Virusman

facepalm.


Very good point, hadn't even crossed my mind!


Yeah, I've made peace with the fact that I'm not going to be a monster on iTrials, but I'd like to have a character that's at top effectiveness outside of them. MMs are great in BAF, but relying on pets (that are stupid and die all the time) when the rest of the team is more than capable of speeding through the enemies is a hit of a hindrance to the fun factor.

And yeah, I have about come to the same conclusion as you on Lore pets. I provide so much to them already, and can provide something to the DPS pets as well. Typically, I'm unable to protect my Lore pets, or am a farmer and want something that improves me *some* when every entity on the map could potentially be at the aggro cap and the DPS pets are useful for about 20 seconds before melting.


The reason I'm not considering +Regen is because the number does not translate well to the zombies - they've got low max HP and I provide most of their survival already. For the mini zombies, the bonus HP is about 10% max HP for the last minute, which considering my Twilight Grasp already does nearly their entire HP bar, is pretty handy.

When you consider -tohit from Darkest Night, they're currently (not incarnate) softcapped, and I feel the extra HP would be more useful than +RES, given the values, but I guess I'm gonna go check out em all out on beta.

This is a good point.

As it stands, it seems pretty well balanced.

Similar to fire, but different cooldowns / animation times. Lockout should probably be removed from Water Jet. You will still need to use other attacks in the mean time to get it to that point.

It seems to do more Cold than Ice, for whatever that's worth. As far as "Sets with a heal" I don't think it'll overtake Dark in the long run, but it's got more AoE.

Sorry devs - but 0.5 end/sec was their idea of a high end cost in the first place??

No wonder Hybrid is so godawful!!


And.. yeah.... "-200% regen is too high" : "okay nerf the entire set" comes to mind, granted that was only feedback from people who hadn't actually tested a thing.

Trust me. There is no older set that wants the same treatment Bio is getting right now.


Eventually, more sets will get some of the "unique" mechanics slapped into them. Bio is more of a test run than anything, I think.

We'll have to see how it turns out.

I'd recommend SS over FM. FM for a Brute, really isn't that great.

Plus, you're trying new things, right? Pair it up with a new set!


As for /Ele pretty much anything goes well with it. It's endurance efficient, it can fuel any primary without a lot of maintenance.

Katana and Claws are both pretty useful and fun IMO.

It looks like it's called the ULTIMATE REGEN GUIDE to me, that seems appropriate.

Just because you're like most people and won't do it, doesn't mean that it's not a really great way to build Regeneration.


He goes pretty in-depth about the powers, as well, so just from an informational standpoint it's worth a read.


You can easily make /Regen unstoppable without a hefty pricetag, PVPs and Purples make it even better, though. The set bonuses were just made for it, they can be a luxury for other builds that need the def set bonuses (a lot of them)

Nah, I actually editted out something else that was wrong :P

If you're using Form of the Body and Sky Splitter as your finisher, you get 10%/7.5% resistance to all.

Makes it an interesting choice for a defensive attack set, but for me I just don't think it justifies the drop in damage, but to each their own.

That's about all I'd have to say.

Staff can additionally do a +RES buff, which would also be pretty beneficial.


Edit: I was wrong

The PLANNED behavior for Interface in "Patch" or mock pets and auras is one attempt per 10 seconds per enemy.

Interface procs in damage powers, so for PBAOE damage auras it *should* run a check once every 10 sec, for each enemy that has the debuff (it's a DoT)

After they fixed it so that it didn't tick on every little bit of damage in those powers, it didn't work at all.. rather, I guess, it only ran the check on one enemy out of the entire AoE. Don't know if it's currently fixed.


Hope that helps, but can't speak on how Hybrid works in PBAOE damage toggles, as of yet.

Worth noting Musculature is almost never worth taking.

Cardiac (End reduc, partial Resist) is worth mentioning, if you've already got a recharge-heavy build, you can worry less about end reduc. Usually I view it as kind of a cop-out but some builds really benefit more from that than any others. If you're Willpower, consider Vigor for much the same reason.


If you're Electric Armor or Energy Aura you might consider Spiritual - it improves your Regen rate, and the extra Recharge helps get your clicks up sooner. The recharge also means more damage.

MM is trial by fire.


I'd recommend playing something simple like a Brute to 50, and learning from there.

Not a lot you can do to mess a Brute up, they're a high-damage tanky character.


Of course I would HIGHLY recommend you come back to the MM once you understand how everything works.

CoH is really just a matter of preference than "what will I not die by playing?" since you can probably get any build to not die, it may take effort on your part and expensive slotting, though.

Which brings me to another point - as your first character you may not be able to afford the expensive slotting you'd need to bring some of these builds up to the level people expect. But Bots/Traps is a good recommendation, capable of doing just about anything, and probably wouldn't be too hard to get to a workable state. But, if you don't mind, you can solo farm at 50 on a brute and build your MM a lot faster that way.


Bots reduce the regeneration rate of what they attack (enemies actually regenerate A LOT in CoH) so that means that it's just a simple grind to take a boss the rest of the way down. Traps also has -Regen.



plainguy also offers pretty good advice, even if he sounds like a jerk. Teaching you to fish would be the way to go for sure.


If you want some extra help in-game I'd be glad to assist you, I'll even farm you some levels if you desire so you can try out some more builds.

Also, I don't know if y our question about ranged attacks was answered - simple answer is it doesn't matter at all. MAYBE ranged attacks are in general weaker than melee? But there's no minimum range and they'll happily blast away with everything they've got. All range actually helps keeping them alive in some situations easier, as with some sets, running into melee range is suicide without outside intervention. But when you've got a high resistance, defense softcapped (effective cap) MM with a pack of zombies tanking, it's a fun experience.

I agree with this. Though Empathy still has some awesome buffs that don't go un-noticed, in general, healing and more healing has become outdated.

I'd say it's on the honorable mention list along with but not necessarily higher priority than Devices.


For me, I don't like the fact that SR has something that many other sets can achieve, yet it still has flaws and woes early in life. This goes beyond the set's weakness to unflagged damage. It would be nice if it had the ability to "Evade" attacks, in addition to dodging. Further mitigation beyond that 5% chance, perhaps. Or maybe even the ability to convert Defense over the cap, to Resistance. You're pretty much taking full damage, where many other sets (can) have the same avoidance AND only take 40~10%. Then there's the buffs and debuffs from others to consider, since SR doesn't see much benefit from more Defense, or ToHit debuffs. Resistance does help a lot though, same story with Regeneration, though pretty much any buff throws Regen to the point where it's crazy.

Generally, I have a problem with the sets that REALLY feel like they're balanced at an SO level, and IOs are just ignored on them. This can be good OR bad. In the case of Regeneration, I think it develops wonderfully, but definitely needs a little boost before that point, as most people are not going to purple/pvp out a character.



I think that sets also need to have flaws, that's part of the charm and early design for the game, but they need to be justified. TW's flaw is that it takes a lot of endurance - easily compensated for, and it's an insane set in the end. Perhaps it's perfectly balanced with SOs, as a result.

I'm NOT asking for more TW, or crying for a nerf. But it would be nice if sets that have (probably unintended) flaws and no real benefit to justify them would get a little bit of a buff.


You like SR, and admit that it could use some help. I'm in the same boat. Though we may not agree on all of the specifics, we can agree that it could certainly use some love.



Edit: I also agree about Super Strength. I never really liked it, as it seems like you're just punching people. REALLY hard, granted. But there are (seemingly) abandoned cars everywhere, Gravity gets to throw them around..

Unfortunately since we already have StJ and Titan Weapons, I don't think we'll be getting "Titan Strength" anytime soon.

Other than the concept of the idea, not being very "super" I think it's good for now from a balance perspective. There are certainly other sets that need to be looked at beforehand.

And I think that's about all I have to say about those sets. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the specifics, as we each have a different opinion.

I don't want a "complete overhaul" for the sets. I think the core ideas are fine, but they just need something extra. Maybe I understood the point of the topic, I can't say.

Compare SR to EA. Just do it. What separates SR from the rest of the powersets, other than it does the same thing as other powersets through MORE POWERS THAT DO THE SAME THING.

It's even worse on Tankers when you barely even have to slot to be softcapped. SR/MA Tank? .. ah ha ha.


But yes, SR and Regen suffer from a similar problem, though I don't PERSONALLY feel like SR gains a whole lot through IO slotting. If anything, SR is one of the top performers at an SO level and lowers in performance when the pricetag goes up and up.

My point is SR has not aged well. I've always thought, if the mechanic could be introduced, it should have the ability to decrease power animation times. THAT would make it amazing. I mean, you're a character that has such awesome reflexes that you dodge hails of bullets but you're just standing there side by side with this Stone behemoth that takes every hit and you attack at pretty much identical speeds. SR also needs an endurance reduction or a recovery power IMO.

It also sounds like you also feel it could use a bit of a boost. :P


As for dual pistols, the damage is right, but the animations are way too long. This means you have a lower damage-per-animation, which lowers your overall DPS. We have TWO GUNS give us the ability to prep another shot while we're spinning/backflipping/turning into THE MATRIX and then fire both of them at the same time, or something. Even if the set DID get improved damage, I just don't think I could play it. The animations are WAY too long no matter the level you're playing the set at.


And, for Staff Fighting, the set itself gives you +RECH so I can only assume it's built towards having recharge. I really can't think of a better way to slot it out, yet some of the attacks take a very long time to swing for the amount of damage they deal, recharge build or not. Now, if you could change *MORE* of the damage type you deal by using Staff Mastery, and not just a fraction of the hits, on some of the "Finisher" moves, the set would probably be awesome. You could easily justify a noticeable drop in damage with the ability to alter your overall damage type a bit. Even though Dual Pistols already has this ability, the animations are just *THAT* long.


* Eye of the Storm is 1/2 of the DPA&DPS addition that Spin is.

You may be right, but keep in mind that the reason SS is so popular is because it's a solo farm build, that's a situation where you're unlikely to hit your damage cap, (no outside buffs) especially for a brute. You're also better taking the primary extra damage, rather than +dmg buffing Hybrid, as a result. Don't forget, you also can't even keep it up all the time (in design at least) so saying, essentially, buildup makes some other constant damage add worthless, is flawed.

I personally do not even like SS and know in much group content, there are sets that perform better, but I still think that it's fine for the time being. Instead of worrying about the set that most people regard as being "the best" we should probably work on sets that many people can agree are not performing adequately.

I don't understand what your point is.

I've been playing Rad forever and have had no trouble running Enervating Field, which is more expensive than Group Invisibility, along with RI and, etc. Granted they were only active for that long for AV fights.

Heck, running those *four* Toggles still gives you .7/s Recovery. I didn't even fully slot them.



You're going a little overboard if you're going to say "oh yeah well you need to also be able to use all of your other powers, and have perma hasten" because that's not the point.

With IOs, pre-incarnate, you could *easily* have done it by building for max endurance and recovery. Heck, you could have still perma'd AM, increasing your recovery even further.