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Buff the Primary Rec and End trees
selphea
Posts: 1,229 Arc User
They were already unpopular Superstat choices before On Alert, but their spec trees don't do them any favors now.
Primary Recovery
Rec is actually close to being decent, but a conditional 15% boost to crit chance does not match the unconditional 30% to crit severity in the Dex tree. It is also difficult to maintain 90% energy with Staying Power alone, while Well-Rounded tends to find little use, except in AoPM builds where max energy and HP isn't a problem anyway. And Rec Mastery is downright stingy compared to the other stat masteries.
I'd suggest the following changes to make the Rec tree more attractive:
On paper, 15% Crit Severity and Crit Chance may sound like a lot, but this is to reflect that this is a conditional buff, and investments in other specs are needed to maintain the required 90% energy. Besides, Strength's Brutality is also 2 points.
Primary Endurance
Primary End, on the other hand, seems to be oriented towards tanky DPS. Outburst is an additive bonus subject to Cryptic Math, so it has very limited use on offensive passive characters. That said, 15% is barely noticeable even with a defensive passive, although Outburst is easier to maintain than Supercharged.
Defensively, End gets a nice HP spec in Hardened, but that's about it. It gets a teeny tiny boost to Defense in a roundabout way by using Aggressive Stance/The Best Defense with Power Overwhelming, but not enough to make a meaningful difference. And Power Overwhelming's Offense is hit by diminishing returns twice - once by Offense scaling, a second time when converting additive bonuses to the final bonus.
I'd suggest the following changes:
So Endurance gets more tanky, and it gets more DPS. But it's still less tanky than Con with its HP stealing and 24% additive damage is still nowhere near the 30% severity of other trees.
Primary Recovery
Rec is actually close to being decent, but a conditional 15% boost to crit chance does not match the unconditional 30% to crit severity in the Dex tree. It is also difficult to maintain 90% energy with Staying Power alone, while Well-Rounded tends to find little use, except in AoPM builds where max energy and HP isn't a problem anyway. And Rec Mastery is downright stingy compared to the other stat masteries.
I'd suggest the following changes to make the Rec tree more attractive:
- Swap Well-Rounded and Staying Power, with Well-Rounded in Tier 1 and Staying Power in Tier 2
- Change Well-Rounded to scale with Secondary Superstats instead of non-Superstats so that it is usable by non-AoPM builds
- Drop Supercharged to 2 ranks, but change the scaling to 7.5%/15% to both Crit Severity and Crit Chance
- Add a third rank to Staying Power
- Change Rec Mastery to grant +15 to each Superstat instead of +10.
On paper, 15% Crit Severity and Crit Chance may sound like a lot, but this is to reflect that this is a conditional buff, and investments in other specs are needed to maintain the required 90% energy. Besides, Strength's Brutality is also 2 points.
Primary Endurance
Primary End, on the other hand, seems to be oriented towards tanky DPS. Outburst is an additive bonus subject to Cryptic Math, so it has very limited use on offensive passive characters. That said, 15% is barely noticeable even with a defensive passive, although Outburst is easier to maintain than Supercharged.
Defensively, End gets a nice HP spec in Hardened, but that's about it. It gets a teeny tiny boost to Defense in a roundabout way by using Aggressive Stance/The Best Defense with Power Overwhelming, but not enough to make a meaningful difference. And Power Overwhelming's Offense is hit by diminishing returns twice - once by Offense scaling, a second time when converting additive bonuses to the final bonus.
I'd suggest the following changes:
- Swap Power Overwhelming and Gear Utilization, with Power Overwhelming in Tier 1 and Gear Utilization in Tier 2
- Change Power Overwhelming to give bonus Equilibrium based on Secondary Superstats, like what Readiness currently does with Endurance.
- Change Readiness to give 1/2/3 Defence per 10 points in Endurance
- Drop Outburst to 2 ranks, but change the scaling to 12%/24% damage and 8%/16% healing.
- Add a third rank to Hardened
So Endurance gets more tanky, and it gets more DPS. But it's still less tanky than Con with its HP stealing and 24% additive damage is still nowhere near the 30% severity of other trees.
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Grappling/Wrestling Power Set Suggestion 2012-2013
How a Wrestling Power Set Can Work
I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
Grappling/Wrestling Power Set Suggestion 2012-2013
How a Wrestling Power Set Can Work
--
Take No Escape out of Brawler, replace it with Twist Fate from Sentry.
Brawler's Penetrating Strikes Replaced With
In the Fray - Attacks made against you in Melee Distance deal 3%/6%/9% Less Damage.
Brawler's Setup - Melee Combo Attacks increase your Offense by 5/10 for 7 Seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Charging an attack at least half way consumes the stacks, allowing the attack to ignore 1%/2% of the target's Damage Resistance for each stack consumed.
Brawler's Flanking Replaced With
Brutal Onslaught - Finishing a Melee Combo, Fully Charging a Melee Attack, or fully maintaining a Melee type move will cause your next Non-Energy Builder Attack to deal 10%/20% more damage.
Sentry's Twist Fate Replaced With
Hardening Shell - You and Allies in 25 Feet of you Taking hits while Blocking gives 5%/10% Resistance to All Damage for 5 Seconds.
Protector's Unrelenting - When taking Damage, you gain 5/10 Defense and Slowing/Snare Effects are reduced by 5%/10% for 7 Seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
Protector's Bulwark - 5%/10% Max Health across all roles, additional Threat Generation while in the Tank Role
Protector's Debilitating Challenge - Crippling Challenge decreases Damage Resistance and Healing Strength by 2.5%/5%
Overseer's Administer - The strength of your Single Target Ranged Attacks, Heals, and Shields is increased by 3%/6%/9%.
Overseer's Ruthless Replaced With
Revenge - You and Allies in 25 Feet of you Taking hits while Blocking gives their next attack 1%/2% Ranged Damage Strength, stacking up to 5 times and lasting 7 Seconds. Upon consumption, heals for 25%/50% of the additional damage dealt.
Overseer's Overseer Mastery - Your healing strength on others is increased (Up to an additional 25%) based on their current health percentage as it becomes lower. (Max Benefits at 15% of Max Health.)
Arbiter's Ruthless Replaced With
Incite - You and Allies within 25 Feet of you Taking hits while Blocking gives their next attack 1%/2% Melee Damage Strength, stacking up to 5 times and lasting 7 seconds. Upon consumption, heals for 25%/50% of the additional damage dealt.
Arbiter's Rend Replaced With
Flow of Battle - Your Melee Attacks grant and refresh a stack of Flow at most Once every 1 Second, stacking up to 30 times and lasting for 10 Seconds. When Flow has acquired the full 30 stacks, they are all consumed giving you the Flow of Battle buff. Flow of Battle prevents you from gaining any stacks of Flow and lasts 15 seconds and allows You to heal your allies for 10%/20% of the damage you deal with Melee Attacks.
Arbiter's Arbiter Mastery - Your healing strength on others is increased (up to 25%) as you become closer to them. (Max benefits at 10 Feet)
Avenger's Can't Touch This - Your Ranged Energy Builder attacks increase your Dodge Rating by 3%/6% for 3 Seconds
Avenger's Anguish is granted an Additional Rank
Avenger's Preemptive Strike Replaced With
Pour it on - Damaging the same target multiple times reduces the energy costs of your Ranged Attacks by 1%/2%, stacking up to 5 times and lasting for 7 Seconds.
--
I think that'll do it for me, what say the forumites?
And I will always be @DZPlayer122.
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I generally agree w/ making End better as a hybrid mix tree (it kinda is now, but its unimpressive on dps and survival boosts).
Whoah lotsa stuff about other spec trees! Well I agree that some do need help outside End/Rec, the focus imo should still be on Rec/End trees since they are tied to under-performing stats atm.
(Brawler can be good, though; to me the only spec tree that's missing it out almost completely is Arbiter- rest at least have some niches to fill next to the might of Wardicator/Guardicator) (it would be nice if arbiter mastery heals on allies proced honor, but NOPE! can't let you have good synergy, Fox!)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Grappling/Wrestling Power Set Suggestion 2012-2013
How a Wrestling Power Set Can Work
Intelligence Mastery (10 to all non-super stats): 10 x 5 = 50
New Recovery Mastery (15 to all super stats): 15 x 3 = 45 <- Perfectly in-between!
Ego Mastery (20 to secondary super stats): 20 x 2 = 40
Old Recovery Mastery (10 to all super stats): 10 x 3 = 30 <- WHY?
STR/DEX/CON Mastery (20 to primary + bonus): 20 x 1 = 20
Arbiter has decent specs that fit the melee/support hybrid. They are a bit watered down though. Arbiter's Enforcer gives a weaker bonus than Overseer's Administer (Blast attacks in general are weaker than Combo attacks, but that's an issue that should be rectified there and not brought over to spec trees), and Arbiter's Rend is weaker than Brawler's Penetrating Strikes (2/4% on range or melee crits vs. 5/10% on melee crits only). Concussion is the only one I find rather limiting due to its narrow scope (procs on Stuns only) but its effect is role appropriate (damage reduction).
Arbiter Mastery already does allow for an interesting melee healer. I use Viper's Fangs for the debuff spam, but Thundering Kicks completes faster for more frequent healing. Combine it with Circle of Radiant Glory taps and you've got a thing going.
The heals are percentage-based off maximum health rather than damage dealt for what I assume are balance reasons. Can you imagine such a thing with AoE attacks? Or with the crazy stacked DPS shenanigans? DPS-tanking would become easier than it already is.
Brawler is the only spec tree that I find a bit odd. With the exception of Commander, it's probably the most specialized. The melee damage bonuses are nice (base damage increase, as in multiplicative rather than additive). But if you're not melee-oriented, there's little it can offer. Half the tree procs off only on melee (No Escape isn't explicitly melee, but from the range requirement, it might as well be) and the non-melee specific half is marginally passable. Compare that with every other spec tree (except Commander) which you can find some decent use even if your character doesn't really fall into that role. Brawler Mastery is a bit iffy, but it's still more viable than Avenger Mastery.
As for The Glory of Battle vs. Locus, I think Locus was only meant to trigger one stack per AoE attack and not per target hit. At least that's from my reading of the wording on it. If that's so, it'd balance the whole "stack per target hit from AoE attack" vs. "stack on AoE attack dealt or received". It obviously doesn't function like that in the game, but that's the way a lot of things are in this game.
Also, it may also be that ye olde Vindicator + Guardian/Warden combo of Aggressive Stance and The Best Defense is heavily outperforming everything else.
Oh, no way would I ask for Arbiter to get healing based off dmg dealt- that'd prob be too much. I just want Enforcer to at least match Administer, and for its mastery to work w/ Honor. If they did that I could at least justify it on 1-2 of my toons. They could add things after that, but at that point more of the spec trees would have to be brought up too.
Would also be nice if Concussion didn't have the enemy rank decay, but I guess that's because its the analogue to Trapped (but trapped can be rolled on cosmics w/ Eldritch Blast or just using Hex w/ adv on cd; only limiting it to stuns as melee kinda sucks w/ a 3-4sec debuff uptime to deal with).
Brawler Mastery? The lunge-related buff w/ the broken tooltip? I dun think I have any build using that one due to its icd. AM is actually pretty good for certain kinds of builds.
I'm fine w/ Brawler being melee specialized. Sure, Avenger can be more general, but Overseer is pretty niche too and not very palatable to melee.
(and I just realized I went OT again. blah, sorry- so much to balance in this game..)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Seconded. I'd be great with putting those ideas elsewhere in trees, but setup is great for a few melee types (I loves it on my devastator) and pre-emptive strike has a few hilariously unexpected uses.
RIP Caine
End Primary is perfect for the Power Armor characters that are using Wrist Bolters for their energy builder with other power armor toggles...also don't forget to rank up Wrist Bolters just so the pew pew blasts don't look so puny
At Rank 3 yeah the blasts are a bit too big...but at Rank 2 they're just about the right scale for the blasters on the back of your wrists Rank 1 the blasts look too small...
Arbiter needs help. Avenger is the absolute highest DPS spec tree for Powered Armor. Because of the mastery. Guardicator is very distant second, and should only be used on PA tanks. And REC primary is very good for keeping your weapons online 100% of the time.
END spec with Automated Assault significantly lowers PA DPS compared to REC primary and spamming fully charged Tactical Missiles or Power Gauntlet along with two toggles. It's a trap.
I like all of the suggested buffs to REC tree though. I don't know about END tree, since I've never used it, but I'm sure they're just as good as the proposed REC tree buffs.
I do not agree with the proposed changes to Setup & Preemptive Strike though, those are the only good specs currently in their respective trees and they don't need to be changed.
That Dork In The Suspenders, signing out.
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Really, Guardicator/Wardictaor are considered 'the best' just cause of their versatility. They def aren't the best for every build, though. Kinda depends on the building goals, as most of the other options that can be better also tend to be worse off defensively (or if going for a more tanky option like Bulwark, worse off in dps).
Outburst being additive kills End PSS atm- seriously, that's just bad. No good excuse for it being designed like that.
Kickback would be good, but most efficient builds are 'set' on energy w/o needing to EB at all (or rarely). Readiness is required to keep End-stacking convenient (Int PSS has Prep for End, Ego PSS has Readiness for Rec, so ya can get this type of option elsewhere). Hardened is nice, but ya mine as well go Str PSS w/ Juggy or Con PSS for more survival (or Ego/Pres PSS for Force of Will) and get more overall benefits.
I guess End PSS would be a decent leveling tree when not using cheap attacks; energy management is much worse at low stat/gear levels and things like Kickback matter more then.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
So to that end, I suggest/support replacing the stupid crowd-control resistance specs with specs that boost those appropriate ability types somehow.
>_> A ranged toggle that stacked on knocks could also work.
Still can't comment on END tree.
And tank role should probably have it's energy penalties removed, it's redundant with the damage penalty and boosts the desirability of Defiance even higher than it would be naturally. Which is pretty damned high to begin with.
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I don't think End or Rec are specifically designed for charges or maintains. Many big Energy Projector attacks are maintains, like Lightning Storm, Avalanche, Lightning Arc, Conflag but they use an End-based unlock. Similarly, Rec is used for Supernatural Power which has attacks ranging from charges like Massacre and Defile to combos like Shred, and Rec powers Compassion which procs off heals - again not bound to any specific type.
If anything, the role-based trees like Guardian, Arbiter etc could be redesigned as power-based trees like "Comboer", "Charger", "Maintainer", "Bubbler". That said, I don't think such a design would promote diversity in builds, which defeats the purpose of spec trees imo. Then again, the current iteration of spec trees defeat the same purpose too...
I guess Rec has been relatively buffed since it was unaffected by the crit nerf and CDR nerf.
Rec Mastery still shortchanges you though. And End is still terrible.
Kickback is neat in concept, but in practice it only has one place where it shines... and even there it's outdone by another primary super stat.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Recovery
Rapid Recovery: This is one of those that fits into weak and uninspired. Slight change here:
NEW: Each time the player strikes a target with their Energy Builder, they receive a heal. The heal is raised moderately by the amount of energy gained, and significantly by the rank of the Energy Builder power. This heal ramps up over the first X hits before hitting full strength.
Implications: Since the heal is now no longer constant, and has the requirement both of being in mid-range and of not using powers other than the Energy Builder, the heal can be more significant than it is in the current incarnation of the spec. I feel like X should be a pretty low number.
Mastery: The current Recovery Mastery is just +10 to all super stats... boring. This doesn't say to me that you have superhuman powers of recovery.
NEW: Whenever you receive energy from a source that is not a device and does not count as an "outside source", you gain a damage bonus of x% based on the amount of energy gained.
Implications: Recovery, as a stat, is about energy gains. Now players can really indulge in that concept, trying to create builds that generate massive amounts of energy in order to buff their damage. Note that circle of arcane power would likely be considered an outside source.
Dexterity
Mastery: Another boring master that just gives you some stats. Boo.
NEW: Whenever you dodge or crit you get a stack of the Fluidity buff, which stacks 30 times with each stack lasting 5 seconds - you can gain at most 3 stacks per second. Fluidity gives x% knock resist per stack, and x defense. At 30 stacks of Fluidity the stacks are consumed and you instead get the "In The Zone" buff which gives you x% increased base damage and healing, and an x% cost discount to all powers. In The Zone lasts for 10 seconds, and you cannot stack Fluidity while it is in effect. All effects scale with Dexterity.
Implications: This adds a sort of "ebb and flow" mechanic where aware players can reap significant benefits for taking advantage of the 10 second window, while at the same time rewarding players for doing something they generally don't do: stacking dexterity.
Intelligence
Mastery: No surprise, another boring one.
NEW: The sum of your non-super stats is added to your super stats - each super stat receives x% of that sum.
Implications: Intelligence has generally highly favored use of AoPM since people generally don't want to put points into non-super stats. While this iteration still would be quite good for AoPM, it would also benefit people using other passives. Since stats put into non-super stats are no longer "lost" in regards to SS bonuses and scalings, it would allow Int mastery players to build some interesting "jack of all trades" characters.
Strength
Mastery: While this is a boring master, Strength is already a pretty potent spec, however there was one thing I kept noticing people, specifically melee dps, mentioning that they wanted, and I figured why not slap on in here.
NEW: Knock attacks only knock on a full charge (tapped/maintained knocks unaffected). Knock attacks that are not fully charged receive a cost reduction.
Implications: This allows players to build characters that show some "restraint" when it comes to knocks, and allows players to more easily use some powers that before were sort of a pain in the butt, especially for melee characters. The cost discount helps with the fact that melee knockers often have trouble finding an energy unlock. Note that this should still give bonus damage on knock powers that get bonus damage against knock-immune targets, even if the power is not fully charged.
Constitution
Mastery: Mmhm.
NEW: While blocking the nearest friendly player within melee range is protected by your block. This protection lasts for x seconds, and can only happen once every y seconds. If no other players are nearby, then the effect instead reflects z% damage of the attack back at the attacker. X should be short, and y should be somewhat long.
Implications: Con characters now have a more useful block than other characters - not only can they protect others, they can also use their block to gain good chunks of threat.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
And poor End is still forgotten ^^;
That being said, End is still somewhat an underwhelming SS overall. Not a whole heck of a lot depends on or scales with Endurance specifically, save for a few builds (like Electricity-main ones). I'd like to see some sort of Form that scales from Con or End (whichever is higher) and increases Threat Generation for Tanky Characters. Right now, the only "Tanking Form" is Innertial Dampening Field, which is really pretty lackluster on the whole.
But that's a topic for another... topic. Forum topic. You know what I mean.
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
Not sure how the int mastery would allow for 1k in a single stat, cause to do that you would have to dump everything into that single stat, meaning you couldn't add anything to your non-super stats, which would mean the bonus that the mastery gives wouldn't really be that large, even with AoPM.
I'm okay with what PA builds could do with the Rec one - primarily because wow, a reason for someone to take Rec primary, mission accomplished!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.