Frosticus

Load up his ghost of scrapyard images and note that the entire fight occurs within a ~20ft area the entire time. From the bit of testing I've done on that GM it runs like the dickens if you don't prevent it. Dunno why, but he ran a couple hundred yards when I hit him with Lingering rad the other day heh.

I'd also be interested in Silverado's opinion on what set is more capable in more AV/GM situations. I wouldn't be surprised if the mez protection of traps alone was enough to be the deciding factor.

You seem to have all the info, how often do you need to taunt? do you need to keep it perma on them or is it much less often than that?

I know the answer, but regardless of what I use you'll crap on it. How often would I have to use it to close the 89 dps gap vs GM's?

The builds I referenced were only for the purpose of seeing how often the recasts/summons come up. In fact the traps/son build was just an example of being able to softcap every single damage type in the game. And it does. If it were an AV/gm killing build it would have procc'd out caltrops, procc'd acid mortar, no trip mine, medicine and presence. But again it was just referenced for seeing how often you recast stuff to figure out the dps loss.

That rad/son can run for about 500 seconds (or 8+ min) full out. Considering how much more dps it does than most rad/sons it is sufficient for AV's and many GM's.

Finally, lol AI. Your not serious about that are you? Or if you are you'll need to explain more because every enemy in the game seems to behave identical in every encounter from what I've seen. Don't hand wave away information because you have no counter. Producing paper scenarios for AV's (and many GM's) plays out almost identical to how you envision it because AV's are so predictable and have all the depth of a pylon when it comes to AI. When I was constructing my fire/storm troller for AV's my excel sheets were coming within 2-4 seconds of my ingame times. And with the endurance that toon consumes they had to be that accurate. That is entirely because the AI is so predictable and all of the numbers are known.

Well now, I guess you do know it all.

Let's see traps:
Mez protection? yep
53% res debuff and almost perma achiles on top of that? yep
53% -dam perma
500% regen (that's about 30hp sec on a decent defender, which is equivalent to using Rad Aura every 9 seconds!)
20.9% def to all to work from so easily capped def of your choice (24% w/ seekers added in vs AV)
AV's: 94 dps of -regen
Monsters/GM's: 353 dps of -regen

dps loss due to traps summons: (acid, seekers, pgt, triage) = ~30%

Rad:
Mez protection? nope, but mez res is pretty good, except RI and EF still drop
30% res debuff and about 4% from achilies in RI
-30% dam
30%+rech ( perma with very high recharge)
25%+ dam (perma with very high recharge )
Up to 60hp/sec healing (casting RA every 4.4 sec: 2.18 sec rech/2.244 cast)
7.125% effective tohit debuff vs AV's, so a lot harder to softcap
AV's: 70.7 dps of -regen
Monster/GM's: 264.4 dps of -regen

dps loss due to rad powers: (am, LR, RA equal to 300% regen, which brings it up to par with triage on the traps w/ health and IO's. So every 15.6 sec) =~23%

I'll concede that rad is still the faster AV killer (probably), I've even said that in another thread, but "big game" no I don't think so. Rad has to make up 89 dps just from the difference in -regen, which AM just can't do.

If you did 50 dps before buffs and debuffs
Traps: ~164 dps
less dps loss due to summons and 95% cap on tohit
109 dps

Rad: ~147 dps
less dps loss due to casting and 95% cap on tohit
108 dps

At which point the difference comes out as the extra 23.6 dps of -regen vs AV's and the extra 89 vs GM's.

*I"m being as impartial as I can be and referencing these builds for my purposes (though the 50 dps is just an example), but feel free to run w/e numbers you feel are pertinent
rad/son
Click this DataLink to open the build!
traps/son
Click this DataLink to open the build!

All that said traps and rad are both very capable of the task. But seeing as how you nitpicked my comment about traps possibly being the best big game hunger blueside now, but not the fact that defs are the second best at it otherwise what troller do you feel is better than a traps/son?

I know traps is new to blueside, but surely redside players can't be that much smarter can they?

It's nothing powerpool taunt can't easily solve. Some seem more affected by the flee factor of mortar too.

shriek dpa = 27.19
shout dpa = 26.37
efence dpa= 27.35
dom dpa = 27.35

*scream dpa - scream self buffs with the -res so I don't list it (2 ticks unbuffed, 8 ticks buffed), but it ends up being the best dpa attack by a small margin.

When you factor in procs the epic attacks are indeed as good or better choice than shout from a damage standpoint even with the extra -res. When you factor in secondary effects efence and dominate* are both better vs AV's

Just to clarify there is no epic choice that will prevent a defender from getting mezzed and having their offensive toggles drop.

*Under high recharge (which is the only way you should take dominate) you'll always have it double stacked so AV's will be mezzed for the entire time the PToD are down.

colder

"clever" isn't the word I'd use.

If you said a cold/sonic I'd agree such gaps are good to fill with primary powers, but the only clicks in rad are LR, which is a once every 27 second thing, AM, once every 2 min, and the heal. If you need to spam your heal that much then something is wrong.

Screech as mentioned in the other sonic thread right now is used on teams vs hard targets for more forcemultiplication. but solo the damage lost during the cast is not made up for by the extra -res debuff.

The OP is looking to specifically kill AV's and GM's. The advice you are offering seems more suited to general pve where a lower degree of efficiency is passable.

For AV's if you have high ranged def you want them only using ranged attacks, which means you want to be outside of 50ft so they don't try to use cones and rip you apart. That makes the use of shout dubious from the onset and is a large part of why e fence is prefered. Not only is it good damage, but the immob locks them in spot so they fight on your terms. the 50ft range of e fence is enough where most cones/aoes won't be cast.

Though more range like a build with enough rech to use dominate combined with hovering is even better to eliminate attacks you don't defend against as well as scaling up to GM's better.

This sounds like it was being constructed on the faulty assumption that the attacks do not self stack. It also sounds like a "burst" chain rather than a dps chain for it to include pbu and tf.

TF won't be included in a dps chain. It's dpa is fine, but it results in the -res stacking being heavily weakened.

Screech is used on heavy targets in a team because it lets you stack higher peak -res and forcemultiply your teammates more. But solo the damage gained by the extra 20% -res usually isn't enough to offset the damage lost during the cast time it occupies unless you are working with some sizable gaps.

While this is true it runs counter to the BS we were fed about why ice melee and ice armor were removed from brutes.

Off topic, but you still build fury while hibernating and I think that was reason enough to remove the combo as that is highly gameable (specially considering hibernate was not subject to nophase back then and could recharge in 40 or so seconds.

What do you fill your chain with if you don't take e fence? If shout then that massively long cast time plus short range is more than enough time for things to walk over and punch your face in.

If you just run shriek>scream they you have some fair sized gaps.

Defs are the second best big game hunter blueside.

Actually now that they have traps they might be the best.

The way I see it. They snuck in ED right in when CoV hit and they have historically done the heavy nerfing/changes when they can be burried beneath new shiny (that's just smart).

Castle has gone on the record several times now stating his dislike of how OP'd some things can get.

DR does effectively put "caps" on things, no matter what you do you can't exceed ~20% def on a squishy in pvp. You can stack FF's, veng, IO's, w/e and it won't go higher.

So DR does put "caps" like you are talking about AND it makes it harder to hit that cap in the first place. ie you need mid 30's for it to come out at about 20%.

I dunno, we'll see. I just don't think they came up with DR specifically for pvp, but rather have been using pvp as a testbed for the pve game. A lot of work went into DR for such a small aspect of the game. Combine that with the powers guy saying he doesn't like things as they are and it causes me to worry.

If they do something big, it will be with GR.

When he implements Diminished returns with GR it won't technically be a nerf to IO's, or defense But when your squishy can't exceed 20% defense I don't imagine that technicality will be all that important.

I don't think this is very good advice.

shriek>scream>shriek>efense is one of the most damaging chains a sonic can produce once you factor in procs.

The immob is very nice vs AV's to prevent them from running around and/or attempting to use melee attacks which means you can just focus on ranged def. It has decent enough range that your chain keeps you out of most cone attacks they might cast, which you usually have low def too.

Just to clarify. The changes in i13 elevated def sets to ridiculously OP'd. The changes in i14 gutted them to (imo) well below i12 standards for defense.

People made fun because the head guy of Champions likened balancing to over-correcting in a sailboat. While it is a disturbing analogy if true often, I'd say pointing at Castle's attempts to balance pvp is a clear indication of the danger he'd be on the water.

By casting stalagmites ?

Is there a handicapping system for MMO's? I know there is in lots of business sectors, but in MMO's?