Seriphos

CoF is:
The biggest endurance drain you'll ever meet (I think it rivals FA)
Horribly innacurate
Fear (as opposed to OGs stun, which is a superior status effect)
A pretty strong debuff (half what it used to be, but what it USED to be was equivalent to a FF bubble stopping anyone near you hurting you).

If/when I ever get Hami-Os, I want it back. 6 slotted with acc/mez and end/tohit, it's POWERFUL. However, with 2 damage aura's stopping the fear from lasting, only minions being feared, and the ludicrous end cost, it's a power to be skipped.

OG on the other hand is wonderful. The hp it drains is completely and utterly negated by health, and the end-cost is more or less non existant. And it works with your AoEs, stopping anyone from running away.

Ice/energy is the PVP FoTM, and in the arena ranks as one of (if not THE) best blaster.

Energy/energy has "meh" ST damage compared to ice, "meh" AoE damagae compared to fire, and knockback, generally an undesirable affect compared to something as useful as a slow or properly used end drain.

Not saying KB is bad. It can be used very well. It's just it's more often bad than good.

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"DOes toxic resistance matter much?" Not all powersets resist toxic, and when u meet a toxic damage EB or AV you will find out if it matters much, also if u are attacked by a spines stalker in warburg.

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That's not what I said at all. I said does it matter THAT much. I know it matters, but is that 25% resistance enough for Healing Flames and (now I've checked) reconstruction to perform worse in a HP/time ratio than aid self? You'd think a secondary power will perform better. And for the record, spines toxic damage isn't significant enough for it to swing a losing battle to a victory.

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First of all, I had a em/dark stalker not a brute. Dark regen, cant be used as a panic button, since u need to be in the middle of the mobs which make u need to heal, which is usually unadvisable, it roots u; so that any mob that wasnt already attacking u has a chance to spot u and add too ur hurt.

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Then that's not useful information. Brutes are in the thick of fighting all the time, and they survive it. So for a brute DR is far easier to get off. The rooting time is minimal. This is not a squishy archetype. This is an archetype that has an inherant designed to reward taking and dishing out punishment.

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Aid self is the opposite, u can heal in safty but in the thick of it, its likely to fail due to interupt. Together they complement one another.

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Show of hands all brutes that actually manage to run away and aid self? No hide. Not many stealth powers. Running away and aid selfing is not what they're designed to do.

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Only a retard would suggest one is better than the other, if u have them both avaiable. With no tier 9 shield, you will be gimping urself not to take dark regen.

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Basic reading skills would show you suggest aid self is better in your above post, by saying it stops people kiting you. So that makes you... anyway, counter kite. Again, stop applying stalker info on a seperate archetype.

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I prefer siphon life over dark regen, at least for an AT with small hitpoints.

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That's good to know, 'cos brutes have CHRONICALLY low HP an all.

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Ive only just tried aid self after 3 toons who did without, and mayhems were always a problem (especially an EM/fire dom with no healing). Not now, with aidself, I can complete every side mish and the main objective without use of insprations.

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Brutes aren't doms either. They aren't as squishy, and last time I checked doms don't get healing flames OR dark regeneration.

You call us cranks? Seriously? I suggest you bring the correct AT information in future. This is not about squishies running away. This is about SMASH and surviving.

I'm shocked about healing flames. That's... terrible. Anyone know why on earth it's that weak?

Anyway, I've had enough. I've said my piece on SL, and corrected the squishy man. Good luck with your brute!

... you have never actually tried to use Dark Regen, have you?
A) it's a far superior heal to aid self. It can't be interrupted, and 3 minions and you heal to full, unslotted. And you can just kite them back using it, you only need to ACTIVATE in melee range.
B) I have absolutely no idea how you get into trouble in a mayhem that DR, the god-mode heal can't fix, yet aid self could. Because if you were running away, odds are you'd have had enough time to use DR. It's up every 11 seconds anyway.

Seriously, saying Aid Self > DR is madness. Next YOU'LL be saying "OG is useless, it stops fury. Terrible power".

And just to be relevant: In a "quirk" of design, Aid Self is SUPERIOR (in terms of healing/time) than healing flames, so if it's an option take aid self. But I'm also sure that Siphon Life is superior to both of them.

Healing flames will heal just under 100% health a minute (3rech/3heal)
Aid Self will heal just under 150% in a minute (2heal/2rech/2int redux)
Siphon Life will heal just under 125% health a minute (2acc/2rech/2heal)

Gah, maybe not.

It really depends on what you fight. If you fight even cons, odds are 1acc/3heal/2rech will be best, since you're cappped anyway to +1s, and the heal goes to 140% a minute. If you fight +2s and higher, then 2 acc is pretty much needed.

/end ramble, but I do wonder how the HELL a pool power ends up superior to both heals from 2 powersets? Does that toxic resistance matter that much?

IIRC, it works out to about the same as Reconstruction, if you slot it 3heal/rech.

So 1acc 3heal 2 rech SURELY can't be worse than aid self, if you think of it as a Reconstruction/negative air superiority combo. Sure, air supe is up more often. As part of a full attack chain, SL will do the same damage, all negative, with a heal.

The end I see as a drawback still, though.

Higher DPS (second overall, IIRC), acc debuff, less resisted, touch of fear. Easily better.

1) Like said before, fight less than +3s and you'll be fine.

2) not sure, but hero planner says caltrops is the same but WG is double recharge. I wouldn't go by everything it says though, but that sounds reasonable.

3) Soul transfer PVE: I would advise against taking it. It gets you killed, since it aggros mobs when you ressurect (and the stun often doesn't work). If you do take it, as many recharge as you like.

PVP: Slot recharge and disorient, maybe put some heals or endmods in there. It has 2 uses: 1) counter ganking. (Get ganked, soul transfer, turn on OG, then take down the team while they're weak). 2) Taking down granite-using brutes.

Cloak of fear only works with HEAVY slotting, I've specced it out until I can get the hami-os needed to make it work. But if you're set on it, 3acc 3end is pretty much a must to counter it's abysmal accuracy and ludicrous end cost. If you're choosing between OG and CoF, take OG. The difference is that OG is cheaper and detoggles squishies.

Soul Transfer is awful. Really, really awful. I mean, it might be fine at level 50, when you get no debt, but other than that there is simply no reason to have it at that level.

Get OG earlier. That's your third biggest survival power, after Obsidian and Dark Regen. It stops minions attacking you with a penalty covered by health.

Get rid of Soul Transfer. Yes, I've already said this. Please, I'm begging you to ditch it. The one single use I've found for it is it's safer than an average combat rez, but you've got about 10 seconds to get sorted.

You'll probably be better off with the hold as opposed to torrent, although I'm not entirely sure on that.

Might want to get hasten in there, since it helps with the death bringing.

Tough isn't remotely needed. And yes, ID has KB protection, so you'd survive without Acro, and if you really, really wanted tough you could drop SJ and Acro, but that would remove some soloability.

Other than that, the build looks fine. I'd still reccomend slotting it for critique, since that plays a major part in the build's effectiveness too.

Damnit, I confused rooted and grounded.

>_>

<_<

Yes. Go with their advice. But kiting them so they get frustrated, turn rooted off to try and get slightly better manouverability, then detoggling them FTW!

Never met a player THAT silly, but if you ever get the chance, go ahead

The resist is to YOU being end drained. So it adds knockback protection and protection against whoever might drain your end.

AFAIK, it doesn't affect power sink in the slightest.

250 characters per bind is the limit, and it's easily enough.

Personally, since starting my thugs/traps and bots/dark MMs, I've found Khaiba's numpad binds to be an absolute godsend.

As a reference: Pressing 3 would activate your Bruiser. Pressing 4 would make him aggresive. Pressing 9 and clicking at the mob would send him to melee. From there, 0, 4, and 7 would then tell all your thugs to simultaneously go beserk.

For what? PVE? PVP? Do you plan on having a kin attached to you at all times? Mass AoE death via the 2 auras? Using Impale and your resists?

Provide some info, and also look for spines/ guides and /da guides. Lump them together, and chuck in a few end reductions.

Good in PVP versus MMs, but not so much against anything else :/

3 rech, 2 acc, 1 tohit is how I slot mine.

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haha wel seriphos i dnt know about u but i sence a nerf coming on but really? i had no idea they didnt even compete
cumon there not that over powerd are they

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They really, really are overdue a nerf. Yes, they're a crapload more powerful than the other sets, since for PVE they have MASSIVE AoE potential, and AoE is king in PVE. Then for PVP they have a ranged immob. A spines/regen is one of the only sets I know that can take the sets it's actually weak to (things like cold corrupters for the -regen) and trash them.

DM certainly can't do that to a DA. I've never seen a katana rip through an invuln tank without difficulty. A claws/invuln versus ranged energy damage isn't going to have an easy time. But spines/ is powerful enough to hurt anything, ESPECIALLY when coupled with /regen or /sr.

Also: Spines/DA can, in the space of 8 seconds, do more damage than a fully slotted inferno. Even though spines hits only 10 targets, the overall damage done is superior.

And that doesn't drain your endurance bar, nor leave you vulnerable.

I wouldn't be sure about Granites, they're not that unkillable. -recovery or psi damage soon sees them gone. Also note that in BB most ATs haven't aren't PVP worthy. Most scrappers don't have their mez protection, for example.

But to take down 3 at once is pretty impressive (especially at that level).

And yes, Necro/Dark is one of the best MMs for survivability. Robots/Dark is better for damage, and that's powerful too.

I've stared down a necro/dark with my almighty powerful negative energy resists in sirens. Fat lot of good it did me too, I was lying flat within 2 minutes. They are a hard AT to beat.

You can hardly call the old version of toggle drops "balanced" though. I remember fighting any blasters was an excercise in futility, because I'd have one toggle down. As a DA I have running: 3 shields, CoF, Acro, CJ, and FA. Once mez protection or acro was down, I would be holdable, then EVERYTHING goes down.

I don't agree with the extent of the nerf, it was far too overdone. Kind of like AV regen, it makes you wonder if they went "hey, that's a pretty number. Let's put that in. Oh, and would someone get the dictionary? The players keep using this "consequences" word, and I have no idea what It means".

Bring back toggle drop by all means, but by now means back to what it was.

And to the OP: Stalkers are ludicrously powerful in SC. This levels out by RV, since they can't just hit and run a big target like a scrapper or tanker, they can just shrug it off and fight back too easily. Stalkers in RV take more skill to play well than your average SC ganker has no chance of matching.

Sadly, this doesn't hold true hero-side, since scrappers are the best solo AT, and /regen is pretty much permanently one of the most picked of all sets in-game.

Hey, no dragging me into this. I've said people with acro don't get knocked back (I suppose it's possible, if every stalker on defiant all simultaneously used water spout). I've also said that SCRAPPERS with acrobatics don't get held (in general, the +1 is enough to just equal a threat. Unless said threat is a damnated ice/energy).

I never said about the mez protection though, that would be silly of me.

Incidentally, I find it funny Filth called a MASTERMIND a squishy. Yes, the tankmage tactics outdid said mastermind. But with bodyguard, 4 turrets, and a heavy going, they're a horrible thing to have to fight, and the skilled ones chew through scrappers without that many problems.

If you like giggling at insanely high amounts of damage, spines/da is for you. 10 seconds of quills, death shroud, and all your AoE attacks will outdamage Inferno, and still leave you with enough endurance to fire off Dark Regen and get out of there with no issues.

Make no mistake though, if you want solo ability, go /regen. Spines/DA (or anything else/DA) is godly IF you have endurance. Given that you'll probably end up getting Acrobatics to stop yourself being knocked about like a toy, the end drain can get you down. Regen doesn't have these problems, since it has 1 toggle and doesn't require powerpools.

If you want speed, claws is the answer. It has a very fast attack chain that can end up outdamaging everything else over time, and what it lacks in burst damage it makes up for in focus. Which costs and recharges only a little bit more than the rest of your attacks, outdamages most, and is ranged.

Dark Melee is... not fast. A decent, speedy attack chain requires either you take power pool attacks or have a pocket /kin handy.

Katana is fast, but supposedly the draw times add up.

BS is hardly a speedy set, but it's got power and burst damage.

Overall though, I think if you want a fast set claws/regen would be the way to go. Good attack chain, and very little downtime as far as regen is concerned.

Spines is massive AoE damage, slows, ranged attacks, toxic damage, immobilises. It's more powerful than DM. The 2 don't even compete.

And I say this as a DM user who wouldn't ever touch spines. No matter how powerfully I can debuff someone's accuracy, it just doesn't match up to spines.

W00t! Grats! Now you can solo all the AVs you want without fear of debt

Grats dude! Sorry I couldn't be there for the moment, now go level your PB and be splatted!

Without DP or IH running, they faceplant. I've seen those damn ringmistresses splat a granite before now (actually they held through granite first).

Carnie alpha's are hellishly powerful, and they've reduced me to the very bottom of my health. And that's WITH all my psi and s/l resists on. A regen (unless they were running DP) can't take that kind of punishment, in my experience.

Damnit! Thanks to the damn packing I didn't get online til now.

Sorry all :/

In that case, roll SS/Elec before they become unfashionably FoTM. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Perma Fury without hasten? A full attack chain at level 8? God-Mode SMASH!ing? YESPLZ!

kthxbye.

*cough cough* Energy/elec.

Much as I love my /dark scrappers (and having proved they can do things that a /regen simply can't, like carnie alphas) their uberness has become situational. The lack of energy resist is a problem for brutes. A problem solved by /elecs capped resist. Also, I find CP, powersink, and Power Surge much better PVE tools than CoF and OG for a brute, due to fury relying on minions hitting you. And soul transfer is only good when ganked, for that "hah, dark nub got pwnd lol" Resurrect, and stun everything "TIME FOR ROUND TWO!" moments.

/elec can build fury faster, has better resists to all (which was meant to be one of darks strong points) and psi and negative resists, the strongest resist points of /dark (although weaker).

It falls behind because, lets face it, Dark Regen > Grounded.

But if you're finding the dark to be a bit squishy, I strongly reccomend EM/Elec. Go on, be uber [img]/uk/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]