Jade_Dragon

Okay, let me clear up some possible misconceptions about Stealth.

Stealth is NOT an anti-Taunt. That's Placate. Stealth does nothing to remove the aggro you already have. This is an issue for Stalkers, they are unable to use their stealth to avoid ambushes because the foes are already aggroed on them. Once a foe has aggro, it sees right through Stealth and heads right for you, attacking you even if it can't "see" you.

What Stealth does do is it makes it harder for foes to aggro on you for the first time. As long as you are outside of your foe's visibility range, it will not see you and aggro on you. If you attack that foe, or any other foe that is "linked" in the same spawn, then the foe will aggro on you normally. So basically, what Stealth allows you to do is get in position for your alpha strike, without drawing any aggro prior to your attack.

In a team where other players may be itching to start attacking, this mechanic is important to understand. If you want your Brute to grab aggro, it should be understood that you should be the one to go in first. In this case, it's doubly important that everyone wait until you have moved into the spawn and begun attacking before anyone else attacks. If they attack before you can begin attacking, most of the foes will not have seen you yet, and will attack your allies instead.

This is the case with any Brute, though, IMHO if any teammate is so impatient that he cannot wait for the Brute to grab aggro, then he should be prepared to deal with the aggro himself. And any Brute will have better hold of the aggro if he is given a few seconds to attack anyway. So in normal gameplay, whether or not you are stealthed should have no real effect. You will hold aggro while in combat just like always, and will not lose any of it because of your Stealth.

Now, there are a couple of exceptions. One is that while you are stealthed, you will draw less adds from other spawns standing nearby. If your allies move in behind you to fight the original spawn, the second spawn may add on them. You may have to react quickly, or already anticipate having to go herd the second spawn, in order to properly tank it. OTOH, you're a Brute, not a Tanker, and handling adds may not be your first priority. Hopefully someone else in the team will be aware of the risk and be ready to deal with the add.

The other situation, it isn't really an issue, really, is that if you stay out of visibility range of a foe long enough, eventually it will lose aggro on you. This is something I do with all ATs all the time, if I'm overwhelmed, I run, while keeping an eye on the foe so I can see the moment he stops and gives up. If you're stealthed, the foe should give up sooner, since you're so far out of his visibility range. OTOH, you should probably not be running away in the middle of a fight, and you shouldn't lose aggro in this way if you're just like on the other side of the room or something. This is just a point that can help you if you're soloing.

The problem is not holds or stuns. It is that -Recharge as a defense effects Fury, while -Acc or -Def does not. Whether a foe hits you or not, you get the same amount of Fury. No matter how much damage the foe does, you get the same amount of Fury. But if your foes are not attacking you as often, that results in less Fury.

That even makes holds and stuns WORSE, because less attacks are coming in while the foes are not held or stunned. A Dark Brute can at least be assured that when his Cloak of Fear and Disorient are off, the reduction in Fury goes away too. He does not disorient or fear with every single attack. (And even Energy Melee has only a chance of disorient with each punch. Ice Melee is a constant, stacking debuff)

Personally, I don't feel it's EITHER Ice Melee OR Ice Armor that is the problem, it is the two of them in combination. Chilling Embrace has a higher -recharge component than any Ice attack, but it can be turned off. However, I think the problem there is that it is not MEANT to be turned off. It is a major part of the mitigation of a Ice Tanker, while Oppressive Gloom is not a major part of a Dark Tanker's mitigation. It is not intended to be kept up all the time, it is a drain on health. So a Dark Brute can turn it off to build Fury, and then turn it on when he gets in trouble.

Cloak of Fear is intended to be up more all the time, but again, a Dark Brute can turn it off if he's building Fury. Even with it on, as long as he is attacking, he is breaking the Fear, so the foes will be attacking him, even if at a reduced rate. Chilling Embrace appears to be similar, but IMHO Chilling Embrace is not meant to be turned off like Cloak of Fear is. Its effect is intended to be more like CoF's -Acc.

I personally think that the solution to Ice's problems on Brute is to replace the -recharge with something else, like -dam. This would be consistent with Benumb, from Cold Domination. The sets could even be renamed Cold Melee and Cold Armor to imply that connection. I would actually replace Chilling Embrace with a power like Artic Fog, it would give the Ice Brute stealth, while boosing his Defense, and then hit the foes with a -Dam. I think the stealth would be a nice addition, given that Dark and Energy Brutes also have stealth. (And stealth does not interfere with a Brute's ability to draw aggro, although it does reduce adds)

OTOH, with the recent changes to Fury, it is entirely possible that Ice Melee and Armor will work perfectly fine right now. The individual Power Set impacts on Fury have been reduced by the change, and it is easier for all Brutes to get to 75%. So Ice could be working just fine on Brutes right now, it's just no one has yet to try it to see. Or, Ice Melee might be okay if not stacked with the -recharge from Chilling Embrace, at which time all you'd have to do is replace that one power, like I suggested.

Yeah, I think the idea that you have to bid on something confuses people. If you see that there are items listed as for sale, that means you CAN buy them right then. You just have to meet their price.

The system where the seller posts his final price, and the buyer has no choice but to meet it is nice, but this system can save you money in the long term. If you take the time to bump your bids up from a lower value, you can usually save. It also means that if you're willing to spend the money, you CAN get it, but you end up spending more than if you either wait a little, or do a little shopping around. (Such as, checking within a range of levels for an Enhancement or Recipe you want)

It took me over a week to finish updating all my characters for Inherent Fitness. More than 2/3 of them I just had to log them in, they didn't have Stamina yet and so it didn't really take much time. But between just going through the login process, and the 1/3 that did need respecs (and about half a dozen need a respec for their second build now) it was pretty tedious.

I'm happy, though, the results have been pretty good, and now that I'm done, I don't have to worry about it ever again. Hopefully it will be a long, long time before the devs again do something that impacts every character at all levels of development. I've been able to get back to playing, and enjoy the results.

Inherents I don't see as a problem, as I have only two 50's. Those who have as many 50's as I have alts I can see having a problem. But I think in that case I would have taken it one at a time, going through the ones I felt would be most likely to benefit from the Incarnate process, and would be interested in going through it first. That's the way I've handled my side switching, after all.

I don't think so. The command "target_custom_next" can be used to target only alive or only dead targets, but I don't think there's any way to tell it to select targets only above a certain amount of HP.

Psi Armor = Willpower

There was a discussion a while back about a Psi Melee set. It was put to a vote, along with, among other choices, Dual Blades I believe. Dual Blades obviously won. However, it could still come about in the future.

I'm interested in seeing what a Psi Melee set would be like. It would likely have attacks similar to Psionic Assault, but the example of Psylocke from the comics implies that some sort of blades or knives could be manifested as one or two attacks from the set.

Horse. Dead. Beating. Stop it.

As for the argument, "What if I get to 50 and the evil stupid devs nerf it and I can't play any more and I hate the game and ragequit", um, well, first of all the devs don't just sit around waiting for characters to get to 50 so they can nerf that character into oblivion and force the player to start over. Yes, ATs get nerfed, it happens, but you learn to deal with it and move on.

Second, the whole purpose of nerfing, well, overperforming classes in an MMO is because, well, they're overperforming. If they allowed you to just switch to whatever other class is the next in line that would kind of defeat the purpose. Besides, it would be nerfed soon enough as well. The devs want players to try out all kind of ATs, not just whatever is the Flavor of the Month this month.

If you have enough alts, then you shouldn't be effected by nerfs, because either you will have another character that isn't touched by the nerf, or one that has actually been BUFFED. Which is another reason to go along with the devs' encouragement to create many alts. And you will know more about playing that alt anyway, since you will have played it from the beginning.

Well, not really. Defenses work best when stacked with other defenses, and so having just Tough or Weave by themselves isn't that helpful. On the other hand, when stacked with some IO defenses, plus Combat Jumping and some defenses from the Epic pools, they can really start to do some good.

What you are probably wanting to know is that Tough is 10.5% Resistance to Smashing and Lethal, and Weave is 3.5% Defense to all. That's about the lowest it gets, even a Corruptor gets more benefit out of those powers, at 11.25% for Tough's Resistance.

Also since Tough is only good against Smashing or Lethal damage, it's really only useful against melee attacks, so it's really only useful if you're planning on being a Blapper.

Finally, I would say that if you are going to pick up Tough and Weave, you won't want to bother with it until after 22, when you can slot it with some End reduction. In the lower levels you will probably find it impossible to keep either up all the time, much less both of them. Honestly, Combat Jumping is probably better for the early levels, it's only half of Weave's Defense, but costs almost no End, and will enable you to get in and out of melee faster.

Yeah, I miss Salibu as well. Saw the subject and just had to come in here to say that.

Also, not sure if Severe was talking about her character or her forum avatar. I'm trying to remember it, some neon sign, and something about an, um, "Jiggle Room?" Ahem.

The current avatar on Guru isn't it.

I'll also point out that IMHO, 2 attacks well slotted with 5 Enhancements will stand you better than 4 attacks with only 3. It's a delicate balance, of course, but you don't want TOO many attacks you're trying to split slots between. Concentrate on the ones you use the most, and leave fillers to just use up time. Or even better, use Brawl when you're sitting around waiting for attacks to recharge since it uses no End.

You also don't really need Acc or End in the attacks you use only as fillers, as they aren't used that often.

I always figured the thing with the Warshades is that since you had to have a body to summon one, the rule of "no multiples" was relaxed. It may be innate to the way they work, though, if they work like Phantasm's duplicates and Soul Extraction's wraith, the difference may be that you getting your DEAD FOE to summon the Fluffy FOR YOU. So the limitation to one per caster is gone, since the dead body is the caster.

I think it's simply that Fluffy isn't a self-aware pet, though. There appear to be three types of pets:

1) The "psuedo pet" which is just there to implement a power. Caltrops for instance. It's not really a pet, it just lays there.

2) The type of pet that is a manifestation of YOUR power, but sticks around. Lightning Storm, Tornado, Gun Drone and Voltaic Sentinel would be good examples of these. (Although Voltaic Sentinel may be limited to the one pet per caster) They aren't really conscious beings in their own right, they are you creating an effect that follows you around.

3) The "true" pets, like Jack Frost, Animate Stone, the Fire Imps, Phantom Army, Phantasm and Spooky, and so on. These appear to have a certain amount of independent will, you summon them, and then they act on their own. The power is in THEM, not in YOU.

The type 3 pets tend to have their own to hit and damage mod, while type 1 and 2 tend to use YOUR damage mod, since they are an extension of you and your power. And typically, only Controllers, Dominators and Masterminds get the type 3 pets. Dark Servant (the other dark Fluffy? ) seems to be a type 3 pet, but he deals no damage, so there doesn't need to be a determination if he is the same across the 3 ATs that can use him, or each should have their own version with unique damage. And of course there are "pets" that do the same damage across ATs which really shouldn't, but that's apparently another issue.

In general, it is better to 3 slot Damage than anything else.

You really only need 2 Acc if you are going up against reds (that is, you have your difficulty set to like +2 or more) or if you take on a lot of CoT. There can also be individual AT builds that have trouble with accuracy, for instance I've found my Kinetic Controller needs a little extra Acc since he has no way of boosting to hit or debuffing Def. Then again, he really only needs that accuracy in his holds, since missing with them would mean he takes more damage.

Prior to level 20, IMHO accuracy is far more important than damage, and you should slot Acc first. However, recently a buff was added where low level characters start with a higher chance to hit, and it scales down to 75% at level 20, just like their damage starts at 100% and scales down to whatever the AT's damage mod is. (Or up, for Scrappers and Blasters)

This basically means you don't really need to worry about Acc until 10, you can slot either 1 or 2 Acc DOs until 22, and then upgrade to 1 or 2 SOs depending on how often you fight purples.

Yeah, I prefer to believe it's a technical problem and not just the devs wanting "no badge for joo MMs!" It may not be possible to distinguish pets from other critters that just may wander up and get involved in the mess.

The MM's participation as a buffer/debuffer SHOULD earn him the rewards. However, in many cases the resiliance and buffs of the henchmen themselves provide as much or even more to the MM's participation.