Dirges

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Do I think they're necessary? No, not really, but I think it makes for a good discussion and may bring out better ideas from the community at large.

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I would like to again mention one of the first points I made when opening this topic thread. This is about having a conversation to see if an armor set that I do like very much, can be made better. Some believe it can be, others not so much. It's nice to read some of the different thoughts and ideas that folks have thrown out. Even to the level of detail that Starsman went to.

I appreciate the feedback, even if at times I feel like I need to clean off the bottom of my shoe.

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Over the years there have been threads advocating "change" to stone armor, and thankfully they've been ignored by the devs. Hopefully yours will gain no traction as well.

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Ignored or just put aside until they have time to change stone armor? People thought the same about energy melee, until it came to for Castle to adjust it.

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and now I don't have to play a tank in order to be a hero and have decent shields.

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If all you want are decent shields, you never had to play Tankers at all. Scrapper defences have always been decent. Tanker defences are simply superior.

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*shrugs* And I disagree. I'm not willing to trade defensive capability for damage. If I play a Brute, I can have both.

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Brutes though have the same shields strength as scrappers, they are not stronger except for health. They also have to build up their damage which can be hampered on teams.


Now brutes can reach tanker caps with team support, but if you are going to rely on teams you might as well play a defender, controller, or blaster. Two will support the team better, and blasters will still have more damage.

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Not really.

Tanks were less damage dealers and more utility back then. If you wanted damage from a tank, you went fire. SS might not have been balanced against other sets/ATs in terms of damage then, but it was far from an afterthought.

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And it didn't matter what secondary you took because you burn patched everything on the map to death.

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Shout out to [name removed] on Guardian server who;

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I thought name-and-shame posts were against the forum rules?

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It is, once you name a person it becomes a personal attack, direct violation of rule 2.

Remember those numbers are not based on damage, they are single target damage. So while spines is the bottom of the list for damage, that doesn't count the extra damage it does to the other guys around the target taking damage from it's 2 cones and 2 pbaoe attacks.

Yeah going against elite bosses and higher they are at a disadvantage. In normal group play those aoe's cause havoc to a spawn.

Are you using the combat text or numbers over the mobs head?

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Whereas I am gonna guess that a stone/stone *tank* might well hold them all at once. There's still a fundamental anything-you-can-tank-I-can-tank-better truth to the Tanker archetype that Brutes nor Scrappers can touch.

Blueside, it'll be Brutes and Scrappers that are the interchangeable parts for most teams, not Brutes and Tanks, at least no more or less than they see Scrappers and Tanks and interchangeable.

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Snip

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You're right about one thing. You won't see much gap between a Tank and Brute using Granite through the s/l resists. But what about the exotic resists? Tanks (I think) have about 20% higher in exotic resists than Brutes do which makes them more easily survivable.

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So roughly 500 hp 10% defense and 8 hp more makes you think you can handle all of the freedom phalanx. *edit* forgot the 20% exotic damage resitance.


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500 hp gap, more defense, better exotic resistance. Ya, I could easily survive better than a Brute could against the FP.

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Oh one more thing. Brutes can choose Darkest Night from their epics. That adds a 16.6% to hit debuff and a damage debuff of 21% that not only helps you hold and survive agro it also helps your team survive any that might get away from you.

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I can't argue against this one. Tanks really don't have great epics except for Fire Mastery.

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Now take into consideration Io's. Your Tank is allready near the caps so not much room for improvement. A brute however can push his surviveabilty levels VERY close to what yours are with a bit of investment while still having darkest night. Imo the brute is now just as surviable if not more so and puts out far more damage. Io's can never buff a tanks damage to a brutes level but a brute can buff its surviveability to tanker levels with Io's.

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And I find this the most amusing out of this entire post. My Tank has no room for improvement? Where did you pull this information from? Tanks can easily improve themselves with IOs to the point they don't even need buffs, backup from other players, or inspirations. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even need their tier 9, which I couldn't say for Brutes.

But, instead of using Granite, let's use a different powerset. Let's say WP because my only Invul is at 28. Without SOs, a Brute would eat dirt pretty fast while the Tank would still stand. Now once we get into IOs, said Tank can pretty much never be killed again.

With IOs, a WP Tank can hit the hp cap, increase their defense to the point they won't even need their tier 9.

With IOs, a WP Brute can not cap their hp, can increase their defense. Yup, Brutes can surely be as survivable as a Tank with IOs, lol!


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So no. I do not think your stone armor tank could hold the entire freedom phalanx.

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Since I've done it with my Stone Brute before, I'm pretty damn sure I could do it with my Tank quite easily since I'm more survivable.

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A couple of things, solo wise tanks are better then brutes at surviving, but teams change that. Brutes have the same caps that tanks do, so a well built team will make the differences very minor. Then again on a team a tank has better aggro control potential then brutes, especially with the "general" brute hatred of taunt and over all aggro control besides auras.

I also have to wonder if brutes changing sides would even have their patron pools. It is kind of hard to be trained by your patron when they are your enemy.

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I don't remember the specifics, but you have a chance for your attacks to crit outside of hide, and that chance goes up for every team member within a certain radius of you. You have a base chance to crit even when solo though.

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Stalker

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If the Stalker isn't Hidden and he's attacking a PvE enemy, his chance of critting is 10% + 3% per teammate within 30'.

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I just noticed that article has an error in it.

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Stalkers cause a great deal of additional damage through critical hits. The exact chances of a critical vary greatly with the situation and the power used. Stalker criticals do double damage except in one case which we'll get to in a moment.

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It goes on to talk about AS that breaks the double damage rule, but Energy transfer and Total focus both break the rule as well. Total focus only gets a crit on it's smashing damage, and ET doesn't cause self damage if it crits. Maybe someone with an account there can fix this.

Rain type powers work like toggles for procs. Once every 10 seconds, otherwise they would be way overpowered. Look at blizzard, it has 76 to hit checks, so it would have around 15 procs on average use which would be more damage then the power does.

The procs would go off once every 10 seconds, so you would have 2 chances to proc if things lasted that long.

The scourge damage won't effect the chance to go off, since it is tied to the damage tohit checks the same with the procs.

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there are hints that some powers might be re-balanced damage wise to suit their blastery new values.

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Why?

Castle is saying this dmg buff is the equivalent of having domination dmg all the time.

Why was it okay that PSW + dom to be WAI for years, but now PSW + dmg buff (that equals dom) is suddenly too much and needs nerfing?

It's still a lvl 38 final power and it still requires full slotting to shine (lvl 40).

If you want it to fit a rule, then move it to lvl 4 availability like Ice Sword Circle because it's not a tier 9 anymore.

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There is a big difference if you know how the mods work. You see a power has a damage cap % that it can not go over. It didn't matter if you had triple dom and a kin cast fs, you were at the cap and could not do more then X damage. Now with increased base damage that cap % is the same but it is now more damage.

Lets say you do 100 base damage, at the old cap you would do 400 damage. Now you 110 base damage, so at the cap you do 440 damage. Just to simplify things.


As far as the damage buff changes, I am all for it. Having domination being a focus on control and our damage being stable is great.

Now the PSW talk, I don't mind it as of know. This is only rumors, all we know is castle is looking at it, and if PSW is adjusted the rest of the set would be brought up to compensate. Until we can test it, there is no reason to get over excited. Plus if anyone didn't know PSW was overpowered to begin with, they might want to take a step back and really look at it.

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"stick with it until 24, it gets goood".

First - Freeze Ray will greatly increase your survivability while solo and help slightly on teams.

Second - On a team are you using Snow Storm right away? An AoE slow is going to draw quite a bit of aggro, and often Brutes don't have their taunt auras until after they get Stamina so they're only holding aggro on things that they're directly hitting. Any AoEs you use are going to come back on you unless the Brute took and uses something to taunt an AoE (and if there isn't a Brute, nobody else is keeping aggro although a MM can scatter it around).

Third - Looking at your build you took Air Superiority and no travel power. Since you took it at level 8, when Freeze Ray opens up, you can probably juggle things around safely to get your hold available earlier.

Fourth - Freezing Rain (AoE knockdown similar to Ice Slick) and Hurricane (large -tohit) make it easier when you get them.

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I agree with most of what you say, and will add I found focusing on single target damage early on helps as well. Frost breath will give you more aggro on a team with no aggro soak, where ice bolt helps you focus on taking down what you are hitting faster with out as much aggro.

Well if you don't like knockback any secondary other then energy and ar would work. Secondary I would think thermal would be the best, since it has resists to stack on yours and heals, with a couple of nice buffs as well. Though every secondary would add to your experience, though you don't like storm.

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Two other comic book MMOs look like they're going to be doing those heroes more justice than here. Super heroes aren't rodeo clowns. That's what they get it seems.

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Not that I have seen. Both DCUO and CO look like they are all melee characters scrappers, with a tanker toggle. So they will either be survivable or damaging, not both like the comics. If you want to compare to the comics all 3 fail. Superman doesn't lose his massive strength just because he stops a few bullets directed at Batman.

Sorry but stalkers have been buffed many times more then they have been nerfed these last 3 years.

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I'm looking forward to putting those cool pistol models to good use on something other than a MM.

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Yes! In fact, I may even re-roll my MM as a Pistols/FF Corr. Not sure yet.

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Since when do Corrs have FF 0.o

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We may by the time dual pistols are available, but we will have FF eventually.


As far as the OP, we probably didn't have a thread since corruptors have discussed dual pistols several times already. The devs said that corruptors would be the first AT with a dual pistol range attack set.

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Now I build my guys to not require buffs as much as possible, so I don't need sb, but I still like it when it is offered, the same with other buffs.

Though I don't understand why anyone would take the power and never use it. If I grab a power I don't like I drop it for something I will use, unless it is required.

Though coming to the boards complaining won't do anything. The average player doesn't read the boards. All you do is bring up a topic that has been beat several times before.

Overall having caped resists is about the same as caped defense. They perform the same mathmatically. Defense does better with controls/debuffs that are not auto hit since they can be avoided, while resists does not have to deal with the random number generator to survive.

The only real reason to want defense over resists I can think of is the defense is far easier to cap.

Also Darkside, I am not at home, and will check when I get home, but I always thought resistance always resisted resist debuffs, unless flagged unresistable. Which was why resists based sets hated nullifiers since theirs were unresistable.

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ea HAS a taunt aura. 1 taunt enhancement with your regular slotting makes the taunt duration on ED last longer than your recharge.

There are many arguments about whether the changes were enough, but those arguments were NOT about ed taunt. It's great.

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Regular slotting? How can 18 seconds be more then 30 seconds.

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JUST NOT ANOTHER LETHAL DAMAGE SET please!!!


That's all I ask.

Demon is cool but I think it's similar to Undead (magical).

Merc and Thug are kind similar too.

We need something really different. Robot is on its own.

Pirates (or Water Creatures) would be nice. A mix of Smashing and Cold damage.


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Wouldn't pirates be a lethal set, and pretty close to thug/mercs? I mean they would be focused on pistol and cutlass weapons.

But it is OK for me to throw sand in your eyes, without you getting mad at me.

It depends how fast you cast it. Placate has a 1.5 second cast time, so as long as you start casting it .5 seconds after your last attack you should be fine.

Unless they are spines.

They are talking about effects on your target. You placate the target, but a secondary effect from one of your attacks then breaks the placate and the target attacks. It is broken because you have no control over your secondary effects, such as elecs sleeps that don't last but a second.

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That's why I said 'was'. Prior to IO's, SR's had big problems with defense debuffers, same as any other defense sets.

Or did you assume that I was somehow linking IO's to the buff that sr's defense debuff resistance got? The only link they have is timing.

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Did you even read what you wrote about SR?

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SR without IO's was BRUTAL when you would run up against enemies with any -defense. The cascade would lay you low even if you didn't run out of end.


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