Dechs Kaison

I apologize if I've offended you, but I never said it was poor memory. Bias simply makes old memory unreliable.

On the subject of the FS, though, I assumed your point was that FS couldn't be double stacked. Else, why would you even bring it up? My point was that a single Kinetics user could cap a team of brutes. What was yours?

Not exactly. The Heal version is significantly better for Masterminds, so they gave them Regeneration. Regen scales with max health, so it has a better effect on a Tank or a Brute than it does on a Defender, but those are far better than the effects on the henchmen.

I haven't analyzed the difference, but I would be willing to bet the Regen aura is better for played characters.

I don't doubt it was, but that's half of my point. Memory plays tricks on you, especially with the "memorable" events. Often, you remember things a lot better than they really were. The more time between the event and the now, the more distortion occurs. Mostly because your brain just ignores the bad parts, but exaggeration of the good is also pretty common.

Just look at the discrepancies I pointed out for clear evidence of this, particularly the FS recharge time. He seemed extremely certain that FS wasn't coming around every 20 seconds, but I can easily build a Kinetics character on SOs that has that recharge time. Further, he's talking about a time when we didn't even have the combat attributes monitor, so it's not like anyone could be sure whether your team was even hitting the damage cap, much less whether it was happening with one or two or three Kinetics players. Again, I'm not really blaming him or even calling him a liar. I'm just pointing out that Memory Bias is something that happens to all of us.

A couple quick points to make here.

First, if you are talking before IOs, this is also prior to Kinetics being balanced for Corruptors, which means you were buffing 25% per target and 50% around the caster, for a total of 300% damage buff per Kinetics user.

Second, even without IOs, a decently slotted Kinetic can get Fulcrum Shift reliably to 20 second recharge, which equates to a reliable double stack. That's before accounting for your teammate Kinetics giving you Speed Boost.

Third, it is a lot easier to hit ten targets than you imply. Even with the enforced minimum 5% miss rate, AoE attacks continue to check for hits beyond the target cap if targets within the first "group" are missed.

All of that being said, I do concede that two Kinetics users are not completely and immediately redundant. Most of the time, you won't get two Fulcrum Shift applications per spawn, so the only way to reliably damage cap brutes is to have two Fulcrum Shifts hit the same spawn at the very beginning. But if things are dying that fast, can you really tell the difference? I know I can't.

Well, to be fair, you are talking about something you did before Issue 9. That's years ago, and memory tends to be less than pristine after years, so I certainly can't blame you. I know I took Calculus 3 a few years ago, but damned if I remember enough to do the problems right now.

BOOM.

Headshot.

*Applause*

Well, that's one of the problems. It only takes one kinetics character to be able to Fulcrum Shift the whole team to the damage cap, provided he knows what he's doing. That's the only thing I don't like about Kinetics: it stacks about as well as an additional tanker on the team. It's great when you start splitting directions, of course (much like with tanks).

Could you explain how?

I ask because I always have a target for Follow up, so I don't understand how range could benefit my proc chances.

Again, I've addressed this already. If Pain is hitting the softcap, it is making far more build sacrifices to get there. In that build space, /Traps can fit more HP and regen to eclipse the meager difference between TB and SP.

I also know there is no way you could build Pain to softcap S/L/E/N/Ranged and have F/C/Melee/AoE above 40% AND have a resistance shield from Epic Pools like a /Traps can. This is a clear example where softcap is not softcap.

Also, your math is skewed a bit. 37% more damage sounds non trivial, except that we're talking about the difference between 10 and 14 damage on a scale that started in the thousands. However you present the difference between resistance values, the result is not a perceptible amount in practice. I would expect you to understand that, considering the much touted field testing you claim.

Thugs. The Necro/Pain only made it to 32.

EDIT: I just noticed that all this discussion we've had doesn't even touch on the defense numbers that Traps provides, or the fact that both /Traps and /Pain benefit from essentially 75% resistance from bodyguard mode. There are two points to be made from this.

One: The 17% resist that Word of Pain provides is diluted by Bodyguard Mode. A /Traps user in bodyguard with Tough and the Mu shield is effectively at 91.5% resist to S/L. A /Pain Domination with those powers and Word of Pain hardcapping his resists is effectively at 93.8% resist to S/L. That difference is so small it's hardly worth mentioning.

Two: In place of that 2% difference in effective resistance, a /Traps MM layers on 15.75% defense. That's either 15.75% more defense than the /Pain MM or that much less in set bonuses to chase after, allowing for more HP and Regen bonuses to be obtained. I would gladly throw away 2% resistance for 15.75% defense on any character.

The moral of the story here is that not only does my field tested experience tell me that /Traps is more sturdy than /Pain, I have math to back up my statements.

That's why I specifically said most of the resists, which come from your S/L/E toggle that you must be using to hardcap your S/L. That toggle suppresses, but not for a /Traps user.

Health is a power shared to both Traps and Pain, I don't understand what point you're trying to make.

So you carry Break Frees where a Traps can carry Purples, Oranges, or Greens. As far as survivability goes, this point is a wash.

Word of Pain is giving you 17% resist; 43% comes from the Mu Patron shield and another 23% comes from Tough. Near as I can figure, Word of Pain is of minimal impact at best, so your statement that Traps can't come close to the resists of Pain is ridiculous. Back to the suppression point, when your toggles suppress, you get to keep 17% S/L resist where a /Traps player keeps 66%.

It's even more ridiculous that you would say Suppress Pain is not comparable to Triage Beacon. The base numbers are 200% for SP and 150% for TB, but TB can be stacked and will not suppress.

Sorry, but your argument didn't come close to being correct.

I strongly disagree. Most of your resists and your regen suppress if you get mezzed, and where you have to take Clarion to prevent this, /Traps is allowed to take either Barrier or Rebirth.

At worst, /Traps is on par with /Pain for survival.

Adeon nailed it, and my bots/traps build is posted on my blog. There's plenty of room for customizing it. I have three powers from teleport and my epic powers are completely superfluous.

Follow up is better due to the 100% proc rate, currently. Focus had a shorter base recharge, which translates to a far less chance to fire. Besides, my Focus slotting is too tight as it is.

Me too.

I'll get working on a write-up and have something posted by the weekend.