Cybot X-22

First blind run on merciless was a bit of a slaughterhouse for the team. My warshade tank with 35% def and 85% resists, overcapped. Did ok. Had a lot of trouble landing hits of some of the stuff as it was purple 54's. I'm at 50+2 at least. Might have been in over my head. Only went down when I got really focused hard or shifted to do something and got caught out of form. A team even with a little bit of +def and + acc will probably do ok so long as they don't rush too hard. All of that - res though....

I still wish we could run orbiting death in Dwarf form. Even if it took a hit to its damage.

Binds are essential to smoothly playing a shape shifting PB or WS. by Essential I mean mandatory. I guess someone could play without them, but they are not going to have a good time imo. Too much shifting between forms to meet the NOW moment if you want to be efficient and effective. Any player can roll a Keldian and make it sorta work. A master can excel and make the rest of the team look silly in many scenarios.

Uncle Jim?!? Is it really you? Did you break out of Pretoria SuperMax again? Or is like a once a year special release kinda deal? I um... had. a bit of an accident since the last time I saw you. You see... this dark energy being kind of fused itself into my hardware. Hey, don't look at me like that, it is actually pretty handy. Just... don't tell your sister though.

Warshade or bust!

This is almost certainly never to be a thing as it is a considerable change, but I have to throw this out there as a suggestion anyways. For my own sanity at least. Quite literally, why cant we take a lunch to go? We absorb all of this essence and consume it to heal, buff our damage, or summon pets, but we throw away any we cant use right away? Why cant we store some of that for later? It becomes a malleable resource that we can use for whatever we want to burn it on. On an archvillian but no minions around? Use some of the stored essence to heal yourself or give yourself a damage buff while burning off your reserves (numbers not mentioned for obvious reasons). Or we could use it to summon pet(s) in the middle of that AV fight. We absorb essence from foes nearby, or siphon after the fact. We build up a bar, then spend it as needed. If we don't use it fairly quickly, it starts to evaporate and we lose it. This would be a possible solution to all sorts of problems we face as warshades. The current mechanic works, but I feel it has problems that need some brainstorming to fix. This is one possible fix I've been thinking about for a long time. This does bring us closer to some of the Peacebringer mechanics, but still has our own twist. Now again, this is almost certainly never to be a thing, but a keldian can dream right?

Warshade works Fantastic in large enemy groups, but drops off against few harder targets. I tend to act like a tank with optional nukes and pets. Works well for me as bi-form. Tanking in human form is foolish due to poor mez protection. Go in dwarf, mire to grab everything. With the Alpha behind you I can then swap back and drop and eclipse to cement my resists and normal mire, nuke, or something else. I tend to act in bursts in tune with your mires for increased damage. Fully Io'd I am near unstoppable unless it is all psi damage or they end drain me. It is a lot of fun as I decide how I want to engage the group with different options and gain momentum as I get my pets up, teleporting into groups, teleporting stragglers to myself. It is a very dynamic class. Binds are a MUST! if you cant rapid shift to the form that you need, it gets stale and you cannot play the class to its strengths. That is when it gets difficult and not fun.

Best I've ever had was 4, when heavily buffed, but only for a second. 3 is sustainable in large raids sometimes. Teams and solo, 2-3 max.

I can confirm that you can change the emissive a bit in form. My warshade is less shadow / dark mist and more red mist as thematically I run with the title "Corrupt". No pics at the moment though. No mods necessary either. This is all from the tailor / facemaker.

Use Redlynne's binds as a template then adapt them to suite your playstyle. Personally I used the MF'ing warshade binds. For any triformer binding is mandatory or you will hate the class.

I would absolutely love to be able to use orbiting death with in dwarf form. Otherwise I wont bother taking it, for now.

Take a look at the backstory for PeaceBringers and Warshades. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XroAWgGCTcrqSzP5Ea_OPENsHFDNMkJdWVI-0Nmmnrc/edit (credit to Septipheran for posting this in another threat) To enable the peacebringer or warshade powers, a light or dark Keldian must join in symbiosis with a host, willing or not in some cases. Thematically, I could see splitting the set into a primary / secondary sets to mix and match a bit. But realistically, It just doesn't work with the way the game is set up. Either it is a full WS/PB or it is not. I would like to see mixing and matching powers across sets, but they game is in no way balanced for that.

Dwarf form alone, when slotted on WS can grant 58ish % resist all but Psionic. With some decent IO sets you can run 75%-80% pretty easily solo. With a team, you will be at 85% cap almost all the time while in dwarf. Sure, PB's and Warshades don't have as many tricks for tanking as a tanker or brute, but I do a pretty damn good job if I do say so myself.

If judgement is wiping everything out, then crank up the difficulty. Can't take the heat? Then get out of the kitchen. There are already some tools for dealing with this. But I agree. The team lead should have the option to to tick a box for incarnates, Yes / No on Sub 50 content. 50 and up, no dice. Deal with it.

It does need something. If I compare this to Overgrowth from Nature Affinity, it falls kind of flat. Everyone in 25ft gets + 60-80% damage (corrupter vs defender based) and other benefits. Amp is, one person with decent buffs for a minute. With a great deal of recharge I could on paper have perma overgrowth. think about that for a sec. I like the set, but if the capstone is going to be this 'meh', why bother?

Warshade is my bread and butter. Only brute has held me any amount of time otherwise. I primarily focus as a tank/ offtank and a nuker. Love it. I probably spend 50% of my time in dwarf form, 25% human and 25% nova. Th key to a warshade as mentioned in the guide by Plasma, is the binds. Being able to shift quickly to the form you need NOW is critical. The essence of a PB or WS is flexibility. We may not be the best in any one situation, but we can make up for it by changing as the situation requires. Human form only is still quite viable but that is not my specialty.

I'm a Triformer, although I find I spend most of my time as Human or Dwarf and a lesser margin as nova. Human form only is completely doable. You primary attacks are a little weak, but ok. It really gets good once you get your extracted essences and can nuke with Quasar imo. I would have to refer to one of the specialists around here though.

Holy cow that design document. Where on Earth did we manage to find that? Regardless, kudos on mentioning it.

I have a sample build that I'm refining as well. Need to decide where to take it exactly. Like the buff potential, but would still really like chains to start with me then arc out. Can easily get Smash / lethal defense into the 30's with energy not far behind. Will have to start making sacrifices to get further. Still adjusting. Only level 15 at the moment and gaining slowly solo.

The no pet bug on fading corpses is an oldie all right...

I got one to lvl 8, REALLY don't like that the support chain skills don't start with me. I have to have an ally of some sort, pet or otherwise in order to heal of buff myself. Going to make it very hard to solo. Also this support set is HEAVILY gimped with MM teams. Even with static stacks, you will have a hard time actually supporting your team mates if the pets are absorbing all of it. Do like the end drain mechanics of it though. would be nice if the powers at least had some minor damage attached. Galvanic Sentinel is cool so far. I've been working on Electric/Nature and I'm a bit spoiled by it.

Interesting. I may have to give this a shot.

Things I want to see based off some of what I read here plus my own thoughts. I don't do peacebringer, I'm a diehard warshade. 1.Toggle suppression. 2. Allow hasten activation while in any form. 3. A proper taunt aura or allow orbiting death or equivalent while in dwarf. or add taunt to dwarf mire. These three things alone would go a long way. Wishes, I don't expect to get these, but they would be nice. 1. Being able to summon my pets while in any form. 2. Being able to cast unchain essence in nova form.

This is an alternate PB/WS guide posted by Plasma back in 2011. Personally I prefer it over the MFwarshade guide, but both are valuable resources. This guide goes into significant detail of the Author's preferences of each power for both classes. I find the binds to be of particular value. https://guidescroll.com/2011/07/city-of-heroes-kheldians-ultimate-guide/ Other notes, Stamina and Health from fitness DO apply while in forms. You can check in game by opening your powers tray and clicking on Combat Attributes at the top.