Cognito

Just a thought, Mace I understand has failry quick recharge times.

Given one of the challenges of a Stone tank (with its relative immobility and its -recharge) is maintaining aggro, I would have thought fast cycling attacks mean you could eke out more from "punchvoke" with mace than the slower sets like Battle Axe or Stone.

Additional thought: The "DIsoreintate Wander" of mace is less of an issue with the slow/immob effect of Mudpots.

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Tank: Ice / Energy
Scrapper: Spines / Regen
Blaster: Ice / Energy
Controller: Ill, Mind, or Grav / Kin, Rad, Storm
Defender: Kind, Rad, Storm or Dark / Psi

Brute: Energy / Energy
Stalker: Energy / Ninjitsu
Corruptor: Ice / Rad, Kin, Dark, or Cold
Dominator: Mind / Psi or Ice
Mastermind: Bots / Dark or FF


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i dont have any of those toons and manage to pvp fine.

i fail to see what u hope to achieve by talking a load of [censored] about a subject u seem to have very limited knowledge of

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It may be rubbish, I may be an idiot, but that dosent give you the right to insult me or dismiss me. Only disagree with me.

Im shutting up about this topic now. Its way off topic, and I dont give too hoots about PvP. It remains my opinion, from maths that PvP is borked and deeply unbalanced. You dont agree, fair enough.

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Im not to fond of PvP, but do dabble occasionally for a laugh, so no expert.

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i honestly wudnt have guessed...

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Have no desire to be. But if I ever did go into serious PvP you can bet I would build my highly effective PvE toons in a complete different way and probably choose completely different ATs.

Tank: Ice / Energy
Scrapper: Spines / Regen
Blaster: Ice / Energy
Controller: Ill, Mind, or Grav / Kin, Rad, Storm
Defender: Kind, Rad, Storm or Dark / Psi

Brute: Energy / Energy
Stalker: Energy / Ninjitsu
Corruptor: Ice / Rad, Kin, Dark, or Cold
Dominator: Mind / Psi or Ice
Mastermind: Bots / Dark or FF

Couple of variations on some of them.

Gee, never see any of those cookie cutters in the PvP zones do you? Well, maybe there hidden amongst all the Stone/Ice tanks, Claws/Dark scrappers (and stalkers), fire/Fire blasters, Empath / Dark defenders, Fire / Stone brutes, Fire / Sonic Corruptors, and Ice / Energy dominators. And all the other ATs stuffed full of AoE? Cant move for bouncing into them in a PvP zone

Never see superspeed or jump / acrobatics in PvP zones do you? Perhaps your veiw is blocked from all the flying heroes? .

Aid self is pretty rare to, I guess in PvP zones? Maybe you can't see the green for all the Irradiates and Neutron Bombs those COrruptors and Defenders are slinging about?

However much you and I disagree on what PvP powers are good and bad, you dont have to spend long in a zone to see what ones are hugely popular and which ones are never taken.

There are, I think, plenty of ways to counter. Teleport yourself away, move yourself away with attack target / BG.

this is however, going a bit off topic. Even if we say that AoE are effective against Masterminds, thats one AT out of 10 (or 12 if you include Kheld's).

I simply dont see how AoE is every going to be remotely efficient in PvP. And judging by every PvP'er Ive met playing PvE, or indeed in actual PvP zones, Im not alone. I have only see ONE AoE attack launched at me EVER in PvP (against my MM). And every PvP'er ive met in PvE has never taken more than one, at most, AoE effect (and normlly has none).

Whilst AoE Confuse will also make mincemeat of a Mastermind -

AoE attacks?

Im not to fond of PvP, but do dabble occasionally for a laugh, so no expert.

But when on my Mastermind, on the one occassion I was attacked with an AoE damage (and was shocked), I simply spread told my minions to toddle off away from me.

Supremecy has a FAR bigger range than any AoE I know.

So you may get caught of guard with a sneaky fireball. Once. And then you wont.

All those PvP zones are just awash with Masterminds aren't they? I dont think Ive seen one for months. Dont PvP much, but I think most people would concede they are pretty rare in PvP.

And, having put my Mastermind in PvP myself, If ever I do (rarely) find myself facing a toon with one token AoE attack, I just move my pets way from me. Its quite easy to get them out of AoE effect and within supremecy range within a second or so.

I will admit AoE are good in that highly popular thing called base raiding. *dusts cobwebs off the part of the server dedicated to hosting base raids*

Just cranked my occasionall Mastermind up to 22.

Id appreciate some advice on how to slot Enforcers.

I was contemplating Acc / TOHit Buff / Dam / Dam / Def / Def, but any thoughts?

I am planning on playing fairly tough rep, so I will need Acc x 2 SO, or Acc / To Hit Buff. Its whether to go Dam x3 and Def x1, or Dam x2, and Def x2?

Anyone know the base figures for Enforcers To hit buff and Def buff?

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I'd honestly go dark/sonic, good for both soloing and teaming, and the -res debuffs from your sonic attacks will stack with the -res from tar patch, plus the acc debuffs of dark are always great.

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To be honest, if you are a defender you are always going to do better in a team and fine solo relatively painful.



Having said that, Kin/Sonic, Rad/Sonic, and Dark/Sonic are probably the least worst options. The trick with solo defending is to compensate for your lack of damage, and these three do the job best with -resist debuffs and +damage/recharge powers for Kin (and a little for rad).


Trick Archery is another strong contender for primary, with two -resist powers, and the extrodinarily good oil slick arrow at level 26 (massive damage).

Storm has a -resist power and some damage powers, so does have some attractions.

Sonic has (solo) one -resist power so is not *awful*, plus has mez resistance and gives you a little protection.

Forcefeild and Empathy does diddly squat for your damage output, so things will be very slow. Avoid.


As for primary, you will probably eke most damage out of /sonic, with its -resist debuffs. It has a lot of ST (Single target) attacks which are good for solo.

Psionic is either fairly good (as most things dont resist psionic) or abolutely awful (because when they do resist, they tend to resist big time), but may be an option if you choose your enemies / missions carefully.

But, really, my main comment is - dont aim to solo. If you cant get on a team with a defender your best bet is to play an alt.

Yegods, do we agree on something?

In PVE AoE attacks are sometimes useful, sometimes not, like ST attacks. So there is some "Balance" in that varous ATs / powers all have their niche.

In PvP, AoE's are almost universally rubbish. There is a time and place when they are not rubbish. The time is never, the place is nowhere.

In ALL cases, and Ice / Energy blaster has a huge advantage over a Fire/Fire blaster. Balance my behind.

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Team PvP and Team PvE are pretty God damn balanced.

It's the solo side of the game where there's problems.

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Depends what you mean by "Balanced".

My veiw is that PvP is completely borked. If you want to seriously PvP, then AoE attacks / debuffs / whatever are seriously gimped compared to ST equivilants. And dont even get me started on solo duels. No PvP'er of a serious nature does so without a cookie cutter build - Ice/Energy blaster for instance. And then invariably chooses Medicine pool, Hasten, and Jump/Acrobatics.

Pffft.

PvE balance is there, kind of. Some toons, as you say, solo much better than others.

I would strongly disagree that Team PvE is "balanced" to use your terms. How on earth is a Martial Art scrapper going to even remotely come close to upping team damage compared to a Kinetics defender? he's not. And thats not including the Kinetics heal, endurance boosts, debuffsand mez resistance he brings to the team. How on earth is an Ice/Energy blaster going to compete with the AoE madness of a Fire/Fire blaster when you have mobs of 15 enemies. The maths is there.

Its "balanced" because whilst the Kineticist and the Fire/Fire blaster are going to abosulely shine in an 8 man team, they are going to have a much harder time than the MA Scrapper and the Ice/Energy blaster solo. Thats pretty much by design.

So I would disagree with you that team PvE is "Balanced". Some toons will bring a lot more to a team than others - but those are exactly the type of toon that suffers solo.

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OFC I would!! bear in mind I just build toons for pvp

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PvP is deeply unbalanced. Which is why I rarely PvP. Its even worse since issue 9. To all boasters in PvP: I completly fail to applaud your skill when PvP is now largely down to getting "uber" IO's and having a PvP build / powersets. YOu can have my congratulations when you win with a Fire/Fire blaster without a medicine pool.

PvE is fairly balanced. SOme toons Solo well, are rubbish in teams (these are often PvP toons), Some toons do the reverse. Most are fairly in between.

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You want everything from NRG Aura really, most things from nrg melee, fast attacks are what you want because nrg aura has no inherent taunt aura so you want to be hitting hard and fast rather than using taunt to bring them to you.

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I would be of the opinion that without a taunt aura, the taunt power from primary becomes exceedingly valuable, if not vital.

Neither is better. CoX is reasonably balanced now, IMO, so no set is better than another (at least by any significant margin).

However, sets do differ in when they are good or bad.

Both FF and Sonic are similar in that they are both become awesome in big teams and, to a lesser, extent, once you get to mid/late game.

The key power in both is the AOE Mez resistance, which will leave teams weeping with joy.

Otherwise:

FF probably provides more "Protection" for your team. Level 38 brings the repel feild, which is particularly helpful if you are teaming (often) with blasters, controllers, and defenders.

Sonic provides less protection, but ups team damage due to its -resistance debuffs.

Neither has any *particular* synergy with Mind, or goes particularly badly with it. I suppose you could argue that FF has the rather nice Force Bolt power which would break your Mind Sleep effects, but really this is a miniscule disadvantage (and you are unlikely to be using FB on a slept target).

Very helpful,

THanks, doll (I had to say that).

How would one play such a duo? and manage aggro so the dominator isnt put at undue risk?

I imagine placate must be used with great caution?

Its not damage output im worried about, its my chance of survival when a duo spawn is mainly ragging on the dominator - one of thsquishiest AT around.

Has anyone got a practical experience of being a dominator in a dominator/stalker duo? (or of a corruptor in a corruptor/dominator duo?).

I confess it makes me very nervous.

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Aaaaah, I see! From the title I'd taken this to be a "Regen is too uber, and should be completely removed from the game" thread.

I'd just popped in to warm myself from the flames.

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Must...resist...urge....

So from persepctive of a squishy, how much aggro management do you expect from a brute?

For me, its far below what I expect from a tank (which is 90% or so of aggro as routine) - that "all come hither" approach.

Its also above what I often see which is "I deal with mine, you deal with yours" kind of equal division of aggro.

Its somewhere in beteen. Get stuck in, take the alpha (or beta) [Mastermind Pets are a suitable alternative], make sure the boss is on you, make sure you are in the thick of it, but dont worry (like a tank should) about making sure all those scrattered / split off stragglers are pounding on you (unless somebody is in real trouble, in which case do your best).

I guess I kind of expect "Shoddy tanking". You know, making sure that that you are taking a goodly proportion of the aggro (particularly from boss / mezzers) but not really caring about getting the entire mob to rail on you.

Back from my OP, in an 8 man team, I had two brutes with no taunt aura, no taunt, and no AoE. To my mind, thats just not good enough "Bruting". Its sending out a message saying "I dont give a hoot about your aggro. I only care about my xp and me". SO I quit.

My standards are fairly low for "Brute - tanking", but you have to draw the line somewhere, and those two brutes (both of whom were around level 38 so had plenty of time to build their defences and get some aggo tool) fell clearly under it.

Ill try and phrase this delicately as I know its a stalker board and full of Stalker-philes.

A few days ago I was killing time with my cobwebb'd Ice/Ice dominator at level 30. I got asked (rather impolitely IMO) by a level 18 Stalker (who I didnt know) to team up.

Im normally pretty keen to team up and quite happily join PuG or blind invites.

However, that day I was a bit tired and ratty. I was also rather keen to finally push my dominator into pet land (lvl 32) and was uncharacteristically keen on some xp and debt avoidance.

A couple of things struck me. Im a bit of an AoE aggro magnet dom. Means im pretty effective in teams with enough other AoE users.

So what would happen with a stalker. Well, I guess the stalker, in a duo, could take out a lt every group. That would leave, what - 4 or 5 other enemies. With a bit of luck they might throw the alpha at the stalker. THen I would come in with my Chilling Embrace, Arctic Air, bla bla bla, and Id get the full wack. And Im squishy.

Then I had the vision of said stalker using placate on the other lt (or maybe even boss) and me getting hammered to the ground with full aggro.

And what would I get. One lt in every mob taken out, and then, at best a poor mans scrapper with no aggro management tools.

Adding into the equation this guy was pre - SO, I was tired. What did I do? I just refused, even tho I had my "LFT" flag up.

It just struck me that even with a good team stalker (and they are a rather rare breed.... cant recall seeing a spines stalker since a few weeks into CoV launch), It wouldnt really be worth my salt teaming with a stalker - despite the supposed synergy (Stalkers crit on held enemies).

Im really stuggling to see the value of stalkers in a duo with another squishy - who is the one who is going to take a vast hike in risk for dubious benefit.

Thoughts please - from the perspective of a squishy, not a stalker.

For purposes of discussion: Im not dissing stalkers or stalker players. And of course all toons are of value - its just they have to be of value relative to the increase in mission difficulty.

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The MA/SR vs Fire/Fire

is counterbalanced by the

Spines/DA vs Inv/Ice

Its the average of all sets per AT compared to another that people should be looking at.

Scrappers do more Damage per Endurance than anyone else.

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Thats the point really - whislt Scrappers do more damage per hit, the other major factor is how many targets there are and how many AoE attacks / ST attacks the toon has.

I think thats an excellent way of conceptualizing "Tank" functions, Carnifax.

And yes, MM seem very good at "Alpha takers" - even if their minions die its no debt.

But from my experience they cant do the "consolidation" phase of tanking very well - if at all. That really needs a brute.

Im seeing more and more brutes with no taunt and no taunt aura around. And quite frankly it unnerves me.

This was a solo test, wansn't it?

I would imagine an 8 man team with correspondingly large mobs, a Fire/Fire Tank would outdamage a MA/Regen scrapper (for instance) by virtue of the stack of AoE attacks.

NOt to familiar with these sets, but Im sure other learned people can reply - might help if you gave an indication on how you stand on PvE/PvP spectrum and on the Solo/Team spectrum.

For instance, if not PvP'ing you could pretty much drop acrobatics and get an anti-knockback Invention.

I doubt that.

/Regen adds no damage (although it may allow more damage slotting due to extra +recovery, I dont think this is an issue of note since Inventions)

/Invun, with +tohit buff, would hypothetically increase damage output.

/SR, with Quickness, increases damage output.

/Dark has a damage aura which gives very significant damage output. In addition, Dark Regen has some limited damage.

So thats Secondary

Primary?

It depends entirely on the team size and the amount of AoE you have.

Low no AoE (e.g. Martial Arts) will do the most DPS in terms of single target damage, e.g. solo.

High AoE (e.g. Spines) will do the most DPS in large groups.

Katana is midway between these too.

Id like to see a Katana/Regen come even remotely close to outdamaging a Spines/Dark Scrapper in an 8 man team.

I dont think taunt is a waste power (it needs no slotting and has no end cost) for a Brute. At least not for the fire corruptor standing behind him...

Personally, not having Taunt OR taunt aura, I find very disturbing - and generally not team-worthy.

Oh and I would count Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear as pretty much equal to a taunt aura.