Person34

Been a few days since I've checked back on this thread, thanks for the information everyone!

To Dromio yes you need all 6 defensive powers (3 toggles, 3 autos) to get to the 95% DDR cap. Capping DDR on a /SR is imperative as it is one of the cornerstones of the set: you can stand in and around a large group of baddies knowing very little will compromise your killer defenses. In fact, it is probably the only thing that is truly unique about the set (outside of shield's ability to do similiar but apparently that's being adjusted).

Understand that the DDR values are enhancable, so if you are not fully slotting the defensive powers the DDR values will be lessened as well.

Edit: Bill beat me to the punch!

I will agree that having bane spider armor +hitpoint enhanceable would rock, and having shatter critting from hide would just simply own (stalker's patron attacks are flagged to crit from hide, why can't bane's/widows?). Also a faster animating ranged sequence would be nice.

And yes to whoever mentioned whirling mace or whatever it's called, it always irked me a bit when a NPC executioner used it on me but I don't have access to it.

Honestly if I were to make a suggestion to buff banes I'd say just give them serum and fortification from the crab spider tree and be done with it. Hmmm... a 700 point heal that caps hitpoints + 40-60% resist to everything (except psi) + softcapped defenses? On a debuffing melee toon that can summon 3 pets and double its DPS? Yes please!

Will never happen of course but since we are all wishful thinking might as well throw it into the mix.

I'm building a claws/SR brute and so far it has been fun (lvl 25 currently). I know how powerful /SR can be, but was curious which enemy groups to be wary of later on? Offhand I know carnies (with typed psi attacks), nemesis and arachnos can be tough to handle, what other groups will give a /SR a rough time?

Also, I've put together a build that requires no IO set bonuses to cap all 3 positionals, but the defenses will be -just- over the softcap (like 45.3%). I am not taking elude on this toon, should I settle for higher defenses just to play it safe? I can imagine that even with 95% DDR a large group of romans could wittle down my armor and eventually have me popping insps and/or running away. Could I get by on just 45% or should I try and include a 2-3% buffer?

Thanks.

TY for the support Candlestick, yeah I'm going to re-evaluate the build a bit and slot it as an attack. I have the defense dilema solved I think so just a matter of slotting BU now and see how it goes. Thanks guys.

Thanks for the reply. I will slot it then as an attack. As for keeping softcap I have a few ideas that will probably work without interfering with the high hp/regen/rech I have slotted for. Thanks again =)

I'm liking the new fury mechanics and made a claw/SR brute to mess around in Praetoria. It builds fury fast and is a lot of fun so far (only at lvl 11 atm). I went ahead and put together an endgame build on mids and it seems pretty stout. I ended up with just over 46% to melee, ranged and AE but I have 6-slotted FU with guassians for the 2.5% defense bonuses. This means it has no accuracy or damage associated with it.

In the accuracy dept I'm not concerned, as with all the + acc bonuses, the to-hit from the kimset unique and FU itself providing a to-hit bonus I should be set. But it does crap for damage. So a few questions:

- Should I drop the guassians and slot it as an attack? I don't want to do this as this build turned out pretty well and I would have to re-arrange some things to make up for the 2.5% defense I would lose. Or would fury and FU's double stacked damage bonus (+60%) be enough to offset its lack of damage slotting?

- On the flip side, is FU even needed on a brute? Fury builds so fast now I don't know if I'll miss it later on... but then again, this toon is still low level and I can imagine fury + double stacked FU could be, well, "brutal" in the later levels (and nice to have against lethal resistant foes).

Just looking for a bit of guidance on a class/power combo I have little experience with is all.

I can't veiw the build as I'm at work atm, but just a few things I'm seeing:

- why try to cap melee, ranged and S/L? There are no attacks that I am aware of that are flagged -strictly- S/L so capped melee/ranged should suffice (and AE if you can pull it off).

- AS pointed out by others... take venom grenade! It is probably the best attack soldiers get: it debuffs all resist by 20%, except for toxic... which it debuffs 40%. So it allows poisonous ray to hit like a truck, and your mace attacks come with toxic dot damage to boot. It also buffs itself, being all toxic damage. I'd drop your lvl 4 ranged attack and move everything up to squeeze it in. Like Fury and Silas pointed out, a big part of your damage stems from the ability to neuter the resistances of your enemies.

Ok thanks for clearing that up for me!

Was looking at the new APP/PPPs on Paragon Wiki for GR (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/APP_Proliferation) and noticed that there was no info on VEAT APPs. Does this mean there will be no proliferation for them or will they mimic the brute pools as they are currently? Was just curious, there are some nice powers listed (energy mastery has some interesting looking prospects IMO).

just as interesting IMO:

Martial Arts

* Cobra Strike changes:
o Decreased Recharge Time from 20 seconds to 12 seconds
o Increased Endurance Cost from 10.14 to 11.86
o Increased damage scale from 0.25 to 2.28
o Reduced Stun chance from 100% to 75%


* Martial Arts/Cobra Strike - Updated Long Help Description to match the powers new damage and recharge values.
* Martial Arts/Cobra Strike - Reduced Recharge from 12 seconds to 10, reduced damage from scale 2.28 to 1.96, decreased end cost from 11.86 to 10.19.
* Martial Arts/Eagle Claw - Increased recharge time from 12 seconds to 16 seconds, increased damage from 2.28 to 2.92, increased end cost from 11.86 to 15.18.
* Martial Arts/Cobra Strike - Changed Long and Short help to display Medium damage.
* Martial Arts/Crippling Axe Kick -- increased recharge to 11 seconds, and increased damage and endurance cost appropriately. Added 10 second unenhanceable Defense Debuff.
* Martial Arts/Cobra Strike Critical damage now matches the base attack damage.

Crobra strike got the "clobber" treatment... should be a nice 1-2 combo with EC for crippling bosses. Also, CaK supposedly hits pretty hard now too.

Heck, I'm tempted to make a MA/DA now.

I didn't read much of the replies so forgive me if I cover something already mentioned.

Mind link is a cornerstone power IMO for the widows that benefits everyone in your party. I took it on my high end NW because it + TT:M, both defense uniques (the pvp one is mega pricy, but outlining this just for example purposes) and mask presence (surpressed) puts me at cap for everything. This eliminates having to take weave, leadership's maneuvers, CJing etc or having to specifically slot set bonuses to make up ground for a lacking defensive build.

I have considered at one point doing just what you proposed and skipping out on it ML as well, as it is -completely- doable on a arachnos NW/fort. However, it then leaves me having to plug the holes with other pools or set bonuses, which is what I try to avoid personally if possible.

I don't think you will be kicked from teams for not having it, but I have found that some folks think that the team buffs are reasoning behind having them in groups (esp some of the ones that run a ton of SFs). There's even been a post or two here on th e boards from folks griping about VEATs skipping out on the leadership toggles and ML. I say play your toon however you want! but know there are some out there that might scrutinize you for skipping ML.

If you can make it work without ML and enjoy the toon then have at it, but I think the benefits outweigh the cons with ML. Slotted it is almost 16% defense for you and your whole team + a to-hit bonus... a big deal in some circles.

Just to point out: on your listed build above if you drop both leadership:maneuvers and weave and plug in ML with 3 membranes (or however you go about frankenslotting for def/rech) you will be just shy of capped on all defenses (52.5, 44.5, 43.9) -without- mask presence toggled. So in this example ML by itself replaces 2 pool powers AND grants you and your team +7.8% tohit! It will be 10 seconds from perma, but since you will still have 2 free power slots take 3 slotted hasten and it now recharges in 77 seconds (or, slot in a bit more global haste and skip hasten if you want). Yesyou could do without it, but since by itself it can replace 2 other defensive powers I think it lends a little more flexibility to your build. Just my opinion of course =)

What are you trying to accomplish with this toon? That is a pretty odd build.

- You are 2-slotting GotA in your defenses for end bonuses, but have it in 7 powers. You aren't benefitting from the last 2 (max # of bonuses are 5, regardless of the sets appointing them).

- The AT has high positional defenses, but you are also slotting bonuses for typed? I would re-examine the 4 kinetic combats in kick and the 6 multi strikes in spin, there are better bonus sets out there.

- You placed indomidable will at lvl 49, I would move it up to lvl 10 when it becomes available and place a power with less priority into the 49 slot.

- You should consider taking dominate.

- Mindlink needs to be frankenslotted for recharge... that is if you are even going to keep it. With mask presence suppressed you are still capped in all 3 positions. 45% is the magic number here.

That's just things I've noticed glancing at it. Probably the best advice here is do some research on the forums and study some of the other posted builds. Yours is softcapped but some of the power choices and slotting are, to me anyways, raising some questions. It isn't just about understanding Mids, it's about understanding the AT. I'd start with Lobster's excellent guide (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=125490) and go from there. Hopefully it will shine a little light on which direction you want to go with this character.

Hey thanks for the feedback Fury and Luxun, I think my build is done for the time being (until i19 goes live anyways) but will probably re-visit a pylon before then and give it another go. I didn't take the t1/t2 melee attacks like your chain suggests (took instead dart and mental blast and frankenslotted for +hp/regen) but if i could smooth out my chain a bit I might be able to shave some seconds off of the attempt. And I have an idea of how to do this now I think (have my 3 attack chains on three seperate bars and alternate between them instead of dancing all over the same bar... should be a little more structured that way).

TY again for the replies!

I would slot them into one of your light ranged attacks, like channel gun or single shot (or possibly longfang/burst if you skip over the T1 attacks). The proc has a chance to fire every time you active the power, and purple procs have a 33% chance of this... which can do some surprising additional damage in the long run. Yeah if you miss on an attack it won't go off so frankenslot it to get the other aspects of the power up to par (additional damage and accuracy).

Also, Apocalypes are IMO one of the better purple sets due to the set bonuses. I'd 6-slot whatever you place those 3 into and add 3 devistations for +56 hps and 28% regen. Later on down the road when you get your hands on two more apocs you can slot all 5 for the "Ultimate recharge bonus" (10%), which is one of the reasons why purples are such a huge draw.

Or, alternatetively you could just sell them before the market merger happens and reap the rewards. Last time I looked I think the proc alone was selling for like 300 million villain side.

I was trying to find a way to stress my NW's build and was having problems finding critters that would last long enough to determine if my endurance recovery (and to a lesser extent, hit point regeneration) were up to snuff for the longer battles. I asked the SG for ideas and someone mentioned trying to solo a rikti pylon.

I know from browsing the scrapper's boards that this is a massive endeavor that is taken very serious by some folks. I decided I would head over to RWZ and give it consideration: worse case scenario being I can't beat one of the game's toughest solo challenges, which is fine with me as long as I could get in a few solid minutes to see where the build stands. I activated the stopwatch on my phone, in the case that I was victorious I could record the time and use it as a basis to improve upon.

My first attempt at pylon #17 was a success (16 minutes 46 seconds), but with a lot of lessons learned. I had to use 6 small blues during the battle, and I didn't have indomitable will toggled on so when the pylon hit me I got knocked back about 50 feet or so (good thing was this allowed for a bit of end recovery while I re-engaged). Also, in my frantic button spamming I twice accidently switched pages when jumping between the attack chain. Good news though is I survived the encounter and discovered that while I was lacking in the end dept I had sufficient regeneration to recover from the pylon's few hits (27/sec).

The attack chain I employed was less than stellar: my generic PvE setup of FU/slash/eviscerate/lunge, filling in with poison dart and shatter armor as needed (yes, I'm the one NW in game who is envious of Banes!), in no real particular order... hit FU as it refreshed and just launch whatever attack was up and ready. My recharge rate was 107.5 global + 3 slotted hasten fyi and the only toggles I ran was TT:maneuvers and mask presence, along with mind link every 80 seconds.

Here's the best part of all of this: Most of my attacks were slotted for only 10-20ish percent end reduction. I burned a respec and got FU to 96% recharge and 87% end redux. Got slash, poison dart, shatter armor and lunge to over 90% end redux and plugged in the performance shifter +end proc into stamina. I then put together a chain a FU/slash/lunge/FU/dart/lunge/FU/slash/dart/repeat (dropped evicerate completely from the chain) and had shatter armor on standby duty because there were occasional gaps. These changes allowed me to now solo a pylon and not worry about the endurance issues.

Next two attempts: pylon downed in 11 minutes, 18 seconds and a later successful try at 9 minutes 58 seconds without any blue insperations and with IW toggled on! The NW is now 3/0 on pylon engagements and while happy with the wins I am even happier regarding the information it provided me in addressing my endurance concerns. Anyways, I don't recall seeing any posting about VEATs tackling pylons so thought I'd share the exciting (to me) news.

My question though about the engagements are whether the -regen in poison dart and the resistance debuff from shatter armor played a role at all in the defeats. I know the pylons have resistances and high regen so was curious how this factored in.

So my PvE NW was able to beat a pylon on 3 different occasions thus far... Now for the real challenge: figuring out a way to get my bane to do the same!

Hey thanks for the additional information guys. My main concern with the fixed duration is that I would use the T9 as a panic button and if I can resolve the situation before the timer is up then I would like to just click off the power, recover from the crash and move on. Crashing a few encounters after I innitially needed the power could turn out just as bad as if I never used it in the first place.

Ah well, the price of power I suppose.

Ok, thanks for the quick response =)

I usually don't take the melee defensive set T9s, but was curious if you activate one (the ones with detrimental crashes, like unstoppable, elude etc) can you just simply click it off when you are done using it or are you required to wait the full duration of the power? I figure if I could control when it goes down it would allow me to determine the best time to be "at risk". Also, with a power like the electric armor's T9, which has an AE hold associated with the crash, it would allow for the option of locking down a group of minions and possibly some Lts at the expense of a health/end crash and -recovery debuff.

Do the T9s operate in this manner? If not, would it be overpowered to allow for it? Thanks.

I have a lvl 50 elec/elec, it gets a lot of playtime because it is just so dang fun. It plays a bit different than a defense-based set: I rarely ever us AS, opting for instead BU/LR/TS combo, then hitting shadow meld and scrapping it out with the remaining mobs. In order to feel sturdy enough I needed to invest into some S/L defense, otherwise it was just a bunch of mobs wittling my health down to nothing in short order (and that heal only buys you precious seconds in that case). With 33% S/L and shadow meld on a 10 sec cooldown it works reasonably well, you just have to be careful not to bite off more than you can chew is all. And the complete end drain and -recovery resistance is plain awesome.

My only beef is the single target damage isn't spectacular, but it is a reasonable tradeoff for the massive AoE it provides.

It's funny that you make this comparison because most folks see NWs as being "team friendly" (lots of leadership buffs and mind link) while there are still people who think the opposite of stalkers (that they don't contribute to a team at all... which is a crazy assumption). I think it really depends on what type of stalker you are comparing the widow to. I don't think a widow will ever will outdamage a stalker: stalkers have innate crits out of hide, scaling crits on teams and (I believe) a higher base damage modifier. And assassin's strike on top of it all. It would really depend on what type of stalker you are up against I suppose: A NW will probably out-DPS a claws stalker, but what about a dark melee stalker? And how about area effect attacks? Elec melee stalkers are AE monsters, how does spin and eviscerate stack up to thunder strike and chain induction (oh, and lightning rod as well, but it's on a longer recharge).

A NW is probably closest to a claws/SR stalker, but again there are big differences here; NW claws do about twices as much base damage as stalker claws. And SR's defense, while similiar to a NWs in having scaling resists, also has 95%+ DDR... which is a huge deal. They are similiar in that they are melee ATs with crits, placates and the ability to hide but that's about it. Oh, and they have silmiliar hitpoints (a stalker caps at just over 1600, and while a NW's cap is just over 2400 I don't think I've ever seen one over the stalker's cap).

I suppose the best way to compare damage and survivability of the two would be to run a few tests and see how the toons fare. Like maybe go up against a rikti pylon with a claws/SR stalker and a NW and see who is more successfull (my NW doesn't have the endurance to chain for that long sadly...).

I have never, ever had a problem getting a toon on a team, even the crazy concept ones (like my melee-specific crab spider). Your comments on how everyone is so quick to quit the team because you are a stalker sounds like a exaggeration. Esp how you immediately follow it up with a post on how bad stalkers suck.

You of all folks should be aware of how good they perform with your "Spines/Ninjitsu stalker with all the trimmings: Permahaste, Softcapped, lots of procs" build that is "quite the AoE Content grinding machine, and it has great single target relatively due to AS!" as you put it.

Stalkers are fine. In fact they are better than fine by a large margin. Yeah they could have a few more hit points but I think that is their only shortcoming. If you were hoping for a more in-your-face melee AT that is more "scrapperish" then you should have considered a brute instead of dumping billion of inf into an AT that you believe is subpar.