DSorrow

IMO, the only TFs that dont work are Positron and Synapse. (and Citadel a bit, but least it can be done relatively fast)

Positron because it's long, boring and stupidly hard with an inexperienced team as has been said above. The bad thing is, the TF isnt hard as in challenging. It's hard as in annoying.

Synapse because it's just boring and can take quite long. It isnt annoying though.

And Citadel, very easy TF but it's also very dull because it's basically the same mish over and over and over again. Defeat council in cave bunker. 100 times over. Blah.

And also:

* Somehow fix the tohit debuffage problem. Chill of the night doing -30% tohit at lvl 15 is way too powerful. Add to that dispersion bubble and dark attacks and you're not going to hit the enemy very much.

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Plus no AV in Positron.

Is there any SF or Arc in Villains where you can kick his butt? I suddenly feel this urge after his I14 announcement...

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All in all, the TF fails at the only thing it should be good for: luring newcomers into doing TFs later on. If this is what they do first they'd logically think it is the shortest and easiest TF available because it's the first one. And dear god, if this was the easiest TF on the game I wouldnt ever bother with any of them.

Pretty much what Standoff said. The reason mostly being lack of defensive powers and offensive powers in the 10-15 range and CoT with their very fun and challenging (not, just annoying and unnecessarily hard) combination of earthquake + mez + dispersion bubble + chill of the night + dark attacks + self destruction making it impossible for newbie teams to actually complete the TF.

Vahz is also problematic but to a lesser extent, least they're not permamez/KBing you while debuffing your accuracy through the floor.

And add, it's also very hard with a large experienced team. This is why I just tend to duo it with my friends and in all cases possible avoid PuGs. Not really good for new players...

Title says it all...

So I recently rolled a DM/nin stalker to duo with my friend red side. I tried making a build and it looks very, VERY tight. This is going to be a PvE (PvE!!) build, with I13 coming I dont think I'm going to invest getting soft capped defence (shadow meld will fix all that).

Overall the combo looks quite survivable (2 self heals and other tricks from /nin) but I'm having a hard time getting the build into a decent state. Any and all help is appreciated

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Ah, so higher def is not need vs regular enemies, but it is need vs certain enemies and in PvP?

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Basically yes, I cant recall any enemies that have over 50% ToHit aside from DE with eminators and Nemesis with vengeance. Also in PvP the player ToHit is dropped to 50% but most players have enough ToHit and +accuracy that defense is quite useless in PvP

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That was a lot easier to understand too, thanks.

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No problem

To put it more simple, your final chance to hit is:

(ToHit - Enemy Defense) * Accuracy

For enemies, the base ToHit is 50% and their accuracy for most attacks is 1, thus 45% defense is the soft cap:

(50% - 45%) * 1 = 5%

It would be 95% if your enemy for a reason or another had 100% ToHit base value instead of 50%.


Hope that made it clearer.

IIRC AVs just happen to have a higher accuracy modifier so that they never go under 8.something%. So, even if their tohit is "debuffed" to 5% with your defence/combined defence and tohit debuffs their accuracy will lift their chance to hit from 5% to 8.something%. This is why they have the same 8% chance to hit even when you have elude on top of your shields.

The same mechanism applies for all the enemies in the game (except for the few autohit attacks). The accuracy mechanism works as follows:

([Your ToHit] + [ToHit Buffs] - [Enemy Defence] - [ToHit DeBuffs]){Value is clamped between 5% and 95%} * ([Base Accuracy of Power] + [Accuracy Buffs] - [Accuracy Buffs which might not exist, I'm not sure]){Value is clamped between 5% and 95%}

The overall result has low and high end caps, 5% and 95% respectively. This means that you'll never have a ToHit chance of under 5% or over 95%. Now, if you're ToHit is floored to 5% but you have base accuracy of 1 (most powers have base accuracy of 1) and 60% accuracy from enhancers and set bonuses it would look like this:

5%[ToHit] * (1 + 0.6)[Accuracy] = 8% chance to hit.

Previously higher level mobs used to have a higher accuracy modifier making their attacks hit more often when you were at soft capped defence, they changed it in an issue a while back so that all enemies up to +5 retain the same chance to hit against you.


Hope this was clear...

The medicine pool is there mostly to reduce (possible) downtime and to heal big hits I might take from mobs such as freak bosses or AVs. Just there to avoid death because of unlucky streak Numina's is also a nice set for bonuses.

Oh

Typos, how we just love them was meant to say general PvE but too late to edit now

Think I'm just going to shuffle some slots when we get the new sets in Mid's looks like it's very possible to remove fighting pool as a whole.

Also, tough is there not for toggling but for the 3% def unique.

I dont really think FA is needed for PvE, will have to see how my accuracy will turn out once we get Mid's updated, though.

True, the exportable build thingy is great. But leveling up by phone? Arent things already easy enough on us?

You know, this game is NEVER about a power being right or wrong. It's only about what feels is right or wrong for your character. I like to plan my characters in advance, I pick powers which I think supplement each other and follow the build as I level up. If it doesnt work or I come up with something that works out better I'll use a respec.

In most of the cases where you have a player that has played multiple characters to 50 he has an idea of how most of the powers in this game work. They are, after all, quite similar to each other in effect. You know how useful a 5% defense power will be for your resistance based character and how useful it will be for a defense based character. It's NOT wrong to use a pre-planned build for a new character that has sets you've never played, it helps you plan the slot distributing and power picks over the level-up span of the character so you dont end up at 50 thinking "dang, if I hadn't spent these two slots on this power and this slot on this one I could have three more slots in this power. Also I dont need this power because it hardly helps me, I wish I had chosen this power instead!".

Mind you, I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, but at least I like to know I can slot one power with a certain amount of slots without screwing things in the long run.

Yeah well, as it says it's for general PvE and I might give a try at soloing AVs with it. Also as you said the scirocco bonuses are rather good...

But then, I had a look at the new sets we're getting so will see when Mid's gets updated if I'll shuffle some slots to get better overall performance. Or even be able to drop weave!


EDIT: Forgot to mention, when I get some spare inf (or merits in I13) I will swap the LotG: End/Rech enhancements into LotG: +rech ones to squeeze out a bit more recharge.

Not really sure if this belongs here.... But aside from all the blind invites/stupid farm requests another thing I find rude is not answering to tells asking to join the team. Yes, I do understand that you may be in the thick of the battle and no, I dont care if you just reply with a blunt no but not answering is just rude. Even if you're fighting you could answer after that or reply "1 sec" or "no" while fighting, neither of those take more than a few seconds to type.

Nowadays I just run a bind to ask anyone around my level for team if they're showing on /search. Got too bored to type the same sentence 5 or more times and getting only 1 or 2 responses.

The thing is, adding massive -tohit powers (or any other of the kind) doesn't make the game any harder at all. It just makes these certain enemies much more annoying and people want to avoid them because of that and bang, the game hasnt become any "harder" because players wont fight these "harder" enemies.

The point is, extreme debuffs just make things annoying and not hard, especially when -tohit resistance is quite rare. Right now I cant think of any other sources except FA (on heroes) and I wouldnt pick that just to get -tohit resistance for the few annoying enemies I might face. It's things like sappers that make the game a bit more challenging, they force you to check the mob for sappers instead of just steamrolling it. This isnt so true for the ghosts, all of them have chill of the night so unless you have a nuke pre lvl 32 you wont be taking them all out before they debuff your accuracy to hell.

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Also, what do you give the non-weapon melee sets to compensate for this added damage?

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You give them colour coded underpants.

All shades of yellow, orange and red give added fire damage.
All shades of blue give added energy damage
All shades of black/grey give added negative damage
All shades of green give extra healing
All shades of purple/pink give extra psi damage


Etc.


Srsly.

Heh. Then you must know how annoying it is if every other attack misses, or if the situation is even worse...

I've planned a soft capped defence build for my fire/SR scrapper. Going to use for general PvP, maybe even going to try and solo AVs but not in the near future.
Aside getting positional defences to 45% I tried to get +dmg (to help with the already good damage), +hp and +regen. What do you think?

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1,4006
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Fighting

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Scorch -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(40), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45), T'Death-Dam%(45)
Level 1: Focused Fighting -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(17), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(39), RedFtn-Def(40), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 2: Cremate -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(3), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 4: Focused Senses -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(5), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(13), RedFtn-Def(13), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 6: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(7), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(7), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(9), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(9), GSFC-Build%(11)
Level 8: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 10: Practiced Brawler -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(11)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- Ksmt-ToHit+(A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Heal(17), RgnTis-Regen+(45), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(48), Numna-Heal(48), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(48)
Level 18: Fire Sword Circle -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(19), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(23), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(21), P'Shift-End%(23)
Level 22: Quickness -- Run-I(A)
Level 24: Dodge -- LkGmblr-Def(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(25), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(25), LkGmblr-EndRdx/Rchg(42)
Level 26: Incinerate -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(27), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(27), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37)
Level 28: Lucky -- LkGmblr-Def(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(29), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(29), LkGmblr-EndRdx/Rchg(39)
Level 30: Agile -- LkGmblr-Def(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(31), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(31)
Level 32: Greater Fire Sword -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34)
Level 35: Evasion -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(36), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(36), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(36), RedFtn-Def(37), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 38: Aid Other -- Empty(A)
Level 41: Aid Self -- IntRdx-I(A), Numna-Heal(42), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(42), Numna-Heal/Rchg(43), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 44: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 47: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 49: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(50), LkGmblr-EndRdx/Rchg(50), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]20% DamageBuff(Smashing)[*]20% DamageBuff(Lethal)[*]20% DamageBuff(Fire)[*]20% DamageBuff(Cold)[*]20% DamageBuff(Energy)[*]20% DamageBuff(Negative)[*]20% DamageBuff(Toxic)[*]20% DamageBuff(Psionic)[*]3% Defense(Smashing)[*]3% Defense(Lethal)[*]3% Defense(Fire)[*]3% Defense(Cold)[*]3% Defense(Energy)[*]3% Defense(Negative)[*]3% Defense(Psionic)[*]8,63% Defense(Melee)[*]8% Defense(Ranged)[*]8,63% Defense(AoE)[*]6% Enhancement(Heal)[*]27% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]15% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]10% FlySpeed[*]241 HP (18%) HitPoints[*]10% JumpHeight[*]10% JumpSpeed[*]MezResist(Held) 2,75%[*]MezResist(Immobilize) 23,7%[*]7,5% (0,13 End/sec) Recovery[*]74% (4,14 HP/sec) Regeneration[*]3,78% Resistance(Fire)[*]3,78% Resistance(Cold)[*]3,13% Resistance(Negative)[*]10% RunSpeed[/list]


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I know, but when you're at 50 and have 60% accuracy in attacks it is diminished into something around the 15% region or even lower when you exemp for example to lvl 15 for Posi when SOs arent available in normal play either.

Also the 30% -tohit will hurt when you're at 75% tohit even with 2 acc SOs. (75% - 30%) * 1.6 = 72%. That's 3% lower than the standard no ACC SOs and against even levels. And then you're under that with 2 ACC SOs slotted. If it was -30% ACC on the other hand, we'd get 75% * (1.6-0.3) = 100% (capped at 95%) which, IMO, would remove the almost obligatory dual ACC slotting if you didnt want to be whiffing every second.

All this is before defence buffs and further ACC/tohit debuffs are brought in. When daemons at lvls 15-40 are using chill of the night they also have dark melee and dark blast to further debuff your accuracy. Then in the teens there are also ruin mages with dispersion bubble. To give you an idea, this is how it works in general on a Posi TF:

(75[Base Tohit]-30[Chill of the Night]-15[Dispersion Bubble]) * (1[Base ACC] + 0.15 [Diminished ACC enhancers, or an ACC DO]) = 0,345 = 34.5% chance to hit. Without the dark melee/dark blast tohit debuffs. Also if you take in account the level differences it gets even more annoying. At higher levels it is easier though because ruin mages disappear and you have more slots (to spare for ACC slotting) and more powers (e.g. stamina to avoid end slotting or tactics for more +tohit to avoid the second ACC SO).

The whole point of this is, that unless you have high +ACC, +Tohit or Tohit Debuff resistance you're probably not going to have a hard time against the enemy because of your tactics but because your powers just wont hit.

Hope that made sense

Well even solo the shields arent useless, you can buff phantasm with them.

Concerning these changes to powers such as FA which is going from +20% tohit (enhanceable to 30%) going to 5% tohit and 30something% acc I was thinking they should change massive NPC tohit debuffs such as chill of the night, especially by mobs that use them pre-lvl 50. With the massive tohit boosts going to "suppress" these massive tohit debuffs I think it would be a good idea to adjust the -30% tohit chill of the night into -30% acc.

This is especially true in the case of pre-30 CoT with the daemons using chill of the night and everyone just whiffing because they're lacking any sort of good +acc set bonuses (in most of the cases) and good tohit buffs (1 leadership character with tactics isnt enough...).

Apologies for any spelling mistakes or sentences that dont make sense, it's early in the morning and English isnt my first language!

Thanks

Yes, but sonic is next to no good in a team unless you have those shields...

Great news, finally can duel without having to play in an annoying map!


Also, 1000 posts!