How strong is a mace-focused Soldier?

[Seroster01]

Title basically says it all. In the current version of the Hero designer the ST Mace attacks look insanely strong. Not at my PC right now so I can't remember the names, but the builder says the highest damage ST attack is an average of 700+ damage per activation without buildup or such, and the 2nd highest is 500+. Some of this is procs, but these numbers seem significantly higher than the same attacks on my similarly IOd WM Scrapper & don't seem to match up with the base #s I see in-game. Could easily be either user error or a calculation going wrong somewhere, since the current version of the designer... I guess I'd describe it as "seems like it could use a fair amount of polish". Because of that I'm curious how strong they are in actual usage.

 

In a tangentially related question, does the redraw involved in casting Venom Nade cause issues? I can't imagine leaving it out of the rotation would be an improvement, but it seems like it'd be a real PITA to have double redraw come around every 8-10 seconds. 

[Moka]

The no redraw hurts it slightly, but venom grenade is honestly a must have. I do soldier with the soul power pool for Dark Obliteration every once in awhile, as it's worth the DPS. You're not going to be clearing at the rate of like katana/bio armor scrapper or anything but you'll dispatch things fairly quickly with a really sturdy build. 

[mcdoogss]

My bane does not have venom grenade.  He’s a ST machine and for ST -Res I use shatter armor from mace mastery (no redraw between epic mace and bane mace).  Poisonous ray is a good ranged attack.
 

He’s wicked fun, and very sturdy with better than soft capped defenses to everything but psionic, plus decent resists (79% s/l for example).  He crushes through 54 inc solo content in DA.  Crowd control + the mace mastery aoe are enough for aoe and the ST chain 2 shots bosses if getting executioner strike in.

[Pbuckley818]

On 11/25/2019 at 5:35 PM, mcdoogss said:

My bane does not have venom grenade.  He’s a ST machine and for ST -Res I use shatter armor from mace mastery (no redraw between epic mace and bane mace).  Poisonous ray is a good ranged attack.
 

He’s wicked fun, and very sturdy with better than soft capped defenses to everything but psionic, plus decent resists (79% s/l for example).  He crushes through 54 inc solo content in DA.  Crowd control + the mace mastery aoe are enough for aoe and the ST chain 2 shots bosses if getting executioner strike in.

The Redraw was one of the things that really spoiled Bane for me. Could You explain what you mean by ST (I was a kid when I orgionally played, and am trying out the game again with my dad, so I am not the most well versed in the game and it's terminology.)

[Lines]

16 minutes ago, Pbuckley818 said:

The Redraw was one of the things that really spoiled Bane for me. Could You explain what you mean by ST (I was a kid when I orgionally played, and am trying out the game again with my dad, so I am not the most well versed in the game and it's terminology.)

Single Target, as opposed to hitting many enemies at once with AoEs.

[Seroster01]

Since this kicked back up I'll chime back in. I ended up making a bane & getting it to 50 & relatively IOd out. I kept Venom Nade in the build & it's actually a significant deal because it gives double it's -res (so -40%) to Toxic, which boosts the ATO global toxic proc, AND all Bane mace attacks do a moderate amount of Toxic damage as a DoT afterthe initial hit. Poison ray does purely toxic damage & thus ends up pretty strong when it hits a mob with the debuff the (& that combines well with the PVP toxic proc). The redraw doesn't usually feel significant enough to notice, because of a few oddities. The most relevant of them is that for some reason using Crowd Control with the gun out seems to basically bypass the redraw. It could be that I'm just not noticing it, but it consistently feels quicker to use CC with the gun out than a few of the other attacks. One that seems like it takes way too long is going from gun>Poisonous Ray. Another that feels really long is going gun>Black Scorpion mace powers. Otherwise I barely notice it, and I think the character would be significantly weaker in multiple ways without it.

 

He's an exceptional boss killer, given that the way I have him set up he gives a -60% res to everything but toxic (-80% to toxic) on individual targets. Throw that stuff in with solid damage himself & bosses don't last long. Helps quite a bit with EB/AV/GM targets too, though it's not as noticeable with them. 

 

All-in-all he feels like one of the stronger characters I've made. Not as good at AOE as a similar crab build would be, but he's not bad at AOE & someone else on a team having good AOE is much more likely to happen than another character with similar ST performance. 

 

Overall I like him really well. Very good character.