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Cheston
Jul 17, 2012

(he's got a good thing going)

Toshimo posted:

hot, sweaty derails.

Just, all of you, stop now. The horse is dead.

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Sandwich Anarchist
Sep 12, 2008

Toshimo posted:

You seem pretty upset about this, bro. Tell me more about how it should be derided. Give me the hot, sweaty details.

Threadshit more. It's really helping the conversation!

As far why it should be derided, new players will see this build in the OP, most will use it, most will get bored with the game thinking they have no options. Almost all of the fun of TSW, to me at least, is playing with the skills and trying to find sweet combos that maximize my power. When I realize that I just figured out a wonderful synergy on my own, it keeps me wanting to play.

Kyrosiris
May 24, 2006

You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".



Cheston posted:

Just, all of you, stop now. The horse is dead.

And on someone's face!

Reverend Dr
Feb 9, 2005

Thanks Reverend

Before it gets deleted

Joel Bylos is always
working at his office regularly and diligently, without
wasting time chatting with colleagues. He never
refuses to spend time to help others and yet he
finishes his projects on time. Very often, he extends
his hours to complete his work, sometimes skipping
coffee breaks. He is a person who has absolutely no
vanity in spite of his outstanding achievements and his high
computer skills. He is the kind of person everybody
speaks with great esteem and respect, the kind of person you can’t
dismiss. I firmly believe that he is ready for the
promotion he asks for, considering everything he brings to the
door. Funcom will emerge stronger.

Cheston
Jul 17, 2012

(he's got a good thing going)
I miss the good stuff. #FreeEvilBillMurray

**Actually, I don't miss the good stuff either, but, uh

Cheston fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Jun 4, 2013

Amante
Jan 3, 2007

...


Ha, that's clever.

midnightclimax
Dec 3, 2011

by XyloJW

50 Foot Ant posted:

See the two tracks when you go to spend your SP (Skill Points) for each weapon? Fist is a good one to look at on the picture. See how there's heal and damage. You can put SP into either.

DO NOT try to keep those two balanced.

Go with one track or the other and get it to 10 before worrying about that second track. That will save you massive SP, and let you get up to QL10 in your talismans and weapons much quicker than if you were blowing your SP on 2 extra tracks. I prefer the damage track, but your mileage may vary.

I'm in Egypt now, guess what I have been doing the whole time. :suicide: Ah well, time to go full glass cannon I guess.

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!
Okay, after testing my AR/Pistol leech healing build, it's... slower than my Pistols/Ele solo, but infinitely more stable. I'll only die if I get ganged up on by the guys int he Roman baths, everything else in the Carpathians so far poses no threat.

RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

Cleretic posted:

I'll only die if I get ganged up on by the guys int he Roman baths

Seems like quite a way to die.

Dreadwroth
Dec 12, 2009

by R. Guyovich
Oh my loving god, I've been trying to keep my weapon skill tracks even too. I feel extra super dumb right now, but in my defence there is no information ingame telling you can do that. I thought I had to keep both tracks of a weapon even to level up the QL. Sooooo are there any respecs?
Yeah there totally aren't are there.
Blast!

orcane
Jun 13, 2012

Fun Shoe
There aren't, but it's not like those points are wasted - you just could have reached QL10 faster or branched out to different weapons earlier.

FrancoFish posted:

That won't really hold up once you hit transylvania, if it's anything like it was on release. You pretty much need to have some kind of survivability based deck to stand a chance. That place was a huge meatgate for alot of people around release time.
I don't know, I soloed everything but The Girl who kicked the Vampire's Nest and Last Dance of the Padurii in blues with a DPS build. The only things I adjusted were wearing a HP talisman and switching out some passives for specific nightmare areas (any self-healing for Ripples, Close Quarters for the hell soldiers in Shadowy Forest, Magnum or 12 Gouge for the spectres, Bloodsport for the cryo vampires in Carpathian Fangs). Even for emergencies I prefer to use QL3 leech potions instead of survivability skills.

Hinder/impair won't help as a general guideline though because vampires are debuff-resistant and nightmare mobs are outright immune, except a few which specifically want to be stunned/slowed to deal with their nightmare effects.

midnightclimax posted:

I'm in Egypt now, guess what I have been doing the whole time. :suicide: Ah well, time to go full glass cannon I guess.
Don't worry, you're not going to be noticeably more squishy, because those healing or survivability tracks don't make that much of a difference (the tank ones seem nice until you realize you probably shouldn't be soloing in tank gear so they will hardly ever proc).

Personally I always focused on my main weapons' damage tracks, but added one point in each track early to get the secondary effect (possible exceptions: pistol drone and shotgun turret skills). I think the only weapon where putting points into the secondary effect first/only is actually useful is elemental. The support skill gives a damage buff if manifestations hit (and you eventually want to use manifestations), the damage skill procs additional damage on nearby mobs, adding to AoE damage - and possibly pulling neutral mobs nearby.

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

orcane posted:

There aren't, but it's not like those points are wasted - you just could have reached QL10 faster or branched out to different weapons earlier.

I don't know, I soloed everything but The Girl who kicked the Vampire's Nest and Last Dance of the Padurii in blues with a DPS build. The only things I adjusted were wearing a HP talisman and switching out some passives for specific nightmare areas (any self-healing for Ripples, Close Quarters for the hell soldiers in Shadowy Forest, Magnum or 12 Gouge for the spectres, Bloodsport for the cryo vampires in Carpathian Fangs). Even for emergencies I prefer to use QL3 leech potions instead of survivability skills.

Hinder/impair won't help as a general guideline though because vampires are debuff-resistant and nightmare mobs are outright immune, except a few which specifically want to be stunned/slowed to deal with their nightmare effects.

Yeah, Transylvania's not that bad. A glass cannon DPS build will do pretty well, although you might want more HP than the base amount and that still might not cut it in places like the Roman baths, the Soviet bunkers and to a lesser extent the Carpathian monastery. You might like to have something better suited for it, but it's not that bad.

orcane
Jun 13, 2012

Fun Shoe

50 Foot Ant posted:

Glyphs
[...]
You can only put in defensive or offensive runes, BUT you can put two different types of runes in to get two different bonuses.
Actually that's not true, although I see every crafting guide out there perpetuating that statement so it probably was true at some point. You can't find them as drops or on randomly generated gear, but you can make hybrid offensive/defensive glyphs even though not all combinations are equally useful.



The chart lists all rune combinations and their glyph prefixes. Healers or DPS don't care about defensive stats in PvE but someone might use hybrid glyphs for PvP. Tanks on the other hand do care about hit and possibly pen so you could make hybrid glyphs with those and block or defense, eg.

Also for someone new who makes their own glyphs: You probably shouldn't make QL10 green ones, they take the same pure materials as QL10 blues/purples which consist of 5 sacred materials each, the highest material quality you get from drops and disassembled gear. Blue QL10 glyph toolkits will be plentiful in elites so don't waste your materials on QL10 greens if you can help it.

orcane fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Jun 4, 2013

Amante
Jan 3, 2007

...


Cleretic posted:

Okay, after testing my AR/Pistol leech healing build, it's... slower than my Pistols/Ele solo, but infinitely more stable. I'll only die if I get ganged up on by the guys int he Roman baths, everything else in the Carpathians so far poses no threat.
It is a smidge slower than a pure DPS soloing build, but infinitely more stable as you say. As your gear gets better and you tweak the build more, you'll find you can pump out more damage than expected.

Using Three Round Burst often is key; try and save Transfuse Anima for heavy amounts of incoming damage. Don't be afraid to use your cooldowns, either. Leeching gets the most damage from stacking as many percent damage boosting effects at once. With the right gear and passives, you can do ridiculous amounts of damage by popping some combination of Do or Die, Energise, and Deadly Aim.

orcane posted:

Actually that's not true, although I see every crafting guide out there perpetuating that statement so it probably was true at some point. You can't find them as drops or on randomly generated gear, but you can make hybrid offensive/defensive glyphs even though not all combinations are equally useful.
I think they stealth changed this at some point, as you didn't used to be able to. Are you able to do hybrid glyphs with the Nightwatch glyph kits? Because those're the only ones that really matter.

Edit:
I think you can. What's really a bummer is that you can't get 10.4+ hybrid statted talismans, though :(

Amante fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Jun 4, 2013

orcane
Jun 13, 2012

Fun Shoe
You definitely can, I made one two days ago to test just that (I already knew you could make them with other kits as I've done that before) when someone in Mumble claimed you couldn't.

clone on the phone
Aug 5, 2003

Cleretic posted:

Okay, after testing my AR/Pistol leech healing build, it's... slower than my Pistols/Ele solo, but infinitely more stable. I'll only die if I get ganged up on by the guys int he Roman baths, everything else in the Carpathians so far poses no threat.

I would like to see your build if you don't mind. I'm trying to put together a Pistol/AR leech thing and could use some inspiration.

Amante
Jan 3, 2007

...


Here's a basic AR/Pistol leech build for soloing. Abilities in parentheses are optional stuff you can mess around with.

Actives: Anima Shot/Burst, Three Round Burst, Transfuse Anima, Do or Die, Energise, Deadly Aim, (Lock & Load), (Turn the Tables)
Passives: Anima Boost/Improved Bursts, Twist the Knife, Eagle Eye, Lethality, Elemental Force, Experience, (Accuracy), (Anticoagulant)

To transition the build to group use, you don't need to change much. Ditch Turn the Tables or Anticoagulant if you're using them, making sure to take Accuracy as your "flex" passive. This means you use it most of the time, but replace it with another passive when needed, such as Iron Maiden/Overpenetration (for Polaris/Slaughterhouse NM) or Fever Pitch (for Hell Raised/Fallen/Eternal NM).

Amante fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Jun 4, 2013

Rascyc
Jan 23, 2008

Dissatisfied Puppy

GEMorris posted:

No, that build is pretty awful and more than one goon was rudely awakened when they tried to start doing group content and no one wanted to group with them.

That skill point plan is literally the worst advancement plan I have ever seen for this game.
What level group content? I tanked all of Solomon island with 4 buttons (that are on that suggested guide), agitator and fluid defense. If a DPS showed up in like QL 8s-10s I just let him tank the mob for me if he happened to get aggro. I did pretty much every instance and quest on Solomon island which left me at like ~150AP so you should be able to branch out perfectly fine from there. Honestly that guide is really AP cheap in the grand scheme of things so I'm kind of wondering how people were rudely awakened if they're any decent at MMOs already.

Push comes to shove, the normal mode group content is brain dead easy and tuned very low as long as you don't stand in fire regularly and keeping aggro as a tank is brain dead easy in Solomon Island if you have Escalation or Blade Torrent + agitator unless a QL 10 DPS comes along for the ride. DPS can practically do anything too.

Personally I don't think it's the best advice to just give a flat build but I am sure there are people who want it. You're probably better off mentioning the search tool, and how if you want to use an ability like Blade Torrent you should identify the properties of Blade Torrent and search on that to find abilities that go well with it. Blade Torrent -> Frenzy -> Leeching Frenzy. Do that type of practice if you want to assemble builds on your own. Otherwise hit the Google machine and jut type your favorite two weapons and solo build and look for forum posts in 2013 and use common sense.

Beach Party
May 2, 2012

"I took the most excellent hit of my life. Next thing I knew, I was on the beach taking in some cosmic rays gettin healed by mother nature. Takin in a little brewski, holdin on to a beautiful babe. And I'm fine today!"
Is there a web site that has a synopsis of the story lines in each of the zones? I just re-installed the game and i kind of forgot what happened in the other zones before hitting Transylvania. It would be nice to catch up on what happened while at work today.

guppy
Sep 21, 2004

sting like a byob
That build is not for group content, it's for soloing and it is pretty good for that. There are of course other options which is why that build is not in the loving OP and no one is saying it should be so I don't understand why people are saying that it is.

If you mean Nightmares, the OP already covers the fact that DPS need to be ranged. If you mean leveling content then you're full of poo poo, you can do anything you want to in normal dungeons and no one gives a gently caress. I made a new character to play with friends I convinced to buy it and I went Fist/Chaos, and when I wanted to do normal dungeons I dropped a few points in Agitator so I could tank and no one says poo poo because no one cares what you do as long as you get through.

Nostalgia4ColdWar
May 7, 2007

Good people deserve good things.

Till someone lets the winter in and the dying begins, because Old Dark Places attract Old Dark Things.
...

Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Mar 31, 2017

midnightclimax
Dec 3, 2011

by XyloJW
I pressed some button and now I've got some kind of mouse view lock. Can't turn it off, can't use my keyboard in the options. And I can't press U and there's a crosshair in the middle of my screen. HAELP

guppy
Sep 21, 2004

sting like a byob

midnightclimax posted:

I pressed some button and now I've got some kind of mouse view lock. Can't turn it off, can't use my keyboard in the options. And I can't press U and there's a crosshair in the middle of my screen. HAELP

Press T

midnightclimax
Dec 3, 2011

by XyloJW

guppy posted:

Press T

Ah thanks a lot, that did it. Phew.

Cheston
Jul 17, 2012

(he's got a good thing going)

Rascyc posted:

You're probably better off mentioning the search tool, and how if you want to use an ability like Blade Torrent you should identify the properties of Blade Torrent and search on that to find abilities that go well with it. Blade Torrent -> Frenzy -> Leeching Frenzy. Do that type of practice if you want to assemble builds on your own. Otherwise hit the Google machine and jut type your favorite two weapons and solo build and look for forum posts in 2013 and use common sense.

That is actually what the OP does right now.

Beach Party posted:

Is there a web site that has a synopsis of the story lines in each of the zones? I just re-installed the game and i kind of forgot what happened in the other zones before hitting Transylvania. It would be nice to catch up on what happened while at work today.

Sorry, but as far as I know all of the wikis for this game are kinda lackluster. A general summary of Solomon Island:

You go to Solomon Island to find out about the fog and discover that it followed a fishing boat in. You find a survivor, mostly mutated, saying that the boat got trapped in the fog out at sea, and that it was full of old boats and red seaweed. He found an artifact that cut away at the fog and freed them- when they got back, they sent it to the local academy (which is basically Illuminati Hogwarts). You find the artifact (a really kickass sword) in the archives of the academy, but are stopped by a man named Beaumont. After enough looking around you realize that he's been visiting the island on and off for hundreds of years trying to find it. He's trying to open something on the island- a Gaia Engine, giant glowy mystical cube. Beaumont doesn't say much but that they "literally make the world turn." You find it first, but accidentally let Beaumont access it. You defeat him, but are stopped by Cassandra, a... groupie? Of his that you met earlier, who takes the sword and leaves.

The Darkness War (and the Templar mission report) reveals that the sword is Excalibur, brought by vikings about a thousand years ago to stop a Mayan invasion. (They were trying to open a void and unleash filth. The final boss overlaps roughly with where the Gaia Engine is located in Blue Mountain.) The Polaris reveals that the vikings were caught on their way back across the Atlantic by the Isle of Dead Ships, the source of the fog and the same, massive floating tangle of red seaweed that caught the Kingsmouth ship. Excalibur stayed there for about a thousand years until the fishermen took it, which, uuh, pissed off most of the things (Draug) there.

An investigation mission (Strangers From a Strange Land) in Blue Mountain reveals that Loki followed the Vikings over, but knew that they'd hit the Isle of Dead Ships on their way back and stayed on the American continent, identifying as Beaumont. Cassandra's final line ("It's not you, it's me.") is suspected to be not only mocking Beaumont for something that he says earlier in the mission, but also an indication that Cassandra is actually Loki and had just done tricky mind stuff on Beaumont. (In Norse mythology, Loki has a history of swapping genders in addition to manipulating people.)


Stuff that happens after Solomon Island and Egypt:
You have a vision/are brought into a place called the Dreaming Prison, first when you stop Beaumont at one of the Gaia engines and again when you stop Akhenahten from rising in Egypt (I, uh, got too tired to describe Egypt, but that's what happened, sort of). A voice promises you power. Environmental cues link this voice to the Filth. After Solomon Island, you can choose to accept this promise (and probably do it by accident, a lot of people don't realize that you refuse it by jumping off a cliff), and you can reaffirm it or change your mind after Egypt by choosing whether or not you bow to the voice.

That last spoiler chunk gets a lot more complicated, and ties into (right after character creation)the vision that you have of the two suited figures (I would make a junk character to rewatch this before finishing Transylvania to refresh yourself), the Hell dungeons, Tyler Freeborne (the 1.6 mission chain), what Agartha and the Buzzing are, The Facility (first dungeon in Transylvania) and actually a lot of other things.

I, uh, really should just make a wiki, but I don't want to help the ones that are already there being useless.

Sjonkel
Jan 31, 2012
It's nice to hear that any build can work. I'll likely never raid in this game, but if I want to be able to (later on) heal dungeons/instances, can I just take any of skills with some kind of healing paired with anything else, and I'm good? Or should both skills be healing related some way? Like pistol/elemental? Or would I need something like pistol/ar or pistol/blood?

orcane
Jun 13, 2012

Fun Shoe
Make one, Cheston. Every database or wiki for this game appears to have been abandoned within a few weeks after launch :(

Also re: the vikings/Solomon Island plot:
The draug are the filth-mutated vikings right? Stuck in the Red Sargasso Sea on the way home after helping the Wabanaki, they mutate and follow The Lady Margaret's fishermen after they take the viking's artifact, Excalibur, back to Kingsmouth. That's how the varangian, the guy wielding the sword in the last encounter in Darkness War, turns into the brutish abomination you fight in Polaris.

More on Egypt:
Your intro mission is about tracking some shady artifact smuggling to Egypt where you find the local noble warriors who are in a civil war against cultists who want to bring Akhenaten and his sun worship - atenism - back which would end the world or something.

In Scorched Desert you infiltrate the cultists briefly to find out they're working with the Phoenicians, who are themselves working with The Kingdom, undead Egyptian merchant princes. Or, were - the Kingdom got the Phoenicians the device that unleashed the filth in Tokyo, and now they feel kind of bad about it. With the help of one of these merchant princes and two Oxford researchers you retrieve some ancient artifact and find the entrance to the previously hidden City of the Sun God. Which is where you help the guardian restore the "song" of his children that keeps Akhenathen trapped in his black pyramid, go to this pyramid and vanquish Akhenaten - and then Orochi guys hit you on the head and take whatever artifact you were about to retrieve away.

After being knocked out the 2nd time, you end up in this dreaming prison again. Then, having identified Orochi as a problem, you follow their research programs to Transylvania.


The issue 6 mission chain "Last Train to Cairo" ties up some loose ends of the Egypt plot, the issue 5 chain "Vanishing of Tyler Freeborn" has more on the Solomon Island events including some very depressing revelations.

Sjonkel posted:

It's nice to hear that any build can work. I'll likely never raid in this game, but if I want to be able to (later on) heal dungeons/instances, can I just take any of skills with some kind of healing paired with anything else, and I'm good? Or should both skills be healing related some way? Like pistol/elemental? Or would I need something like pistol/ar or pistol/blood?
You will need a main healing weapon to heal. Unfortunately pistol is no main healing weapon, it has cleanses and some healing support abilities like drones and buffs, but no proper heals you can spam. You can get by with one healing weapon, and use your secondary for utility. If you want to heal and deal damage, your only option is using an assault rifle leeching build because blood and fist healing rely on more heal rating so you won't have any DPS stats left over anyway.

orcane fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jun 4, 2013

Nostalgia4ColdWar
May 7, 2007

Good people deserve good things.

Till someone lets the winter in and the dying begins, because Old Dark Places attract Old Dark Things.
...

Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Mar 31, 2017

Zhaan
Aug 7, 2012

Always like this.

Zephonith posted:

From previous thread:

It's AR/Ele, relying on Blaze-spam for damage and AR for healing and building.

Actives:
1. Safety Off
2. Anima Burst
3. Three Round Burst
4. Transfuse Anima/Shot of Anima
5. Lightning Manifestation
6. Blaze
7. Whiteout

Passives:

1. Extra Bullet
2. Anticoagulant
3. Ferocity
4. Aidelon
5. Insult to Injury
6. Healing Sparks
7. Forged in Fire (before I had this, it was Contortionist)

It's not the most practical of builds, because you need an Outer Ring Hammer elite and Outer Ring Elementalism elite, but it's pretty drat unkillable, no matter how much I try. The only real issue I have is that sometimes with the long range of AR, I hit Safety Off one time too many and pull a second mob, but it has enough healing that I can survive that as well. Every now and then I switch out the passives depending on what I'm fighting.

Thanks. I have all of those unlocked already (except Forged, but I have Contortionist), so I might give it a shot while I'm grinding up the AP for some other skills.

Cheston posted:


Also re: the vikings/Solomon Island plot:
The draug are the filth-mutated vikings right? Stuck in the Red Sargasso Sea on the way home after helping the Wabanaki, they mutate and follow The Lady Margaret's fishermen after they take the viking's artifact, Excalibur, back to Kingsmouth. That's how the varangian, the guy wielding the sword in the last encounter in Darkness War, turns into the brutish abomination you fight in Polaris.

I feel like a complete idiot since I just connected the two Varangians. Somehow that never clicked in my head, despite running the dungeons back to back for the last week.

Zephonith
Jun 25, 2008

Maybe if I actually played Mafia, I'd get a better gift from my Mafia Secret Santa. :(

Zhaan posted:

Thanks. I have all of those unlocked already (except Forged, but I have Contortionist), so I might give it a shot while I'm grinding up the AP for some other skills.
Others have posted far more practical looking leech builds in thread already! Try those too!

Also thanks for the Darkness Wars info Cheston. I could never really figure out what was going on there.

A wiki would be nice I think. I've got some folklore/location/lore info I could contribute.

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters
So I'm planning to get back into things here soon, what's the tanking meta like these days? I assume things have changed at least a little with CtP no longer penetrating guaranteed. Everyone was moaning about that incoming change when I stopped playing.

orcane
Jun 13, 2012

Fun Shoe
Tanks as mini DPS with hammers, I think. They still use Clearing the Path though, +40% penetrate chance is still a lot.

It's not tanking with Cold Blooded, that's for sure. Or is it, Rasheed?

Amante
Jan 3, 2007

...


Speed-tanking Hell Fallen NM with Cold Blooded as your "taunt" is still hilarious.

Reverend Dr
Feb 9, 2005

Thanks Reverend

guppy posted:

That build is not for group content, it's for soloing and it is pretty good for that. There are of course other options which is why that build is not in the loving OP and no one is saying it should be so I don't understand why people are saying that it is.

Its not in the OP, but its in one of the first replies, presented as something that was in the old OP, should be in the OP, is the first build given, is presented as an optimal leveling build, and the only other build on the first page is specifically presented as a final build.

Sjonkel posted:

It's nice to hear that any build can work.


This is what is better to tell new players. Now not any build will work, but any build that makes sense and has passives that support the active skills will work for leveling content just fine. The whole "blue mountain is a test of your build/you might need a better build" really just means that around Blue Mountain you need to stop bringing dumb stuff that makes no sense; I mean this is the most general sense, not in any sense of sperg math min-max. Not everyone is going to want to blow through zone content to get to the endgame. I'd say more people are going to enjoy the zone/story part of the game far more than endgame dungeon grinding and they will enjoy it more if they are running something that they enjoy rather than something someone else enjoys.


Aside from that

quote:

Why Blades/Fist/Chaos?

I actually recommended this for a number of very good reasons.
1 - They have very solo-friendly abilities.

No more so than any other weapon. Blade/Fist/Chaos's best solo abilities are expensive and out of the way even for this build. Also their effectiveness is really no better than any other weapons solo abilities except for AR which Blade/Fist/Chaos cannot even compare to the solo-friendly abilities in AR's inner circle.

2 - They have several nice passives that you can take to your other weapon trees if you decide you don't like them.

Every weapon has nice passives for other trees, this isn't unique to blades or chaos. For endgame optimization there are certain passives, but those are just not necessary for leveling and going for those pigeon holds a player even more than this build does

3 - Melee are naturally better for solo missions/grinding because they start with full resources.

For grinding this is true in terms of kills over time. You also shouldn't be grinding. For general ability to kill mobs this is false. While you start at 5 resources, you have to melee while a ranged character can build those 5 resources before mobs close distance. This means that while it takes longer (specifically 5 seconds to build resources) both range and melee with have full resources when mobs start to do damage and range have 5 builders worth of damage over melee.

4 - They lead toward tanking/healing which means you aren't sitting around for literal hours waiting for groups.

Shift + C brings up the group finder. Its not used for Nightmare Dungeons, but is plenty used for normal dungeons. I've never had hours long waits for normal dungeons as a pure DPS. I tanked the first time through and didn't notice a significant difference in the time it took to get a group. Also get on mumble and we'll do dungeons with you with far faster group formation, faster dungeon completion, and no dumb pubbies screwing everything up. Its also a great idea to tell people to play a role that they don't enjoy just to be able to progress.

5 - They have generally more and better than average CC.

They have Impairs rather than hinders. If you are already in melee range impairs are better at preventing mobs from doing stuff. If you are at range, hinders are better at preventing mobs from doing stuff. I took less damage (usually none) leveling as a glass cannon with hinders than as a melee with impairs. At worst this is wrong, at best its only good for a particular playstyle. It also shortchanges the other abilities that other weapons can bring



How do I effectively spend my SP?

Ralts already talked about this briefly. This is just flat out wrong. It makes gear progression take longer, makes swapping weapons harder, and doesn't address things like Blue Mountain and Egypt token vendors for weapons.

Chaos is a different beast, though. Escalation is like having your cake and eating it too. It's so very, amazingly good, that you want to use it pretty much always.

A long time ago Escalation was this great, but things have changed. Currently it is literally identical to blade torrent which he bemoans as a terrible skill. Outside of a dungeon group it is also identical to bamboo cutter. Its passive Intensity is never worth taking over breakdown.

So, your bar should look like this after your first 42 AP.

This is a statement that should never be told to new players.


The only things from his entire build/strategy that should ever be told to a new player are about Lick Your Wounds, which he fails to mention should be phased out during Savage Coast, and eat Tacos. Neither of these at all relate to the build itself he posted. Its atrocious to in any way promote a build that hasn't accounted for 6 months of game change (probably more actually, it was just posted 6 months ago) and will at best be on par with any build created by someone that is merely competent at video games.






orcane posted:

Tanks as mini DPS with hammers, I think. They still use Clearing the Path though, +40% penetrate chance is still a lot.

It's not tanking with Cold Blooded, that's for sure. Or is it, Rasheed?

We understand the game mechanics far better now. Tanks use less stat budget to get better mitigation. [Some] Tanks deliberately take less HP to get more use from Ablation, increasing both damage and EHP. Hammer always did more damage (also applies debilitate faster) than Chaos or Blades, but until Changes to Crimson Theatre, Clearing the Path, and not having Escalation be the only way to apply exposed were made, hammer just couldn't be used. CtP is still the only blade consumer. Its higher single target and AoE damage than any other blade consumer

Also Rasheed is looking into the Cold Blooded on DPS meta. It almost worked for Machine Tyrant.

Reverend Dr fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Jun 4, 2013

guppy
Sep 21, 2004

sting like a byob

Sjonkel posted:

It's nice to hear that any build can work. I'll likely never raid in this game, but if I want to be able to (later on) heal dungeons/instances, can I just take any of skills with some kind of healing paired with anything else, and I'm good? Or should both skills be healing related some way? Like pistol/elemental? Or would I need something like pistol/ar or pistol/blood?

First, understand that there is a distinction to be made between Nightmare dungeons and anything else. You can get by in normals and elites with less care than Nightmares. That said:

By design there are three primary healing weapons: Blood, Fist, and Assault Rifle. In practice, due to a number of design flaws, Blood is not really a feasible primary healing weapon, so make that Fist and AR. Fist healing is about direct heals and heals-over-time; Assault Rifle healing is about leeching, where a portion of your damage dealt is given to your defensive target as healing, which has obvious advantages as far as ending fights faster but also several other considerations, including your ability to maintain contact time, line-of-sight issues (you have to be able to see your healing target), no out-of-combat heals, and so forth.

For most of the game, either of those two primaries is equally viable, so do whatever you feel like. This changes abruptly when you reach Nightmares. At that point, the stat requirements for effective AR healing are out of your reach until you get quite a lot of very carefull chosen gear, so you'd be back to Fist healing if you wanted to heal before you get that gear. There is also at least one NM dungeon that it is impossible to AR heal for mechanical reasons.

For your secondary weapon you have more flexibility. The most common are Blood (barriers, supplemental heals, and the wonderful tool that is Cold Blooded), Fist if you didn't take that as primary, and Pistols (support abilities like Backup Drone, plus Deadly Aim as a self-buff to healing and a group DPS buff). If you don't feel you need them you can use the other weapon to fill whatever gaps your group needs; for example, we've had healers use Shotgun even though it provides no healing benefit because we needed someone to carry Cleanup. You can put whatever you feel like there if you don't need the extra healing tools. Some of our healers run Elemental as secondary so we can bring Short Fuse without needed a dedicated DPS to run it.

Captain Oblivious posted:

So I'm planning to get back into things here soon, what's the tanking meta like these days? I assume things have changed at least a little with CtP no longer penetrating guaranteed. Everyone was moaning about that incoming change when I stopped playing.

Yesssssss come back.

Blade/Hammer is the cool thing right now because it allows the tank to be a significant source of damage. Yesterday Rev did something nuts like 2k DPS as the tank. Blade/Chaos still works and has some nice utility like Chaotic Pull, but because it isn't necessary most people have gone Blade/Hammer to contribute more to ending things fast.

Amante
Jan 3, 2007

...


To be fair, you can kinda Blood main heal if you use a janky Blood/AR build. It involves using Bloodline and Finish the Movement to do constant Exquisite Corpses on the tank, backed up by weaving in Shot of Anima. To pull it off, you need solid gear and a good idea of what you're doing, so it's definitely not a beginning healer build. Stick to Fists/* if you're starting out.

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters

guppy posted:

Yesssssss come back.

Blade/Hammer is the cool thing right now because it allows the tank to be a significant source of damage. Yesterday Rev did something nuts like 2k DPS as the tank. Blade/Chaos still works and has some nice utility like Chaotic Pull, but because it isn't necessary most people have gone Blade/Hammer to contribute more to ending things fast.

Blade/Hammer? WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS

I think I still have a hammer lying around somewhere!

Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!


Captain Oblivious posted:

Blade/Hammer? WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS

I think I still have a hammer lying around somewhere!

It's actually a pretty stale hell. You've been gone quite some time.

Zephonith
Jun 25, 2008

Maybe if I actually played Mafia, I'd get a better gift from my Mafia Secret Santa. :(

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Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!



I raise you:

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