Punkture

Well I watched Vennetrix quite a bit of the time last night and his claims are not so far fetched. He was a great add to the team he was running and I watched him near solo a tank and scrapper using a pool and web nades trap setup. It was pretty sweet. He got other kills of note but these two I watched near the hero base were impressive. The tank is one of the more well built ones we see in the zone and he was defeated in less than 10 seconds with very little outside help. GG

I got sent to the hospital once on my main Corrupter over the nearly two hours I observed and played near him while he made, lets say a few more trips than I. From my vantage point I would have to say the SS / SJ combo was the superior escape travel setup in most of the situations I witnessed. He was suppressed a bit and spiked is what it looked like to me. As to be expected. But I am playing a Pain secondary and am a little more resilient to be fair.

However he did have some situations where he was able to hover out of range for many of the SS only users and got some lols out of me for his taunts and such. He did make good use of his Hover / TP setup quite a few times. He was able to make quite a few good escapes using invisibility or phase as he noted in his posts. I was able to make more escapes is all. Although they may have been gunning for him after some of his comments on here. Just to try and prove him wrong. I dont think they did.

I also observed how he attempted to pursue a few runners who either resisted the TP or he got a bad roll on it. I was not impressed much by the results of his pursuits. He did get ahead of the runner a few times but most escaped over the sustained pursuit. Pursuit with TP is a mixed bag. I will stick with my SS / SJ setup I think.

All in all, a very viable build but I still stand behind my earlier comments. I would not suggest this to a starting PVP player. I would suggest learning the ropes on a ranged toon but probably not that secondary to start with. That is not to say that I would never play a traps for PVP. I would think it will take much more practice, trial and error to refine the skill. A new player should start with something easier is my opinion.

Good work Vennetrix. Some of the later ire you are getting is because you really did well on that build last night.

I played my Psi / Dev blaster much the same way in SC months ago and did ok. I dont think I have the skills of our corrupter friend dahjee at it though. I quickly gave up on the build to be more mobile and blasty.

I am not going to say that this traps defender concept or the corruptor cannot work, because it can. But in my experience playing an ambush killer like this on the blaster with capped perception, it is not easy to do when facing a real team of veteran players. In RV, no way unless it is off hours. There are just way too many players on Freedom teamed up to pull this off with any consistency.

A single DOT type player with a decent recharge rate will completely negate your ability to TP. Much less an entire team of players suppressing you with incoming attacks. You would have to phase shift and hope they dont follow to escape with those two travel powers I am afraid. Ask any stone armor player brave enough to try it. They may last a while simply due to the time required to defeat them. Once the mob turns its eye to them it is all over. No escape.

You will have to pull single players to the traps to get it to work, and hope they are not buffed to the nines when they get there. You will find a confident victim from time to time to follow you in, but in reality, a camp of twenty plus heroes like last night in RV will keep you in the hospital most of the time. It will not take long for players to recognize you for what you are. They will stop following or gank you with shear numbers on sight. More than half of your offense is setup 300+ feet away. It has to be or you will be killed during setup.

This type of play is very similar to a MM except you are even more so locked into a single location. At least a MM can move to a new spot and still have most if not all of their powers to use. The amount of time to setup a good trap base takes time and it cannot be moved. This means that you can play the island to some degree but you are far less mobile. So camping a base with a lot of team members hanging out in the traps would work and could be a good add to a team in that situation.


To the OP:

I would not suggest a traps build as a first PVP build. Role a blaster or stalker to start with as suggested then explore some of the other more exotic types of play once you learn the ropes a bit.

I am not saying dont build this, it could be what floats your boat. I am saying that you will not be a happy camper in a very busy zone like Freedom RV. Perhaps the number of players on your home server is low and they are not very skilled. If that is the case, this could be fun.

Was curious what the rest of you all think about adding in a decent amount of mez resistance for a PVP toon. I did pre I13 on my brute and it was worth it then but is it worth it now? My plan on my latest Corr has a little over 25% built in but I might consider not slotting for it if it isnt worth doing anymore.

Been running a Kinetic / Ice defender in RV on and off. Took Power Boost just to give some zip to siphon speed and transference. Hilarious to watch the loud mouthed fire armor brutes getting nuked after I show them the love and run like hell. That and the stalkers going without fitness. Total detoggle after they hit the third attack in the chain and I catch em. Sweet stuff.

Claws is not so good for the zone play even though it does have a bit of ranged. Spines has similar issues although I still play one. You just dont spike enough damage with either of them and nobody is going to let you stack Follow Up in zone play. Or at least not the experienced players. Claws can do ok in a fiteclub match up toe to toe so you can stack enough Follow Up to make your attacks sting a bit.

Like noted above I slotted in the chance for hold in both Impale and Laser Beam eyes. That can at least detoggle the offensive toggles since both of these sets have no holds or stuns. It also can allow you to close on a bunny rabbit from time to time.

I wouldnt say dont play it, play what you like but it wont perform like you see in PVE so be warned. You can be a great add to a team and you still do ok damage so it isnt the end of the world but you wont be the run up and take out 50% of the HP on a target in one smack like a Broad Sword or Fire Melee can. You also wont have damage over time on your side to prevent stalkers from getting back into hide or out placating you.

You still will want to build for Recharge and accuracy. With no build up it is a must to have as much accuracy as you can get in there. But that has already been noted. Regen gives no perception so you best be looking at leadership or one of the epic sets like body mastery or devices for targeting drone or focused accuracy. Leadership is not a terrible choice either so that you can eek out a little more damage from them claws with assault. And definitely take Eviscerate, it is the only heavy hitter you get.

When teamed up you might consider going over to some NPCs and just chaining Follow Up while you wait for a target. You might get lucky enough to have a stack going at the time it comes to attack another player.

I have a viable build for PVP at home I may post up for you to look at. I dont play my claws anymore after all the changes I13 and beyond because it got so bad. It can still fight club a tru warrior who is silly enough to let me stack up Follow Up though.

Just wanted to say that I am sorry to those I have droned recently. I really don't like to be droned nor do I like to drone. I would much sooner gain defeats through an honest victory.

It is a desperate measure used mostly when grossly outnumbered by both sides. You temporarily thin the numbers to a more manageable level so that real combat can happen. It makes logical sense and is not done out of malice in a lot of cases. But since it has caused a lot of discomfort for some players and some have even left the zone due to this, I will no longer be doing this.

I want lots of players all having fun and this stops that from happening for some since they do not understand the why or are feeling singled out. Hopefully when the balance becomes so out of whack that many of you will do as I do and simply change sides if you have a viable toon on the opposite side.

But dont think I wont still TP foe gank your butt with a big crew of players waiting to get you. I will still do that. He He

I have made a possibly related observation for AE Ticket rolls. By using a very rapid set of clicks I have received several recipes within a single set as well duplicate recipes on numerous occasions as I cash out farming. A slower rate seems to be more random It also appears to have some alphabetical results when I do get recipes within the same sets. Has anybody else noted this trend?

Perhaps letting us simply to shuffle off enhancements to our inventory is taking the idea too far. I would tend to agree with this being exploited to kit multiple characters with a few shared sets. That does seem to go against the Devs intent.

Maybe this new feature doesnt allow for us to get our hands on these IOs at all? Instead the stripped IOs go directly to the market as if we placed them there for sell and cannot be reclaimed. So basically, allow us to unslot enhancements through a new dialog which only allows us to place them on the market in the process. Not a respec but an unslotting dialog. The unslotted enhancements would be flagged so that the player could not reclaim them from the market but they would receive the influence from the sale. Perhaps implement the ability to modify the selling price (which I would like to see that in the market anyway). This would allow us to retool a build for different gear as we progress while still retaining the gear for sale on the market so that we do not loose the gear all together.

Even this may be too powerful but another idea to consider.

No I wasnt trying to troll. I dont snipe, I AS and shark but it is sure tempting when they start stacking up three and four stormies. It almost ends the PVP when they do it. I see alot of players standing around waiting for the right moments when we could at least run out to a trainer, swap to alternate build and snipe the stormies getting away scott free in the process. Send them to the hospital enough times with no retribution and maybe we can get a more manageable cluster.

You could stay in theme and go with Zapp instead. Stick with phase shift only for escape. Phase shift and invisibility is enough in most cases unless you are surrounded and the opposition phases in time to get you.

Zapp doesnt do quite the damage of sharks for sure and that is why most of us take the shharks. But the added range from a sniper on a stalker could still be handy for reaching a fast runner or a nice KS once in a while.

I see little knots of stalkers spiking sharks a lot now and it is a great tactic. I also see the heroes cover that 80 feet a lot of times and get a hit off on the stalker before they can re-hide. Imagine the same knot of stalkers popping off sniper blasts from 150 feet. They could easily get back into hide before ever getting reached by any hero. Again, not as damaging but there is some potential there with enough stalkers working together.

With all the clustering (turtling) we are seeing from the heroes camp this could be another tactic to counter that. A nice six stalker spike on the stormie lynch pin might just take the wind out their sails some.

The interest is mixed but positive enough to move forward on I think. Working up enough influence and Infamy now for the prizes. I will set them as high as possible to hopefully get some involvement.

Of course it is zone play and I would expect there to be fowl play. That is ok also.

It will be fun to see who can muster up the most damage or run the zone fastest. I didnt plan on running the length from drone to drone though btw, lol.

I will finalize a list of events and post it up soon then.

I have been thinking about hosting a PVP Olympic in RV on Freedom. There would be several team and individual events to participate in for influence or infamy prizes. There will be a $5 Million dollar prize for individual events and $5 million dollar prize per player for team events. I am hoping for some feedback from the community here to see if they would be interested. Below are a list of some possible events but I am open to suggestion.

Individual race across the zone. Teams of racing players would be required to start from the same spot on the map and race to the lead team member at the finish line.

Team race across the zone. Same as the individual race but the team may assist other team member to the finish.

Most damage from a single attack individual. You will be allowed to use any power and inspiration you have to generate the largest amount of damage possible in one hit.

Most damage from a single attack team. You will be allowed to use any power and inspiration at your teams disposal to allow one team member to generate the largest amount of damage possible in one hit.

Longest team hold without killing the target. A team of players will attempt to hold a single opponent player within a ten foot square for as long as possible. The team may cast as many powers as they wish as long as they do not kill the target. The team will start the timer after they are satisfied that they have cast enough powers to hold the opponent. The opponent will have no toggles on and must walk from the without the use of powers or inspirations.

I have been seeing an interesting bug on one of my stalkers who have phase shift and hibernate. Once I have used phase shift, hibernate becomes greyed out and unclickable until phase shift has fully recharged. This also allies to assemble team, ouroborous portal and base teleporter powers.

I searched the bug forum here and found only one discussion about phase shift. Has anyone else seen this issue and is there any ETA for a fix? I plan to eliminate hibernate from the build if this is how the devs want this to work although I see no reason for it.

I like the justification for using inspirations to balance play has been brought up a few times in this thread. That may be true in some cases but certainly not all cases. What about the situations where you are fighting an evenly matched opponent? Is popping a big load of pills against an evenly matched opponent just because they got the upper hand the same thing as popping to over come a mismatch? Not to me.

Sure, all players have the same opportunity to carry inspirations as anyone else does. Some players are just not so stuck on the winz that they are willing to leave the zone to restock just to be something they are not. A weak player would spend more time out of the zone than in it to stay stocked up. That just isnt for me. But if that is what you like to do just so you can be an uber player, more power to you I guess. You are right, I too could go to WW or the BM and buy up the big gun inspirations just as easily.

PVP is not balanced as we all know. We are not all created equally and the game does not balance the different ATs well. In many cases the first strike dictates the outcome of a fight as much as anything when two players are evenly matched. There are certainly plenty of ATs and builds out there that I have no counter for or cannot overcome. Perhaps this is the better use of inspirations as suggested by some of the previous posters in this thread.

I think what many people complain about is when they do get the upper hand against an evenly matched opponent or even a weaker opponent that they are sometimes stripped of a victory simply because the the other side had the inspirations in stock to turn the tide. The player who would have won chose not to pop in these situations and offered a fair fight but was denied the victory because of inspirations and only because of inspirations. Inspirations are not skill. Inspirations are not the same as the dedication and time involved in making a truly good build.

I see this a lot in zone play and it is just how it is. I try not to pop in a one versus one fight in open zone play but I will against uneven odds. That is just me and how I play. A silly sense of honor I guess. Winning is not all and it does not bother me that there are superior builds or play styles to mine. So I lose to these players that have the upper hand in either skill or build gracefully. The frustration comes when you lose simply because of inspiration use and nothing else.

Yes I realize that this is my own code that I follow and that not everyone has to do the same. I am grateful there are options in the game such as inspirations and temp powers, it does not deter me from playing when I am faced with such. They will eventually run out of the big o save my weak butt pills at some point and either be forced to leave to restock or be defeated in a fair fight. The real aggravation comes from those who then gloat publicly about such a hollow victory and belittle the other players. We are all just humans, or most of us anyways, behind the toon. We should all show respect and be respected if for nothing else than that. The playful banter is fun but the hateful stuff I see in broadcast is another thing entirely.

** players are just looking for a fair, my build versus your build, fight without external assistance of inspirations. There is nothing wrong with that. And as so many point out the arena is probably the best choice to do this. These players are more than likely evenly matched and it is fun to see who can put together the best build and come up with the best strategy for play to score a win. Inspirations can and do have the ability to completely negate effects of some powers or to produce more defensive capability than what the build truly has. So a test of build versus build, skill versus skill is not possible while using them.

One thought we had was to make defense a slightly different animal all together. Let it retain the ability to cause a total miss if the accuracy of the attack is too low versus the defense but allow for glancing blows and such.

The idea would be the more accurate the attack versus the defense based armor, the more damage can be delivered. This same idea can even extend towards secondary effects of the attack. So a power that slows or drains endurance or whatever would have an effect if it hit but would be diminished if it were not an accurate enough attack.

In this way we would not have such a binary result to the battles like we seen with Fortunatas when they were kings. Some of the calculations and such I seen in here were quite nice but I recall many times playing against Forts that were set built prior to DR and getting streaks of 30 plus misses with a character with 99% accuracy. Even missing all attacks on this same toon with build up active. It would have been much more realistic to have at least scored glancing blows that resulted in diminished damage.

This would make it more in line with resistance but dependent upon the accuracy of the attack as to how effective the result would be. Then of course the nemesis of defense would be the accurate opponent but the average accuracy types could still have a chance to play against defense.

Mindgrind and I were discussing the game today at lunch as we often do and came up with a couple ideas to bounce off the group. Some are general ideas and some for PVP.

1. An easy way for the company to generate revenue would be to sell in game treasure. Salvage, recipes, temp powers all would be available to purchase. A simple interface similar to the character copy to choose the toon and a categorized list of all the available items to drill down and select the items to purchase. The prices could be skewed set to indicate the rarity of the item in game. I wont venture into how much to set the prices but I am sure that if it is not too high that many would take advantage of this feature instead of waiting sometimes weeks or months to get to a rare piece that they need.

2. New inspirations added to the game. Why not create new inspirations to boost all aspects of our powers? The new inspiration would increase recharge, range, hold duration, immobilization duration, slows etc. This could be a way for some of the more impacted PVP players to get back into the game with something near to what they used to enjoy. I am not sure if this would imbalance the game too greatly or not but an idea none the less.

3. We have noticed a disparity in some of the immobilization powers in PVP producing a - Fly aspect while some do not. Mindgrind was even sure that on one of his toons that the single target immobilization in the ice set used to ground flyers and he has not been seeing that lately. Why not make all of them equal in this aspect? This conversation also lead us to the counter for this. We pondered that the - Fly would be tied to the amount of immobilization duration with the counter being how much flight speed the target has. An aggressor with more immobilization would be able to ground a flying target. An aggressor with less than or equal would not ground the target but slow the flight speed instead or reduce the height of the flyer by some arbitrary amount like 10 feet.

I am considering joining the Fightclub Police myself. I see too often a duel challenge being called for on Freedom in Sirens Call and the entire zone moving to one spot or the other to spectate. This typically kills most of the zone PVP for a considerable amount of time as people huddle about to watch the fights.

I normally do not disturb the duelers while I pursue the few players who are obviously still actively playing zone PVP. Invariably there will be players who attempt to defeat the motionless players who are there to witness the duels. I resolve myself to continuing my own zone PVP fun by fighting with these players until zone PVP resumes. I do not expect those who have agreed to become spectators of the duel to attack me as I pursue my target into their midst but that is never the case. I am frequently ganked by those who are not participating in zone PVP. I have even been attacked on several occasions by the person who was dueling even though I had no effect whatsoever upon their duel.

I tried for a while to let the other players know that if I am ganked by the spectators of the duels as I pursue my zone PVP opponent into their midst that the duels will end for the rest of the evening while I am playing. I will target and shoot the most injured player of the opposite side I see, which is normally the ones who are dueling, for the rest of the evening.

This has not resolved the issue for me. Of course I would not pursue a foe into a mob of opposing players who were actively playing zone PVP. That is asking for defeat. But these are players who have made a gentlemens / ladies agreement to become spectators. As such they are no longer participants in the zone PVP or so it would seem but that is not the case. They certainly complain quite loudly when another player attacks a dueler or spectator and interrupts their idea of fun. This happens on both red and blue side. Well zone PVP is my idea of fun. I am done trying to be courteous to these players who swap from dueler to zone player on a whim. I am done with having the dueling area become a safe zone for the zone players who run there knowing that they will be protected by those that are there to duel.

I think I am ready to take the next step and become a full fledged officer in the Fightclub police. I want to protect my precious zone PVP enjoyment and put an end to the boring circle of spectators that could be having epic battles instead. The arena is not far away, is not hard to setup, is barely any more inconvenient than crossing the zone to the hot-dog stand or North East corners for back-ally fisticuffs.

Duelers be warned! There is a new sheriff in town in Sirens Call and I come there often.

I came across another guide with some of this in it. I will add the information I am discussing to that guide and not bother adding to this one.

As a long time farmer I have seen several different play styles used to defeat large mobs of foes. As the game rules have changed over the years so have some of the strategies for team play. A well rounded team with all the necessary key players is an awesome sight to see in action. Below are a few tips that may help players to become better team members. Feel free to debate or add to what I have here. Perhaps a real guide may just come out of this.

Aggro:

Aggro represents the desire of the NPC foes to attack a specific player. This is affected by taunt and by threat level. Some foes also have intelligence built into the AI (artificial intelligence) to seek out specific player types first when engaged.


The game is currently designed with an aggro cap of 16 foes for any one player. A typical mob for a team of eight can be closer to 20 foes. So even with a tanker or brute taking aggro for the team initially there may be foes that can and will turn to attack the other players.

Taunting:

A tank or brute holds aggro through taunt or gauntlet. (Yeah I know this is obvious for some but there are a lot of newer players who might not understand all of the mechanics.) A foe that has been taunted will continue to attack the tank or brute even when attacked by another player in most cases. It is possible for a taunted foe to still attack another player if that players threat level is high enough. I do not know the exact mechanics behind threat level determination but you should be aware that you can indeed strip the aggro from your tank or brute by dealing a significant amount of damage or debuff to the NPC. When this happens the tank or brute must work to re-establish the aggro on that foe.

A tank or brute can taunt through one of three following methods.

1.) The taunt power. This is a ranged power that has a fifteen foot radius with a fairly long taunt duration. The taunt power also has the effect of reducing the range of the foes attacks by 75%. This effect can be stacked thus forcing a ranged attack type foe to move closer to the tank or brute doing the taunting. The favored attack type of the NPC foes whether ranged or melee varies depending upon the type of foe being engaged. A player will need to pay close attention to the behaviors of each foe type so that they will know what to be expected in future encounters.

2.) A taunt aura. Tanker, brute and some scrapper and stalker armor sets have at least one power in the set that can taunt all foes within the radius of the power. The radius is typically pretty small for these powers and the duration of the taunt is very short once they are outside of this radius. Some taunt auras automatically taunt the foes in the area while others require a hit to occur in order for the taunt to take effect. Many taunt airas also have secondary effects such as damage, slows, and various debuffs.

3.) Gauntlet. When a tanker or brute attacks a foe with an attack from their attack sets that foe will be taunted to attack tank or brute. The duration of this taunt is very short.

Pulling:

Pulling is a technique that can be used to force all or part of a mob of foes to move towards the players. This technique can be very useful when more than one mob of foes is encountered close to one another or a single mob is too great a threat for the team to overcome. There is no exact science to pulling and even your best efforts to pull only part of a mob can result in the entire mob being aggroed.

To pull a part of a mob the player will need to use a ranged attack that does not have an AOE effect or damage over time. The player will want to target a minion for the pull as opposed to a lieutinent or boss. Lieutinent or boss class foes tend to agro the entire mob but not always. It is much more likely to pull only a portion of the mob by targetting a minion. For the best pulling results the team should remain unseen such as around a corner or behind an object that would grant cover from the foes seeing the team. The pulling player should attempt to fire the pulling shot while in motion either away from the mob or behind cover during the pull. In many cases the remaining mob may become alerted but will not aggro if there are no players visible.

To pull an entire mob it is advisable to have a more resilient player perform the pull for the team. Many foe types have considerable ranged attacks and a squishie may find it difficult to survive the initial alpha strike. The pulling player should seek to remain in view during the pull and should target a boss or lieutinent for the pull. The remainder of the team may want to stay back from the pulling player to avoid any AOE retaliation from the foes and to prevent any additional agro from other mobs nearby. The pulling player will want to quickly move out of site behind an object or around a corner so that the mob is forced to move towards the team. It is important for the team to show a little patience during this process. An early immobilization or knockback of the incoming mob can easily disrupt the pull and result in the mob being locked in place in a long line thus preventing the team from leveraging maximum AOE and making it more difficult for melee types to engage without entering the area. The idea behind the pull was to fight only one mob and forcing the melee types into the area can result in additional mobs being aggroed.

In either case the team will want to position the tankers or brutes in front of the remaining team member so that the foes will have to move past them to reach the team. The tank or brute should be ready to position themselves into thickest part of the mob as it arrives and to taunt any stragglers who have not arrived yet. The team needs to realize that while the mob is aggroed on a single player they are not taunted until they reach the tanker or brute and the the tanker or brute has had time to come within melee range of the foes or taunted them at range. Even if taunt was used to pull the mob that does not necessarily mean that the mob is completely taunted. Remeber that taunt is a 15 foot radius targeted AOE. It can easilt miss foes if the mob is not tightly formed.


Herding:

Herding is a technique used to gather multiple mobs of foes together so that the team can leverage more AOE and conal attacks against multiple targets. It is very similar to pulling as described above. A tank or brute is the best choice for herding but other player types can achieve the same effect using objects and corners to force the foes to move towards the player.

While herding is a very effective and efficient method for a team to maximally leverage their AOE abilities, it is also quite dangerous. Herding can easily lead to more foes being aggroed than can be taunted or controlled. The timing of events becomes very critical for this to work well and to prevent the team from experiencing too many defeats. It is very important to allow the mobs to move and collapse into a much tighter pattern before any other players engage. This will allow more AOE to be leveraged against multiple foes and makes it much easier for the tank or brute to maintain taunt over the entire group. The tanker or brute may need to move through the group taunting more than once in order to fully collapse the mob to as tight a group as possible.

During the gathering phase of the herding, the team should refrain from casting any offensive powers with the exception of buffs and heals upon the player that is herding. Once the mob has been gathered into a tight group those players with hold will be the next players to take action. Since the team will be faced with more foes than can be effectively taunted, holds become necessary to reduce the number of actively fighting foes early in the melee. Leading in with any other type of powers can result in the caster taking a large spike of attacks from ranged damage since not all of the foes are being taunted.

For the typical foes encountered in the game a single hold application is enough to control minion or lieutinent class foes. If there are more players on the team with holds then they should attempt to cast hold over different areas of the mob to maximize the number of foes affected. If the team is facing mobs of boss class foes the team may find it necessary to apply holds to a single section so that the effects can be stacked thus holding the bosses. In this case the holding players should agree to hold one area of the mob at a time. This is typically the leading edge of the group. This will force foes further back to have to move past those that have been held.

After holds have been applied it will be safe to apply immobilization effects next to maintain the tight formation of the herded group. The same rules apply for immobilizing effects as it does for holds. Not all immobilization powers are equal in strength and multiple applications or stacked immobilizations from multiple players may be required for the effect to last.

After the mob has been held and immobilized the team will be ready to fully apply as much AOE and damage as possible. Attacking earlier than this can result in defeat since there are really more foes present than can effectively be controlled by taunt. During the attack phase the tank or brute should actively move around the mob to attempt to apply their taunt aura over as many foes as possible. Since there is an agro cap of only 16 foes the effect is a moving window of taunt being applied to ensnare any foes that have not been held or immobilized and maintain the formation of the mob. Remember that the taunt power has a fairly long duration and taunt aura is very short. So the tank or brute will want to maintain as many foes near them as possible and taunt outward to those foes outside of taunt aura range.

Knockback:

Knockback is a secondary effect of many powers that can knock a foe off of their feet causing them to have to stand up. In some cases the level of knockback is high enough on a power to forcibly throw a foe a short distance.

Knockback is an important effect that can be both helpful and harmful if not used correctly. Most tanks and brutes have at least some power capable of knockback. The tank or brute may rely upon this power to assist them in mitigating the alpha strike damage they receive when first engaging a mob. The knockback tends to have the effect of breaking up the initial damage spike that a mob can apply to the tank or brute so that it does not all occur at one time. This can greatly improve the survivability of the initial encounter. For this reason it is imperative that the other players do not apply immobilization effects until after the tank or brute has used this tool for mitigation. By immobilizing too soon the foes will have a chance to apply a damage spike that could result in the defeat of the tank or brute. It is also a bad idea for the player to lead in with an AOE immobilization at this point in the encounter since the foes will not be effectively taunted at this point.

Knockback can be used as an effective barrier between the melee players and the ranged players. Powers such as bonfire and earth quake can be used to create a barrier on the ground that will effectively prevent foes from moving away from the tank or brute to rest of the team. These powers also do significant damage and players tend to cast them beneath a mob that has been formed to attempt to apply this damage to as many as possible. While this is a valid use of the power it is important to note that without very effective immobilization in place the result of this is to scatter the mob away from the tank or brute and very little of the actual damage is applied to the mob because of this. It may also result in the defeat of the tank or brute as many armor sets are designed to be most effective when in close proximty to the foes. This also applies to other powers that have a fear component since they too tend to scatter the mob out thus reducing the effectiveness of the other players AOE.

If your player has knockback or powers that tend to scatter the mob in general it is adviseable for you to attempt to position your attacks in an angle that would result in the foes being knocked into a wall. Simply let the team know that is your intention so that they can adjust for this play style. With a little practice you can become an asset to the team that is preventing the foes from attacking as they are forced to stand up to fight.

As a knockback weilding player you may also want to observe the play patterns of the other players on your team. If the team is attempting to leverage a lot of AOE then you may want to consider holding back your attacks until some of the other players have had a chance to act. It can be very frustrating to a team to see a 40 points of damage torrent completely scatter a mob as the rest of the team is about to apply a 1000 points of AOE damage collectively only to see it hit a very few targets.

Without a doubt the fastest path to 50 is AE boss farms. It is up to the player if that is what they want to do. I have seen all of the content on both red and blue sides and have used AE simply because there is nothing new at the moment for me to see other than AE. I also had a need for a specific toon type for level 50 play on a new server I swapped to due to a decrease in players on my regular servers and got myself powered up. That doesnt mean I do it with all of my toons. I still have my first blaster I created in issue one. He is level 46. I have not hurried him along. I enjoy playing him but as an NRG / NRG blaster he is not always a welcome add to a team even if I do sweep into corners and walls.

One of the weird ones I have noticed are foes who are able to run while disoriented or even knocked down. They are running away at sprint speeds while animated flat on their backs or slumped with the swirlies over their heads. What? I want this ability on my character if the foes I am presented with get to do it.