Spiritchaser
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Quote:I actually think a detailed thread citing build, and what enemy groups are tractable for that build at 54/8, under what conditions etc. would be very useful.Originally Posted by Daemodand
Meh, all claims of +4x8 are just epeen and should be ignored.
It'd be relevant to most of us in the way the scrapper pylon time thread is, however much that might be.
Probably moreso since a listing of surivival situations is going to very quickly become a more diverse and useful study than the very specific test a pylon presents.
I'd propose a format where some of the primary trouble makers are listed along with comments, something like:
Council: incarnate powers used but probably not needed, inspirations not needed
Carnies: Care, timing and attack sequencing required, must use destiny power for survival from time to time, inspiration use not absolutely necessary, but very helpful in cutting down on "retreats" Be especially cautious of spawns with the extra EBs (untill they get rid of those things)
Malta: destiny needed for survival, Watch the stun counter otherwise no serious issues
Arachnos: Lore potentially needed for spawns with multiple toxic threats, destiny (rebirth or barrier WILL be needed from time to time) Inspirations help a lot.
Arachnoids: Stock up on inspirations, this will not be possible at 54/8 without extensive use. Expect defeats -
Quote:I'm going this route as well. My main was always supposed to have a sword, and greater fire sword has been making do up to now.Originally Posted by Tenzhi
I'll be making a Titan Weapons Tanker... ...I'm leaning heavily towards Electric Armor to pair with it.
I could hold off for broadsword, but I figure I'll roll a TW and then if I have to roll another tank later that will hardly be the end of the world
Elec just seems to work well with TW. Enough end management, not too many clicks and a bit of recharge, plus stacked melee def and high SL resists make for some very robust build options. -
Well I've done everything else /EA so I'll probably start with TW/EA.
The massive recharge boost and solid end management will be a help. It's unfortunate that the sweep won't help at all with def, but I guess that'll be the way it is.
I'll probably also roll an ele/tw tanker for hardcapped sl res and softcapped melee def goodness.
One benefit the EA character will have (and I admit it's a relatively minor one) is that with all those AoEs, a bunch of quite obtainable sciroccos sets will seriously help in plugging the psi gap. -
Quote:The problem with the 200% crits is that it wouldn't necessarily help out brutes, or potentially tankers.Originally Posted by EvilGeko
I was thinking 200% crits for just that reason.
Well, Titan Weapons makes Broadsword (and other sets) into a bad joke. This buff is needed more than ever.
This has probably been suggested elsewhere, but how about a totally independent flat 10% chance of a crit on brutes (potentially tankers) and about 12% on stalkers and scrappers?
You're far more likely to get some kind of crit on a scrapper, and you could potentially double crit. (3X damage would be very nice)
I'm not sure what kind of damage shortfall we're looking at here, but with the exception of single hard targets, this would probably grant a fair bit less than 10% in actual play... just because of the wasted overkill damage. EDIT: waiting around to see if an attack crit before executing the next attack is not likely to increase dps on average... extra time queuing is likely to more than kill any gains you'd make in efficiency
With regards to TW, I think they're probably better (parry is still the better defensive power) but significantly more player consideration is needed to make the set perform.
I don't think it's wrong to have more capacity if you have to work for it
I'd say a bigger problem would be DB. You do extra work and still fall short. -
Quote:Objectively no, but subjectively stalkers, and at least some would benefit from thisOriginally Posted by EvilGeko
This is not untrue, but could be said of everything on your list. No melee players has much to complain about, stalker or no. And even the weakest Controllers are better than the majority of other ATs.
Gravity plays pretty damn well as it is, too.
Substantively, I tend to disagree with this objection as I'm not sure anyone can conclusively state what AT or set needs the most help.
Honestly, the big draw broadsword had for me was always... well, it's crude but
BIG ORANGE NUMBERS.
Your suggestion with an AoE def buff would be more balanced, but I'd personally prefer a set wide increase to crit chance.
Brutes and (hopefully) tankers? Give them a much smaller bonus chance in keeping with dps balance.
Yeah it's unlikely, but if I had my pick, that's what I'd go for. -
Quote:I'll probably be making a titan EA... stronger and prettier than war mace.Originally Posted by Schismatrix
i may be remaking Rave Troll. "Cry havoc and let slip the drum machines of war!"
Titan Weapons/Energy Aura. Bright, multicolored auras of course.
Currently he's Archery/EM.
But seriously, with all the PBAoEs, it should be relatively easy to patch up psi def a fair bit for little or no cost.
EDIT: though EA will get a lot less out of the parry type power than ele would... -
As far as powersets go?
I'd love to see a sonic assault for doms, but more for mechanical reasons than anything else
How about a psi epic for melee types?
I'd love to see a conceptually non-restrictive spines type set for melee. Spines is basically an assault set for scrappers, which is great, so long as I want to be covered in prickely bits.
I love the playstyle, but I've only got two characters where I made the look feel right.
In terms of entire ATs? how about assault/buff-debuff and assault pets (needs to be a mez shield in there somewhere) -
I'm not well enough versed in SJ to comment on that, but one thing I'd urge you to at least consider is just how much value you're going to get out of that passive, and if it wouldn't be better to take maneuvers instead
for more def?
no.
For more options.
You have a hell of a lot of end management. You're EA, it's what you do.
Another toggle will not cost you dearly.
Switching out that passive will lose you some minor durability, and slow resists, and I'll grant that those do have value.
Still, imagine what you can do with the slots you don't have to use for defence.
More recharge, more damage, more psi defence? all possible.
Again, not enough SJ experience to comment on anything else, or on the build as a whole so I'll just make that one minor point.
EDIT: oh, one more thing: where I can, I like to throw in some kind of ramged mez on defence builds. You have that in pet gaze. nice.
No resistance you'll realistically get here, and no amount of defence will protect you from a quartz emanator. A well placed soul storm will stop the problem before it starts.
If you're going to pick and choose content? who cares. If you want to take it as it comes, a hold is awefully nice. -
Quote:Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
You know, I'm not 100% sure, but I think that trying to hold aggro might be grounds for revoking your membership in the stalker club. You're supposed to be using placate to get the mob to attack your squishy "companions" so that you can AS them again and again when they're not paying attention to you.
Plus it's funny.
I remember building an em/regen "scrapper" out of my stalker after CoV launched. She was a fair bit tougher than my first /EA brute was (this was before IO def stacking made my /EAs better)
My third /EA brute took 3 cones from the mako pool, and with massive recharge, double rage and fury played as a very effective "blast brute'
I have controllers/defenders who softcap defence. I have scrappers who outsurvive some of my tanks solo.
AT boundaries are at best modestly strong at restricting playstyles. If yours involves trechery, there's nothing stopping you turning off that taunt aura, then placating that boss after you see that blaster you don't like tag him. Your "friends" will be far less likely to expect that. -
I really like the looks of the titan set, WAY too much.
My fre sword swinging elec/fire tank main always should have been elec/sword. Now maybe I can get a set with both parry AND shatter armor, provided I can get a big freaking glowy magic sword as part of the package.
I have seldom wished for a powerset respec, but given all the T4s I have on that guy, and how long it'll take to get there agian, I can honestly say I can see the argument for one here...
Ah well, I guess there'll be new content to farm those incarnate powers from too. -
Quote:"The most desirable quality in a soldier is constancy in the support of fatigue; valor is only secondary."Originally Posted by Von Krieger
Leadership: I was thinking a toggle power that provided a little bit of recharge, some recovery and regeneration, and a little bit of Endurance reduction. Call it Optimization, or something like that. Sort of teaching one's team to be more effective in their movements and such.
Spoken by a notably successful, though rather short french leader.
I'd make the last power in leadership a toggle AoE party buff with modest resistances to end drain and -recovery, or alternatively a long recharge PBAOE click buff with somewhat higher values. Maybe throw in some resistance to -regen and -heal if necesary for balance.
EDIT: I guess if it were a PBAOE clicky, it could reasonably be +max end, end drain resist and -recovery resist, which would probably work well -
As a preamble, I conceed that a very wide variety of concepts can work with a very wide variety of playstyles in this game. As such what I'm about to suggest is very much a nice to have, not any kind of requirement... but even so:
I propose that a variety of ATs could benefit if a 5th power were added to the presence pool, and that power should be a taunt aura.
First off, lets talk about the role of tanking: Classically this is having a very high survivability such that it actually made sense for you to be the one being hit, and then (and no less important) making sure that things want to hit you rather than those two scantily clad blasters who are competing for the brass ovaries award.
Obviously CoX has an unusually wide variety of alternate team defence strategies, from debuff to control to distractions to buffing everyone on the team into tanks, but the fact remains: "heavy takes the heat, everyone else goes weapons free" is a valid, functional and very common team strategy
I'm not going to say that a taunt aura is a must have for tanking, but wow is it ever useful.
It would be especially usefull to an AT that wanted to hold maximum aggro, but found itsself with limited alternate tools for doing so.
I've played with a lot of scrappers which could easily be functionally useful as tanks, but who couldn't hold more than the alpha, except possibly by dps on a single target.
There are some almost absurdly tough MMs out there, but most of them have some limits in being able to really lock things down.
Sure Khelds get dwarf form, but a perma lightform human form has a lot of seriously under-utalized survival.
there are defenders and controllers out there who might use this
Hell, there are probably a couple broadsword/electric STALKERS out there who could use it. They probably can't fit it in their builds... but that's not my point.
So what are the downsides? Is there a serious threat that new players might miss-build horribly? I guess it's possible, but it doesn't seem likely.
Will tanks break the game by stacking too many aggro auras? I really don't see how.
Will scrappers begin to supplant tanks in their role? Some scrappers already have weak taunt auras. and can hold aggro to a modest, even reasonable degree. This will spread the balance concern to a wider variety of builds, but it won't be anything new.
Anyway, that's my thinking. Probably never happen, but who knows? -
I'm in a defender phase so...
Probably a time/sonic or a time/fire defender -
Aren't you supposed to wait for a full moon or something? and think of the goats!
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Quote:I'm going to have to take issue with SS being meh for mitigation. KO is solid. Footstomp is a great opener and can be buffed up to cycle FAST.Originally Posted by Leo_G
First off, MA and SS aren't much for mitigators. They basically offer some stun and KB. They're far better for burst dmg than mitigation...
...Secondly, it be rather foolish to expect this new set to replace an old one just cause it doesn't meet your min/max expectations. I'm personally hoping the set is 'meh' for DPS, decent to good ST and AOE burst but does very well in debuff and control.
Finally, for those who aren't affraid to use a wall, or who don't care, the mitigation on hand clap is really superb.
It's even more superb with IO recharge and rage/io acc... No it's not fault, but it's damn good.
Edit: for the record I'm not suggesting that that mitigation isn't to be desired in Street Justice, I'm personally hoping for a mix: one ST finisher with -damage, one ST finisher with solid -res (and yes I'm aware there's a synergy there) and the AoE finisher with some kind of soft control. -
Id agree that this seems a bit redundant with SS and MA attacks as they are, so I'm guessing the actual play "mechanic" will have to feel pretty different to work well.
Still, as long as the secondary for crushing uppercut is -res, say 5%/12.5%/20% (or whatever) at various combo levels, I'll probably be happy. For entertainment sake make a CU crit stack double the debuff it otherwise would?
You could gate stackability (is that a word?) of the debuff with the animation times such that even at absurd recharge levels you're not going to get more than 2.
EDIT: Just a thought, shouldn't it be street injustice for redsiders? -
Quote:Just a thought.Originally Posted by Stupid_Fanboy
Didn't said that it wouldn't be a pain in the ***, just that it was probably a better way to convey what they wanted but definitely not easy.
As I recall, back when weapon redraw didn't modify your dps in quite the way it does now, your attack with redraw (or maybe it was attack after the redraw) was sped up slightly (this is history, not the current state of affairs)
If it's possible to speed up an animation for redraw, and if the upcoming momentum mechanic works the way it is currently imagined by the forums, perhaps most animations can just be "slowed" a bit.
Going a bit further here, time manipulation might give players tools to modify nearly all animations.
Going even further... meh, I guess I'm out on enough of a limb with just that. -
There are a nearly infinite number of ways EM could be "fixed", one of them is changing content to increase the importance of ST damage. Hopefully that happens at least to some degree.
Even then though, EM is going to be pretty miserable
I think I once calculated that before the EM nerf, I had well over 100 levels of EM IF I ONLY COUNTED LEVELS ABOVE 30. I loved the feel of ET. I still like the look and feel of barrage, EP WH and BS, but with marginal performance, that's not enough.
I think I've gained exactly two EM levels over 30 since the nerf... it's possible that number might be 3.
I'm looking forward to the port of EM to scrappers for exactly the same reason I was looking forward to the port of EA to scrappers.
When they port it, they'll probably fix it. -
Quote:It might be just as accurate to say that with pretty much everyone with incarnate abilities having more survivability than a heavily armored civil war era warship, who needs scrappers or stalkers?Originally Posted by Shubbie
With pretty much everyone with incarnate abilities having more damage coming out of every pore than a low grade nuclear weapon.
It leaves me wondering whats the role of an At that does damage and nothing else?
Especially with dominators, corruptors and some offender builds are matching blaster damage and add alot more to add to a team.
I know this is an old argument, but it seems in the new post incarnate enviroment its worse than ever.
That said I do think there's some room for Blasters to get a few really nasty high powerd single target res debuffs in their epics or secondaries. Heck, even adding a bruising component (make it stackable unlike tankers) would be enough.
If I had my way they'd be short duration melee range debuffs... risk vs. reward and all that.
I'm of the opinion that Blasters should do more melee damage than ranged damage (more melee damage than any other AT) should they choose to put themselves in that position. -
Actually what I'd REALLY like to see would be a scaling momentum buff from entropy shield.
Forget recharge, let my knockout blow speed up when I'm surrounded.
Of course the timing won't work for that... the momentum mechanic comes later... with the new set, but...
Ah well. -
I think this sounds like a great change that should have happened years ago.
I'm not convinced that it'll put EA into the forefront of anything for min maxers, but it does bring it into the realm of "very solid set" especially where leveling or SO/frankenslotted builds are concerned. The combination of a self recharge buff with hasten and a def buff in EA (even a weak one) will probably make for some great survival where psi/def debuffs are not an issue.
What will be interesting to see is how this set ends up working with the coming (but distant) titan weapons set. Notwithstanding the usual caveat about no-one knowing how it'll end up, it's a fair bet that shields will be out as a secondary if you're using an 8" steel round bar, a vespa or half a frozen cow as a club.
I figure if momentum works as is currently presumed, a set with some significant +recharge and extra endurance might be a good match.
EA would be one good candidate there, though sr with body mastery may be as good or better. We'll just have to wait and see. -
Given that the rusty blade enhanced wooden block is impaled with other pointy things, It's CLEAR that we'll be able to parry lethal damage with them...
Yay, Tanks get Parry...
j/k, but I can hope. -
Quote:This is similar to the path I took, with my electric fire, but I'd add that in some of the current end game content, Granite isn't the king it was.Originally Posted by docbuzzard
Electric has the highest resistances outside of granite. It actually has 2 holes (sorta) though. The toxic hole is a complete one unless you are in power surge. Then there's negative energy which sits appreciably under the rest of your resistances. With the tier 4 cardiac, my electric armor tanker has 60% resistance to F/C/Psi, and 85% resistance to L/S. I have used IOs to get my negative energy resistance up to 61% (odd how that's one of the very few resistances you can actually boost with IOs). Energy is capped of course.
The set also manages additional mitigation via endurance drain. That can work better than you would expect.
But to address the OP, granite is king. You pay a lot to do it (either with the unpleasant debuffs built in, or the massive pile of influence you spend on IOs to offet those debuffs).
I'm not going to say that granite with teleport isn't mobile, that would be daft.
I am going to say that the margin for error in dodging a nova fist, or the blue <impolite word> that battle maiden spawns is going to be smaller than with any other tank.
I'm also going to say that for a lot of people, tooling through the lab or the warehouse in the Lambda trial is going to get old fast. This isn't quite a survivability issue, but if you don't get the glowys, you still fail the raid.
Again, to stave off the hate, I know it can be done, even well, but it's necessarily harder and fussier.
These days there are usually enough hardy scrappers and brutes around to dive the spawns first and keep things moving, but who knows what's coming down the pipe?
Back to other tanks:
Just about any tank can be made strong enough with +def to take on most situations. Only a few tanks can survive in places where def is largely irrelevant. Electric is often one of them, and high resistance electric (with cardiac, IOs and barrier) can have some VERY high resists across the board. -
Tankers: Either a buffed EA or nothing for a primary (don't transfer EA as is) and Broad sword for a secondary. Yes I want Parry. No I don't think it'll be MORE broken for tanks than it is for anything else.
Brutes: I'm really not a big fan of ice, but it's the logical choice here. Change as needed, and port in Broad Sword, Katana and Martial Arts while you're at it.
Scrappers: Energy is the way to go here. Rework some of the heavy hitters.
Stalkers: Ice Melee/Aura. War Mace for the blackjack slinging crowd.
For all melee add a Psi epic. Subdue, Dom, one of the Aoes. Lots of other options to choose from here as well...
Masterminds: Rad and maybe Cold Domination. Sonic? sure why the hell not.
Controllers: Tough one here. I really want /dark and /traps, but... well lets just say a modified dark and traps as needed.
Dominators: just fix grav
Defenders: Fire Blast
Blasters: hrmph, I think a MA assault set with some low level defence and a significantly nerfed parry/sticky hands type power would be cool... but only if you could use it without weapon redraw on pistols... -
MA/SR/PSI scrapper, but with two ghost slaying axes, and of course a pistols temp power... and yes she can kill you with her brain
ele/BS/? tanker. My current ele/fire really should have a broadsword but it wasn't an option so...