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Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.
Glad I can be of help! :)

Normally, I'm doing this in the order the power icons are listed on the top of the power choice menu when levelling. This means that the next logical step in the guide would be Telekinesis and Telepathy. However, Telekinesis is about to get a redux and I don't have a photo really set up for Telepathy either, So we'll skip that power pool and move on to the Bricks. In essence, they're very similar to the Martial Arts sets, but instead of having the chance to do major damage through criticals, they instead just use enrage mechanics to guarantee that damage.

Heavy Weapon

- Heavy Weapon right now is a little ill-defined. The set's supposed to be built around increasing damage potential with the disorient debuff, but in practice the set comes out as a slower alternative to might which looks just as awesome.
- The main thing that Heavy Weapon has over plain Might is that it can build and maintain enrage and energy very easily, and has excellent moves for taking care of big crowds. Skewer is probably the most notable of all the Area of Effect attacks that HW gets, as it can maintain and build enrage when hitting multiple enemies, and does quite good damage while at it, all while not disrupting enemy formation, so if multiple enemies survive your skewer, you can pull it off again. Skewer also gets cool advantages which change the damage distribution of the attack. Of the two, I'd actually recommend Follow Through as it causes the average damage of the attack in terms of DPS to go up. In addition, it doesn't require a full charge like the description says for enrage building; it seems to happen mostly if charged over half, but since the charge is so fast, it usually is a trivial difference.
- Cleave is a very good choice for early-level builds, as it is very easy to get Enrage stacks with this attack. Once you get skewer and enrage, however, you'll most likely want to put this one away.
- Eruption is actually a surprisingly good choice for early levels; it can be used to interrupt enemies, does fair damage, and builds knock resistance for your Annhilate attack. In addition, it's unique for being a recharge attack, so it will set off Molecular Self-Assembly once it recharges.
- Heavy Weapon also has a good interruption power in Skullcrusher; when charged, it has a much higher chance of knocking targets down and building knock resistance on your enemies. Taps can also do it, but the chance to knock down and add resistance decreases with each successful application, unusually enough. Inexorable Tides is a better choice for a builder of knock resistance, but Skullcrusher does do slightly more damage.
- The single-target big hitter that Heavy Weapons gets is Annihilate. Functionally, the move is quite similar to might's Haymaker, but has a slower animation (but not a slower charge) and will always knock back, even on tap. If you want to unleash damage with this attack on bosses or tougher enemies, it's imperative that they be resistant to the knock, as sending your target flying away is a bad way to lose the opportunity to land extra strikes with this attack.

- The set is very good in solo PvE play, as it can hit close crowds with effective attacks. The set requires some careful positioning, as the most effective attacks like Skewer are actually cylinders instead of cones, making their area scope comparatively restrictive to other melee AoE's. Arc of Ruin can be a solution to this, but it hits for less damage than skewer and doesn't do anything for your enrage. It's advantage, No Quarter, is sort of like a multi-person version of Might's Demolish. Considering that demolish is used to wear the defenses down of major targets considerably, spreading this bonus among multiple targets is fairly pointless against weaker enemies.
- In comparison, the set is awful in large-scale, teaming PvE, as its major AoE spheres and attacks have no synergy whatsoever with their native set at all. Brimstone + Aftershock can theoretically be used with Thermal Reverberation to gain extra energy, but Pyre is much more effective in many ways.
- With a decent emphasis on knocks for single-target combat, Unstoppable can provide you with a steady stream of energy when unleashing Annihilate taps. On the other hand, most of the good Heavy Weapon AoE attacks don't do any knockdowns at all. If survivability in PvE is more of a concern, it can be an equally valid choice to take Defiance using this set.

Might

- Might has incredible tools of destruction under its name. Home to some of the most ridiculous AoE attacks and deadly single target ones, Might has a lot of options for playing both offensively and defensively. If you can get past some of the annoyance of knocks, this set can be extremely rewarding.
- One of the first attacks you'll want to take is Roomsweeper, which serves the staple of both building your enrage stacks, and hitting a bunch of enemies in a cone for damage while throwing them through the air. The advantage of this is that Roomsweeper does lots of damage for such an early attack, thanks to compound contact and fall damage. The problem is that it's not good for teaming situations at all, completely disrupting formations which would otherwise make a DPS nuker's job easy. If scattering enemies is a concern for you, you'll want to take Thunderclap to quickly stun all enemies in range of your Roomsweeper. Another, less reliable solution would be to take Roomsweeper's advantage: Concussive Blow. If you chain multiple Roomsweeper hits together, it can actually have the chance to juggle enemies vertically in the air while building enrage.
- Mighty Leap in many ways is one of the best lunges available, coming out fast, and stunning your prime target when it connects at good range. Mighty Leap becomes a staple of this set, due to the tendency for it to throw all manner of enemies about. In addition, the stun it places on enemies will make it so that your Roomsweeper won't send that enemy flying backwards when you hit him. All enemies around him still will, but if your concern is single-target beatdown while building enrage, then this combo can be very useful.
- Many of Might's Interrupters are built into the set itself. The most notable one for single targets, however, is Uppercut, which is a very fast, energy-efficient attack with decent damage. Whether charged or tapped, Uppercut will knock the enemy up into the air; maybe just a few inches, but it still applies the knock resistance. Because it constantly processes as a knock, Uppercut can become the staple attack of an offensive Might character using the passive Unstoppable, as each tap of Uppercut which connects will restore energy to you. Once the enemy is resistant to knocks, Uppercut will deal a fast and steady stream of damage that can easily be maintained.
- Key to getting a lot of DPS out of tanks in this set is Demolish; a slow and powerful attack which reduces enemy damage resistance against Melee Physical damage. The move can consequentially be extremely useful to even Martial Arts or Bestial characters for this reason (but not to Force or ranged Munitions.) Its advantage, Below the Belt will place another Melee Crushing resistance debuff on the enemy on top of that, which can also be useful to characters that use that damage. An unusual quirk about Demolish is that it deals higher DPS when fully charged, as opposed to most attacks which use more energy and hit much faster and harder when tapped.
- Especially for non-unstoppable characters, the default big-hitter for Might is Haymaker. Haymaker hits slower than uppercut, has a very long charge, does slightly more damage on tap, and doesn't knock enemies back on tap either. The burst damage from Haymaker is devastating on a full-charge, however, easily doing much more damage than full charge bursts from any other melee attack. Though not as damaging on tap as other single-target melee strikes, it can take advantage of knock resistance to be able to do more damage than most MA single target equivalents at an even lower energy cost.

-Might team tanks get fairly good AoE attacks for their cause. Unusually enough, one of the better choices they get is Iron Cyclone + Vortex Technique as the attack can both draw enemies in towards the tank, help keep their enrage stacks up, and be fitted with Challenging Strikes to help increase enemy likelihood to target them.
-Defensive Combo is a melee attack with the quirk of having a higher threat generation by default. Combined with Crippling Challenge, Defensive Combo is a surefire way to get a boss to attack you. it also helps build stacks of Defiance if you don't have them. By taking Surge of Strength, you only need to land a single hit of the combo to get the Defiance stack/refresh, and if you're lucky, landing 2 strikes of the Combo can build 2 stacks of defiance. Even better, these defensive bonuses can be overlapped on other defensive passives, therefore giving you about 1/3rd of defiance's full protection on top of whatever passive you might be using. In 1-player PvE and non-tank characters, though, the combo doesn't see much use.
-Might tanks are almost always going to want to use Defiance, as it can provide the potential for the most defense against major damage bursts, alongside decent defense for large and rapid group attacks. Defiance plays directly into Enrage mechanics as well; when using enrage, the stacks will build faster if you have more defiance up. DPS uses Unstoppable for the same reasons described up in the Heavy Weapons section.

Other

- This is similar to the 'shared' section of the Martial Arts discussion; the Brick classes include a couple of techniques shared by both Heavy Weapons and Might.
-Enrage is an ability which grants a stacking bonus to all damage you do, making it versatile for any character, might-attacks or not, which make use of the superstat Strength. Enrage itself will grant up to 4 stacks of enrage when running 6 defiance stacks, and the recharge of the ability can be reduced by gaining higher Constitution or by brute-forcing it to lower times through Intelligence. If you have a strength level of around 120, it can be beneficial to perhaps invest in Enrage-based powers.
--Enrage can be further augmented and maintained by using attacks such as Roomsweeper, Skewer, Cleave, or Iron Cyclone + Vortex Tech. One of the most straightforward solutions to the problem is to take Howl, which will inflict fear in all enemies around you and refresh or apply your enrage. The best way to get going in enrage stacks with Howl is to first use howl and follow it up with Enrage. If you don't have enough Con or Int to have enrage support itself, even with rank-ups, howl will help keep the balance.
--Because of the click-and-recharge nature of enrage and howl, a great energy return option for Brick-based characters is Molecular Self-Assembly, which will be set off whenever your enrage ability has recharged fully. Combined with other abilities with recharge, such as Heavy Weapon's Eruption or Celestial's Conviction (which really is an excellent self-heal technique if you're not dodge-based), managing energy can be made much easier.
-A key ability to helping the Brick melee sets is Aggressor, a toggle which increases all crushing damage you do by an impressive percentage. Knocks will create aggression stacks, which go up to 5 and increase your damage by up to 5% total at rank 1, and 15% at rank 3. This toggle can be used freely with enrage mechanics, but not MA focus mechanics.

(edits for fact correcting)

Bluhman fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Jul 20, 2011

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Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

New category: Best unaltered use of a Costume Set.

I've seen >90% Cyborg Beast, Epic Samurai and High Plains Drifter costumes win stuff in the last week.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Regarding Heavy Weapons: Thermal Reverberation is fun to take with it since a few powers can cause fire damage, but I find that Molecular Self-Assembly is better. Eruption is surprisingly handy for what it is, as it's a knock-up, it has decent damage, it refreshes Enrage (something Heavy Weapons desperately needs as its enrage builders are kind of annoying), and... it has a three second cooldown. Tap it whenever it's up and you've got basically a constant stream of energy coming in.

That said, the set is still kind of inferior to Might in a few ways. Not drastically, but it takes a much larger investment of powers and advantages to have the same level of net functionality. I still love it though.

Also, Roomsweeper is the best power in the game, bar none. Okay sure there's things with better damage, but it still hits pretty hard, it's an AoE, it stacks enrage crazy fast, and it sends enemies flying about fifty miles. :allears: It's the quintessential Might trick.

megamars
Nov 12, 2010
I played for a few months when this game first came out, is it worth coming back to for F2P? I enjoyed the COH universe more before I had to quit both, but playing a super hero for free is quite appealing...

LordSaturn
Aug 12, 2007

sadly unfunny

Bluhman posted:

Heavy Weapon


:rock:

My experience with heavy weapons was that it combined surprisingly well with martial arts claws stuff, providing lots of beefy charged attacks to maintain your focus stacks.

doomfunk
Feb 29, 2008

oh come on was that really necessary
all over my fine carpet!!
Heavy Weapons has such a bitch of a time maintaining Enrage on its own that yeah, it makes a really great Tiger form attack set. Lots of charges, lots of big meaty attacks, lots of fun.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


doomfunk posted:

Heavy Weapons has such a bitch of a time maintaining Enrage on its own that yeah, it makes a really great Tiger form attack set. Lots of charges, lots of big meaty attacks, lots of fun.
Yeah. If the third attack on Cleave was a 100% chance to build Enrage even without a Disorient on the target it'd probably be fine as an example. It's not the best power, but hell, two of Might's better powers (Roomsweeper and Havoc Stomp) stack enrage easily and rapidly. And the number of cylinder attacks in Heavy Weapons is obnoxious; in practice, a melee-range cylinder AoE may as well be single-target.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Also, I linked the guides you've done so far in the OP, Bluhman. Sure, the thread's only three pages so far, but I figure it'll be easier to have some direct links for people reading it later.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Some of you guys have soloed Resistance on Elite, right?

What kind of builds did you use? I want to get myself some cool wings, and I have 7 respecs to play with so it's no big deal popping out of my current build and back later. My gear on my 40 is for a Dex/Ego/Rec build, if that makes a difference.

Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.

Aphrodite posted:

Some of you guys have soloed Resistance on Elite, right?

What kind of builds did you use? I want to get myself some cool wings, and I have 7 respecs to play with so it's no big deal popping out of my current build and back later. My gear on my 40 is for a Dex/Ego/Rec build, if that makes a difference.

If you want to get the wings, my advice would be, if you have the time, run Resistance up to the sewers section on Very Hard or lower, and after you reach the sewers, log off for 5 minutes, switch difficulty back to Elite, and continue running.
(and make sure you're actually on those difficulties when running, as the stupid difficulty bug might accidentally put you on Elite when you want Normal and vice versa. :suicide:)

The more straightforward solution is to have a build with sniper capabilities. If you're far away enough and have a good angle, you can fire off a far-ranged shot at the control console to attempt to disable it. I'm pretty sure you have to do all the damage in your initial blast, though, or the mob nearby the console will activate, including the robot. The only console where this will not work is the one by the jet, as this console has a much longer activation range than any attack in the game. It can also be safely skipped, as you can send the bombing squad on that one off without you and they will successfully plant the bomb.

Even then, the resistance wings are actually quite cheap nowadays in the auction house. I was able to buy a pair for around 15g.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Bluhman posted:

Even then, the resistance wings are actually quite cheap nowadays in the auction house. I was able to buy a pair for around 15g.

I've never run it anyway though, so I figured I'd do that and grab them at the same time.

I guess I'll still have to respec for the end, there's no way my Archery build is surviving anything.

TwingeCrag
Feb 6, 2007

I got a Phd in Badassery
Is there a way I can make a gimmick Force/Power Armor/Electricity build work reasonably?

I just want to be O.B.-1, jedi robot. :shobon:

Giedroyc
Feb 18, 2001

Can't post for 2,400,000 hours!
Did the guy who bought multiple retail copies off amazon.co.uk get them to work? I have a few sealed ones I bought for £1 each and after the first key it's saying "You have already activated Champions Online Retail on this account." despite their subscriptions page saying "You can add a second retail key to your account after you complete the subscription process."

I'm entering the keys on the enter product key option of the main page, there's no option that I can see specifically for subsequent keys.

delfin
Dec 5, 2003

SNATTER'S ALIVE?!?!

Giedroyc posted:

Did the guy who bought multiple retail copies off amazon.co.uk get them to work? I have a few sealed ones I bought for £1 each and after the first key it's saying "You have already activated Champions Online Retail on this account." despite their subscriptions page saying "You can add a second retail key to your account after you complete the subscription process."

I'm entering the keys on the enter product key option of the main page, there's no option that I can see specifically for subsequent keys.

I'm assuming that what this means is that if you buy the various preorder bonus editions (one with the Gamestop bonus, one with the Best Buy bonus, etc.), they will work, so as to give people with More Money Than Sense the ability to run around with all the bonus stuff.

Keep in mind that Best Buy sells it for $5 and Gamestop for $8 nowadays, so it's not such a bad deal after all now even if you can only do each once.

http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Preorder_and_Game_Purchases

As of yet, I have only tried the Best Buy one (once) and it worked; I'll have to pick up a Gamestop version too. I have not seen the Wal-Mart version in the wild in quite some time, and I do not know if you can do the BB / GS ones and then activate one 'plain' one, or vice versa.

delfin fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jul 11, 2011

whatspeakyou
Mar 3, 2010

no fucks given.

Asimo posted:

...and it sends enemies flying about fifty miles. :allears: It's the quintessential Might trick.

Try using annihilate. Every time i use a fully charged one on my dps HW guy, I hear Chris Berman in my head making some home run reference.

Giedroyc
Feb 18, 2001

Can't post for 2,400,000 hours!
Yeah just got fobbed off by their tech support "some keys stack some don't". I asked why the wording isn't specific in the control panel and they just stuck to "some keys stack some don't". Senselessly vague.

Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.

Asimo posted:

Also, I linked the guides you've done so far in the OP, Bluhman. Sure, the thread's only three pages so far, but I figure it'll be easier to have some direct links for people reading it later.

Oh! Thanks, Asimo. Taking some of these powerset pictures has been a bit difficult. (but also some of the funnest things I've been doing nowadays with this game. :ssh:)

Anyways, on to the Mysticism tree. Of all the trees, this one is the most expansive over all, with powersets capable of filling pretty much every role in the game, from ranged DPS, to strong tanks, to support healers, to even being flat out useless!

Celestial

-At the heart of the set, Celestial characters are fitted to be a ranged DPS/healing mix. Lone celestial characters are decent, as the heals do give them some defenses, but honestly, the same effect can be achieved on normal DPS classes with a bit of self-heal powers. In addition, team healers probably will want to avoid Celestial heals, as they usually favor slow, maintainable heals over sudden bursts.
- Healing with Celestial focuses around using Illumination + Brilliance, and Celestial Conduit. Celestial Conduit serves as the prime single-target attack for Celestials, but good luck dishing out any really strong dps with it. Instead, it serves to be used alongside illumination stacks so that it can heal close clusters of allies, or damage close clusters of enemies. The Brilliance advantage included with Illumination enables you to spread the effect very easily.
- Iniquity is the Celestials express team heal, which you can use to very rapidly heal targets at a cost of some of your health. This is fine if you have health to spare, but if focusing on defenses and survivability for yourself is a focus, I'd recommend Psionic Healing as your burst heal; a full burst can bring an ally up to full very quickly.
- The main problem about Celestial healers is that they both attract threat with their heals, and don't have good passive defenses to deal with them. Healing yourself won't really help this either, as any heal you do will draw some threat. This theoretically could be dealt with using techniques like Evasive Maneuvers + Sleight of Mind, but even then, the threat clearing isn't guaranteed, so you might find yourself with all threat restored to you once the stealth wears off. If you truly are seeking to create a healer that can rise to the challenge of a lair, I'd recommend taking a passive which boosts defense, with Aura of Radiant Protection being the prime candidate.
-- Completely escaping my mind at the time of writing this was the panic button ability that Celestial has: Palliate + Absolve, which immediately clears all threat on the target. The ability also increases the targets presence, which when used on yourself, helps make your heals stronger. If one of your allies is in a rut from being attacked too much, this can sidetrack enemies while you use your heals.

-Celestial has great options for cherrypicking powers, however, including one of the best self heals in Conviction. This heal recharges fast, and though it only restores a fairly low amount of health by default, it can be ranked up, and benefits greatly from critical stat combos (Dex/Ego), Presence, and Intelligence. If you take it alongside Molecular Self-Assembly, it will return energy to you whenever it is ready to be used again.
-If you're a character with quite a bit of constitution and use burst-damage attacks, then Imbue will be another fine choice. Imbue will guarantee that the next ability you use hits as a critical with severity scaled off of your constitution. This means that not only can you make your attacks hit much harder, but also your heals, and when combined with a technique like Resurgence, you can get a bunch of health restoration in a pinch.
- Seraphim might not be optimal for team healer situations, but for solo play, it does a pretty good job if you're focusing on doing Paranormal damage and also obtaining survivability via heals. The fact that it also helps in restoring energy also makes it a more sustainable alternative to the Paranormal offense passives.
- One of the best active forms that you can get is inside Celestial in the form of Ascension; when activated, not only are your attacks made more potent, but also your heals. You also are capable of flying quickly when this is activated, enabling you to rise into the air after you've escaped a hold. Unlike other active offense/forms though, it doesn't do anything for energy efficiency, so don't spend the energy all in one place.

Darkness

-Darkness comes out as a quite self-sufficient all-rounded thing, which, though it uses an offensive passive that implies DPS, has a skillset that reflects anything but. Instead, Darkness' strength lies in its ability to slow down enemies and keep them well controlled, while still doing quite good damage. Quite honestly, the playstyle of this set can be described as 'telepathy if it was actually done right'.
-Darkness' prime area attack is Shadow Embrace, which sends a tight cone of tendrils out to repeatedly damage enemies. The damage from this attack isn't anything special, but it is extremely good for spreading the fear debuff, which is fairly key to Darkness' gameplay and triggering its energy return, Spirit Reverberation. Shadow Embrace has many versatile advantages available to it, namely Dark Displacement, which causes enemies to become repeatedly tossed in the air. The advantage also used to come with the functionality of Fatal Allure as well, but the real reason you wanted this advantage was to knock enemies down, not to draw them in. By sticking with Dark Displacement, you have a much lower chance of disrupting enemy formation.
-For single targets, Darkness has access to Ebon Ruin, which can best be described as a dark version of Infernal's Defile. Ebon Ruin also has a very complex advantage layout, but the optimal combination you'll want to take to maximize its damage is Rank 3 with Nyctophobia
-Ebon Rift + Vengeful Shadows basically is a move which basically creates a dark bomb that can draw nearby enemies in. Enemies in the center of the vortex will take extreme damage and knockback, as if they got hit by a Haymaker or something. The damage burst won't occur if the target is fully resistant to knocks, but they will take extra ticks of damage that add up. A fully-maintained rift will linger behind a lot longer than a partially maintained one.
-A huge amount of damage and protection from this set comes from the Summon Shadows ability, which summons a trio of shadow pets. The pets hit in melee range rapidly, draw quite a bit of aggro, and have the uncanny distinction of having a buttload of health for pets, capable of taking a good few charge attacks with still health to spare. The advantage, Devouring Darkness, makes them even better for defense and restoration. If you're an offensive passive character who needs some protection, these guys can provide.
-Grasping Shadows has the distinction of being an effective crowd stopper, allowing for a clearer setup for your other attacks. Grasping Shadows will serve as a good Alpha Strike for darkness characters, as it ensures that tightly-clustered mobs stay that way for your other area attacks.

-Darkness has the quirk of having access to the strongest potential block in the game; Ebon Void + Voracious Darkness. With this advantage, Ebon Void acts like a block version of Defiance, building stacks of defense buff as you hold your block up longer. This buff doesn't increase your standard defense, but how much damage you mitigate while blocking. For team play, it can be invaluable if you want to wear out enemy attacks until you can get another team mate to take threat priority over them, and is otherwise a fairly decent tank block.
-The standout lunge of Darkness, Void Shift has no synnergies with the set itself. Being a reskin of Mighty Leap that does dimensional damage, it can be utilized by Telekinesis melee fighters as an alternative lunge that can stun and benefits from their passive. On the flipside, its advantage, Emerging Nightmares, can be used to exploit the mechanics of the Burning Chi Fist/Spirit reverb combo and even Bestial's frenzy.

Sorcery

-Sorcery is a fairly complex set of powers underneath one label, and includes four sub-classes: Arcane Sorcery, Primal Sorcery, Ebon Sorcery, and Radiant Sorcery. On a whole, Sorcerers are built to be damage-support characters on teams, buffing allies with their auras while throwing out magical attacks that have a variety of effects. Though there are differences between each school of magic, the staple moves for each remain the same.
-Sorcerers early on will find their main source of damage and protection to come from Pillar of Poz a small, slow, but spammable explosion which knocks all enemies around you away. With the advantage of Dizzying Impact, you can disorient foes. If synergizing with the control mechanics of Telepathy by means of Telepathic Reverberation and Collective Will, the pillar can actually help buff these moves.
-Primal Sorcerers get a special present for improving their damage output in the form of Invocation of Storm Calling. This maintain will repeatedly blow enemies away from you, and at the end of the maintain will cause lightning to strike all enemies in range. It also reduces enemy resistance to energy damage during the maintain, so it actually has potential to work with other energy attacks as well!
-Late game sorcery yields a surprisingly potent cone attack in Skarn's Bane. Aside from doing a lot of maintained damage for a cone, it has application in PvP for removing energy forms and other buffs placed on enemies. Though this isn't a huge factor in PvE, the attack is still notable for its damage, outdoing most of the breath cones of other sets and even Shadow Embrace.

-Each sorcery school has access to Sigils at rank 1. The sigils become a mainstay mechanic for most sorcerers, as they cover a wide area of the ground and sometimes have very drastic effects.
--Sigils of Arcane Runes act as mines, exploding when enemies get nearby. Combined with a firesnake, the fire damage from this attack can be extremely potent. The recharge time is particularly annoying on these ones, though, as once they explode, you'll be without any sigil options for a good 15 seconds or so. These are best used with backup sigils.
--Sigils of the Primal Storm provide a steady stream of electrical damage to any enemies nearby the sigils. They can do pretty deadly damage to groups if they're crowded near and inside them, and Storm Summoning can be a great way to herd enemies into the sigils, and cause them to do more damage. Because of their nature, they also tend to draw aggro to themselves, and sigils are fairly defenseless. Still, the Primal Sigils are a great choice for PvP against melee fighters.
--Sigils of Ebon Weakness opt to wear down enemy attack power instead. In the center of the ring, the effects of each sigil all overlap, producing an incredible amount of damage debuff. These are very good sigils all around, and can be used to drastically improve survivability for close-ranged encounters.
--Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary would be useful if they provided a sizable defense buff while you stood near them. Instead, they make you invisible. :what:

-The sorcery trees also get unique Ritual pets. The pets, by default, are bound by a circle that you must stand inside for the pet to stay summoned. This disadvantage can be removed by taking Unbound Ritual, which, if you plan to take many pets to create a pet army, is very important. Otherwise, only one of these pets can be out at a time.
--The Ritual of Arcane Summoning brings out a golem, which can tank for you fairly effectively. The big advantage of this pet is less that it can take lots of damage, but that it is effective at drawing aggro. The fact that pets can instantly be resummoned once they're down also helps, meaning if the golem dies, you can just bring another one out.
--Ritual of Primal Summoning will summon an animal, which are sort of a combination of DPs at melee and range, as well as some survivability. They can be commanded to howl, which can give you an enrage buff, so if for some reason you're using enrage and want to be able to summon animals, this could do well.
--Ritual of Ebon Summoning creates a ranged DPS demon. Fairly straightforward for damage support.
--Ritual of Radiant Summoning summons an angel, which is the only pet of the four capable of healing. If you're constantly losing health, it'll almost never attack, and it tends to place some priority on healing you instead of others. However, its heal is slow, and once in a while, it tends to get left behind if it's been wounded and needs to heal itself.

-Each class also gets a unique Circle they can summon to buff their stats. The circle can be summoned rapidly, but it's optimal for use only if you plan to stay in one spot.
--Circle of Arcane Power will help manage your energy better and has the bonus of counting as an energy form. This makes it useful for setting off Force Cascades.
--Circle of Primal Dominion Apparently changed from a grab-bag of weird buffs to a legitimate boost to damage resistance, combined with knock resistances and health regeneration. Since the knock resistance helps keep you in the ring, this circle can really help you stand your ground for a big fight.
--Circle of Ebon Wrath increases how much damage you do, as well as making you generate less threat. If on a team, this circle can see some fair use if you're a ranged DPSer that doesn't want enemies to target you. The disadvantage of this circle is in soloing situations, when all threat is on you. In these cases, the problem of the circle debuffing your heals comes into play, cutting most heals such as conviction or psionic healing right in half.
--Circle of Radiant Glory will revive you immediately if you die within the circle. My solution to that problem is not dying. :smug:

-Finally, the sorcery classes all differ in what Passive they can use. All are supportive auras, and prove to be powerful tools for team play.
--Aura of Arcane Clarity is easily the worst of the four, just improving how well you and your allies handle energy. Unlike the other three, this has almost no use on a team.
--Aura of Primal Majesty, as I stated in earlier posts, is completely broken in how it can be exploited. By taking certain superstats, it can be adjusted into anything from a ranged DPS unit with enrage stacks, to a melee combatant that lands critical hits way more often than should be allowed, and can generally be utilized for the heavily increased critical chance, knock resistance, health buff, recharge rates, and energy reserves the stat boosts all apply. Alongside quarry, AoPM is extremely versatile and usable in most situations, and a team of 5 AoPM's buffing one another quickly gets absurd.
--Aura of Ebon Destruction, prior to quarry, was the solution for set-agnostic damage buff, providing a slight, generic damage buff to you and all allies nearby. Compared to the buffs you get with quarry, however, Ebon Destruction simply won't allow you to handle your recharges or criticals nearly as gracefully.
--Aura of Radiant Protection is probably the choice aura for teaming, as the defensive buff it applies is quite critical to surviving the relentless blows of elite and tough enemies. Leave your healing buffs to the Presence stat alone and run this aura; people will love you for it.

Bestial Supernatural

-Bestial is a fine counterpart to the other melee sets, acting like Might in having some enrage mechanics built into some attack advantages, and like Single Blade in having many techniques for building up and utilizing bleeds. On its own, Bestial can be a survivable and swift melee combatant.
-Bestial's sole AoE attack is Frenzy, which hits enemies in a cone on each tap, and also helps to keep enrage running on combo completion. Especially if using howl, you'll want to take Fear Sense to get the most damage out of this attack as you can. The advantage also provides some very unusual possibilities for Bestial/Darkness synnergies.
--If you just want a cone that can quickly deal out bleeds, it's best to use either Scything Blade or SMG Burst+Aggression. Note that Massacre will not benefit any more than usual from Swallowtail cut (That's not to say I've tried, though. :ssh:)
-The key combo for single-target slaying is Bite, followed by Massacre + Bloody Mess. Bite will place bleeding on your target, which is guaranteed to stack if fully charged. Following this up with the Massacre results in damage taps that do immense damage. The fact that Massacre can knock its target down makes it even better, and a great choice for control. Massacre might also benefit from the knock stacks in terms of damage, and the fact it charges so fast can really make the damage output of this combo skyrocket. The fact that Massacre doesn't consume Bleed stacks makes it even better, and you only need one bleed stack to get the full damage bonus, so slash away!
--Speaking of Bite, its advantage, Furor Venom, makes it act to restore your enrage when an enemy is bleeding. The stun is just an added bonus that makes this a good choice for PvP.
-For bestial builds which use enrage mechanics, the toggle of choice is Aspect of the Bestial. Aside from making your character look horrible, it basically is an Aggressor clone which gains its extra damage buffs for slashing damage instead of crushing, and builds the extra stacks via bleed application, making it a good choice if you're looking to create an enrage-based single-blade fighter for some strange reason.
-Resurgence is a great way to suddenly restore a good portion of your health if your superstatting includes Con. Resurgence can also be critted, so if you have Imbue, you can further buff the healing capabilities of this move. It adds a special healing buff to Regeneration if used, but most characters without it can benefit from the burst heal this move supplies.
-Both supernatural sets benefit greatly from Supernatural Power. In Bestial's case, this enables you to spam your Massacre when bottoming out on energy.

Infernal Supernatural

-Whereas bestial was a sister set to Might and Single Blade, Infernal comes out as the sister set to Fire and Ice, doing the same damage type as those sets, and sharing similar DPS tasks as the Fire set, though mainly on a smaller scale.
-The main reason Infernal is largely popular is for its single-target heavy hitter: Defile. Huge energy costs aside, Defile comes out as a self-reciprocating attack, which does major damage on hit as well as reducing the enemies' defense against toxic damage and their healing capabilities. Following it up with another defile will keep those debuffs constantly applied, meaning that each following defile blast after the first will do more damage to the target. The fire set can certainly benefit from what Defile has to bring to the table, but unfortunately, the opposite doesn't quite apply.
-Fire damage doesn't quite apply too well to Infernal-based builds that use the infernal toggles and returns (Aspect of the Infernal, Supernatural Power, etc), as Fire attacks themselves are quite expensive in endurance, and mostly require their own mechanics to be used to their full potential. In addition, fire attacks actually won't benefit from the damage buff of the Infernal Aspect. The best that Infernal can supply for AoE is Vicious Cyclone and Venom Breath, which are functional equivalents to Might's Iron Cyclone and the elemental breaths of fire and ice, respectively. Not quite as powerful as conflagration, but they still can get the job done, thanks to the damage buffs that infernal's buffs supply. And Fire Snake of course.
-Getting to Infernal's worthwhile passive abilities, we come to Aspect of the Infernal, which right off the bat looks way better than the Bestial Aspect. This move substantially increases toxic damage, and gets damage buffs when knocking enemies down, making it work in direct tandem with Vicious Cyclone's chance to knock enemies down.
-The main benefit that infernal gets from Supernatural Power, in general, is of the same nature as bestial: Whereas bestial is capable of spamming Massacre using it, Infernal can continuously use Defile because of it. In addition, Venomous breath has a high chance of setting it off, and thus becomes a very sustainable AoE attack.

-Melee cherrypickers will take special notice in the standout power of Devour Essence, which is a close-range version of Darkness' Life Drain, except a little less healing in exchange for way more damage. High in energy cost, it also benefits from supernatural power, and with critical chance, it has the capability to do immense damage.

Bluhman fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Oct 31, 2011

whatspeakyou
Mar 3, 2010

no fucks given.
Reason #326 not to group with pubbies:

I ran Therakiel's Temple on Elite all the way to the final boss with a pubbie group. After our 4th failed attempt to kill the fucker, I tell my tank "Dude, you need to keep aggro or we're going to get cleaved to death."



His (serious) response? "What's aggro?"





afhvajgfvcasjhfvasha. If i wasn't losing my hair before that, i sure as poo poo ripped some out after.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Bluhman posted:

Oh! Thanks, Asimo. Taking some of these powerset pictures has been a bit difficult. (but also some of the funnest things I've been doing nowadays with this game. :ssh:)
No problem. There's not enough talk about this game, and getting useful info in one place for new folks is always handy. V:shobon:V

quote:

-If you're a character with quite a bit of constitution and use burst-damage attacks, then Imbue will be another fine choice. Imbue will guarantee that the next ability you use hits as a critical with severity scaled off of your constitution. This means that not only can you make your attacks hit much harder, but also your heals, and when combined with a technique like Resurgence, you can get a bunch of health restoration in a pinch.
Note you'll probably want to de-activate your energy builder before using this, as it can and will eat the proc, at least last I checked. :ughh: Note this can be used with almost any powerset too; if you have a power to spare and you're a Str/Con Might guy or something, enjoy your massive Haymaker crit.

quote:

- Seraphim might not be optimal for team healer situations, but for solo play, it does a pretty good job if you're focusing on doing Paranormal damage and also obtaining survivability via heals. The fact that it also helps in restoring energy also makes it a more sustainable alternative to the Paranormal offense passives.
A weird side effect of Seraphim is that it's the only damage-boosting power that works in Sentinel stance. Now this reduces your damage and damage resistance, but if you're in a set that is boosted by Seraphim, this may not be enough to care when you're basically getting effectively infinite energy and a massive boost to healing. You're usually better off with a defensive passive or the like, but it's quite handy for certain fun solo builds.

quote:

-Darkness comes out as a quite self-sufficient all-rounded thing, which, though it uses an offensive passive that implies DPS, has a skillset that reflects anything but. Instead, Darkness' strength lies in its ability to slow down enemies and keep them well controlled, while still doing quite good damage. Quite honestly, the playstyle of this set can be described as 'telepathy if it was actually done right'.
Yeah. Darkness really looks like an energy damage set, but it's sort of the only control-type set that doesn't suck. Probably because it does have useful damage powers. :shepface:

quote:

-Darkness' prime area attack is Shadow Embrace, which sends a tight cone of tendrils out to repeatedly damage enemies. The damage from this attack isn't anything special, but it is extremely good for spreading the fear debuff, which is fairly key to Darkness' gameplay and triggering its energy return, Spirit Reverberation. Shadow Embrace has many versatile advantages available to it, namely Dark Displacement, which causes enemies to become repeatedly tossed in the air. The advantage also used to come with the functionality of Fatal Allure as well, but the real reason you wanted this advantage was to knock enemies down, not to draw them in. By sticking with Dark Displacement, you have a much lower chance of disrupting enemy formation.
The knock-towards is rather useful in some ways in that it locks enemies down longer and has a higher chance of proccing. What it doesn't say however is that it more often knocks the target over your head, and if it was the one that you were targeting this means his friends are no longer being damaged. Kind of a lesser version of the annoyance I mentioned about Experimental Burst Ray, and definitely worth skipping.

quote:

-Late game sorcery yields a surprisingly potent cone attack in Skarn's Bane. Aside from doing a lot of maintained damage for a cone, it has application in PvP for removing energy forms and other buffs placed on enemies. Though this isn't a huge factor in PvE, the attack is still notable for its damage, outdoing most of the breath cones of other sets and even Shadow Embrace.
This attack is astoundingly damaging for a sorcery power. It's noticeably better than any of Celestial's AoE powers for example, and once you hit the level where you can pick it up out-of-set (I forget if it;s 23 or 26) you should immediately grab this if you're rocking with Seraphim.

quote:

--Ritual of Radiant Summoning summons an angel, which is the only pet of the four capable of healing. If you're constantly losing health, it'll almost never attack, and it tends to place some priority on healing you instead of others. However, its heal is slow, and once in a while, it tends to get left behind if it's been wounded and needs to heal itself.
Do not take this power, regardless of whether you're a pet-focused build or not. Its heal is slow, it's absolutely poo poo in throughput, it only heals a single target at a time, it wastes time attacking, and it can't heal itself so it dies amazingly quickly in practice. If you need a healing pet grab Support Drones instead, as they're superior in every conceivable aspect. Even if you think taking it is worth it for concept or something in a pet build, you're probably better off taking an active healing power yourself or another damaging pet instead.

No, I'm not bitter. :argh:

quote:

-Bestial's sole AoE attack is Frenzy (...)
Note quite true, as Venomous Breath is a "generic" supernatural power, so Bestial can take it was well without screwing up its power progression. As it's ranged and toxic damage however there's generally no real reason to since it almost certainly won't be getting a bonus from your passive buffs, although its range and cone may make it handy.

quote:

-The main reason Infernal is largely popular is for its single-target heavy hitter: Defile. Huge energy costs aside, Defile comes out as a self-reciprocating attack, which does major damage on hit as well as reducing the enemies' defense against toxic damage and their healing capabilities. Following it up with another defile will keep those debuffs constantly applied, meaning that each following defile blast after the first will do more damage to the target. The fire set can certainly benefit from what Defile has to bring to the table, but unfortunately, the opposite doesn't quite apply.
Defile is also potentially useful for Fire and Ice, as they focus more on AoE powers and lack a decent single-target nuke. The toxic-debuff effect won't affect their other powers sure, but it still hits like a goddamn truck with either of their offensive passives.

On a related sort of note: both Supernatual slotted passives suck. Okay, okay, Regeneration isn't too bad, but it teaches some bad habits in terms of soloing and leaves you surprisingly vulnerable in the late game to heavy-hitting cosmics or swarms of enemies that can damage you faster than you can heal, even if you can bolster this through other powers that boost dodge/damage resistance. Pestilence on the other hand is absolutely worthless and you should never take it even unless I've missed yet another twinky use for something. In general you're far better off with Defiance or Unstoppable or something that boosts physical damage for Bestial, and Firey Form or Ice Form for Infernal (as they boost Toxic damage).

Asimo fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jul 12, 2011

Bluhman
Nov 7, 2009

Low morale causes the golems to dance in panic.

Asimo posted:

Note you'll probably want to de-activate your energy builder before using this, as it can and will eat the proc, at least last I checked. :ughh:

I actually really hate Imbue for that very reason.

Asimo posted:

Note quite true, as Venomous Breath is a "generic" supernatural power, so Bestial can take it was well without screwing up its power progression. As it's ranged and toxic damage however there's generally no real reason to since it almost certainly won't be getting a bonus from your passive buffs, although its range and cone may make it handy.

It's weird; the venomous breath does appear under the attack choices if you select Bestial, but it has practically no synergy with the rest of the bestial set in the slightest. I guess I just count it as part of the Infernal set in my mind. V:v:V

Bluhman fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Jul 12, 2011

tigerx87
Mar 28, 2010

Bluhman posted:

I actually really hate Imbue for that very reason.


It's weird; the venomous breath does appear under the attack choices if you select Bestial, but it has practically no synergy with the rest of the bestial set in the slightest. I guess I just count it as part of the Infernal set in my mind. V:v:V

you can make a bind for imbue that'll disable EB automatically before activating imbue.

but seriously ss con +imbue with anything is scary.

whatspeakyou
Mar 3, 2010

no fucks given.

Asimo posted:

On a related sort of note: both Supernatual slotted passives suck. Okay, okay, Regeneration isn't too bad, but it teaches some bad habits in terms of soloing and leaves you surprisingly vulnerable in the late game to heavy-hitting cosmics or swarms of enemies that can damage you faster than you can heal, even if you can bolster this through other powers that boost dodge/damage resistance. Pestilence on the other hand is absolutely worthless and you should never take it even unless I've missed yet another twinky use for something. In general you're far better off with Defiance or Unstoppable or something that boosts physical damage for Bestial, and Firey Form or Ice Form for Infernal (as they boost Toxic damage).

I can't figure out why, but i've seen quite a few Pestilence users in lowbie pvp (11-20). Maybe down there it rocks. I dunno. I've been pvping with a str/con might guy down there with Invulnerability, Bio shielding, and unbreakable, so i don't even notice the passive damage. Perhaps its good for.... yeah i dunno. can't figure that one out.

delfin
Dec 5, 2003

SNATTER'S ALIVE?!?!
I ran The Gremlin with Pestilence as his passive, and it worked out well. It tacks on DoT to anything that gets close and DoT to anything you hit with a ranged attack, so for someone whose bread-and-butter is the Venomous Breath / Supernatural Power synergy, that plus Pestilence plus Avenger role jacks up DPS enough to chew through PvE very effectively.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it optimal -- you're glass-cannoning if you use it, plus I never play PvP -- but it can be fun to use.

whatspeakyou
Mar 3, 2010

no fucks given.

delfin posted:

I ran The Gremlin with Pestilence as his passive, and it worked out well. It tacks on DoT to anything that gets close and DoT to anything you hit with a ranged attack, so for someone whose bread-and-butter is the Venomous Breath / Supernatural Power synergy, that plus Pestilence plus Avenger role jacks up DPS enough to chew through PvE very effectively.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it optimal -- you're glass-cannoning if you use it, plus I never play PvP -- but it can be fun to use.

That i understand. It's the use in PvP where those who are near you are most certainly melee who have some ridiculous defensive passive (LR, Invuln, Definace) and some ridiculous active defense (like unbreakable, masterful dodge, etc) where that dot really wouldn't even be felt that confuses me.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Asimo posted:

Defile is also potentially useful for Fire and Ice, as they focus more on AoE powers and lack a decent single-target nuke. The toxic-debuff effect won't affect their other powers sure, but it still hits like a goddamn truck with either of their offensive passives.

Fire has Heat Wave.

whatspeakyou posted:

I can't figure out why, but i've seen quite a few Pestilence users in lowbie pvp (11-20). Maybe down there it rocks. I dunno. I've been pvping with a str/con might guy down there with Invulnerability, Bio shielding, and unbreakable, so i don't even notice the passive damage. Perhaps its good for.... yeah i dunno. can't figure that one out.

They could also be forced to take it to meet the requirements for some other power at a low bracket like that.

doomfunk
Feb 29, 2008

oh come on was that really necessary
all over my fine carpet!!
I used Pestilence for the last five levels on an Infernal character I started as Regen.

With some defense tweaking Regen becomes incredibly potent, such as stacking up dodge/avoidance or wearing 50% resistance bonus primaries.

Pestilence used to be very attractive as it was the only offensive passive that would augment ranged physical damage in some way. It's definitely not the best passive but I will qualitatively state that it does augment damage quite a bit, and the damaging aura around your character actually hits very hard. Between the aura and Devour Essence guys in melee drop with ridiculous speed.

It's not Ice Form, and it covers everything in bugs, but it's not terrible. It's also worth mentioning that the other passives that buff toxic damage output in any way (aside from Quarry) only grant any defense vs elemental attacks, which are uncommon at best.

(Quarry and Invuln are the best passives. :colbert:)

delfin
Dec 5, 2003

SNATTER'S ALIVE?!?!

doomfunk posted:

It's not Ice Form,

You know what? Sell me on Ice Form. I've run a Glacier to L40 and a Freeform with mostly Ice to L38 so far, and I've found much more success running the Freeform as Improved Glacier (Invuln / Avalanche tank in Protector) than I did trying to use Shatter while leveling.

I know the basics: Ice powers (Ice Cage, Wall of Ice, Ice Barrier, Ice Burst) make ice objects. Shatter breaks them. Ice Form adds to the damage. Critting with Ice Form / using Ice Sheath gives Cold Snap, which raises Shatter's damage. However, that's an awful lot of setup (at least three powers in sequence, some of which are high energy or actually empty your bar) for a payoff that just doesn't seem to do that much spike damage, even when it crits. Ice Barrier creates a lot of objects to break, but it has inherent disadvantages as well (long cooldown, energy to 0, enemies have to be pretty much right on top of it to eat all the hits). Also, Imbue makes Shatter crit but NOT the subsequent object damage.

I'm comparing this to the build I'm running now, which uses Frost Breath to chill enemies, Ice Blast + Hard Frost for chip damage, Imbue + Defile against tougher targets, and decimating groups by blocking (which makes energy skyrocket), Ice Sheath + Avalanche. It's less raw damage but infinitely more survivable with Invuln as the passive, IDF boosting that and Bionic Shielding thrown in at Level 38 for laughs. (Might switch that out to Resurgence because of Super CON, but I like Bionic's shorter cooldown for now.)

Is there something about the Shatter chain I'm missing?

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

delfin posted:

You know what? Sell me on Ice Form. I've run a Glacier to L40 and a Freeform with mostly Ice to L38 so far, and I've found much more success running the Freeform as Improved Glacier (Invuln / Avalanche tank in Protector) than I did trying to use Shatter while leveling.

He means Ice Form for Infernal. Toxic damage is part of the Elemental family, so it's raised by Ice and Fiery Forms.

doomfunk posted:

It's not Ice Form, and it covers everything in bugs, but it's not terrible. It's also worth mentioning that the other passives that buff toxic damage output in any way (aside from Quarry) only grant any defense vs elemental attacks, which are uncommon at best.

Uncommon is better than the no defense Pestilence offers, though.

doomfunk
Feb 29, 2008

oh come on was that really necessary
all over my fine carpet!!
Yeah, shatter is Ice's only vehicle for impressive damage and it's unreliable. When it goes off well it does do a chunk of damage, though. The key to a good Shatter isn't just having ice objects nearby, though - it's applying Chilled on all targets in range. Frost Breath is key for this.

People still scoff at Ice as a viable offensive powerset on its own for good reason, though.

Aphrodite posted:

He means Ice Form for Infernal. Toxic damage is part of the Elemental family, so it's raised by Ice and Fiery Forms.


Uncommon is better than the no defense Pestilence offers, though.

This is also why Bluhman mentioned Firesnake in the Infernal Supernatural description block - firesnake debuffs all elemental resistances, so throwing out a firesnake and then an elemental click buff and defile chaining or defile->devour essence is some really impressive damage. Set synergy is great.

And, I do agree - any defense is better than no defense. I did mention I respecced my guy out of Pestilence, didn't I? Well I did.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


doomfunk posted:

With some defense tweaking Regen becomes incredibly potent, such as stacking up dodge/avoidance or wearing 50% resistance bonus primaries.
Yeah. Like I said, Regen actually isn't bad, it just takes a bit to get it useful, even if it makes you nigh-invulnerable against minions. It just teaches some bad habits while playing due to this, and you can get a similar effect with a higher-resistance passive and other self-heals while also being more resistant to large endgame alpha strikes.

quote:

Pestilence used to be very attractive as it was the only offensive passive that would augment ranged physical damage in some way. It's definitely not the best passive but I will qualitatively state that it does augment damage quite a bit, and the damaging aura around your character actually hits very hard. Between the aura and Devour Essence guys in melee drop with ridiculous speed.
The trouble really is that it's a flat (if guaranteed) damage addition, rather than a percentage-based one. It does... what, 300-400 damage every 2 seconds at rank 3 at 40? That's not horrible no, especially since it's to everything in range, but if you're able to do 400+ damage per second with your powers, another offensive passive (that'll be boosting damage by 50%+ at rank 3) will be giving you more net damage, and it can only scale up from there. Those sets also give you some other benefit to go along with it too, even if it's something useless like "resists fire damage!"

quote:

It's not Ice Form, and it covers everything in bugs, but it's not terrible. It's also worth mentioning that the other passives that buff toxic damage output in any way (aside from Quarry) only grant any defense vs elemental attacks, which are uncommon at best.
Pestilence doesn't really grant anything besides its damage though. The healing reduction is rarely handy, but it comes up almost never in PVE. Really, all Pestilence needs is some side benefit like Quarry or some increased defense so it's a "hybrid" passive or something besides a flat damage.

quote:

(Quarry and Invuln are the best passives. :colbert:)
Yeah, pretty much. :v: I'm still inordinately fond of Defiance though. It has a ramp-up time, but when maxed out and with the right super-stats it provides absolutely absurd levels of damage resistance and synchronizes wonderfully with Enrage. And even better, it half doubles as an energy-granting passive, since everything that hits you grants a burst of energy. Throw Inertial Dampening Field on atop it, and you've got an Invuln-like effect too.

While lots of folks here are all for defensive passives over offensive ones, and I agree, you can still do pretty well with an offensive passive, especially if it's a melee one that grants a level of general defense that you can exploit/augment. Most things in PVE really aren't that hard especially if you have a self-heal or some other defensive power, and if you start to have trouble in the endgame you can always respec or join a group.

Having messed around with an Aura of Primal Majesty/Enrage build on the test realm, it really is sort of crazily good as an "offensive passive". The constant ugly SFX and the fact that it's very obviously gaming the system just makes it feel wrong to me though, even so. :spergin:

doomfunk posted:

People still scoff at Ice as a viable offensive powerset on its own for good reason, though.
Yeah. It's not the only powerset with the issue of "it takes twice as much work for 75% of the effort of its competition", but it's still pretty noticeable versus the massive instant damage of Elec and Fire or the hybrid defensiveness of Force. Archery's another example when compared with Munitions; both sets do average-low damage, but Archery requires you to rotate a half-dozen attacks and is just awkward all around despite having some good powers, while Munitions is just "use assault rifle/SMG/Minigun, the end".

Asimo fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jul 12, 2011

whatspeakyou
Mar 3, 2010

no fucks given.
someone tell me how good r3 Invuln with r3 IDF is, since i will not experience it for a good while.

doomfunk
Feb 29, 2008

oh come on was that really necessary
all over my fine carpet!!
With R3 invuln in most circumstances you don't really need R3 IDF. Speaking from experience, it is nice to have, but really benefits your group much better than it does you - you've already got the best protection against bleeds and other quick small hits the game has to offer, and that's what IDF is intended to supplement to the character packing it.

I think IDF scales from a stat most Invuln builds simply will not have; knowing Force this is very likely to be Endurance.

Since I don't think I'm being very clear on the point, the thing that makes IDF a hassle for a good Invuln build is this: You don't get energy returns like Defiance does unless you're using Force Sheath. The power cost increase from IDF becomes something of a *~hassle~* in that light, especially if you're running a Form or Aggressor. If your build is principally Force, as long as you keep Force Sheath up you should be fine, though getting a meaty Cascade off will be uncommon.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Nope, IDF scales off superstats.

doomfunk
Feb 29, 2008

oh come on was that really necessary
all over my fine carpet!!
Well, there's a plus. I hope they continue tweaking toggle buffs in that same way.

Borgonderbee
Oct 27, 2007



I love this game :allears:

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Borgonderbee posted:

I love this game :allears:
That is made even better by your avatar.

Borgonderbee
Oct 27, 2007

Seriously though, this game is awesome because I don't have to give fuckall about optimal builds and rotations. I'm playing a Dual Blades character revolved around using Blade Tempest for henchman packs and whatever cool powers I want. I know Sword Cyclone pretty much makes Blade Tempest obsolete but I like its animation and how it flows with my energy builder.

And I'm leveling with Acrobatics because I like back-flipping from roof top to roof top, what up :smugdog:.

doomfunk
Feb 29, 2008

oh come on was that really necessary
all over my fine carpet!!
For all the talk we've been doing about build synergy, you're absolutely right. For about half the powersets in the game right now if you just stick with the powers in the set you'll be able to punch through the whole game. You only need to work on optimization if you want to do ~interesting~ things like soloing Nemcon or Andrithal.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


doomfunk posted:

For all the talk we've been doing about build synergy, you're absolutely right. For about half the powersets in the game right now if you just stick with the powers in the set you'll be able to punch through the whole game. You only need to work on optimization if you want to do ~interesting~ things like soloing Nemcon or Andrithal.
For example, I've been half-considering doing a semi-joke "anime martial artist" Force/Might hybrid. :shepface: Haven't gotten it sorted out yet, but force bolts and force cascade later in, roomsweeper/havoc stomp and haymaker and mighty leap... probably Defiance on top of it and random active offenses/defenses and things like IDF to improve survivability. It'd lack a good toggle, but it'd keep Enrage up, be decent at both ranged and melee without too much overlap, and be perfectly serviceable for just about every content you'd throw at it. You can do a surprising amount in a Freeform build with even a little attention to it. Only thing throwing me off is the super stats. (Str/Con? Str/Int? Hmm.)

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doomfunk
Feb 29, 2008

oh come on was that really necessary
all over my fine carpet!!
Be sure to take Force Eruption for when you're unleashing the power of your saiya-jin monkey rear end or something.

If you go Defiance and go Str/Int the power cost discount on top of your incoming endurance from being attacked will mean less time spent with your EB.

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