Sarrate

< EvilGeko >

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1) AVs should have mez protection, but not the PTOD. If a Tanker has 17.3 MAG of protection, then give Statesman that, but not more. If he hit Unstoppable then he gets another 17.3. Still makes him hella hard, but fairly so. If Sister Psyche is Mind/FF then she gets the 6-9 FF defenders get and no sleep protection.

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Most AVs have a sleep hole, actually.

That aside, I'm not sure what should be done with the PTOD. If they set the MAG too low, then they'll easily become statues. If set too high, they're rarely mezzed. My gut reaction was to give them +status resistance instead of protection, but the same thing would happen (half duration is just as hard to overcome as double protection).

The only thing I can think of would be to add a random breakfree (protection or resistance) to prevent them from being permanently locked down. Heck, it could be a passive power that increases in chance as their hp dropped.

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2) Tame the AVs regen rate. Unless they're a regen type character, AVs should not have such a high regen rate, IMO. This serves only to require [X] amount of DPS or -regen to take them down. And if the AV is regen, they they should not have much if any resistance (except in MoG)

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On teams, I don't think their regen rate alone is that bad. The kicker is the resistance they bring to the table (purple patch included). A +2 AV with 20% resistance would only take 64% normal damage, which would be like fighting an even con AV with 56% higher regen. That hurts. (That's not to say I like the barrier to entry, mind you.)

So, if you wanted to keep the challenge / time to kill similar between AVs now and after your change, would you accept a higher AV hp pool with lower regen to compensate? It would make killing them more inviting to low dps groups, but not something that could be mowed through by high dps groups.

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3) Tame AV damage. Fighting an AV should be like fighting an expert and strong player. AVs being able to do 1700 HP in one swing is silly.

Tankers should be able to defeat AVs if they're built and played right. It should take a long time, it should be epic. But it should be possible. Right now, the right combo can stand against an AV easily while another dies in seconds.

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This one I don't think I can agree with. Yes, AV damage is pretty crazy and some combos are more disadvantaged than others. However, if you lower it too much, then AVs are no longer a threat. AVs are team content, and if they're too easy for a solo Tank, then a grouped one with buffs will find it trivial. (To be fair, they can be trivialized now, but I don't think it's a situation that should be made easier.)

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As players AVs shouldn't be cakewalks and teaming up should make them easier. But any player with extreme skill should be able to solo an AV.

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That's trying to balance a rank meant to challenge teams to be soloable as well. I'm not against this in principle, but as I said above I'm leery of ramifications against groups (which is their purpose).
< /EvilGeko >

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In regards to #'s 2 and 3, what if AVs got a base regeneration and damage reduction and had powers similar to Rise to the Challenge and Against All Odds added, each with map-wide (or increadibly huge) radius. That way they would be possible for more builds and power sets to tackle solo, yet still scale for teams. In fact that would give the devs even finer control on content for small teams vs large teams.

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Johnny_Butane: That's an interesting idea, but I do have a question:

How is that any different than the existing EB/AV mechanic?

If you're solo or in a small group, they spawn as EBs and are readily taken down. If you're in a big team or Invincible, they spawn as an AV to challenge you. With this mechanic, it basically scales down/up AVs in a similar fashion. (Heh, that'd make the AVs easier as people die... dubious that's a desireable outcome. :P)

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What I'm saying is that the signature characters and other AVs shouldn't be possible for some but not others, based solely on AT.

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EvilGeko: It's not so much AT as it is powersets. I know Tankers have soloed AVs, probably the best one being Shield/DM.

All three of them have the first target bonus:

Defender
Dominator
Corruptor

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Soul Drain is terrible for Corruptors, I always advise people away from it. Compared to the Dark Melee version, it recharges twice as slowly, costs 25% more end, hits less targets max, does less damage, has less to-hit and less damage buff per mob hit.

It's literally worse in ever way possible aside from having the same range of 10 feet.

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Soul Drain is really bizarre, it exists on 6 different ATs, and it's not really consistent for any of them (aside from the melee ATs). Here is the breakdown:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> Melee Def Dom Corr
Rech 120 240 240 240
End 15.6 19.5 19.5 19.5
Radius 10 15 15 10
T Cap 10 10 10 7</pre><hr />

Double the recharge is pretty standard for epic/patron powers. End penalties aren't unheard of, but I'm not sure if they have a standard amount.

The radius is really strange, as that isn't something that should change. I'm not sure why it would be different, since the melee version has always been 10ft, unless the ranged ATs got a boost since they normally wouldn't be in the middle of a fight. (If that's the case, the Corr version should be brought up. If not, the Def/Dom versions are over performing, but likely not largely enough to draw attention to themselves.)

The target cap should be 10. It only hitting 7 is a bug - that's the old target cap before the DM buffs in I12/13.

The final tohit and damage buffs are indeed smaller on a Corruptor, but that's just because of AT mods. The base scalars are the same. (This is the reason powers like Aim are weaker on a Corr than a Blaster / Defender.)


At any rate, just because the numbers are lower doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile. That would vary depending on the set being used. My Dark/Rad, for example, gets excellent mileage out of it since Dark Blast has no Aim, she has a lot of extra recharge, and she excels at locking down clumped up mobs.

Yes, I have just fallen in love with characters before. The real amusing thing, though, is I have a tendency for characters to fall out of favor in the 30s and I just shelf them. Then I'll come back 6, 12, or even 24 months later I brush them off and have a blast. Sometimes it's powerset tweaks, other times it's a new build, or even a minor IO infusion to even out the rough spots.

There are times when I shelf a character and never come back to them. That was the sad fate of my BS/Regen (forum icon). I still enjoy the character concept, but the sets just no longer work for me - my tastes have evolved.

As for costumes, most times I only ever make one. The first one just captures their essence in ways I can never reproduce without it feeling forced.


My two favorite characters at the moment are my WP/Fire Tank and Dark/Rad Corruptor (lvl45, I may get a 50 villain yet!). The Tank, Brimstone-Preacher, can handle pretty much anything I put in front of him, can swap between AoE and ST on the fly, and is just a blast to play in teams. He started as a gag villain (Fire/Stone Brute), was remade as hero (he fits much better blue side), and my enjoyment of the character did nothing but grow over the levels.

The Corruptor, Blight Scarab, was one I played up to the teens/twenties, dropped for a couple years, picked back up and got her to 30, dropped, then finally dusted her off months later and has been an active project ever since. I enjoy the debuff, control, and damage (even if it's not the best the AT has to offer). The variety of the powers and the ability to turn the tide of tough fights (EM Pulse, I have no words for your awesomeness) is incredible. The only gripes I have for the character is mezzes still toggle drop her and her effectiveness is greatly diminished in spreadout spawns.


I have several other characters that are fun to play (my Sonic/Elec Defender of all things, is one of these), but they're not ones I want to play all the time.

I'd personally try squeezing in more accuracy then. Right now, your tohit chances would look like this:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> Enemies in Invincibility
1 2 3 4
+0 92.4 94.8 95 95
+1 80.4 82.8 85.2 87.6
+2 69.6 72 74.4 76.8
+3 60 62.4 64.8 67.2
+4 49.2 51.6 54 56.4
+5 38.4 40.8 43.2 45.6</pre><hr />

With a Kismet:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> Enemies in Invincibility
1 2 3 4
+0 95 95 95 95
+1 87.6 90 92.4 94.8
+2 76.8 79.2 81.6 84
+3 67.2 69.6 72 74.4
+4 56.4 58.8 61.2 63.6
+5 45.6 48 50.4 52.8</pre><hr />

That assumes the enemies have no defense or tohit debuffs, of course.

Grats! All Defender STFs are fun to do because they're just so different compared to normal runs.

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So, how the heck did you deal with that munchkin, Ghost Widow?

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Surviving her hold wouldn't be too much of an issue with their team makeup. They have a very significant amount of -dmg (rad, kin, cold?) combined with ~50% res (if they're all close together), not to mention enough def to floor her (cold, ff). Killing her wouldn't be a problem either with 4 large regen debuffs, tons of +dmg (rad, kin), and 120-160% res debuffs. I'd wager she melted pretty dang easily. (If they stayed at range, she wouldn't even be using Dark Regen.)

That sounds like IO slotting, what kind of +acc do you have from set bonuses? Do you have a Kismet? Are you enhancing Invincibility's +tohit?

If most of those are no/not much, I'd advise against it. There is a strong synergy between +tohit and +acc, having a good amount of both is stronger than just one or the other. Keep in mind that it's not just high level enemies that you need to deal with, but also enemies with heightened defense or generous helpings of tohit debuffs.

If you want to check out your tohit chance against enemies of varying level/defense without the math, you can check that out in MIDs. Options -&gt; Configuration -&gt; Exemping &amp; Base Values -&gt; Base To Hit. Check out the base tohit on the Purple Patch wiki page and plug it in. (If you want to simulate defense, subtract the def value from the base tohit. So a +2 with 10% def would give you a base tohit of 56 - 10 = 46%.)

There may be quirks here and there (ie: if you accidentally have a +buildup proc turned on), but that should give you a good idea of what tohit chances you're looking at. I normally build with that set for +4s, 39% base tohit. If I have a good chance against those (85% to 90%), then you'll be good for most of the game. (That's just become my standard, mind you. It may be overkill depending on what you're doing.)


(Oh, if you exemplar, keep in mind you may lose the +acc set bonuses if you exemplar too far. So even if it works at 50, it may break if you drop too low... if exemplaring is important to you, of course.)

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Because these devs didn't make the claim you're attributing to them. And the one dev that made the claim did so quite a few years ago, proceeded to increase Tanker damage by a sizable amount, then left the project around the same time many of the current devs came on to the project.

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I wasn't around when they buffed Tanker damage. Can you give me a comparison of when KoB was unchanged then buffed? Because I think it would be interesting for me to see the damage on it before and after.

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Tankers went from a 0.6 / 0.65 damage mod (can't remember which) to 0.8. So, that means KO Blow went from 118.78 / 128.68 damage to 158.38. If you add slots / Rage to the mix, the damage boost went from 326.65 / 353.87 damage to 435.54. So basically, a 23% - 33% damage boost.

Of course, in the very beginning, KO Blow didn't do any damage at all...

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Thanks for clearing that up for me. I thought that's what people used to build DPS chains.

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Snakebit: When people build chains, they try to use the highest DPA attacks as often as possible. (Well, they use a modified activation time as the denominator.) Then the trick is balancing out endurance consumption to keep it going for long periods of time, if not indefinitely.

I'll defer to someone who specializes in that art, though. I don't care for strict attack chains and never build them myself.

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because the bonus from fast healing is higher and enhances better than health

because - and you said it too - one generally starts to io out their chars at or near 50.

i put no io sets in hpt or fast healing on my wp brutes unless it doesnt interfere with maxing out their bonuses to the cap. they are too important to the build. health on the other hand is just a stepping stone to stamina with a small but noticeable increase in regen. two or three slot it and put 2 or three uniques in it and call it a day.

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JupiterMoon: Keep in mind that the +regen bonus for Numinas (and Regen Tissue for that matter) are enhanceable, so they provide a bigger boost when slotted in a power that has strong heal enhancement. Another benefit of slotting them in powers like HPT and FH (that you'd pick up earlier) is they exemplar exceptionally well. Procs (like the heal uniques) will continue to work so long as you have the power they're slotted in. So if you put Numinas into HPT, you'd have its +regen/+recov all the way down to lvl1. (This doesn't matter to some people, but I like making builds that are exemplar friendly. If I'm spending that kind of inf to IO out a character then I don't want them to be locked at lvl50)

On my WP Tank, this is how I have HPT and FH slotted (lvl33s IOs unless stated otherwise):

[u]High Pain Tolerance[u]
Numina: Heal, Heal/*, Unique
Regen Tissue: Unique
Steadfast: +3% def (~lvl10)
Generic lvl50 Heal IO

Heal Enhancement: 95%
+12% regen
+1.88% max hp
(+42.75% extra regen from enhancing the two uniques)

[u]Fast Healing[u]
Miracle: Heal, Heal/*, Unique
Generic lvl50 Heal IO

Heal Enhancement: 95%
+2.5% recov
+1.88% max hp

I realize I sacrificed resist slotting in HPT, but it's incredibly minor (it'd be a loss of 2.9% on a Brute) and not really worth mentioning.

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Seeing as the hardcap is 175% as far as I know... yeah, 200% might just be a little much.

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Actually, the cap varies by AT. It caps for most at 175%, but there is also a 200% cap and a 225% cap (the latter being where Brutes sit).

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I wasn't knocking it, I just said that Mid's shows the power having a low DPS.

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I wish MIDs didn't even have that graph, it doesn't measure anything meaningful. Worse yet, people draw incorrect conclusions from it.

What MIDs is showing is DPC (Damage Per Cycle), a useless stat. DPC is basically how much dps you'd do if you put the power on auto and did nothing else. Open up SS and look at those charts - Jab is the best attack while Footstomp is the worst. Hurl beats out KO Blow. This cannot be any further from the truth.

The problem with DPC is powers are not always going to be used as fast as they come up. You may be stuck mid animation or want to use a better power instead. The instant you don't use it once it has recharged, the DPC metric falls apart.

Something else to note is those numbers are showing its DPC (useless) against a single target. If you hit two targets, double the number. If you hit three, triple it. Etc. AoEs scale incredibly well and will blow out ST attacks when fighting multiple enemies.


The most important stat when determining the strength of an attack is its DPA - Damage Per Activation second. It's basically damage / activation time. (Don't forget that aoes hitting multiple targets will double/triple/etc the damage dealt.)

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You mean we're supposed to pay attention to the post dates of more than the person one post above you?

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Yeah, I know, what was I thinking? *slaps forehead*

I was just skimming the thread and almost missed the fact it was a necro too. It wasn't until I hit geko's post (whose name is no longer red) that I realized what happened. Sneaky!

Hey!

*points at the sign*

No necromancy!

100% base + 400% buffs = 500% total

Buffs = enhancers, set bonuses, outside buffs, etc.


[edit: It's not just the global cap, but cap period. If you have 400% global rech and 95% from enhancers and +100% from Adrenaline Boost, you'd still be capped at +400% (500% total).]

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Will Power already has plenty of regen potential. The small amount afforded byt Health won't do much, IMO. Tough and Weave would be my choice.

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I agree with this assessment. The basic gist is Tough/Weave amplifies all of your substantial regen base while Health is just a static, small regen boost (amplified by your weaker mitigation base).

As an added bonus, Tough stacks tremendously with SoW. Running only WP powers (incl SoW) it can attain 64.35% s/l res. Add Tough to the mix and you can hit 81.9% s/l res. When SoW is up, Tough is cutting down incoming s/l damage by roughly half.

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The "50% vs 95%" figure is only true if you're fighting mobs that have no accuracy or toHit buffs.

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...which I would guess would be the majority of what you fight in your career prior to hitting 50. There are mobs out there defense won't help against, but for most things, when that defense gets debuffed, you're looking at near double levels of incoming damage in PvE.

I don't care about the giant eyeballs and quartz crystals. There's a reason why most people hate both and avoid fighting them.

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Note: The only mobs without +accuracy are even con minions. Lieutenants gets 15% accuracy, Bosses 30%, AVs/GMs get 50%. Additionally, for each level above your own, they get 10% accuracy (+1 = +10%, +2 = +20%, etc). Caveat: Past +5 enemies cap at +50% level based acc, and get tohit bonuses as well.

So a +2 lieutenant, for example, would have a 69% chance to hit a character with no defense. Scaling up a bit further, a +3 boss would have an 84.5% chance to hit a character with no defense.

Ironically, it makes the threat of weaker enemies scale up more than stronger enemies.

Following the clock tangent...

How would that work with a power like Phalanx Fighting? Reason I ask:
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Activate period 1 seconds
* DEF(Melee, Ranged, AOE) +3% for 0.81s
* DEF(Melee, Ranged, AOE) +5% for 1.25s [Ignores Enhancements &amp; Buffs]
[/i]Effect does not stack from same caster[/i]

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That looks like it's not perma, but if you ArcanaTime it (did I honestly just make that a verb?) it comes out to 1.056s - scraping the bare minimum to be considered perma. (I keep forgetting to test in game if PF twitches like Invincibility does - and that has an activation period of 1s and the stacking def component lasts 1s. That'd be a 0.188s stack if it uses the 0.132s clock.)

[edit: Huh, CoT Behemoth Invincibility has a 0.5s activation period and a 0.33s duration - or 0.528s duration on the 0.132s clock.]

[edit: Oops, I mean 0.132s clock. Fixed.]

Resistance resists damage debuffs as much as they resist damage.
Ex:
10% res vs a 50% dmg debuff resulsts in a 45% dmg debuff
50% res vs a 50% dmg debuff results in a 25% dmg debuff
90% res vs a 50% dmg debuff results in a 5% dmg debuff

An equation would look something like this:
FinalDamage = InitialDamage * (1 - ((1-Resistance) * DamageDebuff))

Don't forget the purple patch goes in there too, I think it gets applied at the end like this:
FinalDamage = InitialDamage * (1 - ((1-Resistance) * DamageDebuff)) * PurplePatchEffectiveness

But don't quote me on that, I may be remembering it wrong.


[edit: Oh, if the target has damage buffs of some sort, they'd be added, like this:
FinalDamage = InitialDamage * (1 + DmgBuffs - ((1-Resistance) * DamageDebuff))

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Do wish I had 200% defense against things like Rularuu watchers and DE after Quartz drop, but largely 200% defense is pretty pointless.

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wouldnt make any difference, the quartz is (I beleive) +200% tohit which would still lol through 200% defence

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Unless CoD is wrong (using the wrong table or some such), Quartz Eminators provide +100% tohit.

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True, but the AoE is large enough that you tend to get them stacked on treespecs where the spawns are close together in a sand cave.

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Oh, definitely. I was just correcting the numerical error is all, not trying to say they're not the devil for defense based characters.

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Do wish I had 200% defense against things like Rularuu watchers and DE after Quartz drop, but largely 200% defense is pretty pointless.

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wouldnt make any difference, the quartz is (I beleive) +200% tohit which would still lol through 200% defence

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Unless CoD is wrong (using the wrong table or some such), Quartz Eminators provide +100% tohit.

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I’m going to have to work harder at holding Agro, but as a tank I am cool with that. It’s well rounded with defense/resistance and regen. The only real hole I see is fighting AV’s once the minions are down as you have no fodder to feed RTTC. How big of an issue will that be?

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Expect survivability issues primarily from burst damage, especially of the non-S/L/Psi kind. Of course, even relatively minimal buffing from team mates and/or inspirations can generally handle that.

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In my experience, burst damage became much less of a problem once I picked up Tough/Weave. For heavy duty Tanking, I heartily recommend it.

The simplest way to boost WP's survivability in trouble spots are luck inspirations. The only place that's not true is against Cimerorans (eat oranges up to 85-90% s/l).

2409.5

...okay, I don't know that off the top of my head (~2400 is as close as my memory comes). So I cheated. :P

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Final note - when first testing the mission (to make sure it was an adequate map/setup) and before I started recording my runs, the pet did pull aggro off my WP Tank. This honestly didn't surprise me - RttC sucks, and I've never been shy saying so. :P

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Yeah, RttC vs +2 enemies can get too weak without enhancements. Namely, it has only an effective duration of 1.0 after the purple patch resistance from +2s, with a 1.0 refresh rate, which is ... well, cutting it extremely close (I'm still speculating whether it happens because of threat decay, because a server tick is missed, or because server ticks, as Arcanaville measured them, are .132 seconds instead of the supposed .125 seconds). For the same reason, I like to slot three taunt enhancements instead of just two (technically, two and three even level SOs would mostly give you the same benefit against +4s, but the overlap is zero with two even level SOs and barely greater than zero with level 30+ common IOs).

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*nod*
Btw, when I was losing aggro in that initial test, it wasn't ever a complete loss. They tended to flinch towards the pet. When it was in melee range they would look at him then immediately turn back towards me. (Sometimes they'd get an attack off if they weren't already mid animation.) After he got knocked out of melee, one or two of the EBs would start to run towards it, then halfway there come back to me. It wasn't a complete loss, but it wasn't guaranteed aggro, either.

Personally, I overcome RttC with very liberal use of Taunt, AoEs (Combustion/FSC), and just plain getting to the mobs first (5-10s before the rest of the group is ideal). Yeah, this means I'll Taunt things already in melee range. If I had enough slots I'd definitely put some taunt enhancers into RttC, but the build is too tight to fit it, so I just make due without it.

It's a bit more manual and hands on, but I've actually kind of grown to like it. Oddly enough, I don't think I'd like WP as much if I didn't have to constantly work on holding aggro. (It takes the place of being active to keep myself alive like some sets.)

Okay, since I didn't want to bother any of my friends, I made a quick AE mission with 3-5 Cyclops/Minotaur EBs and 1 EB Fire Blast / Fiery Aura ally. (Ally is brain dead and tends to unnecessarily eat AoEs.) Since I don't have FRAPs, I took a coh demo of the four characters I tested. All test runs were done on Unyielding setting facing lvl51-52 enemies. None of the auras have taunt enhancement.

Zip file of demos

<ul type="square">[*]ScrapperInvincibility.cohdemo - Used my lvl50 DM/Invuln Scrapper. Only click powers used were DP and inspirations (lucks/respites).[*]TankerBlazingAura.cohdemo - Used my lvl50 Fire/Stone Tanker. Only click powers used were Hasten, Healing Flames, and inspirations (lucks).[*]TankerChillingEmbrace.cohdemo - Used my lvl~44 Ice/SS Tanker. Only click powers used were Hoarfrost, Hibernate (detrimental to threat gen), Hasten, and inspirations (lucks). The build only has CE, no Icicles.[*]TankerRttC.cohdemo - Used my lvl50 WP/Fire Tanker. Used no click powers or inspirations.[/list]
The only times I lost aggro were when the mobs' Unstoppable crashed and they wandered out of my aura. (I normally tried to keep them in it.) My pet died during the WP test (but resurrected) because I had to move to reacquire aggro from the Unstoppable crashed mob. During this time RttC was out of range of the other EBs and that is when they stomped him.

Final note - when first testing the mission (to make sure it was an adequate map/setup) and before I started recording my runs, the pet did pull aggro off my WP Tank. This honestly didn't surprise me - RttC sucks, and I've never been shy saying so. :P


Conclusion: Aggro auras (with the possible exception of RttC - which can be mitigated with taunt enhancers) are strong enough to hold aggro just fine by themselves (on target they're hitting).

Having said that, utilizing your other threat generating powers (Gauntlet / Taunt) is wise in a team situation because of the target cap of auras and the fact mobs won't always be sitting in your aura (due to mobs fleeing out of range, knockback, ambushes, etc). I don't think anyone in this thread would argue this point; I'm just making sure I'm clear that turning on a taunt aura and calling it a day won't cut it in large groups for the above reasons, but not because they're inadequate threat generators.

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What makes me nervous about Ice and Invuln are the holes in their defense. Specifically toxic. I’ve seen a number of Posi TF’s fall apart because the first few missions have Vahz in them and the INV tanks just can’t take the alpha from an 8 man spawn.

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No tanker - none - is going to have the ability to last long against a full team spawn of Vahzilok at level 15. (Oddly, the easiest tanker to work in there might be Fire.)

Posi is something you do because either you want to get to level 15 in the course of an evening; or because you are after Task Force Commander. Or you just want a lot of merits, or maybe the badge. But nobody runs Posi for fun. A tanker built to handle Posi well would be both difficult and pointless to make.

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Shield isn't bad, I tanked posi and synapse quite happily on my shield/mace. Typed defence is screwed v toxic, but ranged still works.

Numina can be a bit scary for a defence based toon.

And I run posis for fun and merits, but I do it on a blaster, and provided the tank can take the alpha, I can kill the groups before he gets beta'd.

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Just a clarification on the Toxic front since it's been hinted at, but not fully explained.

The reason these sets have a toxic def hole is because there is no such thing as toxic defense in the game. It just doesn't exist. Instead, these sets were given toxic resistance to compensate. (It's in different places depending on the set. Invuln it's in Unyielding and RElements, for Ice it's in Hoarfrost, etc.) Positional def sets (like Shield) can avoid the attacks because they're flagged with a positional flag.

Having said that, the Vahz are unusually brutal enemies for their level. They hit hard, have toxic damage (which isn't the strong point of any set), and Tankers at that level just aren't that sturdy. (AT modifiers haven't fully separated, no SOs, missing powers/slots, etc.)

If I can give you any advice for Positron, it's run it in a small(er) team. The spawns are smaller, the debuffs don't stack as bad, and it generally just makes for a smoother run. The second mission (Rolistar / CoT) is another very troublesome part of the Posi TF, and there's no toxic in sight.