New efforts!

[LaughingAlex]

The reason that Corruptors do more damage than Defenders, in general, is because of the Scourge Inherent power that Corruptors have. They get a damage boost when the foe's health gets below a certain point. Which comes out to some odd percentage or extra damage. I don't know the exact percentage that it averages out to.

It's very hard to say, your IRL luck and the % of health are the biggest factors for scourge.  It's 2% per health below 50%, so honestly it really depends on the timing.  Hitting something with 49% health may not amount to anything, but 25% course it'll make a big difference.

Where scourge truly kicks butt is when your attacking an archvillain, because they tned to remain at those low health %'s far longer.  But then you'd have to have a solid average for the lifespan of an AV and also account for the increasing damage the corruptor is doing on average.

[LaughingAlex]

My second toon ever was EMP/Elec that I played like a Sad Regen Blaster. The moment I gave up on my attacks and became a dedicated EMP I loved the thing. I believe the only thing I had left was Voltaic Sentinel, Short Circuit and Ball lightning that I put any effort/slots into.

All of my corruptors I loved to solo until level 30. Then I pretty much wished I was a dominator, controller or a brute. Team-wise I loved my corruptor.

Sounds to me that neither corruptor nore defender are a good class for you, since you seem alergic to attacks.  If your wishing you were a dominator/controller/brute later in the game consistently and skipping attacks on a defender I'd say stick to controllers.

[MM3squints]

I will say, going attackless on a defender or corruptor is a poor decision though.

Normally all my defenders only had 1 attack power. That's because they force you to get 1 secondary. Only exception to this was Rad/ and Cold/. Something relaxing about playing buff/debuff bot.

[LaughingAlex]

Normally all my defenders only had 1 attack power. That's because they force you to get 1 secondary. Only exception to this was Rad/ and Cold/. Something relaxing about playing buff/debuff bot.

The real problem is doing that encourages bad players to do the same in situations and missions where thats a bad idea.  Such tactics only work if your fighting only council with a stone tank.  But you'd be totally worthless in an incarnate trial as you'd not be able to contribute fully, and the game would also punish you for that by dropping your loot tables sharply.  Hell, masterminds had the worst problem of all as they'd mostly just be buffing their pets and then letting the pets do all the work, even if the player playing the mastermind was constantly telling his pets who to focus fire and even used the attack | defensive combination.

Actually the real reason it's a bad idea is obsolescence.  Because other people can do everything your doing and still launch a lot of attacks and honestly, I don't see how using attacks and buffing/debuffing at the same time is stressful.  I mean if your having a lot of time in between actions, you an use it and thing is attacks were .7 to 1.8 seconds long.  So if you needed to slow down, well then that's what a break is for.

[Great_Scott]

It's very hard to say, your IRL luck and the % of health are the biggest factors for scourge.  It's 2% per health below 50%, so honestly it really depends on the timing.  Hitting something with 49% health may not amount to anything, but 25% course it'll make a big difference.

Where scourge truly kicks butt is when your attacking an archvillain, because they tned to remain at those low health %'s far longer.  But then you'd have to have a solid average for the lifespan of an AV and also account for the increasing damage the corruptor is doing on average.

I tried very hard to test/trigger Scourge with the first Radiation Blast attack. While dual-boxing. Minimal damage (no overkill or missing the low health level) and fast recharge and activation meant that the power was a great test. No luck, Scourge was useless. Not saying Corruptors were bad overall, just that the Scourge mechanic wasn't that great outside of "rain" powers.

On a side note re: earlier posts, a Sonic/Sonic Defender actually outdamaged a Sonic/Sonic Corruptor due to the better Defender debuff modifier directly affecting damage (via -resist). I tended to not use Corrs, since, when making a (De)Buff character I wanted better base numbers and when I wanted a general damage character a Blaster was usually a better fit (keeping in mind defensive IOs).

[Great_Scott]

Normally all my defenders only had 1 attack power. That's because they force you to get 1 secondary. Only exception to this was Rad/ and Cold/. Something relaxing about playing buff/debuff bot.

I only tended to do that on MM's. It was generally tricky playing more than one properly without using a good attack power on autofire, so I did that most of the time. I don't think that other ATs could (or should) get away with that though.

Sure, if you're a great player it's an option, but if you're a great player you'd generally want to be doing/helping more.

[MM3squints]

The real problem is doing that encourages bad players to do the same in situations and missions where thats a bad idea.  Such tactics only work if your fighting only council with a stone tank.  But you'd be totally worthless in an incarnate trial as you'd not be able to contribute fully, and the game would also punish you for that by dropping your loot tables sharply.  Hell, masterminds had the worst problem of all as they'd mostly just be buffing their pets and then letting the pets do all the work, even if the player playing the mastermind was constantly telling his pets who to focus fire and even used the attack | defensive combination.

Actually the real reason it's a bad idea is obsolescence.  Because other people can do everything your doing and still launch a lot of attacks and honestly, I don't see how using attacks and buffing/debuffing at the same time is stressful.  I mean if your having a lot of time in between actions, you an use it and thing is attacks were .7 to 1.8 seconds long.  So if you needed to slow down, well then that's what a break is for.

How is playing just a buffer a bad idea? I'm sure people would ratter be fully buffed with CMs, Forts, etc so they can do their roles. If you can cycle through 4 Forts on your top DPS, I'm sure you won't give a crap your not DPSing while they are not constantly mez and knowing when their end is low they have AB on them. Being a dedicated buffer (healer secondary) your not a detriment to an incarnate trial. I'm really curious how a dedicated buffer is a bad thing an incarnate trial and how are you not fully contributing when your keeping to team moving. If you think that will just encourage "bad players" teach them to buff correctly. If they don't, well, I'm not paying their sub or their Paragon Points so let them learn the hard way when they get kicked from the team.

[Great_Scott]

How is playing just a buffer a bad idea? I'm sure people would ratter be fully buffed with CMs, Forts, etc so they can do their roles. If you can cycle through 4 Forts on your top DPS, I'm sure you won't give a crap your not DPSing while they are not constantly mez and knowing when their end is low they have AB on them. Being a dedicated buffer (healer secondary) your not a detriment to an incarnate trial. I'm really curious how a dedicated buffer is a bad thing an incarnate trial and how are you not fully contributing when your keeping to team moving. If you think that will just encourage "bad players" teach them to buff correctly. If they don't, well, I'm not paying their sub or their Paragon Points so let them learn the hard way when they get kicked from the team.

I never figured out if that was optimal. It was fun though. My personal maximum was 5 Fortitudes out at a time. I did notice that some teams tended to love the buffs and some would rather I was blasting. It's pretty difficult to do much blasting with 5 Forts/CM's on rotation when you're also healing.

I did tend to use Leadership to help buff overall damage when I wasn't putting out a lot of attacks though.

[MM3squints]

I never figured out if that was optimal. It was fun though. My personal maximum was 5 Fortitudes out at a time. I did notice that some teams tended to love the buffs and some would rather I was blasting. It's pretty difficult to do much blasting with 5 Forts/CM's on rotation when you're also healing, though.

I did tend to use Leadership to help buff overall damage when I wasn't putting out a lot of attacks though.

Damn you must have had a crazy +rech build. The most I could get off was 4 Forts with a 1606 HP build

[LaughingAlex]

I could triple-stack Fulcrum shift and still had a lot of time to attack on my defender.  I was also buffing people with speed boost and occasionally hitting them with ID.  I was even able to routinely hit things with transference and transfusion and my accuracy and to hit were such I always had 95% odds even against +5 enemies.  And I still had time to attack and I was pretty relaxed doing that. 

City of heroes was modestly paced but it wasn't like say, serious sam where your...

.....tracking that headless kamikazi or two.

.....the sirian wearbull,

..AND a Bio Mech Major's rockets from differing angles while swapping weapons

....and making snap decisions on what to use based on how much ammo you have left and whether or not you can afford to get hit or not...

...All the while planning ahead for the next wave......

....And avoiding that super pack to ensure you get the most out of that SBC cannon ammunition so when you grab the pack you effectively have more!


Nore was it starcraft one where if you were terran you were;

...Deciding if to use stimpack and also making sure the medics are near those marines...

...Constantly throwing vultures with spider mines into places and being ready to react in half a second to a sudden ambush by hydralisks or lurkers....

.....Keeping constant watch on those science vessels you definently need to deal with....

...the mutalisk swarms killing your marines that you need to kill with those science vessels that are also attempting to distract you so....

....the scourge can blitz your science vessels....

....While dodging lurkers with marines.


City of heroes had a lot of depth but it wasn't something that required the reflexes of a hamster and the actions per minute of Flash.

[MM3squints]

Depends on which buffer you are playing. For Thermal/Pain/Emps, there is lots to do in buffing and healing alone than DPSing. That why I said for the other 2 Defenders Rad/ and Cold) I took attack powers  because after you buff/debuff (both Rad/ and Cold have buff that are normally set it and forget it for couple of minutes) you can be DPSing. I actually never used my kin as a team buffer (fire/kin) just as a farmer and designed that one with farming specs.

[Great_Scott]

Damn you must have had a crazy +rech build. The most I could get off was 4 Forts with a 1606 HP build

It was always all about the +rech. Not to forget the Alpha slot stuff, that helped considerably. I'm pretty sure that I got Hasten close to overlapping on that build.

In the end I'd say it wouldn't have been worth it for any other build, but a (De)Buff Empath simply doesn't need to maximize +Healing. I was using Absorb Pain as my go-to heal, and it was well-slotted. I had Regen Aura up a lot of the time so I'd just regen back the self-damage.

[Great_Scott]

City of heroes had a lot of depth but it wasn't something that required the reflexes of a hamster and the actions per minute of Flash.

That's something I really liked about CoH, maybe more than any other aspect. The curse of the Developer Flavor-of-the-Month "Active Play", has turned almost every MMO out there into a "how good are your reflexes" game.

I'm almost 40 now, I quit playing Shooting games for a reason.

Heck, even WoW is all about dodging the crap on the ground.. even more than it had been before. No thanks!

[LaughingAlex]

For me, it's surprisingly not all my reflexes, but more my ability to plan and think ahead ahead rather than just my reflexes.  Honestly I believe relying entirely on reflexes always causes the same mistakes over and over.  This is the trouble all younger pre-17 individuals suffer.  They do not think on the fly nore ahead of time.  Often if you try to react it's often already to late, course if you react without any backup plans or anything, your very much relying on luck if all you got are reflexes.

Funniest thing is, cause of that, I can often tell when I did make a silly mistake and got lucky anymore.

The hardest levels are often such if your a one trick pony talent wise(most notably if it's only reflexes), you get crushed all the time for it.  Often, they do tend to have some kind of strategy to them.  In serious sam, often it's more important to know where you need to be to line up shots effectively and doing so ahead of time.  In the classic doom series, often knowing where you can control some of the hordes of oncoming enemies in some levels makes a difference.

In descent, though(this is a game I still have to finish, you'll know why here), you have to know ahead of time where all the Class 1 drillers are.  Because your reflexes will not let you dodge their bullets.  It's your knowledge of their locations that will let you progress, so in the end it's more "trial and error".  Save before entering deadly corner, enter, get killed in 2-3 seconds by a vulcan, reload, fire homing missile around corner or "snipe" with some lasers.  Then proceed as normal.  There is a reason I haven't finished that game yet :P.  Heck, when I was a kid I couldn't get past the first boss on the easiest setting as i'd die instantly when entering the boss room without realizing what I was doing wrong.  I know what I need to do now, course I'd have to actually find the time to play that game and I'm sure i'd need a few tries.

[ivanhedgehog]

The real problem is doing that encourages bad players to do the same in situations and missions where thats a bad idea.  Such tactics only work if your fighting only council with a stone tank.  But you'd be totally worthless in an incarnate trial as you'd not be able to contribute fully, and the game would also punish you for that by dropping your loot tables sharply.  Hell, masterminds had the worst problem of all as they'd mostly just be buffing their pets and then letting the pets do all the work, even if the player playing the mastermind was constantly telling his pets who to focus fire and even used the attack | defensive combination.

Actually the real reason it's a bad idea is obsolescence.  Because other people can do everything your doing and still launch a lot of attacks and honestly, I don't see how using attacks and buffing/debuffing at the same time is stressful.  I mean if your having a lot of time in between actions, you an use it and thing is attacks were .7 to 1.8 seconds long.  So if you needed to slow down, well then that's what a break is for.

unless they added something quietly, I was not aware that the game in anyway penalized non dps characters by affecting their loot tables. there were some fights that support toons did not necessarily go into combat. hami for instance. I took a balance of buff/debuffs and attacks on my rad/rad defender, but didnt lock myself into 1 "correct" way to participate in the combat. there were fights you couldnt use rad infection  and some where it saved everyones booty.

[LaughingAlex]

unless they added something quietly, I was not aware that the game in anyway penalized non dps characters by affecting their loot tables. there were some fights that support toons did not necessarily go into combat. hami for instance. I took a balance of buff/debuffs and attacks on my rad/rad defender, but didnt lock myself into 1 "correct" way to participate in the combat. there were fights you couldnt use rad infection  and some where it saved everyones booty.

'

The incarnate trials more tracked your actions, if you did not have a minimum number of actions or something the game would discretely reward you with consistently weaker reward tables, even outright denying you a component and giving you 10 threads as the weakest reward.  This was a problem masterminds had.  It wasn't that there was a "one correct way" but more a "one wrong way", which was not doing enough.  Masterminds, because they acted through their pets, often found themselves never getting rare/very rare components compared to other archtypes, as the game would track them doing very little even if they were giving their pets numerous commands and were doing a lot with those pets, and even buffing everyone/debuffing enemies aggressively.

This also happened I wager to attackless empaths for a while, even more-so to empaths who just had healing aura on auto cast and ignored everything in existance.  Though in the case of the really really bad ones I just mentioned that's probably a case of "you deserved the leechers reward, leech".  But in the case of the masterminds that destroyed a few mobs and managed to grab some key objectives?  To them it was unfair, certainly.

[LaughingAlex]

Heck, as above, I do believe their were some "Wrong" ways to play, there were dozens upon dozens of more right ways to play than wrong ways.  The ultimate "wrong" way was simply just leeching and doing nothing at all in a team, in which case if you got kicked for it well it wasn't unexpected.  Second to that to me is just healing aura on auto, ignoring all buffs/debuffs or not buffing adequetly you got in your attacks and whatnot, followed by merely ignoring the attacks, which was still miles ahead of the prior two bad ones, as at least your buffing your team aggressively though you could be further multiplying team effectiveness through attacks by debuffing enemies or contributing to damage if you got nothing else to do in between buff recharge times ect.

Another way of looking at it; There is no perfect way to play, but there are a scant few poor ways to play, if it makes sense.  Thats true of any game though.  Standing perfectly still in classic shooters was, to those games, the equivilent to the healing aura on auto skipping fortitude and RA's guy.  Only difference is you got aggressively punished with a rocket to the face, getting gibbed, and having a score of only 1-3 kills or even more likely a negative score for it where-as often, the attackless empath who just stood there never doing anything but reading a book on auto-follow with heal aura on auto often evaded detection by the often equally bad team leader in such teams.

[ivanhedgehog]

'

The incarnate trials more tracked your actions, if you did not have a minimum number of actions or something the game would discretely reward you with consistently weaker reward tables, even outright denying you a component and giving you 10 threads as the weakest reward.  This was a problem masterminds had.  It wasn't that there was a "one correct way" but more a "one wrong way", which was not doing enough.  Masterminds, because they acted through their pets, often found themselves never getting rare/very rare components compared to other archtypes, as the game would track them doing very little even if they were giving their pets numerous commands and were doing a lot with those pets, and even buffing everyone/debuffing enemies aggressively.

This also happened I wager to attackless empaths for a while, even more-so to empaths who just had healing aura on auto cast and ignored everything in existance.  Though in the case of the really really bad ones I just mentioned that's probably a case of "you deserved the leechers reward, leech".  But in the case of the masterminds that destroyed a few mobs and managed to grab some key objectives?  To them it was unfair, certainly.

I forgot about that..the game has been gone too long....if it comes back it will be a lot of fun relearning it all.

[brothermutant]

Hell, there was no "wrong way" to play a def or corr as far as I was concerned. But there were combos that were phenomenal: take Dark/Ice defenders for example. Sure replacing ice with Fire did more damage MOST of the time. But if you slap that tar patch down under your UBER tank/Brute team leader when he had max enemies near him/her, you could use Aim+Power Build Up+ Ice Storm and finish with the Blizzard Nuke. PRETTY numbers  ;D

And the reason for me taking ALL of Darks powers (except that lame azz black hole) was cuz the ST Hold could be combined with either of the two holds in the Ice set to lock down those annoying Loots. Plus that Fear Cone attack was BRUTAL, locked down big groups of people. And I liked Dark and Ice cuz it FELT like I was a troller that did damage. Plus I HATE fire toons (no offense to those who love them). Just hated that Fire/anything seemed to kill better than anything else.

I also made an Emp/Elec and hated him. Made the counter, an Elec/Pain and he didn't feel right either. Always liked the name Lightning Cleric but oh well. For those that never tried it, I highly recommend the Time power set too. It, to me, was what FF could have been. I mean, roll two toons on Mids, one using your best FF build (for solo and/or team play) and roll another using Time instead. WooHoo. That Time Manip was a mean motor scooter compared to even awesome secondaries like Kin, Dark, Rad or Sonic.

[Winter Fable]

Other than the incarnate trials does anyone know if reward tables were affected because of not attacking during missions?
I never ran anything other than the first 2 trials and never heard of this.It's so nice to once again hear all the builds that
were done and I hope when the game is back they offer more character slots than before because there are still so many
I want to try.