mauk2

Aw, now don't be casting aspersions.

If your contention is correct, then I have to ask when is Castle gonna fix this? Because one of my absolute fave toons is a fire/wp scrap that needs the extra 20 DPS.

NEEDS IT.

Aw, man, why you gotta hate? I'm just pointing out the facts, that do not support the conclusion of the thread.

Fact: The best brute set does way more dps than the best scrapper set, for less end. Even if I lay off hitting that hot button, on average, brutes STILL do more damage.
Fact: Brutes have higher hitpoints. This does not balance out their extra damage.
Fact: Brutes have higher buff caps. This also does not balance out their extra damage.

Yes, scrappers have more End tools at their disposal, (thank you devs for physical perfection, we luv it!) but I will counter by pointing solemnly at gloom.

Are brutes End starved enough to make them balanced? I sure don't think so.


Don't get me wrong, I love scrappers to death. But the numbers do not lie, despite how ineptly you think I'm handling them.

(fumble fumble thumble drop....)

(sigh)

People post numbers in that thread. Then they post better, or worse, numbers, and the only difference was....what? Their fingers were tired?

Little more than hearsay. I'm sorry if that disturbs you.

I know exactly what I posted: Highest Brute (version 2) versus highest scrapper (version2).

Want to change the base assumptions and go for the state used in the version 1 thread? Just because you backed off that thread doesn't make the result there invalid.

As you said, it's YOUR DATA, Bill.

Did you get it wrong?


Pfft, the rikti pylon data is dirty, little better than hearsay, in my book.

I know exactly what I posted, which was exactly what I meant to post.

Read what I wrote again, note that I said not a word about which kind of scrap I was comparing against. I chose the very best one, and it STILL got pounded by the fire brute. Any other scrapper looks WORSE against the fire brute.

Using YOUR DATA, Bill.

Were you wrong?


Regretting a post?

I am intimately familiar with the wretched state of broken-ness that is Shield Defense. AAO(toggle +dam and way too much taunt), the DDR "bug", the general END efficiency of the set, and the "holy crap" mistake on shield charge add up to a hugely broken set.

(Note that I have not yet begun to point out how shattered Grant Cover+Phalanx Fighting is, infinitely stacking buffs MUST be fixed at some point, but that's a mostly seperate discussion.)

The Dev's have already rebalanced BotZ as a partial 'fix' to this miserable state of affairs, and I suspect much more is coming.

I choose to stay away from using it as a basis of comparison until the Dev's have decided what they're gonna do about it.

Of course, I'm gonna play it until they do, it's flippin' AWESOME right now. God Mode is fun!

That is true. (I've done the same thing, used all three of my SD toons without SC available at all: The change is nearly imperceptible.)

The problem with SD isn't only in SC, it's in AAO. Against All Odds is a toggle +damage, and VERY strong, to-boot.

The toggle means it does not affect your damage chain. You don't have to pause to hit build up (although build up is a joke, DPS-wise). You don't have to work in a sub-par attack either. (Oh, followup, how I love and loathe thee in equal measure.)

SD needs at least one or two further adjustments AFTER they fix Shield Charge.

But that's just my opinion. What do I know?

Herding as a tactic is long dead. On even a poor team, it is almost always better for the tank to aggro ahead and let the team follow any stragglers from the prior spawn to me.

'Steamrolling' is what I usually call it.

Dude, this build is a monster. If you're used to squichies, the only trouble you're going to have is adjusting your playstyle to cram yourself into the middle of the biggest knot of bad guys you can find and then slaughter the lot of them from the inside.

....

...Ahem.

You'll do fine.

Heh, I agree.

In my opinion, Shield Defense is off-balance for several reasons, some of which the devs have publicly addressed, some of which they have not.

1) Shield Charge. Oh good lord, how did they miss this one.

2) DDR. Shields gets to keep WAY more of their defense versus the Romans(to name a notorious debuffing faction) than anybody else except Super Reflexes, and Super Reflexes is not close to the set that Shield Defense is in many other ways.

3) Against All Odds. Okay.... This is a damage buff power that is a toggle. When I need it most, it is strongest, and unlike EVERY other damage buff power, it has zero negative impact on my attack chain. This is a very notable advantage.

4) Taunt. In light-tank situations, this is huge. Since SD can readily be soft-capped, and then has maxed DDR so it retains those defenses even under heavy assault, a shield scrapper can readily displace a tank. Why? Because their very strong taunt aura pins things to them like glue.

5) End use. It might be okay for SD to be as mighty as it is if it was an endurance-draining monster. But it is not. For End usage it is actually dead-even or a tad below average. Bang-for-the-buck, you get huge benefits from this. HUGE.

Now, are any one of these issues terribly off-balance? Nope. Even two or three of them might be all right.

All five of them? Shield Defense is waaaay off base, and the proof is in the player base.


Now, I support fixing shield charge, but I also believe one or two of the other lopsided aspects also need a corrective tweak. I would advocate two, both applied to the really broken power in the set, Against All Odds:

A) Lower the taunt aura to old Willpower levels, or even below.
B) Raise the End cost to, say, .33, or even .42.


Poof! Done.

Now, if the Devs don't want to do this, and it would be unpopular indeed, then I feel that a round of tweaks needs to go around to the other scrapper powers and buff them.

Lower the end cost of every other taunt aura a smidgeon.

Lower the end cost of all the damage aura's a LOT. I mean, a LOT. Cut it in half, or more than half. I'd advocate dropping it to .21.

Super reflexes.... Add an eight percent damage buff to all three of the toggles.

Invuln gets a 2 percent damage buff for every target in invincibility range.

Regeneration, add a 20 percent damage buff to reconstruction, that lasts for 30 seconds.

Etc, etc, etc.

But hey, what do I know about this stuff, right?

Aw, epic ancient hero, don't be sad!

It's a good, strong build as is: You Will Like It.

However, what is your goal for this build? If all you want is an AOE farming death machine, you got it as-is. Your defenses are massive, and with a single-stacked followup Spin and Eviscerate are going to slaughter things.

However, that said, I personally feel your concept may be a tad lopsided:

You have massive +defense, massive regen, and quite a lot of resist. I think that for an optimal toon, you could easily afford to back down the defenses a smidgeon and go for more offense.

How, you ask?

Simply drop manuevers, and take Hasten instead.

Since you are WP, you make Hasten your 'auto' power so you don't need to remember it. While hasten is up you can double-stack followup and easily chain your AOE's.

A further step would be to drop Strength of Will and use the two of the three slots to 'thicken up' one of your lowby attacks as filler, then add one slot to Stamina for a third perf shifter for moar hitpoints and moar end.

I think those small tweaks will noticeably raise your damage, make the toon feel much more fluid in combat, and lower your defense so little you will hardly notice. if you are worried about end sustainability (don't) then drop the third slot from Strength of Will into Physical Perfection and slot a third +end proc.

Go forth, and have fun!

...wait.

Does this mean that I can roll a scrapper to redside, grovel my way through the unlock arc, get gloom, and respec into a build with gloom, physical perfection, and conserve power all at once?

Becuz if so, I got's some rebuilds to work up....

Even more critically, does this give brutes access to Body Mastery at 41? Because that rocks socks, if true.

Er...

I was assuming you'd use Ninja Run. Which is why I bumped SJ back to 26. Without it hurdle/cj/temps will work, but might get a bit tiresome.

But then again, you're going to need a good long attention span for this project anyway.

A worthy goal, sir!

I'd be curious to hear how long it takes.

Also, the Praetoria stuff is hovering on the horizon.

And, do you count AE missions and newspapers? Because if you do, I doubt you'll ever finish, new content is being made faster than you can play it....




For solo-only play I would say skip Resurgence and Strength of Will: With even a moderate amount of added 'oomph' neither add much utility.

As for electric melee, do you want to concentrate on AOE or ST? Solo I'd point at AOE unless you're doing all this at base difficulty.... Honestly, if I were you I'd play at -1, 1 so as to leave xp on as much as possible.

I'd say skip jacobs ladder and confront from electric melee. JL is okay, but there's better AOE's in the set. (OMG, Thunderstrike!)


...I'll work up the bones of a build and toss it in here, see what ya think.

Perfect Zinger procs are one of those 'secret weapons' that every damage-specced tanker should have a LOT of. For sure one in every AOE, and in most of your single targets if there isn't something better to pop in there.

Plus, last I looked they're pretty darn affordable.

I hear that, brother.

My SD/wm is....ridiculous. Fun, fast, does great damage for a tanker, tough as nails, and holds aggro like a freakin' gravitational anomaly. I built mine on an 'all knockdown' build and it works like a machine.

After the Dev's do....whatever they're gonna do to try and balance SD, I might even put some IO's on him.

Invuln is good now with a good build.

Willpower is good now if you use taunt a lot and shore up the weak aggro aura.

Ice is very good now if you aren't afraid to hibernate. The key is to slot taunt duration so the baddies stick to you through the reset.

Shield tanks are so good I feel they're broken, but what do I know.

Dark tanks can be good, even though I personally can't get the hang of them.

There are a LOT of tanks out there that do very, very well. I see no reason whatsoever to cripple my mobility AND hide my costume. Ice and Dark used to have that issue as well, but are better now.

Heh, who remembers when Granite made you look like a poo monster, rather than the basalt look now?

(shudder) Stone armor, no thanks.

SD is broken in a lot of ways, to be honest.

There is another thread running right now, where somebody asked innocently, "What scrapper has the best taunt aura."

The answer is, Shield Defense does, by a MILE. Now, if SD was a soft set like it's supposed to be, that would be a positive balance factor. You for sure get their attention, now it's a race, can you kill them before they kill you.

But SD is not a soft set, at all. It is freakin' tough as hell with even moderate work added. So, SD also steps all over the tankers toes even in scrapper format. And we won't discuss SD/elec tanks. Oh, no. And especially not SD/SS tanks.

Or shield brutes, who will soon be strolling the streets of paragon.

It pains me to say it, but SD is just....broked.

Now, I'd advocate a balance pass to buff other sets rather than nerf SD, but the forum geniuses seem to feel that's all dumb. (Ignore the buffs to invuln, SR, and perhaps FA. That never happened.)

Ayup.


Man, it is gorgeous, ain't it?

You know what other set looks really good? Martial Arts. But the consensus seems to be that MA does poor damage. Why does SD do so much gooder?


Buff Fiery Aura! DOOO EEET!

....

Ok, maybe I'm not getting the info the cool kids do, but what elec/shield nerf?

The only thing that I know of is that Castle has mentioned they are looking at the damage on Shield Charge amd maybe buffing fiery aura.

Buff Fiery Aura! DOOOO EEET!

I say add +3 percent + defense vs all and +5 percent + resist versus all to fiery embrace, make it last 30 seconds, and cut the recharge to 90 seconds.

Awww, yeah, that would be niiiice. Allow it to slot Defense sets and Resist sets, and with a lot of work it can be perma.

(taps mike) Anybody listening, oh mighty Devs?

I dunno, like a year now?

That said, I feel ya, I have a bs/sd at 50 that is AWESOME. He's got the look, four great costumes, the backstory, everything I like about a toon. But....

At 50, using nothing but lowby IO's and some cheap SO's I bought in the vanguard base, he's as strong as my other toons with mild-to-moderate sets.

Yes, he's nowhere near a main toon.... but he's got NOTHING on him.

My 50 sd/wm tank is even worse. Again, nothing on him at ALL, and he can main tank anything at all, without breaking a sweat.

There is a reason why SD is the most popular farmer out there, it's because the Dev's have a busted puppy on their hands. I quit playing mine, honestly.

That said, even if they nerf the pants off it, it's still going to be a righteous set, and especially the sd/bs combo. That combination is simply awesome. Those two powersets go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Neither, actually.

It was designed with the proper damage, implemented, then buffed. When it was buffed, the Dev's got their widgets mixed up and buffed it WAAAAY too much.

WAY too much.

And this is on top of the fact that SD can get ridiculous levels of DDR (defense debuff resistance) to stack with their soft-capped vs all AND an inherent (no-click) damage buff, which is hands-down the best kind in the game because it does not affect your attack chain. Even better, SD gets the huge majority of its defense from a mere two toggles, so it's even pretty light on the end usage for the amount of 'wow' you get out of it.

SD is very broken, and I say that with three at 50 that I love to pieces.

But broken is broken. (sigh)




It's closer to the second.

It is a bit...offputting that the Dev's made this huge of an oopsie and nobody even noticed that suddenly SD was Godmode.

But it was sure fun!

Oh HELL yeah!

I thought I was just nuts, that the belts always looked like that, but those older 'hiphugger' style looked WICKED.

Pls put back in all the old, lower belts! Call them "Low beltname" or something.

Oh, and to match all the calls for 'sleek' textures, please add sleek to all the 'bottoms with skin' options, especially the little shorts. Oh, and a patent leather texture to match the patent leather top would be nice.

And for all the ladies, sleek and leather shorts for the fellas, too!

Of those two combos, I would point to claws/inv.

Synergies:

Claws has plenty of AOE, but all you really need at the top end is spin, followup, focus, and a lowby filler attack. The other AOE's do knockback, or have long animations, and you NEED spin with Inv.

Inv loves being in a crowd, where your spin fueled by stacked followup will destroy piles of things as fast as you can cram them around you.

Inv at the top end is ridiculously sturdy with a strong IO build, which allows you to assemble those crowds for destruction. Tons of recharge is excellent for claws, and gets your dull pain to perma, or hear-to. An Inv at the hit point cap with a hefty heal every two-ish minutes and a well-slotted +regen component is...durable.

Further synergies: yes, Inv is a bit end-heavy and has no end power, but claws is very end-light. The combo is very playable. Before your build matures focus provides reliable knockdown AT RANGE. Very helpful in the close fights.

If you get it well-built, you will like claws/inv.

Edit: That said, claws/fire is THE SWEET. Damage is a defense all it's own.

This? This is genuinely good, original thinking. It adds more depth and strategy to the basic button-mashing of combat. "Do I want to move this foe, freeze this foe in place, or just hammer him?"

Can we get a Dev in here to poke around at this one?

For the Martial Arts example, if you want to knock a baddy away, you lead with crane kick. If you want to anchor him for the drubbing, lead with crippling axe kick. Lord knows it'd be easier to tolerate some of the less melee friendly combos out there with this as an added feature.

This could enhance melee toons and many others all at one go.

Thumbs up, gents!