Kosmos

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Wow, thanks alot ! Gonna help my Warshade IO build

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Where are you going to put the 2nd Basilisk set in a Warshade?

Even the LotGs are a bit of a pain; you need 4 Pool powers to take them given that you only have Shadow Cloak from your AT powers. Which means that if you take Fitness you also have to take Stealth, since it's the only Pool with more than one power that will accept Defense Sets (due to the 4 pool cap). I liked having Grant Invisibility, and miss it with my I13+ build, but all the other powers in Stealth are largely wasted on a Warshade. Obviously you can't get Hover, so that leaves just Combat Jumping and Maneuvers without taking 3 powers from Fighting. All-in-all, trying to get 5 LotGs in a Warshade constrains your power pool choices pretty severely, and leaves you with one pretty useless power from the Stealth pool.

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*Note* I can't remember if Aegis counts or not. I've heard both, so proceed with caution (ask someone with more expertise).


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The last time I tested the Aegis it was lumped with it's cousin the Force Feedback (both act as procs that grant Set Bonuses) it didn't work when Ex/Mal regardless of the level of the IO or combat level. It's been a few months since I test either though.

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OK is this bug or are all powers halved by this?

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I think it's just powers that summon pseudo-pets.

Does anyone else get the APP power change vibe from these alterations? Some of the changes make you want to ask "Have you played this game?"

I think the best solution to this problem is the same as for the APP misstep: Adding an extra option. That might require more work than is possible even for I15 though.

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Ah cool, thanks!
Happen to know which lvl range has the best chance of dropping them?

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Well, without knowing the I14 weights it's impossible to say definitively, but barring some odd weighting it should be 45-50 for the Numi. For the Miracle the 20-24, 35-39 and 40-44 ranges should all be about the same (with C&D combined 20-24 should offer the best chance for the Miracle, but not by a lot). So 40-44 if you want either.

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Hmm, anyone happen to know which ticket reward rolls have the Numina & Miracle special IO's in them?
I know Regenerative Tissue can be gotten from both Bronze and Silver rolls (rolled several on the 30-34 categories in both groups) - but no luck so far on the others.

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Gold - they're Pool C drops (Task Forces and as of I14 Trials and the occasional Boss).

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When should I be using IOs? 15, 20 or 25? The once I get to the level 30s I think I read level 35 IOs gets the job done?

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Well, it's a cost-benefit issue. So it depends on a lot of things. I tend to franken-slot key powers with Set IOs pretty early, otherwise I wait till have lots of slots for good set bonuses, usually in the mid-to-late 30s or even early 40s.

Right now the cost of Common IO recipes has gone up, while the cost of Uncommon Set IO recipes has plummeted. Making the choice of cheap sets or franken-slotting more appealing when compared to Common IOs.

However, salvage costs have gone through the roof, so SOs are now looking better in terms of relative cost as well.

The basic enhancement value for IOs can be found here

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I wonder how many people actually slot those powers for damage resistance.

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If you count throwing the Steadfast +Def special in them I'd say a fair number in absolute terms. Though I'm sure as a percentage of people taking the powers it's quite small.

In any case, the devs would probably deem it necessary to remove Resistance enhancements, including Resistance Sets, from allowable enhancements for those power if they made the Res portion unenhanceable. So I think that "cure" is likely to be viewed as worse than the current issue with Heal buffs/debuffs.

Alkaloid/Poison is tagged as having unenhanceable/unbuffable Res rather than ignoring buffs, so it is the only heal power I see with Damage Resistance that does get +Heal bonuses.

The brute force fix of doubling up every affected power to have a "hidden" secondary power that does unbuffable +Res would probably work. But they'd have to go through and redo each of those powers.

I've never actually listed out which powers are affected by this. Let's see...

Earth's Embrace/Stone Armor
Essence Boost/Luminous Aura
Healing Flames/Fiery Aura
Hoarfrost/Cold Mastery
Hoarfrost/Ice Armor
Kuji-In Sha/Ninjitsu
Reconstruction/Regeneration
Reconstruction/Willpower (Stalker)

I think that's it. I vaguely recall a heal that wasn't a self-heal being affected, but I don't see any such power in a quick pass through CoD. Maybe I'm just misremembering Alkaloid's oddity.

[Edit: Forgot about Blaster Hoarfrost.]

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i wish they would remove the flag that lets the buff only affect powers that do straight up heal and nothing else.

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There seems to be some confusion about this. Certain heals being unaffected by +Heal buffs is a known bug. It is a consequence of the way +Damage buffs work. This may seem odd, but what happens is that Damage and Damage Resistance are two sides to the same coin. If you buff Damage you also buff Damage Resistance. As a result of this to keep Damage Resistance powers from being buffed by powers such as Build Up, Fulcrum Shift, Fury or red pills ALL powers with Damage Resistance are tagged to ignore buffs. As far as I understand, it is not possible to tag individual power effects to ignore buffs - it seems that the whole power must be tagged in that manner. So, for this reason, heals with a Damage Resistance component - and only such heals - are tagged to ignore all buffs.

I think that the Phalanx Fighting solution - having two powers in one - would solve this problem too. I suspect that idea has been considered, but that the issue is not deemed to be worth the time and effort to fix.

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Too slow, Kosmos

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I knew I should have left off the period.

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Does Recon have the toxic bonus?

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Yes.

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The only power in the Willpower set that benefits from +Heal is Reconstruction, which is only available in the Stalker version. Your Scrapper would get no benefit from +Heal.

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<.< Hate to be a downer, but Reconstruction is flagged to ignore outside buffs such as Global +Heal bonuses.

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Yep. Heal bonuses benefit nothing in WP and only Dull Pain's Heal (not the +MaxHP) in Regeneration. Rather counter-intuitive.

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I have a WP scrapper, help me straighten this out:
High Pain Tolerance: not affected bc it has enhanceable res
Fast Healing: affected
RttC: ??? does not have enhanceable res, but does have other
effects
Health: affected

RttC with multiple mobs on me would receive the greatest effect from this set bonus so I'd love to know

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+Heal enhances powers that buff current HP, not those that buff Regen or Max HP. So it will not affect HPT, FH, RttC or Health. None of those Heal, they only buff Max Health and Regen.

The +Heal will buff any Heal that doesn't include a Res component. However, it doesn't work reliably in Heals that utilize a pseudo-pet such as Transfusion. Or at least it wasn't working reliably in I13. I'll have to double-check that in I14.

[Edited for clarity.]

[u]Four in a Row[u]
by Calorie
Arc #2198

Morality: Heroic

Description: This is the story of a reluctant hero's attempt to save his friends from their own foolhardiness. It borrows its basic premise from A.E.W. Mason's novel "The Four Feathers". It is intended as a leveling arc for lowbies (levels 1-14) and to be run on Challenge level 2.

Length: Very long. Of the 5 missions, the first three admit short cuts, but all of the missions have lots of foes for those looking for rewards.

This arc was created with several goals in mind:

<ul type="square">[*] It would serve as a way to level lowbies, especially for those in the level 6-12 range where I often find the options are going to the Hollows or getting the run around from other contacts.[*] I wanted the arc to have some of the feel of Frostfire, with a tough bad guy at the end to fight. (This is something of a work in progress right now, as I either end up with the last mission being too hard on higher settings, or too easy on lower settings.)[*] I wanted to provide an ally to supplement damage for lowbies that are lacking in that area. So there is an ally that appears in every mission, a la Fuzzy in the Jim Temblor arc in Faultline.[*] I wanted a solid underlying story. (Another area that needs work, as paring the story I originally wrote down to fit in the limited text fields of the MA led to either having the contact engage in inappropriate exposition, or relying on clues to string the plot together. I'm not happy with the results of the latter, and would welcome feedback on ways to improve the story telling.)[/list]

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<ul type="square">
[*]Pet Powers Change:
[*]Recharge times on pet attack powers will no longer be affected by any outside source. This includes buffs and debuffs. What this means is that pets can no longer have the recharge time on their powers increased by player buffs (like Speed Boost) or their recharge time decreased by player or NPC debuffs. This change was made to allow pets to correctly cycle through their attacks instead of getting locked on using the same attack over and over and neglecting to use other available powers.[/list]
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I can't believe this Patch Note went in unchanged.

You might want to find Castle's two follow up posts regarding Recharge Intensive Pet sets and the desire to prevent Recharge buffs from being inherited.

At the very least you should clarify that it prevents pet and pseudo-pet powers from being affecting by any source of plus or minus Recharge, including Enhancements.

Personally, I'd also soften the claim that pets will no longer get stuck cycling a small subset of their attacks, as many of them still do.

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Recharge from set IOs. And no, its far from overpowering, if making it much worth it at all at this point.

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By that standard damage is an inheritable buff but Enrages, Aim, Build Up, and Defiance do not increase Voltaic Sentinel's damage. I was wondering about things like Accelerate Metabolism, Fortitude, Speed Boost, and Adrenalin Boost. Does Voltaic Sentinel inherit any of those?

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No. I *thought* it inherited Set Bonuses, but I haven't tested it and now that I stop and think about it, it seems unlikely, as such bonuses seem to be implemented as mini-buffs in most cases, and VS clearly does not use the inheritance code that most similar powers use. They probably don't want it running around with perma-Fulcrum Shift.

Given that, the only justification for the short duration is a desire to keep the END cost where it is.

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Im not going to read this whole thread. Should I or should I not respec out a set of Expedient Reinforcements from my Dark Extractions on my WS?

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I'd say leave them. What would you put in instead? Nothing is going to pass Recharge through to the pets now and you want the Recharge for the summon power anyway. Plus you get the good Set bonuses. Unless you're trying to go with less than 6 slots I can't see a significantly better option.

I'm going with 5 slots myself, as I have the SAs I had to pull out of Imps when they broke the set over a year ago. Since there's no reason to put them back in Imps now, even if they do ever admit they're broken and do something about it, I'm using the A/R, D/R, A/D/R and BU with a single Dam IO for DE. If I was starting from scratch I might find the 6th slot and go with 4 ER and 2 CtA.

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the -recharge from Siphon Speed (fortunately unresistable)

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Just to be clear: The unresistable part is irrelevant to this change, the -Rech from Siphon Speed will still be ignored, it will just be full strength while being ignored.

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<ul type="square">[*]Will not prevent pets summoned by NPCs by being buffed or debuffed with recharge effects.[/list]
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This is not entirely true. It is not the *intent* to have NPCs affected by this change, but most (all?) custom critter pets in the MA as well as some "in the wild" are indeed immune to -Rech.

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<ul type="square">[*]Prevents all player pets from being affected by recharge affecting buffs OR debuffs.[*]Does not prevent player pets from inheriting recharge buffs/debuffs from the player summoning.[/list]Is this correct? Please reply with my errors.
Also, if I'm correct this means that speed boosting a pet will only increase their endurance recovery. Yes?
Also, is a pets movespeed still affected by buffs?

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The first point quoted isn't precisely true. The pet still receives the buffs or debuffs, the pet's powers will just not be affected by +Rech or -Rech.

The second point is literally true, but misleading, for the same reason. The pet does inherit the +Rech buff, it just has no affect except to make them glow green or yellow or whatever.

Movement speed is still affected; this change ONLY stops a pet's own powers from having their Recharge time altered in any way.

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it's just a flat 'no recharge change' and affects each pet as a whole, not individual powers.

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Actually, that's not correct. It affects individual powers, not the pets. That's why you'll still see the Hasten yellow glow pass to your pseudo-pets, and why you can see big +Rech bonuses showing in Real Numbers for MM pets. The +Rech just won't do anything to affect most pet powers any more.

Some powers, such as Hide and Stimulant were left off the list. I think Hide still messes with the pet AI though, as I've had Jounin stand there doing nothing, then Hide and attack; apparently due to waiting for Hide to recharge after being detoggled by mezz. As for Stimulant; Med Kit got the nerf, so I suspect that is just an oversight the same as Giant Fly Trap's Entangle and all of Extracted Essence's powers.

[Edited for clarity.]

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Said they would NOT go back and give the SoW treatment to existing powers. HUNDREDS are being set to ignore recharge. Ok with that?

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First of all, misleading - not to hundreds of powers. And real smooth linking to Red Tomax's Dev Digest Database - did you actually READ what you linked to?

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I've been considering addressing this myself. The hundreds is simply hyperbolic, but I suppose "TENS of powers" just doesn't have the same rhetorical punch. Pets are not that ubiquitous.


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You're aware that the nerf is to the pet's powers, not the summons, right? Just the MMs should account for about 150 powers.

All right, I'll add them up. I make no claim of completeness, this is just a quick count to get in the neighborhood.

Blasters, 2
Controllers, 21
Defenders, 2
Warshades, 3

Brutes, 23 (those PPP pet powers add up fast)
Corruptors, 22 (plus 1 that is a duplicate of a Controller power)
Dominators, 22 (plus 15 that I believe are duplicates of Controller powers)
Masterminds, 124 (plus 1 from Corruptors and 1 from Controllers)
Soldiers, 2 (plus 28 that are duplicates of Brute and Corruptor powers)
Stalkers, 18 (plus 3 that are duplicates of Soldier powers)
Widows, (23 that are duplicates of Brute powers)

That's about 239 powers.

Oh, wait, we have Arcanaville's list. That would have saved some wear and tear on my fingers and toes. Let's see...

247 powers listed.

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The free AoE I'd give you here -- 5 feet is a pretty small radius.

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Apparently the person who chose the IO Set for it to take thought so too.

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Ignoring the fact that the first shot occurs at the same time and discrete issues, a 60% increase in firing rate will result in 60% more shots in any given time increment. When you factor in the first shot, the percentage decrease from the nerf is lower the shorter the time. This is a pretty small effect.

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It's only a small effect in long fights. In short fights, it's the same order as the effect of the nerf itself -- hardly non-negligible.


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I think you mean "hardly negligible". And I didn't say it was negligible, I said it was pretty small. Meaning that the benefit isn't large enough relative to the issue of opportunity cost to be too concerned about in a simple model.


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However, the issue really is the END cost. If it's not worth casting for a 10s fight now - and it isn't - then the damage reduction due to this nerf is 100% for that case, while in a 30s fight - where it is worth casting - is necessarily less than that.

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Maybe a clearer way of looking at this would be to ask at what point, for a given level of recharge, casting LS does become worth its endurance use. That will depend on a number of other factors -- overall EndRx slotting, set bonuses, power selection, etc. -- so it's not clear that there's a simple answer to that question.

That said, if we use the normal attack dpe of 5.2/DS (i.e. a 1 damage scale attack uses 5.2 end, a 2 DS attack uses 10.4, etc.), then LS (which uses 31.2 end) needs to fire 6 times to be as endurance-efficient as a normal attack. (This isn't entirely a fair comparison -- the LS attack has a small AoE and multiple secondary effects: KB,-end, -recovery.) With no recharge, it takes 31 seconds to hit the break-even point; with Hasten, it needs to be firing for 21 seconds, and with +150% recharge, it breaks even after 17 seconds. (Apologies if you've already been through this; this thread is long enough now that I've lost track of who's said what.)

I'm not sure that this necessarily means "it's not worth casting" if it's not going to get to fire 6 times -- sometimes the most efficient use of endurance isn't necessarily the best, especially if you have plenty of +recovery or endrx.


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At what point does a Stormy have "plenty of +Rec and EndRed"? LOL.

Lots of powers get END cost free side effects, some even get END cost free AoE. So that's not that unusual. Well, the AoE is unusual outside of Scrapper Melee cones. But most of the other side effects powers get such as KB, -END, -Rec and so on don't cost extra END. It's only when that is considered more than a side effect that you typically have to pay for it.

The DS for the Pet should really be adjusted to equivalent DS for the summoner. LS' damage is actually around DS 1.31 for a Controller, but doesn't get Containment damage. On a Defender it is DS 1.355. On a Corr it's DS 0.96 with no Scourge. On an MM, it's 1.31.

It fires once at 0s (the finish of the shot is at 1.4s, and then it starts recharging, but since I only care when the break-even shot starts to fire, I work from 0s), then again about every 5.4s (again, that's the end of the shot). So 31.2 END divided by 5.2 E/DS dvided by 1.31 DS equals 4.58 shots. So (4.58 - 1) * 5.4s = 19.3s.

That's how I came up with my rough estimate of 20s as the break-even point.

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With Hasten and Decimation both, you're getting to over +150% recharge, right? I'm sure that much difference would be pretty noticeable.

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It's 2.4s vs the 1.65s from just Hasten.


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On the other hand, I'm not sure that a particularly high fraction of LS users have that much recharge. I'm not sure that a particularly high fraction of LS users have anything more than Hasten. Maybe +150% isn't an extreme edge case, but it's hardly the norm either.

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It's probably not the norm, but it's any IO user (and LS is an L32+ power) with Hasten - hardly a rare build, which I'm guessing is why LS is getting targeted for a nerf.


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I also feel that anyone who normally buffs their standard pets (Singularity, Jack Frost, Stoney, Audrey) with Speed Boost or AM will also notice a difference in their damage output.

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You may well be right. You might not. Unless someone actually goes out and measures the difference in damage output in actual game situations, accounting for things like pet AI, travel time between enemies, all that jazz, we won't really know.

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I recorded damage numbers when testing Audrey, but I was testing for behavioral changes and so didn't do any sort of control for damage resistances or other related factors. But I did do the same missions in both places. I was mostly fighting Praetorians - Robots, Council Empire and Clockworks - with some CoT and Crey mixed in.

So, for what the numbers are worth, I saw a 37% reduction in damage output from Twitchy using Adrenalin Boost and about a 2% reduction with just the Def Debuff Recharge IO. The improved AI offsets a good portion of the nerf. But I can't attribute the AI improvement in this case to the recharge ignorance, since Twitchy misbehaves on live even with no +Rech anywhere. Also Twitchy gets most of her damage from a power that discounts a relatively large proportion of +Rech. (Thorny Darts has 1.452s ArcanaTime Cast and 3s Recharge, so only about 67% of the cycle time is enhanceable. There's also a small delay with pets that is unenhanceable too - perhaps while they decide what to do - so it's really even a bit lower than that; so effective +Rech in Thorny Darts is about 66% of actual +Rech.)