Saltyhero13

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  1. I'm calling shenanigans on this thread based on the title alone. We all know scrappers don't walk..they swagger and strut!

    In all seriousness it sounds like you were the victim of an AE baby Tanker that doesn't understand game dynamics. Most tankers would have no qualms about taking it in the face for the team!

    I was referring to the alpha strike!
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Exxar View Post
    Anyway, I wrote a comparison of /FA and /ElA some time ago, you might find it and the other comments in that thread useful.
    Nice comparative analysis BTW. Recently written too.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Exxar View Post
    I've never had much experience with Spines, but wouldn't Fireball actually be better than Ripper in a farming environment since it has a much bigger target cap? I know Ripper does huge damage but it only hits 5 targets, while the other AoEs in the sed hit 10 and Fireball hits 16. So use Spine Burst, Throw Spines and Fireball to clear out the minions and then wipe the liuts and bosses with Ripper instead of Fireball?

    As a fringe benefit, Fire Blast could be useful in enhancing the poor ST dps of Spines, and Char gets you a +7.5% recharge bonus for only 4 slots.
    Positioning is key.

    Regardless, even with high recharge Fireball just wasn't up as much as I would like it. I could effectively get 2-3 Rippers off in the time that Fireball was charging between blasts. The Hero Stats numbers is what sealed the deal for me.

    For a single target chain I run Ripper, Lunge, Throw Spines seamlessly. Ring of Fire and Fire Blast would actually reduce my DPS. Personally, I found little added value in the Blaze Mastery Set

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Exxar View Post
    You don't need the extra survivability of /DA during farming, for which /DA pays by reduced potential for offensive slotting.
    I disagree here. Extra survivability allows you to go after bigger game and a greater variety of game. However in the advent of AE and its customized critters this is becoming more and more a moot point.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sack_Lunch View Post
    I would like a self heal on my Earth/Storm. Is this something people have been able to fit in without sacrificing must have powers?
    In general, no its not worth it. Mental Maiden already addressed that thoroughly.

    Without seeing it in the context of a build its is difficult to answer. With a build we could see what you are sacrificing in order to get Aid Self.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Athanatosis View Post
    I'm wondering if Spines/Dark is still king, or if something else is reigning supreme now?
    It depends what you are farming, but currently Elec/SD and Fire/SD are considered king.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Athanatosis View Post
    Also, what PP should I take with a Spines/Dark farmer? Does it have to be body mastery? I wanted Fire for Fireball for even more AoE. But because of that, I was thinking maybe Spines/Fire would be better because it's got better END management, and with Fiery Embrace it could pump Fireball up to some crazy damage.
    On my Spines/Dark I took Body Mastery for Physical Perfection and Conserve Power. However I have seen other builds that have overcome endurance issues through the use of IOs without dipping into the Body Mastery Pool.

    As you pointed out, Spines/Fire and Spines/Electric look like great alternate choices, especially considering their inherent endurance recovery tools.

    With enough recharge and positioning I found that I did not need an additional AoE like Fireball. I can continuously spam Spine Burst, Ripper, and Throw Spines in an endless chain with no gaps.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Athanatosis View Post
    I also see some love for Spines/Elec recently, not sure what people see in it over Dark or Fire but I'm all ears if someone wants to fill me in.
    /Elec has a damage aura, +20 recharge in Lightning Reflexes, great resists, a +recovery/+regeneration power that is near "perma-able", and some great endurance recovery utility.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Athanatosis View Post
    Oh, and one more thing, am I gonna need Tough and Weave to solo farm or will I do fine without them once I hit 50?
    Depends on what you plan on farming and what your IO slotting strategy is. In most scenarios they will help. I went for high S/L defense so Weave was a necessity but Tough was not. I ended up taking Boxing and Kick as set mules for Kinetic Combat.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Argentae View Post
    Thunder Clap to pair with Fissure.
    This is one of the reasons why I ended up going back to Stone Mastery.

    Ice helped me hit the soft-cap to S/L in addition to bringing +regeneration/+recovery to the table. Over time I found my self playing more in melee range, especially as I mastered the "herdicane" technique. Fissure+ T. Clap became the logical choice.

    My only gripe with Ice is that Hibernate just wasn't up enough for my liking. With all the massive amounts of recharge, Hibernate would just sit in my tray completely charged yet I could not activate it due to the phase shift timeout. If that ever gets fixed I would go back to Ice Mastery in a heart beat.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Trolloc6340 View Post
    I'm thinking about making an Ill\Rad troller and had some questions.

    Could you give me some suggestions concerning IO enhancements that I could make to get Phantom Army as close to Perma as possible. I have around 400 mill that I could spend, any suggestions would be helpful.

    Any other sets that would be helpful for enhancing?
    Stand on your lawn with your newspaper in hand and invoke the name Local_man three times!

    All kidding aside read Local_Man's Guide and read this thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=226156

    You will want to go for as many IO sets with +recharge bonuses. I would recommend grabbing a copy of Mid's as well. For Mid's go here: http://www.cohplanner.com/
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postagulous View Post
    No, you are wrong. Picard could kick all of their [rears.]

    I doubt it. It looks photo-shopped to me!
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Santorican View Post
    Salty I've been looking at your avatar for about 5 mins now lol
    Its a clip from Supergirl!
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postagulous View Post
    Not hardly. Hulk and Superman, et al, are not on the Spider-Man level. Spider-man is mostly reflexes and "standard hero strongerness."

    Nerd...level...rising...Must...control...
    Hehe....sure that is true when comparing supers to supers. On the other end of the spectrum if we were to compare Hulk or Thor to Galactus they would look like wimps. Now let look at when we compare a super, such as Spidey, to a human. The results are different eh? (Galactus has better slotting )

    Regardless not every power or AT is going to match comic book heroes. Leave that up to the players imagination, because it all boils down to their interpretation of the powers and ATs available. Case and point I have seen players customize Dark Armor to appear like sand thus having "Sand Armor" Is he wrong?

    My following comment isn't a stab at anyone posting in this thread but more of a general observation; I think basing the decision to omit SS from ever being proliferated to scrappers on comics is plain silly. If players want to play a steroid enhanced athlete (or some other concept) as a scrapper they should have access to it.

    I think the real issue is that SS is suspected of introducing game breaking numbers to scrappers if ported. Naturally this would presume the set is not balanced in its "native" ATs. No one wants to nor should we nerf SS tankers and brutes this late in the game.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus View Post
    I haven't read every spidey comic in existence, but in my limited knowledge he has never footstomped a mass of enemies into the air (The Hulk on the other hand...).
    I don't know about this but on the other hand knockout blow and hurl boulder fit Spidey well. According to Marvel, Spidey can lift several tons. That sounds super to me.

    In CoX there are rarely ATs and power sets that perfectly match comic book examples perfectly, so IMO this argument is a moot point.

    However for the sake off keeping the flies off of our friend Mr. Dead Horse here I would say Spidey is a SS/SR scrapper.
  12. Saltyhero13

    Ice Control

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Icecx View Post
    Probably somewhat surprisingly, Ice Control is my favorite control set. I love Arctic Air and Ice Slick together, and with Glacier, Frostbite, and Jack Frost thrown into the mix to control during Ice Slick's downtime, I find it very very fun and chaotic. However, I'm having trouble deciding which set to use as my secondary. I was considering Ice/Rad due to the holy trinity powers helping with Ice's lack of initial aggro control, but any of the other powersets I don't know a whole lot about, especially in their synergy with Ice. So, I guess I'm asking how the other secondary sets line up with Ice Control and how they work together with it.
    It stinks that we lost Enatiodromos's analysis on set synergies. That would be the first place I would point you.

    Ice/Rad has some great synergy IMO. Double mezzing auras and stacking slows is what you can expect with that combo. My only issue is that Ice's damage output is too low for my tastes.

    For some pet buffing synergies I would recommend looking at:
    • Cold Domination (+def shields, debuffs, and endurance recovery)
    • Thermal Radiation (+res shields, heals, pet damage boost, debuffs)
    • Sonic Resonance (+res shields, debuffs)
    For debuffing and slow effects synergy I would recommend looking at:
    • Radiation Emission (also provides some additional control)
    • Storm Summoning (also provides good critter positioning and some additional damage output)
    • Trick Arrows (also provides additional controls and a long recharge damage power)
    I don't particularly care for Empathy, Force Field, and Kinetics so I cant comment on those.

    If I were rolling an Ice/ Controller today I would probably pick Storm(extra damage and theme), Cold(strong debuffs, shields and theme), then Thermal (shields, debuffs, heals and theme) in that order.

    Good luck with your selection!
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postagulous View Post
    Give me an example of what glass-cannon Marvel or DC or whatever hero could be a scrapper with SS?

    They'd shatter their freakin' arms.
    Spidey???
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Seth_air View Post
    Can some one tell me how to max this out so I can solo AVs? or if not possible just the best build for this type of character? I have really no clue when it comes to Min/maxing or Io sets in general.
    For AV soloing you need two things: Survivability against AV burst damage and enough ST DPS to overcome AV regeneration.

    I hate to break it to you but Regen is terrible vs. burst damage; Spines is not great for ST DPS output. There are better builds for AV soloing. I'm not saying its impossible, but if AV soloing is what you want to do you may want to look at another combination. I caveat this with the fact that a specialized regen build could solo a subset of AVs as demonstrated by Claws_and _Effect (or was it Iggy Kamikaze)

    From a min/max perspective both Spines and Regen can benefit from sets that provide +recharge bonuses. Regen would benefit from sets that provide +defense bonuses
  15. Ohh Shiny! I'll take a look at home!

    Thanks Dechs!
  16. With all the purple IO sets I am guessing that you are going for a high recharge build?

    If so looking at your build at the macro level, I don't see the point of many of the sixth IO slots. I could understand if you were pursuing bonuses only available with six slotting certain sets, but I'm not seeing that here.

    /Storm in combination with +recharge bonuses will certainly demand a lot from your blue bar. To mitigate the high endurance consumption, my primary recommendation will be to pursue some +max end and +recovery bonuses to help recuperate some blue. This will allow you to continue spamming those expensive storm powers. In addition I would look at some of the sixth slots. I am willing to bet some could be converted to end reductions to help with the high endurance costs of this combination (e.g. LS, Tornado, Roots and Hurricane are culprits known for their endurance hoggishness)

    At the micro level, the choice for slotting the Kinetic Crash sets are sub par for those particular powers IMO. If you want -Kb resistance I would highly recommend rolling some 10-14 Bronze Ticket Rolls. You are bound to get some quickly. I would also recommend looking at the BotZ -Kb. I haven't looked at their price on the market lately, but I do believe the nerfs to the BotZ Universal Travel Sets have brought -Kb IO's price down considerably.

    Hurricane is best slotted with -To Hit Debuff sets and Endurance Reduction. This can potentially give you 45% -To Hit debuff (equivalent to "soft capped like" defense prior to debuff resistances). I mention this particularly if you use the power for "Herdicane" critters into tight groups to maximize AoE effectiveness; Enhancing the Kb aspect of this power will only serve to scatter critters vice grouping them.

    Tornado, with the right -KB setup, is one of the most underrated damage powers in /Storm. If you can keep critters locked down and prevent them from scattering, I think you will surprised on how much damage Tornado can do. IMO Tornado is a damage power so I would slot it accordingly.

    Tornado, Fly Trap and Freezing Rain all accept the Achilles' Heel. Typically this proc does not stack from the same user. In this case the game sees them as being proced from three different sources giving you the potential to produce a total of -60% resistance debuff in addition to Freezing Rain's inherent -30% resistance debuff. Do the math! You can nearly double your damage output when they stack!

    Just my .02 Inf. Some things to possibly consider

    Good luck with your Plant/Stormy!
  17. Another +1 for VG from this player

    Ever since the big ED nerf I would typically recommend a pass on the controller AoE holds. Earth is the exception to my rule. VG is a unique controller AoE hold that has significant tactical utility. In addition to its persistent holding effect that have been discussed to some degree in the posts above, I would also mention that it can be "cast" without having line of sight (LOS). This allows you to basically fire this power from behind cover and not worry about eating the alpha strike as a squishy.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SG-17 View Post
    I am wanting to make a new main controller and I can't pick between Grav/Rad or Ill/Rad i'll be doing a lot of solo and some time small team, please let me know your fav and i'm looking for some good builds. thanks
    I would pick whatever fits your concept. Both combinations are capable of soloing.

    However, if we were to look at the "numbers" with the minimal investment, Ill/Rad comes up on top. The combination of indestructible pets (Phantom Army) and Rad's heavy debuffs and -regen makes Ill/Rad a great combination at taking down hardened targets.

    If this is your first controller, Grav/Rad will take more effort and investment to set up. I personally wouldn't roll a Gravity controller until its revealed what "fixes" it will get in the future.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Umbra_NA View Post
    Time for Scrappers to get Super Strength.



    My opinions:

    Only one reason not to immediately port SS over to Scrappers is the potential that it would be overpowered.

    Doesn't matter.

    Why?

    I really don't think a signifigant percentage of the players would notice or care is SS Scrappers were strong.



    Has anyone run the numbers to compare what a SS scrapper would be like for damage compared to energy melle?
    <Salty checks the time and date>

    Its about that time isn't it?

    <<Hey Bobby! Get the horse! Yeah the dead one!>>

    <Hands out bludgeoning devices to the forums>

    Not to be a jerk but this seems to be discussed ad nauseam just about every other week. I believe there is an even more recent thread on this very topic.

    Check this thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=223883
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lillika View Post
    What is the lowest amount of recharge you could have to still have a perma PA/Hasten/AM/GI/IW? Trying to cheapen this build some for my own budget but keep it effective.
    IW would be the most difficult to perma.

    To answer your question, if I did the math correctly, you would need about 200% recharge in addition to AM and Hasten to make IW permanent. This would be less depending on slotting. With three level 50 Recharge IOs that would come down to ~101%. That is 101% you would need from set bonuses.

    I used Arcanaville's formula from her thread describing the recharge mechanic to calculate this The numbers were pulled from Mid's Hero Designer.

    NewRecharge = OriginalRecharge / (1 + RechargeBuffs)

    That thread can be found here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=118546

    Local_Man already address how building for this kind of recharge would significantly increase the cost of your build.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SkarmoryThePG View Post
    Eeew. No. Never. Not in my build. Hate hasten. It burns us, precious.
    Regen benefits greatly from Hasten and +recharge IO bonuses. Its something to consider seriously. Some of regen's best powers are on long timers e.g. MoG, Instant Healing. Your survivability will go up significantly the more often these powers are available.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Neofusion View Post
    I apologize for seeming dumb-founded about IO's... just had too much OT @ work and have not had a chance to sit down and try to understand IO's. If someone could link me to some research material that would be a BIG help.
    Here is a good site that has some information you may be looking for:
    http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Invent...n_Enhancements
  23. What are you looking for specifically?

    Are you looking for something that describes what the powers do? If so go here: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Regeneration

    Mid's Hero Designer is also a great tool for understanding how the powers work. For this go here: http://www.cohplanner.com/

    Overall Regeneration is a set that is designed around the idea of self healing. If you follow the old guides keep two things in mind regarding some Regeneration changes.

    • Instant Healing used to be a toggle but is now a click on a very long recharge timer.
    • Moment of Glory (MoG) used to be a long duration "God mode" power that made you unaffected by heal powers. This has been changed to a 15sec duration Defense and Resistance boost.
  24. Coming from owning scrappers of the DM/FA and Spines/DA variety, I'll share my observations of the three sets you mentioned.

    Dark Melee is a single target focused set (Shadow Maul being the only cone attack) with the primary secondary effect being -To Hit. The majority of its attacks deal negative typed damage (one of the least resisted types in game).

    Despite the set being light on AoE attacks , Dark Melee has several utility powers that are worthy of mention.

    • Touch of Fear is a single target Fear power capable of terrorizing Lts and below (Mag 3 Fear).
    • Siphon Life is next on the list that is an attack and a self heal combined into one power.
    • Dark Consumption is an Endurance Recovery power that returns an amount of endurance based on how many foes it hits in range.
    • Soul Drain is basically a build up power that provides more +To Hit and +Dmg bonuses for each additional enemy it hits. Midnight Grasp is a ST attack that is also an immobilization power.
    "Dark Melee goes well with everything" is what you will often hear because its true. I could name some notable combinations like: Shields (Redonkulous DPS output at Soul Drain and AAO saturation), Fiery Aura (This combo provides two heals, two endurance recovery powers, and two build up powers), and Dark Armor (Stack Fears, Addition heal)...but ever combination has a unique synergy...it really does go well with everything.

    Spines is an AoE focused set that has Slow and Toxic DoTs as its secondary effect (along with some long animations ). Its worth noting that this set is the only Scrapper Primary with a damage aura(Quills) and has two short ranged attacks: Impale (ST ranged) and Throw Spines (Targeted/Ranged AoE). You can also customize the spines to look like something else besides bananas shooting out of your body. Some good synergies are with Dark Armor, Electric Armor, and Fiery Aura. The rationale is that these sets provide an additional damage aura. Please note Spines cannot be paired with Shields.

    Dark Armor is a resistance based set (very high in Psi and Negative resistance) with access to two crowd control auras (Oppressive Gloom is a stun aura, Cloak of Fear is a fear aura) in addition to its damage aura (Death Shroud). It also boasts a stealth power (Cloak of Darkness) as well as a self heal (Dark Regeneration). Dark Regen. is often touted as the best heal in the game, but this comes at a high endurance cost per use. The high cost to heal in addition to the dependency on several toggles to survive is what gives this set a bad rap (Recovery can be slotted for using IOs to mitigate this sets end hoggishness). Dark Armor does not offer any native resistance to knockback like other scrapper secondaries do. Some notable combinations besides Spines and Dark Melee (both synergize well) include: Katana(or Broadsword)/DA (Werner has demonstrated that this combination can soft cap to nearly everything), Martial Arts (Stack-able Stuns with DA's Stun Aura) and possibly Claws (its very endurance light)

    I hope this provides some insight on these sets (and that I didn't miss anything critical)

    Good Luck on your next scrapper!
  25. Saltyhero13

    Ill/Rad help

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Local_Man View Post
    Or you could use your avatar to distract them . . .

    Stare into my eyes....you are getting sleepy.....hey buddy they're up here!