Spiritchaser

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And if your Dark Armor Brute is weaker than your EA Brute, you built your Dark Brute wrong. Very wrong.

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Provided we're not discussing substantially IO'd builds, I can agree with this.

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Either end, Dark will end up better. It just has better tools for issues.
Bad players yield bad results. Of course, that applies to both sets as well but hey.

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Going from personal experience, my SS/Dark without IOs was most definitley stronger than my SS/EA without IOs

With IOs, my SS/EA is the more universally capable of the two. Softcapped defence just takes it over the limit.

Now: you could argue that /DA with extra defence can be "tough enough" and have a damage aura. That might be a fair argument, but it's obviously subjective. /Dark can do a lot of different things with IOs, but /EA can do one thing very well, and that's a thing that most foes cannot handle at all.

Now, if we shift over to some really nasty AE missions, then a /Dark with capped ranged def might just possibly pull ahead again, or at least be close to even.

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And if your Dark Armor Brute is weaker than your EA Brute, you built your Dark Brute wrong. Very wrong.

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Provided we're not discussing substantially IO'd builds, I can agree with this.

I think that's an excellent approach, but I mean an excellent approach on your part, not on the part of such a design.

A costume dependent color option would be great, and would even allow dominators to have different power colors for domination mode if they wanted to do a quick costume change...

But it doesn't address the potential damage to someone else's gameplay, because it relies on other players to be responsible, and to have "reasonable" standards/taste/opinions.

Reasonable, in this context, probably can't, maybe even shouldn't exist.

A click option that disables other players customized colors on your own display would probably be a reasonable way to deal with things, in fact, there are a lot of good suggestions here about how to avoid the potential problem. Perhaps the devs have already got something in the works.

I'm going to have to see what the set looks like and what I can do.

I want a gun-fu character. That's going to mean a lot of IOs for positional defence, and probably energy melee for the most martial-arty blaps. We'll just have to see what it looks like.

The following questions really are questions, I'm planning this same build myself:

You haven't got a lot of accuracy in those attacks, and with no global acc, you're relying on tohit buff, which is badly hit by DR. Are you not concerned about that?

You don't have that much knock magnitude in power push. Wouldn't it make sense to go over 35 or so?

You could put that stealth IO in sprint

Are you really concerned about AoE defence or are those 3 zephyrs just there for base bonuses?

How useful is snowstorm in this era of PvP?

Again, these are the same concerns I'm dealing with.

I've been generally surprised at how very cheap it seems to be to build a blaster, as compared to what's suggested for some other ATs... so some playing around isn't that big a deal...

I don't know, it's always best to get on to the "to do" list early... stuff that comes up near the end of a project usually only gets done if it's REALLY critical

EDIT: and Slax shadow boxing in a bright Pink/Green/orange flame probably doesn't actually count as critical.

Don't get me wrong, Id really get a laugh out of the idea of making a male thermal corruptor called... I don't know, maybe Prescilla, or something, and changing the colors of his secondary set to pink and... well maybe a slightly different pink... and then throwing pink flamey mockery on some of the player base.

But I won't. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the bottom line is, it's going to be more destructive in the long run, and while it might be funny, I don't really feel I have the right to damage other people's hard one recreation time.

But with I16, it looks a lot like someone COULD do this.

Pink flames, black force fields, blinding white sonic armor? Irritating people, damaging their game experience or causing eye injuries (ok maybe that's a bit over the top)

Some people will make a carrear out of griefing those in zones with things like that.

Let us select and remove granted buffs in the buff bar, and the problem will be substantially solved. Putting a timer on re-granting a buff thats been removed will solve even more of it.

Keep in mind that DR hits tohitbuff very hard right now. Aim is still *better* than buidup for hitting things, but it's not nearly as much of a difference as in PvE. Yes I know that none of the final numbers scale in a really linear way, but even so...

Yes DR affects almost everything, but it does not do so equally. THB seems to have made it very high up on DR's $#!+ list.

It's amazing how quickly these things level in an AE mission on a well populated server... scary really

So it seems I've already got to know the answer to this one. I'm going to have accro, and so on... I can fit 38 pre DR, but

After playing rad/thermal, I'd go elec/thermal, Sonic Thermal or Rad/thermal in that order of preference.

I wouldn't think dark/thermal would be a good choice

Aim is pretty important for getting your HE to hit

Someone with more experience than I might take exception to this but...

Is there a reason you aren't considering electric/thermal?

my rad/thermal is fun and all with all the procs, but If I had it to do again, I really would have gone ele/ for the massive end crushing power.

I think that's what I'll do. It's irritating that the lions share of the things I own are elsewhere, but... ah well.

Forgive me if this is daft for some reason... Absurd as this sounds, I've quite literally never played a PvP blaster.

Thanks for all the advice... that said:

What about vs. melee? does EM have enough to be worth the loss of DS?

So would it be safe to say that for zone, /EM would be superior... but in arenas, perhaps not so much?

The duel in question was in cargo ship, and I don't think range was THAT much of a factor...

Currently I have lobies of both of these, so I could go either way, but I just want to understand the setup as best I can...

The reason I ask is a duel I had with my rad/thermal vs a fire/MM.

He had all kinds of horrible hold procs, his fear, and a knock that punched through 33 points of pre DR knock protection. It was an exercise in misery.

What does EM offer that's really that much better?

Psi/em or is psi/mm ok as well?

EDIT: again, I seem to be drawn to the atypical... this was probably ill advised with regards to my rad/thermal (ele would have been better) I'd prefer not to do the same again...

Cors? Check. Scrappers? yeah. Brutes? Got em.
Doms? working on em...

Bluesiders? I have nothing but some pve controllers and a spines regen that's seen better days.

So. A blaster.

I should probably have one.

But what to do? I know that sonic/EM is the current must have, but I'd like to think of what else might be solidly good

Psi/ for the sleep proc?
Fire/ for nice short attacks?
/Mental for DS and a fear?

If sonic/EM really is that much better, so be it. I really DONT want my only bluesider to be daft, but if it's more of a rock paper scissors thing... well, I'd rather be at least a little different...

Thanks again for any suggestions. As always, zone, kickballs and random arena duels only for me.

Oh, and I think he'll be on freedom this time.

I'm sick of empty zones and dead arenas... I don't need to fight the gods, but I'd like to match wits with more than shadows... I'd love to hear peoples comments

Freedom?

or

Virtue?

any and all comments, slag and invective will be carefully considered...

I actually think it's a pretty good idea.

I think some of the constants are wrong... but...

I'm only in for kickballs and zone... maybe the odd duel. How was it for damage?

Arcanaville's reply near the end of this thread gives a link to her spreadsheet. It includes everything you'd want to know.

I've been thinking...

If I'm going to make an earth pvp toon I'd try and use my earth/thermal controller or my earth/electric dom. Sure the damage probably isn't great, but He'd probably make everyone miserable... especially that troller with HE... That's just a nasty power...

then again, A mind/thermal might be good too...

bah, I need more slots.

I'm going to have to dissagree on the utility of the pet against hard targets. Stoney is great when there's no tank

I'll dissagree on the utility of shutting down an AV for 1/3 of the time. It's certainly not great, but it gives everyone a chance to rest/regroup. Normally this isn't an overt thing, just a subtle pause that lowers the chance of a death or a problem. I'd also emphasize again that immobs and sleeps can be of utility.

I'll have to dissagree on the utility of the secondary. Generally speaking, controller debuffs are quite strong ENOUGH to do the job. They contribute ENOUGH to turn the tide against an AV.

I'll agree on limited damage though. Earth is not going to heap up piles of bodies any time soon, or even ever.

I've recently been very impressed/surprised by how nasty HE is on my rad/thermal. This immediately draws my mind to a /psi dom

but there are some questions:

Are dominators going to duel long enough for attrition to really set in, and for DS to matter? (I'm guessing yes)

Is Psi going to have enough accuracy to be workable? with no aim/buildup power, and no -def, I have to worry!

What primary is going to work best?

Again, any thoughts are much appreciated