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Ego vs Pressence
alexdrako
Posts: 15 Arc User
Hello everyone,
I am yet another CoH refugee and I have been trying to learn as much as I can from this game's mechanics. While I love most of it, some of these concepts are quite alien to me. I have been using a build i found on this forums with some mino tweaks of my own in order to recreate one of my characters here... I wanted high survival in order to unleash as much AoE as possible.
Now, my confusion comes from Ego and Pressence. See, I use the wiki a lot, and these forums I like to roam around byt the way the mechanics work here i find myself sometimes more confused than clarified. I see some fire builds recomending Ego as a primary stat, yet on the wiki it says Pressence is the one stat you want as a primary if you are runing a fire character...
Is there an "explain it to me like if I was a five year old?" guide around here regarding characteristics and building effective characters? Like i said, I have been reading some of the freeform guides here, but are still a bit too technical for me to grasp my mind around it... that and I would like to come up with some character concepts that will require a bit of mix and match accross powersets.
Any help would be appreciated, and I pasted the build I mentioned for reference!
I am yet another CoH refugee and I have been trying to learn as much as I can from this game's mechanics. While I love most of it, some of these concepts are quite alien to me. I have been using a build i found on this forums with some mino tweaks of my own in order to recreate one of my characters here... I wanted high survival in order to unleash as much AoE as possible.
Now, my confusion comes from Ego and Pressence. See, I use the wiki a lot, and these forums I like to roam around byt the way the mechanics work here i find myself sometimes more confused than clarified. I see some fire builds recomending Ego as a primary stat, yet on the wiki it says Pressence is the one stat you want as a primary if you are runing a fire character...
Is there an "explain it to me like if I was a five year old?" guide around here regarding characteristics and building effective characters? Like i said, I have been reading some of the freeform guides here, but are still a bit too technical for me to grasp my mind around it... that and I would like to come up with some character concepts that will require a bit of mix and match accross powersets.
Any help would be appreciated, and I pasted the build I mentioned for reference!
amazingproton wrote: »WELCOME EVERYONE
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name:
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Ego (Primary)
Level 10: Recovery (Secondary)
Level 15: Endurance (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: Incandescent
Level 6: Survival Training
Level 9: Sniper Training
Level 12: Shooter
Level 15: Amazing Stamina
Level 18: Lasting Impression
Level 21: Finesse
Powers:
Level 1: Throw Fire
Level 1: Thermal Reverberation
Level 6: Fireball (Unstable Accelerant)
Level 8: Invulnerability (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Conflagration (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 14: Field Surge (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Force Shield (Force Sheathe)
Level 20: Flashfire (Rank 2, Sweltering Heat)
Level 23: Immolation
Level 26: Mindful Reinforcement (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 29: Defile (Rank 2, Plague Bearer)
Level 32: Fire Snake (Rank 2, Trail Blazer)
Level 35: Heat Wave (Engulfing Flames)
Level 38: Electric Sheath (Matter ? Energy Union)
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Phoenix Flight (Rank 2)
Level 35: Blazing Speed
Specializations:
Ego: Mental Endurance (1/3)
Ego: Force of Will (2/2)
Ego: Insight (2/3)
Ego: Follow Through (3/3)
Ego: Sixth Sense (2/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Guardian: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Guardian: Ruthless (2/2)
Guardian: Retribution (2/2)
Guardian: The Best Defense (3/3)
Mastery: Ego Mastery (1/1)
Post edited by alexdrako on
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Comments
now it scales with END. Also EGO in the past was needed for crit severity and now gives
ranged damage and also pusheds concentration.
So the reason is that a lot infos are outdated from changes that were made with On Alert
and also recently with the form changes.
So I should not rely on the wiki as much, got it! :biggrin:
as for your specific questions:
the reason why the wiki suggested presence is because fire's energy unlock used to scale with it (just goes to show how outdated it is, it's been atleast 4 months iirc since that change was made).
fire's energy unlock(a way to get energy back, a passive boost to your blue bar) thermal reverberation, now scales with endurance.
the dmg potency of fire is considered one of the highest, since you have alot of powers that stack debuffs to fire/burning/elemental dmg.
as an example:
fire snake
heatwave
fireball
with all that being said, the reason for ego is because of what that specific stat adds.. which is ranged dmg bonus by a % amount(fire is all ranged powers)
on top of that, there are additive forms that are basically toggles that stay on once you activate them, there's a melee form (all the martial arts ones, enrage,beastial aspect) and there's ranged forms (concentration, infernal aspect).
they both increase both types of dmg but, one increases more than the other and vise versa.
so all in all, you have fire snake, heatwave and fireball, and your ranged form which is boosted by your ego, that also boosts your ranged dmg.
hope this clears most of it out, yw and welcome to CO! :cool:
Edit: doh! beldin got to it first dammit :P
My build directory (work in progress)
Guide list
Freeform Builds
In loving memory of AngelofCaine.
I will be roaming these forums a lot, or else my OCD with builds will get the best out of me! Thanks for the help!
Oh, and the build I posted I plan to change that suggested heal with Drones... Other than that, anything any of the good folks here think I should change?
Which "suggested heal" were you replacing with Drones? That was going to be one of my suggestions, actually--I don't see a real self-heal in that build (never really thought of Mindful Reinforcement as a heal).
That build also doesn't have a toggle/form. Toggles are very helpful powers--you can only take one of them, and it functions much like a passive. It's always on (if you turn it on--it'll switch off when you die, etc.), and stacks when you do whatever it takes to build stacks of that particular power. For instance, Form of the Tempest, a Dual Blades power, gives you a stack of Focus whenever you score a Critical Hit. When you gain a stack, you'll get some Energy returned to you, and each stack increases your damage by a certain percentage (max 8 stacks).
You'll want a toggle in every build. For yours, I'd suggest Concentration (find it in the Technology powersets--Power Armor, Munitions, etc.). Its damage and energy return scales off of Ego (your Primary SS), and you can build its stacks easily (Concentration stacks come from charging or maintaining ranged attacks--you've got several of both). This will help your damage and energy management out quite a bit. Not exactly sure what you'd want to drop for it, but it looks like Heat Wave is probably the least necessary part of that build.
Other than that--I'm no build master, and certainly not an expert on Fire, but that looks like you'll have quite a bit of survivability and plenty of ways to make stuff go BOOM.
Welcome to CO!
Short & sweet explanation.
STR and EGO are very similar as in the relate primarily to knock strength and an additional damage bonus.
STR's knock and damage bonus is for melee powers.
EGO's knock and damage bonus is for ranged powers.
Now there are a few other nuances like that, advantages that can switch EGO and STR scaling, and STR gives knock resistance. But in general, STR is melee, EGO is ranged.
PRE is something entirely different. In this game, PRE is most notably the stat you want to get if you want stronger heals (or force bubbles). In addition to boosting your heal strength, it boosts crowd control strength (how hard your holds, stuns, roots, etc. are to break out off and how long they last).
Fire used to involve PRE though the energy unlock, Thermal Reverberation. Fortunately this got changed to END. Unfortunately, they didn't leave PRE as an alternative scaling option (like how they gave you a choice on Imbue with CON or PRE), screwing lots of people including myself and xaoGarrett out of out current build energy mechanics with no free RetCon token (as far as I recall). But anyways that's that. Fire now is more reliant on END, not PRE.
Local lingo tip for this game:
Use the first three letters of a stat in all caps and people will immediately know you mean a stat and not something else that can get confused with it. This includes DEF & OFF. The only exception to this are the % based stats like dodge/avoidance (sometimes D/A for short) and critical chance/strike and critical severity. You'll always see experienced build creators and traders, including myself, be writing it shorthand like this. (also, AH = auction house, and g = gold = global resources)
QFT. (quoted for truth)
FALSE! This depends entirely on the specific build and how the synergies work.
In general you want one of each of the following, but with the slotted passive being the MOST important/mandatory and the on-next-hit being the LEAST important / most optional. In fact you won't even want to bother with an on-next-hit for most builds if there's another power that's better in it's place.
http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Buff_Self
I would agree.
Fireball with the Unstable Accelerant advantage is frequently underestimated, you can break some really high DPS thresholds with that. Keep in mind Fire mostly works by dealing lots of DoT hits that follow up on your spike damage hits, for a high total damage per second (DPS) output.
Like most of the energy projector tree of powers, if you choose one you kind of want to stick with it unless you passive permits otherwise (i.e.: Stormbringer). There is no "blended"/"mixed" energy projector slotted passive that includes fire at this time, although I keep suggesting it to Cryptic (i.e.: Fire, Lightning, and Paranormal damage types as an offensive slotted passive)
If you're clever you can make an exceptionally strong build that uses powers that make sense from an aesthetic and lore standpoint. This is called theme building and it's what I focus on heavily. It's also really challenging, because it's not just a FotM build, you have to learn the game mechanics, stats, gear, and power advantages inside & out; how they work together or have "synergy" together as we often say.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
I would like, down the road, to know how to theme build in an effective way. Concept is important, but having a concept and make it WORK is even better.
All of my builds are theme or concept builds. Sometimes this is easy, like when it's a classic type character whose powers all make sense together. Sometimes it's more difficult. But it's always more fun to follow a theme (visually, at least) while still being effective.
Keep posting questions and requests on here; there are a lot of pretty sharp folks still kicking around on the forums, and there are people like me who might at least be able to steer you in the right way or link you to stuff that has been around awhile. Plenty of good resources on here if you need them.
Me too and I feel the same.
Well said!
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
The primary reason that you are selecting EGO in that build is to make the EGO specialization tree available. Specifically Follow Through and Sixth Sense in combination will give you the highest potential Critical Chance and Critical Severity and still offer you the %bonus damage to all ranged damage from the EGO stat itself.
Ideally, however, you would pair both EGO and DEX together, for the highest critical chances - still using EGO as your primary.
The reason critical chance is so important in the current implementation of the game, is that there are softcaps in play that prevent your bonuses to damage from reaching epic DPS proportions. As a result, people tend to raise their %damage bonus only so high, and then invest in Crit, and finally, in resistance debuffs they can apply to mobs (most people overlook the latter, but your build has this in SPADES).
OK, back on track. In the case of this build I don't think REC and END are both necessary. Once you've stacked on cost reduction gear (heroic primary utility gear + cost reduction mod) at level 40, and with thermal reverb scaling from END, I don't think you're going to need REC as a secondary SS. I'd personally have gone with EGO primary, and DEX/END secondary.
I completely agree that Concentration is your best bet as a FORM toggle, and it's energy returns and damage will scale off of EGO. And heatwave is likely the power you want to swap for it.
So Thermal reverb will scale from END.
DEX will add crit chance to your build.
EGO also adds an extra bonus % to damage, and crit severity, and scales energy return and damage from Concentration FORM, so it becomes your most important stat.
I would probably recommend, once you have heroic gear slotted with rank 5 mods, to finish with a stat balance something like 300 EGO and split the rest between DEX and END.
Without direct (recent) experience with energy management for Fire, I can still see that END and EGO in combination determine your energy management. END from thermal reverb, and EGO from concentration FORM (assuming you add that to the build). Once you have enough energy - you have enough. So again, no point taking END too high either. In fact, as your EGO is higher you get more from concentration, and need your END even LESS.
You can test how much END you need by not slotting all your mods into your gear. I would start out with 300 EGO as a baseline, give or take. Then test in the powerhouse (or elsewhere) to see how the energy returns look. If it's not good enough, slot another END mod, and try again. Once your energy is good, stop slotting END mods. Push the rest into DEX.
When your Crit rating and DEX combined hit about 400 you will start seeing massive diminishing returns. Your crit percent should be at about 45-50% in the character sheet at this point. Keep in mind you get a lot of crit rating from your heroic primary offence gear, slotted with a Gambler's Gem. So you probably won't want to raise DEX past about 250 - even as your gear gets better.
After that, push everything into EGO, as your gear improves.
Your build has a ridiculous amount of bubbles. With PRE and using an offensive passive that would make a lot of sense. But given your build has invulnerability it's not making any sense to me at all. Damage is subtracted from your bubbles first before Invuln comes into play, so it's kind of wasted. It's a better idea to employ healing than bubbles on a toon using a defensive passive, at least in pve. So mindful reinforcement, field surge and even electric sheath with matter/energy union are non-optimal imo. I would dump them all.
I'd select a heal instead of mindful reinforcement. Support drones are good, or since you have high crit, conviction would also be a solid option. The nice thing about support drones is you don't have to waste time on them - they just do their work and do it well. The downside is they are vulnerable, and they will often die. Conviction has a cooldown of about 5 seconds, so it requires constant attention.
I'd select Ego Surge instead of electric sheath (I'd raise it to rank 3 personally).
I'd select masterful dodge (you only need rank 1) instead of field surge as your clicky defense.
I'd personally replace immolate with lock and load, which has more crit benefits.
Force Shield will probably be completely unecessary in this build, assuming proper energy management. Keep in mind that the build was designed BEFORE you could select concentration as a FORM for energy manegment, and before thermal reverb scaled from END. I don't think you need it now.
You may want to forgo a block replacement entirely, or you might want to go with something more defensive like Ebon Void with it's advantage. If you forego a block replacer you can grab a second heal. Either way it's up to you, the build is solid regardless at this point.
Now it's looking more like this:
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name:
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Ego (Primary)
Level 10: Dexterity (Secondary)
Level 15: Endurance (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Inferno
Level 6: Shooter
Level 9: Accurate
Level 12: Daredevil
Level 15: Impresario
Level 18: Wordly
Level 21: Amazing Stamina
Powers:
Level 1: Throw Fire
Level 1: Thermal Reverberation
Level 6: Fireball (Unstable Accelerant)
Level 8: Invulnerability (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Conflagration (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 14: Concentration
Level 17: Conviction (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 20: Flashfire (Rank 2, Sweltering Heat)
Level 23: Defile (Rank 2, Plague Bearer)
Level 26: Fire Snake (Rank 2, Trail Blazer)
Level 29: Ego Surge (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 32: Masterful Dodge
Level 35: Lock N Load
Level 38: Support Drones (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Blazing Speed (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Fire Flight
Specializations:
Ego: Mental Endurance (1/3)
Ego: Force of Will (2/2)
Ego: Insight (2/3)
Ego: Follow Through (3/3)
Ego: Sixth Sense (2/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Guardian: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Guardian: Ruthless (2/2)
Guardian: Find the Mark (2/3)
Guardian: The Best Defense (3/3)
Mastery: Ego Mastery (1/1)
You can decide on a block replacer, heatwave (if you decide you do want it), support drones as an additional heal, or lock and load - pick any 2 and balance adv points accordingly.
And lastly, please take my comments with a grain of salt. I am familiar with the mechanics, but haven't directly played a fire toon since On Alert came out.
If you however want also a little more life and have CON as Superstat, i always take
DEX / CON / Energy-Stat with Form of the Tempest for leveling, even on ranged chars
and retcon them with 40 to EGO / CON / Energy-Stat and Concentration.
With Crit-Gear at 40 you get at least 38% crit and a little over 100% severity without
investing in Dex. Only maybe an Acute Belt for secondary Offense.
For Energy Management with Fire and Electric i always still took some REC. I think one
R5 REC Mod and Garrison Bracers as secondary Defense.
I'll stick with Force Field as a block replacement because it has become thematic for the character, but yes, I will be getting rid of the bubbles, I got rid of Field Surge last night to get Concentration and I havent looked back.
Hm, having two heals! great idea*check*
My question is! What are these? How expensive are there? :P
As far as leveling go? What do I do with equipment? Whatever I can get the best Ego out for?
At level 40 you can run something called UNITY (available at the UNTIL building if you know where that is) and all missions within (there's a mission grouping of 6 missions you can run once a real life day) give our Silver Champion Tokens as rewards. Once you do it for 6 days, you can then purchase the absolute best Primary slot items in the entire game (two days per Primary item).
Really, really simple to get. No grinding needed. And the mods for them will drop as you run said missions (or you grab them from the AH relatively cheap).
Razira's Primus Database Page
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