Surveillance is, from the description, beneficial either solo or on a team, because it debuffs your target for everyone on your team, not just you, for the twenty seconds. With all the AoE attacks I have with my Ar/En/Mun Blaster, debuffing a target is better than just keeping them from attacking until my next AoE hits.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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Surveillance is, from the description, beneficial either solo or on a team, because it debuffs your target for everyone on your team, not just you, for the twenty seconds. With all the AoE attacks I have with my Ar/En/Mun Blaster, debuffing a target is better than just keeping them from attacking until my next AoE hits.
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Settled then. Thanks.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
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Ummm... You are aware that Beanbag is a Disorient, while Cryo Freeze Ray is a Hold, aren't you? Expecting them to stack is like a Controller expecting their Immobilizes to stack with their Holds. Different kind of mez entirely.
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Different but basically interchangeable except for the stacking.
Since this is the set that's supposed to complement Assault Rifle (since it, like, uses the assault rifle for its attacks, and is the only one that doesn't cause redraw as a result), why did they give it an inconsistent and therefore non-stacking mez type? Cryo Freeze Ray should have been a disorient to stack with beanbag.
At the very least, there should be *some* app that gives a disorient to stack with beanbag (and the archery and sonic stuns too).
Stacking bt firing it off twice is *okay* if you can really do that (with an app hold? WOW -- none of the villain app holds even come close to that), but it's nowhere near as good as having two holds you can fire off one right after another.
Especially when you're trying to stop a PP from godmoding while the rest of the team blithely beats it down to the sliver of health which triggers 2 minutes of boredom.
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Since this is the set that's supposed to complement Assault Rifle (since it, like, uses the assault rifle for its attacks, and is the only one that doesn't cause redraw as a result), why did they give it an inconsistent and therefore non-stacking mez type? Cryo Freeze Ray should have been a disorient to stack with beanbag
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Executive summary: Castle hates stuns and thinks there are too many of them.
Possible other reason ? Devices has that silly taser.
Non-aggressive toggles (e.g., Armors) do not detoggle now when mezzed. Thus, no advantage of Body Armor over the other epic armors in that respect. Body Armor requires less endurance, so that might be something to consider.
They don't detoggle but they DO stop providing benefit while you are mezzed.
Body Armor is always on, mezzed or not. Also, not only does it not use endurance, it also doesn't drop if you run out of endurance.
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
I really liked Body Armor for a knockback prot. IO. Very handy.
Sleep Grenade- bleh, of the 5 this is easily the most skippable unless you plan on muling a sleep purple there. Had it initially, respec'd out ... between my own aoe's and the fact my character almost always teamed with 3+ other AR/Dev it was hard to tell if it ever did anything.
Cryo Freeze Ray- fast firing, fast recharging easily stacked, effective hold.
Body Armor- auto, good for holding special IO's etc as has been mentioned several times. Nice as my 49th lvl power selection as doesn't yell for more slots to do what it does unlike the Hold, Rocket and Surveillance.
LRM Rocket- No way I'm skipping this ... way too thematic for our all AR/Dev sg and team. Packs a nice whallop so hardly a tough choice anyway. One Rocket and multiple Full Auto's fired after massed hits by Surveillance is one scary obliterator of mobs.
Surveillance- solid choice and particular when stacked up with other resistance debuffs makes for sad EB/AV's. Takes an Achilles chance for -resist proc as well.
Agent Topaz (AR/Dev/Munitions)
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Ummm... You are aware that Beanbag is a Disorient, while Cryo Freeze Ray is a Hold, aren't you? Expecting them to stack is like a Controller expecting their Immobilizes to stack with their Holds. Different kind of mez entirely.
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Different but basically interchangeable except for the stacking.
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Not when you can hit an Outcast with Beanbag on the street northeast of the PPD station on the east side of Steel Canyon and watch him, in the "I'm dazed" stagger animation, cross the street at a speed in excess of my character's run speed with Sprint up, leap to the top of the building on the north side of the street, and completely disappear from view by the time I toggled on Fly and flew up to try to follow him. Oh, but this is an unavoidable consequence of the game mechanics, according to the devs; a mob that has a movement action queued will complete that action even if they're stunned. Funny how getting defeated or held aborts any movement on their part just fine, but disorients are incapable of doing this.
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Since this is the set that's supposed to complement Assault Rifle (since it, like, uses the assault rifle for its attacks, and is the only one that doesn't cause redraw as a result), why did they give it an inconsistent and therefore non-stacking mez type? Cryo Freeze Ray should have been a disorient to stack with beanbag.
At the very least, there should be *some* app that gives a disorient to stack with beanbag (and the archery and sonic stuns too).
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Complement, not augment. Disorients don't lock the mob down; holds and immobilizes do. Neither of them stack with disorients.
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Stacking bt firing it off twice is *okay* if you can really do that (with an app hold? WOW -- none of the villain app holds even come close to that), but it's nowhere near as good as having two holds you can fire off one right after another.
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Admittedly, I've got enough Thunderstrike and Positron's Blast sets slotted so that, with Hasten up, the character has an (IIRC) +137% recharge bonus, but the recharge on Cryo Freeze Ray is only 16 seconds; it's easy enough to bump its recharge and hold duration to let you stack it. Note that the recharge on Beanbag is 20 seconds.
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Especially when you're trying to stop a PP from godmoding while the rest of the team blithely beats it down to the sliver of health which triggers 2 minutes of boredom.
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That's a tactics issue; hit it with the hold as soon as its aggro is picked up by someone else. Switch back to damage. Then drop CFR on it again as soon as it recharges.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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Admittedly, I've got enough Thunderstrike and Positron's Blast sets slotted so that, with Hasten up, the character has an (IIRC) +137% recharge bonus,
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Thunderstrike doesn't give +recharge though, but it is good for ranged defense and somewhat cheap.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
Thank you all for the advice. So far I have it down to just Survallence and Sleep Grenade.
Here is how I came to this decision from what was said
Body Armor - Not great resistance, but is active even when mezzed and costs no end. Here is another great point, it is a great spot for 6% defense to all (That is what made it a keeper).
Freeze Ray - I am a fan of Holds and doing damage (This is why my last three 50s have been permadoms)
LRM Rocket - I think I was going to take this one no matter what lol.
But any suggestions on what I should take between Survallence and Sleep Grenade are much appreciated.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp