Silas

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  1. Gonna try and answer your questions in order. For general /Dark information however, I've got a guide in my sig.

    Generally you want most powers from your primary since dealing damage is important.

    That said, there are a few you might want to skip because they're stinkers/are situational/dependent on preference. For Dark Blast, Torrent is terrible because its a KB cone with terrible damage. Dark Pit you may or may not want. It's an AoE stun, but the numbers are pretty bad and it'll only stun minions and lts. That said, it will stack with Howling Twilight from your secondary. So my recommendation for that would be to play with it and decide if you like it. You might also want to skip Moonbeam because its a snipe, but thats another question of preference. Finally, Blackstar you might want to skip because while its a nuke, it doesn't do a lot of damage and outside of APP powers you don't have a way to regain your endurance after the crash.

    Generic slotting solution would be 1-2 acc, 2-3 damage and 1-2 end rdx and/or recharge depending on the attack. This will ensure you get enough accuracy, damage and end redux/recharge as needed. If you're not going for sets though, my recommendation would be frankenslotting your powers. That's mixing and matching IOs that enhance multiple aspects of a power from different sets. For example, several acc/dam IOs from different sets. This is a much more slot efficient way to slot a power, often giving you more than 5-6 slots worth of enhancement.

    Travel powers that work well for a Dark...I'd say Speed. Hasten brings up your powers faster, which is great for stuff like Tar Patch, Howling Twilight, Fearsome Stare etc. It'll also help you cycle your two damage cones (Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall) faster. The stealth from Superspeed will also stack with the stealth in Shadowfall granting you complete invisibility. That means you can position yourself to line up your cones without getting shot at until you start the fight.

    Hope that helps

    Oh and last thing, Confront/Taunt is far from useless on a Scrapper.
  2. Also, the only thing which the new Incarnate abilities bring that affect your build is the average damage from the Interface DoT on your attacks. So its hardly a priority and remember this is something these guys do in their spare time.
  3. re: Interface, I've just thought, having the team stacked with Interface wouldn't make a big difference anyway because it has a stacking limit which you'll easily hit with only a few people. Even if everyone had the DoT one it'd be nice but still not a huge amount of extra damage.
  4. I don't recall how Reactive-heavy the team was, but I don't think it was terribly so. In the grand scheme of things, we didn't actually have a lot of debuffers. IIRC, for -res we just had 3 Rads and a Storm. -regen wise the 3 rads and some from Photos kin. 4-5 debuffers out of 16 really isn't a lot. I'm almost certainly forgetting someone (sorry!) but the point is, you don't need stupidly stacked debuff teams to do it.

    Psi damage definitely helps. Even just one psi damage dealer like a Fort or Blaster can make a significant difference since Marauder doesn't seem to resist it at all. If that character can pump out a lot ST damage it does make a difference.

    As for minimizing Marauder 1shotting people, with decent defense buffs he's really not that dangerous as long as people back out of Nova Fist. For our run, I think most people would have been softcapped (to the new values) so he wasn't that big a threat to be honest.

    I was actually surprised how little of a threat the 10 portals pumping out ambushes were. I think its mainly because in the beginning they're all converging on Marauder so the spawns swell pretty quickly. Once you're fighting Marauder and he's jumping around the spawns are a lot more staggered in how they get to the fight. At which point they're asploded by Judgements/AoEs.

    The biggest difficulty is dropping Marauder in time. It takes a long time to burn him down when he's Enraged. Making sure to use all available -regen on him is also important to maximize the damage that you do apply.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Deacon_NA View Post
    [...]I'm still struggling to figure out what "problem" the devs were solving when they introduced this. I've never heard complaints that "My Brute did 40% of the work on this 8-member tf but I get the same reward everyone else did." As mentioned earlier, there's a policing mechanism for leeches (kick button). I've never seen anyone express a desire for any more granular rewards system.
  6. I'm pretty sure when it crits when used out of Hide it should still recharge BU. Going BU -> AS -> Placate -> CS should recharge BU, yes.

    You don't get a critical message above the mob when CS crits, at least I don't get one on my KM Scrapper, but you can see PS instantly recharge if you're paying attention.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheBruteSquad View Post
    Doesn't Rooted also include endurance drain resistance and defense debuff resistance? It's the strongest/most comprehensive mez protection toggle in the game, I believe.
    Also true, a good point.
  8. No problem

    I suppose I could also give explaining it mechanically a shot. Rooted gives you +100% regen. Only Elec and WP have powers that offer comparable regen, RttC which requires 4 foes in melee to reach that level of regen and Energize which requires huge amounts of global recharge to make permanent. That said, RttC can give you far higher levels of regen and Energize also has a hefty heal component.

    So Rooted gives you that level of recharge, but you pay for it with reduced mobility. Which I guess the devs figured made sense because you're covered in stone, you're gonna be slow. Which does make sense, it just makes for poor set design IMO.
  9. Almost all of them, actually. Invuln and WP especially, with the exception of RttC having such a crap taunt component. Elec and DA are both pretty solid, Fire and SD are pretty good because they can be squishier than the other sets without IOs but bring more offensive capabilities.

    Ice is a little tricky, because its pretty easy to softcap but doesn't have a lot of protection beyond that other than Hoarfrost. Sure, you can get more s/l resists with Tough but that's not the set itself.

    In the past I would have argued that Unyielding was badly designed, way back when it rooted you. The set had some other more systematic issues, but they've all been resolved more or less. Before Burn had the fear component removed maybe Fire Armor, since it was squishier than the other sets because it had more offense, except that offense was counterproductive to tanking.

    Now its pretty much just Stone which is overall poorly designed IMO. To elaborate on the epitome of everything wrong with Tankers bit, by that I mean the paradigm of paying punitive costs in damage-dealing and/or mobility for superfluous survivability.
  10. I bash it all the time because its a terribly designed set which I'd otherwise like to like. Granite/Rooted is also the epitome of everything wrong with Tankers, IMO.

    I want Stone Armor to get the treatment that /Psy got for Doms. Break down the tier9 into a normal power, make the rest of the set not utter balls.
  11. SS/Fire Brute is the best.

    Elec/SD would be better for conventional map farming, since the majority of their AoE comes from the two telenukes. For ambush farms where you're almost permanently target saturated, the best way to go is several faster recharging AoEs. SS/FA has Burn, Footstomp, Fireball/Dark Obliteration/Ball Lightning, the patron AoE immob if you take it as well as Blazing Aura ticking away.

    Spines/Fire has a lot of AoEs (as does Spines/DA) but the problem is they don't have a taunt component in their auras like SS/FA does. This means stuff will scatter.

    Fire/Fire Tanker can work too, but SS/FA Brutes do more damage.

    Shield/SS Tanker can work but if going with Shield you'd be better off with a Scrapper for farming since they benefit more from AAO. Fire/SD Scrapper would work, but still wouldn't be as good as a SS/FA.

    SS/FA (or anything /FA) has the advantage that you can fight fire damage dealing mobs so you've got capped resists to their damage. This means you can use all your inspirations to max out your damage taking advantage of the high Brute damage cap.
  12. Because Stone Armor is an archaic and poorly designed set.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by UNB0UND_4_LIFE View Post
    [...]It's a game. It's all fun.[...]Sometimes I think people take this game far too seriously.
    Not trying to start a flame war. I just object to that kind of line because a) its obvious this is a game and shouldn't be taken seriously and b) it carries the implication that whoever the person is discussing with takes the game too seriously. Passive aggressive ad hominem, if you will.
  14. Except 2 of the best powers in /MM are PBAoEs, namely Drain Psyche and Psychic Wail.
  15. Silas

    Lore for tankers

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tubby View Post
    People with positional defense.


    >_>
    It's a shame these things only give typed defense, I hope its an oversight and will be changed. After all, Empathy Fortitude is all positions and types (except Toxic).
  16. Ah yes, the 'its just a game' card. Of course its just a game and shouldn't be taken too seriously, no one in their right mind would argue otherwise.

    Interesting you should play that card though, since in your OP you said you take tanking seriously and seem to take pride in it.
  17. Silas

    Class Project

    I'd go with Damage, Support and Control. All ATs do these things to varying degrees of specialization.

    Tanking/aggro control being under Control, all buff/debuff/healing being under Support. Even the 'pure' damage AT (Blaster) has some control powers.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Pinny View Post
    I'm torn between Void for my dark/dark/soul defender or Pyronic.

    One, void is PBAoE, but since dark miasma's heal is based on people around you, that should work to your advantage, but on the other hand: You're a defender. By the time you get in melee range most things have probably already been killed, but you don't want to rush into melee first because then you die.

    Pyronic solves the PBAoE problem, but now you're more tempted to stay at range, whereas the melees will most likely need the healing more.

    Even though I got void first, I'm kinda leaning towards switching to Pyronic. What do you guys think?
    Void. The higher tier versions can come with a -50% damage debuff which is massive and will stack nicely with the -damage from TG and DN.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by mauk2 View Post
    ....

    Do you even HAVE a tank?

    Or even bother to read the thread?

    Or know anything about tanking?
    From reading his thread which he posted in the Brute, Tanker and Guide forums, I'd say maybe, no and no.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Silverado View Post
    I don't know how much sense it would make for a villain to be running around with PPD pets
    Much like the current Lore pets, they wouldn't be PPD mobs, they'd be Well echoes of PPD mobs
  21. If you're dying a lot, softcapped s/l defense will help immensely. Especially since most melee damage is or has a s/l component.
  22. TA isn't a bad set at all, its just more debuffs/controls than other sets. The advantage of Arch/TA is you'll have amazing AoE damage, controls and debuffs, downside being no buffs.

    If you want a more general good-all-round set, I'm gonna second the /Dark recommendation. Cold is also really powerful but very late blooming whereas /Dark gets awesome from like level 4 onwards.
  23. This isn't a real guide, therefore shouldn't be in the Guide forums. Other than that, I agree with St0n3y.
  24. As Dechs said, you can opt to see Leaguemates on your map. Same way you toggle neighbourhood markers, trains and trainers, etc.

    Yeah, I suppose there are situations where someone is having such massive lag that it appears they're AFK most of the time and that could be misleading. Still, though, you don't have to kick inactive people from the league. It's just an option if you object to a leecher getting the same chance for a rare drop as someone who contributes to the best of the ability.

    I personally think such a system would be preferable to the current one, but let's wait until I've spent an evening for each of my main characters gaming the system to get all my tier3s slotted