In the backlash syn, the bonus " threat generation" , it does what exactly? Spawn more difficult enemies?
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In the backlash syn, the bonus " threat generation" , it does what exactly? Spawn more difficult enemies?
No you generate more threat meaning enemies are more likely to attack you over someone else.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Irwin
Okay, and how is that a bonus? How is getting shot at more a benefit ? Does it draw enemies out from cover?Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
Its a bonus if you have weak players with you and you can take a beating. Enemies would more likely to shoot you then the other people. I dont see any use to it to be honest with you and see it as one of the worst synergies in the game. But each to their own.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Irwin
Agreed, too bad so many bonuses are a waste. the penetrating nanos and syns feel pretty useless as well, since it is so spefific the damage done, enemies can be of different shield types within a group, and they just seem to be overall weak.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
Kinda depends on how you intent to use it. I have used it a few times to draw more enemies around me to take them down faster. Then again you kinda need to be a tank to start with in order for that to not overwhelm you. Then again Guardian is like that anyways. You are there to take the heat and to be in the thick of things through ark fall or whatever.
We all have different play styles. It suits some of us fine.
I'm glad David asked, I wasn't sure what this did either; I thought it might either increase enemy difficulty or draw them to you, but neither made much sense or seemed useful - thanks Drakonroo for confirmingQuote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
All the nano synergies are great to work with. Volcanic synergy with fire nano weapons at hb majors is great. Voltaic synergy with electric nano weapons at dark matter majors and volge sieges are great. And Caustic synergy with corrosive weapons at scrapper majors and raiders are also great.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Irwin
I have pretty much got everyone in my clan using the right setups for different enemy types and the game is a lot better for it. Just wish other people would try the correct nano against the enemies. Nothign more fun than watching someone trying to take down a bulwarks shield for 5 minutes using pumkin patch, and then we turn up and melt it within seconds.
I find incendiary , no nano, or some weapon combo of both cut down everything, so i build my matrix to suit that. I see how electric and radation can be useful even though i dont really use them my self yet. Just the 2 pentrating nanos & corresponding syns, i was complaining about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
Yeah sorry i misread your post. Quauntam and Piercing are seriously weak but apparently they work better in the update. Alot on setups alo depends on how many loadout slots you have. Most peopel only have 2 so its harder for them to be setup properly for all occasions. I have 6 slots. 1 fire, 1 corrosive, 1 electric, a pure dmg loadout for bosses, a mixed synergy setup, and a have another laodout that i use just for doing thorn daily arenas that i run recruit synergy on so i can get extra weapon exp.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Irwin
Yea i have 6 loadouts as well, did have radation and electric loadouts built at one time, but i found i never used em, so for sometime now all 6 have been fire and/or no nano.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
You should really try running a dark matter major with full elec nano and Voltaic synergy. You will find is soo easy. Samme for scrapper majors, swith to corrosive weps and caustic synergy. You will notice a massive difference in the larger enemies.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Irwin
drakonroo is right! that is all.
Question. Are you finding Volcanic exceedingly rare? I have nearly every single gem slot filled with at least a rough gem. Outside of Volcanic, I'm missing two. Including Volcanic... six. And the only two Volcanic crystals I have are Cut. I have never received one outside of a random item drop from an Arkfall - not from SGT Vendors, SGT rep missions, never seen a Volcanic cache of any kind. Speaking from Xbox. I might just be supremely unlucky... but I was having the worst luck with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
Volcanic was the last syn i completed, when i had all other syns done i was still missing 2 volcanic. Just need to get all flawless as they are still mixed rarities. Barbaric, entropic, backlash and rampage gems seem to be much more common than others, volcanic and voltaic seem the least common. From my experience anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by CodeMonkeysGuy
Same thing here. I have mostly polished gems all over the place (only 4 flawless), but the volcanic are lagging behind. I got all 6 slots filled, but there's still 2 rough and 1 cut.Quote:
Originally Posted by CodeMonkeysGuy
I have only 2 loadouts: one is a mix of caustic and voltaic, with electric and corrosive weapons, the other is volcanic with fire nanos. My synergy power with the first loadout is `~790 and with the volcanic it's ~560.
I seem to find mostly class crystals. And the "Epic crystals cache" from gulanees runners are everything but epic. They should call them "cut crystal cache" cause I always get cut, never anything better.
Oh , ive tried all the nanos, and with syns active as well, but i just dont like how all nanos , except fire , nerf your critcal hits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
@David IrwinQuote:
Originally Posted by David Irwin
Guardian has a reflect damage skill. Toss up reflect skill, hit taunt and mobs are getting hit with their own damage, reflected. Since guardian has self heal over time and additional talents that provide additional benefits when taunting, benefits to the reflect shield and additional defenses... it can become a situational traditional tank option, for short periods of time. Combining those with engineer and glass cannon builds (assassin or crusader) in a group could be worth testing out with groups of your friends.
Personally, I love it when some players are able at hellbug events to generated a ton of aggro to keep several monarchs chasing them... it creates some lovely Pumpkin Patch splash damage to help rank up the detonator skill.
Actually, and here my opinion is from my own experiences, I've found mobs actively target anything they can kill... and will go after weaker lower PR, low HP characters. I think they have coding that looks for people to kill... and lower PR persons are just that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
Having aggro generation from your syn while trying to help out newer players is a good strategy to help them.
I agree with Drakonroo's assertion here. Currently both Quantum and Piercing seem only useful on weak mobs, while using fire vs HP, electric vs shields and corrosive vs armoring is vastly more effective... as well as better at generating weapon type bonus damage. Each of those gain a 50% damage bonus against those elements... and is a better way to generate weapon skill up XP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
Also, Guider convinced me to try with him both of us using Quantum on the Dark Matter, and Piercing vs the scrapper mobs in the upcoming Event Horizon while we were on PTS. The benefits from our focused fire were readily apparant with the larger mobs dying with HALF of their shield/armoring still up... and the kill speed was acceptable.
It's quite possible quantum and piercing are getting some upgrade bypass damage with the upcoming patch. I look forward to confirming that in the patch notes. If so, they maybe be quite viable vs Event Horizon.
@David Irwin... I'm not sure you are paying accurate attention to the full damage numbers flying above the mobs. It's harder to visually see corrosive crit on armoring and electric on shields... simply because the color tint, that faint pale sky blue is hard as heck to see.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Irwin
I've had very good results from ripping off armoring by critting tankers/electrocutioners with both corrosive digger and corrosive deadbolt sniper. Both do very noticeable damage ripping off that armoring... so I see no nerfing going on there.
Against Volge Viscera, though, they have innate built in damage reduction, so all damage including crits are diminished especially while it's shields are up. That coding is a carry-over from D13 as well.
Mobs don't go after weak/low health players. They go after players who has dealt damage to them. Damages from the VS skitterlings and turkey from turkey gun used to not count as damaged dealt by a player for that purpose, so you could safely use those 2 guns and mobs would chase after everyone but you. That point is probably still true but totally moot, cause they barely deal any damage at all anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kylarran
Quantum and piercing had a point before the patch that nerfed everything (especially quantum). It used to be hard to kill bullwark, forges and blacklungs, and sometimes you got killed or even needed to go to an ammo box to refill your ammos, and their shield or armor would have been regenerated in the meantime. With quantum ammos, the bullwark couldn't regenerate his health fast enough to set you back to zero. Back then I kept an m249 with quantum ammos just for bullwarks, and killed multiple BW that still had over 50% shield.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kylarran
Now everything is nerfed and super easy to kill, so anyone can use any nanos against anything. You can often see people with tempest and atomizer do quite ok during hellbug or scrapper majors. You get more kill faster with the right nano, but it's not really a matter of life or death anymore.
Perhaps I should clarify. The coding I mentioned is ALSO true. Sure mobs go after who damages them. There's also code in the game that has mobs target weaker players... and there is a variable in when the damage given taunt takes over.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantAim
For instance I've seen mobs tear after someone who's done none, or very little damage to them. Then I come along behind and start tearing into them. I've been near 5k since one month after 2050 came out. I've had plenty of time to see that while sure... most times mobs will instantly turn to face me, there are also cases where that person simply runs away without firing back the entire time I'm doing 75-95%+ of the damage to the mob and killing it before it even faces me. It happens. Not often, but it does. I suspect there are threat/aggro checks throughout the mobs 'lifespan' (obviously more noticeable on boss type mobs with more HP) and given a built in random variable it's possible to 'fail' all the checks where I could/should have gotten aggro.
It's most notable, when mobs initially spawn... that their first target is part random and partly due to coding introduced to target for kills... which was introduced in D13 and ported to 2050. Read the following.
Another point, I've been around a long time. Participated in a lot of Twitch livestreams over the years in D13. I can still remember when the coding was discussed by the dev's where they implimented this coding, in part, as a method of removing AFK players from the immediate area of a final and in part, to have mobs target lower HP people so they got in killing blows on players (which was mentioned and downplayed by the devs) They preferred to emphasize the killing of AFK players which was a hot button issue for some. They introduced coding where the mobs when spawned were set to target inactive or stationary targets... and the prevalence of AFK players hiding behind crystals or other obstacles increased in hilarious fashion... so it got talked about a lot. Archers spawning in could target mobs all the way across the final area to bomb people regardless of any damage done to them.
It's not JUST aggro from damage, nor JUST from taunt by guardian syn or skill. Targeting weaker, lower HP targets is also in the mix of the code that determines what a mob targets... and sometimes is triggered.
this fella sees everyone not him a weaker, low HP target. :P
Algo has been changed. Among other things, AFK players are almost 100% left alone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kylarran
1-When mobs spawn, they go after the closest player. If no player is around, they go after closest NPC;
2-When sufficient damage has been dealt to a mob, that mob goes toward the player that has dealt the most damages;
3-Every now and then, or when targeted player dies, mob algorithm checks for damage again, and goes after high damage dealer. If no damage has been dealt since last check, mob goes after closest player, then closest NPC.
That's why during solstice strike, I consistently got highest score. I could stand in the middle of a pack of volge, and none of them would ever take a shot at me. I kept shooting TG at myself, and the damage (for the purpose of choosing target) dealt by the turkey wasn't accounted to me, it was accounted to turkeys. Even if a volge happened to spawn right on top of me, the damage dealt by the gun itself was minimal, so as soon as any player hit that volge with any kind of decent weapon, it went after him. So I never got bothered while I was shooting myself to spawn turkeys.
Knowing how the system works can help a lot to accomplish your goals. For example, I get about 25% of the monolith kills when I participate in DM majors. With 20-100 people typically participating, I would get between 1 and 5% if it was purely about randomized.
People doing well at hellbug majors is becasue the scoring system is broke. Want to check this, next time a daily contract is kill X amount of enemies with a specific gun. Use only that type of weapon and then look at the score card at the end and compare it to your contract. There was one the other day for using LMG's, I finsihed the major with over 300 kills but only 40 LMG kills and I only use LMG at hellbug majors.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantAim
Ill say this again people saying DM majors in san fran are too hard havent tried using the correct nano types. The mobs die quick with any nano but things like bulwarks take way too long using the wrong nano type. If everyone tried using the correct nanos then majors would never fail even with only a few people.
I do dm majors all the time . i can often snag the high score, with no nano and fire combo . I also do those grid minors , and this combo is the only one that works for me at those. Granted i make plenty of use of my ego powers ( pretty much entirely assassin or crusader) and i run ion grenades. The biggest problem i see with dm majors is you have to know how to shoot on the run, if you stop at all or try camp, you are toast. fire is my fav nano since it has a health damage bonus, and everything has a health bar, so every enemies takes extra damage from fire, every other nano nerfs the health 6damage. Or Maybe i just like to watch em burn. Im one of those people whin find what they like and stick with it. People like defiance because there is so many ways to play, its creative game, there are many ways to hunt an ark.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kylarran
I can read numbers just fine. All nanos but fire nerf health damage, critical damage is done to health. Real crits dont happen until the armor or shield is gone, they are yellow , can you see those?
Oh yeah? Not quite. Sure that's the most common behavior. However, consider the following I JUST watched happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantAim
Shondu's Hellbug hive final attended by 35-40 players. My head was spinning a little so I paused about 70 yards back to take a break, about 20 yards beyond the ring of crystals. I watched the flying hellion return to the hive, and some monarchs come trundling down from the top of the hive.
Most players were centered to the left of the hive (from my perspective) some were scattered along the right, near and mid. What do you think 2 of those monarchs did? They made a beeline right for me, bypassing about 15-20 players 'closer' to them. I hadn't shot them. However, instead of attacking me, they then proceeded to tromp side by side so close to me they brushed me a few feet to the right... to plaster an AFK player who was another 20 yards Behind me. I went to revive the guy... I wasn't clued in he was AFK just yet, but after reviving him he didn't move... while of those 2 monarchs, they were finally being shot at from some in the main inner circle hoard... and watched as that AFk player died again even though Both monarchs had moved away and were following others doing damage to them, just before I revived him. One turned back to hit him with the 5 shot arching spit attack of which one killed him, which is usually lobbed from 20 yards away.
Still think you understand ALL the coding programmed into mob behavior? Hopefully, some of you who keep an open mind know more than you did before.
For the sake of anyone else reading this semi-new to the game, this guy's assertion is incorrect. You can crit both Shield and Armor damage too. 'Real' crits are any crit for bonus damage, not just the pretty gold/yellow crits that are easier to see. If you have any doubts, then don't just take my word for it, test it for yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Irwin
For more accurate testing, since David chooses to only count fire vs HP which additionally gains the 50% damage bonus of fire on HP... also test crit damage using electric on shielded mobs... your electric gun's crits will crit for more than non-crit spots, and similarly try corrosive on tankers for best testing of multiple shots. You just have to watch for the light blue crit values popping up which are harder to see, but no less of a crit if you use the correct nanos with bonus 50% multipliers in them. Fire on red bar, electric on shields, corrosive on armoring. It's common then to run with one gun electric, one fire vs heavily shielded targets... then one gun corrosive, the other fire vs scrapper and raiders.
If I remember correctly, and it was yesterday on an earlier page... someone's preferred loadout is no nano combined with fire. So, of course, this player just doesn't do a fair comparison, day in day out in their play.
Hmmm wonders what your favorite load out will be when fighting a combined enemy group that is half shielded and half armored. :p
Then again you will soon find out for yourself what will do the trick.
I know what mine will be ^_^ heheQuote:
Originally Posted by Sal Fireguard
So Guider do you have that Poo shooter all ready then?
Who knew Pow's could be a decent weapon.
Can tell you now that most of Xbox Eu server will carry on spamming their Pumkin Patches. Myself and my clan have already got loadouts ready for the event :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Sal Fireguard
Joke will be on you when event never happens :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
Since they confirmed that it comes out tomorrow, makes sense. It'll be even funnier when you can't log in for several hours because of the update.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantAim
I have to admit I struggled with this on PTS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sal Fireguard
My corrosive digger handled the scrapper content well, helping to rip off armoring so others preferring fire can light it up. The digger allowed me to stay mobile, lob long distance grenades on the mobile helibots the second the opened up. The lob and distance were important to get over ark shields as well as over the other charging scrapper mobs and bulwarks when they are out. Guider and I tested focus firing with piercing (me a piercing digger) and that was effective as well.
The electric weapon was a struggle... still working through it. A saw seems best for sufficient damage/bullet ammo conservation, but with all the bulwark knockbacks... any AR, LMG or shotgun with longer reload times will take heavy reload penalties in getting hit by the bulwark's rockets. We'll see how well they can be avoided come live. My treasured electric el diablo just didn't have enough punch when it came to the massive shielding/HP on the bulwarks, although smg's don't get hit with the knockback/reload debuff which is useful. With the el diablo I was blowing through ammo with not enough drops (not when everything is a damage sponge). I tried a fragger, and while the burst unload is great, the reload/bulwark knockbacks were painful at times, only reloading 1 shot per reload, until the knockback/reload debuff fell off. I last tried an electric/quantum Barn Buster, allowing mobility and some aoe vs the bulwarks that bunched up on the few players present during PTS... so there may be a lot less bulwark clumping on live. The Barn Buster was okay, but seemed to lack sustained dps/clear speed when I was the only one shooting a bulwark (which was true of any weapon I used).
Another issue is... lots of players will be leveling up Engineer, hopefully it won't take long. The Engineer has a few skills that will help a lot, Flechette Rounds to put damage increasing debuffs on everyone shooting it can benefit from... so if you see orange aura's on Bulwark midsections... FOCUS FIRE IT. Each debuff lasts 5 seconds and I hope a lot of players use this so their Fury turrets (Engi #1 skill) apply the debuff. The other skill is the 'other' ultimate skill... the Artemis Turret, which will be VERY useful for players to be aware of for the extra defense and offense by playing within it's area of effect (obvious pulsing white circles on the ground).
Good Lord. Love my Pumpkin Patch, but the large scrapper and dark matter mobs have insane shield/armoring... using the PP as a primary weapon will waste everyone's ammo with little effect. Until those shields/armors are cleared, I wouldn't use the PP which relegates it to only be of use as a finisher.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drakonroo
We saw 2 drastically different Event Horizon styles... we'll see which we end up with. What we get will definitely affect all these plans.
At least you understand where and when you get the maximum out of your guns. Xbox EU is just full of Pumkpin Patch spammers. The dont care what shield/armor the enemy has they will just keep firing. Hey some people turn up to arkfalls and just shoot the crystals so they can get some kills from the splash damage, they dont even aim. lol. You should come pop on xbox eu and watch these people waste 5 minutes trying to kill a single bulwark at dark matter majors, or watch them try to kill Viscera at sieges.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kylarran