Official Thread for Brutes: Electric Shields
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:02 in Developers' Corner
Ten, how many post-40 carnies have you fought? I ask because I've noticed the pre-40 ones in CoV don't seem to have the end drain death effect to nearly the same extent that the post-40 carnies in CoH have. Which is to say my Mastermind without stamina could (a few levels ago) run into the center of a group of +level carnies, kill them all with a trip mine, and still have end left, while my Regen scrapper gets drained by the same kind of mob a few levels later. Point being, the pre-40 carnies might be a bad example of the effectiveness of end drain. Regardless of which, the true winners of the end drain jerk award are the sappers with their end drain beam followed up by cattle prod of extremely long term holding. Oh, and the fact that about half of the 40+ longdow spawns I'm seeing on ruthless have more than one spec op in 'em. Thank the Fonz I don't use my end for much. 
Second, and this is not specificaly directed at anyone, Aid Self is pretty damn easy to use for res based characters. Again with that Mastermind (who protection consists of robots, with a second line of "running like a little girl") while fighting EB Positron earlier today (who used Force of Nature from the look of it, which is realy not cool to follow up Atomic Blast with, but that's a topic for another post ) I got off the heal (2-slotted for interrupt) between ticks from his irradiate. The only time I couldn't get off the power was when I was standing inside of his choking cloud, which was plenty easy to get out of for the second or so needed for an uninterrupted aid.
In fact, the only time I'd realy imagine it being a problem for an elec brute to get off Aid Self would be when standing in an Earth Caster's quick sand, and that's when slow resistance comes in handy, for the getting out of slow patches quickly. So, I've said this before in other threads, and I'll say it again in this one, given that any armor set is going to have a few holes I'm much happier if those holes are pluggable with pools than if they are not. YMMV.
Oh, and has anyone else noticed that everything and its grandmother slows in Grandville? Damn am I wishing for slow resistance on my Mastermind, and that's a frickin' Mastermind, her personal powers are conveniences. I shudder to think what that zone's gonna look like if I can ever get my Corrupter than high.
edit: edited for clarity, grammar and spelling. Ah posting after my bed time.
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Ten, how many post-40 carnies have you fought?
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Admittedly not very many (and unless they are prevalent in Granville it's unlikely that I will face many on the way to 50). But if it's only really a problem in the post-40 game, that merely further points to the extremely limited usefulness of End Drain resistance as compared to something as common throughout the game as Knockback.
Personally, I think it would be reasonable to just add Knockback resistance to the status-resist toggle it already has and leave everything else as is. But if it comes down to having to compromise an existing ability in order to have KB resistance, then limited-use fluff like TP defense and End Drain resist are easily sacraficed IMO. Barring that I'd stomach a rooted effect or something similar.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Not entirely sure I agree with you there, since in CoH the post 40 game is about as long as the pre-40 game, and generally allot tougher. I'd rather have my powers help out against Malta than Skulls is what I'm saying. But too each their own, and I hope we're both happy with what ever form ES finally takes.
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Not entirely sure I agree with you there, since in CoH the post 40 game is about as long as the pre-40 game, and generally allot tougher.
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About as long, but with 1/10 the number of players. The only powers that should be geared specifically toward that end of the game are powers that you get at that end of the game. Looks like they may have dropped the ball on that one, but that's another discussion.
Of course, if KB protection was only useful in the low end game it would be "fluff" protection as well. But it's also useful in the high level game. I'd rather my powers work agains Malta and Skulls and any number of other things the game throws at me. The fewer things it works against, the less useful it is.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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My biggest problem is the fact that people say take SJ for your immob and KB resistance, except you can only have either superjump or combat jumping on.
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Both powers have an activation time of 0 and recharge time of 0, and immob doesn't prevent you from activating powers, it's not really that horrible to click a button when needed.
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You completely missed the point. You can NOT travel if you get immobolized.
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He didn't miss the point, you are just wrong in your assumption that you can't "travel" when you have been hit with immobilization. Lightning reflexes, swift, hurdle, sprint and combat jumping = very fast movement on par with 1 slotted flight. Also, people are already talking about taking fighting pool selections... leaping, fitness, medicine and fighting are all doable if you factor in substituting a 2-3 ppp's for the final powers to perfect your build. You end up with a highly resistant, fast moving brute that can heal itself.
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He didn't miss the point, you are just wrong in your assumption that you can't "travel" when you have been hit with immobilization. Lightning reflexes, swift, hurdle, sprint and combat jumping = very fast movement on par with 1 slotted flight.
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Indeed that does equal fast movement, until you're immobilized. And I don't think any of it actually prevents you from being immobilized.
Of course, the assumption that you can't travel while immobilized is, in fact, wrong if you have teleport. Which is (as I recall from TopDoc's guide to movement) the fastest form of travel.
The overarching problem, methinks, hinges on the prerequisite setup of Power Pools (imagine if our Primary and secondary pools were setup with such a monkeyfied system of Prerequisites) and/or the necessity of taking certain unrelated pools over others in order to get protection. Barring ditching the prereqs, a Defense Power Pool would be grand.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
I don't mind the lack of KB/Immob protect... As far as I know, this is the only set in the ENTIRE GAME that gets psionic resistance (not defense) (I don't play/know dark well, so whatever) I'm MORE than happy to take the loss of some non-toggle-dropping mez protections in exchange for Psi Resistance.... Especially once I start facing carnies, longbow wardens, arachnos taranchulas, Mu anythings, etc... You get the idea. Psi is MUCH more common in the CoV world in a regularly-seen mob to regularly-seen mob basis than in the CoH world.
I say Awesome set! keep em coming, devs!
For once, I think the devs did a good job designing this set.
It's hard for me to see a heal added to the set when such a good heal in Aid Self can be had. Inevitably something would have to go and that's where I would be upset. Whatever got taken out would probably be something we can't get from a power pool.
I hope the set stays as is.
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As far as I know, this is the only set in the ENTIRE GAME that gets psionic resistance (not defense) (I don't play/know dark well, so whatever)
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Dark Armor has psi resistance too. And the weakness to kb, but it also has the best self-heal in the game.
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He didn't miss the point, you are just wrong in your assumption that you can't "travel" when you have been hit with immobilization. Lightning reflexes, swift, hurdle, sprint and combat jumping = very fast movement on par with 1 slotted flight.
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Indeed that does equal fast movement, until you're immobilized. And I don't think any of it actually prevents you from being immobilized.
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i won't harp on this very long, but pink added combat jumping which has +res to immob in the quote you have quoted, so it blows you statement out of the water.
it just seems like nothing is being said that wasn't said in the first 5-10 pages of this topic.
i guess i am done, no one seems to have actually try the build and is only looking at the paper info on this one. i guess that is fine. i guess. but this brute is a good brute. after testing, i think that....
it just needs a minor +regen to grounded and it will be fine! that is all, nothing more or less. no power switches, no kb protection, no immob protect.
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i won't harp on this very long, but pink added combat jumping which has +res to immob in the quote you have quoted, so it blows you statement out of the water.
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As I understand it, it doesn't actually prevent Immobilization, but rather just lessens the time you are affected by it. But then, Immobilization isn't something I've run into often in the PvE game. And oddly enough most of the time it's been with my Defender who looks very strange running around in his large green bubble with tentacles around his feet.
EDIT:
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i guess i am done, no one seems to have actually try the build and is only looking at the paper info on this one. i guess that is fine. i guess. but this brute is a good brute. after testing, i think that....
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I was testing it, but I hit a snag with a crash bug in Port Oakes. I can't get any contacts because I can't load my newspaper mission without crashing. Hence I'm stuck at level 7 until they fix the problem (and I'm not the only one having it - there was a whole thread about it floating around here) unless I want to hang around waiting for enough teams to level me up until I can move on to Cap.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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As I understand it, it doesn't actually prevent Immobilization, but rather just lessens the time you are affected by it.
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You understand it wrong. It can be overwealmed like any mez protection, and a lot of immobs will still slow your movement considerably even with combat jumping on, but it most definately doesn't merely reduce your immob time.
Generally if you are tagged with one immob and you turn on Combat Jumping, the immob is cancelled, or if you already have it on you might not even notice. Immob does indeed appear to have a mag that can stack just like Disorient or Hold, and my experience agrees with GenericVillain.
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Generally if you are tagged with one immob and you turn on Combat Jumping, the immob is cancelled, or if you already have it on you might not even notice. Immob does indeed appear to have a mag that can stack just like Disorient or Hold, and my experience agrees with GenericVillain.
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Fair enough. Beyond not running into Immobilization very much, it probably doesn't help my perception of the matter that most of my characters with Combat Jumping get a real mez protection power shortly thereafter.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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As far as I know, this is the only set in the ENTIRE GAME that gets psionic resistance (not defense) (I don't play/know dark well, so whatever)
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Dark Armor has psi resistance too. And the weakness to kb, but it also has the best self-heal in the game.
[/ QUOTE ]Which brings up to whyELA has such holes as a resistance based set, at least one of the three major holes should be plugged in with kb or immob or a regen or heal.
And Birdbird, was that a typo in the "Energy is 96.7%" ? I thought resistance hard cap for Scrapper/Brutes is 75%.
I have to add my 2 inf as well - my only complaint about the Elec Brute is the fact they dont have a self heal or even a dull pain - if they did they would be totaly awsome
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Well, at least if you're making an Elec/Elec Brute, Acrobatics won't be so bad since all the Elec Melee attacks have End drain, right?
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At least in the first 8 lvls so far the actual endurance that is absorbed is to little and rare for me to see much of a diffrence compared to other brutes
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As far as I know, this is the only set in the ENTIRE GAME that gets psionic resistance (not defense) (I don't play/know dark well, so whatever)
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Dark Armor has psi resistance too. And the weakness to kb, but it also has the best self-heal in the game.
[/ QUOTE ]Which brings up to whyELA has such holes as a resistance based set, at least one of the three major holes should be plugged in with kb or immob or a regen or heal.
And Birdbird, was that a typo in the "Energy is 96.7%" ? I thought resistance hard cap for Scrapper/Brutes is 75%.
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Nope not a typo
Charged Armor has 26.25% base to energy
Conductive Shield has 26.25% base to energy
Grounded is 9.425%
75% is the cap yes but those numbers 3 slotted equal well over it.
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And Birdbird, was that a typo in the "Energy is 96.7%" ? I thought resistance hard cap for Scrapper/Brutes is 75%.
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Is it? Well that kind of puts the ol' ki-bosh on needing Grounded to hit the Energy resist cap as it seems that the two toggles already exceed it.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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He didn't miss the point, you are just wrong in your assumption that you can't "travel" when you have been hit with immobilization. Lightning reflexes, swift, hurdle, sprint and combat jumping = very fast movement on par with 1 slotted flight. Also, people are already talking about taking fighting pool selections... leaping, fitness, medicine and fighting are all doable if you factor in substituting a 2-3 ppp's for the final powers to perfect your build. You end up with a highly resistant, fast moving brute that can heal itself.
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Ok fine, I meant you can not continue traveling using SJ, since everyone wants to get technical.
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Tough 3-slotted is what, 26% smash/lethal?
ps: thanks for the numbers
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3 slotted for brute is only 17%
I thought the brute cap was at 90%? Dang, I don't have brute high enough to test this. Someone else, test things!
The resistance cap for brutes is indeed 90%, but they can't hit it without help (except, apparently, electric energy resists). It's one of the reasons why a lot of tankers fear (unneccessarily in my opinion) the day brutes can swtich over to the hero side.
After keeping an eye on this thread for a while, as well as some preliminary play as an Elec/Elec, I've come to solid feeling about this set and would like to propose the following possible change:
Move Power Sink to Conserve Power's current tier, making it available at 28.
Some rationale for this: Power Sink is an End Drain combined with an End Buff. The combined Electric set is really centered around Endurance drain, particulary on the Melee side; on even just the armor side there's a great deal of emphasis on Endurance, with Lightning Field draining it, Static Shield and Grounded resisting drain, two primary methods of Endurance recovery in the set as is, plus Power Surge, which includes boosted Endurance recovery.
While Conserve Power is certainly useful, it has no Endurance Drain component as Power Sink does, and it's not offensive as Power Sink is. Both of these things make me think that in the case of an */Electric Brute, which is all about making things go SMASH, it should be available earlier. More Endurance = More Smash; Less Endurance for Foes = consistent with the attack side of this set.
As for what to do with Conserve Power, I see several potential choices:
a) Simply switch it with Power Sink and call it done. Probably the easiest change to make, leaves the set substantially similar, and for reasons mentioned above, continues to be thematically appropriate.
b) Make a Burn-like ability centered around lightning: a field like Burn with a similar duration and damage, with the Immob freedom, and with an End drain component with the usual chance of returning some endurance to you. Thematically appropriate, makes Hover more attractive as KB protection by providing Immob freedom in the set as well, and still has a chance to buff your endurance, leaving the lack of Conserve Power less of a major change.
c) Add a power somewhere between Dark Regeneration and Drain Psyche (Dominator), which is to say, a foe-targetted power that drains Health and Endurance from the foe and provides a Heal/End Heal for the Brute, while dealing minor damage to the foe. Given the late tier at which the power would become available, I'd want it a bit stronger than Drain Psyche and with a recharge time closer to Dark Regeneration's (but I'm not going to provide numbers here, since this is, obviously, debatable in terms of where a good balance lies).
This has several plusses on its side. First, it's another attack type power in an otherwise defensive set, which is both not unusual in Brute's defensive set and thematically appropriate for any Brute. Secondly, it fills -- however late -- the lack of heal power in this set, addressing some people's concerns about the holes in the set. Lastly, it continues to drain foe Endurance and buff the Brute's Endurance, which both fits the theme and gives it at least some minor overlap with Conserve Power.
For various reasons, I like the third option best, but would be content with any of these.
One drawback of the internet is how it has trained so many people to think that one day is a long time.
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Ok here are the numbers for grounded.
Negative is 7.5% base
Energy is 9.425%
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Better base numbers than I was expecting. Still not all that great, but better than I was expecting nonetheless.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound