Power Man: Boss Killer (for Hire) dps luke cage pve pvp
    Guide by PinkDaisy Last update at Dec 25th 2014, 06:04

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    Sweet Christmas 1
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    Ready to (Dempsy) Roll

    Luke Cage is a bruiser plain and simple.

    He can dive into a fight and do enough single-target damage versus high-level enemies to quickly turn a fight in his favor.
    Fully leveled? Let's fight.

    Make sure you've brought
    to the job with you.

    at the primary mob to build five combo points.

    RUSH IN

    followed by five licks with your
    another


    At this point you may have gotten aggro due to the hundreds of thousands of points of damage damage you just vaporized off your foe. If you have aggro but they haven't done much to you yet simply
    ,
    ,
    ,
    again.

    At this point you might need to catch your breath. If not: Repeat. If so: Your defenses, hp and regen are high due to
    , and
    . So run in a circle avoiding enemy fire and then start all over.

    Easy, right? Yup.

    ===WHY THESE SKILLS===

    -PRIMARIES-

    At the end of the game we want to murder bosses.

    may be a "basic attack" but it feeds us combo points and does 40% more damage to all the mobs that don't die in one hit anyway. 40% more damage causes this to out pace some basic melee spirit spenders.

    if you're playing for survivability (we want to murder them not get murdered) you really need to pick a finisher and run with it. Dempsey Roll hits /7 times/ making it far and away more damaging than his other finishers PLUS it adds dodge rating for about twice the duration of the animation. It also seems to negate a lot of push backs while the animation is going off so it's not easily broken once it begins. Did I mention 7 hits means seven chances to crit/brutal strike? The odds are in your favor on this one.

    DRAW BACK: Is there a stranger in your party who can teleport enemies? Well, guess what. He just teleported away your target so now you blew five combo points sending five of our seven punches against thin air. Enemies that charge or run around can sometimes move away /but/ once you get the "flow of the game" the only time you have to deal with this is when someone moves your foe on you.

    hits almost every foe on the screen. A tap will clear trash mobs and if you hold it down you can damn near clear a screen full of blues on green/red terminals. It's great for XDef, Midtown, or even situations where a boss shrouds himself in his own dot so you just want to do some harass damage till the area cools down. The knockdown is a great bonus.

    we're murdering bosses. Colleen gives us POWER which translates to damage rating, attack speed, and movement speed. The damage she does and her special aren't anything to write-home about (none of the heroes for hire are) ratcheting up our damage and attack speed is always welcome. This is very nice on top of a Dempsey Roll or Crowbar Flurry. You have above average survivability with this build so you shouldn't need a pet with a minor heal.

    this is Cage's primary defense skill. Health regen is /king/ for long term survivability. Defense is obviously good. 33% projectile deflection is /more than passive Invulnerable Shield/ of the same level.

    bonus to crit and health. That meets our need to stay in the fight longer. It also meets our need to deal more damage. The bonus to thrown objects seems like a goofy addition until you realize that you get
    as an opener. 40% bonus damage to his top tier skill is not bad. We /could/ max this out but with diminishing crit returns and gear I'd rather pick another skill and move it to mid-range.

    like the other 'bottom rung' skills this one scales up for ridiculous damage (still, its no Dempsey Roll). However, its on an 8 second cool down. It does have a range though and it does give you 5 combo points. This is why you work it into your attack cycle. Once you get close you basically burst
    back to back (ending one cycle and starting the next). Boss health melts right off. With the newest patch that provides more skill points this goes from a one point wonder to a strait max-out pure boss melting goodness.

    -SECONDARIES-

    Okay, so we have about 30 more points we can either max out one skill or spread them out...
    ...we can only have one hero out at a time unless we
    ...
    .....but that's kinda gimicky. Let's go with something we know is going to work and will be up 100% of the time.

    remember how much damage Dempsey Roll did? We just increased it by anywhere from 30%-40% depending on how you are geared. Oh, and you get more damage after you Dempsey Roll for fifteen seconds. You will be Dempsey Rolling more often than 15 seconds so this is almost like a constant damage boost..

    -ONE POINT-

    free money. Unlike Cyke's XP bonus (which stinks) you don't get orbs with thousands and thousands of credits. Every little pickup counts.

    a little more crit and move speed (more than a single additional point in the other skills you've raised if you're following this build). The active effect? Eh, okay, not that we're concerned about when Colleen is using her active skill. You'll get more mileage out of that aspect with Iron Fist.

    this is your CC break. It also weakens and taunts enemies. Just in case you need to take control of the scene for a few seconds.

    may as well summon his signature team. They're excellent distractions in a fight. Just don't forget to resummon your primary when they vanish. IF YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT THIS ONE: Place this point into
    and max it out.

    -=RELICS AND SUCH=-

    The ones above are safe choices. You can mix/max here depending on your play style. If you're using Lemuria on another melee hero that needs the healing more than Cage then Asgard or Atlantis are good choices.

    RUNE WORD: The BONE BREAKER runeword adds +str so that'll boost your damage along with other damage dealing bonuses.

    COSTUME CORE: +str and +fighting if you can find it. The bonus health/spirit from a medkit may seem like a good option but currently the bonus is not large enough to really matter for a major fight. Honestly though, if you found a +str/+fighting just take whatever the third enchantment is and count yourself as lucky.

    URU:
    is tagged as melee (as of 4.42) so either +melee or +physical will work the same because that's all cage does. If
    were not tagged as melee you would want the physical Uru.

    LEGENDARY: Excalibur edges out Gungir because its reliable damage and gives health regen upon hit (regen is king, remember?). The crit curve (also noted above) makes stacking a ton of crit prohibitive in the long term and Cage already has a +crit skill and +crit gear.

    NEW SCALING 2.42: With the rework of stats grabbing Strength and Fighting WHEREVER POSSIBLE will augment all your attacks. This results in a somewhat squishier Cage but thankfully he is designed as a bruiser so you can mitigate this pretty well with equipment. For boss killing utilizing the strategies above that is my recommendation. If you wind up with a DUR instead of STR or FIGHT you'll be fine.