LuxunS

I'll take a stab at this. First, this build is not going to be able to solo an AV. To do that requires a significant investment into IO sets. I'll try to break it down for you.

There is a few things that are pretty much needed to solo an AV, there are a few exceptions but when building for AV soloing here's the rules I follow.

1. Survivability
On a widow/fort you need soft capped defenses. Mind Link helps with this a lot, and you'll need to have it up all the time. In your build theres an 80 second downtime, thats almost a complete cycle. In addition your defenses aren't soft-capped even with ML; running mask presence it is, but you have to remember the defenses from mask presence supresses during combat. Mids does not show this in the totals window. I saw that you went with hover, so i'm going to assume that your intention was to stay out of the AVs melee range and peg them from the sky. If that is your intention you need to get at least ranged defenses soft-capped, you're about 2-3% off.

2. Damage
Not nearly as important as survivability when fighting AVs, but has to be enough to overcome the hp/regen of the AV. This is much harder to accomplish on a fortunata then a widow. Fully IO'd I couldn't do it with my fort in any reasonable amount of time. If you are intent on doing it without claw attacks, you have to make sure your attack chain has no delays. You need to get higher recharge in subdue, also you have no damage slotted in dominate.

3. Endurance
The third and sometimes hardest part of building an AV soloer is the endurance usage. AV killing can last from anywhere between 3-20 minutes depending on which one you're going after, resists etc. Maintaining attacks for that long can be difficult but on a fortunata its not terribly hard. A quick glance you seem ok on endurance. But be wary that mask presence is using .21 end/sec and only granting 3.95% defenses.

My recommendation is to scratch that build and start again if you truely want to solo AVs with it. First build it for recharge/defense if you want to keep mind link up all the time, or just defense if you can manage to do it without mind link. After that make sure the attack chain has no breaks, there are posts about arcanatime that can help you adjust this properly. Lastsly make sure that you have the endurance to maintain that attack chain.

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Note: not "no" defence debuff resistance, just "significantly less."

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You are correct. For clarification I was speaking of AV soloing, the defense debuff resistance is not significant enough to make a difference. If I get hit by Romulus or Positron, I have no other damage mitigation to fall back on besides aid self, which is really nothing. In short, if an AV hits me with a defense debuff, or has a to-hit buff, I'm going to die unless the RNG is feeling very generous.

Let me clarify on one thing I said... We're like claws/sr scrappers with no defense-debuff resistance, so we can do anything they can do as long as it doesn't involve defense debuffs

Also to any Widow/Fort trying to solo AVs... Start with Countess Crey! She is by far the easiest AV I've tried, I never lost to her, even before my build was complete.

Sorry it took me a while to post in this thread. I'm played that tricked out melee fortunata UberGuy was talking about. I've managed to solo quite a few AVs but haven't tried many new ones since I reworked my build, lack of pvp ability has sort of turned me off from the game.

Keeping to the original topic, yes SoAs can solo AVs. Like many people have stated picking and choosing at first is the way to go. Psi AVs with little resistance like Numina and Swan are good ones to start with. Staying away from ones with to-hit buffs and defense debuffs are also good ie. Black Scorpion, most sword users. After enough practice and build work you can move on to more difficult ones and be succesful.

There really isn't a reason for us to not be able to do it. A night widow is essentially a claws/sr scrapper. Anything they can do, we can do, it just may take more slotting

One thing to note, and anyone who tries this will tell you, just because you beat them once doesn't mean you'll do it every time. The Psi AVs mentioned are pretty easy, but anything beyond that I'm not always successful. I'm like 4-0 against Numina but 2-6 vs Sister Psyche. And more difficult ones... I can't even tell you, I have 2 wins against Ghost Widow with over a dozen deaths.

All that being said, I guess my original post with the screenshots got trashed In the screenshots you can see the inspiration trays are open and none are used during the battle, also either the map and team windows are open, so its seen that i'm solo. (Links at bottom)



For anyone who doesn't believe in screeshots, I'm sorry but I don't have any video capturing software. I can however demonstrate my fort's AV soloing abilities ingame if you truely don't believe an SoA can do it. Just post anytime you're free during the week after 1pm est. Log on freedom and i'll show you

Countess Crey
Mother Mayhem
Numina
Swan
Ghost Widow

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I decided to do the math on Night Widows using the same numbers just to see how they compare. They score 220 DPS, placing them just below 10 target DM and a nice alternative for those who wants a more damage Claws toon. No Focus or Shockwave though, which are kinda set defining to me. They also have limited options to increase their damage. No -res IOs and no Shield Defense. Cheap Assault though. Here's the downside: 5.61 EPS.

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What's the chain you used?

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It's uh... long. FU > Slash > Lunge > Strike, repeat and move Slash one attack to the right each repetition (FU > Lunge > Slash... next one) until the last where Swipe replaces it and then restart.

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So it is FU, Slash, Lung, Strike, FU, Lung, Slash, Strike, FU, Lung, Strike, Slash, FU, Lung, Strike, Swipe, repeat.

How do you get Lung to recharge in time for the second bolded instance?

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That chain can be maintained if you toss a swipe in after the strike as long as slash recharges in 4.488 that was the highest one I came up with. Your attack chain where slash is moved down is indeed higher, I wouldn't have thougth of that, nice one.

Followup > Lunge > Strike > Swipe > Slash
.86/2.1/1.3/.985/1.98 in 6.072 = 1.19

FU > Lunge > Slash > Strike > FU > Lunge > Strike > Slash > FU > Lunge > Strike > Swipe
.86/2.1/1.98/1.3/.86/2.1/1.3/1.98/.86/2.1/1.3/.985 in 14.52 = 1.22

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Doesn't Dominate cause redraw?

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Dominate and Aim both cause redraw, which is why I use Aim in the place of dominate when its up. How much of an effect this has on the attack chain time, I can't say. But I just did a trial with that second build, since I reslotted it last night I wanted to test how it would do.

2 things. One the end usage is higher then i thought, it ran low on endurance before the 7 minute mark. Not sure where I messed up there. Had to turn off tt:l the whole fight, and use tt:a when I was above 35% end. Second thing, because strike increases the attack chain time, I don't get the benefit of the 3rd stack of follow-up on lunge. Kinda sucks, so i'll have to redo my dps calculations.

Oh btw the AV I was testing on... Ghost Widow. And I beat her!!!! I suppose a good amount of that was luck, one soul storm does more damage then I have hit points, but heck I'll take it. I know a lot of scrappers have a hard time with her, who thought a widow could do it.

I took screenshots of it, but I didn't have the UI Toggled on I know most people around here are like "pics or it didn't happen" so i'll try a few more times today and post the appropriate proof if I get lucky again

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Widows have 4.8% higher recovery rate and that chain costs 7.9% more endurance than the highest of the Brutes chain. Scrappers and Brutes can also get secondaries with added end recovery, Widows cannot.

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It kinda seems like the endurance use on our powers were balanced around our inherent, which actually hurts quite a bit. My fortunata build, which does less damage then the widow chain came out at about 235 dps on paper, with procs. Only problem is even with the miracle, numina, performance shifter, and panacea IOs it runs out of endurance in 2 mins 31 seconds of continuous attacking.

I had settled on switching out the procs in all the powers except dominate for more end reduction slotting. Switching out the procs for mako acc/end/rech or acc/dmg/rech/end dd amazing things for the end usage. On paper the dps dropped slightly to 228, but the time that I could maintain it jumped to 7 minutes 12 seconds. Generally during that time i'd have to use aid self at least once, which also increases the time the chain can be maintaned.

Here's some math from the build i'm currently using. First the one with procs, second without. Also one thing to note, every 90 seconds we lose basically 1 chain because of mind link. EPS includes inherent recovery, performance shifter, numina's, miracle, panacea, and taking in to account switching aim into the chain for dominate when its up, and mind link.

Fortunata Attack Chain
W/ Assault + Procs
Follow up = (50.72)*(1+.9749+2*.3+.15) + 14.36 = 152.57
Lunge = (123.67)*(1+.8992+3*.3+.15) + (35.3+14.36) = 414.39
Strike = (95.49)*(1+.9829+2*.3+.15) + 14.36 = 275.32
Dominate = (77.17)*(1+.8992+2*.3+.15) + (35.3*2) = 275.04
DPS = 235.13
EPS = 4.57
Endurance Usage = (4.62+5.06+5.43+7.12)/4.752 = 4.68
EUPS = 5.31
TEDPS = -.74
Continuous Attack Time = 2 minutes 32 seconds

Fortunata Attack Chain
W/ Assault
Follow up = (50.72)*(1+.9749+2*.3+.15) = 138.21
Lunge = (123.67)*(1+.967+3*.3+.15) + 35.3 = 408.41
Strike = (95.49)*(1+.9749+2*.3+.15) = 260.2
Dominate = (77.17)*(1+.8992+2*.3+.15) + (35.3*2) = 275.04
Endurance Usage = (4.15+3.97+5.43+6.25)/4.752 = 4.17
DPS = 227.66
EUPS = 4.83
EPS = 4.57
TEPS = -.26
Continuous Attack Time = 7 minutes 12 seconds

*Did not account mind link usage into DPS only EPS

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My fort,my infamy sink fort.So many respecs.So many build tweaks.And the devs gutted it.
I still play it tho,I just really enjoy the little guy.

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*sigh* I know the feeling

Decided to try doing the math and save someone else the time. First time i've tried doing it like this, so one with experience might want to give it a quick glance over to make sure its correct

Night Widow Attack Chains
Followup > Swipe > Lunge > Swipe
.86/.985/2.1/.985 in 4.224 = 1.17
Followup > Swipe > Strike > Lunge
.86/.985/1.3/2.1 in 4.488 = 1.17
Followup > Swipe > Lunge > Swipe > Slash
.86/.985/2.1/.985/1.98 in 5.808 = 1.19
Followup > Swipe > Strike > Lunge > Slash
.86/.985/1.3/2.1/1.98 in 6.072 = 1.19

Fortunata Attack chains
Followup > Swipe > Lunge > Swipe
.86/.985/2.1/.985 in 4.224 = 1.17
Followup > Swipe > Dominate > Lunge
.86/.985/1.05/2.1 in 4.488 = 1.11
TK Blast > Dominate > Subdue
.89/1.05/.94 in 4.358 = 0.66
Gloom > Dominate > Subdue
1.33/1.05/.94 in 4.488 = 0.74

Some things to note about the widow/fortunata
- Every 90 seconds we lose 3.828 seconds to keep up Mind Link
- I did not consider the effect of followup or double stacking on the attack chains
- While the night widow attack chain is slightly better, the fortunata can pick up aim, where the night widow cannot.
- Also while putting dominate in the attack chain diminishes it, it improves mitigation, as the AV will be mezzed while the purple triangles are down (not relevant for this post i suppose)

Edit - Didn't see D's post in the previous page, moving lunge after followup in the chains that don't use 2x swipe is better

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At the risk being laughed out of the scrapper forum:

Can we get a Widow chain in there as well? Preferably both with and without attacks specific to the Night Widow branch.

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My Fortunata uses a few different attack chains for different situations. I don't really know which ones is best, i just use what i feel is right at the time. I'm not really a numbers guy and I worked out the attack chains after I finished the build and went back to fix it. I run perma-hasten 190% global recharge and all the chains are gapless.

Followup > Swipe > Dominate > Lunge (redraw after dominate)
Followup > Swipe > Lunge > Swipe (no redraw)
Gloom > Dominate > Subdue (range chain, no claws)

As a night widow the chain would be different as you'd be able to toss in Slash, on a similar build to my Forts, you could use the same claws attack chain and toss it on the end.

Followup > Swipe > Lunge > Swipe > Slash

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Castle is probably looking into some way to mesh old and new PVP together. Taunt -range and a few of the other additions were VERY necessary, but DR and Travel Suppression need to go. The global resists are alright, as damage was scaled up to counter it.


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This pretty much hits my feelings about it. There were some things that were introduced that were imo beneficial to pvp.

- Negative range in taunts were a great addition and the subsequent damage decrease to their range abilities
- Elusivity was a step in the right direction. Not in its current form as its mostly useless, but maybe .2 as opposed to the .3 it was originally
- Phased players being able to attack other phased players

Mez protection -> resistance, DR, Heal Decay, global resists and damage boost I would roll back. With the good changes on top of the old system, PvP would be awesome.

Type R!

Anyone have any numbers on how diminishing returns is actually applied? My main question is about recharge and global accuracy but is there some formula applied to everything or is it different for each attribute?

Any links or math would be greatly appreciated