Most of the time dps will be better at that. Hybrid is better at true soloing, but if you're using more than one person to deal with adds, it's going to either be 'all dps' or '1 self-sufficient tank/tanky hybrid, others dps'.
That might be what happens, or a few dps might be designated to break off and help with adds, or the hybrids would move away and get rid of them on their own, or some other variation of a tactic. Lots of things could happen with a theoretical encounter. Hell it's hard enough to predict how players are going to react when you actually have a finished encounter ready to be uploaded in front of you. Trying to make predictions based a general idea doesn't work out so well.
Putting tough adds in the fight just lowers the overall DPS on the boss because there is a limited number of players that can be in the zone and hybrids would be taking up other players' spots like I said, and if you lower the boss' health to compensate for this, it might make the fight too easy
Depends on how the adds are designed though
Also does anyone have ideas other than adds? I feel like we're focusing overly much on picking that apart and not enough on thinking of new things. Hell I already criticized the idea plenty in the OP ^_^
If the adds aren't standing on top of the boss then it's not so easy for a DPSer to change focus. Especially if there is still the risk of the boss hitting them with an AoE while they deal with the add.
Other things.... One I proposed in an earlier thread was something much like the Nightmare Invasion mechanic, but where the device spawns at a random location and people have to go hunt it down and smash it.
I think that adds just get DPSed, so they don't matter.
If they aren't near the boss then they don't matter.
It really gets into the problem that the devs face when trying to design encounters.
I mean, how can you design an encounter for everyone to participate that gives every "pure" role value but that also allows for hybrids to make contributions that are just as valuable?
There have been some fights, not usually a cosmic fight unless things have gone horribly wrong, where I have seen an advantage in switching from DPS to tank during the fight, but the hybrid role is something that I don't see a lot of use for outside of soloing.
As I try to think of things that could be added to a group encounter that might be a better fit for a hybrid than a "real" tank (and to me that would be the only hybrid combo worth figuring out; A defensive passive on a non-tank. Not seeing how a support passive would help if there were "real" support toons in the group and a damage passive is just silly for a hybrid to me) it always seems to go back to "just use a "real" tank and keep some "real" DPS standing by to deal with it".
Here's my best thought right now, but it's rough:
If there was some other element involved that was trying to shield the boss (whatever the main target is) then that would have to be dealt with.
This element could not be slept or stunned, so the only way to keep it from shielding the boss was damage. After taking damage it could not attempt to shield for X time, so it attacked. This is where the character needing a defense would come in.
The thing is, why couldn't these characters trying to stop the shielding just be tanks themselves?
Would they need to pass a damage check to prevent the shielding? What sorts of attacks/damage do these things do that would make sending DPS out on the job a bad idea?
The margin of error to force hybrids into a scenario starts approaches zero, doesn't it?
I mean, someone should be able to bubble/heal a DPS to allow them to do the job, right? Or just have a tank and a DPSer to make sure the DPS check passes.
The only way to keep those from being options is that if you pretty much require everyone in the zone to fill some specific role somewhere else, right?
You have a 50 person zone and have specific jobs for 50 people. You need 10 CCers keeping things CCed. You need 10 tanks doing tanky things. You need 27 DPS hitting whatever.
That leaves three slots, and those slots require "tough DPS". Only not too much DPS because the "tough" part takes away from the "DPS" part, and not too "tough" because DPS is still important to the job.
But how often would such a thing get done? Just getting the team together would almost certainly be more trouble than it was worth.
So now it starts to get into instanced activity.
A 5 person team that required a tank, a support toon, two DPS, and a hybrid could maybe be a thing. Heck, make it where the instance kicks the group if it doesn't have those roles.
Don't need to worry about what role the hybrid will have in such a case, they just have to design the encounters knowing that someone in the team will be doing less DPS then the DPSers and be able to take less damage than the tank, but that they will be doing (or not doing, depending upon your perspective) those things at the same time.
Actually, my idea was enemies that spawn in random locations that give the boss a damage resist damage bonus from far enough away that you can't just have the DPS blast them.
It is difficult to make Hybrid with defensive passive power slotted but we can make DPS having good amount of defense. My EGO/DEX/REC build with [Id Mastery] has some resistance bonus and 418 as defense. But CON is 10 so the Health is low though.
[The Best Defense] in skill tree provides me good offense too.
[Quantum Stabilizer] also provides resistance. I think we have several offensive passive powers with resistance bonus.
I recommend to build ether Melee or Ranged DPS tough, much better then trying to deal damage by Hybrid / Protector role. Hybrid / Protector are only good at soloing QWZ or doing PvP. DPS builds are good in mission having timer such like the FIREWING and also for Cosmic hunt.
I've had to learn tanking and true DPS. It's been a painful and informative journey. I've gotten help directly or indirectly from many who've posted here. But the answer is no.
Cosmics are for the big boys and girls. Not hybrids, generally speaking, who will water us down.
It's 100% possible to build a hybrid with enough DPS to contribute to Cosmics. The issue isn't the hybrid role, as much as crappy hybrid builds. But such a build will do even more damage in DPS role with an offensive passive. So most people just build a dual passive character and switch roles.
It's 100% possible to build a hybrid with enough DPS to contribute to Cosmics. The issue isn't the hybrid role, as much as crappy hybrid builds. But such a build will do even more damage in DPS role with an offensive passive. So most people just build a dual passive character and switch roles.
It's actually something of a problem that most of the benefits of offensive passives are features of offensive role, rather than the passive itself, whereas most of the benefits of defensive passives are features of the passive, rather than the role. Buffing offensive passives and nerfing offensive roles has a certain logic.
However, as it is, the point of hybrid role is to use a defensive passive with better energy, offense, and healing than you'd get in tank role. Using support passives in hybrid is actively detrimental to the team, and with an offensive passive you're sacrificing a 25% damage increase for a modest bump to healing (you can do the same thing, at a much smaller dps cost, by slotting a sentinel mod in your primary offense).
It's 100% possible to build a hybrid with enough DPS to contribute to Cosmics. The issue isn't the hybrid role, as much as crappy hybrid builds. But such a build will do even more damage in DPS role with an offensive passive. So most people just build a dual passive character and switch roles.
Well, assuming the build in question HAS an offensive passive... But yeah a second passive is a good choice for the old "what am I gonna fill this empty skill slot with" on freeforms. But some builds have weird stuff tossed in because they're not optimized for cosmics at all. Often builds that work GREAT everywhere but cosmics.
I've had to learn tanking and true DPS. It's been a painful and informative journey. I've gotten help directly or indirectly from many who've posted here. But the answer is no.
Cosmics are for the big boys and girls. Not hybrids, generally speaking, who will water us down.
None of what you said really made any sense. So what, you had to learn how to tank and how to build a decent dps. So now that you figured out how to use specialized builds nobody should feel useful using a more generalized build?
Often builds that work GREAT everywhere but cosmics.
If a build that works 'great' everywhere but cosmics is inadequate for cosmics, your definition of 'great' is ... not great. There are things that are far easier to do with a hybrid and a defensive passive than with an offensive build (e.g. soloing Blood Moon crypts) but any 'tough dps' that's reasonably built and played is sufficient for anything but Eido.
>@pantagruel01 said: > It's actually something of a problem that most of the benefits of offensive passives are features of offensive role, rather than the passive itself, whereas most of the benefits of defensive passives are features of the passive, rather than the role. Buffing offensive passives and nerfing offensive roles has a certain logic. > > However, as it is, the point of hybrid role is to use a defensive passive with better energy, offense, and healing than you'd get in tank role. Using support passives in hybrid is actively detrimental to the team, and with an offensive passive you're sacrificing a 25% damage increase for a modest bump to healing (you can do the same thing, at a much smaller dps cost, by slotting a sentinel mod in your primary offense).
You hit the heart of the problem right here. Some poor player comes into zone with his/her AOPM DPS Hybrid build - and gets chastised. Immediately, having to switch to support role if they want in on the run.
Unless, the poor sap happens to be playing an AT like the Grimoire. Then they are just out of luck. Support passives should simply work the same regardless of role --- providing equal benefit to the caster as they do to team mates. That change alone would end this debate.
*As I understand it, this was how support passives originally worked.
Support passives should simply work the same regardless of role --- providing equal benefit to the caster as they do to team mates. That change alone would end this debate.
*As I understand it, this was how support passives originally worked.
Sort of. Originally the way support passives worked was that they scaled on Presence (for everyone). However, the presence scaling for AoPM was extremely weak, so it was a perfectly useful passive without any investment in Presence.
Eventually, they decided to revamp passives to not be dependent on specific superstats, but they decided that team support should still be based on Presence. This was a problem for those people with AoPM and no Presence, so they invented hybrid mode variants on the aura passives that were basically personal rather than team support. This allowed you to continue using those builds that didn't have much Presence.
This wasn't actually a problem at the time, the real problem came later: it was observed that aura stacking was a bit overpowered, and so they implemented a method that limited aura stacking. Unfortunately, the method they came up with had the side effect that adding together two auras could under some circumstances give a result that was weaker than a single aura, at which point those hybrid auras became a liability. It's also not something that can be fixed by making hybrid auras work like support auras, because those hybrid players might still not have much Presence.
Plausible fixes:
Hybrid auras don't affect other players at all.
All auras scale on superstats for all targets and have the same bonuses in all roles.
Change the diminishing returns formula so adding two auras is always a net positive.
Often builds that work GREAT everywhere but cosmics.
If a build that works 'great' everywhere but cosmics is inadequate for cosmics, your definition of 'great' is ... not great. There are things that are far easier to do with a hybrid and a defensive passive than with an offensive build (e.g. soloing Blood Moon crypts) but any 'tough dps' that's reasonably built and played is sufficient for anything but Eido.
As I said in another thread, my regen tank can tank anything but a Cosmic. I even managed to tank anniversary Megas. I've done Crypt runs with her and lowbies and managed to tank bosses well enough to keep the lowbies from getting squashed.
And for Cosmics this character is of little use because she's not one of a short list of "optimized" build types..
And for Cosmics this character is of little use because she's not one of a short list of "optimized" build types.
As long as you don't generate problematic levels of threat (it should be enough to unslot confronts if you have them and change role to hybrid) you should be able to dps at ape and kiga. For the dino, there's a good chance you could be useful, it's not hard to accomplish at least one of 'enough spike damage for a dps check' and 'enough durability to baby or side tank'.
Enh... the basic discussion is about characters that don't fit into the pigeonholed roles currently used. I suppose an actual tank is a weak example, though.
I recently retconned my main DPS (sorcery) so that he can switch to hybrid AoPM when going solo, or even support AoPM if the Cosmic fight he is in lacks that aura. It's working great.
I had to sacrifice my team-rez for this dual-passive capability, plus one rank off of my AO. Though I miss being able to rez, the ability to switch to AoPM on the fly proved useful during the first Dino run I did after this new build.
tl;dr: If you really like your FF tuff DPS, dump one power and make your toon dual passive, as others have noted.
AOPM is nice and all, but i've gained a new appreciation for AOED - and those who build it well - after the dino fight i was involved in last night...must've failed the DPS check over a dozen times before someone swapped to an AOED support, and then the entire fight turned from an exercise in futility to a cakewalk literally instantaneously
So yesterday I used my Regen tank as soak tank on Ape. Only got KOed about a dozen times and most were when I missed a block.
Regen is plenty for a soak tank; it just struggles at solo tanking. A normal punch through an R3 block on a juggernaut-wardicator tank does about a bit under 8k to a defiance tank, 11k to a regen tank, or 13k to a regen tank that wasn't at max hp. That won't one-shot, but in combination with something else it can easily be death.
So yesterday I used my Regen tank as soak tank on Ape. Only got KOed about a dozen times and most were when I missed a block.
To be fair, my tank uses Defiance and I also get KO'd when I miss a block. And even sometimes if I don't, if the healers aren't pushing heals hard enough. Tanks aren't really expected to be self sufficient in that fight.
Test out your regen tank as an off-tank. Go to Q Warzone, and find groups of tough mobs, and see how long you can kite them. If you can do it indefinitely, you have a good OT.
I can do that pretty much endlessly with Strength of Takofanes.
Speaking of Tako.... that's a good example of the sort of thing I meant earlier. The adds in his boss fight need to be dealt with, but not by the main group.
How about creating NEW content instead of recycling existing one over and over again?
You don't start building a new house until you made sure the one you're working on now is built right. Fact is our playerbase was so weak when Cosmics were first updated that it was very difficult to tell just what the long term "right strength" for cosmics was going to be. As time has gone on we've continually proven that cosmics were still not strong enough to face up to the community's potential. Someone once told me "As a dev you make an encounter that you're pretty sure is impossible, and then players have it on farm two weeks later". That's what's been happening here. The cosmic content may be new, but it's not finished yet and it still needs to be adjusted - they can't just keep expanding the game's content if what's here now isn't right. Just be happy we got a really long grace period where we were allowed to farm them because the devs underestimated us and were too busy to keep up with our growing potential.
Oh and like Vixy pointed out they have been adding new content o3o
Indeed. People like easy go as planned things. God forbid you boot em outta the box! Personally I think devs should up the difficultly and then Destroyer should swoop in and raze MC .... again. Knock us all back to the stone age. That would alleviate some boredom and monotony. Now you may burn me at the stake for speaking such blasphemy!
My lvl 40 champs in random order.
=Pieces of Stuff=Knock Dead=Cruel Yule=Cremator=Toys from the Attic=
=Gnosis Arcanum=Twenty Seven=Kama D=Critic=Creep Freeze=
=Mangled Man=G.I. John Doe=2D.=Lung the punch drunk monk=
=By the sword=Scild Truma=Shadow Puppet=Lu-7=Erysichthon=
=Nimravid=Buzzard Kill=Lorenzini=Schema=
Incidentally, Negalodon reminded me of the easy way to make Tuff DPS practical: have sufficient levels of untankable damage that squishies die like flies. The problem is making tough and squishy dps viable at the same fight, because the basic thing about durability is that excess beyond what you need to survive and function doesn't do anything useful.
I came in late, but I do want to point out that the Cosmic content IS already difficult and takes a lot of time. Sure, the actual kill time might be only 10 minutes, but you have to count the often 30+ minutes of organizing, waiting for the right roles to show up.
Hybrids and useless Shield roles tend to be fairly irrelevant if we otherwise have a decent mix. 5 or 6 vets can carry everyone else with little contribution from the other 30+ people there. #truthhurts So, I see the hybrid/shield/tuffDPS issue as a non-issue in actual combat. There seem to be more of them at fights now than in the past, and with the exception of Eddie, completion time is still pretty fast.
Where they really drag time is in setup. If we have a bunch of low-contributors, we need to wait until enough of the high-contributors to show up before we can start. So, that is where the problem comes in.
I admire the OPs desire to give these characters something more interesting to do than mooch, but I have no such interest. The problem is that most people who play underperforming characters don't really care to contribute. They are just there to mooch. So, if you tried to give them something useful to do, it is unlikely they would take on the responsibility.
I am more inclined to encourage them to do better. My suggestion would be to raise the loot threshold to 500,000 (yes, I know o.O). The real issue with this is that ACTUAL contribution would need to be figured, instead of the clumsy method used now.
What I mean is that, for example, I often show up with my CCer, even when not CCing. This is because her 95 point AoPM and defense debuffs actually contribute more to damage than just a bland DPS. (She can also backup heal and keep a tank up in case a healer goes down temporarily) But, she does not get credit for all that additional damage she is causing other players to do. So she actually gets a LOWER score by helping everyone else get a HIGHER score. I mean, she is adding a couple hundred DPS to most people, but they get credit for it, instead of her.
Other retunings of the algorithm would need to be made, as well, including the oft-suggested damage-mitigated instead of damage-taken. But, again, all of this is doable with tweaks in the calculations, it just depends on if the old Model T can handle Nitrous.
That would need to be fixed, and it could be; however, I do realize this would require a lot more calculations being made during combat, and since the engine can barely handle what we have now, this might not be possible. But, if it COULD be done, it would certainly fix the problem of moochers. It would also reflect a more realistic contribution in the final scoring and might even encourage more people to play buffers/debuffers, which would speed the fights up even more.
Again, the place this would really speed things up is the organizing time because people would be less likely to show up with underperforming characters. I expect the Cosmics would need to be retuned to be tougher, too, otherwise the fights would go ridiculously fast.
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Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
Hmm last night I managed to soak tank ape without dying once. On the same regen tank that got KOed a dozen times last time. The difference was mainly in learning to guess when Ape was gonna hit me.
You can't really have all the DPS guys chase Doomlords all the time. You need to have a group that focuses on DPSing Tako, while others run around smashing Doomlords.
Where they really drag time is in setup. If we have a bunch of low-contributors, we need to wait until enough of the high-contributors to show up before we can start. So, that is where the problem comes in.
I admire the OPs desire to give these characters something more interesting to do than mooch, but I have no such interest. The problem is that most people who play underperforming characters don't really care to contribute. They are just there to mooch. So, if you tried to give them something useful to do, it is unlikely they would take on the responsibility.
You seem to have misunderstood, it's not so much a question of bad builds vs good builds, but defining what is useful.
You can't really have all the DPS guys chase Doomlords all the time.
Well, you could -- they only spawn every 20s and have 500k hp, so if you have 50k dps available they'll go down in 10s and you have another 10s to shoot at Tako. In practice, there are always enough people focus firing Tako that you should go after Doomlords full time.
Hmm last night I managed to soak tank ape without dying once. On the same regen tank that got KOed a dozen times last time. The difference was mainly in learning to guess when Ape was gonna hit me.
You can't really have all the DPS guys chase Doomlords all the time. You need to have a group that focuses on DPSing Tako, while others run around smashing Doomlords.
Where they really drag time is in setup. If we have a bunch of low-contributors, we need to wait until enough of the high-contributors to show up before we can start. So, that is where the problem comes in.
I admire the OPs desire to give these characters something more interesting to do than mooch, but I have no such interest. The problem is that most people who play underperforming characters don't really care to contribute. They are just there to mooch. So, if you tried to give them something useful to do, it is unlikely they would take on the responsibility.
You seem to have misunderstood, it's not so much a question of bad builds vs good builds, but defining what is useful.
Um... you just contradicted yourself.
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SIGNATURE:
Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
Not really. There is a very clear difference. For example, tank builds are currently defined as useful. This, however, does not make all tank builds good. Currently hybrid builds are defined as not useful, however there are still some very good hybrid builds that will even outperform many people's dps builds (because their builds are not good, despite being defined as useful). This is an example of how a build can be defined as "not useful" but still be a good build.
The definition of "useful" is up to the design of the encounter. Wether a build is good or bad depends on its performance.
You seem to have misunderstood, it's not so much a question of bad builds vs good builds, but defining what is useful.
Um... you just contradicted yourself.
Not necessarily. Good and bad builds are not universal, they depend on the content.
Yeah, a truly bad build is something that doesn't do what it's designed to do. This is qualitative, so there are varying degrees of it. Some builds are truly pathetic while others are merely weak.
Comments
Also does anyone have ideas other than adds? I feel like we're focusing overly much on picking that apart and not enough on thinking of new things. Hell I already criticized the idea plenty in the OP ^_^
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Other things.... One I proposed in an earlier thread was something much like the Nightmare Invasion mechanic, but where the device spawns at a random location and people have to go hunt it down and smash it.
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My characters
If they aren't near the boss then they don't matter.
It really gets into the problem that the devs face when trying to design encounters.
I mean, how can you design an encounter for everyone to participate that gives every "pure" role value but that also allows for hybrids to make contributions that are just as valuable?
There have been some fights, not usually a cosmic fight unless things have gone horribly wrong, where I have seen an advantage in switching from DPS to tank during the fight, but the hybrid role is something that I don't see a lot of use for outside of soloing.
As I try to think of things that could be added to a group encounter that might be a better fit for a hybrid than a "real" tank (and to me that would be the only hybrid combo worth figuring out; A defensive passive on a non-tank. Not seeing how a support passive would help if there were "real" support toons in the group and a damage passive is just silly for a hybrid to me) it always seems to go back to "just use a "real" tank and keep some "real" DPS standing by to deal with it".
Here's my best thought right now, but it's rough:
If there was some other element involved that was trying to shield the boss (whatever the main target is) then that would have to be dealt with.
This element could not be slept or stunned, so the only way to keep it from shielding the boss was damage. After taking damage it could not attempt to shield for X time, so it attacked. This is where the character needing a defense would come in.
The thing is, why couldn't these characters trying to stop the shielding just be tanks themselves?
Would they need to pass a damage check to prevent the shielding? What sorts of attacks/damage do these things do that would make sending DPS out on the job a bad idea?
The margin of error to force hybrids into a scenario starts approaches zero, doesn't it?
I mean, someone should be able to bubble/heal a DPS to allow them to do the job, right? Or just have a tank and a DPSer to make sure the DPS check passes.
The only way to keep those from being options is that if you pretty much require everyone in the zone to fill some specific role somewhere else, right?
You have a 50 person zone and have specific jobs for 50 people.
You need 10 CCers keeping things CCed.
You need 10 tanks doing tanky things.
You need 27 DPS hitting whatever.
That leaves three slots, and those slots require "tough DPS". Only not too much DPS because the "tough" part takes away from the "DPS" part, and not too "tough" because DPS is still important to the job.
But how often would such a thing get done? Just getting the team together would almost certainly be more trouble than it was worth.
So now it starts to get into instanced activity.
A 5 person team that required a tank, a support toon, two DPS, and a hybrid could maybe be a thing.
Heck, make it where the instance kicks the group if it doesn't have those roles.
Don't need to worry about what role the hybrid will have in such a case, they just have to design the encounters knowing that someone in the team will be doing less DPS then the DPSers and be able to take less damage than the tank, but that they will be doing (or not doing, depending upon your perspective) those things at the same time.
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My characters
My EGO/DEX/REC build with [Id Mastery] has some resistance bonus and 418 as defense. But CON is 10 so the Health is low though.
[The Best Defense] in skill tree provides me good offense too.
[Quantum Stabilizer] also provides resistance. I think we have several offensive passive powers with resistance bonus.
I recommend to build ether Melee or Ranged DPS tough, much better then trying to deal damage by Hybrid / Protector role.
Hybrid / Protector are only good at soloing QWZ or doing PvP.
DPS builds are good in mission having timer such like the FIREWING and also for Cosmic hunt.
My STR/CON/REC Haymaker build is also bit tough. For sample.
Haymaker STR/CON/REC - Freeform
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I've had to learn tanking and true DPS. It's been a painful and informative journey. I've gotten help directly or indirectly from many who've posted here. But the answer is no.
Cosmics are for the big boys and girls. Not hybrids, generally speaking, who will water us down.
However, as it is, the point of hybrid role is to use a defensive passive with better energy, offense, and healing than you'd get in tank role. Using support passives in hybrid is actively detrimental to the team, and with an offensive passive you're sacrificing a 25% damage increase for a modest bump to healing (you can do the same thing, at a much smaller dps cost, by slotting a sentinel mod in your primary offense).
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
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My characters
Also what is this "big boys and girls" nonsense.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
> It's actually something of a problem that most of the benefits of offensive passives are features of offensive role, rather than the passive itself, whereas most of the benefits of defensive passives are features of the passive, rather than the role. Buffing offensive passives and nerfing offensive roles has a certain logic.
>
> However, as it is, the point of hybrid role is to use a defensive passive with better energy, offense, and healing than you'd get in tank role. Using support passives in hybrid is actively detrimental to the team, and with an offensive passive you're sacrificing a 25% damage increase for a modest bump to healing (you can do the same thing, at a much smaller dps cost, by slotting a sentinel mod in your primary offense).
You hit the heart of the problem right here. Some poor player comes into zone with his/her AOPM DPS Hybrid build - and gets chastised. Immediately, having to switch to support role if they want in on the run.
Unless, the poor sap happens to be playing an AT like the Grimoire. Then they are just out of luck. Support passives should simply work the same regardless of role --- providing equal benefit to the caster as they do to team mates. That change alone would end this debate.
*As I understand it, this was how support passives originally worked.
Eventually, they decided to revamp passives to not be dependent on specific superstats, but they decided that team support should still be based on Presence. This was a problem for those people with AoPM and no Presence, so they invented hybrid mode variants on the aura passives that were basically personal rather than team support. This allowed you to continue using those builds that didn't have much Presence.
This wasn't actually a problem at the time, the real problem came later: it was observed that aura stacking was a bit overpowered, and so they implemented a method that limited aura stacking. Unfortunately, the method they came up with had the side effect that adding together two auras could under some circumstances give a result that was weaker than a single aura, at which point those hybrid auras became a liability. It's also not something that can be fixed by making hybrid auras work like support auras, because those hybrid players might still not have much Presence.
Plausible fixes:
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
And for Cosmics this character is of little use because she's not one of a short list of "optimized" build types..
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My characters
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
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My characters
I had to sacrifice my team-rez for this dual-passive capability, plus one rank off of my AO. Though I miss being able to rez, the ability to switch to AoPM on the fly proved useful during the first Dino run I did after this new build.
tl;dr: If you really like your FF tuff DPS, dump one power and make your toon dual passive, as others have noted.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
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My characters
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Go to Q Warzone, and find groups of tough mobs, and see how long you can kite them. If you can do it indefinitely, you have a good OT.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Speaking of Tako.... that's a good example of the sort of thing I meant earlier. The adds in his boss fight need to be dealt with, but not by the main group.
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My characters
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
=Pieces of Stuff=Knock Dead=Cruel Yule=Cremator=Toys from the Attic=
=Gnosis Arcanum=Twenty Seven=Kama D=Critic=Creep Freeze=
=Mangled Man=G.I. John Doe=2D.=Lung the punch drunk monk=
=By the sword=Scild Truma=Shadow Puppet=Lu-7=Erysichthon=
=Nimravid=Buzzard Kill=Lorenzini=Schema=
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My characters
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Hybrids and useless Shield roles tend to be fairly irrelevant if we otherwise have a decent mix. 5 or 6 vets can carry everyone else with little contribution from the other 30+ people there. #truthhurts So, I see the hybrid/shield/tuffDPS issue as a non-issue in actual combat. There seem to be more of them at fights now than in the past, and with the exception of Eddie, completion time is still pretty fast.
Where they really drag time is in setup. If we have a bunch of low-contributors, we need to wait until enough of the high-contributors to show up before we can start. So, that is where the problem comes in.
I admire the OPs desire to give these characters something more interesting to do than mooch, but I have no such interest. The problem is that most people who play underperforming characters don't really care to contribute. They are just there to mooch. So, if you tried to give them something useful to do, it is unlikely they would take on the responsibility.
I am more inclined to encourage them to do better. My suggestion would be to raise the loot threshold to 500,000 (yes, I know o.O). The real issue with this is that ACTUAL contribution would need to be figured, instead of the clumsy method used now.
What I mean is that, for example, I often show up with my CCer, even when not CCing. This is because her 95 point AoPM and defense debuffs actually contribute more to damage than just a bland DPS. (She can also backup heal and keep a tank up in case a healer goes down temporarily) But, she does not get credit for all that additional damage she is causing other players to do. So she actually gets a LOWER score by helping everyone else get a HIGHER score. I mean, she is adding a couple hundred DPS to most people, but they get credit for it, instead of her.
Other retunings of the algorithm would need to be made, as well, including the oft-suggested damage-mitigated instead of damage-taken. But, again, all of this is doable with tweaks in the calculations, it just depends on if the old Model T can handle Nitrous.
That would need to be fixed, and it could be; however, I do realize this would require a lot more calculations being made during combat, and since the engine can barely handle what we have now, this might not be possible. But, if it COULD be done, it would certainly fix the problem of moochers. It would also reflect a more realistic contribution in the final scoring and might even encourage more people to play buffers/debuffers, which would speed the fights up even more.
Again, the place this would really speed things up is the organizing time because people would be less likely to show up with underperforming characters. I expect the Cosmics would need to be retuned to be tougher, too, otherwise the fights would go ridiculously fast.
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Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
Oh and here's a video example of what I like about the Tako fight:
You can't really have all the DPS guys chase Doomlords all the time. You need to have a group that focuses on DPSing Tako, while others run around smashing Doomlords. You seem to have misunderstood, it's not so much a question of bad builds vs good builds, but defining what is useful.
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My characters
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
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My characters
SIGNATURE:
Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
The definition of "useful" is up to the design of the encounter. Wether a build is good or bad depends on its performance.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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My characters