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Ok you're over reacting. No scrapper secondary can stand up to the Battle Axe's artillery strikes. (what's the official name for these things?). Seriously, SR is of no greater disadvantage than any other secondary. Invulnerable and Will Power tankers can't stand in those things.|
Originally Posted by TwilightPhoenix
If the Devs are going to go with a big defense busting route on all future content, then they really ought to look at SR again. It's not the set's fault that it's a one-trick pony with a trick that turned out so good everyone else copied it, even if they have a plethora of other tricks themselves. Beyond defense, SR natively only has scaling resistance to fall back on and it's pretty safe to say those won't save anyone. Tough as well as HP and Regen from IO sets help, but those won't keep a SR standing when his main mitigation is nullified.
How would I change it? I don't know, I'm not going to worry too much about it until I20 hits and we see what they pull out then. For all I know anti-defense may just be this time around and the next TF may have an AV with unresistable damage but normal hit rate. |
Devs have been dishing out -def for several issues now. As far as -def goes, Apex TF is really light by comparison to say an ITF.
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With all due respect. Like hell.|
Originally Posted by Desmodos
Melee is far from useless in Apex TF.
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We wound up on an unfinishable Apex with mostly melee (2 tanks, a couple scrappers, a brute, and a Fire Kin and, IIRC a Blaster).
During the first mission into the sewers, we had to basically bypass the Hydra tentacles because the undefendable pure toxic damage was just too much. We wound up having to stand at max range and plink the pylons. Luckily I'd actually taken ranged attacks (LBE) or I could have been standing there holding my richard, not able to contribute anything to the team. I couldn't even aggro manage because the damn L54 tentacles would kill me in about 3 shots without DP and 4 with!
Then, during the first part of the BM mish, we were able to slap her down effectively, after the death patches, we weren't able to attack her effective. She was spawning 3-5 death patches at a time, seconds apart.
She came back into the second half of the mish with half hit points and regen'ed all the way back up simply because we couldn't get more than one or two (depending on how much recharge there was) before we got death-patched and had to move. Then, even with both tanks taunting the crap out of her in unison, she'd just stand blithely in the middle of her own death patch.
We eventually gave it an FTN and dropped.
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| I for one welcome content that doesn't involve melee forming a circle around the AV for a button mashing smack down. |
I wouldn't mind the patches so much, especially with their crazy, unresistable damage if they weren't auto-hit. I'd be fine with them if they were high, unresistable damage with a very high to-hit chance to offset (not merely negate) defense.
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What's happening in the BM mission isn't -Def. It's auto-hit. Def isn't reduced. It's simply ignored. A subtle, but VERY important difference.
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Originally Posted by Desmodos
Devs have been dishing out -def for several issues now. As far as -def goes, Apex TF is really light by comparison to say an ITF.
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OK calm down....
Give it time for people to get use to running it
I don't see a major problem with it really
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I was actually talking about this with some Scrappers. I'm down for an All Scrapper Apex & Tin Mage TF.|
Originally Posted by MunkiLord
I'm in.
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In fact, I'll go start an appropriate thread like I was going to do a few days ago.
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I just ran a 7 Scrapper/1 Brute (they didnt have a 50 Scrapper, and is a friend of mine, so I couldn't say no) STF, no temp powers used...less than 10 deaths, completion time 1:40.|
Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
I was actually talking about this with some Scrappers. I'm down for an All Scrapper Apex & Tin Mage TF.
In fact, I'll go start an appropriate thread like I was going to do a few days ago. |
I'd be up for going after Apex and Tin Mage with nothing but Scrappers as long as it's on Virtue
All melee is fun!
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It will be a Training Room run, most likely. I am not interested in the rewards, as I'd be more interested in the experience. |
Originally Posted by BrandX
I just ran a 7 Scrapper/1 Brute (they didnt have a 50 Scrapper, and is a friend of mine, so I couldn't say no) STF, no temp powers used...less than 10 deaths, completion time 1:40.
I'd be up for going after Apex and Tin Mage with nothing but Scrappers as long as it's on Virtue All melee is fun! |
If you're still interested, go to the sign up thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=246342
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Sorry Hyperstrike, I don't agree. I organized an All Melee Apex TF on test servers, and we were able to complete it in under an hour. Yeah, the Toxic damage is PITA, but it's hardly insurmountable. |
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
With all due respect. Like hell.
We wound up on an unfinishable Apex with mostly melee (2 tanks, a couple scrappers, a brute, and a Fire Kin and, IIRC a Blaster). During the first mission into the sewers, we had to basically bypass the Hydra tentacles because the undefendable pure toxic damage was just too much. We wound up having to stand at max range and plink the pylons. Luckily I'd actually taken ranged attacks (LBE) or I could have been standing there holding my richard, not able to contribute anything to the team. I couldn't even aggro manage because the damn L54 tentacles would kill me in about 3 shots without DP and 4 with! Then, during the first part of the BM mish, we were able to slap her down effectively, after the death patches, we weren't able to attack her effective. She was spawning 3-5 death patches at a time, seconds apart. She came back into the second half of the mish with half hit points and regen'ed all the way back up simply because we couldn't get more than one or two (depending on how much recharge there was) before we got death-patched and had to move. Then, even with both tanks taunting the crap out of her in unison, she'd just stand blithely in the middle of her own death patch. We eventually gave it an FTN and dropped. I do too, but making it impossible for melee-based characters TO STAY IN MELEE range and have to rely on one or two Epic pool powers. I wouldn't mind the patches so much, especially with their crazy, unresistable damage if they weren't auto-hit. I'd be fine with them if they were high, unresistable damage with a very high to-hit chance to offset (not merely negate) defense. |
Yeah, I get that it's auto hit. I was simply referring to the fact the devs have been adding content to deal with the defense soft cap craze. To suggest that SR is somehow more punished by this seems like an over reaction to me. I don't care what kind of resistance you have, you're not gonna stand in those patches for very long. That punishes everyone fairly equally.
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Originally Posted by Desmodos
Ok you're over reacting. No scrapper secondary can stand up to the Battle Axe's artillery strikes. (what's the official name for these things?). Seriously, SR is of no greater disadvantage than any other secondary. Invulnerable and Will Power tankers can't stand in those things.
Devs have been dishing out -def for several issues now. As far as -def goes, Apex TF is really light by comparison to say an ITF. |
I'm not talking about the death patches. I'm fine with those and feel they add an interesting mechanic and a definite breath of fresh air. I'm talking more about Battle Maiden's 92%ish To Hit Chance, which renders her hit odds on me at around 47%. At that amount to hit, if we ignored the to-hit chances, it'd be like me attacking any other AV with my toggles off. And it's worse than the auto-hit Nictus because she hits for more damage over a much higher range. The Nictus fires its attacks in a predictable fashion as well whereas BM seems to be able to more or less machine gun that crossbow or just has multiple crossbow attacks that all hit for 800ish damage. And let's not even mention her 2k+ melee attacks, with Tough running.
Yeah, I was killed far more often by BM herself than the death patches, which only ever killed me when I made a mistake beyond the first "what the heck was that!?" time.
Maybe next time I try it on my Scrapper I'll bring a long a FF or Cold so I can actually avoid her attacks.
Edit: I realize I might sound like I'm whining and screaming about the Apex TF. To clarify, I'm not. Just BM's to-hit rate. Every part of the TF up to the point where BM came back out to fight was actually quite fun and enjoyable, even if I did die a few times.
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OK, in that case I apologize. Thought we were discussing the patches.
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Originally Posted by TwilightPhoenix
I'm not talking about the death patches. I'm fine with those and feel they add an interesting mechanic and a definite breath of fresh air. I'm talking more about Battle Maiden's 92%ish To Hit Chance, which renders her hit odds on me at around 47%. At that amount to hit, if we ignored the to-hit chances, it'd be like me attacking any other AV with my toggles off. And it's worse than the auto-hit Nictus because she hits for more damage over a much higher range. The Nictus fires its attacks in a predictable fashion as well whereas BM seems to be able to more or less machine gun that crossbow or just has multiple crossbow attacks that all hit for 800ish damage. And let's not even mention her 2k+ melee attacks, with Tough running.
Yeah, I was killed far more often by BM herself than the death patches, which only ever killed me when I made a mistake beyond the first "what the heck was that!?" time. Maybe next time I try it on my Scrapper I'll bring a long a FF or Cold so I can actually avoid her attacks. |
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Having just done both TFs tonight...
1) I had a blast.
2) I have no clue what is the OP talking about. BM seemed to have normal tohit for a level 54 AV using a weapon, though I admit I didn't check closely as her damage was at most a nuisance compared to the death patches (which I like !).
I'm curious to see what her to hit actually is. If it's higher than normal, it makes me think I'm on the right track trying to get 75% melee/lethal defense on my Katana/Dark. Now I worry that instead of going too far, maybe I'm not going far enough. But if the main problem is all the auto hit, about all I can do is what else I've been doing, which is also trying to make sure I have very solid resists and heal.
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Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
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No defense set can deal with the defense-busting to-hit buffs. Every single one I've seen is ridiculous. They add so much that a soft-capped character takes 1000% more damage than they used to. Resistance fighters have targeting drones. Devouring Earth have those crystal thingies. Other critters may have build-up buffs. There is simply no counter to to-hit buffs, other than stacking ludicrous amounts of defense from having several Force Fielders on the team.
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Originally Posted by Nihilii
If anything, SR is the powerset best suited to deal with defense-busting moves thanks to capped DDR and Elude.
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You quote me while missing the important part. I hate people doing that. It's only one sentence, read the whole thing or don't quote it at all.
Again, Elude. It's not about the softcap, it's about being way over the softcap. Yes, merely being at the softcap is so good that many (most) people made the choice to drop Elude, but nowadays with more and more tohit buffs thrown around and additional 3 power picks from inherent Stamina I question that conventional wisdom, esp. with my own experience showing that there is significant advantages to defense over 45% in current hard content.
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Same, I don't recall feeling as smacked around as Pheonix is describing by Battle Maiden in the numerous runs I made on Beta. She did nail me rather hard (and fatally) several times while one on one in melee (while the team was returning from the hospital etc.) so perhaps the buff is part time. Plinking from the crossbow was nasty after I was already wounded while trying to dodge Swords and patches on top of it but generally only when I was more or less her only target as well.|
Originally Posted by Werner
I'm curious to see what her to hit actually is. If it's higher than normal, it makes me think I'm on the right track trying to get 75% melee/lethal defense on my Katana/Dark. Now I worry that instead of going too far, maybe I'm not going far enough. But if the main problem is all the auto hit, about all I can do is what else I've been doing, which is also trying to make sure I have very solid resists and heal.
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Likewise the last time I ran Apex on Beta the patches were considerable toned down (I've run Tin Mage live but not yet had the chance to run Apex). Not sure if our Tank popped a lot of greens (though I don't recall seeing any evidence of it) and I assume Dull Pain was up and running, but he did stay in the patch actively fighting Battle Maiden at least once and the patch only took him to roughly half health (Invulnerability tanker, don't recall primary at this point). It is auto hit damage occuring in two tics (part lethal and resistable, part 'nanite' and unresistable) showing in the logs, as I recall, as Energized Halberd attacks.
I don't recall anything that makes me think Battle Maiden's the To Hit buff is anywhere near the same over the top league as DE Quartz eminators are. Those, especially in the tip missions, are more than even well enhanced Elude can floor (+165% to hit before defense etc). Then again they are not mobile and quite destructable etc., etc..
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With 69% S/L res, she hits for about 300 damage with her crossbow. While it's a bit higher in melee, you're not actually going to stand in melee for long periods of time as the blue lighting of doom will force you to move away every few seconds ; so more often than not she switches to her crossbow, and as your build has (IIRC?) 60% S/L res on top of a fast recharging heal, I don't think you should run into any trouble from BM herself.
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Originally Posted by Werner
I'm curious to see what her to hit actually is. If it's higher than normal, it makes me think I'm on the right track trying to get 75% melee/lethal defense on my Katana/Dark. Now I worry that instead of going too far, maybe I'm not going far enough. But if the main problem is all the auto hit, about all I can do is what else I've been doing, which is also trying to make sure I have very solid resists and heal.
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This is precisely why I spent one of the power picks I got back from inherent fitness on my claw/SR on Elude (the other two went into Aid Other and Aid Self). I had a feeling that we would be seeing more to-hit buffs. That said, I really, really hate powers with full end crashes, and this solution doesn't really make me very happy. I suspect my claw/SR, who was my favorite character to play up to this point, is going to fall to the wayside while my DM/DA and my KM/WP move to the fore.|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
You quote me while missing the important part. I hate people doing that. It's only one sentence, read the whole thing or don't quote it at all.
Again, Elude. It's not about the softcap, it's about being way over the softcap. Yes, merely being at the softcap is so good that many (most) people made the choice to drop Elude, but nowadays with more and more tohit buffs thrown around and additional 3 power picks from inherent Stamina I question that conventional wisdom, esp. with my own experience showing that there is significant advantages to defense over 45% in current hard content. |
That, and my energy blaster, who I've been suddenly having fun with after not being able to enjoy playing her for a long time.
I ran it with my softcapped fire/sr scrapper and had some serious issues as well.
I don't mind that the devs are essentially using dirty tricks to make the game more difficult for all the softcapped people, as long as it's done sparingly.
It's not fun for my entire secondary to become dead weight too often though.
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Could be possible that I may have had aggro a lot, causing me to get beaten on much more often. It took our tank something like twenty minutes to realize blue patch = dead, he even tried to unstop through it. Our Brute didn't fair much better. There was four other Scrappers, but only one other one had Confront. Though I seemed to be able to out taunt her between tossing Confront, Ball Lightning, and one-slotted Mu Bolts from range. I got poked by crossbow bolts a lot.|
Originally Posted by Doomguide
Same, I don't recall feeling as smacked around as Pheonix is describing by Battle Maiden in the numerous runs I made on Beta.
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Or it could be temporary. Not sure until someone hits her with a power analyzer a few times. Not sure when my next run will be, so someone, like that all Scrapper Apex, may beat me to it. I wouldn't be surprised if she had Aim, Build Up, Rage, or some other temporary buff giving her extra 50% to hit with the other extra 2% coming from her AV class.
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I would say BM's attacks are as designed, meaning she will render even top-level /SR scrappers to mincemeat. With the intro of the alpha slot and the incarnate levels, the new end level content we've been moaning for is starting to come and it's at a whole different level. These encounters are going to be designed to push experienced to the max. Most TFs/SFs in CoH are rather easy, pedestrian even. If you played any high level raids in other MMOs, they are punishing and require massive amounts of coordination between players. We've been used to blitzing through TF encounters. So yeah, your Scrapper isn't going to be able to stand up to BM and will probably go down in 3 strikes unless you got a plan and a team to back you up.|
Originally Posted by TwilightPhoenix
I'm not talking about the death patches. I'm fine with those and feel they add an interesting mechanic and a definite breath of fresh air. I'm talking more about Battle Maiden's 92%ish To Hit Chance, which renders her hit odds on me at around 47%. At that amount to hit, if we ignored the to-hit chances, it'd be like me attacking any other AV with my toggles off. And it's worse than the auto-hit Nictus because she hits for more damage over a much higher range. The Nictus fires its attacks in a predictable fashion as well whereas BM seems to be able to more or less machine gun that crossbow or just has multiple crossbow attacks that all hit for 800ish damage. And let's not even mention her 2k+ melee attacks, with Tough running.
Yeah, I was killed far more often by BM herself than the death patches, which only ever killed me when I made a mistake beyond the first "what the heck was that!?" time. Maybe next time I try it on my Scrapper I'll bring a long a FF or Cold so I can actually avoid her attacks. Edit: I realize I might sound like I'm whining and screaming about the Apex TF. To clarify, I'm not. Just BM's to-hit rate. Every part of the TF up to the point where BM came back out to fight was actually quite fun and enjoyable, even if I did die a few times. |
Remember when it took awhile for strategies to take down Rom in the ITF to be discovered? These new TFs are going to be like that from now on, except even harder. I believe the days are gone now where a single scrapper/brute/dom is going to be able to stand toe to toe with an end level encounter on a high level raid.
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Why does it make any diff to u if peeps want to soft cap def ? lvling a Sr toon is hard enuff . in the 35-45 lvl range it finnaly starts to pay off an u want to take that away what are u some kinda of sadist ? being at def softcap doesnt make you untouchable by any means when a critter is garanteed to hit you once in every 5 attacks
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Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
So far, I have no issues with the defense busing. It means people have less ease soloing and team support still has a place. It means that there is no one-size fits all solution to every build. I have the same hope as you that it doesn't go too far. As long as def-based tanks remain viable against most content (I'm fine if a specific enemy or group gimps them the way psi hammers inv/) I don't care about any other AT being weakened, especially if it gimps blasters, defenders, dominators, etc. So far, it seems to mostly be ok. I think there are a few that are borderline (DE quartz giving +100 tohit would be broken if it wasn't so easy to take out or prevent), but I haven't seen anything completely broken yet.
In fact, I'm hoping that anti-def enemies become slightly more common in the 35-45 range so that the whole soft-cap craze dies off completely and it becomes just one of many options. I'm curious to see what other builds people can come up with and until something more effective comes along, no one will bother. |
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I don't see any reason to believe builds like ill/-regen couldn't solo the Apex and Tin Man TFs, and the right dominator/fortunata might be able to do it as well. I could see a well-built granite brute standing toe-to-toe with anything in Tin Man, although they wouldn't have the DPS to solo it.
| Remember when it took awhile for strategies to take down Rom in the ITF to be discovered? These new TFs are going to be like that from now on, except even harder. I believe the days are gone now where a single scrapper/brute/dom is going to be able to stand toe to toe with an end level encounter on a high level raid. |
Maybe I'm gullible but I heard a full team of scrappers were able to kill her. Course when I ran through it a few times I kind of figured that was next to impossible due to the lack of ranged DPS, however envenomed daggers probably played crucial roll in that. Over all as a practitioner of SR, I have to say when she does hit you obviously it stings like a truck load. Her chance to hit is a little on the high side for even some of the highest capped def players.
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It's not hard to believe, I was on an all melee team in beta that took her out, it was like 5 scrappers, Tank, Brute, and a Widow (Might not be the exact build but I remember atleast that much). The First mish we plowed straight through til we got to the Tentacles and we used our ranged ablitites to take them out then went in to melee the towers. Then taking out those Clockwork and EB ambushes in KR was cake, I don't think anyone died there. Then when it came to BM, it was filled with a lot of death when we first got to her, and we thought that it was next to impossible to do, but we found a strategy, We had the Tank taunt her out of the Blue flames when we would see them come up and then we would all go in and beat down on her, as soon as we saw blue flames we jumped back til she was in a clear area. We thought it was the envenomed daggers that helped but come to find out about the middle of the fight after a couple people had like 13 deaths nobody was using them anymore. |
Originally Posted by Stryph
Maybe I'm gullible but I heard a full team of scrappers were able to kill her. Course when I ran through it a few times I kind of figured that was next to impossible due to the lack of ranged DPS, however envenomed daggers probably played crucial roll in that. Over all as a practitioner of SR, I have to say when she does hit you obviously it stings like a truck load. Her chance to hit is a little on the high side for even some of the highest capped def players.
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[quote] I don't mind that the devs are essentially using dirty tricks to make the game more difficult for all the softcapped people, as long as it's done sparingly.
It's not fun for my entire secondary to become dead weight too often though.
[quote]
Yeah, I have to agree with this, I knew when I heard they were making higher level harder content, I thought they were going to include more debuffs to offset the high end IO builds. The thing that sucks about that, is when you punish people for spending a lot of time and money to make a great build, you kill the people who don't have that time or patience that only have regular builds.
While it is hard, it is still doable, I wouldn't doubt a full team of Scrappers can do it either, I would just recommend that one of you take the Taunt to pull BM out of the flames.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
Obviously building for defense is very popular now, because it works. But its not something that is achieved until late game, and through a fair amount of work and effort in most cases. The problem with defense is, lower levels of defense and become almost useless, especially against the defense busting tactics this game employs. So overusing them would really over-gimp builds that have only defense as damage mitigation. I understand the devs are reacting to a popular tactic, but I hope they don't over-react like they did in the past in some cases.
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
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