DarkSideLeague

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bah. Blueside :P
I was thinking controller, for some weird reason.

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Fair enough. I mean the only reason I know this is Mids. Not like I'd ever roll another hero to 50.

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Heroes are lame, they all want tanks and heal0rz for their teams.

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And travel powers for their mighty, mighty, zone size and no phone numbers for the contacts.

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bah. Blueside :P
I was thinking controller, for some weird reason.

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Fair enough. I mean the only reason I know this is Mids. Not like I'd ever roll another hero to 50.

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so...basically /EA would be hugely improved by accessing the scrapper epp instead of the ppps?


Hell, that sounds like a GREAT IDEA!
let /ea access EPP's instead of PPP'S! good luck finding anyone to play any other secondary after that

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WTF are you smoking Frost? The Scrapper EPP has Conserve power and Focused Accuracy. It's the CONTROLLER one that has power boost.

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Well first, if you look at my previous posts, my position is really that EA is not broken with the exception of PvP. So this post was more just to reinforce that by illustrating how cool CoV is for defense sets now.

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I still find it hilarious: All the sets ported from tankers allow Brutes to breeze through the game, the Scrapper set requires more slotting and work, and the brand new sets are dead last.

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Is Willpower ported from tankers or was it given to Brutes, Scrappers, Tankers, and Stalkers at the same time? I took a break from the game so I really don't know.

Anyway, you are saying Invuln, WP, Fire, are awesome, SR, DA are OK, and EA is the suck?

Honestly I have not played a SR brute. But really, SR has extra speed, extra perception, and better protection. But you have to take all 9 powers to have a tight set. EA gives you stealth, unlimited endurance, and you really don't have to take many of the powers to have its advantages, but at a cost of less protection.

The kicker is that brutes actually get a ton of their protection from their primary. Any good brute is going to protect himself by killing and mezzing his enemies before they have a chance to do a ton of damage. So really, the fact that SR has better protection is really kind of worthless. Especially when in today's game it's the VEATs and Corrs that make a defense toon really great. So really you are stacking speed and perception against endurance, stealth, and flexibility in the build. Personally I would take the endurance, stealth, and flexibility.

The only thing I really have not considered here is EA's psi hole. But since I have been spending all day in RWZ these days and have really not been hit too hard by the psi hole (they must combine psi with smashing or something), I really don't think it's a set killer. It is a hefty advantage for SR having positional defense, though. But with regard to that, I would say that if they want to sit down and fix the psi hole for invuln and fire as well as EA, I would be all for that. The sets that have a psi hole are given no advantage for their psi hole. But this is a game wide AT wide multiple set issue. Not a problem unique to the EA brute set.

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Keep in mind, for the longest time DA was the only set ported from scrappers. I haven't had much experience with SR, honestly. I was talking about the sets at launch. And yes, /Inv was fairly good when paired with Tough/Weave. And before you cry "Pool Powers!", most of the Brutes built to tank for a team of 8 that I saw took Tough at least (Fire took it, Stone took it, Electric took it). The fact that weave actually contributed something tangible to invuln was simply a bonus.

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Well first, if you look at my previous posts, my position is really that EA is not broken with the exception of PvP. So this post was more just to reinforce that by illustrating how cool CoV is for defense sets now.

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I still find it hilarious: All the sets ported from tankers allow Brutes to breeze through the game, the Scrapper set requires more slotting and work, and the brand new sets are dead last.

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He already won

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How? He can't solo MoLRSF yet!

Give him some time, man.

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I will bet a Numina's Unique recipe on champion that Invulnerability gets buffed before /ea. Any takers?

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Didn't the Devs sticky this thread? I think EA gets changed first.

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How many threads like this have there been? I think it's just them confirming that the set has a lot of detractors.

SPEDIT: Which means of course, that neither /EA or /Inv will be fixed.

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I can agree that RoF has it's uses, but there's too many other much more important powers to get instead.

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Exactly my findings. I've tried every power in both sets (And Flame/Cold/Force Mastery) and found this to be one of the most superfluous powers that you can choose. The ONLY time I've found it useful is during an AV/GM fight. I got more mileage out of the Snipe (Sting of the Manticore FTW).

I found Ice Sword to be pretty good as far as "oh ****" powers go, but once Flares was buffed I dropped it to mid-thirties, and haven't found much use for it now. I might drop it for Frozen Aura (If only for the Fortunata set). I found Ice Patch to be pretty much pointless since I got Shiver, and Freezing Touch was lacking once I got Char. I might give it another try, but melee was killing me.

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Capped Hover/Flight is slow and useless in pvp.

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fix't.

I made a Merc/Poison in I6. He never leapt past level 6.

Shame, he was enjoyable.

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DM is gimp enough now that Castle is looking at buffing it come I13. *Shrug* So I think that has some merit.

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And what about EA? That's been just as gimped since it replaced /Ice in I6 Beta. Seriously, I would rather have /EA fixed before any other set, since it needs it the most.

Maaaaybe Fire/. Since Brutes are about the smash.

I think the problem is that they don't see /EA as underperforming.

Everything else is overperforming.

(Okay, maybe not ElA.)

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By the way, what exactly is the "theme" of Energy "Aura"?

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I mentioned about the theme of energy aura in my first post. But I didn't explain what it is, because it is quite subjective about what energy is. For example, there are spiritual energy, as well as high-tech energy as in Star Trek. Both are energy but completely different in nature. I mention about the theme simply because I hope that the audience can think about how the power set is designed, and not just in terms of balance with other power sets.


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Personaly I've allways seen Energy Aura as Kinetic energy. Deflecting most things that are thrown at it and absobing some stuff that gets through.

in essence what we allready have mostly defense based, with some resistance.

the closest thing i can think of in the world of sci-fi is the Goa'uld personal force fields from the Stargate Series. while they will stop bullets from p-90's and 9mill, and blasts from staff weapons and Zats. a thrown knife or tranq dart would get through with no problem. (I've never seen an episode of SG-1 or Atlantis that had anyone using something akin to Fire, Cold, Toxic, or psi damage thrown at them)

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Pretty sure a flamethrower would overload the power supply. Also probably is low speed enough to penetrate.

Not only should they add Perception to Energy Cloak, they should either add Defense Debuff Resistance or make the DDR enhanceable ala Super Reflexes. 54% Resistance is NOT enough to stay alive against multiple -Def powers (My DM/EA can Tank Malta till the cows come home, but put him up against Earth CoT Scientists... *Shudder*).

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That would still qualify as a no defense for /ea.

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No.

Remember that your cloak still gives you that positional defence to stack with that steadfast IO.

Sound like meaningless semantics? 3.75% unslotted sound worthless? well for many builds, sure. It will be.

It does however have a pretty big contribution to other types of builds, and should not be totally discounted. To put it into context it's still possible for EA to solo the elder snake AV, and cloak is a meaningfull part of why.

EDIT: to clarify, the eldersnake AV is one of the few high level sources of pure toxic damage that actually IS out there.

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Don't forget Acid Arrow from Manticore. Which he fires at every opportunity.

SPEDIT: And Captain Mako's Bile Spray.

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Perhaps. and this is only a perhaps, datamining has proven that /ea is not underperforming compared to other brute sets?

This could be due to a number of reasons. People quitting when they start to feel like they are underperforming, thus skewing the numbers from 'underperforming' into 'underutilized'.

Or perhaps those who stick with /EA are those that have specifically stuck it out, and learned the tricks and strategies neccessary to make it perform equal to other sets.

It might even be a general preference of players who play /ea towards choosing a strongly mitigating primary. With the amount of endurance enhancement in /ea, no one would think twice about pairing it with SS or SM, both extremely strongly mitigating primaries.

but, for whatever reason, all of the various EA threads have been basically ignored. Not even an 'ea is performing up to expectations' or 'ea may be looked at some day'. In fact, I am shocked that this thread has been looked at with enough authority to be stickied.

When Ice was considered underperforming, a redname came and said it was being looked at.
blasters were paid attention to. and were specifically marked as underperforming.
even stalkers, who were NOT underperforming solo or PVP, were looked at... at least insofar as someone commented on it a while back. it took a long time before they started testing changes, but the complaint was definitely looked at. (if you want underperformance solo, try an earth/ta controller prior to 32)

So this says one of several things;

1) the devs don't care. This is very tinfoil-hattish, since the devs have proven time and again that they DO care.

2) Not enough poor players play /EA for it's underperformance to even be a blip on the radar. This is quite likely, especially considering the fact that 'new' players are likely to quit early or never even try /ea due to all the 'lolea' garbage out there.

3) EA is not underperforming. This is also a distinct possibility, since the number of people who play EA to it's strengths is vanishingly small. Most who try it, try to play it like a fire or willpower brute, and of course, in a role it is unsuited for, it fails and they quickly become discouraged and quit playing.

4) There are changes on the agenda, but it's still in the discussion phase, and no redname wants to touch it for fear of revealing too much or making it seem like they are making promises that they cannot keep. I personally feel this is the most likely scenario, and while it is discouraging (to say the least) to be left in the dark like this, I can totally understand the reasoning behind it. It is also possible that NONE of the suggestions yet 'fit' their ideas behind EA.


so, keep the suggestions coming, those of us that love EA like it is will keep playing, but please try to keep the ea abuse to a minimum, just in case #2 is true. I will be the first to admit that 'elite' players can enjoy even a poor sets (some people had amazing results with fire/fire blasters back during old defiance)




And stop trying to take away our stealth!

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My god. I actually ag*cough cough* - agree with Frostweaver - for the most part. I still subscribe to the notion of "lolEA". In fact, I just added lolEA to my dictionary for my reply window. Leave the stealth, thanks. Add some Regen or a Heal. Or unnerf our Smashing/Lethal defense.

My DM/EA brute has both Fighting and Widow. Widow for Gloom, Fighting for not-sucking.

Pavement.

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It's a GM I believe? And yes, it's in the air, which is VERY annoying for my scrapper.

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It's called a "Monster" (or AV) but it's treated as an AV.

Also, the Arachnos Flier shows up on the Event Channel. I've seen notifications about 3 or 4 times on Test. Seems like it'll be MUCH easier to spot now. I still think it should patrol for an hour and THEN despawn, not the 5 minutes it currently has.

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Confuse - Contagious Confusion - Chance for AoE Confuse - when placed in Arctic Air (possibly any power), the proc can confuse allied entities. This is problematic for players, as they have been attacked by their own pets.

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sounds like we're up to a list of 5 things that can proc on yourself.
is this a most systemic problem?
what do those 5 powers have in common?

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I think it's like Chain Induction. It grants a PBAoE Confuse (Allies) to the target (In all likelihood). Since AA can perma-confuse, the critter thinks your allies are it's allies.

Confuse - Contagious Confusion - Chance for AoE Confuse - when placed in Arctic Air (possibly any power), the proc can confuse allied entities. This is problematic for players, as they have been attacked by their own pets.

Fiery Embrace, when dealing with non Fire damage, is the same bonus as build-up, sans the toHit buff (+100% damage for 10 seconds). For Fire Damage, it is double effectiveness and double duration (+200% damage for 20 seconds). It USED to be Double Effectiveness and TRIPLE duration, but was nerfed in I4 IIRC.

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so it's everytime you do it, you get a chance to get the item (flight for AP, SJ for KR, ect...) but you only get it the first time you COMPLETE the mish. If you fail 5 times, and get it on the 6th, you still get it.

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Correct. Theres no real need to do the Mayhem over and over once you get the special item unless you want the badge for completing x arsons, x cars and trucks destroyed, x vault doors destroyed, etc, etc.

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Two other reasons:
1. Getting contacts (Although you can fail the mission and get said contacts)
2. You actually enjoy Mayhems.

Myself, I would probably buy it simply for use with Super Speed/Super Jump.

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Actually, I've yet to use a second respec on any character I own, most of them have 3-5 'banked' against future major changes.

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You can't have 5 respecifications 'banked'. The free respecs don't stack. If you can do the respec trial 3 times and get the earned respecs to stack, you can have 4, but I don't know, when I do the respec trials, I just grab the single origin enhancement.

If you know that there's going to be a free respec soon, then you should log onto your characters and see if they could benefit from using the one the have already.

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Villains get a Earned Respec for completing the first Patron Arc.

3 Respec Trials +
1 Patron Arc +
1 Freebie =
5 Banked Respecs.

A Redname mentioned in passing that several new sets were coming for a later issue (I think it was in the paid expansion, so 10 or 11). They said about 1-2 new primaries/secondaries for each.

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The AMoA needs to cost something like 1500 points. Either that or it needs some serious nerfing.

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I think that the AMoA should either cost 1250 or be entirely removed.

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I'd like to see a similarly uber Gladiator show up for demonic, or another of the Accolades for villains (Maybe having a "Paragon Hero/Rogue Isles Villian Badge, which summons a random hero/villain? For Force of Nature, of course).