Werner
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DE crystals - Kill it fast before they kill you. If it was enough of a problem, I'd make a targeting macro as Doomguide suggests.
Nemesis vengeance- Kill everything but the lieutenants first, bring the lieutenants down, and AoE them to death.
Eyeballs - Avoid the Shadow Shard. I mean really. But if you MUST go there, avoid eyeballs. Wait, you're in the Shadow Shard fighting eyeballs? What's WRONG with you??? *sigh* Kill them fast I guess?
Arachnos - Kill tarantula mistresses fast. If necessary, create a targeting macro.
When all else fails, skittles. Taste the rainbow. Or "You do what we do, run. You run your *** off." -
I don't have a leveling build because I just wing it. But yeah, Broad Sword/Shield was the most fun I've had 1-50. Great combination for the journey.
From a survivability standpoint, here's my basic plan for cheapo Shield Defense survivability:
- Slot Deflection and Battle Agility with three defense SOs
- Slot Weave with three defense SOs
- Slot Combat Jumping with one defense SO
- Slot Active Defense with three recharge SOs for a nice margin of error
- Slot a Steadfast Protection unique
- Take Phalanx Fighting
- Use a single small purple inspiration at a time as required
Now with Broad Sword, you have Parry. In the early game you might want to put some defense in it, but by late game, the 15% base defense should be enough, since you're stacking it on 30% or higher defense from all your powers and slotting. You just need to use it every ten seconds to keep the buff going. Now you're soft-capped to melee. You should be good for almost anything, even without the purples.
From your primary, I already mentioned Parry. You'll also want at least Hack, Disembowel and Head Splitter. And unless you're going for a pure single target build, you'll want Whirling Sword and probably Slice. I've already put you in the Leaping and Fighting power pools. I'd also take Fitness (until inherent in I19) and either Leadership or Speed. I think I personally went Leadership for some extra defense, and stuck a Gaussian set in Tactics for more defense plus less chance of missing.
Oh, and of course take Shield Charge.
I'm probably missing something. -
Generally speaking, use them in your single-target chain until you're up to about 4 or 5 every ten seconds. Generally speaking, don't use them in AoEs unless they're part of your single-target chain. Some exceptions for large team boss farming and the like.
Here's my current writeup for the Achilles' Heel or Fury of the Gladiator procs in AoEs, which is obviously in need of editing:
Quote:Lets say you're surrounded by five even level minions and you use a PBAoE with an Achilles' Heel proc in it. With a 20% chance of firing, on average it will hit one of those minions. Achilles' Heel is basically a buff attacks on that minion over the next ten seconds will do 20% more damage. So we can consider that additional damage to be the damage that the proc does. A level 50 minion has 430 hit points. Let's say that the attack with the proc did 190 hit points of damage, leaving the minion with 240 hit points. And lets say that you DO manage to kill the minion in the next ten seconds. The 240 hit points of damage required to kill the minion can be considered to be 200 base hit points of damage, plus 40 hit points of damage from the proc. So what's the MAXIMUM damage that the proc can do? It would be in an AoE that does NO damage itself, so that the minion still has all 430 hit points of damage. And then you'd need to finish off the minion in the next 10 seconds, which pretty much means finishing off the whole crowd in 10 seconds since I don't think there's a way to identify who got hit with the proc, or at least not to do it quickly. You would then attack the minion for exactly 359 points of damage, and the proc would do the other 359 * 20% = 71 points of damage.
So the proc does 71 damage to an even level minion under nearly IDEAL circumstances your AoE does no damage at all, and you finish off the crowd in the next 10 seconds.
What about a regular damage proc? That's a lot simpler. 20% chance of doing 71.8 damage.
So when fighting minions, even under nearly ideal circumstances, the Achilles' Heel proc basically only pulls even with a regular old damage proc. In practice, it'll be way behind.
What about lieutenants? Well, you won't be surrounded by just five lieutenants and nothing else, and good luck finishing five lieutenants off in 10 seconds except with an AoE monster, but sure, let's say that everything comes together just perfectly. A level 50 lieutenant has 805 hit points. So you're doing 671 damage, and the proc does 671 * 20% = 134 damage to finish off the lieutenant. Then yes, under these even more ideal circumstances, the Achilles' Heel proc will do somewhat more damage than a regular old damage proc. But taking into account that not everyone's level 50, that you won't often find yourself in this situation, that your AoE actually does damage, and that sometimes you won't finish off the guy that got hit with the proc in the next 10 seconds, I wouldn't say that it's necessarily better in practice. I'd probably still recommend a regular damage proc as being more likely to do more damage on average, and to do it sooner since it takes effect on that attack rather than on potential future attacks. But even if we take the 20% chance of 134 damage at face value, what about a purple proc? That's a 33% chance of 107.1 damage = 35.343 damage on average, compared to our 20% * 134 = 26.8 damage on average. So the purple proc is still significantly better than Achilles' Heel against lieutenants even under near ideal circumstances.
So we pretty much need to get up to boss level before the Achilles' Heel starts to really beat out the alternatives. And while you might be using AoEs on a boss farm, you're not going to be finishing off that crowd of bosses in 10 seconds unless you're on a big AoE team. So I suppose I could add a qualifier of unless you're AE boss farming on a big AoE team to my advice to skip Achilles' Heel procs on AoEs, but that's seems unnecessary, that being such an exceptional circumstance.
So the basic use of Achilles' Heel procs is for taking down single hard targets. It's a single target because you don't usually find or take out multiple hard targets fast enough (with some exceptions on some teams). And its a hard target like a boss or above because only those have enough hit points for the damage from the Achilles' Heel to add up.
Now, I DO see some logic in putting it in AoEs for another situation attacking the boss, but using an AoE because there are other enemies around. The primary target is the boss, so it's pretty much like putting it in a single target attack at that point, which is to say that it is worthwhile. However, what percentage of time do you use your AoEs that way specifically, and what percentage of time do you use them on targets other than bosses? Generally speaking, I think AoEs are largely used as minion munchers. As such, the Achilles' Heel procs are usually going to be outclassed by other options, often significantly outclassed.
REVISION: If the AoE has a regular damage proc, it is all but guaranteed to do full damage, because most AoEs don't do enough damage to kill the minions in that one hit, even when the proc hits. You could always be finishing off something with an AoE, I suppose, in which case a regular proc wouldn't hit for full damage. But if you're finishing off something with AoE, the Achilles' Heel DEFINITELY isn't helping, since it just sets you up for future damage. So we're talking about that initial hit. With an Achilles' Heel, some of the extra damage buff will almost always be wasted on blowthrough damage. In other words, you're not going to do exactly 359 damage, and the proc does the other 71. You're just as likely to have your last attack do blowthrough damage, in which case the proc also isn't contributing as much.,
REVISION: For the AoE attack on bosses, not particularly useful because your single target chain should have a bunch of Achilles' Heels, and stacking makes each additional one less useful. Depends on primary, of course. -
Quote:Katana/Regen is significantly more survivable than Dual Blades/Regen. However, I should mention that /Regen is a poor choice if you don't want to die often. Regeneration is a school of hard knocks, and if you're pushing the envelope at all, you're going to face plant a lot until you master it. You MAY love it, as it can be very rewarding if you do everything right. But you may hate it as well, like when you make a little mistake, and suddenly find yourself eating dirt.Originally Posted by ecneicS
Which was also something I was looking at. Which one would keep me alive longer? I've already got a blaster character, I don't want to die that much in this one! -
Quote:Well, best survivability with the most secondaries would go to Katana. Best AoE with the most secondaries would go to Dual Blades. Best burst damage with the most secondaries would go to Katana. Again, without knowing what you want out of a toon, calling one best overall is difficult to impossible since the devs have spent six years trying to make them all balanced.Originally Posted by ecneicS
I was referring to overall, as in which one suits best with more secondaries or if you werent using secondaries for some bizarre reason(a self-imposed challenge?)
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DPS is actually pretty similar between the sets, with Dual Blades having better AoE, but worse burst damage. But if you build a Katana/Regen "right", your DPS will be lower than the equivalent Dual Blades build, as standard Katana/Regen builds trade a little bit of damage for a lot of survivability.
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Quote:This. Not to say that Dual Blades is a bad primary, but there are better combinations with Regeneration, and Katana is the best in my opinion. Not sure what you mean by "on their own", since you have to choose a secondary, and which secondary you choose can affect which is better. Likewise, what you're looking to accomplish can affect which is better. Basically, all the primaries and secondaries are well balanced. Some combinations are a little better than others, and can be significantly better than others depending on your goals, but they're all good.Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
If /regen is the secondary, then Kat is the better primary due to having DA.
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Or sets in defense toggles. I seem to end up about half and half, but that's not from some a priori plan, but rather just how things come together. Enzymes are good for saving slots, but sometimes you want to spend those slots on set bonuses instead. Membranes in Active Defense are a given, though.
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With Strike takes +185% recharge in Follow Up (4.22 seconds). With Swipe takes +225% recharge in Follow Up (3.70 seconds). I'm showing the Strike chain at 60 DPS and the Swipe chain at 59 DPS, but that's ignoring the Follow Up bonus.
Hmmm, looks like the Swipe chain double stacks Follow Up on everything, while the Strike chain fails to double stack Follow Up on Follow Up itself. So the Swipe chain should be better.
I'm also ignoring Fury contribution, but if I recall, faster attacks are better for Fury generation, so the Swipe chain should be a little better for that reason as well.
Edit: If you really pump the recharge, you could consider Follow Up -> Eviscerate -> Focus to save on slotting an attack and I believe do better DPS, plus do some AoE, at +274% recharge in Eviscerate. Best with a Fury of the Gladiator proc in Eviscerate, plus you'll need a bunch of purples for the recharge, so it's a really high-priced option. -
Quote:Are you missing how long the attacks take? It's not really fair to compare three attacks vs. three attacks when the Katana attacks are significantly faster. In fact, it spits out four attacks and is working on its fifth in the same time frame.Originally Posted by Sailboat
Well, to be perfectly honest, I'm defining "burst damage" mostly in terms of killing something in 3-4 attacks. Between Headsplitter, Disembowel (I know the attack-chain aficionados are hyperventilating reading that) and Hack, Broadsword cuts down stuff 1-2-3, and the enemy is often knocked down or up in the process, often without doing a lot of damage in retaliation. Looking at Red Tomax, to me it looks like HS/Dismbowel/Hack all do more damage in one single 1-2-3 cycle than their Katana equivalents -- or am I missing something?
Head Splitter -> Disembowel -> Hack takes 6.07 seconds and does 435 damage (Mids' unslotted). In only 5.41 seconds, Katana can do Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut for 404 damage. The Katana chain is doing more damage faster, even if it takes more attacks to do so. It's not a huge difference, in this case 75 DPS vs. 72 DPS, but it IS in Katana's favor. -
I'll see your ounce of prevention and raise it a metric ton of cure.
But I shouldn't be talking up Regen like I'm still any good at it. I don't think I've played Werner more than a handful of missions in several issues now. I'm sure if the going got rough, I'd be all thumbs and face plant. I really should at least stay in practice. -
The top DPS chain for Dark Melee takes pretty beefy recharge at +235% in Midnight Grasp. However, there's a very good chain down at +128% if you just add a couple Shadow Punches to the top chain: Smite -> Shadow Punch -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Shadow Punch -> Siphon Life. On the forums, we tend to chase the top chains, but they're often only marginally better in most situations. I do think one of Dark Melee's main tools, Siphon Life, is of less benefit to Regeneration than it is to most sets, since Regeneration is already swimming in damage recovery abilities.
And you're making me want to play my Martial Arts/Fire again. He's languishing while I fiddle with other alts. -
Quote:I think you're right, but I think it would take either skipping Fitness (or I19) or significantly overslotting all your defenses. I think it's much better to just spend a few million on a Steadfast Protection, even if that's your only IO. We could then say that you're better off getting a Gaussian set and so on, but the cash and complexity starts mounting quickly. It's just a matter of how far down the slippery slope you want to slide, and I think it's worth taking at least that one, initial step.Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
At least in my head you can soft cap with SOs, but I'm not sure about end usage.
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Broad Sword does have very good burst damage. But unless by "burst damage" we mean "damage done by the single biggest attack", then Katana tends to do better burst damage. Put overly simply, as long as the mechanisms are the same (both use Build Up), then burst = DPS. It's when the mechanisms are different, such as Build Up vs. Blinding Feint, that we see a big difference between a burst damage comparison and a DPS comparison.
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I haven't played with any of the I19 stuff, but it's going to make a budget SR build even more insane. You can soft cap on SOs by adding only the Steadfast Protection if you take Combat Jumping, Weave and Maneuvers. In I19, you'll be able to do that AND take Aid Self. That'd be amazing for almost entirely SOs. You can also feasibly do it by level 36, giving you 14 levels of immortality even if you retire characters at 50.
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I guess if you accept soft-capped defenses as your standard, anything less will be significantly underperforming, because even 40% defense means getting hit twice as often. But then, even 30% (4x as often) is probably fine for most content, particularly with inspirations. Bump it to 32.5%, and one small purple inspiration becomes god mode.
I have no theory on the significance of 64%. -
Depends on your budget. If you want to get really serious, you drop Divine Avalanche and use a chain of Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut. That takes +250% recharge in Golden Dragonfly (3.43 seconds), and recharge is expensive, but that's the highest DPS chain. Then get to 45% positional defense with power pools and set bonuses. Take and slot Tough. Steadfast Protection in Tough. Try to fit in Aid Self if you want to do stupid scrapper tricks. If you can pull all that off, and it's probably possible, then you have the best DPS you're going to see combined with no temp no insp AV soloing survivability. Makes for a very nice package. If you're not going to do stupid things like that, then green inspirations are just fine, and you can skip Aid Self. Technically you can skip it anyway, but it's easier to do stupid things if you have Aid Self.
Red Fortune is a nice set, yes. Gaussian Synchronized Fire Control is good. With enough influence, the Gladiator's Armor +3% defense is good. Luck of the Gambler's are good for recharge. Purple sets are good for recharge. Try to pick up some hit points while you're at it, and if you decide to not take Aid Self (I hate it personally), pick up a lot of regeneration as well. The body pool is nice for Physical Perfection, and you can put the Gaussian set in Focused Accuracy, though you may not have the endurance to run it, and I'm not fond of set mules in general. I prefer Leadership for Tactics, but that's probably not happening if you take Medicine. Lots of things to balance.
For a budget build, I'd give up on the top chain, maybe keep Divine Avalanche, in which case yeah, focus on ranged and AoE. But you could easily soft cap melee without Divine Avalanche, so it may be a non-issue. Everything else pretty much like I mentioned, just the low budget version, so no purples, no Luck of the Gamblers, no PvP IOs. Fortunately, Super Reflexes can be very solid on a budget. It'll lack the recharge to pull off top DPS, but it'll still be a good build. -
Broad Sword or Katana. I recommend Katana for the slightly better damage output unless you have a preference for Broad Sword. Both are largely single target. Both add a lot of melee and lethal defense, which is something that Regeneration strongly benefits from.
(Edit: But if you're more flexible with regards to secondary, Psiphon is right on the money. Dark Melee/Shield Defense can do way more single target damage, and should be at least as survivable.) -
Quote:It's just you. Well, just you and Dz131.Originally Posted by Roleplayer606
Just me or does Martial Arts suck horrible for one powers take to much endurance as well as being horribly inaccurate. And lets not forget how craptastic smashing damage is.
But maybe is my pairing it with Super Reflexes which is also endurance heavy. Currently only level 15 and pre stanima it is horrible.
Accuracy is BETTER than most sets. Broad Sword, Katana and Martial Arts all have a 5% accuracy bonus. The rest are at base accuracy.
Damage per endurance is the same as most sets. If you're burning endurance too fast, then you're doing damage too fast, which is something that people normally don't complain about.
Based on an analysis of all the time I've spent in the game on Scrappers, and estimating what I was fighting during that time, and based on the resistance of those enemies, Smashing damage averaged 4% resistance. That's hardly game breaking, even if Fire averaged only 1% resistance. So you do 3% less damage on average than the least-resisted set due to resistance. I strongly doubt that's affecting your performance meaningfully overall.
Pretty much all the sets burn through the blue bar quickly pre-Stamina. Fortunately for you, Stamina will be an inherent power in I19. Perhaps they'll make it apply earlier than level 20. In any case, Scrappers don't start showing their true colors until at least 22 and SOs, and I think only really come into their own in the mid 30s. Level 15 is too soon to judge from a seat of the pants impression unless you have pants that predict the future.
Still, no reason to play something you don't like. Roll something else. All combinations are good. -
Quote:Yeah. Not that this will suddenly spread to every enemy faction or something, but if it does, it probably brings back more of the old school "layer your defenses" instead of new school "soft cap or go home". Not that we aren't ALSO layering defenses when we soft cap, but the focus feels like it's shifted as the game has shifted.Originally Posted by mauk2
As for 'defense-based meleer's' the well-known best practice on the boards for YEARS has been, "Layered defenses, then some more layered defenses."
To be perfectly frank, I've been running tips like an obsessive-compulsive teenager ever since they came out, and I did not even NOTICE this change to the DE, much less fell 'gimped' against them.
Well, any MORE gimped.
DE are hard, but that's hardly news.
Most of the tip missions I've done have been with lowbies to low 30s toons. I don't know if I've hit devouring earth in them yet, as most of those have been on a team, and I don't pay any attention to the story - I just kill stuff. I did fight some devouring earth last night, and did die once, but that was on an all offense no defense Scrapper when the Tank kinda went to sleep in a big spawn and I didn't notice until I was in the red, and wasn't fast enough with my heal or inspirations. No idea if they were old or new devouring earth. -
OK, on the surface at least, I'm happier with Iggy's mod, so my comments will apply to that. Endurance is still in the acceptable range, though now you'd want to leave Tactics off when endurance is critical. With Tactics off, it looks like you're losing about 45 EPS per Dark Consumption cycle, which I consider OK since then you get it right back.
DDR is up significantly. Resistance is up significantly. Soul Drain is now capped for accuracy against +4s without Tactics, which should make everything else be OK since it's nearly perma.
I'd probably slot Apocalypse in Fire Blast instead of slotting up Boxing. I'm more likely to use Fire Blast, and I prefer the set bonuses, though it'll drop Soul Drain to 92% to hit. Using a common accuracy IO fixes that. Slightly more endurance drained, but I don't think enough to be an issue. More hit points, more damage, and a ranged attack. What's not to love? I mean, other than the price tag. -
Quote:Yeah, I definitely think raising to-hit in the pre-50 content is a bad idea. Incarnate levels, fine. They can set that up extra-difficult if you like, even with disclaimers like "casual players need not apply - you'll need a good build and IOs for this stuff, or a really good team". But I don't think they should be adjusting the pre-50 content to make it, in this case, significantly more difficult.Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino
Ugh. That pisses me off. If they start raising the base tohit of stuff all over what is supposed to be 'normal' content, I'm really not gonna be happy. Fine if that's going to be part of the 'extra hard' incarnate stuff, but if I'm not doing that I'd prefer my defense-based meleers un-gimped, thank you very much.
(Edit: And frankly, I don't think they'll want to deal with the outcry if the incarnate levels aren't at least ALMOST as casual-friendly as the pre-50 levels.) -
Quote:LOLwhut? Or was that a joke? Or a bump?Originally Posted by Alpha_R
Are you really kidding me? Worst DM/SD build ever. . .
Main thing I don't like is completely skimping on defense debuff resistance. But I run toons with none, so having only some is not unworkable. I just think it's sad to skip out on one of the main benefits of Shield Defense. Other than that it's solid. Soul Drain has no accuracy, but at 83% against +4s, it's probably workable. And that's with Tactics off like it popped up for me in my I18 Mids'. Everything's fine with it up. Near perma Hasten, and it'll run the top chain while Hasten is up. Siphon Life has the Hamio slotting that people seem to prefer these days. Soft cap. Tough. Seems to hit the basics other than DDR.
So let's have a look at endurance. I'm showing you burning 0.74 net EPS with the attack chain (and Tactics off, which is probably fine for most situations). You can use Dark Consumption every 54 seconds or so. In 54 seconds, you lose about 40 endurance. You'll get that back if you hit one target. The only possible issue I see is fighting an AV, where you have a 5% chance of missing. But even then, you've got a lot of buffer room on your endurance, and you'll probably still pull it off.
So I guess I'm not seeing an endurance problem that needs to be fixed?
Still, I can easily give you a little more endurance that'll help you run Tactics. Stick a straight endurance reducer in Midnight Grasp. It's still fast enough. Now with Tactics up, you lose 46 endurance per Dark Consumption cycle. Still sustainable other than misses, and you can afford a miss, maybe two. That's probably how I'd run personally.
If you still want more, you could sacrifice even more DDR by putting an endurance reducer in Active Defense instead of the recharge. You don't have a ton of DDR anyway, so you could just go the endurance route, and try to click it once every two minutes instead of trying to double stack it. With the attack slotting, that's 41 endurance per Dark Consumption cycle. But really, I feel like I'm going the wrong direction. Your endurance looks fine, and it's your DDR that worries me. -
Quote:My oh my! Interesting.Originally Posted by NordBlast
I PMed Castle regarding 64% to-hit. He replied that it is WAD.
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1800-1900 with soft-cap defense is good if you also have a heal or significant regeneration. You'll also want a good attack chain. It's kind of a vague question, though. The specifics can vary quite a bit.