Nyx
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Posts
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Solo wise you need more damage.
Take an attack, otherwise until you get the higher tiers of storm and plant the entire thing is gonna crawl like snails...minus the slime to help them move quicker.
I love Plant/Storm as it was my first toon on another account. Make two builds. A solo one and a group one. then furnish your group one with sets. But use your solo with attacks to move through things quicker.
It was actually the slowest soloer I have ever made. And I have made some really crappy things. -
Quote:Agreed. If you are going to make a sapper then make a sapper, this is not a power that will glean you that titleOriginally Posted by Jibikao
The thing with -end effect is that you either drain it to zero and KEEP it at zero, or you don't drain at all. -
The only thing I can think I used it for which made it usefull was when I dropped in in the street and watched a member of the Family walk on it. I then left but giggled.
That I think is it's only use. I had stealth so essentially it can only be really called a PVP power. I can definately see how that would work, but thats only because of said statement above.
Otherwise...Just skip it and take something else -
I am enjoying my 3 toons at the moment. My Night Widow, my Grave Forcefield creation, and oddly enough my MM. The MM shocks me because I did try it out once before with Demon Summoning, but those demons are to big, and noisy. She has quiet zombies. I like the quiet zombies of quiet zombie goodness.
She aso has a really great story in place.
I have a scrapper. Sword and Board Scrapper. Shes level 8, and remains there. I think she has potential, but I just find that she is not my most interesting creation.
I tend to like some flash, but I will try a brute. Why not, I have tons of slots open, mind as well give it a go. -
Quote:You might be right, it's just the appeal is sort of not there for me. I am not sure why, but I think it stems from my fave toon in comix, next to spiderwoman and Psylocke none of them have super strength or enter melee much. So I sort of think of my inspirations when Im working out a character. That being said, It's fair to say that I could be missing out on something by not at least trying a Brute.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
This is how I know you're looking at brutes the wrong way. They are not walls meant to protect the team. With the recent changes, a Brute doesn't even need aggro to keep fury; I have seen a brute maintain a "full" fury bar by attacking Rikti dummies (the ones that don't attack back). Brutes are NO DEFINE JUST SMASH STUFF!!!
I'll give you that they're not "shiny" enough. I mean, they're pretty simple. Run into spawn, press 1 2 3 4 1 3 1 4 etc. "Squishy" ATs have to use at least a semblance of tactics. I really enjoy my warshade because of the razor's edge feel I get playing him. Do things right: I'm awesome. Do things not quite right: I'm dead.
But sometimes you just want to punch somebody in the face. There's joy to be found there. -
Quote:Thanks for fixing it. I was a touch tired from a busy work day.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Fixed that for you.
At the end of the day what is really needed is a good players. The actual AT/powerset is a lot less important than you seem to think. Yes, support ATs are always nice because they tend to do a better job of covering up the weaknesses of others but even there the actual powerset doesn't matter a whole lot.
Different support sets are more or less useful in different situations. The sweet spot for Empathy is when the team is lower than level 25ish or on smaller teams. For level 50s on a full team, it's a decent middle of the road set but it tends to drop behind the really good support sets (especially Rad and Dark).
I see where you were going. Again, my only 50 is a healer, and I have established that Empathy is really not my fave thing. I mean, it is sort of lack lustre, but on a Statesman task force recently we were pretty melee heavy. But mostly scrappers and I think a stalker. My job was to hover over Lord Recluces head and hit the tank with Fort, Adren and spot heals while the towers were being dismantled by the others. Allowing the Tank to hold him in one spot. BORING!!!! But it worked and thats what I was told to do by everyone in the group.
Im not sure some of my bubbler would have offered the same strength at that point.
But thanks for giving me a different outlook on support sets. I agree with you that they cover weakpoints in different types of groups. -
Quote:You are right yes. But the rare times this occures does not really effect healing general benefit.Originally Posted by UberGuy
While I admit uncommon to encounter (currently), this is not correct. Characters can be made resistant to heals. Hamidon, Hamidon's Green Mitos, and the Pestilence: Rider "unique" Rikti Assault Suit all can debuff a character's ability to be healed, and the latter two actually can trivially make you impossible to heal at all. (This is different than regen debuffs.)
For the record. I have one healer. I hate playing her, but, even though I hate playing her, I see what she brings to the table. And although she is as dull as dry crusty toast to play, I see the value, and others request I bring her. It's not because I am the best healer, but because I dual built her into have 5 attacks, and the rest is focused on the team.
Does that make me exceptional no? But genraly her heals always work as planned and when they don't, they still sort of do.
Personally Id rather play my widow and asassinate things or my grav and throw toilets a folks. But I just cannot under estimate concept that a good well played healer is not a boon to a team, and unlike any other AT, a good Solid Healer is always a boon. There is never any regrets. -
Quote:First off, I am rarely the healer, the only reason I am the main healer is because my healer leveled the quickest because she is in demand. I personally would rather play my Widdow or my Grav/FF controller forever. But admitting my selfishness, my Emp/Psi defender makes the money for all the other toons I play. I play her for an hour or two, get a purple, sell it for obcene money and be done with it. She is wanted because I...although not the best healer maybe limited by expeirence and the fact that the job is not exciting, bring something to a team.Originally Posted by Diggis
I'll conceed you'll spend a lot of time healing, although really, if you fire off RARA you tend to have about 2(?) mins to do anything but heal, because they usually manage to make it pointless.
If someone in my group is looking for anything specific, outside of saying 'buffs would be nice' or 'could do with more range' and baring Mo attempts, then they need to learn you don't need anything. I will always take the first person who asks. If they ask if I need anything specific I'll usually say 'what ever you feel like.'
If you ever play any game, we all know that anything which restores life better than anything else is desired. Needed? No! But I still always stick by my rule of "If it's there...I aint gonna complain"
Funny concept though. And not to be a smart bum, but when I do play my Emp defender and someone is screaming for us to find a tank, Ill always simply reply...you are now the tank! Blasters love it.
I think we have reached a mutual understanding. Some things are not needed if you have things that compliment each other. I guess the only thing I was trying to suggest is that when come hell or high water, a heal based toon can always compliment while other sets might not mesh -
Ill admit this...It'sick but true. Tanks and brutes although enjoyable to play with are just not shiny enough. I dont expect people to get it, but there has to be some flash in the pan for me.
Plus...I suck at being a wall. I would be a group liability -
Quote:I agree with you 100%. I view healing as a tool thats usefull. Storm and Trick Arrow are classic ideas of controlling the floor to prevent damage from occuring. I see no reason why that is not valid, and I myself have a storm and O2 is only really untilized as a cure for status effects for those who are weaker to those issues.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Yes, you encounter people with buff sets who don't buff but I've encountered plenty of Empaths who are horrible buffers as well (i.e. fortitude only on the tank, saving AB for when someone uses a nuke etc.).
The thing is heals are not the only form of reactive mitigation. They are a convenient form since they work the same in all situations (baring healing resistance debuffs which are very rare) but there are plenty of other ways to provide reactive mitigation that don't involve healing and in a lot of cases other forms are actually better. Healing provides a fixed level of mitigation based on how fast you can pump it out. Other forms of reactive mitigation scale with the damage they are taking.
For example on my Earth/Storm Controller if I see someone taking heavy damage my first thought is not "hit them with O2 boost" it's "stop them from taking more damage". I sometimes hit them with O2 boost first to buy me some time to think but my main goal is always to stop them from taking more damage because if I don't stop the incoming damage chances are O2 boost alone will not save them.
All support sets have some options for reactive mitigation although not all have the same level of utility (Traps for example has very limited options) but healing is not the only useful form of reactive mitigation.
Healing is a reactive responce to a specific member of the party, and while buffing defense ensures a more sturdy party, healing is still an asset, but does not ensure that the battle is won. It's just sometimes nice to have.
I play a Grav/FF and like Storm, I use the controls it offer to prevent or mitigate damage, however if things go horribly wrong, the healer often shines. Freezing rain has saved many a party, but because it does not have floating green numbers over peoples heads they sometimes don't see it as mitigation, when in fact it's incredible. Oil Slick Arrow is the same really.
When I am speaking of healers being beneficial it's because in balanced team it can help keep the fighting going without much downtime, and in a squishy team it can it might just be the thing that holds the team together.
Resistances can be debuffed, as can Defenses in general ((FF)), but healing is 100% effective all the time and it always works the same way in pretty much any battle. It's never changing really if it is a direct heal and not an accurate to-hit heal. It just always works at it's fully efficient as opposed to possibly dropping. I also feel this way about mitigation from control sources like Freezing Rain, and Ice Slick and Oil Slick. They are always peak performance and rarely do they go wrong. -
Quote:My post above this will answer. I have been in many teams where the pther support players are not buffing, or a bubbler bubbles his pets and nothing else. Shields drop. I know this, and we all know this, but it's because of the duration. People are not always aware on the board when there are a million things going on to reshield people.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I don't think you meant it that way but this is a rather arrogant attitude. You get bad players with every set and I have met plenty of poor Empathy/Pain Domination players. I'm tempted to say that I've met more poor Empaths than any other set but I think that's probably perception bias on my part since it's often easier to spot someone doing a poor job with Empathy than with other sets.
Healing doesn't have a monopoly on making up for the poor play of others it is simply the type of support where doing so is most obvious (giant green numbers) just as it's the type of support that is most obvious overall.
Now when I say people not doing their job it's people who either refuse buff or those who just forget to, and being reminded by teamates all the time to assist them.
Im by no means perfect at my bubbler, but I watch the people in my groups buffs in the team window a lot, because it's the only way Ill know.
Thats what I meant. Heals are instant and healers in my experience or at least the people I have played with are very diligent in their job. It's because it is not fire and forget for 4 minutes. It's constant. And it's also more obvious...when green goes down heal. -
Quote:No offence Diggis, because I don't play rude.Originally Posted by Diggis
Except this comes back to the problem that there are NO healers in CoX. Empathy has 3 direct heals and a rez and I think that is the most used. That is less than have the primary set and only ~8% of the total powers a character can have. I guess they could also take Aid other and Resuscitate for 12% but that still not many 'healz'.
I avoid people asking for a healer for a team because they are clearly demonstrating they don't know what they are talking about.
But Empathy is a buff set with heals as a focus. If you are referring to direct heals as a way to get green bars us then I agree that it has that, but considdering the amount of powers in the set and the limit that is placed on power selection you are a Healer.
In all games where you have someone who A) Feeds you Life Points or B) Feeds you Mana (Thats what Ill call it) or C) causes you to lose neither in the first place, then I am looking at a classic healer/buffer.
Depending on how you slot Adren boost is an DoT Heal for both Regen and for HP.
Clear Mind romoves status effects....which is technically a cure, and therefore a direct heal. It's not upping your HP, but it is removing something hindering, which like in other games....take say Poison...is nullified by it's effects, and therefore a heal.
If someone in your group wants a healer, to say that they don't know what they are doing is not kosher to me. I mean regardless of whether or not you have a bubbler or other buffer, healing is a form of indirect damage mitigation. Or at least that how some perceive it, which is all subjective.
But seeing as unlike any other power set it does not have a debuff or mode of attack to say the set is not heal centric is in my oppinion inccorect.
I have seen well played healers stop wipes in bad and good pug groups, and the only people who dissagree will always disagree because they think they are to L33T to admit otherwise.
All Ill say is that you don't always need a healer, but no one complains when an Empath whos good at his or her job is on the team. -
I wanted to thank you again for the help in building my Warshade-esque themed toon. And yeah, teleport is not for everyone, but I got used to it using my widow and I find it usefull, and considdering I often bubble tank, I find it usefull in bad situations to return the team to a safer local.
The toon is only level 30 at the moment, so I am missing some of the effective powers. The Group imob I have danced around because although usefull I find them only really handy during the later levels, and dont use them much until later on. But it could be added to my list easily now that I have a general plan.
Thanks for the helpfull advice. You know your stuff! So I definately appreciate it. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Nyghtmaire
After playing other games,it seems that one of the strengths of the CoX system is that you don't need any particular combination to succeed for most encounters (exceptions like the weakened hami portion of LGTF notwithstanding).
So, where does this idea come from that teams are looking for a healer? Is this a relic of earlier issues?
Well the notion of needing a healer is generally because that is how most games play out, and yes, people still look for healers.
Why? Resistances are fine, and Force Fields are fine, but in my experience a healer is usually an asset not because he or she can heal but because a person playing empathy or pain, Thermal tend to be extremely used to micromanagement. If a healer misses you and you die because they did not heal you, many of the times it's because they are healing someone in a worse position.
Now, that being said, people who play forcefields often lost track of the duration of their bubbles and shields drop. I have even seen it where dispursion bubble confuses some bubblers because when looking at the screen it looks as though members of the group are bubbled.
Now with Empathy, you gain buffs at the end which can take almost any toon out there and make them complete gods on the battle field. I chose Empathy and Power Mastry as my epic pool. If you Power Boost Fortitude, the auras and Adren Boost you are literally making a blaster into a tank. Well not quite but much tankier than they will ever be in their existance.
Healers are not 100% needed, but usually appreciated because other people playing a support set are not doing their jobs properly -
FF.
There is nothing in FF other than personal FF, Dispersion Bubble, and the two buff shields you have to protect others.
If you solo, then you can forgo them I assume, but still bubbling pets makes the pets last longer. Otherwise there is generally no reason to take this set if you did not take your shield options.
The knockbacks are fine, but with Pet AI the way it is, knocking back can even screw up bots drawing more aggro to the MM who used it.
I just can't think of any reason why someone would take a buff set and avoid the buffs. There are other sets that would generally be more effective than FF if you wish to have a selfish tone to your toon. -
I found a trick about ambushes playing my Elec Storm Corr.
If you use steamy mist and stand your toon at a door...or a little out of the door, but near the door, the ambush will stop in it's tracks. This worked on Archons, and nearly any ambush I have seen so far. I stand there, and like a wall the ambush just collects there. you just cant attack. So the team kills their original targets and you wall untill they come back to take the ambush. If they do get through, click on you magic whirlwindy knockback power and wall em again. -
Actually. Most red and black tones work great because use different shades of those colors to balance easier than some. Also it's bold and with some of our tights options they can make things like the Thorn Patern really stand out boldly while others might not be seen.
Also when you use a Neautral like black, which goes with everything, it allows you to use red and another color without making the toon seem garish in color.
I am more proud not to have a Red,White and Blue colored toons, which all look amazing, it's just I see more flag-esque toons with stars and stripes than I do others. Not a bad thing, just not my thing. -
I would not say I am repressed, but there are certain themes that are usually worked through by powers. I mean, look at any super hero/villain. Most base their names, costumes and etc on their powers. Thats not repression that just usually how it is.
I used to play CO where you could literally have a shield toting, fire blasting, ice healer who clawed enemies to death and whipped them witch chains.
Now that being said I would not repress choosing powers based on themes or story, but I have never had to have that experience. My stories are always themes, and therefore I choose my powers based on my theme.
I might be actually missing the point of the OP or Im ignorant what the post is really about. If thats the case then I appologize. -
I deleted my Demons/Poison, cuz the whip rocks but the pets are so large, noisy and annoying that when in teams they block the melee set, and well...the screaming. Oh my gosh SCREAMING!!!!
But I love poison
I have decided to roll a Zombies/Poison, because poison is great, and Zombies are quiet. Dark powers debuff well and also compliment poisons debuffing.
Dark Miasma would be my second choice, however I like having different damage types or in the case of the secondary different types of debuffing options. Plus the pets in zombies already debuff to hit, so I can focus on other realms of attacks. -
Quote:Sorry. I don't get it. It's really hard to gimp a Night Widow. Desperately hard. Considdering only a few Stalker sets are generally solid a viable, I have to say a Night Widow is much more efficient.Originally Posted by Beelzy
Nyx,
I Night Widow is great, except their stealth sucks. Trollers are great for solo, but because they are so gimped in the realm of damage, they come in second behind Stalkers for solo-play.
For instance, I smoke bomb everything, essentially making my stealth an invis but with debuff to hit procs specced into it, I am not getting hit.
That combined with max defenses provided by the training skills and foresight and I am not getting hit by anything. The Stealth is perhaps not as stong as the Stalkers but throw a bomb and you essentially walk up to bosses and get the strike in with a critical.
A stalker can be interupted and AOE will take them out of stealth, and after that we have a stalker in a very dangerous situation. If my widow is forced out of stealth she will still out do a stalker everytime for damage AOE versatility and because mine is a hybrid, I easy have range to follow suit.
While I respect the damage ability of a Stalkers Assassin stike, my Night Widow can do all of the same tricks (Placate etc) but do it betterm more efficently and stealth contrary to popular belief is not invulnerablitiy, and once it's gone, the difference between my Widow and a Stalker is that I don't need to run away, and the most annoying thing about some stalker players is the constant "did my thing and my assassins strike, Placated, did it again and now I run like heck"
My widow can do it, AOE Critical entire bunch, blinded mobs and then stick around to fight not worrying about if she is seen...she likes to be seen. Heck, I even through a Damage prock for PbAoe that converts her toxic lethal combo into a chance to inflict energy damage. Single Target, or mass targets, it simply does not matter. -
I would never considder making a Fortunata or Night Widow without Mask Presence. It just can't work for me. It's not situational and vengence is.
My Fortunata build has some melee, and the crit is excellent. I fight like a scrapper with her because to me regardless of her range she was designed to be in the forefront with the melee crowd to always have Mind link available to those folks.
When in Night Widow mode (Which I preffer) I would never not take the stealth. I just can't fathom why anyone would not.
But those are my oppinions and both my Fortunata and my Night Widow are possibly my most effective soloists and team players. -
I wanted to reply to you sooner because I took some of your advice and changed my build to my second build, which I hate doing because it means my first build was poopy.
I Changed and added the following
((Grav))
Crush
Lift
Propel
Grav Distortion
Grav Distortion Field
Worm Hole
((FF))
Personal Force Field
Deflection Shield
Insolation Shield
Dispursion Bubble
((Fighting Pool))
Boxing
Kick
Weave
((Medicine))
Stimulent
Aid Self
((Teleport))
Recall Friend
Teleport
I would explain the slotting or have used mids but frankly I am Frankenslotting at the moment and have generally no concept of how I want her to turn out. But Thematically she was a Warshade who were seperated and she mutated carrying over some of her Warchade powers.
Ill be adding the Ghost Widows embrace to Grav Distortion and not the field.
The only sacrifice I had to make to make this build better was changing air superiority for Crush, which actually now makes things much better.
Your idea is working much better than my concept.
Now I have one powerpool left, and Although I know I want Singularity, the End FF powers, while good are not as team friendly as I would like. I will take them, however more for solo control than anything else. Minimal chaos in an already chaotic build is desired, however I have learned to minimize knockback with my playstyle.
So for my last power pool I was thinking to stick with the Kheld/Warshade theme to take perhaps Consealment, which I could see the benefit of. But again, I am undecided on this at the time being.
Propel is so slow that you are correct it's viability in large teams is debateable, but Ill use it on Purples or things I know will take the damage. Or as a soft control to get something off of a defender or blaster. -
I deleted my Illusion/FF and changed it to Grav/FF but the same sort of things still apply.
In the beginning you will want to take something power pool fighting oriented. I do enjoy the fighting pool, and I like the added defense of that sets later powers.
However I might suggest taking super jump because it does have an attack and the defenses later benefit against being knocked back.
Really if you want to speed up damage before PA then I would suggest maxing Blind, and Spectral wounds, but having a melee attack in there as well. I really like Air Superiority for offering an element of soft control. But truthfully Boxing works well too, and if used and specced for damagem accuracy and Disorient, it will add to the mags of control you have if the stun goes off. It also does decent damage when an enemy is held.
I use Boxing and kick on my Grav/FF because the recharge is fast, and the animation is quicker than Propel, but with illusion spectral wounds does well.
As for Group invis, I am not a super fan of this power, mainly because running dispursion bubble is more favorable and it saves you a ton of slots and endurance. Superior invis is good and I would take that and slot it for recharge redux and defence if you need to turtle up in your PFF, and I would suggest throwing in Aid Self. If you are in personal force field and invis your defense is really effective and you rarely will be interupted.
Again all tactics I have used. The only reason I deleted my Illusion/FF is because frankly, I found it to be excellent, but not generally my playstyle at the moment. Grav I wanted because I can see the strategic elements of the set, while illusion to me is more a 1-2-3-4 game style. Open PA, Hit Blind, Hit Spectral wounds, and then hit Spectral wounds again.
It was just not my thing. -
I know some people think this combo is a pain in the bum to play with.
Im finding it cheap and effective. I have so far done the following.
Lift
Gravity Distortion. The Hold
Propel
PFF
All of the buffing shields
And The Mass Gravity Dostortion Field
Dispersion Bubble
Worm Hole (Which I love love love, but use mainly as a soloing tool or a pulling tool for tanks)
Then I have taken
Teleport
Recall Friend
Punch
Kick
Weave
Air Superiority
Stimulent
Aid Self
So, Im not entirely sure what Im doing. People are not entirely sure what I am trying to do. But I noticed with Punch Kick and Air Superiority, Im doing more damage quicker than launching a Propel which is slow animation.
I am findind it really ok...except when Im fighting smashing resistant enemies.
Now I just recently lucked upon a Ghost Widow's Embrace Enhancement that does Psionic damage on Holds. Where should I put it. I have two holds, thats it, just two. How will this proc? Will it be effective In Gravity distortion the single hold which does damage. Or should I put it in the other mass hold? I am hoping that the Psionic Damage would amp up my DPS a little more.
Overall though this toon is rather knockback friendly and tanks dont hate her
Edit. Another Question.
I would like to enhance Propel to have another Proc effect and not focus on it's knockback, but add another damage type. I am far to smashy and need some oomph. Any suggestions? -
Sometimes Black is just cool.
Rift-Dancer my main is Black, Dark Purple and muted Gold-yellow
Etherweb my Alt is Black and White, although one of her costumes is red and black because thats the colors of the super group I am in.
Wind-Spirit is Silver and Blue, with grey tones and metalics
And White Swan is White. Thats it, just white.
The Nemean Lioness is Gold tones.