Syntax42
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Posts
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Quote:Active Defense lasts 2 minutes and is on a 3:20 recharge timer. Slotting it with two level 50 recharge IOs is usually enough to keep it on permanently. It is NOT a short-duration status effect protection tool. It is your only status effect protection tool and is one of the best in the game.Originally Posted by Fusion_7
Nope, don't have Active Defense yet. Well be next power to pick-up as I am getting mezzed to death. I believe Active Defense protects from Sleep, Disorient, Fear, Immobilize, Confusions, Repel, Knockback, Hold and Defense Debuff effects for a short duration. So, this should hopefully work or help more on keeping my Against All Odds from getting whacked off on every mez.
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The effect from AAO is hard to see, but it does put a damage debuff graphic on enemies. AAO "ticks" every 2 seconds, meaning you have to wait for it to buff your damage. You can't just Shield Charge in and expect AAO to give you buffed damage right away.
As a scrapper, you shouldn't need to slot AAO with taunt. One endurance reduction is fine. I pull aggro off almost everyone by simply standing next to enemies on my shield scrapper, and I don't have a taunt enhancement. -
You might want to try the technical issues & bugs forum instead. People who like solving computer problems are more likely to read that forum.
My best guess is your video card went bad. Laptops rarely have adequate cooling to run 3d games. -
Issue 19 is coming out VERY soon. The main feature people are excited about is the change of fitness pool to inherent powers. Planning a build around Issue 18 seems like a waste at this point, because you may only get to play with that build for a few days before you feel the need to respec for I19. If you don't get the modifications to Mids, save your intended slots for health and stamina by dropping them in a power like sprint and rest.
You should take Indomitable Will ASAP, not at 49. Your status protection power keeps you from being held, stunned, or knocked back. This WILL keep you alive, because many toggles are suppressed when mezzed. This also saves you a slot that you could pull from High Pain Tolerance because you don't need that KB protection.
Try to put at least two, but preferrably three recharges in Hasten. You got a lot of recharge in your build, but you just need a couple more recharges in Hasten to ED-cap it. You have a lot more global recharge than you need to make Hasten permanent. You could potentially get more defense instead of global recharge. -
Scrapper primaries offer little in terms of variance, on a grand scale. The differences in damage, DPA, and aesthetics are minor. Some sets have more AoE attacks than others. However, all of the damage sets play very similarly: do damage to kill stuff.
Your choice of power set mostly comes down to two things. The first is what you want to look like when you kill stuff. Do you want to swing a big sword, use some mysterious force, or set things on fire? The second is what extra, powerset-defining abilities you want. Do you want a way to heal yourself from your primary, or maybe a different build-up, or do you want more AoE damage options?
Armor sets do offer a lot more variance. Your choice determines what you can potentially survive well against, and what enemies you should avoid. Some armor sets offer a heal, while others offer damage buffs or other benefits. -
Quote:I looked for it, but couldn't find the post you are referring to. Have a link?Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
If you check the dev digest, Castle posts in a thread that later confirms 11/16 for i19
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I have played both sides, doing tip missions extensively to determine the answer to this question. In my opinion, neither side has any real advantage, once you learn which tips to dismiss.
Some things I've noticed:
1. Bosses have a MUCH higher drop rate on tips. I would estimate a 25-50% chance. Sure, you can kill mobs of minions, but bosses are much easier to obtain tips.
2. The zone you are standing in when you "investigate" a tip determines where the mission will be.
3. Some zones don't have mission doors for certain missions, so it defaults to another zone.
How can you take advantage of #1? On Hero side, go to Terra Volta to get your tips. Almost every group has at least one boss. Many have two. On villain side, I like to go to the island in south-east Sharkhead. There are enough hoarfrost demons and sky skiffs to get tips very quickly.
To take advantage of #2, stand in the zone that gives you the most missions. On Hero side, I found Talos to be the best place to "investigate" tips. If you get a mission that sends you to those little islands in the north, abandon the mission and re-investigate the tip until you get one closer. On villain side, Grandville is fine, but others may have their preferences.
For #3, this is where you start to recognize which tips to dismiss as soon as you get the tip. I don't like doing escort missions, missions outside of Talos/Grandville (except the two in Independence Port, those are good), or other annoying/long missions. Once you farm tips fast based on observation 1, dropping a bad tip saves you more time than it costs to farm a new tip. -
Quote:Purples and PvP sets can get very expensive. That 3% defense from Gladiator's Armor is going to cost you billions, unless you are willing to save up 30 hero merits for it.Originally Posted by ZaurenXT
I'm a newbie player relatively speaking... I don't have any super farming characters yet. But it looks like my DM/SD might solve that rather well. I'm trying to build up a workable 50 IO set that won't completely destroy my bank while being pretty close to important caps, and this is what I have so far. I'm going for economy at the moment as opposed to numbers, though. Most of the big ones are going to come from hero merits. Any ideas or ways to save money and up effectiveness and such is highly appreciated!
Also, DM/SD is not exactly optimal for farming. Farming requires a good deal of AoE to kill as many enemies as possible, as quickly as possible. There was a thread recently about power set combinations that are best for farming. A DM/SD build is best for putting out very high single target DPS so you can kill AV's and other hard targets faster. -
True Grit and Deflection could use resistance. Active Defense could use a third Membrane to get its recharge closer to being double-stacked all the time, as well as providing more DDR. Grant Cover or Phalanx Fighting would be a good place to put a Kismet unique. More global recharge would help get hasten and power siphon perma'd.
The build looks pretty solid. The tweaks mentioned above would help, but aren't completely necessary to still have a good build. -
Looks like a solid build, if you can afford it. More resistance would help though. Enhance Deflection and True Grit if you can find slots for it. Also, Grant Cover is needed if you want to cap DDR.
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I don't think the time a mob follows you will reflect threat degredation in the way that you want. Mobs may all be on the same mechanic for following a target until they reach their tether range, or a certain time has passed in which they don't get attacked or attack back. The practical application of threat degredation is finding out how hard it is for a tanker to lose aggro. Thus, you need to test this in a different way. For example:
Have character A do 100 damage.
Have character B do 50 damage.
Wait X time.
Have character B do 25 damage.
If aggro switches to character B and neither used any kind of debuffs or other effects in their attacks, then we can determine how threat decays, based on how long it takes for character B to pull aggro after waiting. -
ArcanaTime = [RoundUp(CastTime / 0.132) + 1] * 0.132
Siphon Life has a 1.93s cast time.
1.93 / 0.132 = 14.62
Round that up to 15, add 1, and multiply by .132
16 * 0.132 = 2.112
Midnight Grasp's Arcanatime cast time is 2.244.
Siphon life would need to recharge in 2.244s and MG in 2.112.
To figure out needed recharge bonus, divide base cooldown by desired recharge time, then subtract 1 for the base (starting) recharge.
MG's recharge: 15 / 2.112 - 1 = 610% bonus. Since this is not possible, your attack chain will not work.
For amusement, SL's recharge: 10 / 2.244 - 1 = 346% total bonus. That is actually almost possible, if you consider that the power itself can be slotted with about 100% recharge time.
Conclusion: You will NEED a third attack in your chain. -
Consider a build that aims for 32.5% defense in Melee, Ranged, and AoE. This will allow you to soft cap against all attacks with a small purple when you need to survive tougher situations.
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You do not need Psi defense AND vector defenses. As far as I know, only Master Illusionists have a Psi attack with no vector, and even then, I'm not sure if it still lacks a vector. Get more recharge or regeneration instead of Psi defense.
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Some armor sets have resistance to endurance drains, so they aren't always an issue. Defense helps prevent sappers from draining because they have to pass a to-hit check first.
Heavy Psionic damage can be an issue for several armor sets, including Invulnerability and Stone.
To-hit buffs on critters causes issues for defense-based sets the most. Devouring Earth and Resistance Fighters can make a defense tanker take over 1000% more damage than they are used to, while resist-based tankers take only 100% more damage. -
If you really want to see number values, use Mids' hero planner, available at http://www.cohplanner.com/
IO sets are far from being unaffordable. Certain sets are very expensive, but are still obtainable. The most expensive non-purple IOs sell for around 100 million for the recipe, but many sell for 1 to 10 million each. To get this much influence, read guides on making influence. The player questions forum and the guides forum are a good place to look. If you don't have time to farm or play the market, hero/villain merits can be used to buy every recipe in the game. Regular IO sets cost 1 or 2 hero/villain merits per IO. -
Don't forget that Weave adds to your Psionic defense as well. Don't expect to get anywhere near 30% Psi defense without Weave in your build.
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I may as well post a build I was working on for a friend. This is far from complete, but shows how to achieve soft capped defenses using Weave and Maneuvers. In this build, Tough is a mule for other set bonuses. The build also has 29.9% Psi defense and enough run speed to not feel slow when Rooted is off. I usually leave Rooted off until I think I may need the regeneration.
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Quote:Soft capping defense provides far more mitigation than not doing so, especially on a Granite tanker. Let's say you follow the above poster's advice and only run Granite for defense. That puts you at a max of 35% without set bonuses. This means 15% of the hits will get through, or 30% of an even-level minion's damage will get through and have to be mitigated by resistance. If you do get to 45% defense, only 10% of a minion's damage will have to be reduced by resistance. Would you really want to take THREE TIMES the damage, when it isn't hard to soft cap?Originally Posted by Rangle M. Down
Less then 20 minutes between posts?
Lack of patience typically gets you no answer.
Yes, you can run Weave with Granite. Question for most would be why would you bother? Granite alone is extremely tough and hard to kill. Adding in Weave would probably be considered overkill on that.
I can see using Tough/Weave out of Granite armor, but as always YMMV.
Here's how:
Granite provides around 30% defense after slotting. Weave adds another 7%. A steadfast protection 3% defense should put you at over 40% after all of that. The rest can be fixed with one or two set bonuses, or by running Maneuvers. -
Quote:Your build has very high endurance consumption from the toggles. You don't have any endurance reductions in most of your resistance/defense toggles, and Murky Cloud is poorly slotted. Also, that Gladiator's 3% defense IO will cost you over 2 billion INF alone, unless you farm hero merits for it.Originally Posted by _Deth_
Postionally Softcapped, and the build is a bit unorthodox, but not an unholy mess. No Death Shroud or any real AoE damage to speak of, but I don't really need it for aggro. Between taunt, Soul Drain, Dark Consumption and Cloak of Fear, which is slotted for -tohit, aggro should be well in hand. This is designed for group play where damage is less of a priority, altho single target damage should be reasonable. And yes, there is no theft of essence proc in DR. I have got to the point where it just isn't worth it to me. I have been paying close attention lately, and it rarely goes off for me, no matter how many mobs are around.
I find it much cheaper and more reasonable to aim for 32.5% defense when going for vectored soft caps. A small purple inspiration will soft cap you for fights that you need to be soft capped.
Maybe you can improve your build by looking at mine. This is for I19. Those extra slots in the current inherent powers are for stamina and health, so the current endurance recovery is much lower than it will be when I19 comes.
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You don't need Superior Invisibility, Group Invisibility, AND Super Speed for PvE. Pick one or two to get rid of. One stealth power, combined with a stealth IO in sprint can make you effectively invisible to mobs.
I'm looking for information on Ill/Rad builds myself, so I can't give you specific advice on how to make an effective build. Most of the guides don't seem as informative as I would like. They seem out-of-date. -
What "number crunching" needs to be done? You need help with your build, not math. The most math you might have to worry about is simple addition, but Mids' does that for you.
For a shield tanker, the first thing you should do with any build is reach the soft cap on all positions. That is 45% defense. If you don't understand why this number is important, search for Arcana's Guide to Defense. Slotting your defensive toggles and weave with the three LoTG's that you have gives 35.8% defense with Phalanx Fighting in the build. Add 3% from the Steadfast Protection unique and you're at 38.8%. Throw in Combat Jumping with a LOTG global recharge and a defense IO to get to 42.4%. Getting the extra 2.6% from sets is easy from there. A Gaussian's 6-slot bonus would put you at 44.9%. Adding one more LOTG IO to Weave would put you over the soft cap.
In my opinion, both builds posted here have Phalanx Fighting over-slotted. The most you would need is a Kismet 6% to-hit, and/or a LoTG global recharge.
Grant Cover is only useful for the defense debuff resistance, which is unenhanceable. The small radius makes it impractical to depend on for a team-buffing power. This power is another good spot to put a LOTG or Kismet in.
Active Defense can be enhanced with Membranes or Enzymes to improve the defense debuff resistance. By having less than a 60-second recharge on it, you can depend on double-stacking it for more DDR, but it needs a bit of defense enhancement if you hope to reach 95% DDR.
Mako's Bite is not a useful set unless you are going for the 6-slot bonus. Crushing Impact might be better, even though you have a lot of global recharge already.
You don't need Steadfast Protection: Knockback Protection. Active Defense takes care of knockback protection.
Get your resistances up. Every bit counts. Deflection gives S/L resist, so use at least two slots for that. True Grit gives four resistances. Drop the Numina's set and enhance with 2-3 regular heal IOs and 2-3 resist IOs, depending on available slots. You would gain more benefit from the triple-bonus Titanium Coating in Tough than the Endurance/Recharge you have in it.
Your global recharge is probably higher than it really needs to be. The purple sets are going to be very expensive. Consider a build that doesn't involve purple sets, and possibly drop Hasten in exchange for Taunt. Have you even considered your plan for an attack chain? -
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Why not make a tanker? Their armor sets have higher base values, making it easier to reach high levels of survivability, and they can do it much earlier than other melees. You don't have to worry about doing tons of damage or maintaining fury, which also makes tanker builds cheaper to be effective. If you would rather tank and have a character capable of doing damage solo, I can understand that.
I think Invulnerability is overrated. It can soft cap damage types (not psionic) and it has a good amount of S/L resistance (around 70% for Brute) but tanking anything other than S/L damage makes Invulnerability no better than other defense-based sets. -
If you get to 32.5% defense, a small purple will get you to 45%. Aim for that 32.5% if you are going for a cheap build. I made a relatively inexpensive build for my Dark/Fire tanker based on that concept. Perhaps you could adapt it to yours. It is for I19, so I'll let you figure out what to drop to get Stamina if you need it. Hasten isn't as important as some make it seem, especially on a tanker.
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