Omega-202

It sort of is what they did in PVP, and as someone who, at the time, played a Sonic/Energy Blaster in zone PVP, I loved it. The people that hated it were the Ice and Fire Blasters who got an effective nerf due to their quick animations. But Shout got turned into a freight train because it took forever to fire.

Don't bother with hover when you have Mystic Flight. Run CJ instead to give you near hover level flight control and the same defense, with the benefit of great ground manueverability as well. It sucks end faster than hover, but if you build for it, you can definitely fight in the air and have an instant escape button in Translocation.

@Brutal Justice Your numbers look generally correct, but they don't account for redraw, which is not free on VEATs like it is on other weapons sets for reasons I can't remember. It doesn't change things much, but might add a bit of time to your Bane chain. Otherwise, just need to add 5-10% (split it at 7.5%) to the Scrapper numbers to account for base level crits. That's not accounting for Scrappers running their ATOs wisely, but that's hard to account for. Overall, great summary. While your chain shows that a Bane overall can do very solid damage, its diverging from what was being noted in the conversation before that point, in that it includes VG. Zippity was saying that the mace attacks were fine, but they're not. I agree that when you include VG, Banes do good to great damage, but the point was that the mace attacks themselves are lacking and not satisfying. Anyone who follows my SoA posts knows that I consider VG to be the best attack in the whole game. If you slap VG on any AT or build in the game it would instantly be part of their attack chain, its that good. In light of all of this, is it fair to say Banes need a buff? Maybe? It feels like in order to compete, they need to use VG, which they can do, but it's not a "Bane" power. And the idea then devolves to "if you're using VG, you're pretty much better off running ranged AoE Bane/Huntsman or Crab". Which then cycles back to the premise of the thread: where are the Banes? When the Mace attacks are the weakest aspect of the Soldier AT, there's less incentive to go Mace Bane than Crab or Huntsman.

Surprisingly, no, but that's because I'm usually nestled right in the center of the bowl, covered by 5 overlapping bubbles and 200% defense. EDIT: ...when on a squishy. My controllers and corruptor don't venture off. The non-squishies I play all have mez protection and 45% or more psi/ranged defense so I haven't ever had an issue on the outskirts. I can see how a resistance armor character might suffer though.

You don't even need to spend the money if you have room for Rune of Protection and have decent defenses. I don't remeber the last time I was killed due to mez on any characters, as all of my squishies have Rune, which also feels like cheating. Yes there's a gap, but when you have 40%+ defense, pets and/or ccs, its so rare to not have it available when you need it.

That's not what they were saying. Go back and read the post you quoted in full. They said there's overlap between Ranged and Energy in IO bonuses.

@Brutal Justice Thanks for accumulating the numbers. To answer some of your questions, Scrappers have a 1.125 damage scale compared to a Bane's 1.0, and have a 5-10% crit rate based on the target. Overall, they come out pretty similar on the base numbers. So Mace vs Mace, it seems you're right that the issue isn't so much the individual animations, but the fact that Bane's are missing the best DPA Mace attacks and only have the slow clunky ones. So either they need access to Clobber and Jawbreaker or they need the animations they have to be adjusted. Either way, Bane's just aren't on par.

Only when I freight train throught the KR sewers during Apex. What even is the point of that part of the mission? "Oh no Praetorian Invasion! Let's cut through the sewers and punch som Rikti and poo monsters on our way through"

The fact that the premise is that you should take Recall to TP people to the end presupposes the fact that we're discussing stealthing and speed runs. So your comment is kind of irrelevant to what's being discussed. Kudos to you for not wanting to stealth. That's fine, but we're not talking about that. The issue is more about people joining teams that are stealthing and then considering the stealthers to be selfish for not taking Recall. You don't join speed runs (which is great, if you don't want to play that way), but a lot of people do and then expect people to carry them or complain about being left behind.

Positron, Ms. Liberty, Manticore and Numina would make a good set of hero patrons and would fill thematic gaps (radiation, martial arts/energy, gadgets/weapons, and psychic) that the villain patrons don't address.

There's a random Hydra attack that is non-positional toxic, but for the life of me I don't remeber which or if it still is or if I'm remembering something from back in the stone age. But then again how often are Hydras even relevant?

It takes from the highest of the two. If you have 45% ranged and 30% fire defense, the attack roll will be calculated based on the 45%. That's why its often ok to have holes in your overall defensive coverage. If you have 45% S/L defense but only 20% melee defense, you're usually going to be fine because a lot of melee attacks have some smashing or lethal component. For example, Charged Brawl from a Freakshow Stunner is tagged Melee, Energy and Smashing, so if your highest defense is Smashing, it ignores the Energy and Melee part and just calculates it based on Smashing.

I am in no way saying that Taunt isn't useful, but I still feel like this strategy is inefficient. If you've got a team with full Incarnates and a decent mix of Barrier and Rebirth Destinies, with some minor additional healing, the huddle ball method seems to do a better job of chewing through the towers than having a Tank hop around away from any support, taunting Recluse. For me, the smoothest runs always seem to be huddle and burn.

This^ Half stealth costs 1 mil inf for a celerity IO. Anyone on their second character and beyond should have it slotted. Full stealth is one incidental power pick (Shadowfall, Steamy Mist, Shinobi, Energy Cloak, Super Speed, Stealth which is also a great Gambler mule, etc.) or a base buff away. Half stealth plus beast run/ninja run is usually more than enough to run through a mission without getting hit. What some people are calling selfish can be easily turned around. My view is that those who need someone to babysit them like that are lazy or need to learn to play better.

It's not an illusion, the long animation times are not compensated for with greater damage. We have the numbers, go actually check the DPAnimation on Broadsword or normal Mace sets. They do similar damage with shorter animations. I know it feels nice to have this "everyone is good, I feel powerful" mentality, but the truth is that numbers are numbers. Bane attacks have worse stats than other sets. The topic for the thread is "where are all of the Banes?" and part of the answer is that melee focused Banes are underpowered compared to other sets. It's not a figment of someone's imagination, it's just a fact. Check the DPA stats on Mids, in game or at the below site and compare with the DPA of the other sets you're referencing (Axe, BS, War Mace). Banes are slower and do similar damage over a longer animation, resulting in lower DPS than they otherwise should have. http://web.archive.org/web/20140625171903/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/

But when ATT is so cheap, everyone should make a point to buy it from the P2W. Other than someone on their first character, there's really no excuse. If 8 people have it, then there's no reason anyone should waste a power pick or pool slot on Recall. If you really wanted to take a pool power, taking Manuevers would help the team more in the long run. They would be suboptimal. You can take Recall, or you can get ATT and something else. That's the definition of suboptimal.

Besides anything/Kin, only because of what SB and FS bring to the table, I've found that my Ill/Storm/Soul does a decent job of keeping up with endgame steamrollers, but not as well as other characters I have. Basically to be relevant you need high damage with minimal animation time/set up and at least a debuff and/or buff or two that factors in at endgame. Illusion brings a solid amount of damage between PA, Phantasm, procced out Blind and Spectral Wounds and 'enough' control in Terror to keep you alive. Storm brings -res in Freezing Rain and F/C/E resistance in Mist which are endgame relevant resists that a lot of builds might not carry a lot of. It also brings a lot more damage in Tornado and LS. The combo works, but the animations kill it. You need to be at the front to make sure you get to the next mob first so you can start laying down all of your targetted AoEs. It takes ~12 seconds to lay down Rain, Terror, PA, Tornado and LS. Precasting Tornado and PA helps, but if you're not at the spawn first, the Blaster may have nuked it down already before you can get Rain down, and LS ends up only working as a mop up, which is still useful because there will always be bosses to mop up, but the storm usually outlives the mob you're fighting. The good news is that Ill/Storm chews up AVs through shear damage. My Fire/Kin is ok in endgame teams, but that's mostly Kin carrying the build. Flashfire and Bonfire (w/ KD proc) aren't as useful as they used to be on bulky teams, and the damage is overall 'meh' without FS backing it up. /Dark is always useful because Tar Patch and all of the -regen in HT and TG, and Fade is still pretty solid after the nerf.

The root problem of a lot of what you said in the quote above is the long animations, with nothing to compensate for them. They look janky because there's no flow to them and they take forever to land. People complain about Longfang's unreasonably long animation time (2 s) on Crabs, and yet of the 13 Mace powers between Bane primary, Bane secondary and Mace PPP, 11 of them have an animation time of 2 seconds or longer. Only Bash and Pulverize are faster than 2 seconds. When Stalkers are putting out an attack chain with 0.8-1.5 s animations on each attack, with full crits from hide, crits outside of hide, and a hide proc ATO, there's no way a Bane could hope to keep up. All Arachnos Mace attacks, for Banes and in all PPPs need to have their animation times cut in half for them to be competitive.

My best run was on a 6 man 0/8, where the whole team was a well oiled machine of people I regularly play with. TT to every mission door, someone bailing early to go to Ms. Liberty, 4 people skipping the KR hostage mission to go straight to Crey's for the hunt, etc. I think the time was somewhere in the area of 20 min or so, faster than some bad Speed ITFs I've done.

Different strokes for different folks. In my opinion, a kill all/most Manticore is just as tedious as Synapse/Numina/Citadel, especially if you don't have the spike damage or controls to drop the energy Protectors before they hit MoG. To me, there's nothing fun about having a staring contest with a floating pom pom'd Protector, just waiting for their defenses to crash. If I was looking for a kill all activity, I'd prefer Market Crash or TinPex. For me, the fun of Manticore is trying to beat my best completion time.

Synapse isn't hard, it's just tedious. While Sister Psyche and Posi OG got replaced, Synapse, Numina and Citadel have remained in their launch form and are less of a challenge and are just a slog. All 3 need a revamp. Manticore is surprisingly ok, if only because the back half of it is stealthable.

If everyone has Regen, and Regen gets nerfed (again, as it should be) is it still a nerf? But actually, that would be interesting. I'm sure some Defenders and Corruptors would actually appreciate a set with Quick Recovery/Physical Perfection, Instant Regeneration and Moment of Glory, rounded out with a savage melee attack and some sort of control or boost power.

Generally, I think Scrappers and Stalkers need more options, preferably ones that also include a snipe. As it stands, the PPP snipes are so good as single target nukes, especially when procced out, that they are able to replace something else in the build's single target chain and increase overall DPS. However, there's currently only 2 legitimate options for a snipe, Mu and Soul. Mace is a dud set and really should get its animation times lowered in order to be viable. I propose a new APP for Stalkers/Scrappers that fills a thematic and functional niche: Blast Mastery - Power Bolt - Sniper Blast - Explosive Blast - Transference - Transfusion (on a longer cooldown than the support version) The blasts would be tuned to have a KB mag of 0.67, like Energy Torrent in Body Mastery, so they're KD by default, but can be KB if slotted for it. The set would give Scrappers and Stalkers another snipe set, another set with a decent ranged AoE, but not as good as Fireball, and would open up some minor support abilities which these ATs dont have much of elsewhere. The support powers would be balanced with longer cooldowns than their support counterparts and Scrapper/Stalker's weaker AT modifiers. A lot of people would still go with Soul for Shadow Meld, or Mu for Shackles, or Body for endurance/slot economy, or Blaze for Fireball, but this would be a decent option that offers a mix of a few things that no other set offers.

@RageusQuitus2 It's a bit hard to know where to even start. I'm not trying to be offensive, but that build is a total mess. I don't know what your reasoning is for so much of your slotting. Why 3 slot your travel powers? Why take 2 travel powers? Why double Tactics when that is total overkill? Where are your personal attacks? Why use Steadfast Protection in Fortification when there's so many better sets? Why bother with Invisibility and definitely why Karma in it? Overall, your build doesn't seem to have any coherent goal. It's not that bulky, it has terrible damage (where are your attacks?), and the pets look like they're slotted randomly. So instead of trying to suggest how to rebuild it, I'm going to share my current "all around" build, that includes perma pets, great personal damage and exceptional bulk and see if you can get any inspiration from it. Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.7.2.10 https://github.com/Crytilis/mids-reborn-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Natural Arachnos Soldier Primary Power Set: Crab Spider Soldier Secondary Power Set: Crab Spider Training Power Pool: Concealment Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Channelgun -- SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), SprWntBit-Dmg/Rchg(3), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg(3) Level 1: Crab Spider Armor Upgrade -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A) Level 2: Longfang -- AchHee-ResDeb%(A), GldJvl-Dam%(5), GldJvl-Acc/Dmg(5), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Thn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(7), TchofLadG-%Dam(9) Level 4: Stealth -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 6: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 8: Suppression -- SprDmnofA-Rchg/DmgFear%(A), SprDmnofA-Acc/Dmg(13), SprDmnofA-Dmg/Rchg(13), SprDmnofA-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), SprDmnofA-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), SprDmnofA-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17) Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(17), ShlWal-Def/EndRdx(19), ShlWal-Def(19), ShlWal-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(21), Rct-ResDam%(50) Level 12: Venom Grenade -- Rgn-Knock%(A), Rgn-Dmg(21), Rgn-Dmg/EndRdx(23), Rgn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), Rgn-Acc/Rchg(25), Ann-ResDeb%(25) Level 14: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(27) Level 16: Kick -- Acc-I(A) Level 18: Frag Grenade -- OvrFrc-Dam/KB(A), SprFrzBls-Rchg/ImmobProc(27), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg(29), SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx(29), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(36) Level 20: Tactical Training: Leadership -- GssSynFr--Build%(A) Level 22: Mental Training -- Run-I(A) Level 24: Tough -- UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(A), UnbGrd-Max HP%(31), UnbGrd-ResDam(46) Level 26: Fortification -- Ags-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Ags-ResDam(31), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(33), StdPrt-ResKB(33) Level 28: Serum -- Prv-Absorb%(A), Prv-Heal/EndRdx(33), Prv-Heal/Rchg(34), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg(34), Prv-Heal(34), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx(36) Level 30: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(36) Level 32: Omega Maneuver -- SprSpdBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), SprSpdBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), SprSpdBit-Dmg/Rchg(37), SprSpdBit-Acc/Dmg(37), SprSpdBit-Rchg/Global Toxic(39), SprSpdBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39) Level 35: Summon Spiderlings -- ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(39), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(40), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), ExpRnf-+Res(Pets)(40), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(42) Level 38: Call Reinforcements -- ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(42), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(43), CaltoArm-+Def(Pets)(43), SlbAll-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43) Level 41: Mu Lightning -- Apc-Dam%(A), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(45), Apc-Dmg(45), Apc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), Apc-Acc/Rchg(46), GldJvl-Dam%(46) Level 44: Electrifying Fences -- Acc-I(A) Level 47: Summon Striker -- ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(48), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(48), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), SlbAll-Dmg/Rchg(50), EdcoftheM-PetDef(50) Level 49: Combat Training: Defensive -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Conditioning Level 1: Sprint -- Clr-Stlth(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A) Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(9), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(11) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod(11) Level 50: Musculature Radial Paragon Level 50: Ion Core Final Judgement Level 50: Reactive Core Flawless Interface Level 50: Warworks Core Superior Ally Level 50: Rebirth Radial Epiphany Level 50: Support Radial Embodiment Level 0: Wedding Band ------------ ------------

If you're running a speed Yin, which is 90% of them, and you can't keep up with the steamroller, then you either shouldn't have joined or should just keep up as best you can and deal with it. Don't join a speed Yin on an under 50 and expect to keep up if you're not built for it. Yes, you need to clear the 4 spawns in the first mission, but the Tank will be plowing ahead, and its up to the lowbies and single targets to mop up the revived stunner or two. It's totally expected that 2 under 50s can handle an even level stunner boss. If you can't that's on you. That's how Yin is run. For Citadel, every run I've ever done has been a speed run because that is just too long to bother with otherwise. If you're on a Citadel, you're expected to carry your own weight and be able to branch off and clear as fast as possible. If everyone stuck together in a giant ball in those tunnels, the TF would take 2 hours, instead of the 35 mins it should be with a good team. Regarding running to the end of missions and not always getting a TP, its generally expected that everyone on a speed run has at least half stealth from the IO, if not full stealth, so you can get yourself there, or just wait for the people at the end to clear the boss and move on. Either run through also, or join the non stealthers at the door and clear what you can while you wait for the stealthers to finish the last room. I think your issue is you're joining speed TFs which are usually advertised as such, and then complaining that everyone's running it for speed. Keep up or make your own team. Don't join speed runs and then complain that they're speed runs.