Madam_Enigma

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I'm more a fan of the hold proc for it, since that gives me something to do during green phases on Hami Raids.

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I put the chance for hold proc in it too. Every so often while teamed I get comments like as follows:

"WTF?! Ok, who's the elec blaster? I didn't think we had any blasters."

Or once:

"Uh, which one of you hacked the game to hide that your a controller?"

Or my personal fav:

"Who did that? We don't have any blasters or controllers... Who's using holds?!"

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QR

Also keep in mind that when a mez does land and affect you all your toggles suppress dropping your defense substantially.

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Granted, that don't happen often. I have gotten held by CoT just outside Portal Corp though, I get immobilized by them slightly more often. 3 times instead of 1.

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one thing you should learn is key binds and macros they helped me a lot with my warshade the key binds are good for switching forms on the fly

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Good? Try required! At the very least you need to have tray switching bound close at hand. preferably bound so it switches trays as you transform.

I have to say, so far I like my warshade more. I know their both good, but my warshade felt more powerful at low levels too. Also got tools to deal with quants and voids faster.

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Wow, all those misses at the 30 percent range. Someone with 200%def should be ok then, right?

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I feel I should mention... That while standing there waiting for them to kill me I noticed something that is very common anymore with her. Several times I got smacked really hard, being knocked down to 1/3 my health... And they would miss so often my health almost completely regenerated.

When you factor in my primary is claws, I find that by throwing shockwave into the mix I'm almost unkillable. Actually, I don't play Madam Enigma often anymore. She's TOO unstoppable.

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>.>

/random

you monitor your run speed?

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Well, I was curious just how fast I do move at one point. Forgot to remove it.

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Considering the trailer shows Tyrant and Praetoria, I'm beginning to think we aren't actually going to the blueside. More like entering the dimension where Good is Bad and Bad is Good.

I think we are going to learn more about the Praetorians and get a lot "closer" to them.

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No, it's been explicitly stated this is true side switching.

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I assume you go to Spock-has-a-beard-verse and while there have experiences that offer you the chance to switch sides and exit in red zone/ blue zone based on your decisions.

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That's my assumption too. There's mention of a new alignment bar too. My guess is it will work sort of like xp. Based on the missions you accept and run, you'll get either heroic or villainous alignment. Theoreticly if the bar got more then half way in either direction you'd be classified as that side.

Thus if a villain (starting full evil) kept taking heroic missions then they would eventually become a hero, and vice versa.

I'll gladly post my chat logs to demonstrate why SR isn't broken

Mind you, I'm about to show some screen shots of my chat log showing just to-hit rolls a group made as I stood there waiting to be killed. In actual combat, your not waiting to be killed are you? Also note what my current defense values are. It took multiple screen shots with me scrolling down the list each time.

One

Two

Three

Four

And five

By the way, pleasure seeing you here Arcanaville. Maybe you'll convince him that herding isn't really a good idea with SR (or anything really).

Yea... I gotta say... Leveling a claw/sr scrapper I never realized how much mezzing is in the game. I saw enemies doing the mind control sleep, and I assumed it was wasted graphics.

Then I rolled a blaster. Man oh man oh man. I'd never realized till then freakshow can stun you for instance. The only mobs I knew had mez were tsoo yellow ink men, and lost bosses. Didn't realize how much mez Malta does either... until my mastermind started geting stunned for a minute at a time from one single grenade.

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And don't forget my favorite tactic tri-form warshade gives you.

Step one: Transform into a black dwarf
Step two: teleport into the middle of a large group
Step three: black dwarf mire
Step four: transform back to human
Step five: mire
Step six: Jump back out of spawn while transforming to nova
Step seven: DESTROY!
Step eight: stygian circle to recover your lost stamina/health now that the majority or all of the enemy group is dead.

This takes just a few short seconds. And when you pull it off 8 man teams have to pick their jaws up off the floor.

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You have just given step by step detailed instructions on the super secret fighting style we use to train new squids in the all Kheldian SG on Guardian. Who leeked the information? I want names....

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No one, I came up with it myself. Course for a while I was teleporting in as a human... Then I realized in dwarf form I'd take less damage from the alpha strike, and spend less time shape shifting too.

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No. Leave the Bruiser as he is. He mostly melees since his AI code change and I'm happy with it.

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Not to mention there's times I'd rather he is chucking rocks and thus avoiding those melee attacks which will almost kill him

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Do you have any idea how hard it is to actually do those tests while doing missions in the distant past? Things kept throwing greek fire at me, or my pets would draw ALL the agro the instant I try getting stuff to hit me.

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Well, that's why when I mentioned to the OP about practicing, I said to practice on the street with lower level mobs. Greys and greens pose little threat to any MM, and you can concentrate on the results of the fight rather than worry about dieing.

Also, I mentioned the battle spam window. It's great for new MMs. You don't have to look at damage and guess, bodyguard mode is printed right in the window every time it happens.

Just to be crystal clear, here's an old pic. Look in the lower left corner in the chat pane. See where it says "Your henchmen protect you from 141 points of damage. You take 47 points of damage?" That's bodyguard mode.

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m.../bodyguard.jpg

So if you're are ever not sure, open that chat pane and watch it, because it's right there.

Lastly, bodyguard mode comes from Supremacy. Supremacy has an 80ft range (iirc) and is Line of Sight. Lose Supremacy and lose bodyguard mode. So you only have to glance at the icons in your pet window to see who has supremacy and who doesn't. You have to click on the little arrow on the side of your pet window to display those icons.

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I know about those. I was testing by crating a new tab just for "damage received". This way I could erase the history for a clean slate with each test. I had to use things close or at my level so they could hit (naturally). The problem is those romans kept opening up with burn patches, or I'd put my pets into the desired mode for testing and launch a def/res debuff to draw agro... Then they charge 100 feet and attack before I get hit.

Rather annoying when your trying to test bodyguard in stay or goto mode, and they charge 100 or more feet into combat the second you launch a debuff.

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Hmmm ... Could always lead by EXAMPLE. "Ok, THIS is Tankerminding ..." The mob bombards you, and you take nearly no damage. The wannabes stand in awe and ask, "How?" It is better to SHOW en, not tell em. Its like a movie, you can read the reviews, the prequel comic, the novel based on an outdated script, but you not gonna know til you're IN the Theater.

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I know the feeling. I remember back when I was getting sooo frustrated with teams killing my anchors on a dark/rad defender. I convinced the team to just stand back and watch for five minutes. I then dropped Darkest Night on something, and jumped in the middle to keep their attention on me. After five minutes of nearly no damage taken while 15 enemies swing at me they finally asked "How can we take advantage of that?"

At which point I started explaining about anchors, the effects of killing an anchor, and how to recognize my anchor. After that there were no more team wipes.

I started with ninja/poison. It's intensely fun (IMO) but easy? No not really. however with a ninja/poison MM you'll either learn pet control or die horribly quite often.

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Man, sounds like you need to play an /elec and then come back....

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Tried electric blasters, didn't like them. Made an elec/elec brute and while effective it wasn't fun. Actually tried most of the brute combos before, but didn't really enjoy brutes much. Too squishy generally at low levels due to having to maintain momentum without the endurance to keep defenses up.

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"Brutes are extremely durable, but not really built for tanking."

Why aren't they?

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If the best I can hope for is that 1/20 hits from enemies will get through at full damage...then what's the point. I might as well be playing my Invul Tank who gets 90% resist to 100% of the attacks, plus 45% defense in a herd. SR is significanly less useful than invuln at this point.

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ITT we take a long [censored] time to realize obvious things.

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Although honestly, the invuln shouldn't be trying to herd either. I don't think invulnability gets much in the way of defense debuff resistance as well. Could be wrong though. If it doesn't then your defense would quickly do the following once you start getting hit:

45
39
33
27

Need I go on? I notice most attack based defense debuffs are for around 6% for some reason. So if it has no debuff resistance for defense... it would take about 7 hits to negate the defense entirely. And each hit would make the next one more likely.

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You didn't take into effect any of the MM's mitigation powers from their secondary in that equation at all, did you?

Now go back and do the math again, this time, account for the fact that Resistance isn't the only form of mitigation, thus brutes aren't necessarily taking 2/5ths of the damage of MM's. And in the case of pure resistance vs resistance would be an exception to the number of damage mitigation choices in comparison to one another, and not the rule.

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I know that when I was testing bodyguard earlier an EB hit me for 30 damage after damage was spread out. This of course was after I debuffed damage with weaken and envenom (can never remember which is the damage debuff), plus I had noxious gas affecting him. I was more concerned about the spike damage the sucker did to pets directly then him hitting me.

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SR is less useful then invuln when dealing with that many foes? Why? If SR's defenses are failing due to too many attackers at once, Invuln's defenses will fail equally. And with that many attackers the invuln will most likely die too.

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no, please follow umbrals advice about learning the game.

invuln still has good smashing/lethal resists which is most of what you find in the ITF. invuln has 50% defense debuff resistance and stone has bout 60%, but defense alone isnt what makes granite insanely powerful. it's the high regen and high resist. granite brutes are the only brutes who can reach the smashing/lethal resist caps without outside buffs.

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I have been learning the game, for four years now. Since the various defense nerfs I find I can usually survive as long, sometimes longer then invuln in most situations simply on the strength of not being hit often. If things are hitting often enough to debuff SR's defense to the point of non-existence then someone with invulnerability will also be taking a pounding. It may take a little longer, but they too will go down. Actually, invuln is more prone to cascading defense failure so it would likely go down either first, or at about the same time as the SR.

Although if as he claims he'd been at the defense hard cap, I'm not sure how those romans managed to chip away his defense that much to kill him repeatedly.

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I'd just looked, and brutes do in fact have a slightly higher value. It's not even a full percent higher, but it is higher. Thus they do get more defense.

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That's really funny because I just checked City of Data, which rips the info straight from the game even to the point of outputting everything as the game sees it, and their values are exactly the same. I even then logged into the game and checked and, guess what, they're exactly the same. The only differences between the sets are that Evasion got a Taunt effect added to it for Brutes and that Evasion and Quickness are switched in the power order.

You really need to learn to get your information correct.

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Oh? Not sure what's going on then since I went into character creation and first opened up Scrapper, selected SR, and added the values for the melee passive and toggle together. I then did the same for a brute's SR and it came up 0.16 higher.

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"Brutes are extremely durable, but not really built for tanking."

Why aren't they? When did herding and tanking get erased from game play? That tanks can't herd anymore is a myth. I have more than a few members of my SG which herd and maintain aggro just fine.

My SG mates and I are simply wondering why it is that the higher your def value is, the more likely it seems you are to get hit. When my def is at or near the 45% soft cap I can dodge somewhat against level 50+ enemies. But when I pop some purple inspirations or hit elude, all of a sudden I start getting hit more frequently. I think defense is bugged. And I'm not the only one finding this. After a certain point higher defense seems to be causing problems.

Nothing anyone has said has been able to explain how two different defense based toons could be so easily dropped on a task force when their defenses were so high. And when I got dropped this wasn't a single lucky one shot... I was actually hit by three consecutive attacks that dropped me.

I was rez'ed...got back up, hit my toggles again, ate some purples...my defenses were back up to almost 200%, and bam...it happened again. I was dropped in 2 or 3 hits...didn't evade a darn thing.

The same thing happens during the ITF. I get hit alot, as does my friend's Widow...and before you say there's something wrong with my build...all my defense toggles are slotted up to 59.2% defense bonus to base defense...I have all of the auto defense powers, along with combat jumping and the universal defense piece from steadfast protection. My defenses are at 46.6% AOE defense, 51.3% melee defense and 49.6% ranged. Elude is six slotted and with it activated my stats are pretty close to 130% across the board. But it certainly seems that I am getting hit more than 5% of the time. And in the case of the LRSF finale I was getting hit by 100% of the incoming attacks.

Other enemies and situations are problematic as well...a single layer of nemesis vengeance let's anyone hit me through my toggles. Bane Spider Scouts and Executioners have little trouble hitting me, as do rikti drones, Nemesis snipers, Malta Gunslingers...and heaven help me if there are DE quartzes about.

I've had my SR scrapper for 3 or 4 years now, and I don't remember Defenses being this ineffective. I'm certainly getting hit more on my SR scrapper than I was a year ago...and my brute despite dumping hundreds of millions into sets gets hit far more often than I think he should. This can't just be bad luck.

If the best I can hope for is that 1/20 hits from enemies will get through at full damage...then what's the point. I might as well be playing my Invul Tank who gets 90% resist to 100% of the attacks, plus 45% defense in a herd. SR is significanly less useful than invuln at this point.

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That would be back in issue five. It started with the Global Defense Nerf, continued with Enhancement Diversification, and was finally killed with the aggro cap which I think was introduced in issue six or seven.

The global defense nerf pretty much halved all defensive powers. That's both resistance and defense based. This was done because fire tanks and invulnable tanks were able to not only survive, but defeat entire maps of +8 enemies.

Enhancement Diversification was in issue six I believe, and was to bring the top end builds closer in line with average builds. This way the devs would have an easier time balancing new content. It also paved the way for the invention system.

The aggro cap was instituted to finally kill herding. I can't remember the exact number, but I think no one can have more then 18 or so enemies aggroed on them at one time. So if your herding anything over the aggro cap either deaggros and goes back to where it started, or goes after your team mates.

In short, trying to herd simply endangers yourself and your team. And remember, the larger the sample of incoming attacks, the larger the number of attacks 5% becomes. 5% of one hundred is 5. 5% of 500 is 50 I believe. So if you somehow get 500 attacks coming at you in a very short period of time, you will die.

50 attacks hitting you over the course of several missions is very survivable. 50 attacks hitting you in one or two battles though? Not so much.


You are not unstoppable. No one is. SR gets close though.

Try the following next time you run the TF: do NOT herd. Instead take each group of enemies as they come. Herding will just get you and your team killed. By not herding you'll find that you get hit far less often. The larger the battle, the more likely defense will fail you. an eight man team's worth of enemies for a single spawn is dangerous, but doable. I usually end up hitting elude in such situations. Fighting 3 or more such groups is a great way to get killed.

SR is less useful then invuln when dealing with that many foes? Why? If SR's defenses are failing due to too many attackers at once, Invuln's defenses will fail equally. And with that many attackers the invuln will most likely die too.

I'd just looked, and brutes do in fact have a slightly higher value. It's not even a full percent higher, but it is higher. Thus they do get more defense. However as I mentioned it makes no difference since it's small, and both can fairly easily hit the magic 45% defense value.

I love that they give us access to the values finally.

By the way, about your brute being so great at tanking... I'm guessing your slotting isn't that much different then other skilled brutes I've teamed with on Poison Bloom, a level 50 mastermind. How do you explain the fact that no matter how good they were, they kept complaining that my pets kept stealing aggro from them? In fact, if your soft capping defense, I'd guess you have less taunt slotting then they did.

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P.S. And if MM's are supposed to be the tanks of COV, why don't they get taunt? Why bother giving taunt to brutes at all. And brutes do have a taunt aura...just by being brutes. If you don't believe me, park your brute next to a grey enemy who would have no business attacking you...and he'll take a swing at you.

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This will probably blow your mind, but try this concept on for size. They don't have a taunt because City of Villains HAS no 'tank' class. It breaks the mold. Teams don't have the holy trinity of Damage Dealer, Healer (or buffer/debuffer), and Meat Shield.

Masterminds can do some tanking, while dealing impressive damage. Their 'tanking' comes from the fact that mobs have to divide their attention among a bunch of recreatable minions.

Brutes are extremely durable, but not really built for tanking. More built to keep things attacking them enough to build up fury so they can go BRUTE SMASH.

Corrupters can fill your typical buff roll, but their mainly damage dealers.

Dominators are your typical lockdown type, right? Wrong. They spend as much time dealing out damage as they do locking things down.

Stalkers are the only class which has a narrow focus. Every other AT villain side is a hybrid designed to do multiple things and be self sufficient. They work together well, but no one class needs another for protection or damage. Thus there is no 'tanker' role. There's also no real "healer" role, or "damage dealer" role because everyone is a damage dealer. You want buffing/debuffing? Go to either a corrupter or mastermind. Both will also be bringing good damage unless the player gimped them self.

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"I have to wonder, since brutes are damage dealers and not intended to be meat shields?"

Why aren't they? Properly slotted they are just as resilient as tanks...they have the same taunt auras...why can't they be played as meat shields?

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Properly slotted, both a /sr brute and /sr scrapper have the exact same survivability. Brutes maybe edging scrappers out since potentially getting higher damage with full fury bar.

Again though, how are you herding with an /sr brute since as I look through the SR powers on my new DB/SR brute I'm not seeing a single taunt aura. Just the same yummy goodness my claw/sr scrapper has.

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"By the way, just logged into my ice tank. He's currently got about 22% defense to smashing lethal, and already smashing and lethal attacks don't scare me due to missing most of the time. Why are you so worried again?"

Oh yes, more about your wonderful Level 17 Ice Tank. I'm guess because you've played an Ice Tank all to way to double digits you must be an expert about SR brutes. And I'm sure enemies at that level are comparable to enemies at level 50+...they have about the same chance to hit at both, right?

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No. Because I've played a defense set, specifically super reflexes to 50 and still play it I'm very knowledgeable about SR's capabilities. And if someone with less defense then you is finding it a rare occasion to be hit while fighiting things that debuff defense, what's your problem then?