Maybe a Staff/SR

[Sakai]

Recently I made a kin/Shield and got him up to 17. Enjoyed the notion of it very much but half way through the Atta mission the thought occurrd to me that Kin might actually might be too slow for me. I can see it becoming a powerhouse of damage as well avoiding baddies damage. 

 

That's not what I'm looking for right now though. 

 

So instead of making something  new I hopped on the staff/SR I had managed to get to the high teens. 

 

I ran a SR scrapper on live which I recall enjoying. My tank here is WP/Staff and I love the animations.  Concern is whether I will be able to get damage output high enough to not be a slow slog like I foreee Kin Melee being. Having Staff on a Tank I'm really not sure how good the damage may get. 

 

Thoughts?  Not looking for a build, I am fine doing that myself, just any experiences you may have. 

Edited December 20, 2019 by Sakai

[Yomo Kimyata]

I’ve spent a lot of time taking staff out for a whirl.  Staff/fire brute (lvl 50 farmer), staff/regen brute (lvl 45), and staff/bio in three forms: stalker (50), scrapper (40), and tanker (30).

 

Staff feels best on a stalker, which really has a good single target chain.  It feels good on a brute, since the AoE is fast, furious, and constant.  It feels about the same on a tanker and a scrapper:  ok. 
 

I play exclusively in Form of the Body, and usually choose to use Eye of the Storm to execute rather than Sky Splitter.  The -res helps a bit with damage.

 

SR should be a good match with staff, as is WP.  My regen sometimes has issues with long animations keeping him from punching a healing button.  You want to avoid a button heavy defense unless that’s your concept.

 

mercurial blow takes Achilles heel proc.  Three others take force feedback procs.

 

 

[Sakai]

Totally forgot the Achilles Proc existed. Ty. 

 

This seems a fun little combo so far....not sure why I stopped in the first place. 

[Sakai]

Ok. I have gotten a Hero Named Ted up to lvl 27. Great fun.  Seems to be spending all of his time in Ouro with the occasional foray out for a TF. 

 

Is it really this easy to hit soft cap on SR?  I'm already at 43.8 on melee and 41.5 for ranged.  AoE is only at 19 but don't have whatever power that is yet. 

 

If so I should have lots of slots left over to play with. 

[Sovera]

6 hours ago, Sakai said:

Ok. I have gotten a Hero Named Ted up to lvl 27. Great fun.  Seems to be spending all of his time in Ouro with the occasional foray out for a TF. 

 

Is it really this easy to hit soft cap on SR?  I'm already at 43.8 on melee and 41.5 for ranged.  AoE is only at 19 but don't have whatever power that is yet. 

 

If so I should have lots of slots left over to play with. 

It really is. You just pay for it in squish and lack of self healing, though both can be worked with.

[Doomguide2005]

8 hours ago, Sovera said:

It really is. You just pay for it in squish and lack of self healing, though both can be worked with.

I wouldn't say squish as much as splat.  As in "fine, fine, fine, splat".  Learning how to deal with large damage spikes that can take you deep red in your health is part of being /SR.  That includes learning or getting a feel for why you took a big hit.  Did the Boss/EB/AV get lucky and no real worries or did the DE drop a quartz or the Nemesis fire off Vengeance after which your soft cap is no more and doing 'nothing' will rapidly get you dead.

 

IO set bonuses should not,  in general,  be used for defense.  For me there are two overall routes with sets.  Add health and  regen  OR add recharge to the build

 

[Sovera]

Pretty much. But it's effing amazing to be damn invulnerable as soon as level 25-28. The problem is also that it instills a false sense of strength. We are fighting +0 as we go and the hits that come in are weak because of being +0, Then we fight an AV or even EB, or the difficulty is cranked for some reason such as joining a +4 while not still 50 and suddenly those love taps are hammer blows.

[Doomguide2005]

In some ways I find it isn't even defense that makes you sqishy splatty, midgame in particular, it's PB running out or end running dry while still fighting and getting mezzed or toggles dropping (oops).  Unlike some sets /SR is a late bloomer.  In part because Evasion comes on  board at 35th to get AoE defense but also to get the DDR up so defense cascade failure is less likely.  When DDR matures that's when those damage spikes from lucky hits gets less scary

Edited January 6, 2020 by Doomguide2005
Clarity

[Sovera]

That said I'm running a Staff/Bio Stalker and woof woof, me likes. Even not having an agro aura is less a problem than usual. I even tossed it into a farm map at level 33 (to reach 35 and be able to do Numina) and it came out just *fine* unlike my poor Fortunata whose SR based defense and only having Aid-Self couldn't handle it (not that normal gameplay involves this sort of stress testing so it's just a personal metric).

Edited January 6, 2020 by Sovera

[Haijinx]

Ive found that it helps to build up your S/L with tough and set bonuses on SR (and of course both uniques)

 

It noticeably reduces the rate of Green to Red single hits.  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Haijinx

[Doomguide2005]

My build on live and the one I'll be basing an HC build on has Tough and around 23% S/L prior to any scaling resistances kicking in.   Owing to having over 2100 health that means she can take around 900 damage before scaling kicks in,  Pretty much takes an EB, AV or GM to do that in a single hit and usually several hits from anything else.  Usually if that happens I pop an Orange or two asap and rapidly max out my resists particularly against S/L.  I'm honestly not too worried about getting in the red unless I think it is because the foes have a boosted To Hit.  More than likely my Regen (30+hp/sec) will see me back to the green before I get hit again.

 

But yes the things I grabbed while leveling(so far) were the +def uniques placed in Tough, PerfShifter+End, Miracle and Numina's uniques

 

The question I'm pondering over is do I want to get any of the new IO's in the build such as the Unbreakable Guard +HP into her build and where can I fit them in.  

[Sakai]

14 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Ive found that it helps to build up your S/L with tough and set bonuses on SR (and of course both uniques)

 

It noticeably reduces the rate of Green to Red single hits.  

 

 

 

 

 

When you say both uniques which are you referring to?  What ones help with your resist?

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Sakai said:

When you say both uniques which are you referring to?  What ones help with your resist?

Reactive Defenses (Defense Set) Scaling DamRes unique.

Shield Wall (Defense Set) +Teleport (Res) + 5% Resist to all unique

[Doomguide2005]

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Reactive Defenses (Defense Set) Scaling DamRes unique.

Shield Wall (Defense Set) +Teleport (Res) + 5% Resist to all unique

Reactive Defenses is one of the sets I'm not very familiar with ... when does the scaling start and I'm guessing it must stack with SR's own scaling resistance?

[Haijinx]

4 hours ago, Sakai said:

When you say both uniques which are you referring to?  What ones help with your resist?

There is a +3% resist proc Io scaling resist 

And a +5% resist proc  Io 

 

Both are in Defense sets so easy to slot on SR

[Bill Z Bubba]

31 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Reactive Defenses is one of the sets I'm not very familiar with ... when does the scaling start and I'm guessing it must stack with SR's own scaling resistance?

 

I know it stacks but haven't dug into the actual values. It's now just one of the many uniques I stick on every build as soon as I'm able.

[Haijinx]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Reactive Defenses (Defense Set) Scaling DamRes unique.

Shield Wall (Defense Set) +Teleport (Res) + 5% Resist to all unique

Adding more scaling resists to SRs built in scaling resists seemed like a natural combo to me 

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I know it stacks but haven't dug into the actual values. It's now just one of the many uniques I stick on every build as soon as I'm able.

Works great on SR tankers 

 

Course the SR level progression on Tankers spoils you.  

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Works great on SR tankers 

 

Course the SR level progression on Tankers spoils you.  

 

 

 

My nigh-unkillable sr/fire tank approves of this message.

 

I really should work on that sr/claws tank someday.

[Haijinx]

Basically in my experience on a SR if a hit hits you but doesn't take you into the red, you can just laugh at it.

 

Those red hits though.  Well SRs move fast .. so .. get a moments breathing room. 

 

Of course you can ignore the red too, most the time.  But its more of a white knuckle moment.

[Bill Z Bubba]

9 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

But its more of a white knuckle moment.

 

And riding those moments bring the joy of SR. Are the scaling resists gonna be enough to save my ass this time?!?!?! Oh.. guess they did. 🙂

[Sakai]

It seems to me on Live I had enough Regen to stand in the Core room on a Respec Trial without a bubble and have no issues. 

 

Is that something to strive for or a happy coincidence. I know I wasn't slotting for additional Res...has never been my thing. 

[Doomguide2005]

16 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

And riding those moments bring the joy of SR. Are the scaling resists gonna be enough to save my ass this time?!?!?! Oh.. guess they did. 🙂

Good to know, guess I need to make the room somewhere, somehow.

[Bill Z Bubba]

10 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Good to know, guess I need to make the room somewhere, somehow.

 

Skip elude. Take all three toggles, all three passives, tough and weave. I also like CJ. Load up on the resist and defense uniques. Profit. I always go LotG but @Caulderone has a an interesting build in the tanker forum that utilized Gift of the Ancients to heavily ramp up his damage resistance. If I wasn't such a recharge junkie I'd consider it as well.

[Doomguide2005]

Orginally posted her build on a thread about builds including a scrapper section but when I get home I'll post the one I have that's survived the years since sunset.