Siolfir

The problem is that you reduce the incoming damage, but reduce the outgoing damage as well while people try to figure out what they can hit and not hit with single target attacks and/or tab through them. So you're not really buying a whole lot. And if you have enough AoE damage that you don't have to worry about it, all it does is prolong things as you wait for mobs to start taking damage again.

I'd still say it's Time Bomb, though.

If you're just counting number of powers that are "heals" it would be Corruptor Pain Domination. 1 AoE heal, 2 single-target heals, and 1 AoE heal toggle is four actual heal powers to Empathy's three. Count the rezzes and +regen powers and it's even at six each, though, and ... ... this. Besides, Empathy's second single-target heal has a higher scale.

When playing my Empath, I think of CM, Fortitude, AB, and then healing - but she's a PvP character. For PvE, it's usually blasting and keeping Fortitude up, with occasional top-off heals. I actually tend to be more of a buffbot and healer while playing Kins in PvE... I consider not having stacked Fulcrum Shifts to be a moral affront.

Of course, this sums everything in the "healer" debate up nicely.

As someone who has a 50 SM/WP and 40 SM/ElA, I can say that you'll most likely be happy with either. I'd personally give the slight nod to /ElA because while Willpower is more survivable (RttC > Energize), cranking up the recharge on my SM/WP (she's at ~220-230% with slotting + global) causes her to run through endurance even with Stamina + QR and ~60-70% EndRed slotting. But she almost never bites off more than she can chew - even without trying to softcap S/L.

On ElA the higher the recharge, the more often Power Sink is up to refill your end, and Fault means that the survivability difference is far less noticeable than it would be for other primaries. On top of that, you get a damage aura for slightly more AoE damage - a weak point for SM - which also provides a Taunt that doesn't need slotting to hold +2 mobs close to you.

So many inappropriate responses, so little desire to be banned providing them...

If you have all of your powers, you have all of your slots. You don't lose slots for exemplaring, which is why enhancements are reduced in effect when you exemplar below level 32.

This. Fault just is that good. Especially when you have increased recharge and infinite endurance, but that doesn't come for /ElA until later.

Color-coding replies by section rather than continuing to split the quote:
If you have it queued, there isn't an alpha strike to take - and if you lead with it, it'll work on mobs that it won't work on later (Cimerorans, I'm looking at you). Superspeed works great for this.

Not directed at you, but just in general: EM is "a" single-target specialist set. It's not the best set for it - it's not even the best that uses an exotic damage type - but it is the best at low recharge. But survivability comes into play here, too: my EM/ElA was made during the heyday you're talking about, and ET cycling every 6 seconds meant that I was doing more damage to myself than the mobs were. So I could either lose damage to Aid Self's animation, or lose damage to not using ET. If I didn't use ET as often as it recharged I was doing less damage than most other sets, so I made a SM/WP - which could actually do more DPS even accounting for ET with the old mallet animations for the level of recharge I was at on my EM/ElA, with a lot better survivability. Then came the EM nerfs, and I let the EM/ElA sit for a long time and only kept her because she was my redside badge character. I picked her up again once Energize came out and she's still fun (and can solo +2/x8 against most enemies), but the old rapid-fire feel is still gone and if I'm expected to tank I end up using Ball Lightning, Lightning Field, and Power Sink to bottom out the spawn's endurance.

If you really want a big number, go with /FA*. My SS/FA Brute has hit a single KOB for over 1k damage on a +2 mob without external buffs/debuffs: <3 new Fiery Embrace.






* - of course, then you'll be even squishier than /ElA

Plus the hellfire imps are just too cute!

I think that you may have an advantage over an EM Brute.

But yes, +0/x3 with bosses shouldn't be trouble for any Brute once they get enough slots for accuracy and endurance management, barring specific set weaknesses. SM just means that you can do it with only the mez protection turned on from your secondary.

I have yet to ever be in a situation where either point would be significant in this game.

If you have, then I suggest that better Trip Mine placement - since you can set an entire field before Time Bomb would recharge, creating a radius far in excess of 20' - would resolve both #1 and #2.

The thread was stickied, but it was unstickied since a lot of the information changed since it was compiled (none specific to EM). I headed there and noticed it wasn't on the front page, remembered a comment from BillZ about requesting that it get unstickied, and did a search for the thread title to find it.

As for the numbers, the "quick and dirty" way to a decent DPS chain is to hit the already-recharged power that has the highest DPA. It's not always the "best" chain, but it's better than random button mashing - which is why I listed the DPA on the attacks.

As for the build, since the DPA on Barrage is fairly low you could probably move the slots to Boxing for the set bonuses, shuffle around a couple of powers, get either Build Up or Aid Self moved earlier, and pick up a low-slot utility power (Taunt? Resuscitate?) instead. You may also want to swap the sets that are slotted in EP and ET, so that the higher damage proc that fires more often is in the power that recharges faster.

Not a horrible use for a +rech proc, but if you've already got enough global and/or slotted recharge to skip Stone Mallet and still have a full attack chain - which isn't hard, if you use Tremor - then you're probably better off with damage procs. Also, the Taunt and KB damage procs are fairly cheap the last time I looked for them.

I've run into this before once or twice on PuG STFs with my Ill/Rad, and depending on how much I really care about completing the TF quickly I may or may not listen to them (if I'm in a hurry, I ignore them).

On the flip side, I've also gotten on some really fun teams and got a MoSTF badge during a run with my Cold/Ice Defender when I didn't even notice that the options were set (), and my first MoLRSF run was a 6-Corr, 2-Brute PuG where 6 people had Vengeance and we decided that we'd set the options for giggles since if anyone ever DID die we knew we'd be able to finish without temps.

The trick is to find more of the second type of group than the first.

Also, SB plz.

?!


or... I don't feel that the answer matches the question asked

You need to recheck the activation time of Hasten. >.>

I like Kinetics because it plays like Brutes used to before the Fury changes... you have a perpetual damage buff that you have to keep moving to maintain, and the faster you play, the better it performs. Other people hated the old way Fury worked for the exact same reasons, though, so I can see it.

If you're accounting for steamrolling teams, then they're behind most combos - they offer more safety, but at the expense of longer recharges. If you're steamrolling, you want those recharges low.

As for overhyped: pre-nerf Energy Melee. It was overhyped enough that the devs actually listed "people on the forums going lol for taking non-EM" as one of the reasons that it was nerfed, and never did anything well except single-target damage and single-target stuns... and it was only great at single-target once you got ET cycling every 6-7 seconds (230% recharge and up). At mid-levels of recharge, SM outperformed it with the old mallet animations while providing far better crowd control if/when needed, and SS can provide high-end single-target damage along with top-tier AoE.

Stamina didn't make the low level endurance issues worse. Poor decision-making made the low level endurance issues worse. Stamina just gave you a false sense of security over what you could get away with.

It's true: if you pick expensive powers and use them all the time, it doesn't matter if you have Stamina or not. So don't use them all the time until you can get some more slots into them to reduce the endurance cost.

This, with a caveat: While you can't get the accolade itself as a vigilante/rogue, nor can you use the accolades for the opposing side, you can get all of the badges needed for the accolades as a vigilante or rogue, and then the accolade will open up immediately when you finish switching. So if your vigilante gets all of the mayhem mission exploration badges, they'll get Invader as soon as they complete the alignment mission that switches them to villain.

Also, if you switch sides with an accolade, you get the opposing side's corresponding accolade, whether you have the appropriate badges or not.

And if you get hit during Placates animation before the next power gets queued, you get no benefit at all. Also, keep in mind that the most damaging non-AS attack for several sets is an AoE which is only a 50% critical and that neither EM nor KM get any extra damage from their heavy hitters after Placate at all.

It's not necessarily a straight-up benefit to damage when compared to just filling in another attack that's already queued (usually, it's not any benefit).

Nitpick: Power Sink contains a 30% chance for -100% recovery for 4 seconds, which is the same chance and duration that Ball Lightning has. You'll never be able to keep it applied permanently with just Power Sink, but it definitely exists.

And even the "chance for" drains work well when chained - my EM/ElA Brute was able to sap Deathsurge dry using Mu Lightning (30% chance, -300% recovery for 4 sec) and Power Sink (admittedly, most of the heavy lifting there was cycling Mu Lightning).