Sarrate

Something I just thought of, since characters can switch sides, how will they handle Epics / Patrons? Will this allow side switchers to have access to the other's ancillary pools?

In the survey, they did mention that characters that didn't shift in alignment could get rewards that swappers couldn't... interesting.

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I don't know. By level 40+ you have 20 insps slots, inspirations drop often, you can combine everything into purples. I've been on missions where I was taking the alpha (on a scrapper) all the time and had to pop purples to survive, and I don't remember running out that often. It certainly wouldn't happen at all if I bothered to buy insps, something I hardly do.

In my opinion, 12.5% def is also a lot more than 25% dam. The latter, assuming 95% damage slotting in powers and no procs or other damage buffs for the sake of simplicity, will be a ~12.5% total damage boost. Best case scenario (no damage slotting in powers, no procs, no damage buffs), it's a 25% damage boost. On the other hand, a luck insp can multiply your mitigation by 250% if you're jumping from 32.5 to the softcap.

With insps, it seems much easier to increase defense than damage output, to me.

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First, I agree, it's easier to boost def rather than damage. I won't argue the point, but it's not an unnoticeable boost, either. I mostly pointed that out because JB always points to purples for getting squishier ATs through trouble spots, but found rages to be an unacceptable solution.

As for lucks... I think it's a stretch to assume that Scrappers always have enough. How big is the team? How fast does the team kill (slower killing = less insp drops)? What is your con to the rest of the group (are you on the high or low side)? Are we talking SOs or IOs? I find it hard to believe that the average scrapper would be able to keep 1-2 up every minute in a mission. Specific team makeups / players? Sure. They may circumvent the need completely.

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Think about it. When you KNOW your toons, you make the difference a blur. On my toons, the difference becomes a blur.

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Thrunk: I agree whole-heartedly with this.

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Sarrate, are you a fan of the show "Angel"?

"Angel, I fear you may be looking for a logical pattern in the rantings of someone who doesn't think logically."

-- Wesley

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LifeGuardian: I've never sat down and watched a majority of the show, but I have seen a handful - it was a fun show. I could never get into scheduled TV watching; I always ended up missing episodes. :P

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I still think Tanks are going to be the melee class that really makes out on this deal. Brutes playing blueside are going to be doing it basically as a different flavor of Scrapper, not a flavor of Tanks, while Tanks playing redside will basically rob Brutes of half of their combined Scrapper/Tank role right now for villains. People would no more look for a Brute over a Tank redside to fill the aggro-holding role than they look for a Scrapper over a Tank blueside now.

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LifeGuardian: Huh, that's an interesting take on it. I honestly never thought about it going that way. To be fair, though, Brutes are much more able to hold aggro than Scrappers (they have more global access to taunt auras, Gauntlet-lite, and Taunt instead of Confront). They're also squishier than Tanks with equal buffing and usually don't focus on aggro management (but that's a player issue rather than AT, outside of public perception).

Time will tell which AT comes out ahead.

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Whereas I am gonna guess that a stone/stone *tank* might well hold them all at once. There's still a fundamental anything-you-can-tank-I-can-tank-better truth to the Tanker archetype that Brutes nor Scrappers can touch.

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LifeGuardian: Since Brutes have Tanker caps, it's possible for them to have identical survivability to that of a Tank... of course it would require far more buffs to do so.

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are going to be showed up as the poor second rate alphastoppers that they are.


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One or two purple inspirations lets any melee AT stop an alpha in its tracks.



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Inspirations aren't an unlimited resource. If someone has to eat two purples to take an alpha, they'll run out before the end of the mission when running as point.

If constant purple popping isn't a problem, then neither is doing the same with reds for a Tanker.

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Eh, $15/month is a lot of money over time. It's like buying a whole new game every 3 months. Servers don't cost that much to run (real games can run them for free!), and even the GM staff is pretty minimal from what I've been able to determine. CoH may be cheap my MMO standards, but it's still expensive compared to buying full on boxed games.

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I disagree with the highlighted premise. Yes, it's mathematically like buying a new game every 3 months, but do the new games last 3 months of intense gameplay like MMOs do? Not many, from my experience. What about consoles where you have to pony up several hundred dollars upfront before you can even buy games to go with it? Or, in the 360s case, buy online time. Another way to look at it is a movie at the theater costs $7-10 for 2-2.5 hours of entertainment.

MMOs are dirt cheap entertainment.


Considering how infrequently we've been 'forced' to buy expansions, I have no problem with Paragon Studio's decision to launch a new one.

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From the press release

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Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game's lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.


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/em looks at Des

/em looks at press release

/em eats some pie and thinks about it.

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I raised an eyebrow at that part, too.

Kruunch's post is pretty good overall, but I have several points of disagreement:

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you have to be wary of the early toggles you don't need yet (CE and Icicles).

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I strongly disagree with the CE comment. It's Ice's aggro aura, and considering how poorly Gauntlet functions at low levels, I wouldn't trust it to hold aggro. Besides being an aggro aura, it also has a 14% dmg debuff (resisted by mob resistance) and a whopping 32% recharge debuff, which is not insignificant.

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This is probably because of the typed defense rather than the situational defense that Shields gets.

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I'm not sure why you say Shield's defense is situational, I consider positional defense to be stronger overall compared to typed. The big reason is it only has two holes: unpositional psi and autohit attacks (mostly non-existant now). Ice's typed defense has a hole to Fire/Cold/Psi/Toxic (with cold being covered by its 90% res). Further, the def gap between Ice and Shield is only 2-3%, or the amount of def that CJ grants.

I'm not saying Shield is more survivable at low levels (Ice has tools like CE / Hoarfrost), but the defense itself isn't the reason, imo.

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You haven't lived until you've tanked 30+ mobs at once

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Aggro cap. (You could be talking pre-aggro cap... but that means new Tanks will never live because of them.)

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Stoners are probably the best all around Tankers at higher levels in terms of tanking (i.e. taking a hit) but is the least favorite set for me due to Granite mitigating all prior toggles and the negative drawback to Granite (-recharge and -movement. These can be overcome with IOs but I'm still not a fan of sets where one power makes several other powers useless (I had this problem with Inv conceptually with Unstoppable back in the perma Unstoppable days ... even if it was a blessing to respec out of the old tele-tanker build).

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Within the realm of SOs, I'd agree that Granite is much more sturdy than other Tanks. With IOs, I personally think Granite loses a lot of its luster. Tankers can build up their mitigation much easier than a Granite can build to overcome their shortcomings. If you don't have millions to blow on IOs, then it's tough to beat Granite.

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Mind you, that this (like any of my comments (that's for the peanut gallery )) are entirely subjective to my personal experiences.

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Heh.

Likewise, I'm giving my opinion / corrections to your perceptions. I don't mean any offense by them, but if I see an inaccuracy somewhere, I'm inclined to chime in and point it out. (I expect nothing less from others who see something wrong with what I say, btw.)

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My original statement was tanking with support, not solo tanking (although I think it might equally apply).

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Well, when I said 'solo tanking,' I meant without support. My bad.

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Nothing is impossible for sure ... just not as probable as stated. I think you'd agree?

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"Improbable, unlikely, but never impossible!"
(If you recognize that quote, without imdb/wikipedia, then you get 1 geek card!)

Yes, I have no problem with that statement at all. (Hmm, I bet I can think of one nigh impossible feat: defeating Recluse without destroying any of his towers.)

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Edit: I should have made myself clearer but reading my original post I did say "in general". I think the "impossible" comment was inferred by you rather than implied by me but if not, I will amend that I meant the majority and not every single Tanker (or AT) in creation, past/present or future.

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Well, when a couple people claimed they did (one of which being Stone, iirc) you called BS. I pretty much took that as "it's impossible," yes. :P

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So you deathed your way through Romi? Kinda enforces my point about tanking without support no? Which would also be even more reinforced by the Shield Tankers here who have already said that they've had a hard time with the ITF.

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...

Resurgences are Tier 3 Heal Inspirations.

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Hence my statement that virtually any Tanker needs (and probably gets) support for the ITF. I'm sure there has been an exception here and there but so far, the only person who has claimed to have done it unsupported admitted to the equivelant of graveyard zerging Romi.

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People are taking you to task because you implied it was impossible for a Tank to solo Tank him without support, not that most can't. There is a very large difference between the two.

(Also, see above for that "graveyard zerging" comment.)

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Dersk: I've seen Elvis. After he died. He's living in South America with Tupac. What?

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I've seen the videos of the feat myself (defeating Romulus + his Nicti by a solo Invuln Scrapper), it is no lie. If their author wants them linked as proof, I'll let them do so.

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How would this work in a power like Drain Psyche?

Would I only get one use for the power or would it tick for each enemy effected?

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If it works like Performance Shifter, it may not do what you want at all in that power. It might give end and health to your targets.

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Haven't tested it myself, but looking at it in CoD, it looks like it'd heal [edit: and give end to] the target:

Numina: Grants effect to Self

Performance Shifter: Grants effect to Target

Panacea: Grants effect to Target. (Exception: In PvP it grants the regen bonus to Self.)

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that's just nihili for ya kruunch. for someone whos been here a relatively short time he's alittle too arrogant.

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To be entirely blunt, I think people who have missed out on a year or twos worth of content are guilty of the exact same thing. I personally don't care if someone is making their first post or ten thousandth, what matters to me is the content of that post.


On a different I've never seen anyone solo tank Romulus, but I think it's entirely possible. You'd need:

*) Soft capped defense to deal with most of the damage
*) Preferably strong def resistance to handle Romulus's debuffs
*) A periodic self heal (or strong enough regen) to handle the auto-hit Nictus (namely Siphon Life / Aid Self)

If you allow for inspiration use, then it'd be even easier if you're prepared. The whole discussion is fairly meaningless imo; the likelyhood of being on a TF with absolutely no support (no Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, VEATs, or team buffing power like Leadership/Grant Cover) is practically nil.

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Siphon Life *is* a great power (one of the best bang for your buck powers of any Tanker secondary imo). However as a stand alone damage power, its underwhelming. Will Power basically makes it a stand alone damage power (because the Heal portion in most cases becomes irrelevant), which is a big part of the reason I don't like WP/Dark. And Siphon Life may or may not help survive a large alpha ... changes are if your WP Tanker is taking that kind of damage, the extra 20% or so in boost in HPs won't help (talking large game content obviously).

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Your information is outdated, Siphon Life is an excellent attack now. It deals more raw damage than Smite, and has a higher DPA than Shadow Punch. (High offense builds with plenty of recharge ignore Shadow Punch in their chains. It's best to prioritize SL over SP even with lower amounts of recharge.)

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I have Tough and Weave on my L41 WP/Stone Tanker and in large groups he can still get alpha'd out of existence. It's not consistent enough for me to say that he's squishy but I definitely eye large packs of bosses a little more warily then my Inv Tanker does. This might change a bit with IOs (defense bonuses specifically) which he lacks.

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I don't think you're lying, but my experience is contrary to yours, with Fire as a secondary no less. Not sure how to explain the difference.

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Dark has a pretty decent flavor of AOEs so I will disagree there.

And Energy has the same amount of AOEs as Super Strength and no one is complaining about SS having problems holding agro so I'd disagree there as well (and Whirling Hands comes up faster (albeing has less of a radius) then Footstomp).

Holding agro is one of the few things that is really more player oriented then set oriented (although I will admit that WP primary offers the weakest of these tools past Taunt) in my opinion. The more active the Tanker, the better the agro retention. Which you apparently agree with in the "aggro" thread

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Dark's two AoEs have a >60s rech with SOs, and >30s with very aggressive recharge slotting (generally not done on WP builds). Aside from that it has is SM. While I love SM, it in no way can compete with aggro retention with high target limit AoEs.

Yes, I'd classify as SS as a little aggro handicapped until lvl38, and even past that getting some recharge to allow you to use FS more often.

Now, I will admit that my experience is a little tainted since I took full advantage of Fire's AoE prowess, so I didn't slot RttC with taunts. Management would be easier slotted in that way, but I couldn't spare the slots.

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Edit: For the record, I'm not saying WP/Dark is a bad combo. Conceptually I don't like it. In practice I've never played (or seen played) that combo before so it may turn out to be *very* fun to play. I'm definitely a huge fan of the non-stop go Tanker builds which this would definitely be.

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That's a fair statement.

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However I'm not a huge fan of one set mitigating the need for a power in the other (sort of anti-synergy there). Will Power would also mitigate a lot of the need of Siphon Life making it (for the most part) an underwhelming attack (but also making WP less alpha prone so you get the good with the bad here again).

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This is not true any more. Since the DM buffs in I13, Siphon Life is a great power - it deals roughly twice as much as it used to. (On a different note, since taking Tough/Weave I've never really been scared of alphas on my WP - it's an exaggerated weakness.)


As for set synergy, there are a lot of different ways to look at it. You think Ice/DM has no synergy because it renders EA redundant - that's true, but it also has SL which is a great heal to keep Ice healthy when HF and Hibernate aren't available. On a different vein, I'd say that WP/Dark and WP/Energy are counter productive at holding aggro due to their more limited AoEs

Just food for thought.

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but no secondary grants burst damage

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Shield Charge.

There are quite a few that improve melee defense. (Note: That link includes +s/l def sets, since they offer half their value as melee def.)

If you have MIDs, you can also use its built in set bonus finder: Window->Set Bonus Finder.

Stop farming birthdays!

I mean, happy age++ day!

There's no real way to maximize resistance via IOs - most of the bonuses are too pitiful to be significant; further most Tanker primaries don't have resistance values high enough to make +res bonuses worth your while. Going for +def is, in general, the best way to improve your survivability. (Some sets benefit more from it than others. Always remember to aim for the same defense type as the set provides - so positional (melee, range, aoe) for Shield, typed (smash/lethal/etc ) for Invuln/WP/Ice/etc.)

As for recharge, some sets that you can use for +rech:

Crushing Impact (melee) +5%
Obliteration (pbaoe) +5%
Doctored Wounds (heal) +5%
Decimation (ranged) +6.25%
Positron's Blast (ranged aoe) +6.25%
Stupefy (stun) + 6.25%
Mocking Beratement (taunt) +7.5%
Luck of the Gampler special (defense) +7.5%
Most purple sets +7.5%

That's just a start. If you're using MIDs, its set bonus finder is a big help (Window -> Set Bonus Finder).

Good luck!


[edit: Gah, you said damage, not recharge. Well... recharge is one of the best ways to increase damage dealt, so it's still valid, albeit not quite what you asked for.]

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edit: Deleted out rest. Unfortunately, the recovery bonuses section is a pain to read as it shows end/sec instead of the bonuses.

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To convert from end/sec to actual +recov percent, use this:

Recov = (eps * 60) / MaxEnd

So, if something gives 0.4583333 eps, then it would be:

Recov = (0.4583333 * 60) / 110
Recov = 27.499998 / 110
Recov = 0.249999
Recov = 25%


You may already know how to do this conversion, so apologies if I'm telling you what you already know. Btw, the computation for regen is similar:

Regen = (hps * 240) / MaxHP)

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The 4th option is that energy aura for scrappers and tankers can be different from the brute's version. Actually, fire melee gets a similar treatment. As mentioned before, this might make the brutes mad.

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Interesting how all 3 ATs with Fiery Melee have different sets. The Brute/Scrapper ones are the closest, but not the same.

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what's the difference besides the ordering?

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Greater Fire Sword's damage scalar is lower on a Scrapper than a Brute (2.28 vs 2.44).

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Some that I'm not positive on are Rectified Reticule (it WAS an "On Power Activation" enhancement before, now I'm not sure) and Force Feedback (I've heard it doesn't work while Exem/Maled period, regardless of level).

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The last time I checked that one, it operated like a set bonus.

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Oh btw, when you zone, it will double stack. So you can get up to two minutes of invisibility right after you enter a mission. (I used that tidbit a lot when I used to do solo speed runs for the Twilight Sun / Mender Lazarus TFs.)

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That's a bug...the double stacking is going to be fixed.

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Not surprising that it's considered a bug, I just never heard it officially stated that way. Still, I'll keep it in mind.

Oh btw, when you zone, it will double stack. So you can get up to two minutes of invisibility right after you enter a mission. (I used that tidbit a lot when I used to do solo speed runs for the Twilight Sun / Mender Lazarus TFs.)

Nothing you can do about it, but they seem to be dumb as nails; namely how they have a tendency to stay in combat mode just staring at you from 10ft away.

I did laugh when I saw the AV though.

I was just wondering, how are Architect Souvenirs handled? I know, there's a separate tab for them, but... they don't seem to want to stay. Every so often when I check that tab, I'll notice that a bunch of souvenirs that I previously earned have just disappeared. It doesn't go gradually either, they seem to vanish in stages. It's almost as if there's a weekly cleanup of AE Souvenirs or something.

I can understand why this might happen (arcs unpublished, character data bloat, etc), but I've never seen this documented anywhere, so I don't know if it's a bug or WAI.

Can any of you guys shed some light on my missing Souvenirs? (It's kind of funny, but I haven't cared about souvenirs for quite some time, but I'm now bummed when they vanish on me.)


[edit: Oh, right, HI2U Mr. Search. Nevermind! :P]

I'm terrible at goodbyes, and it doesn't really help that I only met you briefly at the PAX meet & greet. However, your dedication, presence, humor, and hard work on these boards will be greatly missed. Good luck in whatever future endeavors you pursue! Wherever you're leaving for is lucky to have you.