I like devices for pve and pvp. Mine was leveled to 50 Pre ED. with sets i have a perma 15% dammage bonus. stealth cap and perception is pretty high. I don't have any trouble rolling along with a full team dishing out FA on almost every spawn, immobolizing AVs with web nade or placing 18 mines down to take that first chunk off them. With perma gun drone (if i feel like resumoning it all the time) you can drag it into spawns to take the alpha strike.
one thing you must realize is the play style differs greatly between solo and a team.
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I'd like to see TD give a damage boost too. The reasoning could be that with TD, you're able to more accurately place your attacks for maximum damage. A 20% damage boost should be good. While it sounds a bit high, it's really only a 20% boost on base damage, bringing it up to about a 10% boost overall if you slot your attacks in the typical fashion of hitting the ED caps for roughly another 95% damage.
I guess it could be scaled back a little since it does give a significant boost to accuracy, which could let you scale back on accuracy a bit and substitute recharge, increasing your damage output. Also, the perception boost is something that can't be ignored. It doesn't happen often, but when you do come up against foes like Arachnos with their blinding grenades, you can often be crippled during a battle since you can't see your opponents. Yes, you could pop a yellow, but when you're in those missions where those mobs appear, they appear with great regularity, often making you need to pop a yellow very few minutes.
Like I mentioned, one thing about devices is that it does have powers that aren't replicated in the other secondaries. TD is one, the stealth suit is another. Smoke Grenade is slightly unique in that it gives a To-Hit debuff, though not large. If slotted, it could make a noticeable difference if you have defense bonuses from IO sets and the bit of defense from the stealth suit.
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Actually given, powers like follow up etc, should be a 37.5% - 40% damage boost for targetting drone, and yeah has been needed for a long time now.
Plasmic's Guide to Sonic/Mental
Plasmic's Guide to Regeneration
Plasmic Fire - 50 Fire/Rad Victory Server
Since I don't want to start a new thread I'll ask here. I just rolled a new Fire/Dev and I was wondering If its possible to cloak+SS into a mob timebomb as sort of a nuke, or would planting the timebomb break my stealth? (I don't know if this as bad as starting a new thread 
)
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i'm pondering trying out an assault rifle/devices blaster,
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don't do it.
AR is an OK primary, but everything on earth resists smashing/lethal damage. Flamethrower and Beanbag are great, M90 grenade & ignite are crummy, everything else is 'eh'.
And devices is hands down the worst secondary.
It used to be pretty good, but the game has changed and /devices hasn't.
power by power:
Web Grenade
the usual 'throwaway' power, no better or worse than any other secondary.
Caltrops
a great power, useful solo or in groups.
Taser
beanbag without range- skippable for any ar/dev
Targeting Drone
the changed to toggles and addition of set IOs make this better than it used to be. Still sort of redundant- beyond the early levels, hitting people isn't really a problem.
Smoke Grenade
the definition of 'skippable power'.
If you really like stealth save up for an IO and save the power choice.
Cloaking Device
see 'Smoke Grenade'
Trip Mine
useless on teams- nobody is going to sit around while you spend ten minutes setting up your mine field.
Useful solo if you don't mind the set-up time, but still situational.
And 'situational' is just a polite way of saying 'skippable'.
Time Bomb
Absolute junk.
All the down sides of trip mines, but it never hits anything.
You'll hate yourself for taking this power.
Auto Turret
Used to be a complete waste of a power. But they made it mobile, which would improve it about 10000%.
Haven't played with it so I don't know how 'good' it is, but it sounds decent.
Of course the biggest flaw with Devices is one of omission- no build up. For an AT who's whole rational is dealing damage this is unforgivable.
Pre ED the ability to six-slot for damage and let your drone take care of accuracy made up for it, but not any more.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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i'm pondering trying out an assault rifle/devices blaster,
[/ QUOTE ]
don't do it.
AR is an OK primary, but everything on earth resists smashing/lethal damage. Flamethrower and Beanbag are great, M90 grenade & ignite are crummy, everything else is 'eh'.
And devices is hands down the worst secondary.
It used to be pretty good, but the game has changed and /devices hasn't.
power by power:
Web Grenade
the usual 'throwaway' power, no better or worse than any other secondary.
Caltrops
a great power, useful solo or in groups.
Taser
beanbag without range- skippable for any ar/dev
Targeting Drone
the changed to toggles and addition of set IOs make this better than it used to be. Still sort of redundant- beyond the early levels, hitting people isn't really a problem.
Smoke Grenade
the definition of 'skippable power'.
If you really like stealth save up for an IO and save the power choice.
Cloaking Device
see 'Smoke Grenade'
Trip Mine
useless on teams- nobody is going to sit around while you spend ten minutes setting up your mine field.
Useful solo if you don't mind the set-up time, but still situational.
And 'situational' is just a polite way of saying 'skippable'.
Time Bomb
Absolute junk.
All the down sides of trip mines, but it never hits anything.
You'll hate yourself for taking this power.
Auto Turret
Used to be a complete waste of a power. But they made it mobile, which would improve it about 10000%.
Haven't played with it so I don't know how 'good' it is, but it sounds decent.
Of course the biggest flaw with Devices is one of omission- no build up. For an AT who's whole rational is dealing damage this is unforgivable.
Pre ED the ability to six-slot for damage and let your drone take care of accuracy made up for it, but not any more.
[/ QUOTE ]
Have you played /device?
SG + CD > Stealth IO
Somewhere in the range of 10 - 100x better. A much much bigger difference in the ability to stealth , not to mention the combination of Defense and -Acc.
Webgrenade smokes the other forced (tier1) secondaries. -50% stackable recharge? Ever fought an AV?
That's true about trip mine. Taser is debatable. I don't agree with the rest.
@Gilia1
I play heroes on Champion.
I play villains on Virtue.
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Have you played /device?
SG + CD > Stealth IO
Somewhere in the range of 10 - 100x better. A much much bigger difference in the ability to stealth , not to mention the combination of Defense and -Acc.
Webgrenade smokes the other forced (tier1) secondaries. -50% stackable recharge? Ever fought an AV?
That's true about trip mine. Taser is debatable. I don't agree with the rest.
[/ QUOTE ]
The -recharge of Web Grenade doesn't self stack. The -recharge of Chilblain does. Chilblain also does more than 62.55 times as much damage 
with a faster animation.
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i'm pondering trying out an assault rifle/devices blaster,
[/ QUOTE ]
don't do it.
AR is an OK primary, but everything on earth resists smashing/lethal damage. Flamethrower and Beanbag are great, M90 grenade & ignite are crummy, everything else is 'eh'.
And devices is hands down the worst secondary.
It used to be pretty good, but the game has changed and /devices hasn't.
power by power:
Web Grenade
the usual 'throwaway' power, no better or worse than any other secondary.
Caltrops
a great power, useful solo or in groups.
Taser
beanbag without range- skippable for any ar/dev
Targeting Drone
the changed to toggles and addition of set IOs make this better than it used to be. Still sort of redundant- beyond the early levels, hitting people isn't really a problem.
Smoke Grenade
the definition of 'skippable power'.
If you really like stealth save up for an IO and save the power choice.
Cloaking Device
see 'Smoke Grenade'
Trip Mine
useless on teams- nobody is going to sit around while you spend ten minutes setting up your mine field.
Useful solo if you don't mind the set-up time, but still situational.
And 'situational' is just a polite way of saying 'skippable'.
Time Bomb
Absolute junk.
All the down sides of trip mines, but it never hits anything.
You'll hate yourself for taking this power.
Auto Turret
Used to be a complete waste of a power. But they made it mobile, which would improve it about 10000%.
Haven't played with it so I don't know how 'good' it is, but it sounds decent.
Of course the biggest flaw with Devices is one of omission- no build up. For an AT who's whole rational is dealing damage this is unforgivable.
Pre ED the ability to six-slot for damage and let your drone take care of accuracy made up for it, but not any more.
[/ QUOTE ]
Have you played /device?
SG + CD > Stealth IO
Somewhere in the range of 10 - 100x better. A much much bigger difference in the ability to stealth , not to mention the combination of Defense and -Acc.
Webgrenade smokes the other forced (tier1) secondaries. -50% stackable recharge? Ever fought an AV?
That's true about trip mine. Taser is debatable. I don't agree with the rest.
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The Goat pretty much has it nailed. If what you are looking for is safety while soloing and you don't care about taking a little extra time to get it then devices is a pretty strong contender.
Trip mine is device's build up. You can stack lots of them and do a crap ton of damage all at once. Problem is it will take you a few minutes to do so.
The double boom from Time Bomb + Aim and the tier 9 primary is nice but it's not much more damage than any other Aim+BU+tier 9, plus it takes longer to pull off and takes both your tier 9 primary, your tier 8 secondary, and the associated slots to do so.
A stealth IO in Super speed is just as good in PvE as Smoke Grenade + Cloaking device. Depending on how you want to use it it's better. Stealth IO + SS gives you PvE invisibility more is a waste. Invis in this way costs you one power, it's base slot, and costs you .46 end per second.
Smoke grenade + CD costs .39 end per second (spreading the end cost for SG over 60 seconds) and you can miss some of the mobs with SG if they are out of the AoE. It also costs you 2 power picks instead of 1.
The only extra benefit from the SG + CD combo is 1.75% defense buff and a 4.9% to hit debuff that requires an accuracy check. Granted that perception debuff and to hit debuff is multiplied in a team setting but /Devices isn't a team friendly set.
To fix the set:
Targeting Drone should function like a toggle version of Surveillance.
Trip mine should have it's cast time reduced to 1 second (the recharge is fine where it's at). That won't change it much for soloing but would make it useful for toe bombing on teams. A short range like taser would be a nice perq but would hardly be needed.
Time bomb needs it's cast time reduced to one second and the timer portion reduced to 4 seconds for a total of 5 seconds. Again it's not much difference solo but would reduce total time to use it on teams to 5 seconds making it only slightly more onerous to use on a team than Full Auto or Rain of Arrows.
Gun Drone same deal. It needs a cast time of 1 second (just like the Malta version). This wouldn't really make it any better solo but would make it much more useful on teams which is where /Devices really needs help.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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A blaster generally does about 50% more damage (when free to go postal at any time for no reason) than a scrapper using their primary and secondary combined. This is based on almost 150 levels of Force Field defender.
A blaster using their primary ONLY can do, maybe, 10% more damage than a Scrapper. The rest comes from melee attacks, Build Up, etc. - none of which Devices has.
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This is insane. Almost every single blaster secondary attack has a lower DPS than almost every single blaster primary attack. Yes, they provide good burst ST damage (or in Fire's case some early extra AoE), but having them will not increase your DPS by 73%.
As far as ST goes, a Scrapper can out damage a blaster anyway. This is assuming the scrappers lives and doesn't manage to kill his team by proxy (thereby severely hurting damage output!).
If you have Mid's, hit Ctrl+C and you can compare the DPS of various sets.
I agree with some previous remarks, /Devices is very good for soloing. It's a little underwhelming on teams. I love the set anyway. I have only hit 50 on 3 blasters (fire/ice, arch/dev, energy/energy) and the /dev was the most fun, easily.
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Re: Gilla Fullmens
You are both wrong. Having buildup in the secondary vastly increases the kill rate for a blaster against spawns. AIM+BU+AOES = No Minions badly hurt lts and upset bosses.
As to using MIDS you can't. It won't let you compare attack chains and it won't let you compare peak damage (AiM+BU+Defiance)
Buildup alone significantly boosts the blasters damage output. Having a good secondary does mor as you can fill in your attack chain.
True Devices doesn't do this but it works differenly when applied to a spawn. time bomb + whatever = massive spike damage. Time bomb + well placed trip mines = really massive damage.
As to teams devices blasters have their role. They are blaster ghosts. They can stealth to an objective and have the battlefield prepped as a killing ground or they can simply solo ahead.
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i'm pondering trying out an assault rifle/devices blaster,
[/ QUOTE ]
don't do it.
AR is an OK primary, but everything on earth resists smashing/lethal damage. Flamethrower and Beanbag are great, M90 grenade & ignite are crummy, everything else is 'eh'.
And devices is hands down the worst secondary.
It used to be pretty good, but the game has changed and /devices hasn't.
power by power:
Web Grenade
the usual 'throwaway' power, no better or worse than any other secondary.
Caltrops
a great power, useful solo or in groups.
Taser
beanbag without range- skippable for any ar/dev
Targeting Drone
the changed to toggles and addition of set IOs make this better than it used to be. Still sort of redundant- beyond the early levels, hitting people isn't really a problem.
Smoke Grenade
the definition of 'skippable power'.
If you really like stealth save up for an IO and save the power choice.
Cloaking Device
see 'Smoke Grenade'
Trip Mine
useless on teams- nobody is going to sit around while you spend ten minutes setting up your mine field.
Useful solo if you don't mind the set-up time, but still situational.
And 'situational' is just a polite way of saying 'skippable'.
Time Bomb
Absolute junk.
All the down sides of trip mines, but it never hits anything.
You'll hate yourself for taking this power.
Auto Turret
Used to be a complete waste of a power. But they made it mobile, which would improve it about 10000%.
Haven't played with it so I don't know how 'good' it is, but it sounds decent.
Of course the biggest flaw with Devices is one of omission- no build up. For an AT who's whole rational is dealing damage this is unforgivable.
Pre ED the ability to six-slot for damage and let your drone take care of accuracy made up for it, but not any more.
[/ QUOTE ]
Webnade + Ignite = Awesomeness
Taser + Beanbug = Boss-level Stun
TD = no more blinds
AR/Dev is not without its weaknesses, but it also has its charms. And /devices does give you things that no other secondary gives. If it's as bad as people say it is, there wouldn't be that many people who enjoy playing it. But people do enjoy it because it lets them engage in a playstyle that's truly different than the other blaster powersets.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
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Have you played /device?
SG + CD > Stealth IO
Somewhere in the range of 10 - 100x better. A much much bigger difference in the ability to stealth , not to mention the combination of Defense and -Acc.
[/ QUOTE ]
Stealth IO + SS = why did i take that smoke grenade ?
Stealth IO + CD = You don't need SS
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Stealth IO + CD = You don't need SS
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That works as well. I usually take a travel power anyway though.
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Re: Gilla Fullmens
You are both wrong. Having buildup in the secondary vastly increases the kill rate for a blaster against spawns. AIM+BU+AOES = No Minions badly hurt lts and upset bosses.
As to using MIDS you can't. It won't let you compare attack chains and it won't let you compare peak damage (AiM+BU+Defiance)
Buildup alone significantly boosts the blasters damage output. Having a good secondary does mor as you can fill in your attack chain.
True Devices doesn't do this but it works differently when applied to a spawn. time bomb + whatever = massive spike damage. Time bomb + well placed trip mines = really massive damage.
As to teams devices blasters have their role. They are blaster ghosts. They can stealth to an objective and have the battlefield prepped as a killing ground or they can simply solo ahead.
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Aim+BU+AoE does do incredible damage for spawns. But AR/Dev does have its own version. Full Auto does incredible damage. The only other blaster nuke that compares to it is Rain of Arrows. Slug+Flamethrower+Full Auto has FA benefiting from the Defiance boost of the previous two, and it does massive damage with a recharge rate similar to Aim and Buildup. It's not like AR/Dev doesn't have it's own capability to do extreme burst damage.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
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Stealth IO + CD = You don't need SS
[/ QUOTE ]
True story. I have a Stealth IO in Hover (my sonic/devices hasn't walked anywhere in close to a year, his legs will atrophy soon) Nothing except Rikti Drones and snipers ever sees me.
Time Bomb has it's uses. If you're invisible you can walk (or hover, in my case) into the middle of a spawn and plant a Time Bomb. If they fail to note your presence ("Hey, Sam, you hear a beeping sound?") you can be on your merry way reassured that that particular spawn won't be troubling you.
If you have a sleep power as I (and Munitions, and Cold Mastery users) have, then you can do the same thing with a spawn that has already been agroed.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Devices. it doesn't appeal to a large percentage of players, but, there is another sizable percentage that loves the set (myself included) who would be extremely upset if drastic changes were made to it because the other half of the population wanted more burst damage.
Devices should be left as it is because it is different. A Devices blaster plays differently than any other blaster secondary. The mistake people keep making is pairing it with Assault Rifle. Those two sets have the worst synergy for any pair of sets that seems designed to go together. Pair Assult Rifle with anything else, or Devices with anything else and you're good.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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True story. I have a Stealth IO in Hover (my sonic/devices hasn't walked anywhere in close to a year, his legs will atrophy soon) Nothing except Rikti Drones and snipers ever sees me.
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Anyone try this against MA custom critters ? they seem to have incredibly high perception radii.
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Re: Gilla Fullmens
You are both wrong. Having buildup in the secondary vastly increases the kill rate for a blaster against spawns. AIM+BU+AOES = No Minions badly hurt lts and upset bosses.
As to using MIDS you can't. It won't let you compare attack chains and it won't let you compare peak damage (AiM+BU+Defiance)
[/ QUOTE ]
Please read the whole thread. This was already debunked. If you don't like the simplicity of mid's pull out a calcultor. It's pretty simple math. Buildup is fun, and I take on any AT if its in the sets I chose, but it is miles from making or breaking a set.
Using aim and build up in the same alpha strike has always been a waste in my experience. With arch/dev, Aim+RoA was enough to remove all the minions and any non-resistant lieutenants. So was gun drone + RoA.
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Buildup alone significantly boosts the blasters damage output. Having a good secondary does mor as you can fill in your attack chain.
[/ QUOTE ] What primary are you playing that doesnt have a full attack chain? And are you suggesting the only way to massive damage on a blaster is by going into melee?
In general, this sounds like another case of the "never played /dev" vs the "have played /dev." The people bashing it so rarely have any idea what it's like to actually play it.
@Gilia1
I play heroes on Champion.
I play villains on Virtue.
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True story. I have a Stealth IO in Hover (my sonic/devices hasn't walked anywhere in close to a year, his legs will atrophy soon) Nothing except Rikti Drones and snipers ever sees me.
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Anyone try this against MA custom critters ? they seem to have incredibly high perception radii.
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Using aim and build up in the same alpha strike has always been a waste in my experience. With arch/dev, Aim+RoA was enough to remove all the minions and any non-resistant lieutenants. So was gun drone + RoA.
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Cimerora, the wall, any level 51+ spawn, any Freakshow map. I could go on but I think the point is made. you need your build up. As it is on AR toons assault is getting to be must have for me.
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Please read the whole thread. This was already debunked. If you don't like the simplicity of mid's pull out a calcultor. It's pretty simple math. Buildup is fun, and I take on any AT if its in the sets I chose, but it is miles from making or breaking a set.
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Just what is the peak damage of freeze ray ?
But lets go a little furrther
Blaze Base damage 180 ? or so
3 damage IOS : 360
Aim +Buid up : 660 or so
Then toss in defiance at about 25% to bring it up to the 700s
VS BS head splitter:
base 180 ? IIRC
3 Damage 360
toss in build up you are at 540 or so
Then you can factor in the chance to crit however you want to.
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What primary are you playing that doesnt have a full attack chain? And are you suggesting the only way to massive damage on a blaster is by going into melee?
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Try playing an elec blaster and telling me you don't need another single target attack like one you'd get from melee. Why do you think elec/dev is so LOL.
And to whoever wondered, yes, cloaking device + superspeed or a stealth IO will let you plant time bomb in the mob and go unnoticed. I usually count to 11 seconds then start placing a trip mine as well for extra damage.
Plasmic's Guide to Sonic/Mental
Plasmic's Guide to Regeneration
Plasmic Fire - 50 Fire/Rad Victory Server
lol.. yes, those are spawns you can clear without build up in one RoA, good job.
As far as the damage difference goes, over time itd still not matter. Theres tons of blasters who don't have Aim and a ton who don't have Build Up, and they all do just fine. Sorry to burst your bubble.
@Gilia1
I play heroes on Champion.
I play villains on Virtue.
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lol.. yes, those are spawns you can clear without build up in one RoA, good job.
As far as the damage difference goes, over time itd still not matter. Theres tons of blasters who don't have Aim and a ton who don't have Build Up, and they all do just fine. Sorry to burst your bubble.
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Subjective, outlandish, uncorroborated claim is still subjective. How do you know 'tons' go without aim/build up and that they do just fine? How many heroes makes a ton? Sorry to burst your bubble, but blasters with aim/bu tend to do better than those who don't have it. I'm a vet AR/Dev and I wish I had one or the other.
and you also said [ QUOTE ]
As far as ST goes, a Scrapper can out damage a blaster anyway. This is assuming the scrappers lives and doesn't manage to kill his team by proxy (thereby severely hurting damage output!).
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Which...is false 
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lol.. yes, those are spawns you can clear without build up in one RoA, good job.
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851 hp level 50 centurion 15% S/L defense
430 HP level 50 legionari 8% S/L Defense
So no, and level 51 forget about it.
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No one puts BU on auto, after all.
[/ QUOTE ]
Then why do I constantly hear it going off in Wentworth's?
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
----------------------------------------------------------
The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
Because people are inconsiderate XD
Plasmic's Guide to Sonic/Mental
Plasmic's Guide to Regeneration
Plasmic Fire - 50 Fire/Rad Victory Server
I like Devices, since I tend to play may Blasters as, well, ranged fighters. Targetting Drone, Caltrops, and Cloaking Device make the set for me, and are available early on.
I generally don't take the mines, since I find that I can do enough damage with my primary (Archery) to put down most foes quickly. For bosses, I have Taser and Stun Arrow (or if you're AR, Beanbag) to stun them early so I can pick them apart at leisure.
Global name: @k26dp