dave_p
-
Posts
1148 -
Joined
-
Forgot to add, your 18, 20 & 22 power picks are very tricky. I say this, cuz a lot of ppl advise you to delay Pots til after Stamina because of its end drain. Problem for a Stone/Ice is that 20 is when Ice Patch becomes available. What I did was
18 Pots
20 Ice Patch
22 Stamina
So there was a bit of suffering for 4 levels, but I found that I couldn't get good aggro w/o Pots, but Ice Patch just couldn't wait. You could wait til 22 or 24 for Pots, but that's a long time to go w/o your aggro aura (far, far better than Taunt, which I don't usually even recommend, but would for a Stony). -
FWIW, my Spines/Dark build at 50 has a LotG +rech in CJ. This is an S/L def cap (46% actually) build w/45% global rech (pre-Hasten) and only 4 pts of KB protection in the form of a BotZ in SJ.
My current (lvl 28-ish) build has a Karma -KB in there, but I'll be respeccing out of that, obviously. Oh, and I don't believe there's any difference bet. 8pts & 12 pts of KB protection, which is to say no mobs do more than 8, but less than 12 pts of KB. Not 100% on that last though. -
See sig for Ice Melee. FWIW, I play Stone/Ice so that guide was written w/those experience in mind (though it applies to all).
Stone advice seems more or less solid. Consider Crystal pre-Granite, but respec out of it. I'll tell you Rooted + Ice Patch will do you more good than all your other non-Granite armors combined. If you run low on end pre-Granite and need to detoggle a bit, turn off Rock & Crystal and just sit in Rooted & IP and you'll go a long way. -
Long lengthy reply lost by bad internet connection.
tl;dr version: Plenty of ways to play controllers from range effectively. To think otherwise is being narrow minded, much like saying Tankers must take Taunt.
I like AA fine, but can go through any number of missions w/o every turning it on, and wouldn't miss it. In fact, if I'm doing most of the damage (happens a lot w/Storm), AA's mostly an end drain I don't need.
Finally, AA + Hurricane (Ice/Storm being a popular combo) can play well together, but takes skill and situational awareness, lacking in a lot of ppl. -
Quote:Yeah, before I IOed up (esp. the Numina & Miracle uniques), when I ran DS & Quills on my Spines/DA, along w/my other armors & Sprint, my end recovery was like 0.01 above my end usage, but then I could just stand in the middle of crowds and kill stuff. Of course, I'd just detoggle some armors (and Sprint!) and attack too, but if I ran out of end, it was better for me to stop attacking than turn off a damage aura. Of course, that's no fun, which is why even those of us who do the math often end up concentrating on our ST attacks at the expense of the auras.Originally Posted by Werner
As for Death Shroud, it's actually an endurance saving tool. You see, Death Shroud costs only as much endurance as a single-target attack, but it does AoE damage. If Death Shroud is causing you to run out of endurance, it's better to stop attacking than to turn off or skip Death Shroud. That said, I suppose I should admit that on my Katana/Dark, I prioritized getting my single-target attack chain working first, so this would be a "do as I say, not as I do" situation.
BTW, DA is insanely survivable if you can get the defenses up through IOs. DA w/a high S/L defense (for example), decent resist across the board, several mitigating auras, and a fantastic self heal (zero to full w/like 2 or 3 mobs hit) is potentially the sturdiest set of them all. -
Quote:True, alas. I cashed in a lot of my purps at near peak prices, but I still have one (Arm. triple, I think) that I posted at around 190M that hasn't moved in a few weeks.Originally Posted by The_Bronx
Prices have doubled, and that's still significantly lower then previously.
They still aren't as high as they were. Sadly.
-
Ice Melee is more than fine for plowing through hordes of minions & lts. Before I16, it was the 3rd best tanker AoE set, behind Fire & SS. I presume it's behind Elec too now, though FA recharges faster than LR, and Frost >> JL, but CI & TS prolly tip the scales for Elec (that and LR is flat broken). Also, cold damage is very little resisted, esp compared to S/L, and prolly even En. If you're looking to farm big maps w/few bosses, Ice is hard to beat. Add the mitigation aspect and IM is a top tier secondary that very few bother with for perceived low damage (or the actual craptastic ST damage, so this isn't the set to solo AVs with).
Of all my tanker secondaries (I play EM, SS, IM, Mace, Axe, Fire & Elec), Ice is really one of my favorites, and frankly outdamages all but Fire & SS (my ELM isn't very high level yet). Mace & Axe really get killed by the S/L resistances and the lack of a good PBAoE. If you can leverage the cones, Mace can come close or even surpass IM, but Ice still provides better mitigation.
If you're really set on no Ice, and no Fire also, there's still Elec for elemental themes, and prolly superior AoE damage. ELM has sorta weak ST damage too, but it'll be better than Ice. You just don't get that much mitigation with ELM tho. -
See my sig for an Ice Melee guide. There are a few critical changes I'd make to your build and they're mostly detailed in there (+Frost, -GIS).
For the WP portion, are you going for the E/N def w/your BotZ in SS? Your positionals are low enough that your IO sets aren't doing you a ton of good, but you could prolly do better w/your typed def w/some better concentration (my WP has S/L capped and pretty high exotics as well). Otherwise, it's a solid build--you'll survive fine in 8-man mish, esp w/Ice Patch, though you might have problems with AVs and higher. -
Quote:You know, I never thought to check back to this post to see if there were feedback or questions. Ah well, only 2 months late...Originally Posted by The_Laughing_Man
Could you explain a bit more about the DPA values in your post?
Greater Ice Sword shows a sizeable "damage", but the DPA is lower than most of the other attacks. Is that because of the animation and activation time? I have noticed how annoyingly long it takes to thump this attack out.
Sorry for being thick.
-H
DPA is calculated as (total damage)/(time it takes from when you activate this power til when you start activating the next power). The bottom bit is a bit tricky to figure out and through much toil by Arcanaville, she more or less came up with a fairly accurate formula that goes something like:
DPA = DAM/(0.132*(ROUNDUP(ACT/0.132)+1))
Basically, you're calculating how many server clock cycles (0.132 sec) it takes the attack to complete, and add one extra cycle. For a more detailed information, try searching on Arcanatime--there's quite the treatise on the subject.
So for Greater Ice Sword, the DAM=87.2, ACT = 2.33 sec, or 2.508 in "Arcanatime", so DPA = 87.2/2.508 = 34.77. Which is terrible. Just as a comparison, I'll list all the other tanker heavy hitters below:
Seismic Smash: 92.3
Clobber: 89.47
Energy Transfer: 69.86 (this used to be a gaudy 170.77 before the nerf!)
KO Blow: 66.66
Incinerate: 60.17
Greater Fire Sword: 57.48
Midnight Grasp: 54.71
Sweeping Strike (a cone at that!): 52.09
Swoop: 51.23
Total Focus: 46.15 (so really, not all that great either despite the very big # it generates)
GIS: 34.77***
Okay, those are just the heavy hitters, but even if you look at the "weaker" attacks, there are only like 6 tanker ST attacks *total* that have worse DPA values than GIS. It's really, really pathetic, is what I'm getting at. Even if you don't care about DPA or activation times, the "big number" for GIS isn't all that high compared to what you get with like Seismic Smash or KO Blow, both of which do almost 2x the actual damage, and in less time to boot.
As for procs in FF or any attack, the rule of thumb is that procs are best in quick animating attacks, though even that's been devalued somewhat after the discovery of Arcanatime. Since FF has a rather long activation for a T1 attack, I personally wouldn't bother with it.
(Elec doesn't have any real heavy ST attacks either, but CI has a higher DPA, though I don't know the official values yet so don't want to list the #s.) -
Yeah, like I said, my Elec/SR is doing just fine, and I also passed up doing an Elec/SD cuz I had a Dark/SD and I don't like repeating powersets. Easy to softcap w/high debuff resists, throw in like Aid Self and you're pretty much set.
-
Elec/SD is kinda sick, but I went Elec/SR for concept reasons (that and I already had a SD scrapper). Working out well enough, but I miss being able to (AAO+)BU+LR+SC to wipe everything off the map every 30 sec.
-
There are obviously many points of view on this topic, but I thought I'd address one in particular that may (or may not) solve some of your "problems":
Quote:The tank really has no business helping to mop up the last boss or two on a halfway decent team. The tank should just soak the alpha, establish initial aggro, get a tight grouping for AoEs, then determine when the battle is well in hand and go onto the next group. Too often though, I find the tank(s) staying til the last mob (that's a single unit, btw) is dead, making sure every little squishy is "protected" before going onto the next spawn, making the team wait pointlessly, or more often having another player initiate the action. In actually, those squishies are more than capable of looking out for themselves and the tank's (usually) inferior DPS isn't helping out the mopping up process in any significant way.Originally Posted by Doctor_Xaxan
...Usually when this happens, I'm still trying to mop up the last boss or two of a mob, and half the team has followed the adventurous fire/kin down another hallway (usually to their deaths).
When not tanking myself, I'll always let the tank lead at first, but if I think they're not pushing the pace enough, I'll often go ahead a bit and set up my own fights, esp if I'm on a scrapper or controller. If the team complains, I'll rein it back, but I'll likely be looking for a new team after the mission (or TF) is done. Fact is, a tank isn't particularly needed (nor are scrappers or controllers or any other one AT in the game) to roll through missions and even TFs. What the tank usually does better than the scrapper or controller is controlling the aggro--not just taking the hits, but grouping the mobs to where you want them, provided you have time.
When I tank, I stick around for the alpha, and maybe one more volley, but once I see most of the minions dead, unless there's a particularly nasty mob (really tough boss or worse), I'm going to the next spawn to get it ready for the AoEs. This isn't just to not "waste my time" with leftovers, or even particularly push the pace for faster kills (tho that's nice too, and staves off wanderlust), but I want a few extra seconds to organize the next spawn to get tight on me before any caltrops or AoE immobs are laid down, and I want that time w/o making the team wait for me to "herd" or whatever (which promotes wanderlust).
Of course you have to judge the capabilities of your team--sometimes, you do need to stick around til the bitter end, esp on lower level teams (or just bad ones). Hell, sometimes, you might not be able to survive very long on your own and depend on the team to buff/debuff/kill fast enough for your own survival. But on higher level, competent teams, the tank really needs to push the pace more than what I usually see, esp in PUGs. Again, this isn't just some hardcore, steamroll-everything manifesto, but the reason a lot of ppl run ahead is because they're impatient, waiting on an overcautious tank. Yes, you'll still find scappers & Fire/Kins and whatever going off on their own, being generally poor teammates, but you're going to be very unhappy in life if you expect never to run into bad players. -
Totally disagree with the last few responses. My Fire/EM is S/L softcapped and he's so much better than before (when I was building for +rech and offense), it's not even funny. Recovery's no problem even w/o Consume. My offensive output has gone down a bit (not a lot though), but then EM's been gutted anyway and my abilities as a "tank" has skyrocketed. It might not be for everyone, but I'd at least recommend the OP give it a shot, maybe on test (can "dupe" whatever IOs he needs, esp the Kin Combats), and see what it feels like.
BTW, I'm doing the same for my Fire/Fire scrapper (really, pretty much all my resist-based melee are being built towards softcapped defenses--DA w/softcapped S/L is a freakin' beast!), and he's also doing great w/almost no sacrifices to his offenses either. -
Hey Deathless, would you be willing to try soloing a Rikti Pylon and posting your time? I've been trying to find a tweaked Fire/Kin, Storm & Cold to give it a shot to see if they can beat the best Fire/Rad times. FWIW, it takes my Fire/Rad around 10-15 min to beat Paladin on live, but he's not fully optimized, meaning he has Psi pool for IW, so my ST damage takes a big hit w/Mental Blast instead of Fire. Against Pylons, my Live build takes like 5:35, but on Test, I did it in under 4:30. All, no temps, no insps.
Oh, and /Kin mitigation through debuffs on AV/GMs are sorta minor, but the heal sure as hell isn't. Assuming you're only getting hit 7.5~8.5% of the time (at softcap), Transfusion by itself should be more than enough to keep you (and your imps if they pick up stray AoE damage) alive. -
Quote:Not to speak for Silverado, but I took Hasten, SS, CJ (not flight), SJ & Hover for my Fire/Rad, AV/GM-soloer. Obviously, CJ & Hover helps towards def and they along w/SJ (and/or Flight) are good BotZ mules (SS & CJ carry LotG +rech's too). Also, SS + SJ is an unbeatable travel combo, which is why I took SJ instead of Flight, since you can just buy a flight pack.Originally Posted by MentalMaden
Silverado, I'm curious from a strategy perspective why you have SS and flight. Hasten and hover I get but I was wondering why both tier 3s and not just one? (or is that a flight pack icon?) 100% just curious.
To the OP, and your followup questions:
Ill/Rad is safest & "easiest" for AV soloing and the like.
Fire/Rad is faster and better overall soloer, if you can get your defenses high enough.
Fire/Storm & /Kin are arguably higher damaging combos, but /Kin gives you no real defense and /Storm will leave you sucking for end. My Ice/Storm w/every +end IO proc & much set bonuses still sucks for end after I go all out on offense, where my Fire/Rad can sustain his main AV attack chain forever (i.e. I'm gaining end while attacking). Storm also has no self heal, which you will need to solo AVs if you're doing no-insp challenges (you still get hit 7.5% of the time, 8.5% against GMs). BTW, I've yet to see firm data on Fire/Kin or /Storm (or /Cold now) against hard targets and the fastest Pylon times that I've see are all Fire/Rads. -
Followed this thread from the one about shortage of mid level IOs. Just to share my recent experience...
I just re-upped after a 3 week break, which started right as 2XP was winding down, and noticed I had a fairly newly minted lvl 27 Spines/Dark scrapper w/yellow SOs and some red DOs even. So, I decided to completely overhaul his slotting via frankenslotting (plus a Numina/Miracle, a Theft +end proc and a -KB, all of which I have in abundant storage, but we won't count those for this discussion). I wish I'd kept better track of expenses, but I did all my attacks which consist of 1 ST, 1 ranged & 4(!) PBAoE, all 4-5 slotted, and I don't think I bid more than 150K on anything. Nor did any of the recipes call for rare salvage. A few of the bids didn't fill immediately and I haven't checked (been 2 days), but I bid a bit over the last 5 high price, and they were selling every few days, so I have little doubt they'll fill.
So, my attacks alone, I'm looking at, let's say 200K per slot, which is way more than what they'll be since I often paid closer to 10K for a recipe, but just to be conservative. So that's 6 million for just my attacks (well, prolly closer to 4). Now, I have a lot of attacks, largely because of the 2 damage auras, and those tend to cost more than defensive or other IOs, but since there are more powers to fill, even at a lesser cost, let's say the rest will take me another 6M to fill out.
So, conservatively 10~12M to fully frankenslot a lvl 27 toon w/o being particularly cheap about it (but w/o paying silly NAO! prices either). I could prolly do it for 8M too, I just didn't feel like it. Really, sounds about right, and far, far superior to any SO or generic IO slotting even w/o any set bonuses (of which there are a few useful ones, even through frankenslotting).
Edit: The bidding, crafting & slotting took prolly around an hour or so. If you include adjusting the build in Mids' for a lvl 30 frankenslot build, another 10 min. Of course I was slotting on the fly, and using the Steel, Wents<->University worn path frequently. And I'm less than 1/2 done, but the non-attack slotting should go faster too, so I figure a total of 2 hrs to get the whole thing done from conception to fully slotted. 3hrs tops. Then again, I don't care about my defenses nearly as much (as long as Dark Regen is well slotted) so I might just say screw and stick some throwaway SOs in my armors for a few more levels, until I get slot lvl 40 Reactive Armors in all of them. -
Scrapper version works great. AAO + BU + SC + LR every 30 sec or so. Almost cheating, really.
-
Yikes, no, don't drop Ice Patch, nor should you drop Ice Sword or Build Up, but these two are debatable at least.
See the guide in my sig, but the tl;dr version:
Essential Ice Melee powers are Frost, FA, Ice Patch, Freezing Touch.
Should really have: Ice Sword
Forced to take, but optional to slot: Frozen Fists
Optional: BU & Taunt, depending on your style of play and if you want an easy/cheap IO set mule.
By all means skip: GIS. Horrible power.
If you want to do any damage at all, you'll take and slot (for damage) Frost, FA & Freezing Touch. Ice Sword is your filler, though it really becomes a bread & butter attack until an epic blast can be had. If you're really short on slots, you can just slot FF instead, but man, it's a crappy attack. IS isn't much better, but it *is* better. Your heavy hitters are Frost, FA & FT though, and by a long shot. W/those 3 and the correct style of play (AoEs, lots of them), you'll outdamage most of the other tanker sets, and with great mitigation to boot.
In the guid, I go into the mechanics of explaining the above points, so I won't repeat it here, but if you don't take the "essential powers" from above, there's almost no reason to even play Ice Melee unless you're really going for concept. -
Quote:I thought it was being split in 3? BTW, I stopped at book 7, but would recommend stopping at 6.
And the last book to the Wheel of Time series is being split in 2. Even after they promised only 1 more book!!
Scrappers are versatile. They are the fullbacks & TEs on O who can block, run with or catch the ball. They are safeties and LBs on D who can protect against the run or pass.
Tankers are the big uglies. DL and OL.
Blasters are "skill" positions. WR, RB (blappers) & Corner. They're specialized, but the best are also versatile and can block and play run support.
Controller's the QB. They direct the action from far back, relying on the tankers & scrappers for protection, blasters for "scoring", but the really good ones can scramble & score on their own just fine.
Defenders are the backup QB that half the fanbase thinks should really be starting, but rarely gets the big Nike endorsements or supermodel GFs. -
FWIW, I end up taking Maneuvers on a few of my scrapper/tanker builds to cap X defense. I sometimes even take it in favor of Weave, cuz the build doesn't need, or more likely doesn't have room for, Boxing/Tough, and Man. by itself is just enough to get to the magic 45%. The extra def for my teammates is gravy, but honestly, it's not much of a consideration, at least for my melee builds.
-
Quote:Please see the guide in my sig for Ice Melee.Originally Posted by BalleRyan
I'm not sure how great Ice Melee is as far as damage, but I do really like Ice powersets in general.
I personally run a DA/Mace and he works great for the reasons already listed, but if it's AoE you're looking for and not Fire again, it's DA/SS followed by DA/Ice, with DA/Ice giving you some better mitigation.
FWIW, I deleted my DA/DM tank a while back from the lack of AoE damage. It *does* have good synergy though. -
Awesome! How long did it take you? If it's as long as I imagine (I average 10-20 min per GM so, that's minimum 90 min, right?), there's no way I'd have the patience to do this. Gratz!
Oh, for technical reference, I'm assuming insps & temps were in full use? I guess if you load up on reds & use temps, you can go a lot faster... -
All MA scrappers are Kickers by definition.
-
Quote:This and Quickness are the only reasons I'd ever consider SR over Shields, or if they ported Nin over. Well, other than concept, cuz sometimes you just want a fast, evasive guy who's not a freakin' ninja.Originally Posted by Sarrate
SR can hit 95% def resistance.
Ninjitsu has 34.6% def resistance.
Still, I'm having a hard time playing my Elec/SR when I could be combo'ing BU+LR+Shield Charge every 30 sec or so (yes, w/Quickness, I get the BU+LR portion up a bit faster). If they ported over Nin, I'd totally reroll him as an Elec/Nin in a heartbeat (didn't roll him as an Elec/SD in the first place cuz I already have a /SD scrapper). -
Quote:This. I only jump in & out of Granite as a last ditch response. But then, if I weren't going to have Granite as backup, I wouldn't bother with Stone Armor in the first place.Originally Posted by Lohenien
Well lets see my stone/ice tank has this outside of granite : 46% s/l def, 47% psi def, 36% e/n def, 36% s/l res and I regen 42-67 hp /sec (depending on if EE is up or not). Granite is usually not needed until I start fighting purple mobs, which hit hard without much resistance. Aside from heavy hitting mobs, granite is not required for survival.
BTW, Chilling Embrace >> Pots for aggro generation. Both have auto-hit debuffs that grabs aggro, but IIRC, CE pulses every .5 sec vsl Pots' 2 sec rate. Combine that w/Icicles as a 2nd (and damaging) aura and Ice by far has the best aggro management in the game.