Human-only strengths?

This is a request not for numbers so much as for some narrative.

I've been poking at Kheldians lately. My tri-form Peacebringer is a delight, and reminds me in good ways of leveling up a druid in World of Warcraft - the nova and dwarf toolkits aren't huge, but they're really solid. I absolutely loved being able to jump in at the end of a Synapse task force and tank the last three missions, after connection troubles got our tank. My tri-form Warshade isn't to 20 yet, but I can already love her nova performance, and stealthing Midnighter arc missions was pure love for me, and I'm looking forward to her dwarf form as well.

But I like my generalists/multi-purpose characters, and I also like my specialists! So, what's interesting and cool about human-form-only Kheldians? I've looked at threads about them, but since I don't "read" Mids stats well, I don't have any clear idea of what it is people are actually doing with them. Can they focus on ranged attacks and be useful? (I'm better at ranged, and have more fun at it, overall.) Do they solo effectively, or do they help out with teams more? (I've been hankering after someone to help stealth/speed missions, but I found out about that feature already.) What's neat about them, and what's to be cautious with?

Warshades change with age.
Lowbie level you are a stealth blaster.
Then you get self-heals and you can scrank a little.
Then you get eclipse and are a god.
I dunno.
Your milage may vary.

All I know is I managed to solo a posi in all humanform at lvl 15 (with lvl 20 powers of course), but it took around 5 hours and i'd not reccomand anyone try it. God that was a brutal tf.

Everyone says eclipse is "godlike" and "ZOMGawesomesause!!!111!"

Honestly, I can't tell the difference when it is working and when it isn't. If I hit three or 8 or none. Can't tell a dang thing is different.

Mire, I can see bigger numbers. Not big enough that it reduces the number of attacks to kill a minion, but I can see bigger numbers.

Eclipse? Nothing. I don't run out of endurance all that fast without it, so with it I don't see how I'm supposed to tell. Damage coming in is only an issue with spikes and spikes hurt even with capped regeneration. So overall, the power is just "meh" to me.


To the OP: The key strength of human only is that you aren't half as frustrated figuring out forms and you can use power pools and you get your shields all the time. Or like me, if you're totally incompetent and just can't use them at all it is your only viable option. You lose out on damage (nova) and defense/mez resist (dwarf), and you lose a LOT of flexibility. But it is much easier.

Peacebringers seem to be more like Blappers since their best attacks are melee so you're very aggressive and smash-like. Warshades seem to have more ranged attacks but still need to be up close and personal from time to time so all-human warshades are often running in and out of melee.

But I already admitted I'm incompetent, the others will give you good answers. =)

Eclipse can easily cap your damage resistances. That's why it's so good.

I have one 50 level Warshade that is primarily Human/Dwarf. I have squid form but on to travel since I am too loazy to use teleport LOL. Dwarf form is slotted fro maximum damage, accuracy and recharge since it has so few attacks. Human form gets everything else. I don't know squid form does a good bit of damage but its just too squishy, and as mentioned no way to add defenses like the shields available in Human form.

My Dwarf has Tanked Almost every GM and has fillede in nicely tanking on TF when we couldn't find a tank.

I tried out a humanform PB once. I spent the entire time playing it thinking "Do you know what would make this a lot more awesome? Dwarf form." Nova form wasn't missed terribly, but lacking Dwarf form HURT. It's just one power slot, but you get a bunch of powers out of it that make melee much safer. Getting something like Pulsar instead feels like shooting myself in the foot.

A pure humanform Warshade is pretty manageable, but picking the right combination of powers can be important. I suggest you read guides before making one. Keeping enemies clumped together would be very important, as would having a few attacks to fell a minion or two very easily. Nebulous Form makes activating Eclipse, Sunless Mire, and Stygian Circle easier, as well as using slow moves like Unchain Essence safely. Lastly, you can stack Stuns with Inky Aspect and Gravitic Emanation, and you get VERY powerful pets with Unchain Essence.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned "Humanform = more slots - or, rather, same slots, fewer powers!"

See my Guides and Tutorials

Might be thinking of Shadow Cloak.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Might be, but from context I doubt it. Shadow Cloak wont make activating a PBAOE too much safer, since everything sees you anyway. Neb Form however does. It prevents all damage to you. But at the cost of preventing you from doing anything to the enemies.

The +def is so low, it's not gonna help much. Nor will the imob protection when it comes to activating stuff like Eclipse. Maybe if a KB protection IO is slotted in it, but otherwise no.

Edit: Woah, didn't realize that was so long while writing it. Sorry.

I'm building toward the last build in this post here. I have the Impervium armor triple already, a level 25 generic recharge, and a level 20-something Efficiency adapter Acc/Endmod as a placeholder. I don't think the expired DO counts, but it's there too. =)

I'm at level 41 and mostly packing pure unadulterated crap in my slots. I got into an ITF and went from 37 to 40 faster than expected so my enhancements haven't kept pace with my level.

Per the build above I have the Decimations in snare and shadow blast, I have stamina fully slotted, I have stygian fully slotted, I have two stupefy in Inky Aspect, I have three kinetic crash in unchain essence. And I have two of the Expedient Reinforcements in my pets and the Zephyr in Super Speed.

All the rest is pure random garbage.

For example, Dark Detonation has a level 18 Airbust (one of the duals I think Acc/Dam), the two Detonation triples (levels 23 and 26), an expired SO end reduction, a level 40 Posi's Damage/Recharge, and one empty slot.

That's about average for my powers currently. Getting much better now that I am high enough to slot the level 40s that are my goal. It's just a matter of buying them, and like I said, I had expected to take longer and have more time to buy up what I needed.

The way I approach a spawn is entirely dependent upon how many insps I have. In an ideal world I pop two purples and one orange. I teleport directly into the middle, mire, eclipse, melee-hold, shadow blast, gravitic, shadow bolt until dead, try to click unchain essense, fail as it selects the next enemy instead, use dark extraction to reselect the corpse THEN unchain essence (this happens at least 3 out of 4 times I try to use this power), stygian to stay alive, summon a pet, then spam an endless chain of Shadow Blast, shadow bolt, Gravimetic Snare, shadow bolt, shadow blast, etc.. until no one is left. I focus on the lieuts first and trust the stun aura to handle minions. Stygian at the end to top off. I use the melee hold as often as it is up, preferably on someone less than half-life as it might drop them at that point.

With low insps, I try to pull with gravimetric snare since at least one of them won't show up if I hit him. If they all react instead of a few, I try to teleport into as many minions as possible to max the effect of my stun and damage auras, and do as much of the "ideal" as I can but I break it up with my self-rez after they put me down. I focus on minions first and use stygian as needed to stay alive. I use the melee hold as often as it is up cycling through lieuts to keep them from attacking.

with 0/x6 it was basically the same, only I was using stygian after each second kill, I had enough time to mire/eclipse twice per spawn, and I died every second spawn but my self-rez was up often enough that had they dropped me twice per spawn I could have handled it. Not fun. 0/x3 is generally smooth. 0/x4 is doable if I visit the store a lot to buy insps. 0/x5 I actually never bothered to try. 0/x7 and 0/x8 was pretty much insta death. Usually I was dead faster than Mire could finish animating.

I don't run +1 or +2 solo as that adds at least one or two extra hits to every single god-@##$%^ minion. And I'm not patient enough for that. 3 to 4 hits each is bad enough. Especially since it's only 3 if I wait for the dot to do full damage AND if they're in my aura AND if no one turned my aura off.

But most of this will be better once I have everything slotted. Like I said, I think I have no defenses at all right now, and resistance with 15% or even 20% defense is massively different from resistance with no defense. Oh, I did just get maneuvers (empty). So, 2.75% defense to all =)

Another tip, try teleporting in while running Inky Aspect. This drasticly cuts down on the possibility of a dangerous alpha strike. If you don't have eclipse but have dwarf, try teleporting in as a dwarf to absorbe the alpha.

For unchain essence, target an enemy first thing. Make sure it's one that will die fast. Minions are best. As soon as that minion you targeted dies, hit unchain essence.

The build you're planning for doesn't have Grav. Emanation...my usual knee-jerk reaction is to scream and shout until someone understands just how trivial that power makes soloing. It's permable even without any IO bonuses...with some amount of +recharge, it's extremely easy to perma. Stupefy's a nice set anyway, and the purple stun set is fairly cheap. But if you don't want a perma mag 3 AoE stun and understand what the potential for it is, go ahead.

But anyway...

As was said, Eclipse first. Not sure how your Acc for it is - shouldn't be too bad, but your mentioned build uses only IO bonuses and Tactics to help its Acc, and you don't have Tactics yet.

Grav Em first as well, if you feel like it. If the Acc in it is good, you can face the alpha after you've capped your resistance with Eclipse.

Why no Quasar? It'll clear a spawn (or get really close) after you Mire, and all you have to do is pop a blue + Stygian to return.

Meh, don't have much more to say...when I was leveling mine, all I had to do was Grav Em once then go into Nova, and that pretty much took care of a spawn. You've got to deal with surviving for longer since you don't have that amount of damage available.

*Oh, and Khelds (Warshades in particular) play radically different than any other AT, especially the more static melee AT's like scrappers. And it takes a bit to learn to reign in on them - my tactics and strategies seemed to change with every new power I got. So don't take Debt's comment too badly.