Shred_Monkey
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Posts
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Joined
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To the OP.
For solo play vs hard single targets, I agree, DM is the top option.
However, if you team frequently, or fight large spawns, DM is no longer the top option. DM is still good on teams, but other sets do better. Almost every other set has more damage output versus large spawns. And in most teams, scrappers do not benifit from having a heal. Actually, in 99%+ of solo encounters, scrappers do not benifit from having a heal either. I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again as it applies very well to this setting. My DM/Shield is more powerful then my DB/SR. However, if I list all the solo encounters in the non-AE content of this game where my DM would succeed and my DB would fail, i'll get a list of about 5-6 NPCS. That's really not that big of a deal.
Very frequently we scrappers numbercrunch and argue/discuss about ultimate power builds as though we solo everything and everything we do requires every ounce of our greatness. But believe it or not, this is actually a team oriented game, and the structure of rewards in this game favors speed over difficulty.
Here's a specific example:
The wall in Cimerora is an area I frequently solo while waiting for an ITF to form up, or just for kicks. I do this with either my DM/Shield, my DB/SR, or my Fire/Mental blaster. All 3 of them are fully IO'd with purples and PvP IO's. All 3 of them have no survival issues if I do 1 spawn at a time. Of the 3, you would probably expect the blaster to clear spawns fastest, followed by the /Shield scrapper who happens to have DM. However, it's actually the DB/SR scrapper who runs the fastest on the wall. The DB/SR scrapper can herd 2-3 spawns at once. The Blaster could not survive pulling that many enemies with -defense buffs, and the DM/shield scrapper doesn't have room in his build to get enough +tohit to make pulling multiple spawns that have a stacking +defense buff a viable option. The DM/Shield scrapper can drop a single spawn fastest by using shield charge, but even with a 27 second recharge, it's not up fast enough to keep up with the DB/SR's damage output. The DB/SR can herd 2-3 spawns (I usually agro by killing the surgen then move to the next spawn), then back up to a corner. Then everything comes crowding into my cone attack range and get dropped remarkably fast.
Elec/Shield, no doubt would out perform the DM/Shield by even more at this type of encounter.
Don't get me wrong. DM/ is awsome... DM/Shield even more so.. so much so, that I really just quit playing him out of boredom. But there are some very common encounters where other scrappers out perform him by a wide wide margin. -
I'd start with lethal/smashing. Kinetic Combat in all your attacks. And pick up the pool defense powers where you can. The steadfast protection +3defense IO of course, as well.
I would think you could get 30+ defense to smash/lethal at level 36. You probably won't have great recharge, but your survivabilty should be solid with 2 heals. -
Also being an engineer sort of person, I can tell you, the most efficient way to get your build finished is to play the market. Once you have a nice chunk of seed money (300-600 Million gets you respectably into the game), what you do with your play time isn't going to matter much relatively speaking.
I think with AE missions you might actually do better selling rare salvage. The market forum could probably give you a better answer to that question.
I think the fastest and most enjoyable way to play and make money is to run task forces and spend merits on random recepie rolls. Farming might give you a little better inf/min return if you're already maxed out, but it feels a little too much like working and not like playing to me. -
Quote:The biggest problem with fire/kin controllers is that after all that influence and build tweaking, you're still a f*in fire/kin controller.Originally Posted by Fantomas
My only problem with this is that every single farming Fire/Kin I talk to says the exact same thing..."be ready to spend a lot of inf"...
The impression I get is that a lower inf Fire/Kin build is just not worth it. I've seen some middle ranged inf scraps do some crazy stuff...plus, I just...can't...stop...playing...scrappers! hehe -
I've tried lobbying for divine avalanche and parry to have smashing and lethal defense, instead of just lethal defense. That would make it blend with the IO defense sets and willpower more seemlessly.
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Quote:I retired my DM/shield out of boredom as well. I've actually never used the buffed shield charge. It just felt wrong to me.Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Shields? meh....
I don't play mine much anymore... got a bit boring for me
missing in that thread is a 228 DPS build I had on my claws/SR. A DB should be able to put out the same or higher numbers.
A Katana/SR built properly should be able to put up 240+ DPS, so it'd be in the middle of all those shielders...
But then again a Katana/Shield could possible reach the 300 mark... Guess who'd be one of the first ones to roll one of those IF that were allowed to happen...
I'd often looked at making a katana toon for pure damage (sacrificing defense if needed and just rely on teams for that sort of thing). But then it occured to me that if I'm going to do that, I could just make a blaster.
Back to the original thread topic. I concur with Iggy that a fully slotted DB/SR should be right about the same as Claws/SR maxed out. And Katana should be slightly above those.
I don't know if it's by design, or chance that the top 3 primaries for ST damage are ones you can't combine with /Shields. They made the adjustments to those primaries that gave them those slots before /shields existed, but perhaps the dev's new shields was coming with a +dam buff and adjusted claws and katana accordingly (DB was always where it is.. claws and katana got a buff about 6 months before shields came). -
Quote:Wow... i'd seen that video before, but never recognized just how much Freddie Mercury practically defined an alternative lifestyle.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I've always had a soft spot for this song, not the least because its basically about sword/regen scrappers.
...great song of course. -
Just adding 1 more small detail. A scrapper with soft-capped defenses and nothing else does die a lot. Purple Arachons spawns can even take one down pretty regularly if you get in a big enough crowd with some bosses mixed in. Most people forget that in addition to soft-capped defense, most of the high end scrapper builds also have about +30% hp, a ton of regeneration, and in many cases, a heal. And on top of that, mitigation from primary attacks can keep some scrappers alive with their toggles off. Defense only *IS* weak as some of the earlier posts indicated. But most people have a lot more then defense in their soft-cap'd scrapper builds, even if they don't talk about it.
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Quote:I think what's really revealing about that list isn't so much how DM and Fire dominate the primaries, but how there's a huge gap between /Shield and /(everything else).Originally Posted by Werner
I think what you want is Dark Melee/Shield Defense. It and Fiery Melee/Shield Defense are your top DPS options, but the Dark Melee has more survivability in AV fights due to Siphon Life. Fiery Melee would likely be the better choice for regular play, though, as it has a lot higher AoE capability. The new difficulty sliders allow you to get full-team-sized spawns while solo, so AoE is, at least for me, a lot more attractive now.
Also see the Rikti Pylon Results Thread for a whole lot of examples of real-world DPS rather than calculated DPS. Mind you, we've gotten better and better at our calculations, and theoretical maximums are interesting, but I'd still consider Pylon soloing times on actual builds that people actually play to be the gold standard.
Here is a quick summary of the thread. Keep in mind that without knowing the builds, we could be comparing SOs to purples and PvP IOs. I know we're comparing DPS builds to survivability builds. So the position on this list is merely suggestive of a combination's potential DPS, not conclusive.
276 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Iggy Kamakaze
267 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - Igor The Mad
262 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Machine Man X
259 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Norse
255 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - Besserwisser
249 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - SkylineGTR
243 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Primal Dark
242 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - MrLiberty
241 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - Powerforge
239 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Effy On Malibu
236 Broad Sword/Shield Defense - Chaos String
219 Katana/Super Reflexes - Laevateinn
219 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - _Mojo_
210 Katana/Regeneration - Iggy Kamakaze
205 Claws/Super Reflexes - Powerforge
198 Claws/Super Reflexes - Iggy Kamakaze
196 Dual Blades/Invulnerability - Nihilii
194 Claws/Super Reflexes - Bill Z Bubba
190 Dual Blades/Willpower - Myriad
185 Katana/Regen - Werner
184 Dark Melee/Super Reflexes - Larac
180 Dark Melee/Super Reflexes - Werner
177 Katana/Dark Armor - Werner
175 Katana/Willpower - Iggy Kamakaze
174 Katana/Willpower - AgentMountaineer
174 Martial Arts/Shield Defense - Broken Prey
170 Claws/Regeneration - Iggy Kamakaze
167 Martial Arts/Super Reflexes - American Dynamo
165 Broad Sword/Invulnerability - Hopeling
160 Katana/Fiery Aura - Iggy Kamakaze
160 Dual Blades/Willpower - Soul Fane
152 Dual Blades/Regeneration - BrokenPrey
150 Katana/Dark Armor - ShadowBeast NA
149 Martial Arts/Regeneration - SpiderTeo OC
148 Dark Melee/Invulnerability - Aliana Blue
Too add to those results, I calculated just over 300 DPS for a Dark Melee/Shield Defense based on the time for an AV fight by Shred Monkey. Now, that was a lot shorter than a Pylon fight, so luck may have played a much bigger factor, but it's still something to consider in regards to top end performance.
Being a former fan of DB and now recently a renewed fan of DB (Shred Monkey is out of retirement in a big way). The thing that DB has that the others do not is the fact that it's biggest attack is a 90 deg cone. The splash damage to other badguys gets overlooked because it doesn't show up in a pylon test, or in the theoretical DPS threads. But it definatly is noticable in gameplay. Sweeping Strikes in Dual Blades is, in my opinion, the mest melee attack in the game for hitting multiple targets with big burst damage. (ok... shield charge and lightning rod do better, but I still believe those 2 attacks are broken).
I also believe DB can do better then it's performed in the above list. I've never actually timed a pylon kill with Shred. Now that he's rebuilt, I should do that sometime and see where it fits in. -
Quote:This is exactly what I did on my DB/SR.Originally Posted by EnigmaBlack
I would suggest using all level 35s for an all around durable toon
My defense powers all use lvl 35 IOs. Even my LoTG sets are lvl 35 or lower. I actually exemplar down very very well with my lvl 50 build. I ran every one of the TF Commander Task Forces over Christmas. I was very pleased with how well I could exemplar, and actually join lower level teams and TFs now regularly.... even down to level 15 for Positron. -
Failing missions does nothing in this game anyway. Unless they change that, there's really no reason to get excited about running out of time. Personally I enjoy the game much more when I get a new mission every 5-15 minutes instead of spending an hour on the same map with no advancement in the storyline. In my opinion, timed missions should have timers of 15-20 min max and they should always be difficult to finish on time. They should also all have very clear warnings prior to accepting them that they are timed.
Newer mission arcs generally don't have timed kill all missions and don't give them to you unannouced. I think the Dev's learned what want and and don't want in the first few years of this game, but they never went back to change old arcs to make them comply with more appropriate standards. -
Quote:And this is how it begins. (btw, OP i'd like to know if you succeed in finding a seller. I'm in the market for one as well, but have been waiting in line with my 2B inf bid.)Originally Posted by Slax
It's now going for more than the inf cap?
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Quote:In all the project work I've done in the last 12 years... this rule applied to 90% of them. "Oh.. .you've spent $9M of the $10M we budgeted and you need another $3M to finish? Well, we can't shutdown the project now, can we? And we're too far behind schedule to do more value engineering? ...well, here you go."Originally Posted by Slax
This in turn reminds me of "pot odds" in poker or as we used to say in the dot com age "throwing good money after bad."
(by the way .. "value engineering" is just regular engineering, but when you tell a non-engineer that's what you're doing they think it's good and they'll leave you alone to get your work done. And yes... I do work inside a Dilbert cartoon.) -
I like this thread... it's actually an interesting process to work though.
I'll add that if you have to give up something, endurance is usually what I give up. Endurance has significant diminishing returns.
If an attack costs 10 End and is used every 5 seconds that's 2 end/s that attack costs you:
00% EndRed = 10/5s = 2.0 end/s
33% EndRed = 7.5/5s = 1.5 end/s
66% EndRed = 6.0/5s = 1.2 end/s
96% EndRed = 5.1/5s = 1.02 end/s
So you can see when I'm trying to cut down the cost of an attack chain, there's a big difference between no EndRed and 1 SO's worth. But the 2nd SO's worth and 3rd SO's worth are helping less and less overall.
note: I didn't show my work for how endred is applied. Here's a sample:
33% EndRed = 10 endurance * (1/1+0.33) = 7.5 endurance -
on a side note... it's one of the reasons Shields, IMHO, is overpowered. The buff from AAO is 2x larger then it appears designed to be for a decent percent of the time.
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I don't use 1K cuts. never liked it. Some people swear by it and the sweep combo, but I don't miss it. I do have Typhoon and use it whenever I'm inside a large spawn.
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It's pulse rate is shorter then it's duration and it stacks with itself. The jump to a higher number is the overlap between 2 pulses. It's been that way for over a year now, so I guess they're not going to fix it.
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*taps microphone*... ahem... I'd like to field this question...
Ok.. as an /SR you can run across a single patch of caltrops at practically full speed with no issue. It's the stacked patches that actually slow you down. If you play with their AI a bit you can learn to anticipate when they'll throw the trops down. If you agro a spawn from outside of caltrops they'll run toward you a little bit before throwing the trops. As soon as you see one start to throw trops you move off the patch before it gets stacked up (they don't all get within range at once if you make them come to you) ... a few more will come in range, so then you move again. Everytime you see trops thrown, you move off the patch. Before long you'll have the rythem and distance down and can do it almost second nature. The real trick is to keep moving so that they have to moving as well.
It's easier to do in a wide open outdoor maps, but from my expirience thats where KoA tend to be. (this also works for Chimera's minions) -
In no particular order:
Firefly the TV show (under appreciated by critics and network producers)
Avatar in 3D IMAX deserves mention, but it's so new, it's hard to see if it will stand up over time.
Lord Of The Rings.
the Wii
World of Warcraft... even if we're here because we don't like it, it's still the biggest thing in the gamer world.
Guitar Hero
American Idol
The UFC (becoming the biggest draw in the PPV genre) -
I like the idea of making them work like mission teleporter. But have it also take you to your base, or a few other handy drop off points.
But yeah... this gets brought up a lot. Enough that i'd almost expect to see something happen with it eventually. -
Why not skip to the real question. Is there going to a way we can exploit the side switching to transfer enhancements/recipes from side to side?
My guess is yes... but they'll try to limit how much that can happen. -
The other thing I really liked about /EA on the brute I had several years ago was the -perception aura. Sure if you're tanking, then reducing agro is a bad thing, but I usually solo'd. You can actually fight on the edge of a spawn without agro'ing the far side of the spawn with an /EA brute. That's an entirely different form of mitigation that's hard to account for with numbers, but still contributes significantly to survivability. And if you're a single target type damager, then you can really play a lot of games with agro management.
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When I started reading this post I had to go check the date it was written because it sounded like it was a few months old before the AE changes. I really don't think there's a lot of people PLing using only AE missions anymore. It exists, but it always will, since that's what some people want to do. I know through the teen levels if you go to steel canyon there's usually frequent broadcasts for teams looking for more. The same is true of Talos Island for the 20s. You might have to exemplar/sk up and down a bit, but due to recent changes you still get exp while exemplared, which helps make team forming easier.
The best way to find pick-up groups are global channels. There's a sticky post on most server forums with the common global channels listed. Granted the team forming on those tend to be task forces instead of mission teams, but they're still a good place to make contacts and get started. -
As mentioned, much of the /EA hate came before it had a heal.
Also a few months ago changed the +defense IOs to add more typed defense availability
which makes it more conveinient to soft-cap /EA then it used to be.
Generally speaking, /EA isn't as bad as it used to be. -
Quote:---Originally Posted by Player99
Originally Posted by Shred_Monkey
Blasters do more AoE damage then scrappers by far. It's not just a damage thing, it's an area thing. The blaster AoEs have much larger ranges and radiai, so they hit more spawn. (shield charge and lighting rod are a very glaring exception to this, but I'd say those 2 powers are unbalanced, not blasters).
isnt that a more build vs build thing? I know there are scrapper builds that ooze AoE havoc...
Additionally, on most teams, there are enough forms of mitigation that scrapper survivabilty is completely worthless. You can just as easily say "blasters do more damage then scrappers, and they don't die... what's the point of scrappers nowadays?"
Scrappers arent as likley to randomly fall in battle as a blaster, and dont require "babysitting" most of the time
As far as blasters not being needed vs having more buffs/debuffs. You're missing something. A team of buffers and debuffers might be do a huge amount of force multiplying to make themselves equal or better then a team full of damage dealers. But if you add 1 or 2 damage dealers to that team of buffers/debuffers you'll have WAY more force to be "multiplied." A mixed team of buffers and damage dealers is better then all of 1 or all of the other.
actually, 2 more buffers/debuffers would be making themselve sand the whole team each 2 x stronger. That is 8 players running around at 400%, as opposed to 6 defs and 2 blasters all running around at like 250%
The blasters more likley than not do not contribute anything but extra damage to a team, whereas the buffers will make the team better as a whole. Multiply by 8 vs 6...there we go
but yeah, that scenario is rare thankfully. But it still raises the question:
Why invite a blaster when other ATs can do their damage, while bringing other useful attributes to the team?
Scrapper attacks generally have a range of 7. If you're careful and take your time to gather a spawn in tight, yeah, you can hit a lot of it with your AoE attacks. Blaster just walk up and go boom, hitting practically everything (again, shield charge and lighting rod are exceptions that need looked it imho).
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We have 3 hero side ATs who can babysit well. My point is that the fact that scrappers do not need babysitting isn't exactly a big bonus to a team full of babysitters. If your team happens to be short on babysitters, then yes, scrappers are better then blasters. But if you have a good tank and/or good debuffs, then a blaster does more damage and doesn't die.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying we don't need scrappers... I'm saying the argument that there's no reason to play blasters is flawed.
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I run TFs a lot... There's no question that the fastest runs are on teams that have both good damage, and good buffs/debuffs. Teams with all debuffs with just a little damage ends up slower... we win, but it's slower. All damage and no debuffs also end up slower... again, we win, but it's slower. Combine both, and you have fast runs. Most buffs/debuffs have diminshing returns. They may stack with each other, but the 3rd and 4th buff/debuff dont' multiply the output relatively speaking in the same way as the 1st and 2nd did. The same is true for adding damage toons. The mix of both is where you have maximum effect.