Umbral

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I could be wrong about this, but I believe as of I15, all AVs and GMs (Might be just GMs, not sure) have a small chance to drop recipes from pool C/D, which is the taskforce/trial recipes.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's actually bosses and anything higher than Bosses, IIRC.

I'm also concerned that AV XP is somehow considered lacking. I recall it being quite good, actually.

[/ QUOTE ]

AV xp is actually quite excellent. At level 50, a level 52 will give 83,359 xp. A level 54 AV will give 143,906 xp. Play around with this and you'll get a glimpse of how great AV xp is.

[ QUOTE ]
Old topic is old.

[/ QUOTE ]

And wrong poster is wrong.

[ QUOTE ]
Regen stands shoulder to shoulder with the other secondaries.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only for the SO based game exclusive of power pools. Because */Regen benefits less from IO set bonuses and power pool options than all of the other power sets thanks to what it's already packing actually making it lag behind the other sets where optimizes endgame is concerned. This is already ignoring the lack of debuff resistance, animation time costs that are never actually balanced out, and lag/power delay that all interfere with the highly reactive nature of the powerset as it stands.

[ QUOTE ]
Having said that, it works best with primaries that don't have weapon draw animation (I.e. claws, katana, BS, DB). This is because every time you click on a power in Regen (which you do quite often), you will have to redraw your weapon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interestingly enough, weapon redraw is actually very minor. It's a matter of 1-2 clock intervals added to your power which aren't really going to create a substantive penalty, especially since the nominal sword sets have incredible synergy with */regen thanks to DA and Parry being able to contribute a huge quantities of the damage mitigation that Regen would otherwise never get.

[ QUOTE ]
For now, because the weapon sets are widely considered the best for damage

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the weapon sets are not best for damage and are actually a goodly bit away from the top. Dark Melee and Fire Melee are tops for ST damage, and Spines and Claws are tops for AoE damage. The weapon sets are all average across the board but aren't anywhere near being able to beat the sets I mentioned above at dishing out damage.

[ QUOTE ]
Willpower & Invul are more preferred. For flat-out damage characters, Shield Mastery is a contender due to the damage buff & shield charge. Super Reflexes is still a favorite for AV killing simply because of the ease with which you can soft-cap defense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally, I have yet to see the plethora of Invuln Scrappers that you seem to be seeing and the */WP Scrappers I've seen are doing so for a completely different reason: it's easy to play */WP, plus, it's new. As for top end builds, */SD is probably the favorite right now simply because it gets excellent survivability and adds a significant amount of damage to already high damage sets. */SR was the previous favorite because of softcapping. */Invuln is still lagging a bit behind simply because it only recently got buffed up a bit, making it an excellent contender.

[ QUOTE ]
now, do those just repeat after where they end, Umbral?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, that's why they're attack strings.

*/Regen is lower maintenance at low levels of play than any other secondary that I've seen. You just turn on Integration and pop Recon and Dull Pain on occasion. Instant Healing and MoG are reserved for times when those two powers are down. Not really much too it. It's only slightly more work than playing any other secondary.

At the top tier of play though, */regen starts falling behind. Because you're having to expend animation time to keep yourself alive, you're going to have some issues especially when using the powers in the middle of a fight when you've got attacks eating up that very same animation time. With heavily invested IO builds, */regen is a decent competitor but falls pretty far behind the softcap capable builds simply because of the design of the set and how it handles the additional benefits available to all players (re: regen gets less from both damage mitigation and damage recovery type powers because it doesn't have the damage mitigation in its primary to stack mitigation up with and it's got so much damage recovery that the comparative benefits of getting more are negligible).

[ QUOTE ]
I'll get working on generating some attack strings for those 2 recharge allotments and all of the relevant numbers (DPS) over the next couple of days.

[/ QUOTE ]

And here they be, after roughly 2 hours of setting up charts with activation times, various recharge states, and DPAs (along with the ill-fated first attempt to post this info that the forums ate because I spent too long writing the post >.<), I've got attack strings (but not DPS calcs, it's too late for that) for all of the Blaster sets at the 3 recharge values: SO (66.66%), SO w/ Hasten up (136.66%), and IO build (250%).

All of the attack strings were generated using my soon-to-be-made-into-a-guide attack string generation method. The method has shown, repeatedly, to generate the absolute best attack strings possible or, on a rare occasion, barring that, a very close contender (generally because I was too lazy to go back and redo a calculation). The method itself includes waiting periods (re: they won't be seamless all the time), especially when there are attacks that have large DPA disparities, but they will generate superior DPS.

Archery:
SO - Blazing>Snap>Aimed>Snap>Fistful>Wait(.528 secs)
SO w/ Hasten - Blazing>Snap>Aimed>Snap
IO - Blazing>Snap>Fist>Wait(.396 secs)

Assault Rifle:
SO - Burst>Buck>Slug>Burst>Wait(1.848 secs)
SO w/ Hasten - Burst>Slug>Burst>Buckshot>Wait(.66 secs)
IO - Burst>Slug>Burst>Buckshot

Electrical Blast:
SO - Charged>Lightning>Wait(.66 secs)>Charged>Ball>Wait(1.188 secs)>Charged>Lightning>Wait(.66 secs)>Charged>Wait(2.508 secs)
SO w/ Hasten - Charged>Lightning>Charged>Ball>Wait(.396 secs)
IO - Charged>Lightning>Charged>Ball>Lightning>Charged>W ait(1.188 secs)

Energy Blast:
SO - Burst>Blast>Bolt>Torrent>Wait(1.188 secs)>Bolt
SO w/ Hasten - Burst>Bolt>Blast>Bolt>Wait(.132 secs)
IO - Burst>Blast>Bolt

Fire Blast:
SO - Blaze>Ball>Flares>Blast>Flares>Wait(.66 secs)>Blaze>Flares>Blast>Flares>Ball>Wait(.66 secs)>Blaze>Flares>Blast>Flares>Wait(1.848 secs)
SO w/ Hasten - Blaze>Ball>Blast>Flares>Wait(.132 secs)>Blaze>Blast>Flares>Ball>Wait(.132 secs)>Blaze>Flares>Blast>Flares>Wait(.132 secs)
IO - Blaze>Ball>Flares>Wait(.264 secs)>Blaze>Flares>Blast

Ice Blast:
SO - BIB>Blast>Bolt>BFR>Bolt>Wait(.396 secs)>BIB>Blast>Bolt>Wait(2.508 secs)>Bolt>Wait(.528 secs)
SO w/ Hasten - BIB>Bolt>Blast>Bolt>Wait(.924 secs)
IO - BIB>Bolt>Blast>Wait(.396 secs)

Psychic Blast:
SO - TK>Will>Mental>Dart>Wait(1.716 secs)>TK>Dart>Mental>Wait(.66 secs)>Dart>Wait(1.188 secs)
SO w/ Hasten - TK>Will>Dart>Mental>TK>Dart>Mental>Dart>Wait(.132 secs)
IO - TK>Will>Dart>Wait(.132 secs)>TK>Dart>Mental

Sonic Attack:
SO - Scream>Shout>Shriek>Scream>Shriek>Howl
SO w/ Hasten - Scream>Shout>Scream>Shriek>Howl
IO - Scream>Shout>Scream>Shriek>Shout>Shriek

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, here's my own request in a more formal manner:

[/ QUOTE ]

We're not currently in the suggestions/request phase right now. Please keep discussion restricted to the current build of topic (MA/WP).

[ QUOTE ]
No, I certainly understand the concept. My point was that as a Regen, adding more Defense doesn't help much unless you can get nearly 20% defense or more. Resistence helps a bit, but it's a lot harder to get resistence anywhere outside of Resilience and Tough (Fighting Pool). However, stacking more regeneration is quite effective.

[/ QUOTE ]

The issue is then whether you should apply the SO build logic that you're using (not many sources of +def) to what is most likely going to be an IO build situation? Personally, I don't see the point. Getting an extra 4 hp/sec whenever you're already packing 50 hp/sec isn't really all that awesome, and it's not really all that effective. Health isn't really all that great for a regen because it's already got ludicrous amounts of damage recovery available to it. You're better off abandoning it for more sources of damage mitigation.

[ QUOTE ]
Back to the main point, I wouldn't skip Health. In addition to the Regen bonus it gives, you can also add the Regenerative Tissue, Numina, and Miracle uniques in it. Slotting Fast Healing for regen is a more effective than slotting Health for regen because it has a higher base regen bonus. And if you get Health, you might as well get Stamina.

[/ QUOTE ]

The only situation in which you would take Health as a proc mule is if you were purposefully 6 slotting Fast Healing. By taking Health, you're only getting 1 "free" slot. The slots you're adding to Health could just as easily (and for greater benefit) be given to Fast Healing, especially since the +regen of the Regen Tissue and Numina procs is increased by the +heal enhancement in the power itself. You're better off consolidating all of the procs into a single power than splitting them between two and, since Fast Healing sees more benefit than Health from +heal slotting and it only takes 2-3 IOs to bring any specific enhancement value to the ED redzone, it would behoove you to slot all of them into Fast Healing along with the full enhancement. The only IO that doesn't have a good reason for specifically being placed into Fast Healing rather than Health is the Miracle proc simply because the value will be static no matter what. At this point you then have to ask yourself whether 2 power choices (to get Health) are worth the same as a single slot in Fast Healing.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Gives about 204 DPS (but it is all smashing, and unlike other sets can't get -RES procs).

[/ QUOTE ]

You sure about that 204DPS? Because I did the DPS and only got 142.56DPS, but that was without the Gaussian Proc and I don't think the proc will add that much DPS because it is not always on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually no. I'm not sure. I took the damage it gave me in MiDs for each attack...added them up...the divided it by the duration of the attack chain.

I could of easily done it all wrong.

And if I did do it wrong, please, let me know how to do it, so I can do it right

[/ QUOTE ]

You're calculating DPS with Tactics turned on. Because it's got the Gaussian proc in it, it assumes that you're checking for damage while the Gaussian proc is active (that's just how Mids does it). You're calculating damage with 100% +dam that should really be considered 2.625% +dam (100% +dam with 5.25 sec duration, 5% chance every 10 seconds).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You could replace the defense IO in Weave with a +3 Enzyme. Actually, I'd do that anyway since it's better defense, not worse.

[/ QUOTE ]

Werner, I just wanted to touch on this point real quick. I'm pretty sure mids does not display the Enzyme correctly. The defense on it if for defense debuffs, not defense buffs. Check it out and let me know if I'm correct or if I have been missing out on some awesomeness all this time

[/ QUOTE ]

Defense debuffs and defense buffs are actually enhanced through the exact same mechanism, so putting a def debuff enhancement into a def buff power will actually enhance the def buff in the same manner as putting a def buff enhancement in. Think of it as being similar to End Mod: the same attribute is used to increase both reducing a target's endurance and increasing your own. End Mod was simply combined into the same enhancement value whereas defense buff/debuff was simply left alone, most likely for simplicity's sake.

[ QUOTE ]
Notice that the buffs that Invuln got were resistance to debuffs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the more substantive buff was to Unyielding which had the -def removed. The debuff resistance was added to make the historically unpopular passive resistance powers more popular, but the big increase to survivability was the removal of the 5% -def (3.75% for tanks and brutes) that had to be counteracted by taking Tough Hide (which logically should have been a straight buff rather than a simple counter).

[ QUOTE ]
You might have Set Bonuses putting the numbers off scale or something.

[/ QUOTE ]

The number is actually spot on for a level 10 tank.

[ QUOTE ]
Edit: Oh, and does anyone know what kind of attack chain I'll be able to run with this build?

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks to the low levels of recharge present, you're going to be using Smite&gt;SP&gt;MG&gt;Smite&gt;SP&gt;Siphon.

[ QUOTE ]
Nah, I knew it wasn't a typo. But the ".03" part just struck me as such odd number to settle on that it could very well be accused of being a typo.

So the kb mag is gonna scale even higher for the level 10 tanker i picked the power for as he levels up?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. The reason it does this is because of the Melee Knockback scalars. The basic knockback mag of the power is .75. The level 10 tanker Melee Knockback modifier is 1.372. Multiply them together and you get 1.029 (rounded up to 1.03). At level 50, Tankers have a Melee Knockback of 2.596, so you'd get 1.947 mag knockback with it at that point.

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks Umby

[/ QUOTE ]

Quit calling me Umby... I'm a number cruncher, not green anthropomorph >.<

[ QUOTE ]
What I want to do is this:

Somehow make a chain using BASE NUMBERS

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would you ever make a chain using base numbers? That's nigh upon idiotic. The only time you're using only the base numbers is if you're not using enhancements and, even then, that's not an attack chain. That's barely more than a priority list. The game is balanced under SO assumptions. Acting like base numbers should actually be counted (especially since a fair numbers of the fundamental attacks are only available after SOs have been available for a few levels) is utterly pointless unless you want to show that some blasts are better for the pre-SO levels than others.

[ QUOTE ]
Then a second chain using your standard SO slotting (3dam, 1end, 2rech(we will skip Acc...))

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why I suggested 60% +recharge. 65% might be equally appropriate, but I don't really think it's going to alter much.

[ QUOTE ]
Then we will compare them at IO level. essentially near 3-2 SO lvl of each of the previous stats, plus rech bonus.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why I suggested 225% +recharge.

[ QUOTE ]
Should we include hasten in all of these, or no?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hasten shouldn't be figured in for the basic SO assumptions (60%), in my opinion, but, if we did, it should be separated from it (SO with Hasten up and SO with Hasten down). Attack chains shouldn't ever use averaged +recharge contribution because the recharges are nowhere near long enough. Hasten should be figured in for the IO optimized (225%) simply because it's the only real way to get that much recharge outside of external buffing.

I'll get working on generating some attack strings for those 2 recharge allotments and all of the relevant numbers (DPS) over the next couple of days.

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe respec out of your Fitness pool then spec it in with Numina +Reg/Rec? =/

[/ QUOTE ]

This. Personally, I think that, since you're already packing Quick Recovery, it would behoove you to start thinking outside of the bounds of the Fitness pool. You'd be amazed at what else an IO build is capable of doing with another power pool choice, especially if you're packing a blue bar friendly secondary like */regen (which is about as blue bar friendly as you can get considering the clickies are pretty end light and the only toggle is .26 end/sec Integration).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I would like to see a dark meele/shield defense scrapper that has enough AE capability to be a reasonably good farmer. Soft capped defense and sustainable endurance. No limits on any IOs, build me a dream build

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think dm has enough AoE to be able to farm quickly.

[/ QUOTE ]

You haven't seen my DM/Regen farm the Cimeroran Wall then, have you? I routinely take out Cimeroran Spawns several times faster than AoE centric Brutes and Scrappers because Shadow Maul is absolutely *awesome* (it may only hit 5 targets, but it will come back up more than twice as fast). Mg+Smite to get them to group up around me. Throw down with Soul Drain. Bounce back to get a 5 person Shadow Maul (which will get me 5 kills thanks to Soul Drain). Siphon+Smite+MG (kills 2-3 more targets) and then another 5 man Shadow Maul (for another 5 kills).

With Shield Charge and AAO, I'm more than confident that, with a decent player, DM/Shield could farm crazy fast.

Moving on to more important things, considering that every is suggesting and there has been no voting, I'mma just go ahead and decide that we're going to work on BrandX's MA/WP build with the following requirements:

A AV soloing sustainable attack chain that uses Eagle's Claw.
Softcapped SLEN Defenses
Enough END to sustain attack chain/toggles
Unlimited Budget and any IO sets OK.
Near cap (but doesn't have to be capped) HP.
Flight

Nihilii's build should work as an excellent jumping off point, but let's see if we can actually meet all of those requirements.

[ QUOTE ]
Doesn't that proc still knock back instead of knock down? or has that been fixed, whild I was gone? =o

[/ QUOTE ]

.67 mag Knockback is knockdown. Knockdown isn't actually a status effect of its own. It's simply Knockback with a mag below .75.

[ QUOTE ]
Would anyone be willing to help me with this project? I think I did ok up until the Chaining for comparing the basics of the set (St at least)

[/ QUOTE ]

I can help design some primary-only attack strings if you give me some recharge assumptions. It's probably best to do it with a couple different recharge assumptions like 60% (SOs only) and 225% (IO build).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Only 5 of the Kinetic Crashes should work.

[/ QUOTE ]

He' referring to a single instance of 6 slotting Kinetic Crash into a power for the 7.5% +rech set bonus.

As previously stated, the set bonuses are completely different than any of the "set bonus IOs". As long as the benefit is itself a different name, you can stack 5 of each of them. If you really wanted to, you could get 5 BotZ +KB prot, 5 Steadfast Prot +KB prot, 5 Karma +KB prot, and 5 Kinetic Crash 4 piece set bonuses and they would all stack because they're actually different "powers" as the game sees them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought it was 5 of the same percentage on the aspect, not the same enhancement set? Since they both have a +7.5% recharge increase only 5 total would work. Name of the enhancement I don't think plays into it. If you slot 6 purple sets that each have a +10% recharge you only get 5 of the +10%s.

If the OP is getting 10 +7.5 recharge increases from this build, I think its because the +7.5 from the Luck of the Gambler is considered a global effect from an enhancement while the +7.5 from the Kinetic crashes are a set bonus from slotting multiples of one set in a power. I think they have a different counter on them.

Also note that they CAN slot the 6th set of kinetic crash but they just won't get the set bonuses from it. The rest of the enhancement will work. Nothing stops them from doing it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is precisely what I'm saying. The set bonus has a different name than the global bonuses, each of which have a different name than each other. So you can have 5 of the set bonuses and 5 of each of the global bonuses. The horrible overkill of IOs that I mentioned, only the Kinetic Crash 4 piece set bonus is actually a set bonus, which means that it would stack with all of the global bonuses. The 5 BotZ KB IOs will stack with the 5 Karma KB IOs and so forth because, as the game sees them, they're not the same "power" as it affects players. It's a difference in the same that makes them stack because all of the set bonuses of the same number have the same name (which you'll see as "Large Recharge Bonus" or whatever). The global bonuses you'll actually see the name of the IO itself in there ("Luck of the Gambler Recharge Bonus") which means they only thing that interferes with their stacking is other identical IOs.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I say all or nothing.

If we could conduct our business from anywhere using a phone, like modern people, then sure.

What you suggests wouldn't be useful to me at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, you can call a pawn shop, tell them what you want to sell, get a quote, and cram the item through the phone and have it come out at the store?

I want your phone.

[/ QUOTE ]

He's got one of the new smart phones that Apple is developing. The working name for it is the ICram.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've got more than a few.

So, rather than actually looking at the disparity between the varying sets and how the various attacks operating withing the confines of the sets, you instead chose to rank the first through third tiers of the powers completely discounting the varying disparities between ranks? You're completely ignoring actual differences in attack chain application simply because you want to have some vague and largely useless analysis.

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you mean by this? All I did was take the sets, and rank them based on the basic attributes. that is what they'd look like before making chains.

[/ QUOTE ]

With a system wherein various ratings are assigned based on rank rather than actual capability, you lose a vast quantity of accuracy. Ranks only operate as a decent metric of performance if the difference in rank is actually demonstrative of capability. If Fire did twice as much single target damage as Energy, it would make sense to give Fire a rank of 8 and Energy a rank of 4. If Elec then dealt 25% more damage than Energy, it would make sense to give it a rank of 5. However, with a ranking system, if Elec did even 5% more than Energy, it would recieve the ranking of 5 simply because it was better.

Assigning a rank within an artificial construct and then using the arbitrarily assigned rank as a method for determining actual capacity is a horribly flawed system since it completely disregards the comparative differences between the powers.

[ QUOTE ]
Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've got more than a few.

So, rather than actually looking at the disparity between the varying sets and how the various attacks operating withing the confines of the sets, you instead chose to rank the first through third tiers of the powers completely discounting the varying disparities between ranks? You're completely ignoring actual differences in attack chain application simply because you want to have some vague and largely useless analysis.

You'd be better off if, rather than trying to rate the powers based on arbitrary rank, you actually did some attack chain calculations and determined real theoretical values for the various attack chains like in this thread or this on the Scrapper forums.

[ QUOTE ]
Just a note, Elec blast is actually above the norm with blasters as far as ST goes:

Voltaic Sentinel, Charged Bolts and Lightning bolt together do impressive DPE and DPS, rivaling achery's ST.

Its just underperforming in AoE and in that it's effect (end drain) is poorly designed...I mean, why make it a binary effect, when the big power we have for it (Short Circuit) doesnt even do it fully?

[/ QUOTE ]

The point is that Archery is actually rather anemic at ST damage. Archery isn't anywhere near impressive at single target damage. The fact that you're comparing Elec's ST damage to Archery's in a favorable light while simultaneously mentioning that it's got none of the substantial AoE capabilities that Archery is packing is demonstrative of how the arguments for Elec underperforming.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm confusing myself here. How do the softcaps on defense and resists work? I'm playing a WP Brute, and I think someone said the softcap for defense if 45%...is that per power or per toon?

If I raise a certain power up past 45%, the rest is just a waste of slots basically?

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, I think you're confusing enhancement diversification softcap (re: the point where it's pretty much pointless to enhance an attribute more) and the defense softcap (the resistance cap is actually a hard cap).

When enhancing, when people refer to the softcap, they generally refer to what I call the redzone. It's the point where enhancement diversification reduces the effect of any further enhancement of that attribute to virtually nothing (re: ~5% of what it would have been otherwise). Defense, resistance and a few other attribute types receive less from the individual enhancements but also reach the point wherein ED starts hurting their enhancements proportionately earlier. There's an excellent workup here that explains everything rather well.

As for the defense softcap, it's all about this: the magical chance to hit calculation. The defense softcap is the point at which you've achieved enough defense that any attack by a target that isn't more than 5 levels above you will have their chance to hit taken to the absolute minimum. This is a softcap because, while it's actually possible to get more defense, more defense is not going to have any practical effect aside from providing a buffer for enemies with tohit buffs and defense debuffs. Resistance isn't a softcap because it's actually a solid limiter on how much resistance you can pack, not just how much of it will be effective. The important number to remember where the defense softcap is concerned is 45%. Get 45% defense and any attack that uses that tag (whether it be positional or type based) will be absolutely minimized as long as it's an enemy you stand a logical chance of actually defeating that doesn't have any tohit buffs. It may not always reduce the chance to hit to 5%, but that's not always the minimum thanks to how chance to hit is calculated.

[ QUOTE ]
DM/WP is a beast.
If I were to skip either Dark Consumption or Stamina, I would skip Dark Consumption.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dark Consumption is actually a good deal better over time than Stamina is and has the added benefit of not requiring 2 other powers and taking up one of your power pool picks. The only decent reason to take Stamina over it is because you're unwilling to sacrifice the animation time for a Smite every 75 seconds, which makes even less sense if you actually use it to mitigate some of the AoE woes that most DMs find themselves in. Personally, I find that DM is great simply because it allows you to bypass Stamina altogether, especially when combined with Quick Recovery. When I've actually got the option to go without Stamina and still have decent attacks (re: not having to slot for gobs of end redux), I take it and Dark Consumption (as well as Consume) do so incredibly well.