For a pvp PB, there is one thing i can tell you. MINI SNIPES!
squid blasts have a base of 100 feet. Slot Ranged PVP io's to get the +range bonus FIVE TIMES for a total of like 37% range boost all the time, plus a Dam/Range HO in each squid attack. You should be at like 170 range or something.
So if you were being attacked like this what are some things you'd do to counter them?
Well, if you set your PB like what SB's said, you shouldn't be getting attacked unless you're facing flying stalkers or someone TPF you, IMO. Fly high, hit, hit, hit, fly higher if you see someone comes near you, hit, hit, hit, hit, ...
That's what I'd do.
PLUS, if your squid is being attacked, go dwarf. Otherwise you'll facepland just like normal squish squids. Even dwarf forms go down pretty quickly as far as I remember. (Though I have no idea these days b/c I just got back to the game... well... sort of got back =x Not completely xP)
Dwarf form isn't too horrible, and if I'm not mistaken I believe they get the -range debuff as well which makes me happy cause if I -range them then fly away to blast I should be safe, somewhat.
Having phase in the human form is nice as well. I even thought of rolling a support version with the ally heal, but I dunno how viable that will be.
What are some other counter tactics you can think of people? Webnades are something I'd try to avoid, or just go into dwarf if anything. How do PB deal with Toggle debuffs? Ranged Mez? IS seems to work, specially after using BU. The -Def from my attacks doesn't make rads a huge threat imo.
More discussion. kgo
A triform PB really ends up playing more like a /Regen Blaster. Treat it as such.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
i've just taken my build and made human form only. just so i dont need to waste time switchin from form to form. As human form only my play style is that of any squishy, though a lil squishier....I might look into getting tough just for the added resistance...I dont see a benefit of -range when you got to go back into anoher form to use your best powers by then it will have wore off. i've gone the proc route for the first two blast powers and have slotted just like how i have slotted for rad blast to give it the extra punch it needs. also tried to maximize kb and mezz resist bonuses.
Human form only PB? gimp :P
if i had at least the HP accolades i would be inclined to say, "come get some" in the arena in a duel, but for now....lolzones is fine til i get them.
what do you consider gimp? if my powers are doin basically the same amount of dmg that my corrupters do, with eventually 2200hp, built in heal, phase and fly with a great amount of kb and mezz resistance. dont see how that's considered gimp.
Here is why human only is gimp:
-Nova form. The amount of damage you can dish out in Nova form puts human form damage to shame. Quick recharging blasts that have huge range vs. decent melee attacks and mediocre (short) ranged attacks? Nova will win every time.
-Dwarf form. A quick recharging self heal that can be used (even in aerial combat if you set up macros/binds correctly) is invaluable. You can sit and hover blast in Nova form, drop to human and pop a heal, and if things aren't going well hit Dwarf, hit the heal and use a bind to go back to human and auto-activate hover or fly and you don't lose any altitude.
Yeah, I've seen a handful of human-only PB's that are decent, but their kill rate and survival aren't quite to the level of a good tri-former.
As for build tips (for the OP) I'd max out Acc and Rech to get those heals up as quickly as possible. As mentioned before, some range bonuses are also nice to have. Other bonuses are nice to have (regen, damage, recovery etc.) but not as useful.
Since DR kicked in, Dwarf isn't nearly as robust as it used to be. You could really take a beating in Dwarf before, but with DR the resistances are in the neighborhood of 45%, which helps a bit, but nothing near what it used to be. Additionally, escaping with Dwarf TP isn't an option any longer. I still have it for the heal and additonal HP.
Tactics...well, it's a matter of personal preference and who your enemy is. I'll typically float around in human form until I spot my target, pop BU and go into Nova and blast away. You could couple this with the opener of BU + IS + (any other human attack) and then switch to Nova. It depends on how dirty you want to get your hands.
You will need to be careful of those that can ground you with webnades or other -fly powers that overcome Nova's fly strength (or Hover). In these cases, I find switching to Dwarf is helpful to survive, or running Qfly until the effect wears off.
Best advice I could give you is find a build you like, play with it, tweak it as you go and practice when to use your forms and when switching is appropriate. It's not always the best solution given the amount of time it takes to shift.
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-Nova form. The amount of damage you can dish out in Nova form puts human form damage to shame. Quick recharging blasts that have huge range vs. decent melee attacks and mediocre (short) ranged attacks? Nova will win every time.
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I cycle bolt and blast slotted:
1 Apoc Chance for Neg
1 Glad Jav Chance for Tox
1 Lady Grey chance for Neg
1 Shield Break chance for SM
2 nucleos
and
1 Velocity Strike Chance for SM
1 Glad Jav Chance for Tox
1 Lady Grey chance for Neg
1 Shield Break chance for SM
2 nucleos
Just like neutrino bolt, this slotting hits hard and i believe is unresistable.
IS slotted 3 Mako 1 nucleo 1 melee purple proc 1 hold purple proc
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Since DR kicked in, Dwarf isn't nearly as robust as it used to be. You could really take a beating in Dwarf before, but with DR the resistances are in the neighborhood of 45%, which helps a bit, but nothing near what it used to be. Additionally, escaping with Dwarf TP isn't an option any longer. I still have it for the heal and additonal HP.
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What's good about dwarf if human form can give you the same resistance (at 39% without tough) and better attacks?
Saying Human attacks are better or equal because you can slot them full of procs doesn't address the true debate. You can do the same thing in a Nova blast and get higher base damage in addition to the proc damage. Add to that the faster recharge, to hit bonus and superior range and it's not a contest.
As for the question about Dwarf...you get higher resistance values, a -range power, a huge amount of HP, and a heal that recharges quickly and provides a similar level of healing as does Essence Boost - all for the price of one power. That's how it is superior to "just" human form.
Play how and what you want. All human is fun for you; go with it. I personally like having the 3 forms available and know how to use them in a given situation.
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Saying Human attacks are better or equal because you can slot them full of procs doesn't address the true debate. You can do the same thing in a Nova blast and get higher base damage in addition to the proc damage. Add to that the faster recharge, to hit bonus and superior range and it's not a contest.
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If you did that slotting in nova form you'd be gimping yourself since
1. not taking advantage of your range.
2. You have higher base dmg in nova form so slotting out with a set or maximizing dmg enhancements make more sense.
3. nova bolt is slower then gleaming bolt (which is where the proc slotting shines over regular slotting)
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As for the question about Dwarf...you get higher resistance values, a -range power, a huge amount of HP, and a heal that recharges quickly and provides a similar level of healing as does Essence Boost - all for the price of one power. That's how it is superior to "just" human form.
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All for the price of one power but for the price of what? 18 slots? To get similar res from human form taking tough puts you at the exact same resistance. The heal is nice, i agree. -range is good, but if you have to switch forms to do dmg, makes it impractical.
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Play how and what you want. All human is fun for you; go with it. I personally like having the 3 forms available and know how to use them in a given situation.
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sounds like your takin it personal. relax. i'm just sayin human form only works, might not be your cup of tea, but to discredit the notion and say its gimp, let me reverse that and say maybe you dont know how to use human form well enough in any situation.
LOL... you seem to be getting steamed, not me. It's not personal. I've been PvPing with my PB for over 2 years now, long before the latest wave of PB PvP'ers. I'm sure I know what I"m talking about.
As for that slotting in the Nova form attacks...it would still be superior to any human form blast and it wouldn't be gimped. P.S. the Nova 'bolt' and Human 'bolt' have the exact same recharge and activation according to City of Data. All things being equal, you would be putting out twice the base damage with the Nova version.
As for the price of powers/slots...it's personal preference, but you get much more bang for you buck out of heals than you do with shields in today's DR'd PvP.
While Nova have range and DPS, unless the person you're fighting is not paying attention our low on health you can easily outmaneuver them by breaking LoS or by taking cover. If I'm not mistaking the only preception Nova form get is from IO. That's only 100 feet, so if you have stealth and stealth IO just get a few yards and you're in the clear.
Human form are more like blaster/regen, they may not hit as hard but alot more easier to play. They can keep up with most of the action, and I never felt them lacking in the survival department. They do burn alot of endurance, if you decide to go SS,SJ,Tactic route. They can also can play a little support if you pick the heal. Even with DR light form is worth it. 
Also depends on what zone you are going to play in. While SC is PB paradise, RV is more dangerous since alot of villians get access to web nade by that level. You also see alot more corrupters and doms, and debuffs start to play a bigger roll there to.
In the end it's a matter of preference, I'll say try them all and see what works for you. Each have it's own strength and weakness. I never saw a need for tri form PvP wise since human/nova or all human seem good enough. GL/HF
@Intro lolPvP
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I dont see a benefit of -range when you got to go back into anoher form to use your best powers by then it will have wore off.
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The point of it is as an escape tactic. Taunt them, TP away, change forms. Or taunt Change form and blast/fly away.
Human form doesn't take advantage of the utility a PB has to offer, which is why I'm making one. I could roll a rad blast corr and call it a day, but since PB's have many different facets to them, I'd like to utilize as much of them as is efficient.
I'd call a human form gimp for the simple reason that you would not be able to fill in the roles that you may need to fill. IE Tauntbotting for a team, Blasting/Disrupting...ect ect. Human form has it's perks, but it's not the complete package. Also if I got Human only I'd be short one power pool in that I couldn't take fighting pool. I'll be going SS/SJ/Fitness/Tactics. Just flying around blasting isn't a very viable playstyle for me. I've tried it on a blaster and just didn't find it fulfilling.
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If you did that slotting in nova form you'd be gimping yourself since
1. not taking advantage of your range.
2. You have higher base dmg in nova form so slotting out with a set or maximizing dmg enhancements make more sense.
3. nova bolt is slower then gleaming bolt (which is where the proc slotting shines over regular slotting)
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That doesn't make any sense either...if Nova form has higher base range then how does using it make inefficient use of your range? It almost seems like you meant to say human form...I dunno. That part of the post seems confusing.
Dirty Mel getting me interested in PBers for PvP. Perhaps a run to 50 on a new one for double xp weekend?
Quick question on the dwarf form taunt. I cant find it in city of data, have you confirmed that it does in fact have the -range effect? The power pool ones do not, so just wanted to be sure before I get excited about building a PBer.
PB's have a lot of potential that just isn't being tapped in zone from what I've seen, so Ima try to do it myself. I think it'd be nice if we had a tandem...hilarity would ensue from people complaining over a 2 man PB team wrecking them.
As far as the -Range, I checked the patch notes and they do indeed get teh debuff. Sounds like we're gonna have fun bro.
So if you don't have crazy money for PvP IOs for some +range, would nova form be near as good? Cuz I may make a PB and with my typical 100-300 mil IO builds, I feel like a human may be better.
nova form building for +range wouldnt be good at all if you dont have the perception.
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That doesn't make any sense either...if Nova form has higher base range then how does using it make inefficient use of your range? It almost seems like you meant to say human form...I dunno. That part of the post seems confusing.
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not slotting for range, would not increase your range, now would it? if you took that power and just used procs...like the other poster said they would do.
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TP away
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I was still under the impression that we still could not tp away anymore in pvp.
You can if you're not attacking or not being attacked. As in I was being attacked the person was out of range for a brief second and my TP was available. I also have it bound to lshift+lclick so I can just point and click away. But TP is still a viable escape power just takes a lil getting used to.
The -range in taunt is great cause I can -range somebody with a toggle debuff, then Morph and fly away, it'll be detoggled rather quickly. Just one of a few scenarios I've thought of.
Don't forget, though, that unlike the Scrapper/Tanker/Brute versions of Taunt/Confront, the Dwarf Antagonize's -range is not autohit (last I checked, anyways). The power itself still has a hit roll associated with it.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
Thanks for the heads up...must build for +Acc then.
I'm still gonna /bug it till they change it. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't follow the same law of logic that the other ones do. It'll probably never get fixed though, but oh well.
Title pretty much says it. Money is no barrier to anything. I want to build a PB for PvP. Hopefully I could go triform with it, seeing as taunt = sexy, and Phase + BU + Squid blasting + IS = something I want to play with.
What I don't know, is how to build, play or even PvP on a kheld. So for people who are experienced in Kheld PvP either against or with them, I'm here to absorb your knowledge.
My mids is borked so if you wanna post a build just post it here and I'll have to look. I'm looking for +HP +Dmg then whatever after that is just gravy.