stacked will get you of course but it does cut down a little on how many break frees you need to carry. However you can't slot for that. I was questioning the worth of slotting for defence. The base percentage is pretty low anyway, you get very little from the enhancements.

Just had a quick scan before work, mostly it looks quite good to me, just had a couple of thoughts on it which might be worth considering.

Putting more than 3 of any one type of enhancement in a power really doesn't do much (the last 3 do ~5% extra each) so unless you've really not got anything else to slot, it's probably not worth it.

CJ and acrobatics only have a very small defence bonus, personally I've never found it worth slotting for.

Snipe has an inherrant accuracy bonus, in order for it to be effective now you need to use it with aim or build up anyway which also have accuracy bonus, so you don't really need an accuracy in it.

Aim and build up I find invaluable. Although sometimes I use them together for the alpha strike, in longer fights I tend to alternate them for a constant acc/dam boost. The tohit buff doesn't really make a massive difference, certainly not in aim, but I'd probably recommed 3 slotting each for recharge though. It'll increase your damage output quite significantly.

Hotfeet - well, each to their own, I've never liked it although I've heard about people using it.

Possible power suggestion. Air Superiority - I'm a big fan of this power since I started using it in a couple of my blaster builds. For a set with no control you may find it useful. It's a one hit knockdown (mele) and slotted with 2 or 3 acc and 1 recharge you can keep a boss pretty much permanently on it's bum. It really depends if you're comfortable in mele or not, but with no flight, and no control, things are going to close you anyway so I'd probably recommend giving it a go on the test server.

Consume I find exceptionally useful, it might be worth shuffling a couple more slots in there. I'm slotting mine with 2 acc/2 end modification/2 recharge which allows me to run my toggles and also to put increase attack rates in all my attacks.

I slot my attacks quite differently to you. Currently I'm using 1 acc/1 recharge/1 end reducer/3 damage in AOEs and 2 acc/1 recharge/3 damage in single target attacks. Not saying it's the best way to do it, but I can imagine a definite gap in the attack chain without a least some recharges in the attacks. Range enhancements I've never got much mileage out of in anything except blaze.

Good choice of epic - I really do find it goes best out of all of them - but I'd recommend slotting char for the hold it is. 2 acc/3 hold duration/1 recharge and you can perma-hold an even level boss, you'll come close on a +1. The damage on it is good, but not compared to the damage you've got in the rest of the set so probably not worth slotting for.

Anyway, just my twopenneth - haven't had time to proof read so apologies in advance for any typos - I'm sure there'll be a few

Wyx

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I'm an energy/energy blaster and if i click a melee power with no target selected my hands will glow red for quite some time after.So i suppose if he was an /elec blaster and he did the same then his hands would go all electric like.

Thats what I reckon your on about and if it is then all you need to do is choose a melee power for your character

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Somewhat dissapointingly, the electricity manipulation powers don't do that.

Nice screenshot.

From a game point if view I find knockback annoying (especially my own - I get quite annoyed with myself when I misjudge and knock something back with an attack that ends up not killing it), but my oh my it looks good now! I team my elec/elec blapper with a mind/kin controller fairly regularly. There is little in the game that makes me grin more than watching her throw something in the air with levitate so I can wack it with thunder strike while it's up there and send it's cold dead corpse flying accross the room

*sniggers*

Her being kinetic secondary is kinda nice too, not much survives a 500% damage capped thunder strike so I don't have to chase it again afterwards.

Wyxie has that.

Electricity blasters do get a crackly hands effect when they're attacking, it looks really quite good. However if it was someone who was just standing about what you probably saw was someone with an aura (you can get these at level 30 - there's various ones and one gives electricity hands - they don't give you any special powers, they're just there for the look). The "crackly effect" from the electricity attacks only lasts a short while - it's unlikely anyone standing about would have it active. Doesn't change the fact the sets looks good though - especially the secondary, jumping in the air and landing two fully charged fists on something's head looks so damn powerful.