Jibikao

[ QUOTE ]
I realize that the official version is that with the advent of invention enhancements, enemies are not stronger, nor are archetypes weaker. However, since I've come back after a two year hiatus, it seems that this is not right. When I was playing before, I could solo up through level 12 or 15 with my Scrapper without dying more than maybe once or twice. It was challenging, but it was still relatively easy. Also, I could avoid slotting until reaching 12th at least.

Since returning, I've rolled a new Scrapper, and even at level 8, I'm finding pinks and yellows in all my missions, and they are hitting way more often than they should, in my opinion. I'm using an MA/SR Scrapper with Focused Fighting, Focused Senses and Combat Jumping. All three of these powers claim that they reduce your chances of being hit, and all three are slotted with Defense Buffs. And yet, it seems to me that my opponents are either not missing at all, or only missing every fourth or fifth time. Also, groups seem to be larger, even in Kings Row.

Am I missing something? I freely admit that I may need a better strategy, as it has been a couple years, but I'm surprised that even by level 8, I've needed to slot everything, and I've still died 4 times by this point. Can someone give me some advice?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the total opposite. It has gotten a lot easier. With Veteran attacks and Beginner's Luck. Early level should be a lot easier.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
whereas most Brutes care more about how much damage they can sustain.[/b] There is a difference...

[/ QUOTE ]

We kind of have to be. Cause, you know, if we don't sustain a decent amount of fury we're like Tankers without the defense and aggro abilities.

[/ QUOTE ]

Therefore, I said if I am looking for "tanking", I'll look for Brute... because Brute is not the only one with damage you know?

Ladies,

Don't forget that SoA with leaderships can turn almost everyone to god-mode like Defense.

Who wants Tanker and Brute??

I've been running hard AE mish and I try NOT to invite Brute because Brute players are so anal about their playing style. They always say "SB please!" or "don't knockback!", "let me herd first!!" or "don't use confuse".

Just invite 1-2 SoA and everyone can do whatever they want. Problem solved!

PS: I would invite Scrapper over Brute most of the time... and if I really want tanking, I would pick Tanker because most of Tanker players actually care about aggro-control; whereas most Brutes care more about how much damage they can sustain. There is a difference...

[ QUOTE ]
I too hate the weapon redraw for survallence, but I am starting to believe within making the Bane AT the devs took into consideration Huntsman/Hybrid builds.

[/ QUOTE ]

You need to draw both Rifle and Mace. If they have that in mind, they should have gotten rid of rifle redraw after respec?

I don't know. I think Bane is ok... probably the weakest of the 4. I used to come here to depend Bane but after trying him out more and more, I feel Bane is ok.

Bane with leadership(s) is still very valuable especially on a team where resistance debuffs are lacking. Bane can fill that hole well.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
HelinCarnate - While the devs will likely go this route, there is a danger with it. The first few months (if not longer) are likely not to be as useful since longtime Hero / Villain players will likely be testing the waters with the opposite side's ATs to see what they're like. It won't be until after the initial testing phase that the true trends will start to show themselves. If a problem is detected/acted upon at this point, there will be an inevitable "Why'd you wait so long to act?" [expletive]fest.

[/ QUOTE ]

The other danger is acting when there is no need to act causing the inevitable "Why did you screw with an AT that had no problmes?" fest.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Personally would rather fix something one time than break something and then try to fix it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. I think it's safe to say Scrapper is not "under-performing". Scrapper has one of the highest playerbase (maybe a little bit behind Blaster).

I constantly see Scrapper solos this AV/Pylon.

If Scrapper is not "broken now", why fix them later just because more people want to try Brute?

I won't be surprised if a lot of players want to try Brute when I15 comes out because Brute/Scrapper are primarily melee-offense and most people like that.

[ QUOTE ]

As for lethal vs psi... many lethal sets have -defense associated and can slot Achilles' Heel procs. I'd personally say that lethal has less of a problem despite the resistance being more widespread. The only reason psi seemed desirable was PvP when most sets had no way of dealing with it.

[/ QUOTE ]

and because of this, AH procs are super hard to buy now... at least on Virtue.

So lethal damage is now balanced by "proc"? How about tuning down some of super high lethal resistance to make it fair? Wouldn't that be easier than hoping every player is rich or lucky enough to put some AH procs?

I mean the answer to balance resistance imbalances is RIGHT THERE... just tune it down on some of them! There is no need to be fancy and throw in specific procs to make it "fair".

It seems like a very logical and easy thing to do is just to tune down some of the mob's lethal and psionic/toxic resistance to balance the sets out more?

Unless it has been proven that Primarily Lethal Damage sets perform BETTER than others (hence the need for more lethal resistance to counter), I see no logical reason why the game has to "punish" lethal resistance especially in end-game contents.

I can name 2-3 groups that have superior lethal resistance consistently and it is really unfair:

1. Malta is a famous one
2. Crey Tankers. Holy !@#$!#. Do they have high lethal (and smashing) resistance??! They must have at least 40-50%. And it is annoying even the Crey Tanker minions have that much lethal resistance.
3. Longbows. All of them have about 15% resistance to lethal. Unlike Arachno group, lethal damage is good against Mu and Widows so you can pick your fight first on a team. (although Arachno also has many robot-type!)

(some Ritki have good lethal resistance too)

Why can't they just tune down lethal resistance a bit to balance out? Is it really that hard to do?


PS: Oh and I think Rome Warriors have pretty high lethal resistance too. Yikes... it seems like all major story line tends to have more lethal resistance.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just for my own curiosity, I built a melee-crab last night using my 2nd build.

I have to say, my melee-crab seems to be doing better than my Bane and it's sad!

I start the battle with Aim (Crab's Aim is 50% dmg boost?) and Venom, jump in to Arm Lash first, then Frenzy. Then I just cycle Slice, Longfang and Arm Lash and Frenzy or Frag Grenade if I am overwhelmed.

Crab can survival much better and the action is much faster. In fact, this crab is comparable to night widow.

My twin brother and I are both semi-melee Crab now and we are amazed by how good it turns out. Fast action, fun slashing and can still deliver aoe dmg.

[/ QUOTE ]

I tested this out the other day solo, because I remember you talking about this just to see how it would do. Well I am impressed but not that impressed how they are survivable they still don't deliver as much damage, I attempted to solo an EB, I won, however, the time it took to win was unbearable. I might take the presence pool so pets don't take aggro, those little spiderlings were getting one shotted and when they get gone.

I mean as far as dps goes they were kinda horrible, Bash from hide does more damage than Armlash, Pulverize > Armlash, and Build up + Crowd Control >>> Aim + Frenzy.

As far as taking and giving damage Crabs are good tanks, but from what I have seen they don't do as much damage a Banes. A melee Crab is very survivable but they do their best at range, even though you can use ranged attacks in melee the ranged cones are far better at range and it also keeps your pets from going into melee too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Soloing wise, I am sure Bane does more dmg than Crab. The semi-melee build I run is mostly with my twin brother and we usually invite full team.

Maybe I am just annoyed with Bane's weapon redraw. I like to use debuffs and each time I use, I have to redraw. I think it slows down Bane, at least on the "feeling" side.

Crab's damage is decent with Venom grenade. I plan on using Assault when I get afford either Numina/Miracle.

[ QUOTE ]
This is awesome, thank you. The slots/level is extremely helpful. I will put in IOs at 50, I was just having trouble finding builds that played a roadmap up to that point.

[/ QUOTE ]

The slot/level is up to you. Some like to take Hasten earlier so it's up to you.

I am more surprised by

Ps 6.04%
To 6.64%

So much for "exotic" damage type when robots have huge resistance on them. The thing with Psi and Toxic is that the mob either has a lot of resistance against them or very very little (or nothing).


And poor Lethal....

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I didn't use the build to the exact. On my character I plan to take Elude. Even if I just end up using it as an "Oh [censored]" power. I just needed some direction and thanks to the first post I received that. Also in the higher levels I took hasten as well which would reduce the down time on it (as well as everything else of course) as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Use Elude as +endurance. It's great for long fights.

Which server are you on?

You can afford 4 of those? Wow!!!

Last time I checked, none is even for sale at lvl 20.... T_T

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Level 50 Natural Arachnos Widow
Primary Power Set: Night Widow Training
Secondary Power Set: Widow Teamwork
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Poison Dart -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(3), Empty(5), Empty(5), Empty(7)
Level 1: Combat Training: Defensive -- Empty(A), Empty(7)
Level 2: Strike -- Empty(A), Empty(9), Empty(9), Empty(11), Empty(11), Empty(13)
Level 4: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- Empty(A), Empty(13), Empty(15), Empty(15), Empty(17)
Level 6: Hurdle -- Jump(A), Jump(50)
Level 8: Build Up -- Empty(A), Empty(17), Empty(19)
Level 10: Indomitable Will -- ResDam(A), ResDam(19), EndRdx(21), EndRdx(48)
Level 12: Lunge -- Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(23), Empty(23), Empty(25), Empty(25)
Level 14: Spin -- Empty(A), Empty(27), Empty(27), Empty(29), Empty(29), Empty(31)
Level 16: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Slash -- Empty(A), Empty(31), Empty(31), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(33)
Level 20: Stamina -- Empty(A), Empty(34), Empty(34)
Level 22: Foresight -- Empty(A), Empty(34)
Level 24: Mask Presence -- Empty(A), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(37)
Level 26: Eviscerate -- Empty(A), Empty(37), Empty(37), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(39)
Level 28: Mental Training -- Empty(A)
Level 30: Mind Link -- Empty(A), Empty(40), Empty(40), Empty(40), Empty(42)
Level 32: Placate -- Empty(A), Empty(42), Empty(42)
Level 35: Psychic Scream -- Empty(A), Empty(43), Empty(43), Empty(43), Empty(45), Empty(45)
Level 38: Elude -- Empty(A), Empty(45), Empty(46), Empty(48)
Level 41: Hasten -- Empty(A), Empty(46), Empty(46)
Level 44: Tactical Training: Assault -- Empty(A), Empty(48), Empty(50)
Level 47: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A), Jump(50)
Level 49: Tactical Training: Vengeance -- Empty(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
------------


-----------

I didn't put any enhancements in it because it really depends on how much you want to invest but for most parts:

1. Put Defense Set in Mind Link to reduce recharge.

2. I skip travel powers all the time. You already have Mental Training for speed so take Hurdle. I also take Combat Jumping for more +def and even higher jumping. I think that's good enough to travel in CoV.

3. You want to take either Poison Dart or Dart Burst. Both have -regen. -Regen becomes useful against AV. Poison Dart is very good because it has range (good for pulling and killing runners) and it does better damage than Swipe. Swipe is just faster. Since you are not going for crazy set bonuses, I don't think damage-per-activation matters that much. Poison Dart > Swipe.

4. NW's Scream actually does very decent damage but with longer recharge which doesn't matter 'cause you either jump in for melee and jump back or you hit Scream first and then jump in for melee (that's why I picked Spin).

5. If you are not going for sets, then you should put -endurance in each attack. You already have mental training for more recharge and Hasten.

6. The slots in Foresight and Combat Defensive vary depending on uniques. If you can afford +3% defense/resistance unique, then put more one slot in either one. If you can't, 2 Defense SO is good enough.

Have Fun.

[ QUOTE ]
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> * 55.61 Negative damage PvE only

* ToHit -5.625% for 6s

* 55.61 Negative damage PvE only, If not Hidden

* 55.61 Negative damage PvE only, If Hidden</pre><hr />

This is what it looks like in City of Data (with PvP info removed). To me this indicates that it always does 111.2 damage and doesn't deal extra damage when hidden. All patron pool attacks look like this, so is this an issue for all Stalker patron pools?

[/ QUOTE ]

Patron powers do critical from hidden. ST attack has 100% and cone and aoe have 50%. Ball of Lightning has 50% critical.

Spine Burst only has 30% chance to critical.

So yes, you can build an aoe Stalker. I don't know why people keep talking about Scrapper VS Brute when I think a more accurate comparison is Stalker VS Scrapper. Oh well..

(When the new Stalker buff came out, patron powers still had the old critical mechanism which means they could only score critical from Hidden or Held/Slept targets. Now all patron attacks have normal 10% critical + 3% per party member within the radius and even though I haven't done a test about this, I feel I critical more with pets around me too.)


PS: Did I mention Shadow Meld is super good?!!!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After looking through this whole thread, I would have to agree with Sarrate that the analysis is probably overrated. This would really only work for totally tricked out builds that could be impractical for most of the gameplay and players here. Yes, for some of the tougher challenges like AV hunting and Pylon soloing these comparisons could be nice in an academic discussion, but the conditions of these numbers seem to be pretty exclusive from most of the game.

The +250% recharge, though definitely possible for some builds, is still pretty high for anything without using IO set bonuses or external buffs. Assuming 90% recharge enhanced for each power, Hasten tacked on, and maybe another buff like Quickness from /SR, you are still looking at 70-90% more global recharge. That seems to be out of reach except for the most dedicated builds.

Also assuming Fury at 90% is pretty high standard, which is definitely not the practice for Brutes at all times. Yes, I know it's probably not that difficult to generate Fury, but general gameplay seems to see Fury peak at 70-80% as the highest attained for most of the time, with the average being lower than that. Getting even higher Fury then involves getting specific conditions which could also put the Brute's survival at risk, and that does take some time to do.

I seriously don't think the developers will take these numbers as an indication of any need of balance between sets or ATs (though I'm not saying there is or there isn't a need for it in any case). That +250% recharge is figured into these calculations puts them way beyond the SO enhancement values that most of the games seems to be revolved around.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the results basically confirm my belief that when under most optimal situation, Brute has the GREATEST potential, which is pretty much what the AT is designed for.

I've been playing this game a lot but I don't have any lvl 50 Brute. My highest is only lvl 42 Dark/Elec Brute. Why? Because I don't like keeping Fury. I like to chat, make jokes and team a lot. I find that when I play Brute, I need to focus on too much like "go, go, go!!". And I hate losing Fury when it happens so naturally I find Brute AT not as fun.

I've been playing Stalker a lot and I find Stalker's damage is a lot higher when I want it. I assume Stalker and Scrapper are pretty similar when it comes to initial burst damage.

I am not surprised Brute is a bit higher than Scrapper but I highly doubt you can keep fury high all the time. There's bound to be "down-time" during mish.


I am surprised that War Mace still ranks that low even after all the buffs. Imagine how bad it was before?? LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

Warmace is low? LOL, it's ahead of every single scrapper set except dark melee with SD saturated with 10 targets...

And why should a brute have greater damage 'potential' than a scrapper when the brute always has better damage mitigation?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because you actually need to reach that potential first? The numbers were calculated in the MOST optimal situation like fighting an AV/Pylon. In most situations, I think Scrapper's damage is high enough.

And who says Brute has "better" defense than Scrapper (and Stalker)?? Last time I check, all 3 of them have the same values. Brute has better "cap" but a lot of times the highest cap doesn't even matter 'cause you've already over the soft-cap.

Why am I the only one who thinks Brute is quite "over-rated"??? When I form team, I sometimes try to stay away from Brute because Brute and Tanker players tend to be very "anal" about knockbacks, confuse, pulls..blah blah, blah.

Give me a SoA with leaderhips any day!!

[ QUOTE ]
War Mace ranks low because it has redraw and thus can't utilize Gloom. Remove Gloom from the chains and it'll be a top contender, with great AE damage to boot.

They really need to fix the Epic powers for Villains. Check out Dark Blast for Stalkers. It's got better DPA than Energy Transfer! Either that power is horrendously broken or RedTomax has that powers info wrong. The optimal DM chain I found used DB as every other attack.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think somebody reported that those info includes critical and that's why Dark Blast is showing that much damage. In reality, its damage is a bit lower than Smite.

[ QUOTE ]
After looking through this whole thread, I would have to agree with Sarrate that the analysis is probably overrated. This would really only work for totally tricked out builds that could be impractical for most of the gameplay and players here. Yes, for some of the tougher challenges like AV hunting and Pylon soloing these comparisons could be nice in an academic discussion, but the conditions of these numbers seem to be pretty exclusive from most of the game.

The +250% recharge, though definitely possible for some builds, is still pretty high for anything without using IO set bonuses or external buffs. Assuming 90% recharge enhanced for each power, Hasten tacked on, and maybe another buff like Quickness from /SR, you are still looking at 70-90% more global recharge. That seems to be out of reach except for the most dedicated builds.

Also assuming Fury at 90% is pretty high standard, which is definitely not the practice for Brutes at all times. Yes, I know it's probably not that difficult to generate Fury, but general gameplay seems to see Fury peak at 70-80% as the highest attained for most of the time, with the average being lower than that. Getting even higher Fury then involves getting specific conditions which could also put the Brute's survival at risk, and that does take some time to do.

I seriously don't think the developers will take these numbers as an indication of any need of balance between sets or ATs (though I'm not saying there is or there isn't a need for it in any case). That +250% recharge is figured into these calculations puts them way beyond the SO enhancement values that most of the games seems to be revolved around.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the results basically confirm my belief that when under most optimal situation, Brute has the GREATEST potential, which is pretty much what the AT is designed for.

I've been playing this game a lot but I don't have any lvl 50 Brute. My highest is only lvl 42 Dark/Elec Brute. Why? Because I don't like keeping Fury. I like to chat, make jokes and team a lot. I find that when I play Brute, I need to focus on too much like "go, go, go!!". And I hate losing Fury when it happens so naturally I find Brute AT not as fun.

I've been playing Stalker a lot and I find Stalker's damage is a lot higher when I want it. I assume Stalker and Scrapper are pretty similar when it comes to initial burst damage.

I am not surprised Brute is a bit higher than Scrapper but I highly doubt you can keep fury high all the time. There's bound to be "down-time" during mish.


I am surprised that War Mace still ranks that low even after all the buffs. Imagine how bad it was before?? LOL

[ QUOTE ]
I think a few guns are being jumped here.

As noted, a lot of the brute chains are being ridiculously buffed by ONE outstanding power: Gloom

If we take gloom out of the equation and replace it with, say dark blast, guess what's going to happen to those DPS numbers?

Better than guess, tonight/tomorrow I'll do just that. While I realize that my actions here may bring about a nerf to gloom and thus bring the ire of many a player upon my head, we all know that Castle WILL nerf a single power to bring about balance prior to giving a wholesale damage buff to scrappers whom, I agree, hardly need such a buff.

That said, I am NOT against equalizing scrapper/brute mitigation caps. I've never thought that brutes deserved tanker caps. I've long thought that scrappers should have higher caps than blasters/controllers/etc.

My wish is 80% for brutes and scrappers. I find that fair. Or put them both at 75% and lower the the squishies to 60%.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gloom won't get nerf. It doesn't do all its damage immediately. I think it's fine the way it is. It takes about 2-3s to complete the whole damage.

[ QUOTE ]
Jibikao,

Do you play on Pinnacle by chance? I could've sworn I've seen you at the BM in Cap with your crab spider. Funny that you mentioned you live in Maryland. I myself, live in Virginia, about 15-20 minutes from DC. I had an all melee crab, named The Maryland Mauler, but deleted him, as I felt he was just too weak.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope. I only play on Virtue now. T_T

I've been playing our semi-melee Crab with my twin brother. We are both Blue color Maryland Blue Crab 1 and 2. My blue is a bit darker.

We find duo Semi-Melee Crab extremely powerful. We've been doing crazy AE mish and so far we think Crab &gt; Fort, NW and Bane. Fort and NW are great too. I've never duo Fort or NW with my bro as he started as NW and I started as Fortunata. We duoed Bane and then we changed to Crab. Crab is A LOT stronger. I know most people don't believe it but melee Crab is surprisingly good.


We both carry double Maneuver so our team defense is a bit over 40% with set bonuses.

We don't have a lot of set yet so we haven't taken Assault. I need to get myself a unique Miracle or Numina and then I'll carry Assault all the time.

I would suggest /Trap and go with lots of sets and even Tough/Weave if you really want to be "tough".

/Trap has useful mez protection that /dark and /rad don't have. Take Aid Self while at it!

I don't like /rad as being "tough" because if you can't pull with anchors or if the anchor runs away, you are pretty doomed.

/dark is good.

/sonic and /pain are good choice too.

[ QUOTE ]
You know, single-target Stalker attacks always crit from hide, but the AoE ones only do a certain percentage of the time. I wonder if that's behind the change -- to give a Spines Scrapper a reliably-critting hard-hitter?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. I think that's the reason but I thought the change is for all Claw.

I keep seeing this Scrapper VS Brute comparison.

Can we do one Scrapper VS Stalker? The sets are similar. I know Stalker probably loses on AoE but ST wise, Stalker is very competitive?

The question is to include Assassin Strike or not in comparison. Can we try one without and include Stalker's base 10% critical?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
One thing I find odd is that brute dark and fire do more dmg than the scrapper version, but scrapper db does more than brute db, anybody guess why that is?

[/ QUOTE ]

Gloom. Brute Dark and Fire use it. Brute DB doesn't.

[ QUOTE ]
that SS is too good for scrappers is complete BS

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, my Fortunata took Gloom as well and skipped some of the primary attacks. Gloom is really good once you have good recharge. It's fast and it does good dmg and it's ranged too so it's even better for Brute to have one reliable range attack to kill runners.

[ QUOTE ]
Which AV is this? I'd like to run my MMs against her.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's just my friend's customized AV and he made it for his scrapper friend (Spines/SR) to beat and he tested the AV with his Thug/FF. His Spines/SR scrapper beat it (Impale has immb so the AV is at least immb for 25% of the time) so I wanted to give it a try but I think I made a mistake by using my Merc/Storm. Gravity/Psi Assault is definitely a great counter to me.

In fact, Dominator bosses are quite tough... they use a lot of assault powers which is a good mix of range/melee and aoe. And then they control too.


My original intention to create this thread is to find out if Thug(/FF) has any way to keep AV still, at least for most of the time. When I fought against that AV, she ran so much. I have not seen an AV that runs as much as she does. She has fly too.


You have to watch out for her Drained Psyche. If she hits you and your pets, you can forget about hurting her for at least 30s.


I can get the Arc ID if any of you wants to try. It's a 2-part. First part is easy.

My Crab name is Maryland Blue Crab since that's what's known in Maryland, where I live.

As for your build, I think you take too many soldier attacks. You took 2 4s recharge attack and 2 8s recharge attack. You can drop Single Shot and keep 1 4s and 2 8s. There is a weapon draw when you use Burst but Burst's activation time is a lot shorter than Longfang so in the end, it balances out.

My first Crab build went with all range: Channelgun, Longfang, Burst, Venom, Suppression and Frag. It was a good build but not as exciting as my 2nd build which I am having a blast with it:

My 2nd build: Slice, Longfang, Arm Lash, Frenzy, Venom and Frag.

And you might want to take Omega sooner. And I would definitely take Combat Defensive over Offensive.


Also, don't take Swift if you already have Mental Training. I would take Hurdle so you can jump higher (= less need for travel power). In fact, I have not taken travel power for so long. I save that spot for any power that only needs one slot. If you drop travel power (this means you should get the two temps from Atlas and Kings), you have room for Hasten.