PrincessDarkstar

My analogy was fine because just like you if I didnt take the attacks and demanded something to replace them I would be wrong - you spotted that correctly, but failed to see how similar it is somehow.

In my example I refused to take the attacks, in yours you refuse to take the mez protection. That is exactly the same principle.

Your arguement about acrobatics isn't valid because that isn't a core power in any AT, the only AT's that took it are those that had a KB hole. Kheldians (Of either kind) DO NOT have a mez protection hole, they just have a mez protection toggle that you dislike.

I don't think the devs would agree because that would negate half of blasters inherant Defiance. They want certain AT's to get mezzed more than others. They give the option of KB protection in the power pools and IO's because that is the most dangerous form since a sleep wont send you flying into another group.

I am not a 'purist', but you HAVE mez protection and trying to suggest you need more is just wrong.

Also there are actually mez resistance IO's out there.

Thats the opposite way most people go actually, because the Warshades coolest powers are clickies so will carry over into the forms and improve them, but the PB's coolest powers don't carry over.

Still I hope you enjoy both toons! If you have any questions about powers etc there are plenty of answers to be found here too

I went back to look at your last comment because this still doesn't make a great deal of sense to me, are you saying human form will outdamage nova form?

I don't get your comment on Eclipse either, your first comment said that human form gets better defence out of Eclipse, and Obsidian was asking you how, then this comment makes it look like you are thinking Obsidian is saying Eclipse gives more defence in human, which he isn't.

Either way you are wrong about human causing more damage.

Out of the box the human form attacks cause about half the damage as nova, then you add in nova damage bonus on top of that.

You might be thinking about using Sunless Mire to boost human form damage, but that also boosts Nova damage by the same %, and with higher base damage that % counts for more.

Aside from Quasar, which is situational so can't be counted, and Gravity Well which is on a long recharge time so only adds the occasional spike of damage; human form cannot compare to Nova form in terms of damage output.

The whole point of the AT is that you get different powers in each form, not liking that idea just means you don't like the AT, not that the AT should change to accomodate you.

So coming from that viewpoint (Which is the correct one) there really isn't any reason to complain about not having certain things like mez protection. The function is there it is just a personal issue that you don't like it. So the analogy with invincibility is perfectly acceptable, the reason for disliking it may seem to be more trivial but it isn't.

(Note: When I say 'you' it refers to everyone rather than an individual)

No other AT looks at its powers like we do, people seem to see part of the AT they like and claim "I really like Khelds!" but then complain about the rest of the AT, which means that they don't actually like Khelds, they just like a few powers.

He was just replying to me when I went slightly off-topic about a possible server/market merge (With purples referring to the super-rare recipes in case you didn't know that part ).

Yeah that is definately a playstyle choice thing.

On my build I don't have Unchain Essence (Though I am wondering how much I would use it if I fitted it in and considering yet another respec now I know it does a mag 3 stun - How did I miss that?!?!??!!) so therefore don't need the quick kill ability and would get more use out of it in Dwarf, but if you use Unchain Essence then having it in Gravity Well is a good use

Although having said that you might consider moving the Hecatomb proc into Dwarf, and using the last one in the set into Gravity Well. That way (Assuming you spend enough time in Dwarf) the proc would get more chances to fire, but Gravity Well would still cause massive damage.

But again it is how much you use each power.

Actually if you end up with a high recharge build you can stack Gravity Well and that will perma-hold an EB, they only have mag 6 protection.

It was never about saving it for a better time, it was just about making the most of your time, which is a bit anal but it's the kind of thing that is important to me.

Working from my own build and assuming level 50 enemies (And counting a minion with 430hp and a LT with 855hp as taken from ParagonWiki):

Open with Gravatic Emination, 95% chance to hit so lets assume all 5 mobs are stunned against a wall.

If I then go straight to Nova I have spent 3.03 seconds (Ignoring moving time and Arcanatime for now) before I can hit my first attack. Assuming no misses I would need to chain Emination>Detonation>Blast (On the LT)>Emination>Blast (LT again) and all 5 will be dead in a total of 8.5 seconds (plus the 3.03 at the start). That is the whole group in 11.53 seconds.

If instead I ran in and used Sunless Mire (And didn't account for misses like previously, or movement - thus favouring this tactic slightly) I would spend an extra 2.37 seconds before I go into Nova form. The damage bonus from Sunless Mire would be 56.3%, meaning my attack chain in Nova form would be one attack less (No final Blast due to the damage from Sunless Mire and the damage bonus on the Nova attacks) and total 7 seconds. That would add up to 12.4 seconds.

Hence using Sunless Mire in this instance doesn't work out the best. In fact my tactic is 8% more efficient in this situation, which is a lot.

I think that is one of those things that you get used to, and then you get Eclipse you might stop caring if you do aggro the other mob

Nova.txt
Dwarf.txt
The only thing that would need changing is the p key, you would have to change that path to point to wherever you saved the bind files. Then you would use the /bindloadfile <path> command to load the human file while you were still in human form.

You might also want to swap the tray numbers because mine ended up being a bit randomly selected.

Note: Whichever key you pick to use the White Dwarf heal can be the same on all files, it will just use a different command to do the same function depending which form you are in. I even kept the key working in Dwarf form just because it might end up coming naturally to press that key and there you might as well have it work all the time.

Disclaimer: These were Warshade binds so I might still have a Warshade power name in there somewhere, though I did try to swap them all.

I hope if you do that it helps, and it should get around the annoying space bug that may be making your binds fail.

I like that kind of thinking, it is what I want to get too eventually, like I say the most important thing to me is how fast I would get through a spawn and that thinking is the crowd I want to aim my posts towards, but it is always good to see the 'other' ways of doing things when they aren't passed off as 'equal' (Not that I can remember if you personally ever tried passing a lesser build off as equal - so that was a general comment not personal).

No I would never do that

I am happy to see the fun builds people make on here, I just like to balance that with disclaimers about what would be 'better', you seem to know that well enough. I just want to make sure everyone knows that kind of thing.

Agreed on the first point, I have seen a build that could theoretically take on AV's and with unlimited inf would probably make it to give it a go, but would never suggest playing it.

DPS though does interest me, no matter what I play I try and make sure that while doing whatever it is that character should do I add in as much damage as possible.

I don't think I have seen enough Kheldians outside of the MA buildings to even form the team unfortunately.

But if it turns out that there are a few EU'ers in this section then I will happily do the organising.

I don't know about the server merge though, I imagine the prices US side are even worse than EU side! (Its about 200mil for a single good purple recipe at the moment - which I know doesn't bother you but it is very important to me). If that wasn't an issue I would love to join servers!

I did actually make a point that I might be wrong on this, but I wouldn't use Sunless Mire on any spawn that wasn't going to last at least ~12 seconds, because I don't think the damage bonus is enough to account for the fact that you could be blasting instead, on a longer lasting spawn then it is definately worth it and becomes more valuable the bigger/more survivable the spawn is.

It was a call from gut feeling at the moment, I have played my Warshade for a very long time and just feel that on a spawn that will die in seconds the time spent using Sunless Mire could be used to add raw damage instead.

As I said that is one of the things I would be very interested to find out for certain about after some number crunching.

I don't know about that, 4 purple sets is 40% extra recharge, going to normal sets you would get about 20% assuming the average 5% bonus most sets give.

Using purple sets to get to your intended recharge faster than normal means you have more space to squeeze extra performance in elsewhere.

I use the phrase 'purple set' loosely and am actually referring to expensive IO's in general.

As you said your build without purples wasn't much different to when you had them, but I bet your build was quite good to start from (Or alternatively awful and purples couldn't save it - but I think more of you than that ).

Well for something as crazy as a pure ranged attack scrapper the laughs might last a long time, but that was about the most exagerated example possible. The example I gave was a fire melee scrapper with only the sword attacks, thats the same idea as a Warshade only taking human form, and there is a thread in the scrapper section where the guy gets good advice, coupled with being told what he is missing out on.

That is exactly what I am arguing against, best possible build isn't subjective, there is only one best way to do anything.

The example of not picking up Gravatic Emination would be 'the best build without Gravatic Emination' and there would be a build doing so, but we could still explain the merits of both builds.

Actually I have 5 purples in my Gravatic Emination but hardly ever use it unless solo (Which is rare) and I make no claims to knowing for sure if it would be part of an ultimate build or not, that is one of the powers that would be subjective to playstyle I think. For a human only build it would be a must, for a tri-former less so.

I know you are right, thats what I like about these forums, there are always plenty of people trying to help. But when a newbie looks at all those great builds they can't possibly know which is actually the best, until someone pulls out some raw data and proves which is best.

I have never really talked about 'one build to end them all' like you suggest. I know there are many things a Kheldian can do but what I am saying is that for each of those things there is a seperate 'best build', plus a best 'overall' build making the most of everything as best as possible.

That overall build won't last as long in Dwarf as the Dwarf build, or blast as hard as the Nova build.


But again that power is still relative because when people see average builds still claiming 'loads of damage' or 'nearly as much damage' then those good builds get lost unless you are already a Kheldian player. With numbers you could prove that those good builds were good without question.

I will be honest I can't remember much of who wrote what pre-merger so I don't know about what you admitted to or didn't. But in other sections when someone finds a good build they try and direct as many people that way as they can so everyone has a good build. We encourage mediocracy.

I know about the uncountable hours with your head in mids thing, I have lost several days in a row doing just that!

What I am getting at though is that if your playstyle is similar to that of most people then we could well be using your build as a guide to show new people that this is what a good Kheldian can be.

I am doing my best to ignore playstyle considerations here, because they are defined by what people enjoy, and effectiveness isn't. As I wrote in another post not long ago if using Sunless Mire > Nova kills a spawn faster than just opening up in Nova then that is the most effective thing, if your playstyle doesn't like Sunless Mire it doesn't alter how effective the Sunless Mire build is.

The best we can do is arm people with the most effective tactics and the builds that make those tactics work, if peoples playstyles differ then we shouldn't deride them (And we don't), but equally we should let those people know that there are better ways to do things - you never know some people might think their playstyle actually is the most effective, and be wrong about it.

If someone wants a human only build then I would make a 'best' human only build and work out the optimum attack chain etc. But I would let them know that their build would chew through a spawn 20% (A made up number in this case) slower than if they took Nova.

But equally if I ran the numbers and the human only build outdamaged a Nova build then I would be encouraging people not to take Nova if they wanted effectiveness.

And before you say it I am not on about pure DPS, I would take Sunless Mire and probably Gravatic Emination into account in those calculations and make some kind of analysis on how safe each way is.

Actually thats exactly what I am saying, there are probably about 10 different styles of play with a Kheldian, and each will have its own optimal build. I don't want to exclude any playstyles, I just want to get each play style to the point where we know exactly how good they are and can tell people which is the overall best at certain things.

It is all well and good to ask for a human only build or whatever, but the thing that really got me was the human v nova thread, and nobody was shouting how much more damaging Nova form is. That kind of thing is what will come from the numbers.

Lol I can now imagine you doing a victory dance like Chandler used to do in Friends if you know the one I am on about

Haha I was just making a post about how I agree this could be a useful tactic, then I started thinking more about it and decided to disagree (From an effectiveness point of view - from a logic point of view it should work as stated).

The only place I could see it working is on a human only build, because a tri-former doesn't have enough slots to spend on non-damage IO's imho, and Nova form doesn't have anything to stack them with anyway.

Then I thought how I would slot human blasts and I would pretty much always 5 slot them with Decimation (All but the build up proc), then if I had a 6th slot I would use a damage proc because they go off more and always have an effect on whatever they hit when they do go off.