Umbral

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Yes, Umbral, you are that predictable. And I for one get giddy when someone starts a new DM/regen thread!

And then I get depressed at how broke I am when I see all those orange/purple sets in your builds.

I was wondering if you had any suggestions for alternate, more affordable sets in place of things like Hecatomb, Armageddon, Manticore's etc.

Also, is that slotting of Boxing very common? I never really thought of it as a serious part of any attack chain, and the stun never seems to on any mobs you really need it for.

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My recommendations for slot replacements for the expensive sets would be...

Scirocco's Dervish rather than Armageddon. Multi Strike instead of Obliteration. Stupefy instead of Absolute Amazement (at which point, the 6th slot is awesome), Reactive Armor instead of Aegis, and Crushing Impact instead of Hecatomb (cuz you're losing Obliteration 5% +rechs). None of the other stuff has really decent slotting replacements.

Of course, if you're building it on the cheap, you're going to want to change it significantly anyway. You definitely want to get another attack in there (hello, Shadow Punch!) and trade out the Stealth pool and Super Speed (the power) for the Fitness pool. The entire build is pretty specific on requiring a huge amount of recharge to balance out the recovery and fill in the attack chain.

And did you mean Guassian's instead of Manticore's? I'm reasonably sure that I didn't put any snipe powers in there...

Dun duh-duh duh! Umbral's here to post his build again! Go me!

The IO set bonuses you want to aim for are +rech and +defense. Those will be your big money makers for generating survivability. Doctored Wounds 5 piece, Touch of Death 6 piece, the Luck of the Gambler +rech IO, and most of the purple sets are generally what you want to go for. Zephyr for transport powers is also great but, as it doesn't add to melee defense, it's not as important.

Here's the build I generally tell people to aim for. It's a bit lower damage than it could be, but I was placing heavy emphasis on staying alive when I was building it. 200 dps is already more than enough to do pretty much anything within the realms of possibility.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

+def concept: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Regeneration
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Concealment
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Smite -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(3), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), T'Death-Dam%(46)
Level 1: Fast Healing -- RgnTis-Regen+(A)
Level 2: Shadow Maul -- Armgdn-Dmg(A), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(7), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(9), Armgdn-Dam%(11)
Level 4: Reconstruction -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(11), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Dct'dW-Heal(13), Dct'dW-Rchg(15)
Level 6: Quick Recovery -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(7), EndMod-I(48)
Level 8: Siphon Life -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(17), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(19), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), T'Death-Dam%(21)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 12: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal(25), Dct'dW-Rchg(25)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-ResKB(15), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(27)
Level 16: Integration -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(17), Numna-Heal(27)
Level 18: Dark Consumption -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(31), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Oblit-%Dam(34)
Level 20: Boxing -- Amaze-Stun(A), Amaze-Stun/Rchg(34), Amaze-Acc/Stun/Rchg(36), Amaze-Acc/Rchg(36), Amaze-EndRdx/Stun(36)
Level 22: Tough -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(37), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Aegis-ResDam(37), Aegis-Psi/Status(39)
Level 24: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(39)
Level 26: Soul Drain -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(39), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(40), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Oblit-%Dam(42)
Level 28: Instant Healing -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal(31), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(42)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(45), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(46), Hectmb-Dam%(46)
Level 35: Stealth -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 38: Moment of Glory -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(42), RechRdx-I(43), RechRdx-I(48)
Level 41: Focused Accuracy -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(43), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(43), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(50), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(50), GSFC-Build%(50)
Level 44: Super Speed -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(45), Zephyr-ResKB(48)
Level 47: Invisibility -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 49: Resilience -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit

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Another question:

For powers like Gloom and Incinerate that are nothing but DoT attacks, the fully stack right? There's not anything in the code that shuts a DoT off to avoid DoT stacking is there?

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Correct.

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Actually, while there is no numerical justification for making everyone have *identical* DPE, there is a strong fundamental reason for everyone to have *similar* DPE. The reason is that outside of teams, DPE is a fundamental limiter to performance, and for high defense characters (anything as strong or stronger than a scrapper) DPE becomes the primary limiter to performance for most builds until you apply inventions to the build or the build has enhanced recovery. In this case, I'm using the word "performance" to mean levelling performance as a subset of all reward-earning ability, consistent with how the devs measure balance in the game.

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Considering we're talking about the 2 ATs that are supposed to be especially team focused, I'm curious as to how that is supposed to be taken into account. Tankers pay for their higher efficiency defenses by having less efficient damage dealing capabilities and Defenders pay for their higher efficiency support capabilities (both through their primary and their secondary) by having less efficient damage dealing capabilities, though they are made more efficient when on a team whenever said team is taking damage (which just asks for an arbitrary value to be placed on Vigilance for balance purposes).

That's what I find to be the unaccounted for variable. DPE is continually brought up without reference to the other side of the coin. Damage is not the only thing that endurance is spent on. If a standard DPE is going to be applied or even aimed for, shouldn't there also be some standard of "effect per endurance" (EPE) also be applied to powers in order to account for this?

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Since the devs have a performance range within which they expect all powerset combinations to live within for the powersets and archetypes to be balanced, wide ranges of DPE create unnecessary problems for that balance requirement.

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It also brings up the question of variable EPE across ATs. Tankers pay 75% of what Scrappers pay on an EPE basis for their survival powers. Defenders pay between roughly ~85% and ~75% (depending on the effect in question) of what Controllers pay on an EPE basis for their support powers. Tankers and Controllers have an EPE discount concerning their powers that aren't directly concerned with damage. If DPE is really that great and powerful of a balance metric, shouldn't EPE be addressed as well?

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For something to be "damage-oriented" it only needs to be able to deal damage faster. It does not need to deal that damage more efficiently to the same degree. In the case of "damage-centric" archetypes like blasters, higher efficiency makes sense. But in the case of, say, scrappers and tankers, the 50% spread in DPE doesn't have a clear justification. And when it comes to balance-significant game elements, the burden of proof is on the differences. All such differences should have an explicit reason for being there, and the differences in DPE don't actually always appear to have an explicit reason for being there.

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Couldn't the reason for the 2 ATs that are, by design, meant to be team intensive and support based less efficient on their own at dealing damage but more efficient at providing their role when on a team? I'm pretty confident that Tankers are more end efficient at getting and maintaining aggro on large numbers of targets than Brutes are thanks to the effects of Gauntlet. I'm definitely sure that Defenders are more end efficient at team support simply because they put out higher number with their sets than anyone else.

The reason that every other AT is capable of maintaining the sacred DPE "scalar" of 1 that Starsman is attempting to find is because they all pay roughly the same for the non-damaging support powers within their archetypal domain. Scrappers, Stalkers, and Brutes, thanks to having the same self defense buff scale, all pay the same EPE cost. Corrupters and Controllers pay the same EPE cost. Masterminds actually pay 25% more EPE than Corrupters or Controllers, though they've got the most efficient form of damage in the game (19.5 end for damage that is highly efficient because it comes from a completely separate entities; most of the end cost is simply front loaded and, after paying for it, is functionally free).

Tankers and Defenders, avoid the same DPE scalar as all the others by paying less for their non-damaging powers, which explains the differences, thereby satisfying Arcanaville's vaunted burden of proof for a difference to exist.

Concerning attack string calculation, are you looking for generic advice or specific instructions? I've been rolling around an idea for an attack string generation and calculation guide for a while now so I've got plenty of generic advice to dole as as well as plenty of experience with specific stuff concerning Kat/*.

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What does Gauntlet do in PvP anyways?

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Small but variable chance to taunt the target with each attack. This is taunt the status effect, not taunt the power of course, so it doesn't do anything to the target's range.

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1. True, build-up is not available at all times. I was mearly pointing out that this attack chain fits into a build-up cast. I appologize.

2. This is my attack chain. I wasnt sure on recharge, still at work.

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Seismic Smash requires ((4/1.716)-1) = 133% +recharge.
Stone Fist requires ((8/6.732)-1) = 18% +recharge.
Heavy Mallet requires ((12/6.732)-1) =79% +recharge.
Stone Mallet requires ((20/6.864)-1) = 191% +recharge.

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3. Did you miss-represent Seismic Smash and stone mallet in your calculations? I dont think its that high.


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The required recharge time is the lowest sum of the activation times of all of the powers that will be used between any 2 applications of the power. Keep in mind that powers don't recharge until they finish activating and, yes, I'm sure I got all of them right.

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The system you propose is suggesting that, given the same endurance, that a Tanker should be able to deal the same damage as a Scrapper, ignoring time.

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No, the AT can not ignore time. All sets have cast times that bottle neck the damage output. You can't do more damage than what the power set allows you. At that point only way to do more damage is the AT modifier and, off course, damage buffs and enhancements and so on.

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I think you misunderstood that comment as well. My meaning was to give a static quantity of endurance with which to use, ignoring recovery, that both Tankers and Scrappers would deal the same amount of damage (ignoring inherents). It's not a DPS issue, which is why it ignores time, it's a DPE issue, which is why you can ignore endurance.

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That's why no matter how much end you give a tanker, even if you made him never run out of endurance (that i do think would be unbalanced for other reasons) he would still, kill slower.

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I also realize this but I'm curious as to why you think that it should change at all. What's the point of putting forth all of the work to normalize for DPE when there isn't even a significant reason for it beyond your desire for a pseudo standardized DPE mechanism across all ATs.

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Just as a note: The average set can't dish out more than .92 ds of damage, there are some that do a bit more others a bit less and off course the ball goes off the park with AoE, this is ST.

This means, without endurance reduction, you can in average spend 4.78 end per second if you stick to single target attacks. It will take anyone 32.1 seconds to run out of endurance during this time, provided no toggles running.

If the buff I propose was implemented (40% extra end) the tanker would take 45 seconds to run out of endurance (yes i am factoring recovery on both cases.)

During this time period, doing .92 ds per second, the scrapper would do 34.89 scale damage while the tanker would have taken 40% more time to dish out 33.08 ds. This is 5% less damage in a 40% bigger window.


Now, I'll give you this: this is before stamina. Lets check it all with stamina 3 slotted:

At this point the scrapper will take 43.5 seconds to entirely drain out of endurance. The tanker will take 60.9 seconds to drain out of endurance. During this time window the tanker will do 44.8 DS of damgae and the scrapper 47.2 DS, again, within a 40% larger time frame.

All this is not accounting for the scrapper having a stronger damage buff modifier (stronger buildup) and that the scrapper may only be fighting minions (5% crit chance anything else is 10%)

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It still remains that you've yet to answer the question of what purpose it serves aside from allowing Tankers, which are already at the least risk of any AT, to have a longer period of time (thanks to additional endurance) to deal damage in. I realize that it's not increasing their damage, your method is simply a very roundabout way to simply reduce the endurance costs of their powers by 40% in order to achieve some normalized system of DPE for Tankers.

Is there a some specific purpose you're trying to accomplish? It makes no sense to me that Tankers (or anyone for that matter) should have more efficient powers simply because those powers have a lesser affect. Is that really all you're asking for? If you are, it seems to me like a convoluted method by which to ask for a Tanker specific increase in DPE for no other reason than you think that they should, even though their DPE is already modified by their scalar thanks to the reduction in damage.

Is there any reason you can think of why DPE (on whatever varying scale you can think of) shouldn't be specific to the AT and tied to whatever damage scalar it uses?

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The point was that it's a small bit of healing over time, not a reactive type power like you would use with ToF and Cobra Strike. It's an attack that has the side effect of healing you a bit. It's not a support ability with a side effect of damage like the others listed.

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Okay, now I understand where you're coming from. (I still think you're downplaying its potency, but that's also Invuln synergy talking.)

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Of course I downplay the potency of it. It's 21 hp/sec to my */regen that already manages 64 hp/sec without taking the heal from DP or Recon into consideration. It's gonna be a lot better to secondaries that don't have much in the way of additional hp/sec, like */Invuln, */SR, and */SD. It's the same reason why none of those sets particularly care about the -tohit of Dark Melee past their mid 30s.

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Sorry to break your rules, but this is just fun:

Tank
/stone
[build-up] Seismic - stone punch - heavy mallet - sp - stone mallet - sp - Seismic [build-up ends] repeat ad nausium
about 170% global rech - ill check after work, sorry - rough recharge on SS is down to 7.20sec (not Arcana-time) with
101% in Seismic: 5/6 hecatomb (proc in stone punch) and 1/6 unbreak constraint acc/rech

(working on better one for bruits with /sr, but end is *very* difficult to manage currently due to no inf.)

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Kractis, that's not a sustainable attack chain because you can't have Build Up back every time. An attack chain is specifically the pattern of use of your powers that you use at all times, not just when you have your build up available. Seismic>SF>HM>SF>SM>SF would be the attack string. BU doesn't factor in to it.

As to the required recharge numbers...

Seismic Smash requires ((4/1.716)-1) = 133% +recharge.
Stone Fist requires ((8/6.732)-1) = 18% +recharge.
Heavy Mallet requires ((12/6.732)-1) =79% +recharge.
Stone Mallet requires ((20/6.864)-1) = 191% +recharge.

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Quick question getting back into Blaster and really loving it at the moment. The current build I am working on is being built for defense I just wanted to know should I focus mainly on just Ranged defense or should I build for AoE and Ranged defense equally, since the toon I have stays mainly at range?

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AoE attacks are rare enough that you can, in general, get away with slotting just for ranged defense, especially since, in order to softcap (which is the general goal), you're going to be gimping yourself to softcap both.

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I don't know I haven't really gimped myself, atleast I don't think. I haven't been able to put procs in my attacks but I have 3 powers 6 slotted with Thuderstrike and 2 2 slotted blessing of the Zyphers and from 3 slotting my 2 PBAoEs gives me 3.13 which gives me about 20.64% I plan on getting the two defense IOs which will give me 6% and I plan on getting about 13% off of stuff that was already going to be 6 slotted for max usage. On top of that Smoke Grenade offers -tohit and I will get a couple miles from Cloeaking Device and Combat Jumping so in essense I will exeed the cap and I will have about 20% - 25% AoE with some melee, but the way this toon mitigates, solo nothing will be able to get into melee and when I team I usually stand back and blast.

I was just wanting to know if it would have been better to alter some powers and slots to get about 35% range and about 33% AoE. BUt like you said Ranged AoE isn't as common as regular Range so I will take that and just keep what I have going.

But so far I will not be gimping my build to get the soft cap range

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If you reread what I wrote, I stated that you would be gimping yourself to be softcapping both. Softcap ranged and get AoE in the mid 20-30s and then you're gold. By the way, Smoke Grenade isn't going to be as awesome as you think, especially when fighting higher level enemies that have purple patch to reduce the effect and AVs that have AV resistance to let them laugh at debuffs.

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Siphon Life is less a mitigation power and more of an attack with slight mitigation potential attacked to it. It's an attack that has a tad bit of a heal attached (it really isn't all that impressive, honestly).

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I have to disagree with you here. Siphon Life's heal is incredibly powerful, on part with Reconstruction over time (or stronger depending on how much recharge you have). Firing Reconstruction every 30s is roughly 1.667 base hp%/sec. Siphon Life (slotted as a heal) equals that when being used every 12s (zero recharge). Reconstruction every 20 seconds is 2.5% base hp/sec, which SL equals being used every 8s (so 6s rech or roughly 66% enhancement).

That's not as impressive on, say a Regen, but on a set with a lot of proactive mitigation (Invuln)? That's huge.

Yeah, I know, that's when slotted as a heal rather than an attack, but I don't think it's minor at all. Besides, if you frankenslot just for raw enhancement, you can get a hefty amount of both.

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The point was that it's a small bit of healing over time, not a reactive type power like you would use with ToF and Cobra Strike. It's an attack that has the side effect of healing you a bit. It's not a support ability with a side effect of damage like the others listed.

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unless you wanted to saddle yourself with Shadow Maul

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I'm... not going there... :P

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When referencing single target dps, you are saddling yourself with Shadow Maul. I'm just as big a fan of Shadow Maul as you are Sarrate. :P

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Hi all, I'm a CoH/CoV newbie. I just upgraded to a full account, and I fell in love with my Dominator because I love crowd control. I know that Controllers are the CC experts Hero-side, but I'm not sure if playing a Controller would be too much like playing my Dominator.

Would I be find rolling a Controller or should I try a different AT that has some CC aspects? Thanks

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In terms of gameplay, Dominator is closer to Blaster than to Troller.

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This. Don't look at primary for parity. Look at total functionality. Blasters are damage with a healthy dose of control. Dominators are control with a healthy dose of damage. Controllers are control with a healthy dose of support. Dominators add mez and damage to a team. Blasters add damage and mez to a team. Controllers are mez with a healthy dose of support.

Dominators = Blasters
Controllers != Dominators

Plus, Controllers came first. If anything, Dominators are similar to Controllers (though they're not).

Any Scrapper can be made to make enough money to get the influence to buy the enhancements to make a great Scrapper. Personally, I'd just tell you to pick whatever pair of primaries you think is interesting and fun to play and then play it. Eventually, you'll make enough money to buy everything you need/want. I can make impressive inf/min on my DM/regen scrapper and many people will tell you that it's the worst possible build for AoE killing (I run the Cimerora wall). My only recommendation would be to avoid Spines/* and */Fire. Spines/* is great for farming but horrible for AVs, as is */Fire except for a few.

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If DPE were "balanced" as you think it should be, the only difference would be time, which is pointless, because that simply means that Tankers are just as good at dealing damage as Scrappers given enough time , whereas no one else is as good at survival as a Tanker given enough time.

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I had a big point by point reply but after reading this i realized there is no point. If you truly think that being as good dealing damage can even be on the same sentence as given enough time then there is nothing else to say, you have no clue what damage ATs are balanced around in this game.

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Actually that was a poorly worded statement. I'll admit it. The point I was trying to make is that power efficiency is part in parcel with the balance metric of the game (namely, scalars). The system you propose is suggesting that, given the same endurance, that a Tanker should be able to deal the same damage as a Scrapper, ignoring time. For example, 100 endurance on a Tanker is worth just as much damage as it is for a Scrapper. Unless you're proposing that every power effect should follow that same model (everything being based off of a flat "effect per endurance" model rather than the current model wherein the power costs a certain amount and is modified by the AT's scalar), that should never happen. But then, if you did, every AT would have to be able to do everything to really have it matter at all.

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Or maybe count on the fact that */SR has 99% def debuff resistance to get through those situations. If you're packing 46% +def(all), you're going to need to get hit by more than 100% -def to have any effect. To have it actually be significantly noticeable, you'd need to get hit with ~600% -def.

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I could be mistaken, but I was pretty sure def resistance was capped at 95%? If so, it'd take 20% worth of def debuffs to drop 1% of SR's defense.

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I thought it was something like that as well but I couldn't find anything to support that. Even so, that's 20% of -def (which is generally dished out in 7.5% doses) before any affect even shows up and 120% before a marked difference to survivability starts appearing. Keep in mind that all of these attacks also have to overcome the minimum chance to hit within the duration of the debuff in the first place, which isn't too likely.

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I consider FB to be required for RWZ raids. Why, and where do you use it? Not until you get to the center of the ship, then turn it on. All the blasters and other squishies can sit in the middle, safely protected from almost all melee attacks, while the melee toons can go to the edge of the "inner ring" and take out all the enemies that are PINNED there by the Force Bubble.

Meleers can handle the aggro that they attract and survive it, that's what they're BUILT for. Blasters, Defenders and Controllers are not built as tough by default unless someone pumps into them and builds for self defense/toughness.

Doing this strategy, I've never had a failed raid, and the melee players were ALWAYS able to handle their own without dying.

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By the time you're in the center, it's already a successful raid. In general, the bigger problem when you're down there is all the lag.

The times when you most need help is when you're moving to the center and bringing the GM up. If you're in the center, everyone is already running around killing whatever.

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Um I agree with you on everything except 1 thing I want to point out:

The others are mitigation attacks (except for ToF, of course), however they are all stackable, which makes them consistent and useful (or just consistently useful).

A breakdown of the numbers:

Touch of Fear puts a -11% tohit debuff for 20 seconds, with a 8 second base recharge. (Neglecting fear for its arguement of usefulness)

Parry/DA gives +15% defense for 10 seconds with a 3 second base recharge.

Cobra Strike gives a mag 3 stun for 12 seconds with a 20 second base recharge.

Cobra Strike is the only one of the three that gives you a longer recharge than duration of the effect. That means bosses can be taken out of comission with the power by itself in various cases. I agree that either giving it better damage or a shorter recharge would make it more useful.

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That's also ignoring the fact that MA has other powers within it that it can use to stack up the stun with. None of the other power sets mentioned have a power with which they can stack the effect. You can also increase the duration of Cobra Strike but you can't increase the duration of either of the powers mentioned.

If you slot Cobra Strike for 95% recharge and 95% stun duration, you can stack 2 Cobra Strikes (10.3 sec recharge, 1.848 activation time, and 23.2 sec duration = 191% up time), which is gonna stun anything but an AV. Get some decent global +recharge and it gets better (200% +recharge = 6.67 sec recharge, 1.848 activation time, 23.2 sec duration = 272% up time).

Of course, that's assuming someone was slotting it to use it. It's got naturally bad numbers I'll admit. ToF and DA/Parry beat the crap out of it, but it's not as bad as some make it out to be.

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Scrapper
Katana
Repeatable and Sustainable (for long AV fights)

With Divine Avalanche (for melee/lethal based enemies)
Gambler's Cut > Golden Dragonfly > Gambler's Cut > Soaring Dragon > Gambler's Cut > Divine Avalanche

Without Divine Avalanche
Gambler's Cut > Golden Dragonfly > Gambler's Cut > Soaring Dragon > Gambler's Cut > Flashing Steel

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GC requires 90% +recharge for the first chain and 127% for the second.
GD requires 102% +recharge for the first chain and 112% for the second.
SD requires 42% +recharge for the first chain and 48% for the second.
DA and FS require none.

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Scrappers
Fire melee
Repeatable and sustainable
Incinerate, Cremate, GFS.
Forgot the recharge req, sorry.

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Incinerate requires 137% +rech.
Cremate requires 84% +rech.
GFS requires 237% +rech.

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Force Bubble is kinda the whole point of having a Bubbler for the RWZ raid though. :P

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No it isn't. Dispersion Bubble is. Dispersion Bubble is highly visible so people know where to head, provides mez protection so that squishies aren't screwed over by Rikti Magi, and gives significant +def to everyone so that people are taking less damage without you having to do anything. I've lead a number of RWZ raids with my FF/Sonic. Force Bubble wouldn't have contributed at all. If anything, it would inhibited everything by scattering everyone. Clustering everyone up is a good thing.

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And it's a PITA to even get +200 global recharge on your own, so you gotta take that into account.

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Yeah, I think the best up time:downtime ratio for IH I've seen on a */regen was 10:9 though the build gimped itself pretty hard getting all of that recharge. It's kinda pointless considering that you can generally get a 1:1 up time:downtime ration without completely gimping yourself any.

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Please share how.

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Please share how to get a 1:1 uptime:downtime ratio on IH? Simple. Follow my IO building instructions for building a */regen.

Step 1: Get recharge
Step 2: Get more recharge
Step 3: Get more recharge

To get 1:1 uptime:downtime, you need 261% +recharge in Instant Healing. 95% +recharge from slotting takes that down to 166%. 92.5% +recharge from IOs (5x LotG = 37.5, 3 purple sets = 30%, 5x doctored wounds = 25%) and set bonuses pulls it down to 72.5%. Hasten will do most of that. Of course, most people will not achieve exactly 1:1, but they'll get close enough.

Both of my DM/Regen builds maintain a ~180 sec recharge on Instant Healing. Because it's up for 90 seconds, that means that you've got 90 seconds of up time and 90 seconds of down time. That's a 1:1 ratio.

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Except that you're forgetting something very important: recovery is a percent recovery. By increasing base endurance, you'd also be increasing end/sec recovery significantly to such a point that every Tanker on the planet would have end recovery better a */Regen Scrapper as soon as he/she gets Stamina (1+.25+.30 < 1.4*1.25). That's more than a bit borked.

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No it's not, not when the stuff you are using costs more endurance than anyone else's. It's just like comparing regeneration and +HP, the most reliable way to do it to not think at all as HP as a number but as a bar that goes from zero to 100, at that point hp buffs equate resistance to all damage types, including healing.

An increase to endurance would do the same, it would be a resistance to endurance cost AND also resistance to click endurance regain tools, like energy absorption or blue pills. That's right: if the end bar of a tanker was increased blue insps would do even less for them than for anyone else, where everyone usually gets 25% of their endurance back with a blue, a tanker would get 17.8%

Additionally, true analysis of the impact of this change would be much more complex than stating how much end per second you recover. You also have to check how much longer the at must fight and how much endurance is wasted due to lower modifiers and quite a few other aspects. I did a partial study on this a long time ago, but not something in presentable form. I may actually pull that stuff up and clean it up for presentation sometime in the near future.

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I'm still curious as to why you think that every AT needs to use the same amount of endurance to fight the same target. It makes no sense. Tankers should expend more endurance on the same enemy than a damage focused AT because the enemy poses less risk to them. They're also spending less endurance and time on survival than any other AT in the game, which is the balancing factor to their higher cost of endurance for attacks.

The basic design mechanic that you're trying to attain is that, rather than spending the same amount of endurance per second as any other AT using the same powers, that each AT should, instead, spend the same amount depending on how long they've got to use them in order to have the same effect. That makes no sense whatsoever, especially from a balance standpoint. Endurance efficiency is a baked in functional benefit of the ATs, which makes sense because endurance is a percentage mechanic rather than a flat number mechanic. Tankers are paying more for each point of damage because damage isn't their schtick. So are Defenders.

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Stars, something else you're either ignoring or ignorant of is that the DPE numbers are determined for attacks before AT scalars are applied to the damage. This works quite well because it doesn't unduly penalize the endurance of high damage ATs, which isn't balanced, especially since everyone has essentially the same endurance capabilities.

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First: you should assume everyone having the same endurance capabilities while talking about balance.

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With the exception of a few power sets for a few ATs, they do. When you bring in sets that specifically have powers devoted to endurance recovery, that's simply part of the benefit of selecting that power set. They're losing out the additional survivability or damage available to them by having that power available. So yeah, I'm going to take the assumption that every AT has the same endurance recovery potential outside of a few sets that have greater endurance recovery as a baked in benefit of selecting that set. Most builds only get 100 endurance (or more with IO sets and accolades) and Stamina available to them. Anything above that is abnormal.

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Second: the way multiple ATs are designed you can't modify endurance cost after it's scaled for many issues. Best example are brutes. How do you manage them? Such a change would actually lower their endurance cost, not increase it, yet they do much more damage than many other ATs if you play Fury smartly.

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Simple. They've got a lower scalar so their attack does less damage. It still costs the same. Shadow Punch costs the same everywhere. The DPE changes, but the endurance for the individual attack (which is where the balance is) doesn't change.

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All ATs except tankers and defenders get tools that make their endurance cost relative to damage gravitate towards 1 modifiers.

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You've got to be ignoring Vigilance, but I'll excuse that. Vigilance is... ignorable. Well, not entirely. It can get pretty big. That's a pretty big case to ignore.

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If DPE were calculated after AT scalars were applied, you'd also need to do the same to defensive toggles and powers (although this would be much less devastating thanks to the lower proportion of endurance that goes to toggles). Thankfully, it isn't.

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I seen this implied before and I tend to slam the desk with my head every time i do, mostly because not only is it wrong but because it's so half baked. IF you were going to go that way you would also start to charge endurance for secondary effects and make sure this endurance was higher for stronger secondary effects, you would also make defender powers cost more endurance for stronger buffs, etc etc.

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And that's why it's a pointless suggested hypothetical. There are reasons that Defender have bigger secondary effects from their powers for the same endurance cost that Controllers pay: theirs are more efficient. Everyone is paying the same cost. Some people are getting more out of it.

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However, there are no rules anywhere in the game that dictate a power must cost more endurance based on any attribute other than damage. Other than that it's all up to the devs whim and pursue of desired balance to give any defensive power whatever endurance cost they want. Should they choose to compensate damage to endurance ratio issues of any AT they are not forced to change at all to deal with defensive tools.

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It's pretty easy to see if you actually start comparing power sets to power sets across ATs. Slug costs as much for a Blaster as it does for a Corrupter. Swipe costs as much to Scrapper as it does for a Stalker. Thanks for trying to make the argument though. It looked decent but doesn't follow through with the actual information.

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You are ignoring the inherent abilities of these ATs that make their average end cost go down.

In average, Scourge accounts for a 20% damage buff, this takes the base damage from .75 to about .9, still not full 1 but much less of an endurance penalty than it looks like at first.

The stalker critical rate is also high enough to make them match scrapper damage + criticals.

In the end, looking at base damage is not even trying to compare, it's just pretending you did.

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I'm not looking at base damage. You're assuming that I'm looking at base damage because that's what you're looking at. I'm looking at flat endurance cost. Not DPE. Just endurance. Every AT will have the same endurance costs for using a power as any other does. The difference is that some ATs will get more from that specific expenditure than others do. That is completely balanced because some ATs are just better at certain things than others are, not just in end effect, but also in efficiency of cost.

You're ignoring the fact that scalars contribute just as much to endurance efficiency as they do to the end effect. A Tanker spends 40% more endurance to do the same amount of damage that a Scrapper does because the Scrapper is all about dealing damage. Dealing damage isn't a Tanker's primary job function. It's going to have to pay more to do things outside of its specific domain of functionality. It's the same reason why Scrappers have to pay more for Petrifying Gaze than a Defender does. They're doing things that are outside of the normal scope of their functionality which means that they've got to pay somehow.

If DPE were "balanced" as you think it should be, the only difference would be time, which is pointless, because that simply means that Tankers are just as good at dealing damage as Scrappers given enough time, whereas no one else is as good at survival as a Tanker given enough time.

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Blue Steel FTW!

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[joke]Praetorian Blue Steel doesn't exist, otherwise we would have already lost.[/joke]

I'd love to see some Blue Steel action, especially now that we've got shields in game. I think a great name for his Praetorian version (should it actually exist) would be Impervium Blue, and have his role be Tyrant's enforcer in Praetoria.

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Touch of Fear

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Touch of Fear is already on par with Cobra Strike. Touch of Fear has a -acc debuff (which is only really useful against enemies that resist most of it anyway) and no damage to go along with the fear. Cobra Strike does damage (however minor it may be) and does a stun, which is a better status effect than Fear for mitigation purposes.

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Siphon Life, and Parry/Divine Avalanche.

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Siphon Life is less a mitigation power and more of an attack with slight mitigation potential attacked to it. It's an attack that has a tad bit of a heal attached (it really isn't all that impressive, honestly). Parry/DA, on the other hand, are absurdly powerful. I don't think we'll be seeing anything quite like it again ever. Parry/DA are just... ugh...

And how are you trying to match Touch of Fear (re: pure mitigation) with the Parry/DA (mitigation attack)? Touch of Fear is pure mitigation whereas Parry and DA are inferior versions of existing attacks (re: worse DPA) that provide a large amount of buff to compensate. The only power that is really commensurate to it is ToF and ToF doesn't deal damage.

However, I think I can agree with your intent. Giving Cobra Strike a faster recharge, actual damage, and possibly either a lower mag stun or shorter duration to account for the improvement would work wonders for it.

However, this only really addresses Cobra Strikes woes. Siphon Life was fixed to account for DM's lack of real attack powers (Smite, Shadow Punch, and MG were pretty much it unless you wanted to saddle yourself with Shadow Maul). MA still has 5 other perfectly serviceable single target attacks, 3 of which have some form of mitigatory potential (knockdown and chance to stun). Maybe it would be better to instead add some additional utility to Cobra Strike to make it a viable attack. Tossing in some -def and -res would probably make it a bit more popular, especially since you'd be increasing the damage against the target by poking him silly. 10% -def and 20% -res for 10 secs probably wouldn't be entirely out of the question, especially considering how much damage you'd be losing out on by including it in an attack chain.