Filth_EU

I'm fairly sure knockdown enhancers will increase the distance of KB, which might knock dudes *out* of the creepers which you probably don't want to do. Since I'm PvP oriented I went for Slow as well as ACC and Recharge. It is a great power although not as effective as Ice Slick for pure control.

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Also, as it stands, breakfrees dont release you from -fly or terrorise

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They do.

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personaly i'd drop grant invis/thaw for stealth and invis otherwise blaster will just 1 shot you from orbit.
2 range in thaw is abit of a waste anyway..range enh is just a waste period

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What is this with 'drop Thaw'? it's one of the standout powers in Thermal for PvP.

I'd be tempted to go with hover/fly for travel and get Stealth that way, since hover gives you semi-KB res you save a power, not needing Acrobatics.

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Why did you choose Regen though?

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bah ... why not? ^^
never played one so..

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I ask because the other sets seem more useful, like SR or Ninjitsu, I've seen a few Regen stalkers around and they seem to do OK. The issue for me would be with low HP to begin with Regen isn't as good for stalkers as it is with scrappers.

I've fought both with and against a Claws Scrapper, Claws is very good, very lethal. Spines is very FOTM. Having a ranged attack with both Claws and Spines is handy either one is good. I would go for whichever fits your concept.

Why did you choose Regen though?

I've found the medicine pool very good and very useful but you'll know by now whether you need it; Hasten is also great. I ended up essentially having no choices from the power pools - I just took what I had to - Leaping, Speed, Medicine, Fitness. I went for Hasten rather than Stealth simply because I'm up close so much.

Looks good Empath, I'd consider trying to find a place for the medicine pool so you can get Aid Self. Since I got it I've been impressed at how good it is and I don't think I could do well at all now with it, especially in PvP. I'd also find more slots for Bone Smasher and TF.

I'd also try to get TK in earlier, maybe if you want to get mass hypnosis get that later and swop TK around.

Of course you must take both.

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Just tried Blaster and Defender holds, I'll grab the others tomorrow. Seems ONLY conts go through Acro, wonder if they auto crit now.

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The simple explanation is:
player base resist = -1
Acrobatics = -1

Controller & Dominator ST Hold Mag = +3
Blaster (& Defender, Epic ?) ST Hold Mag = +2

For a Hold to work, your status must be above 0. It's less noticeable in PvE since 2 Holds Vs a boss will work for everyone, it's just that Doms and Controllers have greater Mag than they need. I wasn't aware that ST Holds have different Mags for different ATs, it seems that they do.

I *used* to think Acro resisted ST controller holds, but I've just tested it in Siren's. Char broke through every time. Possibly this is an issue with the arena vs zones? I don't know.

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Acrobatics provides protections against Magnitude 3 (as in, it'll take one Mag3 hold).

Your base resist is -1, and Acro is an additional 2, you'd have to be hit by 2x Mag3 holds.

Blaster holds and Controllers holds are both Mag3 (IE, they'll hold an Lt or Minion, or any AT without Mez protection, but require more than one application to get a Boss, or someone with Acro).

Now, a controller can hold straight over Acro if he crits for an additional Mag1 (totalling Mag4). I think it's 1/5 chance, or something to that effect. That is probably what you're seeing when a troller goes straight over it.

Dominators with Domination auto-crit to Mag4 with it, which is why when Domination is up, you can hold a boss with one Mez. Likewise, you'd go straight over Acro.

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No, you are wrong on both counts.

A controller will break through with one, single, ST Hold. (I've just tested this with Char). Acrobatics *will* help against Blaster style holds like Freeze Ray.

Dominators do not auto-critical with Domination - their Mag actually doubles (in this case to Mag 6).

OK, just read your post, that's a different way of stating things I've been thinking of it as the other way around.
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You have a base value to each Mez/status effects of -1. If that number goes over 0, you are mezed.

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Edit: gah, that doesn't add up. If you're -2 with Acrobatics, hit by a ST hold (3) your status is now 1, which means you should be Held, which is not what happens.

Another Edit: Well dang it, it seems a ST Controller hold will get through acrobatics, at least Char does Blaster Holds definitely don't.

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Player base resist is 2 now? Didn't it used to be 1?



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I have no idea, I've just reasoned out what I've stated from my experience of what happens running Acrobatics. Everything I've read about Acro says that it's Mag1. If player base is also Mag1 then any ST Hold would break through Acro immediately. My experience is that running Acro will prevent one ST hold.

Therefore, either Acro is Mag2 or player base is Mag1. The fact is Acro does stop one ST hold....(edit)..in fact it seems to prevent only blaster level holds (which I assume must be mag2 not mag3).

Personally, I took Acro for the KB res, the Hold resist has some use but it's very marginal in PvP, a bit more useful in PvE.

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Would people please make up their minds about Acrobatics .

One thread it's Mag1, another it's Mag3 (can take a single hold and resist it), back to Mag1, Mag1, Mag3, back and forth.

So what is it really?

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Player base resist (2) + Acrobatics (1) = Mag 3 resist total.

A Hold needs to overcome your mezz resist. A standard ST Hold is Mag 3. Therefore a single standard ST Hold will not Hold someone running Acrobatics unless it is from a controller and criticals (so making it Mag4), or a Dominator running Domination (so Mag6), or stacked Holds.

Acrobatics only provides mezz res to Holds and KB, nothing else.

edit: Sorry this is wrong, Acrobatics seems to prevent blaster style Holds, but not controller Holds

I would not miss out Skewer, it's your highest ST attack for a very long time; it is also a very fast animation unlike Impale which seems to take forever sometimes.

Did I miss a meeting? Blasters do or do not have the highest damage ranged attacks? It takes very little for a blaster to KO me with 2 or 3 attacks, the precious few that aren't blappers. Toggle dropping is more powerful than a Hold by virtue of the fact there's no defence against it, using a BF or SoW will protect you from Holds *before* it hits and preserve your toggles.

I mean welcome to the club! I have no defences whatsoever. Of course I have CJ and Arcobatics, this has nothing to do with specific ATs since anyone can take them. Arcobatics is not a general Mezz resist - it's KB and Hold only at Mag1.

The big issue for me with Kinetics and Thermal (and Sonic, but I've met a total of one of those so far) Corruptors is that villains are lacking when it comes to support toons compared with heroes, and this is especially noticeable in PvP. Mezz protection is spread out more thinly when compared to heroes so it's even rarer. ID shouldn't be used like a shield buff if not needed but its an invaluable Mezz-breaker.

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Was in sirens with my pb and got held constantly by a dominator. Plant/Thorns.

The risk though that a blaster has to be able to 'solo' a melee AT is huge. For a melee AT, they are where they are supposed to be with the tools at their disposal to provide damage mitigation. Yes, blasters melee attacks can guarantee dropping one toggle, not all - which is what happens if held. And /regen only has to bother about the disorient part - i.e. pop a breakfree and pound away again.

The point being is that blasters risk to get into melee combat is far larger than other ATs - and every AT has the option to use a BF. Then those that can hold can hold the blaster, dropping any and all toggles they might have. Yes, they may not be able to do the damage, but that's not their AT description.
I'd be fine with toggle dropping chances being reduced on blasters melee attacks if they up the primary damage to fit the description of the AT.

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Was that Dominator Bilharzia? At level 30 Dominators have one toggle dropping melee power (not 100%). Damage for a Dominator is not comparable to a blaster, a blapper will expect a fight to last seconds against a squishy, for me it's minutes. Dominators are actually more fragile than Blasters, their damage is much much lower, I'm not saying they should have blaster-like damage but at that level its not possible any way near to KO a hero squishy in a short length of time.

I have two ways of holding something with decent mez resist - I might be able to toggle drop their mezz toggle and apply a hold (only if their mezz resist is a toggle), or I build up Domination and overcome their resist that way, even then it takes multiple stacked holds to do this. In anything larger than small-medium fights it's virtually impossible to build up Domination since I can be one-shot by a blaster, or very easily taken out in seconds at any time; given that it takes a minimum of 2 minutes to build up Domination in that environment the chances that I won't ever have Domination available are high.

I have low damage, no armour, no mezz resist, no self heal, low HP (lower than blasters), my best attacks are melee and by level 30 I have two decent damage attacks (decent not great). Almost all blasters I fight are using BFs or SoW, most of my controls that are effective are soft I generally don't rely on Holds having any effect at all.

Fighting against heroes typically I see a number of controllers, defenders, blasters, scrappers. On the villain side it's heavily populated by Stalkers, one or two Brutes. Very occasionally there's a Corupptor, rarely is that Corruptor a Kinetics or Thermal and if they are it's unusual that they have support powers. This is in constrast to the huge pool of support toons that heroes have, so to me to think Blasters are somehow getting a raw deal is just a joke, and to suggest their damage be increased is bizarre beyond belief.

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isnt GA defence on toxic? or was it all resist and defence except toxic(def) and psionic?

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Granite definitely gives resistance to toxic damage, whether it gives Def is hard to tell but the info states Def and Res to All except Psionics.

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I tried plant/thorn and the lack of control really got me down.
Vines the only AOE hold is just to short a duration to be anything but an agro switch and got me killed more times than i can remember.
Short duration - long recharge = lots of agro

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The control is pretty good but it's based around Seeds of Confusion. Vines is tricky to justify with Plant/Thorns because you don't have Power Boost to get a longer duration so I skipped it. Carrion Creepers is a very good aggro grabber to use before attacking a difficult group. The only real problem with Plant is against Confuse resistant groups I deal with those by using only Creepers backed up by Strangler, but you can break through the resistance by using Domination.

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Another one then. Does Power Boost affect Health or Stamina?

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yup

04-09-2006 21:26:00 Thunder Bird has defeated Gutts
04-09-2006 21:26:12 Awn has defeated Thunder Bird
04-09-2006 21:26:16 [Local]N1NJA: oww
04-09-2006 21:26:17 [Team]Lao: jej
04-09-2006 21:26:27 [Broadcast]Gutts: wff killed me
04-09-2006 21:26:29 [Team]Lao: got him
04-09-2006 21:26:31 [Team]Aphotica: I hopped in bfore he could kill me, though.
04-09-2006 21:26:32 [Team]Lao: well
04-09-2006 21:26:32 [Broadcast]Gutts: [censored]
04-09-2006 21:26:32 [Team]Aphotica: Awesome.
04-09-2006 21:26:37 [Team]Lao: Awny did
04-09-2006 21:26:53 [Broadcast]Gutts: was that u lol
04-09-2006 21:27:00 [Broadcast]N1NJA: nope
04-09-2006 21:27:11 [Broadcast]Gutts: my combat logs dont say anything
04-09-2006 21:27:16 You have defeated N1NJA
04-09-2006 21:27:24 [Team]Awn: in?
04-09-2006 21:27:26 [Broadcast]N1NJA: ok i ow u 1
04-09-2006 21:27:48 [Team]Lao: Awn is ganking villains
04-09-2006 21:27:57 [Team]Awn: they started it!

Mezz duration only.

You might have to install the .Net framework first, the link for that is there on the character builder page. It's pretty easy to use once installed, not much different from doing a respec, all the ATs are there and most of the information about powers seems fairly accurate.

The thing about Roots Vs Entangle is that you're right, Roots uses more endurance (it does recharge pretty fast though), but it does mesh very well with Confuse, and for you with Fling Thorns. If you dont use Roots any group you confuse will likely run around which means using your cone attack is much less effective - as is any AoE attack anyone else makes. Thorntrops would effectively do the same job although you get that much later.

My apologies, my first post should have said "oh god please no, not another one". Whether and when you first made one isn't relevant - I have one on Defiant which I made sometime in Feb 2005 but there's no way I'd ever play him in PvP I'd be too ashamed. That's not a comment on you it's just the state of play.