New efforts!

[Sinistar]

My Dark Melee/Electric Armor Brute had one foe in the Malta that had to be paid attention to--the Sapper. With two ways to generate endurance, so long as I dealt with them quickly the rest weren't so bad. Carnies were simply high in annoyance factor.

Heh, I remember someone made a Nemesis farm in the AE but with a custom Nemesis group that had all Nemesis minions and Bosses/AV's but instead of Nemesis Lieutenants he inserted Malta Sappers.

Thus the nemesis can't get vengeance when an Lt was dropped but instead had to face Sappers in their place. 

Fun farm.

[Balince]

Reading all this CoX talk is seriously painful, brings back all those memories and makes me want to play again so badly. Please bring CoX back! :(

[Auroxis]

The difficulty of running supplementary defense toggles like CJ, maneuvers and weave is one of the arguments in favour of a human-only or human-focused build, but to me that really wouldn't be as much fun.   8)

However, I think you can reasonably argue that Gravitic Emanation is as important as Eclipse for allowing triform WS's to solo a lot of content.  I know I used it constantly, though a long history of playing more controllers than anything else may well have influenced my playstyle towards leveraging that power.  Point being that control is just as effective as defense in mitigating debuffs.

Gravitic Emanation is a very powerful control for sure, but its KB lowers your DPS substantially unless you hover, and hitting all relevant enemies with a cone isn't easy. I'd rather rely on Defense, since it's a constant effect that doesn't require any cast time or positioning to work well.

[Soul Resonance]

Huh...pretty crazy that it's only been a year since the deal was started...this is actually a quicker deal than I thought(except all this waiting, of course  :P), reading over the timeline of events, things seemed to have happened pretty quick up till this point with Nexon. Im sure it'll pick back up in a few months/finish out  :)

[Fable]

Can't believe it's almost been a year, it feels like its been so much longer. This wait is brutal. I need Fallout 4 to come out to take mind of it.

[Arcana]

Gravitic Emanation is a very powerful control for sure, but its KB lowers your DPS substantially unless you hover, and hitting all relevant enemies with a cone isn't easy. I'd rather rely on Defense, since it's a constant effect that doesn't require any cast time or positioning to work well.

The effects of KB on DPS were questionable: the dogma claimed higher effects than were actually measurable.  However, the principle behind it were based largely on the concept of scatter: that KB dispersed targets that would otherwise be easier for AoEs to hit simultaneously.  Most KB powers did not induce as much scatter as people believed, and in particular Gravitic Emanation is one of those "good" AoEs that has a 100% chance to KB.  Powers like Energy Torrent only had a 60% chance to KB a target.  This means even if you hit every target in the cone, only about half will get knocked back while the rest will remain where they are.  That's a potentially large amount of scatter.  However, GE had a 100% chance to KB, which means every target  you hit will likely get thrown a comparable amount of distance, and radial dispersion isn't that high in a 45 degree cone.

Why KB wasn't as much of a factor as people seemed to think it was is simply the fact that most of the time most players cannot stream AoEs constantly.  The vast majority of everyone's attack chains are AoEs mixed with single target attacks.  Such chains are not as vulnerable to scatter hurting DPS than the mythical case of everything spawning in one place while everyone attacks that single point with large area AoEs.  In fact, if you are on such a team, KB would be irrelevant because everything would die before KB had a chance to scatter them.

KB always got a more severe rap than it honestly deserved.  It was excellent migitation with minimal offensive compromise.  In fact, controller holds contributed more to lowering DPS in teams with tanks because they prevented tanks from aggregating spawns with taunting effects.  Only lunatics suggested controllers should not try to hold things.  KB was just an easier whipping boy in my opinion.

Honestly, I had no idea how bad blasters really had it until I started branching out and playing non-Energy blasters.  The migitation in Energy, at least until you get to comparing extremely high performance builds, is actually extraordinary.  Its even more valuable than the controls and debuffs in Ice blast in many cases.  It wasn't until I started playing Fire blasters and Ice blasters and Electric blasters that I really genuinely understood just how much of a punching bag the blaster archetype was.  Its hard to notice when everything is spending most of its time trying to stand up when you're using KB effectively.

[Sinox23]

hey is there any news yet on talks

[Vee]

hey is there any news yet on talks

Yes!

[brothermutant]

I had a Dark Melee/Elec armor brute, Dark Sparkk I think I called him. He was fun actually. LOTS of Res, a couple ways to get Enf, a couple heal moves, decent PBAoE stuff for a tanker feel, and he had a decent amount of -ToHit in his normal attacks. I even went and got a Darkest Night toggle in his Epics IIRC. He had piss for Def but didn't really need it. He could really take a beating.

As for everyones luv fest for the MM class...totally agree. I had so much fun with MMs. I just wish they would have let my Crab Soldier's spider pets behave like MM pets (even if they were not permanent or even didn't get the "MM pet buff" for being near you, you could have added to their def/dmg/to hit with the Leadership pool powers). Always wanted those Spider pets to DO MY BIDDING.

As to sets that I never got the hang of...PBs, WSs and that night widow class always seemed to be boring to me. Don't know why. I do know I hated the PB sounds for their attacks, so did my teammates.

[Blackout]

Can't believe it's almost been a year, it feels like its been so much longer. This wait is brutal. I need Fallout 4 to come out to take mind of it.

I thought it was waaaaaayyyy longer than that. I might be mistaken, but didn't Nate say something about approaching running into NCsoft and laying the groundwork for the deal not too long after the shutdown? I might be remembering though.

[Thezanman]

I liked all of the classes, but I wasn't very good at using stalkers effectively.

[Auroxis]

I liked all of the classes, but I wasn't very good at using stalkers effectively.

Stalkers in a nutshell: Move ahead of the team's anchor (usually a brute/tanker) and try to get your AS to hit the second the anchor gets aggro. Aim your AS at a boss, of course.

With the stalker ATO proc and AS DPS buff, Stalkers got really really good. My Elec/Nin stalker had scrapper-level DPS and survivability, A mini-nuke every other mob that doesn't break hide in Lightning Rod(combined it with Spring Attack for extra damage), and extra AoE damage out of hide in Thunder Strike.

[chuckv3]

  Its hard to notice when everything is spending most of its time trying to stand up when you're using KB effectively.

Yep. Energy/Energy was best played as a blapper (at least solo)!  I loved using snipe on the LT, SS in, and start juggling the rest of the group. It's such an adrenaline rush, since one missed knock can turn into defeat, yet perfect juggling often resulted in zero damage. Fun, fun, fun.

[Super Firebug]

hey is there any news yet on talks

In this Task Force Hail Mary section, there's a locked, stickied post called "Purchase Attempt: Wake Me Up When There's News!" Any new developments in the negotiations will be posted there, so that we don't have to ask or go combing through (currently) 19,000+ posts (in this thread alone), trying to find out if there's news. When that thread shows "2 replies", there'll be news.

[brothermutant]

Yeah I think Energy/Energy was the first blaster I made. I definitely played him like a blapper though. Was a LOT of fun though, only issue I had was the KB that seemed to irritate all my teammates. I did see a forum post back then that talked about KB tactics ("Zen and the art of Knockback" I think it was called) that I directed ALL players that liked the KB to read. It was truly a life-saver. I got so good at it that I herded mobs closer to the tank/scrappers. Still caught grief from some players, but until I was kicked from the group, its how I played.

As to why others seemed to hate KB was, from what I was told, because stalkers/scrappers would lock target and auto-run to them so they were always running around pointlessly because I scattered the baddies to the four winds.

[ivanhedgehog]

Yeah I think Energy/Energy was the first blaster I made. I definitely played him like a blapper though. Was a LOT of fun though, only issue I had was the KB that seemed to irritate all my teammates. I did see a forum post back then that talked about KB tactics ("Zen and the art of Knockback" I think it was called) that I directed ALL players that liked the KB to read. It was truly a life-saver. I got so good at it that I herded mobs closer to the tank/scrappers. Still caught grief from some players, but until I was kicked from the group, its how I played.

As to why others seemed to hate KB was, from what I was told, because stalkers/scrappers would lock target and auto-run to them so they were always running around pointlessly because I scattered the baddies to the four winds.

I was doing an ITF with my stone/em tank as main tank. the stormy decides to put on hurricane and stand right on top of me. of course there is no way I will be able to hit anything or get away from him in granite form. I asked him to stop, he replies that he will play how he wants to. so I kicked him. now he can have a wonderful time solo.
my first toon was a energy/fire blaster. I learned to leverage kb to be the most use for me and my party. Many sets had abilities that were very bad for team play, if used incorrectly.

[Shibboleth]

Yeah I think Energy/Energy was the first blaster I made. I definitely played him like a blapper though. Was a LOT of fun though, only issue I had was the KB that seemed to irritate all my teammates. I did see a forum post back then that talked about KB tactics ("Zen and the art of Knockback" I think it was called) that I directed ALL players that liked the KB to read. It was truly a life-saver. I got so good at it that I herded mobs closer to the tank/scrappers. Still caught grief from some players, but until I was kicked from the group, its how I played.

As to why others seemed to hate KB was, from what I was told, because stalkers/scrappers would lock target and auto-run to them so they were always running around pointlessly because I scattered the baddies to the four winds.

I am reminded of the time fighting in the mission where you're on a catwalk working your way down this large, circular path when the Energy Blaster knocked a demon off the edge and the Fire Tank auto followed over the edge to her death.

[Vee]

I remember the most fun i ever had on an itf was the time no one felt like being tanky and we took 5 stormies, a couple veats and a blaster. Just hilarious to watch the chaos of intersecting hurricanes.

[Arcana]

I was doing an ITF with my stone/em tank as main tank. the stormy decides to put on hurricane and stand right on top of me. of course there is no way I will be able to hit anything or get away from him in granite form. I asked him to stop, he replies that he will play how he wants to. so I kicked him. now he can have a wonderful time solo.
my first toon was a energy/fire blaster. I learned to leverage kb to be the most use for me and my party. Many sets had abilities that were very bad for team play, if used incorrectly.

That's not a problem with knockback, that's a problem with asshats.  Without knockback, he'd just be speedboosting everyone in cave missions or standing in doorways with all his controller pets.  The devs didn't put a confirmation for recall friend because of excessive knockback.

[Remaugen]

I liked all of the classes, but I wasn't very good at using stalkers effectively.

Aside from my Healer (Defender), my Stalker (Blade/Regen, I think) was by far the easiest to level solo, not that it was a total cake walk (The healer was though!) by any means. I had missions that stalled me for a time, but assassins strike and evade always came through in the end.