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Quote:Eventually, you will respec your Fortunata, and pick either/or on the claws/mental attacks, for the most part. This depends on which of the two you go with in the end.Due to the quickness of Death From Below and the large number of Experienced temp powers I have sitting around, I was able to give a few things a try. Started with the Fortunata and for whatever reason it just didn't "click" for me. I think, in part, that I wasn't a big fan of the widow claws and mixing weapon attacks with the mental ones. Having redraw within my own primary was kind of meh and I felt really gimped just taking the non-weapon powers (specifically missing dart burst and follow up felt painful). I did really like having controls to solo with though and that part of it was quite fun.
Second, I dusted off an old arachnos soldier, got him over the tiny hump to 24, and went crab. So far, enjoying that more than the Fort, but missing the lack of control. It is a ton of fun crouching and spraying packs with laser fire and arm-fired grenades though. Even if this doesn't end up my favorite, I think I'm definitely enjoying it.
Honorable mentions (but not played high enough to really sink my teeth into) go to Sonic Attack on a Defender.
As for the Crab, your control is the ridiculous buffs you give the team, sounds weird, but if you pick up the regular Pool maneuvers, in addition to your AT one, you're like a force bubbler that doesn't have to do anything. It's VERY easy to softcap, and you'd be surprised at the amount of people you'll softcap. Crab is one of those characters that you can go SO many different ways on and still be awesome, and I'm not even counting Bane.
Both of the VEATs are solid options, but you'll probably want to go rogue and eventually Hero on them (But you might want to wait until you've unlocked the Patron Pools)
And... Sonic Attack. I find that it takes a while to kill stuff solo, but it's one of my favorite blast sets for support on a team. I've paired Radiation/Sonic on my most recent defender, probably one of my worst solo characters (I could have done slotting better of course) but he is ridiculous on a team. Going from "contributing something other than damage" to "watching a GM melt in 30 sec as the only debuffer" is a big step though.
I might be slightly exaggerating on that last bit, but it's still a killer debuffing set. You might try Kinetics/Sonic, the +DMG to team and -RES to foes is huge, and it doesn't *demand* an expensive IO build such as trying to perma hasten or AM. -
I'll make my selection brief as it's "too much to ask" generally. Focusing on the powersets that seem popular, and are pretty consistent underperformers.
Dual Pistols
Super Reflexes
Regeneration*
Most of the new purchased sets, particularly Staff Fighting.**
* This really only needs looked at from an SO perspective, where it's absolutely horrendous. Using IOs, you can build it to be pretty crazy good. It'd be hard to buff it at one level, without making it overpowered at the other.
** I said I'd make it brief. But the sets that you need to *BUY* are kind of crappy. With the exception of Titan Melee, they've all got massive drawbacks that make them terrible. I'm not asking for King, Pay To Win, Sets but there's not much reason to take StJ over SS, a different playstyle sure, but they're both beat em up sets and it equates to less damage and more endurance consumption. I don't feel the set as it is separates itself enough from the other sets, so it's a fair comparison, even though SS is an unrealistic goal for every new set to reach.
The addition of KB->KD IOs will fix a lot of sets, IMO, so I left out a couple.
Quote:I have to disagree with that - lots of people are very happy with it. If anything, that means more power sets should be brought up to the same level.Super Strength certainly needs a 'from the ground up' remake.
Or, I Guess if you leave Rage and Foot Stomp alone... -
Quote:Warworks also have -Regen, and non S/L damage.Warworks damage is slightly less than Cimerorans but they have an AoE attack.
They're my favorite.
(Most people go with Cims, though. Very good single-target S/L damage, and I think even -RES?)
Edit: None of them really stand out from an AOE perspective.
Maybe Storm Elementals? I've used them on one of my themed characters, they do fair AOE but their single-target is bad, and they run out of endurance pretty fast.
If you're just concerned with performance, Warworks would probably be your best bet, since they do have a decent AOE among them.
I'd say using Lore pets to fill the AoE gap isn't a great idea, going for the better all-around performer would be a good choice.
E2:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=288994
There is an interesting thread, though the DPS does not take resistances or debuffs into account. Longbow are fairly popular, and may be a good choice. -
Quote:LMFAO!!
I didn't even see that the first time.
Here I was thinking this post was more of a guy's wishlist or a preliminary suggestion.
Hopefully the set undergoes some changes, as it does look like a very wild card based on the more in-depth explanations, something I think I would enjoy, but also think could use some tweaking.
The very sound of essentially having two healing powers - one providing the temporary HP/shielding mechanic - seems very powerful. However, the actual resistance the set offers (not a lot) seems as though it would balance out.
Man, I'd love to have some temporary HP shielding for /Regen. Heck, Radiation Therapy sounds like the power I suggested to fix /Regen. Oh well, a man can dream. -
I actually know somebody who has built TW/DA and is basically his main.
He has no trouble at all at 50, and on an incomplete build at that.
Yes, TW and DA are both end-hungry, but there are a lot of tools you unlock at 50 to fix that. Cardiac pretty much insures that whatever set you're running IS NOT going to run out of Endurance, and it gives you a boost to Resistance, too. That's probably the "least-effort" solution.
Why you wouldn't pair TW with something like /Electric is beyond me, though. A set that helps out your damage (more than DA) with arguably better survivability and an endurance restore.. well... shameless plug for my favorite set, I guess. -
Quote:If you get perma hasten, you've got perma Dull Pain.Good god I didn't even see that part. Perma Hasten -and- Perma DP? Yeah, that's not a guide for a normal Regen player AT ALL.
Hasten recharges in 450 sec, DP in 360. They've got the same duration.
The reason this is awesome is that Regen is an active defense set, and benefits from +Recharge, as do your attacks. You're building for defense AND offense at the same time.
Sadly, that's necessary for Regen. It seriously underperforms without a good IO build, but is one of the most effective defense sets when you put some effort into it.
I posted during Freedom beta, when they made some changes and ported it to brutes, to get some more balance changes that would make it more powerful (read: comparable to other sets) at an SO level, WITHOUT overpowering it at an IO level, but most people just replied "lol regen sux" and nothing came of it. -
Quote:Well, I recall reading very brief posts stating both overpowered and underpowered, my comment was not directed towards anyone. Just the OP mentioning those comments.Agree 100%. If that was directed at me, my fear was that the general expectations had been set, and a while ago, too, for an OPed set, and thus the results would be either..
a) Expectations met. And thus by definition it would be OP. I thought this less likely.
b) Expectations not met. Thus for the majority of the people clamoring for this the, the actual result would be a disappointment, and the set being very niche, it would be mostly unused, and thus not as worth the time as some other sets that could have been developed. I think this is more likely the case than a.
Since we have no numbers to back it up, we can't say if the set will in function be overpowered, as there are a lot of things to take into consideration.
If we got a set that has Rage, Footstomp, Spin, Burn, ... etc. People would readily call that overpowered. But, if they knew that behind the scenes all of those powers took 10x as long to activate (21 second animation Foot Stomp! yay!) they would be calling it underpowered.
That's a bit of a drastic example and you probably already understand this, but that's my point.
In regards to A and B, I'd say a lot of people's expectations have been met with recent sets, without them (ahem, with an exception) being overpowered.
Similarly, a lot of people's expectations weren't met (Staff Fighting, for example, myself included) without the set necessarily being underpowered or unpopular. Just different.
Of course, it takes a long time to determine how changes will impact the game. Apparently Stone Melee has fallen out of favor for various reasons.. -
Quote:Well, you are right, I was confused by what you had said, now that I go back and read it fully.Actually, you're disagreeing with me. At its current levels, using T4 at least, I think I do see why we can't use it full time.
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It's not as dramatic a change as popping Barrier, but it was very, very noticeable.
However, I would GLADLY take some of these powers, at 1/2 or even 1/3 of their strength, if it meant you could keep them up full-time.
I don't think that, at their current strength, they're on par with what was the intent.
To me, this power seems as though it's the first power we've been given that's taken our current incarnate strength into account, whereas powersets are often built towards using SOs, I feel we've already risen past the point of this power being useful. And it's a power in a "difficult" trial, which you must have the extra slots unlocked to participate in.
Generally, some of them are stronger than others in their current incarnation, more noticeable than the rest. This is true for a lot of the slots, though. While the damage effects from the proc are very nice, the global damage buff is not. Melee, similarly, is "alright" it will add quite a bit to a character that is already survivable, but it's not as good an addition as many options already available, and it's presented in a package that reminds me very much of a T9, albeit without the crash.
AH mentioned something along the lines of, it's FUN to have active powers. He has bound Hasten to Tab, and Dull Pain to the W key, in addition to their normal functions, as these are powers that are perma for him. It takes skill to do that and is fun.
Well, try applying a creative, skillful solution like that to Hybrid.
Quote:You know what might be cool? Adding an 'anti-crash' to the end of the Hybrid duration. What if, at the end of Melee's uptime (or when you de-toggle it), it did an AoE stun/daze that gave you time to get out of melee range? Or if, at the end of Assault's uptime, it did an AoE -Resist? Something that is relevant to each power's effects, as a big boost at the end. If you accidentally double-click, at least you get the termination effect. Sometimes, maybe you would purposefully double-click it or end it early to get that effect.
I support it wholeheartedly and it would solve all my issues with the power. -
Keep in mind you can't realistically say any set is overpowered just based on the description of the powers.
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Get an AE license, upgrade, or run door missions, maybe?
AE has also been nerfed quite a bit. -
Quote:Are you experiencing it perma, truly, or does it just LOOK like you're experiencing it perma?After all, given its current bugs, I've actually experienced it perma.
There's a very common bug where it keeps running but doesn't actually provide you any benefit until you manually toggle it off, and wait 2 more mins to start it up again.
But either way, I agree. The current statistics don't scream "T9 SURVIVAL SKILL RAAAAA" it seems completely reasonable to me that you'd be able to run it at all times at the current strength, which is why I was so disappointed to finally use it. -
Looks pretty good to me, pretty far from Perma Hasten, though.
You might consider swapping Vigor for Spiritual, if you hit Ageless enough, those should bridge the gap and bring it to perma. Though this would mainly just increase your damage potential.
You might swap the slots around a bit in your defensive powers, you only have 2 LOTGs in Phalanx Fighting. Since you're at the rule of 5 for the HP bonus, you might consider a different pairing, or no set. (Actually, you have 6 LOTGs in there, unless I'm mistaken, the rule of 5 still applies to those, they're just a separate set bonus, other than "7.5% recharge")
Which brings me to another point, you've got Destiny and Hybrid clicked, it'd be best for viewing if you leave those off. :P -
Quote:This is a good idea, and I do the same thing.I want a lvl 30 (33 most likely) fire farmer so that whenever I am doing some type of farming/powerleveling/whatever I can hold on to the recipes that I might want to slot and sell the others.
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As of right now I have a friend that is going to run a kin/ice defender locked at 33 with my staff/fire brute also at 33. Worst case scenario if it doesn't work out that well, we just turn xp back on and hit 50 real quick
I was just wondering!
If you've got a partner, it works great.
In a pairing, I actually run a spines/ele scrapper, and it works pretty well at that level.
Now, the real challenge... getting level 36 IOs to really make that character awesome! -
Quote:Well, with Energize (end discount) and Power Sink, you can do just fine on the endurance front.Which, really, how is Resilient ever better than cardiac? At least with cardiac you get a HUGE amount of end reduction. Resilient, all it gives is res. No other Alpha only gives you one good bonus, but a primary draw, and a secondary (dam, end mod | Acc, defense | Recharge, heal | Hold, range | Heal, end red)
I personally use Spiritual on almost all my toons (ele/ele included, closest I have to your build) which makes me use endurance even faster.
I agree, though. Resilient doesn't offer you much past the 13% extra Resistance enhancement, but it can be quite significant. Musculature can be the same way on a lot of characters, and even completely worthless for some, due to low damage cap and existing damage buffs.
I'm glad to have the new Alphas though, because while they might not be shining beacons, they do provide you more to fall back on in cases where you don't need A and B, and just want more of either. I don't think I'll ever have a character that would benefit more from Vigor than from Spiritual, I'm not planning on playing Willpower... but who knows what the future holds? -
Quote:Ah, yeah. I see your point. I forgot that's how the set bonuses worked.Just because I do not have access to, say Tactics, I will still get the IO bonuses. So your point about tactics is moot.
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If I slot Kin Combats they are Typed defense, Touch of Death is positional. Would take 8 slots to get the same positional defense as 6 Touch of Death. Not sure if you realize what you are saying.
I will think about using Spiritual. That should not drop my survive ability too much.
For some reason I had thought Kin combat was positional, my mistake there. It's been a while since I've done this, I tried, really.
Your lvl 50 survivability will drop a touch if you switch to Spiritual since the +RES really helps to shore up the resist you lose out by using 30's over 50's. If you're slotting 50's, you won't really notice. However, if your Endurance is fine, you might consider switching over to Resilient instead, that'll basically cap your S/L. Basically, you'd be getting some extra Regen out of Spiritual from your skills, in addition to a little more Energize. Unless you get Hasten to perma you may or may not really notice a difference, but you'd be dropping a fair amount of resist. -
Quote:I agree with this, well said!Tools to handle damage spikes are good things to have, but Hybrid simply doesn't work as one because A: It is too weak and B: It isn't up regularly enough to be used as the preventative measure that it is.
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In the end I feel like Hybrid hasn't really increased the power level of any of my characters, merely smoothed out some not really deep potholes in the road and is thus entirely missable, and incarnate powers should not be missable.
I'd be fine if there were a weaker, always-on variant of Hybrid.
As it is, it's not strong enough to rely on in a pinch, and it's just annoying to have to click.. wait 4 mins.. click again... it takes the level of "too many clicks" some characters had BEFORE Incarnate content, and finds a way to make it even more annoying.
Edit: It looks fine on paper, I was super excited to use it.. but it just leaves me disappointed. Annoying really is the best word I can use to describe it in practice. It doesn't make me any weaker, granted, but it doesn't seem like a solid addition to my character's arsenal, which is kind of sad. -
Man, that's tough.
What's the reason for having so many level 30 sets, though? Planning on exemplaring? Seems to be all over the place, with 50's in Energize (12) and 30's in Tactics (44)
The build loses a lot of effectiveness at that lower level (like, the lack of Cardiac for example) anyway..
This is about the best I can do without sacrificing too much.
It did drop below Ranged def cap, but that's not too terrible important IMO.
You might consider swapping out Cardiac for Spiritual - you'd be super incredibly close to Perma Hasten, enough so that it might be more useful to drop a tad more defense to perma Energize.
If you did go to level 50 enhancements you'd be pretty well unkillable for a few issues to come, I'd wager, with good damage output as well.
Edit: if damage isn't the primary concern, you could drop a couple slots from the attacks, swapping out Kinetic combat for Touch of Death (same DEF boost with 4 parts, instead of 6) as well as in Storm Kick, and go for another full set, or some extra slots in another power. -
I am curious, why are you level locking at 30?
What type of ticket farming are you doing?
If the ambush/door farms aren't nerfed to oblivion a lack of slots shouldn't matter too much and maybe a spines/fire scrapper. but omg throw spines so close yet so far away
*E: If possible, have a friend or an alt account locked at 30, SoA can easily survive a ticket farm without doing anything special, while also supporting you, and team up with your main ticket farmer. -
Quote:Exactly this.Honestly, given that Stone Melee is a powerset from the original release, and given the history of the original devs, I find that chain of thought very unlikely. The original devs gave no consideration whatsoever to the concept of DPA - animation/activation time simply never entered their thinking as a balance tool.
I'm not entirely sure the MODERN dev team puts a lot of thought into DPA, either, but at least some. :P
SM is a very old set, and while it may have been good around the era of ED it has not aged well considering the advent of massive global recharge we can attain.
Plus, you have to consider Super Strength has Rage. That improves the damage from the rest of the set considerably. With Tremor as your AoE you're going to be doing moderate amounts of damage over a long period of time, which is simply not acceptable now that the mindset is no longer "take all the decent powers, use them when you can" with slotting things with an accuracy SO, damage SOs, and likely endurance reduction SOs.
Now we've got IO sets, and a lot more awesome powers to choose from. -
If I might make a suggestion, you might try to fit some -ToHit in Rise to the Challenge. It does make a bit of a difference.
Think of it like +Defense, against enemies that are close to you (in debuff range)
Also, don't worry about +Healing as a set bonus, it does nothing for you.
You should consider putting Regenerative Tissue in Physical Perfection, in place of Numina's. As was mentioned not only are you at the rule of 5, but the base +Regen is so low from that skill, that getting the Unique in should help quite a bit more, and the set bonuses will still be useful.
Finally, just at a glance, the extra slots in Combat Jumping are kind of wasted, since you're really not getting much out of the enhancements in those slots. You could get some extra slots by removing some from the powers you have 4 slotted with LOTG, and maybe put 1 LOTG recharge in CJ.. or just the +res all.
IMO You went a little overboard on the +ACC, you might consider getting Focused Accuracy, and 6 slotting it with Gaussian's, in place of so many extra enhancements that realistically are only providing Acc. (You'd do more damage, on average, slotting the Mako's proc over the quad, and the other aspects aren't going to help you much.)
All in all not a bad first attempt at a build, and welcome back good sir. -
Quote:Well, it's a fun idea.Edit: The previous 2 posts, which I prolly should have read before replying to hope, sorta support my point. It's the 'I want debuffs like a corr or fender' but on my Brute/tank/scrapper concept. I don't see how this can be pulled off well. One way you'll have folks disappointed that he debuffs are too tiny as to be hardly worth it, the other you'll have all the support types miff and crying foul, or demanding support sets that are yet tougher and tougher,and provide self mez protection, etc.
I don't want it to be at the point where support characters (my favorite!) are useless.
But, also, being on a Radiation Defender who survives better than the Brutes that I'm wading into groups to revive... kind of makes me feel like I've already crossed *THAT* line.
Take a look at Shield as a set. It's got support abilities, and even a debuff to aid in survivability. By itself, it might not be the king of survivability, but it was designed to be played on a team. That's what I like about it.
More similar sets, I feel, would be very nice. Not full up personal survivability, but just a set that has more varying abilities (like Time manip) coming together to make a character that not only survives, but has some killing tools and group support abilities as well.
We've got an overabundance of melee sets and everybody is just comparing their damage output to one another, there's really a lot more room to explore new areas with the armor sets, somebody has to pitch them.
Edit: My idea for these sets would be similar to Fire Armor survivability level, but with tools that aid the group rise above. Note, I didn't mention the damage output of Fire Armor. For Radiation Armor, I don't think it needs a damage aura, maybe a few ways to slightly increase damage like the -RES I mentioned. Maybe about -5%.. -
Regen is getting to the point where the +HP Rebirth might be more useful.
Oh yeah we're often already at the HP cap too nm. :P
To the /Regen/ lovers, try it on a Brute! You can double stack Dull Pain and actually get more HP from it! The bonus Res cap is definitely noticeable, as you can MoG about 1/3 of the time with a good build. Or, you'll get to the point with Incarnate stuff, you'll only need to use it in a pinch.
26% resist all in a crowd, 17.07% on a single target is pretty freakin' amazing. I'm planning on building this slot for most of my characters.
Then again, I'm not having any trouble surviving in the latest Trial, so I might just do the damage one. More damage? Okay! -
Quote:That is so ridiculous and unnecessary.To my surprise, I was able to do it, but it required some absurd silliness. Shield Wall unique, Purple ATO set, five sets of Gladiator's Strike, one set of Analyze Weakness, Resilient Core Paragon, six 50+5 resist IOs in Charged Armor, and four 50+5s in Tough.
My hat's off to you sir!
(By the way, if Incarnate stuff isn't out of the question, the +RES Hybrid gives you 26% res/all in a group, 17.07% with one target.)
I'm usually around the 60~70 range on my Brutes, and it's definitely workable. But, I also try to go for a lot of Defense, try to softcap either S/L or Melee.
What's great about ELA are the more "Exotic" resistances, capped E no matter what you do, with decent N/P and F/C. With Energize being such an awesome click heal/regen, you can go +RECH and work towards damage AND survival at that same time! Makes you a beast in the trials where not everything is a smashfest.
Buuut the S/L attacks tend to be a little bit stronger than the less common ones, so they certainly do hurt. Just think of it like this, if somebody gives you Barrier, it's not wasted. -
I'm not trying to compare this to SS, there are sets that are going to be undeniably the Kings of their strengths, just trying to get a feel for what the majority of people feel SF's strengths are.
I figured it'd be a beautiful, quick set, so would really benefit from recharge, and end up doing decent damage over the course of a lot of fast attacks (like the Smash version of Katana or Claws) but sadly it has a lack of high DPA skills.. well, longer animations than I was expecting and lower damage to boot, really.
Not quite as bad as Dual Pistols on the damage front... but alarming enough that I wasn't going to insta-buy and roll the set.
The more I think about it, I'll probably pick it up cheap when it's on sale, and play one for fun. I was planning on doing /Energy but I might do /Fire for some extra damage, and have the +RES actually be an important part of the build. Though, that might feel weird if I feel I "need" it since I have plenty of characters that're perfectly fine living already.
I don't really need any more farmers so I don't care if it'll +4x8 all day long. I actually had a ton of fun in the iTrials on my Claws/Regen brute on Exalted (apparently, when people were actually playing it) but.. claws..... uh. I've made my point. -
Quote:I've looked at the damage potential of staff as a whole, and it's quite a bit lower than that.But you can cast 4 SS in about minute, but only 3 CS. That means SS does 614 damage to CS doing 594, which is pretty balanced overall.
Now I am not against change to the power, it is just some people are blowing things out of proportion, and not considering the whole game.
If you consider the REST of other powersets, and what you can do in the mean time, I think you'll find staff will be outperformed. That is, maybe the two skills aren't so radically different compared to one another, but look at an entire powerset, Staff has a lack of both high DPS and DPA powers.
My question is... are the buffs worth dealing moderate damage, and on a SMASH set, at that? You can easily build an unkillable SS machine*, so why go for Staff beyond looking cool?
(No, I'm not saying HAHAHA SUPER STRENGTH!! just illustrating the point: what separates Staff Fighting?)