Stargazer

The in-game text says that the ratio is 10 Shards to *10* Threads every 20 hours. Typo in the patch notes?

You know, if you remove the (wrong and/or meaningless depending on how you look at it) part about ToHit buffs, there's still a chance that you could avoid needlessly confusing people.

It's almost a given that some people will be a bit confused about what buffs actually help with the Judgement powers. Why complicate the situation by giving incorrect information (information that is also bound to create further confusion about the "related" Accuracy buffs)?

I'm not sure; limiting the boost to working in only the power the enhancement is slotted into might end up being tricky. It might be easy, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's not.

I'm not disputing that you can get very good defense before considering the slotting of your attacks. I'm saying that you can often get significant defensive benefit from the slotting of your attacks, and that sometimes it's worth giving up a little offensive capability to take advantage of this.



I'm not saying that Kinetic Combat is a devaluing set (in fact I said that it's a trade-off that I often consider worthwhile). I did say that it is usually not an optimal way to extract offense from an attack. It is not.
Yes, you can get good A/D/E/R properties in an attack while 4-slotting Kinetic Combat. If you don't use KC you can get similar (or, depending on your goals, superior) A/D/E/R properties using 5 slots. This leaves you with an extra slot that could be used for a proc, or whatever else you might want to use it for (like getting even better A/D/E/R). Yes, I am aware that this is often not a huge deal. That's why I (for many powersets) generally feel that the defensive benefit it gives is high enough to warrant this sacrifice. (that, and the defensive benefit can be freaking huge)

I'm aware of the context. However, personally I would value the damage output of Dragon's Tail strongly enough that I'd try *really* hard not to compromise on its offensive potential.

Just look at the effective DPA values of the attacks being used. When hitting two targets, the effective DPA of Dragon's Tail is better than that of any of the other attacks. This means that when you're fighting at least 2 foes, you usually want to use DT as often as possible. At x8, you're usually fighting way more than two foes (I'd say that four would be a conservative value), and at this point it is even more attractive to use DT.

This is just looking at the base damage of the attacks. None of the other attacks have an activation time that is less than half of that of DT, so when you add procs, DA also gets a higher proc DPA when facing 2 foes or more. This includes any damage (or in the case of debuffs, debuffPA) from the i20 Interface powers.

In addition to this, DT's 75% AoE knockdown is a very potent defensive tool, which also encourages using DT as often as possible.

Simply put, whenever you fight "large" spawns, there are many strong incentives to using DT as often as possible. At the recharge levels we're talking about, DT will pretty much make up the bulk of your damage output (if you use it "often") when you fight "large" spawns. This makes it a very tempting target to optimize for damage output.


5-slotting Armageddon (all but Damage) and using a D/E/R from another set decreases DT's Accuracy by about 8% (but increases the Acc of all other attacks by 6%), decreases End Costs, and cuts 0.421 seconds from the recharge (which would decrease its cycle time by 7-8%, and that isn't all that bad actually).


Not including procs. A purple proc does 2.5 times the average damage of the Scirocco proc. The average damage of a purple proc is actually around half that of DT's base damage. It's a significant increase.

The effective average per-hit damage would (assuming 10% crit rate) increase by 12.5% (8.6% with Focus Chi) if you use the slotting I mentioned instead of 6-slotted Scirocco. That is also a significant increase.

Combine the increase in per-hit damage with the decrease in cycle time, and DT's (edit: non-FC) effective damage output (assuming you cycle it as often as possible) would increase by over 20%. That's pretty good for an attack that probably constitutes the bulk of your damage output.



It seems obvious to me that using Armageddon makes *the attack* better (at least in cases where the slightly lower Acc would (edit: not) present an issue). Scirocco grants a couple of nice defensive set bonuses though, and the question then (again) is what you value most, the offensive benefits, or the defensive benefits. As I said from the start, in this case *I* would personally value the offensive benefits highly enough to try to find the defensive bonuses elsewhere. It's not a question of giving up AoE Defense in favor of the offensive increase, it's giving up *something else* to get the offensive increase (personally I'd trade Elude for CJ in a heartbeat, but if you want Elude in the build, that's obviously not an option).

As with all (well, most) things when it comes to character builds, it all boils down to preference and trade-offs. What do you want, and what are you willing to give up for it. If you want that extra offense or not depends on your goals with the build, but I stand by my statement that going with 6-slot Scirocco over 5-slot Armageddon + D/E/R is in fact sacrificing when it comes to DT's offense.

I try to avoid absolute rules when it comes to character design. Designing a character is a set of trade-offs and compromises, and these trade-offs will vary with powersets, concepts, and preference. Sometimes this will involve sacrificing some offense, and sometimes sacrificing some defense.

A trivial example of this is that sometimes it might be worth leaving an attack 5-slotted if the extra slot can help you more elsewhere. However, using less than 6 slot is not the only way to sacrifice offense. One common example is using Kinetic Combat. Kinetic Combat is usually not an optimal way to extract offense from an attack, but for many powersets I generally feel that the defensive benefit it gives is high enough to warrant this sacrifice. (for SR, similar trade-offs can me made with Touch of Death/Mako/Scirocco for Melee/Ranged/AoE Defense)

However, for a current high-level, high-cost SR build, I believe that there are enough options out there to reach soft-cap levels of Defense to make me reluctant to sacrifice too much in the way of offense to reach it.

For instance, you chose to 6-slot Dragon's Tail with Scirocco's Dervish in your example. Compared to 5-slotted Armageddon (all but Dmg/Rech), assuming 10% crit chance, this gives an average per-hit damage that is roughly 11% lower (8% with Focused Chi). To get the same average per-hit damage, you'd need a 28% Damage buff. In addition to this, DT would also recharge faster (even if you don't count the extra 10% Recharge bonus), and you would have the option of adding a 6th slot (for instance replacing the Damage Armageddon with a D/R, and adding an extra D/R from another set (edit: I actually tend to use a D/E/R from the other set. D and R end up beyond the ED cap anyway)), further improving the attack.

Since Dragon's Tail is likely to provide a significant amount of your damage output at x8, I would be reluctant to compromise with its damage output like that (though I'd gladly make similar sacrifices on some non-SR characters). The extra Defense is great, but I'd try really hard to find it elsewhere.

Yeah, I know. I first discussed this option years ago, and brought it up as a potential problem then too. However, I believed (and still believe obviously) that *if* the HO situation is considered to be significant enough, it is not a big enough problem to prevent a change.

HOs have ended up in a position where they're often the most useful in situations where they are not intended to work at all. I would much prefer it if they were better in the situations they *are* intended to work instead.



I haven't really been looking very closely at the mechanics of the Alpha powers, but they seem to essentially work by granting the user several different enhancement buff powers (e.g. a Musculature Core Paragon gives you one Damage buff power, one Immob buff power and one Defense debuff buff power). Is it clear that this will work "within the confines of" a power too? i.e. Can multiple "buffs" specifically be assigned to an individual power (by an enhancement)?

I believe that there is (and has been for a looooong time) an easier way to resolve this.

The entire problem is because HOs have multiple Types.
I believe that this is no longer necessary (to the same degree).

Back when HOs gave 150% of SO bonuses, there was a point to slotting them even if you only had use for one of their aspects. People slotted Golgis into Health not because of the EndRdx, but because they gave a higher Regen bonus. Similarly, there was a point to slotting Enzymes into powers that didn't have any Def debuffs, simply because they offered a greater EndRdx bonus than EndRdx SOs.

That is no longer the case. SOs now provide the same bonus as HOs to each aspect, and IOs (at high levels) provide an even higher bonus. HOs are now only "useful" (compared to the alternatives) if you are able to take advantage of more than one of their aspects. The only "legitimate" (intended) use of HOs is when the Types of the HOs match up with what the power they are slotted in do. For instance, taking advantage of an Enzyme in a Def *buff* power is not intended, but using them in a Def *debuff* power is.

So, how can we prevent Enzymes from being slotted into Def buff powers? Simple. Remove their EndRdx Typing (while of course leaving the bonus to EndRdx). You would only be able to slot Enzymes into powers that accept Defense Debuff enhancements (Type being what determines which powers an enhancement is slottable into - something that's not strictly connected to what an enhancement *does*), but while slotted into such a power it would still provide a bonus to both Def debuffs and EndRdx. In addition to preventing the unintended uses of Enzymes (slotting them into Def buff powers), you would also no longer be able to use Enzymes as fill-in EndRdx enhancements in powers that have nothing to do with Defense. Since there is no longer any benefit from doing so anyway (except for places to hold HOs that you haven't respeced out of your build yet), I don't see this as a major problem (I would however suggest that people get a chance to respec out old HOs before such a change would be implemented though).


So, my suggestion would be to make certain HO aspects "passive", i.e. to leave the bonuses, but remove them from the HO *Typing*. This would make it so that having a power accept those Types of enhancements would no longer be a sufficient condition to slot the HOs - they would now require that the power is slottable for the "active" aspect of the HO.

At the very least EndRdx and Recharge should be made passive, but if you want to be more complete you can do the same for Acc and Range.

i.e.:
Dmg/Acc would only be slottable into powers that accept Damage enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Resistance.
Dmg/Range would only be slottable into powers that accept Damage enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Resistance.
Buff/EndRdx would only be slottable into powers that accept Buff enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Defense.
Acc/Mez would only be slottable into powers that accept Mez enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended boosts to the Mez debuffs in powers like Benumb.
Debuff/EndRdx would only be slottable into powers that accept Debuff enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended boosts to Defense.
Heal/EndRdx would only be slottable into powers that accept Heal enhancements.
Acc/Debuff would only be slottable into powers that accept Debuff enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Defense.
Buff/Recharge would only be slottable into powers that accept Buff enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Defense.
Move/EndRdx would only be slottable into powers that accept Move enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Slows.
Res/EndRdx enhancements would only be slottable into powers that accept Res enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Damage.

Dmg/Mez would still be slottable into powers that accept either Damage or Mez enhancements.

This would not take care of *all* unintended uses of HOs, but it would take care of most of them. You would still be able to get unintended bonuses to one of the passive aspects (e.g. you'd still be able to sneak Recharge into powers like Mind Link), but that's relatively rare (and at least in the case of Mind Link, you can do it with IOs anyway).


So, there are some downsides:
1) Doesn't take care of all unintended uses
2) In some cases (the passive ones) prevents people from using HOs as single-aspect enhancements.
3) Could get a bit confusing for people when HOs suddenly no longer work as they did in legacy situations.

3) would be a problem for just about any "fix" to this situation though, so I don't see that as a problem specific for this particular implementation. 1) would seem to be relatively minor, and 2) isn't anything that's actually *good* for the players anyway (except for when you're using them because you haven't respeced them out yet)).


And again, it wouldn't be blocking any intended uses (with the possible exception of the previously mentioned non-benefit of using them as single aspect EndRdx/Recharge/Acc/Range enhancements).


Ideally I think I'd suggest that any such change to HOs be accompanied by a (slight) boost to HO values. Nowadays HOs are for the most part only "good" (compared to the options) when you use them in one of the unintended fashions. I'd like it if there was some larger benefit for using them in the *intended* ways too (though of course, if this were to happen, people might have a larger reason to complain that you couldn't use them as single-aspect EndRdx/Recharge/Acc/Range enhancements...)

Personally I wouldn't want to lose CJ. It offers (together with Hurdle) great combat mobility, and while Ninja Leap offers much of the same, it doesn't quite offer as much control (and the extra Def is nice too).

It's certainly a matter of preference though.

Yeah, by about 1.5%. Usually that's offset by the 2.5% Damage bonus it provides, but since you already had that Damage bonus, you'd end up with a Damage/Defense trade-off instead.


But in return Dragon's Tail would be recharging faster, and at x8 difficulty, AoE rules the day. However, EC certainly has its benefits too.
edit: Focus Chi would also be recharging faster, and that would also act counter to the damage drop


Unless you slot Elude for Defense, you would however "just" end up around 100% Defense, and in the situations you'd most need it <cough>DE</cough>, that wouldn't actually make much of a difference (with maximum Elude slotting you'd end up around 120%, and that's actually quite an improvement).

Elude can definitely be nice to have in situations where your foes have moderate ToHit bonuses, but in the cases where you *really* want more Defense, it's not quite enough unless you actively slot for it.
(usually I find that the crash bothers me enough that I'd rather pop a Luck or two though. Then again, I tend to avoid DE, and take care when fighting Nemesis...)


Oh. If you're considering giving up SJ, another option could be to replace it with Hasten (now that Fitness has become inherent, I've found that the extra three power choices tend to make Hasten rather attractive for many builds where I'd chosen not to get it before).

Well, even with keeping the Pounding Slugfests, CAK should (assuming a Spiritual Total Radial Revamp) recharge in 3.23s. That should be enough to finish recharging before 2*SK + CS is done activating. You could also change the PS: D/E (or A/D) to a PS: D/R, which would cut the recharge down to 3.05s, while keeping the Regen. (another kinda neat option would be to 6-slot Mako's Bite in CAK, giving you 3.75% extra Ranged Def. Could be nice in some cases...)

You'd lose 1.125% HP from the Crushing Impact in EC, but you could use one of the "extra" slots to get that back. An extra Numina in Aid Other would for instance give you 1.874% more, but I suppose this could be seen as offsetting the loss of 1.874% from PP instead. If you sacrifice a little recharge in Hasten (2-slot instead of 3-slot), you could however get the extra 1.125% from another LotG in Weave.


Of course, this doesn't really matter if you want to keep EC.

Have you considered (in addition to the PP/LBE switch) dropping EC entirely, replacing it with Hasten, 2-3 slot Hasten, use one of the freed up slots to add a D/R IO to Storm Kick, change the Hecatomb: Damage in SK to Hecatomb: D/R, and using another freed up slot to add a R to Cobra Strike (optional I suppose)?

You could get some more breathing room from changing the Pounding Slugfests in CAK to something with a bit more Recharge too.

And adding more of the same also tends to be good, but may not be optimal.

Here's the full sentence I used in my first post:
"spreading your mitigation over several different layers" was intended to stand in contrast to "focusing your mitigation on one (or a few) layer(s)".

More simply put, layering your mitigation is not universally superior to focusing on one (or a few) type(s) of mitigation.


When you're looking to improve your mitigation, you shouldn't automatically think "Ooo, I need to add another layer", you should look at what is the best way to achieve your desired mitigation profile given the options you have available. Sometimes this will involve layering, sometimes it will not. Layering is a tool (or depending on your point of view, a consequence), not an end in itself (unless of course you want it to be...).

For reasons mentioned in earlier posts, an optimal solution will often end up *including* layering though.




This is a very interesting subject, and I believe you've pretty much summed it all up already. I think a major reason why it doesn't tend to be discussed in this context is that it's just too darned subjective. It's pretty much all dependent on what you choose to (and what not to) fight. Sure, for a given subset of enemies (and a given spawn size/level for the mobs), you might be able to determine what is overall "best" for a certain character, but it's still somewhat subjective. What is "good enough", and what is "not good enough"? Is it ok to slow down a bit in some situations if it allows you to keep a faster pace in others?


Sometimes it's easy though. When I had a choice similar to the one you describe (S/L or F/C passives on my Inv), I went with F/C. That was mostly for thematic reasons, but also because my total S/L mitigation was high enough that the risk of dying to S/L damage was minimal even without the S/L passive. However, if I hadn't had all that Defense, the "optimal" solution may have been very different.

Of course, then Fitness became inherent, and I was able to grab both of them anyway...

'Exemplared'? That's not even a real word!
Clearly they meant to say "RSKd up"!

I'd like to clarify something here, since it's easy to misunderstand.
It is easy to see that having a higher MaxHP increases the (absolute) value of Regen. However, it is important to remember that this does not mean that there is some "special" relationship between +MaxHP and Regen. Regen gets the same effective relationship with Defense and Resistance.

Given 25% Defense, 50% Resistance, or 100% +MaxHP (all giving the same effective mitigation), the effective value of X% Regen is "the same".

If you're looking at "absolute strength", yes (with some exceptions; e.g. Def/Res). If you're looking at "relative strength", the relationships I posted above apply. It's basically just two ways of looking at the same thing.

Yup, Defense and Resistance are really, really big exceptions. They provide significant mitigation for most (close to all) defensive sets, and currently it is also trivially possible to get significant mitigation from Defense through power pools and the IO system (the IO system also gives access to large amount of Regen, but unlike Def and Res, Regen doesn't help very much against burst damage. This means that unless you have *a lot* of it, it's usually not enough to form the bulk of your mitigation). This means that they are an exception that show up for just about all defensive sets.

Also, there is one more exception, but this one works in the other direction. Heals are not "multiplied" by either Regen or +max HP, and in fact provide a lower relative benefit in their presence. This means that 3 out of the 5 "main" (self-affecting) mitigation types (including what I'd say are the two most significant ones) are "exceptions". (Also, just about the only defensive powerset that is not strongly affected by the exceptions for Def/Res is affected by this one. )



If you could choose to add one out of 5 different buffs (Def, Res, Regen, Heal, +MaxHP) that provide "equal" (let's say when it comes to sustainable damage) mitigation for a "baseline" character (Normal MaxHP, 100% Regen, no Def, no Res, no Heals), you'd get the following situations if your current mitigation consisted of one type:

If you have Def: Get more Def.
If you have Res: Get more Res.
If you have Regen: Don't get Regen or Heal
If you have Heal: Don't get Regen or Heal
If you have +MaxHP: Don't get +MaxHP or Heal


Of course, things are never this easy. Options don't tend to be equal, and we tend to have combinations of mitigation types. Layering has the intrinsic benefit of providing a fallback if one means of mitigation fails, but other than that you should not focus on if you're getting "layering" or not, you should focus on the best way to arrive at your goals given what you have and what you can get (sometimes providing a fallback for a failing mitigation type can be one of these goals). Sometimes this will involve layering, sometimes it will not.


It all boils down to what I said from the start. It is not universally true that spreading your mitigation over several different layers will be good. Of course, nor is it universally true that focusing your mitigation one one single layer will be good. Sometimes layering is good, sometimes it is not. Usually the "best" combination tends to involve some layering, but not be driven by it.

It shouldn't even help Recon (due to the Toxic Res).

Invulnerability is a set that already has significant mitigation from Defense*, it's very hard to get additional non-S/L Resistance (your S/L performance usually ends up being very good anyway, and if you go for Weave (which I'd strongly recommend) you get Tough "for free" anyway), and Defense is abundant in power pools/set bonuses.

Yes, of course adding Defense to an /Inv will be a good idea.


*Against F/C/E/N, (non-Unstoppable) Invulnerability gets more mitigation (with one foe in range) from Defense than from Resistance!

Same here. Perma-Elude was great, but the trade-off is completely different for an Elude-focused build today.

For starters, the mitigation benefit compared to a soft-capped toggle-based build is far smaller. Sure, you have higher Defense, but this is now only a benefit in a small number of situations (mostly against high ToHit). The benefit of the improved Recovery should also be less of a benefit now that there are more options to manage your Endurance. The lack of vulnerability to detoggling is a theoretical bonus, but in practice detoggling is very rarely an issue.

Secondly, the penalties are far higher. You no longer get perma-Elude, so there is a significant down-time when you're vulnerable. Also, the delay in getting Elude back again means that you don't get the immediate help of its Recovery bonus to help you recover from the crash.


You end up with a harsher crash, a significant window of vulnerability (as opposed to virtually none with perma-Elude), and a defensive benefit in only a small subset of cases (a soft-capped toggle-based build also has the option of using Elude when you end up in these situations).


The benefits you get from increased build-flexibility would have to be pretty big to offset this, and for me at least, I just don't see it.

That's a truth with modification.

Of course adding mitigation from another "layer" to what you already have will improve your total mitigation, but it is not universally true that spreading your mitigation over several different layers will be good.

When it comes to damage mitigation (it is of course generally A Good Thing to have Mez protection in addition to damage mitigation), you in fact often end up with a situation where the opposite is true; focusing on some layers can be better.

The more Defense you already have, the larger the relative benefit of adding more Defense will be.
The more Resistance you already have, the larger the relative benefit of adding more Resistance will be.

The more Hit Points and Heals you already have, the smaller the relative benefit of adding more Hit Points will be (with the exception of over-saturated Heals).
The more Regeneration and Heals you already have, the smaller the relative benefit of adding more Regeneration will be.
The more Heals, Hit Points and Regeneration you have, the smaller the relative benefit of adding more Heals will be (in the case of Hit Points, with the exception of over-saturated Heals).


This means that if you already have a lot of Defense or Resistance, getting more of the same will give a higher general increase in damage mitigation than getting a comparable (on their own) increase in damage mitigation from another layer (up until you reach the (soft) caps).


The reason it usually ends up being desirable to get mitigation from a lot of different layers anyway is not because of any inherent advantage to layering, but because there are limited options to increase your "preferred" layer, and because there is usually low-hanging fruit available from the other layers.

For instance, Resistance is hard to find outside your primary/secondary powers. You can get Tough from a Power Pool, but it's limited to S/L Resistance. You can also get Resistance from set bonuses, but then it's usually limited to one or two damage types, and often involves a heavy slot investment. This means that it is hard to get significant spread spectrum increases in Resistance from Pool powers/Set bonuses. On the other hand, it's comparatively easy to get extra Defense from Pool Powers/Set bonuses, and this means that it is comparatively easy for a Resistance-heavy character to get significant increases in damage mitigation from adding Defense. Similarly, it is easy to get more Regeneration (often available as a 2-slot set bonus) or Hit Points (often available as a 3-slot set bonus) at relatively low cost.

Thus it usually ends up being beneficial for a Resistance-based character to get mitigation from other layers (particularly now that it's so easy to get "large" amounts of Defense for a large number of types), but this is not because of some inherent advantage of layering, but rather because of a lack of Resistance-based options with comparable benefit/cost.

It's not layering that's "the best approach", getting the best effective mitigation is. Due to a lack of options, this often ends up involving multiple layers though.


Yes, there are cases where a particular layer may end up failing. Yes, it can certainly be a good idea to have (an)other layer(s) to fall back on when this happens (just as it can be a good idea to shore up any other holes your build might have). There's a trade-off here between minimizing any holes and optimizing performance in other situations, and you'll just have to decide what type of situation(s) you want to optimize for. Is it worth being weaker in a subset of situations if it gives you superior performance in the general case?


Once you've reached any applicable (soft) caps, you also end up being in the rather nice situation where improvements to other layers both helps you when your primary layer fails, and also ends up being the best way to improve your general damage mitigation.


As an example, my soft-capped SR Scrapper also has significant mitigation from other layers. However, if I was a few percent short of being soft-capped, I'd give up *a lot* of the mitigation from those other layers in order to get the last few percent of Defense.

Blood of the Black Stream.

(and the previously mentioned Rularuu)


It would also be nice to see more of the Coralax (I liked the new i19 arc).

Can you use this for the part of Brute Fury that suppresses stealth?

Pfft. TOs should be good enough for everyone (and you should leave every other slot empty)!

But yeah, much like IOs, the higher tier Alpha Powers aren't *needed*, but they're available if you enjoy making your characters more powerful. If you don't find that meaningful, then by all means feel free to skip them. There are many others that feel differently.

I suppose that one possible rationale for claiming that Resistance goes up is that attackers that are -1 have their damage against you reduced. It's not a correct usage of terminology, but then again, most of the rest isn't either.