Sets getting most out of changes

[Snarky]

Which power sets benefit the most from the upcoming changes?  I am pretty set in my ways as far as what sets I will probably run.  I still am interested in a discussion of the topic to help me understand how the changes will affect play though

 

for instance. Is the increased radius on PBAoE applicable for damage auras?  What about footstomp and it’s traditionally oddball size?  

[SaintD]

If it's only PBAoE, then a quick look at the sets shows that the winners are pretty much going to be the handful that have two instead of one.

Fiery Melee will go from 'best Aoe' to 'best AoE' since it has Combustion and Fire Sword Circle. Two PBAoE attacks that can be a regular, often used part of their attack chain just get better.

Savage Melee, surprisingly. Savage Leap is a PBAoE teleport attack; if that's effected it'll go well with Rending Flurry for shredding crowds.

The other sets all use cones and shit for their AoE, and pretty universally have a single PBAoE attack. Notably, Titan Weapons won't really give a crap, because it's all cones.

[Bopper]

7 hours ago, SaintD said:

The other sets all use cones and shit for their AoE, and pretty universally have a single PBAoE attack. Notably, Titan Weapons won't really give a crap, because it's all cones.

Cones are AoE and are also getting buffed (double their arc, so powers like shadow maul might actually hit more than 1 target). However you're right about TW, they are getting no buffs given their already superior AoE capabilities.

[MIG]

Wait, so TW cones and PBOE won’t see any benefit with Tanker buff?  

[Bopper]

22 minutes ago, MIG said:

Wait, so TW cones and PBOE won’t see any benefit with Tanker buff?  

They still get the benefits of increased damage, but the 120 degree arcs will stay 120 degrees. 

[Infinitum]

24 minutes ago, MIG said:

Wait, so TW cones and PBOE won’t see any benefit with Tanker buff?  

TW is on the cusp of a nerf anyway its so good. I have actually fought against it because its such a finaky set to play.

 

IMO its not user friendly enough to deserve a nerf, because one error and the mechanic goes out the window.

 

Not to mention the endurance hog that it is.

 

So you definately dont want it getting any better than it is.

[MIG]

Makes sense, but with procs on a tanker I’m not sure TW has either a single target or aoe advantage.

[Snarky]

Dark Melee is one of my go-to sets. I am pretty good at landing shadow maul on more than one target. It will sure be nice to not have that as a constant fight but more or less standard

[SaintD]

6 hours ago, Bopper said:

Cones are AoE and are also getting buffed (double their arc, so powers like shadow maul might actually hit more than 1 target). However you're right about TW, they are getting no buffs given their already superior AoE capabilities.

The BATTLEAAAAAAAXE!

YOU get a Pendulum!
YOU get a Pendulum!
YOU get a Pendulum!
EVERYONE gets a Pendulum!

Everybody do the flop! *smash*

[nihilii]

Tanker buffs are a +2 or +3 in power to most secondaries, while TW only gets +1.

Thing is... Most secondaries start between 5 and 8 on a scale of 10. While TW starts at 11. 🙂

 

My own post-buff Tanker, already leveled in anticipation, is DA/TW. DA can be made to hit ~90% res against everything and ~33% def against all positions without sacrifices. The damage aura will hit more foes post buff.

And TW, well... is TW. The biggest boon here is we're *losing* Bruising in exchange of higher damage. Which results in an *even bigger* (solo) damage increase: as we don't have to use the T1 to apply Bruising anymore, we can run optimized attack chains. TW profits especially, as its optimal attack chain is very tight.

 

I'm hoping this is the character that will finally let me solo a LRSF and STF in melee range, no tricks.

 

(But I might be delusional.)

Is the increased radius on PBAoE applicable for damage auras?  What about footstomp and it’s traditionally oddball size?

To answer specifically: the +60% radius applies to damage auras. It's awesome. 8 feet becomes 12.8 feet, so your auras reach much further than a good 10 feet AoE right now. It's not quite at Spine Burst / Foot Stomp levels, but it's close.

 

As for Footstomp itself, it gets a nerf from 15 feet to 10 feet, then the +60% buff brings it up to 16 feet. So it's a slight buff but pretty much impossible to see.

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by nihilii

[Heraclea]

On Homecoming /Dark Melee Heraclea, I already use Dark Consumption as an AoE attack, since she no longer really needs it for endurance replenishment so there's no need to hold back or save it for special.  This seems to work pretty good on test as well right now.  The problem with the attack always was its painfully long recharge, but that can be slotted around.  It's especially useful if Soul Drain isn't available and you need to attack a large number of mobs quickly.

 

Thinking of making my next tanker project (since the Reflexes/Katana tanker has issues) a shield/fire. 

[Warboss]

22 hours ago, Heraclea said:

Thinking of making my next tanker project (since the Reflexes/Katana tanker has issues) a shield/fire. 

Do it! Shield/Fire is incredibly fun.

[Erratic1]

23 hours ago, Heraclea said:

Thinking of making my next tanker project (since the Reflexes/Katana tanker has issues) a shield/fire. 

 

I am curious what the issues are.

[oldskool]

On 11/10/2019 at 2:37 AM, nihilii said:

 DA/TW. DA can be made to hit ~90% res against everything and ~33% def against all positions without sacrifices. The damage aura will hit more foes post buff.

That's awesome to see! 

My DA/TW can hit 90% Energy resistance if the ATO proc stacks twice and Toxic is either similar or close.  So with some ATO proc love all resistances hit 90%.  Even without the proc Smashing, Lethal, Negative, and Psi are still hard capped.  My defenses landed around 31~ish % which is fine since Defensive Sweep gets me over 45% to melee. 

DA/TW has turned into something that I never thought would be nearly as fun to play as I imagined.  Endurance isn't nearly the issue I thought it would be either but I pace myself so there is that.  If I want to go all out in higher level content I can totally do that with Conserve Power/Hasten/Ageless. 

My own "made from the buffs" concept was remaking my first ever hero... an Invulnerability/Energy Melee tanker.  This was partially inspired by using procs but also that Whirling Hands will have a bigger area of effect.  That too has been just been a surprisingly fun character revisit in the realm of ATOs (that work so well in Energy Transfer/Total Focus). 

Even without the buffs I haven't been happier playing Tankers in a long long time.  Goes to show what some fresh build ideas can do to make the AT more enjoyable.

[Heraclea]

4 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I am curious what the issues are.

Taunt is about her only way to hold serious aggro.  Katana and Reflexes have good synergy at the survival goal, but not much at the tanking goal.  Neither the primary nor the secondary have fast recharging PBAoEs or pulsing damage auras of the kind that would make it easier for her to be the aggro magnet.  At level 28, where she's sitting now, my kinetic/rad scrapper does better tanking than she does.  So I've sort of lost interest.  When our AoEs and Taunt target numbers get expanded I'll probably go back to her. 

[Erratic1]

9 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

Taunt is about her only way to hold serious aggro.  Katana and Reflexes have good synergy at the survival goal, but not much at the tanking goal.  Neither the primary nor the secondary have fast recharging PBAoEs or pulsing damage auras of the kind that would make it easier for her to be the aggro magnet.  At level 28, where she's sitting now, my kinetic/rad scrapper does better tanking than she does.  So I've sort of lost interest.  When our AoEs and Taunt target numbers get expanded I'll probably go back to her. 

 

Thanks for the reply. Makes sense.

[Call Me Awesome]

On 11/10/2019 at 12:58 PM, Heraclea said:

Thinking of making my next tanker project (since the Reflexes/Katana tanker has issues) a shield/fire. 

I had a SD/Fire tanker on Live shortly before shutdown; it's quite effective and with some of the new IO set changes it'll be even more durable now.  Shield can be second to Invuln & Stone in durability (see a lengthy discussion in another thread) and it's a great "set and forget" option.  Fire Melee was one of my favorite sets on Live, I think I had 3 tankers, a scrapper and a brute with that set at 50 and I've gotten a Fire/Regen stalker to 50 here on Homecoming.

 

I was under the impression that SR had a decent taunt aura in one of the toggles so it should be as good as most in aggro control; are you having issues?  With Tanker numbers however I'm not sure Katana will help all that much, you'll already be soft capped without it's version of Parry.  Just for giggles I spec'd out a build in Mids that soft capped all positions by level 20 so there's no issue there.

[Heraclea]

4 hours ago, Call Me Awesome said:

I was under the impression that SR had a decent taunt aura in one of the toggles so it should be as good as most in aggro control; are you having issues?  With Tanker numbers however I'm not sure Katana will help all that much, you'll already be soft capped without it's version of Parry.  Just for giggles I spec'd out a build in Mids that soft capped all positions by level 20 so there's no issue there.

Both forum lore (forget who pointed it out) and my experience suggest that Reflexes on a tanker has a much weaker taunt aura, rather like Willpower's.  The set does not give you the sustainability in attacking that Willpower does, so I do not know why this was made so.  I didn't know when I made the character, either, so I really didn't know what I was getting. 

[Call Me Awesome]

13 hours ago, Heraclea said:

Both forum lore (forget who pointed it out) and my experience suggest that Reflexes on a tanker has a much weaker taunt aura, rather like Willpower's.  The set does not give you the sustainability in attacking that Willpower does, so I do not know why this was made so.  I didn't know when I made the character, either, so I really didn't know what I was getting. 

Interesting, and unfortunate.  There goes the thought I had for an SR tanker... I won't play a WP tanker for that same reason.  Ah well, I'm having fun with my Ice/Spines tanker right now, I just hit 31 last night and he's quite effective.  I had soft capped E/N defense by level 20 and I'm close to S/L now, unfortunately there's not a lot of resistance to fall back on when defense fails.  On the other hand all the aggro is MINE!  No random other tanker on the team, you can't have any, it's all MINE!!

[Infinitum]

13 hours ago, Heraclea said:

Both forum lore (forget who pointed it out) and my experience suggest that Reflexes on a tanker has a much weaker taunt aura, rather like Willpower's.  The set does not give you the sustainability in attacking that Willpower does, so I do not know why this was made so.  I didn't know when I made the character, either, so I really didn't know what I was getting. 

Listen closely you will literally hear my bubble bursting. lol

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 11/9/2019 at 7:34 PM, SaintD said:

The BATTLEAAAAAAAXE!

YOU get a Pendulum!
YOU get a Pendulum!
YOU get a Pendulum!
EVERYONE gets a Pendulum!

Everybody do the flop! *smash*

Wait a second!  Pendulum and Crowd Control are already 180 degrees.  Does this mean they are going 360?!?

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Wait a second!  Pendulum and Crowd Control are already 180 degrees.  Does this mean they are going 360?!?

Nope. Anything over 90 degrees doesn't get boosted.

 

Note* I am not up to date will all the tweaks that went in, just that 90 degrees was the threshold last I looked.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Bopper

[SaintD]

5 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Wait a second!  Pendulum and Crowd Control are already 180 degrees.  Does this mean they are going 360?!?

 

3 hours ago, Bopper said:

Nope. Anything over 90 degrees doesn't get boosted.

 

Note* I am not up to date will all the tweaks that went in, just that 90 degrees was the threshold last I looked.

*deflates*
The world is black and grim. I shall be in my cave if you need me. 😞

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 11/12/2019 at 11:35 PM, Bopper said:

Nope. Anything over 90 degrees doesn't get boosted.

 

Note* I am not up to date will all the tweaks that went in, just that 90 degrees was the threshold last I looked.

It also would have been cool to see Whirling Mace do a 720...