Vs. Carnies?


AquaJAWS

 

Posted

I dislike the Carnival of Shadows. Every hero I've had that's gone against Carnies has ended up panting for Endurance, and often retreating before the power of their bosses.

As such... I have never tried the 45-50 Carnie arc, and skipped several missions from the 40-45 one. (Yes, several. As in I waited the three days for so I could drop another one. And this was before Day Jobs.)

So now... I look upon them, and realize that they are among the only Blue Side story arcs that I have not truely done. And... I want to.

But none of my current characters in that level range have proven to have the right stuff. So! What is the best kind of Hero to use when taking on the Carnival of Shadows?

...

Er... please note that I mostly solo, for the simple reason that I suck at building teams. So, to further clarify... what's the best kind of hero (AT & Powers) to take on the Carnies... when Solo?

Thanks all!


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Posted

if the end drain bothers you that much just remember it only is a end drain if your in melee when thay die. So ranged works well against them, probably any type of controller or blaster might work best against them while also killing them fast and not being in range of the end drain.


 

Posted

My claws/DA main is just absurdly powerful against Carnies. So much so that I specifically run mishes and arcs involving them.

Anyway, DA is a great secondary for Carnies - it has end drain resists along with tons of res to psi damage. Essentially, it's built for Carnie fighting. The claws aspect, while fun, isn't necessary. Any scrapper primary should serve you just fine in terms of putting out damage against them.

Basically: */DA scrapper for ultimate Carnie carnage


 

Posted

Any scrapper with def at the softcap will pretty much ignore a lot of the end drain. SR is the easiest to get to that point, followed by Shields, Invulnerability and willpower (not sure about the order of the last two but I suspect Invulnerability is easier to softcap than WP). In addition to dark armor (as mentioned above) I suspect that electric armor will also be fairly carnie proof - it should be even better than dark armor as DA only gives you about 70% resistance to recovery/end drains where electric gives you 103% and has power sink and a mini-conserve power.

Pretty much any primary will work although if you want something that will specifically shred carnies any of the lethal damage sets will work well as they are all vulnerable to lethal - so DB/SR, Katana/SR or Broadsword/SR would probably be the easiest carnie killer you could make with Katana and BS having the advantage due to divine avalance/parry, which makes leveling /SR a breeze.


Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricHough View Post
Any scrapper with def at the softcap will pretty much ignore a lot of the end drain. SR is the easiest to get to that point, followed by Shields, Invulnerability and willpower (not sure about the order of the last two but I suspect Invulnerability is easier to softcap than WP). In addition to dark armor (as mentioned above) I suspect that electric armor will also be fairly carnie proof - it should be even better than dark armor as DA only gives you about 70% resistance to recovery/end drains where electric gives you 103% and has power sink and a mini-conserve power.

Pretty much any primary will work although if you want something that will specifically shred carnies any of the lethal damage sets will work well as they are all vulnerable to lethal - so DB/SR, Katana/SR or Broadsword/SR would probably be the easiest carnie killer you could make with Katana and BS having the advantage due to divine avalance/parry, which makes leveling /SR a breeze.
Wait... I thought some of the Carnie Bosses and the AVs use some non-positional psychic attacks? You know, the kind of things that would rip through a SR or Shield scrapper?

Hmm... Electric Armor, or Dark Armor? Didn't care much for /Dark last time I tried, but that may have been due to the chosen primary... may need to head onto test to see how /Elec is for Scrappers...


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Quote:
Originally Posted by OneWhoBinds View Post
Wait... I thought some of the Carnie Bosses and the AVs use some non-positional psychic attacks? You know, the kind of things that would rip through a SR or Shield scrapper?
Spectral Wounds, used by Illusionists and Master Illusionists, is the only nonpositional attack that I'm aware they have, and it doesn't really do much damage. Their summoned Phantasms seem to have a 75% ToHit base (unlike normal critters which only have 50%), which in large numbers can cause problems, but they're squishy.

All their other attacks have a positional type. My SR tears through them just fine.

(edit) Looking at ParagonWiki, some of their AVs use Dominate, which is also nonpositional. So, yup, might be a problem if you're trying to solo those.


 

Posted

Pick your favorite lethal damage primary, and pair it with either /Dark, /Electric, or possibly /SR. Voila, your very own Carnie annihilator. Carnies actually have negative resists to lethal damage, so take advantage. Both Dark and Elec pack powerful resistance to energy drain and psi damage; /Elec will cap your energy rez while /Dark has a hole against it, but a superior heal to cope with it. /SR would be quite viable against *most* of the Carnies' effects, especially pains like Dark Ring Mistresses since you will be able to avoid most of the crippling debuffs, but will have more trouble against the Illusionists with their non-positional psi attacks. Solo missions, I'd lean towards one of the more ST-focused sets since you won't be able to leverage the AoEs as well unless you go herding the Carnies up. Something like Kat/Elec sounds like it would work quite well.


Rule number six of an empathy defender is NEVER underestimate a blaster's ability to die. I don't care if he has CM, Fort, both RAs, bubbles (both FF and Sonic), and is fighting next to a Storm defender with hurricane on. If there is a way to die in that situation, the blaster will find it.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricHough View Post
Any scrapper with def at the softcap will pretty much ignore a lot of the end drain. SR is the easiest to get to that point, followed by Shields, Invulnerability and willpower (not sure about the order of the last two but I suspect Invulnerability is easier to softcap than WP). In addition to dark armor (as mentioned above) I suspect that electric armor will also be fairly carnie proof - it should be even better than dark armor as DA only gives you about 70% resistance to recovery/end drains where electric gives you 103% and has power sink and a mini-conserve power.

Pretty much any primary will work although if you want something that will specifically shred carnies any of the lethal damage sets will work well as they are all vulnerable to lethal - so DB/SR, Katana/SR or Broadsword/SR would probably be the easiest carnie killer you could make with Katana and BS having the advantage due to divine avalance/parry, which makes leveling /SR a breeze.
From a Scrapper perspective I'd agree with this - my DM/SR has few issues.

My best Carnie killer though is my Illusion/Kinetic/Stone Controller.

With the pets pulling the aggro - 5 with the Phantasm decoy - the damage type is irrelevant.

I play in melee stealthed/invis via Group Invisibilty while dealing damage through the Stone Epic:
Fissure for AoE and Siesmic Smash for Single Target, both do good damage already but once you augment them with Siphon Speed, Siphon Power and Fulcram Shift it's amazing.

Even with the pets taking most of the aggro you still take damage but Transfusion allows me to heal back over 400 HP every few seconds and with Transferance I can refill my End bar every 10 or so.

The playstyle is very active - you move from mob to mob trying to stay at the damage cap using the buffs much like a Brute maintaing Fury.

I've soloed large spawns of most mob types with this build including Carnies.


L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR

Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller

 

Posted

Neither my /WP Brute or Scrapper had much problems with carnies. Just keep a couple extra purples or blue inspirations with you and tear through them.


 

Posted

For scrappers, I'd say /elec would be ideal come i16. It's basically the endurance king, and about the only hole you really have against them is a slight weakness to negative, which they don't do much. About your only worry is getting hit with one of the debuff masks, so you'd probably still do better on anything softcapped, but /elec would have good performance out of the box.


Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.

 

Posted

Carnies can not drain that which they can not hit.

SR for the win. I LOVE fighting carnies. Mostly because I love the way they scream when they fall.


Be well, people of CoH.

 

Posted

My Ill/Rad/Fire controller tore right through them. /Rad debuffs mean that I didn't even realize that they had resistance and defense against Psi damage until I read about it elsewhere. And like Bill Z Bubba says, their drains ( and other nastiness ) are only a danger if they hit, and they spent all their time attacking the Army, feared, confused, held or with debuffed accuracy.


Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth

 

Posted

I don't know about "best", but anything with elec armor should be pretty good, as with SOs alone you have capped resistance to end drain, great energy resists, good psi resists and good end management tools.


 

Posted

My Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper is absolutely unkillable against Carnies, they aren't even a credible threat to him.

Take end drain resistance, add a minion stun, gobs of lethal damage, and silly amounts of Psi resistance, and you have a character that Carnies have no way to effectively oppose.

Also, my BS/DA is softcapped to ranged, and will be to AoE when I acquire a few more necessary IOs, and he is softcapped to melee just by attacking (Parry is part of his chain) making even the normal smashing/lethal damage they do not much of a concern either.


Quote:
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.

 

Posted

I'll add another vote for Spines/DA. It's an end hog to begin with, but once you've dealt with that issue in your basic build, it's a blast farming carnies.


We don' need no stinkin' signatures!

 

Posted

Archery blaster works well. Lethal damage + ranged control. Plus blasters can keep fighting through the mezzes.


 

Posted

The three characters I have that are high level enough to fight Carnies are my Storm/Energy Defender, my Stone/Stone Brute, and my Peacebringer. I've soloed Carnie missions pretty frequently with all three characters, and I've never really noticed any serious end drain in the process. Not even on the Brute, who sucks a lot of end and is fitted with plenty of endrec enhancements to make up for it - if he was seriously being drained, I would notice.

I've always heard people talk about Carnies and their endurance-draining parting shots, but they've never really slowed me down to the point where I notice or care. Maybe I need to be more persnickety?


Storm Summoning is great because it makes you better than everyone else in the game. - Camma

Knockback is mitigation. It won't be removed just because meleers ***** and moan. - Chaos Creator

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by _Uun_ View Post
Archery blaster works well. Lethal damage + ranged control. Plus blasters can keep fighting through the mezzes.
I found that archery worked fine up until I hit my first master illusionist - the phantoms, phantom decoys, ranged damage and debuffs where ugly to behold. Prior to that you are correct - lethal damage at range is very effective against carnies. My blaster was an archery/devices which made range even more effective as I could keep most things at bay with caltrops.

I think the OP has a good picture of things - if you want a scrapper, anything/SR, anything/dark or anything/electric will do just fine against carnies with lethal damage being the best bet. The SR will be more survivable overall once you hit the softcap but the /electric might be more fun. If you don't want a scrapper any kind of illusion controller will probably work well although illusion/rad is one of the best combo's as the /rad debuffs will balance any psionic resistance or def that they have. Other than that - lethal damage and the ability to keep them at range is your best bet although as I noted that can be hard with master illusionists.


Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13

 

Posted

I've decided to go the Scrapper route, for all-over survivability.

I think I'll be going with Broad Sword, but I'm still undecided between /Dark or /Electric. Combined with Parry, both are looking like very strong contenders.

...

Although now I am faced with a further problem. Trying new characters out on test has shown how much of a boon the changes to Brawl and the Origin Attack are to early characters... and I don't really feel like putting time and effort into a character that is in the Training Room.

Dangit... now I've got even more reasons to want i16 now! :-(


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by OneWhoBinds View Post
I've decided to go the Scrapper route, for all-over survivability.

I think I'll be going with Broad Sword, but I'm still undecided between /Dark or /Electric. Combined with Parry, both are looking like very strong contenders.

...

Although now I am faced with a further problem. Trying new characters out on test has shown how much of a boon the changes to Brawl and the Origin Attack are to early characters... and I don't really feel like putting time and effort into a character that is in the Training Room.

Dangit... now I've got even more reasons to want i16 now! :-(
I'd say go BS/DA because it is a known quantity. Not many people know too much about Electric Armor at high levels, since it is only on test right now.

Would hate to see you get a BS/Elec to high levels only to find out it sucks. I have my doubts about how good Electric Armor is going to be for scrappers because of the lower resistance cap. Brutes have the same base values as scrappers, but they have tanker caps as well. I don't know of anyone who has a stalker high enough to tell me how Electric Armor is on them.

If I had to guess I'd say scrapper Electric will probably be under tanks and brutes, but above stalkers (largely because of the HP difference)

I have a very solid BS/DA build you can look at for ideas, it's not the best I've ever seen, but it is a good one. And it's relatively cheap to build.

You can find it here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=189427

The second build is the one I'm using, I made some minor changes from it, but that's basically it.


Quote:
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.

 

Posted

Thanks for the tips.

...although I continue to be amazed at what is considered to be a 'cheap build.' Then again, I've never gotten over 30 mil on any one toon, even my 50s... really, how DO you make the kind of Inf you need for these? It's been all I can do to get common IOs into my toons...

...

I don't suppose you could show me your leveling build? 'cause I doubt you went through the first 20 levels with only Hack, Parry, and (at 18) Whirling Sword.

I'll probably have to settle for something less than your build, obviously, but it makes for a good overview.


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Posted

Leveling build is simple.

At level 2 take Slice instead of Death Shroud. Take Death Shroud at 22 or 24. Rearrange to take Stamina by 20 and you're set. I also didn't have Cloak of Darkness, Tough, or Weave on my leveling build, because I couldn't handle the end cost. Those came after a respec after I got the end consumption under control.

"Cheap" is a relative term I say it because you don't need it all at once for it to be playable. It's a build you can put together a little bit at a time, I worked on it for the better part of two months to get it where it is. Dark Armor doesn't need to be softcapped to be playable. I got lucky and sold a purple drop to get most of the money for this build. Random rolls with merits were also kind to me, and I won a couple costume contests. The LotG is completely optional, the build doesn't need it to work. The only really important IO to the build is the Theft of Essence Chance for +End in Dark Regeneration, it softens the impact of that huge endurance cost. If you run all the TFs as you get in level range you should end up with enough Merits to get one of the big ticket items, or you can random roll and hope to get one or more of them, or something worth enough to sell.

If you're patient and buy the recipe instead of the crafted IO, you can get the majority of the IOs in the build for a reasonable price. I also only say cheap in comparison to some of the high performance builds out there, there's no purples in it at all, and only 4-5 expensive IOs. So, it's maybe a 500 mil build, as opposed to 3-4 billion that some of them are. I got lucky and put it together for about 300.

I don't sit on a ton of cash either, I only recently broke 100 million at one time for the first time ever. Be patient with it and remember, you don't need to put it together all at once.


Quote:
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.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Obscure Blade View Post
My Ill/Rad/Fire controller tore right through them. /Rad debuffs mean that I didn't even realize that they had resistance and defense against Psi damage until I read about it elsewhere. And like Bill Z Bubba says, their drains ( and other nastiness ) are only a danger if they hit, and they spent all their time attacking the Army, feared, confused, held or with debuffed accuracy.
Yep, my favourite toon for fighting Carnies is Carni, my Illusion/Storm

Fire with fire and all of that. They're basically trivial to her. Confusing Illusionists is hilarious since the first thing they do is trigger Flash and hold all of their friends, setting them up nicely for Freezing Rain, Phantom Army and some Epic AOEs with Containment.


 

Posted

Claws/ELA scrapper or redeemed brute (in the future) blueside will basically be the Carnie King. As BillZ said SR handles them as well as it handles most other things, but for some reason that ring mistress mask always hits me through the def cap, always.

As an ElA however they are as insignificant as rikti. Claws for the added pleasure of shredding them with style.