Form, PFF or Regen? What's The New Wisdom?

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So Forms, Personal Force Field and Regen all got hit with the nerg bat pretty badly. I'm not here to complain about that...such is the way of MMOs.

What I AM curious about is the new conventional PVP wisdom on which is now most effective. Is PFF still a good PVP value or would an Ice, Fire or Shadow character now be better served by taking a form instead of a defensive passive?

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Forms got nerfed too? for damage or just the resistance?

[Archived Post]

Forms got nerfed too? for damage or just the resistance?

I'd heard the buff forms give went from 105% max to 40% max.

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My wisdom is this: try to build a character that can do well in PvP using only powers, appropriate stats, appropriate equipment, and no slotted power. Once you achieve that, assign a slotted passive of some type.

[Archived Post]

My wisdom is this: try to build a character that can do well in PvP using only powers, appropriate stats, appropriate equipment, and no slotted power. Once you achieve that, assign a slotted passive of some type.

I do all that. That's why the only real question that I have pertains to what to put in my passive slot.

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The new wisdom is .....skills

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I do all that. That's why the only real question that I have pertains to what to put in my passive slot.

Personally, I currently use lightning reflexes and try to boost my dexterity as much as possible through equipment. Rather than preventing damage, I like to avoid as much of it as possible. Plus it just makes sense with a hand-to-hand martial arts toon

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my best guess would be to avoid PFF since the shield has much lower health now. just a guess tho

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I still use PFF on my PA toon and although at low levels its only sucking up 890 damage, i find thats enough to turn you into a hard target.

I mean if i was beating on a guy and my 1st 4ish attacks did nothing while he melted my face, id sure moveon to someone else :)

But then i still think eye lazers are pretty good too so what do i know huh :p

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Regen and force block...noone have killed me yet. Teleport and mines at the moment are good, but they will get nerfed.

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Personally, I currently use lightning reflexes and try to boost my dexterity as much as possible through equipment. Rather than preventing damage, I like to avoid as much of it as possible. Plus it just makes sense with a hand-to-hand martial arts toon

Ah can u actually survive decently with lighting reflexes?? Last time i had it was in CB and it wasnt that great there..

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Problem with LR is although its potentially 100% damage avoidance, its also potentially zero. I prefer knowing how much damage i can soak up rather than leaving it to the wim of the RNG gods :)

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the wim of the RNG gods :) I love that. Especially since I have my doubts about the RNG for MMO games. I think they need certification testing like online gambling cites have.

Really I like the idea of auto-correcting feature for MMO random numbers where if results are not in line with percentages, e.g. if a 50% chance misses 5 times in a row, starting triggering just it once or twice to stay more in-line with expected results. Randomness over long term does not help in short term bursts of action where even if I have a 90% chance to dodge, I might still be hit 10 times in a row because that is how random actions work. Seems like closer together a series of checks, the less random they seem. Check you reflexes in 10 or 20 hits in the powerhouse of the laser beams, then go into combat where you are attacked by 2 or 3 foes and check the combat chat history for randomness. The more frequently you are attacked the less random the numbers seem, but just my limited observation so far.

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Regen and force block...noone have killed me yet. Teleport and mines at the moment are good, but they will get nerfed.

Pretty much what I'm going to do. Someone will kill you eventually but the energy generation of force block and it's advantage can at least add a lot to your dps.

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Back to the OP:


Who's been spreading this ~100% form damage business? That's only with ACTIVE buff powers, which while have a form attribute, have a long cooldown and aren't labeled as "XXX Form", such as Ice Form or Electrical Form.

That being said, the PASSIVE forms were never 100%. If you read current descriptions, rank 1 passive forms give +15% damage.

Active form buffs, with cooldown, now give +42% bonus for a period of 12 seconds.

Nanobot swarm, at rank 3 now give -24 to cooldown. So you can't use active forms nearly as often as before.


Everything, if built properly, is a viable choice with maybe the exception of most pure Avenger builds. Some pure avenger builds are. 98% aren't, because they're poorly done.

Personally, what I did with my ice user was have both passive defense and passive offensive, and switched builds where applicable. But that's just me. You need to decide through Powerhouse testing (yes, that's what it's there for), to determine whether or not they would be right for you.

Not which is "currently FoTM" because it's "more powerful". PFF is still a very, very viable defense. You just have to do other things in addition to having PFF to be as safe defensively as you were before, for example.

Many people will tell you PFF isn't. People who don't post on the forums but have great PFF builds will prove them wrong, time and again, till people cry nerf once more.

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At the moment I find Regens the toughest to kill. Some are still surviving the beatings of whole teams if there's no knockback or crippling challenges around.

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Problem with LR is although its potentially 100% damage avoidance, its also potentially zero. I prefer knowing how much damage i can soak up rather than leaving it to the wim of the RNG gods :)

Right. I tend to always prefer powers I can count on 100% of the time over powers that have a CHANCE to work.

I love Force Block. Damage mitigation that actually fills my enduranc bar? Signe me up for that! I tend to prefer a little defence over all out offense so it comes does to which power complements Force Block better - PFF or Regen. I' was planning on giving both a thorough testing in the power house, I was just curious about others' experiences with these two powers post nerf.

Because I've become very accostomed to using the block power in combat (it took me a while) I think Regen just might be the way to go. For someone who didn't block much, and knew it, PFF would probably be a better choice.

[Archived Post]

Right. I tend to always prefer powers I can count on 100% of the time over powers that have a CHANCE to work.

I love Force Block. Damage mitigation that actually fills my enduranc bar? Signe me up for that! I tend to prefer a little defence over all out offense so it comes does to which power complements Force Block better - PFF or Regen. I' was planning on giving both a thorough testing in the power house, I was just curious about others' experiences with these two powers post nerf.

Because I've become very accostomed to using the block power in combat (it took me a while) I think Regen just might be the way to go. For someone who didn't block much, and knew it, PFF would probably be a better choice.

Pre-patch I was using PFF + Field Drones + Force shield.

But since PFF got overnerfed, I rerolled a new toon and I've been using Defiance + super con + Empathic heal + Ice shield.

It's an amazing combo (relatively speaking considering the new changes).

Don't need Force shield with this combo, as defiance, in addition to increasing your defense, returns energy when you take damage. If you're getting hammered by multiple enemies, you will have a constantly full pool of energy.

This opened up the opportunity for me to take ice shield with its uber-proccing Chill+Ice cage effects.

Also, with defiance scaling with con, it means stacking con: improves damage output (since it's a super stat), hitpoints, and it improves your defense (since again, defiance scales with con).

The down side with this combo.. since defiance doesn't replace hitpoints like regen does, and there is no passive healing with this combo like you (used to get) with field drones.. You HAVE to create separation to give yourself enough time to channel Empathic Healing on yourself.

It's really not that hard to do though. I generally use force eruption to buy me the time I need to heal myself.If it's really bad, I can tele away, channel a heal, and then tele back into the fray.

All in all, I've found this to be a satisfactory replacement to my old combo..again, relatively speaking... it's miles ahead of my old combo's post-patch effectiveness.