Siolfir

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In the end it was all about having some people on the team that knew what they were doing, could communicate the tactics needed, which order to take the AV's down, and players that were competant.

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Expecting competency sounds like you're wanting too much, if this thread is any indication.

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Sorry I missed this one. OP, you are right, it's broken. It's been broken since release, with no hope of it being fixed. What has happened is that a few players have been doing it so long, that the things that you call broken are now the only challenge of the thing.

At this point, I hope the only thing that they fix is the stupid Tech. Hell, I want to see the 54's come back. Maybe then it will get the merits that it deserves.

PS, is the Flier Still giving merits in the STF?

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Flier gives 2 merits

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And respawns, so a slower team will end up getting the extra merits more than once.

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Anonymity of leads poster to think they don't have to answer for breaking forum rules (often in the form of abuse).
A sudden deleted post reminds folks they're watching and they do notice.

If there is no threat of reprisal, why would anyone behave?

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Or they just don't care to repeat themselves, having posted it once already.

My personal recommendation is SR, for one reason. Recharge. Endurance will be the big issue for both, so I wouldn't put one set ahead of the other due to it.

With Shields, if you want to softcap it you're going to have to invest in +defense sets and generally will make tradeoffs that you may not like. With Super Reflexes, you have a tight build in that you're picking at pretty much your entire secondary (Elude is skippable IMO if you're softcapping anyway) but it allows for a wider range of options on offense since it's much easier to cap.

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Stalkers seem to work best on the strike, run and hide, strike tactics. It might seem strange on a team, but this really does work well. Assassin strike, take a couple of strikes, then run around the corner to get hide back, and return - repeat. Their Crit Inherent only works when they are hidden, and the Assassin Strike does best when hidden, so really - this tactic makes a lot sense.

[/ QUOTE ]Er, no, it doesn't, and in fact, never was only while hidden.

Pre-buffs, Stalkers had a 20% chance to crit out of hide against a held, slept, or stunned target. Post-buffs they now have a 15% chance to crit outside of hide, that increases with the number of teammates near you (I think 15 feet?)

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Close.

The base critical chance out of Hide for a Stalker is 10%, and it increases by 3% for each teammate within 30' of you to a maximum of 31% per attack. Unlike criticals from Hidden status, this percentage is not halved for AoE attacks.

And "hit and run" tactics are only effective while soloing as a Stalker; on a team you provide far more damage sticking around and fighting and playing hit and run has a good chance of getting you kicked and will likely get you one-starred and commented whether kicked or not. Yes, your attack chain doesn't develop until relatively late for most sets when compared to Scrappers and Brutes, but it's still better than AS...wait...AS...wait...

As for Thermal vs Rad; I'd want them both on the team actually, and in reality which one I'd rather have changes depending on which character I'm playing but if I only had one for a general case I'm leaning towards Rad. -20% damage substitutes for +resistance rather well, and Rad's debuffs are available each spawn and AoEs.

With that said, Rad just happens to have a heal; it's not going to keep people alive with it - that's what the debuffs are for. Thermal can keep someone alive much better if they're playing recklessly; the +resistance magnifies the effectiveness of the heals and Cauterize recharges quickly, allowing you to keep up with a good amount of incoming damage on a single target. If your teammates are playing intelligently, it's mostly just putting up the shields and blasting away though.

And if you're going after AVs, I'd rather have a Cold. Sleet + Heat Loss + Benumb while at or near the defense softcap makes for some fast and easy kills.

There's nothing like Fortitude as an all-in-one on a single target with those numbers, but World of Pain (in Pain Domination) is a PBAoE that provides +resistance, +tohit and +dam in smaller values and Forge (from Thermal) is a larger +tohit and +dam buff without any defense (or resistance) attached.

Clear Mind has similarities with Thaw and Enforced Morale, also from Thermal and Pain Domination (Enforced Morale is Clear Mind with a damage component if they're over 90% hp that knocks them down to 90%).

Adrenaline Boost has no equivalent at all; you can get the +regen and +recovery from Painbringer in Pain Domination, but it doesn't have the insane +recharge.

It sounds like Pain Domination wouldn't be a bad choice given the powers you're listed that you're looking for, but keep in mind that it's missing both RAs and you may not like the black/red appearance of the set.

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I just hope the Dev's are listening to this and taking notes for future changed because im basically re-rolling a "better" brute due to the fact that the IO sets stink and the dmg resistance isnt a good way to do things..making it more like willpower where you step into a group of baddies and getting a stack of +res buffs would HELP ALOT.

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I think, unfortunately, the problem with /ELA is that it's bad but not bad enough, not crippling bad, to get any dev attention to the problem. It's a mediocre secondary compared to the top ranked ones but it does "ok, maybe". Usually, changes don't come until something is broken. Unfortunately because I have an /ELA Brute I'd love to play more but the return is subpar.

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Personally, I think that the reason it'll see little or no attention is because with SOs only (how the devs said they balance things) it's a reasonably competitive set. It's still not at the top, but you can make a decent case that there are worse sets out there (even with IOs, I'd still take /ElA over /FA, and /EA or /Shields without IOs are fairly weak until you add pools, /ElA with Aid Self is as strong using just SOs).

I'd certainly like to see some form of buff layering the protection, but I don't forsee it happening anytime soon. For how the devs supposedly balance things it's a middle-of-the-pack performer with holes that are plugged more easily using power pools than some of the other sets; it's not until you start looking at IOs that the few advantages it offers (end drain and -recovery protection, unlimited endurance through draining, +recharge and some slow resistance) become trivial and the protection it has - being all resistance - starts to look bad compared to mixed defense/resistance sets which can focus on maximizing the resistance, or sets with a heal that they can cycle much faster without bottoming out their endurance.

tl;dr version: It's bad in the post-IO world relative to other sets, but not bad enough without IOs to get looked at IMO.

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No matter what you may hear around here, Portal Corp portals still drown out the noise, wake up the kids, and leave your senses with a nauseous buzz, and slaughtering what's on your map can take all the frustrations away.

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And there's still always room for jell-o!

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But you have to kill a few monsters first.

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Personally I like the double critical on Assassin's Strike over Midnight's Grasp, but whatever floats your boat...

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you're pretty much going to need -regen in order to solo a GM because without it you're just not going to overcome their incredible regen.

[/ QUOTE ]A few weeks ago Smurphy called me in to help him kill the Grandville Flier. I arrived to help just as the Flier landed at its second stop, and it was nearly dead before it lifted off again, because Smurphy was just about matching the Flier's regen on his Brute, and adding a second damage source knocked it down fast.

If the Flier didn't have such a small window to fight it, and if it stayed in one place, I'd guess Smurphy would've been able to solo it on that character, since he would've been able to take his time and he would've been allowed to keep his Fury.

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Yes, there are some extreme DPS builds that can counteract/overcome a GM's regen without debuffing it.

They're far less common than builds that can solo AVs, though. Much easier to just get a high DPS Corruptor.

It can work, yes. All of my Kinetic Corruptors and Defenders (there are 5 total) use Combat Jumping for immobilize protection and Siphon Speed and/or Inertial Reduction for travel.

You may have to put up with bunnyhopping with Hurdle and Combat Jumping until you find something that won't slaughter you, depending on where you end up needing to Siphon (usually only a problem when lk'd up and in a zone that's much higher than your level), but generally it's not hard to find something to hit and the speed it gives you means they don't shoot back more than once.

Yeah, the "zerg rush" with concentrated firepower can work as a desperation tactic. As long as you can take out one in the time it takes for them to kill you, it gets easier each time.

But really, with 4 Shivans, vengeance, and a /Kin... Numina should've been cake. Fulcrum Shift + Shivans = players are just mop-up, you just need to stay alive long enough for your Shivans to kill them.

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The debt badge for High Pain Threshold. You are being rewarded for sucking. Plus it's even harder to get with patrol XP thrown in.

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No, patrol xp makes it much, much easier.

If you die while you have patrol xp, the amount of debt you get comes out of your patrol xp first and this counts as debt worked off towards the badges. Like I said earlier, around 30 minutes in the low 40s with over 1.2 million patrol xp.

Plus, when actually trying to gain experience, patrol xp works off at triple the rate of debt. For example, if you have 200 patrol experience and gain what would normally be 100 xp, you get 150 xp and 150 patrol xp is worked off. If you had 200 debt and gained what would be 100 xp, you get 50xp and 50 debt is worked off; for the same base experience gain patrol xp goes away 3x faster than debt, so having it cancel debt 1:1 is in your benefit when working getting the badges.

The badge I have issues with is the 10m damage badge. I've never come close to it through "normal play" and it typically involves leaving my computer on for a couple of days while my character is resting in front of a mob. Both it and Deathless reward characters for poor play, but at least I can get one in a relatively short period of time now with patrol xp.

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http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics

ok lets focus on the main formula

Say we are in PvE, and i have def to all at 45% (soft cap) or i attack a critter with 45% def mod to all (just a scenario, lets keep it simple, no def debuff in play)

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )


here some values :
Defmod being 45%
base to hit : 75%
to hit mod 7%
acc of 1 specific power 1.44 (dont care wich)

apply the formula
75+7 - 45 = 37 , the result is between 5 and 95, so the clamp result stay at 37

apply the accmods
1.44*37 = 53.28, still between 5 and 95

so from this scenario there is 53.28% chance to land a hit agains soft capped def ????!!!!!!

I miss something fo sure, and it's why im posting! If you know the answer, plz help me.

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If you read the whole page that you linked to, you'd see where your mistake was.

Mobs at your level and up to 5 levels above you have a base of 50% chance to hit you. Players in PvP also have a base of 50% chance to hit.

The "softcap" comes from the ability to reduce the number to 5% (the low end of the clamp) prior to the application of the Accuracy modifiers; for mobs that have a tohit bonus it'll be higher than 45% since you need to overcome the amount of the bonus, and in the presence of defense debuffs it must remain at or above 45% after the debuff is applied to be considered "softcapped" as well - this generally means you need to go over 45% but the amount you need to go over is determined by the defense debuff resistance your character has.

Accuracy modifiers are also handled differently for players and mobs; on players you add enhancements and global accuracy modifiers, then multiple that by the base accuracy of the power, but on mobs you multiply all of the modifiers (level, rank, base for the power) together.

Everything's on the page. The second paragraph under the BaseHitChance header explains the 50% tohit, and the charts at the bottom of the page show all the modifiers.

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Did it change? I thought it was 100. At least I remember it being 100 when I was last trying to bother holding AVs.

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I don't know that it's ever changed, but the mag protection was clearly listed in the screenshot.

It was in the "Why do Dominators suck" thread if I remember correctly - given a recent forum purge I'm almost positive it's gone now, but it may be there.

Not sure why this is in the Brute section, but you can break PToD with a single perma-Dom; it's mag50 protection (53.5 mag needed to hold) and not 100.

Someone (not me) had a screenshot showing the Surveillance/Power Analyzer reading for a perma-held Rommie - there was 54 mag stacked in Char, and while there were other people with holds on the team they were the only one on the team who could've had the power at all (no Blasters, Tankers, or Controllers).

At that point, you're pretty much doing nothing but throwing holds, though - that's 9 stacked Domination-boosted Holds for every 35ish seconds.

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Ahh, Brings back memories.

I was so determined to get the +HP accolades on my Stalker, (this was well before the buff that occoured aroun I12), and to do it while they would still be helpfull in leveling him up, I farmed Dept for 'High Pain Threshold'. At level 32. For 8 hours. Killing longbow Wardens in Sierns Call.

They called me mad, Mad! Mwah ha ha ha!

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Level 28 for Hit Pain Threshold on my EM/Elec Brute - had Force of Nature at level 26, and Invader and Demonic at level 5; got the Stolen Immobilizer at 21, Born in Battle at 30, Megalomaniac at 40, and Marshall at 45. A lot of time wasted.

This was before they changed the Accolades to be available at any level instead of only at the level you got them or above, so I was trying to get them all early. Now I just don't care and wait until the low 40s, over 1.2 million patrol xp, and just spend about 30 minutes suiciding for Deathless. Damage farming starts up as temp powers I want to keep from mayhems wear off.

As for Geas seeming grindy compared to Force of Nature... I got it without even trying on my Warshade. Just run through the Croatoa arcs on a full team to get the "defeat 333" badges, and then it's just 2 GM kills, Sally, and a KHTF.

The one that seems grindy to me is Archmage; Demonic is much easier.

re: Combat Jumping + Hurdle vs Swift + Hover:
I tend to go with CJ+Hurdle for the immobilize protection and fast positioning for melee. I have one character that has Swift+Hover (my Dark/Cold Corruptor), and she uses Teleport for a travel power so immobilizes aren't an issue.

Hover is nice after the buff IMO but you can stay out of melee range just as easily while travelling much faster with Combat Jumping. I'm just glad that I don't have to use Teleport in missions just to keep up with everyone else anymore.

Sort of on-topic:
Good luck with both builds and I definately think you'll enjoy your Elec/Nin; mine is level 45 atm and is lots of fun to play.

Solo: Reasonably well (all Brutes solo reasonably well), but you'll hate a lot of the end-game: no end drain protection, no psi resistance, and no AoE spawn control to keep mobs from using attacks that do either or both. The -tohit helps against one mob and you can use Touch of Fear to stack -tohit or for another mob, but that's not a hard control and if you're running Blazing Aura the mob will still attack a few times.

Team: As always, depends on team makeup; buffs can make Defenders into some of the best Tankers, and you've got more hit points and higher caps. A fully-buffed Brute has the survivability of a Tanker and better damage than a Scrapper.

Farm: DM has few AoEs and most are on long recharges. This hurts farming. Fiery Aura provides some AoE potential with Blazing Aura and Burn, but you need to keep things in the Burn patch (Patron immob) for it to be worthwhile.

In short, it will work but may frustrate you. You may find yourself needing inspirations in situations that other Brutes don't need them. On the other hand, if you don't want to simply waltz through all of the content and want some things to make you think beyond "run forward, spam attacks" the holes that it has are things that can be dealt with through "stragedy".

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Thanks for all the answers.

I was wondering if, after the last changes to kheldians, the nova was still better at damage than the dwarf form...
The dwarf can double stack the mires and deals a lot of damage and is still far tougher than the nova.

Has anyone tried to use the dwarf form for damage instead of the nova?

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I usually end up in dwarf form to do damage instead of Nova, but that's more due to prevalence of mezzes than anything else.

It's not exactly lacking in damage, but I never really did any comparison.

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AOE knockback powers fling targets in all directions.

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This one isn't really a myth. If they're used intelligently, they don't fling enemies all over the place. If they're not used intelligently, they absolutely DO spread targets all over.

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The myth isn't that knockback can cause a ton of chaos, it's that a targeted AoE knockback will send everyone away from the point of impact. What actually happens with every single knockback power is that the enemies will be sent directly away from the caster.

EDIT: I noticed someone asked about stealth's defense suppressing when you attack. It partially suppresses, the defense drops to about half. I run stealth constantly on my SR scrapper who has his defenses monitored constantly, and my stealth drops from 3.75 to 1.38 when I attack.

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It should drop to 1.88 (actually 1.875, but the game only shows 2 decimal places) for a Scrapper, not 1.38.

While suppressed, the defense in Stealth is identical to the defense scalar used in Hover and Combat Jumping (the exact defense % of which will vary by AT modifier). This is also true for Hide, Superior Invisibility, Mask Presence (which goes from 7.5% to 2.5%), and the Blaster version of Cloaking Device; the Bane Spider version of Cloaking Device provides more unsuppressed defense (3.75% vs 2.5% for Combat Jumping) but still is cut in half.

Invisibility, Grant Invisibility and Group Invisibility only suppress stealth radius and the defense value is constant.

This threadjack has been sponsored by the letters R and X, and the number 6.

Sorry guys; just wasn't feeling up to it tonight and took off before I became irritated (and irritating).

Go ahead and scratch me from subsequent weeks also; I may show up as a last-minute thing but I'm not promising anything due to how my mood's been lately.

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Also, Taunt (including the Taunt from punchvoking things) generates so much Threat, that your Threat Level is only really relevant if there's someone else Taunting the enemies. If you're the only one doing it, the Taunts will still hold aggro regardless.

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Mostly true, but not quite - about a week ago I pulled aggro off of a (level 50) Fire/? Tanker who was running Blazing Aura with my (sk'd to 49) Fire/Fire blaster. I waited for several seconds so that they were all grouped (hey, it made sense; I'm throwing 4 AoEs in a row), so it wasn't an issue of the mobs just not having aggro set before I hit them.

If you're doing significantly more damage than the Tanker, you'll still get the mobs' attention.

a. I enjoy Electric Melee, although a Stalker is the only AT I can recommend Energy Melee for anymore. If you want more single target (which shouldn't be an issue on a Stalker) go with Energy or Dark Melee. Dark is actually better than Energy.

b. Energy Aura Stalkers can skip Stamina; I just like the Fitness pool anyway for QoL. It's a fairly loose secondary for essentials, but Overload is mostly wasted because of the hp cap.

c. Ninjitsu is fun, plus has a loose build for essentials. Softcapping it requires a healthy IO investment, but no more so than Energy Aura.