Nihilii

The more you depend on damage boosting, the less damage you get additional damage boosts, relatively speaking.

Example:

A tanker starts usually at about ~195% damage. Throw in saturated AaO for +65%, one Rage for +80%, and you're jumping from 195% to 340%. That's a ~74% net damage increase.

A brute usually hovers around ~345% damage (75 Fury). Again adding the same thing, +145%, you go from 345% to 490% - a "mere" ~42% damage increase.

In this example, the tanker almost get twice as much of a boost from the same powers.

This isn't to say SS/SD is bad for brutes. It's a great combo. SS by itself is way above the curve, and so is SD. When you pair two so-great-it's-arguably-overpowered sets with each other, you can't go wrong even if they don't interact especially well.

I don't see much difference in terms of impact to secondary efficiency compared to Claws, DB (FU/BF) or KM (PS).

The problem is with the performance of secondaries that rely on clicks rather than those kind of mechanics. Click heavy secondaries should perform better than passive secondaries, number wise, to account for the time spent using clicks, but right now it doesn't seem to be considered at all.

Musculature T3 gives 45% and half ignores ED. That's 22.5% + 22.5% under ED, ending up around +~25.5% damage enhancement on capped damage attacks.

Musculature T4 gives 45% and two thirds ignore ED. That's 30% + 15% under ED, ending up around +~32.5% damage enhancement on capped damage attacks.

That means the T4 is merely 27% better than the T3, or in other words, gives a 7% damage enhancement over it. Hardly a reason to claim one gives a significant advantage and the other doesn't, if you ask me.

It's unfortunate then, seeing as this is exactly how you come across.

AP is packed right now on Freedom. Server list also shows 3 red dots, which hasn't happened for weeks at this specific hour on weekends.

I'm not seeing much difference between now and one month ago, positive or negative. People who felt I20 was a grind already left by then ; for the rest of the playerbase, it's business as usual.

On another note, I find the instanced excuse pretty crappy. The game has been instanced right from the beginning, and a mere few issues after it became the most prevalent path. There's no change in the last years that should have prompted players to spend more time on mission maps ; if anything, there have been changes that have significantly increased the time players spend outdoors. First the market, and just recently the focus on speed group play with TFs and now trials being the fastest path to incarnate rewards (leading people to complete faster *and* spend time outside recruiting / waiting to get in a team).

Ageless will fix any endurance woes you may have. Failing that, Cardiac is roughly half as good and will most likely do the trick if your IOed out build has "standard" recovery (miracle, numina, and some small bonuses from sets while pursuing other things).

How can you slot a level 52++? Shouldn't it essentially be equal to a level 54 and unslottable until level 51?

I don't see the point for myself, but as a paid option I have no problem with this idea.

Well, yes, it takes some time, just like it takes time to hit 2 billion prestige on a Live server. That is supposedly why he's asking for multiple people to do this rather than himself alone.

I've duoed a Sutter (just two melee ATs) without much trouble. The lizard guy was the hardest part due to his high S/L/E resists, on the other hand teleporting Duray is a mere blip on the radar.

I'd put Cuda as the closest to requiring specific ATs as you can find in this game. If you don't have a defender or mastermind for the specific temp power given only to these archetypes, Reichsman will start repeatedly going invulnerable (complete immunity, like he's phased, but still attacks you) at mid-life, as well as regenerating very fast. The only teams I was on that managed to beat him without the temp were extremely stacked with lots of -res and -regen debuffs, damage and incarnate powers.

I'll try to explain it in more detail.

Spamming a bind as fast as I can I can use about 4 inspirations per second. I'm tempted to assume it takes two server ticks (0.264s) to use an inspiration, but I like 4 per second, it's simple enough.

Damage cap is 775% (+675%). A typical brute is at 350% damage or so. (100% base + 95% enhancements + 150-160% from 75-80 Fury). That means you need to keep about 17 red insps (775 - 350 = 425, 425/25 = 17) on at all times to be damage capped. Inspirations have a duration of one minute. You're also likely to want one purple on at all times, the recharge tradeoffs to reach 45% defense to F/C are just too big, so I'm calling it 18 insps.

Basically, if you always use the right amount of inspirations with maximum efficiency, you spend about 4.5s per minute in inspiration use.

Throw in Hasten for a 0.924s cast every two minutes, or 0.462s per minute.

Throw in Fiery Embrace for another 0.924s cast, this time every 45 seconds, or 1.232s per minute.

Adding it up, you're already looking at 4.5 + 0.462 + 1.232 = 6.194s per minute, or 10.3% of the total time.

This is for the absolute best case scenario in which you'd never misuse inspirations, never have to reposition for optimal AOE usage, never have to click Healing Flames or Consume.
Actual experience leads me to believe such a scenario is unlikely to be found outside of theory, and seeing as 1/ I hardly found myself waiting for AOEs even though I should have a 0.7s to 2s gap (based if the FF proc is active or not) in my 7.1s chain 2/ my numbers were competitive with highend farmers who made their own numbers public, then I'm inclined to believe the actual time spent on misc stuff is generally much higher than 10%.

There are things that are hard to quantify, but if you don't quantify them all somehow, you can't have an accurate representation of performance. Claws doesn't outperform SS by (i.e., as shown by the quoted numbers) a solid 14%, in actual gameplay it's a close second.

Quickly glancing through the last few pages, the disconnect between these spreadsheet analysis and ingame reality is that while these numbers assume the damage cap, none of them include the time spent using inspirations or other click powers.

My own strategy, if it can be called that, is to leave her alone and start working towards some other objectives while she's in PS.

Off the top of my head, here's enemies with higher tohit than normal or significant defense debuffs:

Praetorians (+14% base tohit, many tohit buffs, defense debuffs)
Cimerorans (high defense debuffs)
Arachnos (high defense debuffs, some tohit buffs)
Longbow (many defense debuffs, some tohit buffs)
Vanguard (high defense debuffs, some tohit buffs)
Devouring Earth in tips (+14% base tohit)
Arachnoids (many defense debuffs)
Banished Pantheon (high defense debuffs)
Carnies (high defense debuffs)
Nemesis (high tohit buffs - Vengeance)
Rularuu (many high defense debuffs)

Against all of these, the defense portion of Barrier is useful even starting from 45% def.

OP: 5-10 years from now, people will give away computers with better specs than the one you're currently using to play CoH. Twelve years ago, many people paid hundreds a month for 56k Internet access.

Paying gets you to experience better things sooner. It's not a guarantee progress will stop ; if anything, it's the opposite. Part of the money you spend is used to push the technology further.

Well if you want to nitpick, he's to the left of the hospital elevator...

Got nothing constructive to add but just wanted to say this thread is great.

My namesake and my SS/Fire brute - one fun alt and one power alt, basically.

KM anything for me. Looking at the numbers I thought it was bad. Playing it I find it even worse than on paper... But it's just so much fun, I don't give a damn.

It's incarnate powers rather than specific combos that make me "wow" personally, as there's so many great things you can do with that to make so-so combos much more interesting. Cardiac and Barrier to boost a tanker very close to the 90% resistance cap. Rebirth +regen to change a widow from merely softcapped and will die eventually to so high regen it's going to take lots of firepower to take her down. Ageless +recov on characters that just wouldn't work at the level they can now without the massive recovery. That sort of thing.

I doubt I21 will hit live before mid-to-late September. Considering the guaranteed profit margins one can make from day to day, I don't see much point in making a gamble over 3 months.

Of course... Hold on, let me grab my tinfoil hat.

Got it. If I remember correctly, you are a pretty good day trader yourself. So could this be an attempt to get people to buy stuff so prices come back up?