-
Posts
1215 -
Joined
-
Quote:When we're talking about attack chains that are that short, even small pauses here and there make a difference.I really should load up wegame and post a video. There's little to no repositioning going on.
Quote:I run up to a spawn and attack. During attack animations, enemy AI causes the spawn to surround me. As a minion dies it creates space for another enemy to close in. Watch large spawn combat from above and it's easy to click on enemies that are stacked irregularly to leverage cones.
Again, the point here isn't that your numbers are invalid, or that SS is the best farming character. My only point is that Foostomp's area is a huge advantage that can't be dismissed out of hand simply because it's hard to quantify. When you're not farming, there are any number of common scenarios where a 15' AoE is much better than an 8' foot AoE or a 90-degree melee cone.
In Claws' case, the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. On a power-per-power basis, Footstomp is freaking awesome, though. -
Quote:Hey, to each his own. I didn't intend to judge anyone's APP preference; I was just pointing out that endurance management on an INV/SS/Energy Tanker isn't a big deal. Without Energy Mastery -- and assuming you're running the Fighting toggles -- things can get a little interesting.Well, his original build was one of Vox Populi's "SuperTanker" builds.
Honestly, I prefer LBE over Hurl due to the lower overall execution time of the power. Tied in with the nice, built-in defense debuff and lack of KB make the power more attractive. Plus the fact that with decent recharge it's up almost constantly? What's not to like?
LBE is a nice thematic power. It's not all that great when you weigh it against analogous APP attacks like Mu Lightning, Fire Blast, and especially Gloom. Energy Mastery also doesn't have anything comparable to Fire Ball or Ball Lightning. Energy is a decent utility pool, but generally I'd say you're better off with something else if you can find a way to get your endurance under control without it.
As far as your build goes, if I came off as over-critical then I apologize. I called your offense mediocre because you don't use Punch/Haymaker, because you don't have a lot of global recharge to make the heavy hitters come back faster, and because your smaller attacks lack for damage procs. From those build decisions, I inferred that you were trying to make a heavily defensive build.
So I whipped up what seemed to me to be a more heavily defensive build just for kicks. It ain't refined by any stretch. There's room to play around with a couple of slots. Off the top of my head, the second Numina in Health was purely a just-because thing; the extra regen ain't gonna make or break you. A Kismet +ToHit somewhere (probably Combat Jumping) might be preferable.
As far as DEF goes, personally I'm of the (quasi-Scranker) school that capping S/L is enough as long as the other key areas are within a Luck's range of soft-capping (32-33%). Thus, it seemed to me (perhaps wrongly) that you had either too much or too little E/N DEF (IIRC something like 37%?). Still, it can't hurt to have a little more than the minimum-Luck-range.
In any case, I think I19 will be a breath of fresh air for you, allowing you to pick up Haymaker and swap in Boxing's slots, and allowing you to shift some of your key powers lower in the level progression. -
Quote:Scrappers have roughly 50% more damage than Tankers, all else being equal (and ignoring the Bruising effect). That's a considerable advantage for Scrappers, but it's nowhere near double a Tanker's damage.derp
because Scrappers definitely don't have almost twice the damage scale as Tankers
And all else isn't always equal, either. Some attacks are just better than others. Rage puts Tankers in pretty decent territory compared with lower-performing Scrapper sets. -
Quote:Simplicity is effectiveness in this case, though. For every moment that BillZ's theoretical Claws character has to reposition, he loses DPS. Doesn't mean that his numbers are invalid, but it's inappropriate to dismiss a 350% advantage in area.I have two entirely subjective theories.
A) I honestly think it's the large radius on Foot Stomp, with a screen shake and knockdown. That combined with the simplicity of spamming the same attack over and over. You don't even really need to move around to keep hitting several targets.
That area advantage dovetails very well with APP attacks like Fireball and Ball Lightning. Can you wring out more effective DPS using a set with more AoE powers? Probably, but Foostomp + APP attacks are foolproof AoE carnage.
Quote:B) For Tankers, before Dual Blades, it was the only attack set with a consistent damage bonus. Even there, though, I imagine a /Fire Tanker can compete with a /SS Tanker's damage. -
Quote:It's hard to argue that Footstomp doesn't have a significant practical advantage when its area is 3.5 times larger than most melee PBAoE powers'. In a farming context, maybe that's not an issue, because presumably you're fighting alone and free to bunch up mobs as you like. Not a big farmer myself, so YMMV.The only thing up to question is whether foot stomp's large radius is as much a boon as some believe it to be.
But over the course of the game? Footstomp is justifiably regarded as one of the premiere melee AoE powers, and not just because it has a fantastic secondary effect. Unfortunately, FS's ease of use is offset by the inconvenience of Rage crashes -- which are a pain in the neck in a general context, no matter how many people post about farming runs that are timed around crashes, and no matter how many Vet-Reward powers you have. -
Quote:The purples will help indirectly by improving the recharge time of Conserve Power. Hecatomb also gives a 4% bonus to recovery, though that's negligible in the grand scheme.Thing is, the Purples are NOT going to help your EndRed, period. They're going to boost damage within a certain number of slots and raise recharge. But that additional recharge is a double-edged sword.
Yes, you can attack faster. This ALSO means you're expending Endurance faster.
If you run decent endurance reduction in your attacks, use the Miracle/Numina uniques, and use Conserve Power you ought to be fine on an Inv/SS. The fun starts when you try to craft a build that ditches the generally unattractive Energy Mastery pool. (Mechanically unattractive, unless you want endurance help; thematically it's very attractive for Superman homages.)
As far as your build goes, Hyperstrike, I'm curious: What's your goal? You've got two purple sets, but make no especial effort otherwise to improve your global recharge. You go to great lengths to push your S/L DEF way over the soft cap with one foe in range of Invincie, but aren't near the soft cap for Energy/Negative (Fire/Cold is basically a waste). You seem to want to improve regeneration, but you have no heal enhancement in Dull Pain, cheating yourself out of about 20% in extra HP.
I don't mean any of the above contentiously. It just seems to me that you're aiming to play a pure meat shield, which is great -- but you seem to have spent an awful lot of influence without maxing your defenses, which is a bit of a shame because your offense is (seemingly by intention) rather mediocre. Tossing 4 LoTGs into your DEF powers, alone, would more than offset the +recharge from your two purple sets, which would free up set bonuses that could be put towards E/N DEF and/or even a smidge of Psi +RES. Tossing 5 Doctored Wounds into Dull Pain (all but the Heal/End enhancement) would basically max the power for recharge and healing, and give you a nice little 5% boost to global recharge.
Etc. Etc. Here's a sample build using your exact power choices. The fitness pool selections may come up blank in the data link because i'm using the I19 patch, but their slotting is supplied below. My build isn't unreservedly better, but it does have better defenses (soft-capped E/N, 18% psionic RES, better +HP and regen), slightly better utility (better perception, better slow resistance) and comparable capability in every other area:
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.81
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Hyperstrike edit: Level 50 Mutation Tanker
Primary Power Set: Invulnerability
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery
Level 10: Swift- (A) Run Speed IO: Level 50
- (A) Numina's Convalescence - +Regeneration/+Recovery: Level 50
- (15) Numina's Convalescence - Heal: Level 50
- (25) Miracle - +Recovery: Level 40
- (27) Regenerative Tissue - +Regeneration: Level 30
- (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod: Level 50
- (31) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Recharge: Level 50
- (33) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy: Level 50
- (33) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End: Level 50
Code:| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1476;752;1504;HEX;| |78DA8D944B4F13511480EFB453FAA6C5B6145A28B43C4A79546A341135BA108810A| |A95222BB519E0D28ED4A1690763776EDCB9D2443712C498F81B8CFFC2B77FC1E86F| |A8E7712112363699F3DD7BCEB9E775675A7C3C1F10E2C935A105AED78D56ABB2665| |83BB2E929EED9866DEE5AE11BED866CB6ECA6B92387E59669BB85102976AACCCB6D| |69B5647EC97AB457B764D3D830EBA6DD4E2A7351D6A5CC97F72040A56C37A555B56| |B3D4B564DC2D2CE1F2D82A5DDDD7A7ED1ACD66CD3AA06D4CEB664ABC59B156934C0| |E2A34DB921E55664A1616EE6172063B55D291A2D5B36DB7D50570E9ECF5E101A3CA| |2E3121958648523C51822E869461C30284672B49BF609F58353DB8082E8AA326A04| |8FC97840F0ED10BE402E8D73E9DA8A46965B844089102E326E123E81BB93DD3527E| |7EDBE40160DA6EAE2F44E57099011676E335609E932E11B44707304A79B9B8B7273| |BDDC5C2F37E782785EF613DE19AAB517547E95DC1FE322A3043758822A68709D54D| |D77087DCB142D719546E504BF90EA36C4C9139C7C80930F70F2516EED07D4DA43D3| |E9387A3861344C48715E0FC48BA8BC91E70EB2BC200CBF64BC22E8E017537E310E9| |4E240C31C289DA20ECFC21DC679885ADC84A351D1F790F0134AE9E7088E7E3E33CA| |8146F9681C5224F9A848269DA82AF8B0677E2306F94AC6F94AC6F94AC6F94AB2CB0| |21DB34B84EF906948D53AC4334AF338B23CAA1C8FEA2BF865D42C336C196177F542| |2ABF491EE93928664CCD726C1F7A8A88C9D78C039AD179709850D54EFC726029B92| |B6499FE43BBE9DF8C3952CE3C251C40A7537CCA313545939839814370C8B3839E7F| |CB533E64BC61BC2314DE133230C65935E7598E50388101FDF833132241AA957F55F| |CAA9674F505834AE38339FDF8ABEE78C3E44BEBFFF8E1B7709C0015A2EB94C67D4A| |E339A5F910382AC1BB8AFF166B284A20B4755CDD45710FB7F77165E06A03C5266E3| |B1F0347F14217B197391497505C4611839EC433F474FB41F8510450045174A308A1| |08A388A048A0D847D1F90BB4A6EA90| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
-
Quote:Thank you. You're right; I probably should have placed more emphasis Dull Pain, but I guess I thought DP's role was implicit in the discussion about HP/regeneration. Unstoppable is more a matter of preference, but to me, the ability to have 90% RES to every single damage type (including Toxic, for which there is no typed DEF) except for psi for three minutes at a time is too good to pass up.Great write-up Obitus, but you forgot about Dull Pain. And I can't in any way consider Unstoppable a must-have. Dull Pain is Inv's panic button, Unstoppable is the throwaway in the set.
You can IO yourself to the point where you almost never need to use Unstoppable, but it's hard to make a compelling argument that there are 24 better options to take. Unstoppable's at least as useful as Resist Elements, which I find important (though I know a lot of people skip it, at least pre-I19) for the incidental bonuses. Like most build considerations, it's a question of where you draw the line: By themselves, neither Unstoppable nor Resist Elements offer you absolutely essential benefits, but those benefits are important parts of what makes Invuln Invuln. If you skip the slow and toxic resistance in RElements or the situational immortality of Unstoppable, then you almost might as well roll Willpower instead.
It's as if you could somehow opt to skip the Fear protection and the +perception in WP without sacrificing elsewhere: You'd end up with a viable character, but you'd be missing out on some of the essential bits of flavor in the set.
YMMV.
The key with Dull Pain is that it's useful as an HP buff, but it also heals you for more if you're hurt when you use it (and the extra regen you get from the higher HP isn't as useful until you start to take damage anyway). So no matter how much recharge you have, you probably want to use DP reactively rather than proactively, situationally rather than automatically.
Or, to put it another way: Making Dull Pain permanent is kind of an arbitrary goal. Get the heal up as often as you reasonably can, and the HP buff will take care of itself. A recharge of 120 seconds is better than a recharge of 140, but a recharge of 100 seconds is better still.
Quote:Outside of Hasten? Probably not going to happen unless you use a LOT of Purple sets and the LOTG +Recharges.
This, however, would detract from a defense-cap build. While yes, you'd wind up more or less permanently with a larger HP pool to subtract from, you'd be taking more damage over time. Quite a bit more. And more than your increased regeneration rate could offset.
If you do take Hasten, then making DP perma (or near enough) isn't all that difficult -- certainly not so difficult that you'd be forced to sacrifice undue amounts of DEF, or that you'd be forced to use purple sets. If you're dead set on soft-capping all types (S/L/E/N/F/C), then yeah, maybe -- but soft-capping Fire/Cold is not at all required nor even necessarily desirable. Those attack types just aren't common enough to warrant handicapping your build full-time just so you don't have to eat the occasional Luck inspiration.
Soft-capping the rest? Sure. Frankly I don't even bother with capping E/N anymore. 32-33% DEF (with one foe in Invincie range) seems sufficient, given that a single luck will put me at the soft cap for a full minute. Full-time, soft-capped S/L DEF ensures that the most common DEF debuffs don't hit me, so I'm pretty well buffered against cascade failure. -
Yeah, WP is definitely easier from 1 to 50. With the introduction of inherent Fitness in Issue 19, Invuln will become comparatively more attractive at lower levels, but it still has a disadvantage: It needs more powers to reach its peak (all of them), and it will never match WP's endurance recovery.
The psi hole is the other obvious disparity, but I feel that's offset by Invuln's better taunt aura, better toxic RES, and better DEF-debuff resistance (both literally and by extension, because Invincibility scales way beyond 45% DEF on a well-IOed build). You can also give an Invuln build something like 80% of a stock WP's standing regeneration through IO bonuses (say 50ish HP/sec), which is nothing to sneeze at.
The toxic RES is an under-rated point, I think -- not because toxic damage is all that common, but because toxic attacks bypass typed defense, and they're often bundled with -regen debuffs. Given that the most common IO strategy for both WP and Invuln is to pump typed DEF, and given that WP's largely reliant on regeneration once you get past that DEF, toxic can be a bit of a pain on those rare occasions when it's heavily featured.
Invuln also has a better panic button. Strength of Will is less risky to use, but it provides a vastly inferior benefit when it's up, which is both good and bad, I guess: On the one hand, Unstoppable is arguably must-have in a set that's already power-selection-heavy, whereas SoW is optional in a set that already has a throw-away power (the rez). Which you prefer will ultimately boil down to preference.
So to sum up:
Invulnerability:
- Better DEF-debuff resistance (50% versus IIRC 25%), and better overhead against DEF debuffs (due to Invincibility scaling)
- Better Toxic resistance (30ish% standing, potentially 90% with Unstoppable active).
- Easier-to-cap DEF and HP through IO investment.
- Much, much better taunt aura.
- Decent slow resistance. (20% versus 0.)
- Far superior mitigation against Smash/Lethal damage, for all that it matters (IOed WP is very good here too).
- Far superior mitigation against psionic damage.
- Protection against fear
- Much better perception
- Higher regeneration, which doesn't have a lot of counters throughout the game, but when they appear they tend to shut you down completely.
- Potentially better DEF with no foes in range, which isn't all that important but it does mean that WP has a marginal advantage at the very beginning of a fight.
- Higher endurance recovery --
Again, not a deal breaker at the high end, but SS Tankers in particular can be deceptively endurance-heavy. (Rage crashes are costly.) If you can't resolve the endurance situation to your satisfaction on an SS Tanker, then you'll end up being pidgeonholed into the Energy Mastery Ancillary, which doesn't have a whole lot to recommend it besides endurance management. (The attacks are terrible compared to those in Mu/Pyre/Soul, and any Rage-using character has very little need for Focused Accuracy.)
- Fewer essential power picks (arguably 7 versus 9), which translates into more build freedom at least until you start to consider min/max IO builds. (Which might require a less forgiving slotting scheme for WP, because WP starts with much less S/L DEF.)
If you're trying to make the proverbial Superman homage, then there are two schools of thought: On the one hand, WP is a better thematic fit because of the free perception boost (a la X-Ray vision). The other is that one of WP's main advantages -- recovery -- is less important if you feel you have to take Energy Mastery anyway (Laser Beam Eyes).
Personally, I can't choose between the two sets. Every time I think I have the comparison figured out one way or another, something else occurs to me to make it even again. Both have situational weaknesses, and a similar number of them. The question is which set's weaknesses are less common, and I guess you have to give the narrow edge there to WP, but it's a very near thing. - Better DEF-debuff resistance (50% versus IIRC 25%), and better overhead against DEF debuffs (due to Invincibility scaling)
-
Quote:Read the post to which I was responding. Then re-read my post. I never asked to have my characters auto-leveled to 20. I was just pointing out that other games do it. I appreciate that you don't mean to be condescending, but I wasn't the one complaining. This was never about whether or not I find the game easy; in fact, I responded to contradict someone who seems to think that the leveling progression in this game is too slow.As for your auto leveling to level 20 . . . isn't this game easy enough for you yet? I'm not trying to be condescending or anything, but it is now almost impossible to fail at most SFs/TFs unless you have a really bad team. Add to that auto-completing missions and the 30 bars of Patrolling Experience (works the same as this power) for the Day Job badge and really, how much easier could you really want it?
The bottom line is that complaints about this vet badge are silly. The bonus is negligible and -- amusingly -- least useful to the only people who are eligible for it. -
Quote:Maybe I'm confused. Are you seriously suggesting that this Vet reward provides a significant leveling speed advantage? 1.25 levels that anyone else can get simply by managing their alt play? 1.25 levels that are directed at the very people who are most likely to have multiple 50s already?You have to admit though:
After costume pieces, base items, and some items per character... This is a major change for a system that nerfed every other method of "fast tracking" a character.
I don't care one way or the other, but it seems to me that if anything, Purposeful is too weak. We're talking about people who've been subscribed to the game for six and a half years; if the devs' notion was that those players might deserve the ability to skip some amount of content that they've already done a bajillion times, then this ain't it. On the other hand, Purposeful has no application at all for level-capped characters. It doesn't (presumably) help alts that are already capped out on patrol experience. Do you really think that someone who's played the game since 2004 doesn't have other characters to play while his alts accrue the patrol bonus normally?
Other games do things like auto-level you to 20 after a certain amount of experience as a player. By comparison, Purposeful doesn't rate. It's a token gesture designed to be as inoffensive as possible to non-Vets. In that sense, it's a resounding success -- or should be. -
Quote:To each his own. The Thunderhead aura is not only sexy enough by itself for me to buy the Booster Pack; it's convinced me to resurrect a couple of retired characters.Ummmm....
[Image shouting, "How about NO?"]
To be more specific- this is not quite as useless as the Party Pack, but it's still nothing I'll be paying money for.
I don't think I'm alone in my belief that emotes are vastly inferior to auras. Emotes are by definition narrow in scope (and especially emotes that don't have a clear and obvious relevance in a super-hero setting -- seriously, dance emotes?). You can play the game all the way through without touching a single emote. By contrast, auras and costume pieces can be visible full-time. It's all fluff, but not all fluff is created equal. -
Quote:All of which are on long timers, and none of which give you a substantive advantage in combat. I'm obviously a long-time vet, and I've bought almost every possible enhancement to my account -- and so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm foggy on the exact details, but the Pocket D thing isn't even a Booster Pack or Vet Reward, as I recall. It's a perk from the Good Versus Evil Edition, isn't it? Each new edition of the game has come with its own perks, which means that there's a sort of built-in equalizer for newer players; they're more likely to have some sort of perk just as a natural consequence of buying the game for the first time, whereas long-time vets have to buy each new thing and upgrade their account.You can teleport instantly to missions, get a permanent assemble the team, teleport to Pocket D from anywhere,
Then of course there's the biggest equalizer of all, one that few people mention in these discussions: Newer players have a better game from the outset. They benefit from all of the growing pains the vets played through. I'm not saying that vets endured any undue hardship, but there have been countless quality-of-life improvements to the game since it launched. I'd have to spend two or three hours sifting through patch notes just to give you a semi-accurate list.
Honestly, I rarely even bother to put half of my perks on my power bar. They help a bit in the lower levels, but for the most part I don't use them. It's one thing to talk about how well the Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, and Sands of Mu lower your attack downtime, but most of those powers on any given character don't strike me as thematically appropriate. Heck, with normal attacks, brawl, origin powers, the accuracy boost, the lack of debt, the market, the availability of temp travel powers from Mayhems -- with all of those things available to every player, the lower levels should breeze by no matter what.
Making Inherent Fitness part of a Booster Pack would have been objectionable. None of the things we've gotten from Boosters/Vet Rewards are even in the same league. If you want to find annoying microtransactions, go check out what Cryptic's doing in Star Trek Online -- selling individual ships with unique gameplay advantages for $15+ a pop. And in STO, gear is virtually meaningless; there aren't any significant improvements you can make to your build through in-game means.
Here, the best case for inequality you can make references the cumulative effect of everything. That means being a launch-day vet, and having every available upgrade. That's like $1,500, and the total advantage you get for that relatively large investment still doesn't hold a candle to the advantages you get for IOing out a build. There is no meaningful competitive imbalance at the high end.
Quote:the 30 second jump pack, the Secondary Mutation (+30% recharge for 20 minutes, 15% Movement Speed, 30% Regen/30% End Discount/50% Resist to Hold/Stun/Sleep/Immob/Terror, +5% Def(Smash, Lethal, Energy, Fire, Cold, Negative), +3% Acc 60% Perception +3% Def(Ranged, AoE, Melee), Devolution) -
Quote:In the first linked post, Grey stated his expectations as a consumer, based on what he feels he has received in the past for his subscription fee, and based on what he feels the industry standard is. He has every right to voice his opinion as a consumer about what he thinks is worth his subscription money. Rightly or wrongly, he clearly thinks that he's getting less value for that money than he used to get.See here and here. The User Agreement was subsequently brought up to clarify what customers should expect in exchange for their payments, and product quality, management decisions and keeping the game going at all are not part of the package.
Is NCsoft dumb enough to shoot themselves in the foot and make all their customers leave? Certainly not. Are they allowed to be? Absolutely. Our money doesn't dictate that one way or the other.
Your second linked post is just a restatement of your position. You're caught up with a meaningless distinction, and apparently you're the only one who doesn't see that. You seem to be a strict literalist, which can be a good thing when discussing certain matters, but works to your detriment here.
Whether we have legal standing to dictate what NCSoft does with our money is irrelevant. All that matters is that it is in NCSoft's interest to keep its customers. Customer expectations go hand-in-hand with customer retention. Customer expectations almost always go above and beyond a given business' strict, legal obligations.
Customer expectations are largely subjective, but they're not entirely arbitrary. For every unreasonable customer there is someone (like you, seemingly) who thinks that every benefit a company provides should be met with meek, gushing gratitude. On the whole, things balance out, until an industry standard emerges -- a standard that any competitor would be crazy to ignore. In this case, customer service (that is, support for customers who for whatever reason can't use the product they're paying for, and thus may soon leave) and content updates fall under that industry-standard umbrella.
We can legitimately disagree about what constitutes a reasonable amount of new content, what constitutes a fair price for that content, what constitutes good or bad customer service -- but pounding the EULA and insisting that NCSoft has the right to commit financial suicide serves no useful purpose. -
Quote:There are exceptions that prove the rule. I'm sure your Fire/Dark Corrupter is an excellent soloist in the right hands. The Fire blast set is itself a bit of an outlier because it excels at both single-target and AoE damage. (And nothing else.)One possible exception is the Fire/Dark corruptor (who is one of my AV soloers), although there is a large amount of caveat/luck on there; Fire/Dark is pretty good at taking on large groups and single hard targets, provided those targets don't put out a lot of mez effects, as the combination completely lacks any mez protection aside from defence.
When my Fire/Dark solos AVs, a tray of Break Frees tends to be necessary. It's actually my hope that at least one Incarnate slot will be able to provide mez protection; this was one of the things I thought would be the slight push some builds needed.
But as you point out, Corruptors generally are not quite as capable as all-around soloists as, say, Scrappers -- which can be made to solo AVs, but probably can't solo GMs, and even if they can, they're not nearly as efficient at it as certain Controllers/Defenders/Corruptors. To be the best possible all-around soloist, you have to minimize holes or weaknesses. Every build has them, but some more than others.
A perma-PA* Illusion/Rad or Illusion/Cold Controller is probably the best-case build for soloing hard targets, and kicks serious butt through most of the rest of the game too, but it ain't the experience-per-hour monster that many other builds are.
The point is that we're talking about niche builds that aren't rewarded by the game for soloing these encounters.
*PA = Phantom Army. I point that out only because I get annoyed when I see game acronyms that aren't spelled out somewhere, or aren't immediately clear from the context. I don't point that out to imply that Eiko doesn't know what the term means. -
Quote:No, the argument being made is that consumers have every reasonable expectation that certain standards (both of the industry and as demonstrated by the particular company in question) will be met. If those standards are not met, then the company's only reasonable expectation is that those customers will leave.The argument being made is that since this revenue generally comes from us, the customers, we are by some monetary extension granted the right to dictate how our money is used by NCsoft. That if I pay for access to the game, it's perfectly reasonable for me to expect new development in return.
That's not the case. I can expect all I want, but if something doesn't happen the way I expect and I feel like they misused my money, I can't sue them over it because I'm only paying for access.
Everything else is sophistry. Yes, NCSoft can do what it wants with our money. We have no standing to sue them for misusing our $15 once we've paid it. So what? NCSoft would have to be irrational not to use the money to improve their product and meet reasonable customer expectations. Thus, you are describing a distinction without a difference. The money is used to provide customer service and to develop new content.
The day that those things end is the day that the game dies.
To say that we have no right to demand this-or-that is correct. To say that customers voicing their preferences have a false sense of entitlement is silly. -
Quote:Yes, the fact that AVs/GMs can be soloed is just a quirk of the system.For the record, my most expensive build is my Tanker (who, like I said, cannot outdamage an AV's regen), at perhaps 500 million. My villains are all much, much cheaper builds (closer to 100-150 million), who can do the deed largely thanks to the presence of -regen in their builds.
While it's probably possible to get any character to the soloing AV level with the right application of IOs and temp powers, some builds do it a lot easier thanks to -regen mechanics.
The biggest obstacles to soloing AV are simply surviving their attacks (softcapped Blasters prove that just about any character can get there with enough IOs) and overcoming their regen (which can be accomplished by putting out enough damage, which can be hard, or by debuffing their regen, which requires specific powersets. Traps, Dark Miasma and Radiation Emission are seem to be specifically designed for the "solo AVs" mindset.)
That AVs and GMs should be unsoloable isn't necessarily a thematic requirement; it's a mechanical requirement. Team content should be challenging enough to interest a full team, but there's a limit to how much the devs can change the rules to challenge high-end min-max players before that content becomes impossible for certain group compositions.
We can debate whether high regeneration, HP, and debuff resistance are good ways for the devs to gate team content. There's no right or wrong answer. I'm sure there are many imaginative alternatives -- but as long as there are counters for whatever mechanics the devs throw our way, there will always be builds that can solo group content given enough time and patience. The narrower the niche of the counter, the more effective it's likely to be when employed, too.
Regen debuffs are firmly in that niche category. In a solo encounter against a hard target, -regen is analogous to DPS, sometimes an awful lot of DPS. But regen debuffs are virtually meaningless against most anything less than an AV, and easily rendered redundant on teams.
Just as a full group of Defenders is many times more powerful than a full group of Blasters, some builds are just better suited to certain encounters than others. It doesn't mean that those builds are unreservedly better across the full range of the game's content; in fact, the best all-around-soloist ATs are only mediocre at hardcore AV/GM soloing, with certain specific flavors of support ATs leading the charge.
The bottom line is that the game doesn't reward you in any tangible way for soloing AVs or GMs. People do it because they can, but in purely mercenary terms you're far better off running solo content as intended, or using an AoE-specialist build (which usually isn't well-suited to soloing hard targets) to melt large spawns of minions. I, for one, would rather have some exceptional balance-breaking builds than sacrifice the game's traditional freedom with respect to build and team composition. -
Quote:Except for the part where it defines what the service is:
Basically:- The Service is the Game(s), which, since you seem to like overlooking things, is defined in section 1(a) as "City of Heroes," "City of Heroes Going Rogue" and/or "City of Villains"
- The Service requires a subscription.
- Additional fee-based features to the Service include, but are not limited to, cetain content, additional character slots and Super Boosters.
Section 4(d), which I quoted last time, specifies that any payment by charge or by NCcoin that we make is for access to the Service or to purchase Additional Features as defined in the excerpt of section 2 that I quoted above.
Things that are NOT included in the Service (as explicitly shown by their absence from the description of the service in section 2) are customer support, server maintenance and continued development. These are things NCsoft chooses to do on their end, most likely using money from our payments, but are not included in the terms of the User Agreement.
My point? We don't get content in exchange for our payment; it's not what we're paying for. Your argument? We do and the User Agreement doesn't say one way or the other. The User Agreement? It says one way or the other and it happens to agree with my point.
Here's another link to the User Agreement. Read it this time:
http://us.ncsoft.com/en/legal/user-a...agreement.htmlQuote:I don't know what to tell ya. NCsoft chooses to provide customer service for its subscribers, but that's their call. It's not granted by our individual payments.
The second passage you quoted from EULA is a catch-all disclaimer that your access to the service (including, but not limited to, the web site) ends when you stop paying your subscription. It also disclaims by implication that certain aspects of the service (which aren't explicitly defined) may be subject to additional fees. It is not an itemized description of what your subscription covers.
This BaB quote, supplied by another poster, seems to back up your position, but it doesn't establish your position as relevant. Technically, yes, of course: NCSoft has the right to do whatever the heck it wants with your subscription fee once paid, but that's a truism -- a superficially accurate, but nonetheless frivolous observation. BaBs wasn't saying that we should all bow down and thank the NCSoft gods for whatever crumbs are thrown our way (cuz man, that'd be PR suicide); he was saying that there isn't any explicit guarantee with respect to where our money goes at any given time. As long as the game's profitable, you have to assume that NCSoft will divert some of that extra revenue to other projects, but if the game is profitable, then by definition it is paying its own costs -- including whatever content the devs think the game needs to stay competitive, including customer service, including developer salaries, equipment, utilities.
More specifically:
- Any computer-related business that wants to compete has to provide some amount of customer service, even if it's a token effort. Customer service is a core cost; if you can't expect to be able to cover that cost, then you don't open up shop in the first place.
- It's also safe to say that Paragon has to continue to develop content if it wants to remain competitive. That goes for free content. It goes for paid content too. Subscription revenue is almost certainly used for all of the above -- both for free content to sweeten the pot for existing subscribers, and as starting capital to fund new projects. At the very least, subscription fees are meant to cover day-to-day costs while the wizards at Paragon work on the next big thing. Whether our subscription fees are sufficient to do that is another question entirely.
There is no useful purpose in trying to place artificial limitations on this-or-that revenue stream based on some bizarre authoritarian interpretation of the EULA or Developer commentary. NCSoft uses whatever revenue, from whatever source, to try to retain customers. A crystal ball didn't tell me that. It's the way the world works.
Customers learn what is and isn't reasonable to expect based on industry trends in general and on a company or service's track record in particular. In CoX's case, happily, that track record is pretty darn good. If a customer no longer finds a service worthy of his subscription fee, then he will cancel. If a business can't retain enough customers, then the business folds. Very simple. Paragon/NCSoft is not running a charity, and we are not their helpless supplicants. They seem like good people who like their work, and we are naturally appreciative of that work, but there's a difference between an appreciative customer and what you seem to be describing.
Quote:Any good business will want to ensure it retains customers and draws new ones in by offering things that are better than anyone else offers, but it's pretty clear to me that this specific interest is not at the very top of the list of priorities for City of Heroes. NCsoft wants it to be, but War Witch and the rest of the development team are obviously more interested in making the game good than making the game sell.
Inherent Fitness, as an example, is a prime candidate for a Super Booster: it's all but guaranteed that it would be purchased by the vast majority of players. But we're getting it for free. Why? It just doesn't make sense from a business perspective, so maybe there's more going on here. Maybe they're doing us a favor; giving us some sort of gift that we ought to be thankful for.
Inherent Fitness for free does make sense from a business perspective. You have to realize that raising prices doesn't always result in increased revenue; there's obviously a point after which whatever you gain in increased per-sale profit is overshadowed by the decrease in sales' volume. By the same token, CoH can't just take the sexiest, most powerful gameplay advantages and throw a booster-pack price tag on them. Inherent Fitness falls squarely in that transparent-and-cynical-money-grab category that the devs have taken obvious pains to avoid thus far. The potential revenue from an Inherent-Fitness booster pack just isn't worth the risk of driving away a large proportion of the existing subscriber base.
Not everything added "for free" to an existing service is a favor or a gift. There's a profit motive in there too. We can and should be grateful for the good work the devs do, but we also have a right -- and if we truly love the game as much as many of us claim to do, even an obligation -- to point out what we'd like to see for our dollar. Making the game the best it can be is in everyone's best interest, here.
Sorry for the ramble. This entitlement-versus-customer-loyalty debate never fails to confuse me. -
Quote:It all depends on how cheaply you're willing to live. If you have a spouse and children, that number will rise no matter how humble your own personal needs. Depending on how young you are, $1 million (even if we ignore the taxes) really isn't that much money.Theoretically, all you need to do is make $500k to $1mil and you no longer need to work. I view those people that make like 600k a year and obsess over work as idiots... same with sports stars. They make millions of dollars and spend it all idiotically.
That's not to say that working is bad or that someone who makes 600k a year is absolutely an idiot. I just don't see how people can be so obsessed at that point and really, anyone with a brain should be able to realize that once you make x amount of money you no longer need to work and in fact you can build up a surplus if you live cheaply enough.
Personally i plan on trying to make a million and then living off that the rest of my life and then using excess amount on charities, fun projects, starting businesses, or giving to things i support. Working for money beyond $1mil is shows how stupid you are in my opinion. But working beyond $1mil for other reasons is understandable, because having a job is about more than making money.
I guess if you're an investment wiz and you're taking a massive return-on-investment for granted, you could retire forever. Otherwise, and especially keeping the recent economic meltdown in mind, I just don't see it. I really don't get where you're seeing a significant excess to donate to charity.
I'm no economist, but I think the so-called income effect that Olantern mentioned is dominant precisely because most people aren't anywhere near their practical ceiling for comfort/lifestyle versus income. There's almost always more for them to aim for, whether it's a better home or a better school for their children. Or, hell, an extra child or a new spouse or whatever it is you might not have considered before.
There are very few people who have so much money that they have to start looking at outrageously extravagant purchases to justify earning more. Some of those people work harder anyway because they like whatever it is they're doing -- or maybe it's just because they enjoy feeling important. Who can say for sure?
And yeah, there are a very few people who earn massive amounts of money (sudden lottery winners, poverty-born professional athletes) and end up spending it all shockingly fast. Buying a Ferrari for every day of the week isn't something I'd do even with billions to my name -- but then again, I'm not a poor twenty-year old who woke up one morning as the king of the world. Youth is wasted on the young and all that jazz. God knows it was wasted on me. -
Quote:True. That test is heavily skewed towards -regen debuffs. It's also somewhat skewed in favor of situational damage buffs (like Against All Odds, which probably won't be fully saturated through 90+% of the game unless you go out of your way).Controllers are not particularly a good example of a low damage character, especially when it comes to single large targets (Illusion, Fire, and Plant controllers, in particular, are very damaging). Regen and resistance debuffs are a huge source of increased kill speed vs. AVs and Pylons.
Quote:As to how helpful damage bonuses are to lower damage characters, I am not sure. Obviously, damage bonuses have more of an impact on people with higher base damage. I have tried to squeeze in decent +damage (15% or more) on several of my damage dealers (getting to +28% on my most aggressive and then stacking Assault on top of that for +38.5%). I am very happy with the results on those characters.
I have only targeted +damage on one of my lower damage dealers. My Emp/Elec/Power has +17.5% global damage and Assault for a total of 36.3% global damage (and more when on small teams now thanks to Vigilance). Before new Vigilance I always found my solo speed to be quite satisfactory, although still slower than most. New Vigilance does not seem to have much effect on my speed through missions or on my number of attacks needed, however, so there is definitely some evidence in my mind that +damage is not as nice for characters with lower base damage.
For a an AoE-centric Blaster with Aim, Build Up and Defiance, the comparative benefit of IO damage bonuses is pretty small, honestly. 30% sounds like a lot, but it's measured against the base value -- and a Blaster already has ~235% damage just from enhancements and full Defiance, with as much as another +100% from Build Up.
So that 30% from IOs drops to a net bonus of 12.7% w/o BU or Aim, and to a net bonus of 8.9% with Build Up. It's not nothing, certainly -- may, in fact, be the difference between a dead target and a sliver-of-life target in any given situation -- but what do you give up to get it? If the answer to that question is signifant +recharge or anywhere near soft-capped DEF, then you're probably better off ignoring +damage bonuses.
For the same reasons, the buff to Vigilance will seem to have a lesser effect on characters with lots of IO +damage bonuses. -
Quote:Honestly, you're spending an awful lot of influence to no particular purpose:So some playing around, comparing the different builds suggested and some of my own (probably half-baked) ideas, and I've come up with this.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.81
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Magic Tanker
Primary Power Set: Willpower
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
[snip]
How'd I do?- You have the PvP +DEF IO (valued at 2-3 billion influence by itself), but you don't make any especial effort to improve your DEF otherwise. In fact, the only category that's anywhere near the soft cap in your build is the very worst one -- Fire/Cold.
- I'm not sure why you'd use Gladiator's Strike (a PvP set) in Jab and Knockout Blow. Half of those set bonuses only apply in PvP, a fact that Mids' may not make entirely clear.
- You only have 17.5% in global recharge bonuses (ignoring Hasten). The proc in Haymaker will help, but keep in mind that Mids' doesn't average its sporadic benefit over time. Instead, Mids' gives you a toggle; the proc is either counted as if a full +100% recharge bonus, or none at all. The build I downloaded from your link had that option toggled on (the little green light on the right-hand side of the Haymaker bar), so you may understandably have thought you were better off than you are.
- Your max HP is pretty good. You can well afford to cut your regen (which is about ~83 hp/sec with all Accolades) down a bit in favor of other bonuses.
Now, some more specific suggestions:
- Adding a sixth slot to Taunt to complete the Mocking Beratement set will give you another 7.5% in global recharge. That's one of the main reasons to slot the set in the first place.
- Four slots of Doctored Wounds does very little for you. The key to Doctored Wounds is that five slots give you +5% in recharge. If you want to put the taunt enhancement in Rise to the Challenge, then you're better off either using a different healing set in that power, or finding a six slot to accomodate Doctored Wounds.
- Both sets of Aegis (in High Pain Tolerance and Mind Over Body) should probably be switched out for Reactive Armor. Smash/Lethal/Energy/Negative DEF are far more important than Fire/Cold.
- Similar to Doctored Wounds, Crushing Impact really shines with five slots. HP bonuses are nice, but they're not so important that you should split Air Superiority evenly between CI and Mako's Bite.
- Your +DEF powers (Heightened Senses, Indomitable Will, Weave) should all have Luck of the Gambler: +DEF/Recharge speed slotted. As of right now, it seems you have LoTG enhancements in all of them, but only Weave has the best enhancement in the set.
- Tough doesn't need five slots. The extra ~0.6% Fire/Cold DEF from Reactive Armor is negligible, and the base value of Tough is small enough that you're gaining very little resistance from that last enhancement. Generally, if you're going to heavily slot any toggle, first priority should go to your stronger Primary armors. In this case, a fifth slot Mind Over Body would do slightly more for you, but probably isn't worthwhile either.
- Two slots in Swift is overkill. You might consider tossing a Winter's Gift Slow-resistance IO into Fly (or taking a second travel power as an IO mule come I-19).
That's about it for concrete suggestions I can make without drastically altering the structure of your build. A lot of power choices boil down to personal preference.
Given the cost you're contemplating here, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that you won't have all of the parts gathered before I-19, though -- and thus, you should probably start thinking about what you'll do with the build after inherent Fitness. An extra pool selection and three free powers change the whole discussion. At the very worst, you could fit in three new LoTG mules from the Concealment pool.
All of that said, your build will certainly work, and work well, through most content. It just seems like you're spending way too much for very little practical gain over a pure-SO build. - You have the PvP +DEF IO (valued at 2-3 billion influence by itself), but you don't make any especial effort to improve your DEF otherwise. In fact, the only category that's anywhere near the soft cap in your build is the very worst one -- Fire/Cold.
-
Quote:Your labor takes time. Your labor has a certain market value. When someone steals money from you, they are effectively stealing some part of your life. When you pay your taxes, you are devoting X amount of your life span to the government.While we're talking about this - what an arbitrary pair of things to compare.
Time is something everyone has. Everyone ironically has the exact same amount of time. How you choose to spend it is up to you - unless you're a slave... or a prisoner - then you don't have a lot of choices. So... we'll go with everyone else.
Money is something only some people have. A 2 year old has time. They do not have money (please refrain from talking about your child's college fund)
Why not compare Time and Oxygen. That seems more apt to me. Everyone has time and everyone has oxygen. If either one runs out, you're dead. So...
If withholdings were handled differently, you'd see a lot more sense in comparing time and money. How about waking up in May only to realize that you haven't started earning for yourself yet? You disclaim that slavery is irrelevant, but if you need to work for your money, then how is the confiscation of that money technically any different from part-time slavery? That question isn't posed as an incitement against government. Some amount of taxation is obviously necessary, but the power to compel payment, and thus labor, should never be taken lightly.
In any case, you brought up the very reason that money is comparable to time in the offhanded disclaimer at the beginning of your post. We are, in fact, all of us slaves to our own needs and our families'. Time is only equally available to the extent that we're all able to feed, clothe, shelter, protect -- and yes, find medical treatment for -- ourselves. That baby you mention actually has no time of her own. She has the potential to see a full life, but only if adults provide for her until she is self-sufficient.
By the same token, if you have money to burn, then you can live a life of leisure. You can't buy immortality, but you can buy the option never to work again. You can pay people to do things for you. You can buy various fancy devices to save you time.
Time really is money. Which is more valuable to you will depend on your situation, but they make for a perfectly apt comparison. -
Quote:Don't get me wrong; you're going to see fantastic results from an IOed WP build even if you don't max DEF bonuses. I'm sure your build plays great. A WP certainly doesn't need soft-capped DEF; it's just the most efficient way to boost survivability.No need to apologize haha, you are helping everyone out with your explanations. I guess the reason I built this one the way I did is my WP/Elec. I am sitting at mid-high 30s in defense with over 700% regen with 1 in RttC. He is one of my most fun tanks, just a non-stop beast. Don't mean to thread jack but since the OP was looking for information on IO slotting and tanks...
Quote:A few questions about your build though. Why the Serendipity in Weave instead of another LotG? Doesn't make a big difference in end and ED capping defense in Weave doesn't really do anything either but you do get a 9% acc bonus for 4 LotG.
Quote:Second question, where are you getting the recovery from? My WP/Elec has Stamina, Quick Recovery and Physical Perfection yet I only sit at 4.35/s (still working on last two Accolades but even with them comes to 4.56)?
The only end-related IO bonuses in my build are as follows:
- Efficacy Adaptor -- +1.5% recovery for three slots
- Mocking Beratement (I see you use Perfect Zinger) -- +1.8% max end for two slots
- Eradication -- +1.8% max end for two slots.
- Cleaving Blow -- +1% recovery
- Decimation -- +2.25% max end
- and Positron's Blast - +2.5% recovery
Then we have Miracle and Numina (+25% recovery combined), and enhanced Stamina and Quick Recovery (105.48% recovery combined). Accolades provide +10% more in max endurance.
I didn't bother to check Mids' math on this, but it does seem odd that my build would be so competitive with yours. Base recovery is 1.67 end/sec (100 endurance recovered in 60 seconds). Our total endurance is 100 + 10 + 2.25 + 1.8 + 1.8 = 115.85.
Our total recovery bonuses are (unless I'm miscounting) +135.48%. (115.85 / 60) * (1 + 1.3548) = 4.547, which isn't quite 4.56, but it's close enough for government work. Mids' seems to be accurate.
Physical Perfection only offers 12.5% extra recovery, about half of Stamina, which sounds great, but most WP Tankers probably aren't going to slot it for end recovery. With 105 max end, Physical Perfection's worth about 0.125 * (105 / 60) = 0.219 EPS. It's basically one free armor toggle.
I guess the bottom line is that +Max End is very helpful.
All of that said, keep in mind that Mids' doesn't (AFAIK) account for the Performance Shifter Proc. The average benefit of the PS proc is (IIRC) about 0.1 EPS. But the proc is both better and worse than that in practice, offering burst recovery sporadically -- a bonus that is perhaps uniquely well-suited for Rage crashes.
In any case, I don't have any of those procs slotted, and you have two, so you'll be better off than you might look on paper. - Efficacy Adaptor -- +1.5% recovery for three slots
-
Quote:That's an understandable viewpoint, but there's one extremely important difference between regeneration and DEF: DEF becomes more valuable as you get more of it. Regen provides a linear benefit. Regen is also one-dimensional in the sense that it only serves one function. By contrast, DEF improves your alpha-strike survivability, your avoidance of debuff effects, and it multiplies the benefit of your max HP, of your regeneration, and of every heal that's ever thrown your way.I agree and disagree at the same time regarding the extra regen for Willpower. I look at Willpower and regen similar to Invice and defense, both aim for highest numbers with 1 in range.
Even +HP is more multifaceted than +regen, improving both itself (and thus increasing your resilience against alphas and increasing the reaction time you need to pop a heal or ask a teammate for one), and multiplying your regen rate.
Granted, neither DEF nor regen bonuses exist in a vacuum; chances are you'll pick up some measure of both without even trying. Ditto +HP and recharge. DEF bonuses also tend to be more slot-intensive than regen bonuses, so it's hard to draw a realistic equivalence between them in terms of investment; I can't exactly say that X amount of DEF from IOs has the same opportunity cost as Y amount of regen.
All else being equal though, DEF > Regen, and it's not close. On a WP Tanker, you start with about 500% standing regen (one foe in RttC, off the top of my head) without even touching Inventions or power pools. A fully enhanced High Pain Tolerance gives you roughly +30% max HP. So right off the bat, you're looking at roughly (1874 * 1.3) / (240 / 5) = 50.7 HP/sec in regeneration, with one foe in range of RttC.
How much can we improve on that through DEF? Well, in theory, capped DEF (45%) gives you 90% mitigation. So ignoring RES (which also multiplies regeneration), our humble 50.7 HP/sec can be improved to an effective 507 HP/sec through DEF.
How much can we improve through +regen bonuses? Well, enhanced Health gives you like +80% regen, and we can take Numina/Regenerative Tissue for another +45%, and then we can take the rule-of-five limit of 12%, 10%, and 8% regen bonuses (another +150% total, from fifteen set bonuses)), and then if we're really going nuts we can take Physical Perfection for another 40%ish. That's a total of +315% in additional regen.
And heck, while we're at it why don't we throw some +HP bonuses into the mix: +20% from Accolades, and let's say another 20% from IOs. That brings our max HP up to 170%, up from 130% with HPT alone.
Plug all of those regen/HP-oriented bonuses in, and we're looking at about (1874 * 1.7) / (240 / 8.15) = 108.2 HP/sec. That's more than double our original 50.7 figure, but it's still only about 1/5th of the DEF-enhanced number. And as RttC ramps up with the number of opponents, the proportional benefit of those regen bonuses will diminish, whereas the DEF continues to multiply by 10.
An over-simplified example, obviously. It's also purposely extreme. WP Tankers are best served by going for DEF, +HP (and/or +recharge if you're more interested in offense). Regeneration is in a very distant last place.
The corollary is that high-mitigation, low-regen power sets benefit a lot from extra regen. If we were talking Invuln for instance, I'd be all over picking up regen bonuses where you can. Slot out Health? Yes please. Regen bonuses are far from useless; they're just more useful to some than others.
Sorry for the ramble. -
Quote:Using Bunny's excellent build as a template, I threw together a version that doesn't use the Gladiator Unique. Instead of leaving 6 empty slots for two Numina and a Heal IO in Health and 3 performance mods in Stamina, I left three slots empty for one Miracle unique (in Health) and 3 Efficacy Adaptors in Stamina.I'm not convinced the build above can sustain footstomp for long if you have rage going and footstomp with such minimal endurance reduction. 15 endurance/activation is going to drain you really fast, even with Quick Recover.
This is something I threw together quickly; don't worry too much about the order of power selection I took pleaseBasically soft capped to everything, 50% global recharge. I've left a few slots open, because I'd put 3 performance mods in Stamina and 2 Numina's/1 Heal IO in Health. That shoud add 10 hp/sec regen and ~.8 stamina/second on top of what you'll see.
Also, I'm a sucker for Fly on my Tankers, but that's mostly a cosmetic difference. Bunny chose SJ for travel and Stealth as an LoTG mule at the end of the build. I chose Fly as a travel power and used Hover as an LoTG mule. Stealth is arguably more useful as a situational power. Either way, you could fit in Hasten if you wanted to do. As always, YMMV.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.81
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
BunnyAnomaly Edited: Level 50 Magic Tanker
Primary Power Set: Willpower
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Flight
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery
Here's a quick rundown of the pros/cons:
- Soft-capped S/L/N/E DEF (45% on the nose) and 37.5% F/C DEF, versus Bunny's build which basically soft-caps to all non-exotic attack types (and gives a little extra cushion @ 48.4% S/L RES too). Fire/Cold DEF is much less important, because Fire/Cold attacks are fairly rare to begin with, and many of them are also typed as S/L for the purpose of opposing defense. If you're not going to pick up the ~3 billion influence PvP IO, it's just not worth it to pursue F/C on a Willpower Tanker, IMO.
- 3161 (168.7%) max HP, as opposed to 3104 (165.7%).
- Regeneration (with one foe in RttC range) of 79.5 HP per second (602% of base), versus 84.13 HP/sec (649% of base).
- 4.56 end/sec in recovery versus 4.52 end/sec. (Functionally equivalent.)
- 1.12 end/sec in toggle costs, versus 1.09 end/sec. (Functionally equivalent.)
- More damage, recharge, and end-reduction enhancement on Punch, Haymaker and KO Blow. In general, enhancing attacks will save you much more endurance over time than enhancing toggles.
- Same global recharge (+50%), and 3-slotted Hasten.
- Less recharge on Rage, but still enough to make it permanent without Hasten up. When Hasten is up, it more than compensates for the loss to the power's recharge.
- About 0.5% less RES across-the-board. 70.3% S/L RES on Bunny's build becomes 69.8% on mine.
- No Hami-Os, which may or may not be a good thing. It's been ages since I checked their prices on the market, but the last time I checked they were very scarce at any price. LoTGs don't exactly grow on trees either, though.
- Saves lots of influence by skipping the Gladiator IO, but also requires extra inconvenience; you have to switch to Villain side temporarily to pick up the Mu Patron Pool, versus staying Hero-side for the Pyre APP. (Saves a power pick on Ring of Fire or Char, either of which can be situationally useful, but not as good on this build, IMO, as the +7.5% global recharge bonus from a mule like Hover or Stealth).
With this point-by-point breakdown, it isn't my intention to try to tout my build over Bunny's. Preferences vary and every build has its flaws relative to another. The idea here is simply to give an idea as to the thought process behind each decision, and to provide a simple comparison between two builds that start with very similar layouts and goals, but end up quite different primarily because of one IO. (The Gladiator unique)
In the world of IOs, one slot can be that important.
All of that said, my build isn't exactly cheap. Short of that one IO, and short of tossing purple sets into the ranged attacks, it's about as expensive as Tanker builds get, AFAIK. Oh, and by the way, if you want the Mid's patch that gives you inherent Fitness, then go here. Note that the newest version of Mid's (1.81) will not work with the patch in the OP of that thread; that's why I linked you directly to Shadow State's post with the newer patch.
Unzip the files to the Mids'/Data subfolder and you should be good to go.
Quote:Originally Posted by BunnyAnomalycolor=#489AFF]Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.803[/color]
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Magic Tanker
Primary Power Set: Willpower
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Concealment
Ancillary Pool: Pyre Mastery - Soft-capped S/L/N/E DEF (45% on the nose) and 37.5% F/C DEF, versus Bunny's build which basically soft-caps to all non-exotic attack types (and gives a little extra cushion @ 48.4% S/L RES too). Fire/Cold DEF is much less important, because Fire/Cold attacks are fairly rare to begin with, and many of them are also typed as S/L for the purpose of opposing defense. If you're not going to pick up the ~3 billion influence PvP IO, it's just not worth it to pursue F/C on a Willpower Tanker, IMO.
-
Quote:I'd say IO-set +regeneration bonuses are your last priority on Willpower. You have so much regeneration to begin with that the additional +regen from set bonuses is proportionally insignificant. If you can fit them in, then great, but only after you've covered your other bases. That said, many +regen bonuses come as a natural consequence of pursuing +HP bonuses. HP bonuses are important because they multiply what regeneration you have, but still not nearly as important as DEF (if you want to skew toward survivability) or +recharge (if you want to skew towards offense).This is the order I would prioritize things in:
1) HP/Regen: Your priorities for Willpower are going to be to jack up regen and max HP as high as you can get them. Lots of sets have these bonuses from just 2 or 3 pieces, so you can get a lot of mileage from frankenslotting (slotting more than one set per power to grab odd set bonuses).
2) Recharge: With Willpower, you have access to a lot more recovery than other primaries, so you can get away with things that other tankers can't (as easily). Think about getting Recharge Bonuses (80%-90% if you can afford Luck of the Gambler, 50ish% otherwise). This will let you footstomp more often, which is a great source of mitigation. Consider getting Hasten in your build as well. You can definitely handle the end drain from Rage and Hasten, so why not?
3) Defense: Keep an eye out for defense bonuses, as Willpower also has a strong defense component (from Heightened Senses). You want to primarily look for Type defenses in your set bonuses rather than position defenses. For instance, Gaussian's Synchronized Fire control has amazing positional defense (Melee, Ranged, AOE) as a 6-piece bonus, but only mediocre type defense (smashing, lethal, etc), making it less attractive for Willpower.
If influence is not a concern, then you can potentially soft-cap your S/L/N/E DEF, have near the cap in HP, and 50-70ish in global recharge bonuses. We're talking easily 5 billion for that sort of build, but it's not a bad long-term goal if you're heavily focused on playing your Tanker.
Cheaper builds can nearly reach those heights too, though I confess I'm a little out of touch with the going rate for various IOs. My advice would be simply to play around with frankenslotting using the cheapest set IOs you can find. Even with no set bonuses, mixing and matching set IOs for the best enhancement values can make a world of difference. Then you can spend some time getting a better idea of what things cost, what you're willing to spend, and what exactly you want your build to do.
Come Issue 19, we're getting inherent Fitness, which will change just about everyone's build. Willpower is well-positioned in the sense that you can respec out of Fitness to prepare for I-19 beforehand without crippling your recovery in the meanwhile. Nice way to save the I-19 free respec.
Anyway, here's a pie-in-the-sky WP/SS build. Keep in mind that I'm using a patched version of Mids with inherent Fitness, so it may look like I'm running a little light on recovery. It's an extremely expensive Issue 19 build drawn up with no particular care, just to show you what's possible:
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.81
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Willpower
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Pyre Mastery
Code:| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1447;723;1446;HEX;| |78DA8D545D4F1341149D6DB7D4B65BDA520AE51B0A0805BA02F1C18F441F441313D| |042115F54B2E2482B6B69DA12E5CD1FE0BBA2129FFC057EC5F837D4A0CF7EA1F81B| |D63BF70C8D841737DD7BEEDC3D73F6DCD999CEDD9FB18478705618D639D7A9D5961| |79DF29AAC062F39F58DAAE38AA010228DDAF28CBC2DCB35695F2DB96E65FD9EAC76| |E90773D295D22E6C54282FD4ABB2BC5A2F262E968B92D2BABD9F44F2EBEBAE7DC12| |DAD16EB51E42A2D9557C33C2A54A4BC65713A2B9D0AD513E72BA5153BBF5995CB73| |4EAD2EAB9B69B293A5FB6B888241B7F07CE20A253DC29C67182A304C8485BE3CBFC| |80B55F2CD031618CC02C377123220E4379678EA08F446A097855E8EF4FCD033FDD0| |6B825E13F4C2D0B366D482099BE8014D0F806E81DE0C7A33E871D07F908BA076114| |CF10B8FB402E20CE124C34FE285D8AEE70FC1661C365B1719DAE076977811E88948| |3FBF29425F320A4722EAD125BE1129A65F1ACBF0BCFE4186815EC000C32FE225342| |F01732D30D70273AD3037453D2775CF49F4DC869ED3E8398D9EBB2F33186428A50D| |A5D8909F2AEDFA45EDB0D07BC0573F0C99C4EBD0BC0E18EA84934EF8EA86A16932D| |485D532BBB67DCADDD03386B1E73E4518DBE251EE058F3224DBA3F754CF387BEC3D| |00C748AF0F8E037D459E33506218BC035803B80C437719DA4836A36533709B85CD3| |1983E4EB2C37ADD867779CED13F80DF803D86910D76B143DB7054EFECD14FFC24FB| |8161E223436E87E133F1C6B5ECF8239E3AF118B0C5907BC230F594E10BD16D4DB75| |FA2DF5780D78037A0BF2598127BB42926413726DBF1FDA7FDBCF866E3E4D14F7DD7| |D94395BCA94F2F550CAE64CDC681F642F1C659FB9F2B106C4CD5F24D872AC17F2B6| |770B2FE2DE18CBCB3F64BA105F5FFB1A8429E82B1A4B26B2A5C57C31B2A7354B8A9| |862B2AF3DE3766C74EA86E4EAA704A85D32AA4A82BF1503183110A11152C15A22A3| |45330622A8BAB9054A153856D15BCBFBF08EDB5| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|