SoilentGreen

[ QUOTE ]
I know very little about pvp but I like guessing games so my money is on Nova form Kheldians.

[/ QUOTE ]

Already quite popular in I13

for that 1/200 to be true, you're going to have to go on a regular-play binge to make up for the hours you spent droning yesterday in RV.

[ QUOTE ]
...as of last night im accolading my good old dark/cold.


focused acc + self heal + -to-hit + kb + massive -def = oh this is gonna be fun.

guess i'm gutting my sr brute after i14...

[/ QUOTE ]

Or you could stick to droning like you typically do. That will never be nerfed.

Hmm....it depends on a number of things, but it's my opinion that you're better off having one "support" character and one that can be your "killer".

Even with a full compliment of buffs from your partner, you won't be putting out that much damage compared to other ATs. Beyond that, the DR on heals (and travel suppression) are going to hamper your efforts to keep each other alive, much less killing others.

I'm in favor of having 1 Emp (who can heal himself and heal/buff the other) and a damage-dealing class who will be the attack dog.

However, if you're tied to the idea of 2 Emp/Arch you will probably do OK if you work together, maintain buffs on each other and coordinate your attacks.

I know Stalkers can Crit out of Hide on Flurry - does the same hold true for Widows?

2 is enough - my PB has no KB protection outside of Dwarf and I regularly withstand KO Blow's knock-up.

I'll agree with the defiance bonus on Scare - but if you're looking for getting much out of the fear portion it's not worth using or taking.

Sonic is one of the better sets these days, so that's a good start. The resistance debuffs can stack on an opponent pretty quickly.

You'd have a hard time taking Psi Tornado, however since it's in the Psi Blast primary - but you wouldn't want to take it anyway.

Drain Psyche can be helpful against opponents who rely on regen or have end-heavy sets...otherwise it's kind of gimmicky in a 1v1 setting.

Mind Probe and Subdual can be decent - 1 for DoT damage and the other for a decent all-psi "big hitter". TK Thrust can also be useful due to the huge amount of KB you can slot it for.

The 2 AoE's, the Fear and the Confuse powers aren't particularly useful in PvP these days...

Step 1 - Find MM close to building

Step 2- Attack him with your PB from range (approx. 150 ft.)

Step 3- Watch MM's pets jump out of his BG range trying to attack you

Step 4- Finish him off with final shot

Alternatively, spam your single target Nova form attacks from max range - the MM will either try to 'tough it out' or will take some risks to get in range that will give you an advantage.

I find that hover blasting MM's puts them on the defensive quicker than just about anything.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


-Surveillance is a good opener - Surveillance, BU, Shatter followed by ranged attacks either from the mace or gun


[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't surveillance break your hidden status and make shatter not crit? I've never played a bane.

Other than that, that's a good summary.

From what I've seen, at least in sirens, the best banes are the flying ones. Playstyle revolves around basically shatter + couple follow-up attacks....usually after webnading the target.

The problem with banes is.....what's the point? A while ago I came up with my night widow build, which seems to have caught on. It's basically the same thing....one big melee attack (slash) followed by a couple ranged attacks (mental blast + poison dart) that can be chained non-stop. And from the tests my friends did, it seems that slash actually does more damage than shatter....but I can't guarantee that.

But basically it's the same exact playstyle....except NW's also get elusivity....and elude. Having a NW, I just can't force myself to make a bane.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why? Because the Bane armor looks cooler and sometimes you want to smash things with a big, metal club instead of cut them.

I have a Widow that I did some PvP with, but since the introduction of I13 it's been on the shelf for the most part. With perma-mindlink and elusivity, surviving is a little too easy. I play my Bane from time to time for the variety and the challenge - it's pretty fun.

Here's a few things that might help:

-Stack your stealth (stealth IO etc.) so you can initiate combat the majority of the time. VEATs have a high stealth cap so even buffed heroes won't see you that far away.

-Other than Shatter, you won't want to use more than 1 other melee attack. Shatter/ Ex-Strike is a great opener as a jousting power to be followed up by ranged attacks

-Banes don't get elusivity, so your defense will be weak in PvP - get Aid Self or Phase or both (Phase can be obtained as a temp power)

-Surveillance is a good opener - Surveillance, BU, Shatter followed by ranged attacks either from the mace or gun

-Placate is good for additional damage and survival

Check the SoA forum; there is a thread about this somewhere...

I've got a Shield/SS that I've done some PvP here and there with. I usually only go to Siren's with him, and at that level I have the choice of fitting Tough into the build or adding Aid Self.

Currently I'm running with Tough to supplement some damage resistance when I do get hit, but I'm wondering if I would get more mileage out of Aid Self. Any thoughts or exeperience from the group would be helpful...

With diminished returns Tough isn't going to help an Invuln. tank very much. It will provide resistance to all, including Psy, which could be somewhat helpful...

[ QUOTE ]
... even trade-within-account, I am sorry, but that's not going to happen. Characters of different levels earn Merits at different rates. Merits are supposed to streamline the reward process for that character, and that's not going to be changing any time soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Boo.

Of course, I can earn merits faster on one of my 50s, buy a recipe and give it to another character on my account with the help of a friend. Does this make the 'other' character's earn rate higher? It virtually does, but requires a middle man.

It's the same end result, but the middle-man can be taken out with account-wide rewards. Same could be said with influence, recipes, enhancements, salvage etc. I Don't get why the Devs feel like they need to make us jump through hoops. Timesink, I guess.

Another thing about RTTC and other similar powers - you get stunned or held and you have to retoggle them. It's a pain in the butt. I had against all odds on my Shield/SS tank that I PvP with, but it kept getting knocked off so I decided to bag it and get a different power.

by plenty you mean you get hit 1/3 of the time when you think you probably shouldn't ever be hit?

Wow...so even if you have a lot of +Acc bonuses, you're lucky to end up with a modifier of anything over .30 or so?

With those numbers...let's say someone has 90% elusivity running. I have 90% Acc in an attack and 30% Acc set bonus. Does that mean my +Acc is 30%? Then it moves on to to hit and defensive calculations?

Would we be able to create missions that weren't co-op but PvP? One side with ally NPC's and one side with Villain NPC's and players from opposing factions?

That just lists the defensive values. I don't see any elusivity values. As I understand it, Elusivity is basically -Acc to the oppenent, right?

I'm not a huge fan of human-only builds, but here's what I think you could do to improve this build...in my opinion, of course.

Why only 3 slots each in your heals (EB and RE)? I'd think you'd want to put at least 4 or 5 slots in each of those. The quicker they are up, the more survivable you are. With decent bonuses and Hasten, you can nearly perma EB and have RE up every 15 - 20 seconds.

I'd take a slot from both your self-rez power and your nuke and reallocate them to the heals. You could also harvest an extra slot from Solar Flare and frankenslot those 5 slots to have the same effectiveness as your current slotting.

If you leave your build as-is and add in some purple sets, you'll probably be just fine. Those are the only suggestions I have. It's a solid build.

Just roll a PB, get a bunch of accuracy bonuses and slot up Nova form. That, plus -def in each attack will get you hitting those high def/elusivity enemies without issue.

[ QUOTE ]
From the article:

With two separate builds, will you have to outfit both builds separately with Enhancements? Won’t this end up increasing your costs?

Yes & Yes. This feature has been heavily requested by our player base and we’re excited to be the first MMO to make this feature available. That said if you are worried about your Inf. being drained by this, the system, like many others we have added, is completely optional. If you have never found yourself asking for a different, situational build then you don’t need to worry about this feature at all.

Buying and crafting IO's is already a tedious time sink. You may as well roll and level another character.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very lame.

While I appreciate the dual-build option, the necessity of all-new enhancements puts a definite damper on it.

Good ideas.

I personally like to head up to the towers in the last mission to clear the 300 up there. With the right team mix, you can down 300 in 5 - 10 minutes. The best thing I've seen for this is 1 or 2 Illusion controllers dropping PA aggroing the entire tower to the middle. PA has no aggro limit, so you can have a massive herd right in the middle just waiting to be downed by a bunch of AoE's.

I really hate the second mission...your technique works. I've also used the kill everything around the crystals and leave them for the very end method. It seems they both take about the same amount of time.

The third mission...I prefer the method that has the entire team on the bridge while the generals are pulled to the bridge. This cuts down on lag, as well as cuts down on any potential aggro from the surrounding groups. Once you've got the number down to 1, it's on to the control and AV's.

P.S. I think there is a video out there showing a team completing it in under a half hour.

That's Defiance at work. It's the blaster inherent.