Biospark
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Quote:Thanks Miladys,Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Plant is the easiest set for a starting Dom with Earth a close second. Fire is probably one of the hardest.
Differences to note between controllers and Doms is that Dom controls have significantly shorter duration than controllers (outside of domination) and have no chance to critical (overpower) the target (outside of domination once again).
Dom slotting of the controls is similar (the AoEs have reduced accuracy just like the controller versions) ie: slot intensive, so you don't really get up to speed as a Dom until much later in your career. On top of that to be effective the assault portion of the set is slot hungry too so the Dom doesn't really start getting good until late game (after level 31+ ) when you start getting 3 slots per level and there are 2 levels between new powers instead of just one.
The other big difference is the AoE immob. Many doms skip it. On controllers its useful for keeping mobs bunched in debuff patches or near toggle anchored mobs. For a Dom it just stops the mobs from moving, aggros them all, and makes you the alpha target.
I am just getting into playing a Dom for the first time and this is very valuable information. -
It kinda sounded like rubber bands to me. Count me in the crowd that prefers the old crackling sounds.
Hey! We have alternate power colors, probably more alternate animations in the future.
Any guess which year we may see alternate sounds for the powers ?
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Quote:HeheOriginally Posted by uberschveinen
For every time you say that, I'm going to roll a petless Mastermind.
make sure its one using Pain Domination though. -
Quote:HeheOriginally Posted by Werner
Well, yes, obviously it's a mere distraction to talk about the value of using a particular inspiration if I don't have a chart of the opportunity costs for ALL inspirations. I have no such chart, so I'm sorry to have wasted your time.
No worries Werner, appreciating inspiration use is a transitional skill in this game.
You can lead a horse to water.... well you know the rest. -
Quote:Hmm, I dont know. When I tried leveling a Sonic-Energy defender (Gave up around level 24), I used the heck out of siphon and cage while solo. They were very harsh on endurance though for the small gains added. And after SOs, the Cage actually slowed down my mission speed enough that I stopped using it. So.... uhm, yeah your rightOriginally Posted by DrMike2000
That makes a lot of sense. Healing works best in the early game, when incoming spike damage is low. Defence and resistance work better in the later game, when they can stack with other powers that get unlocked, and get slotted.
And Sonic Resonance just plain sucks as soloing set. You get:
Sonic Siphon - with the full end and animation cost of an attack, this only helps your DPE and DPS against bosses and higher.
Sonic Cage - useful for panic situations.
Sonic Dispersion - awesome 5 star power, but little to stack it with till later. Even with Tough, 50% S/L resistance is poor compared to the defence a solo FF-er can accumulate
Liquefy - very nice, but long recharge.
So on a typical solo radio mission, until you hit the boss at the end you have Sonic Dispersion. One power out of 9. only 1 decent power solo.
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Quote:One thing that surprised me after playing all three of those sets Dr.Mike (FF, Emp, Sonic) was that Empathy was actually a little more solo-able in the early game because of the heals, but Forcefield catches and passes Empathy very quickly after SOs.Originally Posted by DrMike2000
FF is not hugely solo friendly because its very team friendly.
From level 22, you're pretty much guaranteed to transform all your teammates experience at an investment of about 1/8th of your playtime. Unless they're all Tankers.
Its not the worst solo set for Defenders. Empathy and Sonic have it harder, but any FF Defender on their own is a decent enough armoured light cannon, especially with a small IO investment that's cheap in terms of both slots and inf.
So pre-SO would be (worst to best of the three) Sonic, FF, Empathy
After SOs : Sonic, Empathy, FF
I know its a very minor distinction, and of course, alot depends on blast choice and skill.
Maybe I just suck at Sonic
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100% /signed on the alternate animation idea for "Hurl" as well.
That idea also stood out to me Jade, Ripping up a piece of pavement and throwing it is very cool and all, but THROWING A CAR !!! Now that would be too much fun. -
Quote:It sounds like you are spending alot of your time solo, which is cool, but something that is certainly more challenging than being on a team. And as others have said, you have chosen less "solo-friendly" powersets to do it with.Originally Posted by uberschveinen
I've always had some problems playing Corruptors, but until recently I played it off to getting an Energy/Thermal to fifty solo-only back before you could drop missions. Recently, though, I've tried them again, having played the other Villain ATs to death.
Nothing has changed. It's still an exercise in frustration that serves no useful purpose. At no point during my attempt to play these characters has the game actually been fun. There is only so long I can tolerate having genuine difficulty with three even-level minions, and being forced to use Demonic against some Lieutenants is almost insulting. I've yet to beat a boss without a Shivan or a fistful of purple inspirations, and Elite Bosses are a lost cause.
Obviously, something is wrong. If this archetype was actually as unplayable as it seems, it wouldn't be played by any sane person. I can't figure out what it is, so I'm hoping someone else here felt similarly until they realised that they were doing something stupid and figured it out.
It shouldn't make a difference, since it felt equally unenjoyable across the board, but my current effort is a Dual Pistol/ Pain Dmination corruptor. Slotted with IOs, at level 26. If there's no reason for the game to be this painful to play he won't make 27.
With going Rogue I have decided to finally give Corruptors a try, since they are the flip-side of my Favorite AT (Defenders). All I can say is (not being snarky btw) you don't know how good you have it. Soloing my earliest defender was a serious let-down. Even one year ago, I was still very un-impressed with them solo, even though I LOVED what they brought to a team. My core feelings have always been that we should have fun both on teams and solo. On teams I prefer the support role, but Defenders made me feel that I had to have two characters, one for teaming and one for solo play. Not what I wanted.
My advice (worth the price you paid for it).
A) If you prefer to solo alot and team when you can, one of the more solo friendly sets could be a better choice; Radiation and Dark are my favorite ones, but Storm, and Traps would also do fine solo. Storm has a greater learning curve, which is why I would steer away from it as a starter set, but if you like a challenge....
B) One thing that helped me immensely with rounding the bend on Defenders was taking a Blaster to level 47 solo ! He was a hover-blasting Energy-Devices wannabe Defender complete with PFF and the medicine pool. I loved doing CIM missions with him. The whole journey taught me how to constantly manage my in-combat awareness and targeting strategies. Basically, what you need to perfect is how to approach each battle. Know which target MUST be taken out first. Move constantly, thus forcing your opponents to move as well. Think about it, if they are moving, they are not swinging. Those few seconds of running around may not seem like much, but it IS pure mitigation. Switch targets when needed, especially if you have mitigation built into your blasts (Energy, how I love thee).
C) Get some extra attacks into your chain. Doesn't really matter if its Air Superiority, Boxing, Kick, Sands of Mu etc.... Being able to chain single target attacks is a subtle, yet strong mitigating factor. At the early levels you can often get a spawn to spread out from each other, so "pick one off" with a full attack chain while your moving the spawn around.
Later in your career, you can respec out any extra attacks that you don't need anymore.
D) This last one was something I fought against for a long time (cause I am poor), and that is to USE the alternate build system. My original feelings were to save some money and make what is a called a "balanced" build, so I could solo and team with just one build.
Only one problem with this, you have to make compromises that "reduce" your team effectiveness in order to "prop-up" your solo capabilities and vice-versa. Several months ago I decided to end the "Balanced" charade and start dumping influence into two builds. It is worth every penny. My team build is better than before even though it is now further from completion and my solo build is "wonderful" in comparison to the previous build. All I have to remember now is to switch the builds before I join a TF. Yes, I have embarassed myself with this... ONCE ! It wont happen again... I promise guys!
Sorry for the long response, but I hope there is something in here that you can use to help out.
P.S. Everything Rodion said ^ hehe
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FEARSOME STARE ! and any powers that use that same "stand on your tippy-toes and look down at thee" pose. Ugh, one of my biggest let-downs ever was playing my Dark-Elec Defender and getting Fearsome Stare for the first time. Then I fire it off and went ewwww!
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Coming from a player that has taken a WP/Fire Tanker to 50 and a MA/WP scrapper to 39, I am willing to lend my opinion on this question. Willpower gains ALOT from the increased HPs of the user. My Tanker could push the limits of survivability from an earlier level. I think my WP/Tank was the first character I have ever bumped the difficulty up at level 12 (Most toons I wait till 20-22 before I crank it up).
A big part of this was being able to get the defensive powers earlier (which a scrapper/brute cannot do), but the increased HPs was also a very big part of it.
Oh, with Going Rogue, I have my sights set on a new WP toon too..
YEP ! He will be a Claws/WP Brute
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Forcefields is so incredibly fun to play on a team that every time I do, my Empath gets jealous.
1) Buff every 4 minutes and spend the rest of your time being a mini-tank blaster ...check
2) Turn on reliable status protection so you dont have to worry about the stray stun or hold ...check
3) Fire off massive and viscerally fun Knockback powers like force bolt to protect less fortunate "squish....err... teammates".... double-check
what could be more fun. Oh Yeah.... Fire up your personal force field and laugh maniacally at your enamies as you use a tricorder to heal yourself. ....Good Times
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What I meant was that Defense-based characters are late-blooming and significantly change after getting all the pieces of their defense together and IOed out. The comparison to controllers was simply a frame of comparison between "early-game" versus "end-game".
Scrappers have it pretty good in this game. There isn't a single scrapper that I have played that didn't feel like "easy-mode" by the early 20s. Although my Shields and SR scrappers were only shadows of what was to come at those levels. -
Quote:This is very true for me.Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
....I think most people are gravitating towards sets that are easy to build defense with, and among the offensive secondaries, SD is obviously the one starting off with the best defense. The answer is to improve options for building resist/heal sets for optimum builds, not tearing down defense sets. If it was as easy to build top end toons with res/heal sets as it is def sets, I think you'd see a lot more examples of high dps output with elec, da and especially now with the fa changes, just like you see with the db/elec in the pylon thread....
Besides the whole fact that getting from 1-50 and getting a defense toon IOed out are completely different things. What SD (and SR) can do at the top end kinda reminds me of the way controllers were pre-containment. Struggle for 31+ levels and then your character suddenly turns into a solo-powerhouse with the addition of one power.
I am not going to argue whether SD needs more changes, because my opinion is based more on in-game observations rather than "numerical analysis" and "end-game" Pylon performance. I DO, however, believe (and which was the original subject of this thread) that SR still needs to be looked at. The powerset is good, but is not as interesting and flexible as other powersets. It only does ONE thing and requires nearly all of the 9 powers to do that ONE thing. -
I have not played the Fire powerset as extensively as StratoNexus has, so I would tend to agree with his assessment of the state of the power.
To be honest, I have often wondered why it only does Endurance. The basic concept of Fire is that you trade "utility" for "moar damage", but everyone knows that you must have some utility or the character becomes very "one dimensional" For Fire manipulation Hot Feet does pretty decent at filling that "utility" gap, but you have a LONG wait to get it.
The Blaster Consume should (in my estimation) either have the recharge reduced, the damage increased OR... (my personal choice) make it +End/+hps.
I think blasters deserve some kind of healing power. Everyone else does. -
Quote:My main Empathy character (Biospark) is a Mutant whose gift is to control Bioelectric forces in himself and those around him. He can reach into your body and speed up healing, give extra strength and stamina thru enhancing your bioelectric impulses. He can even send immense amounts of electricity thru the air (as only Tesla could have imagined) to harm opponents.Originally Posted by DrMike2000
I will never tire of pointing out that mechanically, the Empathy powerset has nothing to do with feeling the emotions of another, or sympathising with them, or any warm lovely stuff like that. I can empathise with the fact you've just been hurt all I like, it won't give you an accuracy and damage bonus or make you harder to hit, will it?
If someone wants to roleplay their character as healing and buffing through an emotional link, that's cool. But there are many other ways to boost another character's superpowers or reverse damage done to them.
While we're at it, helping others overcome pain is a worthy and noble goal. Ask anyone who's been anaesthetised before having surgery!
(Mechanically, the only self-serving part of Pain Domination is the boost you get from rezzing an ally, since it encourages you to let them fall first. But anyone can do that with Vengeance.)
That's what really grinds my gears!
Because he is a Hero, he refrains from actually probing into the cerebral cortex of others and controlling actions more directly thru the source. Or perhaps more accurately, his power is too aggressive and he is unwilling to endanger "test subjects" to hone his bioelectric control of others.
So yeah, I agree with Dr.Mike, my Empath is FAR FAR from a pacifistic sympathizer. His powers are ACTIVE CONTROL of electric impulses.
This is your Brain.....Crack ! .::Sizzle::.
This is your Brain on Biospark ! -
Quote:Very Interesting....Originally Posted by Garent
Yes, you'll keep access to the patrons as long as you have completed the first patron arc and gotten the badge.
I did not try doing this in Beta, just remember reading something about you losing your Ancillary/Patron powers if you fully switched sides. That must have been a bug. -
I just want more control over my power colors.
If they had creative constraints in mind at some point, how can they explain Dark Melee, Dark Miasma and Dark Blast (Hero-side) in the original game. It would have made more sense to have certain powersets restricted by alignment than power customizations.
But thats just my opinion.
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Ok, quick question that I am unsure of.
In order to get the Patron pools, you will need to go full villain, do the Patron arc and respec to get them.
The question is; If you then convert back to HERO, do you keep the Patron powers as long as you don't respec ? -
At least I know I am not alone with this issue.
Hey Devs ! Villains can be bright too!
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Kinda new to playing Villain ATs and have been using Pain Domination alot, but
The power customization options are limited. On many powersets (hero-side) you have the choice of Original, Light, and Dark. So was dissappointed with having only "Dark" color options on Pain Domination.
A) Any plans to extend more color options after GR?
B) Any other Villain-side powersets in this same predicament ? -
Quote:Hmmm, I had not thought about the monitor categories. Thanks for the tipOriginally Posted by Madam_Enigma
You can already monitor your end discount
I currently run 10 different items on the monitor, so I would have to decide which one to drop. -
I dont use my Nuke at all.
A) It doesnt do enough damage to qualify as a "nuke"
B) My team role is jeapordized if I am OOM (no endurance)
C) The secondary effect of the nuke can be achieved thru other powers which don't crash my blue bar.
IF they removed the crash, then I would seriously consider the power as part of my build.
They could;
A) Make the cost of the power 99 endurance and make it enhanceble (allowing us to reduce the cost to just under 50 endurance.
B) Make it truely crashless (cost 49 endurance or less) but reduce the damage somewhat, which makes it usable for both damage AND the secondary effect
C) Increase the damage to blaster levels and leave the crash the way it is (See StratoNexus's proposal thread) -
Kinda off-topic (Sorry about that) but related to Vigilance
Why can't we have a bar that fills up (ala Fury, Domination) that shows the amount of endurance reduction we are getting at the time? Then you could actually guage your team's "squishy-ness" simply by seeing how much blue they are saving you
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Quote:Yep, lots of things that are debateable on this subject.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
One the one hand im thinking 'To Hell with that!' Because I like being able to slot Nukes for recharge while doing insane damage. I hate, HATE powers with unenhanceable recharge. Its like 'Whats the damn point in giving me this and balancing the set around it, if the damn thing is only up so much of the time?' Im looking at WPs semi godmode, mostly. Sure, it doesnt crash so hard as, say, Unstoppable. But at least I can slot Unstoppable so that, should I happen to need it again sharply, I can use it.
On the other hand...we have Rain of Arrows. Now, yes, sets arent balanced against each other, only internally. Even so, RoA is in a decent AoE and ST set, which then crowns it off with a crashless nuke. Because thats what it is. Not Full Autos 'Viscious Cone' as I call it, but a full on large AoE 'Stand in this and your dead' nuke.
While I love high damage, there CAN be too much of it, in a way. I mean, with Build up and Aim its possible to put a vanilla slotted Fire Blasters Inferno into the 1000 damage figures. Does any basic mob even have that much HP? That leaves the minions as piles of ash, the LTs dead or very nearly, and only the Bosses left as any threat. Oh, and you have no End. And its on a large recharge.
While Rain of Arrows...can do just that, without end crash, and on a fiendishly quick recharge, usable nearly every spawn.
So....thats even? Uhm....riiight. Sure.
Hmn.
I only mentioned "unenhanceable" as one of the possible ways they would choose to balance a "crashless" nuke. Its definitely not the choice I would want.
If they were to make the nukes "crashless" and keep the damage the same, they would need to do something to the recharge so it doesnt become part of a regular battle.
or... If they left the recharge the same and made them "crashless", the damage would have to be reduced.
Of the two choices, I personally would prefer the reduction of damage and retaining the ability to slot the power however you see fit. -
Quote:I have not spent much time on that thread, but just went thru the first 10 pages to see what you mean.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
I don't know if I can agree with that as the angle I'm viewing AAO from is its use against hard targets. The results of which you can see in the rikti pylon thread. No one is using shield charge during those runs.
There is a definite trend there. So again, I am not saying that AAO's numbers are perfect, just that I would prefer they "refrain" from more nerfs to the set.
It is also true that the times posted by different scrappers are more a testament to their varied amounts of recharge, baseline dps, attack chains etc...
You made a comparitve analysis showing how your claws scrapper would go from 216 dps to 256 (iirc). Thats pretty significant. How would more recharge from SR sit with you as a way to balance SR against Shields? Or is BillZ already at the recharge cap?