Jade_Dragon

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler View Post
    For those of you with Stone Armor characters, how attached are you to the current appearance of "Granite Armor"? There are a number of issues with Granite Armor that could be elegantly solved by changing the VFX of the power into something more akin to the other armor toggles in the set. IE, your player model and costume wouldn't go away, there would just be a new set of 'Granite' armor pieces overlaid.

    I haven't made any decision to do this, it's just one of the options for dealing with the multiple issues we have with Granite Armor and I wanted to get a sense of how many of you guys wouldn't be able to adapt to a change like this.

    Before anyone asks, no...we couldn't have it both ways.
    Hm... well, I would assume the same solution could not be applied to Kheldians. The Dwarf form might be workable, but Nova is just too inhuman.

    I suppose for Stone characters, though, that would be just fine. I would point out that for those who would miss the size and model change, you can still create an alternate costume that would have those characteristics.
  2. I think it's important to keep in mind that Combustion, like Flares, was nerfed in the revamp of Dominators. Like Flares, it does less damage, takes longer to recharge, and costs more Endurance than Combustion before the change. The problem is that most Fire Assault attacks get extra damage because they do addition DoT after the initial hit. This DoT costs no Endurance and doesn't add to recharge. Flares and Combustion, though, got this additional DoT reduced to almost nothing, perhaps as an error in calculation.

    This doesn't mean you can't use Combustion, though, go ahead and use it. Just be aware it's a bit more End costly than other attacks and slot it accordingly. Since you're new to the set, you won't be expecting it to act like it used to, so it shouldn't bother you. Personally, I never even picked up the attack, I'm more solo oriented, so I chose to concentrate on single target damage. That doesn't mean you should do the same thing.

    Blazing Bolt does a LOT of damage, (that DoT again ) but I know a lot of people suggest skipping Sniper attacks. I wouldn't dispute that. Again, I wanted single target damage so I took it, but Blaze is more useful overall.

    I guess in the end the answer is neither attack is absolutely necessary, but they have their uses.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frosticus View Post
    Not too familiar with seismic smash? If by slower you mean standing around doing nothing then slower was achieved

    As for the rest of what you said I'll just disagree. Earth was touted as a melee centric "tank-ish" assault set. Range be damned. Unfortunately it kinda puts out lousy melee numbers too.
    Yes, that's exactly what I meant. As fast animating as Seismic Smash is, without a huge amount of recharge it will not be up again fast enough to be considered a "fast" attack. Since your faster recharge attacks are slower animating, there is a more ponderous feel to the set.

    I suspect this is what was meant by "tankish", despite the way some hopefuls ran with the idea of "Oh, 'tank' means defense, so that means we're getting Earth's Embrace". Sunstorm I think was referring more to the fact that the older Tanker sets tend to be slow animating and long recharge, giving them a more "brute force" feel, while Scrapper sets tended to be the ones that were fast with solid attack chains. Of course, only Sunstorm can say if that's what he actually meant...

    Quote:
    Earth is pretty fun though, it looks really pretty and with lots of screen shake it feels very powerful. I just wish it was powerful as I was banking so much on earth assault being good.
    Well, that's good at least.

    Quote:
    *how is it different than old elec assault that was actually good with such long recharge on melee attacks? Simple. Elec's ranged attacks aren't the worst in the game and bu > pb for the purpose of a "burst/slow" set.
    This I'm in agreement with. Electric Assault's ranged attacks have not changed, and they were never long recharge to begin with, they are 4 and 8 seconds, which is actually short compared to the newer Energy. And as with Fire, the advantage of having an Aim/Build Up is quite large. I would say that it quite as much of an advantage as having an additional damage power in Power Push as Energy Assault now does.

    In fact, it's probably intentional that the sets without an Aim/Build Up tend to be longer recharge now, giving them more damage. Of course, I understand the idea of wanting to have steady DPS, and foes that you can't mez are an issue, although most foes CAN be mezzed. However, if given the choice between doing 30 points of damage 1 second apart for three seconds, or doing 90 points of damage, but not doing any more damage for three seconds, the advantage is with the 90 points of damage. If you can kill the foe immediately, instead of waiting three seconds and enduring damage for that time, you have taken less damage, for dealing the same amount.

    In other words, burst damage kills mezzers faster than low, steady DPS. The problem is, of course, the devs realize this, and so if you replace a 30 point attack with a 1 second recharge with a 90 second attack, it won't take 3 seconds to recharge. It will take more like 5 or 6. There are diminishing returns, which is why the overall DPS of a slower recharge set like Earth or Energy is lower.

    Of course, Aim/Build Up gives you the same burst potential as a high burst damage attack, just you boost your lower damage attacks over a short period. I've always felt that the Aim/Build Up gave the real advantage in damage dealing, that's why my two main Doms are Fire and Electric. Power Boost is more of a defensive and damage mitigation bonus.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frosticus View Post
    a 4 second recharge Stone Fist would make a tremendous difference just as it does for stone melee. I mean it is one of the fastest casting powers in the game after all.
    True. I suspect it was left out to give Earth this "slower" feel, though. That, and to keep with a common theme with the mallet attacks.

    Quote:
    "I've been saying all along Stone Assault would likely have such long recharge times that you would not be able to utilize it with your usual high recharge slotting strategy."

    This doesn't make sense. It looks like the ONLY way to play earth assault is with very high recharge. Like 250% recharge (hasten+ 80% slotting+ 100% IO global) so you can get those 8, 12, 20 attacks down to 2.3, 3.4, and 5.7 and so you can spam fissure of course.
    But it's still not working the way you want it to.

    Personally, I would use Air Superiority to fill out the chain and make some faster attacks available. There aren't any 4 second ranged attacks in the pool to help fill out chains, but again, that seems to be the design criteria here. This is a melee centric set. I wouldn't worry about a pause or two, that does not bother me, and I don't have the issues with it you obviously have. I'm doing adequate burst damage to finish off my foes quickly, I could be doing more with an Aim or Build Up, but unfortunately there is no such option in the set.

    Of course, that's still not as good as what Energy or Fire would be capable of, but I'm really not saying that. I wouldn't go out of my way to increase its recharge, though, any more than I would go out of my way to increase recharge on Broadsword, or Battle Axe. Those are slow, ponderous sets, I've played them. It seems like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole is doomed to failure from the start.

    I'll also add that while you can go to the Power Pool for Air Superiority or Boxing, you can't go to the Power Pool for a ranged attack. So if Stone Fist replaced Stone Spears, those who wanted two ranged attacks would not have that option. I've said the same thing in regards to those who wanted a melee attack in place of the ranged attacks on Masterminds. This is not to say it isn't a good idea, it's just it would probably be better to either trim some time off Stone Spears' animation, or bump it and Hurl to a 6/10 second scale. That would improve the ranged damage AND you could still use Air Superiority.
  5. Back in the old days we called this a Controller type of Scrapper.

    My MA/SR Scrapper is like this, since SR has not always been the best defense, and you can still take a pretty big hit which leaves you in big trouble. He has Intimidate and Invoke Panic to mitigate some additional damage, in addition to his "shields". I would definately recommend Dark for this, either Primary or Secondary, since you have lots of Fear powers in both of those. However, Dark Armor is really a pretty tough defense set in its own right, and isn't really Defense based since it has Res and healing as well.

    Actually, Dark/Dark is already pretty much a multifaceted set with lots of utility powers, including the control powers, which stack well with the other defenses. So you may not need to explicitly create a control-oriented Scrapper, Dark is kinda that way already.

    I also suspect Ninjitsu would be a very control-oriented type set, if it ever gets Proliferated to Scrappers. In fact, SR plus Stealth plus Intimidate and Invoke Panic feels kind of similar to Ninjitsu to me.
  6. I don't think it's that the devs want to have a "No Duplicates" rule, it's that they CAN'T have duplicates. If you have a power called "Alpha" and another power called "Alpha" and you activate the power "Alpha", which power activates? And while it's possible that the power being clicked on will be the one activated, I have seen enough oddities with macros (and the "Rock" temp power) to guess that when you click on a power, it calls the first power with that name, and does NOT store any kind of reference to the actual icon you clicked on.

    In other words, it's an engine limitation. You would have to name Caltrops something else, even if it had the same effect. (Another example is Fire Shield in Controller Thermal. It is now called Thermal Shield, even though it's the exact same power, because it collides with Fire Shield in the Controller Epic, despite the latter having a different effect)

    Now, as others have mentioned, I don't see any problems with Stealth in a Scrapper Secondary, Dark and Energy both have stealth, so it's just a matter of changing the name and dropping the special features like the ability to crit, and the short suppression time. I don't think there's anything wrong with Scrappers getting an AoE Placate, although in the name of fairness I would like Scrappers to keep their Placate as their unique feature of the set. Then again, I wonder what a Scrapper would do with Placate. It's contrary to his secondary role as a weaker tank, it does nothing for him that simply stunning or sleeping the foes wouldn't do, and wouldn't be usable to set up another Critical, as a Stalker would. It really would only be useful as an emergency escape button, which is a role it has for Stalkers as well, but Stalkers can do more with it.

    The reason I like Smoke Grenade is because, as I said, when you stack stealth with -perception you get something beyond even Dark Scrappers, you can actually close into melee before attacking, as with a Stalker. Blinding Powder would serve the same purpose, but as a cone it's going to be harder to get into range to use it even with stealth. Still, it's probably enough by itself, although the devs could remove the -tohit and -perception from Scrapper Blinding Powder and just leave them the Sleep and Confuse.

    There's also the fact that Smoke Grenade, as a Devices power, is a gadget like Caltrops. I suppose a gadget like Poison Gas Trap, from Traps, might be a replacement too. One other thought I have had is that if Scrappers can't have Caltrops because it is a power in their Epic, why not replace it from a power in a Stalker Epic? Unfortunately, I think most of those powers would be more powerful than Caltrops. It might be nice for the hero side to get an AoE Web Grenade, but that's really a bit powerful for a low level power, and it's not a Stalker Epic anyway. The Stalker Snipes are right out, and certainly we don't want to go with a ranged attack. So probably the "gas bomb" type of concept is the best one to go with.

    I suppose an alternate idea would be to replace Caltrops, in the Scrapper Epic, with something else. Perhaps an AoE Web Grenade, or Web Cocoon.
  7. I actually liked the old Domination for the feel that I was playing with my foes, just torturing them while I built up the power to let loose on them. Now, with the greater damage I don't play with them quite as long any more, but there's still that sense of, "Now I shall show you my TRUE power!!!" as I kick in Domination and that explosion goes off. Plus with a costume change I can even look tougher. (And now my attacks can even be brighter and more intense )

    Gameplay wise it's very nice not to be forced to be weakened, since very often I actually need that edge, but I can switch to my weaker attacks or even Brawl if I want to just toy with a foe for a while, just to be cruel. And I may not actually do more damage in Domination any more, but psychologically it still feels like it. Maybe, as you said, it's the feeling that you're so overpowering your foes that they cannot even fight back against you any more.

    You haven't just defeated them, you've demoralized them.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frosticus View Post
    For earth feel free to indicate how much recharge is needed to string attacks with the following recharge together:
    8, 12, 20
    The only difference between that and a Brute is Stone Fists.

    I've been saying all along Stone Assault would likely have such long recharge times that you would not be able to utilize it with your usual high recharge slotting strategy. You're not surprising me at all by pointing it out now.

    And of course, if you're replacing Incinerate with Flares, we know that's a bad idea. I didn't say it was a good idea, just possible. More possible, perhaps, than skipping the ranged attacks in Stone. (You don't even have a choice with Stone Spears, you have to take it even if you don't use it)
  9. Here we go:

    Element Dog (WS, Virtue, 29.5)
    Hours: 61
    Patrols: 81

    Element Dog (PB, Pinnacle, 23)
    Hours: 26
    Patrols: 40

    Empyrean Dragon (WS, Pinnacle, 22.1)
    Hours: 32
    Patrols: 32

    Empyrean Dragon (PB, Virtue, 15.2)
    Hours: 15
    Patrols: 24

    Yeah, I'm just a clueless newbie.

    If you're wondering why my Kheldians have the same names, it's because I couldn't decide who was the WS and who was the PB. So they're each both.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wavicle View Post
    Sure the set as a whole will out DPS a Def, by going to melee. At range the Def will own you.
    Honestly, I think this is always going to be the case, for any Set, and it has nothing to do with DPS. Certainly it is the case for a Corruptor. A Dominator really has only half the powerset of a Defender. It isn't fair to compare the two.

    The same goes with melee, comparing a Dominator to a Brute, Tanker or Scrapper. Now, a comparison to a Blaster is a bit more valid, since a Blaster only has half of its secondary (on average) dedicated to melee attacks, just like a Dominator. But still, a Dominator isn't going to be able to deal the same damage as another Archetype JUST at range or in melee, it needs to do both.

    Fire and Earth being exceptions, of course. Not that either is exclusively ranged or melee, but they're both balanced so that you can skip Incinerate or the Earth ranged attacks 90% of the time, if you want. Or so it seems is the concept anyway.

    Also, I'm curious as to whether you included Defender buffs in that analysis. Logic would seem to give the Dominator the edge in DPS, since it has a higher base damage. Much higher. Stone Spears is obviously throwing that edge away in its animation time, but that doesn't mean the melee attacks won't be doing better damage, even better, in fact, since melee damage is even higher than ranged. Once you throw in the Defender's buffs, though, the difference, even with melee added in, should level off.

    Since the OP, perhaps jokingly, probably didn't intend to include buffs either, though, you probably didn't intend to include them either.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haruu View Post
    I have yet to meet a single person that talks of a standard attack chain that adds in long rec abilities. Its almost always T1,T2,T1,T(3 or 4).
    Maybe, but to me the T1, T2, T1, T3 pattern seems to be used until one of the higher recharge attacks is ready. It's basically a filler. Very few people as far as I know ever skip KO Blow or Seismic Smash. So for the most part the best builds are considered around getting the recharge of those attacks down as low as possible, and then the rest of the attacks it doesn't really matter, as long as they can be chained.

    Now, the exception is the "Buzzsaw" build for Brutes, which I kind of tend to use myself (sets with a really fast Tier 1 like Jab lend themselves to that) and the Dominators that used to use fast attacks to build Domination. Those are essentially specialty builds, though, and are based around not the powers themselves, but which ones can be slotted for Procs or Recharge effects, and keeping the overall number of them low. There's certainly nothing wrong with taking a full selection of attacks, though, even if you use fast attacks to build up your Inherent. One KO Blow (or Seismic Smash) in the middle of your chain is going to spike your damage quite nicely.

    That's really one of the unfortunate things about Sniper blasts when it comes to range. They're really meant to be the big hitters, but they can't be used quite the same way as the big hitters in melee sets. You've got the Burst type attack, but it's not usually as damaging, and it's only one attack.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MinMin View Post
    I've long been critical of Dominator snipes, but the I15 overhaul has essentially changed my mind about them. They now do a significant amount of damage and they make excellent finishing moves against targets that have survived your initial control + AoE assault.
    The interesting thing about Dominator Snipes is that if you convert the Blaster 2.76 damage scale value to the same attack using a Dominator's lower ranged damage modifier, you get 3.27, which is very close to the 3.56 damage scale Dom snipes are now. This means Doms are doing a little more damage with their Snipes than Blasters are. I suspect this is intentional, while Doms do less damage with all other ranged attacks, they have this one ranged attack that they're the equal of a Blaster with.

    (And of course they also do slightly more damage than Blasters with melee attacks, now. Although in general the attacks themselves don't do as much damage. They do recharge faster, though)

    Anyway, since I do suspect this was the intention, I think the other ATs probably won't be getting these stronger Snipes. Either that, or only Defenders and Corruptors will get it. I do think they would be useful across all the ATs, though, either that or decrease the interrupt time for Blasters, and then give the slower but higher punch versions to the others. That would actually kind of fit the "charge up" idea, but it would be based on AT and not how long you want to charge it up.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rikis View Post
    Quote:
    Dark Servant [...] probably should have different debuffing abilities based on who summons him.
    Exactly why?
    Exactly why not?

    That's why I said "probably", ultimately it comes down to what is balanced, and that's up to the devs. It's not something I either want to say should be one way or another, or really feel strongly about either way.

    Quote:
    Don't get me wrong, I understand that Dominator and Controller pets should do the same damage, but if that's true, the other true pet, Dark Servant, should retain the same debuffing values. Much like the Singularity, that is almost all control, does the same for both ATs that get him.
    Well, with Dominators and Controllers it's kind of an delicate balance. Controllers do less damage without their Inherent, while Dominators have less control without theirs. OTOH, in Domination a Dominator has much stronger control than a Controller, but of course the Dominator lacks the ability to buff and debuff. So it's not as simple as saying, "Well, a Controller's pet should do less damage but have strong controls than a Dominator." In essense, a Controller and a Dominator's Primary are in balance with each other, they are about equally useful in the long run, and thus their pets should be equal as well.

    With the Dark Servant, though, you're talking about a pet that is in the Primary for one AT, and in the Secondary for the others. If you want to look at it this way, why wouldn't a particular AT summon a Dark Servant who is more suited to his needs? A Defender would seek out one that has stronger buffs, while the Controller (Proliferation...) would want one with greater holds. The poor Corruptor is right out since the Dark Servant does no damage. OTOH, when building a device for the Traps Set, the Defender might adjust his Force Field Generator to be stronger and provide more defense, while the Corruptor would build Trip Mines and Time Bombs that explode with more force.

    Of course, now we're bridging the gap between pets and psuedo-pets, but you get my point. Is the pet truly a separate entity, or a manifestation of the AT's powers? And if it is the latter, then is it really equal for all ATs, or is it just that Controllers and Masterminds concentrate more of their damage dealing power indirectly, not doing it themselves, but through their pets?
  14. Jade_Dragon

    Dark Armor Angst

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
    I built a softcapped DA scrapper, and CoD is a BIG part of getting there. I have it 6 slotted with Red Fortune. The defense it gives is equal to Weave and doesn't suppress like other stealth powers.

    Not seeing my costume is a small price to pay for 40% resistances and 45+% defense to all 3 positions, plus the best heal in the game.
    Well, technically speaking what you are paying for is NOT having ONLY 40% resistances and 39+% defense. Granted that 5.6% defense is quite useful on top of 39% defense, but it would be useless without the foundation it's adding to.

    Also, AFAIK it is not necessary to have CoD on to recieve its Set IO bonuses.

    It really does only matter whether you don't mind not being able to see your costume, or don't mind just seeing it occasionally, and turning on CoD when you want or need its full benefit.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wonderslug View Post
    It really, really isn't. It privileges fast recharge far out of proportion to reality. By that standard it's trivial to make Energy Punch look like a better power than Energy Transfer, and I mean old Energy Transfer with the 1-second animation.
    Exactly what I'm trying to say. Once you get a recharge time above 6 seconds, the animation time doesn't really factor into the damage/(cast+recharge) equation. When in fact it is quite an important factor.

    This is not to say that DPA and DPR are not both important metrics, and need to both be considered in weighing the advantages of a given set. I don't think that damage/cast all by itself is sufficient to make a comparison either. OTOH, in most cases damage/cast is going to be related to damage/(cast+recharge) simply because the devs relate damage and recharge to each other by a formula, so there's a fixed relationship between them.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haruu View Post
    Ill compare 4 similar tiered powers from earth to lets say Elec (a sat for blasters everyone always says is under preforming)
    The argument is that quick sets underperform because they have high DPS, but low DPA. By comparing to an "underperforming" Electric set, you're actually comparing to higher DPS values.

    Try making a comparison to Energy instead. Supposedly this is a set that is performing well since the Dom revamp.

    Better yet, I'll go ahead and do it

    Elec-
    Charged Bolts: 10.56
    Charged Brawl: 11.28
    Lightning Bolt: 8.96 (not 9.67, if I made a mistake in calculation please show me the true numbers)

    Energy-
    Power Bolt: 10.56 (same as Charged Bolts)
    Bonesmasher: 9.95
    Power Blast: 8.87

    Earth-
    Stone Spears: 8.65
    Stone Mallet: 9.97
    Hurl Boulder: 8.24

    And now for the clincher:

    Total Focus: 8.95
    Seismic Smash: 9.67 (I'm assuming here that it's unchanged from the Tanker/Brute version since that's not really posted anywhere I know of)

    I think we can see a couple of things here. First, except for the really fast, 4 or 3 second recharge ranged attacks, the DPS of the ranged attacks is lower just because they are ranged. They are about 1 point per second lower than the equivalent melee attacks. So right there, comparing ranged attacks to the melee attacks in the power pool they should be lower.

    Second, Earth is actually doing about the same DPS as Energy with its melee attacks, and in fact is doing more with Seismic Smash. And that's with Total Focus doing about 9% more damage per hit. Again, assuming that Seismic Smash is itself unchanged from the "normal" version. The only attacks that do the same damage as those in the Pool, with 4 or so seconds recharge, are those that also have the same 4-6 second recharge. Get up to an 8-10 second recharge, and even the animation time does not become that significant a difference.

    While I'm at it, here's what Stone Spears and Hurl Boulder would be like if they were on the Melee scale:

    Stone Spears: 9.57
    Hurl Boulder: 9.18

    This would still put Stone Spears behind the curve for fast recharge first attacks (it's always going to underperform, unless it gets a shorter animation) but Hurl would become one of the best ranged attacks for a Dom.

    Here's what they would be like with 6 second and 10 second recharge times: (but ranged scale)

    Stone Spears: 8.61
    Hurl Boulder: 8.28

    Losing ground for Stone Spears, but Hurl would get marginally better. At this point you're losing out of DPS anyway for the upfront damage.

    This is not to say that I think putting these attacks on the melee scale is the one right thing to do, but if I were working on this program, after seeing that I might seriously consider it. (Although I'd also like to develop some faster animations so I can make a Blast set. )
  17. Jade_Dragon

    Dark Servant Pet

    I always figured the Dark Servant text was meant to explain why his duration was limited, and not semi-permanent like Controller pets.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MrQuizzles View Post
    It'd have to be infinity, yes.
    Heheheh.

    Realistically speaking, the "pause" which you can get it down to with extreme Recharge slotting is probably so low as to be unnoticable. If that's what you want, you can probably fire it constantly, and use it as your only attack. The problem is, that will then be your ONLY attack, while you could do twice as much damage just by using another attack any time it came up. Really, that's the secret to attack chaining, it's using the pauses while an attack is recharging to do additional damage with another attack. If there was no recharge time, your maximum damage would be your strongest attack, whatever that is, used again and again.

    Too much recharge can actually be wasteful. While your slowest attacks come up more quickly, thus letting you do more damage, your fastest attacks end up wasting their damage potential and become a waste of power slots. The ideal would be a perfect balance where all your attacks recharge at exactly the second you are about to use them.

    And I'm sure nobody needed to know this, but I just felt like talking.
  19. Jade_Dragon

    Stupid Healers!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TRTerror View Post
    Are we talking about the same rad blast? Procs.
    Well, Procs are still in your Secondary. There are many Set Bonuses you can slot in your Primary, though, and I suppose a few Procs that you can slot in your knockback powers, and that will certainly get you more damage. The point I was making, though (albeit indirectly) is that you have no way to increase damage in your Primary itself. You MUST go somewhere else, whether it be the Pool, IO's, Epics, Temp Powers, or whatever, as you have no other choice.

    Since I forgot to mention this first time around, though, I do very much recommend damage bonus Set IOs if you wish to deal any damage. The OP said he wasn't soloing, so it's not as important, but it will make you do more damage overall, and every little bit helps. The main thing is to find Sets that are cheap and easy to build. I went with Red Fortune, which takes four to get the damage bonus, and Kinetic Crash, which takes only two. I notice a lot of folks talk about Force Feedback, too, but since it's more popular it's more expensive. Since you only need two for the Kinetic Crash, it's easier to slot all your knockback powers with it early on, when you don't have the slots to spare. Plus, you can use the Proc as one of those two, as mentioned above.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Haruu View Post
    Yah, I just realized every single pool power attack does higher DPS than any given attack from stone. Heck Stone spears is only like 1.5 DPS higher than Brawl. It makes me sad.
    By DPS you obviously mean damage over recharge. And longer recharge attacks always have lower damage over recharge than faster ones. It's to make up for the higher recharge doing more damage up front.

    When it comes to damage over animation time, though, nothing beats Seismic Smash.

    Also, don't forget Dominators naturally do more damage with melee attacks. So ranged attacks would get a disadvantage compared to the Pool attacks.
  21. Jade_Dragon

    Stupid Healers!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mechafang View Post
    I wont be soloing much, its more of a Post-pub character for messing around on in some Pugs
    Then I have no advice to offer other than PhiloticKnight's in that guide I linked to. I will say that Detention Shield can come in handy when an ally is about to die, or the team has misjudged that AV, and all of a sudden the danger is just... gone. 90% of the time, though, you will either not use the power, or be repeating "STOP ATTACKING! WAIT FOR THE SHIELD TO FALL!" all the time.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mechafang View Post
    After watching the first video it has just occurred to me that irradiate and force bubble aren't going to be a very good combo and then there's Cosmic burst that has exactly faff all range as well.
    That can be quite true. I usually find that you need either Repulsion Field or Force Bubble, but not both. When you need Repulsion Field, Force Bubble is no good, and vice versa. The short range attacks in Rad can be a good example of this, Repulsion Field is fine to protect you, and you can use Cosmic Burst and Electron Haze (well, maybe not Irradiate) but Force Bubble cuts off those powers, making them useless when you solo, unless you force a foe against a wall.

    On the other hand, if you're not soloing that often, then your attacks may not be that important. You're not the major damage dealer, and if you can't use Electron Haze or Irradiate, that's not that big a deal. On the other hand, Cosmic Burst can be useful to "punch" a foe to stun him for a few seconds while an ally deals with him, so for that reason you might want to turn Force Bubble off and on, or even use it only when needed.

    Honestly, the primary use for Force Bubble is to force foes into corners in indoor maps. For that purpose you don't leave it up all the time, and if you leave it up on an outdoor map, not only are you cutting off your close range and cone attacks, you're probably cutting off your ALLIES, as well. While there are situations where it can be useful to force your foes out to sniper range and pick them off from that distance, those are just that, situational.

    I find enough use for both Repulsion Field and Force Bubble that I have them both, but I use Repulsion Field far more often. If you feel like you can skip Force Bubble, you probably can. And remember, your starship's Deflector Shield is Dispersion Bubble, not Force Bubble. (Force Bubble is more like putting Tractor Beam in reverse)
  22. Me three.

    You could just use Cloaking Device and Smoke Grenade from Blasters, as Hide and Smoke Flash respectively. Flash Arrow is really just Smoke Grenade anyway. (Adjusted for Blaster modifiers instead of Defenders -- actually, a bit better even than that)

    As for Caltrops, well, they could go the Energize route and make Ninjitsu Caltrops "better than Caltrops", or maybe make Smoke Grenade the replacement for Caltrops and make Smoke Flash a sort of PBAoE disorient.

    Another possibility, if indirect, would be to replace Caltrops with Quickness. Instead of making the foe(s) slower, you make yourself faster.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe View Post
    Replace Caltrops with a pbaoe version of Trick Arrow's Flash Arrow (-perception, -tohit non-aggro aoe) and call it "Flash Bomb."
    The only problem with that being a PBAoE is that how do you get close enough to use it with just regular stealth? If you use it before you get into melee, though, you should be able to get as close as if you had Hide. (The same goes for Blinding Powder)
  23. Don't attacks not begin to recharge until after they have fired? So it should never be ready to fire again immediately, there will always be some fraction of a second you have to wait.

    Numerically speaking, though, 100% Recharge should give it about a 0.75 recharge time, if I'm calculating it right.
  24. Jade_Dragon

    Stupid Healers!

    Well, if you wish to join the ranks of the few, the proud, the bubblers, I suggest the following link:

    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=123118

    Beyond that, do you plan to solo? (Now that you have been warned against it? ) Bubblers actually don't have a lack of powers that help them solo, it's just that such powers are near useless on a team, provided they don't get you kicked. I'm talking about you, Detention Field. Fortunately, with dual builds you can have one build for soloing (no Deflection and Insulation Shield) and one for teaming.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by AlienOne View Post
    (WKE doesn't count, because I really haven't spent any time on her--She's my AE/build test baby).
    Oh. Well, now I feel less depressed.

    At least I wasn't thinking it took you 900 hours to get to 50.