Nihilii

Any/any with insps, so I'm going to assume for the rest of this post we're talking no insps.

Without insps, I'm hard pressed to think of any brute or scrapper that could reliably do it against all factions without silly gimmicks like pulling or waiting around between spawns for certain powers to recharge ; and I'll go and say it, based on my experience doing just that I have my doubts everyone who talks about routinely soloing +4/x8 on the boards actually do it. Things that are irrelevant on +0/x1, +0/x8, +2/x8 become very important on +4/x8.

For example, Arachnos will give anyone with less than capped DDR fits (one perma autohit -35% def per Tarentula Mistress lieut), and PPD will also give people with low DDR trouble (my Night Widow with *75%* defense often ends up having to run against +4/x8 PPD) ; on the other hand SR and SD can have a tough time against Rularuu or Devouring Earth. Vanguard tends to walk over any meleer that doesn't have very high resistances. Cimerorans are more often than not a pain in the *** to anyone without extreme tohit, due to their stacking defense buffs.

I think you have the right idea with Stone Melee. Fault is fantastic, combined with Tremor it makes for a lot of wide radius knockdown with some stun on the side, and solid burst ST DPS as well as mag4 hold to get rid of problematic targets fast. On the other hand, it lacks tohit, but if you pick a secondary with decent endurance management and Cardiac you can sort of fix that problem with Tactics and Focused Accuracy (along with Kismet, of course).

I'd probably go with an Inv/SS/Body (for CP, mainly, as to be able to pick Spiritual and Rebirth for gigantic regen, among other things) tanker, myself. Damage isn't too far behind scrappers and brutes thanks to stacked Rage, tohit is fantastic (~+64%!), decent DDR (50%), some res to slows and end drains, good defense with some room to go above the softcap as a buffer against tohit buffs and defense debuffs, great S/L resistance (90%), decent exotic resistances (~35%), great maxHP (~3500). The one gaping hole will be psi, especially non-positional, but Rebirth stacked on that ludicrous HP total, as well as active mitigation through knockdowns should hopefully carry the character through that.

I'm partial to Shield myself. That is, I would if I was a hypothetical person that didn't scream bloody murder about Shield GFX whether it's relevant to the actual topic at hand. Shield doesn't need +recharge either, and AaO is especially juicy with StJ for the reasons you mentioned ; I also tend to enjoy stronger aggro aura even more on quick animating powersets, as on higher (+) reps with WP, enemies tend to do the "I'm afraid/I'm taunted" dance a bit too often for my liking with the taunt effect from the aura not being perma anymore. Shield Charge fills the gap in decent radius, brainless AoE output.

DB gets endurance-free damage from combos, so does FM from dot ticks, to a lesser extent so do Claws/DB/SS/DM from their damage buffs, etc..

I don't think it's fair for StJ to have such a high end cost on powers. OP may have no complaints with the set, but personally I find it weaker and weaker the more I play it - and it's difficult to discuss that as people tend to be clouded by the fun they're having with it.

Going on a tangent here, but that attitude baffles me. We consistently get people who say "oh, I play for fun, not for power", but as soon as you suggest the set they're having fun with might not be that powerful, they jump at your throat. It's like they associate power with worth, which is a dubious attitude to me, even moreso in a video game.

Silly fleshlings. Nihiliibot enjoys StJ even though it sucks monkey coconuts.

I've done Keyes a mere handful of times, but between the GFX soup, the red/green/dis spam, my relatively low graphic settings and the extremely bad performance I get in a league of 16+ players on a praetorian map, I think I only saw the warning once or twice.

We are not born equals when it comes to physical fitness, and I can't help but feel jealous whenever I hear those stories of people who neglected their bodies for all their lifes, suddenly wake up and get in shape within months.

For some of us, exercise is a delicate balance between pain and gain. There are people who can work out daily, there are others who have to take great care not to break something in their body each and every time.

I like NWs, myself. You can softcap by level 25 fairly easily, have your final attack chain going, decent AoE output with Spin and OKish team buffs ; I especially like TT:L as many people tend to not have enough tohit at low/mid levels, but giving everyone +24% def with ML + TT:M is nothing to sneeze that either.

The low HP and lack of heal isn't too detrimental at that level as enemies tend to not be as strong, and worse come to worse there's always respites.

There's two flaws I find with that build.

The first is that lacking AoE crowd control (be it mez effects or aggro tools), you can't prevent everyone from killing themselves all the time. I think that's a small price to pay for all the above benefits.

The second is the endurance consumption. No beating around the bush, if you play that character at top speed, the blue bar is going to suffer. Loading up on blues is in my opinion a valid option - defense is softcapped, mez protection covers everything, enemies don't have enough burst at low/mid levels to warrant oranges. The tricky part would be balancing blues with greens if the difficulty is raised high enough to force a need for some healing.

So I guess I'm saying a good NW exemplar build should probably focus on reducing endurance consumption, after all the "standard" goals (softcapped defense, perma-ML, FU-Lunge-Strike-Swipe attack chain, one AoE power, TT:A and TT:L in the build) are achieved.

Fantastic news about the enhancement lag, DeProgrammer.

If only you guys were developers on the game itself...

Major rib cracker in the nuts to not port this to tankers as well in my opinion, all of that to avoid the whining from the dozen players who would pop up to say they absolutely loved Hibernate and that it was essential to their playstyle - and let's face it, half of those complainers wouldn't even have an ice tank themselves ; lots of people trying to get forum brownie points for pretending to think outside the box.

Inspirations.

I've noticed a lot more people on Freedom, there's consistently Atlas Park 2, 3, 4 and even Steel Canyon 2.

However, the game is also very quiet and teaming opportunities shrank for me, as someone who's willing to join a team but not put in the effort to make one.

DM/SD - scrapper.

DM/Inv - hits harder on scrapper, sturdier on brutes. The combo is arguably already tough enough to survive most of the normal situations and even many ludicrous challenges on a scrapper, so it might make sense to go scrapper and enjoy the extra damage. Then again, the extra survivability on the brute is godlike, the kind of character that can take punishment meant for entire leagues and come unscattered ; that's also fun.

If you're making both, I'd go brute on the inv for sure. Accept the DM/SD scrapper is going to school the DM/inv in damage no matter which AT you pick, and go all out with survivability as to give that second alt a niche.

A level 1 /fire brute will farm faster than a 20 billions build, full T4 incarnates inv/em tanker. Numerous guides have been written on that very topic on the brute boards.

Muon, Emberly - I run into the exact same issues, and I have a 8800GTX, so it's not ATI. Also on WinXP 32bits.

I agree with MaestroMavius, the syntax used for topic titles here is unfortunate, in my opinion. My eyes are naturally inclined to start reading from the left - and to look at caps first, so I'm lost in a sea of SHARING and CRITIQUE before getting to the important information.

FA/SS/Soul is most likely the highest ST DPS combo for tankers, using Jab - Burn - Gloom - KO Blow - Haymaker - Gloom.

I would guess MA wouldn't do too good, seeing as the best DPA attack, Storm Kick, was reduced in damage, in order to give a defense buff instead. Assuming I understood correctly, anyway ; haven't tried the set on tankers myself.

I'm against the idea of making Lore pets perma. They are perfect as a temporary boost, and situational powers allow for more important decision making (which is entertaining) than something that is always on.

I'm fine with the option of making Lore pets perma, provided that their damage is slashed to compensate.

(OP is a troll, by the way. That doesn't make the topic itself meaningless, just thought it was worth mentioning.)

8 Amerits per new character for running cool new content doesn't seem like a bad deal at all to me.

I hope to see more stuff like that - good initial reward, then gated by time. Encourages to run varied stuff and to play multiple alts rather than farming one thing over and over.

Lemkin always seemed too easy to kill for too much XP. He certainly doesn't deserve AV xp. I agree it's unfortunate EB xp is so low, but that's a global problem, not specific to Lemkin, and I'd rather see an increase to EB xp as a whole than manually raised XP here and there for specific entities.

Spad and Deacon speak the truth. *nods*

Also, I always get Yin and the heroes killed in LGTF if I play villains, because I'm a hardcore RPer. Screw heroes.

There might be something I'm missing, but you can attack just as much during Rage crashes, you'll do 1 damage but procs and reactive still have the same chance to go off and to do the same damage.

I remember reading someone saying the DoT had a chance to go off but didn't stop the dot if it failed ; as in, the first tic could go off, the second tic could not happen, and then the third tic could go off again. Never bothered to test it myself, but it should be easy enough with the tier 1.

No combo using fire blast is ever going to be unique or even rare, so if that's your only reason to consider that option, put your mind at ease and go trap/son.

I would use a SM/Fire brute, using Burn - Gloom - Seismic Smash - Gloom, which should do slightly over 600 DPS all things considered (maximum tohit chance, procs, FE, time spent using clicks).

SS could be used just as well, as KO Blow is functionally identical to Seismic Smash, with a slower animation and recharge. Using Seismic Smash allows to use clicks in the gap between Seismic Smash and the next Gloom and lose slightly less time, but seeing as it's going to be (in that hypothetical scenario) Hasten every 120s and FE every 35s, we're not talking about an enormous difference.

Why not a scrapper? Lacking inherent aggro control in attacks, it forces to spend time chasing the target or using immobs and taunts, unless the only goal is to fight in situations in which this wouldn't be a problem (i.e. an immobile target such as a pylon, or always teaming up with a competent tanker or brute to hold aggro).