Sarrate

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well this is true and not true about the resists.

you see...villains fight a lot of longbow. i would say a good 90% of what we fight 40+ is longbow

and longbow have longbow nullifiers.

nullifiers pop an aoe auto-hit -40% resist to all grenade thing.

so capping a resist based brute villain side matters little when fighting our most commonly-fought group.

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Nullifier Sonic Grenades have been changed so they're resistible now. Before, if you had 90% res, you'd be dropped to 50%. Now you'd be dropped to 86%. (I know the discussion is on s/l, but the grenades are only -30% to f/c/e/ne/tox/psi.)

Go ahead and test it with your Elec Brute in Power Surge.

Nope, you pretty much nailed it. They could push their s/l res up to 73% if you have a bottomless wallet to spend on a +3% res PvP IO, but that's about it.

It's not new for people to complain about low availability/size of +res from IOs. (I think some forms of +def are too easy to get, but that's another story.) My guess why defense is more prominent is because it's more variable and easier to bypass. If Castle wants mobs to be very accurate, he has many methods to do so:

*) tohit
*) def debuffs
*) auto hit

That's not to mention that even at the softcap you can get unlucky. With res, it's far harder to bypass (unresistible damage is pretty much it) and it's more stable (no unlucky deaths).

Again, that's just my best guess at why it is as it is, but I could be completely off base.

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Tanker forum ---->

If you feel you must brag about how good your tank is there is a place for it and it is not the brute forums.

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My intent wasn't to brag, but I'm genuinely curious about how people build their characters and how they do it differently. Justice_Bringer had a different focus (namely regen) and I was wondering what the rest of the build looked like. I felt the need to reciprocate.

Admittedly it is the Brute forums and it should have went to PMs instead of in the open. Mea culpa.

*looks at thread, mouth agape*
*sighs*

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Direct reference! 1: Love!

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I'm not going to play if you're going to be like that!

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On my WP Tank, I can get him to 232 HP/sec without buffs.

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Sorry to nitpick, but you can only hit that during periods of RttC double stack (which only lasts for a fraction of a second). Sure, you could hit it, but it's misleading without saying how. That's like saying Brute Invincibility gives 29.25% def. Sure, it can, but I'd only consider it a constant 17.55% with 10 mobs in range.

In order to hit 232 hp/sec, you'd need to have ~1733% regen and be at the Tank hp cap (3212). Without the double stack, that'd peg you at ~1246% regen or ~166.76 hp/sec. With 1 mob in range (and not counting the double stack), that's ~807% regen or ~108 hp/sec. That's still high, but far more believable.

Out of curiosity, how much def do you have?

[/ QUOTE ]The 232 itself often lasts for a second or two, but the double stacking in general doesn't. I can often sustain more than 166 with enough enemies around. With 1 enemy in range, Mids has it at 105.3 HP/sec (785%) and at 10, it's 165.9 (1237%). My Tank is at the HP cap which I found pretty easy to get. 38.3 Defense to Fire/Cold, 35.2 Defense to Energy/Negative, and 30.1 Defense to Psionic with 70.1 Resistance to Smashing/Lethal. 4.03 End/sec as well.

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The heightened regen comes from the double stack, though. On my side, the numbers only twitch for split second, most certainly not 1-2s. That sounds like just UI lag to me, though. (If you check RttC on CoD, you'll see that the per target regen bonus lasts just as long as the pulse rate, or 1s.)

At any rate, you certainly have higher regen than I do; I focused more on defense than regen. I run with ~3167 hp, 713% regen (94.3 hp/sec), but have 39% s/l def, and ~43% f/c/e/ne, and 29% psi. If I ever acquire a PvP IO, add three to all of those. Oh, and 4.2 eps recovery.

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Call me wacky, but I like teams where all members get to have fun.

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Then stop using Torrent on my spawns.


Disclaimer: I'm being facetious.

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You're gonna love my newest alt

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Call me wacky, but I like teams where all members get to have fun.

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Then stop using Torrent on my spawns.


Disclaimer: I'm being facetious.

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He will absolutely 100% get crushed in AE farms without Tough and Weave (and even with Tough and Weave you need support for the harder farms).

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Yep, Tough/Weave are pretty much mandatory for continuous, high stress fights. The difference between having them and not is night and day.

Now, I've never done an AE farm before, let alone a lvl54 boss one, but I have done some stress testing of my build in test mode with lvl54 Rikti bosses. That's ~11-12 of 'em packed together, and infinitely sustainable (tested it for 30 mins) without touching SoW/insps.

That screenshot pegs me at ~3100 hp, 1064% saturated regen (~625% w/1 target), and def as you can see. (For the final build, I have 60 more hp, ~90% more regen, and 3.75% more s/l def. If I ever get a PvP IO, add 3% def to everything.)


If I knew more about the farm (solo? grouped? what are you fighting? etc) I could give better advice on how to build or what to expect.

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What hasn't is that the base 30% recharge debuff res is also enhancable. Recharge enh buffs this.

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*blinks*
Woah... learn something new everyday... (I have this feeling that's unintentional since no other rech res power allows it to be enhanced, but I don't know for sure.)


Btw, the def resistance is weird. It's enhanceable on Brutes/Scrappers, but unenhanceable on Tankers. I'm not sure if that's intended or not.

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I go with 3 Defense Common IO, 1 Cyto (tohit/endrdx),1 tauntdur IO, and the unique

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Why not go with 2 Def and 1 Cyto? Cytos boost defense as well.

(I was planning on slotting a RR +Perception into Invin too, until I scrapped the project and used the IOs I stockpiled for my Tank.)

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Probably not but a reduction to brute defenses would be the most likely outcome if blue side brutes are truly a threat to tankers. It may not be popular but the developers have a 5 year track record of balancing downward.

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McBoo - I disagree; they tend to balance towards the middle (up/down depending on relative position of the majority). Since the creation of NCNC / Paragon Studios, more things have been buffed then nerfed.

Blasters (Defiance 2), Stalkers (Hide cost 0 end, Hide in 8s vs 10s, AS debuff, new crit system), drawn weapons (removing redraw, Axe/Mace/BS/Katana/Claws), Scorch (current animation instead of the Incinerate animation), Mace (Clobber/Shatter/Crowd Control), Ice Melee (Frost, Frozen Aura), AR (sped up Buckshot/Beanbag/Full Auto), Dark Melee (SL 15->10s rech, double SL dmg, first target bonus on SD, more upfront MG, 7ft SM), Invuln (no Unyielding debuff, stronger res passives, special debuff res in passives), EA (added heal component), SS (removal of Only Effect Self from Rage)...

I better stop there. That's just off the top of my head too, I didn't look anything up. I'm not saying there haven't been nerfs, there have (and some with nasty backlash), but to say the dev's track record is to down tweak? I'd disagree with that. (It's funny because I had a discussion with someone who said they buff too much.)

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surprised you mentioned that brutes do less dmg than scrappers. While their base index is lower, they have an 800% dmg cap, and fury. In pve that is insane damage. Imagine the fire/kin's combined with brutes...

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_Inc_ - Their damage cap is actually 850% (100% of that being base, or +750%), but I don't see that making a big difference to be honest, even in the presence of Fire/Kins. A saturated Controller Fulcrum has a damage buff of +290%, that's just about enough to damage cap a Scrapper (485% vs 500%).

In order for a Brute to deal damage equal to a Scrapper @485% +dmg with a 7.5% crit rate, they'd need to be operating at ~782% +dmg (100% base, 95% slotting, say 170% from Fury, that leaves ~417% from buffs). That leaves them 127% +dmg short of damage dealing equivalence. (This assumes equivalent sets.)

I'm not saying that Brutes suck, mind you, but simply having a high damage cap makes it very hard to attain.

Culex's guide / spreadsheet (Download it now before you forget. )

The bosses have 30% s/l/e resist, the psi users (mentalists/mesmerists/etc) have 30% psi as well. Otherwise, they have no extra resists to f/c/ne/tox.

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dont forget that av's resist a hefty portion of those debuffs.

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AVs will render the -tohit pretty inconsequential, yes, but they don't have any heightened -dmg resistance. That is solely determined by their resistance and the purple patch.

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Rage isn't perma, which means you'd get the -20 defense drop when it crashes.

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You get the -20 defense when Rage crashes even if it is Perma.

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Last time I used it (which was this issue), you don't. For an explanation as to why:

Rage
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* ToHit +20% for 120s
* DMG(All Types) +80% for 120s [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
* DMG(All Types) -9990% for 10s (after 120 second delay) [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
* Defense -0.2 for 10s (after 120 second delay) [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
Effect does not stack from same caster
* Endurance -0.25 (after 120 second delay) [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]

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When Rage is activated, it adds all those effects to your character. When you activate Rage again, it adds a second copy of all the buffs except the def crash (highlighted). Since the def crash isn't set to stack, it instead replaces the current one with the new copy, resetting the crash to occur 120s in the future.

This works even if you use SS in the middle of the crash, the def debuff will vanish.


[edit: Of course, this assumes "perma" means reusing it right at, or slightly before the 120s duration is over, not waiting till after the crash.]

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I recommend HP, regen, and defense.

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I agree, but there's not much else you can go for. What will really make the difference is which of those you give priority to over the others.

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On my WP Tank, I can get him to 232 HP/sec without buffs.

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Sorry to nitpick, but you can only hit that during periods of RttC double stack (which only lasts for a fraction of a second). Sure, you could hit it, but it's misleading without saying how. That's like saying Brute Invincibility gives 29.25% def. Sure, it can, but I'd only consider it a constant 17.55% with 10 mobs in range.

In order to hit 232 hp/sec, you'd need to have ~1733% regen and be at the Tank hp cap (3212). Without the double stack, that'd peg you at ~1246% regen or ~166.76 hp/sec. With 1 mob in range (and not counting the double stack), that's ~807% regen or ~108 hp/sec. That's still high, but far more believable.

Out of curiosity, how much def do you have?

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[1] Obviously, this can be a problem of its own, e.g. when you have a Shields or Invincibility scrapper playing with a Willpower tanker and the scrapper would rather not have all the aggro when there's a perfectly good tanker nearby who is specialized in taking the damage, but can't override the stronger aggro aura of the scrapper. But that's kinda unrelated to Grant Cover.

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Sorry to further the tangent, but this can be done through the use of Taunt. It's not automatic by any means and the Tanker really has to fight for it, but it can be done. If the Tanker isn't doing anything special to hold aggro, however, then the Scrappers will take it.

Last time I checked, the icon under your health was wrong (it includes base regen in it, iirc). The one in your combat attributes window is the correct value.

Invuln is based off typed defense, so trying to build up positional defense is a waste. The two don't stack - only the highest value is used. Instead, try to build up your typed def as much as you can.

As for how Invincibility works, it grants two defense bonuses per mob in range:
*) +3.75% s/l/e/ne/f/c def (5.85% slotted)
*) +0.75% s/l/e/ne/f/c def (1.17% slotted)
The first one (3.75%) doesn't stack, so you can only have one of them (this is the "first target bonus"). The second (0.75%) does stack and will stack up to 10 times with 10 mobs in range. There is an extra wrinkle in that it will briefly double stack for a split second, but it's not something to rely upon.

tl;dr:
+4.5% for one mob (7.02% slotted)
+0.75% for every mob after that (1.17% slotted)

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What about replacing it with Taunt? As a Tanker secondary, it would need Taunt...

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Scrapper sets already have a single target taunt called Confront - that's what would be replaced for Taunt.

If you look at IO bonuses in isolation, they will seem unimpressive. The key to IOs is that you can stack bonuses to an absurd degree. For example, you might have 60% recharge in your attack now, and a set that gives +5% recharge only has, say, 40% recharge enhancement. That looks like a loss, but you can stack that bonus up to 5 times (+25% rech to everything) and come out ahead in the powers using those sets (+5% more than current slotting) and come out ahead in powers you didn't even slot the IOs in.

It's not just recharge, but +accuracy (better than you can get w/o sets, not to mention it does boost vet reward attacks), +recov/max end (allowing you to fight longer and harder), and +def for survivability. (Some Blasters have managed to hit 45% ranged defense. Saying that's a massive boost is an understatement.)

For actual performance, you simply cannot beat an IO build... unless you're a dev. Now designing a build takes a lot of finesse - it's an art almost. You have to pick focuses (like +rech) and stack for it while at the same time getting as many supplementary bonuses are you can. A random mishmash of bonuses is not the way to go.

Now, is it worth it? That depends, if you alt a lot and don't focus on any character, it would be of less value to you. After all, IOing a character is a significant investment, and not using it would be wasteful.

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As for Parry, what's so special about it?

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Stackable 15% melee/lethal defense buff - it would be +20% on Tanker mods. Oh, don't think you need heavy IOs to utilize it or anything; it double stacks out of the box.

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You want the defence? Hug the scrapper, its a safe place to be, hes even got a taunt aura

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For another melee character, maybe. For a squishy? Not so much. Keep in mind that standing closer to Shield characters (Brute/Scrapper/Tank) means that you'd also be more likely to eat AoEs. Would you rather have more defense but have more attacks against you or less defense and less attacks coming your way?

In most cases, I'd go with the later, since some AoEs are particularly nasty.

I'm not super well versed with Corruptors, but here are some things I'd consider changing:

*) Accelerate Metabolism - I'd put some end mods in here if you can. It really does make a huge difference keeping your pace up throughrout missions. You don't need 3, but 1-2 helps. (You could steal a slot from Health/Stealth. This may be superfluous after Power Sink, but that's not till 47.)

*) Radiation Infection / Enervating Field - Just so you know, EF costs twice as much as RI does. If you're going to put 3 end reducs in a toggle, EF is where it should be.

*) Lingering Radiation - I'd prioritize recharge before slows. (Slow enhancers only boost the movement slow, not the recharge slow.) It's not a terrible idea, but not what I'd aim for first.

*) Choking Cloud - I'd probably skip this for a few reasons. First, AR is a cone heavy set, but CC is a pbaoe. This means you couldn't really leverage your cones while trying to keep the mob held. Second, it's weaker on Corrs than other ATs (Controllers/Defenders). That said, you don't have any aoe control, so it could be useful. If you do keep it, slot it with end reduc / hold, drop the recharge enhancers.

*) Full Auto - Only 5 slots? Heresy!

*) EM Pulse - Don't bother with the end mod here; the end drain is very minor. If you want to slot it for something else, make it recharge.

*) Power Sink - I'd put more recharge into this than end mod. It's possible to get a full tank of end off 4 enemies without end mod slotting. On the other hand, end mod slotting works great against single hard targets... but you would have AM backing you up most of the time anyways.

*) Invisibility - Don't bother slotting it for defense. Remember, you can't attack while it's up. The stealth component on it doesn't surpress anyways, so trying to avoid a stray hit is useless.

Yes, it's been discussed, especially when weapon customization hit. The problem is Spines isn't just a drawn weapon, it's also baked into power graphic effects. For example, Impale not only uses the normal spines, but the spine being hurled through the air.

In order to change the look of Spines, we're pretty much stuck waiting on power customization.