PrincessDarkstar

I have never played Mercs so didn't know they had KB. In that case Electric Fences from the Mu parton pool will be even more handy for you.

It is the only AoE immob available that has -kb, anything caught in the area will stay there and feel the full force of all that AoE damage from your commando. A good example of the difference this makes is that it takes me 8 minutes to deal with a group of romans (+2/x8) who I cannot immob (Yes that is ages, but I am bots/ff), yet only about 30 seconds to deal with a group of longbow on the same level, because they all stay within the AoE!

Use your taunts on anything still free to move and try to get them grouped together so you can catch them all when Electric Fences is available again. If you move slightly away from your pets while you do this any AoE aimed at you will hopefully miss the pets.

The actual attacks you can get, even the patron AoE's dont get you much aggro, all I ever concentrate on is using the taunts and whatever heals/debuffs I have to keep my pets standing.

Isn't that exactly how this thread started out?

The OP asked for a human only build, and got some advice and a build (Good advice - but with a few mistakes) and then there was a bit about what the benefits of tri-form over human form were.

I guess the part missing was that I (we) never say that human only (Or whatever) is capable of x performance, we just say it is x% worse than tri-form. But what we should really say is: That build is capable of running at x difficulty and can beat an x man spawn in x seconds, but that is x seconds slower than if you did it a different way. Then the person asking the question can decide for himself with 100% of the facts, I guess I present as many facts as I can, but I skew them without realising it.

Looking at my post about damage I came to the conclusion that human only damage was below the forms but should have mentioned what you gain instead, like the quick access to controls that can lock down whole spawns, massive healing ability etc. AlienOne has proven beyond doubt that human only can be very good, I will start using that as a baseline in future.

That isn't strictly true, you won't solo an AV quickly due to lack of debuffs, but I have soloed a fair few on my bots/ff, and it is safe as houses. In fact if you could put two powers on auto it would be afk'able (Provoke and Aid Self).

I have an aversion to offending people so whenever I think I may have done it upsets me more than it should.

I will give you your due again here, there is a lot of negativity towards human form, and although I am one of the regulars who says that fri-form is better I know that human form certainly doesn't suck. I just like making sure anyone about to play human only knows the difference as well as I can state it, but I guess I do forget to put anthing in about the benefits of human form (Especially the bit where a human only Warshade should be almost unkillable).

True, and if I didn't think people missed out on anything by going human only I wouldn't bother (For example I don't tell Claws scrappers they should be playing Dark Melee), equally if the OP seemed to know what he was missing out on I wouldn't have bothered, but I didn't even think he had started his Warshade.

Actually I was just trying to reply to Obsidian because I was bored and got carried away.

I just want to make sure that everyone knows everything there is to know before doing something. If there was no difference at all between the styles I would never say anything, I don't care how people play (At all).

You are really getting grief for playing human form? That makes me sad actually, I can happily argue with you on the pro's and con's of whatever style all day but going to PM's smacks a bit of getting personal.

I get your thinking, and I really should bow to your experience (But for some reason I am determined to argue ). I have a DB/WP scrapper, and although he isn't exactly lacking in recovery he has taken Strength of Will to use as an endurance recovery power. The reason for this is that by the time SoW is recharged his endurance will be low, and SoW will fill it back up, then again it will be low before popping SoW as another refill. As long as you know the attack chain you are using you can calculate endurance use and make sure that you have enough to do everything you need. If you finish a mob with exactly enough corpses and endurance to cast Stygian Circle (Without dropping the toggles, so Stygian Circles cost +1) then that is the most efficient use of endurance (Assuming you haven't given up extra end recovery for no benefit at all).

So if you are going to use 20 attacks in the 80 seconds it takes for Eclipse to come back you just have to make sure those 20 attacks (Or whatever powers they may be) use less than 100 endurance (Or more likely 100 + accolades + bonus' + recovery = 120/130 ish). If they don't then you need stamina or something similar, if not then you can get by.

The psychological factor of watching your blue bar get very low puts a lot of people off that however, plus the knowledge that end drain would cripple you.

Despite making the arguement I just did above I will bow to your experience in this, I thought that I remembered you posting about not needing stamina when I said that it wasn't needed. Hopefully I will remember better next time

The universal agreement is more between those who don't run the numbers than those who do. As above the best way is to have exactly enough endurance that you never run out, and not a % more.

Vet powers really spoil those who have them lol

Let’s just say you are human only, and I do believe that human only is the lowest damage form (Yes lower than dwarf) outside of the burst damage (Though the highest mitigation form overall) when you get mezzed you have no option but to put up with it (Discounting break-frees because they are available to all).

If you were human/dwarf you would just shift into dwarf form and avoid having any time wasted, the human form part would still be just as effective, but you would have no downtime from the mez.

Let’s say you were triform, you could pre-emptively stun in human form, cause as much damage as possible in nova and then if you did get stunned you still have the option of dwarf.

So human form is the least flexible, and causes the least damage. The only thing human form has going for it is the readiness of all the control powers, which will reduce the incoming mezzes if used well (And I know you can avoid mez entirely most of the time). The damage is still going to be below what anyone with the forms has.

The above isn't a "human form sucks" statement, but I think your defence of human builds is going too far, they are not 'bad' but they are less flexible and cause less damage.

I don't know anyone who refuses to use a break free from time to time. But a human/dwarf player has the same option as a human only player, plus an additional one, that can only be better.

That last line is exactly what everyone has been saying, the thread started with some advice, then there were some comments about what human form was losing out on, and then you jumped in tearing everyone to bits. Before your posts I don't think anyone made any kind of 'human sucks' comments.

To add to this:
- Anything that counts as a 'set bonus' will work in all forms, and that includes things like the +3% defence IO's and LoTG +7.5% recharge IO's.
- Things that work as 'procs' do not, that includes things like the Miracle unique and the Performance Shifter: Chance for +endurance.
- The added complication is that if you have a proc like the Miracle unique that lasts for 200 seconds you can proc it in human and won’t lose the benefit while in the forms, it just won’t proc again after those 200 seconds.

Sounds more like someone who has no aspirations to me. There is nothing wrong with looking up to someone better than you and striving to become that good (I like being the best at everything - I just know that it isn't possible all the time but I will still try and emulate those who I can learn from). I think anyone with enough of a personality flaw to get bitter from failing in this case would end up bitter from failing something else regardless.

I will give AlienOne his due here, he may interpret things differently to others at times but he doesn't lie.

This is what I mean by interpreting things differently, in my case since I was commenting on a build with massive recharge I would have thought it would be obvious that when I talked about Black Dwarf's damage I was talking about its full potential damage. If I had more time yesterday I might have been able to add that before the thread got too long.

I support your point of view (That’s me being honest) but I have learned not to jump onto every post telling them they must play tri-form, because I see your point of view. In this case it was a post asking about making a good human only build from someone who didn't seem to know much about Khelds, so some build advice was offered as well as some comparisons, that seems perfectly reasonable to me, yet you got very defensive over one line about mez that could have easily been talked about without getting anyone worked up.

The reason for the clash is that sometimes you are both wrong and sometimes you are both right. If someone wants build advice the only thing I would ever offer them is how to build the best toon possible to whatever requirements they may have, but there is no harm pointing out that those requirements may be limiting in some way, especially since I do it in as nice a manner as I can.

The only way you could convince me there isn't a single best build is if there is a best build for every different variant, all equally powerful. That isn't the case, and based on what I know about CoX I doubt it will be possible (There just isn't enough diversity in what is needed to have several roles). Until that time there must be a single best build, and I don't think it is that bad, you can still play other builds, but you do so in the knowledge of what you are giving up.

I don't know who has ever tried to make a build that focussed on damage to the exclusion of everything else.
Most builds I have made and seen have focussed heavily on damage, because that is the 'primary' role, but to miss out on the survivability and control that Khelds have would be folly.
However focussing on every aspect other than damage would be worse, because damage is so important to Khelds and CoX in general.

Yes I was on about single target damage (It was under the single target section) and happens because the two ST attacks have 1.5 second animations, and even well slotted only do about 100 and 200 respective damage, so 300 damage over 3 seconds = 100dps)

I hope you noticed that non of that negativity was from me. Using the term "Kheld heavy hitters" felt like it was semi-directed at me.

My double mire theory was double stacked Black Dwarf Mire, not including Sunless Mire, because that is awkward to use in the forms.


I understand where you are coming from, but you have got me tagged wrongly I think. I will always say "Tri-form is the 'best' way to play" but I have never (I don't think) criticed those who do play human only, or said it will be poor (How in the world anything with 85% res to all and perma mag 4 stun can be called poor I don't know!).

While that sounds like an example of IO'd Warshade vs poor team the fact that a human only Warshade can win that kind of fight doesn't surprise me.

I think aside from the mez comment by whoever it was (Apologies my internet is too slow to go looking) you are overstating the negativity. Obsidian and myself were just pointing out what we feel is an important thing to know.

Actually originally in my stupid mistyping I was going to advice dam/end, which was worse. I actually meant Res/Rech! Stupid mistake on my part.

I don't actually think a shield of that level is much use even without Eclipse, but 'less useful' would have been better, you are right.

I wasn't actually building for defence really, all I did was 5 slot the powers for recharge as per the original build and stick the free slots where I could. Personally I would never go for defence at all, but if you go for some you might as well go for as much as yo ucan get easily. I don't think my build really sacrificed anything for the defence (Bar the Eclipse mistake!).

I agree totally.

I would never use Dwarf as a panic toggle, it is good to fight in from start to end, but Eclipse and Stygian Circle are what save your life, not Black Dwarf.

I think my look at single target damage in Black Dwarf form does hold here, the new Black Dwarf Mire is AWESOME. If you did drop to a well slotted Black Dwarf to avoid mezzes you wouldn't be losing out on anything damage or survival wise in most situations.

Can't see the quote you are replying to on this, but you are right I did suggest the wrong slotting on Eclipse. However I think the set bonus' on Impervium armor are absolutely worthless to a Warshade in any form.

The activation times of all the powers leave quite large gaps in the attack chain from what I could see. Gravity Well have a ~2 second activation, then you need to fill the next 5.5 seconds with something. Using only attacks Dark Detonation + Shadow Blast are both 1.67 second animations, meaning you still have 2.16 seconds to fill, and I would be using Shadow Bolt in that time.

Considering Eclipse and Stygian Circle can easily recover you to full endurance I would think you can quite easily let the endurance bar dip quite low and then refill it, if you can't kill a few minions (Even at +4) before using your whole endurance bar then I would suggest the human form damage isn't as good as I thought (Because I didn't take damage per endurance into consideration, just damage per second).

The way I see it is any endurance not being used is a waste of time having, so the most endurance efficient build in the world would actually use 99 endurance before having a 100 endurance refil. You don't need stamina to keep the endurance topped up. Unless fighting endurance sapping enemies, but I would never make a build with that in mind.

Agreed, it is a power that can get you in trouble if used wrong, but for me too the pro's outweigh the cons.

I admit the mistake on Eclipse was unforgivable! And you are right about the recharge too, on my build I stopped the second I hit perma-Hasten, so some of the powers could be slotted with different sets for other kinds of bonus' while still keeping perma-Hasten. I was at work though so didn't put 'too' much thought into it at the time.

Well correct me if I am wrong, but the only damaging AoE's available regularly in human form are Dark Detonation and Orbiting Death (And Sunless Mire), Unchain Essence I don't count because it isn't up enough to be used in a chain, neither is Quasar. Black Dwarf Mire can be up almost as often as Dark Detonation and has higher base damage, as well as giving a massive damage buff on top of that. Your video's have proved that human form isn't bad and I have never said that, but I can't see where you can match the damage of Black Dwarf Mire from.

Thought I might back this up (Not trying to change your mind, but just for comparisson):

Your AoE damage is going to be completely lacking with just Dark Detonation as the only real AoE attack (Orbiting Death will help here, but not by a great deal). Sunless Mire and Unchain Essence are on too long timers to really count for that, though Dark Extraction will help. 130 damage every ~5.5 seconds isn't much (Counting for 7 targets in Sunless Mire - quite achievable) and will probably only be used as an opener if I was playing this toon.

A Warshade with Nova and no buffs from Sunless Mire can put out 2 AoE's for on average 40 more damage, and on shorter recharge.

The focus therefore would be on single target damage, and you do have Gravity Well slotted for damage which is good, however your attack chain is limited (Even on a perma-Hasten build) because there are not many other attacks, you will literally be having to keep spamming Shadow Bolt over and over again.

Over 10 seconds I can see your build (Actually the one I put up) doing around 1700 damage (Working on a very rough attack chain - it could be better but I haven't the time to think much more), add in 13 from Orbiting Death and you could even be pushing 200. Which is very good.

A Warshade in Nova form can only manage around 100dps!

The difference in single target damage actually surprised me quite a bit, but then I looked at Black Dwarf:

With double stacked Black Dwarf Mire (Easy on a recharge build) you can be hit 200 dps quite easily, and the more targets you get round you the more AoE damage you do on top of this since Black Dwarf Mire > Dark Detonation

Conclusion: Human only AoE is very lacking even compared to Black Dwarf, and although single target damage is respectable it is only comparable to Black Dwarf. Meaning you will never outdamage a tri-former in any situation.

I know the reason most people pick human only isn't straight damage however, but it is worth knowing this.

It isn't about aggressive mode, it is about bodyguard mode.

All you need to do is draw some aggro and then sit about while the pets win the fight.

While true, just because there is an option for abuse doesn't mean that everyone abused it. I can't see why they didn't just leave it as is and let those of us that want to play the game actually do so on proper difficulty.

Hell just get rid of the Mo badges for a while, they weren't there before so it can't be hard to remove them.

I really shouldn't have just gone from memory. Thank you for correcting me.