Warshade blasting as a human vs. a nova

The game was designed for freedom of build. And yet in every single other section of the forums, if I ask for build advice I get straight informed and backed up with numbers facts on what powers and build DO work best. Yes in each and every section involving AT and power set I can get this information, except this one.

Because here were all special little snowflakes who cannot make mistakes or build badly.

In the scrapper forums a person comes in for advice on his build and they point out he skipped his status ressist toggle, they call him a retard when he says he doesnt like how it looks. Not here, he isn't wrong, he didnt build badly he excersiced his right to an alternate build and play style. Its dumb, totaly off the charts dumb.

Were not special snowflakes, were the dumb kid who can do what the other kids can do but refuses and is told he is special anyways.

Some builds and choices will ALWAYS outperform others, some powers are better picks than others, some slotting works better than others. Accept it.

I agree with LordXenite. You (Obsidian) say that it's a bad thing that kheldian boards encourage people to pick their own things and just have fun with their characters. I personally think that this is a great thing.

My kheldian could be a fairly good controller with some fairly good damage output. Or my Kheldian can be a good tank with slightly below average damage and control.

My kheldian could be a good scrapper with some tanking ability.

My kheldian could be a great AOE'er with moderate defense.

Most people tell new guys to just build what they want because most new guys don't really say what they're trying to make. They just say, "What's a good build for a kheld?" and expect an answer. It seems from your posts Obsidian that you value dps very greatly. However I personally value survivability and not wasting my time saving up for purple IOs. So if you handed me a build I'd probably ignore it because I want different stuff from my build.

Like Lord touched on, I think that a lot of the problem stems from having only one powerset combination that is huge compared to other ATs. For a controller if you want lots of control you take earth/storm, if you want lots of damage you take fire/kin, and so on and so on.

With a Kheldian, if you want more control you slot your human control powers more. If you want more tanking you slot your dwarf powers more. Want more AOE damage? you slot your nova powers more. There's tons of combinations.

I will throw this out there though:
I think that one of the reasons khelds aren't as quite liked is that people don't know how to use macros. Not everyone looks on the boards, in fact, I'd assume that a large majority of people don't. I think that if there was a bit of a macro tutorial when you choose your first form or something it'd help greatly. It would also be nice if it was repeatable by talking to your initial kheld contact. And lastly. I would like a seperate window to make macros in with preloaded stuff so you don't have to know how to type everything in. This would make khelds a lot more new player friendly in my opinion

While I definitely support your notions about a macro tutorial for Kheldians, I think Kheldians are not popular simply because on each and every aspect of their being, they require more work and knowledge than the other AT's.

Once people discover that, some may chuckle with joy about finally finding an AT that challenges the player, while others would simply go and make another Brute/FireKin or whatever else they fancy that is a lot simpler to use and is immediately out-of-the-box more "awesome".

QR

In terms of getting that "wow" factor from teammates, IME that boils down to a select few powers/situations. For warshades, it's typically a squid with two wingmen laying waste to spawn after spawn taking next to no dmg due to eclipse, and launching the human aoe combo of Sunless Mire + (something to drop a minion) + Unchain Essence + Quasar + Stygian Circle and moving on, perhaps with a new pet.
For PBs it's typically the human form powers Incandescent Strike (hello damage!), a well executed Dawn Strike (nuke powers are always impressive), and that nearly indestructible ball of light that has no animation rooting ...oh, and the rare occasion where our "homing missles" (SOOO calling photon seekers that from now on ) take out a nasty enemy for us.

Again, IME, it's much rarer to get a "wow" from experienced players, who have seen those powers used before (even if not necessarily used to their utmost performance levels), but new players, or even just ones that haven't teamed with a lot of khelds VERY often quit my team to go roll one for themselves (occasionally even sending me tells in the days that follow about slotting and power choices), or VERY VERY often simply say "wow...I didn't know khelds could do that!".

And I agree that lack of knowledge about binds/macros is a very limiting factor on number of people that get a kheldian past level 20. Assuming you take Nova and Dwarf, you will have more powers than visible trays by level 20 (much sooner if you're a long time vet). Placeable trays help, but binds/macros are much easier to manage.

The problem, Obsidian, really isn't the fact that people are "afraid" to post their build and say it's "teh best evar"... The problem is that Khelds are so versatile and playstyle-adaptable. You can't roll a claws scrapper and ask in the scrapper forums "how do I build the best claws scrapper for ranged attacks", because they would all laugh at you, and (hopefully politely) inform you that you'd only be using like 2 attacks for a build like that, and it most DEFINITELY wouldn't be the "best" build for it.

With a Kheld, you CAN ask things like that. You CAN say "I'd like to make a Kheld who only attacks from a distance, and I want to build for ranged defense." Cool. Someone may have the best build for that. You may say "I like to fight melee... What's the best melee setup with melee/smashed/lethal defense?" Cool. Someone may have a build for that. You may say "I only like to fight in human form." What's the best setup for that?" I've got a build for you there.

The key is, and always has been, your playstyle. If you want a melee blaster, you roll a melee blaster. If you want a ranged blaster, you'll have to roll a completely different toon. With a Kheld, you can simply switch builds.

BECAUSE the problem here in the Kheld forums is playstyle choice, one person CANNOT post a "be all, end all" build for a Kheld, because EVERY SINGLE other Kheld player will come on and say "No. That's wrong." Why? Playstyle choice. You can build a Kheld for a certain playstyle choice with just about any set you can think of and it be a good Kheld. You can build ANOTHER Kheld with a completely different power setup, with just about any set you can think of, and it STILL be JUST AS GOOD as the previous...

This explanaition has already been attempted multiple times with you from what I can see, so I'm getting the impression that you're just asking for someone to "post the ultimate Kheld build" so you can shred it apart. Or so others can.

Besides that, Not every person in the game is some sort of numbers mathematics whiz. I'm certainly not. But, I can most definitely tell you (and have a NUMBER of friends/random people in-game who have teamed with me tell you as well) that my warshade kicks some f***ing tail. My warshade IS one of those you mentioned that is built around "performance" and HAS caused many people to go "DAMN! I'm making a warshade now! You got a build for that?"

But, would other Khelds on these forums agree that my WS is the "BEST WS EVAR?"

Absolutely not.

It's a playstyle thing.

"The One"

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Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

/signed on what AlienOne just said!

Well this has turned into a fun looking thread since I went home yesterday!

Time to give Obsidian some back up I feel, though it would be easier if I knew how to use multiple quotes without having to type the html!

Still:

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My kheldian could be a fairly good controller with some fairly good damage output. Or my Kheldian can be a good tank with slightly below average damage and control. My kheldian could be a good scrapper with some tanking ability. My kheldian could be a great AOE'er with moderate defense.

A very true and valid point, and I wouldn't tell someone aiming to build their Kheldian to be any of these things that they were doing it wrong, what I would like to do is tell them the very best way to accomplish their goal.

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They just say, "What's a good build for a kheld?" and expect an answer. It seems from your posts Obsidian that you value dps very greatly. However I personally value survivability and not wasting my time saving up for purple IOs. So if you handed me a build I'd probably ignore it because I want different stuff from my build.

Firstly I don't see how you can't value DPS, it is the single most important thing for 90% of this game.

And fine you might value survivability but if we dug down to the numbers we would probably find ways of increasing that survivability, while adding it to impressive DPS, rather than now I see a lot of build sacrificing heavily in order to build on certain aspects.

Also even in the scrapper section where they love soloing AV's with defence capped builds there is plenty of help for people without the budget. Knowing the very best things doesn't mean we will lose sight of those without the purples, it just means people might be more motivated to earn the purples if they know exactly what they can do when they have them. Right now people seem to be acting like they wont make much of a difference.

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Like Lord touched on, I think that a lot of the problem stems from having only one powerset combination that is huge compared to other ATs. For a controller if you want lots of control you take earth/storm, if you want lots of damage you take fire/kin, and so on and so on. With a Kheldian, if you want more control you slot your human control powers more. If you want more tanking you slot your dwarf powers more. Want more AOE damage? you slot your nova powers more. There's tons of combinations.

But if you take controllers as a whole they have many more combinations of powers than a Warshade does, yet they still can tell you which sets and powers are best for your stated aim. You ask in the controller section to cause damage and they suggest fire kin, you then don't see 10 people all suggesting different power sets because they know for a fact that fire/kin causes the most damage.

There could be 100 different things a Kheldian could do, it would just mean we could have 100 different builds each being best at one thing or another. But actually it isn't that complicated.

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I think that one of the reasons khelds aren't as quite liked is that people don't know how to use macros. Not everyone looks on the boards, in fact, I'd assume that a large majority of people don't. I think that if there was a bit of a macro tutorial when you choose your first form or something it'd help greatly. It would also be nice if it was repeatable by talking to your initial kheld contact. And lastly. I would like a seperate window to make macros in with preloaded stuff so you don't have to know how to type everything in. This would make khelds a lot more new player friendly in my opinion

Agreed. The devs could make playing a Kheldian much easier and that is a problem for the majority of people. But those who frequent the forums tend to be a much more knowledgable bunch with high expectations looking for top end advice, and the fact we don't provide that is also scaring them people away.

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Once people discover that, some may chuckle with joy about finally finding an AT that challenges the player, while others would simply go and make another Brute/FireKin or whatever else they fancy that is a lot simpler to use and is immediately out-of-the-box more "awesome".

But one of the reasons that brutes etc are looked at as more awesome is because people know just how awesome they can be, nobody yet knows exactly how awesome a Kheldian can be.

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I'm hoping teammates will be impressed by all these cool Tesla Cages that pop up around the bad guys at seemingly random intervals.

I don't want to pick on you here but that is the exact thinking I am talking about, no controller picks a power or IO because it creates cool cages. Also when you say 'all these' how many does it actually cause and how effective is that versus doing something else with the power? People will only ever be impressed if you are using something in the best way possible, in fact a lot of people might even think its a waste of an IO etc and wish you were causing lots of dead bodies instead (Note: I haven't actually looked at your build, for all I know it is actually an impressive use of the last slot, but thats by the by at the moment).

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But that's exactly the issue, there is no one way to impress every teammate you'll ever meet with your Kheldian. Some teammates will be impressed by raw damage, others will be impressed by the level of control you can exert on the enemies, yet others will be impressed by the fact that your Kheldian is the last one standing, and can also ressurect the team!

That depends on your definitions of 'one way'. The one sure way of impressing everyone you see is to be awesome at ever one of those things you mentioned.
I know for a fact that a Kheldian can exert great control, massive damage and then be the last man standing and rez the team - I have done all of that on many occasions.
They won't however be impressed if I am trying to control mobs but not doing it at the maximum possible effectiveness, and thats the point - do whatever you want with the build, but do it as best as you can!

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the powers in the set have already defined what our natural bent in. damage and the ability to take damage.

Agree totally agree. The controls on my Warshade help me cause more damage, Eclipse helps me cause more damage, they shouldn't be allowed to replace the damage I cause in a misplaced attempt into thinking I am being awesome.

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The problem is that Khelds are so versatile and playstyle-adaptable. You can't roll a claws scrapper and ask in the scrapper forums "how do I build the best claws scrapper for ranged attacks", because they would all laugh at you, and (hopefully politely) inform you that you'd only be using like 2 attacks for a build like that, and it most DEFINITELY wouldn't be the "best" build for it. With a Kheld, you CAN ask things like that. You CAN say "I'd like to make a Kheld who only attacks from a distance, and I want to build for ranged defense." Cool. Someone may have the best build for that. You may say "I like to fight melee... What's the best melee setup with melee/smashed/lethal defense?" Cool. Someone may have a build for that. You may say "I only like to fight in human form." What's the best setup for that?" I've got a build for you there.

But that isn't as big a problem as people seem to make out. The scrapper section would laugh at you and then help you make the most of your concept using hard numbers. We would say 'wow what a cool concept' then use phrases like 'loads of damage' and 'fun' when making the build.

Also if someone wants to build a Kheldian who uses ranged attacks and has high defence why can't we work on producing the best possible build of that type? And then why can't we say 'but using this build actually gives you better DPS from range using this attack chain and because it has perma-Eclipse you dont need the defence' using exact numbers to prove our point and let the person then decide if they want their concept or the more effective build?

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BECAUSE the problem here in the Kheld forums is playstyle choice, one person CANNOT post a "be all, end all" build for a Kheld, because EVERY SINGLE other Kheld player will come on and say "No. That's wrong." Why? Playstyle choice. You can build a Kheld for a certain playstyle choice with just about any set you can think of and it be a good Kheld. You can build ANOTHER Kheld with a completely different power setup, with just about any set you can think of, and it STILL be JUST AS GOOD as the previous...

Yes and no. You are right that playstyle comes into it, but no more so than another AT. Using you own blaster analogy if I want to make a fire/nrg blapper then I would get help, if I wanted the same sets as pure range I would get help and that help would give them 90% of a build that is so good it can't really change, the other 10% would be personal choice.

Kheldians will have exactly the same thing, you want a Kheldian to fit your playstyle then just tell us what that style is and we should be able to give them facts about why this power should be picked and why that one shouldn't.

The bit you are very wrong with is when you shout JUST AS GOOD, because that is rubbish. There will be one and only one way of doing something (Whichever something that may be) the best, it happens in everything in life.

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This explanaition has already been attempted multiple times with you from what I can see, so I'm getting the impression that you're just asking for someone to "post the ultimate Kheld build" so you can shred it apart. Or so others can.

I am pretty sure that just like me Obsidians goal is actually to find the ultimate build or ultimate builds, not to shred them apart. We want to be able to show everyone just how powerful a Kheldian can be.

Going back the the scrapper section that I read all the time they don't tear builds apart they help guide those builds towards being as good as they can. And you don't give other AT's enough credit, my last toon was a DB/WP scrapper and it was just as hard to balance DPS, defence, recovery, HP and regen on that toon as it was to balance my Warshade, the scrapper sections helped me crunch numbers and come up with the best balance of all of them for what my stated intention was, we can do the same thing if we would just admit that there are great builds out there.

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Besides that, Not every person in the game is some sort of numbers mathematics whiz. I'm certainly not. But, I can most definitely tell you (and have a NUMBER of friends/random people in-game who have teamed with me tell you as well) that my warshade kicks some f***ing tail. My warshade IS one of those you mentioned that is built around "performance" and HAS caused many people to go "DAMN! I'm making a warshade now! You got a build for that?"

Yes I do actually have a build for that The main thing I am arguing is that there are builds like that out there that we need to analyse to find the very best of.

And I am not the best number cruncher either (Its been a while since I excercied the maths part of my brain) but that shouldn't stop us trying. Would you really be upset if I saw your build and said 'you can get 2% more effectiveness by swapping that for that'? Even if I took your whole build apart why would you have something against me giving you a more effective build?

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Playerbase unwilling to do the work and research required? Dude this is a game. You can do all the work you want. Personally I'm gonna do what ever involves having fun. Having to go and do a lot of research just so I can make an adequate macro to change forms agravates me to no end.

A game where a good build can be 70% better than a bad build needs a playerbase that does some hard work. Look at Mids and ParagonWiki, they are ran by players who put in some hard work.

Fine you may not want to do the research but that doesn't mean you shouldn't help those who do try in whatever way you can, even if that means just encouraging them.

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Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

Thanks Darkstar. You said it 100 times better than I could have. I get rolling and hit ressistance and go right into rant mode and start tripping over my own points.

But to me it really does seem like this section is so hard core against improving builds for fear their not nearly as effective as they could be that I'm just stunned into disbelief.

Seriously whats the downside to finding the best builds and making them known?

I have been home 4 hours now and still haven't logged into the game because of this forum!

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Originally Posted by AlienOne Truthfully? They really don't. The whole reason I made 2 lvl 50 Warshades was to test this out. Both warshades have the same exact build setup, except for the *minor* detail that one uses 4 purple sets, while the other doesn't use a single purple. The performances of both Warshades are so frightningly similar that it made me a little sick to my stomache that I paid as much as I did to purple out both builds on VestigeOne. Seriously, it made me sick.

I don't know about that, 4 purple sets is 40% extra recharge, going to normal sets you would get about 20% assuming the average 5% bonus most sets give.

Using purple sets to get to your intended recharge faster than normal means you have more space to squeeze extra performance in elsewhere.

I use the phrase 'purple set' loosely and am actually referring to expensive IO's in general.

As you said your build without purples wasn't much different to when you had them, but I bet your build was quite good to start from (Or alternatively awful and purples couldn't save it - but I think more of you than that ).

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Originally Posted by AlienOne lol, ok, I might go ahead and post something like that to see what sort of responses I really get over there.

Well for something as crazy as a pure ranged attack scrapper the laughs might last a long time, but that was about the most exagerated example possible. The example I gave was a fire melee scrapper with only the sword attacks, thats the same idea as a Warshade only taking human form, and there is a thread in the scrapper section where the guy gets good advice, coupled with being told what he is missing out on.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne Because one person's "best possible build" is entirely subjective, that's why. I seem to remember this exact sort of discussion I had with someone a while back in the Kheldian forums with someone who "couldn't imagine" why someone wouldn't choose Gravitic Emination in their WS build. I explained exactly why I chose not to, and why it benefitted my strategy and gameplay to make that decision. Someone who thought that taking that power is totally necessary for the "ultimate" build would be completely and absolutely wrong in my opinion.

That is exactly what I am arguing against, best possible build isn't subjective, there is only one best way to do anything.

The example of not picking up Gravatic Emination would be 'the best build without Gravatic Emination' and there would be a build doing so, but we could still explain the merits of both builds.

Actually I have 5 purples in my Gravatic Emination but hardly ever use it unless solo (Which is rare) and I make no claims to knowing for sure if it would be part of an ultimate build or not, that is one of the powers that would be subjective to playstyle I think. For a human only build it would be a must, for a tri-former less so.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne From what I can tell, that happens already... There are several threads out there where people have asked for help, everyone responded with "what's your playstyle?" and when the person answered, several people posted great builds and reasons why those builds would benefit that person. Not all of them may have posted "numbers" (I don't see how being a math whiz should be a requirement for everyone wanting to participate in making a good build), but all of them posted great builds.

I know you are right, thats what I like about these forums, there are always plenty of people trying to help. But when a newbie looks at all those great builds they can't possibly know which is actually the best, until someone pulls out some raw data and proves which is best.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne I guess there we'll have to agree to disagree. You may say there's only "one way of doing something" with, say, a Claws/Regen scrapper, but I can't fathom how you'd even attempt making a comment like that in the Kheld forums. Because there ISN'T only one way of doing anything with a Kheld. The versatility of Khelds completely defies that statement. But, to each his own, I suppose. To me, saying "tri-form is better than human-only" (or vice versa) is like saying "choosing the Fortunata path is way better than choosing the Widow path." It's entirely subjective.

I have never really talked about 'one build to end them all' like you suggest. I know there are many things a Kheldian can do but what I am saying is that for each of those things there is a seperate 'best build', plus a best 'overall' build making the most of everything as best as possible.

That overall build won't last as long in Dwarf as the Dwarf build, or blast as hard as the Nova build.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne And, I'm sure there are dozens of people (maybe more) in this Kheld section who can already show how powerful a Kheld can be. I'm guessing LordXenite and Memphis_Bill might be included in that number.

But again that power is still relative because when people see average builds still claiming 'loads of damage' or 'nearly as much damage' then those good builds get lost unless you are already a Kheldian player. With numbers you could prove that those good builds were good without question.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne Of course there are great builds out there! I've seen plenty posted here by people... They're definitely builds that I wouldn't implement on MY Khelds, mind you, but I can certainly admit to a good build when I see one...

I will be honest I can't remember much of who wrote what pre-merger so I don't know about what you admitted to or didn't. But in other sections when someone finds a good build they try and direct as many people that way as they can so everyone has a good build. We encourage mediocracy.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne I wouldn't hold anything against you, but I'm also the sort of person who has spent hours and hours and hours and hours (totally uncountable) in Mid's already analyzing every set and looking at the totals and trying to build the most effective build for my personal playstyle choice. So, if someone suggested a different power for "more effectiveness," I would just laugh, because I already know that power doesn't fit into my playstyle.

I know about the uncountable hours with your head in mids thing, I have lost several days in a row doing just that!

What I am getting at though is that if your playstyle is similar to that of most people then we could well be using your build as a guide to show new people that this is what a good Kheldian can be.

I am doing my best to ignore playstyle considerations here, because they are defined by what people enjoy, and effectiveness isn't. As I wrote in another post not long ago if using Sunless Mire > Nova kills a spawn faster than just opening up in Nova then that is the most effective thing, if your playstyle doesn't like Sunless Mire it doesn't alter how effective the Sunless Mire build is.

The best we can do is arm people with the most effective tactics and the builds that make those tactics work, if peoples playstyles differ then we shouldn't deride them (And we don't), but equally we should let those people know that there are better ways to do things - you never know some people might think their playstyle actually is the most effective, and be wrong about it.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne What if someone prefers to solo as human-only, and doesn't like the shape-shifting powers? Are you going to tell him that he can't make one of the "best ws builds ever" because of this? I cerainly won't. Why? Because they're both just as effective.

If someone wants a human only build then I would make a 'best' human only build and work out the optimum attack chain etc. But I would let them know that their build would chew through a spawn 20% (A made up number in this case) slower than if they took Nova.

But equally if I ran the numbers and the human only build outdamaged a Nova build then I would be encouraging people not to take Nova if they wanted effectiveness.

And before you say it I am not on about pure DPS, I would take Sunless Mire and probably Gravatic Emination into account in those calculations and make some kind of analysis on how safe each way is.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne I guarantee my build and that aforementioned person's build are quite different. But, I bet you that person wouldn't enjoy my playstyle as much as he/she does his own, as I already know I wouldn't enjoy that playstyle as much as I love my own. The point being, there isn't JUST ONE "best" build for a PB/WS. There's probably about 10 or more.

Actually thats exactly what I am saying, there are probably about 10 different styles of play with a Kheldian, and each will have its own optimal build. I don't want to exclude any playstyles, I just want to get each play style to the point where we know exactly how good they are and can tell people which is the overall best at certain things.

It is all well and good to ask for a human only build or whatever, but the thing that really got me was the human v nova thread, and nobody was shouting how much more damaging Nova form is. That kind of thing is what will come from the numbers.

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Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"