PrincessDarkstar

I will admit that I am a Warshade at heart since I don't like a few of the PB powers, and you know I think PB's role should be DPS too (But they don't quite make the grade at the moment). But I will keep that debate on whatever thread it is already in

For such a small spawn I would think Sunless Mire is wasted, you should kill it in much less than 30 seconds, meaning most of it goes to waste while you move on to the next spawn, yes you get the damage bonus, but I don't think that bonus is enough to warrant the endurance or cast time on a small spawn like this.

Inky Aspect/Gravity Well is also wasted, one use of Gravatic Emination would have the whole spawn locked down in one place.

This means that (Sunless Mire discussion aside) you will take 2.07 seconds longer than me to kill the spawn, plus the time it takes to actually get close enough to use Gravity Well and back up again.

This one very much depends how good your tri-form build is, in this case you are using human blasts, but they are worse than the Nova blasts so I don't see why you would open with those, unless you are avoiding the alpha - in which case Gravatic Emination would put most bosses on their backsides and cover that for you.

Blasting out of range works well on most bosses though.

Sunless Mire is always a good opener, and you also made the right call on Gravatic Emination's knockback too

And I agree with you that Nova is the best form to spend most of your time in when in a team.

But; in a thread-hijacking fashion, this allows me to prove the point I have been making in a few other threads about optimisation. In this case regardless of build Ice_Storm is making too much effort to dispatch a small spawn, which could actually end up having an effect on his build meaning he ends up taking and slotting powers that are being used in a redundant manner.

Also if you see my comment about Sunless Mire being wasted on a small spawn that just shows that my gut feeling is different to that of Ice_Storm, later on tonight I may run the numbers and see who is correct (And with 5 mobs I feel it will be a close call either way, so am happy to be wrong).

I have actually played similar games, and understand where you are coming from, but I don't think CoX will ever get that far, aside from a minority of ****s.

I think you are right about why ED came in, but as people have said there are so many things that Kheldians can do I don't think we will ever get as far as cookie cutter. But as people have found with other AT's the more we crunch the numbers the more we can push the boundaries of the AT, and I would really like to see that done with Kheldians.

True, this section is really nice and everyone tries to be helpful, I just don't like seeing people try and compare the different styles of build and talking about causing plenty of damage with x tactic or y tactic when there are no numbers to back it up.

Again true, Warshades always get credit for being awesome, but nobody knows exactly how awesome, or which build can produce the most awesomeness.

It isn't DPS that we are completely focussing on, but I still maintain that DPS is the main part of our role in teams. We may not be strict DPS like blasters, but we should never let ourselves be distracted from DPS by our other tricks, they should be used to enhance the DPS not instead of it or you are really missing out on a large part of the AT.

Going by that logic only a fire/fire blaster is a damage dealer, because other blasters do less damage than that?

What I mean is that most of a PB's powers are there to inflict some kind of damage, so that MUST be the main role. Not to mention that Nova form is a pure damage dealing form.

The point I was making was that unless you are going to turn it into a good heal then there is no point doing it, it will either need to be pretty spammable, or huge to be worthwhile. If it becomes spammable then you just changed the role of a PB, if it is huge then it might be a bit overpowered?

And I can't see PB's getting a buff power because neither Kheldian has anything similar to buff teammates.

Lol! They gave you one power that does a tiny heal and you think that means you have to protect the team? Blasters get a immob they don't think they are controllers.

It is a neglected aspect of the AT but that is because the AT isn't meant to be a healer, you were given a heal to make you different to the Warshade while adding a tiny bit of utility. It is in no way a key feature, and since it is the only buff type power PB's have that just cannot be their role.

But the reason people think of them as weak defenders is because people who play them treat them as such, the minute you talk about taking the heal and using it regularly you are giving them that idea. They can't usually tell where the damage comes from but when they see a PB healing them they think the PB is a healer, when the PB's heal isn't quite up to the job they think they are a wek healer. I would HATE it if the dev's thought giving more heals to PB's would be a clever idea.

Well the idea of the -res is playing to the PB's strengths, and I think I fully support that. But the rest of it isn't. PB's have one power that effects other people in the team so adding more is not adding to a strength, it is propping up a weakness so it is no longer laughable.

You got me on that one, I meant -res because I was agreeing with you.

A very true and valid point, and I wouldn't tell someone aiming to build their Kheldian to be any of these things that they were doing it wrong, what I would like to do is tell them the very best way to accomplish their goal.

Firstly I don't see how you can't value DPS, it is the single most important thing for 90% of this game.

And fine you might value survivability but if we dug down to the numbers we would probably find ways of increasing that survivability, while adding it to impressive DPS, rather than now I see a lot of build sacrificing heavily in order to build on certain aspects.

Also even in the scrapper section where they love soloing AV's with defence capped builds there is plenty of help for people without the budget. Knowing the very best things doesn't mean we will lose sight of those without the purples, it just means people might be more motivated to earn the purples if they know exactly what they can do when they have them. Right now people seem to be acting like they wont make much of a difference.

But if you take controllers as a whole they have many more combinations of powers than a Warshade does, yet they still can tell you which sets and powers are best for your stated aim. You ask in the controller section to cause damage and they suggest fire kin, you then don't see 10 people all suggesting different power sets because they know for a fact that fire/kin causes the most damage.

There could be 100 different things a Kheldian could do, it would just mean we could have 100 different builds each being best at one thing or another. But actually it isn't that complicated.

Agreed. The devs could make playing a Kheldian much easier and that is a problem for the majority of people. But those who frequent the forums tend to be a much more knowledgable bunch with high expectations looking for top end advice, and the fact we don't provide that is also scaring them people away.

But one of the reasons that brutes etc are looked at as more awesome is because people know just how awesome they can be, nobody yet knows exactly how awesome a Kheldian can be.

I don't want to pick on you here but that is the exact thinking I am talking about, no controller picks a power or IO because it creates cool cages. Also when you say 'all these' how many does it actually cause and how effective is that versus doing something else with the power? People will only ever be impressed if you are using something in the best way possible, in fact a lot of people might even think its a waste of an IO etc and wish you were causing lots of dead bodies instead (Note: I haven't actually looked at your build, for all I know it is actually an impressive use of the last slot, but thats by the by at the moment).

That depends on your definitions of 'one way'. The one sure way of impressing everyone you see is to be awesome at ever one of those things you mentioned.
I know for a fact that a Kheldian can exert great control, massive damage and then be the last man standing and rez the team - I have done all of that on many occasions.
They won't however be impressed if I am trying to control mobs but not doing it at the maximum possible effectiveness, and thats the point - do whatever you want with the build, but do it as best as you can!

Agree totally agree. The controls on my Warshade help me cause more damage, Eclipse helps me cause more damage, they shouldn't be allowed to replace the damage I cause in a misplaced attempt into thinking I am being awesome.

But that isn't as big a problem as people seem to make out. The scrapper section would laugh at you and then help you make the most of your concept using hard numbers. We would say 'wow what a cool concept' then use phrases like 'loads of damage' and 'fun' when making the build.

Also if someone wants to build a Kheldian who uses ranged attacks and has high defence why can't we work on producing the best possible build of that type? And then why can't we say 'but using this build actually gives you better DPS from range using this attack chain and because it has perma-Eclipse you dont need the defence' using exact numbers to prove our point and let the person then decide if they want their concept or the more effective build?

Yes and no. You are right that playstyle comes into it, but no more so than another AT. Using you own blaster analogy if I want to make a fire/nrg blapper then I would get help, if I wanted the same sets as pure range I would get help and that help would give them 90% of a build that is so good it can't really change, the other 10% would be personal choice.

Kheldians will have exactly the same thing, you want a Kheldian to fit your playstyle then just tell us what that style is and we should be able to give them facts about why this power should be picked and why that one shouldn't.

The bit you are very wrong with is when you shout JUST AS GOOD, because that is rubbish. There will be one and only one way of doing something (Whichever something that may be) the best, it happens in everything in life.

I am pretty sure that just like me Obsidians goal is actually to find the ultimate build or ultimate builds, not to shred them apart. We want to be able to show everyone just how powerful a Kheldian can be.

Going back the the scrapper section that I read all the time they don't tear builds apart they help guide those builds towards being as good as they can. And you don't give other AT's enough credit, my last toon was a DB/WP scrapper and it was just as hard to balance DPS, defence, recovery, HP and regen on that toon as it was to balance my Warshade, the scrapper sections helped me crunch numbers and come up with the best balance of all of them for what my stated intention was, we can do the same thing if we would just admit that there are great builds out there.

Yes I do actually have a build for that The main thing I am arguing is that there are builds like that out there that we need to analyse to find the very best of.

And I am not the best number cruncher either (Its been a while since I excercied the maths part of my brain) but that shouldn't stop us trying. Would you really be upset if I saw your build and said 'you can get 2% more effectiveness by swapping that for that'? Even if I took your whole build apart why would you have something against me giving you a more effective build?

A game where a good build can be 70% better than a bad build needs a playerbase that does some hard work. Look at Mids and ParagonWiki, they are ran by players who put in some hard work.

Fine you may not want to do the research but that doesn't mean you shouldn't help those who do try in whatever way you can, even if that means just encouraging them.

I never actually checked to see about that when I looked! Good spot!

To clarrify what Rainbow_Avenger means by cap, just in case you don't know: You can only have a specific type of global bonus (In this case the 5% global recharge bonus) up to 5 times, so the 6th time you see that 5% bonus it actually goes to waste.

You can replace it with say a 10% bonus and it will stack with the 5% bonus', but again you can only have the 10% bonus 5 times as well.

There is an actual cap for the amount of recharge you can get in total, but that is 400% and you won't reach it.

This means that my advice for what to slot in Dwarf is also wrong since all the bonus' I was saying to get from Dwarf were also 5%, and will be wasted too. But the general 'get some slots into dwarf' is still true.

I still haven't had chance to make a build since I am now too close to anyone to dare open mids at work, but this is exactly the type of thing I wasn't saying very well

I have to disagree with this, I teamed with a stone tank once who didn't take rooted and he kept getting knocked back, his style of play meant he didnt want to go as slow as rooted makes him, but he still had the option of getting that additional protection and I thought he was a fool for not, he just laughed it off and fair play to him.

Just because your style of play means you don't want to take advantage of a power doesn't mean you should be rewarded for it. Fair play to you for wanting to play in human form but no matter which way you cut it the mez protection is there for you to take and the devs should encourage us to use all the tools at our disposal.

What if I didn't want to take any attacks? Could I reasonably ask for a 100dps damage aura?

All this is aside from the fact that Khelds would be verging on overpowered if they had mez protection.

Edit: Don't get me wrong I would love to have mz protection and it would make things so much easier, but I would also love rocket launchers on my squids shoulders and don't think the devs should actually give me them.

Thats 2 out of the last 3 threads I have read!

Can I also say Tommy_Truestar you need to update Mids, having to copy and paste data chunks is sooooo last year

As to your build I would look at moving the LoTG: Defence from Shadow Cloak into Eclipse as an accuracy, but that may be overkill with your 70% global accuracy bonus. If I didnt move it to Eclipse I would move it to Black Dwarf for a third resistance IO.

I also moved the resistance IO from Gravity Shield into Dark Nova Bolt and used a 2nd Hami-O, but thats minor.

There isn't much else I can see to be honest, it looks a fairly solid build and Eclipse should still be perma through the Hasten downtime by the looks of it.

I am not sure the exact recharge (The maths escapes me at the moment), but when hasten is up on your build you are only .1 of a second away, so if you get 5-10% more global recharge I would guess you are there.

Hope all that helps.

It has been a while since I did my binds and this is off the top of my head so I hope it is correct:

/bind <KEY> "powexec_toggle_off bright nova$$powexec_toggle_on white dwarf$$powexec_name <whatever the heal is called>

That 'should' do the trick.

I don't think that would work as a single bind, you would need one bind for each key such as:

/bind alt "powexec_toggle_off bright nova$$powexec_toggle_off white dwarf$$powexec_toggle_on fly"

and repeat for each key/power combination.