Frosticus

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  1. Rep said: [More bad ideas from you. Just stop posting.]

    Tell me how your really feel. More specifically, lift up the veil and feel free to find fault in what I posted my anonymous friend.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Beber View Post
    So, I'm leveling a new SS/Shield brute, and I noticed something odd.

    It seems that Shield Charge damages are capped at some value, that is not brute's damage bonus cap.
    Here are my tests (testing an AE mission with invincibility activated) :

    While I was under 400% damage bonus, everything was fine, damages increased. Once I got over 400% (or something like that, I couldn't get the exact value since Fury and Against All Odds bonuses weren't constant), damages dealt with Shield Charge stopped increasing. I checked with every other power, and they didn't have that problem, damages still increased after getting over 400% damage bonus.

    So, anyone have any information regarding this? Bug or something else? I thought of MPing Castle, but maybe someone already know the answer.
    It kinda sucked when everyone had the same version of L-rod/SC cause brutes were frequently getting no benefit from buildup.

    It really sucks relative to scrappers now that theirs was increased by ~70 base damage.

    I think brute version should be increased a bit to compensate for them being unable to benefit from their high damage cap. They have low base damage and insane caps on normal attacks, but L-rod/SC just has the low base damage and a low cap.

    *More for L-rod as SC is just ridiculously good in all versions considering it is better than L-rod in every way.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by HelinCarnate View Post
    Is there even a tier 1 attack that without slotted recharge ends up costing 0 endurance by the time it is up again?

    What I mean is you could have 10 endurance and just spam your tier 1 attack and have a net gain of endurance over time. This is assuming no enhancements being slotted.
    Most attack cost nothing as a stand alone if I get what you are saying.

    ie. Flares:
    3.69 end
    2.18 rech, 1.188 cast
    =3.368 sec cycle time.

    Base recovery = 1.67 end/sec
    3.368*1.67= 5.62 end recovered - 3.69 end spent = 1.93 net endurance gained.

    ie. Thunder Kick
    4.37 end
    3 rech, 1.056 cast
    =4.056 sec cycle time
    4.056*1.67 = 6.77 - 4.37= 2.4 net end gained.

    ie KO blow:
    18.5 end
    25 rech, 2.376 cast
    =27.376 cycle time
    27.376*1.67 = 45.7 - 18.5 = 27.2 net endurance gained.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus View Post
    Unless of course you're on a halfway decent team.

    At which point, you'd be doing more for you team with FM or Elm than you will with DM.


    I think DM/SD is a great combo for soloing and doing scrapper challenges, but that synergy is mostly lost among the types of buffs you get on a team and the more AoE damage you can output the better.
    The synergy isn't lost, it just becomes unnecessary. Team composition shifts the "best" goalpost, but it doesn't affect any of the synergy aspects.

    You guys are getting hung up on the difference between synergy and best performance. They aren't the same thing.

    When examining shields dark melee fills the weaknesses the set has. You may find yourself in a situation where those weaknesses no longer matter, but that doesn't equate to some other set synergizing better.

    Here's a few more examples to hopefully help:
    storm/dark is the most synergistic pairing you do for storm (when looking at blast sets). It provides a heal, an aoe immob, and an aoe stun to stack with the aoe stun of storm. That doesn't equate to storm/dark being the "best" storm you can make for specific different scenarios. It just means it is most complimentary.

    stone/willpower is likely the most synergistic pairing you can do for willpower. The extreme control of stone allows the regen of the set to work to maximum effect and willpower offers extra recovery to fuel stone. But that doesn't mean stone/wp is the best stone melee toon or the best willpower toon you can make in specific situations. It just means they are the most complimentary pairing across the largest array of encounters.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill View Post
    Problems with dumping TOs -

    First, they're the easiest to deal with. no origins. Just "Red = Damage, Yellow = Acc" and so forth.

    Second, you KNOW you'll be able to use them. No matter what origin you are. One less complication for a new person to start with. (And could the tutorial actually be coded to *give* an origin-specific DO? Don't forget you're given some there.) It also simplifies the first few stores you deal with - imagine a newbie dealing with the Elite Quartermaster and blowing what little INF they have on a set of the wrong things.
    I think it is time to do away with origins on any of the enhancements. They are purely cosmetic and only serve to complicate the system.

    If they want to make origins play any sort of lasting role then there are much better ways of doing it than forcing me to figure out what the heck a "Portacio Ind Internal Munitions" or "Nectanebo's Brooch" is.

    I think most of us just go by the color coding of each ie. red= dam, dark blue = end mod. But it gets messy looking for tohit debuffs, or jumps, or other such ones that all blend together.

    Meaningless convoluted origin names attached to enhancements could happily go the way of the dodo and I wouldn't complain. Invention: damage, that is about the complexity required.
    new names:
    Training can stay as training
    DO = practiced
    SO = focused

    As for the changes being discussed regarding early game I'll toss my vote in saying I loathe anything that makes my powers get weaker as I progress. I hate the early game accuracy bonus with a passion, but at least it isn't obvious or intrusive. Something that made my powers tangible faster and cheaper for however long until I'm strong enough not to need the crutch is something I strongly oppose.

    At the same time I see a standardized permanent reduction to the 3 starting powers greatly benefiting some sets and doing next to nothing for others.

    Rather than reinventing the wheel I think they already have the solution implemented, but it is not being utilized. The origin powers could easily be buffed to actually not suck by boosting their damage, lower end cost, and high inherent acc. Easily explained by being inherently good with the power of your origination.

    They could even grant two origin attacks if necessary (but I don't think it is). As long as they are a bit worse DPA than existing powers they will be phased out as better powers open up.

    I dunno, I just see that they have already put the powers into the game that can largely solve the complaints being raised, but for whatever reason they haven't been utilized. It is also a lot more KISS friendly than anything else being discussed.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Fury Flechette View Post
    You have to make qualifications that it has the best synergy. I'd say that it has the best synergy in either builds where you're just using SOs or if you're building specifically to down hard single targets (AVs, pylons).
    No not really, no qualifications are necessary to state it has the best synergy with shields. The qualifications you just listed make it the "best" in those situations. You are welcome to claim a set that has better synergy with shields, but that will prove difficult.

    Like I said, that doesn't make it the "best" pairing though. The "best" depends on what you want the toon to do.

    Quote:
    When builds become soft capped, have high innate regen and recovery, some of those powers become redundant. I see quite a few dark/shield builds that skip dark consumption for example. Siphon life is taken because it's also a good damaging attack too. If it didn't do good damage, I'd contend that most players would skip it. Even the tohit debuffs become redundant because when you're soft capped, practically having the best mitigation in the game, it doesn't come into play that often.
    As pointed out to me in another thread, my senses may be a bit dulled as of late as I struggle to discern between 43 and 45% def, but I can certainly tell that a set with no heal, no +regen, and no +recovery isn't being pushed to the limits if those things are found unneeded.

    A dm/shield that finds dark consumption unnecessary isn't slotted as aggressively as it could be, or has chosen a less damaging app. That's fine, but different from what could be done with dark consumption.

    I also disagree entirely that if siphon life was returned to how it used to be dm/shields would be skipping it. They just wouldn't be including it as a fundamental part of their attack chain.

    Anyway, synergy != best
    So we might just be going in circles again.
  7. Two dedicated dev's. AE needs a lot of ongoing attention.

    PvP dreams of having 1/8th of a dedicated dev.

    Best of luck to both of you. I know a lot went into AE, hopefully you guys can breath some life into it.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Da_Captain View Post
    Frost how about you compare two sets that are in both ATs like Elec Melee.
    Why? Billz already did. Outside of the time build up is active the brute is fully capable of outshining the scrapper. The comparison I did is for two similar playstyle sets to show that even when buildup is going there are brutes still outshining scrappers.

    I don't feel a need to handicap myself so I compare the "best" of what each AT offers me. BS is supposed to be the most "burst" set, I believe that still holds true even with fire on the scene now as incinerate takes awhile to do its thing. At the same time Stone melee is the "burst" set for brutes (used to be EM, but it is so slow now).

    I just happen to have a bs/shield and a stone/ela near lvl 40. The stone brute tears through single targets way faster than the BS scrapper. The scrapper of course has more aoe, but that is largely due to shield charge.

    Comparing sets I'm likely to play is relevant to me on a personal level. I have no interest in elec melee, so I don't really care that scrappers are better with it. It is worth mentioning they are better with it during 10 second intervals and because their version of L-rod is vastly superior.

    Quote:
    Edit: Just ran through another mish, the only time I got my fury bar up was when I didn't use Whirling hands and grabbed two groups, I guess stunning the minions was taking away from me gaining fury, I am still left with a bad taste on brutes, seems as though as brutes need large mobs and less mitigation to gain more damage, I am unimpressed you can call it a victory if you want to, but my scrapper comes with no strings attached.
    I'm not really sure what to tell you. I'm playing stone melee right now. Fault alone provides more mitigation than many armor sets and it does it at the cost of complete fury contribution shut down from the enemy. Billz and I both posted almost the exact same independent fury numbers when facing 0/x3 going from 0 fury upward.

    I spam fault like it is going out of style because I have the FF+rech proc in it and because Elec armor feels like tissue paper at times. I breeze through missions with high fury the entire time with numbers that look exactly what Billz posted in combat and between combat.

    Granted I usually have my settings a lot higher than 0/x3 largely because of what fault lets me do, but I changed it to that because I figured even low mitigation sets like most scrappers have can handle 0/x3 and I wanted to give representation of what might be more typical.

    Quote:
    Attack and keep it moving, motto of Brutes
    fixed. I have absolutely nothing against scrappers. I've ran 2 to 50 now and have 3 in the 40's at this point. But if you are actually playing your scrapper like this quote says then you will have no issues attaining fury numbers like Billz and I are saying. Either you don't play scrappers very aggressively, which is fine, but important to know because it will directly impact your brute experience. Or something else is going wrong.

    *I don't want to log in and watch you play, but I'll gladly watch a vid clip because it will show me the interface and allow a much better understanding of what is going wrong.
  9. I think the statement that dark melee has the most synergy with shields is accurate. Whether that makes it the "best" pairing depends on what you are looking to do with the toon.

    Some uses remove the need for the heal and end refill that dark provides. For those uses it surely isn't the best.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
    It would be nice if there was a way to turn on a fury tracking monitor that could be bound to a key so that one could show the actual average fury sits at by toggling it on during right before initiation combat and off when the last enemy in a spawn falls.
    That would be cool. I just have my damage buff monitor on. I currently don't have any +dam bonuses so everything I see is generated from fury. Whatever I see I just divide by 2. It certainly gets more complicated when you factor in other +dam and it would be nice to have a separate fury monitor.
    Quote:
    The fact that you can't get fury above 60% while I sit at over 90% in combat tells me nothing but that you're doing it wrong.
    Without suggesting that he is purposefully distorting the results by using "walk" between spawns and facing default enemy settings 0/0/no bosses; his reports just don't coincide with anything I've ever experienced on my brutes.

    It would honestly be a struggle for me to be at 60 pts of fury throughout a fight. I'd have to purposefully not attack and have something that disables the enemies from attacking too. Maybe a stone/dark - OG+fault spam with really low enemy settings. Even then if I decide to actually defeat them I would be hard pressed to stay at 60 or less fury.

    I'm really curious what he is doing. It is so far removed from what I've personally experienced on every brute I've played. Da Captain you should upload a video or something, there has to be something you are doing that is seriously gimping your brute.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Da_Captain View Post
    Yeah I guess that could be a bit of the problem, I have heard about EM and not too many good things. Pretty much the consistancy is what makes the numbers given hard to go by, but then again might just be the bad taste left in mouth from my first Brute, whereas I have yet to find a combo of Scraps I don't like.

    Sorry I Bill Brutes don't win, I was going to give the benefit of the doubt, but I just ran a a couple mishes on test with my Brute and damage just didn't feel like Scrapper level I had it on /x2 and my Fury bar never made it past 60%, once you get it past 55% it starts to drop quick til you get to about 30% then it slows a bit. On average Brute probably have about 55% fury for the whole mish that is from the time you start the mish to finish, because I refuse to believe you are starting a mish with 75% on your fury bar and I definitely refuse to believe that once you get it there it stays. So with the fluctuation and given the time it take between and how you start, if you are able to sustain 75% or even 85% fury during most groups, that isn't what you start the fight with so saying a brute needs an average of 75% to match Scrapper level damage the fact is that unless you are at 75% or higher longer than you are below then you can't state that 75% is what on average brutes can attain, more realistic numbers would probably 60% - 65% on average and that is really pushing it seeing how I ran through a couple mishes and didn't get past 60% and I flew threw the whole mish (popped blues so end wouldn't be a problem)

    So in the end Scrappers win for most purposes, brutes only win in environments that keep their fury bar above 75%. So more than likely for farms Brutes are better damage dealers, but on teams and when you just want to rush through an oro arc they ain't beating scrapper damage.
    I wonder how you are playing that you have trouble exceeding 60% fury. Even post ET nerf my em/fire still had zero issues with fury and was still doing ridiculous orange numbers with TF and ET. It just felt like playing through molasses, which I hate.

    Solo or teamed (if you are point) you should have high fury by the time the first spawn is defeated. From there you just play like you would any other toon and you will keep high fury. Unless you are prone to frequent afk's then it is a non-issue.

    In fact I just logged in and set to 0/x3/bosses I was at 174.xx% + damage by the middle of defeating the 6 or so enemies. I even used bu+seismic smash+heavy mallet to vaporize one of the luts right off the bat. I don't try to milk fury anymore, I jump right into using my heavy hitters. It's not like the old days where you needed to massage your low tier attacks quickly to get fury up. Just face more enemies.
    174/2= 87 points of fury.

    With the new difficulty sliders I don't even worry about chasing fury like the old days. Before my brute can handle tougher spawns I just set to -1/x3/ no bosses. Your fury builds so fast you really don't even need to worry about it at all.

    When you state you flew through the whole mission and didn't exceed 60% fury are you sure you didn't mean hovered? j/k, but that is about the only explanation.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
    Energy Transfer, Gloom, Bonesmasher, Total Focus, repeat
    I call it the corpse blaster special. Sucks for procs too. Pretty much what you see is what you get, whereas fast chains get tremendous benefit from procs.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    What about for tankers, who don't access to gloom?
    Energy punch has almost identical DPA as bonesmasher, so you'd sub that in for gloom. Unless fireblast has better DPA than Energy punch, in which case you'd sub that in for gloom.

    Either way it is a sizable reduction as gloom is one of the better DPA attacks brutes have.(and by extension if tanks could access it)
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
    Brutes still win.
    Yes they generally do!

    And while a scrapper with buildup running is hard to keep up with for the same set on a brute the difference is often erased when you look at the attack sets that scrappers don't have access to.

    Attacks like KO blow, Seismic, TF, and ET are so much stronger than anything scrappers have access to. So while it is demonstratively true that a scrapper using build up with hit harder than a brute using build up+fury on an attack like havoc punch; it is also demonstratively true that a scrapper can't touch stone melee or EM for burst damage.

    Just look at something like broadsword vs stone melee
    (95% enhance, bu, 75% fury for brute)
    Hack>HS>Disem>Slash>Hack
    =(102.6*1.1*2.95)+(162.7*1.15*2.95)+(122.6*1.1*2.9 5)+(62.6*1.1*2.95)+(102.6*1.1*2.95)
    =1818.7

    Heavy>Seismic>Stone Mallet>Fist>Heavy
    =(95.1*4.25)+(148.8*4.25)+(68.4*4.25)+(41.7*4.25)+ (95.1*4.25)
    =1908.7

    It is pretty close, but the stone chain is 1.5x seconds faster and the brute still has ample self buffing that is possible to be reached.

    It is also important to note that people often complain about the consistency of brute performance, but that chain will always produce that much damage (or more) when you are actively playing.

    On the other hand the scrapper could just as easily (and is actually pretty likely) to only produce only 1630 damage when none of the crits fire. Or it can vary widely and produce considerably more damage if a couple of them go off. The only reason people don't complain about the inconsistency of scrappers is because they range from really good to amazing. But a actively played brute is just consistently great (which is between the two scrapper states).

    So like Billz said, brutes win.
  14. If given the opportunity I would probably split merit rewards currently distributed for tasks into two categories.

    I'll use the ITF as an example as it is easy to show what I mean.
    26 merits (no comment on whether that is fair, or otherwise)

    Rather than reward them all upon completion of the final task I would split the reward, so 13 is rewarded when you complete the final task.

    The other 13 would be distributed to NON-ESSENTIAL tasks throughout the trial.
    For instance:
    -the essential task is to rescue the 10 sybils, the non-essential task is to deal with the ambushes. 5 merits would be awarded for defeating all of the ambushes.

    -the essential task is to defeat 10 crystals, the non-essential task is to clear the surrounding nictus spawns. 5 merits would be awarded for defeating all of the nictus guarding the crystals.

    -the essential task is to defeat the computer, the non-essential task is to defeat all of the robots that wake up from it. 2 merits awarded for defeating all robots before the computer is shut off.

    toss in 1 more merit somewhere and done.

    If you want to blaze through the content you can and you will still be rewarded for your time. Those that tackle the content and objectives to a greater degree (different than completionist, it is important to note that) will be more rewarded for doing the task more in line with the developer vision*

    *argue if you like, but I don't think they intended us to just run past the hordes of ambushes that each sybil spawns. But I like that it is an option.

    Anyway, I think speeding through things should be a valid way to play and you should be rewarded for task completion. At the end of the day you achieved whatever the contact sent you out to do it and if you can do it in 10 min vs 60 min you should be rewarded. And they are being rewarded through higher merits/min and more completion bonuses/min.

    I also think that completing the tasks more in line with the intended vision should be rewarded. And yes they are being rewarded by defeating more enemies, but they aren't being rewarded through merits, which are a very large part of these activities as mandated by the developers.

    Such changes would only result in a different type of speed run! Yes that is true, speeders would now just do whatever is necessary to continue maximizing merits/min. That is inevitable, but the variance in reward rate between someone speeding and someone fulfilling more of the content (again, not a completionist) would be much closer compared to what is currently happening.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Steampunkette View Post
    Orrrr... You could 1-3 slot your powers for End Reduction and find out you don't need stamina at all... >.>

    -Rachel-
    I'm not a fan of such a sacrifice in a casual based game.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    You can do anything in this game without the use of Stamina. The whole team can be lacking in +END means power wise, and do ANYTHING in this game.
    Just because you state it with conviction doesn't make it any more true.

    In fact, it is patently untrue. As the game progresses it becomes easier for a team to overcome the endurance hurdle, but it is also possible for the team to lack those tools. There is a huge list of potential objectives in this game that would not be completable without some form of recovery boost over base.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lemur Lad View Post
    I think they could accomplish the same thing without forcing players to change anything with their builds, by adjusting the power cost curve. Lower costs early on would accomplish the same thing.
    I'm not a fan of my powers getting worse just because I'm leveling. I get what you are trying to do, but I can't agree with it.

    Anyway, I agree with those saying leave fitness alone. While every single toon I have has stamina (and a lot more endurance management beyond that) I don't want it to be inherent, or free.

    I tend to play combos that consume a lot more endurance than others because once you build past the endurance bottleneck they have higher peak potential. For such toons the growth is very linear. You'd expect stamina to be a spike in their performance while leveling, but it really isn't. It is the gradual accumulation of slots, stamina, and IO's.

    I won't pretend it is always "fun", but it tends to be very rewarding as the toon matures and the performance goes from below garbage to godlike.
  16. TA used to be able to level the playing field in many situations due to glue arrow. But that was when slows and -jump had much more impact on movement.

    Hang out near a pool or something with contained walls so that if you manage to web someone they won't be able to easily flee.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Effy_On_Malibu View Post
    BS/SD is fun, no doubt about it, with -res procs and some nice recharge. Granted it's damage is more resisted but with -res, procs and AAO it's really not as bad as people say. I swear those high damage attacks you get later in-game are a higher crit rate and do silly damage.
    Headsplitter is a 15% static crit rate and of course a small cone.

    The problem I have with an attack like headsplitter having 15% is that it results in massive overkill on minions and scrappers naturally have a higher crit chance vs luts/boss/av which closes the gap a bit against the things that it actually matters for.

    It's nice, just not quite as nice as I was hoping it would be.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Da_Captain View Post
    Big difference most of my scrappers Soft cap so running into mob after mob is not a problem, doing that on my Brute doesn't keep fury up as it seems that defense works against Fury and running from mob to mob means a loss in fury. Scrapper lock only requires you to run to the next group after you are done killing the current group. Brutes lose fury chasing down a runaway, taking a tough boss, and moving to the next mobs.

    Scrapper lock = Fury

    As said before Fury requires a lot of attention and Scraps are always at full.
    Fortunately fury does not operate the way you think it does, but it makes me wonder how many people out there have misinformation about fury.

    Fury is built by attacking and being attacked regardless of a successful hit. Otherwise defense brutes would be very gimped.

    You build fury by playing the game and honestly you don't need to rush to maintain 60-70% fury. You need to rush to keep it at 80+ if the mobs aren't tightly spawned.

    Running in to mob after mob is even easier on a brute than it is on a scrapper as they have more hp.

    It is a myth that maintaining decent fury is any sort of challenge at all in the majority of scenarios.
  19. I worry about my scrapper brethren that struggle to build fury. I worry because it makes me question their ability to flip out and kill things in scrapper-lock.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jeff_Kaos View Post
    i accidentally posted this in the new player forum so i'm putting it here too because this is something that's make or break for me right now because as it stands the PvE in this game is way too instanced to hold my attention for too long.

    REPOST: I played this game for 4 months over a year ago and i just reopened my sub this weekend as i'm checking out all the old mmo's i've already payed for but haven't played in a while (if anyone wants to know, SWG is worse now than ever before). Back when i was active in CoH i never had the chance to check out the PvP side of the game, i had que'd up for a few arena battles but none ever took place. Same thing happened last night. I que'd up for a whole bunch of fights with multiple characters of almost every level range and i never set foot in a single fight. when i looked on the arena fight setup screen i chose fights that said they would start ASAP. What does ASAP mean? When i was in the army ASAP stood for As Soon As Possible but i'm pretty sure it doesn't mean that in CoH because i think i'm still que'd up for a few fights over 9 hours later.

    What i'm wondering is weather i came to the wrong place for my PvP fix? Last night was a SATURDAY night and i couldn't get into a single arena fight, are the arena's cross server and if the aren't why not? Not one of the servers hit more than light pop last night. I hope the open world PvP is better but after last nights arena debacle i'm not holding my breath. Oh yeah, how do i display the time in game? i saw some matches with specific times entered but i couldn't figure out how to tell server time in game.

    Sorry for posting this twice but like i said this is something that is important to me and will determine weather or not i'll keep plugging $15 a month into CoH.
    Well if you didn't really pvp before the i13 then you don't know what you missed out on. I say give zone pvp a fair shake, it might be fun for you. I'm not sure there is enough arena action these days to just satisfied with that venue, which is why I suggest zone pvp.

    Avoid the automated match system. It doesn't work, don't' think it ever has. It is a shining beacon of how the devs approach pvp in this game. Half-***** or worse.

    The bubbles by the server aren't a direct representation of server population, but rather, server load. Apparently the servers have been upgraded over the years so that they can handle a higher stress load. Be that as it may, population has continually declined so those upgrades may have been of dubious value. That said, I personally find freedom (highest pop) to be pretty barren most of the time. Weekends are a bit better and 2x xp events are good (but not for pvp activity cause everyone is pl'ing).

    Anyway, gl.
  21. Here's the thing: low level brutes don't need much fury to do decent damage and high level brutes generally don't have issues soaking up enough aggro to build high fury. There is a section during the 20's to low 30's where they hit a bit of a speed bump, but ime you either like the toon enough to push past it, or you don't. Fury generation isn't the decider at that point.

    At level 12 for instance brutes deal about 80% of the damage a scrapper does with the same attack, so they need much less fury to deal scrapper-like damage.

    Compare that to once AT scalars have fully set in and brutes deal about 66% of scrapper damage with the same attack.

    The only brutes I've personally had some fury issues with are on teams that are trying to tackle content way beyond them and proceed at a snails pace and on brutes that lack aoe damage and/or a taunt aura. One, the other, or both makes it a small issue in most cases.

    The difficulty slider though is a huge boon to brutes both solo and teamed. Most of them thrive fighting increased numbers of weaker enemies to keep damage high and fuel aoe buffs (aao, dark regen, damage auras, rttc, and such). The slider allows for that from a much earlier stage in the game than was possible with the previous system.
  22. To be fair the OP did demonstrate what amounts to using no secondary. You would have a point if he was rapidly defeating things like your dm/shield was, but through most of the clip nothing starts dying until well into the battle.

    If you want a clip of him just standing there getting beat on I'm reasonably confident he could provide it, but there is no purpose as it was already demonstrated to the same effect.

    The difference between these two videos is that Dech's demonstrates what an incredibly well built dark armor set can do regardless of the attack set. Yours demonstrates what an incredibly well built dm/sheild can do and is a display of the synergy between the two sets. Namely the heal and the endurance refill.

    If the goalpost is shifting to build synergy then I'd suggest that a DA built to similar spec as Dech's paired with stone melee could probably set fault on auto and leave the game running overnight vs those same mobs.

    Don't get me wrong, the toon you showcased was awesome, it was just a different type of demonstration than what the OP did.

    And yes you did recovery from the end crash well. It was fortunate that dark consumption lit up at that exact moment.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cyber_naut View Post
    If it wasn't in regards to pvp, then it was probably about av soloing, since those are really the only two instances where it would have been overwhelmingly useful. And nobody is claiming ET wasn't loved, it was, and it made EM a set people wanted to play. That's the point though, now that ET is neutered, the set is not very popular.


    But the vast majority of posts laughing at people for not taking em was because em was the only melee set that was effective in the old pvp system.

    I'd agree that aoe has gotten more popular lately, but it was big back then too. I remember when every other toon I'd see was a fire/kin looking to fill out a team.
    Well if it was about AV solo'ing then they just randomly picked something that maybe ranked in the top 50 of AV solo'ers at the time. Seems unlikely.

    Much more likely is because ET was really really really outside of their balancing metrics.

    Quote:

    If the set only gets single target mitigation, I think it's ok for it to be much better than competing sets, especially on a tier nine power that takes 3.3 seconds to animate. On most teams your target will be dead before you can land the stun anyway, lol. Having said that, this nerf didn't bother me nearly as much as gutting the set's only outstanding power.
    I agree for the most part, but putting it in a single power is a bad idea*. I agree with the mag reduction on TF, but would have upped the stun percentages a bit on other powers.

    Given that they deemed a reduction to ET as necessary I would have preferred a reduction to every aspect of it except a reduction in ability to chain the set.
    I would have:
    reduced damage 40%
    reduced recharge 30%
    reduced -hp 20%
    kept endurance cost
    kept animation

    However, I strongly disagree with the devs that the set required an overall reduction to its st output. I would have given a mild dominator treatment to the other attacks (excluding TF) and increased their DS/rech/end by about 15%. I also would have seen stun become a useful power by making it at least as damaging as bonesmasher.

    *yes I'm aware that seismic smash made old TF look bad, let alone the new version.

    That said, I really do miss old EM and using it in old pvp. Not so much my em/regen stalker as that was a braindead easy toon to play, but my em/fire brute. So many regen scrapper kills that I fawned weakness by letting them think I couldn't really hurt them and they were overwhelming my heal. Act scared, duck behind obstacle, hit bu+fe and come back out and 3 shot them. Good times.

    My favorite kill was a nin/ta MM in warburg that was laughing at me while his pets slowly ground me down. Sitting in about 4 caltrops patches and glue arrow I wasn't going anywhere. He must of underestimated my spamming of low damage attacks as me not having much damage cause he wandered near me. I hit bu+fe+burn and all his pets jumped off the building and I poked him with ET and he fell over dead. Not technically a one shot cause of him taking a tick or two from burn. But I laughed hard at him.
  24. I prefer stone over fire in every way other than aesthetics.
    Seismic smash is amazing on a kin and gives you some strong single target burst for taking out bosses which plant normally kills at a snails pace.
    Perma capped hp (which is almost as good as a res shield if you haven't gotten your hp accolades yet)
    Softcapped s/l
    Fissure > fireball for damage over time because it cycles way faster and it takes the FF +rech proc.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Clouded View Post
    You missed my point. Dark Regen is part of his armor set whereas Siphon Life is part of your attack set. The OP did not use any mitigation from his attack set to help increase his survivability. You did.

    It was just an observation or nitpick if you will. I still think soloing those mobs at +4/x8 is awesome no matter the AT and powersets used.
    I think it is a nit worth picking. I don't think any of the carny encounters would have been survived without it.

    Siphon life is to shields as fault is to a resistance set with a heal they are waiting on. And while part of the attack chain and no one is asking that it not be used, it is worth being aware of.

    It generally looked like endurance was a major bottleneck on the dm/shield. That time it crashed and health went orange could just have easily had a sad ending.

    But wow is shield charge ever ridiculously good on a scrapper. I'm gonna fire up my bs/shield and go destroy some spawns now.