John_Printemps

I think you missed the joke >_> By turning my "Primary" into my "Secondary" and turning my "Secondary" into my "Primary" I can "play it like a Scrapper."

I'll just devote everything in the primary to building set bonuses, take Weave/Tough and a solid Ancillary/Patron and play it like a Scrapper anyway.

They obviously had never seen Equilibrium

DP/MC All the way!

You know, I was thinking about it, does anyone remember when Castle was the one running powers and said (loosely) "If [we] look at Spines, it most likely wont come back out of the operating room like it is now."?

I'm not saying I expect the current team to be in the same mind-set, but Spines is more than likely going get Proliferated, and with it they've said "We've changed some things." So far the only thing mentioned has been casually that they've "improved" Barb Swipe and Lunge, but not really said they had or hadn't reviewed the rest of the set as well. For the most part, change in this game trends towards the better; but that still has me curious if they've gone through and cleaned house a little on all the secondary junk that Spines carries (Slows, Toxics, Immoblize, -Rech).

Glad someone had that ready, I didn't have a Warshade build handy to pull the numbers for that explanation.

Pretty much. It's a "Third Shield". Defense > Resistance > Absorb, and after all three of those have been passed through, remaining damage finally hits your HP. It's easier if you think of it like "Null Damage" kind of resistance, despite it working out of an imaginary HP pool.

I read your response on my lunch break and spent the rest of the afternoon LOL'ing.

I think this about sums up everything:

I'm sure they'd skip KO Blow altogether if they could get Gloom to recharge faster.

Warshades have a better Endurance-Filler, but no one is contending with that. PB's have a reasonable amount of assistance to deal with their End Bars on their own. Despite your opinion, they are actually sufficient to maintain a PB endlessly. Been there, tested that.

This right here was about the only worthwhile piece to pull from your response (yes, I'm being cynical, live with it). You say you think Data--the data pulled directly from the game during live testing and use--is "bullocks"? I am not using "paper" (or, elgh, excel) charts here in anything I've said. I've made that quite clear since page one. What Warshades do, they are designed to do, and do it well. What PB's are designed to do they do not do as well as they should. For the most part (as already said) they function competently, and most will overlook the issue, but it does not ultimately change that the quip is there.

1.) This thread was a discussion, not a complaint. As has been done (for the most part), this is a discussion, don't drag it in the mud as otherwise.

2.) Again, again, again, PB's can handle Burst damage, this is why most deal with them in the interim. Their failure is in sustained damage. That is ultimately the developer's decision on determining: A.) Is it warranted in their view of the game, and B.) What is a fair adjustment if it Does change.

3.) You think men are competitive? Where did this even come from? No one is throwing them in a "cage match." The idea is to bring them onto equal terms. To terms where the Devs have already admitted PB's were not at.

Titan Weapons did that upon Conception. And, lets be honest. It's not SS/* that's on the AoE Throne, it's */Fire.

Feh, okay, so, I typed this all up once and miss clicked something and lost the entire thing, so here goes a second time (but shorter).

Photon Seekers: I'm referring not to my personal opinion, but all of the many people that have posted in this sub-forum about the "issue." Most cases the argument stems in the fact that people don't feel they function in a beneficial way. Whether it be their brief lives, or their inability to do a major amount of damage in a significant way (yes, I get they do "BIG ORANGE", but it's in one shot, and their displayed value is actually split three ways, and unless they gang up on one target, they're not even doing 50% of a minions' health). Personally, an improvement in any direction would be kind, but I'm indifferent to their current state as I only use them for amusement rather than expecting them to do something.

Single-Target Damage: When I talk about PB's being on Defender levels, I'm not talking about "on paper," I'm referencing actual in-action ability. I ran the base values for most of the defender blast sets and came up with ST capacity from 80-100, with some outliers like fire/sonic being able to reach baselines up to 110-120. I ran those numbers without additional buffs beyond the base 30% Solo for Vigilance (as this is exactly what I'm measuring, solo). Before the retort can be said: nobody can try and say "But if defenders are so low, why can't they have a buff?" Defender Primaries leverage buffs and debuffs in such a way that they can do absurd damage when they leverage their "other half." But, again, just talking secondary here.

Taking this back to the PB side, a low end PB (human form) on SO's (Or Basic IOs) will usually teeter out at 110 DPS. A mid-range, average PB (the most common achievement in today's IO world), reaches 125-135 DPS. A top end, fully pushed PB (not as often an occurrence due to the fact that the cost to achieve is often not worth the value for the involvement required) will start to burn out around 170-180 DPS. The paper-value of a high performance PB is actually around 190-200 DPS, but the impact of constantly maintaining Hasten, Light Form, and Inner Light dramatically bring this value down. In my testing, 170-175 was the limit. This is, of course, measuring sustained DPS and not Burst DPS.

For those unclear: Sustained DPS is your continuous average as you attack and includes in the ups and downs of things like Build Up (Inner Light). Burst DPS is what you do during the initial duration of immediate short-term buffs like (yup) Build Up. Inner Light has a burst portion (10/s) and a sustained value for the entire 30/s.

So, back to the maths and numbers! A PB at its peak (and please, don't argue Hybrid, that power is pretty static across all AT's: 30-40 DPS) starts maxing out around 175 DPS at their maximum performance. Lets put that into perspective! A Cold/Sonic Defender can solo a GM. That requires an effective output of 350+ DPS. Now, this is clearly leveraging Cold/* to the utmost of ridiculousness, but it is a Defender. They are solo. And they are owning. That is obviously an outlier case, but it is where some of the biggest arguments have spawned from. Baseline Corr and Defender blasts measure up with the PB Ranged attacks, and their Melee lines up with Non-Fury Brute values. I, nor any other player is directly asking to make this "City of Damage!", but it would be appreciated to have the ability to (at top performance) be more than a sparkler. Pretty and fun until it burns out and singes your hand.

I'm not using opinion to point these things out, but the hard data from the game. I know you said "you felt" your defenders did not perform at the same level as your PB, but that would be entirely on how you yourself have built them to perform. If your Defender feels "weak" (not "quoting", just using the word loosely), then you're more likely pigeon holing it. I have a Kinetic/Electric Defender made and leveled around I9. He's 50, and I don't ever play him. I feel, on my own, in my opinion, mine, he is weak. He's not really. Electric is passable on AoE for a Defender, and the i24 changes to Snipes will give him a viable ST chain finally, but the biggest bang he can ever do is a fulcrum shifted nuke (spawn wipe!) and that came off as luck-luster for me. Especially considering I just took a Fortunata and bashed a Pylon into the ground in 3:10. That's about 2.5 times more powerful than my Kin/Elec, so its perspective on being "weak."

Quick quote break here as I integrate an additional post:

They've been data-mining since the last alteration to PB's in order to monitor their survival performance.

Removing the KB defeats the intended design. They'll release one single unique IO to cut KB on one power, but there are often reasons something pushes AWAY (over powered as KD). KB doesn't make people scared, it pisses people off. Both those playing it, and those dealing with it. Now, not saying everyone becomes disassitisfied with knock back, many like to build around the idea and leverage it (more than viable) but...

No one is directly saying "I can farm quicker." My argument is that Warshades are definitively designed to maximize around AoE and crowd control. Peacebringers are focused on the alternative of Single Target and "soft control" (mild KB/KD in a handful of powers, and a Stun). They are two sides to the same coin, sharing and differentiating based on heads and tails. You can't say "Take that KB AoE, It'll increase your DPS." This is flat out false. You might get that one good hit in, but after that you've scattered the crowd and purposely reduced your ability to deal damage to the mob at large. That is why people don't like the KB. How can you possibly jump into a mob, AoE KB, and expect to keep doing it? PB's have KB AoE as a "Soft Control", it immediately disperses a mob and gives them a moment to breathe, turn, pick a target and take it out while the mob re-clusters.

PB's don't have Endurance Problems. Conserve Power is in the secondary, and Light Form (which is actually pretty easy to Perma, or have a larger up time) also provides an endurance boost. They're not quite at the same dramatic +END of a Warshade, but they are FAR from hurting.

So, to both of your statements, they're based on a perceived opinion, where many of the arguments here (and in general) can be shown in the data. The bigger question is... what's that word Arcanaville uses all the time? Holistic. If I'm using this right, the bigger question is how the developers view Kheldians holistically, and if they feel [our] point is valid.

To make my portion of the [our] more clear, I'm only asking for a mild adjustment to a handful of the PB single-target attacks. A minor reduction (.2 to .4/s depending) to their animation times in the ST blasts, and a re-evaluation of Incandescent Strike as its Animation vs. Damage isn't really balanced when compared to equivalent Melee attacks. The net increase of something so minimal is a vague 20ish DPS increase, but the Quality of Life impact would be far greater.

And, because I forgot to integrate this at the appropriate point: Yes, PB's are built like brickhouses defensively, but so are Warshades, which loops right back to "Warshades > PB". The ultimatum for Players to consider, is at what point do you start taking things away to give the PB a better hand. Additionally, Cosmic Balance. The entire argument is all in Solo performance, where it actually matters. Cosmic Balance is... (in my opinion) rather useless. Nice to have, but not breaking my back over 75% of its bonuses being useless to me after level 38.

Edit: Okay, so, not really that short, but hey!

In order of importance on what you want to achieve with a */Shield character:
1.) 47% M/R/A Defenses, 2.) Recharge, 3.) HP, 4.) Regen

Getting over the 45% hump into a slightly safer range of 47-48% is a dual item of interest. One, it gives you a bit of slack for defense debuffs, and two, a small purple will bump you to the 59% iCap. Getting 59% naturally for Scrapper Shields is tough and often at the cost of performance in other areas (currently) unless you take Barrier and work around its minimum 5% attribute; but that leads to a whole other kettle of fish as Rebirth +Regen will often be a better bet.

You're going to want Tough/Weave, the both supplement well with existing attributes and help you maximize your survivability. This is also adding to your toggle count, so you're going to have to evaluate APP/PPP choices in conjunction here. A well managed toon can easily handle all situations, but if you're feeling a bit under for the blue-bar, Conserve Power/Physical Perfection is a quick and easy safety net that not only helps alleviate Blue-Woes, but improves your net survival with a smidgen more Regen.

On the flipside, you're Fire, and Fireball is definitely enticing to include into a build, so this might be a direction you also consider for the added AoE that the strong PPP power gives you. Don't discourage your existing primary AoE in this analysis, though. Firebreath requires a bit of adjustment to get a feel for, but is decent, and Fire Sword Circle is a general beast for damage, so you're not without capacity in your Primary before ever digging into APP/PPP. Remember, too, that Ranged attacks are likely not benefiting from AAO if you're not surrounded. More a note, than anything.

Still on the APP/PPP train of thought, there is also Soul Mastery's access to Shadow Meld. This power is great for not only covering you to 59%, but also as a fail-safe option for heavy defense debuffs. Keeping that in mind, getting your mez click to double-stack will double its built-in Def-Debuff to add with your main toggles. Grant Cover also has a bit of protection for you as well, and is worth considering keeping in a build for sticky situations. Between all of them you can get ~70%, which is a considerably solid amount compared to other defense sets that aren't Super Reflexes.

With all that said, on Incarnates: Agility Core greatly impacts many of your choices and can help keep your stress down on reaching 47% Defense, boost your Recharge, and give you a hair more Endurance (especially if you take Physical Perfection. Not much, but every bit counts). If you feel you can comfortably cover your defenses, Musculature is also a nice route to go to boost your output. Interface is choice, really no big here, Judgement, again, personal preference, no loss on any of them. I will say the Vorporal Judgement Radial does give a nice defense boost for 10/s. Something to consider. Rebirth +Regen will mesh will with True Grit raising your HP and give you solid returns for a Destiny.

The whole thing has kind of gone "dead horse" and all, but just to point to it: The recent buff to PB's basically brought them defensively in-line with Warshades. It wasn't a "Buff" it was Balance. The scales are still tipped towards Warshades for their AoE capacity. I, nor anyone else, is saying we want PB's to be AoE machines (they're not), but their Single-Target capacity (what they DO "specialize" in), is lackluster. You said you felt your PB was "top of the line," and that's fine from a perspective, but numerically PB's aren't any better than Defenders in solo straight damage ability.

We all agree that PB's "work," but the problem is that there are a few small idiosyncrasies that aren't quite right still. Photon Seekers are a bit out of whack, the ST could use a bit of a touch up. Human Form outperforms Nova and Dwarf in all respects for both WS and PB. These are just simple and small things that have been brought up over and over. It would be nice if they were "balanced."

None of the changes anyone's asked for are going to dramatically change the playing field. Just...clean it up a little.

I went and double checked cause that still didn't sound right. These are the changes:

Medicine
Stimulant is changed to Injection and can be used on both allies and foes. When used on an ally this has it's normal effect. When used on a foe it debuffs their Recharge, Damage and To Hit.

Field Medic added as Fifth Power, a click power that improves the effectiveness of your heals and decreases your resistance to healing (so that heals done to you are more effective). In addition if you own Field Medic, Aid Other/Self is uninterruptible and Aid Self gives an Endurance Over Time effect as well as a heal.

My Fire/Time Troller hits a hair over soft-cap on all four points, has 70% S/L Resists, and still finds himself face planting, but at the same time I'm also extremely durable. The areas where I eat-dirt are often long after a team wipe has already occurred. He's capable of soloing Crates/Canisters during Lambda without assistance from other team members. Basically, I'm saying that 45% on Psi is entirely your call, but given the increase in Psionic damage in Incarnate content as of late, I wouldn't discount that this is still a threat to you. It's also fairly easy to make up to 3-6% you might be short without sacrificing anything to get it. I just really don't like having a glaring hole in a build that I can readily fix.

The other half of that argument is in Radial Clarion for the +Special. I had considered it initially, but the power's Mez Protection wears off long before it recharges, and it waits to pop at exactly 120/s+Cast, so you're actually ending up with a gap of time where you'll be utterly defenseless. Its just not possible to keep the effects of Radial Perma, you will have a gap, even if a blip of time, that could mean the difference of a dirt nap. So when it comes to iContent, I sooner just keep an assortment of purples if I feel it'll be necessary, as there's really not much else I need to keep in the tray. As they say: "YMMV", I stick to Core Clarion for the 120/s of Mez Protection. Defense aside, one sleep/hold shuts you down. Hard.

As for your Alpha... I weigh the amount of impact the Alpha can give me against what it can't give me. Agility Core is boosting Stamina and Chrono Shift directly for End Mod, all of my powers for Recharge, and all of my Defense, giving me the capacity to cut some slotting there in the exchange. Cardiac is only giving end reduction; the resistance it would have provided is easily accounted for. If you feel you can't get by with what you've got, then I'd say go for it, I just don't feel Cardiac outweighs Agility. Again, "YMMV".

I'm sure there's a script running around by now of what was covered in the video, but it wasn't just cast times they were reviewing. They're changing Stimulus to be a more "Solo Friendly" power (some form of Debuff/Buff depending on if it targets Critter/Player), and it, and another power they're adding, are going to improve Aid Self's heal by (effectively) 50%. 25% Heal improvement, and a -25% Heal on player from the other powers so you get 50%, and the interrupt is being cut out if you take the new power they're adding (if I recall correctly).

Not 100% on it as I forgot to double check, but in the last Coffee Talk they flashed Aid Self's power description...and again, I could be wrong in what I saw, but 3.3/s animation, so ~1.03/s cutback at least, possibly more depending on how it ends up interacting with the "Injection" or whatever the "new" preliminary power is called.

And if you lrn2red, you'd notice what I quoted from EvilGeko and that I was qutie specifically talking about his concern with "player uproar" about that exact change.

This has been brought up excessively by players looking at this as a feasible alternative to the two forms. I'd be surprised if the "uproar" was more than 2% of the Kheldian base, so long as they left the existing attacks as an option.

I for one would not be against them opening all the ranged attacks to Nova Form, and all the Melee to Dwarf, or some portion of each. Say, Gleaming Bolt, and Dawn Strike for Nova. Radiant Strike, and Photon Seekers to the Dwarf.

While a "Swap Ammo" or "Bio Armor Form" style mechanic would be far superior to a Kheldian implementation, I doubt that the designing/code that would be required is something the Devs would readily put onto their "to-do" list. Given their comments on the ideas of restructuring the Power Pools for "customization", they made it fairly clear that "doing X for everything is lol-no." Human-Form abilities alone is 25 powers that they'd have to look at and recode to "work" while Nova or Dwarf is "toggled". This sounds simple, but given the age of their creation in the game, I doubt it would turn out to be so.

Just like giving them an extra slot in the shifted forms. Sounds easy.

Hecatomb Proc and any one other Proc in Quick Strike will give you equivalent DPA to Concentrated Strike. This is a powerful thing to note because you can devote your other four slots to maximizing Acc/Dam/End (recharges quickly anyway, and you'll likely have enough global bonuses to accommodate as well). The reason I point this out is because you asked about making Power Siphon work efficiently. I've found that many a times I've been mid-swing on a Concentrated Strike and I start loosing stacks during its animation. In fact, its not unlikely you can't loose three by the time your next attack hits and you can start building up again. Power Siphon is leveraged incredibly well by your first three attacks (QS, BB, SB) and their quick times (animation/recharge) give you the ability to not only stack your own damage up consistently, but also apply your stacks of -Dmg Debuff (which lasts only 4/s) and maintain that as well.

This doesn't mean CS is a bad power, its actually very good, but its lengthy animation time is semi counter-productive to Power Siphons practice. In general game-play you may never notice or care, but harder targets (AVs), the loss of stacks is--to make a pun--damaging. Secondary with this, if you manage to bring Power Siphon's recharge down to ~35/s (or less), you can forgo using CS at all as even its unique critical ability isn't necessarily needed.

I don't want that ^ to dishearten or mis-lead any ideals about CS, though. I enjoy running through most content in the game without ever activating PS. It not only encourages me to use CS for its higher damage more often, and Kinetic Melee is just a fun set in general.

With an Overwhelming KB/KD Proc in Repulsing Torrent you'll find your AoE capacity is pretty strong between that and Burst, and it rounds KM out to be a reasonably strong set.

Which is why I stuck to word-based theory instead of numerical equations, as I'm also not 100% sure of what the final roll out will be At the same time, they're not that scary! I also haven't the slightest clue what the AoE Calculation is, beyond a vague belief that it's weighing number of targets either as a modifier to the whole power and each foe it hits, or as a modifier on each individual foe and giving each a unique roll chance based on how many the power could hit. That's marginally obvious, though.

Incidentally, I ran those numbers off of Blaster data, not including Defiance or Tidal Forces, but it did include something like 15% Global Bonuses from all the sets I dropped (quickly) into the build to get the recharge into a range that'd give me the optimal cutbacks (180%).


Aqua Bolt: Apocalypse 5'er, Javelin Proc
Hydro Blast: Reviewed slotted identical to Aqua Bolt. Not possible in-game, but it leveraged that Bolt was better, so I just generic'd it to maximum benefits and one Javelin Proc
Water Jet: Blaster ATO 5'er and Javelin Proc
Dehydrate: Overwhelming Force 4'of, and two Touch of the Nictus

I did not include the Achilles' -Res proc because I feel the turn-around impact of its change to PPM (based on testing on Beta) is potentially sub-optimal to another damage proc now. This is still undetermined for the most part, so don't quote me on that expectation. It's just my initial findings, and they were definitely under the mark.

It's not terribly complicated, actually. If you think in terms of the Stalker Hide Proc, it has a PPM of 4 (or 4 Procs Per Minute). Breaks down that the fundamental expectation was a power with a 15/s recharge would (upon activation) trigger the proc consistently every time it was used. They've made adjustments to modify this to work off the enhanced recharge over the base, so it's not exactly that simple anymore. Now it says "I have a 4PPM, your 15/s base attack now recharges in 4.5/s, I will proc at X%" Basically taking the chances to proc averaged against the recharge of the power it resides in, and giving you a percent return. For most procs this is an improvement in oppurutnity, but in the case of the Achilles' it becomes a detriment (in my own tests). In situations like the Heel, it'll be better served in longer-recharging attacks to insure its consistent use. Say, for Water Blast (as a good new set to mention), if Achilles' had 3PPM and Whirlpool recharged in 20/s, you'd have a (supposedly) 100% proc.

Okay, so I pulled out the ol' Spread Sheet and ran some numbers.

For Survivability/Heals (146 DPS):
[Water Jet] > Aqua Bolt > Water Jet > Aqua Bolt > [Dehydrate] > Water Jet > Aqua Bolt > Dehydrate

Shortest Chain for +Water Jet (145 DPS):
[Water Jet] > Water Jet > Dehydrate > Aqua Bolt > Water Jet > Aqua Bolt > Hydro Blast

Zandock's Proposed Chain (143 DPS):
[Water Jet] > Water Jet > Dehydrate > Hydro Blast > Water Jet > Aqua Bolt > Hydro Blast

This is entirely under the speculation that Water Jet wont try and consume Tidal during its "cool down" timer. I don't know if that's the case or not, I assumed it was.

As for Missing, this should be relatively low in the consideration of Accuracy Bonuses and general slotting. It doesn't take much to get enough +Acc to hit +4's. Still, yes, a miss will statistically occur, but Aqua Blast is a simple cadidate to grab an extra Tidal stack if needed, otherwise (in the case of the "shorter" chain) running straight through per normal is more than possible.

I don't know off-hand what level of damage the Mistress does, but even if it starts sub-par, Temporal Selection can easily improve that. At the very least, moar damage is moar damage, and she's a viable aggro-tank under your supportive tutelage.

On Inferno, ~shrug~ I didn't go back to look at what point it would actually recharge under (maths, wut? :P) If 180, the normal expectancy would be ~50/s. I actually just went in and edited Mids' to reflect a 180 recharge timer and with a set of Obliteration in it, 180% Global Rech, and Agility, the power came back at 90/s. I'd probably try and stick something else in there because that kind of sucks, honestly. I'm sure there's somewhere else to muck up that melee defense. With a 5-of Armageddon and boosting up to 185% global Rech, Inferno came back at 44.5/s, so pretty nice.

And one last thing on the Temporal Selection. You might not see it doing a severe amount, and the impacted player may not even notice if they're not watching buffs, but 200% Regen is nothing to sneeze at. On top of that, Your Mending/Chrono heals are improved on that afflicted character as well, so there's a stack of good-things running with that power.