Ultimo_
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Posts
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Joined
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Working backwards...
Schismatrix:
Bringing up links to previous threads so you can say I'm wrong isn't addressing the subject of THIS thread. As I say, if you have anything to contribute to this thread, I'm delighted to hear it. If you don't think my idea is a good one, say so. All I ask is you explain your objection.
I just won't accept the objection being "you were wrong in previous threads," particularly when even THAT is debatable.
Westley:
Trolling.
Biospark:
Buffers benefit from a steady level of protection, it's just very low. As I say, Dispersion bubble is the only real defense FF has for the Defender. The knocking effects are very marginal as defenses. Debuffers get the benefit of their debuffs every time that use them, though the benefit may vary by target, to some degree (which is also true of the Dispersion Bubble). I'll note that facing +4 and +5 foes reduces both the buffs and the debuffs to marginal levels. Last night, while fighting a +5 Paragon Protector, with the Dispersion Bubble, Weave and Manuevers on, he had a 95% chance to hit me. The comaparison breaks down somewhat at extremes. In my experience, my FFer can't take on a purple AT ALL. No defense, no offense and low health is a death sentence.
Milady:
I've rarely slotted for knockback, so this is informative! Thanks!
I'm not trying to be disingenouous. I'm saying that the number of times the Detention power is useful is very small, and as such it's of limited use and therefore limited value. Either way, even if I did use it regularly, it's only going to remove one foe from the fight, and not for terribly long. If you're facing four foes, and you have to rest or PFF after defeating ONE of them, the one you held is going to be free before you can defeat the spawn. This is why I suggested a toggle instead of a click, to give it more utility.
The Scrapper doesn't need to heal the team, that's not his job. Both the Scrapper and the Defender do well on teams, but only the Defender is hindered solo. As I said, I'm not suggesting the Defender be made the same as the Scrapper, just that the discrepancy is too large.
Quote:Note that only the buffer can't use all his powers solo (with a handful of exceptions). This is kind of beside the point, however.While teamed a buffing defender gets to use all their powers.
Catwhoorg:
A FFer is SAFER? How do you figure that? Granted, my Scrapper is largely Defense based, but the Defender has half the Defense, half the damage and far less health, as well as lower regeneration and resistance. Granted, the Defender might be able to benefit from staying out of melee range, but one or two shots hitting him is all it takes to be defeated. Lacking any credible defense, resistance or regeneration, this is a very likely event.
However, even though this is an extreme example, the fact remains that this exact situation HAS happened to me. The Scrapper defeated the Chief Soldier (with difficulty), and the Defender was defeated before he did even a tenth of the Soldier's health.
Panzerwaffen:
As I've said repeatedly, I don't expect the Defender to be the same as the Scrapper. I expect them to be more comparable than they are. -
Quote:Oh, the bots can reach, but my Force Bolt and Pulse Rifle blasts can't.Originally Posted by Dr_Brainbottle
Huh? Aren't you playing robots? Exactly what attacks do you have that cannot hit a target beyond the range of a force bubble? Unless you went out of your way to pick up a power pool melee attack like boxing, this really shouldn't be a problem!
Force bubble is insanely useful for a robot mastermind, but only if you use it as part of an active, deliberate strategy to herd enemies into corners so you can incinerate them with rocket napalm. It isn't enough to just turn it on, you have to learn how to USE it... and it isn't really about "mitigating damage", except in the sense that your enemies get a permanent 100% debuff to everything when they're DEAD. -
Quote:Probably, but I wanted the point to be clear, that this is a fairly extreme threat that one can handle and the other can't.Originally Posted by TRTerror
I just think a +4 chief soldier was a poor example.
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Quote:No, but he faces the same challenges. There should be more parity. I'm not suggesting the Defender should have the SAME ability as the Scrapper, just that it should be better than it is.Originally Posted by TRTerror
Your defender is not your scrapper.
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Quote:I appreciate the offer, but that's not what this thread is for, and I'm trying to stay on topic.Originally Posted by Garent
QR
Ultimo, if you post your build I can give advice on it. -
Quote:As I say, it's not that I can't solo, it's that it's disproportionately hard on the Defender.Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino
I find these threads highly amusing. I have a FF/nrg myself, and I always have to wonder just how Ultimo must have built his defender to have such problems. I softcapped mine to ranged once I hit 50, but I played the heck out of it with just the defence that dispersion bubble and maneuvers gave me for a long time before I ever hit the magic 45%.
I have to wonder, because I find so much of my experience flatly contradicting Ultimo's. As a FF/nrg I have three damaging AoEs. Between all of that I can *easily* kill the spawn surrounding a boss before he unphases - esepcially since opening with repulsion bomb puts everyone including the boss on their butts right off the bat. I've juggled scads of bosses on their rears in a corner with force bolt until they died, and it's a very rare case that I find a boss that tactic won't work on. Even before I soft capped my ranged defence, I could solo just fine - not nearly as fast or on as high a difficulty setting as a blaster or scrapper, of course, but without any real difficulty. Insps dropped more than fast enough to top up my health or end occasionally, and a pair of purples would cap my defense for plenty long enough to defuse any out-of-control situations (which were uncommon solo - detention field and force bolt are wonderful precision tools. It's on teams where things more easily get chaotic).
I've done it over and over again - repulsion bomb -> jump in close -> explosive blast -> energy torrent and pick off the weakened foes as they stand back up, force bolting as needed. If there's a boss, cage him after the AoEs go off and force bolt the heck out of him once the cage drops. End result, one dead spawn and I've taken perhaps 2 or 3 ranged hits, tops. This isn't theorycrafting - I've done this many times. It works. I don't run out of endurance before I clear the spawn, and they don't do very much damage to me either. Now, I'm not exactly fighting 8 man spawns of +3s here, but this is plenty sufficient to solo on a reasonable difficulty setting.
As an example, I have no qualms about attacking a +4 Chief Soldier with the Scrapper, but I'd never dare with the Defender. The Scrapper has the health the defense and the offense to make the stand. The Defender has none of these. With Dispersion Bubble and Manuevers running, he'd have only 20% or so Defense, which is woeful when fighting a boss, especially when you have no resistance and low health to absorb the hits you will take. I've seen Force Bolts bounce off Chief Soldiers, and they stubbornly refuse to stun. That means the bubbles are my defense. Now, I can hover, which is wise since they do GOBS of damage in melee, but one shot from a Chief Soldier will seriously injure the Defender. The Scrapper can usually soak it up.
The whole idea is to level the playing field somewhat.
As for the endurance issues, I can't imagine using my powers as you suggest. I have Stamina triple slotted and two end reductions in all my attacks and wuold use 90% of my endurance if I attacked as you suggest (well maybe not quite that, but pretty close). Endurance balancing is a whole different thread, though. -
Quote:Ya, I was seeing it as an either/or prospect. You either defend yourself (toggle) or others (click). If you need to rebubble the team, you have to detoggle yourself. I figured that would allow better solo play while leaving team contribution intact.Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
OK. Simply put, its a bad idea mechanically. Toggle on a shield, what happens when you try to 'click' to buff someone. Currently any toggle gets toggled off.
It requires extra coding to allow self targeting (which in itself is a hugely bad idea as then every single existing ally targeted click power has to be readjusted to define the effect on self) as well as the creation of this hybrid click/toggle class.
Its a badly thought out convoluted way around the 'issue', and it doesn't address the main complaint I see about Force Fielders, which is the lack of a way of boosting their damage output.
Heck you could simply add something like
Self:
•DMG(All Types) +15% for 10s [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
(fromat borrowed from defiance)
to Force bolt and scale it to be a slightly stronger damage power (say the same damage as a tier 1 blast) and you have provided a way for the FF'ers to boost their damage significantly within the existing game mechanics.
Whilst doing this add the same sort of self damage buff to heal aura for empathy and thats the other big issue with 'buff sets' soloability dealt with.
Perhaps it WOULD be easier to make it a click with a fairly short duration. That seemed a lot of clicking though, so I thought making it a more traditional defense would be easier and more balanced. -
No, you are missing the whole point so you can rant and rave about how I apparently don't know anything about the game. Allow me to reiterate.
This thread is about an IDEA I've had. Its purpose is to help Defender survivability, which IS an issue, as it has been discussed many times in the past, by posters other than myself, even in this very thread.
The idea is that the two main defensive bubbles (Deflection and Insulation Shield) operate as both clicks and toggles, depending on the target. If the Defender targets an ally, it's a click effect. If he targets himself, it operates as a toggle, protecting the Defender.
This may require a slight recalibration of the defense provided by the bubbles, but that would be determined through playtesting.
THIS is what we're supposed to be discussing. Telling me my perceptions are wrong says nothing about the idea. Telling others how wrong I am does not discuss the idea. Discussing old threads does not discuss the current idea. You seem to be simply attempting to derail the thread rather than discussing the idea or contributing one of your own. -
Quote:I will say, it's my Mastermind that has the Force Bolt. Is there a difference in the knockback effect from the Defender to the Mastermind?Originally Posted by Deacon_NA
I can practically name everyone (not AV class) immune to a moderately slotted FB:
Longbow Ballistas
Miscellaneous other Longbow bosses, especially the Tanks.
That's about it. I use it liberally with my MM (whose FB is no better than a Defenders) and I'm always taken aback whenever I'm unable to kb a foe. -
Quote:I've said nothing that's wrong, certainly not in this thread. The things I've reported are as I've seen first hand. You can't tell me they didn't happen. My Defender DOES have difficulty soloing. My Scrapper IS more fun to play because he's not hampered by weak offense AND weak defense. These are facts, not imagination.Originally Posted by Schismatrix
This is one of the things that tends to give Ultimo_ a bad reputation and attract flames to his threads: stating things that are not only very wrong, but things he can easily test for himself...
I addressed this above.Quote:There are almost no bosses that can't be sent flying with FB. Actually, none come to mind offhand, but there may be one or two somewhere that are mobile and unaffected by it. As already mentioned, you can even slot it to reach mag 50 KB; enough to knock even most AV's and EB's on their tuckuses. i've used FB to keep many bosses almost permanently out of fights. And that's just with a single accuracy enhancer.
I addressed this above. The thread and the test he's referring to was back when the character was in single digit levels. However, the character STILL runs out of endurance in a matter of seconds, often before he can defeat a single spawn. Personally, I chalk this up to the discrepancy between endurance and damage that exists between the ATs. That is, the Defender has to use twice as much endurance to defeat a foe because he does half the damage.Quote:...Yeah, 20% chance to hit bosses. 
Well, there are Malta Gunslingers and Rulaaru eyeballs, but other than that i can't think of anything that would even come close to 20% without outside assistance. But then this bizarre misunderstanding of Ultimo_'s regarding PFF and defense in general was covered in his thread about how his FF/Energy Def couldn't defeat anything without running out of endurance and/or getting killed a number of months back. Then again, the actual numbers for PFF were covered in an earlier post here.
I never said aything about PFF offering little defense. I may have commented on how frequently I was getting hit through it, but that's a different thing. Again, there's nothing wrong with PFF as it is.Quote:He made the same sort of assertions about how PFF offered little defense against enemies even though it's easy to check that in game just by looking at combat logs or the power numbers when in use. i even took up the challenge, leveled up a FF/Energy Defender to the same level as his in a few hours, took on the same AE arc as him and had no issues at all. All solo. That was even while deliberately handicapping myself with regards to slotting to make sure i didn't have an unfair advantage by spending 15 minutes in WW to get the funding for DO's. (My early missions with heroes i tend to focus on fighting Hellions and CoT so that i can get salvage drops that when sold on the market easily cover standard enhancement costs.)
I've exaggerated nothing. I've said nothing inaccurate or false. All I've done is describe in general terms my own experiences and opinions. I suspect you're still arguning a different thread. Either way, this is a personal attack, and not on topic. I hope we can keep away from this kind of commentary in the future and stick to the ideas presented.Quote:The problem with making exaggerated, inaccurate and downright false claims about how powers work in the AT forums is that many of the people who read and post in here know better. Yet Ultimo_ does it again and again. Even when i agree with his general position i have difficulty supporting Ultimo_'s arguments because they nearly always are filled with inaccuracies and distortions. And even after it's been explained in exhaustive detail he'll come back and post the same assertions a few months later.
I generally don't revive old threads as it's denounced as "necro-posting." Further, I had an actual idea to present, the hybrid power idea.Quote:FWIW, i would like to see FF become my useful solo and offensively. There have been many suggestions made in previous threads on this very topic that were based in actual numbers and accurate game mechanics. i'm not sure why Ultimo_ doesn't revive or copy from one of those threads instead of making threads that are just wrong in many of their assumptions.
Personal attacks make weak arguments. 35 levels of Defender and 40 levels of Mastermind have provided me with a pretty fair sense of how the set works (and doesn't work).Quote:FF could use a boost, but it's more likely to get it from the efforts of advocates who know how the set works in actual play. -
My original post was intended to open a discussion of ideas. We started off that way, but we're starting to diverge into the usual "you don't know what youre talking about" rant. You can't tell me the things I've seen first hand didn't happen.
MANY bosses are immune to Force Bolt. Now, I'll admit, I've never slotted it for knockback; I was under the impression that only increased the knockcback distance. IF it will increase the power of the knockback so it will work on more powerful foes, that's different. Either way, it remains a limited defense. It remains a single target, endurance intensive "defense."
My L35 Defender is regularly getting hit right through his PFF when in the Rikti Warzone. Orange conn Rikti Mesmerists are getting a 26% chance to hit me, even with the PFF and Manuevers running. That said, I really don't have a problem with PFF, as I already said. It just strikes me as a higher tier power, as it is with Masterminds.
I agree, Detention field can be a useful power, but as I've described it usually isn't. That you can disable the boss for a few seconds is of little help if you are unable to withstand his cronies or can't defeat them fast enough. You can find a corner circumstance for any power.
I'm delighted to hear alternative ideas, and if someone thinks I've made a bad suggestion, I'm delighted to hear it. The problem is that so many posters just take the route Schim is taking and attacking ME rather than my ideas. My original post was to make a suggestion, the hybrid click/toggle thing. That's not trolling, it's a new idea.
I do solo primarily. The thing is that my Defender has to overcome the same challenges as my Scrapper, and often can't. This is a discrepancy I'm hoping to see mitigated.
I'll address Schismatrix in more detail, and that will hopefully put an end to that. -
Quote:No, because buffers get the shaft in all circumstances. That is, they can't buff themselves solo OR against an AV, while Debuffers can get the benefit of the Debuffs solo, but less so against AVs.Originally Posted by Sailboat
I've seen several people say this, and I feel compelled to point out that DEBUFFING Defenders get the shaft when fighting AVs -- debuffs get reduced by the AV's gigantic debuff resistance, but buffs retain full value.
Does that mean that buffers and debuffers are balanced? I don't know. But the world's debuffers are painfully aware they are at a stark disadvantage fighting AVs; buffers are not. The Devs know it too, and may possibly be unmoved by special pleading to allow buffers better soloing if we're not going to help debuffers.
(I wrote a huge long response before this, but the browser backed up on its own and I lost all of it. I'll redo it another time) -
Quote:As I said in my OP, Force Bolt is of limited use, as it only affects Lts and Minions reliably. Even then, it misses periodically, only affects one target and uses more endurance than a toggle since it's an attack. Relying on it as a defense is unwise and relatively ineffective.Originally Posted by Emberly
I find the situation you describe sort of disingenuous; are you really shocked that your scrapper (of any flavour/colour) handles things better than your ff/nrg defender? Also your supporting info is weak at best:
Nothing except Force Bolt to knock people away from you, Dispersion Field to provide you with defense and status protection (a rare thing among the squishier ATs), Repulsion Bomb for reliable knockdown and some damage too, Detention Field to take one enemy right out of the fight, and of course, the be-all end-all, Personal Force Field, for when things have really hit the fan. Then you have a whole secondary, which might have tohit debuffs, knockback, -def, slows, -resistance, lord knows what else, all of which help you out solo and teamed.
Force Bolt: it keeps one enemy permanently out of the fight, barring misses, animation shenanigans, or poor use of the landscape/environment. If you're not using it to best effect, that's not a fault of the power.
The two bubbles: just, no. You complain later on that Dispersion Bubble "has a fairly high endurance cost" but you want to convert these into toggles as well. Not very consistent. If we did convert these to toggles things would be pretty imbalanced all of a sudden. Also, you propose making them into something that as far as I know just doesn't exist,with this combo click/toggle. Programming time that is better spent elsewhere and as far as we know is not even possible. Apologies if I am forgetting some power that can be used as a targeted click or a toggle as desired.
Detention Field: if you are struggling as much as you seem to think you are, this power might actually be useful to you. Take something completely out of the fight for a bit while you chew up the rest. However I think you are overestimating your difficulties so you can push your agenda. If I can solo my ff/rad then you can solo your ff/nrg, especially with the added mitigation of kb on energy blast.
Dispersion Bubble: high end cost? You get defense and status protection. Not resistance, protection. What more do you want? TRT has a good point with the defdebuff protection but I think to put it in the shields as well as Dispersion Bubble would be overly powerful. Maybe add a chunk of defdebuff protection into Dispersion Shield only.
Repulsion Field: ok, so don't run it if the end cost is too high. I don't run it either.
Force Bubble: admittedly a limited-application power, but there are some neat tricks you can pull with it. Also, let's not tell outright lies; it doesn't push enemies out of the range of many of your powers, save Power Burst, and if you make use of Force Bubble regularly then maybe you ought to slot a range in there so you can use Power Burst from within Force Bubble. It also bumps them out of range of Power Push but then again that power is meant to push them away, so its job is done already by Force Bubble.
M_K, I agree that a major issue is that buffing fenders get the shaft where debuffing fenders do not. I don't think they need a pet but I don't know what else could be done.
I already indicated that DIspersion Bubble is a good personal defense. I also noted it's the ONLY personal defense. However, it does have a higher endurance cost compared to other defensive toggles because it is an area effect power.
I already said Repulsion Bomb is a good power, but the defense it provides is limited in the same way as Force Bolt.
Detention Field is another power that is useful, but only a little bit. You can disable that hard hitting foe, but your damage is low, so he'll have recovered before you have defeated his pals (assuming you aren't already defeated).
PFF is a strange one, and I often wonder what it's doing at Tier 1. As you say, it's a good emergency button, but even it is of limited use against AVs or EBs (or even just regular bosses) who often have better than 20% chances to hit you right through it.
Relying on your secondary (your "offense") to provide defense is not a great plan either. In any case, any primary can benefet from the secondary effects of the secondary powers.
I realize my concept of a hybrid toggle/click power doesn't exist yet. That's why I'm suggesting it. What would or wouldn't be a valuable use of developer time isn't up to us, it's up to them. That argument holds no weight. I think my idea of a hybrid power is pretty good, as it would allow the character to operate more successfully solo while having little to no effect on his team contribution (ie. it adds to his abilities and doesn't change the way he plays now).
The point here isn't to make the Defender solo as well as a Scrapper, but to make him more balanced. As it is, playing a Defender is often not any fun at all, and in the end that's what we're here for. I'm just looking for a way to make the power set more fun (by making it more capable in solo situations). -
An interesting idea, that. I think if a pet were introduced it would have to be sooner in the original set. After all, most of the character's life is spent prior to L41. Perhaps you could replace Repulsion Field with a pet of some kind? Not sure what would be an appropriate FF pet, though...
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I have three Masterminds.
Lord Dire is a Doom homage, his bots are:
Assault - Dire Knight
Protector - Dire Rook
Battle - Dire Pawn
The Meanie is a Joker homage, his thugs are
Eenie, Miney, Moe (he's Meanine, after all).
Die Grausigkeit is a German soldier, his troops are
Schutze (name), Feldwebel (name)
Leutnant (name), Hauptmann (name)
Oberst (name).
The names tend to rotate, but are german names like Horst and Gruber. -
Yes, I know I post a lot of these, but they do serve a purpose. First, they let me vent my frustration; second, they promte discussion and exchange of ideas. I realize there will be the temptation to troll, but I hope you will all try to be constructive.
It began like this:
I was redesigning my costumes on some of my characters, and played each of them a little after doing so, to see how they look in action. I began with the Stalwart Star, my MA/Shield Scrapper. He is just a blast to play. He can dive into groups of foes with a decent expectation of survival, dealing and recieving damage well. He occasionally uses an inspiration here or there (usually blues - with 7 toggles, he burns a lot of endurance), and even gets defeated once in a while. The point is, he's a lot of fun to play.
The next character I played was Technaught, my FF/Nrg Defender. Nothing makes playing this character less fun than playing the Star right beforehand. Technaught is virtually incapable of handling even smallish groups of foes on his own. He has dismal damage and dismal defenses, even WITH all the available pool defenses. He's tedious and depressing to play, especially after the Scrapper.
Now, some will say that Force Field as a set isn't intended to defend the Defender. I say this results in a character with no offense OR defense, which is unacceptable. You have to have higher offense or you have to have the defense (survivability) to survive long enough to employ a lower offense. A Force Field Defender has neither since Force Fields does nothing to boost damage (as some Defender sets do) and nothing to boost the Defender's own defenses (as other Defender sets do). Debuffing sets generally work well. The reason is that debuffing the enemy is a benefit to the Defender whether solo or teamed. Buffing sets like FF generally don't perform as well, because the Defender can't buff himself.
Some say the Force Field set has mitigation tools in the form of Force Bolt, Repulsion Field and so on. These tools are helpful, but are of very limited value. I'll elaborate further momentarily.
Some have suggested increasing Defender damage across the board, and I think a SMALL increase is in order. However, we have to be very careful of this since there are sets that already boost Defender damage. Universally increasing Defender defenses isn't the answer either, since not all Defender sets operate in this way. This means addressing specific shortcomings in specific sets.
Here is how I view Force Fields, power by power.
Personal Force Field: Very useful, this power is kind of odd. I don't think it needs to be changed, really.
Force Bolt: I like this power, I just wish it would do a little damage. It's of limited use for mitigation as it's only single target and doesn't affect many foes.
Insulation/Deflection Shield: These are your bread and butter on teams. However, I have concerns about the balance of these powers, and I'll discuss them in more detail later.
Dispersion Bubble: Your only personal defense, it provides decent defense as well as status protection, but has a fairly high endurance cost.
Repulsion Bomb: The only real attack in the set, it's lowish damage, but is AOE and has a nice long stun effect. Good mitgation against minions and Lts, but that's about it. You might knock down some bosses, but they'll get back up and paste you before it recharges. It might be nice to see a little more damage, but it doesn't need anything.
Detention Field: I've never seen a Defender actually take this. It's uses are limited, and while you can freeze that AV for a few seconds, it's not much use if you're going to be killed by his thugs. To make this more palatable, I'd make it a toggle with a high endurance cost, like Telekinesis.
Repulsion Field: Some describe this as a mitigation tool, but it really isn't. Foes run in, hit you, then get tossed away. If they're hitting you, it's not mitigating anything. Worse, it's rather endurance heavy, and is very similar to Force Bubble.
Force Bubble: This one confuses me. It pushes foes away, out of range of your attacks, but still in range of THEIR attacks, so you get chewed up from far away, while being unable to counterattack. This also does very little to mitigate damage.
With so little mitigation and so little health, FF Defenders are at a severe disadvantage. Here's what I'm thinking of to help this situation.
The Defender needs a personal defense, but we don't want to change any of the powers too drastically because people like many of them. For example, if PFF was altered, people would scream about it. The trick is therefore to make a change without changing things for those who like the way things work now. My suggestion involves Insulation/Deflection Shield.
Allow the Defender to use these powers on himself. This would require a slight modification to the power. It has been pointed out that most personal defense powers are toggles. Thus we should allow the bubbles to be used as toggles. However, they have to be clicks for their use in teams. Thus we should allow them to be used as clicks AS WELL.
When targeting another person, the power would be a click, operating just as it does now. However, if targeting yourself or no one else, it would actvate as a toggle. Recharge after a click would be as it is now, recharge after detoggling would be lengthy. The idea is that you would be able to use the bubbles on yourself or on others, but not both at once.
Now, it's been suggested that this would be unbalanced, that the FFer would be able to soft cap himself too easily. I can see that, so I propose the following, a significant change that I think is overdue anyway.
Reduce the effect of the bubbles to around 15% Defense. Coupled with the Dispersion Bubble, this would provide about 30% total Defense, which is good. Other ATs are capable of this. Also, change the way the bubbles stack. It has always been my position that they should have diminishing returns as it is. This would mean the Defender can't make his team into indestructible gods by himself. This in turn would not margnialize other FFers on the team.
The only other option as I see it would be to change Force Bubble/Repulsion Field so that one or the other becomes a personal defense.
To summarize, what I'd do is this:
-Add a small amount of damage to Defenders across the board.
-Increase Defender health to Blaster levels.
-Change Deflection/Insulation Shields to toggle/click combo powers, such that the Defender can use them on himself as toggles or on others as clicks.
-Adjust the amount of Defense generated by the bubbles to be more balanced for both solo and team use. -
Quote:Technically, that's not cognitive dissonance, but I get your point...Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Do you need meds for that level of persistent cognitive dissonance or is it a straight split personality issue?
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Hm. I'm unconvinced that the Force Bubble is really all that useful. After trying it for a while now, I'm wondering if I wouldn't have been better with the Repulsion Field (since Knockback does mitigate damage somewhat), especially since the Force Bubble pushes foes out of range of my attacks but usually not theirs.
I'm wondering if I might not be better taking Assault or Aid Other (or Repair, though that is only useful to my bots).
Any other thoughts? -
I picked Mu because the character should really have blasts of his own (I grow weary constantly running back to Siren's Call to buy EMP Gloves). I'm not sure why I didn't pick Electric Fences... Must have been an oversight.
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I'm trying to decide whether to go with one or the other of these, as I'm approaching L38 now. I'm not sure which is better, if indeed either is a good choice.
Here's the build:
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Lord Dire: Level 50 Technology Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Robotics
Secondary Power Set: Force Field
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Battle Drones -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(3), Acc-I(3), Dmg-I(5), Dmg-I(5), Dmg-I(7)
Level 1: Force Bolt -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(7)
Level 2: Pulse Rifle Burst -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(9), Dmg-I(9), Dmg-I(11), Dmg-I(11)
Level 4: Pulse Rifle Blast -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(13), Dmg-I(13), Dmg-I(15), Dmg-I(15)
Level 6: Equip Robot -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Air Superiority -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(17), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(19), Dmg-I(19)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 12: Protector Bots -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(21), Acc-I(21), DefBuff-I(23), DefBuff-I(23), DefBuff-I(25)
Level 14: Fly -- Flight-I(A), Flight-I(25), Flight-I(27)
Level 16: Personal Force Field -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(27), DefBuff-I(46)
Level 18: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(29), Heal-I(29)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(31), EndMod-I(31)
Level 22: Dispersion Bubble -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(31), DefBuff-I(33), DefBuff-I(33)
Level 24: Maneuvers -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(33), DefBuff-I(34), DefBuff-I(34)
Level 26: Assault Bot -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(34), Acc-I(36), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(37)
Level 28: Photon Grenade -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(37), Dmg-I(37), Dsrnt-I(39), Dsrnt-I(39), Dsrnt-I(39)
Level 30: Group Fly -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(40), EndRdx-I(40)
Level 32: Upgrade Robot -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Repulsion Bomb -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(40), Dmg-I(42), Dsrnt-I(42), Dsrnt-I(42), Dsrnt-I(43)
Level 38: Force Bubble -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 41: Static Discharge -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(43), Dmg-I(43), Dmg-I(45), Dmg-I(45)
Level 44: Charged Armor -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(45), ResDam-I(46), ResDam-I(46)
Level 47: Thunder Strike -- EndRdx-I(A), Acc-I(48), Dmg-I(48), Dmg-I(48), Dmg-I(50)
Level 49: Electric Shackles -- Acc-I(A), Hold-I(50), Hold-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
The character tends not to get personally involved if possible, but should be able to defend himself. Repulsion Field looks nifty and all, but I found it to be of extremely limited use on my FF Defender. I didn't bother with Force Bubble on either as yet.
Are they really of any value, and if so which is superior? -
Quote:I'm aware, and they do have final say in such things, but were I to make a character named Thor or Hercules or any other mythological character, I would certainly have a leg to stand on for an appeal. The key is not to draw from the Marvel character.Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Ultimo,
I did want to warn you, though, that if your backstory and name are too similar to Thor from Marvel, you can get generic'd. Just because the name Thor is in the common domain doesn't mean that the GMs won't take a more conservative bent on the naming issue, and give you a generic name. I'm not saying that they will, just giving you a bit of a warning on it.
In the case of Thor, that's actually pretty easy. Marvel's Thor actually doesn't resemble his mythological counterpart. Norse myth describes Thor as a large Red-bearded man, with firey red eyes and a quick, murderous temper. Mjolnir is a two handed hammer with a one handed haft that is too hot to touch without Thor's Gauntlets. Further, Thor supposedly wears a girdle that doubles his strength (supposedly, only his son Magni could lift Mjolnir without this belt on...). My version of Thor is thus depicted as a redbearded, gauntleted, girdled man with a completely different backstory (apart from the stuff drawn from the actual myths). -
Quote:Ah, I didn't know that was there! Yes, a good guide!Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
-
Some good suggestions, thanks! I had considered possibly going to a different Norse God, like Tyr (I'd probably make him as an Axe/Shield tank or brute and give him a hook for a hand... It really should be the right, but what can you do...).
As an aside, the backstory of the Brute-Thor was that when he fell during Ragnarok, he wasn't actually dead, just in a kind of torpor (for those unfamiliar with it, according to the myth, Thor slew the Midgard Serpent and was felled himself in a torrent of its venom. It says he took 6 steps and fell himself, so I thought, perhaps he could have survived...). Centuries later, he awoke, greatly weakened and confused. Discovered in this state by agents of Arachnos, they turned his recovering power to their own ends. In time, he will recover his senses and go to Paragon City to redeem himself.
Nordhammer was originally conceieved as the heroic side of the story, in which he denied himself his own name. It just didn't feel right, though. I like the idea of being a Brute better. In any case, I may not go with Thor anyhow, and go to a different god.
Again, thanks for the input. -
Quote:While true, this can be said for almost any character. I mean, ANY Super Strength character in the comics is more than a Tank or Brute can completely emulate. We're speaking in relative terms here.Originally Posted by Jetpack
Dr. Doom is a ton more than just a mastermind.
His bots are really just flavor. -
Actually, I can see that. A lawyer needs to have some objectivity, a more neutral characteristic, in my opinion. anyhow, here's my scores from the quiz. Seems about right to me.
You Scored as Neutral Good
A Neutral Good person tries to do the 'goodest' thing possible. These people are willing to work with the law to accomplish their goal, but if the law is corrupt they are just as willing to tear it down. To these people, doing what's right is the most important thing, regardless of rules, customs, or laws.
Neutral Good
85%
Chaotic Neutral
75%
Lawful Neutral
65%
True Neutral
60%
Lawful Good
55%
Lawful Evil
50%
Chaotic Evil
30%
Chaotic Good
15%
Neutral Evil
10%