Supermax

I figured I'd chime in here. I'm a strange case. Been playing since the beginning but never really did any TF's other than the respec TF back when it was the only way to respec. For some reason I always figured TF's take half a day to do. In my defense, they probably did 7 years ago.

But anyway, I decided to get into the alpha stuff over the weekend, so I decided to try doing TF's. Haven't had this much fun in a long time!

So far I've done the ITF (twice) and Khan. All 3 went perfectly. The khan especially stood out, and it was a master of run. When we got to the final room, the leader told us the plan: one tank keeps reichsman taunted, and as the other AV's get released, the 2nd tank taunts them away and the team concentrates on them. When they said this, I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, but they told me to just wait, and I'd see what they meant. Sure enough, I saw. I was the 2nd tank, and I started taunting the other AV's as soon as they got released. Everything was done to perfection. Each released AV took no more than a couple mins to kill, and by the time they were all dead, Reichsman only took a couple more mins himself. Nobody on the team even really got hurt, and we finished in 36 mins. The main tank said it was his first master of on Khan, and he seemed like he really knew what he was doing.

Quite a way to start doing TF's

I also have both a fire and an archery blaster. Both are very powerful in the end, but the playstyles are a bit different.

The main difference to me was the road to that "end". The archery was a complete gimp until level 32. Felt very weak, and the road to RoA was basically a tedious grind. Of course that all changed once I got RoA.

Meanwhile, the fire was a powerhouse all the way from the beginning.

In the end it doesn't matter, but while you're leveling up it sure does.

Edit: Oh yeah, I would definitely stay away from devices unless it's a pure concept thing. When it comes to actual usefulness, it's pretty much the undisputed worst blaster secondary.

Stalkers are pretty much a pure PvP AT for the most part. In PvE, I'd pick a scrapper for sure. At least with everything else being equal. A spines stalker that's invested 20 billion vs a scrapper with SO's....in that case I might actually pick the stalker.

My friend used to farm with a spines/SR stalker, and the speed was only a tiny bit slower than with his spines/SR scrapper. It was a very expensive build though.

Thanks! Mine is claws, which I assume is right at the top as far as building fury goes.

Why do AV's cause more fury? Is it that the harder the attack you take, the more fury it generates? Or is it just a special flag for AV's only? What if the AV spawns as an EB?

Thanks for the advice everybody. I ended up making a claws/WP after all, even though it was a tough choice. Stone does seem to be good, and if I make another brute down the road, I'm pretty sure it will be that. But I really hate end issues, plus claws seems to have a better attack chain early on, which is important to me. The AoE at level 6 is also nice.

Both would be fine in PvE, but don't bother with a brute for PvP. They really serve no purpose there, since tanks and scrappers are better in every way possible.

Never played a brute past lvl 5, but this time I plan to. I've narrowed it down to WP, but I just can't decide on a primary. I'd rather not play a set I've played before, but I don't really have a choice, having played numerous scrappers and tanks.

My favorite toon is a fire/SS tank, and I guess I'm looking for something similar. That is, both good ST and AoE damage, with some mitigation. In the end, I've narrowed it down to claws or stone. But I don't want to level to like 40 just to realize that I should have gone with SS or something else to begin with. Basically, how is claws and stone melee on brutes? Which will work better with WP? And will I end up with a powerful toon, or will I be gimping myself for the sake of originality?

Edit: Btw, I did try kin melee, but couldn't stand the animations, so that's out. Its AoE didn't seem good enough for my standards anyway, at least on paper.

Very slightly. It's just not up often enough to be completely reliable. The 3 second activation time is also pretty bad.

Fire/SS is good because it's very survivable because of the heal, because rage is great, and because the earth epic is broken.

You need mostly the same stuff as in PvE, with a few differences.

Things NOT to take that you would in PvE:
blazing aura - will NOT interrupt AS from any stalker that is even half decent. It ends up just being a big end drain.
consume - AoE powers in general are pretty useless. If you're ok with consume hitting only 1 target, then you could get it I guess.
ROTP - self rezzes are useless, since you can immediately rez anyway once you die
foot stomp - same as consume.

Things to take that you wouldn't in PvE:
Hurl - one of your strongest attacks in PvP, while useless in PvE
stone prizon and fossilize from earth epic - great attacks. fossilize is actually the stongest attack you'll have. Yeah, PvP is a joke like that.
phase shift - pretty much 100% mandatory for all PvP toons

You also definitely need taunt, even more so than in PvE...but mostly for the -range.

SR, and any defense really, is not very good in PvP. You essentially have no secondary at all any time you're not in elude. While in elude, you're pretty godlike, but that's a very small % of your playtime considering its recharge will be like twice as long as in PvE.

There is really ONE viable secondary in PvP: regen.

I haven't tried hover in I19, but even with the improvement, I'm sure it's not as fast as CJ. I essentially invented the blapper thing back when CoH came out. At least I never saw a single blaster played like a blapper before I started doing it with my fire/em. But the point is, I've been playing like this for many years, so I don't see myself changing my whole playstyle now just to fit in one power.

But I do plan on taking explosive arrow and just using it as an AoE finisher after RoA and fistful. Scatter is fine if all the mobs are dead

Ok, that's not a bad idea. I may have to try it later on. Thanks.

Is explosive arrow knockdown or knockback? I figured it was KB, so I was avoiding it, since I hate scatter.

I do kind of agree with Bright Shadow that powersets shouldn't rely on one great power. I prefer when the whole way 1-50 you feel powerful, not when half the way you feel weak and then the second half you're godlike. Which is why I always loved my fire/EM so much. He was godlike all the way from like level 2.

But now that my archer is over 32, all I gotta look forward to is the future, and I can forget about being weak

Yeah the ST damage is good, but I'm a huge fan of AoE damage, and relying only on fistful of arrows for 31 levels was really annoying

I've been playing the game for many years, and never has a single power completely turned a characted around for me like RoA. It was the only reason I made my archery/elec blaster, but the first 31 levels were really a chore. The blaster felt like a joke compared to my main, a fire/EM. Then last night I finally got a chance to use a (1 slotted) RoA. I never thought a 1 slotted non-nuke power could do so much AoE damage. Hard to even imagive how good it'll be fully slotted. Just wanted to share

Anybody else have an experience like this, where one SINGLE power turned their toon from a joke into a beast?

I have both, and I consider the fire/EM more powerful. Fire already has so much AoE damage, the extra AoE from /fire isn't really needed. But /EM has much more ST damage and control than /fire, which helps a lot. Plus the utility powers in /EM are very useful. Fire breath used with boost range is just on a whole different level than without it.

I used aid self on my Inv tank when I was leveling him. It was even at the expense of some primary set powers, because I had no room for everything. But it definitely made him more powerful. Although this was many years ago, and it was pretty much a different game then.

Thanks syntax!

I have a couple questions.

1. Why would you slot active defense with membranes? It doesn't accept defense enhancements. Plus defense enhancements don't affect DDR, do they?

2. Does phalanx fighting really provide 5% def even while solo? Mids implies otherwise.