Siolfir

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I've actually got a more concrete method, but I'm a bit busy atm. I'll post it when I get 30 minutes to go over it.

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Yes, please.

My methodology in actual play consists of "what's the best DPA attack that's recharged?" followed immediately by "do I have one that's a lot better that will be ready while the other one is animating?" and roll with that. I'll also mess with the chain all the time based on mob resistance (if I have split damage types), slows on my character, various debuffs, and survivability concerns (for example, if I have 15+ EBs attacking me on an ITF I'm not going to stand there and worry about my chain on the General, I'm going to shuffle around to mess with the stupid mob AI - that mobility is why my WP Brute survives as much or more than my Granite Brute).

I really don't bother with attack chains for anything other than these exercises because enough variables get thrown into the mix during actual play that I don't keep track of them - there's simply no point.

For Defenders (who have the same mez AT modifiers as Dominators) Dark Pit is a nice little stun to keep minions off of you and/or break a spawn's alpha strike, and with some decent recharge can be made perma.

If you have an otherwise tight build, I don't know that I'd bother with it as long as you have better ways to deal with things, but my Kin/Dark Defender took it based on the idea that it'll give me plenty of time to get a Fulcrum Shift off and get back to cone range. As she's still only level 24, I mostly just toss it into a spawn at random intervals after they're grouped up around whoever's tanking.

But I do agree that you can get away without Darkest Night; it's still a very nice power to have, though. I don't worry too much about toggle anchors dying since I find they frequently run off after several misses in a row and I have to turn it off anyway or risk them bringing back multiple spawns.

But the 3+ second animation time feel like a waste most of the time if you're on a team, especially since your anchor likely dies as soon as it finishes, and while I don't have a high level /Dark I tend to not use the long-animation toggles (RI) in favor of shorter animation debuffs (EF) in those situations on my Rad Corruptors.

i15 won't be Going Rogue, though - that was an "oops" by marketing (accidental or deliberate, you decide) where it was announced too early. The soonest would be i16, maybe i17.

And I agree with much of the sentiment, but many of the people I enjoy teaming with are still here so I'll toss in my 50 cents a day and leave everything month-to-month. Once there's nobody around but the pricks who insist on complaining about "not playing the One True Way" I'm gone - if I wanted to solo I'd use my Playstation more often.

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I put significant slots into my "defenses," that is, PFF is triple slotted, Hover is triple slotted (for manueverablity).

I'll rebuild as suggested and see if it makes a difference, but I'm not optimistic.

Tomorrow, though. My eyes feel like pebbles, darn allergies...

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Ew... no need to add slots to PFF for defense, it's above the soft-cap without any enhancements.

As for maneuverability... that's why I like Combat Jumping. It's faster and has immobilize protection with the same defense.

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Re: Gloom

It ranks very high in the DPA for Brute attacks, just behind Incinerate. Most of the "heavy hitting" attacks (Seismic Smash, Clobber, Energy Transfer, Knockout Blow) have a higher DPA, but it is better than most of the attacks available to Brutes.


Re: Dual Blades

I have no idea where you got the 1.92 from unless you're including the Attack Vitals DoT for Sweeping Strike. City of Data says it's 1.70. But Blinding Feint, then the Attack Vitals combo (Ablative, Vengeful, Sweeping) is a decent DPS chain that doesn't require a great deal of recharge. I'm not sure it's optimal, but when I was running a Stone Melee vs Dual Blades comparison in another thread it was the better of the two DB chains posted (although still lower than Stone Melee).

In the spirit of Billz' "trying to help", here's a level 1-12 build for a FF/Energy Defender. I won't even make you use Mid's, so people can pick it apart in the thread!

Level 1 - Personal Force Field, Power Bolt
Level 2 - Power Blast
Level 3 - +1 slot to Power Bolt, +1 slot to Power Blast
Level 4 - Energy Torrent
Level 5 - +1 slot to Energy Torrent, +1 slot to Power Bolt
Level 6 - Swift/Hurdle
Level 7 - +1 slot to Energy Torrent, +1 slot to Power Blast
Level 8 - Hover/Combat Jumping
Level 9 - +1 slot to Power Bolt, +1 slot to Power Blast
Level 10 - Power Burst
Level 11 - +2 slots to Power Burst
Level 12 - Dispersion Bubble

So now it looks like this, assuming DO slotting since you're level 12:

Personal Force Field (1 - Def)
Power Bolt (1 - Acc) (3 - Acc) (5 - Dam) (9 - Dam)
Power Blast (2 - Acc) (3 - Acc) (7 - Dam) (9 - Dam)
Energy Torrent (4 - Acc) (5 - Acc) (7 - Dam)
Swift/Hurdle (6 - Run/Jump)
Hover/Combat Jumping (8 - Def)
Power Burst (10 - Acc) (11 - Acc) (11 - Dam)
Dispersion Bubble (12 - EndRed)

This leaves you with plenty of attacks to deal with a solo spawn, plus you're still set up for a travel power at 14 if you want it and can still get Stamina at 20 and one of your teammate shields at either 16 or 18.

Generic tactics:<ul type="square">[*]Energy Torrent is used against multiple minions to keep them off their feet and performs better than Force Bolt as it's an AoE and does nearly 5x the damage for only slightly over twice the endurance.[*]Personal Force Field is the "I'm getting hit too much" toggle for if you need a break[*]The 3 single-target attacks are slotted to hit, and slotted for higher damage so it that there is less time to defeat each mob to reduce incoming attacks.[*]Swift + Hover can be used to keep out of melee range entirely, my personal preference is Hurdle + Combat Jumping for the fast maneuverability.[*]Allowing mobs that have guns for their ranged attack to enter melee range makes for prime kiting, because they'll run to follow you after they put the gun away instead of pulling it back out to shoot (AI is dumb).[*]Dispersion Bubble is mostly a waste of endurance at this point unless facing mobs that mez; it's included for mez protection.[*]The single target attack chance for knockback/down can be used while cycling targets to reduce incoming attacks, especially in combination with Energy Torrent.[/list]
If you still have trouble soloing at level 12 with this... uhm, I'm just not going to finish that. I can't see how, especially if you follow the little "tactic" tips.

Yes it'd be nice if Negligence applied to your own hit points as well, but you really shouldn't need it to complete a solo mission in under 30 minutes.

So, you only have 2 slots in your two attacks, both accuracy, but your level 12 has trouble dealing damage? And yet you didn't make "a team build"?

What the heck did you do, 6-slot sprint?

Yes, Widows get better as they level - they're easier to softcap on defense than SR is, and while they have fewer hit points than Scrappers initially they have higher scaling resistance values (they start at higher health).

The only things you ever have to worry about is enough recharge to get Mind Link perma (not difficult for the Night Widow path, more of a pain for Fortunatas but they have mezzes) and cascade defense failures.

We didn't get to the third arc listed (The Fracturing Of Time) but I had a good time in any case, and we got to beat up Libbie!

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If we're talking D&amp;D, there was never a "race as class" functionality. There was always a class you had to choose and the only race that I recall specifically only having a single class to pick from was Dwarves (who got Fighter). Halflings could go as either Thieves or Fighters. Elves and Half-Elves both got access to Magic-User, Thief, and Fighter. Human was the only race that got access to all of the classes (Fighter, Thief, Magic-User, and Cleric).

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You're talking AD&amp;D, they're talking D&amp;D. Y'know, older school.

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Oh, this is D&amp;D. I know this for a fact. Pamphlets and everything.

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D&amp;D Basic (and the D&amp;D Rules Cyclopedia) has no classes for the various races. So the statement that "there never was a race as class" is incorrect. But it wasn't the "original"; it was a version that was simplified, so it's equally incorrect to say it's "older school".

The original later became AD&amp;D when TSR made the basic edition rules that simplified things.

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Don't forget these two gems:

"It's all a Nemesis plot." and...

"Not everything is a Nemesis plot."

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And "Mission Architect Tip: If it's not already a Nemesis plot, you can make it one with the Mission Architect!"

If you're worried about Blizzard not dealing enough damage, don't.

Sleet + Ice Storm + Blizzard = dead spawn, procs or no.

Blizzard is the highest damage-per-click power available to players, and the Corruptor version explicitly since it checks for Scourge every 0.2 seconds while having the same base damage without Scourge as the Blaster (and Defender) versions.

Tack on a blue inspiration and Heat Loss and it just gets silly.

A deleted thread because apparently it's wrong to complain when a character gets deleted and you didn't do anything wrong.

Long story short, level-pacted characters have been deleted and accounts banned due to "levelling too fast" when they were offline and the partner in the pact levelled up. The characters never entered MA but were flagged by their "MA exploit" clause; thus causing the worst case scenario that everybody said wasn't going to happen because "they'll only go after the most egregious MA exploiters" to come to fruition when they hit people who never stepped foot into an architect building and obviously couldn't have exploited anything in the MA.

The "Follow Up: Abusing Mission Architect" thread that was locked explains it in a bit more detail, with the typical "you know you were wrong, you ebil exploiter" suckup posts that apparently don't bother to actually read what people are complaining about.

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the difference between Brutes and Scrappers is minor - as was stated earlier in the thread, if you have enough survivability already and deal similar damage who cares that the guy over there has 100 more hp than you?

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It's actually a difference of 160.7 if both are at their base values and 803.2 at their caps. The big issue with this is that, because Brutes have more hit points, they've also got larger self heals and greater regeneration, plus a longer reaction time. It's a difference of 12% at it's smallest, which isn't to be ignored in the slightest. That's a pretty big increase in survivability.

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The difference in base performance (remember, IOs/Accolades aren't accounted for in balance, so you're using base hp values) is less than the disparity between differing powersets within the same AT, and some Scrapper builds are far more survivable than some Brute builds.

Minor issue at best.

More specifically, rain-type powers summon a pet that has the damage as an autopower.

Procs in autopowers (or toggles) check once every 10 seconds.

Personally I think if any AT needs to worry about Brutes it would be Tankers. Yes, Brutes aren't as survivable but they can hold aggro, do more damage after the first hit or two (I think you need 10 Fury for a fully slotted Tanker? It's been a while since I did the math), and get an attack chain sooner so feel more active. That said, if you just simply don't want to have to worry about survivability, you'd still want a Tanker - Brutes have to work harder at staying alive and generally can't walk afk with the aggro cap on them.

And in terms of a game, fun trumps minor balance issues for character selection. If you prefer Scrappers, you'll still play them. You're not magically going to prefer Brutes. Major balance issues still should be addressed, but the difference between Brutes and Scrappers is minor - as was stated earlier in the thread, if you have enough survivability already and deal similar damage who cares that the guy over there has 100 more hp than you?

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and because of this, AH procs are super hard to buy now... at least on Virtue.

So lethal damage is now balanced by "proc"? How about tuning down some of super high lethal resistance to make it fair? Wouldn't that be easier than hoping every player is rich or lucky enough to put some AH procs?

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I said it was balanced with psi in that regard. You'll note that while psi is resisted by fewer mobs, the amount it is resisted by on those mobs places it as more resisted than smashing overall. Psi also doesn't have the same -resistance proc availability that most lethal sets do.

As for the availability of those procs... I've never had trouble getting them when I was trying, and I currently have 5 already built in base storage. I think you're not trying very hard if you feel as though they're some super-rare that you can't count on getting if you wanted to. May I suggest leaving a bid up for more than 10 seconds at a time?

Edit: yes, the resistances could be looked at across the board, but I never tried to address that in my previous post. I was simply saying that lethal sets have workarounds to deal with what they encounter that other sets won't necessarily have.

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Breaking your quotation parade.

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It's hopeless.

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Trying to tell me that a group would rather take two or three smashers to remove more resistances is the ideal scenario you'd prefer to envision because it removes the heavy stacking element that this game tends to thrive on (read: stacking turns you into gods -- why would you NOT do it?).

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Oh... you actually thing this thing would stack? I think i said it several times alredy, it would not. It SETS the resist cap to a specific level for a period of time. Stacking does not lower it further, it may just keep it there but not lower it further.

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I get the issue that the breaker itself won't stack, but doesn't affecting the resistance cap also affect the amount that -resistance powers are going to affect the mob?

For instance, instead of only getting -15% from Sleet against a 50% resistant mob, you'd get the full -30% because the capped resistance that it's using to resist the debuff with is 0.

After addressing that or showing why that isn't a concern, I wouldn't see a problem putting it (as a balance issue) on Tankers - although thematically I think it fits better on Scrappers and Stalkers. It would provide an additional avenue that they're helping the team instead of just a relatively small amount of damage and saying "hey, look at me!" I don't think that putting it on a high DPS AT would really be needed, since they already have a means of counteracting high resistance simply by hitting harder.

As for lethal vs psi... many lethal sets have -defense associated and can slot Achilles' Heel procs. I'd personally say that lethal has less of a problem despite the resistance being more widespread. The only reason psi seemed desirable was PvP when most sets had no way of dealing with it.

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Ideal conditions and maximum potentials don't, and shouldn't, inform the balance between ATs.

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Meanwhile, since we're all up in arms about AT balance, let's remember the fact that we've got lots of Scrappers with enough survivability to fight multiple AVs, and enough damage to defeat them all. Tankers? Stalkers?

*tumbleweeds*

Not doing that, as far as I know.

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You're contradicting yourself. If maximum potentials don't, and shouldn't, inform the balance between AT's, then you shouldn't be trying to say anything about Scrappers, and the fact that they can Solo AV's where Tankers and Stalkers can't (or haven't been known to nearly as much, anyway).

So, yeah.

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Generally speaking, most Stalker powerset combinations can solo AVs (some AVs easier than others based on resistances). Some powerset combinations (*cough*EM*cough*) did it rather easily before the Stalker buff.

It's certainly riskier for them, but it's not that they can't. They just don't post about it much - they're sneaky that way.

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I never been too comfortable with it in PvP but I've seen Elec/Kins do rather well in a pvp environment.

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I just hit 50 on my elec/kin &amp; I love it. It is a sapping machine!
I went with Mu mastery for Power Sink. I here that /thermal is better for sapping, I dont see how it could be though. In any case I so enjoy the siphon speed &amp; siphon power buff/debuffs. The one down side is it takes a while to kill but, its worth it to me to watch that /regen scrapper that everybody &amp; there brother rolls on blue side run for there base or start poppin blue inspies like Tic Tacs....

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People like Thermal due to the relatively long-duration (40s) "no end for j00" of Heat Exhaustion.

IMO Kinetics is better for draining their end, but Thermal is better for keeping them out of end - which is the real goal.

One thing about direct scalar comparisons in relation to Stalkers vs Scrappers is that they start out doing less solo with less survivability, and on a team they have reduced AoE capability since one AoE (in some cases, the only AoE) was removed for Assassin's Strike.

I'd say that being able to consistently hit 2 targets with a 1.0 scalar attack is better support for a team than getting an effective 1.31 scalar to a single target in most cases, but that's a subjective opinion. Stalkers get better on (large) teams but really don't have a proportional effect on the overall team performance with that higher damage since it's mostly single target. Scrappers may do less to each target with an attack on a team, but generally speaking are going to hit more targets per attack.

Also, positioning has an effect on that critical rate, too - having a full team of 8 with only one other person within 30' means you only get the 13% rate.

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To all those complaining about the Scrapper vs Brute, which one's better, etc...

I tend to use 70% as an average Fury for a mission - I started monitoring damage bonus on my Brutes and it's usually around 160-165% at the end of a spawn, but appears higher because the Fury bar looks higher than it actually is (several times I thought I was at "max Fury" because it wouldn't go any higher unless I was fighting an AV only to check and realize that I was only at around 170-175% +dam). I won't disagree with a 75% average (I used to use 80% before they put real-time +dam monitoring in and I saw that I wasn't maintaining that) but 90% is excessive for anything but an AV fight, and that's because the attacks are coded for a set +Fury value against AVs.

As for who needs what in comparison to which AT, I think that Brute players should hope that they don't get looked at as an AT anytime soon and that Scrappers should feel the same way - every argument that can be made for why Scrappers "need a buff" compared to Brutes can be made about Scrappers when compared to Stalkers.

Personally, I like playing Brutes more than Scrappers, but that's more due to powerset availability and the occasional need to just mindlessly rush between spawns smashing things working rather well with the Fury mechanic. Stalkers and Scrappers both have the advantage that they aren't dependant on such a mechanic to perform well, and while both have survivability disadvantages they are both more than capable of surviving nearly any "typical" situation in the game (I don't count multiple AVs aggroing you at once as "typical", and honestly many Brutes have trouble with that).

I'd say leave well enough alone at this point because once you start pointing out "such-and-such needs a nerf because they're better than me" you may find that everything ends up nerfed because the devs decide that you're both outperforming expectations.

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War Mace ranks low because it has redraw and thus can't utilize Gloom. Remove Gloom from the chains and it'll be a top contender, with great AE damage to boot.

They really need to fix the Epic powers for Villains. Check out Dark Blast for Stalkers. It's got better DPA than Energy Transfer! Either that power is horrendously broken or RedTomax has that powers info wrong. The optimal DM chain I found used DB as every other attack.

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Still reading through the thread, but I thought I'd stop here to correct a misconception that I see pop up all the time with Stalker Patron ranged attacks. If it's already been pointed out, sorry - haven't got there yet.

Are you using Mid's as your basis? It counts it as always hitting a critical - if you want the real numbers you have to edit the database to get rid of that little problem.

With the server ticks accounted for, it's 55.61 damage/ 1.188 sec, or a base unslotted DPA of 46.81 for Stalkers (1.0 modifier).
Bone Smasher has a DPA of 53.15, and it's behind Total Focus (57.68 DPA) and Energy Transfer (87.32 DPA).

Those numbers are taken directly from City of Data and match the numbers provided by the in-game information, so feel free to check them yourself.

I have 5 in base storage redside on Infinity after slotting all of the ones I have for all of my villains. I've got an up-and-coming Earth Control Dominator that's going to get a couple, but she also got the 5th one as a recipe drop tonight and stopped by the base to build it and drop it off (she's only level 18 and doesn't have enough slots available for me to add them yet).

They're really not that hard to get.

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Fire guy: I have no blue bar lol, I need an insta-getyourendback power lol! Why dont they make that?!

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*cough*Consume*cough*

Oddly enough, it makes nuking fairly painless for my Fire/Fire Blaster.