mauk2

I play on Infinity.

Most of the folks I play with have a single mantra: "Play what you want."

As for the actual OP:

We don't have much data on the Incarnate system. The limited info that we know about the Alpha slot is that it was a 'global IO slot."

Namely, whatever you slotted in Alpha buffed all your powers that used that attribute, with a small portion of that buff bypassing ED.

In my mind, this would benefit low-effort toons more than heavily built toons, which has the effect of 'leveling out' the power scale: An Alpha Incarnated toon on SO's is not longer so far behind a purpled build with the same Incarnation.

It's still behind, mind you: It's just quite a lot closer.

OMG, I'd love for there to be purples for those! (swoons)

I concur: Once you get Siphon Life frankenslotted, and Invincibility/Temp Inv/Uny setted out, and all the passives, Invuln feels...Invulnerable. Especially if you slather on IO bonuses. The heal from Siphon Life seems small, but coupled with the defenses of Invuln it is remarkably effective.

That said, the lack of AOE in dark really can be offputting. I think a better combo is claws/inv, especially since brutes now get access to the very excellent body pool. Superior conditioning and physical perfection are INCREDIBLE for invuln brutes. Claws brings excellent single target and AOE. The core powers are focus, followup, and spin, with a lowby filler attack. Eviscerate is also nice if you plan to spend a lot of time in crowds.

LOL, this is true, but those are....REALLY high end builds.


But oh, if you get there, it is glorious!

Ehn, to each his own.

Mu saves a power slot to get the AOE. With I19 this may be less of a deal, but Mu also has slightly better stats on both the ST and AOE attacks.

With a SS/fire brute farmer, your primary mitigation is knockdown. You open with footstomp and follow with the patron AOE usually slotted with the purple knockdown proc. With rage, fiery embrace, and fury, that will frequently leave you with only a few dregs to worry about. Throw down burn to mop up. If you're running bosses, KoB and Haymaker provides enough single target to drop them in a timely fashion, while adding more knock and holds. Consume handles end issues.

Hit your heal and next spawn.


With a SS/elec, it's the same, except you usually try to get energize perma and ride the +regen. Losing fiery embrace and burn slows you down, but not too bad. The bottomless well of endurance is realllly nice too.

With a SS/wp you get a huge increase in survivability, and I mean huge. SS/wp/mu isn't the damage monster the SS/fire is, but it's much, much tougher. Which means you can tackle pretty much anything you want. And Quick recovery plus Stamina means you rarely have endurance concerns that a blue can't fix right quick.

Have fun!

I want to thank you for this list.

I hate badging, it irritates me, but the notion of 30+ recipes, 22 went slots and 80-odd salvage....it sings to me.

After many long years, I may have to break down and do this.

(Ponders)

LOL!!!

Oh, I know that feeling.

Across my various toons I got thousands, literally thousands, of reward merits.

At this point, I don't even bother any more, it's not like I need the cash or IO's.

Maybe Incarnate shards..... I hear rumors that all the Incarnate stuff is no-trade/no-sale, so it's possible having a meaty stash will be useful.

If I was you, I'd hoard them like Scrooge McDuck and chortle ebilly to yourself about how flush you are.

...sure.


As a matter of fact, aggro-surfing is how I usually spike hard content on a scrapper, such as the second mission in the ITF. I never bother with stealth IO's on any reasonably sturdy toon anymore. Works much better on tanks, I just bail out of the aggro knot and kill my aura.

I have to say, the aggro cap is one of the most annoying things, it's completely immersion-breaking for me. But hey, I'll happily exploit it if I have to put up with it anyway.

...run more tf's?

Get outta Went's! Yer all pasty and startin' to mold.

With proper power selection, tanker shield defense can reach 40 percent vs all with no sets at all. With I19 I'm positive you can hit 45+ without hurting yourself.

I'd build for +defense (combat jumping and manuevers, take physical perfection for a second perf shifter proc) and toss in a single +3 percent unique.

After that, EVERYTHING goes for +recharge, +regen, and damage.

If you really need more set bonuses than that, look at six gaussians.

Yes, it's really that simple.

Unless the softcap changes.... But then we're all lookin' at rebuilds.

I've got a dm/da tank at 50 and a dm/inv scrapper at 50. Trust me, siphon life is an impressive self-heal.

Here's a few tips:

Siphon life is a power that cries out for frankenslotting. The simplest and cheapest effective frankenslot that I am aware of is three Touch of the Nictus and three Mako's Bite.

This gains you 9 percent acc and some hitpoints from set bonuses. Your enhancement bonuses run 85 acc, 45 dam, 60 end, 73 heal, 89 rech if you max level on the following:

TotN: Acc/heal, acc/end/heal, heal/rech
Mako: dam/rech, acc/end/rech, acc/end/dam/rech

Cheap and effective, although it doesn't do great damage.

If you're willing to invest for damage, and give up set bonuses, there's:

2xNucleolus, Golgi, Numina heal/rech, Doctored Wound Heal/rech, Mako Quad

At max levels, that gains you 83 acc, 83 dam, 51 end, 84 heal, 71 rech

And there's many more ways besides those two.


The only downside to dark melee is the severe lack of aoe firepower, and you can dip into epic pools to help that if it really bothers you.

Have fun!

Yeah, I just started up my ma/fa.

Wow. What a combo. The new-buffed ma REALLY works well with fire, and vice versa.

Heck, I'm gonna go play it now.




To the OP: If you're looking for a dedicated boss-killer, in my opinion, you want a few things:

1) Excellent single target.
2) Excellent mitigation.
3) Good defenses.
4) Low aggro.

1) is self explanatory: Bosses have a lotta hitpoints and often good defenses.
2) is also self explanatory: Bosses have pesky/annoying/dangerous special abilities, you want to be able to turn those off.
3) Good defenses, not great. A team-oriented boss-slayer doesn't need to tank entire spawns, that's what the team is for. You need to survive your target and any splash damage.
4) For a boss-slayer, you do NOT want an aggro aura. If you're damage optimized, your defenses are secondary unless you have a very large budget.


Given the above, I'd say a ma/sr is about ideal, followed closely by claws/sr and dm/sr.

dm/sr is a real sleeper, btw. (sigh) Another alt for the huge list.....

Of those two combos, dm/inv has more synergy.

At the top end, inv is tougher than wp (a little).

Willpower has impressive self-heals and end management. DM has impressive self heals and end management. Together, they're a bit overkill. IE, DM doesn't make WP seem that much better.

Inv lacks a self heal and end management, but is very, very tough. Dm has impressive self-heals and end management.

Oh, see there, how those go together? DM adds a lot that inv doesn't have much of.

I'd say, DM/inv, as long as you understand you're very single target oriented.

Well, do we have any estimates on how fast influence is created?

"x" players times "y" per hour?

Of course we don't. But the Dev's might. Hmmmm....

(sigh)

Fine, you are utterly correct, there are drains.

They are rather akin to pinhole leaks in the Grand Coulee, but there are drains.

The Dev's NEED to address this, it's gotten ridiculous.

That is the intended result. Every purchase at "Ebilvend" removes that cash from the global pool.

This would be in billions per day, I suspect, especially at first. A possible issue is people who realize what's happening early and hoard inf: A global revaluation might also be required.

Painful, that.


Maybe. As I noted above, 'adjust as often as required.' Is 70 a happy pricepoint? If so, parity, if not, drop it.


See above.



LOL, only if the Dev's are actually strawmen, which, given that the game is going strong after six long years, is patently not the case.

Destroy the money supply to a point you like, then adjust to parity.

A much more complicated issue is addressing the multiple currencies. Why do we have vanguard merits, reward merits, prestige, influence, etc, etc, etc?

Why can't you freely exchange one for the other?

Arbitrage is not for the faint of heart.

I got to wondering:

How many combo's are there?

So I counted. (Man, I am twitchy about this stuff...)

Scrappers:

10 primaries
8 secondaries

Two disallowed=78 combos

Blasters:

10 primaries
6 secondaries

60 combos

Controllers

8 primaries
9 secondaries

72 combos

Defenders

10 primaries
10 secondaries

100 combos


Tankers

8 primaries
11 secondaries

88 combos

Brute

11 primaries
9 secondaries

2 disallowed, 97 combos


Corruptors

10 primaries
10 secondaries

100 combos


Dominators

7 Primaries
7 Secondaries

49 combos


Masterminds

6 primaries
8 secondaries

48 combos


Stalkers

10 primaries
7 secondaries

70 combos


4 epics

Total primary/secondary combos:

766

...assuming I can add.


Ahem. Back to your regularly scheduled thread now.

I think the damage is wrong, yes. (An error on the crit rate, as I recall? I am bad at that sort of thing. Or maybe that was some other power....)

Regardless, the fact remains that Mu saves you a power choice. No need to take Char.

With Fitness going inherent, that may or may not be as big a deal it once was.

This.

Every time a bad guy faceplants or a goal is achieved, the global pool of inf goes up.

There are no drains in that pool.

While I applaud (and laff myself silly at) your efforts, the Dev's need to rationalize the various in-game currencies and provide a way for the money to go away.

The simple way (in my tiny mind) is to have some huge evil corporation show up in-game that sells any and every IO straight to players for influence. A competitor to Wentworth's. Hell, call it Nethergoat Incorporated, for all I care.

Set the prices to 80 percent of current market prices, refreshing as often as required.

Maintain the price disparity for as long as is required to drain the money supply.

Once enough deflation has happened, set it to price-match Went's, or burn the damn thing down.

Simple, in my mind at least.

As you state later, Incarnate can fix your accuracy, fast and easy.

The Alpha slot can add 30-ish percent to every attack, assuming it shows up close to as tested.

Man, the Incarnate system is gonna make optimizations interesting.

I was pleased, to be honest. DE are an interesting faction that actually takes a mild degree of tactics to fight. Given that they are SERIOUSLY the 'big bad' in Praetoria, I was wondering/hoping they'd get some more attention.

I mean, the Eden trial is still some of the most epic stuff in the game.


Mercifully, I haven't noticed the 'new and improved' DE bosses summoning swarms yet. I love to hate the DE, but there's a special place in my heart for whoever thought that idiotic 'swoop in and out' tactic of the swarms (and those damned Longbow Eagles) was anything but purely annoying.

I hate the swarms more than I hate the Artemis caltrops, and that's saying something.


As I said above, the DE are the serious big-bad of Praetoria, makes perfect sense they get some attention when they get bumped to 50.



Yeah, Arachnos I usually find to be quite easy except for the darn Tarantula Queens. It's really binary: I grind along steadily against them, or I miss a Queen, get debuffed, and have to chug half a tray to bust out of the mess.

fire/wp/mu

fire: Good AOE, good st, rarely resisted damage type. Fury boosts the dot effect, increasing already good damage to VERY good levels.

wp: Gives end power, good hp's, ok def and resists, with very good regen. Layered defenses are built right in and can be readily boosted with sets and/or incarnate powers.

mu: ranged st and ranged aoe attacks that hit hard enough, add to the already good st and aoe of fire, mildly drain end of foes, and add to your end to boot. Energy damage is nice if you ever find something that's actually fireproof.

With cost no option, this is an 'opposites attract' build which will be adequate to excellent versus any content.


Build for defense and recharge, toss in as many +hitpoints and status protective IO's you can squeeze.

You can readily fit four purples at the expense of some Defense, but with enough hitpoints and regen, that may be perfectly acceptable. If you purple the Mu Lightning Ball the knockdown proc adds noticeable levels of mitigation as a bonus.

Honestly, for a 'general purpose' monster, it's hard to beat.

...wow, jump the gun much?

The ONLY place this has been changed, as is posted in this thread, is in ONE faction in ONE train of content which leads to exceptionally good rewards.

It's a bit of a leap from there to DOOOOMM!!!!!

Don't you think?

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.

...yes.

There is no Dull Pain, because they get Strength of Will instead.

Have YOU played Willpower? Because my baddies fire SoW off every single time, and wow, suddenly their resists aren't so 'meh'.

What's that get them? On a L50 boss, thats:

+25 S/L, +12.5 everything else. Oh, and a TON more mez resists.

The base on an L50 boss is:

30S/L, 27.5 psi, 7.5 everyting else, and a boatload of mez.

Totals:

55S/L, 40 psi, 20 everything else. That's extremely competitive against any regular bad guy, but it gets MUCH worse.


Ok, you have not played Willpower, I see.

I am logged into AE right now, let's toss out what this 'rather crap' power does these days.

On a L50 Boss: 80 percent heal, 50 pecent end, +200 recovery, +100 recharge (holy moly!), +40 percent resist vs all, and the cherry on top: +30 to hit.

total resists:

S/L 70, 67.5 Psi, 47.5 vs everything else, TONS of mez resists, and a very bad attitude.

They rez with plenty of hit points, their attack rate shoots through the roof, and they will carve you to pieces right through 'soft-capped' defenses.

Yes, this is different than what Willpower used to do for AE critters.

Where's the weak point there?

Why isn't that worth more than a standard baddie?

Oh, and lest you think you can avoid the nasty by leaving out bosses, the numbers for Lt's are exactly the same.

Yes, minions are not QUITE as nasty. Small favors.