GuyPerfect

Reverie (Peacebringer, 50)
239 hours
184 patrols

Avidity (Warshade, 9)
4 hours
10 patrols

...Well, I just started on it. Gimme a break!

I have a very peculiar team-built Peacebringer I can bring in. It should help make things a tad interesting, especially providing mez protection and ally rez if needed. (-:

The self-heal in Energy Drain is 3% HP per enemy hit, which can be enhanced up to about 6%. This means having four enemies surrouding you still nets less of a heal than popping a Respite. It hits 10 targets max, which means you're looking at absolutely no more than a 60% heal in even the worst situations.

If there was something that rubbish thought was rubbish, it'd be the self-heal in Energy Drain.

For what it's worth, I recognized my Peacebringer's aptitude for aiding the team early on and built it accordingly. After gulping down a heapin' helpin' of the Leadership and Medicine pools (yeah, you heard me right), what I'm left with is a combination of just about everything but Controller. With three ranged attacks, three melee attacks, three +Res shields, three self heals (Aid Self in there), ally buffs (heal, mez protection and rez in addition to Assault and Tactics), an "oh crap!" intangibility button and a godmode power, I really took the "jack of all trades" concept to another level and I absolutely love the result.

It's worth noting that I went human-only because re-toggling the shields and Assault/Tactics gets boring real quick. I was overjoyed in I13 when they made toggles stay on while mezzed. It also manages health and endurance just fine without the Fitness pool.

What did I find at the end of the day? It's not the strongest damage-dealer, though it CAN solo team missions on Invincible... or, as it were, +2 with bosses. So to answer the thread: Warshade is much better for outright DPS. Having said that, Build Up + Incandescent Strike is still nothing to sneeze at.

On the other side of that coin, I will pitch in my support for the Peacebringer having higher survivability, especially once Light Form is introduced. It may take over 8 minutes to recharge (since I didn't take Hasten), but I rarely wish I had it more often than that. I've never encountered anything that I couldn't tank with it up (including those Monsters in Tempest Quay), and normal team situations where you find three Death Mages surrounding the hostage aren't as big an issue when you can just activate Unstoppable and dive in with all your ranged attacks. (-:

I personally don't use Cloak of Darkness. I hate Defense as a rule already, and I skipped the power in favor of Combat Jumping. To me, it was only about Immobilize protection.

As for the cloak, though, it is disappointing to see your costume disappear. I had Energy Aura for a time and thought "Why did I spend all that time making a costume?" I'm happier now without Energy Aura. (-:

Having said that, my Dark Armor character made ample use of Ice Patch and Oppressive Gloom, so I didn't need to worry about incoming damage much in the first place, as the enemies were constantly unable to attack. Who needs to absorb or deflect hits when you don't get shot at in the first place? Ah, what a nice Tanker that build turned out to be.

I've got both Siphon Life and Energize slotted, so I have a bit of an advantage in the survivability department. Energize was just the right amount of what I needed: a 50% heal when the going got rough. Still don't know what I'd do without Siphon Life, though.

Also, with Hasten, Lightning Reflexes and three recharges, Energize should come back in closer to 40 seconds than 60.

I think my elemental twin must be there... Nothing wrong with the server. He's just plugging and un-plugging its internet connection to intentionally antagonize those attempting to access it. (-:

From whom? Is he like the test server patching monitor guard or something?

I should join up with all my friends to start making topics about how the official announcement says the North American players can use Issue 16 Open Beta, but none of us can! False advertising! (-:

Patronless epic, please. Just make the patron pools the only ones required to be unlocked.

Sleep Grenade does damage.

Unless you're thinking of taking Super Jump as your travel power, I see no advantage to using Combat Jumping in place of Grounded.

I've got Grounded on my Brute and it doesn't have any Enhancements slotted into it. I use it exclusively for knockback and immobilize protection, which you can easily get by taking Combat Jumping and Acrobatics if you have power choices to spare.

Do keep in mind that Combat Jumping does not protect you from knockback. It's more worth it from a power-budget perspective to get Grounded, as that's one power, instead of Combat Jumping and Acrobatics to do the same thing.

With just Charged Armor and Conductive Shield on a Tanker, you'll be at 70% resistance to Energy. You'll hit the Tanker cap of 90% with just one Resist SO in both of those.

I'm still hovering at 6 50s... I started doing one of each archetype, but my research into the effects of powers as used by various archetypes eventually made the job a chore. But hey, at least I have Elec/Heal on both heroes and villains. (-:

What have I learned?

Blaster - Ranged damage is good damage, and Blaster damage is even better. This character got to 50 back with the old Defiance, so mez was an issue every now and then, but dealing with the mezzers first always made the job pretty easy.

Mastermind - I was one of those crazy people who exploited Bodyguard mode and took all the aggro onto myself while my henchmen just kinda hung close to keep my damage intake at a minimum and dispatch the enemies that I was keeping off of them. It was slow-going at times, but carried with it a feeling of utter invulnerability and a great many slaughtered enemies.

Brute - Back when Willpower was introduced, I knew I had to make a Super Strength Brute. And now it's popular. Oh well. What I found is that while it can just keep smashing and smashing without stopping, it's much more boring that way. I'd rather have some kind of tactical advantage to exploit--or even, dare I say it, a vulnerability to compensate for--than just sit there wondering which attack to use next... Fortunately, my current project of Dark Melee/Electric Armor is proving to be much more interesting.

Peacebringer - The perfect blend of ranged and melee, with a dash of self-buff to boot! I specifically made this thing human-only because I found shapeshifting tiresome, and I took the Leadership pool with it because people were freaking out at the then-new VEATs and their built-in Tactical Training powers. Well, I ended up taking the Medicine pool too and eventually created the universe's only Team Kheld. And it's great. It can solo team missions on Invincible AND help out the rest of the team. A very fun character to play.

Tanker - I managed to pick the two most unorthodox powersets for Tanker: Dark Armor and Ice Melee. Refusing to throw money at a problem to make it go away, I specifically took Acrobatics for knockback protection instead of purchasing one or two knockback IOs from the market. I learned with this character that Tankers are not the punching bags that people make them out to be. Sure, Stone Armor and Invulnerability may be, but my sets prove otherwise. Tankers are aggro magnets. You can do this as a punching bag. You can do this by avoiding damage altogether. But with a combination of Oppressive Gloom, Ice Patch and two holds, you can also be an aggro magnet by completely incapacitating all the enemies around you. THAT was a fun build.

Arachnos Soldier - I've always liked the Wolf Spider Huntsman, and I was pleased when I was able to make one of my own. Gun melee for the win! I also took the Bane Spider career track, as the Wolf Spider Tac-Ops use the mace. Skipping the Tactical Training powers, I had all sorts of spare Endurance that I converted into offensive power, and I love every minute of it. With both ranged and melee attacks with the gun and mace, I was competing with the Stalkers and Brutes on my team for damage output. Throw in three Arachnobots for additional support firepower and you get a character that puts up quite a fight. Although, in the end, it's just an offensive character and as such, I find it to be a bit boring in the end.

---

I've since shifted my focus from the "one of each archetype" dealie. I left an Empathy/Electric Blast Defender and Electric Blast/Pain Domination Corruptor (to test the differences between the archetypes, which are more extensive than you might think) in their high 30's and haven't gone back. I've also got a Dominator in its mid-20's that I find only mildly interesting because Dominators are almost pure offense.

Instead, I decided to do what I find to be fun. I mean, I'm not paying $15/mo to conduct research on the various archetypes; I may as well enjoy what I'm doing! I transferred the two characters I really enjoyed--the Tanker and the Peacebringer--to Pinnacle and dedicated THAT server as my sort of personal playground. I've got a couple of characters in the works that I simply find a blast to play, and I'm much happier this way.

Back Alley Brawler's Total Focus still has a mag-4 stun. (-:

See for yourself! [Back_Alley_Brawler.Total Focus]

I'd go for some other patrons that touch on aspects of Arachnos not included by teh_fore. Kalinda's Fortune Mastery would be a good one. Or Dr. Aeon's Time Mastery would be fun... Viridian's Extortion Mastery?

I'd love to see some new costume-change emotes retroactively included with the Cyborg pack... Something that sparks and fizzles until a new costume appears...