Smiling_Joe
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Curse you, DumpleBerry. You made me snort Mountain Dew out my nose.Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
OP, as you can see, we're awfully helpful about everything and anything we can be. At least, until it comes to some punk trying to scam people out of money edging into our turf.
Then the knives and pipes come out.
Just like this:
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Is it wrong that I wanted the ability to call in an airstrike at level 18?
Yeah... probably.
I should just go to Warburg. -
Hmm.... Names relating to collision....
Captain SMASH
Naaah. Some brute likely has it.
Buckaroo Basher
Nope. Sounds like someone hates buckaroos, and who doesn't like buckaroos?
WHAMMO
Not bad, but not all that serious, either. I'd still be tempted to use that with a fist chest detail, but then I'm weird.
Captain WHAMMO
Full of win. I might take that one.
Or, as long as you're not playing on Liberty Server, you could just take the name I gave my crab spider:
BoomDaddy -
Quote:I like this idea! In fact, I'd be willing to give up everything else in Serum for a damres debuff, so long as it wasn't a token debuff. I hate serum in its current form.Originally Posted by Iannis
I thought something like Piercing Ammunition buff would be good. Supposedly Mercs are really crazy good, but ONLY after you get your minions and lts slotted with an Achilles' Heel chance to resistance debuff...and all 5 pets count as different sources, so they can stack the res debuff like crazy. Very nice for a bunch of pets that basically exclusively inflict Lethal damage. I've never bothered to try that out since Achilles' Heel res debuff is an expensive invention on redside's dead/market flipper run market though.
But a set that only gets good with IOs is sort of a suckily designed set, and there weren't even IO sets back when Mercs were created...
So. Serum--a useless buff--could be converted into a buff that grants -Res to a selected mercenary's attacks for a brief period. Sort of like how Ninja's Smoke Flash grants a selected pet the ability to bust out a few critical hits for a spike of damage. Smoke Flash Jounin, he goes choppy choppy better. Piercing Ammunition a Merc, all mercs do better blasty blasty (and your teammates too)
Just make sure to sic the merc you buff on the Boss so he's not wasting those shots, heh.
Be interesting to see how it would work with the aoe's that mercs can throw out. -
Quote:IMHO, that depends on your definition of tanking. If - by tanking - you're referring to keeping your teammates safe by killing your enemies, then I'd agree that Black Dwarf is a much better tank than White Dwarf.Originally Posted by SwellGuy
I'll throw in my reasons why I can tank better with my black dwarf than my white.
1. Secondary effect of slowing the attacks of the enemies mean I get beat up less.
2. When I compare my tactics for hitting the large groups I get a lot of support from my essences which throws it to Black Dwarf's favor. Without the pets, White Dwarf gets a huge headstart.
PB - summon seekers, superspeed in and Pulsar, build up, Solar Flare, switch to Dwarf, start the tanking stuff
WS - have 1-3 essences, tp in, human mire, dwarf, start the tanking stuff
3. Eclipse carries over to Black Dwarf form
But both can tank pretty well in a pinch.
However, in terms of pure (ie - pure as in: does nothing else) aggro management and self-contained survivability, I'd have to argue that White Dwarf wins out (but only slightly).
White Dwarf has two AoE taunts, knockdown mitigation and a self-contained heal.
Black Dwarf has one AoE taunt, slow mitigation, and a heal with an accuracy check.
By the Black Dwarf's definition of tanking, anyone who pwns from a position of relative safety is a tanker.
Now, is the Black Dwarf more powerful than the White Dwarf? Exponentially. My SO'd Black Dwarf makes my IO'd White Dwarf whimper with envy. Not only do eclipse and sunless mire carry over into dwarf form, but Black Dwarf's AoE attack is also a damage-buffing mire (hence the absence of a taunt effect) - to say nothing (as you rightly point out) of the fluffies. Add the damage from the self heal verses the no damage from White Dwarf's self heal and a Black Dwarf is a killin' machine.
However, killin' ain't tankin'. Like it or not, a Black Dwarf keeps a team safe the same way a scrapper does: in-yer-face enforced nap-time for the baddies. White Dwarf can't do that nearly so well - even on his best day. But the White Dwarf can afford to miss when he's fighting purples, because his heal is self contained, and if he misses with Antagonize, then the odds are in favor of a streak-breaker hit on Flare. He keeps the team alive just as effectively, but he does it as more of a meat shield.
In other words, he tanks. -
Last time I checked, the Dwarf Taunt is not single target. It is a 15 foot radius sphere aoe with a maximum of five targets.
I'm at work right now, and can't check in game, but if my (sometimes spotty) memory serves it is indeed an AoE taunt.
EDIT - NVM - Carnifax scooped me. -
Quote:I hear pelvic thrusting helps as well, but it'll drive you insane.Originally Posted by KayJMM
Lets do the Timewarp Agaaaaaaain!
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Mind/Kin Controller springs to mind as being fairly survivable and damaging for a level 2
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No, really!
Clearly the work of a lvl 24-ish Ninja Mastermind who's decided to go vigilante...
...and apparently color customization ("black-clad ninjas") for MM pets is being stealthed in as well....
<.<
>.>
/em smokebomb -
Quote:Good to know. Thanks!Originally Posted by Rush_Bolt
As in if it gets hit by... um, Ice Storm? Nothing. OSA ignores it.
Let me put it this way: OSA (or rather, Oil Slick Target, the targetable and killable pseudopet) has 1000% RES to EVERYTHING except Fire and Energy. You cannot hurt it at all with any damage other than Fire or Energy. -
What if it gets hit by a non-igniting aoe? I team pretty often with a TA Defender on my DP blaster, and it "seemed" like it never lit if I was using anything but Incendiary ammo, or if a teammate with a non-fire/energy aoe got in a shot before someone with a fire power. However, if I ran in as he fired of OSA and hit Hail of Bullets w/Incendiary ammo toggled, it lit every time with spectacular results.
I say "seemed" because it was just my impression at the time. I have no idea if hitting it with a non-igniting power "kills" it prematurely or not, but wanted to ask. -
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Quote:This. And don't forget chilling embrace: available at 10, brings down their damage, recharge and movement. Stacks nicely with cryo or chem rounds.Originally Posted by Nemu_
For survival, /ice
Shiver makes mobs take longer to get to you and it guts their recharge. It's almost like speeding up the animation times on the DP attacks. Ice patch is cute, useful at times. You also get a hold to stack with suppresive fire. Chilblain is the best single target immob among blaster secondaries, it does damage and -spd -rech even if the immob doesn't stick. -
Quote:Ah, higher enemies can be a problem, and there I can see the benefit there. However, those higher enemies also come with higher resistances to the very damage type that's most commonly associated with -def: lethal.Originally Posted by StrykerX
The real benefit from -defense is when you can't reliably hit the enemy. Good accuracy slotting means you'll generally hit +0 or +1 enemies 95% of the time, but that's not true of +3s and +4s or high defense enemies. Unless you have a lot of +to-hit, you will run into enemies you have a less than capped chance of hitting and -defense helps in those cases.
That said, -defense is pretty much the least useful secondary effect since in the vast majority of cases a well-built character will have no problem hitting.
I guess my problem isn't just with -def as it occurs in a vacuum so much as the way it's implemented. It almost always appears in sets with higher base accuracy (which devalues the debuff) and almost always with sets that do commonly and heavily resisted damage types (which further devalues the debuff).
I really appreciate the responses, everyone! This has been a bur under my saddle for a while. It's good to hear others' views on it, if only to confirm my relative sanity. -
Quote:Now I can see that as a benefit of having -def in your attacks, provided you make use of inventions, but then wouldn't you be crippling your chance to hit in the first place? Where's the sweet spot between slotting for accuracy and slotting for procs? Because I can - with just one accuracy SO - free up enough slots to put all the procs I want into a power and max out its damage (especially with IO generics maxing out ED at two lvl 50 Damage IO's) and still hit regularly enough to not notice.Originally Posted by Siolfir
Now admittedly, with accuracy slotting it's almost always overkill, but then you get into the real benefit of having a -defense secondary effect: slotting a ton of IO procs into the attacks.
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Quote:Thanks for the response!Originally Posted by Seldom
Not hitting stuff lowers damage, so -defense ups damage...and does so particularly well vs. Shifty/High defense foes. Hit them once, the next -defense is easier to land, as is damage...soon enough the high defense enemy's mean of survival is nixed. They also act as a ghetto +acc when the team is under a -tohit debuff. The team may be a lousier shot, but the target is easier to hit, so it evens out.
I'm afraid I still don't see the value, though. If I can hit them once, I can hit them again regardless of how easy it is - especially given the fact that most -def sets out there also come with increased native accuracy. Besides, there are few enough high defense foes in this game that merit continued debuffing before missing begins lowering damage substantially.
The same rings true for the tohit debuff. In teaming situations with foes that throw out those tohit debuffs, the team's tohit will be floored beyond the -7.5-ish % defense debuff your attacks give, and stacking it in meaningful amounts on multiple targets gets difficult given the recharge of your aoe's. Throw in the fact that most of your aoe's will be cones and/or small radius, and you're really not contributing much to alleviate that tohit debuff. -
Could someone please expain to me the value in defense debuffs as secondary effects, beyond the obvious that enemies will be easier to hit? I'm referring specifically to when they are used as a secondary effect here, and not to sets like radiation emission. In other words, why should I be excited in the least about a secondary effect that allows me to easier hit my enemies when I've already demonstrated that ability by - you know - hitting them?
For example, Sonic Blast from the blaster sets gets -res as a secondary effect, which helps increase damage output by bringing down an enemy's resistance. Fire gets extra damage to increase damage output. Ice Blast gets slows and Energy Blast gets knockback, both to help increase mitigation. Assault Rifle, on the other hand, gets -def to help with.... what? I mean, I can already hit them reliably when the secondary effect kicks in, and no matter how easily I can hit them I'll still be doing the same amount of damage to them.
I suppose I could slot one attack extra heavy for accuracy and then not slot accuracy so much in the others, but I don't really feel slot-starved enough to justify that. One Acc SO is more than enough to hit most enemies in the game, my mind really boggles when I realize that Assault Rifle (and other sets like Katana, not just picking on blaster sets, here) already comes with higher accuracy built into each attack! What? So why then do I even need -def as a secondary effect?
Teams first came to mind when I thought about it. A -def debuff would help teammates hit easier, but then most people I team with also slot accuracies in their attacks, and have virtually no problem hitting enemies either. Throw in a Radiation Defender or Controller with the -def toggle and -def secondary effect loses even more value. Then I remember that fewer than half the attacks in the typical -def set are aoe and I'm left scratching my head wondering how - unless my teammates are targeting through me - this benefits the team much at all.
I suppose it could help hit higher level enemies or higher ranked enemies, but then again, those same enemies will have increased resistance to the favored damage type of -def sets: lethal. I look at my level 40 warshade (for example) who does slows and negative energy typed damage, and realize he can cut through x8 spawns at roughly twice the speed as my level 50 peacebringer who does -def and smashing typed damage, and I wonder how on earth they can be considered equivalent secondary effect/damage type combinations. If -def came coupled with less resisted damage types, and smashing/lethal came with more damaging/mitigating effects like -res or slows, then I could see the logic, but as it's most commonly implemented I'm afraid I just don't get it.
Could someone help me get it? I'm missing something key, here, and it's driving me nuts. -
Quote:If and until they do, just get into the habit of doing the "Solar Flare Shuffle." Run up to the mob, side-jump, stomp. Unless you're on a catwalk, this generally knocks them into a wall. And if you're on a catwalk, well, there'll be no side-jump-stomp anyway unless you can figure out how to stomp the air.Originally Posted by Airhammer
Oh please please please please I wish they would get rid of the KB on Solar Flare..
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Quote:Agreed. Nowhere in the in-game data did I find any more than one tohit check. What I did find was "50% chance for 12 tics of xx damage over 3.5 seconds." (x2, for a total of 24 tics)Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I cannot speak for PvP, but this is most certainly not how HoB works in PvE.
When you click the button it makes one to-hit roll on everything in the AoE. If you hit, all 24 ticks are then rolled for, no matter how far away the bad guy runs or gets knocked back. Conversely, if you miss, no ticks are rolled for. I have never seen it start hitting someone who was out of the AoE and then ran in, although I never looked for that behavior and with Hot Feet it might be easy to miss since I expect orange numbers to go above enemies head when they get near me.
What that meant was confirmed for me when I used HoB in the next Arachnos spawn - I saw the dreaded "Miss!" over the Mu Guardian's head, and I only saw it once. Had further ticks been given tohit rolls I would have expected more "Miss!" messages to float above his head. As it was, no further messages - numbers or otherwise - appeared, and the guardian took no damage.
So the conclusion I have to draw for PVE is that it has one tohit check with tics over time. EDIT - with a 50% chance to do damage on each tic, right?
Now could someone clear something up for me, because I'm really at a loss to understand, and the in-game data was less than helpful. I've heard much ado made about the fact that HoB has a small chance to do no damage at all, and how that's somehow worse than the other Nukes. But if I'm not mistaken don't all Nukes have to roll a tohit check, and thus have a small chance to do no damage? And yes, if anyone can fire off a nuke and miss EVERY SINGLE TARGET in range, it's me. Been there.
So how's HoB any different in that respect? Is it the 50% chance thing? Using my keen powers of pseudo-logic I came up with the conclusion that should the power's tohit succeed, then there's a 50% chance that damage will happen, and from reading through the forums I've gleaned that it's a 50% chance for each of the 12 ticks seperately, but if that's so then shouldn't the in-game text read more like "12 tics of 50% chance of xx damage over 3.5 seconds"?
Thanks in advance. I've got too much other stuff crammed in the old noggin' to sort this out on my own.
EDIT - never mind, ignore everything that's in blue. - I think I've got it figured out. Once you get past the tohit check you STILL have a chance of doing no damage, albeit a small one if the 50% chance of damage fires on every tic. Common sense - and not, I note, in-game power "detailed information," says it would logically be a chance for every tic, if only because I can't imagine having a power requiring a tohit check also having an OVERALL 50% chance to do no damage
Seems to me the in-game text is misleading (at best) and should read (as I wrote above) "12 tics of 50% chance of xx damage over 3.5 seconds," because that's what really threw me for a loop. -
Quote:I disagree. The problem with +def is that it increases the likelihood that foes not affected by HoB will miss as well, meaning that the chances of having HoB get exploited for something other than its principal role of damage. How many blasters - especially those with IO defense bonuses that are just under the soft cap - would fire off HoB completely out of range of any spawns just for the added defense in an upcoming fight?Originally Posted by Necrotron_RO
A fear effect would be effective, but I believe a short +Def, as has been suggested, is more iconic for a pistoleer.
Okay, that's a bit hyperbolic on my part. Okay. It's A LOT hyperbolic on my part. The type of defense it gives might just be melee or might be short-lived and small anyway. BUUUUT I'll take any heat I get for not hitting backspace on that paragraph. It's still a factor, even if it is more of a thematic factor.
As far as being thematic goes, what's more thematic: killing a bunch of guys with your wicked gun-kata and somehow getting a defense bonus to all the other guys who just walked into the room, or being so completely focused on making the guys you're currently engaging miss on account of your zinging bullets that you've still got to deal with those other guys. AND since they just came into range they are suddenly completely focused right on the lone fighter who just downed their comrades? EDIT - or, pending any damage buffs, MOSTLY downed them, but made them really mad too.
After all, if you were on the receiving end of a Hail of Bullets-like attack, wouldn't you try to duck and cover? And if you did, how accurate do you think your return fire would be? Someone on the outside of that attack, however, would know EXACTLY where to aim to stop the craziness. -
On teams I always let someone else take the aggro and then only nuke from the edge of the spawn. To run to the middle is to take damage from all those AOE's that get tossed out on the player who just ran in before you even begin the animation. I've drawn aggro right through my wife's Warshade even through taunt with HoB, but once I started nuking the edge of the spawn the dyin' (on my part) stopped.
Solo I generally open up with Executioner's Shot (slotted for range) or Piercing rounds. I can generally get off one or two more of the shorter animating attacks before the first of the spawn gets to me, and if there's no corner handy to pull to I'll open with HoB as the first wave reaches melee range. Since anyone moving into the AoE takes damage regardless of when they enter, I usually have a bunch of bodies on the floor afterword, but I always back up a step and hit Empty Clips and/or Bullet Rain to finish off the stragglers.
HoB takes MUCH less priority over the other attacks solo, but once I learned to use it I found it very useful.
Quote:You know, I could get behind that. Stalkers didn't have a fear/tohit debuff component to their Assassin Strike until some player asked for it.Originally Posted by b0bcatmc
I'd love a short PBAoE fear effect in HoB that started right as you clicked it. Take at least some of the heat off you as the animation played. -
Quote:Hold on... trying to breathe....Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Oh, but they are. You hold one demon in each hand and squeeze their necks to make them shoot fire out of their nostrils. It's exactly the same.
...phew...
Funny stuff, especially if you imagine the "tortured rubber ducky" sound effect that must inevitably erupt from your demons as you flip through your attack chain!
Just be careful you squeeze their necks and not their bellies. Backfires are hell. -
I went with /fire. Blazing Aura, Burn, and Hot Feet keep the 7' area around me relatively sparse for incoming melee damage, and Consume keeps the blue bar full.
Hot Feet's slow and fear components keep enemies in my Hail of Bullets aoe that much longer without them trying to kill me while it's animating. Throw in Hoarfrost and Hibernate from the Ice epic and it worked very well for me on test.
On test, I skipped the swords and Combust. Planning on taking combust or Fire Sword Circle on live at some point. I might have to give up tough or aid self, though. -
Shadow maul and buzz-saw? Does not compute.
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My personal feeling has been since closed beta that they erred on the side of weak with the intent of buffing after datamining.
::shrugs::
Still an interesting discussion to me. If I were a betting man, however, I'd gamble that the dev's will be more likely to buff the effects of swap ammo than they would the overall damage of the set. Throw in a tweak to the HoB's recharge and call it a spread.