To Demolish or no to Demolish...

vonqball

That is the question...mind...nobler..slings and arrows..uuhhmmm....yeah.

So, I'm leveling a might/force hero atm. Yeah, I'm still mixin my ranged and melee powers for no sensible reason. This build is running aspect of the machine and invulnerability, so why not mix things up?

My big damage spike will be a force bolt into force cascade to get the surprise attack buff from the avenger tree. I was wondering if it would be worth it to throw a demolish in that rotation as well to soften up hard targets.

Cascade is an energy hog.. so that is a consideration. Also, demolish doesn't proc round-em-up, being single target and all. I suppose I could go with arc of ruin... but it is a bit out of theme, and I think it's fairly costly energy-wise.

I dunno, is Demolish worth adding in?

flowcyto

I think you mean Preemptive Strikes buff, since Surprise Attack isn't a buff and only works for ST attacks above 90% HP.

Demolish can be nice and worthwhile, but I'd never consider it essential- even for a Might build. If ur spending most ur time at Ranged, then running in to Demolish is less practical, though.

vonqball

Yep, preemptive strike is probably what I mean. The blast attack that gives your next ranged attack a damage multiplier. But, the idea is to mix up ranged and melee a fair bit, I have lock and load w 2 smoking barrels... so I will probably be spiking from ranged while my AO is up, then moving in for some melee crowd control stuff.. and repeat. Not sure if demolish really fits neatly into that plan... but if the defense debuff is worth it, then I'll make room.

serialkillerwhal

Demolish is around 20% more damage IIRC, 8% basic "all physical" upgraded to 12% if you rank it up, and an additional 13% crushing vulnerability from BtB. So if you hit a fully charged Demolish with BtB and nothing else, you do a fair amount of damage, then following crushing attacks do 21% more damage for the debuff's duration.

vonqball

Yeah, well 20% is actually pretty huge. A full charge of demolish, then a tapped blast, followed by a fully charged cascade sounds like a potential energy issue. However, I took End Primary and I plan to stack End to the gills.. So, maybe I can get this rotation going at some point.

squirrelloid

Not sure if it's worth trying to rely on, but the Force EB has an advantage which can proc an energy form shield on you. Makes spamming Force Cascade somewhat easier, but it only has ~15% chance to proc per EB attack.

Appropriately advantaged fully charged Demolish is ~23% more damage, iirc. It is definitely noticeable.

Arc of Ruin is vastly cheaper than Demolish on E, especially since you can get the damage debuff on just a tap, but it's only 10%. They of course stack (I don't recall offhand what kinds of damage Arc of Ruin's debuff applies to - might want to confirm it'll actually work with force cascade).

And if you're just looking for general resistance debuffs, chestbeam carries a general 12% one at R3 and works on tap.

I'm not actually sure *any* of this adds up to a *good* concept, but it'll probably be entertaining just for the 'WTF' comments you get. Especially when you go from dropping a melee hit to sounding like gravitar.

vonqball

Yeah, I've actually been getting good use out of that force bolts advantage as I level up. If I get a bubble while using my EB, I immediately fire off a blast followed by a fully-charged Cascade. Pretty crazy damage spike for a mid-20s Invuln hero.

I'll definitely give demolish a test run at some stage. It fits my Hero's theme pretty well (big bulky armored suit), and the debuff sounds very promising. Probably won't have room for arc of ruin or chest beam though.

That Gravitar soundbite just needs to go away.