It looks like you're using Agility rather than Elusiveness on the Pri Def. OP also said Vigi gear so I'm guessing at least 260 Dex with two 338 HP boosts. Probably 4 Con mods and 2 Int too, but that's just a feeling. The extra Con should help with burning mobs down during Ego Surge.
If anything though, I'd chalk it up to some tactical pulling to chokepoints with Defile and then popping Sonic Device to handle crowds of Elite Lair mobs. I did that with Crystal in TT in my cone attack video, although I popped Sigils rather than Sonic Device but the idea is to use any advantage you can get Used a healing item there but that should be unnecessary with a bigger HP pool and better timing with Block on the way out of the cave.
That's why I say an accurate breakdown of his base stats would be helpful rather than theorycrafting all night.
Considering the difficulty in obtaining Avoidance, I'm surprised anyone actually uses Elusiveness. Has the dodge nerf made it more practical?
And regarding Andrith, I clear it for a challenge and as a build test. Tactics aren't the problem.
helbjorn, from reading what you wrote here and also on the severity thread, I think I figured out the severity % issue.
As flow mentioned in the gearing thread, my issue was with a PSS STR build, not DEX. I'm having difficulty determining a scenario in which Piercing would be the superior choice to Precision. Perhaps a low Offense build. I'll get around to testing that at some point with my Guardian/Avenger PA build.
Considering the difficulty in obtaining Avoidance, I'm surprised anyone actually uses Elusiveness. Has the dodge nerf made it more practical?
Short answer is not really, but the OP does use BCR, Dex Mastery and T2 Avoid specs. As you stated though, I'll leave it to the OP to elaborate how this works.
And regarding Andrith, I clear it for a challenge and as a build test. Tactics aren't the problem.
The problem is the definition of "soloing Andrith" or "clearing Andrith". The survivability threshold to run past everything and beat just Hyrg and Viko are different from the requirements to clear the whole lair by pulling groups of 5 are different from pulling two whole rooms to surround you a cluster then AoEing them down.
I'll leave it to the OP to clarify what was meant by soloing Andrith.
As flow mentioned in the gearing thread, my issue was with a PSS STR build, not DEX. I'm having difficulty determining a scenario in which Piercing would be the superior choice to Precision. Perhaps a low Offense build. I'll get around to testing that at some point with my Guardian/Avenger PA build.
Until severity plus offense hits 100% extra severity is a one-to-one percent increase in DPS but cirt chance is not. So, I'd say any build with low to medium offense and no more than 75% severity. Maybe a CON Primary/Dex secondary build without the Best Defense/Aggressive Stance loop.
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That Dork In The Suspenders, signing out.
Until severity plus offense hits 100% extra severity is a one-to-one percent increase in DPS but cirt chance is not. So, I'd say any build with low to medium offense and no more than 75% severity. Maybe a CON Primary/Dex secondary build without the Best Defense/Aggressive Stance loop.
Int PSS builds will also have lower base severity (which I have many of). Pres PSS using Vulnerability is also another good one that can crop up (like using Manip and/or TP Reverb and/or Compassion, w/ at least 2 sleep/paralyze cds)
Pres PSS using Vulnerability is also another good one that can crop up (like using Manip and/or TP Reverb and/or Compassion, w/ at least 2 sleep/paralyze cds)
I've been trying out PSS Pre on my recently-Justified Aeria and the results have been pretty promising. 71% Resist from Defense, 2.5k crit Convictions that jump to 3.1k in Hybrid mode, and that's with a measly 181 Pre. The rest of the boost came from 3 ranks of Repurpose with Justice Gear's Offense bonus.
DPS isn't half bad either. With 41.5% base crit chance, parses ended up being around the same as they were in Legion gear with Primary Ego - average 3.2k DPS while holding aggro in Grav.
I'd say with Justice gear, Primary Pre is very worth considering for a survivable DPS or tanking character. For soloing with a squishy passive, +66% healing from Pre is worth much more than +20%ish Severity from Ego, and all their other specs are almost equal, and yes with Heroic gear I'd most likely use Piercing gloves for Primary Pre.
That said, Legion is really quite affordable now. If you hit up Andrith during G hour you should be able to get Legion gear in a week. Legion's Piercing + 2x Gambler beats out Legion's Precision + 2x Gambler on just about any build without Dragon's Claw or Dex Mastery, simply because the third +97 Crit Strike runs into steep DRs.
If you do Str/Con/Int Juggernaut Guardicator with 10k+ HP rotating Ascension/Ego Surge for AOs and MD/Unbreakable or Resurgence for ADs while spamming BCR and Conviction you'd be nigh unkillable in most PvE content too. You could even do an Archery build on AoAC with that setup and still manage to be survivable.
2 gun mojo beats it for dps, as well as everything else in the game. Lead tempest comes close just on its own, even without a passive. fireball-> conflag is higher dps. you can tap spam frost blast and do more damage, not to mention avalanche which is close. Force cascade, I'm not even gonna start on. Hurricane does comparable damage AND keeps melee off of you. Blade tempest does nearly double the damage, 1.5x if you count the poison stacks. Stealth + boomerang can easily wipe an entire pack of mobs in ONE HIT.
Main reason I like infernal, and used it on my main, is because it's versatile. Self heals and decent dps. Poison helps with threat, since I'm always doing damage to something. The whole point of infernal is that it's not spectacular, but it's consistent. Hell, that's also the major upside to this build: The dps I throw, I throw all the time. However, just saying "epidemic + pestilence = amazing build" is a falsehood. epidemic + pestilence = the beginning of a good build. As it was said earlier, you could pretty much slap this survival framework on any set and it'd be pretty amazing. Quarry/2 gun/lead tempest with a setup similar to this was how I had lil dead riding hood specced for a good bit of time. Less survivable (which I do *not* get, I even had unbreakable on her and holdout/stimpack) but the dps was quite a bit higher.
It's not necessarily fair to say it was "easy" to get this working this way. This is a culmination of testing from literally the day epidemic went live. Oddly enough, she started pestidemifile /empathic healing, as an off-support dpser. The "and then tank all the things" bit started because I ended up having to do so anyway, from healing threat. I came upon the idea of offense passive/spec defense entirely by accident. I think 2/3rds of my freeform toons are now utilizing the concept.
Also, reading back in the thread, I presume there's some level of familiarity with the build that might mean my results differ from other people's. I have absolutely no problem soloing lairs, but it's my main. I'm not saying learn to play, or anything, but more that I've had time to get used to the quirks that make it run optimally. Little things like letting the energy builder intentionally ping the biggest target for a second, for the debuff. I find it interesting that some people say they can't get it to work, and other people absolutely love how effective it is. I'm curious where the difference is, there, because stuff like energy upkeep: I've never even had an issue with energy on it in alerts, in 3 slot gear, with r4 mods, and an active travel power. I've had a lot of people back me up on that. However, some other people are saying they can't get it rolling at all.
As for the dodge/avoidance feasibility question: Short answer is between defense/the bit of dodge and avoidance/and the constant ticking of heals, it works out well. I specifically tried to swing it so that without masterful dodge going, the dodges would still tick enough to give BCR some love, and take off a nice little chunk of damage. I personally rock elusiveness because I'd rather dodge a *tad* less but take off bigger chunks when I do. I'm sitting at like 30% dodge/75-80% avoid normally (can't remember off the top of my head the exact number) so it works better than you'd expect. I had dodge gear instead, but I was actually taking more damage that way. The dodge nerf did impact this decision, low end dodge was buffed a bit but high end took a beating. Swinging for moderate dodge seemed the most feasible, after some testing. Also, when I say soloing a lair, I do mean clear. Yeah, it's smart pulling. Sonic device and epidemic is enough to put down the trash mobs, defile/devour burns down the bigger guys.
Actually, for specific mods, I had an even mix going. 2/2/2. I was a *tad* heavy on the con, for secondaries, because I've got this thing about her having 10k hit points. I upgraded to vigilante secondaries, though, so right now I've got my secondaries covering dex and the rest is a mix of int/con. I think as it sits I'm at 380 dex, 255 con, 240 int. If that's not spot on it's within 5 points in any direction.
I'm still heavily considering a swap over to STR pss. With flight active and health on knock, knocks don't really bug me too badly. But hell, one less weakness never hurts.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
I wouldn't call infernal SN as a whole OP atm. Epidemic and DE may careen into that territory, but not really the rest of the set (Regen used to scale more than it should have, so I hear, but that's been fixed). DE is very good, but also melee classed and there's not many ways outside the set to support using it heavily. Defile is the only other decently strong attack of the set, and even that is limited by a longer activation time and somewhat steep energy cost. Outside of building around DE (melee, energy hog, doesn't knock or bleed for enrage), the set can't really pull impressive single-target dps numbers. It shines in AoE, but the same could be said of Archery and HW :x The set also still houses some low-dps chain attacks and some holds most people wouldn't bother with in PvE.
What infernal and bestial do have is really easy energy management w/in set- but it does come w/ the caveat that once you step outside the SN trees, energy may actually become a problem (unless its Int + MSA, but that's cause MSA cut in line at the EU station and left everyone else scraps in its wake).
My beef is infernal is WAY too versatile compared to other sets like force. there is literally no way for a force build to match what an infernal build can do.
if you know of one I'm all ears but I'm fairly confident as things stand? infernal is WAY OP in terms of that compared to other sets.
we need ALL powersets to have some way to compete.
Force doesn't do what infernal does because force isn't designed to do what infernal does. Infernal's close aoe dps and debuffs. Force is zone control, crowd movement, and extreme spike dps. If you mean the dps, Reverb beats out Chernobyl for raw damage. Less aoe, more boss killer. If you mean the survival, Reverb can tank just like Chern can, even without con ss. A little squishier, but that's the trade off for the higher damage. In most content it doesn't matter either way.
But truth be told, if you want a non infernal blasting build capable of what infernal is? Wind can do anything infernal can do (except devour essence), doesn't have to build poison, and has typhoon for a cascade analogue which can throw comparable damage. Animation's cooler, too.
The ONE thing infernal has going for it that even nearly puts it over the top and maybe makes it unfair is the trauma like effect it carries with it. But, darkness and both sides of might have one too.
I think we're on the moral of theorycraft in a nutshell, though. You can't make the powers do what you want them to, you have to find a way to make what they do work as well as possible. I sure as hell won't be throwing 26-30k damage spikes with infernal, and that's fine too.
Sidenote: have you tried sonic device with advantage on crushing wave? Same number of max targets, same hilarious aoe stun, and you don't have to be right on top of em to do it. If they're clumped, force snap is great with it too. Knocks down and stuns everyone, pulls the main target to you for a clay pigeon effect.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
Force is one of the more lopsided and flawed powersets, imo. It has some zingers, and many duds- less so if they were working or designed properly (PFF regen bug, the energy form cancel debuff being refreshed by certain attacks- really kills KM's potential w/ Force, IDF's low scaling, CW not being designed w/ Concentration's restrictions in mind).
I have made a non-FC based Force dps, and it wasn't half bad. Really good CC w/ knocks, decent burst, a strong alpha strike option, Prot Field option. Avenger's preemptive strikes can give some nice Detonations off the basic blast- just using FC under special cases like LnL still nets decent results. If Force was designed to have knock immune bonuses closer to Might's (even just upto 20-25% on the non-FC knocks; 0-10% is paltry) I wager it'd be pretty competitive w/o having to use FC for everything.
I'm trying to remember off of the top of my head if there's a single ranged power besides crushing wave that has absolutely no interactions with concentration.
The aforementioned Reverb actually throws the bulk of her dps with CW. I use lolcades for bosses and big guys, to clean up. The fact that force eruption stacks Concentration is a godsend to the force set.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
I want every powerset to be ABLE to perform at the same overall level.
if one set can tank gravitar, solo lairs, AND do 2k dps, thats too much at once when you consider how many other sets make that impossible.
(looking at you force cascade)
Sylviana, I'm confused. Every ranged set can do the above (2K dps is a pretty low threshold, my tanks easily do higher than that.)
STR/CON/INT with Fitness/Defense and 5x CON mods makes your dmg resistance near 100% regardless of passive and you get 11-12K HP.
My one Force Cascade toon had that power as the SOLE attack power. I just tapped around to act as a Close AoE. Tanked Grav with 5K HP and she also used to be my Vikorin farmer too (love a fully charged FC across a row of 4 Lemurian golems -- Instakill!)
I'm trying to remember off of the top of my head if there's a single ranged power besides crushing wave that has absolutely no interactions with concentration.
Crushing Wave's maintain ticks didn't get the Concentration memo, but on the Test Server it still triggers Concentration if you tag an enemy from more than 25 feet away. Is it different on Live?
Telekinetic Burst doesn't trigger Concentration at all. No love for see-through sword-splosions.
Except there are sets that tank better, hit harder, and solo things just as well if not better. The other sets (mostly) perform at the same level.. in different areas.
Epidemic and Devour Essence (with firesnake) are both top end tanking and dps powers, and are both considered easy mode top picks. There are only very few single sets that can compete with that. Might has Iron Cyclone (not so great for dps) and Haymaker, and Munitions has Lead Tempest (also much lower dps than epidemic, but range more than makes up for that) and Two-gun Mojo. Other sets are lacking such viable easy mode powers.
Given how easy they are to use, PBAoE attacks in general are overperforming quite badly. Powers like Epidemic, Lead Tempest, Hurricane, the Gravity Pulse vehicle weapon, and Sword Cyclone should be some of the weakest dps powers as far as I am concerned.
Well, as pointed out before, its more the overall cherry-picking of some of the best cds/heals and stats/gear that makes the build survivable. Pestilence is one of the weakest passives for defensive purposes, and the build skipped on Regen, so its survivability is not due to SN here (and even then, not everyone can still make it work- implying its more than just slamming epidemic everywhere while being alt-tabbed).
Fully clearing lairs has more to do w/ trash/AoE dps, which Infernal does have easy. That's prob where all this is stemming from- Epidemic is crazy good at what it does, but I've always maintained (har) that its too high a bar to set other AoE's by - I want less powers of that caliber in the game, not more. Just makes the game too mindless and dull.
Sidenote: have you tried sonic device with advantage on crushing wave? Same number of max targets, same hilarious aoe stun, and you don't have to be right on top of em to do it. If they're clumped, force snap is great with it too. Knocks down and stuns everyone, pulls the main target to you for a clay pigeon effect.
I see we think on the same wavelength. Perhaps it's got something to do with our talk of build combos? :cool:
"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
I want every powerset to be ABLE to perform at the same overall level.
if one set can tank gravitar, solo lairs, AND do 2k dps, thats too much at once when you consider how many other sets make that impossible.
(looking at you force cascade)
Tanky characters are a bit too good damage wise I think, and by that I mean, you can do roughly 2/3 of the damage you would do in avenger role with an Offensive passive, and your survivability is through the roof. When a character with invulnerability and heroic gear can hit 14K TK Lances and 18K Mind Breaks, and have TK assault crit for 2300 on the last ticks there might be something wrong.
I love playing my immortal destructive PvE characters, don't get me wrong. But by looking at it from afar it's easy to tell that it's a bit too good to go from "can't take one platform of hard 5 man DEMON without struggling" to "Oh the whole room is attacking me ?" to the cost of a not so crippling drop in damage.
Awnswer B : I don't know how to build Dps characters.
I just want the ability to do what one set can do in all sets.
Different ways of getting there? OF COURSE!
but people should not be penalized due to theme choice.
It's not a penalty. Different sets just have different strengths and weaknesses. Infernal and Darkness can do moderate DPS with survivability, but they won't match the high-end DPS found in other sets, or the control or healing of yet other sets.
it is a penalty. force in particular compared to other sets has terrible energy economy, dps, and its best hold is also one of the worst holds in the game due to the fact it shields enemies.
the fact it knocks is moot on bosses, any character with STR, and anyone with resistance stacks.
Force cascade may be the games best nuke, able to top 30k on high end dps builds, but its looong charge, root, and prohibitive cost keeps dps far lower than it should be.
If you're able to manage the energy and your crits are 30k with Cascade then I don't think that roughly 6-15k DPS (based on debuffs, buffs, and crits) is low DPS.
"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
How is 2k DPS against up to 5 potential targets "bad"?
"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
Tanky characters are a bit too good damage wise I think, and by that I mean, you can do roughly 2/3 of the damage you would do in avenger role with an Offensive passive, and your survivability is through the roof. When a character with invulnerability and heroic gear can hit 14K TK Lances and 18K Mind Breaks, and have TK assault crit for 2300 on the last ticks there might be something wrong.
I love playing my immortal destructive PvE characters, don't get me wrong. But by looking at it from afar it's easy to tell that it's a bit too good to go from "can't take one platform of hard 5 man DEMON without struggling" to "Oh the whole room is attacking me ?" to the cost of a not so crippling drop in damage.
Awnswer B : I don't know how to build Dps characters.
Only "recently" discovering offensive passives (recently being a relative term) - it's a different playstyle. The mentality of DPSing is that only two health values matter - zero and not zero. Powerhouse testing becomes not "how long can I survive inside that mass of enemies" to "do I have a power not on cooldown to one-shot that mass in a few seconds?" Still, it's worthwhile to try both styles.
I see we think on the same wavelength. Perhaps it's got something to do with our talk of build combos? :cool:
**** man, I think 3/4ths of what I know about how powers in this game work is a result of talking to you and Ravenforce. What you also got me considering is sonic device with shadow's void power, to stun and pull mobs together for a cascade bomb. Your way of thinking is contagious.
Sidenote, just in general here. I'm actually tickled to death that somehow my main's powerset is horribly op, yet 2 gun mojo throwing higher dps and penetrating defense is somehow balanced and normal. 2 gun/lead tempest makes infernal look childish. This isn't opinion, it's verifiable and parseable fact. And I'm still not even sure they're OP, but we're designed to overlap a bit in functionality. Hell, I'm all about helping a force build perform similarly, but can we *please* stop saying making this thing behave like it does was easy? It's getting offensive, I put a ton of work into it. Like I said, I've been running down this build concept since epidemic came out. YEARS of testing and research. Skirting the line of soloing a lair and getting facewiped by it, to get the best dps I could? That wasn't easy, and it's not like anyone can just pick this up and do that without some practice.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
it is a penalty. force in particular compared to other sets has terrible energy economy, dps, and its best hold is also one of the worst holds in the game due to the fact it shields enemies.
Sounds like you're not complaining about power sets in general or Infernal in specific, but about Force.
Hello, chalupaoffury. I've been following the build in the Original Post for my latest hero, Patient Zero.
I couldn't take Mystic Flight or Displacement Acrobatics as these choices are greyed out for some reason, so I took basic Flight and Acrobatics instead.
She's L40 now, but she's not the dominating force that I expected. I must be doing something wrong.
Here are her Champions stats (I tried to take a screenshot, but only the background showed).
Health 6482/6482
Energy 142/227
STR 10
DEX 157
CON 70
INT 70
EGO 118
PRE 25
REC 153
END 109
I am now in the process of getting the Legion's Gear. Yesterday, I bought the Legion's Breastplate of Elusiveness for 500 Gs. There are 4 slots. How do you have yours slotted?
I currently have a Heroic Gloves of Piercing, but will get the Legion's gear.
What do you have for your Secondary Offense, Defense and Utility Gear?
Any help is greatly appreciated. I is
~~~~~
"We do not do this thing because it is permitted. We do it because we have to. We do it because we are compelled." - Rorschach
and it's not like we don't already know theres PLENTY of terrible powers in this game which need buffing or some kind of help.
This. Part of the problem is that although there aren't that many power sets that are universally terrible (I'm looking at you, Earth), many powersets that are apparently "fine" are so by virtue of only 1 or 2 powers. Might looks fine with haymaker - except that its many other powers, especially AOEs, are underperforming, not to mention the energy issues. Infernal has Epidemic and DE as its standouts ... but single-target DPS is lacking. Force has, well, FC as its sole redemption. This is in contrast with, say, the other elemental powersets, which share good synergies, the MA powersets with excellent synergy across all the powers (even though some need tweaking), Munitions (yes TGM is still over the top, but still)/PA/Gadgeteering, which have many compelling build options, and dare I say even telepathy.
Hello, chalupaoffury. I've been following the build in the Original Post for my latest hero, Patient Zero.
I couldn't take Mystic Flight or Displacement Acrobatics as these choices are greyed out for some reason, so I took basic Flight and Acrobatics instead.
She's L40 now, but she's not the dominating force that I expected. I must be doing something wrong.
Here are her Champions stats (I tried to take a screenshot, but only the background showed).
Health 6482/6482
Energy 142/227
STR 10
DEX 157
CON 70
INT 70
EGO 118
PRE 25
REC 153
END 109
I am now in the process of getting the Legion's Gear. Yesterday, I bought the Legion's Breastplate of Elusiveness for 500 Gs. There are 4 slots. How do you have yours slotted?
I currently have a Heroic Gloves of Piercing, but will get the Legion's gear.
What do you have for your Secondary Offense, Defense and Utility Gear?
Any help is greatly appreciated. I is
I can tell you right out what some of the problem is. Your end and rec are really rather high. You can get good use out of this by literally *only* stacking dex, con, and int. even smattering of each. When you mod it? I went 2 of each super stat. It's not too difficult to get over 250 with each, and that's really what you're going to want to be shooting for.
You might be worried about energy without the end and rec, but don't be. Just keep working your cooldowns and the energy really does sort itself out.
As for my gear? your breastplate you're gonna want to toss gambler's gems into. Dodge helps. Either that or a mod that increases defense, since that also increases your offense and has a few other synergies in the build. Either way works, it's your choice really. For offensive slotting? All crit, all the time. For your utility gear, heck it's really a toss up. Cooldown reduction or cost discount. You're gonna want a smattering of both.
As for secondaries? Right now I've got vigilante secondaries. But for a long LONG time I was using the 11k questionite armadillo secondaries. Good stat boost, and all 3 gives 25% damage resistance. If you decide against that? Purple level 40 secondaries that either give a +healing or +critical chance are a great idea for offense, +dodge or high defense for defense, and cooldown reduction for your utility. Again, feel free to mix and match dex/con/int. As long as they're fairly balanced you'll be ok.
Not saying anything is OP I'm saying its OP compared to other sets.
I'm not sure this is phrased the way you mean it. You basically just said I'm not saying it's OP but it's OP. And again, not sure it is. I've pointed out a few ways a bunch of other sets can hang with it for what it does, but if we're coming back to force? That's not Infernal's issue. That's Force doing what Force does. The funny bit is I bet most of this would be completely solved by just adding another tick to crushing wave. More on that in a bit.
I know exactly what you mean by not easy. I've been trying to make this work for years.
my problem only lies in the fact that no matter what I've tried the last 3 years, nothing performs.
even after learning from build masters like you and cyrone.
and it's not like we don't already know theres PLENTY of terrible powers in this game which need buffing or some kind of help.
Not gonna lie, you did pick an interesting one to try to pull this off with. Some sets work well for this specifically because they're low cost, infernal's just kinda that poster child. Force isn't *insanely* expensive, but the main attack of the set is. I mean, I don't think anyone's saying you can't make force amazing. I'd probably slap em if they tried to tell me force cascade isn't one of the best powers in game. But fully spammable full charged cascades that can tank almost everything might actually be the hardest thing to build. It's possible, but you do kinda paint yourself into a corner with reliance on one very specific theme. I read the other thread, and you kinda tossed out immediately 3/4ths of what makes a dps tank function. Not gonna lie, it's not making the process easy. Especially if the reason you don't wanna use it is because it's common. It's common because it's effective.
I suppose I shouldn't mention that all of this was 100% doable, and easy, before the dodge nerf. But, well. Yeah. What you're looking for is probably 4x harder because quarry's about half as useful in a defensive setting. There was a thread with exact figures, but hell if I can find it.
This. Part of the problem is that although there aren't that many power sets that are universally terrible (I'm looking at you, Earth), many powersets that are apparently "fine" are so by virtue of only 1 or 2 powers. Might looks fine with haymaker - except that its many other powers, especially AOEs, are underperforming, not to mention the energy issues. Infernal has Epidemic and DE as its standouts ... but single-target DPS is lacking. Force has, well, FC as its sole redemption. This is in contrast with, say, the other elemental powersets, which share good synergies, the MA powersets with excellent synergy across all the powers (even though some need tweaking), Munitions (yes TGM is still over the top, but still)/PA/Gadgeteering, which have many compelling build options, and dare I say even telepathy.
Hey now, Force Detonation is awesome. If crushing wave got 1 more tick and maybe 200 more dps? We'd be golden.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
I'll be on later tonight, I'm brainstorming ideas now. I'll futz around with my force characters, too, just for a bit of inspiration.
STR is gonna take a dps hit. It's the cost for survival. I'm not 100% convinced it's a necessary hit, though, we're gonna have to explore some options. Any way we go, though, that 24k is gonna drop. You're a bit on the farther side of squish to pull it off. I've got some ideas, though.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
Comments
Yep, that's why at the start I said Andrith doesn't count - it's two single target fights with the occasional weak adds from Viko :P
That's why I say an accurate breakdown of his base stats would be helpful rather than theorycrafting all night.
Considering the difficulty in obtaining Avoidance, I'm surprised anyone actually uses Elusiveness. Has the dodge nerf made it more practical?
And regarding Andrith, I clear it for a challenge and as a build test. Tactics aren't the problem.
As flow mentioned in the gearing thread, my issue was with a PSS STR build, not DEX. I'm having difficulty determining a scenario in which Piercing would be the superior choice to Precision. Perhaps a low Offense build. I'll get around to testing that at some point with my Guardian/Avenger PA build.
Short answer is not really, but the OP does use BCR, Dex Mastery and T2 Avoid specs. As you stated though, I'll leave it to the OP to elaborate how this works.
The problem is the definition of "soloing Andrith" or "clearing Andrith". The survivability threshold to run past everything and beat just Hyrg and Viko are different from the requirements to clear the whole lair by pulling groups of 5 are different from pulling two whole rooms to surround you a cluster then AoEing them down.
I'll leave it to the OP to clarify what was meant by soloing Andrith.
Until severity plus offense hits 100% extra severity is a one-to-one percent increase in DPS but cirt chance is not. So, I'd say any build with low to medium offense and no more than 75% severity. Maybe a CON Primary/Dex secondary build without the Best Defense/Aggressive Stance loop.
That Dork In The Suspenders, signing out.
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- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
I've been trying out PSS Pre on my recently-Justified Aeria and the results have been pretty promising. 71% Resist from Defense, 2.5k crit Convictions that jump to 3.1k in Hybrid mode, and that's with a measly 181 Pre. The rest of the boost came from 3 ranks of Repurpose with Justice Gear's Offense bonus.
DPS isn't half bad either. With 41.5% base crit chance, parses ended up being around the same as they were in Legion gear with Primary Ego - average 3.2k DPS while holding aggro in Grav.
I'd say with Justice gear, Primary Pre is very worth considering for a survivable DPS or tanking character. For soloing with a squishy passive, +66% healing from Pre is worth much more than +20%ish Severity from Ego, and all their other specs are almost equal, and yes with Heroic gear I'd most likely use Piercing gloves for Primary Pre.
That said, Legion is really quite affordable now. If you hit up Andrith during G hour you should be able to get Legion gear in a week. Legion's Piercing + 2x Gambler beats out Legion's Precision + 2x Gambler on just about any build without Dragon's Claw or Dex Mastery, simply because the third +97 Crit Strike runs into steep DRs.
I don't think a Ricochet Throw Strafing Run Night Warrior variant would do a lot less damage, if even less at all.
Main reason I like infernal, and used it on my main, is because it's versatile. Self heals and decent dps. Poison helps with threat, since I'm always doing damage to something. The whole point of infernal is that it's not spectacular, but it's consistent. Hell, that's also the major upside to this build: The dps I throw, I throw all the time. However, just saying "epidemic + pestilence = amazing build" is a falsehood. epidemic + pestilence = the beginning of a good build. As it was said earlier, you could pretty much slap this survival framework on any set and it'd be pretty amazing. Quarry/2 gun/lead tempest with a setup similar to this was how I had lil dead riding hood specced for a good bit of time. Less survivable (which I do *not* get, I even had unbreakable on her and holdout/stimpack) but the dps was quite a bit higher.
It's not necessarily fair to say it was "easy" to get this working this way. This is a culmination of testing from literally the day epidemic went live. Oddly enough, she started pestidemifile /empathic healing, as an off-support dpser. The "and then tank all the things" bit started because I ended up having to do so anyway, from healing threat. I came upon the idea of offense passive/spec defense entirely by accident. I think 2/3rds of my freeform toons are now utilizing the concept.
Also, reading back in the thread, I presume there's some level of familiarity with the build that might mean my results differ from other people's. I have absolutely no problem soloing lairs, but it's my main. I'm not saying learn to play, or anything, but more that I've had time to get used to the quirks that make it run optimally. Little things like letting the energy builder intentionally ping the biggest target for a second, for the debuff. I find it interesting that some people say they can't get it to work, and other people absolutely love how effective it is. I'm curious where the difference is, there, because stuff like energy upkeep: I've never even had an issue with energy on it in alerts, in 3 slot gear, with r4 mods, and an active travel power. I've had a lot of people back me up on that. However, some other people are saying they can't get it rolling at all.
As for the dodge/avoidance feasibility question: Short answer is between defense/the bit of dodge and avoidance/and the constant ticking of heals, it works out well. I specifically tried to swing it so that without masterful dodge going, the dodges would still tick enough to give BCR some love, and take off a nice little chunk of damage. I personally rock elusiveness because I'd rather dodge a *tad* less but take off bigger chunks when I do. I'm sitting at like 30% dodge/75-80% avoid normally (can't remember off the top of my head the exact number) so it works better than you'd expect. I had dodge gear instead, but I was actually taking more damage that way. The dodge nerf did impact this decision, low end dodge was buffed a bit but high end took a beating. Swinging for moderate dodge seemed the most feasible, after some testing. Also, when I say soloing a lair, I do mean clear. Yeah, it's smart pulling. Sonic device and epidemic is enough to put down the trash mobs, defile/devour burns down the bigger guys.
Actually, for specific mods, I had an even mix going. 2/2/2. I was a *tad* heavy on the con, for secondaries, because I've got this thing about her having 10k hit points. I upgraded to vigilante secondaries, though, so right now I've got my secondaries covering dex and the rest is a mix of int/con. I think as it sits I'm at 380 dex, 255 con, 240 int. If that's not spot on it's within 5 points in any direction.
I'm still heavily considering a swap over to STR pss. With flight active and health on knock, knocks don't really bug me too badly. But hell, one less weakness never hurts.
RIP Caine
What infernal and bestial do have is really easy energy management w/in set- but it does come w/ the caveat that once you step outside the SN trees, energy may actually become a problem (unless its Int + MSA, but that's cause MSA cut in line at the EU station and left everyone else scraps in its wake).
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Force doesn't do what infernal does because force isn't designed to do what infernal does. Infernal's close aoe dps and debuffs. Force is zone control, crowd movement, and extreme spike dps. If you mean the dps, Reverb beats out Chernobyl for raw damage. Less aoe, more boss killer. If you mean the survival, Reverb can tank just like Chern can, even without con ss. A little squishier, but that's the trade off for the higher damage. In most content it doesn't matter either way.
But truth be told, if you want a non infernal blasting build capable of what infernal is? Wind can do anything infernal can do (except devour essence), doesn't have to build poison, and has typhoon for a cascade analogue which can throw comparable damage. Animation's cooler, too.
The ONE thing infernal has going for it that even nearly puts it over the top and maybe makes it unfair is the trauma like effect it carries with it. But, darkness and both sides of might have one too.
I think we're on the moral of theorycraft in a nutshell, though. You can't make the powers do what you want them to, you have to find a way to make what they do work as well as possible. I sure as hell won't be throwing 26-30k damage spikes with infernal, and that's fine too.
Sidenote: have you tried sonic device with advantage on crushing wave? Same number of max targets, same hilarious aoe stun, and you don't have to be right on top of em to do it. If they're clumped, force snap is great with it too. Knocks down and stuns everyone, pulls the main target to you for a clay pigeon effect.
RIP Caine
I have made a non-FC based Force dps, and it wasn't half bad. Really good CC w/ knocks, decent burst, a strong alpha strike option, Prot Field option. Avenger's preemptive strikes can give some nice Detonations off the basic blast- just using FC under special cases like LnL still nets decent results. If Force was designed to have knock immune bonuses closer to Might's (even just upto 20-25% on the non-FC knocks; 0-10% is paltry) I wager it'd be pretty competitive w/o having to use FC for everything.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
The aforementioned Reverb actually throws the bulk of her dps with CW. I use lolcades for bosses and big guys, to clean up. The fact that force eruption stacks Concentration is a godsend to the force set.
RIP Caine
STR/CON/INT with Fitness/Defense and 5x CON mods makes your dmg resistance near 100% regardless of passive and you get 11-12K HP.
My one Force Cascade toon had that power as the SOLE attack power. I just tapped around to act as a Close AoE. Tanked Grav with 5K HP and she also used to be my Vikorin farmer too (love a fully charged FC across a row of 4 Lemurian golems -- Instakill!)
Crushing Wave's maintain ticks didn't get the Concentration memo, but on the Test Server it still triggers Concentration if you tag an enemy from more than 25 feet away. Is it different on Live?
Telekinetic Burst doesn't trigger Concentration at all. No love for see-through sword-splosions.
Epidemic and Devour Essence (with firesnake) are both top end tanking and dps powers, and are both considered easy mode top picks. There are only very few single sets that can compete with that. Might has Iron Cyclone (not so great for dps) and Haymaker, and Munitions has Lead Tempest (also much lower dps than epidemic, but range more than makes up for that) and Two-gun Mojo. Other sets are lacking such viable easy mode powers.
Given how easy they are to use, PBAoE attacks in general are overperforming quite badly. Powers like Epidemic, Lead Tempest, Hurricane, the Gravity Pulse vehicle weapon, and Sword Cyclone should be some of the weakest dps powers as far as I am concerned.
Fully clearing lairs has more to do w/ trash/AoE dps, which Infernal does have easy. That's prob where all this is stemming from- Epidemic is crazy good at what it does, but I've always maintained (har) that its too high a bar to set other AoE's by - I want less powers of that caliber in the game, not more. Just makes the game too mindless and dull.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
I see we think on the same wavelength. Perhaps it's got something to do with our talk of build combos? :cool:
"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
Tanky characters are a bit too good damage wise I think, and by that I mean, you can do roughly 2/3 of the damage you would do in avenger role with an Offensive passive, and your survivability is through the roof. When a character with invulnerability and heroic gear can hit 14K TK Lances and 18K Mind Breaks, and have TK assault crit for 2300 on the last ticks there might be something wrong.
I love playing my immortal destructive PvE characters, don't get me wrong. But by looking at it from afar it's easy to tell that it's a bit too good to go from "can't take one platform of hard 5 man DEMON without struggling" to "Oh the whole room is attacking me ?" to the cost of a not so crippling drop in damage.
Awnswer B : I don't know how to build Dps characters.
(°∇° ) #megalodon2015
It's not a penalty. Different sets just have different strengths and weaknesses. Infernal and Darkness can do moderate DPS with survivability, but they won't match the high-end DPS found in other sets, or the control or healing of yet other sets.
If you're able to manage the energy and your crits are 30k with Cascade then I don't think that roughly 6-15k DPS (based on debuffs, buffs, and crits) is low DPS.
"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
"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
Only "recently" discovering offensive passives (recently being a relative term) - it's a different playstyle. The mentality of DPSing is that only two health values matter - zero and not zero. Powerhouse testing becomes not "how long can I survive inside that mass of enemies" to "do I have a power not on cooldown to one-shot that mass in a few seconds?" Still, it's worthwhile to try both styles.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
**** man, I think 3/4ths of what I know about how powers in this game work is a result of talking to you and Ravenforce. What you also got me considering is sonic device with shadow's void power, to stun and pull mobs together for a cascade bomb. Your way of thinking is contagious.
Sidenote, just in general here. I'm actually tickled to death that somehow my main's powerset is horribly op, yet 2 gun mojo throwing higher dps and penetrating defense is somehow balanced and normal. 2 gun/lead tempest makes infernal look childish. This isn't opinion, it's verifiable and parseable fact. And I'm still not even sure they're OP, but we're designed to overlap a bit in functionality. Hell, I'm all about helping a force build perform similarly, but can we *please* stop saying making this thing behave like it does was easy? It's getting offensive, I put a ton of work into it. Like I said, I've been running down this build concept since epidemic came out. YEARS of testing and research. Skirting the line of soloing a lair and getting facewiped by it, to get the best dps I could? That wasn't easy, and it's not like anyone can just pick this up and do that without some practice.
RIP Caine
Sounds like you're not complaining about power sets in general or Infernal in specific, but about Force.
Seems like the wrong thread for that.
I couldn't take Mystic Flight or Displacement Acrobatics as these choices are greyed out for some reason, so I took basic Flight and Acrobatics instead.
She's L40 now, but she's not the dominating force that I expected. I must be doing something wrong.
Here are her Champions stats (I tried to take a screenshot, but only the background showed).
Health 6482/6482
Energy 142/227
STR 10
DEX 157
CON 70
INT 70
EGO 118
PRE 25
REC 153
END 109
Offense 233.6
Critical Chance 29.8%
Crit Severity 78.2%
Defense 134.4
Dodge Chance 18.4%
Avoidance 54.9%
Science 64
I am now in the process of getting the Legion's Gear. Yesterday, I bought the Legion's Breastplate of Elusiveness for 500 Gs. There are 4 slots. How do you have yours slotted?
I currently have a Heroic Gloves of Piercing, but will get the Legion's gear.
What do you have for your Secondary Offense, Defense and Utility Gear?
Any help is greatly appreciated. I is
"We do not do this thing because it is permitted. We do it because we have to. We do it because we are compelled." - Rorschach
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
~~~~~
This. Part of the problem is that although there aren't that many power sets that are universally terrible (I'm looking at you, Earth), many powersets that are apparently "fine" are so by virtue of only 1 or 2 powers. Might looks fine with haymaker - except that its many other powers, especially AOEs, are underperforming, not to mention the energy issues. Infernal has Epidemic and DE as its standouts ... but single-target DPS is lacking. Force has, well, FC as its sole redemption. This is in contrast with, say, the other elemental powersets, which share good synergies, the MA powersets with excellent synergy across all the powers (even though some need tweaking), Munitions (yes TGM is still over the top, but still)/PA/Gadgeteering, which have many compelling build options, and dare I say even telepathy.
I can tell you right out what some of the problem is. Your end and rec are really rather high. You can get good use out of this by literally *only* stacking dex, con, and int. even smattering of each. When you mod it? I went 2 of each super stat. It's not too difficult to get over 250 with each, and that's really what you're going to want to be shooting for.
You might be worried about energy without the end and rec, but don't be. Just keep working your cooldowns and the energy really does sort itself out.
As for my gear? your breastplate you're gonna want to toss gambler's gems into. Dodge helps. Either that or a mod that increases defense, since that also increases your offense and has a few other synergies in the build. Either way works, it's your choice really. For offensive slotting? All crit, all the time. For your utility gear, heck it's really a toss up. Cooldown reduction or cost discount. You're gonna want a smattering of both.
As for secondaries? Right now I've got vigilante secondaries. But for a long LONG time I was using the 11k questionite armadillo secondaries. Good stat boost, and all 3 gives 25% damage resistance. If you decide against that? Purple level 40 secondaries that either give a +healing or +critical chance are a great idea for offense, +dodge or high defense for defense, and cooldown reduction for your utility. Again, feel free to mix and match dex/con/int. As long as they're fairly balanced you'll be ok.
I'm not sure this is phrased the way you mean it. You basically just said I'm not saying it's OP but it's OP. And again, not sure it is. I've pointed out a few ways a bunch of other sets can hang with it for what it does, but if we're coming back to force? That's not Infernal's issue. That's Force doing what Force does. The funny bit is I bet most of this would be completely solved by just adding another tick to crushing wave. More on that in a bit.
Not gonna lie, you did pick an interesting one to try to pull this off with. Some sets work well for this specifically because they're low cost, infernal's just kinda that poster child. Force isn't *insanely* expensive, but the main attack of the set is. I mean, I don't think anyone's saying you can't make force amazing. I'd probably slap em if they tried to tell me force cascade isn't one of the best powers in game. But fully spammable full charged cascades that can tank almost everything might actually be the hardest thing to build. It's possible, but you do kinda paint yourself into a corner with reliance on one very specific theme. I read the other thread, and you kinda tossed out immediately 3/4ths of what makes a dps tank function. Not gonna lie, it's not making the process easy. Especially if the reason you don't wanna use it is because it's common. It's common because it's effective.
I suppose I shouldn't mention that all of this was 100% doable, and easy, before the dodge nerf. But, well. Yeah. What you're looking for is probably 4x harder because quarry's about half as useful in a defensive setting. There was a thread with exact figures, but hell if I can find it.
Hey now, Force Detonation is awesome. If crushing wave got 1 more tick and maybe 200 more dps? We'd be golden.
RIP Caine
STR is gonna take a dps hit. It's the cost for survival. I'm not 100% convinced it's a necessary hit, though, we're gonna have to explore some options. Any way we go, though, that 24k is gonna drop. You're a bit on the farther side of squish to pull it off. I've got some ideas, though.
RIP Caine