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Dark Current

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Posts posted by Dark Current

  1. On 10/16/2019 at 5:24 PM, Tahliah said:

    Our third all plant troll/dom team night was another raging and super fun success!  We started out with five planters and then @Shoulungjoined us for the last few missions (yay!). 

     

    We picked up where we left off in Faultline and completed Tremblor's, Yin's, and Doc's* arcs.  Along the way we came across some strange Tentacles that looked like they needed "arresting," so we obliged.

     

    We ran into some slight trouble (read: team wipe) with Arachnos when we were ambushed from behind by quite the sizable mob of reds and purples while we were dealing with an equally sizable mob of reds and purples in front of us.  It was a super fun time; well, maybe not the team wipe part, but the part where we regrouped and showed those wily Arachnos who was truly boss. 

     

    This time, we wrecked them in short order.  It was grand.  Perhaps the glory we experienced upon our regroup is best captured in this paraphrase from one intrepid planter: "Now I am beginning to see the potential of an all-plant team!"  Indeed.  And just wait, there are TFs and AV arcs and so much more to come!

     

    As people had to head out in preparation for work the next morning, we decided to do a bank run.  It was a hot mess, but totally fun to see us all try to work out how everyone "did" bank runs.  Unsurprisingly, everyone has their own way to do banks/sides/badges, and when chaos ensued, it was pretty . . . well, chaotic.  But again, we prevailed.  There was no doubt that we would. 

     

    Not wanting to get ahead of the people who had to get going for work the next day, we called it a night after that.  It was getting late, anyway, so it was a good time to call it.

     

    Although we are a range of levels (reminder: all levels are welcome!), the ones who started on Week 1, Day 1 are now at level 22ish . . . and are very excited and anxious to get our creepers at lvl 26.

     

    Next Tuesday, we will be picking up in Faultline where we left off (with Agent G's first mish).  Then we will be heading to Striga for some amazing fun in that zone.  Wedding bands and warwolf whistles, anyone? . . . yeah, yeah, you can buy them, but how much more fun is it to earn them the old-fashioned way in one of the best zones with some of the best arcs in the game?  On an all-plant troll/dom team?

     

    Since our plea for a plant/kin has so far gone unanswered, I said that I would roll one and get caught up so that I can be, among other helpful goodies, the SB provider an all plant team needs to thrive when leveling.  Since I'll be supplying the "power" (i.e. endurance and recharge speed), Irresponsible Creeper thought that Power Plant would be a great name for my new plant/kin.  Alas, some genius COXer already had that name, so I "stole" it by simply adding a period at the end:  Power Plant.  Woots! 

     

    Poor old Over Thyme will therefore be shelved for the time being, I guess, though you may see her out and about since I was really starting to dig plant/time.  Besides, who knows, maybe some interested party will decide they want to be the plant/kin hero and jump in to join our Parks and Wreck Tuesday Troll (and Dom) crew.

     

    Anyone wishing to join us on any plant troll/dom is welcome!  Again, we meet on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST on Excelsior.  Next week, we will start in Faultline, and you can contact us ingame by sending a tell to either me @Tahliah or to @StridingWind(or to anyone else you see posting or mentioned here).  

     

    Not counting the planters who've joined us for only one night (so far), our plant troll/dom roster includes:  Termite /nature, Spring Fury /elec, California Raisin /sonic, Passing Wind /dark, Irresponsible Creeper /poison, and Over Thyme /time (soon to be replaced with Power Plant. /kin). 

     

    Alas, I haven't a screenie to share this week, as once again, we didn't grab one.  Next week, though, we'll make a point of it so that everyone can see us all in our gorgeous green glory.

     

    Edited to add: *While in that Doc Delilah mission with the scaffolding outside, a bot got tossed over the side and Doc being Doc dived after him.  She was promptly killed (i.e. before I could even get down there after her).  I don't recall her ever dying in her arcs before, so I was surprised the mission didn't fail.  I was also very interested in what she would have to say to us when we called her after that mish.  She just said what she always says, no "gee, I'm all dead and can't talk to you right now" or anything.  It was a fun side note that I thought I would add since it's the first time I recall her dying in those "save Doc" missions. 

     

     

    Maybe we should post an ad in Excelsior server forum pointing them to this super team? Could drum up some more interested folks who might not visit this forum. Maybe dominator forum also if we want to open it up to more domis.

     

    My DPS is good, but mainly ST.  Won't be until I get into late 30s that I'll be able to add AoE to the mix.

  2. On 10/12/2019 at 5:26 PM, Shoulung said:

    It’s not so much that I need a tank, as that I need someone standing next to the mobs for my aoe -res toggle, which is usually a melee character of some kind.

    Oh, I got the melee build going. The big thing for me is eating an alpha. So to prevent having to really worry about it, I was thinking to have someone stealthy be the primary Seeds tosser. Soon as that lands, I run in and start pounding (I have 4 melee attacks now) with the -RES aura.

  3. 3 hours ago, Tahliah said:

    Oh, and we discussed last night how welcome a plant/kin would be as we level and beyond.  That SB end crack would be so welcome. No pressure, of course, but if you're reading this thread and think you might want to join and have a desire to run a plant/kin . . . what's stopping you?!! Heheto

    Would certainly help my dominator. going for a permadom build, but SB makes that easier to achieve in 'pseudo' status. However, a bigger benefit would be the melee heal because I'm not sure my dom serving as alpha tank is a sustainable situation as we level up. I have no problem doing it, but unless there's some dedicated buff / heal in melee range, it's going to be rough (I think we have poison heal and storm heal only for melee at this time). The sonic shields are nice, but still need to eat an alpha before we lock down.

     

    If we don't get some bigger buffs / heals for melee I think a better strategy is to designate an alpha Seeds thrower to go in under stealth and confuse the majority of targets. Then, I can go in with the -RES disruption bubble at melee and starting pounding with elec punches.

     

    I'm going to have SS + stealth when I respec, so I can serve that role easily enough. And if I have permadom or pseudo permadom with kin SB, I can one-shot confuse the whole pack as an alpha strike.

     

    Anyway, just some tactical discussion needs to be had so we're not all just hurling seeds on top of each other and the alpha tanky dom doesn't faceplant instantly. Won't be a huge issue as we get more controls like Creepers, but til then...

     

    Oh, and I have crap for AoE damage right now, so if you all can stack damage-slotted roots while I'm up i melee to whittle the enemies down that would be awesome. Elec is pretty light on AoE til 30s. Even then, it's a cone and a small area PB AoE. I'm going fight pool as well, and will have Cross Punch which is a nice short cone. But that's it til I can get some Mu patron set.

  4. AA is an end hog.

     

    The AoE immobilize used to prevent Ice Slick's knockdown... I think that has been changed on homecoming though.

     

    Flashfreeze aggros before the sleep takes hold because it does a tick of damage first. So you take an insta-alpha for using it. Then it suffers the typical problem of mobs waking up with damage so if on a team that's a guarantee.

     

    The set conflicts with itself positionally: AA and Glacier are melee controls... Shiver and Aoe immob are ranged.

     

    There's only so much -rch / -spd you can stack, so stacking your controls doesn't really do much when compared to stacking most other controls.

     

    Jack has a glass jaw.

     

    I think the easiest ways to bring the set to match the other control sets are:

    1. Make the AoE sleep mimic electric's sleep. Any mob that enters the patch of Flash Freeze will be damaged, slowed, and slept. Repeatedly. This would give Ice another (or first?) strong AoE control early in the set (Ice Slick is pretty good... until you try it on fliers or fast runners.
    2. Make Shiver do -dmg or -resist along with -spd / -rch. Something to make it worth the pick. Heck, I'd even take a cone repel effect on it similar to Gale, sans kb / kd.
    3. Allow Ice Slick to accept IOs and put in some ticks of AoE damage from the falling down. Now you can put slow sets and AoE dmg sets.

    These are relatively 'minor' changes for which I think the code is already there / could be modified (I can't say this for sure as I've not seen the code personally).

    • Like 1
  5. Not trying to pick a fight, but I don't really understand the rationale behind this question. 

     

    If you're playing a defender, it's because you want to defend, which requires actively monitoring your team and enemy. If you want to be 'lazy' with your primary, that implies you don't want to worry about actively monitoring those two things. In which case, it would seem to me, you don't want to play a defender.

     

    Why not just play something else? If you like to shoot from range, then go with blaster, sentinel, or possibly dominator. Those classes can 'lazily' blast away from range and not worry about anything but DPS. But if you want to protect your team, then you're going to need to be active with your primary.

     

    Even FF requires awareness of who is shielded or not. Where to position yourself relative to your teammates to protect them with your big bubble. Whether you should cage a dangerous foe or not. Whether your force bolt will save a teammate's life or just annoy them because the target was knocked over the edge and you have to go down in get them. Whether you should activate PFF to save yourself or continue blasting to save your allies. Whether you should activate force / repulsion bubble to knock the whole mob away / down or not.

     

    A lazy defender, FFer included, is going to get someone killed who shouldn't have if you were actively doing your 'job'.

     

    Now maybe the question is 'which primary requires the least focus on teammates / allies because I love to blast away, but still want to save the day'?

  6. 6 hours ago, Tahliah said:

    Our first all plant troll team was a blast!  Five plant trolls engaged in a variety of joy-filled fun:  we did a bit of ToT in AP, then we ran DFB (twice), then we were off to the Hollows for some mission arc fun and mayhem.  We started the Flux arc, but we won't do Frostfire until next time.  From there, we are planning to do Posi 1 (and maybe 2 if we have time).  We'll then head to Faultline for those tremendous arcs.

     

    So if an all plant troll (and dom, waves at @Dark Current) FF run sounds as fun to you as it does to us, be sure to join us on our new, regular day and time:  Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. EST on Excelsior

     

    On Tuesday we will be meeting up in the Hollows by the entrance. 

     

    We also brainstormed an sg name for our weekly plant escapades: we are Parks and Wreck.  A couple of people (who are not me, heh) will be working on making a functional base, so we'll have all the necessities . . . and be able to easily connect on Tuesday evenings.

     

     

     

    Great. I rolled up a plant / elec dominator named Spring Fury.

     

    What level did you all get to? I can do some work to catch up this weekend.

     

     

    • Like 1
  7. I have one at lvl 23 as of Virgil Tarikoss SF today.

     

    Solid damage output with Freezing Rain and Disintegrate.

     

    Hurricane creates an island of safety for you to blast away.

     

    I have hover, which is mandatory I think for this combo to pick out targets to disintegrate.

     

    Problems:

    Healing and shooting with redraw is slow and challenging on large teams in a timely fashion. You can often get caught trying to FR, Disint, spread disint, blast, blast, and suddenly... Oh, no, teammate dying! Where'd I put that O2 Boost? Crap, they're dead... too late. I've found that I can either ignore the health bars and make sure I'm spreading the damage, or I can focus on protecting allies and miss a lot of disintegration opportunities.

     

    Ranged defense is non-existent so if you anger enough people and they're surrounding you from range, you'll take a beating. I just got Snowstorm so we'll see if that helps. Otherwise, your only defense is dropping FR and blasting them before they get back up. You can leverage hurricane to dust groups with -to hit, but the repel effect seems much wider than the visual effect of the swirling cloud, so it's tough to judge.

     

    Endurance is an issue in long fights. But on a team with wounded allies, Vigilance is really nice. Just blame their low HP on your crappy heal and keep on blasting.

     

    Getting disintegration leveraged is challenging if you knock away clumped targets with hurricane or gale.

     

     

  8. 10 minutes ago, Xyzor said:

    Do you find investing 3 powers into getting a self heal is worth it for this build? I've tried it out through mid-lvls (~35) and it is ok, but I wonder if long-term it is necessary. At 50, I could take the Leadership Powers in addition to the fighting powers, which seems like a better fit, no? And just keep a ton of Greens on hand for when I need to heal.

     

    Thoughts on this from your Elec/SD experience?

     

    Thanks!

    My current experience with this set is on a fire/rad dominator... the idea being aid other for imp pets and aid self for dominator.

     

    I'm really considering dumping it because aside from the powers' lackluster / situational uses, I'm feeling I could get just about as much if not more utility from other powers that would keep me safer. Especially with the IO sets you can afford pretty easily. For instance, putting the +Absorb proc in Health... wouldn't that be as useful as Aid Self? Or throwing some +Heal procs in blasts?

     

    The interruptible nature of Aid Self makes it not useful in a lot of fights. And if you're using it after the fight, why not just Rest? Or pop a green inspiration?

     

    The other defensive pool powers have broader / constant use that would probably make it so using Aid Self wouldn't even be needed. Like what about taking Maneuvers? A little more defense and you're not getting hit as much, so you're taking damage that needs to be healed. And you don't even need to think about having to click the power or getting to a spot where it's not interrupted by something like Nullifier grenade aura.

  9. 22 hours ago, xhaledk said:

    Picked dual pistols. Needed to have a gun since I kinda wanted to make him like a gunslinger or something over the cosmic captain template. Also got some inspiration from the space pirate Captain Harlock

    Swap Ammo will give you some nice options to stack with powers you have, plus being able to switch damage types as needed:

     

    Cryo rounds will stack slow with tar patch.

    Chem rounds' -DMG will give you another layer of protection with your +DEF and -To Hit, so even if they do hit, it'll be for reduced amount.

    Incend rounds will give you some more damage to go with the -RES of tar patch.

     

    Any plans for your APP/PPP? With dual pistols you have a couple AoEs (your nuke is PB AoE) that work great at point blank range, so you might want to look at a set that's good in melee and work up to that in your 30s and 40s.

     

    Was glancing through your options and thought these would be a solid choice:

     

    Dark has 3 PB AoEs to leverage... so you toss out Fear, drop a patch, run in, hit Soul Drain while OG is running and NUKE + Bullet Rain combo. Or pull around corner into tar patch with DN and then Soul Drain + Nukes.

     

    Elec has Thunderstrike and Power Sink, which aren't as good as what dark would bring, but probably second best option for melee.

     

    The Mu and Soul sets are similar to the above. The other sets all lend themselves to staying at range if that's your plan.

     

    Dang... I think you're talking me into building one of these myself!

  10. 6 hours ago, xhaledk said:

    I made the toon with dark, but pain was also an option, but it seems kinda "meh" to be honest

    I think you'll like it. Just make sure you get some acc (tactics is a good idea) so that you can hit with your heals and controls.

     

    Good strategy is to open with Fearsome Stare and / or pull with Darkest Night, then let the robots unload. Toss out your tar patch, petrify a tough lieu (need to 2x stack on a boss), maybe hit a heal if needed, then blast blast blast.

     

    What secondary did you pick?

  11. 3 hours ago, SmalltalkJava said:

    I’m a Nature fan.  It in theory would work well

     

    • its heal is a cone so it hits a lot of things in front of you. 
    • It brings health absorb. To alleviate the hits that bypass the defense.  Effectively doubling the T1 bots health at the start of a fight 
    • It brings a resist buff. To again alleviate damage that gets through 

    so it brings 2 additional levels of damage mitigation

     

    Regardless. Pick a primary that can AOE heal the bots.  It’s a quality of life thing 

    Only issue i have with the nature heal is you'll need to be standing behind the bots, or turn around, to spray them.

     

    Forgot to mention thermal... provides solid resistances on par with sonic, and also brings heals to the table. So if you're looking for a buff and blast type of defender that checks a lot of boxes above, thermal could work.

     

    I'd still rank it lower than my initial list because it only has one debuff, which I think this duo will need more of when fighting EBs / AVs.

  12. Analyze what bots / FF brings:

     

    A lot of DEF to cover you and them.

    Ranged attacks primarily.

    Knockback from bot blasts.

     

    So I think if you have some group stealth that would be nice and allow your bot pack to get into range without being seen: dark, storm, cold have such auras.

    You'll need to be able to heal yourself and the MM/bots at range. You'll want an aura heal over a ST to catch everyone at once. There are several options here: rad, dark, emp, time, nature, thermal, etc... you won't get it from storm, traps, kin, poison, cold, sonic, etc.

    Some resistance to add to the mix would be nice. So the stealth auras mentioned above would work, along with sonic.

    The kb will knock things out of patches and anchor auras, so you'll need to be selective on where you place those if you take a set with them... I can't think of a defender primary that roots targets to prevent it.

     

    For me, putting that all together, I'd think something dark/ would be really good. It also has -RES / slow patch, fear, hold, rez, -To Hit... would be a great collection of debuffs and controls to go along with your partner's damage and ranged blasting potential. Also, shadowfall will plug FF's psi hole somewhat.

     

    I also like rad/ and time/... no stealth aura, but checks a lot of the other boxes and brings some strong debuffs / buffs to the party.

  13. Wormhole is one of the best control powers in the game.

     

    A ranged stun that hits from around a corner out of LOS and moves an entire spawn from a hazardous location to one of your choosing for AoE destruction?

     

    It's downright surgical.

  14. 2 hours ago, Dungeoness said:

    Panacea affects the targets of the heal because it was made to, with a power description to match. The other heal procs do not, so only affect yourself.

    Has anyone tested this on the 'new' preventive medicine proc? It never made it to live, so I don't know if it was intended to behave like Panacea.

     

    Also, a lot of changes were made to procs for I24, so has any testing been done to confirm that older healing procs weren't modified to affect allies. Not calling you a liar or anything. I just am working on my own plant/nature controller and wasn't sure if all the old rules still applied on HC.

     

    Thanks!

  15. Agreed. I was playing my KM brute last night and Burst was no better than my ST attacks. I hit at most 2-3 targets even when I was in the middle of a group of 6-10 clustered mobs. Combat log only showed to hit rolls on 3-4 targets. Something seems 'off' with the range.

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