Most resistant

[Dixa]

I would very much like to see a solid rad tanker setup with capped resists, paired with whatever is the highest damage secondary available to tankers (for av killing but still decent pack clearing)

[Bopper]

3 minutes ago, Dixa said:

I would very much like to see a solid rad tanker setup with capped resists, paired with whatever is the highest damage secondary available to tankers (for av killing but still decent pack clearing)

Probably a Rad/TW, then? I don't know what other secondary would out damage TW with Rad Armor

[Zeraphia]

41 minutes ago, Dixa said:

I would very much like to see a solid rad tanker setup with capped resists, paired with whatever is the highest damage secondary available to tankers (for av killing but still decent pack clearing)

I can personally attest to the fact that Rad/TW has enough DPS when built right to actually DPS-down LR without inspirations or lore solo on MLTF. It can take down any 54 AV when you build it. 100%.

[Sovera]

Pretty much every resist based armor can reach 90% to most thanks to the ATO and Barrier. It's so easy it does not bear mentioning. Where real build-fu comes is doing 90% to all plus softcapping S/L or melee on top of getting decent recharge.

 

Dark Armor with a lot of recharge debuff resistance is near unkillable because of Dark Regen. Something that heals 60% HP every 10 seconds on top of 90% resists is going to be near impossible to put down. It can still happen though, which is why I feel that Dark Armor/Ice Melee is one of the most OP combos. Ice Patch buys a *lot* of time and negates a lot of damage.

 

 

But Rad Armor achieves near the same with Radiation Therapy being Dark Regen's little cousin, plus the absorb shield, plus the regen Rad Armor brings, plus the +recharge aura (the more targets the more recharge it gives), plus TWO endurance recovery tools (Dark Armor has a fat zero).

 

IMO Rad Armor has moved to meta levels and even has a couple mini nukes in the set though I personally never used them.

 

 

Bio Armor is a difference beast. It does not nearly have the resists of a resist based armor and at most only S/L can reach 90% (the rest reaches a 45-50%. More for toxic, less for psi). It's sole selling point is that it is an offensive set like Fire Armor. It comes with a -5% to -7.5% (if I'm reading HD correctly, I know it's 7.5% on a Scrapper) res to damage on top of a damage aura on top of 25% extra damage from Offensive Adaptation.

 

The downside is that it does nothing well so a lot of IO (and subsequently slots) are eaten trying to reach decent numbers, which in turn makes things really tight to make a decent build that tries to place a finger on all pies.

 

It has good elemental defenses, but almost no elemental resists, and it has good physical resists, but zero physical defenses. And to top it is has no defense debuff protection so the first whiff of a roman, Banished Pantheon or even Crey and the defense side of things gets mowed down.... which is bad for the elemental side of things. It's why many a happy OP Bio Scrapper or Brute does the ITF for the first time and hugs the ground very very fast.

 

As I said many many months ago Bio is almost a noob trap. The 25% damage is good bait but choosing a different armor will allow more freedom in slotting which includes throwing multiple damage procs in there.

 

 

Scrappers don't really mind this since they are not meant to tank things and they have Shadow Meld. They can cap themselves as they run to a spawn and spend 15 seconds with a ton of defense to their name. 15 seconds later much of the spawn is dead.

[Sovera]

3 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

I can personally attest to the fact that Rad/TW has enough DPS when built right to actually DPS-down LR without inspirations or lore solo on MLTF. It can take down any 54 AV when you build it. 100%.

Personally I'd go with War mace. It nips at TW's heels, has no awkward mechanics, and has no nerfs incoming.

[KC4800]

My main is Rad/WM and he is a beast. Use orange inspirations. Learn to combine to stay stocked up. Don't need Tough. WM needs Hasten otherwise nearly a perfect build can be made with just Primary and Secondary. Take em all.

[Dixa]

would love to see some builds posted with rad/wm or rad/tw

[Dixa]

On 4/26/2020 at 7:54 PM, Sovera said:

Personally I'd go with War mace. It nips at TW's heels, has no awkward mechanics, and has no nerfs incoming.

I dunno. what makes TW crazy is not so much it's base damage but how it can just bap bap bap bap during momentum. more about animation time - or lack thereof.

 

 

[00Troy00]

On 4/25/2020 at 6:25 PM, Chalkarts said:

Cool, I could have some fun with Dark as a regen build.

I'mt trying to build the most regenerative character possible.  

I'm working on a Farming build that will allow me to pull everything on the board, turn on my damage aura, and go get lunch.

Keep us posted. I'm curious as to whether or not it's ppssible.

[Chalkarts]

7 hours ago, 00Troy00 said:

Keep us posted. I'm curious as to whether or not it's ppssible.

My original super regen was a SS/Wpr back in live.

I was 1 Numinas set away from completing the build when the world died. I can't remember the regen amount any more, but I know it was enough to piss off the arena.

 

When I got back I did some numbers and think I can squeeze a bit more regen with Rad Melee than SS, plus it fills the damage aura hole that Wpr has.  This is now my pure regen project, just wanna see what the highest HP per second regen can be, passive, no powers active.

 

If I did Rad/Drk, that would give 2 damage auras, a boatload of resistance, and I could slot it out for a few hundred % regen so that I'd never have to be healed.  I think this will be my next project.  

[Infinitum]

On 4/26/2020 at 7:44 PM, Zeraphia said:

I can personally attest to the fact that Rad/TW has enough DPS when built right to actually DPS-down LR without inspirations or lore solo on MLTF. It can take down any 54 AV when you build it. 100%.

That's likely to change drastically next issue.

 

I wouldn't roll TW anything right now.

[Zeraphia]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

That's likely to change drastically next issue.

 

I wouldn't roll TW anything right now.

1. You don't know if a nerf is coming, you only know the likelihood that it might. 

 

2. You don't know how it will be nerfed when it does.

 

3. People can pick TW regardless for theme or because they like the "godly" visuals of it.

 

I'm not going to sit around here and tell you "a nerf will never come!" it's likeli-er (probably 60% chance) that it will. However, how hard can they really hit TW as a set at this particular point in time? It's a set that was made by the NCSoft team, it's been well-known as an outlier, so much so TW/Bio Scrapper has replaced Elec/Shield Scrapper as the #1 Scrapper combination. If they nerfed TW too hard, it would clearly upset a lot of the fanbase, something I do not think they're keen on doing. Homecoming has also seen what one of their nerfs have done to other powers (Rage), and the impact of nerfing a power to a powerset as a whole. All that said honestly, I really doubt they're going to nerf it so hard that it loses its top spot for DPS, I also doubt heavily that they're going to nerf it so ridiculously hard that it becomes even mid-tier for DPS with other melee sets. 

 

Play what you want to play, you don't know when the next update is happening, and you shouldn't make choices on what sets you want to play based on theories that something may or may not be nerfed. 

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

1. You don't know if a nerf is coming, you only know the likelihood that it might. 

 

2. You don't know how it will be nerfed when it does.

 

3. People can pick TW regardless for theme or because they like the "godly" visuals of it.

 

I'm not going to sit around here and tell you "a nerf will never come!" it's likeli-er (probably 60% chance) that it will. However, how hard can they really hit TW as a set at this particular point in time? It's a set that was made by the NCSoft team, it's been well-known as an outlier, so much so TW/Bio Scrapper has replaced Elec/Shield Scrapper as the #1 Scrapper combination. If they nerfed TW too hard, it would clearly upset a lot of the fanbase, something I do not think they're keen on doing. Homecoming has also seen what one of their nerfs have done to other powers (Rage), and the impact of nerfing a power to a powerset as a whole. All that said honestly, I really doubt they're going to nerf it so hard that it loses its top spot for DPS, I also doubt heavily that they're going to nerf it so ridiculously hard that it becomes even mid-tier for DPS with other melee sets. 

 

Play what you want to play, you don't know when the next update is happening, and you shouldn't make choices on what sets you want to play based on theories that something may or may not be nerfed. 

Captain powerhouse said specifically it would be adjusted in page 6.

 

It's not likely to be adjusted up.

 

So what does logic dictate here?

Edited April 28, 2020 by Infinitum

[Zeraphia]

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Captain powerhouse said specifically it would be adjusted in page 6.

 

It's not likely to be adjusted up.

 

So what does logic dictate here?

Where is this [citation needed]? Also, you just assumed straight up it's going to be life-crushing for the set when reality is that it may not be. 

[Infinitum]

6 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

Where is this [citation needed]? Also, you just assumed straight up it's going to be life-crushing for the set when reality is that it may not be. 

"Titan Weapons will see significant adjustments in Page 6. It was going to happen on Page 5 but we want those changes to come at the same time as the update for Energy Melee and another round of Dark Melee buffs."

[Infinitum]

7 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

Where is this [citation needed]? Also, you just assumed straight up it's going to be life-crushing for the set when reality is that it may not be. 

And, no I didnt assume anything, but its silly to think its going to be allowed to remain so blatantly above the rest of the sets in dps.

 

I think overall the set will likely play better when they are done, but all the stupid TW tricks will be gone.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Infinitum

[Infinitum]

Good news is he also said EM and DM will be buffed.

 

So perhaps what it means is TW wont be a runaway dps king anymore but also be better on end and maybe utilize momentum better. 

 

So maybe in turn more people not crazy about its gimmicks will give it a fair shot.

 

The potential EM changes alone have me giddy.

[Zeraphia]

18 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Good news is he also said EM and DM will be buffed.

 

So perhaps what it means is TW wont be a runaway dps king anymore but also be better on end and maybe utilize momentum better. 

 

So maybe in turn more people not crazy about its gimmicks will give it a fair shot.

 

The potential EM changes alone have me giddy.

I don't know, I still think just due to how much of an outlier it is, that unless they iron-core nerfbat it, at 50 it will still be mid-tier DPS even if it got Claws (base damage - NOT DPA) numbers just solely off of the procs (specifically the -res) it can run consistently. I highly doubt they can do that with the set in good conscience, otherwise it will suffer horrendously at lower levels and only be worthwhile to play at high levels. 

 

I really don't know, I'm not saying it's not going to affect the set, clearly it will. But I don't think people should stop making TW characters until they know the entirety of the changes. You can level a 50 in 3 hours absolute tops with even a terrible farming build, you never really "lose" enhancements, you just resell them/port them over to a new character. Worst case scenario, you reroll a character. Their updates take legitimately months before they really hit live, so this is still really far out in advance.

 

I don't know, there are several things that Dark Melee has to overcome before it becomes extremely viable in my eyes (specifically lack of any PBAoE, only the cone...) and EM is going to be a whole new can of worms I can't comment on obviously because I have *no* idea how they're going to go about buffing the set, but I imagine it's still not going to have even nerfed TW numbers hypothetically just due to it not being able to really run -res in its attack chain.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Infinitum]

22 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

I don't know, I still think just due to how much of an outlier it is, that unless they iron-core nerfbat it, at 50 it will still be mid-tier DPS even if it got Claws (base damage - NOT DPA) numbers just solely off of the procs (specifically the -res) it can run consistently. I highly doubt they can do that with the set in good conscience, otherwise it will suffer horrendously at lower levels and only be worthwhile to play at high levels. 

 

I really don't know, I'm not saying it's not going to affect the set, clearly it will. But I don't think people should stop making TW characters until they know the entirety of the changes. You can level a 50 in 3 hours absolute tops with even a terrible farming build, you never really "lose" enhancements, you just resell them/port them over to a new character. Worst case scenario, you reroll a character. Their updates take legitimately months before they really hit live, so this is still really far out in advance.

 

I don't know, there are several things that Dark Melee has to overcome before it becomes extremely viable in my eyes (specifically lack of any PBAoE, only the cone...) and EM is going to be a whole new can of worms I can't comment on obviously because I have *no* idea how they're going to go about buffing the set, but I imagine it's still not going to have even nerfed TW numbers hypothetically just due to it not being able to really run -res in its attack chain.

I never said stop making TW for the enjoyment, but in context we were talking about soloing LR with one.  I think that kind of performance will be gone.

 

Dont expect TW to be able to pull off its outlier tricks in other words.

 

I have a hard time with TW swinging a nuclear engine around and it not doing insane damage, so I'm not sure what the fix will be,  im not a fan of TW so I really dont have a dog in the fight.

 

DM is a really good set as is, I use the first two powers as a 1 2 spam, then the heal siphon as a big hit in regular rotation, I try to keep DC and the Siphon power up in tandem with shield charge for a huge burst as much as I can.

 

If they just lowered the recharge of DC to be more in line with shield charge it would be a completely different set.

 

Em, well. I'll just wait and see.  Couldnt be any worse, and if they just changed the animation to a prettier one and one that more frontloaded the damage, that would go a long way in and of itself.

[Bopper]

There's a lot they could look at with nerfing TW. The most obvious one is the design formula not being followed. Every ST attack is 10% stronger than it should be, every cone is 18% stronger than it should be and whirling smash is 44% stronger than it should be. So you could see dampening from that alone.

 

You also have DoTs on top of the excess damage for your momentum required attacks: Follow Through and Whirling Smash. So that could potentially be removed.

 

I have no idea what they'll do, but those are two obvious areas they could look. The next is to maybe add 0.10s to the fast cast times, just to slow it down a little. Make for squeezing an extra attack into Momentum while its up near impossible. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Bopper

[Dixa]

11 hours ago, Bopper said:

There's a lot they could look at with nerfing TW. The most obvious one is the design formula not being followed. Every ST attack is 10% stronger than it should be, every cone is 18% stronger than it should be and whirling smash is 44% stronger than it should be. So you could see dampening from that alone.

 

You also have DoTs on top of the excess damage for your momentum required attacks: Follow Through and Whirling Smash. So that could potentially be removed.

 

I have no idea what they'll do, but those are two obvious areas they could look. The next is to maybe add 0.10s to the fast cast times, just to slow it down a little. Make for squeezing an extra attack into Momentum while its up near impossible. 

huh.

 

The base damage being higher makes sense because of their animation times and end costs - when looked at in a vacuum. Claws still has the best pbaoe spin move (almost twice the damage of whirling smash) if you will and Dark probably has the best short range cone now. the base damage on rend armor is way, way too high. The rest of the powers are ok.

 

Momentum is what screws everything up. it basically removes the animation times that balance out the base damage and end costs. it's a STUPID design decision. recharge, base damage and endurance cost AND animation time since recharge does not begin until after the power has animated must always be taken together when determining power and powerset balance. you cant just look at one or two of those on their own. 

 

remove momentum, lower animation times, end costs and lower damage on rend armor which is the real outlier even for it's base animation time. I don't know what else they could do. momentum takes a full second off of rend armor. from 2.3 to 1.3. momentum is such a force multiplier that just 'tweaking' the damage alone is not enough to give it parity with other sets like battle axe or war mace or the other big hitters. 

 

if you math it out, rend armor does nearly the same damage over a minute and dps with a slightly higher end cost than knockout blow with one stack of rage baseline, all powers unenhanced. both powers have near the same animation times but knockout blow has a 5s longer cooldown and NOT EVER taking advantage of momentum. that's not ok. and if you aren't starting your attack cycle with rend armor so it's taking advantage of momentum, it just blows everything in the game out of the water and does more damage and dps than a double stacked rage knockout blow over the same duration. 

 

 

 

[Bopper]

30 minutes ago, Dixa said:

The base damage being higher makes sense because of their animation times and end costs

You bring up plenty of good points, but when it comes to the design formula, animation time plays no part. You would think it would, but it doesn't. Base recharge and Area factor do, though. Endurance costs also factor those parameters in.

[Dixa]

8 hours ago, Bopper said:

You bring up plenty of good points, but when it comes to the design formula, animation time plays no part. You would think it would, but it doesn't. Base recharge and Area factor do, though. Endurance costs also factor those parameters in.

It should, because powers do not start their recharge before the animation finishes, the animations can't be cancelled and you can't use anything else until the animation time completes. 

[Caulderone]

53 minutes ago, Dixa said:

It should, because powers do not start their recharge before the animation finishes, the animations can't be cancelled and you can't use anything else until the animation time completes. 

Everyone always argued that it should.  But, the original Devs didn't take activation into account, and they never started doing so for powers through Shutdown.

 

Except, they did start using it for PPM.  So, I wouldn't object if that could bleed over to powers.  I'm not sure how much work that would be.  Probably a lot?

[Dixa]

13 hours ago, Caulderone said:

Everyone always argued that it should.  But, the original Devs didn't take activation into account, and they never started doing so for powers through Shutdown.

 

Except, they did start using it for PPM.  So, I wouldn't object if that could bleed over to powers.  I'm not sure how much work that would be.  Probably a lot?

which is why you have sets which on paper should not be doing as well that end up being best in class. Thugs for example. mostly lethal and smashing damage the two most resisted damage types in the game is always tops because their powers animate super fast and recycle super fast. bots should be doing more, but their animations are hideously long and their recharges even longer. 

 

If animation time is never taken into consideration, then this makes set balance a pipe dream.