_Lith_

Originally Posted by Dahjee

I'm not hated and followed and -Rep'ed with three letter bits like OOO and --- and *** because my advice is bad... jeez. I don't give that much advice. Hell, and most the points I make are agreed with. I should just be ignored, right? No, the hate comes from something else Max... you know it... I know it... the 600+ people who read but not post in the threads I'm in probably know it.

Explaining how the game works sometimes invloves telling someone how to make something work.... only thing done here for new folks is telling them what will and won't work. New players aren't the same as dumb players...

Either the 5 people and their lil followers make the assumption that most new PvPers are tools or they lack the experince to tell someone how to make something work. Or I'm just wrong again... and it's best for PvP to claim things simply as good or bad... and tell people they can't roll this and can only roll that. Just doesn't seem smart to me is all. Robotic.

Originally Posted by Lemur Lad

There's quite a few here actually. We've been told that the PPD and the Resistance stuff will almost certainly be available to players. Not to mention a couple tidbits you can see on the DP characters in those shots.

Originally Posted by terror1

inb4 fire-mindeds axe

Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master

im fairly sure the drop rate is 1/100 chance per rep valid kill, and once you get a drop you are ineligible for another drop for 10 min

Originally Posted by Zeh_Masteh

I was generally thinking about speed, so I wasn't too worried about what was being farmed. I assumed that the farming pair would have already figured out what they'd be best at fighting and would fight exactly that.

Since Bosses, LTs, and minions are supposedly scaled in risk vs. reward, I figured the best measure would be inf/min, since different maps sizes and mob types would effect any other measure.

...DaveMeb's choice seems pretty logical: my guess would have been something like a earth/emp controller coupled with a arch/fire blaster. AB + RoF = death

Originally Posted by dahjee

hahahahahahaha!

You robot. That was a great lol.

Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona

"Dead weight" is an exaggeration, because the FS and buffs are contributing. Now, you can certainly make a case that it's contributing less than half the buffs + defender damage would be, but that's not cut and dried. A kinetics/dark miasma Double-Buff on a team packed with non-buffers (say, seven scrappers and a Double-Buff) will most likely add more team damage with Fulcrum Shift + Tar Patch than he would by hitting Fulcrum Shift and then starting to plink away with his blasts. On a team with plenty of buffers, the blasts would be better - but that's just what I said before, that you'll face diminishing returns faster with double-buffs than defenders.

Basic math follows. Don't keep reading if you're scared of math.

People like calling buffers force multipliers. Let's take a moment to think about the term "force multiplier" and what it means. We have two basic elements to the team here for this purpose, which I will call "buff" (including debuffs, as they function as buffs taken via another direction for this purpose) and "substrate" (the thing being buffed, in this case offense). Let us say that, for example, scrappers provide two substrate while defenders provide one and Double-Buffs provide none (as a scrapper has more to buff with a higher cap than a defender, who in turn has more to buff than a Double-Buff). Likewise, scrappers provide no buff, defenders provide one buff, and Double-Buffs provide two buff.

In this case, we multiply the amount of buff by the amount of substrate to get a relative sense of how much improvement the group has over the sum of its parts. For example:

Eight scrappers: 16 substrate x 0 buff, total 0. There is no synergistic improvement, and the killing goes about as fast with eight scrappers working together as it would with eight scrappers working separately. (Of course, given that scrappers kill things fast solo, eight scrappers separately can be pretty nasty anyway.)

Eight Double-Buffs: 0 substrate x 16 buff, total 0. Everyone is multiplying each other, but there's nothing to multiply. They're hitting with the most amazing Brawls conceivable, but... it's still Brawl. There is no noticeable synergistic improvement.

Eight defenders: 8 substrate x 8 buff, total 64. If you've seen eight-defender teams in action, you will appreciate the massive synergistic improvement that goes on there. Their individually weak substrate becomes a wrecking ball.

So far so good and it matches up largely to real-play experience. (Worth noting is that it's not perfectly accurate: scrappers do provide a small fractional buff value from secondary effects, RttC/AAO debuff, and so on, while double-buffs would provide a small fractional substrate from Brawl and Air Superiority. This does not significantly affect the demonstration of principle.) However, when we are talking about a few defenders or buffers on a team of scrappers, we see something else:

Six scrappers, two defenders: 14 substrate x 2 buff, total 28.
Six scrappers, two double-buffs: 12 substrate x 4 buff, total 48.

This is why I predicted that double-buffs would be very powerful in groups with small numbers of buffers but reach diminishing returns much more quickly than defenders would. When we are talking about multiplication (and buff/debuffs are, in a fairly literal sense, force multipliers), the way to get the highest possible result from a given quantity of input is to equalize the inputs as much as possible. For a group already skewed towards substrate, this means that the highest effect comes from adding characters heavily skewed towards buffs. Because there is no set currently as heavily skewed towards buff as scrappers and blasters are skewed towards substrate, the Double-Buff would be an improvement in such situations but the advantage becomes less dramatic as the number of buff sources increases.

One other exception worth mentioning: due to buff/debuff caps, you will inevitably hit a point of diminishing returns. One force-fielder is a huge boon to team survivability compared to none; three is not much of a step up compared to two. The previous numbers presume full "stackability" which is not guaranteed in the case of groups with multiple buff/debuffers of the same type. Redundancy is likely to increase in the case of double-buffers, since there is a limited variety of buff/debuff sets available and this would increase the number of buff/debuff picks present on a given team.

Originally Posted by BubblegumBomb

See what I'm up against when trying to find build advice?

Im not sure being a blaster and being 'on the ground' is a great idea, and slotting for Defense in CJ & SJ? I thought Defense was crap now in PvP?

Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona

Right, that jerk casting Fulcrum Shift ought to be using his Power Bolt instead and contributing some real damage.

One or two buff/buff characters in a group would be pretty powerful, but they would hit diminishing returns much faster than defenders do. Double-buffers don't themselves provide a substrate for being buffed (which is what I think people may be trying to get at with the misleading "dead weight" argument) so they enhance everyone else in a superior fashion but don't enhance each other, meaning that their value drops off dramatically with the number of other double-buffers on a team in a way that defenders don't. This makes it more complicated than "useless solo, overpowered on teams".

I would be amused by seeing a kinetics/dark miasma try to brawl to victory, though.

Originally Posted by Ice_Storm

Hey,
So I'm just now getting into mids and as a result I'm also getting into the invention system. My question is, is there a way to see what the recharge of my powers will be with the recharge bonus from IO sets factored in? thanks

Also, this is unrelated but I don't feel like making another topic, how do you guys typically keep a good constant flow of cash coming in? Lately I've been doing ouroboros arcs for the merits and then cashing them in for rare salvage and selling it. This hasn't been too bad. What do you do?

-Ice_Storm

Originally Posted by TrueDarkLord

no...ice/psi is still a very viable pvp toon...yea sure it got hurt, but the reason it's great is because it stacks great amounts of -recharge while being able to stop regen/recovery and do slightly above average damage that becomes pretty good if u can afford those xpensive procs...ice/psi is still a very viable pvp toon

Originally Posted by Goshnova

You do realize that DPE and DPA of all the attacks listed is up there right?

Originally Posted by macskull

They only Hibernated twice I think and the second time Rice was smart about it and got out fast (and wasn't right in the middle of us when he hit it).

I chuckled a good bit on Vent the first time, because not having seen a Storm team in action in a loooooong time...

Originally Posted by Fiery-Enforcer

You can drop all of the bosses in a group before LT's? You're amazing.

Originally Posted by Lord_Xad

ok thats wonderful advice you griefers have given me...maybe I should have been more specific......

Post a build for me from mids so I can take the best powers & slot correctly to kill those ******* regens w/o having to be a total dick.

Originally Posted by Da_Captain

Yeah that is why I had to change what I said, considering all sets and what people that know how to use IOs do with them, it would probably well with the rest.

They would probably replace Caltrops with a Quickness clone and call it Ninja Training

Originally Posted by Dahjee

My Yugo kilt a regen once.

Originally Posted by Fire_Minded

Not as well as a Mace or Axe melee based SD/ Tanker.

Sure, it can do the job, just not as well.

Originally Posted by black_barrier

i just wanted to take a moment and state that if mod8 hadn't taken my stones and decided to keep them in a jar in his office, i'd be making fun of dahjee right about now.

Originally Posted by Fire_Minded

Ok, I say stupid stuff alot, but these 2 sugjestions take the cake.

I have a high level Dark/Dark Defender, and half the time I dont even bother using anything past tar patch while my Blast set floors the mobs -toHit.By telling you this, I can easly tell you that using just Dark Miasma and the Fluffy is MORE THEN ENOUGH to have extreem survivability on a Dark/DP build because Dark/ offers way more -toHit debuffs then the Dark Blasts I use.

Not to mention the Fluffy alone Tanks and auto heals, AND drops the mobs ToHit even more.Your safe without taking Pool powers.

Taking Air Superiority and Acrobatics is the stupidest thing iv ever heard of when it comes to Dark Miasma.

It irritates me that people like you give such horrible advice.