Where to go with my melee TK build

Comments

• flowcyto Posts: 12,852 Arc User

  January 2018 edited January 2018

  Siphoning is good for the healing, and is a case where the self-healing improves as dps improves, but yes it does cut pretty heavily into the combo's dps. Fortunately, much of ur dps can still come from EBA, and you can now use EBA at 5x Ego Leech as often as after every single combo (which makes Brawler's Setup quite good for it).
  
  ID Mastery can also boost your dmgRes a bit in general as a slotted passive, and ranking up the block can be good. You can also consider a threat wipe, but I would prob get at least one Active Defense. You could also consider getting Con SS for the maxHP boost, and getting a shorter cd self-heal like Conviction (or a normal no-cd heal) if you want a heal that doesn't take hitting an enemy in melee range.
  
  To save adv points, you don't need to rank Mental Discipline as the toggle here. I'd also prob consider getting EB Frenzy w/ the Mental Block adv, so you have a decent pbAoE that can also boost ur survival when used. Another option is tapped TK Eruption w/ advs for the HoT adv and defense boost (though its on a cd).
  
  The revamped TK is quite good overall, and as you can see you have some nice options here.

  <CO stuff> .: Petco :. // A basic FF building guide (see 1st reply) // PSA on Power Activation Delay // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (misc stat data)
  - Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!

  0
• gabrion2 Posts: 18 Arc User

  January 2018

  Thank you for another round of helpful comments.

  flowcyto said:

  Siphoning is good for the healing, and is a case where the self-healing improves as dps improves, but yes it does cut pretty heavily into the combo's dps. Fortunately, much of ur dps can still come from EBA, and you can now use EBA at 5x Ego Leech as often as after every single combo (which makes Brawler's Setup quite good for it).

  Yes my testing showed that EBA is the huge damage dealer here and like you said, works well with combo with brawler (though I'm not there yet), which is part of the reason I didn't see a huge problem giving up some of the Ego Weaponry damage in exchange for healing. My PTS parse showed about 20% overall DPS loss from using siphoning vs not. Granted that was something like 7.2k dps without vs 5.8k dps with, in gear I may never see for all I know, but still seems like the possibility is there to do very meaningful DPS even with siphoning (and really in a possibly overly simplistic equation, the lost 1.4k dps is 1.4k hps, which isn't bad).
  

  flowcyto said:

  ID Mastery can also boost your dmgRes a bit in general as a slotted passive, and ranking up the block can be good. You can also consider a threat wipe, but I would prob get at least one Active Defense. You could also consider getting Con SS for the maxHP boost, and getting a shorter cd self-heal like Conviction (or a normal no-cd heal) if you want a heal that doesn't take hitting an enemy in melee range.

  I debated on slotted passive and went with night warrior for the stealth because I wanted to see how that worked in a game like this (I like it so far) and because my PTS parses showed virtually no difference between the two. Even though ID Mastery gives a higher bonus damage, maybe the penetration and reduced EBA activation was making up for it? Either way I didn't see a huge case for picking up a second passive, but will play around with this more to make sure I'm not mistaken about the impact.
  
  I will say I was torn about the value of stealth though combined with the question of travel power. I really considered taking a tunnel power rather than night warrior, but sort of didn't want to give up the overall mobility of flight. May relook at this as well, especially when I have a second travel power.
  
  The CON SS I may actually give a go. I originally picked my third SS based on my energy unlock. And I can still have some energy issues when in alerts, but when solo, I've found that force shield + force sheath is basically unlimited energy, so maybe worth switching that to REC to CON. I think when I started I also planned on using ID Mastery because the cost discount to mentalist powers which was also based on REC, but again, at least for solo content, it seems like energy management has been a non issue.
  
  For active defense, I asked in zone chat, and 3/4 people said to go with Masterful Dodge. Do you concur?

  flowcyto said:

  To save adv points, you don't need to rank Mental Discipline as the toggle here. I'd also prob consider getting EB Frenzy w/ the Mental Block adv, so you have a decent pbAoE that can also boost ur survival when used. Another option is tapped TK Eruption w/ advs for the HoT adv and defense boost (though its on a cd).

  Wow I totally didn't realize that apparently the only benefit of ranking this up is giving 3 stacks at activation rather than 1. I thought it was giving an increased bonus per stack or something. Thanks for saving me some points.
  
  Regarding EB Frenzy, I'm torn about this. I initially looked at Mental Block and Siphoning Strikes somewhat similarly - ways to turn offense into defense/healing, and thought I should take one of Ego Weaponry/EB Frenzy to fill that purpose and the other to be the DPS/ego leech builder for EBA. The problem is that EB Frenzy just doesn't seem to have as many synergies and doesn't do either role as well as Ego Weaponry. As a defensive option it can only prevent damage when channeling, can't heal up damage taken while activating EBA, and so probably requires some other heal anyway. As offense, it isn't a combo, which hurts certain synergies, and it doesn't auto grant ego leech when ego infusion is on from EBA.
  
  I do like the idea of TK eruption with advantages, wasn't on my radar but I will probably give it a try.
  

  flowcyto said:

  The revamped TK is quite good overall, and as you can see you have some nice options here.

  Yes despite my fussing over the details, it seems even the basic setup works well with this theme. It gives good DPS without too much fuss (just get 5x leech and hit EBA) and several different survivability options.
  

  0
• flowcyto Posts: 12,852 Arc User

  January 2018 edited January 2018

  Well, in the case of EB Frenzy, its use would be mainly as primary AoE- since its easier to hit w/ spherical pbAoE than melee cones. It can replace the basic combo, I suppose, but I'd usually keep their uses separate (and the combo gives an easy way to build Stress, besides).
  
  Masterful Dodge is a pretty popular AD pick, yea, mainly cause you get effectively ~50-55% final mitigation w/o needing any extra base dodge for the duration, and w/o having to rank it up. The other ADs (sans Field Surge outside of PFF builds) can also be good in their own ways, but generally aren't as efficient.
  
  NW is a good passive for any general dps build, but I may still prefer ID Mastery's more reliable defense boost and cost discount on Mentalist powers. Stealth can be nice, but you don't have any powers that specifically utilize it, and in group content most mobs will be able to see through it. I didn't mean to suggest it as a dual passive build, though- imo its kinda a waste of a power slot (and 4 adv pts) to take dual passives of the same type (offensive, here), unless ur a Support using diff auras in high end content so they don't overlap w/ others.
  
  Con SS is mostly just if you want to be sturdier. Its not essential to basic dps, but if energy can still be handled w/ it SS'd then its nice to consider to go along w/ the heavy self-healing.

  <CO stuff> .: Petco :. // A basic FF building guide (see 1st reply) // PSA on Power Activation Delay // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (misc stat data)
  - Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!

  0
• gabrion2 Posts: 18 Arc User

  January 2018

  I didn't consider the different shape of the attack on EB Frenzy, good point.
  
  Re: NW vs ID Mastery, this is something I've debated a lot in my head and am not 100% set on, so I value the feedback. NW does have a built in attack that uses stealth (forget the name) and I have found it very effective as an opener. While soloing the stories, I like being able to sneak past a lot of the mobs and I also like often being able to one shot the boss. For group content, you are correct that the stealth doesn't seem to hold up (I don't understand this mechanic in this game...why in alerts can all the mobs see me while stealthed?), but it has still served a purpose. I find myself going for the villain or super villain in a pack and often one shotting them as the group starts fighting the rest of the mobs.
  
  I could also try to take advantage of NW more by picking some other powers that benefit from stealth, but so far the only one I've seen is Ricochet Throw, which was pretty underwhelming. Are there other melee attacks that have bonus from stealth?
  
  

  0
• flowcyto Posts: 12,852 Arc User

  January 2018

  No melee attacks receive a specific stealth bonus that I know of, though Sneak in general boosts the dmg of ur next attack a bit. If you like the solo benefits, and energy is fine, then keep NW if you want.

  <CO stuff> .: Petco :. // A basic FF building guide (see 1st reply) // PSA on Power Activation Delay // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (misc stat data)
  - Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!

  0
• citizenzero

  citizenzero#3567

  Posts: 171 Arc User

  June 2018

  Would night warrior put out more damage then id mastery?

  0
• flowcyto Posts: 12,852 Arc User

  June 2018

  I think they'd be roughly comparable, but you'd prob want to parse that for your specific build.

  <CO stuff> .: Petco :. // A basic FF building guide (see 1st reply) // PSA on Power Activation Delay // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (misc stat data)
  - Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!

  0