Umbral

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Nerdy girls are kind of sexy. What can I say? It's a weakness.

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Only "kind of" sexy? How do you find anyone attractive if they're incapable of actually challenging you mentally? That's one of the reasons why I've only dated nerdy girls. No other girls can keep up.

Personally, I find FF to be completely and totally fine where it is. FF/* might not provide the same debuff punch, but, just because you choose not to use all of the other indirect methods for keeping your team alive (knockback, knockdown, repel, onlyAffectSelf), doesn't mean that it needs changes. Personally, I think that the extra 5% +def and the mez protection that FF/* provide make up for any lack of debuffs or other functionality.

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Is the Brute versus Scrapper damage argument put to rest? Can we all agree that 3% damage difference is low enough to ignore?

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I think the appropriate question to ask would be "should Brutes be doing as much damage as Scrappers if they're harder to kill?" not "do Brutes really do more damage than Scrappers?"

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He didn't even mention the free cookies.

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That may be. but, the light side has milk.

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You can keep your heroic milk.

We on the Dark Side can has Grand Marnier. And Absolut. And Crown Royal, and all that kinda stuff. Bad habits, they do a body good. The occasional Assassin-Strike, well... that's just icing on the cake.

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Pinnacle is the Dark Side?

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You're quite right about Stone Melee atleast, a chain of SS, SF, HM, SM, SF, HB, SF, HM, SS, SF, SM, HM, SF, HB, SF, SM gets 159 DPS, placing it in second place. Needs two recharge in everything but Hurl Boulder, that needs none. Might be better chains, I might have made a mistake. Now for Super Strength....

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You dropped the enhanced damage accordingly correct? Geeez, that's a long chain.

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It's 2 connected modified Seismic Smash attack chain chunks. I've generated some equally convoluted ones with other powersets.

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taking all the powers in FF (except maybe Detention Field; I never have like intangibles), because they are all good, and I like them.

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YAY! My faith in humanity is RESTORED!!!!!

I'm so sorry you died in the movie, Dr. Nick.

It was pretty funny though.... Dr. Nick appears and says "Hey everybody!" and then gets killed, and then I literally said out loud by reflex in the theater "Bye Dr. Nick!" really really loud. Then everyone stared at me and I sat down uncomfortably.... it was pretty funny though looking back at it.

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It's your fault for letting the bubbles on him drop. Seriously... what kind of FF/* defender are you?

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Blue Steel's Powerset has one just Power, the 'I Win' clickie

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You and I both know that [BlueSteel.I Win] Is a passive power. Blue Steel doesn't have to click anything if he wants to win. It just happens.

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I guess the obvious answer is to only play Controllers/Dominators.

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And, interestingly enough, that isn't even entirely true. Controllers and Dominators using AoE mezzes cannot reliably reduce incoming damage by 100%. Because they have to actually hit with their controls, even if they're guaranteed to have high enough magnitude to hold anything, 5% of the time, they won't hit and won't end up reducing the damage at all. Just something to think about if you're considering Controls to be the biggest, baddest mitigation available.

Also, keep in mind that the purple patch reduces the duration of mez effects as well. You might be able to mez an even con enemy permanently, but you'll be significantly challenged to do the same to a +5 enemy when the duration of your mezzes is reduced to 30% of what it is normally. To get the same level of coverage on a +5 enemy, you'd need to have 333.33% uptime on AoE controls.

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I've actually got a more concrete method, but I'm a bit busy atm. I'll post it when I get 30 minutes to go over it.

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Are you still busy?

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I'm still a bit busy (getting my Summer plans fleshed out and dealing with my Saturday D&D game), though I've got the time to actually give a basic breakdown of what I hope to eventually turn into "Umbral's Guide to Attack Chains" (it's still in the alpha phase).

The basic idea I operate with is that there are 3 types of attack chains. 2 of them are short and sweet and the other is long and reasonably convoluted. They're all effective, and, depending on your build, will sometimes different types of attack strings will be required at different times for different powersets and amounts of +recharge. Oftentimes, one type may be optimal at a certain threshold of +recharge and significantly worse at another.

The first is simply a straight, non-convoluted attack string like the non-gap Broadsword string mentioned before (HS>Dis>Hack>Slash). The design is simple and elegant (get your 4 highest DPA attacks and string them in a row), though, as is shown by adding gaps, can sometimes be improved. Of course, the adding gaps portion is actually reasonably easy to analyze. I'll get to that later.

The second type is the "alternating" attack string. Dark Melee does this with Mg>Smite>Siphon>Smite. The entire concept is that you're alternating between a fast recharging attack (that you've gotten to the recharge below the animation time of the other attacks) and 2 slow recharging attacks. Katana also does this with GC>GD>GC>SD, though uses a slightly different mentality because, rather than building around the slow recharging attack, it builds around its fastest attack.

The last "convoluted" type is generally most useful for partially optimized sets and is often the the hardest part to factor in. The basic design method here is in having 2 attacks that must be used as often as possible (rather than just 1) but have too dissimilar of recharge times. Oftentimes, the attack string will actually be the 2 or more "sub-attack strings" with a single power switched in with the others. A non-optimized Claws build I designed an attack string for used FU>Foc>Slash>Swipe>Foc>FU>Slash& gt;Focus>Swipe>Slash. Gotta use Focus and FU as soon as their recharge and use the other attacks only when necessary.

As to the adding-a-gap option (which is only recommended when you've got attacks with highly disparate DPA), all comes down to math. A gap will be more beneficial than actually using an attack in the last slot of the attack string is lower DPA than the DPA of the first attack with an activation time that is longer by duration of the gap. That's a bit complicated, so here's an example.

Take an arbitrary imaginary attack string. The first attack has a DPA of 100 and the middle attacks don't matter. The final attack has a DPA of 50 but is going to extend animation time of the attack string .5 seconds longer than the animation time + recharge time of the first attack. So, here's the question: is the DPA of the "last attack + first attack" sub-attack string higher than the DPA of the "gap + first attack" attack string? For some sets that have very long attack strings (Broadsword), the effect of an extra 5 seconds on the big, high DPA attack is minor. For others that have fast animations (Claws, Katana), the effect is going to be significant. In the example, the animation time of the first attack would have to be less than 1 second in order for the gap to not be the better option.

Your best bet for creating attack strings is going to be figuring out what pivotal attacks you're going to build it around (HS and Disembowel; FU and Focus; etc.). In general, they're simply the highest DPA attacks you've got available. Everything else is filler. Then, figure out priority, including which filler attacks are more important. After that, it's just an issue of following the priority list until a cycle emerges and analyzing the use of filler attacks immediately before use of highest priority attacks to determine whether the presence of a gap would be better.

For any detractors, this is still pretty alpha for a set of protocols. I'm stilling working on getting all of the wording done for the processes I already follow innately. If you've got any questions, ask away. It'll help me chisel this into something a bit more comprehensible.

I've actually got a more concrete method, but I'm a bit busy atm. I'll post it when I get 30 minutes to go over it.

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Personally, my solution to this problem is a +duration enhancement. Make it on the same track as def. So like 20% for so's.

Though if they truly did this, i would need to reslot my /ff and /sonic controllers.

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The problem with this is that it can generate significantly higher up time ratios than are actually intended with many powers. I'd only find it balanced if it were restricted to the "instant" recharge powers like shields, SB, ID, etc at which point it's exclusively done to decrease the percentage of time required for reapplication.

If they did do this, I doubt they would make it based off of the number of missions that you do. It would make more sense for it to be simply purchased with AE tickets (and only usable in AE if possible).

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attack could do smashing damage but be typed energy, thus going against energy defense. This is rarely the case, but it apparently did occur in the past, and there may still be existing oddities although I can't think of any right now.

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Fireball deals fire and smashing damage but is defense typed only as smashing, if I recall correctly (no time to check at the moment).

There are also things out there that have no damage type (positional typed only) or no positional type (damage typed only).

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Other way around - it deals Fire Damage, but is typed Fire, Smashing, and AoE. (At least it was when I checked last year on my Blaster)

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Care to revise your statement?

I even checked in game to make sure there wasn't a discrepancy.

First off, you're using */SR which is a notoriously late blooming set.

Secondly, these powers are reducing your chance to be hit, but, because they're balanced around being slotted with SOs rather than TOs and DOs, you're seeing much less benefit from them. If you want to see how much less damage you're taking, check out your combat log with those toggles turned on and with those toggles turned off. There will be a noticeable reduction in your chance to be hit.

Thirdly, if you're coming from other games where the chance to be hit defaults to 95-100%, you're forgetting that, in CoX, enemies have a base chance to hit of 50% (modified by a number of other things, but an even con minion with no outside effects, is going to have a 50% chance to hit you). You shouldn't see a huge increase in the number of attacks hitting you because, rather than getting hit by 5 out of every 10 of the attacks aimed at you, you're being hit by only 3-4, which is much harder to notice, but still a substantial reduction.

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You're weighing the benefits of the Radiation and Storm debuffs too heavily. Purple Patch will quite quickly reduce the incredible benefits that you can gain from tohit debuffs to much less than you actually give them credit for. AVs are similarly resistant though additional reasons, though they'll also get benefit from the purple patch (Link for the chart of scaling AV debuff resistances).

While your numbers are appropriate for fighting even level enemies, you'll quickly find the debuffs to be lacking quite the punch you expected when taking on challenging scenarios. Buffs are never reduced in effectiveness. You may want to specifically mention this, especially if since you brought up +5 bosses.

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Good point. That would mean that, against AVs healing is actually a better form of mitigation than debuffs. Oh that's gonna rankle some folks.

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Actual, healing is not a form of mitigation at all. That's an error in terminology. Mitigation is specifically defined as "lessening in force or intensity". Healing does nothing to lessen the force and intensity of incoming damage. The appropriate moniker for healing and regeneration would be damage recovery. Mitigation and recovery can be roughly equivalent, but they're still completely different beasts.

The issue with all of this is that it's more important to demonstrate the greater importance of mitigation rather than recovery in City of Heroes. Unlike most other MMOs, players have in combat damage recovery and very little damage mitigation innately. Because of this, it's possible to, with enough mitigation, hit the point of immortality without having any heals, which is impossible in most MMOs because they require healing for in combat damage recovery.

The other important difference as it pertains to this discussion between CoX and other "traditional" MMOs is that the mitigation cap in CoX is much higher and the comparative allowance of hp (re: player survivability reaction time) is much lower.

However, just because mitigation is more effective by a substantial amount doesn't mean that it is ineffective. Part of the design concept of CoX was that any form of dealing with damage would be an effective option. Damage recovery can work (though requires much more skill and doesn't scale with the degree of the challenge), which is evident when you look at */regen Scrappers and Stalkers, as can mitigation. The prevalence of buffs and design of the game, however, have made it so that mitigation is much more effective, especially once characters have actually matured.

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I know this guy that plays for the sole purpose of griefing others, but since he is not breaking any direct rules of the TOS or EULA, he has been here 48+ months.

I honestly don't believe that ruining someone elses day is actually considered fun. Something has to be broken inside someone in order for that to even be on a persons top 10 list of things to do.

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(That behavior, though, most explicitly IS breaking the Rules of Conduct and can get you punished, even banned if you're bad enough. He really, really needs to read them, and make his choice of action based on accurate information, not someone else's claim of what is or isn't allowed.)

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I just love clause 1 of the Rules of Conduct.

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While playing City of Heroes , you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass, threaten, or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players.

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So few people have actually fully read the stuff they agree to when they sign in.

You may want to specifically mention that it's a red side respec, rather than leaving it to be inferred from the current members.

You're weighing the benefits of the Radiation and Storm debuffs too heavily. Purple Patch will quite quickly reduce the incredible benefits that you can gain from tohit debuffs to much less than you actually give them credit for. AVs are similarly resistant though additional reasons, though they'll also get benefit from the purple patch (Link for the chart of scaling AV debuff resistances).

While your numbers are appropriate for fighting even level enemies, you'll quickly find the debuffs to be lacking quite the punch you expected when taking on challenging scenarios. Buffs are never reduced in effectiveness. You may want to specifically mention this, especially if since you brought up +5 bosses.

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

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Actually, endurance efficiency is based exclusively around scalars. Higher scalars equate to higher efficiency because damage varies but the endurance cost doesn't (for the same powers across multiple ATs). Scrappers have a 1.215 "real" melee damage scalar (1.125 base scalar *1.08 crit contribution) and the VEATs have a 1.0 melee damage scalar. Because the Scrapper scalar is 21.5% higher, their DPE is roughly 21.5% higher.

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ya know j, you could get more entries if mr. trix would put it on the MOTD for FE...

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We don't need that. All the people who would sign up have already read this thread. They know who they are.
I am disappointed at Freedom again. Apparently its greed level has dropped ta white.

aka theys chicken!

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Either that or they have such respect for your debt gaining skills that they are sure that it would be nigh upon impossible to prevent the lot of you from dieing at a sneeze and allow themselves a chance at actually winning (especially since I've entered!).

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Incoming Storm?

See, folks, THIS is why we need Umbrella Scrappers. NAO!

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But I've already got a couple Scrappers... Oh wait.. You said Umbrella Scrappers. My bad.

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My L41 Tanker, running only the Invulnerability toggles, runs out of endurance spamming only KO Blow. That's ONE attack, and he has triple slotted Stamina

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Outright lie. Even if you were stupid enough to have 0 end redux in all your toggles and 0 in KO blow you still would do better than break even with recovery. Welcome to the ignore list.

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And look! There are even maths!

Running all Invuln toggles with 42% end redux (1 lvl 50 common IO, though, you're much more likely to have 2 SO or 2 30-40 common IOs, which put out bigger numbers anyway) costs .51 end/sec.

Spamming KoB (and nothing else), assuming 2 even level recharge SOs and no end redux, means that you'll be able to use it once every 17.376 seconds (2.376 animation + 15 recharge) for 18.5 endurance. That's a cost of 1.08 end/sec.

Base recovery is 1.67 end/sec. Total end/sec costs are 1.59 end/sec. So, even without Stamina, you're still good on endurance.

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So are you not gonna allow me to do it on my FF/sonic fender?

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My bad playah!!
Of course are you in. Date still stands.

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You're just trembling in your trousers at the topic of my Top-Ten-tastic team survival talents! If you guys are doing it for all day, I should be available around noon CST. I've got a D&D game at 5pm til late, so I can't do Saturday evenings.

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1) The archetype has some of the lowest build possibilities in the game, having among the least number of power sets to choose from. I'm used to playing the other non-epic AT's, and thusly used to seeing a screen full of power sets to choose from when creating my toons.... this is not the case with blasters.

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Actually, Masterminds and Dominators have significantly fewer power set combinations than Blasters. Blasters have 48, Masterminds have 35, and Dominators have 36. To illustrate the magnitude of this, Scrappers have 52 (though they only had 48 before Shield Defense was added) and Defenders have 72.

If you actually include APPs though, Blasters are actually pretty customizable. Blasters get 240 combinations, Scrappers get 156, Masterminds get 140, Dominators get 144, and Defenders get 288.

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2) Hands down the squishiest AT in the game. Understandable for balancing, but annoying when you can barely survive each mob encounter. IME, this slows things down to a near standstill, as mitigation is almost non-existent in many blaster sets and each fight leaves you in the red and forces you to have a tray full of greens to get through a single mission (soloing).

I understand that blasters in the end game are fairly survivable if built decently, but the journey to that level seems insanely difficult by comparison to the other AT's. I love challenges, and I could see myself getting a blaster to 50 if the pace wasn't so sluggish.... maybe I'm doing something wrong?

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As to the survivability issue, keep in mind that blasters have more hit points than Defenders or Controllers along with more damage than either. This means that they have more hitpoints to allow them to survive within a smaller time frame (because enemies are alive for less time). Blasters can also operate exclusively at range, which means that they'll be taking 80% less damage on average because critter ranged attacks are almost universally weaker than melee attacks.

Honestly, if you're having survivability issues on a Blaster, you're obviously not using every tool at your disposal. Every Blaster primary except for Fire and every Blaster secondary has control in it along with the melee attacks. If you're having problems with enemies ganging up on you solo, try using some of the controls you've got available. Most people don't take them because they're not that useful on teams, but that's why you have 2 builds. One for teaming, one for solo.

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dude..... its a game, try enjoying it.....

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But this is how I enjoy it...