kendo

thank you for posting your build Redlynne. at a quick glance, it looks a lot like I was aiming for in my build - all 3 forms, adequately slotted to be effective; some range defense; some +rech all the time and hasten to boost that.

definitely some good food for thought in there, thank you

like many, I am having trouble working up a build I like for my PB. went tri-form on my WS and love it but so far, finding something I like on the PB has proven much more elusive.

I am constantly looking over these forums but rarely see builds posted. see a lot of good comments and suggestions but few full builds.

I did come across an interesting build that LordXenite linked in another thread (post copied below). it uses all 3 forms, which I am leaning towards right now though I may use my alternate build to play around a bit with a human only or bi-form build.

but I was curious about some of the choices in that build, especially choosing to use the taunt pool powers. does using those mitigate more damage than the shields that were skipped to make room for them? or maybe the idea is to fear most, hopefully all, of a group and then switch to squid form and blast away with much less return fire?

either way, I find it an interesting concept and would appreciate hearing more about how it works in practice. and would really appreciate it if anyone would post a build or two for their PB. I know things haven't changed all that much for this archtype but most of the builds in the build section date back to I11 or earlier.

many thanks all
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Well, to each their own, but Ascendantia's build is quite form-heavy and Photon Seekers are very good on it as well. Naturally I gave up on some Human-form abilities.
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I have played around a bit in Mids, trying to find ways to add at least reasonable levels of defense to my DB/DA and it's proving to be difficult to get more than 20 - 25% positional defenses. so started looking at going for typed defense instead.

how effective is that compared to positional defense?

should I focus on smashing / lethal? while a higher percentage of attacks contain some element of s/l, are there some nasty attacks out there that don't and need to be protected against?

what would secondary focus be? was thinking energy / neg energy would be the next likely hard hitters to try to defend against.

or is it better to stick with positional defense? in which case, I would focus mainly on melee and aoe (for use against some of the nasty point blank aoe on some bosses and above).

and yes, I know that with an unlimited budget it would be possible to get up to soft cap but looking at a bank account in the 50 - 70 million range. I also am not interested in getting close to the cap at the expense of gutting powers to use as IO mules or taking 4 travel powers just to slot Zephyrs.

I will focus primarily on the strengths of the set - resists and a nice heal, but relying just on resists and heals isn't cutting it at higher levels with the difficulty slider moved up. and I won't reopen the discussion about the lack of + resistance IOs vs. availablitity of + defense ones :-)

given the current state of IOs, adding some defense seems to be the best way to improve my survivability. but would certainly be interested in other options if anyone would like to share their experiences.

thanks for the help. and that explains why people were putting level 33 IOs into level 44 powers. those set bonuses would still work when exemped down to level 30.

can see where that could give a decent advantage in pvp against someone that was just using straight SOs or non-set IOs.

I have read through some posts regarding how set bonuses work when exemped down but wanted to make sure I had this correct. I see many builds in the guides section that will slot level 33 IOs so the bonuses will still work when exemped down to level 30, though their reason is mainly for PvP purposes.

I am interested in the same basic concept but more for going back for mid-level story arcs through Ouroboros. so may have a little more room to play with but let's assume I am aiming for missions around level 30.

if I understand the functionality with the new auto-exemp and IO rules correctly, if my level 45 character selects a mission that exemps him to level 30, I will:

- keep powers through level 35

- keep the use of any unique bonuses, like +regen unique, as long as it is in a power that is still active. so all powers up to level 35. believe level of the IO itself doesn't matter as long as the power it is in is active, so this could be a level 45 IO.

- keep the set bonuses for all sets in active powers, where the IOs are no more than +3 levels to my level. so all powers up to level 35 with IOs up to level 33. this is the one that I question I have correct

if the above is correct, is there any reason to worry about slotting level 33 IO sets into a power you acquire at level 44? I am trying to balance cost against benefit when exemped down and it's frequently cheaper to buy a higher level IO than one that's level 30 - 33. most likely due to many others having the same goal as I do :-)

YEAH !!! got it to work. and looking through the /bindsavefile did the trick.

somehow, no matter what I deleted or changed in the bind file, every time I logged in and flipped through the forms, it inserted this back into the bind file


SHIFT+LBUTTON "powexec_name shadow step"


I tried deleting it several times, tried /unbind, etc, then reloaded the binds file without that in there. and every time, it got inserted back in.

finally, I decided that if I couldn't beat it, I would try to force it to do my bidding :-) so the next time I saved the bind file and this was in there, I left the bind but changed it to


SHIFT+LBUTTON ""


and that seems to be working. whatever was inserting that bind every time apparently doesn't overwrite this. or maybe this overwrites whatever was inserting the shadow step bind in there.

either way, right now my warshade is much happier. thanks everyone for all your help. and pass along the idea of using /bindsavefile command to edit things.

darn, no luck

tried every combination of shift, lshift, lclick, lbutton, with quotes, without extra quotes, moving the teleport command around within the larger bind string. and I still get the targeting circle and an extra teleport at the end unless I hit <esc> or let it expire.

oh well, guess I will just have to get used to it. not game breaking or anything, just frustrating because I know there has to be a way to get it to work.

may try saving a bind file and calling it instead of building the key bind into the larger bind. didn't think it should make any difference but worth trying

thanks for trying to help everyone

could use some help on getting the lshift teleport bind to work on a warshade. trying to set up some of the binds I have seen posted on these forums but having trouble getting the teleport bind to work correctly.

I am using: bind lshift+lbutton powexecname shadow step, as part of a larger string of binds for when I drop into human form. it works, sort of. when I press the shift key I get the targeting cursor and then pressing the left mouse button teleports me and immediately sets out the next targeting cursor. this gets to be a pain as it always puts out one more targeting circle than I want. so I have to be careful not to hit the mouse button or I teleport past where I want to go. have to either hit <esc> to clear the targetting circle or make sure I wait for it to expire.

I have used this bind, by itself, for other characters that teleport and it doesn't show the targeting cursor, it just teleports me to where my regular cursor is pointing when I hold down the shift key and hit the left mouse button.

does this bind work differently when used by itself instead of in a compound string of binds? or is there a slightly different format I should be using to get this to work without putting out the targeting circle?

any help would be appreciated. thanks

once they made most of the toggle sounds fade out, did that change the ability to just silence them entirely?

I am trying to turn off the very annoying high pitched squeal that comes with activation of the War Shade shadow cloak. it does fade out, but I switch forms a lot, including in and out of the cloak. so I hear it a lot and it is driving me crazy. must be at just the right pitch.

I tried the location indicated in this thread -- blue_loop.ogg in "enemies" folder but that doesn't work.

any help would be greatly appreciated, my bleeding ears thank you

another interesting idea for AR is to look at putting a couple of range enhancements in Slug. it starts off with a range of 100' instead of the usual 80 for a ranged attack and with 2 lvl 50 enhancements, it has a range of around 144'. your snipe attack has a range of 150.

so you get basically snipe range without the interrupt; a casting time of 1.67 sec instead of snipe's 4.87 and a recharge of around 3 sec. in the time you could fire off 1 snipe, you can fire off at least 2, possibly 3 Slugs. and if the KB goes off, it's just gravy

I have mine slotted with 4 Thunderstrikes and 2 range and really like that combination. it costs me a couple % in ranged defence vs going 6 Thunders but I am still at roughly 35% and could tweak that a bit higher.