Thinking of Dropping Grounded


ClawsandEffect

 

Posted

I have a SS/Elec Brute that I like very much. However, it's not an elite build and I am just beginning to IO him out. I'm about halfway there, distinctly lacking some LotGs, 2 Purple sets and others. He's finally on his way to respectability.

My main question is that I've seen alot of elite builds here for SS/Elec that do not include Grounded. The knockback protection I understand can be made up with Blessing of the Zephyr and Steadfast IOs. However, how does one make up the Energy, Negative, Immobilize Resistance that Grounded provides?

I'm not that great with Mids so I'm trying to see where the missing Resistance values are being made up elsewhere. Therefore, (1) Can Grounded be Skipped? and, (2) What needs to be emphasized to make up for the missing Resistance values if you do not have Grounded?

Thanks in advance!!


 

Posted

Grounded can easily be skipped.

Generally, in those builds you are going to take Combat Jumping, which gives you your Immobilize resist. As for the energy resistance, even without grounded you are going to be almost capped to it. It only gives 7.5% negative energy resistance without enhancements, so I don't think you will miss it much.


Dark Armor is like that kid you knew in school that didn't know when to shut up, and no matter how bad he got beaten down, he got right back up again and kept on talking.

 

Posted

I haven't checked the numbers in a while, but I think you'll be at around 83% resistance to Energy with SO slotting and no Grounded? Despite the high number, I think losing the 7% here will be more noticeable than the change in Negative Energy resistance since it's 70% more damage than you would be taking with it. Note that this is specifically a Brute "problem", since a Scrapper or Stalker would cap at 75% and the higher base numbers on a Tanker mean that those ATs would be capped without Grounded.

It's skippable, though... Negative Energy resistance can come from Scirroco's Dervish sets - 3 sets gives you more resistance than Grounded would, and PBAoEs aren't usually that hard to come by on a Brute. Coming up with the ~7% Energy resistance is the harder part: not counting the Shield Wall +3% proc, the largest bonus is 1.88% in Detonation, then 1.26% in Adjusted Targeting.


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Quote:
Originally Posted by Siolfir View Post
I haven't checked the numbers in a while, but I think you'll be at around 83% resistance to Energy with SO slotting and no Grounded? Despite the high number, I think losing the 7% here will be more noticeable than the change in Negative Energy resistance since it's 70% more damage than you would be taking with it. Note that this is specifically a Brute "problem", since a Scrapper or Stalker would cap at 75% and the higher base numbers on a Tanker mean that those ATs would be capped without Grounded.

It's skippable, though... Negative Energy resistance can come from Scirroco's Dervish sets - 3 sets gives you more resistance than Grounded would, and PBAoEs aren't usually that hard to come by on a Brute. Coming up with the ~7% Energy resistance is the harder part: not counting the Shield Wall +3% proc, the largest bonus is 1.88% in Detonation, then 1.26% in Adjusted Targeting.
Gotcha. Thanks for the information everyone. Now to rethink the build...


 

Posted

Some people drop Grounded, and I have one build that does as well, but the difference between 83% Energy resistance and 90% is quite significant. It's a matter of personal choice and is usually worth it if you swap capped Energy resistance for access to more Smashing/Lethal defense through IOs or Pool Powers.

If you have the infamy, use 3 parts of Gladiator's Armor in the 3 ELA resistance armors and Tough. It grants ED capped resistance and mag 12 (3 x 4) KB protection, no slots wasted. Leaves lots of room for wonky IO pursuits, and lets you use those isolated slots for IOs more powerful than a -KB global (3% defense, etc).


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by _Deth_ View Post
Grounded can easily be skipped.

Generally, in those builds you are going to take Combat Jumping, which gives you your Immobilize resist. As for the energy resistance, even without grounded you are going to be almost capped to it. It only gives 7.5% negative energy resistance without enhancements, so I don't think you will miss it much.
Good idea.Just 1 poblem.

Isnt the complaint about Brutes being There Endurance?If so, why take combat jumping thats a Toggle that takes Endurance?

Grounded also grants KD & KB Protection.Combat Jumping does not.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fire_Minded View Post
Good idea.Just 1 poblem.

Isnt the complaint about Brutes being There Endurance?If so, why take combat jumping thats a Toggle that takes Endurance?
*facepalm*

Since when does electric armor have any endurance problems? that's like saying that /regens have a regeneration problem

And CJ only costs like 0.02 end/sec

...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fire_Minded View Post
Grounded also grants KD & KB Protection.Combat Jumping does not.
I think the OP mentioned Zephyr and Steadfast IOs...


 

Posted

ELA doesn't really have to worry about endurance with Power Sink and Energize. I even skip Stamina on my ELA build.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fire_Minded View Post
Good idea.Just 1 poblem.

Isnt the complaint about Brutes being There Endurance?If so, why take combat jumping thats a Toggle that takes Endurance?

Grounded also grants KD & KB Protection.Combat Jumping does not.
Erm....this is Electric Armor we're talking about here.

It includes Energize, which still functions like the Conserve Power it USED to be. And it includes Power Sink, which is probably the best end refill power in the game, largely because it recharges so fast compared to the others.

Any Electric Armor character that is having end problems did something very wrong with their build.


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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fire_Minded View Post
Good idea.Just 1 poblem.

Isnt the complaint about Brutes being There Endurance?If so, why take combat jumping thats a Toggle that takes Endurance?

Grounded also grants KD & KB Protection.Combat Jumping does not.

I encourage you once again to count to ten, think for an hour, then count to ten again before posting anything Fire Minded. (And then also get Mozilla Firefox so that the Spell Checker can make you look more intelligent)

You say there is one problem, but give two problems.
We are talking about an Elec brute. Electric Armor gives an endurance discount power (Energize) as well as a fast recharging endurance recovery power (Power Sink). Elec brutes should never have endurance problems.
KD = Knock Down and KB = Knock back. They are the same, just different mags of Knock Back. If you have Knock Back Prot, you have Knock Down Protection. If he grabs Combat Jumping, he can add a Karma Mag 4 KB protection IO.
Combat Jumping takes a grand total of .07 endurance per second base. If you run out of end because of that, then you have major problems.



Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.

 

Posted

While one certainly can skip grounded and make up its effects in other ways, I'm of the opinion that for all the work you put into that - multiple slots for anti-knockback, sets to make up the resist - you might as well just take grounded. YMMV, of course.


 

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I have two ELA toons and I didn't skip grounded on either one. It is a skippable power, but I always thought, "Why spend a couple million inf to do something that you can get for free"


 

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Well, electric *is* often a tight build.... I could certainly envision a situation where a couple slots and a few million for -KB IOs would be a small price to pay for a precious free power choice.


@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.

This is what it means to be a tank!

 

Posted

Yup, I'm skipping Grounded on my endgame builds precisely because I can't spare a power pick for it. Never have much trouble with only one -KB IO too, a Zephyr in Super Jump's default slot.

So, room for one more power and no additional usage of slots. A pretty good deal if you ask me.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Exxar View Post
Yup, I'm skipping Grounded on my endgame builds precisely because I can't spare a power pick for it. Never have much trouble with only one -KB IO too, a Zephyr in Super Jump's default slot.

So, room for one more power and no additional usage of slots. A pretty good deal if you ask me.

Not agreeing or disagreeing....theres a few odd attacks that do more than 4 pts of KB. On my DA/DM who tried to run with just one IO and it seemed like whenever Kb protection was important it was VERY important. If youre going to run with just a single IO for your knockback protection consider running with two....or the Gladiator set...or any number of other solutions.

Frog


 

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Indeed. And a bit of empirical info: having played /ElA only redside so far, the only place I had trouble with KB was against ballistas.


 

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One thing Grounded does is res(end drain). It's often overlooked, but I take it to laugh at sappers.


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Quote:
Originally Posted by Derangedpolygot View Post
One thing Grounded does is res(end drain). It's often overlooked, but I take it to laugh at sappers.
Static shield alone should more than cap your end drain resistance.

I take grounded myself. It's nice to have while levelling up unless you have low-level KB IOs lying around. It's also an excellent set mule for Steadfast Protection and other res set goodies. Its enhanceable stats are low, so you don't need extra slots in it.

Drawback to grounded is that it's inferior to the KB protection most other sets receive in that you don't get KB resistance, which means sufficient mag will overpower your KB protection. This is fairly rare in most PvE, but it happens (e.g. Leviathan water spouts, Hamidon). For this reason, I take grounded and add more KB IOs.

Grounded also only works obviously when you're on the ground, and the checks are pretty sensitive. If you get hit with KB while curb hopping, you get KB'd. This doesn't mesh well with flight and teleport and discourages mid-fight jumping, which can hurt combat mobility.

It took me forever to stop bunny-hopping on my elec, and just as long to pick up the habit again on other characters. >.<


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Quote:
Originally Posted by ROBOKiTTY View Post
Grounded also only works obviously when you're on the ground, and the checks are pretty sensitive. If you get hit with KB while curb hopping, you get KB'd. This doesn't mesh well with flight and teleport and discourages mid-fight jumping, which can hurt combat mobility.

It took me forever to stop bunny-hopping on my elec, and just as long to pick up the habit again on other characters. >.<
That's why I put a -KB IO in Grounded's default slot.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Supernumiphone View Post
That's why I put a -KB IO in Grounded's default slot.
That's a good idea. Never even thought about it but I'm not very creative in my IO slotting.

The problem with taking Grounded or not taking Grounded is it's really dependent on your playstyle and what travel powers you want to keep. I really want to drop it because it's one powerslot and at least 2 enhancement slots that can go to other highly desired powers.

If Grounded had higher resists or wasn't limited to actually being on the ground. I've had several instances of being knocked down on my brute because I chose to jump up the stairs while around CoT mages for instance. It certainly isn't a slam dunk either way on positives and negatives. I guess that's good design (or bad game design), depending on how you look at it.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ROBOKiTTY View Post
Static shield alone should more than cap your end drain resistance.

I take grounded myself. It's nice to have while levelling up unless you have low-level KB IOs lying around. It's also an excellent set mule for Steadfast Protection and other res set goodies. Its enhanceable stats are low, so you don't need extra slots in it.

Drawback to grounded is that it's inferior to the KB protection most other sets receive in that you don't get KB resistance, which means sufficient mag will overpower your KB protection. This is fairly rare in most PvE, but it happens (e.g. Leviathan water spouts, Hamidon). For this reason, I take grounded and add more KB IOs.

Grounded also only works obviously when you're on the ground, and the checks are pretty sensitive. If you get hit with KB while curb hopping, you get KB'd. This doesn't mesh well with flight and teleport and discourages mid-fight jumping, which can hurt combat mobility.

It took me forever to stop bunny-hopping on my elec, and just as long to pick up the habit again on other characters. >.<
Static Shield grants res(-recovery), but not res(-end drain). It doesn't appear all that different, but it is.

I've discovered that most of Grounded works regardless of position; only the KB fails in air. (Yes, the most important portion)


Quote:
Originally Posted by Supernumiphone View Post
That's why I put a -KB IO in Grounded's default slot.

Me too. Also, Res/Def.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino View Post
Well, electric *is* often a tight build.... I could certainly envision a situation where a couple slots and a few million for -KB IOs would be a small price to pay for a precious free power choice.
Well, witht he Advant of Ninja Run, i dont see how it could be a tight build at all.People that dont have Vet Rewards to skip right to a travel power, Ninja Run is a 2-3 power god send.(3 if you skip Acrobatics or whatever for other Travel Powers.)

I tend to use Ninja Run on all my builds.I am only minus 1 Power from both of the sets i choose by lvl 38.Then have room for 3 more on my climb to lvl 50.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogfather View Post
Not agreeing or disagreeing....theres a few odd attacks that do more than 4 pts of KB. On my DA/DM who tried to run with just one IO and it seemed like whenever Kb protection was important it was VERY important. If youre going to run with just a single IO for your knockback protection consider running with two....or the Gladiator set...or any number of other solutions.

Frog
There's not too many things in this game that breaks 4 points of KB protection, the Nemesis Staff and 2 or 3 members of the Freedom Phalanx.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. DJ View Post
There's not too many things in this game that breaks 4 points of KB protection, the Nemesis Staff and 2 or 3 members of the Freedom Phalanx.
I run with 3 pieces of Gladiator's armor, it grants 3 KB prot, I didn't drop grounded but that 3 points protects me from 90% of KB while I hop around in battle.


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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. DJ View Post
There's not too many things in this game that breaks 4 points of KB protection, the Nemesis Staff and 2 or 3 members of the Freedom Phalanx.

Oh no Im not saying its abosolutely vital, Im just saying that if its one more slot to be absolutely immune to KB then why not take it. Ballista, Nemisis, Freedom Phalanx....why be on your back if you dont have to...