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Need Might / Force build advice.
kebravos
Posts: 7 Arc User
I've been putting this build together and need some advice on what things i need to make it a viable build. Also it is mostly a concept build. The nearest comparison would be Ikaris from the Eternals in marvel.
The concept involves :
Strength /Constitution / Energy manipulation such as force blasts and eye blasts. Though this build forgoes the latter.
Strength: Ikaris like Thor has super strength and good melee skills.
Constitution: This would involve durability and some level of health regen / invulnerability to damage.
Energy manipulation: This concept has energy projection via the hands or fists more like Captain Atom. Ikaris can also manipulate energy for flight and other uses like force fields.
Here is the build:
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name:
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Endurance (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Devastator
Level 6: Mighty
Level 9: Enduring
Level 12: Energetic
Level 15: Paramilitary Training
Level 18: Boundless Reserves
Level 21: Amazing Stamina
Powers:
Level 1: Clobber
Level 1: Beatdown
Level 6: Defiance
Level 8: Enrage
Level 11: Mighty Leap
Level 14: Force Blast
Level 17: Uppercut
Level 20: Resurgence
Level 23: Demolish
Level 26: Force Eruption
Level 29: Force Cascade
Level 32: Retaliation
Level 35: Aggressor
Level 38: Molecular Self-Assembly
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Athletics
Level 35: Power Flight
Specializations:
Strength: Swole (3/3)
Strength: Quick Recovery (2/2)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Juggernaut (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (2/3)
Vindicator: The Rush of Battle (3/3)
Vindicator: Mass Destruction (3/3)
Protector: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Protector: Beacon of Hope (3/3)
Protector: Bulwark (2/2)
Protector: Resolute (2/3)
Mastery: Vindicator Mastery (1/1)
Any feedback will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
The concept involves :
Strength /Constitution / Energy manipulation such as force blasts and eye blasts. Though this build forgoes the latter.
Strength: Ikaris like Thor has super strength and good melee skills.
Constitution: This would involve durability and some level of health regen / invulnerability to damage.
Energy manipulation: This concept has energy projection via the hands or fists more like Captain Atom. Ikaris can also manipulate energy for flight and other uses like force fields.
Here is the build:
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name:
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Endurance (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Devastator
Level 6: Mighty
Level 9: Enduring
Level 12: Energetic
Level 15: Paramilitary Training
Level 18: Boundless Reserves
Level 21: Amazing Stamina
Powers:
Level 1: Clobber
Level 1: Beatdown
Level 6: Defiance
Level 8: Enrage
Level 11: Mighty Leap
Level 14: Force Blast
Level 17: Uppercut
Level 20: Resurgence
Level 23: Demolish
Level 26: Force Eruption
Level 29: Force Cascade
Level 32: Retaliation
Level 35: Aggressor
Level 38: Molecular Self-Assembly
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Athletics
Level 35: Power Flight
Specializations:
Strength: Swole (3/3)
Strength: Quick Recovery (2/2)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Juggernaut (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (2/3)
Vindicator: The Rush of Battle (3/3)
Vindicator: Mass Destruction (3/3)
Protector: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Protector: Beacon of Hope (3/3)
Protector: Bulwark (2/2)
Protector: Resolute (2/3)
Mastery: Vindicator Mastery (1/1)
Any feedback will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Post edited by kebravos on
0
Comments
Do you have any attacks that actually trigger Enrage? Pretty sure you need to apply knocks or have the power inherently give you stacks of Enrage. Roomsweeper is my preferred power but Havoc Stomp also generates enrage stacks, as do many other powers.
Force Blast has knockback (and can be charged-up)... since your other attacks are melee-oriented, I'd think you would not want to knock foes away from you (although it has a 100' range so maybe you want to use it to lure foes into Lunge range)...
Plasma Beam is a new maintained target-less energy blast in the power armor set that looks great. It is maintained, which I prefer over charged attacks in general. It DOES have a problem with the z-axis
you cannot be too far above or below your target or the beam will just blast into thin air.
Force Eruption knocks foes away from you which in general I would think you would not want (I wonder if it'd trigger Enrage?)... I believe it can generate a "hot spot' that increases your damage (perhaps as an advantage only) but then you have to stay in that spot, which a melee character probably doesn't want to do (stand in one spot).
A similar power is Power Armor's Energy Wave, but with the Reverse Polarity advantage, it actually knocks foes TOWARD you. And with the Hardened Particle Matrix advantage, you get a temporary hexagonal shield, too!
Force Cascade is an energy hog; with END as a secondary superstat you might have enough END to fire it without having an Energy Form active (which reduces the cost)... but you'd have to build up your energy levels and without REC as a superstat that might take a while to build up sufficient energy to use.
Retaliation - great block replacer, but I'd recommend getting it earlier in the build (around level 17 - 20 I usually do). Of course this may be a retcon build, not a leveling build.
Molecular Self-Assembly scales off INT, which you will only have by gear, and it works best if you have a lot of fast-recharge powers... frankly, though, I am not sure what other energy unlock you COULD use. You don't really use maintains (Overdrive works great then)... and your attacks aren't supernatural / paranormal and you don't use Clinging Flames, Ego Leech, Chill, Negative Ions, etc... maybe if you gear for INT and REC then MSA will be enough. Wouldn't hurt to get more fast-recharge powers --- perhaps a heal like Bountiful Chi Resurgence or Conviction, since Resurgence has such a long recharge time.
Formerly Aeolwind
Nothing witty, just angst.
Primus Database of Characters
40 Count = 6
The second thing is you don't really have anything to manage cascade. Braxzana is right about the energy management with cascade - End without Rec would likely leave you spending more time charging up to a tapped cascade on occasion than really going nuts with it.
Now, you don't have to rely on cascade, but it's nice, and it's so nice that you'll likely enjoy it more than any of the other force powers. Cascade also gives the option of either speccing for a pretty nice spike hit ranging anywhere from 10k-20k (dependant on the sliding scale of tank to glass) or some pretty decent DPS spam, or a mix of the above.
It really just depends on your intentions for cascade, and therefore your character's conceptual main form of attack - a really high damage range blaster type or a cosmic brawler with a spike ranged hit or whatever.
If, however, the goal is not for cascade, or energy projection in general, to be the main focus of his fighting style and you're going more for Captain Marvel than Firestorm, cascade may overshadow your melee. In that case I would suggest dropping cascade because it requires too much investment, and you could stick with melee and use several of the force powers for utility like geyser and detonation for crowd control, or maybe some of the ego powers.
From the description of Ikaris' powers force / might may not be the only choice to go with either, it sounds more like a laser than a knock heavy energy projection - have you seen R3 plasma beam and Burning Chi Fist? It's wonderful, and with the Avenger/Vindicator advantage (I forget which it is) that boosts your offense for using a Maintain attack it would probably be pretty sweet.
Side notes -
triggering enrage is cake, and eruption does it, but roomsweeper is my preferred method.
I love Retaliation on a fully charged, energy formed, critting Cascade.
MSA is great for force / might hybrids because you'll likely take a lunge and BCR (or some other quick heal) plus a couple of click powers along the way for defense or offense.
To break it all down to the most basic concepts you'll probably need
1 Single Target attack
1 AoE attack
1 Active Defense
1 Active Offense
1 Energy Unlock
1 Self Heal
Avoiding Recovery As A Superstat.
My personal favorite build so far was SS Ego with Int+Str with Guardian and vindicator/avenger, take everything crit, offense, and defense boosting and Mass Destruction (wherever that lies, no single target crit boosting, you won't have any single target attacks)
As a retcon build I took Unleashed Rage at level one so I could immediately take roomsweeper without dumping into the Force tree unnecessarily, but if this is a leveling build you may need to wiggle around some. Maybe eruption for grav polarity?
Force Cascade, MSR, AoPM, Immolation (or any active offense form you like that fits your theme) for spike, enrage, retaliation, void shift (or any lunge for flavor) with Nailed to the ground + Cripling Challenge, BCR, and whatever else you want.
The idea here is, if starting a battle fresh, you just cascade the crap out everything until it dies, while BCRing and lunging to keep the energy coming. If it's a longer fight, lunge in, roomsweeper the **** out of everything you can find until you reach 8 stacks. Everything should be dead, but if something isn't (usually a boss) you can start cascading now. For the thing that survives (like in PvP) you lunge in which procs Nailed so when you roomsweeper you knock up instead of back, hit your Click form and charge cascade to full, firing before they get up after the roomsweeper knock, lunge before it's out of range and spam cascade until it's dead.
If it's a prolonged battle, do the same but take a moment every so often to put down a gravitational polarity and use less lunging to not get too much threat (or don't lunge at all).
This is not an optimal build yet, it's still in the works due to recent changes, but it's fun as hell.
edit to add:
when I say "not optimal," I mean "not completely and ridiculously overpowered to the point of broken, but still completely unfair against pretty much anything you'll find in game."
@ Braxzana regarding enrage procs, I would say yes I do have attacks which trigger enrage. Almost all the melee attacks in might do this including the energy builder.
Also I see what you mean about Force cascade. It requires to much deviation from the concept of my toon to be of any real use other than a flashy dps move. Regarding Bountiful Chi Resurgence /Conviction do any of these scale off constitution like Resurgence and are they as effective?
@ Ventai
I have taken a look at Pulswaves Miss Infinity Might / Force build and it has some interesting things I might try out. Things like Bionic Shielding, Imbue and Shadow Shroud. Though whether these utilities scale well off my current main stats to be effective remains to be seen.
@ Pion01
If I have too many attacks what need I drop and what utility do I pick up in place of the attacks? I thought I would go heavy on attack options and light on utility since I'm not main tanking.
Regarding the fighting style of the concept, it is a melee oriented one. So I'm focusing on melee attacks some defense / utility and energy projection abilities. Going to rethink the inclusion of Force cascade as it is a signature power of force users and requires stats beyond the pale of my current frame work.
Also in your suggestions you mention I should a build with Recovery as a superstat why?
MOST things now scale off your superstats, whatever they are.
There are (of course) exceptions, like Defiance pretty much requiring CON and Molecular Self Assembly scaling off INT... but even in those cases (energy unlocks mainly) it'll mention that they scale off the greater of EGO or INT or the greater of END or REC or something.... and of course many powers that affect others have that benefit TO others scale with your PRE stat.
Since Conviction gives you a percentage of your health (if memory serves), the higher your CON the greater the "buffer" you have to absorb damage before it collapses. Similarly, the higher your CON, the more time BCR has to slowly tick your health up. As far as ~scaling~ though... pretty sure Bonus Healing % is based off whatever your superstats are (although I could be wrong and Bonus Healing could be PRE-centric).
So far as I know all powers that apply knock trigger Enrage.
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
The spec tree doesn't offer anything worthwhile either - an extra 300 points of HP at level 40 is less than you get on a piece of secondary gear, which is also a waste, and an energy unlock will make recovery redundant very quickly, especially if you add cost discount mods to your gear, and you probably will since it's basically a freebie. This doesn't just go for Fore / Might, mind you, pretty much everybody should avoid recovery as a superstat.
As for what to drop, whatever you don't really like, but personally I've never had use for beatdown. It's kinda slow, looks awkward, and doesn't do very good damage.
I would suggest demolish R3 for quick tap damage to lower crushing damage resistance then a charged demolish, and roomsweeper cuz it's the most awesome power ever, does good damage, is a pretty good AoE, builds enrage like nothing else, and when combined with Lunge+Nailed knocks up (once) instead of back giving you time to charge either another roomsweeper for knockback and fall damage, or demolish for a nice spike. That's pretty much all your attacks - Demolish and Roomsweeper.
Utility I would say Force Geyser in case you see someone charging an attack/lunging/maintaining/whatever to interrupt and knock really quick for little cost, and force eruption for a quick get off me, and if you're DPSing something, gravitational polarity advantage can add a nice 15% damage boost.
Also, if you're not main tanking I would go with Unstoppable over Defiance, take Str (+offense and +crit specs) with Con (more HP) +Int (stuff costs less, lower recharge times) and you'll be putting pretty good damage while still being pretty survivable if you use Unbreakable, BCR/Conviction or any sort of defense.
Gotta run for now...
I'll put it together some time tonight for you, my access is limited right now.
Don't use Sho' Nuff, that build depends almost entirely on Enrage and Imbue synergy that no longer exists.
Cascade only serves two real purposes - a spam attack for decent AoE damage or as a spike. As a spam attack End with a touch of Rec will do, but Int as a superstat mixed with either AoPM or Quarry will easily replace the two at once while boosting everything else at the same time. Int also has the added benefit of reducing recharge time on those forms to boost cascade. With some form of energy unlock like MSR and anything else, this can keep you fully or nearly fully charged while spamming cascades all day, or without it you can tap about 5 cascades from full bar.
Now we have the spec trees - both Rec and End, since they are so co-dependant on each other, have specs devoted to making up for what they're lacking, rather than improving your hero. That's pretty lame. Other than that, they add a smidge more health, and a way to increase your offense, which is cute, but pointless since most of that can be easily made up for by the interplay of other abilities like Best Offense, and stuff that boosts two things at once, while leaving Int open to increase your stats beyond what Quarry/AoPM are already doing. AoPM is especially great for this since the higher you can get your SS the higher everything else is too.
Int spec tree also has the option of granting defense penetration or reducing cooldown even further, as well as doing what the Rec and End trees specify in by potentially raising your equilibrium or further reducing power cost. Or just piling on more for your SS.
So you have one SS that can do the job of 2 leaving you open for Ego and Con, which both also have better spec trees than Rec or End if you feel like switching it around - ego for DPS and Con for survivability (or DPS depending on build), while not really changing much else on the character.
That's just off the top of my head in the middle of something else, but really Rec and End aren't worth it in the long run. Maybe for leveling, but I'm not really sure.
The way I play my Might/Force hybrid I need a deep power pool, and INT doesn't give you that.
Anywho, my followup to that is since Int does a good enough job replacing the other two, you can use your SSS for other more helpful stuff like ego, con or str.
But mostly it's all preference.
Gearing is for Crit Chance, Dodge/Avoidance, and Cost/Cooldown Red. With Purple/Heroic gear and mostly Lvl VI/V mods, I get to 305 STR, 207 CON, and 165 END. I throw in enough EGO and REC through talents and gear to get 20 and 60, respectively. Between EGO and Vindicator Mastery, my base Ranged Damage bonus is almost 20%. EGO Surge boosts that well into DR. I use it mostly for the Crit Chance bonus of Nimble Mind, however.
Unstoppable offers damage buffs to melee physical damage as well as non-melee physical such as Force damage. Melee is buffed to about 108% and Force to 45%.
Base crit chance is almost 25% with melee crit chance over 33%. Crit Severity is almost 100%.
This is a really fun build.
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name: Pulsar
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Endurance (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Devastator
Level 6: Physical Conditioning
Level 9: Bodybuilder
Level 12: Boundless Reserves
Level 15: Paramilitary Training
Level 18: Professional Athlete
Level 21: Ascetic
Powers:
Level 1: Clobber
Level 1: Roomsweeper (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 6: Unstoppable (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 8: Mighty Leap
Level 11: Enrage
Level 14: Conviction (Rank 2)
Level 17: Force Shield (Force Sheathe)
Level 20: Force Cascade (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 23: Demolish (Rank 2, Below the Belt)
Level 26: Masterful Dodge
Level 29: Field Surge (Rank 2, Power Swell)
Level 32: Aggressor (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Ego Surge (Nimble Mind)
Level 38: Unleashed Rage (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Power Flight (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Mach Speed (Rank 2)
Specializations:
Strength: Physical Peak (3/3)
Strength: Aggression (2/2)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Overpower (3/3)
Warden: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Elusive (2/2)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: The Rush of Battle (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Mastery: Vindicator Mastery (1/1)
I agree completely that investing a bit into REC to go along with PSS INT is very beneficial. I rarely SS REC, but almost always support it a bit with gear.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.