Kheldian play theory understanding

I want to make sure I'm understanding what I've been reading here. I've had a bunch of Khelds and only gotten one (a WS) past level 10. She made it to 35 or so before I del'd her. I'd like to try again so I figured I'd come over here and read what the devotees had to say.

Now that I've read a few threads on guides and tactics and comparisons and builds etc. I would like to summarize what I think I've learned and see if folks agree that I've understood what the general consensus is. Mind you, I'm not talking about particular points or what this expert or that expert has to say, but what the gestalt mind has to say about Kheldians.

So here are the major points I've picked up:

• Between Warshades and Peacebringers, most folks think Peacebringers are the less well-developed/balanced of the two.
• The reason for that is that WSs include some controller type powers while the PBs include some defender type powers and the former goes farther during solo.
• Warshades (my focus from here on out because I like the pretty purple) are easiest to run as a tri-form until you reach the highest levels, after which any combo is easily feasible.
• They're pretty expensive to do right in terms of enhancements which means
  • they're likely not balanced as well as they could be
  • one has to be ready to work for something other than XP in order to advance them like they need to be
• Once you get them decked out the way they need to be, you still have to be careful to watch your tactics.
• Keybinds are even more essential for them than for the standard ATs
• They're so adaptable and complex that one can't really talk about the perfect build.

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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha ...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...

Well, I think from your post that you probably already prefer WSs to PBs. However, the WS requires more tactics and adapting on the fly. As Memphis_Bill said, it has higher highs and lower lows. It's not that PBs aren't balanced, it's that "balanced", for a Kheldian, means being a little weaker than everything around you. You are balanced around form shifting and that bonus you get for being on a team.

Honestly, after playing a a PB for about 35-odd levels total, I think the "Peacebringers are like Defenders" comparison is way off the mark. I have ONE power to support my team, Glowing Touch, and that's it. With all my bubbles on me, and my powers to heal myself, I feel like it's myself that I'm supporting, not the team. I think the comparison came about because Kheldian damage used to be low, like Defenders. But that's not really the case any more.

I do feel that keybinds are essential, because I don't think I could manage form shifting without also automatically shifting my tray arrangement as well. Being able to form shift and queue up another power for activation after shift saves a great deal of time as well. In most cases it is the shift to human form that works best with a keybind, it enables you to spend minimal time in human form, so you don't have to retoggle all your sheilds. It isn't absolutely necessary, a Human Form build shouldn't really need keybinds, but as I feel proper use of forms means adapting quickly and often, I personally wouldn't play a Dual or Tri-Form without them.

On a team, you probably don't need to form shift as often. But I've found it the best way to play for me, when I'm soloing. And honestly, as you say in your last point, Kheldians are more than any other AT dependent on the playstyle of the player. You really need to experiment to find out what works for you, because so much is built around what you as the player feel is comfortable and intuitive.

This is great, guys. I'm getting a lot out of this. What I'm getting the most is that I need three specific things:

First, I can't find any thread/guide that talks about the differences in play-styles between the several types (WSH/WSHN/WSHD/WSTF/PBH/PBHN/PBHD/BPTF) at the different levels. I imagine it's because there's just too damn much to go into and folks tend to know a lot about one or two particular types. Such a comparison/contrast at various level stages would be a huge help in understanding how they work. It would take a vast amount of time and effort, though, I'd bet.

Second, I need to ask a question. To wit, without slotting IOs (common or sets) at all, what diff settings would people think one should expect to be able to run on at the various level stages without feeling like they're doing something obviously wrong? I'd use this as a bench-mark for deciding if I really need to come back here to ask more questions or to start teaching (yeah right) others...

Lastly, another question. Aside from AlienOne's extremely helpful WSH guide, why are all the other guides so out of date? Are there any that were written after the Kheld buff that took place a couple issues back? Out of date information can be worse than none sometimes.

Robin

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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha ...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...

Most of the kheld strategy and build guides still hold true. The first and best read in the section should be Plasma's guide. The major changes made to the AT (dwarf at any time, balance/sustenance in all forms) really don't have a huge effect on the basic way you build and use a kheldian. They do certainly enhance the traditional methods and make your life a bit easier. There are many directions you can go with IO's (the other major change since a lot of the guides) on a kheld, but the best value in my experience has been using frankenslotting to optimize enhancement value and save slots. On a warshade there are merits to a recharge heavy build. Beyond that, the old advice stands true!

Dr. English pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as the reasons for the lack of updates - for the most part things still hold true, so there's little need. The only clear and apparent need in the guides is just what Coyote said - a comprehensive survey of the various build variants over the course of the various levels. Even Plasma's extremely comprehensive Kheldian guide does not go to this extreme and most players probably lack sufficient experience in every variant to write such a guide.

Aside from that, there's IOs, but again there's so many viable ways to go that a guide would have to be monstrously comprehensive to have any claim of impartiality or broad application (otherwise you're getting the "here's my build" guide). Broad trends, such as "Warshade builds can benefit greatly from +recharge" are about it unless someone has the time, expertise and inclination to put together a monster guide.

I'd like to do one, but I lack the time at the moment (and arguably the expertise as well). I may get to one over the winter holidays if no one beats me to it.

Alternatively, those of us who consider ourselves veteran Kheldian players might collaborate on a sort of master guide - this might well be the only way to include detailed suggestions and discussions on all the play variants from those that know them best. For myself, I play Tri-Form Warshades, Human/Dwarf Warshades, Human/Dwarf Peacebringers, Human-Only Peacebringers and Tri-Form Peacebringers and am confident making statements and discussing those variants. The others, however, I have far less experience with, and there are other posters on this forum who are more experienced than I on certain variants even among those I know well.

Justaris does have a good point about guides, there are so many different ways of playing a Kheldian that a guide would need to be very broad and I think a co-op effort could be quite good.

AlienOne's human only guide Warshade is a good start, and I started my own guide to Warshades a while ago but never really got around to finishing it so will look into that at some point (Though it is loosely based on Plasma's guide since that is still very relevant so I would like Plasma's permission before I show anyone it), then anyone who wants to contribute can do so before we finally publish? I have experience of pretty much every evolution of Warshade builds so my guide was going to be fairly broad and include some number crunching for each build, but getting a general approval would be good.

As far as PB's go I will have to let someone else do a PB guide, and think they would be better seperated than as one.

Disclaimer: As much as I will be working on this guide it will still take a long time to get to a stage where I am happy to show it to others.

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

I suspect one of the reasons for the difficulty in writing a "master guide" would be that there is such a tight interrelationship between "whats a good build" and "what kind of playstyle do you like".

I had a friend who ran a humanform PB to 50 mostly solo on high difficulty and loved it. I'd go nuts, I'm not that fond of melee characters and not as good as he is at playing them. I set up keybinds and macros for form shifting on my WS and did triform all the way there, and loved it when I wanted a challenge (I alternated with easier characters. . . ). I do agree that a WS benefits from an expensive (i.e. high recharge) build more than a PB, because theres a substantial survivability difference between blasting in Novaform with capped resistance all the time vs 70% or so of the time, and getting out more Dark Extractions = more free damage.

I'm now running a triform PB to 50, and don't like it as much as the WS because if I'm playing a Kheld I'm almost always playing them on a team and the PB doesn't get as much boost from that. I'm also having to form shift even MORE to heal folks as well as fight, which cuts into what I can do in a fight, and I don't like that the godmode tier 9 power locks me into humanform, which doesn't have enough slots to actually do much useful there. But there are also advantages, in that I don't have to aggro the whole spawn to get some buffs, which is nice if the team doesn't have a tanker, say.

To conclude, I'd say that the key to Khelds is to be prepared to use a lot of respecs as you see what works for your particular playstyle.

I read Plasma's guide and while I can see where a lot of it is still very relevant, a lot of it is also based on the idea that the inherent doesn't follow through the forms and things detoggle when mezzed. I'm certain those two changes make some significant differences in play styles. What have people noticed those particular points do to their tactics and build tendencies?

EDIT: Oh, and also that the Dwarf now acts as a break-free.

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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha ...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...

I believe the toggle issue wasn't just a "human only" issue... It was an EVERYONE issue. Anyone in the game that had toggles running at all was affected by this, and that included tri-formers who were in Dwarf and Nova form, as those "toggles" would be dropped as well, and Dwarf did not act as a break free then either.

I think that was a bonus for everyone of every AT, not just Kheldian human formers. You make it sound as if human-only people are the "only ones doing the complaining" or they're the "only ones with an 'issue'."

"Alien"

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

I can't speak for Alien or anyone else, but for my Tri-Formers the changes simply enhanced what they were already doing. Tri-Form, at least for me, had always been about building for versatility and for getting the maximum benefit for the fewest slots. The changes to the inherent, the Dwarf changes, toggle suppression... all of it just made me better at what I was already doing, but didn't significantly alter the way I played.

I no longer needed a BreakFree to chew before hitting Dwarf, and I did more damage in Nova, but since my playstyle was already geared towards meleeing out mezzers in Dwarf and dealing out damage in Nova I just suddenly got better and what I'd been doing all along. Since IO Set bonuses had always been cross-form, I'd been slotting for +recharge and the like already anyway.

Since most of the changes didn't impact my Human Only builds much, they didn't change except in the ways that my Blappers and all heroes changed following the changes in toggles and mezzes.

Why wouldn't they have flinched? Because before dwarf form was a break free, and toggles wouldn't drop, tri-formers were majorly affected by this... If you were sitting there blasting in nova form, you were immediately dropped to human form held. If you were held, you couldn't immediately switch to dwarf form and keep fighting. I fail to see how this wouldn't significantly change a tri-formers playstyle. Basically, that made tri-formers have to carry around break-frees same as human-formers... After dwarf form became a "break free", the tri-formers used that as a "flagship" for playing tri-form, suggesting their playstyle/strategy for taking down enemies had changed.

The actual playstyle and strategy for human formers never truly changed. If I've got a full eclipse, and I hit a break free, I'm not going to take the time to re-toggle until the mob is down in most cases. Therefore, my timing is essentially the same. Our attack sequences are also the same. The only real difference is that we don't have to re-toggle everything before the next fight, which takes away our "downtime." However, that doesn't affect "playstyle," "building," or "strategy." That just affects "time spent in mission" and "aggravation level." (haha)

We still have to carry around break frees, same as always. So, in the end, the real "bonus" for toggling (when in nova form) and the fact that dwarf form became a break free was more of a boon to tri-formers than it was to human formers, although human formers DID benefit (from the toggle changes, not from the dwarf changes). It just meant "less downtime."

Same as a tri-former, really.

"Alien"

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

I dunno, I wasn't playing a Kheld very long before the toggle change came, but given the way I play, knowing that there's a mezzer in the area and the frequency with which he can be expected to attack me effects me what form I choose to be in at that time. Okay, I CAN break the mez, but that doesn't mean I want to have to.

Honestly, the character for which I was happiest to hear of this change was my Force Field Defender. It meant I no longer had to worry about the TOTALLY UNFAIR Sleep->Hold sequence most mezzers in the game (especially Rikti) seem to use.

Pretty much what Princess Darkstar said. I was already in a long habit of taking out mezzers preferentially or else going into Dwarf if there were too many mezzers to reliably take out beforehand. Since I was already using Gravity Well, Gravitic Emanation and/or overwhelming damage from Nova to destroy my enemies before they could mez me, having Dwarf as a get-out-of-mez-free card was just a bonus for me.

Since I was able to buff my own damage resistance, damage and accuracy using Mires and Eclipse and since I had little need for blue or green inspirations under most circumstances using Circle, I was mostly carrying Defense and BreakFree inspirations anyway.

For someone who was getting chain-held or who was getting the flow of their tri-forming style reguarly shut down by mezzers, I agree the changes would have been a huge benefit - but again, it seems to me that it would less have changed the way a person played and more allowed them to play using an approach that previously wasn't all that viable. Outside of special circumstances like Mothership Raids, however, I honestly wasn't having that problem on my 'shades. Not that I don't enjoy and appreciate the changes, but from my perspective they're just gravy. Very tasty gravy.

Believe it or not, I actually do have the Psi damage proc in the taunt (That last set bonus is nice).... I just really, really, really, really, really prefer not to play in tank form. I definitely do NOT fit in the "tanker-move-slow-as-crap-and-only-use-2-or-3-attacks" mentality. I've got too much nervous energy and ADD-like symptoms for that. Believe me, if just the switching forms seems to take "forever" to me, you can only imagine what it's like for me to move slow as molasses.

I would think it's a given that anyone that knows me would also know that I'm also the type of person that hates the speed penalty to travel powers when using an attack, and also hates to face anyone like Knives of Artemis who also slow you down.

"Alien"

Quote:

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