JupiterMoon

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Regen becomes fun a lot faster, due mostly to Quick Recovery at level 4 as opposed to 20.

After 22, when both ought to have QR, Stamina, and SO's, Willpower turns into great, worry-free fun, while Regen must constantly be on guard against misfortunes like lag and bad animations.

Once Tough and Weave are in play, Regen can relax a little - and Willpower becomes like Achilles after his bath in the Styx. A Regen will be constantly nervous under the Roman bridge, never certain of which click powers are really available for him. A Willpower will not be troubled as she walks through that valley.

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Yeah, but as long as we're not biased, or anything...

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well...just a quick playthrough of my 50 dm/regen scrapper vs. my 41 sm/wp brute..willpower is certainly more worry free.

when instant healing is on cooldown - they both have about the same regen. more on the brute actually due to the higher base hp even when siphon life is calculated (slotted as an attack on the scrapper). the real difference is the defense and resistances on the willpower othat are non-existant on the scrapper (both have tough/weave and any and all resistances and defense powers in their respective sets)

this kinda seems like a silly argument to me.

actually..it's an old argument.

this argument came up in the scrapper forum pre i1. and this was before defense was even worth it on it's own.

mostly it was regen vs. resistance. the conclusions from many tests done by a lot of us were that

1) regen on it's own isnt enough

2) resistances on their own arent enough

one needed regen with resistances or defense, and resistances needed regen or defense

that hasnt changed, and is prob why willpower is proving to be much more survivable than anyone would have thought.

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55-60% is acceptable, ergo Electric Armor (60% with Tough) is acceptable. Okay. If you're not including Tough, then none of the armor sets can reach that value.

Stop using words you don't mean, then.

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i would only consider 50-60% acceptable if yo have some other form of mitigation to add on top of that.

from defense to lessen the frequency of the hits, or a high innate regen to deal with the dmg that does get through.

i have a 50 /elec brute that no matter how i build it - i'm just never impressed.

i was concerned a little as i reached 40 on my stone melee/willpower brute about rikti. they are a pain. probably second only to malta in their annoyance factor.

although the set has no real big defenses to the psi that comes from rikti and only around 45% smash/lethal resistances, the soft control combined with the high regen rate in willpower has made it a non-issue

i can keep rikti bosses flipping and as i get more io'd out, i can get the fault cooldown short enough to make them even less of an issue.

for the few that are hightly smashing resistant - well that's what gloom is for imo.

thread necrosis ftw!

btw, tanking just fine on my sm/wp

i'm surprised after 5 years fault has never been nerfed..

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I've decided to try brute out for a bit. After reading through this thread I'm wondering something. SS and Stone seem to be quite close in damage, but they're both just smashing damage. If you consider your DPS against tougher foes that tend to have higher resistance to smashing damage, wouldn't one of the other primaries, like Fire or Energy, come out ahead when it really counts?

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there really arent all that many enemies that are so resistant to smashing dmg that it becomes a big deal

and they more ethan make up for it with their soft control. quite a few longbow EB's i could keep flipping through the air almost indefinetely as stone melee.

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firstly - ignore the kinetic combat advice. it's good advice, but you wont find any. none.

as a matter of fact on infinity there has been only ONE RECIPE from the entire set sold in this entire month at any level from that set. that's how rare (and expensive and in demand) it is.

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*cough*

It is possible to find them. And they show up as bronze recipe reward rolls for AE tickets.

My brute is all of 3 weeks old, and I'm certain I bought all but one of the pieces off the market. Further, I have another set, level 32 to 35 (all but the knockback proc) crafted and in storage. Again, mostly bought off the market, though I think the dmg/end/rech piece dropped off an Ouro mission.

If you look at the last 5 sold on Acc/Dm recipes, it shows 4 level 35 recipes sold today. So they are available to those that are waiting or putting out standing bids.

They're rare, but not hen's teeth rare.

Also, FYI, the markets are cross server. So it's as "rare" for me on Virtue as it is on Infinity.

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i';ve had bids in for three weeks. and no, not low ball bids

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3) To toughen yourself up, add IO set bonuses that either boosts your S/L defense, defenses to fire/cold/energy/neg energy and add hitpoints. For example, 4 slotting Kinetic Combat in your attacks yields about 3.5% (?) S/L defense that stacks nicely with Heightened Senses.

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This looks like the big one, especially against Cims.
His total's about 8% S/L def; mine's at 23% in a fairly untwinked build.

Steadfast: Res/+DEF IO, 2 sets of Kin Combat = +10% (the rest is apparently due to me slotting weave), which is a significant boost against in survival against the alpha, if nothing else.

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cims are all broadsword. they will debuff the hell out of any defense willpower can stack since the set has no defdebuff resistance. best thing one can do as a brute if you have desires to tank and be willpower is to take a more tank-like primary. the tank primaries we share all have soft control for a reason

your fix is very easy - frankenslot those attacks

firstly - ignore the kinetic combat advice. it's good advice, but you wont find any. none.

as a matter of fact on infinity there has been only ONE RECIPE from the entire set sold in this entire month at any level from that set. that's how rare (and expensive and in demand) it is.

below is what my stone/wp is looking like. the survival numbers are about the same but with stones soft control i generally dont need to max out much. i have as many +hp (and +recovery bonuses as stone melee is an end pig when attacks are frankenslotted and have recharge) bonuses as i can because +hp directly increases your regeneration rate more th an adding just straight +regen%

this morning i was blindly invited (at 38) to tank some poor dom's patron arch. we eventually picked up a sonic and thermal corruptor (thermal left before the av). i tanked numina no sweat. her ambush included several longbow bosses and i told the team to ignore them - they were rttc fuel. i just used fault to keep everything but numina and the 3 bosses permanently stunned

electric isnt a very good primary. i would however recommend dropping chain induction since you have ball lightning. you dont really need it.

the io's in this build are exactly as they are on live right now at level 40 with the exception of the ones in tough, weave, heightened senses and of course the 40+ powers cause i havent picked them up yet.

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

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

Level 50 Magic Brute
Primary Power Set: Stone Melee
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Stone Mallet -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(3), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(3), Mako-Acc/Dmg(5), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(7)
Level 1: High Pain Tolerance -- Mrcl-Heal(A), Mrcl-Heal/EndRdx(7), Mrcl-Heal/Rchg(9), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(9), S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx(11)
Level 2: Heavy Mallet -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), Mako-Acc/Dmg(13), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(15)
Level 4: Fast Healing -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Heal(17), Mrcl-Heal/EndRdx(17), Heal-I(19)
Level 6: Recall Friend -- Winter-ResSlow(A)
Level 8: Fault -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg(A), RzDz-Acc/Rchg(19), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx(21), RzDz-Acc/EndRdx(21), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg(23), FrcFbk-Rechg%(23)
Level 10: Indomitable Will -- Ksmt-ToHit+(A)
Level 12: Stone Fist -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(25), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(25), Mako-Acc/Dmg(27), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(27), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(29)
Level 14: Teleport -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Rise to the Challenge -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(29), Heal-I(31), DarkWD-ToHitDeb(31), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(31), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(33)
Level 18: Seismic Smash -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Mako-Acc/Dmg(34), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(34)
Level 20: Quick Recovery -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(36), EndMod-I(36), EndMod-I(36)
Level 22: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Numna-Heal(37), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(37)
Level 26: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(37), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(39), EndMod-I(39)
Level 28: Mind Over Body -- Aegis-ResDam(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(39), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 30: Heightened Senses -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(40), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(40), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 32: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 35: Tough -- ImpArm-ResDam(A), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(42), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(42), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg(42)
Level 38: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), RedFtn-Def(43), LkGmblr-Def(43)
Level 41: Gloom -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), Thundr-Acc/Dmg(45), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46)
Level 44: Dark Obliteration -- Det'tn-Acc/Dmg(A), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46), Det'tn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rng(48), AirB'st-Acc/Dmg(50), AirB'st-Dmg/EndRdx(50), AirB'st-Dmg/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(48), RechRdx-I(48)
Level 49: Strength of Will -- ResDam-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]3% Defense(Smashing)[*]3% Defense(Lethal)[*]6.13% Defense(Fire)[*]6.13% Defense(Cold)[*]5.5% Defense(Energy)[*]5.5% Defense(Negative)[*]4.88% Defense(Psionic)[*]3% Defense(Melee)[*]4.25% Defense(Ranged)[*]4.56% Defense(AoE)[*]2.25% Max End[*]9% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]2% Enhancement(Knockback)[*]2% Enhancement(Knockup)[*]15% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]10% FlySpeed[*]382.3 HP (25.5%) HitPoints[*]10% JumpHeight[*]10% JumpSpeed[*]MezResist(Immobilize) 22%[*]MezResist(Sleep) 1.65%[*]18% (0.3 End/sec) Recovery[*]44% (2.75 HP/sec) Regeneration[*]20% ResEffect(FlySpeed)[*]20% ResEffect(RechargeTime)[*]20% ResEffect(RunSpeed)[*]1.88% Resistance(Energy)[*]15% RunSpeed[/list]
when the team hit 8 full members i was still tanking, even though we picked up two /elec brutes of the same level. i would herd two groups at a time (aggro caps suck btw) and when they'd reach me around a corner - fault. everything but whatever bosses came were now stunned for 13 seconds.


drop chain induction for lightning clap imo. electric fences + lightning clap is like a fire dom doing fire cages and flashfire. it's a hold. an aoe hold.

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I'm looking for a good match for my wife to play with my brute. She doesn't like moving around all that much, and hates superspeed. When she plays her /storm mastermind the knockbacks and repels drive me nuts for gathering things up. We rarely group up besides just the 2 of us. so I'd like to get some good synergy going. Thoughts?

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for an elec/elec brute, a dom prob isnt the best duo

elec brutes are a little squishy outside of power surge - especially to all that lovely arachnos toxic.

you'd be better off going with a /ff mastermind or any thermal/cold/sonic corruptor

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I've got three end reducers in all my attacks and rarely run a single toggle and I'm still hurting for endurance all the time on my latest Brute (Stone/WP). Once I get QR it will all be well however.

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hah you wish

once you get qr you'll want to take those end reducers out right?

dont. qr, and stamina, and two perf shifters arent enough for stone. it's an end pig. especially once you start adding wp toggles.

i dont even have combat jumping. i currently have six toggles, sf, both hammers, ss and fault. it wasnt until i started slotting heavy io sets for MORE recovery that i could attack comfortably.

my current recovery is at 4.36. no hasten. attacks frankenslot and all have 60% end recovery or more. now...now i have no end issues

when i was a 3.3 eps and my attacks were not frankenslotted and before i even had all these toggles it was rough.

if i had combat jumping, that'd be 7 toggles!

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Still haven't found that Shift key yet?

Keep looking! It can be a tricky little scoundrel!



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still looking for mankrik's wife or thrall's chamber?

i realize it's because any reasoned argument that pokes holes in your MEMEMEME posts fluster you to the point that your only recourse is to go on the attack.

clearly someone needs a new box of animal crackers, some milk and put down for a nap.

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I'm still curious as to why you think that every AT needs to use the same amount of endurance to fight the same target. It makes no sense.

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Actually, while there is no numerical justification for making everyone have *identical* DPE, there is a strong fundamental reason for everyone to have *similar* DPE. The reason is that outside of teams, DPE is a fundamental limiter to performance, and for high defense characters (anything as strong or stronger than a scrapper) DPE becomes the primary limiter to performance for most builds until you apply inventions to the build or the build has enhanced recovery. In this case, I'm using the word "performance" to mean levelling performance as a subset of all reward-earning ability, consistent with how the devs measure balance in the game.

Since the devs have a performance range within which they expect all powerset combinations to live within for the powersets and archetypes to be balanced, wide ranges of DPE create unnecessary problems for that balance requirement.

For something to be "damage-oriented" it only needs to be able to deal damage faster. It does not need to deal that damage more efficiently to the same degree. In the case of "damage-centric" archetypes like blasters, higher efficiency makes sense. But in the case of, say, scrappers and tankers, the 50% spread in DPE doesn't have a clear justification. And when it comes to balance-significant game elements, the burden of proof is on the differences. All such differences should have an explicit reason for being there, and the differences in DPE don't actually always appear to have an explicit reason for being there.

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this is the proverbial nail

if this game used some other form of expended resource to activate abilities - like mana in other mmorpg's - that was a variable amount instead of this set 100 (which can be modified by io's and accolades, but not to the degree mana is different between classes in other games) then the efficiency argument would make sense

but it doesnt really. if the power does less dmg, heals for less then it should cost less in this game.

will it make tankers overpowered suddenly? hell no. just because they can beat on that av longer doesnt mean they are suddently doing enough dps to overcome the av regen.

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Just double checked this in the game:
Combat attributes for zombies
Info numbers for zombies

It's a good bit weaker than it reads, but the smashing resistance IS there.
Also, it appears that in the info tab the zombies armor scales up a LOT with level, where as in actuality it doesn't change much at all. I

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If I had to guess, the info tab is showing their base resistance, multiplied by the damage enhancements slotted in to them. I'm guessing your zombies are slotted around 98% +Damage from enhancements?

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what?

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It sucks when you're going to the battle field and your pets are way behind, then when u get to the battle field some blasters 3 shots you before your pets get there

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this is why i advocate all mm's should use team teleport.

cause quit efrankly making them run any faster than they do now just means more hilarity ensues when you hit that longbow flamethrower.

i can start at one end of grandville or nerva and team teleport. arrive with all of my pets with me on the other end of the map.

on the flip side of course, if your computer isnt very good and your internet connection is just as bad - this isnt feasible.

team teleport for the win.

tp foe. recall friend. team teleport.

if keeping your pets all together is important to you, team teleport is amazing for this.

i didnt believe it at first. i argued against it when people would post it on this board. then i tried it with my thugs/traps. now ALL of my mm's have it. keeps all the pets under my bubbles. keeps them all near me for whatever reason i need. makes efficient cone positioning a snap.

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A little tit for tat with Grant Cover on both SD tanks wouldn't hurt.

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that would soft cap both tanks with only so's and no fighting pool wouldnt it? not to mention the extra defense debuff resistance

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it allowed them to be heavy hitters.

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and to reiterate this point home to you - the game has heavy hitters. those heavy hitters dont have tank level defense (not counting exotic io slotting). they dont have tanker hp. they dont have aoe gauntlet.

you need to explain how it will not be bad for overall game balance to give tankers dmg on the same level as brutes or doms or corruptors or stalkers or scrappers etc. without in turn retuning what makes them tanks - namely the higher base values on all their defensive primaries. i dont care if you have some super idea (in your mind) of tankers getting some short duration buff that gives them those 'heavy hits', because you would be taking away from the other at's. why can you not get that through your thick skull? concepts take a back seat to game balance. as we would tell scrappers at launch who took everything out of the primary and nothing out of their secondaries - concepts only take you so far.

heavy hitters. whatever. come back when you have even a small clue about how insanely difficult it is to have even the smallest hint of balance in mmorpg's.

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So you don't want Tankers to have aggro control abilities.

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They already have aggro control abilities. They control aggro so well it makes more than one of them largely redundant.

The problem is THEY'RE NOT the heavy hitters they should be. They're NOT what one would resonably expect from characters with powers like super strength and invulnerability, especially when compared to Brutes and Scrappers.

If you can't tell the difference between me suggesting things like the Tanker Domination proposal and calling for a tank-mage, you're the one failing Game Design 101.

Here's a little FYI. Brutes have demonstrated you can be more survivable than a Scrapper, and be able to hit harder than them some of the time. A Brute has Tanker resistance caps, more HP than a Scrapper and he's capable of hitting MUCH harder than the Scrapper at times.

How is that any different than my Tanker inherent proposal suggesting Tankers could hit harder than they do now some of the time? It's not.
Few argued my proposal was stright up over powered or unreasonable and I don't think ANYONE thought it was going to turn Tankers into tank-mages. But it allowed them to be heavy hitters.

And had it fallen on the ears of devs who gave a damn about the AT's conceptual failings, I suspect it would have gotten more consideration.


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i'm guessing here that the basic problem with you is that you have absolutely no clue about how mmorpg's work.

regardless of what comic book hero any class is based on, it's still a class. this is still a class based game. and for that to work you have to have the holy trinity of tank-heal-dmg

doing the lrsf red side has always been a nightmare for villains. myself i've only done it twice - and both times we had a granite brute and kin corruptor. because brutes have the same defense numbers as scrappers. so basically - we tanked it with a granite scrapper who has single target gauntlet.

if you want tankers to do bruiser levels of dmg, they have to lose some of their tankiness. they have to lose survivability somewhere. they would have to lose gauntlet because if tankers could do bruiser levels of dmg, have their current survivability AND gauntlet AND if rogue means swapping sides at will - that would effectively kill bruisers.

maybe your problem is you want to play as your favorite comic book hero and realize you cant. when i bought the game, i envisioned playing exactly like Booster Gold. turns out...i cant. bummed, i made a scrapper.

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it takes a billion or more infamy/influence to gear a shield scrapper/brute to be at the soft cap (depending on server).

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Leaving aside the "billion" figure, which I think must be an exaggeration, based on my own attempts to squeeze blood out of the market stone, my question is: what does "depending on the server" have to do with the cost of your build?

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a full set of mako's level 40-50 on infinity blue side will run you 15-25 million for one set of 6. so i call bollux to the 100m to soft cap scrapper bs.

it's even MORE expensive red side on infinity.

3x traps

or 1 traps 2 ff if you dont want to manually have to refresh ffg on the other two boxes

but 3xtraps means 3x web grenades on auto fire means even av's are slowwwed waaaayy down

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Not sure why you suggest skipping MG, it hits way too hard to skip IMO. On mine I have a seamless attack chain using MG, Smite, SL, and Boxing.

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IF i remember right - and with enough slotting and gcr - the attack chain used just siphon life, midnight grasp and smite.

get shadow punch. skip shadow maul. once you start building for io's, drop shadow punch

i'd slot siphon life for healing early on. it can heal for quite a lot, and it does really good dmg base with just fury. it is however an end pig

just base dmg wise, energy melee is at or just below stone melee at any level of fury

what puts stone melee above is the very short animation times. seismic smash is about on par with energy transfer in dmg, but half the animation time.

even with hightly resistant enemies i'm finding the single target dmg of stone melee to be pretty insane - and all it's soft control means that unless a boss has higher than normal hold protections or the mobs are completely immune to kb - i'm very rarely actually being attacked. seismic smash is a mag 4 hold, and fault can be slotted to keep everything else around you permanently stunned (and feeding rttc)

of all the brute primaries i've played - and i've played all but what is duplicated on scrappers as i played the hell out of scrappers before cov launched - this set has the least trouble with longbow bosses. the only one that gave me an issue was an ss/invuln one i came across who two shot me in the late 20's. (had no mind over body or heightened senses, tough or weave at this point). even those nasty spines ones are no trouble even with that nasty quills running. they just flop around till dead.

mm primaries with a lot of aoe's farm just fine. i would actually rate thugs ahead of bots in this respect due to not having so much aoe knockback to interfere with cone placement, and faster recharging cones

however this does require you take a patron immob and have a secondary that can go further to keep spawns in check.

to bottom line it: during the meow weekend, my thugs/traps cleared an 8 man relentless rikti comm officer map - solo - in 13 minutes flat.

go wp. using thunderstrike's knockdown, the knockdown from lightning rod (and i'd pick up the pbaoe knockdown the primary also gets) gives you room to regen.