iBones

Hey all, So I've been farming (actually not at a terrible speed) with my DM/Shield since I hit 50 last night - and I'm pretty sure if I can hit perma Soul Drain, that It will actually be pretty friggen quick. Anyone have any ideas for improvement? Current build listed is about 1 second off from perma. I'm capped melee Def but lacking in other areas. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1432;649;1298;HEX;| |78DA6593594F135114C7EF6DA7D69696B6503659BA205B9181469F3551C40469825| |67D606B267069471AA8538C60DCF80ABEF86CA2AFBEA8D18FE4C6A226BEB8D4D37B| |FE2DC69974F2EBFD9F75CEBD37B7331D7A7565EF8290AD97CA56B55AC8AF3A56A5A| |21C5FCE2ADAABA2FEF8E9ED69E8859C2A2B654E5BCE06FF4D342DD36A5D6D569599| |2FD9AABCD6588AD0FCD656D99C5356C5DE2C86F562C62E96B66915D4AB7C45A9B54| |8C36B4D39D5925D69BB5CB157CD8B65EBBE2AE4ACEAB67276BBA98F617AEFF8059E| |9A4F2C10460CE159049798C632B8C23C516006C34489D803AF1059B21D324F1E815| |F99C16FE077A6E34728C54AD40DA16E08755B51B71575A3A8DB4275BD5CD7F0CE70| |BEE85566DB2CD82135E3516688627CE8D5F7817CFAC9F6917D3B3F819F99935F98D| |97DE65D3FEF5B3DD6BF2EB4D65D044BCC5336789BD9B7C10C53DD00D7158171D63A| |29590B6B9E16F4D9873E07E24C0FF984B9A608D7E8115E5222ACC848B7D45F30D0C| |534C81643C618320E20631219D3E4D30E9F767492FC8F31F2E9804F07F2A4109F42| |BE7BE4D3A5F7AEE6EBFAE9615B8D3928786283BFB0FECD3CFD87B943B13D88ED593| |6D8B6021698C34BE022B8408CD329A071F44A1D2B7AF54422A4F463B6FDE876972A| |24784A4622CF5533379813D7989337C1EBCC18E549637FD30FF80B461E828FC0C7C| |CB127E01EF339C50E619F8674572F48198532AA9597A48CA3A7F1D73CE9336FC0B7| |CC8977E07B661BC598C862EA2C83F4655350A6B4D26734EF2EFDEA4AC268DEC85AC| |6659D7229599772D6A59C7329732E65DE68DE6621B512888AFA59D09DEC07C92AFF| |B51E1E2B863CCF6738738B7730332BF52DCFA6700B93CC035796A36345CA67BC976| |34F993F3A0998C45F8AC4F4DC| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

DANG IT! I ****ING KNEW IT! Just doing basic testing, I noticed the number of DoTs didn't really change. I was noticing a whopping 1 extra DoT which could have just been me miscounting to 4 lol Even at max stacks, the DoTs always were random (could be 2 DoTs, could be 4, could be 0). I want to say I saw an increase in the damage of Hemorrage's DoTs at max stacks but it could have also been the buff from Blood Thirst or maybe even fury. I did not test how much increase enhancing did nor did I really go into testing how much fury increased the damage because I was so focused on how long/many DoTs occurred. Frankly, I don't see why it would have been overlooked for damage to affect the DoTs because other sets have DoTs and those are affected by +dmg (right?). Perhaps a complication or alternative implementation to this set's DoTs occurred as they tried to create a set whose DoTs increased in duration/damage depending on a buff the caster has (blood stacks). Now I'm genuinely curious what is actually going on with this set... What is even more interesting is how this response lit both of our lightbulbs in regards to why the set feels like a poor representation of what could be. Hah. The time spent leveling my Savage toon was worth now knowing just how simple the solution actually is. Yeesh

Never thought about Soul Mastery before. I like that idea, I find myself needing extra def a lot lately fighting Praetorians. I noticed you only took Smite and Shadow Maul. Is this personal preference? I just got back into the City recently, but I somewhat recall shadow maul being a dps decrease on Live. Or am I misremembering? Either way, just curious about your reasoning and thoughts. Thank you in advance! Right now it is for additional melee defense but once I switch over to my incarnate build I usually drop it. I assumed so - was just curious to hear other's feedback and thought process. Thanks

Welp, I'm not sure why my tiny brain failed to acknowledge this as the issue, but after reading this explanation - this is exactly what is happening. I am willing to bet the set is balanced around the stacking DoT's and we are currently not receiving the increase. In addition to this incredibly valid reason for the set to be "meh", I still believe it is missing something else. Even with a ramp up in DoT, the applied -end mechanic isn't nearly enough to merit it a gimmick. It really is a shame - my character concept was one of my favorite out of the 100's I have had over the years in CoH and the set, while visually simple, is very clean and unique. Maybe one day when im fat with Inf, I'll kit it out just to see what the upper end of the build looks like.

I Just hit 40 on my baby DM/Shield and popped in to see some thoughts on mid-game builds... My main question is in regards to the power choices for DM - Never thought about Soul Mastery before. I like that idea, I find myself needing extra def a lot lately fighting Praetorians. I noticed you only took Smite and Shadow Maul. Is this personal preference? I just got back into the City recently, but I somewhat recall shadow maul being a dps decrease on Live. Or am I misremembering? Either way, just curious about your reasoning and thoughts. Thank you in advance!

I had thought about saying the exact same thing in my previous post since I had to repeat myself. But you know, the day is too short and it is no skin off my back if you think Savage Melee is underperforming. You're entitled to your opinion. I know I asked a guy I grouped with this morning who uses the powerset what he thought of it (he was level 26 FWIW) and he said he was quite enjoying it. But not everyone will and you're one of those. Easy solution, drop the character and move on. To be fair, there are players who enjoy playing Dark/Dark without IOs. Some just like to watch the world burn. In the context of this thread - there is NOT a world where in it's current form and without SIGNIFICANT time and Inf spent, that Savage Melee outperforms virtually any other set in quality of life play and single target total dps. The issue with subjective reasoning is that a few people saying "it's fine" literally does nothing to further the knowledge required to help remedy the set. I will confess that my opinion and point of view heavily weighs on how well the set performs as that is how I judge "fun"and whether a set or build is "fine". With this is mind, there is little room for any conflicting arguments that in no way offer solutions or specific build gimmicks to alleviate this fact. SM underperforms in virtually every aspect of the current CoH scape. Which leads those like Leo to question the presence of a bug. And I am somewhat inclined to agree. Part of me still thinks that we could be missing something, and perhaps when built "correctly" , the set reaches a new level. Though, with the same investment, most other sets will probably still out perform it. The main reason I chose SM was to utilize how AoE focused the two heavier hitters are, so that when paired with /Dark, I could stack enough DoTs and slight burst to efficient and lean on the inherent -End to help with /Dark. In practice, with standard IO's and no sets - I still have end issues, and the damage feels flaky. /shrug What initially got me curious was doing a search for the set. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,1012.msg5471.html#msg5471 This post (interestingly, no responses) got me looking into the wiki and comparing them to the powers I'd soon be getting. Through more searching, it's just very little dialog on the set. Eventually I'll have to work on parsing numbers and do more testing but I DO NOT like having to powerlevel things T_T This probably will not make you feel any better - but outside of my character concept for SM (SM/Dark for a dark, Dante style fighter), the set was so poor in general practice, that I resorted to PL'ing him in AE. Which was not my initial intent since returning to the city. I wanted to enjoy my character concept and PLAY the game. But, the set i chose....yikes. Currently still has major issues and I have since moved on to Rad/Fire and going to start building an all-arounder in the form of DM/SD or DB/Rad. Just haven't settled yet. Side note - Since returning...the scrapper forums feels vastly different than I remember. There is far less focus on unique challenges, building, and learning. Kind of disappointing. I still plan to level my brute but I kind of did the same and started on other projects, namely my Claw/EA brute I started to remember I made back in the day. I recall it being a fun stealthy murderer that was much easier to kill with than Savage. The brute I remade into into savage used to be an elec/elec brute and while it was a slog early on, he had the feature of being able to drain his foes making him able to at least not be a helpless doe in headlights against something that isn't going down fast. I know there have been literal years since live, but i played so many Claws/ combos, I can't bring myself to make one here. That being said, /EA at a glance looks like a great secondary to add to the already fantastic set that is Claws. Isn't that something? Virtually every other primary that includes the asterisk of, "Early on it's rough....but...." eventually makes up for the early disappointment with a higher ceiling. EXCEPT FOR SAVAGE. Truly speaks to the state of the set. Savage underperforms. I don't have the time to dump into the set to potentially see the return. It may very well end up being great at the top end. But with average investment - it feels incredibly underwhelming.

I had thought about saying the exact same thing in my previous post since I had to repeat myself. But you know, the day is too short and it is no skin off my back if you think Savage Melee is underperforming. You're entitled to your opinion. I know I asked a guy I grouped with this morning who uses the powerset what he thought of it (he was level 26 FWIW) and he said he was quite enjoying it. But not everyone will and you're one of those. Easy solution, drop the character and move on. To be fair, there are players who enjoy playing Dark/Dark without IOs. Some just like to watch the world burn. In the context of this thread - there is NOT a world where in it's current form and without SIGNIFICANT time and Inf spent, that Savage Melee outperforms virtually any other set in quality of life play and single target total dps. The issue with subjective reasoning is that a few people saying "it's fine" literally does nothing to further the knowledge required to help remedy the set. I will confess that my opinion and point of view heavily weighs on how well the set performs as that is how I judge "fun"and whether a set or build is "fine". With this is mind, there is little room for any conflicting arguments that in no way offer solutions or specific build gimmicks to alleviate this fact. SM underperforms in virtually every aspect of the current CoH scape. Which leads those like Leo to question the presence of a bug. And I am somewhat inclined to agree. Part of me still thinks that we could be missing something, and perhaps when built "correctly" , the set reaches a new level. Though, with the same investment, most other sets will probably still out perform it. The main reason I chose SM was to utilize how AoE focused the two heavier hitters are, so that when paired with /Dark, I could stack enough DoTs and slight burst to efficient and lean on the inherent -End to help with /Dark. In practice, with standard IO's and no sets - I still have end issues, and the damage feels flaky. /shrug What initially got me curious was doing a search for the set. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,1012.msg5471.html#msg5471 This post (interestingly, no responses) got me looking into the wiki and comparing them to the powers I'd soon be getting. Through more searching, it's just very little dialog on the set. Eventually I'll have to work on parsing numbers and do more testing but I DO NOT like having to powerlevel things T_T This probably will not make you feel any better - but outside of my character concept for SM (SM/Dark for a dark, Dante style fighter), the set was so poor in general practice, that I resorted to PL'ing him in AE. Which was not my initial intent since returning to the city. I wanted to enjoy my character concept and PLAY the game. But, the set i chose....yikes. Currently still has major issues and I have since moved on to Rad/Fire and going to start building an all-arounder in the form of DM/SD or DB/Rad. Just haven't settled yet. Side note - Since returning...the scrapper forums feels vastly different than I remember. There is far less focus on unique challenges, building, and learning. Kind of disappointing.

DM provides goodies Shield does not have on its own--endurance recovery and healing--on top of augmenting what Shield does bring--damage boost. It is a marriage practically ordained in the heavens. Other primaries are going to struggle to match it I would imagine. Tradeoff being DM is not known for its AoE (but Shield helps there, so again a good marriage of powersets). Yes, I am familiar with DM's toolkit, I was more curious about how Soul Drain stacks up against other primary's +dmg gimmicks. And then possibly build around a slightly more AoE-centric primary while sacrificing little +dmg. An example would be Elec/SD. While the AoE potential is substantially higher, the ST is a very real issue aside from just farming. So what other primaries bring similar +dmg to the table as DM, but offer a bit more AoE, while not going too far in the other direction like Elec.

Apologies for the double post - But is there a list anywhere of how the +dmg gimmicks of each primary set are ranked? A quick look puts DB and DM at the top? Or am I missing something. I assume some of the novelty of DM/SD is in how big of a boost Soul Drain brings, but I'm curious if there are perhaps other primaries with similar dmg buff potential.

I had one on live, hit 50 and stopped playing. So never got to feel the upper end of the build with some sets. My main concern is the ST - did you ever feel like ST was an issue? I did not consider the lack of a recovery tool - thank you for bringing that to my attention. Rad/Fire Brutes were found on the "secret server" to be incredibly solid farmers and AoE machines. I have a Rad/Fire scrapper, and even at level 38 and little to no damage slotted - the build PUMPS numbers. Building /Fire for enough survival becomes easier knowing that Rad boosts your general output. When I said bursty, I was including shield charge as a way to add a solid AoE punch to Rad's consistent AoE ticks. But yes, endurance is still one of my main concerns. Given my need for a combination that I can drop funds into, I'm sure most of the recovery woes can be alleviated.

I had thought about saying the exact same thing in my previous post since I had to repeat myself. But you know, the day is too short and it is no skin off my back if you think Savage Melee is underperforming. You're entitled to your opinion. I know I asked a guy I grouped with this morning who uses the powerset what he thought of it (he was level 26 FWIW) and he said he was quite enjoying it. But not everyone will and you're one of those. Easy solution, drop the character and move on. To be fair, there are players who enjoy playing Dark/Dark without IOs. Some just like to watch the world burn. In the context of this thread - there is NOT a world where in it's current form and without SIGNIFICANT time and Inf spent, that Savage Melee outperforms virtually any other set in quality of life play and single target total dps. The issue with subjective reasoning is that a few people saying "it's fine" literally does nothing to further the knowledge required to help remedy the set. I will confess that my opinion and point of view heavily weighs on how well the set performs as that is how I judge "fun"and whether a set or build is "fine". With this is mind, there is little room for any conflicting arguments that in no way offer solutions or specific build gimmicks to alleviate this fact. SM underperforms in virtually every aspect of the current CoH scape. Which leads those like Leo to question the presence of a bug. And I am somewhat inclined to agree. Part of me still thinks that we could be missing something, and perhaps when built "correctly" , the set reaches a new level. Though, with the same investment, most other sets will probably still out perform it. The main reason I chose SM was to utilize how AoE focused the two heavier hitters are, so that when paired with /Dark, I could stack enough DoTs and slight burst to efficient and lean on the inherent -End to help with /Dark. In practice, with standard IO's and no sets - I still have end issues, and the damage feels flaky. /shrug

Hey all o/ I have been having a hard time deciding on what build to main. On live, I ran through most combos and mained a Kat/Dark by the end. Here, I have tried SM/Dark, Rad/Fire, and TW/SR. I'm looking for something to dump time and inf into. Rad/Fire is the hawt one right now, but I feel like maybe Rad/Shield may be a bit more bursty and fun. I was also looking to get into a DM/Shield for all content. What are some combos that may not be "meta" but are effective and have a bit of unique-ness to them. No more Savage, Staff, or Fire Melee please ^.^

I just had a thought after my previous post which runs rather counter to your statement at the end there. "the life of a Blood Frenzy stack"...are you always keeping your blood frenzy stacks capped? Do you avoid using Rending Flurry and Hemorrhage at max stacks? Or do you use them at 4 stacks? This whole discussion would be a whole different beast if the exhaustion mechanic wasn't so limiting. For me, I've tried just balls-to-the-wall and taking exhaustion on the chin but it hardly increases kill speed. I've tried limited use of the consuming skills and just maintain the blood stacks but that decreases kill speed and still runs out of endurance. I've tried balancing the negative effects of exhaustion using Blood Thirst but that has resulted in just as slow a kill speed as being conservative... ...but this all seems to stem from how much benefit blood stacks provides, the effect it has on the blood stack consumer skills and the exhaustion debuff. It's not adding up and I'm not even that big on numbers... I run Scrappers in place of Brutes, but monitor both forums as a result of little to no info on many sets that I prefer. To add to your discussion - Savage Melee FEELS like the damage is....higher than claws but less than fire? But at the same time, I can genuinely see the DoT's add up across multiple targets to achieve a rather large total average. Unfortunately, this means that outside of total averages, it generally feels slower damage-wise than most other "faster" activation time sets. Which begs the question of - was the set balanced around AoE DoT application with little to no effort in maintaining balance in a given time frame? Some points to be made - 1. The endurance reduction is not noticeable when paired with sets that would seem to benefit from it. 2. Blood Thirst makes the set feel A LOT better. The slow activation time is unfortunate. 3. Given the amount of potential AoE, this may very well be a set with higher highs and in general remain underwhelming before that point. To your point in regards to potential bugs Leo - I can't say that my first thought was "bug"...but i generally agree, the DoT component seems flaky at times. My gut tells me it can just be visual, but I can also see a world where some DoT are being missed, and could make all the difference.

I ran through most of the Scrapper sets to reacquaint myself with CoH, and the only applicable info I can add to your question - Is that the sound set for Staff literally made me stop playing it. So if you play with your in-game sound on....no it's not good. Outside of that, early on it felt good. I imagine, like most Scrapper characters, once you build it out a bit and throw some set-bonuses at it - It will feel like a scrapper and perform like a scrapper.