City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Staff Attack Chain

Arcanaville

By Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2012-04-14 18:36 in Scrappers

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei View Post
Average ST and excellent AOE is not under performing on any scale other than a min/max.
And it isn't even underperforming by that criterion, just watch the haters rollin' their staff fighters through AE. But hey, if we whine hard enough maybe we can eat the cake that we're currently having.

 

Posted

Leaving aside the off-topic replies ..

For Brutes, given how good Gloom is, and even dealing with Redraw, the question is whether a chain with Gloom will outperform DreadShinobi's chain?

He ran: PS>SR>PS>SS

Not sure how much you can cram down gloom's recharge but would adding Gloom in place of the 2nd PS make sense? Especially if you purple it with Apocalype including proc?

Or is a better chain MB>SR>Gloom>SS or similar if that is possible, to tack on the -RES?

Just wondering out loud.

Also what are people's impressions of the 2nd Cone, Innocuous Strikes?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei View Post
Average ST and excellent AOE is not under performing on any scale other than a min/max.
Apparently, average is the new worthless. Its as if the reason the devs are here is to learn new ways to make more powerful sets, and every one that isn't provably better than the rest is an error. And that's assuming that Staff is only average for single target, and I'm not sure that's been correctly established.

If the devs wanted to make each set absolutely more powerful than the last one, there's something called the decimal point that was invented a thousand years ago that makes that ridiculously easy.

I didn't think you could replicate the level of crazy involved with the original hate on Willpower, but clearly I underestimated crazy.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reppu View Post
So, in that regard, every other Resistance set not Invulnerability is also weak and needs have it's weaknesses shored up?

Dark Armor has a KB Hole, but has the best heal in the game... and is extremely endurance inefficient with SOs.

Electric Armor's heal has a massive cooldown, but otherwise has no status holes. Just, it IS technically less survivable at SO levels.

Invuln's heal is an even longer cooldown, but it has no status holes + invincibility.

I don't get how people can talk down FA as a paper-thin set, when in reality it's S/L is right up there with Dark and Elec, and has arguably the better heal of the group at SO levels.

i have a fire/ice tank that is my worst tank. (my badge toon and name sake too.) It was made during issue 3 during the herding/burninating epoch. Even with the recent boost, which I think was great, it still is a poor tank. If just cannot take the beating that others can, even when compared to scrappers and brutes.

Ice melee is terrible. Fire armor is better, but still not good. If I still ahd access to my SD/Ice tank i would run comparisons again. The shield/ice was usually 3 minutes faster at completing missions which were identical. (AE missions)

YMMV---IMO
Ice Ember

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Apparently, average is the new worthless. Its as if the reason the devs are here is to learn new ways to make more powerful sets, and every one that isn't provably better than the rest is an error. And that's assuming that Staff is only average for single target, and I'm not sure that's been correctly established.

If the devs wanted to make each set absolutely more powerful than the last one, there's something called the decimal point that was invented a thousand years ago that makes that ridiculously easy.

I didn't think you could replicate the level of crazy involved with the original hate on Willpower, but clearly I underestimated crazy.
I hate fire armor. I like Willpower. I think shield is better and I have more fun playing Energy armor...

YMMV---IMO
Ice Ember

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
I didn't think you could replicate the level of crazy involved with the original hate on Willpower, but clearly I underestimated crazy.
People ALWAYS have to complain about something. -Always-. It doesn't matter if Staff Fighting was the best set in the entire world. People would still find SOMETHING to complain about. It would literally get to the point where people would complain about the animation for guarding spin not spinning fast enough, or spinning to the left instead of the right (or vice versa).

It's just weird.

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Posted

I think that the set is amazing, great utility that vastly outshines the utility of Dual Pistols...I just can barely afford both StJ and Staff though and with I23 looming over...I want to conserve my points for even more awesome upcoming stuff. I think that the Devs should lower the Points of Sets to at least 400-600 PP.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinny View Post
People ALWAYS have to complain about something. -Always-. It doesn't matter if Staff Fighting was the best set in the entire world. People would still find SOMETHING to complain about. It would literally get to the point where people would complain about the animation for guarding spin not spinning fast enough, or spinning to the left instead of the right (or vice versa).

It's just weird.
Its more pernicious than that. You could easily ridicule that. What actually happens is that if a set is one of the best single target sets, people complain its AoE lags and AoE is the only important thing. If a set is one of the best AoE sets, people complain about its single target optimal chain being subpar. If a set is both one of the best single target sets and one of the best AoE sets, they would complain about its endurance burn rate, or its lack of special powers, or the fact that its the only set that has a power whose brother's sister's cousin has a below average target cap. If you dice up a set enough, you can always find something that someone else is better at and that means you're not the best at it, which means its easy to manufacture numerical problems.

There is no set for which you cannot manufacture a numerical problem. However, complaining about a set with decent single target and couples high AoE with built in recharge and endurance reduction still seems to set a new standard.

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Posted

Something that seems to be overlooked when it comes to Staff Fighting is Sky Splitter being able to give the user 7.5% Resist to all!

I doubt it stacks, but awesome if does.

Buuut, that's still additional defenses other sets don't get. And it's with an attack you'll want to use.

For some Tankers who just want to be more survivalable this seems awesome! Tanker ATO Proc and Melee Defense with more +Resist

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
Something that seems to be overlooked when it comes to Staff Fighting is Sky Splitter being able to give the user 7.5% Resist to all!

I doubt it stacks, but awesome if does.

Buuut, that's still additional defenses other sets don't get. And it's with an attack you'll want to use.

For some Tankers who just want to be more survivalable this seems awesome! Tanker ATO Proc and Melee Defense with more +Resist
How about the attack that gives -resists to target? I cannot think of the name of it right now, but I know it's the very first one...

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by planet_J View Post
How about the attack that gives -resists to target? I cannot think of the name of it right now, but I know it's the very first one...
It gives -Defense, but can slot a -Resist Proc.

Which I believe still makes PS the better attack (exept for maybe stalkers but this is about Scrappers!).

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
Something that seems to be overlooked when it comes to Staff Fighting is Sky Splitter being able to give the user 7.5% Resist to all!

I doubt it stacks, but awesome if does.
It doesn't stack, it is still nice though.

Quote:
For some Tankers who just want to be more survivalable this seems awesome! Tanker ATO Proc and Melee Defense with more +Resist
Almost every resist based tanker set can pretty much hard cap nearly every resist at this point at endgame. The +resist, even though it won't have as high mod as it does for tankers, will be most useful for scrappers, brutes, and stalkers, or defense based tankers (SR, Ice, etc).

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
It doesn't stack, it is still nice though.



Almost every resist based tanker set can pretty much hard cap nearly every resist at this point at endgame. The +resist, even though it won't have as high mod as it does for tankers, will be most useful for scrappers, brutes, and stalkers, or defense based tankers (SR, Ice, etc).
When I said some tankers, I did kind of mean the defense based ones.

SG member made a SR/SF Tanker, and I couldn't help but think...

iTrial Softcap (and beyond)!
High DDR!
Tough! Tanker ATO! +3% Resist PvP IO! Level 3 Sky Splitter!
Grab Rebirth for the heal!

No idea where that stands damage wise, but sounds like a solid Tanker!

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doctor Railgun View Post
If all this is really that important to you, you must stop playing now and spend every waking hour working on your coding so you can begin to create video games that will save the poor dying market.

Really, if you are the only one who can save CoH or the gaming market, why are you wasting your precious time butting your head against the wall here? You'll have the best games in the world in no time at all.

No! I'm serious! Go! Quick! Save us!

If not, you're another of the "If only the game designers would listen to ME, their game would be saved because they're so stupid!" folks.
I've seen that so many times on so many different game boards (tabletop games, video games, miniature war games, etc.) that it's not even funny.

Of course you have valid points, but the way you are presenting them demands that we believe that you know best. But, of course, you really don't. You just think you do.
But I do know best. You just haven't accepted it yet!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
There is no set for which you cannot manufacture a numerical problem. However, complaining about a set with decent single target and couples high AoE with built in recharge and endurance reduction still seems to set a new standard.
This is why I'm baffled by the whining right here.

The set, in and of itself, solves the problems you need IOs for with other sets.

If it did that AND was a top performing set in both ST and AoE, it would be incredibly overpowered.

You are not going to get everything awesome rolled into ONE set. Just not going to happen.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
You are not going to get everything awesome rolled into ONE set. Just not going to happen.
My Claws/DA brute and StJ/SD scrapper come pretty goshdarn close though!

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon View Post
My Claws/DA brute and StJ/SD scrapper come pretty goshdarn close though!
But that's TWO sets ;P

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reppu View Post
Yeah. I think Staff Fighting may be a skip for me the more I think about it. Once again, Open Beta screwed a power set over. Much like Beast Mastery, all people cared about was the flashiness, not the performance.
The devs get much less hate and discontent if they release a powerset that's sub-par and then buff it once they get a big enough volume of data to demonstrate that it's sub-par than they do if they release a powerset and then nerf it because it's overpowered. If Staff Fighting is demonstrably underpowered, then we should see a buff to it.

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Posted

Thoughts:

-- If you're running that top dps chain, why not drop Eagle's Claw altogether?
-- +FF recharge proc in Dragon's Tail.
-- 6slot spring attack with 3 eradication (the last 3 in mids, including proc) and 3 cleaving blow (first 3) ... that gives buffed up ranged def a bit
-- Use the Eagle's Claw slot for hasten or something else that can support a single slot - like maybe Resuscitate for team play, or Assault; alternatively slot another travel power like SS and move the Winter's Gift there, and then 3-slot SuperJump with Blessings to get the extra AOE def.
-- or move a lot into one of the def powers to slot Kismet +6? (for exemping etc)

I used to 100% love SR but the new DA content has put me off a bit, as SR (and shield to a lesser extent due to greater mitigation) has put me off. SR seems do get disproportionately owned by the cheaty i-trial to-hit there and auto hit powers.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by srmalloy View Post
If Staff Fighting is demonstrably underpowered, then we should see a buff to it.
Thing is it is not despite what some here are trying to put out there. Average single target and excellent AOE is not and will never be demonstrably underpowered.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Granite Agent View Post
Thoughts:

-- If you're running that top dps chain, why not drop Eagle's Claw altogether?
Because even when having the top DPS chain, doesn't mean you shouldn't have one of the best looking attacks for normal content where DPS really doesn't matter.

BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Granite Agent View Post
Thoughts:

-- If you're running that top dps chain, why not drop Eagle's Claw altogether?

Eagles claw also adds a huge crit bonus for your next attack like oh say dragons tail. It ups your aoe potential a great deal.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Granite Agent View Post
Thoughts:

-- If you're running that top dps chain, why not drop Eagle's Claw altogether?
An excellent question, though, I think people might like sets more if they weren't trying to squeeze every last drop of performance out of them like emptying a roll of toothpaste.

Sure, Staff is remarkably average. But it's averageness makes it excellent with pretty much everything. And Staff Mastery is a godsend. It's like Swap Ammo, but if Swap Ammo was awesome.

 

Posted

So, Mid's has updated as of the 20th, so I sat down with NoChain and asked it to spit me out some conversions.

Using a build set for a Staff/Invuln (a Scrapper I intend to build), with Mercurial Blow, Precise Strike, Eye of the Storm, Serpent's Reach, and Sky Splitter. NoChain doesn't account for things like -Res or wavering +Damage like from Form of the Body (the intended form to be used), but the data it spit out was useful enough for how lazy I wanted to be about data-mining the attacks.

Bluntly, there's more potential in the -Res Mercurial can provide than the straight DPA's would demonstrate, and I plan on throwing a chain of Merc > Precise > Serpent's > Sky > Merc > Precise > Serpent's > EotS at a Pylon where the -Res from EotS will theoretically carry into the full portion of the first half the chain with the doubly awesome potential of stacking two seperate -20%'s (Glad and Achilles). I'm mostly rough-estimating, but lets say that the first half does 190 DPS, the second 120, averages 155, add 47.5% for 228, add ... ~18 DPS for Form of the Body's +Dam, and +10 for criticals and +5 for the Scrapper Crit Proc: ~260 Musculature could add probably another 10 for 270? I know these are all being pulled out of thin air, but my guesses are usually within 15-20 DPS +/- So at the worst 240 (which is still higher than 198).

How else did DB/Elec pull 300+? They leveraged thier -Res capacity with their +Dam capacity and rotated through it as quickly as possible. 200 DPS is not the highest Staff can output.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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