SinergyX

The only odd thing with a weapon-based set, it sometimes do get stuck in a redraw animation dispite putting them all on 'no redraw', happens on my rad/staff and bio/BS, wich can sometimes be annoying specialy if you use clickies from your bio set alot (shield, heal, T9 regenheal etc).

Its a primary power, you cant simply compare that to a secondary power (stuff like footstomp etc). Personaly i would keep SC, knockdown is also a part of damage mitigation, where the cooldown of OwtS (unenhancable) is once in a while (and i always keep a few orange insp's ready in case of emergencies).

In ye oldie days we just made tanks, started several +4/8 missions and run in a group and see how long you survive (be it by defeating all, or just stand around full health). Arnachnos, longbow, carnies, agents of.. no idea their name, hell even those later new missions where a room full of 'voidlike' things. Each could survive in their own area, massive buffed by IO's, smart play of their abilities, or just stand and get punched. Main part is, what are you facing? A granite facing massive -recharge, a resist based against -resist, or any with not enough resist to -defense, or relying on self-heal-hits while getting trashed with -acc, or our lovely end-drain from several mobs, with IO's you could overcome a huge part of those weaknesses, hell even brutes could get around enough and bring along a trashload more damage. With enough investment, i believe all can be unkillable in their 'field of strength'. Ice laughts at any -recharge, elec from drain, SR or shield against -defense, dark doesnt even know what psi damage is (and fire just kill stuff). It only boils down to the point.. what are you willing to sacrifice and avoid? My granite is bar psi unkillable, but slow as.. well slow, but having used teleport since my ever level 32, i dont mind the slow movement (and i had kin friends). And that tbh, compared to majority of 'tanks' in other games, is why i love COH. You really become nigh-unkillable, you are the superman that can take on anything (apart kryptonite), not a flimsy 'meatshield' that only can survive if the 'healers' keep up their rotation.

The medic never had issues staying in place on a single target, like AV or pylons, it went wrong when you had a group of mobs and you let them do their own stuff, the moment something was closer then half of his normal range attacks, he went for a brawl.

If they can extend the PA abilities to MM's to 'change' the look of their pets, i think quite a few of that list can be easy covered, even with existing powers. True, some might be weird (like angels shooting fire), but it would open up more diversity then just adding new sets (as quite a few just dont like the looks of some, robots can be even starwars themed :P).

Tbh, a set shouldnt rely on IO's, specialy not damage proc based, to 'get along' with other sets. Yes, IO's should make life easier, or better, but for Mercs it doesnt change the basics, they are mediocre at best. Even if you skip their damage output (specialy T2 compared to graveknights or supportive like enforcer/liones), their animations are among the longest out there, on every single attack. True that all abilities down the line are normalised on rotation (wich not fully is true since they never accounted redraw, wich they love to do). The fix on AI is very nice to have, even suicidal mani.. i mean medic, stays around pretty decent, it helps their awful wondering around, but it wont change the base of Mercs compared to the others. Maybe one day mercs get a minor overhaul, more instant shooting, decent T2 (cant compete damagewise with ninja/nerco, cant buff wise with beast/demon/thugs, let alone cc/heal/buff of bots), or just give me a bunch of longbow pets 😛

It also happens on my /nature, as if the mob gets too much attacks per second and fear just kicks in (like some tend to run away when health gets low). nature has a power similiar to darknest night. that power also causes fear for both dark and nature. I don't run any debuff toggles on my nature, just the odd few aoe buffs. Even when im not even close, when all 5 wacking the same mob, they tend to just run off.

It also happens on my /nature, as if the mob gets too much attacks per second and fear just kicks in (like some tend to run away when health gets low).

That's where your secondary comes in play, dark and storm bot have a 'summon pet' ability (dark servant and thunderstorm), who can takes these IO's. So if you run a merc/sonic.. well, you either don't use 2 of em, or you are in bad luck. (do note, pick the 40yrd radius ones then, as I belive 2 are 20yards).

This wont happen unless they can rework the entire AI of pets. It was the exact reason why they removed +recharge on pets, their AI went totaly bonkers. As for travel, group flight still works on your pets, they follow you just fine :P

I did a test yesterday on that +HP ability, pets actualy get upto 400HP (zombi go from 580 to 840) from this and its possible with just 3 recharge in the ability to perma boost HP for 3 of your pets. Sadly, their regen dont go up (hp/sec still calculated from base), it gives you a shitload of space to take that odd hit and not being one-shotted, so you can aid-other them all in time.

Beast/sonic can push them on a serious high level of resist (and the inate def buffs) and sync very well for being all melee, you basicly run in with them into a group, they do their thing. I often had near capped SL pets, but having 4 or 5 pets wacking a single mob, the AI often want to run away. Though the attackchain of beasts is quite poor (plus they love to roar all the time, rooting them for like 2-3 sec), i still would pick ninja over beasts, dispite they get lower resist, having them consistently attacking stuff, makes them kill alot faster then beast can.

I initialy took a merc/storm, though it has its synergy with the range of merc, the retarted AI still makes them run at random to the mob to do a brawl or weapon-slap, having to stam follow/stay nonstop to keep them inside the hurricane. Then i decided to roll a ninja/storm, you can use your stuff slightly less (or edge-hugging so you still get the -hit debuff), the damage is simply day and night. So yeah, hurricane became kinda obsolete, but the increase of damage ninja ditches out is just scary, dispite they both stick to SL damage. As for provoke, having mobs comming straight for me (though i cant figure out provoke has -range too, like taunt has) into my hurricane, give my pets enough space to attack. Specialy mobs that have no ranged CC (warriors for example) keep trying to run into the hurricane but fail all the time it works very good against. And the odd wall-pull helps incase my mercs decide to run into a group of mobs again.

I really love this build, its exactly what I was looking for on going mostly squid or lobster, human only in case of need. Though what is the reason on the whole medic pool, I assume being bit more support/heal with some mezprot and revive?

I'm still kinda stuck on the mechanics of the buff/opportunity, the ups and downs of your damage output between those 2 states is rather huge, though you can 'extend' the time you want to pop your opportunity (by not simply using T1/2 attack), a simple mis or any other moment (like KB) can make or break your output. Would be nice if it was more of a dominator style mechanic, charge and pop at will on a offensive or defensive moment. The only offset they have over blaster/corrupter is their base defense, and specialy the def-type get a strong debuff resist on -def making them stronger then a IOéd blaster, specialy with strong mez toggles (though blaster get a proc through their AT). I see them as 'i wanna be a scrapper but i hate melee', or 'i wanna be more tough then a blaster' style, with a trade-in on damage (i yet have to ever match my blaster damage), but with a too situational build-in system. The drawback of 6/10 cap versus 10/16 cap is also quite noticable on the higher end of the game, where more and more peopele get the full-group nukes, you know you have to count them before firing off. Though i asume Ice is the one that bypasses that number, since its a summon that just ticks anyone in range. Though i like em, they are a very very solo-friendly AT, certain sets excel at many aspects (end-drain resist, fear, high defense 'out of the box', heals), but i yet have to find their 'strong' place in the higher-end TF's, or a valid reason to replace either a blaster or corrupter by a sent.

is bastion actually permable? pines shows its a 10s duration... I think he meant overgrowth, that's a 1m duration clicky, pines only shows the 10sec for the dot of healing, the absorb last 1 minute (but mostly gone when the first mobs hit).

35% I only know the AT one wich is 10%, the reinforment one of 10%, i'm missing 15%? :( edit, sovereign is another 10%, forgot that one :P

And we can close it again :D

At long last, I just have to make a PB and WS again, specialy with the IO's it can be quite fun. However, im planning to go full squid/dwarf only, human is just 'dish on the side' (like healing in PB, quasar in WS), however are there any powers that do stay active? I know hasten outside form continues, but that's basicly it. I assume all other clickies will work the same way, but stuff like incarnate nuke (say Ion) is also locked to human?

It does, 7,5% to all defense (by far the strongest def-buff melee power).

I currently got both sets, it kinda depends on your primairy. With my dark/ I went with SR, the selfheal is damage and ~12% heal (8sec cooldown), while my fire/ I went for Nin for the extra stuff. The most annoying remains the clicky on nin, auto cast you need to match it with global recharge (I don't have perma hasten, so it sometimes is 100sec, other time 70sec), worst part is when you die and you just casted it, takes a while to reload. Biggest difference is runspeed, Nin is serious fast. SR you do get some speed, but Nin it really goes close with SS if you use ninja-running.

It was said server transfers will be lowered in the future, but will that remain for the US/EU moves? I really doubt the numbers will remain decent in the evenings on the EU side (as was in Defiant/Union - or even the other 2), and making identical characters on 2 servers kinda waste of time/effort (even if u can buy/mail stuff between the 2).

The workaround I used on my granite tank (tank, not brute), was the KD-chance of 100% recharge IO. Sudden acceleration is a new set that convert KB into KD, so I used hand clap on bigger groups to get the proc pretty much every time. But nearly every enemygroup have some sort of -recharge debuff, and with little to no resist to it, I kinda gave up on the perma hasten. Ok, since kin is your best friend, you always get that buff around, so having enough recharge still can bring you back to perma hasten.

Forgive my noobness, but what is it about scrapper that makes this combo perform better? He also changed his secondary, not sure which improved it for him, or both. Shield does add more damage. Broadsword is slow, so building up fury is tougher compared to the more straightforward scrapper damage perhaps. BS isn't that slow, animation its nearly identical to axe and mace, and depending on the heavy hitters, KC or EM are considerable slower. Cooldown it depends what you focus, T1 is quite long compared to others, but the T7 to T9 are faster then others.

The base of Bio and WP are equal, resist of SL, defense for the elements (fire, ice, energy, dark). However, and unless I didn't see it, Bio has no -def resist, while WP gets it from heightened senses. So once stuff hits -def at you, it will hurt. I personaly pull bio over WP because of adaptation, the defense one gives a resist/def bonus for each mob (like Inv does) and gets you SL capped quite decent and without heavy investments on IO's, leaving you quite the space to either increase resist of push defense of the elements further. Solo you can go efficient or offensive for a very energy-friendly run or bit more slapping with a tohit and dmg bonus. I ran it on my brute quite a while now, some mobs serious hurt (but so do they do WP), but at the end of the day: every set has its weakness.