The_mini_gunman

I'm necro'ing this thread, so deal with it. Everyone complains when you don't use the search engine. I'm not only using the search engine...I'm using the ADVANCED search engine. Because that's how I roll up in this hizzy.

Everything that is wrong with Dual Pistols can be summed up thusly: YOU'RE NOT IN A WILD WEST SHOW - QUIT SCREWING AROUND & SHOOT.

Bottom line: You are hit with DOUBLE redraw. You draw your weapon with a flourish, and then proceed to do some band majorette style twirling animations. Frankly I'm shocked that the devs didn't include an animation where the guns burst into flames, then get thrown over your head, and you catch them behind your back while doing a split. I suppose sacrifices had to be made on the editing room floor.

My suggestion for the devs is for one of the lead developers to throw a party at their house over a holiday weekend, and rent every Jon Woo movie you can get your hands on. Then come back on Monday, and take another look at how short this set fall from the mark.

I truly believe if the animation times were shorter, and you could get off more attacks quicker, everything else that's wrong with this set would take care of itself.

Back in the old days, heroes & villains had to earn their capes & auras. We also walked until level 14, and we liked it, garsh darn-it!! In these new-fangled days of jet powered surfboards & mixed-up AT's, I see that you can buy capes & auras right out of the cash shop at level 1.

HOWEVER....Can you still unlock capes at level 20 & Auras at level 30 by running missions? Or have those time-honored rites of passge gone the direction of the dinosaur?

The bottom line here is that you're going to use the Nova & Dwarf forms to level up. You're not born a 50, so they're still extremely relevant to your build. What you do at end-game versus the rest of your career is a different story.

Personally...I think the Devs need to totally scrap & re-develop Khelds to bring them in line with the current state of the game. I think that the transformations should be clickable powers that are buffs, rather than complete alternate forms - and that those forms should have access to the full range of abilities of the human powers + the inherent bonus of the alternate form. If you did that, you'd only have to slot 1 set of powers, and you'd make alternate forms exactly what they are supposed to be: abilities that serve as a situation buff. In one master stroke you'd end the eternal argument of Triform vs Humanform.

It's an old & well-worn argument that the newer Arachnos epic AT's are better than the older, blueside AT's. I personally feel that the newer AT's leave the older ones in the dust. Others will disagree, and I respect their opinions.

Hey all,

I've been out of the loop for a while & I'm recently returned to the game. I stopped playing back in 2010, and about that time the big thing with dominators was to boost recharge to "PermaDom". Right before I left they did something to the recharge, and they boosted the damage of Dominators secondary, as well as making some changes to the Dominate power itself. It's a little less than 2 years later & I'm wondering where things stand now.

1) Is the Dominate power back to the way it was before all those changes? I don't see a difference from the way it used to be, so I'm confused by that.

2) Is it still possible to PermaDom these days?

3) Did the recharge for Hasten get a huge nerf?


I've run a few searches, but some of these questions are ancient history, making it a bit hard to track down.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Well let me say that Regen will always been near & dear to my heart, no matter how long & play or abstain from playing. My first character back in i4 was a DM/Regen, and my joy at playing that character was the foundation of my appreciation for the game.

I've tried out all the secondaries, and I can say that the only one I really don't appreciate it Dark Armor - and even THAT is a result of my personal play style, rather than any shortcomings of the set itself. So it's clear to me that your mileage will vary on any power set or combination thereof.

Having made those two disclaimers, I think that the real foundation of the issues with Regen is not its imagined shortcomings, or performance when fully slotted out with IO's at high levels.

I think the bigger issue is that many players enjoy using melee sets that feature weapons. Any set with a weapon redraw will inherently not blend as well with Regeneration as other sets due to the fact that weapon sets have redraw, and Regeneration is very clicky. If you're not an experienced player, you will often be frustrated by the delay in redraw from using your active powers. More experienced players will not have this issue - because they have a better feel for how & when to use their abilities when they will do the most good, require the least attention, and when they will lose the least amount of DPS.

Alot of newer players expect Regeneration to be an all-inclusive, 100% passive, fire-and-forget set. Once upon a time it was that way, but even back in those days the set had weaknesses that could be exploited - the same as every other set. Back then, when IH was a toggle, hasten was permanent, and Dull Pain was permanent, you would still find yourself in situations where the alpha from a room full of enemies was just a little too much, and you would end up faceplanting & feeling silly.

Why do people find the need to create posts complaining about maintenance times?

Surely you have read your terms of service agreement, right? The one that you are forced to say "yes" to every time you log in? Surely you've read it completely in its entirety & fully understand all the obligations of service, right?

I'm not sure what every is expecting from this set.

You're fighting Jon Woo style with 2 pistols, so the animation involves alot of twirling & animation before firing. It looks cool the first 20-50 times you see it, but it does get a bit tedious after a thousand interations. At some point, you just want your character to settle the F--- down & shoot already. All I can say is I give the devs credit for time spent crafting this cool looking set, but in the heat of battle I do wish I didn't have to watch all the twirling.

On a related note, all but maybe two of the gun models are absolutely atrocious. Not just unattractive or lumpy looking. I'm talking down-right ugly. I'm talking three-bagger, coyote bait, beer-goggle ugly. I'm talking a terminal case of butterface. The art department gets a "D-" for the job they did in this one area. There is so much good art for revolvers & pistols floating around on the web for inspiration, that it's really shameful that a power set designed to be so visually pleasing would fall on its face & come up lame right at the finish line.

But I digress.

I agree with several posters that you can't measure the damage of other power sets against fire. Everyone forgets that all attack powers have secondary effects, and that those effects are factored into the equation for power balance. Fire's secondary component is....more damage...which is why it seems stronger.

What people also tend to forget is that without "Swap Ammo" you're only doing half damage. You HAVE to select a special ammo type in order to get the biggest bang for your buck with this set. Sure you will sacrifice your knockdown, but you'll make up for it with more damage. Incendiary ammo makes a huge difference.

TD:LR - it works fine. It does more damage than the low-damage, high debuff sets; and less damage than the high-damage, no secondary effect sets. It's mostly attacks, with a hard Mag 2 hold, which can prove valuable.

Personally, I created a Praetorian DP/Dark Corruptor to mess around with when I returned to the game. The hold will stack with DM's Mag 2 hold to mezz bosses, and the debuffs from DM will serve well to keep me in the fight. So far it's working pretty well, but I'm many moons away from having him at level 50.

I have a level 50 ice/dark corruptor right now, so I'm interested to see how this new toon stacks up to my old one in terms of the balance of protection, control, and damage.

So the OP's proposal is for us to have the ability to suppress Knockback in powers. On the surface this sounds reasonable, but it's really not. Allow me to explain why.

First, it is true that we are in a different generation of the game than we were in 2004. Now, the devs have seen fit to allow us to tailor our costumes, our powers, and our enhancements to suit the whims of our imagination. We even have different animations for the same melee powers, so we can all get our own unique flavor of beat-down when the time comes.

However, the real reason this proposal will not work has to do with the fact that every attack power in the game comes with a secondary effect. Some effects debuff the target in some fashion, some provide additional DoT, and some create knockback/knockup/knockdown.

The bottom line here is that we should not be able to start tinkering around with the secondary effects of specific abilities, because it can potentially upset the power balance of the game & be exploited by those sufficiently knowledgeable to do so.

I'm all for requesting some balance adjustment & retooling of powers from the devs. There can be no doubt that there is still room for improvement in many areas, and that some of the older power sets have not seen much attention in recent years.

Getting a bit far afield here, but well said on the nuke change. If you're a soloist blaster/corruptor/defender, you automatically lose your highest damage power for the sake of not crashing. The problem is that it's not universal. Moreover, it's extremely subjective as to which nukes are stronger than others, creating an even greater disparity in the balance between different sets.

Gotcha...so any character that had IO's will see them go dark unless I have VIP status. I had assumed that anything I had slotted previously would be grandfathered in.

Thanks! I haven't checked back since I activated my VIP account to see if this is corrected. I'll have a look-see.

I'm returning from a haitus from CoX. I had let me subscription lapse when I wandered off to play Fallen Earth for a while.

I'm back, got VIP membership & all that jazz. I unlocked one of my old lvl 50 corrupters just to herp & derp around with. This particular 50 has a bunch of IO's on it. However, I notice that the IO sets appear to be dark, as if they're out-dated.

I was under the impression these never expired. Are they still working? Are they in some type of suspended state because it was an old character?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

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I don't get it... wasn't it already decided and agreed-on that VEATs were meant to be easier to handle, and less frustrating than HEATs?

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Come on, Lord Xenite. You should know better.

Just because something is right, and we all agree on it doesn't mean we can't continue to argue pointlessly about it on the forums.

What would you have us do? Make all the threads into constructive game information? That's crazy talk.

Old topic is old.

Regen stands shoulder to shoulder with the other secondaries.

Having said that, it works best with primaries that don't have weapon draw animation (I.e. claws, katana, BS, DB). This is because every time you click on a power in Regen (which you do quite often), you will have to redraw your weapon.

Of the three non-weapon sets, Dark Melee has the best synergy with Regeneration in terms of survival & utility.

Maybe, someday, if we're very lucky, Scraps will get Super Strength - whose knockdown abilities would offset the biggest weakness Regeneration has: sustained incoming damage. Should that happy day ever come, Regen will once again be back on top as a favorite.

For now, because the weapon sets are widely considered the best for damage, Willpower & Invul are more preferred. For flat-out damage characters, Shield Mastery is a contender due to the damage buff & shield charge. Super Reflexes is still a favorite for AV killing simply because of the ease with which you can soft-cap defense.

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Playing a WS all the way to 50 is the game on uber easy mode. Stygian + Eclipse + Quasar + Unchain Essence = too easy. I find it more fun playing a Shade then I did a bringer. That said both are way more fun IMO than the villain counterparts. Maybe its the forms or the more versatility. When I play as a fortunata I feel like a weak psi blaster, when I play my Widow I feel like a stalker with toxic dmg, which I enjoy. The feeling of one shotting mobs is very fun, but it only gets really good when Elude is gotten. As for the Soldier, well being a blaster for the first 26 levels is ok...but switching to a stalker yet again isn't very diversed. The team buff's are nice but never really needed, just convenient to have.

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Your attack chain is available at high levels only. In order to get that chain, you have to suffer through 38 or so levels of not having it. Saying that you can get from 1-50 with it is, at best, inaccurate & misleading.

The key difference between a Kheld & a VEAT is that VEAT's start out with Mez protection + a minor version of health/stamina as an inherent power. They then suffer for about 14 levels or so until they start building up their team buffs & defensive abilities. After that, you grind for another 10 levels or so as lowly soldier/widow until you hit 24 - at which point your "I Win" button is installed.

Kheldians experience a very fleeting version of this when they get their Nova form, and realize that they can safely kite & blast their way through missions while their fellow heroes are still crawling on the ground like worms. But reality sets in soon thereafter, when you are mezzed & dropped from the sky for the first time. That's the point where the rubber meets the road, and the real challenge begins. The Kheld lovers will perservere & reach heights of glory - while the fair weather players will drop out in disgust & play something more rewarding.

VEAT's are, in essence, the polar opposite of Kheldians in almost every sense. VEAT's get an extremely utilitarian inherent ability - Khelians get a crappy inherent + travel powers. VEAT's get mundane weapons, body armor, and military training, while Khelds get flashy powers. Kheldians get 3 forms - VEAT's get a bonus costume slot with a uniform. VEAT's are a solid, extremely utilitarian AT that performs extremely well in solo & even better when grouped on teams. Khelds appear at first to be very team-dependent & situational, but eventually bloom into a multi-role threat.

So the real question is whether you want a steady, implacable march through the levels - or a roller coaster of wonder & frustration.

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So, my question is basically, how do you deal with this crash, what tactics do you employ to a) detect when LF is about to crash; b) protect yourself after LF crashed while you wait to regenerate and recover?

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Any time you're using a "Tier 9" Power that has a crash, you need to be prepared to keep an eye on the timer. The blinking icon is a hint, but that's easy to miss. If you find yourself consistently getting caught with your pants down mid-fight, then you might consider downloading & installing "Hero Stats" or one of the other peripheral programs that run along side the game & give you an actual count-down timer. That's the first part of my answer to your question.

As far as how you keep going..that's trickier. You don't have any endurance recovery abilities as a PB, so you have limited choices. The simplest thing is to pull out of combat shortly before the power expires - but that's assuming that you have the ability or the foresight to do so. The second best bet is to carry tic-tacs in your tray to get you through the crash.

If you're playing a Kheld, hopefully you're on a team, and you can get some support from your other mates.

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Hmm ...

PvP

Garbage

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This is a significant question. This leads us down a road of pure speculation - but that's what forum threads are for!! I see a few scenarios:

1) Easy Answer: Don't do anything. The arc is available, as is the badge, but the powers simply aren't available. Obtaining a patron badge is no longer linked to your power choices anyway - so the importance of this arc has been lessened.

2) Broken Answer: Oops...turns out Kheldians can get Patron Powers. I would assume they'd get the same Picks that VEATS do, although this is up for discussion. It remains to be seen whether or not this would help or harm a Khelidan Build, since having access to certain Patron picks would really twink out a Kheld build. I wouldn't expect Warshades to have access to Soul Drain...but perhaps we may see Peacebringers with both Light Form & Power Surge???

3) Thematical Answer: When Khelds swap sides, they get pressed into the service of Arachnos. As a result, they get a forced respec when they complete the patron arc - and get a completely different set of patron-based abilities to choose from. While this is possibly the coolest of all scenarios, it is also the most work to implement with the least reward - thereby making it the least likely.

Let the blind speculation continue!!

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SoAs & Widows become much, much, MUCH better (than Kheldians) when they hit level 24.

SoA & Widows get team-friendly powers and are absolutely beastly solo (an easily soft-cappable Widow comes to mind). And with dual builds, the SoA & Widows get two archetypes in one.

Is there any reason to suspect that Kheldians could ever be thought of as equal to the VEATs?

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Short Answer: No.

The biggest problem you'll ever face as a VEAT after level 24 is how you can possibly fit all that awesome into one build. Playing as a VEAT is the game on easymode, plain & simple.

Kheldians, while fun to play & rewarding in the long haul, remain a serious challenge even for experienced & seasoned players. Unless you completely gimp yourself & go full-on humanform (sacrificing both high damage & status protection), you will always be forced to make hard decisions about where you put your slots. As a result, many of the powers you pick will underperform & are essentially throw-away powers that you will rarely use.

Having said that, there are quite a few Kheldian players who will tell you that the challenge is the REASON to play Khelds - not the drawback. You can play 10 khelds, and odds are you'll end up with 10 different builds. So in a sense, their weakness is also their greatest strength.

I wouldn't expect the basic function & performance of the Khelds to change or improve significantly in the near future. By their nature they are jacks of all trades, and masters of none. They are working as intended. To make them completely self-reliant, give them more slots to allow them to capitalize on a greater number of powers, or to boost their performance so that each form functions as well as the AT it mimics, would make them so incredibly overpowered it would be ludicrous.

Resillience is worth taking, but not slotting. Resillience + Integration gives you huge resistance to disorient. This is nice for facing enemies like the Tsoo, or Crey, or Death Mages. Or Rikti. Or Arachnos. Or Carnies. I have no idea if this is a benefit in PvP....nor do I care to find out.

As a side benefit, you never need a break free whenever you self-rez. Hopefully you won't have to test that out, but odds are you will.

For slotting, I generally stick a resist IO in there & call it a day. You can get a small amount of lethal/smashing resistance out of this power, but slotting it really won't give you the biggest bang for your buck. Save your slots for all your healing / regen powers.

Some general observations & suggestions:

1) This is a hugely expensive build. Well in exceess of 2 billion. Not only are you leaning heavily on purple sets to get you where you want to be, but you've selected every single invention set & proc that is difficult to acquire in the best of times. You'd be lucky to even locate half of these, let alone be able to afford them, without spending weeks/months keeping this toon in drydock. For what you're planning to spend, you're not really getting the biggest bang for your buck. If I were you, I'd go back & review the build that Desmodos has come out with for her D3 Scrapper. You'll see she's getting alot higher utility for the expense.

2) Your currently listed endurance usage takes into account Conserve Power, which is only up less than half of the time even with a 117.5% recharge. This is scewing your endurance usage calculations.

3) You have a high reliance on +Recovery procs for your endurace recovery. On paper this looks good. In practice the odds of you actually achieving that recovery rate aren't mathematically significant.

4) You've taken both swift & hurdle. I can see why, but honestly you'd be better off dropping SS & taking SJ, thus freeing up a power choice.

5) I'm really surprised that you don't have Crippling Axe Kick selected & slotted. Not being a MA expert, I was under the impression that was a key attack. Moreover, if you're taking Oppressive Gloom, that would allow you to Mezz Lut & Boss units.

6) It's pretty clear you've selected & 5-slotted Laser Beam Eyes to give you a place to install an Apocalypse set. Although it sure it nifty to be able to equip another rare set, I really don't see the utility of this power or those bonuses anywhere in your build.

7) I'm mystified by your choice to install a damage set in Dark Regeneration. Not only that...you have 0 Endurace Reduction enhancement in it. Of all the powers in DA, this is the biggest Endurance hog you have.

8) You've made alot of choices focused on recharge speed, which I don't really understand. Your entire secondary is toggles except for your heal - and that has a fast recharge. Your primary attacks are all quick-hitting attacks. There really is no benefit from a passive 45% recharge bonus that justifies the expense of the inventions.

Pointed headed academic or not, I would recommend you go back & take a closer look at the forums. There are multiple threads both in the Scrapper & Player Guide forums on how to build a /SR Scrapper that has defense soft-capped.

The short version:
1) Take all your secondaries.
2) Take Leaping (Combat Jumping / Superjump)
3) Take Fighting (kick/toughness/weave)
4) Stick a lvl 40 or higher IO in everything that adds defense.
5) Stick a "Steadfast Protection: Resistance/Defense" in one of the slots you have for Toughness.

For DB, you want to pay close attention to the guides to DB. I'm no DB expert, but based on what I know about its similarity to Claws, you want to look at using the lower level, fast recharging attacks & spamming your version of Follow-Up as much as possible. Unlike Claws, however, you have to give some thought to which combinations you plan to make use of.

If you're just starting out with your first level 50, you are probably looking hard at the inventions with your nose pressed up against the glass, wishing you had an extra 2 billion influence laying around. There are several very good invention builds out there.

You don't have to spend alot of money to soft-cap your defense, but you could spent billions trying to dial in all the other stats of your Scrapper.

That should help get you started. But the important thing to remember is that the type of character you're out to make will always be an unfinished masterpiece. No matter how long or how much you spend on her, you will always have to make a compromise that will lead you to second-guessing your choices.

Some players respec their Scrappers a dozen times, trying to dial into the perfect balance of abilities & enhancements that play best to their style.

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What's the concept behind Laser Beam Eyes? You have such complete control of your body that your eyes now shoot lasers?

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So that you can take super strength, invulnerability, super speed, flight, laser beam eyes, and run around in blue & red underoos with a red cap & slick black hair.

That's why.