Dual Pistols: Pain or Storm as secondary?

Originally Posted by Mystic_Cross

Based on what you listed above for /storm, I'd say it's a better choice for someone who finds themselves soloing and/or taking a majority of the secondary powers in their build. /pain will probably be better for someone who wants a more open build and likes dipping into multiple power pools, or for someone who does more teaming. does that sound about accurate?

Originally Posted by Silas

I dunno, for that 20% I'd still say Painbringer is a fantastic enough buff to make it definitely needed. For a primarily solo build I'd just skip the rez and Share Pain.

I say Soothing Aura is poop because it's easier than writing out the whole song and dance.

Since I do also love a good performance, here it is:

Soothing Aura, fully enhanced, heals for about 80 hp per tick. It ticks every 4 seconds. A Corruptor with no +hp of any kind has 1070 hp at 50. Animation free healing is nice, but its such a paltry amount and ticks so slowly it's really not worth it.

If you get hit for 80 damage it'll heal it right back up again in the next 4 seconds, but 80 damage is nothing. If you get hit for 2-3 ticks worth of Soothing Aura heals, say 150-300, you're much better off using Nullify Pain. Instant, 240ish hp.

The situation in which Soothing Aura would be great is if you were constantly taking 80 points of damage or less every 4 seconds. In which case, awesome. It'll keep you alive for not much endurance, animation time free and looks pretty to boot so girls will want to touch you.

But that's not a realistic scenario. The touching by girls and the 80 dmg or less every 4s. Yes, you can also heal allies with SA. But again, 80 points every 4 seconds. It's even worse when you compare the numbers to other ATs who have more hp.

The way I see it, if an ally needs only a small amount of healing to top them off (so Soothe isn't warranted) either they've taken so little damage that their natural regen can handle it (100 pts or less) or enough that I'd need to stand right next to them and stay right on them for 8-12 seconds to heal them back up with Soothing Aura. It's simply much more efficient to use Nullify Pain.

If you or an ally has taken enough damage that leaving it to natural regen would be unwise, it takes Nullify Pain 2 seconds to do the job Soothing Aura takes 12-16 seconds for. Plus Nullify Pain is on your schedule. You hit it when you want its healing. Soothing Aura would be much more useful as a regen buff, like the MM version. Even better as a click +regen buff.


Soothing Aura is good for:

• set bonuses
• looking pretty
• Masterminds
• a static team stacked with pain corrs where everyone has it

Originally Posted by Mystic_Cross

I can agree with some of your points, but I think we're also looking at the power from two different angles. You seem to be looking at it solely on its own merits as a standalone power, while I'm looking at it from an entire build standpoint that has other forms of mitigation like +defense (weave, combat jumping, scorpion shield, set bonuses etc) and +Resistance (tough, other patron shields etc.).

Aside from our viewpoint differences, Soothing Aura is also a decent boost to Nullify Pain... as you said NP only heals for 240HP... SA will heal at least another 180HP during the time NP activates and recharges, making for just over 400HP heal in that short time. In any case, I've obviously had a better experience with the power than you have, which is no surprise in a game where personal results can vary so greatly. Lets just say that we agree to disagree on this power and leave it at that...