DreadShinobi

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
    There is no way that a scrapper is as useful on a team as a defender or corruptor, unless the defender or cor are incredibly incompetent. I know scrappers do not like to hear that. They like to think that everyone is thrilled when a scrapper joins the team, but in fact they are just filler.
    After you reach a certain threshold on buffs your team is going to be benefitting more from pure damage AT rather than more buffs/debuffs. If you're entire team is constantly at 400% dmg buff, and enemies are hitting -90% res or higher (sleets) a pure damage dealer (fire blaster, ss/fire brute, tw/elec brute, fire/shield scrapper) is going to be more beneficial than another buff/debuffer even if that buff/debuffer is a high dps fire corr.


    Quote:
    If you disagree with me, list in order the usefulness of AT's on a team. If you say they are all equally useful, you are either delusional or lying.

    Okay, I'll bite.

    This is my opinion on AT effectiveness taken from the perspective of someone who held the fastest speed records in coh before incarnates came out in i19 and made everything silly and detracted from what each AT is specifically capable of. This list is mostly an experiment to see what reactions people will say to it, but I think for the most part when looking at high-end endgame speed content, it holds mostly true.

    Basically there are 3 main things a toon can bring to a team: damage, buffs, or control. Damage is straight forward and overlaps with buffs and control for all ATs sans blasters. Buffs can be further broken down into offensive buffing and defensive buffing. Control can be further broken down into mezzing and aggro management.

    I will also assume each AT is using an optimal powerset combination for simplicity as comparing all the non optimal power sets would make the list extraordinarily long. For normal gameplay this would typically be impractical, but this is just a hypothetical list. This means any blast set would be fire. Any brute would be ss/ or tw/ with /fire /elec or /dark. Any scrapper would be fire/shield. Etcetera. Anything listed below must excel at both dealing damage and providing whatever else they do well to be ranked high. Rankings here also assume the rest of the team is also playing of equal skill level and the team is built optimally with you in the most optimal spot.


    DPS+Offensive Buffing:
    1) Corruptors
    2) Dominators (ice mastery_sleet)
    3/4) Controllers/Defenders*
    5) Arachnos Soldiers**
    6/7) Masterminds/Arachnos Widows***

    *Interchangeable for various reasons and highly dependant on situation.
    ** Soldiers are ranked higher than widows due to their -res debuffs
    ***These 2 are potentially interchangeable. Masterminds can provide better offensive buffs/debuffs compared to Widows, but Widows can deal much more effective dps in any situation.

    DPS+Defensive Buffing
    1) Corruptors
    2/3) Defenders/Controllers*
    4) Arachnos Widows**
    5) Arachnos Soldiers
    6) Masterminds

    *Defs and Controllers are interchangable here as above.
    ** Widows are ranked higher than Soldiers here due to similar DPS output but with slightly better defensive buffs, otherwise they are pretty much equal.
    *** Masterminds hit the bottom here, not because they can't be effective defensive buffers, more that their damage can be highly inconsistant. Consistancy is very important

    DPS+Mezzing
    1) Dominators
    2) Controllers
    3) Arachnos Widows (fortunatas)

    This is a rather odd list to put up here, as each AT here is really unqiue in what they do, and really the only true DPS+mez AT is specifically the Dominator. I suppose I could also make a list of Buff+Mez where it would easily be Troller>Dom>Widow, but with that said, Trollers are the only AT that truly belongs there also.

    DPS+Aggro Control
    1) Brutes
    2) Scrappers
    3) Tankers
    4) Stalkers
    5) Warshade
    6) Peacebringer

    Being able to hold aggro is very important both offensively and defensively to a team. If mobs are running around everywhere scattered to the four winds, kill speed will go down. On a stacked team the defensive portion to aggro control tends to get covered in buffs, however it is still worth mentioning, imo.

    2 exceptions to the above lists are blasters, who are purely damage dealers and don't really fall into the above categories due to not having a secondary function. Blasters are also unique in being one of the best ATs to be on the recieving end of some serious buffing. The other being controllers who are unique in their mezzing+buffing, I do feel they can fit in with the above listings as they can do respectable damage (pending on powersets, of course), so they are up there, but I felt they deserved a mention here.

    If I were to make an overall AT usefulness list it would look something like this, however there is alot of asterisks, situational advantages and disadvantages. This is purely meant to be the closest possible representation of what is generally most effective in most sitations. It is not meant to be taken as absolute.


    1) Corruptors (best in terms of dealing both high damage and strong force multipliers
    2) Defenders (Same as above except with less damage and negligible higher buff mods)*
    3) Brutes (High damage and aggro control)
    4) Scrappers (High damage and aggro control)**
    5) Dominators (High DPS+Mezzing+Debuffing in the form of Sleet)
    6/7) Blasters (High DPS)*** and Controllers (Low-Moderate DPS+Buffing)**** Blasters and Controllers are about the same in my book in terms of overall team effectiveness, they just lie on opposite sides of the spectrum.
    8-12 Arachnos Soldiers, Arachnos Widows, Tankers, Stalkers, Masterminds. I consider all these about the same, each with different strengths and weaknesses in comparison to eachother.
    13/14) Peacebringers, Warshades. Low-Moderate dps. No buffing/debuffing. Poor aggro management compared to other melee ATs. More survivability than should ever be considered necessary.



    * Strictly inferior to Corruptors
    ** Strictly inferior to Brutes
    *** Only placed here because of how effective they are when on the recieving end of a stacked team with alot of buffers. Without the buffs they would be alot lower and they cannot bring buffs to the team themselves. However if enough buffs are already present and mez or aggro control to prevent scatter is present, then blasters become optimal.
    **** Strictly inferior when control is not needed, but fall into a niche where they can be very useful if a team specifically needs both control and buffing.

    Now removing the astricks you are left with this (in no particular order:

    -Corruptors (the go-to AT for damage and buffs)
    -Brutes (the go-to AT for damage and aggro management)
    -Dominators (the go-to AT for damage and mez)
    -Blasters (a focused AT on dealing damage, this spot is only here when buffs and control are already solid on the team). Controllers, the unique case when both things it brings are most optimal for the team slot pending on the task at hand.
    -Then there is everything else.

    Again these are not meant as absolute. This is not a list I would flaunt in front of a typical coh player, it is where I feel ATs fall when comparing ATs strictly for endgame content with the intent to run the content as fast as possible. Otherwise all the ATs are generally acceptable other than the bottom 5 which I will label as "needs work" (tankers, masterminds, stalkers, and kheldians).

    Disclaimer: When I form teams I don't deny anyone based on their AT. I will of course be more happy with a high dps team, but that is besides the point. The only time I will deny someone is if I have had issues with them in the past or they don't get along with someone else currently on the team, or if they are +0 level shifted and I'm running UGT/TPN/MoM.

    Also, lol longest post I've ever written.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by PowerOfRA View Post
    Now that every class has a nuke that is better than the class nuke, Should the class nuke be improved?????

    eg,,,Half the crash so toggles don't drop?
    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=281646
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Demetrios Vasilikos View Post
    Its so cute when kids prefer to leave thier toys left in the box. It is great for covering tuition costs down the road. Sadly I myself always enjoy taking my toys out of the box, sometimes taking them apart and putting them back together different, modded if you will to do more then thier original design was capable of.

    This is the same with any AT in the game. Presuming ANYTHING based on an AT or power sets in and of themselves is silly, as is leading a TF and needing anything but yourself. BAD TF leader imo. I dont follow those that our victory is a ? Which is why I only lead them, and always know we wont fail because I am there. The rest are free to be whatever they like as about the only AT that can effect our time to completion is a kin keeping me juiced to top performance on my characters.

    I know this because I can lead TFs with a blaster, scrapper, PB, even a stalker. carrying the majority of the weight, and always complete the TF in my time estimate.

    Single target or aoe specialist, melee or ranged it matters not what a good player wields. really not ever. that is the strength of COX. No one is ever needed, but everyone is always WELCOME, least on my teams. Until they do something to piss me off anyways. My star my ship my crew, dont like it you can get off my boat.
    Of course nothing is needed in the game. This game is ridiculously easy. The thing is you can do pretty much anything in this game and complete it with whatever you happen to have or you can do anything in this game and complete it faster, that's what I'm getting at.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by recalx View Post
    meh, it's amazing how after 7 years, people are still in denial about melee.

    having any melee in a team is a waste of a spot.
    This isn't true. Having 1-2 melee (brute or scrapper preferably) on a team of 8 is very beneficial. They keep AVs/mobs from running around all over and provide good dps (it has very little to do with being a defensive pivot for the team, thats what buffers are for). Of course the rest of the team will hopefully not be melee, but having 8 corrs isn't better than 1-2 brutes and 6-7 corrs
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Schismatrix View Post
    This is my evaluation of the desirability of various archetypes on teams, and is based on my personal opinions and experiences. As such it should be taken with both a grain of salt and a middling sized salt cellar.

    Any and all ATs when played by unpleasant and/or incompetent players: Low.

    Any and all ATs when played by entertaining and/or highly skilled players: High.

    Any and all ATs when played by players who are not especially good or bad: Medium, depending on team composition and ratio/presence of previous two categories.

    That's pretty much it.
    Yes, a good player is obviously a priority when looking at who to team with.

    But when you have 2 choices, a great player on a corruptor and an equally skilled player on a peacebringer, I'd without a doubt want the corruptor more. Of course am I going to deny a friend a spot on a team because he is playing a pb? No, because he's my friend. Or in a more practical situation let's say I send a tell to said friend who only has 2 toons (1 is a corr and 1 is a pb) to join a team for a tf. Said friend replies and says he doesn't care which toon he brings. Which toon do you think I'll be asking for? It's hardly a choice at all.

    Once you get past the 'good player > bad player' situation, all that is left is AT effectiveness, and some ATs will outperform and be more desirable than other ATs in nearly every or most applicable situations.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
    Stuff.
    I'm 99% sure you aren't playing the same game I am.
  7. All my toons have certain things that are the same between them:

    All body scales are minimum except shoulders and chest for females and legs and shoulders for males.

    The facial scales are the same among all toons.

    Skin color is the same across all toons (medium gray)

    Theme/RP has no part in costume creation for me, other than matching towards what power sets they use.

    Never use the premade costume sets.

    All my male costumes have either the Korean pants or the baggy pants. Most of my female costumes have flared tight pants.

    Then after those basics I go from there with what I generally want the costume to look like or whatever looks cool to me at the moment and meshes with the overall costume. Despite the list of presets I use each costume is still pretty unique.
  8. I agree with much of what you said.


    When I lead TPNs my instructions basically go as:

    1 Before trial: Ask for any people who are specifically built for single target damage or have otherwise good ST dmg and put them on a team together.

    2 Upon entering: No uncontrollable pets, aoes/judgments are okay as long as there are no cameras near, do not attack cameras.

    3 Main building: Run to the end and wipe out the IDF inside, kill the Technicians and click the glowies (the first time inside the main building there are so many IDF at each terminal it is usually easier to just kill them where they are rather than pulling them to the center, mainly due to aggro caps), follow up with tank and spanking maelstrom.

    4 Split: Single target team (should be about 1/3 of number of people in league) stay outside, no pets, no aoe, kill telepathists. Everyone else is on buildings. Pull IDF to the center of the room, make it clear the objective is killing the technicians, not the IDF, as soon as there are no IDF near a tech, kill the tech and click the glowie. Repeat for each building (TPN today > Main > Vis Corp > TPN today).

    5 Maelstrom: If you're targetted by marked for death, move out, move in as soon as the cone snipe power icon appears on your status bar (it's safe to move in before the actual bullseye icon disappears, I don't mention this, as you say the less instructions you say, the more likely they are to be followed, but it's good information).

    Repeat 4.

    Repeat 5.


    TPN is really a simple trial once you get the rhythem down.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by mauk2 View Post
    B

    Really? There's a character limit?

    Freakin' forum software.

    B in inf only.
    I think it's just 2 characters. Some forums have 10 or more character minimums which can make posting super annoying.
  10. Teleport, except without the lame 2 second activation.
  11. First mistake:
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
    I like playing with tankers.
    Second Mistake:
    Quote:
    I like playing tankers.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    From what I recall the SG buffs were supposed to decay after 27 days and they weren't so they were pulled, and either they haven't been able to fix them or it simply isn't a priority.

    Now my memory on the reason why they were pulled may be faulty but they were indeed pulled.
    They were /initially/ pulled because they were bugged. However the plans to reimplement them not going through was more about it not being a priority and them not giving a rats *** about pvp.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Valles View Post
    So, tonight, I played my first attempt at the MoM trial. (Wiped in the final fight because of insufficient anti-mez for the support squadron.) It was fun, and I greatly look forward to taking a second crack at it sometime.
    Props on this. There are many on this forum that will fail their first run through a trial then refuse to run it again and come here to whine about how horrible it was. It's refreshing to hear not everyone is like that

    Just as an fyi for the final fight of mom, when you enter the final room have everyone that can pop their lore pets, then have 2 (or more, but you shouldn't need more than 2) people that can pop a t3+ clarion after the pets are summoned. She'll be dead before the 2 clarions go below the mag threshold.


    And yes, the resemblance is pretty crazy.
  14. D. Would easily be in the 100+ bil if it included slotted IOs though. My general rule of thumb is if I have enough inf to improve a character or IO a new one then I use that inf.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Organica View Post
    Forget what will I do if CoH dies. What will I do if EVERYTHING dies?

    = I haven't had power since Thursday morning. Ice storm in Western Washington has made a lot of branches break and whole trees fall over from the weight of ice, and where I live there are a LOT OF TREES. (One barely missed my car!) I also live on a hill, and last night I had to park 3 miles away from home and walk up the hill, and when I got there there was still no power.

    I made a fire, listened to the radio (my Tivoli iPAL can go for hours w/out recharging), and read a book. (Snuff by Terry Pratchett). But... NO COH!!!!

    I'm posting this from work of course. I probably won't have power when I go home, maybe not for another couple of days....
    Seattle WA here, definitely not as bad where I live as what you're describing. But tbh I think it's being super overhyped. Western Washington just isn't used to getting snow and whenever we get it everyone completely explodes in an uproar about how its the most catastrophic devastation since 1652 or whatever, if this was on the east coast no one would care and life would continue as normal. Whenever we get snow here everything has to stop cold turkey.
  16. This has been suggested before. The overall consensus being yes.
  17. Citadel TF (25+) offers pretty good xp, basically the whole tf is a long string of defeat council missions. If you can get a strong and willing team you could potentially set it to +2 or something for better xp. http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Citadel_tf
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SwellGuy View Post
    Well I sure won't be going outside. Too bright out there.


  19. Lytari, my fire/cold corr.



    Sanaki, my fire/kin corr.



    My namesake.
  20. Energy Melee. Some sets are just underplayed, and more or less have always been underplayed. Energy melee on the other hand went from one of the most played melee sets in the game to the least played from the time it was changed to now. Nothing has had such a plummet like EM had, at least from my viewpoint.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
    And maybe in a few more decades when the Devs finally get around to doing more Power Customizations this'll be one of the first powers to get new animation options.
    Hasten and Super Speed need it more.
  22. DreadShinobi

    ITrial Drops

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Stone Daemon View Post
    I see other league members bragging all the time about purple drops on trials that I run. I'm sure the rewards are fair for the size of the team/league, as they are while running normal content.
    It's just more noticeable because there are more people, at least 1 of them is bound to get a purple at some point, and by human nature they must make sure everyone else is aware of it . And its rarely the same person.