Been gone for a year. Need advice on build.

sigmaseven0

I caught wind of the Mechanon thing so i decided to come take a look. I've been gone for about a year so i don't know of any major balance revisions that may have happened while I was gone and am generally rusty on how the game works.

This is a build that i was messing around with on PTS before i left and never made it to live servers. The pvp community (whats left of you) usually knows the most about builds so i figured I'd have you look at it before I respec this build live.

The main things i want to know:
1. Is this build usable in bash? This build is meant for both PVE and PVP so I don't expect it to be a perfect pvp build but I would like to occasionally pvp with it if possible.

2. Is there a way to get more burst out of haymaker without drastically changing the build? I'm flexible on powers like entangling mesh, my active defenses, enrage, heals and my passive.
I like NW because it buffs all damage equally making it good for hybrids, and i also like the idea of a reduced charge time on haymaker. Will the penetration compensate for the lower haymaker damage on targets with resistance? I'm willing to trade NW for something like WOTW if its a better overall choice.

I have legion gear on my primary and defensive slot and mercenary gear on my utility slot (I opened a lot of lock boxes with a year worth of stipend). Haymaker hits for max 14k crit with bcr off, around 13k with bcr on, and the chest beam debuff seems to add around 1k to haymaker either way.

3. All my gear is slotted with strength, dodge, and avoidance and crit mods. Is there a better to approach stats for this build?

Stats:
str=519, dex=13,con=64,int=60,int=60,ego=10,pre=24,rec=15,end=13

offense=157, crit chance=26.3, crit severity=87.6, defense=138.8, dodge chance=34.1, avoidance=54.8

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name:

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Intelligence (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: Superhuman
Level 6: Mighty
Level 9: Physical Conditioning
Level 12: Bodybuilder
Level 15: Covert Ops Training
Level 18: Paramilitary Training
Level 21: Body and Mind

Powers:
Level 1: Force Bolts
Level 1: Protection Field
Level 6: Unleashed Rage
Level 8: Night Warrior
Level 11: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 14: Evasive Maneuvers
Level 17: Bountiful Chi Resurgence
Level 20: Enrage
Level 23: Haymaker
Level 26: Chest Beam
Level 29: Unbreakable
Level 32: Masterful Dodge
Level 35: Void Shift
Level 38: Entangling Mesh

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Teleportation
Level 35: Jet Boots

Specializations:
Strength: Swole (3/3)
Strength: Aggression (2/2)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Overpower (3/3)
Warden: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Tenacious (2/2)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Mastery: Strength Mastery (1/1)
thx in advance.

mrhinkypunk

Min maxing the build concept:

Well first thing I noticed is that you didn't pick juggernaut in the strength tree for whatever reason despite being vindi/ward. Second mistake spec tree wise was you didn't take Elusive, that's a flat 20% meaning it's on a different layer. 10% reduction to a lot of bursts used in coPVP such as UR or SR per point spent to a max of 20% is like a must have, come on now. Get rid of overpower for jug in strength and get rid of tenacious for elusive in warden. That offense really doesn't do much at all, it'd be like 1% max and most likely due to being str primary 0.4% more damage and similar resistance.

Dodge and avoidance was nerfed. Defense is the best thing to stack certainly on a strength build with vindi warden as you can times it up actually giving you more damage than you would have and making you much more tanky. Your crit severity seems rather low, I suppose that's due to putting a bunch into strength over con or int. Generally speaking it seems like you've gone for a pure str build, let me just tell you that it's rather pointless if you go for a con and int build, better to put int up to around 200 (if you want basic stealth sight) and go for a reasonable amount of CON getting all the strength you need from vigilante secondarys.

Powers wise:
- Not having conviction is a bit of a waste min max wise.
- Bountiful Chi is removed on trauma PvP wise.
- Protection Field can be useful especially if you are looking to actually use your SS in both PvP or PvE seeing as it stops sneak from going off however not truly needed in the way things are unless you want it for SS.
- Good thing you already know about the perma AD rotation thing, or was that from a year ago? I can't remember when that change was made, I'm pretty sure it was about 6-8 months ago? But yeah unbreakable - MD - rotate GG. The devs seem to refuse to fix it.
- You haven't gone over the 3 power limit that I usually try to play around on PvP builds I make which is good, I think for a haymaker UR build with chest beam if you stack knock resistance somehow you may be able to get a pretty nice haymaker off if people don't just run away. Problem is you don't use ego sleep or something like it for example bolas which would keep them long enough to charge. Stun wont give enough time unless you are looking to tap spam and then IMO you may as well just be a 100ft ranged boomerang throwing NW. (ofcourse that'd break "theme" or "concept" of the build but it's kinda true)
- Technically smoke grenade will be SO MUCH MORE HELPFUL than entangling. In fact entangling may even prove to be rather "sticky" to use which may not be good at all if in a high paced situation. Smoke grenade will get you out of those situations. (also no pun intended there)

As for your questions.

1. It'd be usable, smoke grenade will help out a lot and dodge isn't the most reliable thing to use in a FFA situation neither is not having a more bursty heal such as conviction which will allow you to get away and heal up. Also your low amount of HP will automatically make you a target just for the number, and it's not like you are tanky or have smoke grenade to escape it. Also jet boots are okay but for a melee not great at all PVP wise ESPECIALLY in BASH, they are good for 100ft ranged people but that isn't you.

2. Demolish would work for buffing it but would be hard to pull of correctly. There is brawler role that has a big damage buff after lunging but that'd mean losing vindi warden. (which isn't great for you anyway as you don't have pretty much anything in secondary super stats) Also your energy may be a little annoying at times due to the lack of int. Generally speaking the lack of SSS's is one of the biggest problems you'll have as you made a basic STR CON INT build but just changed a few things about it which you shouldn't of done. You would of been better off starting from the idea of a bursty haymaker and moving out from that point instead of the other way around. I've had around 24k haymaker personally on a previous build however people have been known to get it past 30k before, that comes down to pure min maxing purely around that one burst and it ends up being pretty unreliable to do in an actual combat situation due to debuff stacking. Also I don't know if they got those numbers due to minus resistances which may of been the case. (you can keep stacking minigun on players to get people into massive minus DR if you have multiple people doing it, this ends up showing massive numbers after resistance) NW is one of the best / most OP passives currently so I wouldn't worry too much about choosing it or WOTW, both are as viable for your build as each other, NW maybe more viable as you are using UR.

3. Yes, as I said previously above there's a lot wrong with your stat allocation for the str con int build idea you created the haymaker build out of. CON should be MUCH higher and INT could do with being higher too. Also your defense should be MUCH higher meaning your offense will also be high. As I said crit severity would therefore become higher also.

You could try a Warden Gaurdian spec choice and just go pure defense if you want, it may work rather well for a haymaker burst build but would make you slightly less tanky. (ironically seeing as you change an offensive tree for a defensive tree, such cryptic math)



Basically there's a lot of problems I see with the build if you only want something to PAWWWN face but still sticks to the idea of the build.

sigmaseven0

Thanks for the feedback!
This takes a lot of the headache out of tinkering with a half finished build on pts from a year ago.

mrhinkypunk wrote: »

if you go for a con and int build, better to put int up to around 200 (if you want basic stealth sight) and go for a reasonable amount of CON getting all the strength you need from vigilante secondarys.

I'm going to make the stat/spec changes you suggested. I also have a piece of legacy perception 2ndary utility gear and a perception core. is the legacy perception gear worth the stat sacrifice?

mrhinkypunk wrote: »

- Technically smoke grenade will be SO MUCH MORE HELPFUL than entangling. In fact entangling may even prove to be rather "sticky" to use which may not be good at all if in a high paced situation. Smoke grenade will get you out of those situations. (also no pun intended there)

Do I need both smoke grenade and evasive maneuvers? If I do take EM do I need the advantage if I have smoke grenade in my build?
I was thinking of trading entangling mesh for a hold or ego sleep, and maybe swapping evasive maneuvers for smoke grenade if EM isn't necessary.

I will also replace BCR with conviction. Would it be worth it to think about having PRE instead of INT for a 2ndary superstat if i can get away with the energy costs? This way both protection field and conviction would benefit. This is probably something I would need to test for my self but i figured I would ask while I have your ear.

spinnytop

IMP - Claims PvP has diversity, but every time he's asked for advice he steers people to the same build and tells them all the unique aspects of their build were a mistake.

That's why he's COPVP's mascot


PS - you heard about the Mechanon stuff and came back to pvp? .-.

sigmaseven0

spinnytop wrote: »

PS - you heard about the Mechanon stuff and came back to pvp? .-.

I clearly stated that i came back for Mechanon and that by build is a pve and pvp build. And that i would like to occasionally pvp if possible.


The theme of the build mimics my COX main which was a Energy melee/Energy Armor stalker.
mrhinkypunk didn't recommend any thing that interferes with my theme.

BTW if you are going to come here and critique mrhinkypunks advice on my build in a thread about my build you may as well critique my build it self while your here.

mrhinkypunk

spinnytop wrote: »

IMP - Claims PvP has diversity, but every time he's asked for advice he steers people to the same build and tells them all the unique aspects of their build were a mistake.

He made a haymaker UR build which is the main build that moved into the entire STR CON INT high defense to offense thing which everyone ended up using for any build. Haymaker ofcourse ended up being removed after a while however from this build idea. There are about 9 different "classes" in CO, he didn't pick a heal and I had pretty much two choice of spammable heals to suggest to him currently conviction is the better one.

Don't be sarcastic as you well know he wanted to know exactly what is the "best thing to use" and I told him what it is. Why would I lie to him just so he wont use it, he can make those choices himself...

His build had plenty of mistakes for a min maxed UR haymaker build meaning he hit less damage and was much squishier, they are mistakes not choices if they were choices then he would gain damage and the gain would be relatively the same as the gain of defense if he went the other way. CO isn't balanced like that and never will be. Generally speaking it's purely up to him to decide the changes he makes to his build, all that I did was guide him to something much more powerful and overall more balanced.

sigmaseven0 wrote: »

Do I need both smoke grenade and evasive maneuvers? If I do take EM do I need the advantage if I have smoke grenade in my build?
I was thinking of trading entangling mesh for a hold or ego sleep, and maybe swapping evasive maneuvers for smoke grenade if EM isn't necessary.

If you take EM always take the advantage, almost 100% stealth uptime in comparison to a little bit more dodge... I know what one I'd pick. EM isn't necessary if you do take smoke grenade however it can help too it'd be one of those utility powers you chose at the end when you've checked you have everything first though.

sigmaseven0 wrote: »

I will also replace BCR with conviction. Would it be worth it to think about having PRE instead of INT for a 2ndary superstat if i can get away with the energy costs? This way both protection field and conviction would benefit. This is probably something I would need to test for my self but i figured I would ask while I have your ear.

You'd lose stealth sight and you would get energy problems unless you fiddle with the build rather awkwardly. INT is technically better because in PvP atleast these things are kind of needed in comparison to 20% more healing or whatever it'd be. You could give it a go though if you like but haymaker is a big energy chomper even with strengths melee attack energy reduction spec.

stergiosman

[QUOTE=sigmaseven0;4412781?

Stats:
str=519, dex=13,con=64,int=60,int=60,ego=10,pre=24,rec=15,end=13

offense=157, crit chance=26.3, crit severity=87.6, defense=138.8, dodge chance=34.1, avoidance=54.8

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name:

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Intelligence (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: Superhuman
Level 6: Mighty
Level 9: Physical Conditioning
Level 12: Bodybuilder
Level 15: Covert Ops Training
Level 18: Paramilitary Training
Level 21: Body and Mind

Powers:
Level 1: Force Bolts
Level 1: Protection Field
Level 6: Unleashed Rage
Level 8: Night Warrior
Level 11: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 14: Evasive Maneuvers
Level 17: Bountiful Chi Resurgence
Level 20: Enrage
Level 23: Haymaker
Level 26: Chest Beam
Level 29: Unbreakable
Level 32: Masterful Dodge
Level 35: Void Shift
Level 38: Entangling Mesh

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Teleportation
Level 35: Jet Boots

Specializations:
Strength: Swole (3/3)
Strength: Aggression (2/2)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Overpower (3/3)
Warden: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Tenacious (2/2)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Mastery: Strength Mastery (1/1)
thx in advance.[/QUOTE]
I'd switch void shift, chest beam and maybe protection field for Ego Surge, Palliate and conviction. BCR isn't the best thing atm, I suggest you use Ascension or bionic shielding.

Slot alot of con in your gear..4 mods are good.

Get loads of devices...ice nades and neuroelectric pulse generator are just awesome.

mrhinkypunk wrote: »

He made a haymaker UR build which is the main build that moved into the entire STR CON INT high defense to offense thing which everyone ended up using for any build. Haymaker ofcourse ended up being removed after a while however from this build idea.

That's not really true...Str/con/int and int/con/str have been around since on alert. The first was mostly used by AE, the latter by DC back then.

foxi wrote:

blurp

Obviously, everyone sais what they know, if you're talking about things you don't know
then kitten die.

mrhinkypunk

Ah yeah I forgot to mention ego surge, thanks sters. I also forgot to mention where you said about the perception gears, it is worth it in PvP in BASH IMHO unless you just want to be super tanky however you'll need 200 INT before you try it which is where "unless you want to be super tanky" comes in as you lose CON to get the INT. Also as for the hold thing if you do add ego sleep or another hold you need to change it for your current hold, try not to stack holds as 3 resistance stacks and you wont be able to use them anymore, ego sleep for void shift and ego surge for entangling would probably be "optimal" as for PvP goes. I suppose it has it's use in PvE too.

Foxi will hate me saying that as that's the last piece of the general oldschool UR build other than you're using haymaker instead of Dragons uppercut. I remember when everyone was using a variation of that build and we had those team duels. If I were you I'd try keeping something that keeps your build vaigly one in it's own, you mentioned your character being an energy punching type guy so maybe chest beam can be kept "for theme," although it technically "isn't needed" it still does something.

spinnytop

sigmaseven0 wrote: »

BTW if you are going to come here and critique mrhinkypunks advice on my build in a thread about my build you may as well critique my build it self while your here.

That would go against my stance that people shouldn't have their build fed to them though u3u I think everyone should build their characters the way I did, by ignoring everyone else and just making something fun. So that's why I can't do that.

Criticizing IMP on the other hand is like a hobby of mine.

sigmaseven0

spinnytop wrote: »

That would go against my stance that people shouldn't have their build fed to them though u3u I think everyone should build their characters the way I did, by ignoring everyone else and just making something fun. So that's why I can't do that.

Criticizing IMP on the other hand is like a hobby of mine.

I know how you feel, but the CO that your advocating for is long dead.
I remember the glory days of pvp when you could actually level up just by pvping and build diversity was especially high in the lower tiers.

Your free to stick by your guns, but whether or not you give build advice to me or anyone else wont bring the glory days back.
Id be surprised if I spent more than a month in CO before leaving again there's no point spending a lot of time on my build.

Look at my sig. Its old as hell and a sad reminder that the only ones who have the power to improve PVP don't give a ****.
Say what you want about DCUO but its a decent game and the devs actually give a **** and are currently releasing a update specifically aimed at pvp improvements.

mrhinkypunk

sigmaseven0 wrote: »

I know how you feel, but the CO that your advocating for is long dead.
I remember the glory days of pvp when you could actually level up just by pvping and build diversity was especially high in the lower tiers.

Personally I don't really remember CO ever being like this. At the start of the game almost everyone used regen builds and then moved onto explosive arrow spam with that. Things were nerfed and buffed a lot and almost throughout there were almost always the STR CON INT USER (UR SR ER) equivalents only difference was that it didn't get stuck on the same thing for ages like it has now because there haven't been any additions other than the telepathy stuff really.

stergiosman

mrhinkypunk wrote: »

Personally I don't really remember CO ever being like this. At the start of the game almost everyone used regen builds and then moved onto explosive arrow spam with that. Things were nerfed and buffed a lot and almost throughout there were almost always the STR CON INT USER (UR SR ER) equivalents only difference was that it didn't get stuck on the same thing for ages like it has now because there haven't been any additions other than the telepathy stuff really.

There were more choices tho. Melee was more viable than ranged and heals/defenses weren't this broken. You wouldn't see people get a 10-0 without teleporting, just standing in BASH using ice nades and SR,or being able to heal 5k with a conviction pop while doing 20k with UR. The game was more balanced, and had more diversity.

However, in my opinion, it was gear that ruined CO after on-alert. You didn't need any l33t gears to compete pre-on alert, but those gears gave you a bit more power. You also had more choice on secondaries...
Now, no justice gears=byebye if your opponent has justice gears, unless you use a LR build, which would need legion gears. Generally, imo the difference between justice, legion and heroic gear should be close to the difference between r9,r8 and r7 mods.

mrhinkypunk

stergiosman wrote: »

There were more choices tho. Melee was more viable than ranged and heals/defenses weren't this broken. You wouldn't see people get a 10-0 without teleporting, just standing in BASH using ice nades and SR,or being able to heal 5k with a conviction pop while doing 20k with UR. The game was more balanced, and had more diversity.

However, in my opinion, it was gear that ruined CO after on-alert. You didn't need any l33t gears to compete pre-on alert, but those gears gave you a bit more power. You also had more choice on secondaries...
Now, no justice gears=byebye if your opponent has justice gears, unless you use a LR build, which would need legion gears. Generally, imo the difference between justice, legion and heroic gear should be close to the difference between r9,r8 and r7 mods.

Well yeah the gear was very badly designed and wasn't even needed. I still think that everyone using regen and teleport didn't show the greatest amount of diversity however currently there are about 6 viable builds that are distinctively different than each other in most ways and the way they play, I supposed there used to be about 20 different viable ways to play in a min maxed PvP sense. Still there was always FOTM and 20 options in a game like CO isn't great, the game has the big problem where they give too much customization and choice that people can just pick all the "best" or "most broken" stuff in each slot making it a nightmare to balance. Most likely they don't see any money in balancing anymore so they're just leaving the game to rot while covering the bad smell with stupid stuff that I'm not going to bother doing... Or buying. Just my opinion on it. <_<

gaarafrednorrisp

*shifty eyes and hugs his AT PvP memories*

sigmaseven0

mrhinkypunk wrote: »

currently there are about 6 viable builds that are distinctively different than each other in most ways and the way they play, I supposed there used to be about 20 different viable ways to play in a min maxed PvP sense. Still there was always FOTM and 20 options in a game like CO isn't great,

I could have been more clear ans said relatively more diversity.
To get build diversity better than it was in the early days you would probably have to make powers work differently in pvp and pve but there will always be FOTM in pvp. Hardcore pvp builds are more likely to be seen at lv 40, which is where all the pvp takes place now.

The other part of the equation is that there were generally more people pvping. This means that there were people casually pvping and not using one of the 20 or so optimized builds. These people were generally just leveling up and had a build that wasn't fully (if at all) dedicated to pvp. These are the people that contributed to pvp diversity and the kind of people that would have made spinnytop smile. These kinds of players are also virtually non existent now.

If the devs stepped in and did something to make viable pvp build diversity go back up into the 20s and make it so that pvp queues were active in all tiers again, I would be pretty damn impressed but I'm not holding my breath.

spinnytop

mrhinkypunk wrote: »

Personally I don't really remember CO ever being like this.

I do. The number of "real pvp builds" has continued to shrink over time. He's talking about a time when there were significantly more, and when doing well in pvp didn't have such strict requirements. Also the leveling through pvp part, I definitely remember that.


Like you say, now there's 6 builds when there used to be twenty. The builds now have much stricter slotting requirements, much less freedom (think back on all those recent conversations where we made fun of people who claimed their builds were unique because they had 1 different attack power) In a year we'll probably be down to two builds... one a tank build that nobody can hurt unless they use the other build... the other a dps build that everyone gets one shotted by unless they use the tank build. Then someone will figure out how to combine the two, and there will only be one build.

Hey it's like that painting that one artist made where it's a picture of the exact same person multiple times all in a grid, with each picture being a different color. It's exactly like that.

mrf0rz1

Holy hell Foxi what happened to you?