KelvinKole

Glad I found this. Almost a year later and I still have questions about Hyrbid Assault. In addition to the special abilities provided by either core or radial, discussed above, both also provide a passive increase to damage all the time. In mids, this passive bonus is applied via increasing the enhanced damage value of each power, which means two things: 1) its is subject to ED limits and 2) because of that the effect can either be full value or highly diminished if already approaching the limit through enhancements. Can anyone confirm that this is how it applies in game? In a practical example, I have Midnight Grasp enhanced to +124% damage through enhancements and alpha musculature. Adding assault core only increases that value to +127%. The stacking damage buff doesn't get applied the same way; it's applied globally and not subject to ED.

Another suggestion that I can think of is to change Domination so that attacks fill the bar and controls consume the bar. Controls fired off while you have some Domination built up land as criticals. Domination would become a weaving mechanic, and as long as you're using both your primary and secondary you effectively have the same performance as permadom. Some attacks might build more than others, while some controls consume more than others, but it provides a performance reward for people who are balancing it while introducing a linear progression as your character levels up and gets more abilities.

Sounds like a bad concept for an inherent power. It works fine as a T9 power choice, but not as an archetype defining attribute. Imagine Scrappers only had a chance to land critical hits for a third of the time you're playing them. Or tanks could only taunt for a third of the time. No Bueno. Stalkers got a major rework because their inherent was only active from Hide. Making them very weak the rest of the time. This is along the same lines.

Put aside all of the conversation regarding permadom, and Domination is still bad. Assume no global recharge at all, and as designed, with the crash happening after the buff wears off, you have an archetype without access to its core mechanic for over 3 minutes. It's just not good form. Changing that so the crash happens upon activation effectively cuts that downtime by the duration, 90 seconds. Honestly, they could just match the recharge to the duration and then anyone capable of refilling the bar before it wears off can have permadom at level 1.

I didn't attempt to draw any comparisons. Most of it applies to Controllers too, who could also use a buff but that's discussion for another thread. Controllers actually get access to debuffs, buffs, and heals though and are therfore typically more stable. They kill slowly, but very safely.

All other reasons aside, I think it's important to remember that the game is supposed to be balanced around SOs, and a Dom under those circumstances can't influence the recharge of Domination in even remotely the same way. Most should agree, that an SO Dom is not very good; they have too many powers to juggle, with virtually no inherent defenses, and can't reliably lock anything down out of Domination. The suggested change seems to make sense to me. An active Dominator should be able to refill their bar before the buff expires. Rate adjustments may need to be made, but the concept is a fine one.

I'm sure it's been suggested all over this thread, but as an extremely easy first step couldn't we just give the version of TF that doms received to the rest of energy Melee? Doesn't demand a lot of resources and moves things in the right direction. Later on, tweak energy transfer. Personally I'd like to see the original animation restored with perhaps a more severe consequence, like flatlining your recovery or reducing you max hit points. I want this set to be the champion of burst damage that it once was, but with a cost.

As long as I can critically Seismic Smash that unexpecting boss in the face and simultaneously hold him while I laugh at his frailty then I don't care what you take away.

Cool! Thanks for giving it a run. Are you able to share the build you used?

Ninjitsu us a super solid choice. The melee defense from parry stacks well with the positional defense that Ninjitsu provides, so you can focus on building out ranged and aoe defense. You get a reliable self heal and some fun toys to play with in caltrops, blinding powder, and smoke flash. You even get some built in psionic resistance that a lot of resistance based sets don't get. Thematically, it doesn't fit everything though. I should really have a /nin stalker by now.

It's global. I have the proc in Smite, but I fish for it to go off by using radiation therapy or fireball all the time. The IO provides a global chance for all powers that can take damage enhancements to refresh build up, but the chance of it occurring is applied for each enemy hit so using an Aoe is always more likely to make it happen.

That's why I paired it with /rad. Siphon life and particle shielding will keep you upright, so you can turn radiation therapy into a proc Nuke, and you have ground zero plus any patron AoEs you want (I took fireball). And then comes judgment, so yea plenty of AoE. I don't think I'll respect into shadow maul even with the changes. I'm a ways away from having the incarnates to run any tests. I'm not very efficient at building characters on the test sever, but might give it go.

Has no one tried Dark Melee in one of those pylon tests? I have a dark/rad that feels really good, and I love that Stalker dark melee gets a real build up. If i recall, Dark Melee had the highest average DPA across its attacks.

I think water would be the clear winner here. Whirlpool is a rain like power. Steam spray is a huge, wide, powerful DoT. Geyser has a Dot component. Even dehydrate has a small Dot. Pair it with storm.

I've spent some time thinking about this question and have arrived at either Electric Armor or Radiation Armor. Both have built in sourcea of damage, +recharge, endurance management, and super solid resistance numbers. The all encompassing nature of these sets will let you go all in on damage incarnates. Primary is a harder choice for me. Titan weapons is obviously broken good, but I just dont like the momentum mechanic. Katana, Spines, and psi need to be mentioned for their combination of fast single target attacks and solid Aoe. Spines may fall all out of favor slightly with less IO proc potential.

It's a lot like fruit cake. Fruit by itself, is awesome. Cake too. Super awesome. Fruit Cake. Terrible, don't insult me with it.

Not a lot of love so far for Fire Melee, Spines, battle axe, broad sword, or stone. I'm not a fan of battle axe or broad sword either. Numerically they do well, but are just not much fun to me. I'm surprised about fire, stone, and spines. Fire isn't the best numerically, but I always found the blazing havoc it produces to be fun, even though theres no special mechanics. Stone I've always liked the feel of; screen shaking, lots of kd/ku, seismic smash is a beast. And Spines has a nice mix of range, st, and Aoe damage, a very good set but maybe people don't like the look? Whats generally most important to people when they pick a set? Look/esthetics, theme, dps performance? I'm curious because I generally prioritize dps performance, but the game is so out of hand anyway that I might try something that's just straight up fun to play.

I'm not talking about the metrics here. What primaries do you just love to play? Which ones just feel right, like home, to you, and why?

Yea, I mean it's gotta be Willpower. Any of the natural secondaries should work; street justice, martial arts, blades of any kind, titan weapons?, savage

I agree that Fire Melee needs something. It's always been one of my heart's favorite sets, but as underperformed and left me disappointed. Thematically, the current chance for fire DoT makes but I wonder how well the set would do if that damage was just rolled into the initial burst. For all the times that it doesn't happen, or the damage is cut short by target death or you have to fire off another attack because the DoT didn't tick enough times to kill the target, it would be nice just to do direct damage instead.

Good to know and thanks for confirming. Quite a handy little power.

Sorry to make a post just for this, but I noticed in game today that the description for Grant Cover says it applies a defense bonus, stealth, and resistance to defense and recharge debuff to nearby allies. The power details screen only shows the debuff resistance though, and not the defense or stealth numbers. Is the power bugged? Or does it actually provide all of the stats in the description?

Nice.

That's even before Savage Leap and the stacks of Blood Frenzy that it generates. Enjoy!

There's two IOs that will help tremendously and that you should try to get as soon as possible. Slot one Performance Shifter chance for +end in Stamina. And slot either one Miracle +recovery in Health or one Panacea chance for hit points/endurance. None of these are terribly expensive. Buy them as attuned enhancements from the auction house.