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Ok then I stand corrected. The WPs that "I" build is resistance based and I tend to do very good with it that way.|
Originally Posted by Erratic
Rather than counting powers you should look at what they do, howmuch protection they provide you, and how often they are available to you.
High Pain Tolerance provides resistance and health but the resistance is negligible. The real gain is the health, so long as you can boost your defense and resistance high enough to leverage it. So it is a healing/health power. Reconstruction provides resistance and healing but the resistance is only to Toxic. Certainly that is nifty enough when facing Greater Devoured, but not so handy when facing Demons, 5th Column Flamethrowers, Freakshow zotting you, etc. The primary gain of this power is the healing. Mind Over Body grants resistance to Smash, Lethal, and Psionic. Indominitable Will provides status protection and defense to Psionics. Heightened Sense provides Defense to Smash, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, and Negative Energy. Hmmm. . .do you get any resistance to Fire, Cold, Energy or Negative Energy? No. So this set is primarily providing protection via Defense to elements you have no other protection from other than a wall of health or healing. Moreover the Defense gain for Fire, Cold, Energy, and Negative is nearly 4 times that for Smash/Lethal. Unmistably a defensive power (and one you should be taking and slotting well). One wonders how you knock the Defense aspect of thet set by saying it only has 2 Defensive powers and claim it is a Resistance set when in reality the number of powers that are providing you with real resistance numbers isn't any higher. It seems painfully clear to me that you are meant to layer the defense, resistance, healing, and health boosts to survive making this a mixed set. As nifty as Invincibility is, an Invulnerability character is sitll a tough cookie with it turned off. A Willpower character forgoing the Defense powers of the set is far squishier by comparison. As goes Dark Armor and Electrical Armor. . .I suggested Electrical Armor because it gets you past a number of issues providing resistance to endurance drain, the ability to drain endurance yourself, and providing a haste component. Dark Armor has its own set of perks but not having to worrry about endurance drains and being able to fix your endurance issues ranks it higher in my book than Dark Armor where some number of people fall into endurance problems. |
I can see a spine/electric armor concept developing. Or a cool spines/dark armor coming about. I might just make them both at same time and play both of them to upper levels. Make them related in storyline or arch-enemies or both. Yea both. I think the spine/electric and spine/dark is going to turn out well. Thanks for infomation. Although I may build another wp stalker and combine it with something like electric melee or street justice. Yeah, a wise cracking rough grizzled StJ/WP concept.
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard.  Never change, E_L! |
She has no idea what shes talking about or what she wants. I just sat here and read all the posts, because i am interested in Spines for a Scrapper. This thread went from Scrapper to Stalker Thread after a few posts... Anyways, the new thing these days is soft-capping def and etc, correct? I know when i play my tanks, i soft cap S/L, and others if i can. The Elemental attacks (Fire, Ice, etc) protection which you get from HS, and you skipped it? like one of the other members said, its one of the most important and majority of baddies have Fire or something elemental. Im sorry evil, but i dont know how people understood you from most of your posts. I know you came here for help and you got it, but there is easier ways to explain things. Just dont tell anymore people you skip DEF powers. And i would like to know the full story of not taking HS, even if you had to take that power away foranother one for sets, why HS!!! doesnt make sense and i dont even own a WP tank/scrap or anything
@MachineSlave | Infinity Server | Deepdown Traumahounds Supergroup | Co-Founder
Tankers : Ice/Ele, Fire/SS, Fire/DM, Invul/Fire, Ele/Stone Corrupter : Arch/TA
Scrappers : DM/DA, Kat/SR Brutes : Fire/Shield, Ele/Fire(Villian)
Controllers : Fire/Kin, Ele/Rad, Earth/Cold
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Originally Posted by MachineSlave
She has no idea what shes talking about or what she wants. I just sat here and read all the posts, because i am interested in Spines for a Scrapper. This thread went from Scrapper to Stalker Thread after a few posts... Anyways, the new thing these days is soft-capping def and etc, correct? I know when i play my tanks, i soft cap S/L, and others if i can. The Elemental attacks (Fire, Ice, etc) protection which you get from HS, and you skipped it? like one of the other members said, its one of the most important and majority of baddies have Fire or something elemental. Im sorry evil, but i dont know how people understood you from most of your posts. I know you came here for help and you got it, but there is easier ways to explain things. Just dont tell anymore people you skip DEF powers. And i would like to know the full story of not taking HS, even if you had to take that power away foranother one for sets, why HS!!! doesnt make sense and i dont even own a WP tank/scrap or anything
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This is not about scrappers or defense this thread is and should be about stalkers of the spine type paired wit ha good resistance based set. If you have good input on spines stalker and resistant based sets that go good with it, I'm listening.
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
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Power Sink counts as an attack (and it is as an endurance drain), which means that it takes you out of hidden status. Endurance drain doesn't work as well for Stalkers using ElA if that's part of your strategy, though - the lack of Lightning Field constantly ticking means that you don't have a way to keep the endurance away once Power Sink takes it.|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
Now with the new stalker changes that I've been hearing about, does it take you out of hid if say you pop power sink? Or can you drain their end then pop them with AS?
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Originally Posted by MachineSlave
She has no idea what shes talking about or what she wants. I just sat here and read all the posts, because i am interested in Spines for a Scrapper. This thread went from Scrapper to Stalker Thread after a few posts...
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As an unquoted reply to Erratic's breakdown and comparison - Dark Armor has endurance drain and recovery resistance as well, it's just not capped like Electric Armor's is, and without the Theft of Essence proc and enough targets to hit with it, DA doesn't have a way of recovering end. People get into issues with Dark Armor through overuse of poorly slotted Dark Regeneration and thinking that they can click all day long without thinking about endurance management.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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FWIW, I started a Spines/ElA Stalker last night. I have never been big on Spines because part of dislikes the base aesthetics and it is just a bit too over the top in concept. But having been told recently there were other spiney options for appearance, I decided on metallic spines and decided to give it a go.
Only played for her for a tiny bit last night so she's only level 16. Some would consider it a serious downside lose out on Quills and Lightning Field. Still the new stalker crit mechanic and use of Assassin's Impaler outside of a Hidden state combined with using Spine Burst from Hidden state have been keeping me happy. Once I get Lightning Reflexes and push towards perma-Hasten I am wondering just how silly my attack chains can become.
Thank heaven I will eventually be picking up Power Sink to help with endurance costs.
Under construction
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To be clear, I have a Dark Armor tanker with Dark Regeneration fully slotted and including Theft of Essence. I do not find it to be as wonderful a combination as other's do. In the best case I walk away with my cost for using Dark Regeneration covered and in the worst case I pay a chunk (though usually reduced) for having used it. All the way around Power Sink has been far less demanding in getting value from it. Please not, I said some number of people fall into endurance trouble with Dark Armor--that was a carefully chosen phrase. I accept there are people out there who have not. What I can not understand for the life of me is the projections of idiocy by that segment on the rest of us who have different experiences. All I stated were facts that can be determined from doing a forum search--some number of people do indeed run into endurance troubles with Dark Armor for whatever reasons. You do not see the same being said of Electrical Armor.|
Originally Posted by Siolfir
As an unquoted reply to Erratic's breakdown and comparison - Dark Armor has endurance drain and recovery resistance as well, it's just not capped like Electric Armor's is, and without the Theft of Essence proc and enough targets to hit with it, DA doesn't have a way of recovering end. People get into issues with Dark Armor through overuse of poorly slotted Dark Regeneration and thinking that they can click all day long without thinking about endurance management.
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I benched my Dark Armor/Fire Tanker in his 40s because I was still struggling with balancing his endurance consumption. Who knows. . .perhaps on double xp weekend I'll make a push to get him to 50 and pray that the right Alpha choice can tip him over the edge to acceptable performance.
Under construction
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yepper|
Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
Wait for bio armor.
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Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
Thinking about it but not sure when the release date is. Might be waiting for a few months. Looking for something more in the nearer future.
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City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
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I wasn't projecting idiocy, I was stating that overusing clicks is where the endurance issues come from. That doesn't necessarily mean that someone is an idiot, it means that they don't slow down or stop to recover - usually due to teams trying to push forward all the time or else a desire to be actively doing something all the time which is part of human nature. And no doubt Power Sink is easier to use - I even mentioned that without the proc and a lot of targets DA had "no way to recover endurance" in the part you quoted!|
Originally Posted by Erratic
All the way around Power Sink has been far less demanding in getting value from it. Please not, I said some number of people fall into endurance trouble with Dark Armor--that was a carefully chosen phrase. I accept there are people out there who have not. What I can not understand for the life of me is the projections of idiocy by that segment on the rest of us who have different experiences.
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But let's break down the costs for the non-clicks:
Both:
Hide: free.
Dark Armor:
Dark Embrace: 0.208/sec
Murky Cloud: 0.208/sec
Shadow Dweller: free
Obsidian Shield: 0.208/sec
Cloak of Fear (high cost!): 0.52/sec
Oppressive Gloom: 0.078/sec
Cost w/OG+CoF: 1.222/sec
Cost w/CoF: 1.144/sec
Cost w/OG: 0.702/sec
Cost for resists/defense in set: 0.624/sec
Electric Armor:
Charged Armor: 0.26/sec
Conductive Armor: 0.26/sec
Static Shield: 0.208/sec
Grounded: free
Cost for resists/defense in set: 0.728/sec
Electric Armor costs more endurance than Dark Armor until you use Cloak of Fear. Using toggle management and slotting for endurance reduction in attacks is what I meant by "endurance management" when I was talking about just clicking all day long. Yes, Electric Armor and Energy Aura allow you to get around both of those endurance management requirements with Energize and Power Sink/Energy Drain, but until those powers come you'll have less endurance trouble with Dark than you would with Electric - and Dark isn't exactly alone in secondaries requiring you to build for endurance management, especially on Stalkers who don't get QR in the sets that normally would have it.
My experience with Dark Armor hasn't ever included a Theft of Essence proc, and my highest level DA character was a Claws Brute. Yes, I could run out of endurance if I kept going nonstop but I could alleviate that by slowing down and letting the damage aura tick on things a couple of times to finish the last couple of slivers. Also I didn't take CoF (and didn't plan to run it all the time when I did have it on the build) and slotted Dark Regeneration heavily for endurance reduction; with those considerations it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I personally had a lot more trouble with Shield (didn't have slots on the build to put both end reduction AND recharge in the clicky mez protection, so over time it cost more than the sets with toggles... but again, we're still at "click usage" being the issue) and felt that DA was similar in endurance usage to Invulnerability.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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My mob spines attack chain: TS, SB, repeat. Love it
Space reserved for a super awesome Signature, someday...
I have a incarnate Spines/Ice stalker, and he's super fun. As others have said, the tradeoff of Quills for an AS is a good one. There's more than enough AOE in the set, and the boost to single-target damage is huuuuuge. There are some better single-target Stalker sets out there, but Spines does more than enough.
I am looking forward to the changes to the set, and am hoping that the buffs to Barb Swipe and Impale clean up the single-target chain, though. It looks really silly to stand in front of a mook and baseball-pitch into his face. Not that its stopped me...heh.
50s:
Grimmloch, Tactically Delicious, Ugly Frankie, Operative Tracker, CryoFurnace, Professional Help, Silver Sphinx, Aries Knight, Tachyon Aegis, Jade Sphinx
Currently building:
Any one of half a dozen alts!
For me personaly...i found it amusing that the first atatcks in the spines set take over 3 seconds to animate and complete their attack animations...making focus appear as you start an attack and it vanishes before the attack completes...very funny.
But aside from the that the set seams to work fairly well still.....On a stalker though its slow component still isnt as great as on a scrapper but then i think that might be due to some of the other things scrappers can get that basicaly stacks the slow more.
And when combined with the new Bio-Armor it works fairly well too....the graphics for it match the graphics for bio-armor in my opinion very well indeed...though you might want to tweak stuff a bit inthe costume creator to get the look you want...i mean you have like 4 differing spines looks and a few variations onthe bio-armor too...combined with costume stuff.
There are a few oddities still though old stuff that I think everyone knows this if they played spines much....some of the animations wont always play....so sometimes your character just stands there...while the sound effect goes off and the enemy gets hit...but thats something that has been there since time immoral with spines...and you can still force a bypass on some animations by jumping still...and you can still one shot certain other archtypes with certain attacks in the pvp areas(ie you hit the other player till they have barely any health and the damage over time kills them anywise)
So it works about the same as it always has....just has the amusing focus loss with some of the attacks currently.....though thats getting fixed soonish...
Oh and dont forget to slot your knock down invention origins into the powers as those still work extremely well with spines.
I dont know why but i feel like most of the time almost every hit I do with spines knocks the enemy down.
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Sounds very interesting, especially with the animation glitches. I remember spine in pvp pre-i13. Those things was everywhere and be a pita to get ahold of especially if ya trying to fly to catch a flying spine and they hit you with the anti-fly power before the air sup. |
Originally Posted by PsychicKitty
For me personaly...i found it amusing that the first atatcks in the spines set take over 3 seconds to animate and complete their attack animations...making focus appear as you start an attack and it vanishes before the attack completes...very funny.
But aside from the that the set seams to work fairly well still.....On a stalker though its slow component still isnt as great as on a scrapper but then i think that might be due to some of the other things scrappers can get that basicaly stacks the slow more. And when combined with the new Bio-Armor it works fairly well too....the graphics for it match the graphics for bio-armor in my opinion very well indeed...though you might want to tweak stuff a bit inthe costume creator to get the look you want...i mean you have like 4 differing spines looks and a few variations onthe bio-armor too...combined with costume stuff. There are a few oddities still though old stuff that I think everyone knows this if they played spines much....some of the animations wont always play....so sometimes your character just stands there...while the sound effect goes off and the enemy gets hit...but thats something that has been there since time immoral with spines...and you can still force a bypass on some animations by jumping still...and you can still one shot certain other archtypes with certain attacks in the pvp areas(ie you hit the other player till they have barely any health and the damage over time kills them anywise) So it works about the same as it always has....just has the amusing focus loss with some of the attacks currently.....though thats getting fixed soonish... Oh and dont forget to slot your knock down invention origins into the powers as those still work extremely well with spines. I dont know why but i feel like most of the time almost every hit I do with spines knocks the enemy down. |
SO they fixing the animations though. It was only a matter of time though.
Wel lI wont have to worry about knockdown inventions because I'm old fashioned SOs. But I can see how spines and knockdown would be amusing, not for the mob on the buisness end though, but for the player.
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
If you're looking to skip Hieghtened Senses, I'd skip WP all together.
WP is a mixed set, yes, but it's a mixed set that relies on defenses, and only becomes better when you stack up that defense for great S/L/E/N Defense and as much F/C Defense as you can get without hurting the damage.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Have at least three WP tanks, three WP brutes, one claws/WP stalker, not heightened senses and loved it that way and had no issues. More than likely I will continue on building more WP in the future in same manner. a manner that works for me. ---->Keywords: ...That Works For Me<----. and my particular playstyle. |
Originally Posted by BrandX
If you're looking to skip Hieghtened Senses, I'd skip WP all together.
WP is a mixed set, yes, but it's a mixed set that relies on defenses, and only becomes better when you stack up that defense for great S/L/E/N Defense and as much F/C Defense as you can get without hurting the damage. |
and Spine/WP sounds like a good combo, so does the spines/DA and Spines/electric.
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
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I never said don't do it.|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
Have at least three WP tanks, three WP brutes, one claws/WP stalker, not heightened senses and loved it that way and had no issues. More than likely I will continue on building more WP in the future in same manner. a manner that works for me. ---->Keywords: ...That Works For Me<----. and my particular playstyle.
and Spine/WP sounds like a good combo, so does the spines/DA and Spines/electric. |
But while skipping it may work for you, you can take that same playstyle and apply it to ELA.
Though I am interrested in seeing you in action on them, as I've built WP Tanks, Scrappers, Stalkers, and running such things as ITF without the defense leads to a lot of faceplanting. So I'm curious how you got around it
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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just by doing it, and focusing on resistance and regen.That's how I do it. ITF is favorite thing to run on my WP, even brute version. out all sets i've played, had least trouble with WP. although never tried any tf on the stalker as it was a pure solo toon. Solo content can be or I have done it something as squishy as a i6-i8 era AR/fire blaster. So no probs there.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
I never said don't do it.
But while skipping it may work for you, you can take that same playstyle and apply it to ELA. Though I am interrested in seeing you in action on them, as I've built WP Tanks, Scrappers, Stalkers, and running such things as ITF without the defense leads to a lot of faceplanting. So I'm curious how you got around it |
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
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My apology. I read too much into your statement.
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Originally Posted by Siolfir
I wasn't projecting idiocy, I was stating that overusing clicks is where the endurance issues come from.
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Under construction
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I did that on my WP Tanker at first, but found myself getting pummled more than some of the scrappers (though I did take HS).
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Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
just by doing it, and focusing on resistance and regen.That's how I do it. ITF is favorite thing to run on my WP, even brute version. out all sets i've played, had least trouble with WP. although never tried any tf on the stalker as it was a pure solo toon. Solo content can be or I have done it something as squishy as a i6-i8 era AR/fire blaster. So no probs there.
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BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Sure, whatever works for you. But the way I see it, your WP characters are practically marching into elemental and energy attacks unprotected. You see, practically all armor sets have a measure of protection against most types of attacks to varying degrees with a few niche exceptions:|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
Have at least three WP tanks, three WP brutes, one claws/WP stalker, not heightened senses and loved it that way and had no issues. More than likely I will continue on building more WP in the future in same manner. a manner that works for me. ---->Keywords: ...That Works For Me<----. and my particular playstyle.
and Spine/WP sounds like a good combo, so does the spines/DA and Spines/electric. |
Dark Armor:
(Smashing) & (Lethal) = Gets moderate protection to both from [Dark Embrace]
(Fire) & (Cold) = Moderate protection to both from [Murky Cloud]
(Energy) = Only minor protection, a reduced amount from [Murky Cloud]
(Neg. Energy) = Higher than normal protection thanks to [Dark Embrace] and [Murky Cloud] stacking resists
(Psi) = Unnaturally high protection because [Obsidian Shield] offers a lot of res to only psi
(Toxic) = Only minor protection, a reduced amount from [Dark Embrace]
Ice Armor:
(Smashing) & (Lethal) = Moderate to high protection from [Frozen Armor], [Wet Ice] and [Energy Absorption] stacking def and [Icy Bastion] granting resistance temporarily
(Cold) = High protection because practically every power grants cold resist and stacking defense from [Wet Ice] and [Energy Absorption]
(Fire) = Minor to moderate protection from [Frozen Armor] and [Permafrost] stacking reduced resistance plus stacking defense from [Wet Ice] and [Energy Absorption]. [Icy Bastion] temporarily boosts protection by a large amount
(Energy) & (Neg. Energy) = Moderate to high protection in a similar fashion as Smash/lethal but using [Glacial Armor] instead.
(Psi) = No direct protection
(Toxic) = Minor to moderate protection from [Hoar Frost] and [Icy Bastion]
Those two sets are balanced in a way that, with the powers taken, you'll have some answer to most types of damage. It may be to varying degrees (like Ice's weak protection to fire in most cases or Dark's lack of comprehensive protection against energy) but there's something.
Willpower is no different except while Ice is generally defense and Dark is generally resist, WP uses both for different damage types to varying degrees.
Willpower:
(Smashing) & (Lethal) = Moderate to high protection from minor def from [Heightened Senses] and higher stacked resist from [Mind Over Body] and [High Pain Tolerance]. [Strength of Will] temporarily boosts protection with more moderate resists
(Fire), (Cold), (Energy) & (Neg. Energy) = Low to moderate protection from minor resists in [High Pain Tolerance] and higher defense from [Heightened Senses]. [Strength of Will] temporarily boosts protection with minor resists
(Psi) = Moderate to high protection from def in [Indomitable Will] and resists from [Mind Over Body] & [High Pain Tolerance]. [Strength of Will] temporarily boosts protection with more minor resists
(Toxic) = Minor to moderate protection from resists in [High Pain Tolerance] and [Reconstruction]. [Strength of Will] temporarily boosts protection with more minor resists.
If you eliminate Heightene senses, you're basically leaning on minor protection for 4 common damage types with the only supplemental protection coming from healing/regen. Because the resists in HPT and SoW are of the small variety only amounting to around 24% resists at most. For perspective, Ice's minor protection from fire can amount to around 28% resists (not counting the minor defense) and Dark's minor protection from energy is 23% resist and both have means of stopping enemy action as well as healing and damage auras (in the case of non-stalkers) on top of that.
So yeah, walking around on your WP characters is like walking around without Murky Cloud on a Dark Armor or Glacial Armor on an Ice, all of which are sitting ducks to any type of Fire, Cold, Energy or Neg. Energy attacks.
Not that it's impossible to play such a character...most of my Blasters only walk around with protection to either ranged and smashing/lethal or or fire/cold/energy/range...but that's a *BLASTER*. They aren't trying to take a whole bunch of hits. Not that a Stalker is either, but if you're a Tanker or Brute walking around with Blaster level protection, something is horribly wrong...
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meh not bad as it sounds. Alot of times the regen is discounted. in certain situations, my WP hit a point of more regen than the regen brute, who resistance to just about every damage is lower than the WP and fewer xp. Like I said I make it work and never had problem with it. Just as I have problem with other things that no one else seem to have problem with. Different things work for different people. And this one WP the way I build them just happens to work for me. And having played blaster before, the WP takes hit way better than any blaster that I played. And I played my WP stalker no different than my brute besides that it usually one hit one mob per group but the rest is fought the old fashioned way.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Sure, whatever works for you. But the way I see it, your WP characters are practically marching into elemental and energy attacks unprotected. You see, practically all armor sets have a measure of protection against most types of attacks to varying degrees with a few niche exceptions:
Dark Armor: (Smashing) & (Lethal) = Gets moderate protection to both from [Dark Embrace] (Fire) & (Cold) = Moderate protection to both from [Murky Cloud] (Energy) = Only minor protection, a reduced amount from [Murky Cloud] (Neg. Energy) = Higher than normal protection thanks to [Dark Embrace] and [Murky Cloud] stacking resists (Psi) = Unnaturally high protection because [Obsidian Shield] offers a lot of res to only psi (Toxic) = Only minor protection, a reduced amount from [Dark Embrace] Ice Armor: (Smashing) & (Lethal) = Moderate to high protection from [Frozen Armor], [Wet Ice] and [Energy Absorption] stacking def and [Icy Bastion] granting resistance temporarily (Cold) = High protection because practically every power grants cold resist and stacking defense from [Wet Ice] and [Energy Absorption] (Fire) = Minor to moderate protection from [Frozen Armor] and [Permafrost] stacking reduced resistance plus stacking defense from [Wet Ice] and [Energy Absorption]. [Icy Bastion] temporarily boosts protection by a large amount (Energy) & (Neg. Energy) = Moderate to high protection in a similar fashion as Smash/lethal but using [Glacial Armor] instead. (Psi) = No direct protection (Toxic) = Minor to moderate protection from [Hoar Frost] and [Icy Bastion] Those two sets are balanced in a way that, with the powers taken, you'll have some answer to most types of damage. It may be to varying degrees (like Ice's weak protection to fire in most cases or Dark's lack of comprehensive protection against energy) but there's something. Willpower is no different except while Ice is generally defense and Dark is generally resist, WP uses both for different damage types to varying degrees. Willpower: (Smashing) & (Lethal) = Moderate to high protection from minor def from [Heightened Senses] and higher stacked resist from [Mind Over Body] and [High Pain Tolerance]. [Strength of Will] temporarily boosts protection with more moderate resists (Fire), (Cold), (Energy) & (Neg. Energy) = Low to moderate protection from minor resists in [High Pain Tolerance] and higher defense from [Heightened Senses]. [Strength of Will] temporarily boosts protection with minor resists (Psi) = Moderate to high protection from def in [Indomitable Will] and resists from [Mind Over Body] & [High Pain Tolerance]. [Strength of Will] temporarily boosts protection with more minor resists (Toxic) = Minor to moderate protection from resists in [High Pain Tolerance] and [Reconstruction]. [Strength of Will] temporarily boosts protection with more minor resists. If you eliminate Heightene senses, you're basically leaning on minor protection for 4 common damage types with the only supplemental protection coming from healing/regen. Because the resists in HPT and SoW are of the small variety only amounting to around 24% resists at most. For perspective, Ice's minor protection from fire can amount to around 28% resists (not counting the minor defense) and Dark's minor protection from energy is 23% resist and both have means of stopping enemy action as well as healing and damage auras (in the case of non-stalkers) on top of that. So yeah, walking around on your WP characters is like walking around without Murky Cloud on a Dark Armor or Glacial Armor on an Ice, all of which are sitting ducks to any type of Fire, Cold, Energy or Neg. Energy attacks. Not that it's impossible to play such a character...most of my Blasters only walk around with protection to either ranged and smashing/lethal or or fire/cold/energy/range...but that's a *BLASTER*. They aren't trying to take a whole bunch of hits. Not that a Stalker is either, but if you're a Tanker or Brute walking around with Blaster level protection, something is horribly wrong... |
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
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WP is probably your best bet, but if you've already made a ton of wp's then try Elec.|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
How is spines for a primary these days? Havent seen many of them lately and wondering if it's still good.
And does it go better with Dark armor, WP, Electric, or regeneration? Or rather when paired with spines, which is best for solo play survival overall? Baseline, SOs. |
deleted a scrapper build from this post because im a idiot
perma jump is ---> /up 1
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The Stalker version of Willpower has Reconstruction, not Rise to the Challenge. Fast Healing and indirectly High Pain Tolerance are your sources of +regen. I very seriously doubt that you had higher regeneration on an equal level Willpower Stalker compared to a Regen Brute.
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Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
meh not bad as it sounds. Alot of times the regen is discounted. in certain situations, my WP hit a point of more regen than the regen brute, who resistance to just about every damage is lower than the WP and fewer xp. Like I said I make it work and never had problem with it. Just as I have problem with other things that no one else seem to have problem with. Different things work for different people. And this one WP the way I build them just happens to work for me. And having played blaster before, the WP takes hit way better than any blaster that I played. And I played my WP stalker no different than my brute besides that it usually one hit one mob per group but the rest is fought the old fashioned way.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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My Spines/Electrical is 25 just now and life is pretty good. Was pretty nice not having to get help to solo Brukholder or Protean. Of course she is in those levels where enemies aren't pulling out exotic attacks or debuffing you too much. Things will of course become more painful later.
I am high enough level to have grabbed Lightning Reflexes and Hasten and have Hasten running about 30 seconds short of perma. Very handy for laying out damage and burning through endurance.
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That was for the WP tank. Not WP stalker, sorry if that wasnt clear. And I know that stalker doesnt have rttc and instaed of a heal so regen is not as high so I focus more on the resistance and damage on that type of wp. Not sure what the regen level on that one, but I play it more like the brutes I have-kill quickly before anymob becomes a problem.
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Originally Posted by Siolfir
The Stalker version of Willpower has Reconstruction, not Rise to the Challenge. Fast Healing and indirectly High Pain Tolerance are your sources of +regen. I very seriously doubt that you had higher regeneration on an equal level Willpower Stalker compared to a Regen Brute.
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-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
But if two out of nine powers make it a mixed set then I guess regen is actually a mixed set too with resistance, it has two. A heal with toxic resistance and resiliance.
High Pain Tolerance provides resistance and health but the resistance is negligible. The real gain is the health, so long as you can boost your defense and resistance high enough to leverage it. So it is a healing/health power.
Reconstruction provides resistance and healing but the resistance is only to Toxic. Certainly that is nifty enough when facing Greater Devoured, but not so handy when facing Demons, 5th Column Flamethrowers, Freakshow zotting you, etc. The primary gain of this power is the healing.
Mind Over Body grants resistance to Smash, Lethal, and Psionic.
Indominitable Will provides status protection and defense to Psionics.
Heightened Sense provides Defense to Smash, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, and Negative Energy. Hmmm. . .do you get any resistance to Fire, Cold, Energy or Negative Energy? No. So this set is primarily providing protection via Defense to elements you have no other protection from other than a wall of health or healing. Moreover the Defense gain for Fire, Cold, Energy, and Negative is nearly 4 times that for Smash/Lethal. Unmistably a defensive power (and one you should be taking and slotting well).
One wonders how you knock the Defense aspect of thet set by saying it only has 2 Defensive powers and claim it is a Resistance set when in reality the number of powers that are providing you with real resistance numbers isn't any higher. It seems painfully clear to me that you are meant to layer the defense, resistance, healing, and health boosts to survive making this a mixed set.
As nifty as Invincibility is, an Invulnerability character is sitll a tough cookie with it turned off. A Willpower character forgoing the Defense powers of the set is far squishier by comparison.
As goes Dark Armor and Electrical Armor. . .I suggested Electrical Armor because it gets you past a number of issues providing resistance to endurance drain, the ability to drain endurance yourself, and providing a haste component. Dark Armor has its own set of perks but not having to worrry about endurance drains and being able to fix your endurance issues ranks it higher in my book than Dark Armor where some number of people fall into endurance problems.
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