WindDemon21

Except Ma does have dragon's tail, so it's not just a single target set >_>. No reason a cone for Crane kick woudln't make sense. Whether they'd do it or not is one thing, but that's just stupid to say it doesn't make sense. Except it's not, and i've proven that it's radius is bugged to be smaller than it should be. At 6ft instead of 8ft (it could be 5 ft even but we know it's at least 6ft or less) It's area is 113.097ft, versus 201.062ft, meaning that it's almost half of the area it's supposed to cover. Except those attacks have a 15ft or larger radius, and also are ranged so they don't have to risk going into melee to use them. This was more being said because if the damage was increased to match it's activation time (which should be don regardless) it wouldn't make as much sense for it to recharge in 12 seconds. 16 vs 12 seconds still makes a noticeable difference, and remember as well that the game is balanced around SOs, but if you want it's damage to be proper, and still have that 12s recharge I wouldn't complain, just as long as it's damage is not "less than it should be" for a 2.53s animation time, just because it has a shorter recharge. Except it's not a combo set up, it's just a "do more damage more accurately the more you attack" auto power. similar to kinetic melee's power siphon, only it wouldn't debuff the enemy's damage, and it's max damage would be lower than power siphon since it would be auto.

It was in comparison to other sets that all have at least an aoe and a melee cone. Lots which can still do as much single target damage as MA as well at times.

No, no, definitely not. One this would exclude a lot of pool and epic attacks. Two you would have to have, especially for the aoe which is most reasons you use the build up on teams, very high recharge and accuracy to get effective use out of it. I would honestly prefer something closer to the blaster martial power that stacks the damage and to hit all the time. Kinda like fury/defiance but with to hit. So start with like an always on auto of like 30% damage and 10% to hit, and add another 10% damage and 2% to hit for each attack up to a max stacking of 5, each individual attack buff lasting 15 or 20 seconds. I wont get into the whole dark melee set issues, but this would consistently as an auto that always boosts, make MA the king of ST damage like it should be given it's aoe, and damage typing issues.

Reducing animation time is a coding issue I'm sure that cant be done outside of base code. Ie not slottable/buffable. There are a lot of fun suggestions I'm hearing, but they're all secondary effects. The main issue I wanted to start this thread for was that eagles claws damage was too low for its cast time, and too similar to 3 other attacks statewide in the set. It should have a longer rech like 16 seconds, and have a higher damage to match its animation time. For having to wait till tier 9 to get it, and for how cool, but how LONG it takes to activate, it definitely needs a damage boost.

"Of it's vintage" just cause it's old doesn't mean it has the right stats. But i'm fine with the animation time, but it's damage/recharge needs increased to give it the proper dpa/dps it should have. A tier 9 attack shoudln't ever want to be skipped, unless i'm forgetting something it would make it the only melee attack set where you would want to skip the tier 9. It's animation/kapow is a big reason to play MA and the fun of it. The power just needs it's damage/rech tuned to where it's worth the animation time is all. Even if they didn't make cobra strike an actual attack, it would still have the same issue. Street justice's spinning strike is actually a taoe, not pbaoe so they don't work the same. but you can even test it yourself, it's range is bugged, and it's very noticeable if you look and greatly affects it's ability to hit more targets in a mob. BS and MA aren't even comparible. BS has more cones, -defense, more knockdowns/ups, and parry. It's much better off than MA. But it should never be said "just play bs then instead". MA just needs some tweaks to fix it as I have suggested above. Just because it "got improvements" (mostly just cobra strike with scrappers) doesn't mean it's where it should be at, especially the biggest one being eagle's claw.

MA can be a very fun set with it's animations, but it has some caveats that really have it underperforming. The biggest one is Eagles Claw. The set has so many Single target attacks, that it doesn't need one that is basically at the same stats as the others (crane, cak, cobra). It's stun is too short of a duration for one, but it also has one of the worst DPA due to it's long animation/low damage. It should have it's recharge set to about 16 seconds, it's activation should be reduced a little, and it's damage should be increased to match where it should be at. It could even have a little splash damage like sky splitter in staff does for tankers, but that's something that would be hopeful but not expected. There is also issues with crane/cak/cobra strike. For their damage/rech their cast time should be closer to 1.4ish seconds not the 1.67s they are now. They tend to linger a little bit for no reason past their actual animation, mostly cobra and crane kick, cak isn't as bad. Also given the sets low and late aoe Dragons Tail should really be set at least one or two power picks sooner. Crane kick's animation should really be a small cone like golden dragonfly/headsplitter since your kick basically "goes through" multiple enemies due to it's high force, it would just make sense and help the low aoe out a bit in the set. Like burst as well, dragon's tail's radius is broken. it's supposed to be 8ft, however if you stand near an enemy and close in just to the point where you hit them with storm kick, which is 7ft, if you use dragon's tail at that same distance, it will not hit them, meaning that it's radius is actually 6ft, or possibly even 5ft, which effects the power a great deal. (honestly all pbaoe attacks/powers should be at least 10ft in radius, that change was never needed when the old devs did it and should be fixed, it's bad enough they're all limited to 10 targets instead of 16 which is also an issue but at 10ft even there isn't usually 16 enemies within range so we can *barely* ignore that for now as that would be in a whole other thread on it's own). Crippling Axe Kick is much better than it used to be now, but just to point out that unlike the equal power in street justice, that it seems like a bug that it doesn't accept defense debuff sets. I would lastly state that it feels like thunder kick and more-so storm kick should be on 2.5/5s recharges instead of 3/6. Mostly making it easier to skip thunder kick and using storm kick as the fast-filler which almost anyone does except tankers who are forced into thunder kick. but 6s vs 5 may sound small but it would be just that little bit with some recharge to where it would fill in that filler attack better.

Hopefully the nudevs see/ realize this to add as part of the new tanker changes.

Ice/rad is also an amazing combo. More aggro with the damage aura toggle, good st attacks and aoe, and best part is it gets a self heal which works with ice armor very well. Only issue with that and ma which is also great is that the aoes come late. They should really fix that for a lot of tanker secondaries. While ice armor doesn't have the problem as much, tankers should get their main pbaoe powers sooner by at least level 20 so they can taunt more effectively without taking actual taunt and are more friendly on teams with aoe damage. Waiting till 35 or 38 for your aoe is just bs.

Generally I would slot it with lotg def, def/rech, def/end/rech, and 7.5%. And then a performance shifter end mod and end mod/rech. Or you could go def, def/rech, 7.5%, and performance shifter end mod, end/rech, and efficiency adapter end/rech for more end gain.

You should REALLY not need all those end procs if you make an ice armor build right. Energy absorption will give you full end on like 4 enemies and even against a single target you're better off than other sets. You only two slotted that power which is gravely undervaluing it. Put an end mod and end/rech at the very least and you'll notice you dont need those procs.

There were fires in the Maria Jenkins lab mish full of black swan enemies that would seem perfect for this.

Yeah but why go to a guide just to tell you to go to another guide... just include it and then this would be the one stop shop for the accolades.

Thanks for being one of the only places i could find that actually helps find the Siege mission. And unless I'm missing something, I have vidiotmaps, but it doesn't tell you WHAT Zone to go in for each accolade. Would be nice if you broke it down to which zones for each accolade for the exploration/history badges rather than just aimlessly going in to each zone and looking for that tiny dark print on each map.

Nope that's not it cause I'm always 100% mutation and have gotten both. And it's SUPER annoying having to go in when it's already annoying having to go to the detective in the first place. They could just copy and paste the "call contact" code to the detectives and be done with it. If there was some other issue where this wouldn't work that's one thing but I know this annoys a lot more people than just me.

Actually yeah having it able to turn them off (thus not having to talk to the detective in the first place) would also be a much better option really. Please do this.

Exactly they should always have them, even if you have to do their bank mission first to get it. But it's especially bad for the pi one cause you're stuck with that one forever. And in my experience it's the jump pack that'll take your jump to the top and drop you dead if that 1hp wasn't there lol.

In relation to the other ATs that do get the defense bonus to compensate for things MA lacks like aoe damage and/or a more useful damage type. Lots of other sets also do great ST damage just as well as MA and have more aoe and/or other goodies. This was meant to be a change to help set MA apart, it's really odd it was never ported to scrappers/stalkers to begin with. Without it, outside of concept really I would see no reason to choose MA over any other melee set. (outside over very niche very specific builds like my ma/da scrap i had on live to stack stuns). The defense boost was meant to help the set out for that.

Only you can't for so many things. Sure you can get weave/maneuvers ios etc, but so can any other set in the game, and a lot of times it may not be enough or what you want without devoting most of the entire build to building defense. Once you add those powers and 3% ones to the build, to get that, even to positional, which its much worse for typed, that means you have to devote 6 powers or more to equal that 7.5% defense, some like Makos bite and ToD that take a power 6 slotted as well to do it. With storm kick having that defense bonus, it would open the build up a lot for slots, powers, and other bonuses like recharge bonuses and procs allowing you to push the build further than a worthless 5% more crit on just the one power. Heck according to that even, since I'm sure nobody here has even considered using assault, being able to skip weave (and actually get more defense that it does too) and picking up assault would do more for your damage on the build than that 5% crit on one power would do. It would actually do more for just that power alone than the 5% crit does and is more consistent.

5% more crit on one power is not worth the loss of a 7.5% global defense buff. Also, brutes get the defense, AND use of boosting fury when they use the power, and tanks still get aggro with gauntlet from it. There is no reason that scraps and stalkers shouldn't have the defense buff as well, just like all the other +defense powers in melee attack sets are on all ATs. Honestly if you're that worried, remove the 5% more crit it does, nobody is going to miss it versus the global 7.5% defense boost. To the others, a lot of the conversation geared towards "ma doesn't need it to softcap with ninjitsu" and were totally missing the point of the post. The point is that the defense helped update MA to be more useful and fill a niche since it lacks other things like aoe, I was just using ninjitsu as an example (mostly because i want to pair it with ma for a ninja theme, and the issue being that it would have to be a scrap or stalker, and loses the benefit of the defense currently) of how that defense boost would help, by not needing to slot as many defense boosting IO bonuses.

I really don't get how the game determines which detective contacts you get. I've tested which spot in your list you create the toon from. I've tried how many you have when you create it, IE if it's an odd or even number when you make the character, that doesn't matter. Name and AT don't matter either. I made the same character, in the same spot, deleted one to make it the same "number" of toons when i created it, and one time it was mclord for PI, and another it was Selnum under the exact same conditions. So it would seem random, but then I literally remade a controller of mine 4 times to try to get Mclord, and every time it was still stupid Selnum, so that is way too consistent to be random... All this would be alleviated if they would just freaking give detectives a call button like other contacts get...

Still valid and needs an update to add a call button to detectives.

I did also forget about stealth, but generally I would never enter that in to the discussion but in the build I was suggesting, while you can do without thunder kick I would miss it, but wanted shuriken too for theme and ranged, and gives a good range bonus as well. I actually made from what I was describing a pretty sweet build that's close to the 53% actually, does use a full pvp set in tough, but for all around 52% it could lose that defense bonus and put a couple slots elsewhere, even if wanting to spend more money to 6 slot 2 single target attacks with the scrapper ATOs for the crit boosters and get some more defense in the process, but ranged is most important cause that's where most defense debuff happens. If anything per this discussion though I did get fairly happy with this build enough to probably still do it, but again, that defense bonus exists on the set, it's just stupid that scraps and stalkers don't get it which they should, but this is part of what's great about the game is discussing this stuff lol. Anywhere here's the build I was kinda suggesting (love crane for style points, but given that storm kick doesn't give the defense which I hope they rectify, i'd probably drop crane kick for thunder kick for dps http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1465&c=663&a=1326&f=HEX&dc=78DA85945B6F12511485CFC050EE058AB42005A6AD6D69919BEDBB31568D5A4C933EF888533A9631040833ADC537FF821A2FD17AFB01BE78FB4BDE7AF116A32FB899BD8A0D3C38817CCC3AFBACBD66670EA5ED25DFAB0BB74F0B69F86C4D358CF26AA5A5369B5ACB55DA3455536FD4055DC192AA5CD1EB375465D5D4D49A597592183F2C2D97B49AA6E54A6ACBD4D55AF94CCB3462BDB525EDBA5637B45C77BB6E1A9BC2B7D268D472CB9ADAD4EB1B7EEBE6BCBE5135E92E70B8B4AEB58CAADE0C59F717EB5BBAA1AFE935DD6C87CF35F54AEE2A6D6ED4CB25D530B5563B4A59A6E97BBF1BCABA3AB2B84628CA62688DE9A9307DEBCC131AD3314794AC3D3611942CCD1601935CF3C08912F295FA7C87E13BD1E73B44BE76F8DAE12BC35786AF936A1CA871A0C6851A176A1E516F277A3BD1DBF39FDE2EF2755B893BC29D616D944CBCDC4BF2A247F1B29D9F93D6FCDC43F83B740937390458B105EED8ACAAE05DF01EF331ED0A215908C946906CA42FD9149279C837CC7B1CE10FDCFDD847F01373F433F88539B3CBB453BF083F812352646D7C115C406D81399B074F3165DA3B86498F61D2514C218A493FA19A18B2C5B6583B7E13DC6626DBE02D6611D3F5D273C5D95F8EFFE09EC99FC8F08B99FD0D76832464F190FA25B89F9480CF3CB8436B29CC3685D92A98AD82D92A98ED0C661BA23D9398CFE41EF79ADA070F98F9AFE03766F13B53C87C82BA6FC0749EFD24D2D298477A87B5B9A7E033F03972BF005F326DB43783FC99D7AC9D7C03BE05DF31B3EF997ECA9FC31B9A93E9C72CE57433FFF88428205F6182EBC7E5DE69A74FF7AD4DC9BDB3DC991F582D0C28C501656140591C5096079415B9F7FF20243E3F413AFDAC74763DB42A6135CBD9F78F6A97F819F78E6A69AE3BF8A74992827F30F02FAF71E4F9 And if I don't mind spending money on the scrapper ATOs and overwhelming force for crane kick making it do knockdown for DPS: http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1465&c=686&a=1372&f=HEX&dc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

Just pointing out as well, that whoever also said that they had 53% to all THREE positional defenses, which to do that yes you would need to use winter/ATO sets if possible. Also just a quick help, on that build since you're using the preventative medicine proc anyway, you'll get better bonuses moving that slot to the ninja heal and doing all preventative medicine for the bonuses over doctored wounds. I'd gather you have that cause DW is cheaper which I often use, but at that rate the absorb proc isn't that great on it's own that I'd really bother with anywho outside of using it for that 6th Prev Medicine bonus, but most Prev-medicines you can get at 2 mil within a day, DW is 750k-1mil each so it's not much different for the much better bonuses you get from Prev medicine.

Well slotwise i guess i should have mentioned wanting to do it as a non-hasten build. Which also they should at least look at those click mez protections to reduce their base recharge to be naturally perma IMO. I've also made hundreds of builds for people, often specializing in cheaper builds, but for myself sometimes there are things that I want, like for this one specifically to not have hasten, but have all the attacks, though none i have ever done would go as high as 1.5 bil i don't even know how that's possible unless you're talking about live or REALLY bad at AH lol. But ergo my previous statements about slotting, and guess another big thing i should have mentioned cause it impacts slotting is fitting exploding shuriken in there as well. Pushing *base* builds is easy but that's my key point here, you have to put almost all of your focus on that to do it, there isn't much wiggle room. However if storm kick had the defense bonus that it should rightfully have, this would leave a lot more wiggle room in the build for this.

Purples to offset the loss of acc/rech bonuses you'd get otherwise like from crushing impact etc, I know that they don't have defense bonuses. Was mostly relating to the ATOs and Winter sets. The sets that give most of the defense bonuses, since MA only has one aoe attack, will be makos, and touch of death, neither of which have any acc/rech/end bonuses. If storm kick gave that defense bonus, which it rightfully should for scrappers and stalkers, it would free the build up that much more to use crushing impact instead (which only really needs 5 slots btw, instead of 6 slots for mako/ToD, which takes away from things like 7.5% max hp, +resist IOs etc), and would give better survivability earlier on as well before you get all those IOs, especially since you don't get any aoe/mitigation to a mob and not just ST until 26 >_>.