Unthing

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In my experience i use Haymaker more often then KO Blow as KO cost so much end. I mainly use KO on bosses only.

here cheked som stats with "Hero Builder" And Base dmg of KO is 9.8 Base of Assasin is 19.4
This is an index from brawl if i understand the calcualtions right.

An brute with full fury gets *3 wich gets it to 29.4
But then an stalker attacking from Hide gets *6 wich gets the base dmg up to 116,4
No use countung in rage as stalkers have Build up wich adds the same precentage Dmg

[/ QUOTE ]That base of assassin has to be from hide, because it does pretty low damage out of it.
However, remember that with 3 damage slots and build up it will be around 19.4* 3, which will be around 58.

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But Build Up from a stalker is only 80% IIRC. So the max damage from a stalker AS is 19.4 * 2.8 = 54.32. If AS is not from hide it does only moderate damage as the previous poster stated.

For Brutes, it depends on whether Fury is a damage buff or an increase to base damage like criticals
1) Base Damage, Knockout blow will be 9.8 * 2.8 ( Rage + 3 Sos ) = 27.44, times 3 from fury this is 82.32.
2) Damage buff, it will be 9.8 * ( 1 + 1.0 (SOs) + 0.8 (Rage) + 2(Fury) = 9.8 * 4.8 = 47.04.
Do you know which it is, I suspect the 2nd one but I don't have any evidence. If the 2nd case is the correct one then slotting for damage may not be the best strategy, slotting for stuff to keep your fury high ( end reds ) may be more important.

Brawl indices aren't equal though, I think Brutes are higher than stalkers. So they do about the same damage in ideal circumstances....

Golden Golem, lvl 47 Inv Tanker, no holds, both +hp accolades.

On the Inv side that is close to my build.

The only power I'm not getting from the primary is Resist Physical Damage though, without it I've had no problems against all those Avs.

I've found that my build is great against anything short of Rularuu ( the def buffs combined with Psi damage ) are just nasty.

As for the Resists, I got resist Energies but not Resist Elements. I'm am reconsidering whether to get Resist Elements as my last power or not.

I started a Brute this morning ( day off woohoo! ) and decided to go for SS/Fire. SS because Rage sounds interesting and Knockout Blow seems really early for that kind of attack. Fire I chose because of the early self heal , Consume and having 2 powers for all resists.

I have the following attacks, Jab, Punch, Boxing and Knockout Blow. I am using the first 3 with Brawl to build up Fury and Knockout Blow to take out nasty enemies. Given that I have gone for the fast cheap attacks, has skipping Haymaker been a mistake, currently it doesn't seem that way?

Now what suprised me was that with a good head of Fury ( 50-60% ), Knockout Blow 'seems' to be as effective as a Stalker Assassin's Strike ( from memory ). Is this only because I am such low level ( 10 ) or is a Brute with fury able to compete damage wise with a stalker's special attack.

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regen when your instnt healing has run down, so has your MoG against nemesis is not fun in the slighteset, face plants very quickly I find

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Really? Why?

Or perhaps, what level of mission are you running? Nemesis usually fall over quite happily for me just with Integration running.

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Usually on invincible, and usually in a largeish team so you have quite a lot of them as well, have just found that with their AoE's and cone attack's that it is very easy to be caught by a lot of them at the same time, which often means going down very quickly.

Once you have thinned their numbers a bit, or the tank has managed to grab the aggro from them all, then they are not so bad, usually just find the first few attacks with Nemesis are worse than any other. (Not as bad as sappers, but judging by speaking to people in game and also looking on forums, everyone hates them!)

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I've found being a regen in large teams against Nemesis is nasty too. The problem is the AoE spill combined by the long aggro range which means that it is easy to aggro more than one spawn accidentally and that the tank doesn't always take all of the hits ( as AoEs tend to hit the scrappers too ). The aggro limit doesn't help either....

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What Unthing says!

When soloing start with the biggest mob. If there are two lieutenants and a minion, As the lieut, scrap the minion, placate the second lieut.

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This doesn't always apply. It's not worth going after the biggest enemy in a group soloing if you can't take him to low enough hitpoints to scrap him to death easily. The aim is to reduce each spawn to 1 enemy. Once you are facing a single enemy they have no chance unless they are a particularly danagerous Boss or better due.

So when against Spectral Daemons ( who have a large resistance to Spines ) I always would go for a minion in a group of 2 rather than an Lt as I can almost kill the minion ( how embarassing ) with an AS and then scrp him to death. Placate then goes on the Lt with an AS and then scrap until placate is back on.

Generally a stalker is more a tactical meleer than a scrapper, whilst fighting you need to be able to alter your tactics to suit the situation.

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Any advice?

I have become used to steam-rollering through missions with my MM, no faced with soloing my Stalker, I'm finding it a bit awkward.

I am level 12 EM/Ninjitsu, I find it a bit of a chore, kill a few mobs, run away, hide for a minute for aggro to die down, then rinse/repeat.

When I go into a mission, I tend to go straight for the "glowie"/boss, whack'em and then kill a few mobs in that area and exit the mission.

Now I could kill all the mobs and progress naturally through the mission, but my problem lies in the Kidnap/Escort missions, I dont think I could handle an ambush, with any more than 4/5 mobs at a time, or I will get swamped.

Is there any technique I am missing that I could use in these situations, I have Placate, but that only works on one mob for about 10 seconds, just about gives me time to take out 2 others, before they get back into the action.


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Soloing you should be fighting groups of 3 or 4 max. The first one gets an AS. Save the Placate for the last one and use AS on him too. This means you have to scrap enemies number 2 and 3.

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When in a teamed mission, people seem to think a Stalker is like a Scrapper and expect you to stay and go toe-to-toe with a lot of mobs in aggro mode, so I try not to let them down in these situations, but get face plant syndrome more often than I would like.

Maybe it's because i am more used to playing my Scrapper and am not approaching this AT (Stalker), correctly, but any advice on any of the stuff above would be appreciated.

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I do hit and run into the throng. Team play is where hiding in combat becomes effective. Scrapping as a stalker is of less use to the team, get an AS off, kill that enemy and then shed any excess aggro before rehiding and doing it again.

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Regarding teams, last night I was told to Assist the Brute....W TF? Prior to this I was killing the yellow orange and red mobs that were waiting ahead of the team using hit - run - hide techniques which is waht I figure I should be doing

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Assist the brute, haha, you might as well not bother fighting. Brutes rip through enemies like buzzsaws, giving you no chance to use your unique abilities. I generally stick to the spawn my team is fighting but go for the hard and irritating targets. On some large teams this can be bad as nothing lasts long enough...

So, respec done.

I initially did it on the test server, first testing the I5 build against mobs in Croatoa and then respeccing. I dropped the fitness pool and picked up Aim, Ball Lightning and Tesla Cage.

I had too many powers to use. What an irritating problem. I spent about 40 minutes trying to work out how to bind them all ( normally I just use 1-5, e, f, x for my combat powers ) and decided that whilst the build was generally good, I wasn't ever using Aim.

So I did the live build and took ID instead. With some slot changes it seems to work pretty well, although the times when I don't have Siphon Speed up are a drag. I ran a few missions with a pickup team and overall it was pretty effective, the only times I got into problems was when getting mezzed. Siphon Speed and Hasten can stack 2-3 Siphon speeds, so perma-hasten is possible and everything ( except Transference ) recharges fast enough.

I also had to bind a few more keys.

By the way losing Fitness adds a strangeness to this character, Stamina would still be useful because it is irritating to have to rely on Transference when I run out of end, this only ends up being a problem if I miss target or miss 2 transferences in a row. I suspect I'll end up adding an end reducer to quite a few powers. One thing to note was that quite often the pickup up team would wait before attacking the next spawn because I was on 30-40% endurance, after a combat follwed by a round of Speed Boosts. I kept on not realising that this was what they were doing. I guess I'll need a macro to tell them as downtime is the last thing I want ( or Siphon Speed will run out! ).

Short Circuit only gets even level enemies to about 15-20% endurance now unfortunately.

As farf as fitness is concerned I guess if I go with the Meleefender role that is part tank/part defender I can forego fitness as the transference will always hit me. If I choose to hang back I would need the fitness pool more. I do intend to keep Tactics running 24/7 as I like the power.

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Inertial Reduction is better than fly if you want mobility, I can chase down pretty much anything.

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The problem I found is that IR causes other people ( who don't want more jump ) to get + jump. It's nice as a 1 power pick travel power though. Although I want to get Hover as an anti-knockback power and in combat Hover is super nippy with 2 Siphon Speeds stacked. So with IR versus flight it is about evens.

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Increase Density is good in PvP as you can stop people teleporting your team. It also stops knockback and frees people from Holds, among a few other things.
I also have Tesla Cage because its useful for taking an enemy out of a fight and lets you have someone close by thats not going to kill you. (Transferance and Transfusion target).

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I'm not hugely interested in PvP, but ID can be used in PvE as a kind of clear mind power. I respecced out of it because it is annoying to apply and I didn't really rely on it or use it too much. I only really used it on Fire Tanks and Dark armour scrappers anyway.

Tesla Cage is sounding more and more tempting though.

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I don't think you need the fitness pool on a kin post-transference. Give it a shot on Test. Slotted 1 acc 3 endmod 2 rech, it should be up about every 12-15sec with Hasten (which means a full bar every 15sec ; that's roughly a 6eps regen, 6 times better than 3-slotted Stamina)

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Cool. It looks like I'm going to have to make a more aggressive build for this one anyway. The big question is, what shall I do with the 3 extra powers. I guess Ball lightning, Tesla Cage and Increase Density are possibilities. Another idea is to lose Inertia Reduction and go for fly and hover earlier. Too many options.

The patch notes for I6 say this

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Some Electrical Blast, Electrical Melee and Electrical Mastery powers now have a chance to return some of the endurance they drain back to the caster.

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Has anyone got any hints on whether the electrical set end drain/recovery thing is significant or not? Does Short Circuit provide a potential gain or just less of a loss than in I5?

Given that Short Circuit is and will be a large part of my combat tactics, having recovery built in to it will make a nice difference.

I have had Booster, my level 29 Kin/Elec sitting idle since the beginning of I5 and I was thinking of respeccing him.

Currently he uses the following powers

Kinetics :Transfusion, Siphon Power, Siphon Speed, Speed Boost, Inertial Reduction, Transference.
Elect: Charged Bolts, Lightning Bolt, Short Circuit ( slotted for end drain )

Leadership: Maneuvers, Tactics ( so he didn't have to slot ACCs ).
Speed: Hasten helps for speeding up all those lovely powers.
Fitness: Swift, Health, Stamina
Fly: Hover ( very nippy with 2x Siphon Speeds )

Do I need the fitness pool still, now that Electrical blast recovers endurance and Vigilance is around?

Has anyone got any advice?

Good work for wanting to create a tank in I6. I think Inv should be the easiest to level up at low levels as the Resistances all stack. Once you get to the Hollows Trolls should be pretty to fight as you will have high S/L resistance.

Hasten acts as if you have 2 extra recharge SO in all powers when it is active.

With 3 recharge SOs it is active about 2/3rds of the time.

If you have no gaps in your attack chain it isn't worth it.

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Doulos if you could I'd rather you slotted 6 Hold Durations instead of recharges,just for raid.With all the buffs people get there is no need for recharges and the extra 15% may be what gets a hold on Hami,same goes for damage if you can,the extra 15% will make a difference on mobs with a stupidly high hit points.

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Out of curiousity how many recharge buffs are we expecting to have? Is the recharge buff because we are all in range of AoE buffs like Recovery Aura and Accelerate Metabolism?

46.5

I had an awesome night last night, piling through my AV missions and then a few other peoples AVs.

Lvl 48 Malaise, Black Swan, Nightstar ( I think ).
Lvl 50 Black Swan, Infernal, Dreck.

I think Nightstar went down without a death, Black Swan's shadows were really nasty and Malaise was possibly the easiest ( wiped out by Me, Standoff and Neutreno, a Kinetic defender ).

Infernal caused a death as he had it in for Standoff, despite my taunting, however we did do it pretty much by the book, he was sniped and we only aggroed the portal after a hard fight at the doorway.

I finally died in the last mission of the night, when fighting Dreck ( who is pretty nasty ). We also only cleared about 5 spawns of mobs too, 3 of which were because I hit Unstoppable at the end of the Dreck fight and didn't want to waste it.

I also managed to use Unstoppable at least 3 times without dying from it. Hurray!

There's nothing more annoying than when you have to fight that nasty boss / elite boss / AV and he has an Aura/Quills etc running. I have 3 slots in hide but haven't been able to slot 3 def buff SO in there yet.

5 Minute lvl 30 tanker build... Any comments, assuming Super Jump as the travel power of choice for no reason at all. Not much effort spared...

01 : Jab acc(01)
01 : Temp Invulnerability damres(01) damres(3) damres(3)
02 : Dull Pain recred(02) recred(5) recred(5) hel(7) hel(7) hel(9)
04 : Taunt tntdur(04) tntdur(9)
06 : Combat Jumping defbuf(06)
08 : Unyielding damres(08) damres(15) damres(17)
10 : Haymaker acc(10) dam(11) dam(11) dam(13) recred(13) recred(15)
12 : Swift runspd(12)
14 : Super Jump jmp(14)
16 : Health hel(16) hel(17)
18 : Invincibility defbuf(18) defbuf(19) defbuf(19)
20 : Stamina endrec(20) endrec(21) endrec(21)
22 : Knockout Blow acc(22) dam(23) dam(23) dam(25) recred(27)
24 : Resist Physical Damage damres(24) damres(25) damres(27)
26 : Tough Hide defbuf(26)
28 : Rage recred(28) recred(29) recred(29)
30 :

Health needs antoher slot, so does knockout blow. Tough hide needs to be 3 slotted. I am assuming you don't want the fighting pool because it makes things simpler.

Discuss...

Is that Gargantuman?

I remember doing the Synapse Task Force with him as Cryostrike and thinking "Wow, my Inv tank can't do that against clockworks".

What level is he?

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Really have got got cant be arseditous with Rock he just dont seem to be that much fun at the mo.

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That's a shame I still love Golden Golem, he's so shiny!

He's also level 46.

Good that sounds far safer!

Any preferences on Mob type?

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Thx for all the replies guys. I've decided to take the fighting pool to max out on S/L damage resistance. To do so I dropped Resist Physical Damage and Resist Elements. I kept Resist Energies is as that damage type is not so uncommen.

One more question: wich is better? Boxing or Kick? I currently took boxing as it has a shorter activation time.

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The consensus is that boxing is better but I have never got kick.

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Ok, so go with IR, since it cannot be surpressed and easily made to overlap. Stack with CJ, Hurdle and then its all rocknroll i guess =)

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However isn't IR a level 28 power, so you'll have to be careful when exemping.

That would be nice. Can you make Tuesday evening at any point?

End Boosts are good but as I will not be spending much time attacking, Heals or def/res buffs would be more useful. Anything to let me survive for longer against +2/+3 and +4s is good. In the original testing I died about 3 times trying to get demo files against the +3s and +4s. I need to have about 3-5 minutes of scaring a single minion of levels 0/+1/+2/+3/+4 ideally.

What level are you?

I don't know about Oppressive Gloom, but Cloak of Fear really rocks if you slot it ( for a scrapper anyway ). After 1xACC, 2x End it makes a vast difference, I would suggest allocating 6 slots to it, but you really have to talk to a more experienced Dark armour player, like The Question ( who I think slots it for to hit debuffs ).

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yeah also having other tankers in team can cause problems like attracting more than other team members can handle without using insps (which are best saved for a final AV imo) and then when it comes to recovery it can be a nightmare. This is why alot of tanks dont like another tank in a team. I dont mind myself as long as one tanker takes point and stays point, the other can act kind of like my scrapper who has had taunt since lvl12 because of good tanking routines spoilt. why people fail to wait for a herd to be moved to a safer area and into a closer group for cones and aoes is beyond me. other lvl 50's really should know better. I'd rather be the sole tank at the end of the day with a good team that allows me to get to my herdpoints and create faster kills at safe range.

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I prefer the single tank in a team, unless there is a plan ( ie I tank left, the other tanks right, or someone is main tank the other is sweep ), this has worked wonders in the past. However in most teams there isn't a plan so generally being the sole tank means that the rest of the team follows as teams expect the tank to lead the way in combat. Also your commment on Insps is exactly how I think, keep the 8 lucks and a few heals in my tray for the AV. If I have to use them against normal mobs something is going wrong.