Good Toggle for melee with EGO scaling?

gabrion2

Another noobie question from me.

Been playing around with a melee Telekinesis Build with EGO PSS and mods focused entirely on EGO. The problem I have is finding a toggle form that increases melee damage and scales off EGO. When I did a similar ranged concept I didn't have this problem as I used Concentration. For melee though, the only EGO scaling one I could find was Aspect of the Machine, but I really didn't like it because gaining stacks required killing blows. Any alternatives I'm missing?

flowcyto

Nope, there's no other toggle that specializes in melee dmg and scales w/ Ego. Mental Discipline works easily w/ TK Blades and scales w/ Dex, which is a good universal dps stat (can use that or Form of the Tempest, ofc). Ego PSS can still be fine for the spec tree alone, but w/ a Dex focus then you prob want 3/3 in 6th Sense and 2/3 in Follow Through (inverse if Ego was the focus).

TK Reverb (formerly Ego Reverb) no longer scales w/ Ego, and the innate/passive dmg bonus you gain from Ego is in the earliest dmg layer (which has heavy diminished returns for a dps build) and soft-caps at a stat value of 70 (after which it gains at ~quarter of the rate).

Overall, its not usually worth it to focus on Ego_Strength's innate bonuses for ranged_melee, unless you already have other Ego_Str scalars (like a toggle they use, and SSing them) and then you can treat the innate bonus as a side perk for extra minor optimization.

gabrion2

Another wonderful answer that gets right to the heart of what I was looking for!

I did originally try this as EGO primary (for the specs) with gearing for DEX - actually tried both a ranged and melee variant - but was hoping there was a way to do EGO gearing for EGO. Of course gearing for DEX means nice crit rate scaling, so isn't a bad thing, but I was trying to go for EGO because a) the powers in question scale off EGO (either normally in the case of ranged, or because they were Telekinesis powers in melee) and because the powers had innate higher crit chance based on Ego Leech, so I wanted to try stacking severity instead. Like you said, this would imply prioritizing Follow Through over Sixth Sense

It is VERY helpful to know the bit you mentioned though about innate dmg bonus having a soft cap of 70. This was throwing me off especially in messing around with melee concepts as I was starting to think they all had to be geared for STR or EGO (in the case of TK).

Thanks again for the help!

flowcyto

No problem. Yea, its usually not worth it for dps to gear for Ego or Str if they are not SS'd, partly cause of the diminished return and soft-cap, but also cause of opportunity cost. Not gearing for SSs means you lose on some of the general SS role bonuses (dmg and threat reduction for the dps roles, for ex), and you'll weaken your slotted passive a bit since most slotted passives also scale based on your SSs. This also means that as a dps you pretty much never want your toggle/form stat focus (here, Dex) to be a non-SS, especially as its usually going to be your highest stat.

I guess one exception is wanting to soft-cap non-SS'd Strength as a melee, if you wanted a touch more knock resistance for PvE but not to lose on some dmg bonuses- even if being knocked is still rather RNG-based and blocking is generally the best reliable counter to enemy attempts at it. But that's more a personal pref thing than a general rule to follow.

gabrion2

Yes I did read the stickied DPS thread and learned several of the same things. I was testing putting all gear resources into one stat, which is of course a SS (or PSS) so that slotted passive and all damage bonus of course scale off of it. Then I was picking up a toggle that also scales off that stat and a spec that makes good use of it for the severity layer. A lot of options they lay out in that thread of course work, but I didn't see one for melee, EGO PSS, with EGO gearing. Probably at least in part because of the toggle issue.

My guess (without logging any real play time) is that Aspect of the Machine isn't terrible for solo play when burning through trash, but that it could let you down vs. protracted fights against tough enemies that don't want to die. Again, I don't have the experience in CO to know if this holds, but in other MMOs that would mean giving you a benefit for when you need it least, while letting you down when you need it most.

flowcyto

That's mostly it, and AotM also doesn't proc extra energy- which can be significant for some builds.