As noted here, managed to mess around with CoH a bit over the last week, despite rampant having-a-babyness. Notably:
Got the background written up amnesiac kheldian “Lightborne” (not to be confused, please, with Jackie’s “Lightborn” :P), and the delusional Joan-of-Arc-like kurdish zealot “Shade Dancer”. I sort of need a respec for Shade Dancer already, but both of the kheldians are fun to play, regardless. I’ve yet to take an ‘alien’ form on either of them.
Got a few hours in, here and there, with Hype and Syn. I’ve a free respec on Hype that I’d like to use-it-or-lose-it before we get the OTHER one with Issue Five, but frankly I don’t feel like there’s anything I want to change with him that badly.
Got HT on for an hour or so last night to play with the magical memory-blanking plot that’s going on with him while Scorpia is ICly MIA — took the opportunity to group with the Consortium folks and pick up the Negotiator badge while talking about how tough Clockwork and Skulls were on the SG channel. Much fun.
Got Hangbot into the Storm Knights — something else I’ll be able to use for some fun foreshadowing this week.
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How did you build / what do you plan to change with Shade Dancer? Have to admit I am far happier with my PBR build then I am with my WAR build. My PBR has been pretty solid from the get-go, my WAR isn’t going to be as good until 18 I don’t think ( only 12 now ).
I’m cautiously pleased with my PB build.
My WS build is an utter tangle.
I’m going tri-form in each, and will be holding onto the I5 respec for a time.
Can’t wait to see how and what Hangbot does.
Current Warshade build at 12…
1) Absorption ( 1 dam resist )
1) Shadow Bolt ( 1 acc, 3 dam )
2) Gravimetric Snare ( 1 acc, 1 dam )
4) Orbiting Death ( 1 end redux, 1 acc, 2 dam )
6) Shadow Blast ( 1 acc, 3 dam )
8) Gravity Shield ( 1 end redux )
10) Hasten ( 1 recharge rate )
12) Sunless Mire ( 1 acc )
Respec’wise I plan to ditch Shadow Blast and put Swift in there and move the slots from it into the armor for more damage resistance which then allows for…
14) Shadow Cloak
16) Health
18) Gravity Well
20) Stamina
Don’t have it planned past 20 at all.
Current Peacebringer build at 12…
1) Incandescence ( 1 dam resist )
1) Gleaming Bolt ( 1 acc, 3 dam )
2) Gleaming Blast ( 1 acc, 3 dam )
4) Essence Boost ( 1 recharge rate )
6) Radiant Strike ( 1 acc, 2 dam )
8) Shining Shield ( 2 dam resist, 1 end redux )
10) Assault ( 1 end redux )
12) Hasten ( 1 recharge rate )
Happy with this right now. Assault I only am turning on before it looks like a fight that the added damage will be good for ( kind of surprised at how small the bonus is actually ) and may eventually get rid of, but it works for the moment.
14) Swift
16) Health
18) Incandescent Strike
20) Stamina
Post-20 I am very undecided on. Lots of choices, lots of ways to build him. Very Blapper’ish at the moment and might stay that way but thats a lot of levels off still.
My Peacebringer looks like:
1) Incandescence
1) the eyebeam thing
2) Gleaming Blast
4) Shining Shield (should ICly have been the Dull Pain thing, but I didn’t realize that until later ( 2 damage resist )
Eventually…
6) the dull pain thing
And generally, I’m happy with him as a human-form-only.
—-
Shade Dancer really bugs me a bit more:
1) Absorption ( 1 dam resist )
1) Shadow Bolt ( 2 acc, 1 dam )
2) Gravity shield ( 3 dam resist)
4) Orbiting Death ( 1 end redux, 2 acc)
6) Shadow Blast ( 2 acc )
Now, looking back at it, I’ve set her up to advance as a blapper-style human-form-only. I have mixed feelings about this, based on a mix of IC and OOC reservations.
Human-form
. I love the Orbiting Death thing, for IC reasons — it just suits her right down to the ground to have ‘pets’, which is what the power looks like. OOCly, going this route makes her reasonably effective in a fight, and I can see, based on the warshade powers, that you COULD limp along by getting blasts as you go, and max-slotting your defenses to make a reasonably good blapper — not great, but not bad… main problem being that Orbiting Death draws a WHOLE LOT OF AGGRO, and you don’t get the nice PBR powers that really help with that style of play (Dull pain, etc). Basically, PBR’s are just a lot ‘better’ at being single-form than WAR’s are — war’s in turn suffer from having to many useful powers.
Multi-form
. Due to what she thinks happened (visited by gawd), being able to assume ‘angelic’ forms (nova and dwarf) would be RIGHT up her alley, ICly. OOCly, the warshades are generally seen as more effective as a tri-form, so this would also be the ‘smart’ way to do. This ticks me off for a couple reasons, because I’m then left putting four slots (from levels 3 and 5) into four powers (from level 1, 2, and 4) I’ll RARELY use. That bugs the hell out of me.
I am ditching Shadow Blast with my War just to pick up more slots in the armor so I can survive my Orbiting Death. Right now, solo, not a problem. I can handle a small group made at me, but if I get in a team though with bigger spawn sizes and it gets real painful, real quick so I end up turning it off.
Right now, I tend to Shadow Bolt one to pull it from a group ( or pull the full group ) duck around a cornor, turn OrbDet on, Grav Snare the first thign that gets close and just bolt it until near death and swap targets then and wait for the OrbDet to finish it off.
But the ‘Shades do seem a lot less Human-only friendly.
I picked up the Dark Nova form with Shade Dancer last night.
Gameplay-wise: Night and Day. Wow. Speaking as the player of a level-50 blaster, this is an awesome form: Four attacks that include a ‘burst’ and ‘cone’ AoE, all with great damage, all with GREAT range… permanent flight… built-in semi-stamina… Awesome.
Roleplay-wise: So. Much. Fun. I laughed all the way through the next two hours as I played both
1. Fattana San, devout (delusional) human servant of the Peacock Angel… and
2. Shade Dancer, sewage-slurping, ho-ho munching, rerun-watching Kheldian ex-con.
So. Much. Fun.
The flip side of Dark Nova form… You suddenly loose pretty much all sources of defense or dam resist and become a flying aggro magnet.
Built-in Stamina and Fly, four decent attacks, potentially very powerful, but I sat for a bit and thought about it… Tesla Clockwork, Quantums and Voids stun with their guns, Madness Mages, psychic Lost… All the nasty little things that could mez me out of the form really discouraged me from wanting to drop slots into it, and you really have to slot it to have it be more effective then the slotted up base human attacks as you go up in levels.
Still playing around with the numbers, I have a theory that between my PBR having Assault and a tanker or two in team, that its damage output gets up to Nova form levels while still as a human, but not certain entirely.
I have seen my ‘Shade out-damage Dark Nova’s with multiple blasters in a team ( 3 blasters ) but I am uncertain as to comparative slotting with that.
All simply my thoughts on it, definately not gospel as to the best way to do it. Have to say the swap between forms with your ‘Shade was hilarious IC’ly so even just as an RP tool that was great. I simply don’t see myself ever committing the 25 enhancement slots needed to maximize the form though.