Shred_Monkey

Regen is good enough to solo... and teamed it really shines with some buffs.

MA is very solid after the changes last year and more fun to play with the faster animations. I didn't realize until recently how much that actually means to me. I started playing some other ATs (forgive me, but a well built blasters can kick [censored], too). For some reason once animations start getting up around 2 seconds or more I like my toon much less. MA has a lot of fast animations now.

If I were starting over from scratch ignoring my previous toons... an MA/Shield scrapper would be high on my list of things I'd want to build.

I'm actually in agreement with the OP somewhat. Relative to the competition, this game doesn't take very long to get to the endgame and the endgame content is not very developed.

Where the OP and I differ is that I LIKE that about CoH. 5-6 years ago I used to have a schedule where I could game for 50-60 hours a week. If I was still doing that, I wouldn't be playing this game. Now i'm playing about 10 hours a week, and yet CoH allows me to still play at the highest possible level of the game.

I've been playing blasters more then scrappers lately.. although other then the fact that I can be more then 7ft away from my targets now, you wouldn't know the difference from my playstyle.

An ITF with all scrappers could be rather interesting.. especially if they're high-end scrappers... you can essentually split up and chase mission objectives solo (or duo-ing).

I was in a Villain group for a while that communicated thier rules/rewards system by email. That was very productive and useful.

It also consists of the 1 and only email I've ever recieved or sent that wasn't spam.

This thread implies something that is fairly obvious. Email can be done away with without affecting a lot of people's game. However, I really see no reason to remove a feature from the game that's already coded. But adding a simple option to turn off emails would give many people what they want. Even better would be an option for filters that allow email from friends and SG members.

[ QUOTE ]
I still think they should move the AE building from atlas to the top of the Storm Palace. ... what?

[/ QUOTE ]

I do think they should drop the AE building from AP. Its just way too likely that a new player can accidently hit level 20 on his first play session and be both bored and spoiled to the game at the same time. I know the farms would just move to Steel Canyon... which is fine... a new player would have to at least gain enough knowledge to get himself to and through that zone before he got spoiled by the farm system... veteran players would get there just fine with thier new toons if they wanted.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
lol ok!

Well, it's looking like Sonic/Dark would be very strong to me, stacking those -Resists with Tar Patch. What's your opinion on this?

Mid's is not letting me slot Cloud Senses IOs in Darkest Night and Dark Servant but it WILL let ne slot them on my /Dark MM. Is this a bug? Or is it accurate? If it's a bug how can I fix it please.

Fluffy also appears to be permanent right out of the box? It shows a duration of 240 seconds and a recharge of 240 second? That can't be right can it?

Other than that the build is still to unpolished yet. I just began serious work on it. I'll post it if it seems to be panning out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Go Sonic/Rad

[/ QUOTE ]

That is the "solo absolutely everything" option... i think you're right... he'd enjoy it.

The downtime after a nuke makes you lose damage... unless it's the last spawn of the mission, I don't really see much point in a nuke at all.... I find nukes are not worth spending a power choice on.

While it's not really hurting my fondess of the game... I tend to agree with the OP. This patch doesn't deserve being called an issue. It's just a patch.. Did they even bother to give it a name?

Atomic Lemurs seem like blasters to me... *shrug*

In all seriousness... I really think mid's is an important enough part of this game that CoH should basically take his idea and build an Official offline charictor builder.


They could do things that Mid cannot.. for example, they can use real the real data instead of datamined data. They could allow you to import the build during a respec.... or export a build.

Lots of good stuff.

My current toon is a blaster, so I've done quite a bit of blaster attack chain math...

Here's a quick tip. BLAZE... <do some other stuff> ... BLAZE... <do some other stuff>... BLAZE...

Given a reasonably amount or recharge that's generally going beat any attack chain in the entire game that doesn't have BLAZE.

[ QUOTE ]
The new forums will be great! But starting our post count at ZERO may not be so great for those who have done thousands of posts over the years.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quick... someone design a thread where we can farm post counts.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
/hidesearch really cut down the amount of spam I get, I get 2-3 pieces on a character now and then.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hiding from the search menu really does help, to an extent.
I've noticed that characters that I've put down as hiding from search (as soon as they are created) don't get added to the spammers' "mailing lists".
Once they start getting spammed, it's too late.
YMMV.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is an effective method to avoid/reduce the e-mail spam. My only problem with this little work-around is that it also eliminates another aspect to getting on teams. (Note: I'm not saying its impossible to find teams doing this, I'm saying its subtracts from a player's tools one means to getting on teams)

[/ QUOTE ]

This is my first thought also... but in reality, I probably get sent a tell about joining a team from the team search feature about once a month.. and only 1/2 of those are at times I can actually join. So not much loss there... similarly... I never get any real email at all.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm annoyed that stalkers got a better version of the scrapper inherent.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never been jealous of a stalker.

[ QUOTE ]
Critical Hit

[ QUOTE ]
The Scrapper is a fierce melee combatant. In hand to hand, no other hero can compare. All Scrapper melee attacks have a chance to land a Critical Hit for up to double damage. The higher the rank of the target, the greater the chance for a successful Critical Hit.

The standard chance of a Critical Hit is 5% against players, pets, and critters of Minion rank and below, and 10% against critters above Minion.


[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

In addition:
There are a few attacks that have a greater chance to critical. I'd have to hunt around to see which ones they are, but off the top of my head I think the list is: headsplitter, evicerate, sweeping strikes, golden dragonfly, and eagles claw. These all have 15% critical chance to all targets.

Generally, a critical hit means the attack hits for double damage. That double damage is double the actual damage done meaning it's affected by enhancements and damage buffs the same as the regular damage.

The exception to that rule are the "ticks" of Damage over time (DoTs) from fire and spines. Those extra ticks are generally not doubled when you critical. Incinerate and Midnight Grasp, however are DoTs that do have thier full damage applied to the critical hit damage.

Also... procs are not doubled when you critical, nor do they have an extra chance of activating.

I pull the taunt off tanks all the time... usually that's a good thing, since they tend to be more squishy. *blink*blink*

But yes... agaist all odds plus scrapper damage makes for a good reliable agro magnet.

[ QUOTE ]
Make an ill/storm extreme custom AV. That's probably the hardest combo I can think of

[/ QUOTE ]

I've seen an archery/willpower av in a mission... archery was nothing to worry about.. but /willpower had enough regen that I couldn't move their green bar at all.

Superstrength is a very difficult primary for the typical scrapper build because of the +tohit from rage.

I'm not sure I've seen an illusion/storm... if someone has one, post the arc #.

Didn't read the whole thread... but I noticed this cone warp thing starting to happen as a result of the "fix" they put in place around I14 release timing to solve the problem where cones couldn't hit targets that moved out of range between when they were activated and when the attack did damage. That problem caused attacks like sweeping strikes and head splitter to "miss" running targets very frequently... even if it was a level 1 in atlas park.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Looks like Bobcat is vulnerable to negative as well. So yeah, maybe Bobcat or Shadowhunter on Sergei. Shouldn't be too hard to throw together a build for him.

[/ QUOTE ]
Oh, that's right. Shadowhunter has defense debuffs and defense. I can handle it on my normal build because I have a lot of to hit and because Divine Avalanche recharges much faster. But I spent most of the fairly short fight heavily debuffed and getting hit repeatedly. The good news is that he doesn't hit very hard. The bad news was that I couldn't keep up with it forever. After maybe five minutes, I just had nothing left.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it's rather interesting that even the "easiest" AVs are stoppers for us without IOs (thus far). I'm certain other ATs can solo AVs with only SOs, but so far, my list of requirements for soloing an AV earlier in this thread when applied to scrappers fighting today is holding up to scruitiny.

I looked at a build for Shred Monkey myself this morning thinking with BF>attack vitals, and /SR I should be able to come up with both damage and survivability to win... but after running the numbers through my spreadsheets, I think I'd lose too much damage and endurance efficiency from lack of IOs to succeed. Maybe if I allow HOs and/or insperations.

[ QUOTE ]
So I guess the next best bet is a low damage lethal AV so that I can focus on attacking instead of staying alive. Ideas?


[/ QUOTE ]

Use Sergei vs Shadowhunter and immobalize him at range. Werner might be ok vs shadowhunter, too since he's mostly melee, but sergei gets 20% damage bonus vs him from dark attacks.

It's tempting for me to think of soloing AV's as easy and expect anyone to be able to do it. But then I stop and think about what all it really takes to get there.

1. You have to believe it's possible.
2. You have to understand attack chains. Maybe not to the extent that some of us understand them, but you need to be able to calculate the recharge in your attacks, or find someone to do it for you.
3. You have to understand IOs. This isn't terribly complicated, but if you try to explain them to a new player, you realize that it's not terribly simple either.
4. You need to use a hero designer, and use it well... mid's is the obvious choice.
5. You need to know what to build for (generally, defense and recharge).
6. You know to know how to achieve high levels of those things in your build.
7. You need to play your toon up to level 50.
8. You need to know how to make money on the market.
(7 and 8 are probably the biggest stoppers for the average person... at my play rate starting from 0 that takes 4-5 months dedicated to 1 toon to get from 0 to 50 with cash to purple him out).
9. You have to have the patience to fight 1 battle for at least 5 minutes... 12-15 minutes is common, and 45 minutes is not unheard of... (and Werner actually took a few hours on one.. which is probably grounds for being institutionalized).

It's not uncommon for me to spend more time outside of the game working on builds and attack chains and plans on a given week then I spend actually playing the game. I'd imagine a lot of AV solo'ers have weeks like that as well. That's probably not very appealing to most people.

All that said, I do think the general population now is getting past step 1. I rarely run into people who tell me they think it's impossible to solo an AV... it's much more common for people to say "Hey... you're Shred Monkey!"

I think there's enough examples of mis-labeling in the game to demonstrate that the label is just a text field that may or may not reflect the NPC's actual status.

GM's are the guys who sets your damage to match thier level (or thier level -1) depending on if you're above or below them.

That also means that while the 360 hp/s number is completely false unless the GM is level 50. However, since both your damage and their regen scale with thier level... it's a relatively reasonable number if your calculating what your level 50 damage would need to be to solo a GM.

I've looked at this a lot. There's no AT that can solo a level 50 GM without -regen. It might be possible that they didn't quite evently scale down your damage at a certain level and you can out damage a GM at a lower level, but my attempts to find a GM that fits this catagory have led me to believe that scenario also does not exist.

Responding to the OP, I do believe there are sets besides /rad and /traps that can solo GMs. However, I can't say I've seen anyone else demonstrate success.... yet.

[ QUOTE ]
exactly how defense works

(Read until your eyes bleed and your brain turns to pudding, take a break, then read some more. )

[/ QUOTE ]

*chuckled to myself * yep... that is what he asked for. (I didn't have to click on the link to know what that was, btw)

If there were a least popular primary among forum readers, one of us would decide it's time to change that fact and design some freak of nature build to do something previously thought impossible with it ...and post a video.

speaking of which... who's got dibs on spines?