Repentant_NA

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An Entirely Serious Guide to AR/Ice for the Chronically Depressed

Note: No, it's not entirely serious. It's all a joke. I promise, really I do.





A Guide To Misery: Assault Rifle/Ice Manipulation for the Almost-Suicidal



Earlier today I was deep frying a Snickers bar in my kitchen naked, when a bit of the oil I was using splashed onto me causing me Great Pain in places where one would be quite happy to have no Great Pain. As I lay on the floor writhing in said pain, while the dog blithely licked my face and then peed a little, I thought Somewhere, there is someone as miserable as I am right now.

That’s when I thought of this. Somewhere, there is a person as miserable as I was at that moment, yet entirely free of second-degree burns to the wang. Somewhere, they’re just walking around, in a constant state of sad, and perhaps with no relief. Maybe blood freaks them out, so they don’t want to cut. Drinking? No, maybe they’re underage, or maybe they just can’t stomach the taste. Drugs? Those things are expensive. And they’re not ready for suicide, oh no. They don’t want to end it. But deep down they know that, viewed objectively as an independent bundle of morals and ideas, they truly deserve to suffer. Perhaps that someone…well, perhaps that’s you.

I’m here to help.

You need to combine escapism with suffering. Punish yourself in a digital world, so that your physical body is unharmed. You need to pay $15 dollars a month to be degraded, to be mentally deconstructed and blapped into oblivion. You need to create an AR/Ice Blaster. The reason for this build will become apparent as we go along, so hold your questions for the end.

One last thing before we start. I know that some of you fools are going to say just take the two powers at level 1, never train up, never stick enhancements into the base slots, turn it all the way up to Invincible and just die over and over. But this is not the point of the build – we aim to make ourselves cry, not quit in frustration. You must follow the slotting I give to you, because in this way, you will always feel like you’re just on the edge of actually being something other than a totally crippled build – but not quite. This is the essence of misery: to be so close to decent, yet have it be just your grasp. That having been said, let’s continue.

ASSAULT RIFLE
This thing is ridiculous. You whip out a giant Super-Soaker with a flamethrower attached and shoot stuff. The redraw animation time isn’t awful, but it certainly isn’t a plus for the set. Plus the damage is pretty much confined to lethal and smashing, which are the two most heavily resisted forms of damage in the game. Let’s have a gander at the powers. The numbers I give here are from City of Data, so they’re darn good stuff.

Burst (1)
Brawl Index: 3.00 Lethal
Endurance Cost: 5.202 pts.
Recharge Time: 4 sec.
Activation Time: 2 sec.
Range: 90
Features: 4 tick DoT (~2 sec.), -Def, +5% Accuracy

Burst is your only single-target attack that doesn’t do knockback. This means that if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to shoot a single bad guy and have him stay right where he is, you can do it. We’ll have none of that. Skip Burst and move right along to Slug.

Slug (1)
Brawl Index: 4.56 Lethal
Endurance Cost: 8.67 pts.
Recharge Time: 9 sec.
Activation Time: 2 sec.
Range: 95
Features: Knockback, +5% Accuracy
Here we are, this will be your level 1 attack. Nice damage, knockback, an accuracy penalty, it’s got it all. You want to put three accuracy debuff enhancements and three knockback ranges in this bad boy. Feel that first pang of sorrow? Good. Good.

Buckshot (2)
Brawl Index: 2.52 Lethal
Endurance Cost: 10.404 pts.
Recharge Time: 8 sec.
Activation Time: 2 sec.
Range: 40
Cone Degree: 30
Features: Cone, Knockback, +5% Accuracy

This will do some pretty nice damage in a fairly wide cone directly in front of you, as well as dealing a knockback effect to the folks it hits. It’s also fun to use, to boot. For those reasons, we will be skipping this power as well.

M30 Grenade (6)
Brawl Index: 2.49 (1.6683 Lethal, .8217 Smash)
Endurance Cost: 15.1725 pts.
Recharge Time: 17 sec.
Activation Time: 2 sec.
Range: 80
Features: Targeted AE, Knockback, +5% Accuracy

Now here’s one that fits nicely into our build. This thing is a targeted area-effect that does knockback in every direction away from the target. It scatters things all to hell, makes a glorious mess, and – oh this is the best part – does only lethal and smashing damage even though there’s a giant frickin’ fire blob in the animation. Take this, slot ‘er up for knockback to increase the chaos, and prepare to make every melee character ever pray for your death.

Beanbag (8 )
Brawl Index: 0.56 Smash
Endurance Cost: 10.404 pts.
Recharge Time: 20 sec.
Activation Time: 2
Range: 60
Features: Disorient (100% Mag 3), +5% Accuracy

Okay. If you’re like me, when you think “beanbag” you think back to the Fall Festival or Autumn Fun Day or whatever at your elementary school. You would take a little purple polka-dotted beanbag and toss it at a wooden plank with a hole in it. If you got it through the hole, you would win a novelty oversized comb. So what you’re doing is shooting your targets, filling them full of lead, spraying them with a flamethrower, freezing them, whatever, and then tossing a beanbag at them to see if you win a prize. Take this and slot it up for recharge so you can feel ridiculous as often as possible.

Sniper Rifle (12)
Brawl Index: 7.68 Lethal
Endurance Cost: 15.606 pts.
Recharge Time: 13 sec.
Activation Time: 5 sec.
Range: 120
Features: Interruptible, Knockback, +25% Accuracy

This is your snipe, obviously, and it’s pretty darn good when used properly. However, for our purposes, you will not be using it properly. Oh no. You will take this, you will slot it to decrease interrupt time, and you will use this in melee range. Yes. You. Will.

Flamethrower (18 )
Brawl Index: 5.3336 Fire
Endurance Cost: 21.675 pts.
Recharge Time: 20 sec.
Activation Time: 3 sec.*
Range: 40
Cone Degree: 45
Features: 8 tick DoT (~8 sec.), Cone, +30% Accuracy

Take this and stick a range enhancement in the base slot. I’ll go into more detail on this in a bit, but just trust me for now.

Ignite (26)
Brawl Index: 6.666 Fire (.2222 per tic)
Endurance Cost: 5.202 pts.
Recharge Time: 4 sec.
Activation Time: 2 sec.*
Range: 30
Features: 30 tick DoT (~12 sec.), Small AoE Storm, +100% Accuracy

This thing works pretty much like Burn, in that for some reason it has a fear component that constantly makes whatever you want to hurt run out of it. This will infuriate you to no end, so obviously, you’re going to want to take it. Slot it for accuracy, since it’s already pretty much auto-hit.

Full Auto (32)
Brawl Index: 8.10 Lethal
Endurance Cost: 26.01 pts.
Recharge Time: 25 sec.
Activation Time: 6 sec.
Range: 80
Cone Degree: 10
Features: 18 tick DoT (~6 sec.), Cone, Critical Hit Chance, +35% Accuracy

This is your tier nine, and it’s a doozy. It has a fairly narrow cone, but the damage is great and you will be able to mow stuff down with it. At least, you would if you slotted it properly. You on the other hand will be putting one range enhancer in the base slot of this little fella, so that every time you use it you will wail and gnash your teeth in agony at the thought of how uber it could be.

ICE MANIPULATION

Note: I’m tired of doing the numbers, look them up yourself you bum.

Chillblain
This is given to you automatically. It’s a fairly good attack, but don’t worry, I’ve figured out how to turn it against you. Here’s what you do. This attack immobilizes your target in an icy little pen. Activate it, then immediately afterwards use flamethrower. Notice how the scorching, roiling flames do nothing to melt the ice. Look at it closely. Yes, feel that? That was your first facial tic. In time, that will happen pretty much automatically any time your brain happens to fire off a signal across some lonely synapse. Fire does not melt ice. Fire does not melt ice. Now twitch, my puppet. Yes. Gooooood. Slot this for damage just for giggles.

Frozen Fists
This encases your grubby little mitts in blocks of ice and lets you smack at foes around you. Remember earlier when I told you to stand right in melee range and use Sniper Rifle? This is what you should be using between recharges. We don’t want you getting bored, now do we? No no. We want you good and entertained, so that you keep coming back for more. Slot this with, oh, I don’t know…recharge.

Ice Sword
This power lets you create a sword made of ice with which to smite your enemies. I read a book once, and for the life of me I can’t remember the name, but it was very good. In it, a group of people committed a murder together. They took sharp icicles and all stabbed this one guy at the same time. When the murder weapons melted, there was no fingerprint evidence or anything to leave behind. This power reminds me of that, and I enjoyed the book. We can’t have things reminding us of happy times, so skip this.

Chilling Embrace
This is a toggle aura that lowers the temperature around your body and slows the enemies who come within its range. Take this and run it constantly just to drain endurance. There is a second reason to take it, but we’re going to save that one for a bit later.

Build Up
Build up is an incredibly good power. For ten seconds, you get a massive boost to your damage output, and a pretty nice one to your accuracy, too. I know what you’re thinking right now. I do. You think you should skip this. It’s awesome. It’s uber. But you’re going to take it, and you’re going to slot it for recharge. Every time you click this, you will get a glimpse of what it would be like if you weren’t totally gimped. And then it will slip away from you. You will feel empty and hollow inside. Yes. That’s right. That little facial tic from before has gotten quite a bit worse, hasn’t it? Dance, puppet.

Ice Patch
This plops a patch of ice around you, so long as you’re near the ground, and foes that step onto it will slip and fall down. Take this, but don’t slot it. It might accidentally get better. There is a second reason to take this, just like Chilling Embrace, but we’ll get to it in a bit. Keep your pants on.

Shiver
This blasts a wide cone of chilly air that slows enemies in its range pretty significantly. It’s got nice utility, a fun animation, and is just too good to take in general. Skip skip skiparoo.

Freezing Touch
This encases a bad dude in a block of ice with a single touch while also doing a bit of damage over time. Use this like Chillblain, in conjunction with your flamethrower, in order to further develop your newly found facial tic. By now, that thing should be well on its way to a full-blown twitchy opposite-sex-repellant.

Frozen Aura
Kinda like Chilling Embrace, except this is a click, not a toggle, and it will sleep the foes it hits. This is nice, as it provides you with some PBAoE control. You’re going to want to pass this over, since it’s pretty decent. What I want you to do instead is stab yourself in the leg with a pencil.

EPIC POOL

You’re going to be taking the fire epic pool, Flame Mastery. Bonfire is a good choice, as it does stupid knockback and, combined with your M30 Grenade, can pretty much ensure that no melee character will ever team with you twice. Rise of the Phoenix is also a good choice, because believe me, you are going to spend a lot of time facedown.

But here’s the most important part: Take Fire Shield. This is a toggle that will encase you in fire, providing some protection from Lethal, Smashing, and Fire damage, as well as a tiny bit against Cold. Turn this on at the same time as Chilling Embrace, lay down and Ice Patch, and whip out your Ice Sword. You are now holding a sword made out of ice, standing on a patch of ice, and supposedly lowering the temperature around your body in order to slow your enemies while you are on freaking fire. Think about that. Think about it some more. At this point, that innocent facial tic should have long ago evolved into a twitch. As soon as you grasp the absolute absurdity of what you are now doing, if my calculations are correct, you will start trying to bite your own ear while screaming “BISCUIT BISCUIT BISCUIT TONKA TRUCK BOOBS” and listening to Kenny G.

Once you get there, I can do no more for you. Your descent into hell is complete. You’re welcome.