Super Reflexes?

[Shred Monkey]

I think really the issue with /SR isn't that /SR is bad.. it's that defense is so easy to get from sets that you can soft cap your defenses with other Secondary power pools.  This means /SR's only real advantage is it's resistance to defense debuffs.   I agree with Billz, that this is no small thing.  In fact it's a huge thing.  But does it outweigh having damage resistance and regen/absorb/heal powers layered on top of that defense defense?   IMHO, sometimes yes, but most of the time, no.

 

[Haijinx]

9 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

I think really the issue with /SR isn't that /SR is bad.. it's that defense is so easy to get from sets that you can soft cap your defenses with other Secondary power pools.  This means /SR's only real advantage is it's resistance to defense debuffs.   I agree with Billz, that this is no small thing.  In fact it's a huge thing.  But does it outweigh having damage resistance and regen/absorb/heal powers layered on top of that defense defense?   IMHO, sometimes yes, but most of the time, no.

 

It really frees up a ton of slots that other people need to use to get defense though. 

 

Which makes it nice to build with.  

[ninja surprise]

 

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

And capped defense debuff resistance. Something Nin doesn't come close to. SR doesn't experience cascading defense failure like Nin does.

 

Expounding for readers...

SR gets:

Loads of active and passive positional defense (three toggles and three auto powers)

Run speed buff

20% bonus to recharge

Uber slow resist (i.e. when fighting Knives of Artemis and they throw a ton of caltrops you don't  even slow down)

Capped defense debuff resistance

Scaling damage resistance so even if you do get hit you take less damage from each successive hit

Stackable status protection that keeps working even if you run out of endurance and toggle-drop

The best tier 9 ever because it's like getting Accelerate Metabolism, Speed Boost, and three Defenders' worth of force fields at the same time, all topped with a double back-flip.

 

Comparing SR to other sets is like comparing a reliable Japanese automobile to a classic English sports car. Lots of people like to put a ton of fix-up work and maintenance into their English automobile / armor set and they can get that highly polished turd to perform really well and they feel really engaged with all the clicking and slotting it takes to maintain.

By comparison, reliable old SR makes you set one power to auto, turn on three toggles, and then you just run around forever hardly ever getting hit and punching everything you see in the face.

[Clave Dark 5]

14 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

/SR is like bringing a store-bought pie to a party instead of baking your own from scratch.  It's easier and tastes fine, but making one from scratch that tastes good feels like more of an achievement.

Oh sure, because people who play this game never look for corners to cut or easy pathways to exploit!  😉

 

Damn it, now I want pie...

[Clave Dark 5]

14 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

/SR is like bringing a store-bought pie to a party instead of baking your own from scratch.  It's easier and tastes fine, but making one from scratch that tastes good feels like more of an achievement.

Oh sure, because people who play this game never look for corners to cut or easy pathways to exploit!  😉

 

Damn it, now I want pie...

[Sovera]

14 hours ago, carroto said:

Staff for me just lacks anything interesting about it.  I think it's largely a "feel" thing.  The animations don't look powerful and the sounds are underwhelming.  It's like you're just kind of lazily thwacking things with a stick.  Not very super.  I've come to realize that these things play a big role in my enjoyment of a set.  Some that are great on paper I just can't get into.

 

SR has a lot going for it but it's all passive mitigation.  Not very interesting.  I like an armor set that contributes to damage or has some other utility.  I'm a big fan of damage auras but we almost exclusively have to go to resistance sets for those.  I suspect that's one of the reasons for shield's popularity.  It adds a nice attack as well as a +damage boost.

 

I also suspect that a part of it is the lack of a heal.  Most of us have been in situations where we got into trouble and had to take some reactive measure to make it through.  SR has nothing.  No way to react or respond to a bad situation, just hope that your scaling resists and regen will carry you through.  I'm not sure that it's a completely rational view, but then we're not always rational beings.

Your feelings are valid and mine run in reverse. I *know* I'm not doing uber damages since my ST chain includes a T1 and two AoEs (and I'm someone who cares about this), and I *know* the animations are too long (and again I sing Claws' praise for being so smooth and fast animating), but even so I'm doing a high pitch eeeeeeeh during making kung-fu Jackie Chan noises at whirling my staff around.

 

I did pick Stalker to help the ST damage. I shudder to think how it would be without AS to band-aid the set.

 

As for the SR question. SR is just squishy and lacks a self heal. The DDR is nice, but not terribly important in the grand scheme of things. What hurts the most is /Bio though. Most my characters were /Willpower on live and despite 60+ alts and 6-8 months of CoH I have yet to roll a single /Willpower since it has to compete with /Bio which is great defense *and* great offense.

[Haijinx]

SR can help with offense in a roundabout way.  The less touchy slotting plus the +20% recharge lets you get to that perma-hasten level easier.  

 

 

[oedipus_tex]

Conceptually it's just always bothered me that a set that is called Super Reflexes doesn't have any movement powers for quick positioning. The set that does is Shield Defense, for some reason.

[Nemeroff]

32 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Conceptually it's just always bothered me that a set that is called Super Reflexes doesn't have any movement powers for quick positioning...

You mean like the way the Agents move in The Matrix? (Dodging bullets.)

That's the thing, in-game they're moving THAT fast you can't see it.  No device can record it, "faster than a speeding bullet," etc... (use your imagination).

 

ANYway.

 I'd like to thank everyone that contributed with their knowledge and experience, good or bad.  What I love about this game, the community acts like a small society helping each other.

Corny but I'm reminded of the first Superman, Christopher Reeve, "No, sir. Don't Thank me, Warden. We're all part of the same team.  Good Night."

 

[siolfir]

5 hours ago, Nemeroff said:

Corny but I'm reminded of the first Superman, Christopher Reeve

 

You mean George Reeves?

[boggo2300]

1 hour ago, siolfir said:

You mean George Reeves?

wasn't he second? wasn't there a radio play Superman before him?

[ninja surprise]

On 1/7/2020 at 9:56 AM, Nemeroff said:

Are Staff and/or SR that bad and limiting?

 

I think I know the answer to my question: the Dark Melee was like a crutch for any holes when combined with SR.  But any feedback is welcome! TY in advance.

Final Note: not a PLer.

 

Back to your original question: Yep DM and SR go great together. My first 50 on Live was a DM/SR scrapper and despite my altitis I played that toon a lot. Siphon Life and Dark Consumption are super handy.

 

I also like Staff. As you can tell from all the different opinions, some don't like either the animations or the sound effects. I think the animations are fun (but I don't put my heroine in skirts/dresses since that looks silly with the spinning on the ground) .

I like the power that sounds like a choo choo train chugging through the battle.

I like the pool-queue shot that knocks down pesky critters.

 

It's one of those things you have to try it and see if it clicks.

[tidge]

On 1/7/2020 at 10:32 PM, ninja surprise said:

Comparing SR to other sets is like comparing a reliable Japanese automobile to a classic English sports car. Lots of people like to put a ton of fix-up work and maintenance into their English automobile / armor set and they can get that highly polished turd to perform really well and they feel really engaged with all the clicking and slotting it takes to maintain.

The VEAT Widow builds wave as the pass by.

[Ironblade]

On 1/7/2020 at 11:56 AM, Nemeroff said:

Are Staff and/or SR that bad and limiting?

Not in my opinion.
I took both an invuln/staff tank and a SR/street tank to 50.

[MTeague]

I absolutely LOVE /SR.  

 

The only bad thing about it?  Every power is good. Every. Power. I always take all 9, for every SR character I make. 

Makes it very difficult to work in pool powers.  I honestly forget how I managed it back before Inherent Fitness.  I probably just didn't have more than one Epic power.

 

The Scaling Resist in the passives, plus the Scaling Resist IO in Reactive Defense, plus the 5% Resist all PvP unique, plus Tough, plus set bonuses?

It's not that hard to build up some good resists to pair with your defense. 

[Duck-Smokes-Quack]

On 1/7/2020 at 6:50 PM, Shred Monkey said:

/SR is like bringing a store-bought pie to a party instead of baking your own from scratch.  It's easier and tastes fine, but making one from scratch that tastes good feels like more of an achievement. 

 

 

 

Im sure that this is meant as tongue and cheek, but I actually think Def based sets set you free from the normal burdens of builds.
 

99% of all builds = almost every single set going into getting +Def /and/or/ +Rech

A Def set like /SR is so easy to get over the Def softcap line that it allows you to build for other cool things! Like +Dam, +Acc/ToHit, +Regen etc

Its quite nice to take a break from the burden of obsessing over reaching the magic 45% softcap 

[Duck-Smokes-Quack]

On 1/10/2020 at 1:43 AM, MTeague said:

The only bad thing about it?  Every power is good. Every. Power

I actually think this is one of /SR's greatest weaknesses
(Although I disagree with Elude since I personally think its useless)

Its basically mandatory to take 8/9 powers available to /SR, which makes every single build tight right from the get go, mostly because lots of the DDR is hidden in autopowers too.

SR is a strange beast, sometimes you just go down to RNG and thats unavoidable, but it also means the reverse is true and sometimes you outlive everyone of the team and just can't seem to die. I personally quite like this aspect and those "uber" moments are always really memorable.

 

I also think /SR is a touch end heavy , especially with the +20% auto power allowing for mega attack chains. I would love to see some minor +Regen +EndRecov bonuses hidden away in the Toggles/Autos of /SR.
The +Regen would help the set overcome its lack of heal a little bit better and the +End speaks for itself. Plus thematically its not much of a stretch.

/SR just needs the tinyest little bit of love and I mean tiny. The set doesnt need any great tweaking, its in a nice spot.

[Shred Monkey]

2 hours ago, Duck-Smokes-Quack said:

 

Im sure that this is meant as tongue and cheek, but I actually think Def based sets set you free from the normal burdens of builds.
 

99% of all builds = almost every single set going into getting +Def /and/or/ +Rech

A Def set like /SR is so easy to get over the Def softcap line that it allows you to build for other cool things! Like +Dam, +Acc/ToHit, +Regen etc

Its quite nice to take a break from the burden of obsessing over reaching the magic 45% softcap 

It was tongue in cheek yes... but with a bit of truth, true.

 

The rub is this.. there's just not a lot of +Dam, +Acc/toHit, +Regen etc to add.  Besides, what I really want to add is +resist, and that's really difficult to stack meaningfully as well. 

 

When I look at my final builds, /SR's only real advantage it's got really solid Defense Debuff Resistance (DDR).  That's actually a very strong thing since anything with Defense Debuffs are the biggest threat to the other builds I make.  /SR doesn't have that "Achilles heel" enemy that other sets have.    With /SR there's maybe 3-4 enemies in the game that you can't just treat exactly the same because you'll have their to-hit chance floored and nothing will change that.  If you're fighting Knives of Artemis, Arachnos, Longbow, or several other high level enemy groups, most sets have to scramble for heals and control powers a least a little, if not a lot.  But /SR basically sees them as no different than Council.

 

The problem with /SR is you have no resistances.  So when a hit does get though, you take the full damage.  Eventually you get unlucky and those big hits get through and kill you.  In a long enough fight against an opponent that hits hard enough, your chances of survival are basically zero.  This is what bothers me the most.  It's "I'm winning, this is easy, you can't touch me, and BAM.... I'm dead."  No chance to retreat, or heal, just dead.

 

And here's the biggest thing... remember  the "other cool things! Like +Dam, +Acc/ToHit, +Regen etc" part you were talking about?   Nothing you do with your spare build space on /SR gets those stats even close to the level of what /Bio brings with in set powers.  But that's just Bio right, we all know that's a little broken right?   But wait, there's more.  Blaster secondaries now also give more +dam and +acc/toHit, and more +Regen then you can get with the extra space in your /SR build as well.  

[SwitchFade]

Sr is less popular due to the fact it matures very late. And until is matures you are a bit shaky. Once it matures, nigh unkillable.

 

My Sr scrap has

55% def to all positions

49% s/l res (30-40s others)

Scaling resist increase

Huge res debuff resistance

Move speed increase

Recharge increase

Slow resistance

Etc...

 

Sr is best played at 45+ which is why it is less popular. But at 50? I run headlong into anything without a care. I facetank GM's, AV's and everything in between. It's that good 

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

The rub is this.. there's just not a lot of +Dam, +Acc/toHit, +Regen etc to add.  Besides, what I really want to add is +resist, and that's really difficult to stack meaningfully as well. 

 

I'm currently rocking 32.47 hp/sec on my claws/sr brute. Have you seen @Caulderone's SR tank build? It's sitting on like 45% damres to everything BEFORE the scaling resists kick in.

 

2 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

 

The problem with /SR is you have no resistances.

 

This is not true. Why everyone ignores the scaling damres in the passives... I just don't get. It exists. It functions... it keeps me from faceplanting when I'm in the red more often than I can explain.

[Shred Monkey]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I'm currently rocking 32.47 hp/sec on my claws/sr brute. Have you seen @Caulderone's SR tank build? It's sitting on like 45% damres to everything BEFORE the scaling resists kick in.

 

 

This is not true. Why everyone ignores the scaling damres in the passives... I just don't get. It exists. It functions... it keeps me from faceplanting when I'm in the red more often than I can explain.

32.4hp/s is considerably less than my /bio stalker and all 3 of my blasters ... not that my blasters can compete with /SR but.... well actually one does because I abuse hover blasting which is flat-out broken... but that's not my point.  Look, it's not like I think /SR is bad.  I think it's fantastic.  I've been a huge proponent of /SR since I first discovered it back on live.  If a new player asked me what should I make to be a super powerful world beater tank-mage at the endgame, I would say make an /SR scrapper.   An /SR build *IS* what every other set try to be.  My point was that just that other sets aren't just trying to be like /SR anymore, at the highest of high levels, they are succeeding. 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by Shred Monkey

[Solarverse]

SR used to be godly, not so much these days IMO.

[Haijinx]

14 hours ago, Duck-Smokes-Quack said:

I actually think this is one of /SR's greatest weaknesses
(Although I disagree with Elude since I personally think its useless)

Its basically mandatory to take 8/9 powers available to /SR, which makes every single build tight right from the get go, mostly because lots of the DDR is hidden in autopowers too.

SR is a strange beast, sometimes you just go down to RNG and thats unavoidable, but it also means the reverse is true and sometimes you outlive everyone of the team and just can't seem to die. I personally quite like this aspect and those "uber" moments are always really memorable.

 

I also think /SR is a touch end heavy , especially with the +20% auto power allowing for mega attack chains. I would love to see some minor +Regen +EndRecov bonuses hidden away in the Toggles/Autos of /SR.
The +Regen would help the set overcome its lack of heal a little bit better and the +End speaks for itself. Plus thematically its not much of a stretch.

/SR just needs the tinyest little bit of love and I mean tiny. The set doesnt need any great tweaking, its in a nice spot.

Its power intensive, but not slot intensive.

 

 

[Solarverse]

Super Reflexes used to be Godlike. My main PvP character, Wraiven back on live was pure frustration for almost anyone without a defense debuff.

 

This was a short video I made of him back in the day that was supposed to be a Trailer to what was to come. However, the girlfriend I had at the time who was supposed to be my partner in crime, we ended up going our separate ways, so I never made the video to go with the trailer.

 

 

 

 

Here is another video of a good friend of mine who used to play this game, he was feared on the protector server...this was all pre IO's, so Stalkers were a nightmare to deal with in those days.

 

 

Both videos feature Spines/SR Stalkers. The top one was a mix of Spines/SR, /Nin and /Dark, but primarily /SR. The second video, Slyfe only had one Spines and that was /SR.

[Myrmidon]

On 1/8/2020 at 10:04 PM, ninja surprise said:

I like the pool-queue shot that knocks down pesky critters.

One million times this.