mauk2

I just want to say:

This idea rocks SO HARD. Well, all but the travel powers suppression. The Shards are hard to get around in, so people just flat-out won't go to them.

This is simply too awesome NOT to have people going for it!

And honestly, this is WAY cooler than 'Ancient Rome.'

Puh-leeeeze.

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Perfect timing Malty. With the pending release of all the new axe murderers from the pokey this guide is perfect for TWO ATs now. Insider information?!?!?!?!?!?!? Are you really BaB in disguise!?!?!?!?!?!


Nice job.

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Holy moses, and with the new Real Numbers thing, it will be trivial to get BI's for everything and work up how everything all stacks together.

Glee!

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Just remember kids: Knockback = 100% Defense and 100% Damage Resistance for 4-6 seconds at a time.

You might want to reconsider that level 4 rating Malty.

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Indeed so. Pendulum hits with crushing force, has a huge AOE, and is the most powerful mitigator in the Ax set, which is filled from edge to edge with high-damage mitigation-heavy powers.

I have saved more than a few squishies from certain death with a stab at the old battle macro key, a quick lurch next to them, and a room-clearing swat of the ax, which digs them out of a knot of a half dozen baddies right before they faceplant.

You'd be amazed at how few squishies keep complaining about the knockback after pulling that trick out of the bag.

Or, using the knockback to toss a pile into a patch of ice. Or mud pots. Or, or, or....

Knockback gets a realllly bad rep among meleers due to overuse by blasters when we're trying to keep the combat orderly. We tankers want wads of baddies close by for handy killing. But blasters see those assault knots and think we're about to eat floor, and blow them away from us.

Leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

But in the hands of the meleers, knockback is an extremely potent tool. In a group, simply be aware of where you're going to be putting your victims. Aim for corners, or failing that, aim them at the scrappers. Those guys will appreciate the tenderized morsels.

But make no mistake: Using Pendulum well is an art and a skill at least as complex as pulling and herding. Pendulum allows a skilled Ax tanker to not simply PULL mobs where he wants them, it allows him to PUSH mobs where he wants them, if he's thinking ahead.

For example:

It's a common tanker tactic to fight facing backward toward the squishy cluster of damage. (AKA known as the rest of the team.) Serious Axers quickly learn NOT to do that.

Swatting a half dozen pissed-off mobs into the middle of your firepower brigade is guaranteed to cause havoc. And not the good kind.

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I love my Fire/Axe, but I find that axe is deceiving, you get Beheader so early, and it gives massive damage. But as you go on, later and later in the game, everyone and their mom resists lethal damage. So you are a killing machine in the beginning, but it starts to take longer and longer to kill towards the end.

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Well, to be honest, the late-game enemy groups are mostly resistant to everything. The Carnies are not especially lethal resistant, as I recall. Nemesis Warhulks are FUN with an Axer. I used to hunt +5's on a regular basis. But maybe I'm crazy.

Rularuu Wisps are notably lethal-weak, although since they do heavy Psi damage (and are in the scary outer dimensions) fewer tankers get out there after them. I'm currently working up a new willpower/ax with the intention of prowling the upper outers.

They really need to work on the outer planes, make them a little more user friendly, or put better stuff out there, draw some people into them.


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But the KB/KD helps with survivability, so you never die, but it can take awhile to kill post 35.

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Indeed! You have placed a finger on an important aspect. To be blunt, the Fire secondary does as much or more damage than the darling super strength or energy melee sets, but it lacks good mitigation, so it rarely gets discussed outside the slavering hordes of the fire/fire scrankers.

Mitigation effects are what make tankers unique and fun. I LIKE using a heavily slotted Swoop to make bad guys bounce off the roof. It makes me giggle.

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As a side note, I just gave my guy the rikti axe. It looks so freakin cool on Whirling axe.

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Yeah, I wish they'd make a few more cooler axes. Some beaked/hooked designs that are non-Rikti would be nice.

Heck, I wish they'd make a new Tanker secondary called "Two Hander", based off the Rikti/Lost animations just so I could roll up a toon using a GIGANTIC Final Fantasy style two hander. Put both axes and swords in it, along witht he big alien choppers, etc. Would be COOL.

That'd be fun, and easy. Here's hoping for it someday!

Wow, Maltese, I was just defending Ax in a different thread because somebody said it didn't have any guides.

You didn't have to go and TELL people the nuts and bolts of it!

Pendulum is beyond awesome. Yes, the knockback has to be carefully planned unless you're in truly DEEP levels of fun, but that's why we have brains to play with.

I note you got the size of the cone right! 180 degrees! It's HUGE!

As a note, I rank WA a bit higher, based purely on the mitigation effect. No, it's not the thing to use tanking an AV. But in typical red-to-purple big crowd action? Getting six to ten+ Gashes off for that End is a BIG DEAL, and getting that many friends to play with is trivially easy in a group.

Watching half a dozen mobs drop is just awesome.

And you let the secret of Beheader out of the bag! Pure gold, that one is.

Wow.

This is a seriously awesome idea, and yet the Dev's don't do it.

Is it harder than it seems like it would be? Put it in the Arena or something!

This would be SO awesome!

I have seen Blaster attack chains that generated about twice the BI per second of a heavily optimized Scrapper attack chain.

So, yes, Blasters have the potential to be massively more damaging than even their arch-enemy Scrappers.

Sadly, that Blaster attack chain includes an even mix of ranged and melee attacks, so in order for a Blaster to achieve their truly astonishing potential, they MUST be grouped.

Let me repeat: Blasters MUST group to achieve their potential, and more importantly, it must be a well-balanced group in which everyone is on the ball.

Blasters truly shine in "Pentad" situations, in which a Tanker and Controller combine to manage aggro so well the Blaster can afford to close and destroy at full power.

Add in a Defender's buffs and a Scrapper to run interference in case the Blaster gets in trouble, and in that situation, Blasters are truly formidable.

Sadly, that's a rare situation, and Blasters get clobbered a lot. They solo, and get alpha'd. They get in an unbalanced group, pull a hair too much aggro, and drop. They get in a group and someone drops the ball (Tanker mistargets a taunt, Defender misses a bubble refresh, Controller misses a lockdown, Scrapper can't pull mob off fast enough) and the Blaster goes down.

In my opinion, a simple way to give Blasters more survivability while still preserving their "flavor" would be to add a shortlived +Res buff to their melee attacks. Say, every time a Blaster makes a melee attack, they get a ten second forcefield that adds +10 Resist vs everything except Psi. If you want to really jack it up, add +10 +Defense, too.

The best Defense is a good Offense, they say.

Have this stack with APP powers.

The way this works, as long as a Blaster is punching away, his inherent bad-[censored]-ness gives him a decent chance of pounding his way out of his troubles.

Yes this mainly helps in melee, but if a blaster goes down due to ranged attacks, HIS FORTE, then he's just trying to do too much.

Scrappers still get status protection inherently, which Blasters do not. This is just a boost to give Blasters a chance to use their full suite of deadly attacks, not make them into the greatest soloers in the game. If a Blaster wants status protection, group with controllers/defenders, or better yet, a tank.


Just my two cents.

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Ah - one more thing. We're adding a new Inspiration that you can use to wake up from Sleep, Stun, Hold & Immobilize.

Yep - so if you're stunned, wobbling back and forth - you can use this Inspiration and WHAMMO - you're ready for action.

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Yeeeeeessss.....

THAT's the ticket. Now, what about chain-mezz while Unyielding Stance takes it's leisurely two thousand years to activate?

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We're working (or more precisely our wunder-programmer Martin) on a change to melee combat that will enable you to hit runners. No more angling just in front of the fleeing foe - yep - you can punch him from behind!

We hope to get this into Update 3, but it needs testing. But I thought you'd like to know.

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STATESMAN IS MY DEITY.

<grovel, grovel, genuflect>

Seriously. Thank you.

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2. As a Tanker lands more and more blows, he'll start doing more and more damage. The longer the fight, the more powerful the Tanker becomes. I can't say that the Tanker will do as much damage as a Scrapper - but it'll certainly be more than he does now. This ability really gets to the core of a comic book Tanker. He's extremely powerful - but at the start of a fight, he holds himself back some. As the battle progresses, he lets loose....I prefer this system to a power because this way it's inherent. It's simply the nature of the Archetype. And it also sets the Tanker apart from the Scrapper's criticals.

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This somewhat worries me. It will most likely be minor or else it will be too large for the better tanker sets. One of the larger problems with Tankers are the imbalance between the diffrent sets. But if the idea is to add a bit of fluff similar to the 5% crits of Scrappers, then its not likely to be more then minor.

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An easy way to fix these issues is as follows:

Work out the peak Scrapper DPS. For simplicity, stick with melee attacks. (Sorry Burn Tankers, you get no love aside from better aggro.) This peak is now the maximum all Tankers can hit.

ALL Tankers. The less-damaging secondaries take longer to get there, but all tankers can reach Scrapper damage eventually.

This in no way dethrones Scrappers as the kings of damage, since they get their huge numbers right from the start, and Criticals are gravy on top.

All tanks, regardless of secondary, now have the potential to be slaying machines. Eventually. The more damaging sets get there quicker, but they tend to reach peak less often as the foes go down sooner.

Nice, eh?

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I mean, does your damage build for each successive attack on the same enemy, or does it build over the course of a single battle? If I fight and kill three enemies, and then run over to another group ten feet away, do I lose all my accumulated power? None of it? What?


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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.

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Wow, now it's a balancing act:

Acc?
Dam?
Rech?

Any chance of more than six slots per power?

STATESMAN ROOLS!


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As promised, I've been looking into the issues facing Tankers; I thought I'd explain the direction we're going. As we analyed it, Tankers have two very valid concerns (aside from the issues with specific power sets):

1. Without Provoke, they are not a real Tanker. Those people who enjoy the MMP role of "meat shield" have trouble holding aggro properly.
2. The Tanker's defense stats can be matched by a properly slotted Scrapper - but the Tanker can not approach the Scrapper in damage.
3. The Tanker doesn't "feel" like a comic book Tanker should. And frankly, this one really, really bothered me. Because our game is a comic book MMP.

So - here's the solution we're going to try internally. We went through a ton of possible solutions, and we weighed each one against how well they answered the three points above as well as how long it would take to get done.

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Succinct, to the point, excellent.

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1. Tankers will get a "provoke" like AOE effect on their melee attacks. The more a Tanker lands his blows, the more and more mobs he'll attract. The bonus here is that it's not exactly like Provoke (it's not ranged) - but it makes a lot of sense. Some huge monstrosity is bashing the heads of a villain group - they're going to get more and more concerned about taking him/her out....

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OMG!!!!!

Time to play the tanker more.

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2. As a Tanker lands more and more blows, he'll start doing more and more damage. The longer the fight, the more powerful the Tanker becomes. I can't say that the Tanker will do as much damage as a Scrapper - but it'll certainly be more than he does now. This ability really gets to the core of a comic book Tanker. He's extremely powerful - but at the start of a fight, he holds himself back some. As the battle progresses, he lets loose....I prefer this system to a power because this way it's inherent. It's simply the nature of the Archetype. And it also sets the Tanker apart from the Scrapper's criticals.

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VERY nice.

This also addresses the nascent PVP worries some Tankers have expressed. I would assume this would be coded to begin 'ticking' based on being aggroed, and more importantly, would count aggro for any member of a superteam. Thus, in PVP, folks opposing a team with a Tanker is faced with Hobson's choice: Attack the toughest guy in the opposing team first, or leave him for last and have to face him fully "wound up" and ready to rock. Very nice.

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Of course, the thought in your minds must be....WHEN?...I'm afraid I don't know.

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TEASE!

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First, we need some code for this. Then we've got to test it thoroughly. Finally, it'll go on the Test Server for awhile to gather data and impressions. This is going to take some time; but I thought you'd like to know at least where we're going, even though we don't know when we'll get there.

Feel free to comment!

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