Combat

I'll be honest, I'm amazed my new laptop is actually doing well on ultra mode, most of the settings maxed, AA at *8. A couple I turn off though, such as ambient occlusion, but detail, texture, water effects, reflections, and shadow effects are all maxed. Running on a i7 2 Ghz processor, 550 GTX graphics card, 6 gigs of RAM. Didn't even spend all that much on it (I have a friend who spent $3000 on his latest laptop, and you can probably imagine whats in it).

For scrapper, a good DM/SD could do it with the Cimeroran pets and regen destiny. I can get north of 500 dps with Cim pets (and some have posted results over 700), get well over 100 hps, run an infinite chain, and of course capped defenses and DDR. I've soloed the ITF before with no purples or PvPs, and I'm pretty sure I could do it +4/*8. Shield was enough to keep him relatively still in the tests I did. LGTF would be much harder just because Hamidon, STF is my next challenge. STF is possible, but it is fairly hard. I can kill inner circle, but Recluse can be trouble (basically I tank him and have pets destroy towers, then wait for the pets to respawn and take him). I'm not sure about other TFs. A KM/Fire could possible do enough damage, but won't be as survivable. Anything/Willpower will have enough survivability if built right, but the damage and taunt probably won't be good enough.

For Brute or tank you are going to want fire armor, some good primary. SS isn't the best for DPS, but for some reason (*cough* farming), a lot people have one. I'd recommend the brute over the tank, for the added offense.

But of course, no melee AT will be as good as a ranged AT do to the mechanics of the game. Your soldier actually should be able to put out enough DPS, the highest recording pylon speed was by a crab (over 1000 DPS), and that should be higher with the new Lore pets. A Bots/Trap MM can take down basically anything, look at Silverado's stuff. There's also the standard Ill/Rad.

Just so we are clear, Kinetic Melee, regardless of how good or bad the attacks feel, is a high DPS set. My calculation showed KM/Fire to be just behind DM/Shield in DPS, and it doesn't need 10 guys to achieve high DPS. As in, with the specific build I was using I calculated a theoretical 280 DPS, and that's with a built in 10% reduction for server lag. And I'm pretty sure that wasn't counting for CS insta-charging PS.

PS: The chain was long, and not necessarily optimal: PS-SB-BB-QS-SB-BB-CS-SS-BB-QS-SS-BB-CS-SS-CC-QS-SS-BB-CS. Basically, that chain lasted until PS recharged.

My guess is that it will have some ability to affect enemy and player combat levels. Think about it. With new incarnate play we have access to many things that "level" us up, including the Alpha boost, T3 boosts from Destiny and Lore, and "Ultimate" inspiration. With this we know that the developers now have ability to externally control combat level through the game interface. They also like to add new capabilities into new sets to make them different from old sets (sonic's -res, dual blades' combos, kinetic melee's new BU). Therefore, I think at least one power will affect combat level of enemies and/or players.

Obviously /SR is still a scrapper defensive set. It can be made survivable enough for most of the game like any other scrapper defense set should. However, my problems with /SR are these:

1. It does not give comparatively good survival except at a median range of investment. Basically, it is weak without set IOs (or large amounts of pool powers) to cap it, but at the high end of investment loses out to other sets with non-defense tools.

2. Other sets that have weakened defense give an increase to offense. However, /SR is outperformed by these, especially Shield, Dark and Fire (which can all be made as or more survivable than SR).

3. It cannot be made stronger at the same rate as other powersets. Even adding tough and aid self to SR, it is hard or impossible to achieve the same gains in survivability from IOs that other sets get (much harder to add resistance than defense).

4. It requires a large number of powers to be taken, which all accept the same type of IO set except Quickness. This means that SR restricts pool powers more than most other sets (though with inherent fitness this is less of an issue). More importantly, it means that SR users cannot diversify their IO usage as easily.

On second thought, I'd rather see two options for Evasion, not Quickness. One would be the power we have now, the second would be an aggro aura with boosts to recharge and regeneration. This allow those that like the current option to continue using it, but allow SR to have both another offensive perk and a defensive option other than defense and scaling resists (which work best with some level of healing anyway). It would also give another IO set option by allowing for Evasion to be slotted for healing.



That said, it is still a very viable set, especially considering that it can achieve gains for less money than any other set. Recharge and defense are the most expensive things to build for, and SR is good at both.

So I've been thinking about SR. In the end-game, it is one of the squishiest armor sets, but also doesn't bring much extra offensively. I believe it could use a slight buff. My suggestion:

Change quickness to an AoE affect, but hopefully lowering the costs so that the overall endurance drain is the same. Basically, it would act as an aggro aura, and provide a boost to recharge, damage, and regeneration for each enemy hit. I think this would bring some offensive ability to SR, but also make it a higher level defensive set, though still below the best sets. For those that liked the old quickness, I would leave the old option in the set, and make that power a branching choice (ie choose one or the other, like VEATs).

I believe that we need incentives to rate arcs well. Not highly, but critically. Something like this:

Player x is a critic. He gives arc y 5 stars, with an explanation for why. Player z then comes along and agrees with him. +1 to critic points. Critic points give critics:

1. Get a small number (not very exploitable) of tickets
2. Badges
3. Unlockable slots for stuff


In this way, we won't need to necessarily follow every arc, but follow critics like Venture and others that are mentioned already in this thread. Critics could also tag themselves or be tagged as specific types of critics. Say "farm critic", "story critic", "challenge critic". And missions should be able to be tagged on those parameters as well (instead of the system now).

Secondly, we need a revamp of the search tool. My ideas:

1. Tags. We already have Dev Choice, Hall of Fame, and Guest Artist tags. Add ones based off the purpose of the arcs. Don't necessarily try to fight farms to their death, but please separate them from the rest of the arcs. Other tags would include "AVs", "EBs", and "custom powers".

2. Allow us to exclude certain tags from our search. Like farms.

3. Give all current non-Dev Choice, Hall of Fame, or Guest Artist arcs a tag that says "Work in Progress". This will allow us to simply exclude arcs with that tag from our search. Instant reduction.

4. Perhaps change the rating system to a +/- system rather than the 5-star system. I think seeing -1 (1 vote) is a lot less discouraging than 1 *. With the first, I know the number of + and - ratings, and can make my inferences (1 guy didn't like the arc, but it could still be playable). Also, it would prevent the current phenomenon that prevents any arc without 5 *s from getting played (and lets be honest, a map with 500+ votes and 4 stars has a good chance as being as good as one with 5 votes and 5 *s.



Finally, it would be nice to see some base-building features added in, and more mob customization.

I've soloed Kraken, Adamastor, Babbage, Jurassik, a DE Monster, and Kronos with a high/end incarnate DM/SD.

I wish I had found that when I made my post before. That would have made it much easier.

Sorry if I seem confrontational, I don't mean it.

My point is not that tanks do not impact the speed of TFs. Rather, it is that impact:

a. Should not used to decide the viability of tanks in all content
b. Has too many variables to make a firm statement on damage (ie, Scrappers will always outdamage Tanks)
c. Cannot be absolutely discerned, even by powerset combination. Look at the difference in DPS between the highest end and lowest end DM/SD in the Pylon thread. Character damage can vary wildly by build and skill.

Just so we are clear, I agree with Slainsteel. Under almost all circumstances, a Tank is not the optimal choice for a team designed to speed TFs. However, you do not need all 8 slots to be the absolute optimal pick, even for a speed TF, unless your goal is to set records.

Unfortunately, unless you team only with SG friends with specific powersets, you cannot fill a team with exactly the optimal toons. You may even bring a tank.

Using numbers from builds I have made under those exact circumstances (note, numbers can change wildly per build):

Kat/Electric: Soft-capped Sm/Le, Perma-Energize, with Shadow Meld from Epics for other defenses

Assuming 70% Sm/Le, 30% other

Max Hp: 1727
Regneration Rate: 686%, 49.38 per second with Rebirth and Spiritual Core Alpha
Amount of damage after resistances to hurt: 111.01
Amount of damage after defenses to hurt (With SM): 2220.36
Amount of damage after defenses to hurt (Without SM): 978
(Actual numbers would be slightly higher due to things not calculated).

Kat/Willpower (staying with Katana for consistency)

Max HP: 2245.14
Regeneration Rate (with Rebirth) 1 Target: 942%, 92.68 hp/s
Regeneration Rate 10 Targets: 1408%, 138.52 hp/s
Amount to hurt after resistances (10 targets): 228.87
Amount to hurt after defenses (10): 4515.39 (on this build all defenses were soft-capped except psionic)

Kat/Inv

Max HP: 2409.52
Regeneration Rate (With Rebirth): 476%, 49.31 hp/s
Amount to hurt after resistances: 118.15
Amount to hurt after resistances: 2363 (on this build, all but psy were soft-capped at one target in Inv)

So your final numbers are:

Kat/Elec: 2220.36
Kat/Willpower: 4515.39
Kat/Inv: 2363

So, willpower wins by a large amount. This is due to its larger regeneration. Because all the sets have similar numbers on resistances (Elec slightly higher to exotics, will to psy, invulnerability to smashing/lethal), no set has a huge numerical resistance advantage, and also have good defense. This leaves regeneration as the main factor between the builds Note, however, that Elec and Inv can increase resistances with their t9s, giving them an advantage (improving them to 3950 hps and 3945 hps). Invulnerability and Electric will be similarly resistant, because the higher regen Electric gets is matched by the higher MaxHp from Dull Pain.

Basically, when you have average scrapper resistances and capped defenses, higher regeneration = more survivability.

My point with the crab wasn't that Crabs are amazing and better than Ill/Cold Controllers. It merely was that I can subjectively argue that they could be. As you can subjectively argue that tanks are worse than scrappers. And while we may be able to definitively state what a tanker and scrapper "might" bring to a team, the reality is that a case can be made for either, depending on powerset combination, build, and player. Any of these factors can make the difference between whether one character is better for a team than the other.

For instance, take the Fire/SS tank. This is the set always mentioned when we speak of Tank DPS, the golden proof that tanks can compete with scrappers. This powerset can perform as well as many scrapper combinations, even some very well-built ones. If you were comparing a Fire/SS to a Spines/Inv, the scrapper probably would come off second best. But if you compared a Ice/Ice tanker to that same scrapper, they probably wouldn't match it.

To return to Ill/Cold Controllers: Yes, I know they are great. What they bring to a team is amazing and they are very effective team and solo controllers. But the fact is that they do not have a huge amount of damage from attacks and pets. On the ideal team, high individual damage at the damage cap is important, and Illusion controllers lose their competitive edge once +dam, -res, and -regen come into play. So, they would not deal the same damage as a character with a higher base DPS attack chain. They come out ahead in solo AV and GM battles because their force multiplication only effects themselves. Basically, at the "ideal" situation their attack chain and pet damage are lower compared to other characters with the same buffs.

Again, my primary point is not necessarily that Crabs are better than Illusion controllers. But you cannot definitively say one is better than the other, because of subjective differences (pet spawn time, pet invulnerability, personal damage), and because of other factors such as build quality and skill. The same argument applies to tankers and scrappers, with the added complexity of powerset choice. Because of this, we should not judge ATs by their ability to participate and enhance a superteam, but by what they bring to the average team. Tanks still have a role on the average team, and certain tanks may be better than certain scrappers even for an ideal team.

So can we please just end this argument and state that tankers are still very much viable, even if under certain situations they can slow a speed run team by seconds? How much difference is there between a tanker contributing x damage and a scrapper contributing 2x in the scheme of an entire TF, even if it was as simple as that? A difference of 1 min of a Speed ITF, or perhaps less? Will taking one minute to get your reward really diminish it by that much? I believe not, and I believe that the basis of this argument, that one character can be distinctly proven better than another for this particular situation is unfounded. We cannot state that having a tanker will cause you to be x seconds slower, or that a Ill/Cold will make a team x seconds faster than a Crab would. We just can't, because it is too complex for a simple answer.

I remember thinking that only person could have the same name, even across servers. I had known and played with an Extra Ordinary Man on Guardian, and we constantly turned up on each others teams. A year or two later, I see Extra Ordinary Man on Infinity and start trying to talk to him, thinking it was the same person. It wasn't.

I remember thinking a time where high level ambushes were more common, and the coolest thing ever was to see a high level in a low level zone. I thought the DE were amazing because I saw an eminator placed in Steel Canyon, and at the time it was the highest level character I had ever seen. I spent half an hour trying to kill the +20 fungus, hoping it would level a few times.

I had an AR/Dev Blaster, and I thought that I would miss with snipe unless a played in first person viewpoint, and tried to click on their head. Imagine my surprise when I learned you don't actually aim it.

I'm just going to restate my opinions regarding "ideal" teams.

1. They aren't common, mainstream, or anywhere near the average team composition

2. They shouldn't be the decider of whether an AT is "viable on teams" or not.

What Slainsteel says is primarily true. In a team that is damage capped and has enough buff survivability, scrappers do more damage than tankers (those are generalities of course; some tankers outdamage some scrappers) which allows him to run through speed runs faster. However, you can continue that logic further.

I already mentioned the Crab Spider that achieved over 1000 dps. A true "Ideal" team probably would consist solely of them, or 7 Crabs-1 Kin. They can put a heaping of -resistance out (up -60% with procs, at least 20% from Venom Grenade), can easily cap every pet and ally's defense, and bring large bonuses to +tohit and damage. Because they also function as DPS, they would fulfill both of the "roles" in a Slainsteel ideal team, damage and buff/debuff.

My point isn't that we should all run purpled out Crabs, but that even using the same ideals we can get different results. According to my ideal team scenario, every archtype except Kinetics (and maybe them too) and Crabs aren't worthwhile. So yes, even Ill/Cold, the game's probably most broken combo, isn't worth it.

Does that stop Ill/Cold from helping Slainsteel's runs or soloing AVs/GMs? No.

Does Slainsteel saying tanks are comparatively less helpful than scrappers mean that they don't help other runs or solo GMs? No.

One person's ideal set-up doesn't decide for the rest of us whether an AT is worth playing, nor should it. It certainly doesn't lower the achievement of defeating a GM. If anything, Slainsteel's lack of faith in a tank's damage potential increases the achievement, because do not have the large debuffs or damage pool other ATs have.

(PS, I haven't read the entire thread)

I ran an LGTF this morning with 8 in 1 hour and 3 minutes and got 2 purples, lots of Vanguard merits and my notice. I love this TF because it's a two for 1. I think this is the best purples TF in the game for collecting purples. Any comments? I consistently get 1-2 purples every run whether it's farm or speed.

(Did you see what I did there? I used one lucky example to describe a trend that may or may not actually occur (and yes, I did get two purples on that TF once. Both in the final room actually))

My first 50 happened in I4. He's my empathy defender, Combat R1, and it took him over 1250 hours to get to the big five-0. Talk about journey before destination.

My spines/fire scrapper on the other hand took 57 hours. I guess I've gotten a bit better.

Crabs seem to go in 2 directions for build plans (though with enough money, you can get the perks of both). The first focuses on having soft-capped defenses and good AoE damage, with some recharge thrown in. This is what I call the Tank-mage Crab. Very tough, good damage. They may have pets, but they aren't the focus.

The second is the MM crab, which focuses primarily on getting pets up often or perma and giving them good defense/damage. Double Assault, Maneuvers, are pretty much always taken.

With enough money, you can softcap AoE and range and get perma-pets. I recommend getting hover so you can avoid melee. These builds are very expensive though.

I'm currently in the market for the Gladiator Armor: TP protection + 3% defense enhancement. I'm looking to spend 2.5 billion, level doesn't matter. Send email to @The Combat or pm me to work out the trade. Thanks

Bought from Fulmens, very fast and smooth.

I'm not sure if I've experienced the same bug, but I occasionally do encounter doors that appear to not open. Walking forward into these "closed" doors teleports me forward into the room. I'd suggest seeing if that works with you.

I'm going to be periodically updating this thread with builds, just going down the list, starting with BS/Dark. These builds shouldn't be considered "the best possible", and will need tweaks and adjustments because I do not play all of these combinations at level 50 with incarnate abilities. Basic goals for all of them will be high defense, high recharge, endurance sustainability and well slotted attacks.

Referring to the magical "Rikti Pylon Thread", it seems that we have been missing a crucial point of data. If he wanted maximum efficiency, he'd go with a team of Crab spiders, with maybe 1 or two debuffers. They provide -res, +dam, and have the highest ever DPS measured (over 1000, or over 3x what the mythical DM/SD got before i20).

This is another infinite price build that I think could still be tweaked quite a bit.

I wanted to see if I could get a Sword/Electric powerset that had both good damage and pretty good survivability. I chose Katana for the sexiness.

I managed to get perma-hasten and near perma Energize with the spiritual core T4, which I went for since I was good on endurance with Powersink and Energize. With one DA (which is sadly underslotted) I have softcap to Lethal and close to softcap melee. One luck softcapped all but fire/cold/psy damage (though positionals will be close). Also, Shadow Meld brings everything to around 50-60% and has a downtime of only 8 seconds. Between Barrier and SM I have decent defense at all times. If I use lucks to keep myself above 45%, I'd use Rebirth to have ridiculous regeneration. It should be good for just about anything, especially the three most common damage types.

Build: Katana/Electric
Price: Infinte
Build goals:
Get as much to 32.5% as I can (1 luck from soft-cap). Didn't get fire/ice/psy very high though.
After that, pack as many -res procs as I can
Try to get a decent amount of recharge in.
Build weaknesses: Some weakness to fire/ice damage. No Power Surge if you like T9s. Not a lot of AoE for my tastes (coming from a guy with a Spines/Fire though). DA is definitely underslotted.
Incarnate: Yes, Spiritual Core T4, Warworks T4 Core, Interface T4 Radial, Void T4 Radial and Barrier T4 Core (with T4 Rebirth Radial also)

To reply to an earlier post, I'd consider the Force Feedback proc to be NECESSARY in footstomp. It can seriously be equal to several purple sets on average if you are surrounded by footstomp's target cap most of the time, and it is fairly cheap. It made my SS/SD feel supercharged and full of purples when in reality his build cost maybe 500-750 million (which sounds like an expensive build until you realize that one good purple would pay for it).