nihilii

This mode is currently available on the old Lord Recluse Strike Force, which you can start in Ouroboros. Lacking set bonuses and incarnates makes for a surprisingly fun challenge. It's still a step up from the old SO days, as we get the multi-enhancement benefits of IOs still. Plus numerous buffs over the years, and P2W. But it tones down anything overpowered, with interesting externalities. For example, run your normal /nin build, then realise without set bonuses your click mez protection isn't perma anymore. 😅 In my smaller-than-8 team, we had to think *hard* to survive Statesman's DPS and also deal enough damage to break through his Unstoppable cycles given these constraints. Indeed, almost like those oldschool days starting to figure out the LRSF and throwing everything but the kitchen sink hoping something would stick. I'd love to see this as an optional setting for all Task Forces.

I'm not sure I agree with that Tanker assessment. Personally, I feel the problems with Kinetic come down to lengthy animation times compared to actual effect/damage. Which unfortunately prevents the set from being a top dog on any AT. i.e., Concentrated Strike is your standard Total Focus-like attack, but activates the slowest out of all similar powers at 3s. Power Siphon being a 2s cast is also such a drag. Not only you have to ramp up your damage, you have to spend 2s doing no damage in order to start that ramp up. The flipside to this, in my opinion, Kinetic Melee feels awesome during the leveling phase. You're not bound by animation times yet before recharge becomes optimal. You get 3 fast attacks, and the Power Siphon +tohit and damage buffs is actually excellent given that you have less tohit and damage at those levels.

I love Kinetic to death but I think it's firmly an underperformer. "Underperform" is a relative term however. If you're with a bunch of people where the norm is jumping 10 feet high and you jump 9 feet high, you're going to be an underperformer within that group, but you'd still look positively superhuman to most of the world. That's roughly how it goes with Scrappers. The "underperforming" powersets can still solo level 54 archvillains when push comes to shove. Shield is a kickass secondary to Rule Them All. There's great comfort in having softcapped positional defenses with high DDR, *and* resistances, *and* maxHP on top. All of it passive also gives you so much freedom with your actions. Throw in the aggro aura for good measure. Only thing it's missing is a heal. Dark Melee is obviously great for that. Could also plug the hole with Rebirth Incarnate, as Shield has literally no other hole. I think you could be happy with either Dark/Shield or Kinetic/Shield.

Seconding the missing factors: - epic snipe vs Gloom - Gaussian BU (a bigger relative *and* net increase for the Scrapper) - Critical Strikes. An EM scrapper attack rotation can be built for near guaranteed crits on several hits - +DAM. Alpha (closer to +30% than +20% on T4), Assault Hybrid, Leadership Assault, set bonuses all giving more to the Scrapper The numerous structural advantages of highend Scrappers (for the purpose of damage) outpace a couple powers not getting full crits, especially when given other advantages in return: heal vs damage on ET is significant, if you break it down in hp/s. EM being a super high burst set, and the game generally favoring burst damage, Scrappers get a lot out of the set. Much more than Pylon numbers would tell... and that's with EM being near top of the charts there. Nothing wrong with Brute EM, of course. It's just... it's a Brute. I think Stone Melee Scrapper vs Brute could be a closer call and worth looking at. Scrappers get a reduced crit on Seismic Smash and nothing cool to make up for it. Even then I suspect the above structural advantages still end up pushing the Scrapper ahead.

It gives a lot of recovery naturally. SR Sentinels also get a recovery power otherwise in Enduring. So on SOs I wouldn't bother slotting Elude with recovery. Either: -1 SO defense (panic button) - 3 SO recharge (have it up as often as possible) - 3 SO recharge + 3 SO defense (maximise uptime and defense against the most ludicrous +tohit enemies)

If you deal 600+ DPS fair and square, you can lower the shields. The ship part requires more warm bodies for the bombs (iirc you can only place one bomb per team).

I used a Bio/Claws Tanker to AFK farm for the longest time. Not to be special or anything, I genuinely believed it had great abilities for that purpose. - Bio gives you the most offensive output passively, with a damage aura, a -res aura, and extra damage in Offensive Adaptation. - Claws has Spin, which breaks all damage formulas natively, and is boosted further with the Tanker AoE buffs. One power to put on auto, hits 16 targets at once = perfect for AFK farming. - Bio also happens to have just enough passive regeneration and +maxHP to roughly break even with incoming damage if you reach 90% S/L res and 45% S/L def This was before the latest round of changes or two, anyway. Nowadays I find I have to put more effort into making that combo work.

CJ + Hurdle + a lot of bunnyhopping is my universal solution for runners. In theory patron pool immobilizes should be great too. Personally, I find I keep wanting to do damage rather than spend activation time on an immobilize; especially soloing an AV where dealing enough damage to outpace their regen is critical. So, I'm never disciplined enough to keep them still...

If DB is good when you skip powers, improving the skipped powers shouldn't affect the performance all too much! 😉 IMHO the design is schizophrenic as is. It's a fast recharge powerset with relatively slow animations. It has a combo system you're incentivised to skip to run BF -> AS -> SS -> AS. To be honest, I don't know if DB holds up all that well in this day and age. You can push out decent numbers whacking on an immobile Pylon and its even resistances, where Blinding Feint can be capitalized and lethal damage is not a penalty. In real gameplay, results may vary. The shining crown is of course SS being an excellent ST attack that happens to hit 5 guys at once. This is the saving grace of DB. Rest of the set is a bit sad. No unique hurdles to be sure, but enough overall awkwardness I think there's definitely room for a balance pass.

1KC is bad damage for the animation time, but I love it on my Tanker with the increased target cap and range. Scrapper... Harder to justify. It is pretty damn cool to look at. I'd love for DB to get a tune up similar to Axe. Slimming down the lenghtier animation times. Vengeful Slice at ~1.67s rather than 2.4s, 1KC at 2.4s rather than 3.3s.

Going to second the above opinion. /bio adaptation is a massive boost, and staff's form thingy is a nice plus. Those two powers are the best bang for your buck picks for your entire character. On top of that, we're never starved for powers. Slots tend to be a bigger issue. So trading no-slot global boosts for individual powers that need extra slots would be a bad trade in general.

Cleave -> Swoop -> Gash -> Chop is a great ST attack chain.

I'm having all kinds of issues as well. Option to change base tohit seems to be gone. Option to edit database/powers manually seems to be gone. Math seems off in many things. The Critical Strikes for scrappers seems to be perma-active no matter what you untoggle, and gives ridiculous damage numbers on "average".

It's funny isn't it. I can relate to Psyonico's grievances with my own nitpicks. Even though I've got thousands of other combos to play, NOOOO!!! I must have all the alts. Why isn't everything in the game designed to accomodate me always. 😄

SS does standard damage, so in theory there's nothing wrong with it... but comparatively, "standard" just doesn't cut it. Every set has an edge, and by giving up Rage you're giving up most of SS' edge. I think Bio/SS would go further than Shield/SS for a Rageless Tanker, what with the damage boost of Offensive Adaptation, the damage aura, and the -RES aura; which all work with just one mob, as opposed to AAO which is great only in crowds. Alternatively, you could build to negate the Rage crash. A SS/SR Tanker for example, could shoot for 65% defenses to stay softcapped during the crash, tons of +recovery and Conserve Power or Ageless for the end part.

The combat gameplay loop is satisfying, and I can't see that ever changing. Flashforward to year 2058, where we all live on Mars and have flying cars and virtual reality holodecks... I think it would still be enjoyable to play a mission of CoH on these antiquated interfaces we used to call mouse and keyboard. Just like how I can still enjoy playing the original Marios, Donkey Kong Country, Doom occasionally. Somewhat thankfully, *those* games don't have addictive RPG mechanics tied to near infinite content.

Have played only a little bit, but I like it so far. I could be wrong, but I think the ST damage is actually pretty high, higher than most other blast powersets? That stun power turns into extreme damage when you've got the seismic quakes going, and this will happen reliably one time out of two if you chain the other two big attacks with it (and if you cycle AOEs in between, then you can "guarantee" yourself the extreme damage stun). It can feel less impressive than it should at times because most blast powersets use exotic damage as primary, whereas smashing is often resisted by enemies. But against enemies with no resistance, man, it packs a punch.

I believe the opposite, and have never managed to disprove it. Usually, 2 END SOs in each attack (including damage auras, obviously) will solve end woes. I think the biggest footgun people fall prey to is slotting 3 DAM SOs before any END (if at all). 1 DAM + 1 END does better DPE than 2 DAM. Many combos have external damage buffs, further stacking the balance towards slotting END. If you're a Brute, for example - slotting END first is a no brainer. Your Fury bar will carry you much further than DAM SOs until the endgame. I've had Brute attacks where I run 2 ACC 2 END 2 RECH. The tricky part with endurance, actually... might be that endurance management is *too* easy in this game. So you never have incentive to think about it. And if you don't have to think about it, then it is indeed optimal to maximise damage first. It's completely understandable to lack the initiative to use the available options, because it's a counterintuitive path to the norm. But endurance reduction truly is more efficient than it gets credit for.

Side tangent, but... what is everyone's theories regarding the shift in player population per server? It used to be Torchbearer was the most populated, now it's a deserted land. It's impressive to see that magnitude of a change.

Energy Transfer used to cost end, the end-free part is a recent change tied to the EM revamp a couple of updates ago. I agree it would be nice to port this improvement to the dom/troller epics!

It could be positively hilarious to rotate 2 Tankers and their 16 target cap per AoE to herd groups super fast with Axe Cyclone. I love the idea. Jump off the ledge with Axe Cyclone, then activate Fly as they plummet to their demise...

If you move as you activate Axe Cyclone, affected mobs fly with you to your destination. I'm showing this with just one mob for clarity, but it works with full groups as well. You can carry a whole mob party on your magical axe ride. Are there cool applications of this? I'm wondering what would happen if a friend teleported you at the moment you activated Axe Cyclone. Would the mobs follow to your new position at lightspeed? Any other inverse Repel effects out there that could work similarly? I think I've read Gravity Control was modified to use this mechanic...

Oh no... It's the cyberdemon's eyes debate all over again, isn't it. 😂 I'm fond of the idea it is a knight's helm. Fits with the medieval theme and all.

Level 45 Axe/Ninja 08:36 = 202 DPS Cleave -> Swoop -> Gash -> Chop 5-slotted attacks with Crushing Impact and Multistrike, except a full Critical Strikes in Cleave. Enough global recharge (LOTGs etc.) to make the Hasten downtime minimal. Gaussian in BU All 3 Amplifiers active Something slightly different today, obviously. I've been having fun running this scrapper through leveling normally. /nin is top notch for basic sustainability on the "budget" of limited slots and incarnate, with softcap + heal + end. I leveled soloing the Freedom Phalanx TFs (which is enough to take you from level 15 to level 45, if you run them on x8), and before I tackle Maria I was curious to see where my DPS stands. Interesting results - out of pure feel, I was expecting to see maybe 150-160 DPS. Some AVs have been a struggle. That's likely because up to 50% lethal resistance is surprisingly common... I haven't even opened Mids for this character yet. Starting to think I can get away with it for a while still. Slotting purple sets and getting the superior versions of scrapper sets ought to bump this a notch, likewise with Musculature, Degen and Hybrid. 250ish DPS and a level shift ought to do it to take on 50% resistance level 50 AVs (not to mention tricksters like Diabolique) without wanting to pull my hair in frustration.

The following is interesting to me. Just two years ago, when I leveled a character the normal way, I would want to slot those Dam/Rech level 1 IOs, then the ATOs as soon as available. Great enhancement efficiency, and set bonuses. Now that we've got SOs starting at level 1, and easy upgrades? It's so much more efficient to stick with SOs until level 30 or so, save for a couple uniques. Not to mention SO % enhancing at low levels turn you into an absolute powerhouse. Cram those attacks with 3 damage SOs right away, take care of accuracy with amplifiers (only 1k inf for 8 hours at level 1), the Hydra buff until level 22, the Kismet +tohit unique. Enemies start dropping at such a lethal rate it's hard to entertain the official story ("yes, I *arrested* those skulls with my battle axe"). Perhaps that leads us to the next reason for these positive feelings. Devs really are doing a bang-up job rebalancing the lacking powersets. The new Battle Axe? Fantastic stuff. I think it's even better for those of us who built lowered expectations for these powersets over the years - and now get to be awed with the performance. It's honestly impressive this game and its supposedly finite amount of content and depth keeps getting better and better with the years. I applaud both the systemic strength underpinning CoH's design ideas, and the care our awesome devs have put to be both responsible maintainers and add just a bit of extra spice where it helps.