tidge
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Posts posted by tidge
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35 minutes ago, Rudra said:
Please don't speak in absolutes. Every character I have that has a self-rez in their power set also has the self-rez. And I'm not the only person that does so.
Just to echo the words of Senator Rudra, I also tend to take the self-rez powers. There are times when I want to live on the edge of the knife, and other times when I want to live on the tip of the knife.
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1 hour ago, Rudra said:
I'm curious now. Are there players that slot boosted IOs that ever exemplar? Everyone I know of that uses boosted IOs rather than attuned IOs never exemplar.
1 hour ago, Psyonico said:I don't slot them everywhere, but at certain times I use Boosted instead of attuned and I exemplar all the time.
I also boost level 50 enhancement pieces (that aren't Very Rare, PVP or IOs)... it is pretty much for:
- Franken-slotting, such that there was not going to be an enhancement set bonus anyway
- Sets that will only have a few pieces, don't have a viable Hami-O or D-Sync alternative, and I don't really care about any enhancement set bonus below level 45.
There aren't many in the second category, but the same ones keep appearing in certain builds.
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I find the detuner suggestion to be slightly more than niche, and possibly troublesome (but not too much) because of PVPs... we can effectively 'detune' and leverage the auction house to turn an attuned piece into a level 50 non-attuned piece, because of bucketing. There is the vig of course. If a character was somehow totally short on cash for the vig (and unslotters I suppose) I'm not sure how they'd be able to afford this new salvage piece and boosters.
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The blue side Tip missions which I remember pretty much always being in specific zones:
The level 20-29 Desdemona mission is in Talos Island (9 times out of 10).
The level 40-50 Mister Phipps mission is in Independence Port (9 times out of ten) at the same helicopter.
The Ghost Widow Vigilante Morality mission (40-50) is often in Peregrine Island, at the same ship.
I want to say that there is another mission in the 20-29 range (blue side) which doesn't seem to have a set zone, but often will be in a different zone from wherever I take it.
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2 hours ago, biostem said:
I was specifically referring to the critique that taunt may not be available to a tanker at the minimum level for Posi 1.
I excluded reference to Posi 1 when I wrote this (my first mention of low level TFs).
13 hours ago, tidge said:For me: Taunt is expected, and I expect it to be taken before level 20. In a classic blue-side experience, I strongly dislike being on PUG and it isn't being used by Tankers on the Posi 2 or Synapse TFs. I will grant that some tankers may not quite have the suite of powers to handle all the damage than can come from some of those TFs (Toxic, especially), but I think it is pretty bad to see a "But my auras grab aggro fine when I solo" Tanker run past a bunch of critters that will turn on the rest of the teammates PDQ.
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2 minutes ago, biostem said:
Sure. Set it to -1 if the team is struggling. Change tactics. Trying to play something like Posi 1 the same way you'd play 50+ content isn't the answer...
I believe you mean well, but this sort of advice offers very little in a thread questioning whether or not to take (or not take) Taunt on a Tanker. This advice is applicable for solo play (any AT) or on teams without Tankers.
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1 minute ago, biostem said:
Guess that low level team will have to stick to single groups and/or maybe even pull then...
There *are* ambushes, and of course things happen.
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27 minutes ago, biostem said:
I mean, both tankers and brutes have a taunt effect baked into their regular attacks, and, perhaps, a team with such low-level characters present shouldn't be trying to take on an entire room full of multiple spawns, at once...
Punchvoke is a thing, but at low levels, those attacks aren't going to be super effective (fewer slots, less likely to have set bonuses, smaller enhancement values).
EDIT: If we are talking about characters that are exemplared down and also have a bunch of set bonuses... that is not the point I was raising when I first mentioned Posi 2 and Synapse. Even being exemplared down such that a character has more rows of inspirations makes more of a difference than any one player on a low level TF.
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6 hours ago, Erratic1 said:
Posi 1 can be joined at level 8, before Taunt is available. Posi 2 can be joined at level 11, which given Taunt comes at level 10, means it might not yet have been taken in lieu of key offense and defense powers.
If a character is exemplared, and the TF is run by a higher level player, there is more opportunity to have picked Taunt for those TFs.
If a character is running a true-level Tanker at the minimum for Posi 1 or 2, that character is unlikely to have the slots or enhancements to handle the aggro of a room without Taunt.
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2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:
WTF are they running to?
Fore example: On Positron, there are several maps which include multiple spawns off-to-the-side (minions and Lts) of entrances with larger spawns are up ahead further in the room. I routinely see players jump to that first, more obvious spawn while ignoring those closer to the entrance. This sort of map construction isn't uncommon, but it is on every Posi 2.
I'm far less of a stickler for having Taunt on Posi 1, just because of the level requirement... but there are maps and encounters in that TF that demand players pay attention.
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1 minute ago, srmalloy said:
There are a fair number of alignment tip missions that will send you to other zones; Atlas Park and Independence Port are the two I've gotten repeatedly.
Blue side also has the level 20-30 mission which is almost always in Talos... but these are the exceptions. See the post by @Rudra mentioning higher-level red-side. I often out-level the red-side 20-30 (there is just too much fun content red-side in this range to do many alignment missions!) but I do recall being sent from Sharkhead to either both Port Oakes and/or Cap Au Diable via a TIP mission (that wasn't the unlock for Mortimer Kal).
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I've created multiple characters with same AT/primary/secondary but very rarely, and only because the later character has a concept that IMO fits best with the "repeat" choice of AT/primary/secondary. Obviously having more than four VEATs an HEATs more-or-less force this circumstance upon players.
Specific to melee characters, my thinking is that whatever the new concept is, I can probably roll it as any of Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker. I tend to avoid Brutes, I'm just not crazy about the Fury mechanic... although I have a Savage Scrapper that I am considering re-rolling as a Brute because it already "feels" very much like a Brute. Because each of the melee classes can be made to provide both offense and to be able to survive, for me it comes down to specific power picks and progression in the primary/secondary.
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1 minute ago, Glacier Peak said:
My Tanker had to make some significant power and slot investments to make Fold Space happen. I love the power too, but I ended up respecing out of it after realizing I already had the tools in the toolbox so to speak. Fold Space is still an amazing power!
Oh yeah, Fold Space can be a fun power. I particularly like that it feels like a pretty good "capstone" power for a power pool set. At some point in Homecoming, I got the point where I was taking Combat Teleport on the way to Fold Space, and that Combat Teleport was more than enough of an "extra trick" to get and keep control of most rooms and to rescue teammates in trouble.
I tend to be slightly anti-evangelical about Fold Space, probably because of the necessary power (and slot) investment it requires for a "trick" that Tankers can pretty much do anyway using just Tanker tools. Sure there can be a circumstance where immobilized or knocked back mobiles may not be standing toe-to-toe with a Tanker, but IMO that's mostly an old-school sort of thinking about herding mobiles for long recharge AoE attacks. MMV of course. The necessary investment in pool choices to get Fold Space has the side effect of limiting what else a player can pick from other power pools and/or Epic sets which also require pre-requisite choices. My guess is that many Tankers with Fold Space also choose to invest in Hasten, which can allow for some optimization of attack chains but that approach to builds feels quite restrictive to me. Those would be two pool picks, and four powers... and the possibility that the travel power (of there is one!) is either Teleport or Super Speed... which for me are my last and second-to-last choices of travel powers... I do use them (rarely), but I disfavor them.
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21 minutes ago, WuTang said:
@tidge I've never taken it on any build, except for the build I made for my son's Brute. I have to admit the ranged aggro magnet looks pretty handy since he can pull without having to change position, and he can also "drag" mobs with him as he passes for an even bigger murder ball.
There is also the -Range effect that Taunt has on mobs, which can be an extra help for teammates. There are some enemies where the Tanker wants aggro but doesn't want to be in melee range; for example Clamor, who puts an AoE debuff on a player that can make nearby teammates (such as other melee types) extremely vulnerable.
This is my experience (with teammates of varying levels of skill, powers, and enhancement choices): My Tankers are always switching targets (for Taunt and 'punchvoke') and are often very mobile (to get to those stray enemies that may be bothering teammates). The Tanker AoE volume makes it pretty easy to keep attention at the aggro cap with almost all enemy spawns by simply moving a relatively small amount,.. and this takes a lot fewer power choices than Fold Space does! Taunt can make it so that the Tanker barely has to move, if the fight is going to take some time. It also works on enemies that may have been immobilized by an AoE Control.
The Tanker Taunt is also a low endurance auto-hit, so it is never "wasted", and by investing just a few slots in it (I often go 6x Mocking Beratement) the duration and recharge times will be such that the Tanker could be at the aggro cap without ever throwing a punch or laying down a patch, or trying to aura-grab, or whatever.
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9 hours ago, Dev Unitas said:
Typically broad-touch level scaling in games does the opposite of what it sets out to achieve, because most players follow the crowd, and the crowd follows the lead, and the lead will usually seek out optimal play. It also robs the implicit sense of progression that comes from moving from one space to the next. If we were to implement this, I would predict 80-90% of radio groups would take place in one zone- whichever they determine is the most optimal for radio missions in that setup. Suddenly, the devs have a motivation to try and bring all radio missions in all zones on par with eachother - a colossal effort that also increases homogeneity as a result.
The above was part of the response that I found particularly insightful. It echoes the old Matt Miller statement about (some) players always seeking the easiest path to the most rewards for the least effort.
Personally: When I am looking for a quick mission to fight a lot of enemies (x8) with a level 50 I almost always choose a morality mission over a radio/newspaper mission. A lot of the reasoning for my choice is that the eventual alignment missions are something I find rewarding (for merits, as well as for the content), but I also like being able to run )most of them) them in zones I choose. There are definitely zones that are smaller/easier to navigate in than others!
9 hours ago, biostem said:What if a contact in each zone could basically exemplar/malefactor you to the max level of that zone, thereby allowing you to run said radio/newspaper missions as normal? Unless you turn off XP, you are going to outlevel lower level zones before you do all the content, there, forgot the aforementioned radio/newspaper missions...
Aside from the Safeguard/Mayhem options, my experience has been that the Newspaper/Radio missions all pretty much the exact same content for all levels but with different enemy groups (and sometimes dialogue strings), one of:
- Defeat Boss and Guards
- Click Glowie (and defeat Boss spawn)
- Escort NPC
- "heist" / "investigate heist"
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28 minutes ago, WuTang said:
To taunt or not to taunt...
Expected of a Tanker or fine without?
For me: Taunt is expected, and I expect it to be taken before level 20. In a classic blue-side experience, I strongly dislike being on PUG and it isn't being used by Tankers on the Posi 2 or Synapse TFs. I will grant that some tankers may not quite have the suite of powers to handle all the damage than can come from some of those TFs (Toxic, especially), but I think it is pretty bad to see a "But my auras grab aggro fine when I solo" Tanker run past a bunch of critters that will turn on the rest of the teammates PDQ.
Personally, I don't care if it is single-slotted, slotted with only a %Psi, of more completely filled... but to never hear a Taunt tossed in x8 content is embarrassing. It's just about as bad as playing with Sentinels and never seeing the Vulnerability target.
I can completely understand why some players wouldn't take Taunt: It does nothing directly for a Tanker's offense or defense, and it isn't passive (aside from possible enhancement set bonuses). Taunt is however, the premier method of aggro control, which is a core game mechanic. A solo Tanker might literally never notice a need for it.
I'll finish with this: The efforts I see some builds go through to include Fold Space on a Tanker build yet put Taunt on the "shrug, maybe" list of powers is to me a very confusing choice.
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4 hours ago, Octogoat said:
Bane is a lot more interesting than a stalker imo I need to play a huntsman.
I made one of my three builds a Huntsman (years ago) and enjoyed it... except I was stuck with the crab legs on my costume. I recently decided to make a no-crab Huntsman. I decided to try something slightly different: I intended to use ONLY the gun attacks, and use melee attacks from the Fighting pool. I have NOT stuck with this plan (while leveling up).
First: I was not going to skip Placate... and I wasn't going to leverage the Presence pool... and Placate uses a mace. Once I was locked into having to show a mace, I figured "why bother with the Fighting pool?" when the Bane has a pretty good melee single-target and melee cone attack that synergizes with Placate. I can also add those into the build a lot more naturally (and more easily) than with the Fighting pool. I just wish I had a low-tech (a la Baseball Bat) option to use for the Mace!
I may eventually decide to use the second build to make a (weaker) version of the same character but strictly leveraging power pools for the Mace stuff. The build would be somewhat clunky, but I've gone to similar lengths for other "concept" characters.
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Morality tip missions can be run in any appropriate zone (for the alignment) that doesn't qualify as a "hazard zone"(*1). Occasionally a morality mission will send a player to another zone.
Radio/Newspaper missions are tied to the contact, which will eventually offer a level appropriate safeguard/mayhem mission. <- This is almost certainly the reason for the level limit on Radio/Newspaper missions.
(*1) For blueside, IIRC morality tip missions can't be run in the Hollows or Croatoa. They can be run in Faultline.
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25 minutes ago, Gerswin said:
A completely different approach is to tank the AV and outdamage the regen. This is easily done with a specialized single target stalker or scrapper using temps (envenomed dagger, etc) and/or insps for the+3 or +4 AVs. My favorite combo for this is a em/bio scrapper, but multiple combos are viable. EM/bio can completely overpower even con AVs in the 'unkillable' portion of a barrier cycle. without temps or insps.
There are very few players I see solo (or even team) fighting Giant Monsters without relying on Lore pets. I definitely see solo Masterminds defeating Giant Monsters without Lores... but not without using other Incarnate powers.
Prior to the "rebalancing", almost any AT could solo many of the Giant Monsters (using all the Incarnates), because as @Gerswin notes, the key to defeating everything in the game is to do more damage than the regeneration can overcome. [The inverse, for players, is why the game will never have an old-school pre-nerf Regeneration set again.] The Giant Monsters with actual self-healing (and not just the inherent regeneration) provide a different sort of challenge.
A common change the Giant Monster "rebalancing" did was to add significant resistances (and in some cases, more HP) to the Giant Monsters. This combination makes overcoming the GM's regeneration a lot more difficult (because the GMs are sacks of HP) for non-specialized soloists.
To the point above: Masterminds inherently have both the offense and the ability to "tank" Giant Monsters (and AVs) via Bodyguard mode. A well-built Mastermind will also bring the other things to the table like inherently high defenses (to keep enemy ToHit chances below 10%), a mechanism for healing, debuffs on the enemy, and keeping aggro (to improve the use of Bodyguard mode). Solo masterminds can do this, but it IMO takes some smart choices of powers, slotting, and play style.
I see a LOT of multi-box players using two (or more) MMs to fight giant monsters, and occasionally multi-boxers with one MM and one other random AT. Obviously the multi-boxers are reaping multiple rewards, but I can see based on the strategy (typically "zerg the GM") and the power choices that neither of those characters would likely be able to solo whatever GM they happen to be facing. I get a similar feeling when I watch a team of four or more fight Adamastor, and each player has popped their Lore pets. Using multiple Lores is completely unnecessary, as a single Lore pet with a dedicated GM fighter should be able to defeat Adamastor in 2-3 minutes. Two sets of Lores with any two rando ATs should be enough, unless those ATs are particularly unbalanced.
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4 hours ago, Doc Spectre said:
Single target is not the greatest but you could easily do a second build as a bane.
Just as an FYI, the mandatory respec is also required on the second (and third) builds.
If there is one big thing I don't like about the Bane's performance it is that it is slow against single hard targets, and it isn't particularly fast for clearing large spawns of elevated difficulty. A point of reference: On a PUG, my Bane (and Crab) builds are generally fine for surviving entire rooms if they run off solo on any given SF/TF (modulo cascading defense failures), but they stand little chance of clearing a room by themselves. This is different that almost any other AT I've played. The only other AT that comes close to being this slow (in this solo +4x8 sense) are my Kheldians, and I think maybe one of my Tankers... even Controllers and Defenders can usually clear rooms faster.
The Banes excel at being force multipliers... but I think you have to lean hard into concept to see just how good they can be. For example, not only are the team-buffing powers somewhat mandatory, but to be a great team asset, the AoE ranged attacks should probably be set up to each include the Annihilation %-Resistance piece (also slotted to give that piece a decent chance to trigger), Surveillance should be included, and the World Wide Web Grenade ought to be up as often as possible...possibly even supplemented with Web Cocoon.
The point above about the Soldier VEAT being a good force multiplier is also true for the Crab, with slightly different power options, which is what can make a "Crabbermind" pretty good... if the global bonuses are such that the pets can be 'perma', and some choices are made to toughen up the pets too. Crabberminds are a different sort of play of course.
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A "Huntsman" is a Bane that focuses on the Soldier attacks instead of the Bane attacks. A player will still have to mandatory respec the build the first time it hits level 24. Either way (Soldier or Bane) the character will be using a weapon (gun and/or mace) to make attacks.
While I echo the sentiment to try the Soldier at some point, I suspect that for DPS, as well as smoother attack progression as you level, a Stalker is most likely what you want. You won't have as many AoE options with the Stalker as with the Huntsman, and the Bane takes a different sort of build approach than Dark Armor to survival. One rather large difference between the two options is that the Stalker's Placate comes much earlier in the build, and with the Hide ATO the Stalker will probably feel more like a "from the shadows" attacker than the pew-pew-pew Hunstman (or "now Imma clobber" Bane).
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53 minutes ago, mistagoat said:
Yeah DE makes a fair point here, those builds will solo a GM but it ain't fast and you gotta be on your game the whole time. I haven't really found anything else that can combat the crazy regen and take the aggo though.
What would you suggest that would be faster, DE?
Masterminds are probably faster than Controllers. At lower levels (such as the Yin TF) my MMs can solo that with little issue, my Controllers can solo it, but take significantly longer.
An MM is probably faster than any Controller, all things being equal. The one edge a Control might have over a Mastermind is that an average controller build might have an immobilize to deal with runners... Masterminds can get immobilizes too, but they are IMO pretty much only useful for runners, so don't fit neatly into what a MM wants for 98%+ of the games content, and MMs usually have a choice of powers that are a better fit for that other content.
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6 hours ago, Lightslinger said:
I'm pretty sure it's illegal Psyche is still dead. She's a red-headed telepath, they aren't allowed to stay dead more than 30 days at a time!
Personally: I still find the Sister Psyche lore to be entirely too complicated, even without considering Praetoria. The Malaise, Aurora Borealis, Manticore, etc. stuff is simply too much IMO.
My only issue with Statesman was that (at launch), he was clearly identified as an Invulnerability Tanker, yet could do a whole lotta things an Invulnerability Tanker could not do in-game. I don't think I saw the game the same way Jack Emmert did, but I have no personal beef with him.
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I have Liquify slotted with 3x Accuracy/Recharge (50+5) and 3x %damage: Gladiator's Net, Positron's Blast, and Bombardment. It's the most reliable and widest-reaching %damage power on my /Sonic Controller. I don't have it up quickly enough to rely on it for -ToHit debuff, even with something like 78% global recharge in the build. Sonic has so many more AoE controls that I don't think the -ToHit is doing that much in the grand scheme of things, considering the Attack/ToHit mechanics of the game (the perma 5% chance to hit or miss, no matter what ToHit is.).
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I don't have a "boosted build", except in one case where I explicitly wanted a little bit MOAR on a Tanker... and that is a second build for only 50+ content (although it would work the same down to 45 I suppose).
I do have characters that use attuned pieces while leveling up, and at level 50 I pull them out and use level 50s that get boosted... which is what I *think* @TheMultiVitamin is saying he does, possibly to a far greater extent than I do. I sometimes swap in level 50s of PVP pieces that won't get boosted... but only if I have extras of them around, because the attuned pieces become available for future characters, This is a minor, wasteful, thing I do with certain recipes. I could of course play converter roulette with them, and sometimes I do, to get things like Shield Wall Defense pieces or Gladiator's Armor Resistance pieces to become 50+5.
What I was describing in my earlier post are the times when there are some pieces I slot as attuned to use when leveling up, because I don't want to think about them. When I eventually hit 50, those pieces will become boosted level 50+5 pieces.
An example is a power like Surveillance. It has a base Accuracy of 1.0 and a base recharge time of 45 seconds. In my calculus, I want that power to recharge faster (because it is a -20% Resistance Debuff)and I want some Accuracy. The only pieces that offer me both Accuracy and Recharge (in combination) are in the Analyze Weakness (the "goes to 50" Accurate Defense Debuff) set so I typically invest two slots of Accuracy/Recharge and Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge to do better than what I'd get from just an Accuracy IO and a Recharge IO. Those two slots get me pretty much what I want from a single-target debuff, and the set bonus of +10% Regeneration is not something I'll miss below level 45... so the attuned pieces I use while leveling may as well become Level 50+5 pieces.
Another place where I've sometimes applied this sort of thinking is when using 3 pieces of Luck of the Gambler, because the regeneration and health bonuses are kinda meh below 45. YMMV. I'll keep the global recharge piece attuned, but if the power the set is in has an otherwise significant Defense portion and needs a little Endurance reduction, I'll boost the Defense and Defense/Endurance pieces to 50+5. If I really didn't care about the set bonus at all I'd probably slot Hami-O (if I needed Endurance savings) or 2x Defense IOs (if I didn't) <- I've done all four combinations (all attuned same set, mixed attuned/50+5 same set, mixed LotG + Hami-O, mixed LotG + IOs) on different powers for different characters.