TW or StJ?


Angelxman81

 

Posted

Hey everyone!

Having just gotten my points allotment for the month, and realizing that I have enough points now for one or the other, but not both, I need input - which would you choose if you could only take one, and why?

P.S. - I decided to post this here because I plan to make a new Brute with whichever one I end up choosing...because let's face it - nothing says SMASH like BROOT!


@Mistress Rue
Yes, I RP and play Redside on Virtue - No, Rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated

Do you suck at COH/COV? not yet...

 

Posted

Well, both are great fun, so you won't go wrong either way.

If I had to pick one or the other it would probably be TW; primarily because it's the kind of weapon set I've wanted since forever in CoX terms. Also, of the two I run my TW much more than my StJ character.

Mechanically: TW has more AoE and I find momentum easier to manage than combo levels. That might just be a side effect of playing one more than the other. My StJ brute hasn't made it to Crushing Uppercut yet, but I hear it is full of winsauce. Both can slot -Res procs for even more win.

I'd just pick whichever one best fits the next character you want to make, theme-wise.


 

Posted

The way I see it, both are fun, and TW performs a lot better than StJ (significantly more ST damage, and the AoE damage difference is so wide it's not even worth trying to estimate how big the gap is). So, if I had to pick one and only one, I'd go TW without thinking twice.


 

Posted

You need to try both, of course.
To me, the best melee powersets in the game, and the most fun.


 

Posted

I have both in the works. (When I say in the works, I honestly mean various stages of leveling.) I have to say that Titan Weapons feels different and more fun. I will probably get kicked in the teeth for saying it, but Street Justice just feels like an alternative set of animations for Martial Arts with a new gimmick. It isn't bad at all. I like it, but Titan Weapons is new. I would say TW first then StJ later.


Words to the wise aren't necessary- it's the stupid ones that need them.

"You're right...I forgot...being constantly at or the near the damage cap is a big turn off. Definitely not worth it."
- Vitality

 

Posted

If I could only choose one, I'd choose TW. I have a 50 of each, and although Street Justice is a cool set, it doesn't really stand out as awesome the way TW does. That's just my opinion, though.


 

Posted

TW is stronger than SJ but anyone who says SJ has nothing going for it hasn't really been paying attention. For one thing, TW's high-recharge, high-aoe style requires that you do one of the following things: Pair it with a secondary with enormous endurance recovery potential. I'm talking EA or Elec, FA and WP won't cut it. Or, definitely take cardiac or ageless. That's a fine option that is useless to you until you reach 50 and prevents you from taking spiritual or rebirth. Or, kludge it and hope nobody notices the fact that your "single target chain" includes a couple aoes and you need to take regular breathers in AV fights. I make that last one sound bad but that's what I went with on my TW/WP. SoW and conserve power do not even come close to making it an endurance sustainable combo but it can do a good impression for up to five minutes.

Another thing about TW is that it takes more focus on your part to be used effectively. The fact that half the set is cones means that you should constantly be shuffling around to be hitting your target caps. The fact that two of the set's best powers can only be used during momentum means that you'd better be ready to improvise an attack chain if you miss your target at any point, especially in single target situations. It also has redraw. I care, maybe you don't.

SJ is a much less weird set. It does not consume endurance by the bucketload because it is not 57% aoes. The aoes it does have get scoffed at for being small-area, and especially compared to TW every single other melee set is small-area, but by non-TW standards they do really good damage with some nice mitigation included as well. It is probably true that with equally high end builds TW does better single target damage than SJ but what is also true is that SJ is constant and reliable in its single target DPS. A single miss can't invalidate one third of your single target arsenal. You don't need colossal recharge to have a single target chain in the first place.

Finally, the biggest selling point for SJ in my opinion is that it looks really cool and is fun to play. TW also looks really cool and is fun to play. Crucially, though, one of the sets is about punching and kicking people and one of them is about hitting people with a big hammer. Which of those sounds like more fun to you? You really have to take that into account because if mechanical strength is all you care about, save your paragon points, make a claws/FA and call it a day.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle View Post
For one thing, TW's high-recharge, high-aoe style requires that you do one of the following things: Pair it with a secondary with enormous endurance recovery potential. I'm talking EA or Elec, FA and WP won't cut it.
Er... my TW/WP works fine, is sustainable enough to bring down a pylon, and doesn't have Cardiac nor Ageless (nor Vigor). I don't even need to carry blues unless I'm fighting stuff with endurance drain. TW definitely has endurance issues, but not insurmountable ones.


 

Posted

Heh, good point. A caveat to my warning there is that I stopped using defensive sweep at level 33. If you keep using it you can easily rein in your endurance problems. The defensive bonuses I wanted precluded 50%+ end reduction slotting in the aoes but that would presumably help as well. However, 99% of the time it isn't even an issue because most of the time I'm not fighting an AV. When I am, it tends to be dead in less than five minutes. Or there's inspirations. Or there's team buffs.


 

Posted

I don't have Defensive Sweep Just 40-60% end reduction in my attacks and toggles, which isn't abnormal for an IO build, I think. I rarely use Crushing Blow, either - Whirling Smash has higher DPA, so I use that even for single-target.

I mean, the set definitely costs a lot of endurance, especially while leveling before you have level 50 IOs with huge enhancement values, all the procs/uniques, and all the accolades. But it's just ridiculous hyperbole to claim that you "do not even come close" to endurance sustainable.


 

Posted

By sustainable I meant in ideal, immortal single target circumstances. My point is that 99% of the time I am endurance-sustainable because 99% of the time I'm not doing that without access to any outside remedy. I wasn't saying there's no way to deal with TW's monstrous endurance usage, from the start I was making the point that it has monstrous endurance usage that one has many ways of dealing with.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle View Post
By sustainable I meant in ideal, immortal single target circumstances. My point is that 99% of the time I am endurance-sustainable because 99% of the time I'm not doing that without access to any outside remedy.
OK, but "do not even come close" was a very poor choice of words, then


 

Posted

Fair enough. Note to self, not every forum is the scrapper forum, ha.


 

Posted

Depends, OP. Do you prefer hitting ************* really hard with your hands and feet, or would you rather smash **** up with a huge weapon? Both sets are awesome.

If I had to pick one, I would probably pick StJ simply because it fits more concepts I have.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle View Post
For one thing, TW's high-recharge, high-aoe style requires that you do one of the following things: Pair it with a secondary with enormous endurance recovery potential. I'm talking EA or Elec, FA and WP won't cut it. Or, definitely take cardiac or ageless.
I would disagree with this. Admittedly I have Physperf, but it is slotted with just the proc. Running tw/da, I have no problems with endurance, without chewing blue skittles, all the way to 50. I can't run acrobatics, but I have found I really don't need to either. Given that my build is very end heavy with 3 sets of frequently used oblit powers, shroud, cloak, man, cj, weave, tough... with your statement I should be sucking wind every few seconds. But I really am not. It may just be my build, but I think it is important to note that really you don't need to run EA or Elec to be successful. If I can do it with DA, I am sure someone can do it with WP or FA.


-------
Hew in drag baby

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihilii View Post
The way I see it, both are fun, and TW performs a lot better than StJ (significantly more ST damage, and the AoE damage difference is so wide it's not even worth trying to estimate how big the gap is). So, if I had to pick one and only one, I'd go TW without thinking twice.
I have a TW/SR brute who is a great AOE death machine and great ST machine.

I ran StJ last night up to lvl 24 and the radius on Spinning Strike and even Sweeping Cross seems VERY SMALL -- with spinning strike, it would often not hit mobs on one side of me (it is a targeted AOE centered on the target). Really seemed to cut the AOE potential of StJ from what I expected.


 

Posted

I have both at level 50+1 and even though using giant weapons of death to smash is a lot of fun. I'd have to pick my StJ/Shield Brute for theme and most fun. Maybe it's just me wanting to be the odd one of the bunch (considering everyone had picked TW it seems) but yeah StJ all the way though like some have said. You really can't go wrong with either.


 

Posted

I've been playing both (TW/WP and SJ/ELA) and am enjoying the Street Justice one far more, more in your face beat'em up fun feel to it! Though TW does have it's merits of being a huge weapon wielding engine of destruction. I just like the (apparent?) pace of Street Justice more.


 

Posted

One thing to keep in mind:

Do you care about being airborne when you attack? If so, TW might not be the best choice.

If it's not really an issue, go hog wild.


The game ends at 50. Smilegasm
Do not ever give Mind Control a pet. We need more control sets without pets.
My characters are not "toons". They are all project characters, though.
Global chat @Lxndr My servers: Defiant, Liberty, Pinnacle, Virtue

 

Posted

TW/WP has more than enough endurance recovery. I was able to slot 4 +end procs in my build, Stamina, Quick Recovery and Physical Perfection all make endurance trivial (save for sapper attacks, but luckly I'm at 45% energy defence).


When there is no room left in Hell, the Dead shall walk the earth.

 

Posted

To get back to my initial post, my point was that if you have to have two performance shifters, the numina unique, the miracle unique, stamina, quick recovery and physical perfection, that doesn't really count as making endurance management trivial. That is a gigantic investment. That is essentially what TW requires, but fortunately that is a hurdle that is very leapable.

For instance, I skipped the two performance shifters and my build is not sustainable. That's the difference. Ain't exactly low end, is it?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle View Post
For instance, I skipped the two performance shifters and my build is not sustainable. That's the difference. Ain't exactly low end, is it?
I personally don't really think of a recipe that goes for 10m or less as high-end. More like "standard issue on every IO build". Indeed, all of the powers and procs you listed (except Physical Perfection) are standard issue on pretty much every /WP - I would argue that your own build (which you admitted made sacrifices to reach the softcap) is the exception here.

Nobody's arguing that TW doesn't cost a lot of end, or that you shouldn't design your build with that in mind. But you specifically said that it required you to have more recovery than /WP can provide, and that every tool at your disposal still would be far from sufficient. Both of those things are just absolutely not true.


 

Posted

You really seem to be spoiling for a fight, Hopeling, but that actually isn't what I was shooting for if you can believe it. I agree, all that stuff is standard issue. Except when it isn't, such as EA or ELA builds. Or, when you can make up the difference through powers and not IOs. If it takes all this additional stuff, congratulations, it takes more EPS than willpower alone can provide. I never said that it was beyond what willpower and any assistance could accomplish. Is this really that big of a deal for you?