I have announced my annoyance with the Rikti and Issue 10 for bring us more. What is good about having Rikti in the game?
First, they are the backstory. Before we turned to immortal spider-kings, nazis cum other fascists, and interdimensional duplicates, the original interdimensional attackers were the Rikti. The whole story behind the City is that the Rikti attacked. I like getting back to that story.
Second, there are some good Rikti stories. The Dark Watcher story arc (“The Horror of War”) is excellent, one of the best in the game. “Division: Line” and “The Organ Grinders” are fundamental arcs in getting the CoH backstory. Lady Grey’s Task Force does not have a great story, but it has interesting ideas and a great twist at the end.
Third, in terms of gameplay, they bring a lot to the table. There is something there for everyone, which is to say that there is something hard there for everyone. Their drones see through stealth. They have every type of crowd control, which is rough on squishies. They have lots of psychic damage, which is hard on most non-squishies. They have hordes of little monkeys to fight. They summon portals that are worth ridiculous amounts of experience. They have Guardians, who will give you nice buffs if you land a confusion power. The ideal anti-Rikti PC is probably a Spines/Dark Armor Scrapper: status protection, psychic resistance, PBAE damage toggle for the monkeys, and a single-target ranged attack to aggro without disrupting the portal summoning. That could explain part of why it is the flavor of the month.
: Zubon
I’ve found that the best Rikti basher is a */elec brute: excellent energy resists, good psi and smash/lethal resists, an AoE damage aura, and an autohit energy drain. If you throw in Aid Self from the medicine pool, they can just keep going and going against Rikti. /dark is good, but they have really weak energy resists, which is the majority of the damage that the Rikti pump out. As far as the primary, well, if brutes had spines, I’d definitely agree on that. Since they don’t, I’d go with fire or dark, since they have no resistance to either of those. That said, my elec/elec tears them up, even though I believe they’re somewhat energy resistant.
Flavor of the month becuase of Rikti? Spines/DA is the flavor of the year because it’s been the best farming build (up there with a fire/kin controller) since DA stacking was added. The more recent ‘good against Rikti’ aspect is more of an aside.
I wouldn’t mind ‘flavors’ if they became flavors of the week, or day. A month of one community-favored build leaves a bland taste in my mouth.
I’ve never had a huge problem with them on my illusion controller, at long as PA and phastasm are up. PA keeps them distracted and do damage, while not really ever being controlled, and that helps keep me safe. As long as i don’t get too deep in over my head, that is.
Yeah, I have been using an Illusion/Kinetics Controller lately. Lead with control on the mentalists, toss in the Phantom Army, the Phantasm takes some of the holds, and then I have Indomitable Will in case I still take a hit. I don’t get held much with him.