glasswalker01

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I don't see Obsidian Shield in your build. I highly recommend finding room for this as it gives you -sleep, hold and psi. I didn't think I needed it early and then I get a story arc with Lost in it................ enough said? I was cursing in every mission getting held or slept and all my toggles dropping.

Also, I was wondering if anyone has any experience running cloak of fear or opressive gloom? As a dark scrapper, I loved these powers, but how do they work for a brute? They seem to work against building fury.

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Regarding Oppresive Gloom, I have little experience with it. I tried it on Test briefly, but quickly got tired of losing Fury as I chased down what appeared to be jet-powered drunken foes. It's effective, I suppose, but struck me as more of a headache than anything else.

I've heard a lot of opinions in both directions regarding CoF. As a Dark/Dark Brute, I tend to run CoF and Death Shroud together. Yes, CoF seems counterproductive to Fury generation. Yes, Death Shroud seems counterproductive to CoF. But together, my experience is that they blend nicely.

With both of these powers running, the following occurs:
1) Attention of your foes is drawn to you by Death Shroud. This generates Fury and reduces aggro on your team, if any.
2) Cloak of Fury provides damage mitigation. Attack rate of your foes is slowed somewhat, and (perhaps more importantly) the attacks that *are* made have reduced accuracy. While fighting solo, it may be less important to run this power.
3) Everything around you takes a surprisingly large amount of continuous damage from Death Shroud, especially as Fury begins to ramp up. It's important to note that while each tick of damage is not tremendously large, it potentially affects many targets, and stacks seamlessly with your attack chain.

Your mileage may vary.

Ok, given the explanation by Weird, let me ask the following question:

The table provided says that the streakbreaker count for accuracy 5-10% is 100, and Wierdbeard (I think) said that the count used the worst accuracy for the streak. Does this, then, mean that if *at any point*, I make an attack attempt against such a hard to hit target, then my streakbreaker value may stay at 100 for up to the next 100 attacks, assuming I miss?

So let's use a completely hypothical example. Let's say I'm a level 28 hero working on Croatoa missions set to heroic. Lets say (again, purely hypothetical) that the mission is populated by a mix of level 28 foes with level 43 pets, say. If I swing at that pet, my streakbreaker will become 100 (a) until I hit, or (b) until 100 attacks occur.

Another example. Let's say I'm fighting Paragon Protectors. If one of them MOGs, does the same thing occur?

Well, I guess it depends in part on whether you want your "control" power to simply make your victims run around in random directions until they leave the very small radius of the power ... then turn around and shoot you with no penalty. The fact that feared enemies tend to stay still (usually) and get a tohit debuff when they attack is nice.

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Cloak of Fear has been nerfed a couple of times. As of I5 it only Cowers Minions, it hits a level+0 mob 50% of the time and the To Hit debuff was reduced (from 25% to 10%). IMHO it is line ball as to whether it is worth the End cost to run and requires 3 Acc and a Fear Enh to give a 90% Cower vs level+1 mobs, leaving you with two slots to Enh the To Hit debuff or cut the sizeable End cost. If you are not prepared to 6 slot it or if you run Oppressive Gloom, which will stun all the Minions anyway, then don't take it.


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Have you tested this recently? I have a Dark/Dark Brute (basically the same with respect to power stats, as far as I can tell), and I have noticed that Lieutenants are *definitely* getting cowered. Just today I cowered a +2 Lt (red); this is without ToF (I don't have it), without Fear duration enhancers (my slotting is 3 endreduce, 1 acc), and as far as I know I don't have any other fear effects).

Did this change in i6, or is the Brute version different? (Or should I be shutting up in Fear that they overlooked passing a nerf along to my character?) As is, I find CoF very useful as damage mitigation, even given that I run it with Death Shroud and therefore do not get its full benefit. Um ... I mean, its a worthless power; hardly worth taking!

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You're wasting your time. Reason, fairness, and other silly things like that are foreign concepts to developers. Remember, such foes are the equivalents their characters, and they're not going to gimp their characters vs. the Enemy (players).

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I trust you'll be happy to learn that I changed Ballista based on feedback in this thread.

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This is something that (in my perception, at least) has been rare lately, so let me be one of the first to say:

Thank you. Both for listening to our feedback and for acting on it.

Now, because I'm a player and never happy with what I'm given , can you give us a little hint as to how Ballista was changed? Did you reduce the magnitude of the toggle-drop (number of toggles affected), or the chance that a toggle-drop would occur? Did you change the powers available to Ballista or the frequency with which the "worst" powers were used? And are these changes specific to Ballista, or do they affect other similar PvE opponents (if there are any), and do they affect player toggle-drop powers in PvP or PvE?

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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!

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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?

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I apologize for being a Brute in a Stalkerville, but its so refreshing to see a Dev actually respond to player concerns...

Ballista is in my opinion far, far, far too nasty. He was an exercise in frustration to fight; he'd drop all of my toggles in one or two chained attacks, and I'd be dead before I could even think about running or putting my toggles back up. (This was an even-level Ballista, by the way; I was not playing at boosted difficulty.) Then, of course, the second time I didn't have the benefit of Fury to help out, and I did even worse. Four team wipes and 20k or so of debt each later my (small) team gave up.

There was no fun, it was not challenging, it was merely futile. I suppose if I'd had a full team, I still would have died (thanks to the Taunt inherent to my attacks), but my team would have avenged me. Of course, if I'd had a full team, the graphics would have completely overwhelmed me with lag. Catch-22.

So I waited a couple of levels, brought a good team in and trounced on him. But it wasn't due to any real skill on our part -- it was because the Dominator and Defenders stacked holds on him, then we just depleted his hit points. Again, not really fun.

As an aside, if this degree of toggle-drop is even close to what I should expect in PvP, I am even less interested than I was previously in giving PvP a try. It's not as though my toggles make me invulnerable to begin with; at roughly 30-40% resist it's more a matter of taking the edge off of the damage. Without them up, I am merely a chew toy with a temper.

I can only say thank you for not making Ballista-like villains more common. And I hope that I won't see more of them, because it simply isn't fun to let a mission sit in my tray until I can overwhelm it.

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Another note, weave does not stack with most tank defenses.

Defense types stack with themselves. Weave is set to work against melee and rng (no AOE, I think), or positional defense type.
Most tank defenses are attack type, meaning cold, lethal, etc. TH/invince is to all types but psi, so it doesnt stack with weave at all. So, no benefit from weave at all.

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Are you sure Invinc works on damage types? The bonus varies based on range (1.5% vs melee, 0.75% vs ranged), so given this difference in values, it seems likely that Invinc is really melee and ranged defense, with a defense debuff vs. Psi. (I have no evidence to support it since my Invuln really isn't worth playing any more)

And in any case, Statesman has this to say:

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Stealth, Grant Invisibility, Invisibility,Combat Flight, Weave, Maneuvers, Vengeance, and Combat Jumping will grant a Defense bonus to Smashing and Lethal Attacks in addition to Melee and Ranged attacks.

I added the same to Controller/Illusion/Group Invisibility.

The result of this is that ALL defense builds will benefit from Pool powers. Previously, Ice Tankers suffered somewhat because the Pool defenses did not stack with their defense powers. This is now rectified.

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So Weave (according to this) should stack (at least partially) with Invincible, regardless of the bonus type.

I love my Dark/Dark! Having access to self-heals and endurance recovery powers is very useful to maintaining a constant and continuing level of SMASH.

My 19 Dark/Dark is eminently soloable. I have only a small handful of DOs (I'm saving for SOs); despite this I can usually ramage through entire missions without stopping. Endurance is my most common issue (The only DOs I've purchased have been endreduce for my toggles and Maul), though I find that simply not running my shields helps; I tend to eat through enemies quickly enough (due to high Fury) that the damage I take is within reason.

This no doubt depends greatly on your difficulty slider, however. I find that heroic allows me to use the above tactics. Were I to adjust the slider upwards, I think I would have to stop and rest, thus losing the advantage of Fury, so I suspect my experience rate is significantly *higher* at this lower setting. (Though I have not done the math.)

(bold added for emphasis)
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Q3: How do I earn Prestige?
A3: You earn Prestige by playing in Supergroup Mode. You can turn Supergroup Mode on by opening the 'SG' tab and clicking 'Enter Supergroup Mode'. At low levels, you earn Prestige and Influence in equal amounts. However, the closer you get to level 35, the less influence you earn, until after level 35, you earn NO influence for playing in Supergroup mode. The amount of Prestige earned per enemy/per mission does not increase by level like influence does.


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What?! The nerfed influence and playing in SG? Holy cow! I now have to decide whether I want to wear SG colors or earn influence? This is insane!

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You know...

That, right there, is all it would take to make a world of difference in the game. A little witty banter from your opponent. Or even some not so witty banter.

All the fights with the NPC opponents go the same way - they may say something the first time they see you, but after that it's all robotic AI stuff. One mission is very much like the next.


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Actually, I've noticed that CoV does a bit better in that department. I don't recall the specific words used, but in one fight against a mystically-inclined opponent, my foe had several lines he spoke during the combat, things like:
"I will blast you with elemental fire"
"You have no chance against me"
Then, as I defeated him, he said:
"Oh"
I thought it was funny... Then, while trying to steal a list of villains to be targetted by the vigilante group I was fighting, the leader was badmouthing me, with comments like:
"You'll have to hit harder than that if you want to make next year's list"
And when I defeated him, his tune changed a bit:
"Maybe you did earn your spot on the list after all..."

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For destroying Tankers and everything they ever stood for.

If they are as bad as everyone KNOWS they will be, I will be cancelling my account the same day.


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Ok, two things. Two sad, sad statements.

Tanks are fine, if you don't believe me I'll show you the ones I play with. If I can tank 6 +2s and live to complain about it with my 'underpowered' sloting(he's an invun tank mind you) I don't think you've got ground to stand on for that one.

And it isn't that friggen bad. Try it before you complain. And I don't mean on invincible, I mean on the real level the game was originally made for. You'll be fine.My blaster is actually better after ed, I can finally take bosses one on one.

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Six +2s, eh? That's, what, a two-three person team spawn? What happens when you are on an eight-person team against Cabal or similar foes, and you take about three quarters (or half, even with a ringer) of the damage of the alpha-strike you are supposed to take for the team because your resistance does next to nothing against non-S/L damage?

Then, of course, the other defender (I *hope* you have another defender, since ringers can't heal!) tries to heal you, but even a strongly slotted (but still Ed-compliant) heal does 2/3 of the amount it used to, so your health bar stays low as your opponents continue to pummel you. So your only hope is that the blasters and scrappers can quickly deal with them, but their damage potential was cut, too, so the fight's taking a lot longer than it should.

Of course, *you* are doing better, because now the blasters are taking damage for you, and try as you might, you can't taunt all those happy-fun(tm) balls, thanks to all those great improvements to Taunt that came in i5!

I love how people keep saying that they can still "tank" X +Y villains, then forget to mention that said villains were Council, doing nothing but S/L damage (the only damage Invulns are still strong against, and even then only by spending an extra three power slots on RPD and Tough).

My *defender* could have "tanked" that group of opponents, so long as the group was mez-free, and even then with the help of Clear Mind, Density Increase, or the like. (Maybe not in i6, since my debuffs got hit by the nerf bat, too, and my wife says she doesn't want to play her Empath any more because she lost so much healing potential.)

And I completely reject that your blaster is doing better than before, since villains were (according to the Devs) not adjusted at all, and (other than a slight endurance benefit that you won't notice unless you didn't have Stamina) your powers were not changed. Well, except for the new effective limit on your maximum slotted damage.

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With Enhancement Diversification comes a benefit for ALL City of Heroes powers.

Every power, across the board, is getting a 13.33% reduction in its Endurance cost.

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So a character with 6-slotted Stamina will lose more than 20% of their endurance recovery in exchange for a 13.33% reduction in endurance costs? (And I think Statesman quoted 12%, so perhaps it is even worse.)

(based on numbers found in the guide section since the Devs refuse to provide them

base = 1.67 eps
stamina(6*endrec) = 1.52
total = 3.19

base = 1.67
stamina(2*endrec) = 0.84
total = 2.51

2.51 / 3.19 = .787 = 21.3% reduction