Arcanaville

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

What am I missing?

[/ QUOTE ]

You're missing the same thing everyone else is missing: a costume option for male bare legs. It doesn't exist.

[/ QUOTE ]

The bare legs option for Male and Huge body types has been added to an internal build. It will be coming down the QA path and to a server near you soon.

[/ QUOTE ]


Just make sure the animators check those male sit emotes carefully. We wouldn't want any, err, accidents.

[ QUOTE ]

And lastly, if I have a controller on the group, RI on the FF Gen will allow the controller to reliably Hold the gen, which I believe stops the bubbles, but I haven't tested that.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm reasonably certain thats not the case. I believe you have to destroy them, because as Kali said, its not a toggle. At least, it was true back when my Ill/rad actually faced sky raiders.


My Ill/rad didn't use generators for anchors for precisely that reason (they were always the first to go). I have never seen a rad deliberately lock toggles consistently onto FF generators that didn't also do significantly crazier things, except in the old days when they used to buff each other into untouchability.


Off topic true story: one of my earliest w-t-f moments in CoH came at around level 18 when I saw a level 25 FF generator left behind from an ambush. I stared at it, flew around it, and fired at it *a lot* before deciding it was part of the environment, because I couldn't hit it.

Later that day I saw something called "Tree of Life" hanging around, and assumed the devs of this game were just whacked.

[ QUOTE ]

I'd be willing to argue my perspective is much broader than yours. Rather than bemoaning what I can't do and acting like everyone else can do what I can...I recognize what I can do that others can't. I've played the other sets. I've teamed with the other sets. If you want to feel worthless in a fight, go fight a Monster with FF. Unless you can find a corner to FB him into...you are going to annoy others if you push it into other mobs or out of location AoE's.


[/ QUOTE ]

A good FF, someone with skill comparable to that necessary to get trick arrow out of the gate without tripping, doesn't need a corner.

[ QUOTE ]
shouldn't be a problem with any computer available since the mid 90's

[/ QUOTE ]


Would be nice to have something to cross-check mine on.

[ QUOTE ]
This problem strikes me as something solved more easily by iteration than analytically.

Model a set of defenses, resists, regeneration.

Set a series of damage types and magnitudes occurring at fixed intervals, with fixed to-hits. For argument's sake, even 10 actors would be reasonably easy to arrange.

run it through a loop 1000 times

Output a text file of the lifespans.

Yes this is brute force, but it could be relatively flexible.

For starters, just one damage type, one resistance type and one fixed regen rate could all be done in an excel macro.

If I get really possessed, I'll take a stab at it this weekend,

If you have any suggestions or pointers please, please throw them out here before then.

[/ QUOTE ]


It takes closer to about 5000 interations before it converges to the average normally.

[ QUOTE ]

I have been using 1D random-walk theory, but in the world where there are only two possible outcomes (hit or miss), Markov chains, binomials, and random-walks all work out to be the same thing so it ends up not mattering which notation you use.


[/ QUOTE ]

In our case, random walks and markov chains are functionally the same thing, except markov chains give you a direct method to resolve the random walk, something looking at random walks statistically won't give you quite the same handle on. Binomials make sense if you are attempting to determine one discrete event, but the conclusions you draw might fall apart unless you resort to some possibly model-breaking simplifications.

[ QUOTE ]

The trick I am using to vastly simplify the caculations is to approximate the damage distribution as a gaussian. That way all I need to keep track of is an average damage and a standard deviation. The method may be a tad mathematical for these forums, but if you can handle a square root, you can use the results.


[/ QUOTE ]

Like those. You'll lose the effects of discrete damage on lifetime, which are the opposite extreme to compounded probability distributions. Its not a large counterbalance, but in effect you'll be removing the only term in the model that has a chance of counterbalancing the effect you're trying to measure, which is not so good.

If you aren't quite getting what I'm trying to say, I'll give you a quick pointer to the issue: lets look at the point near the end of life of a defense-protected player and a resistance protected player. At some point, health for the defense player will drop to the point where one more shot will kill her. The probability of a kill at that point cannot be averaged: the probability of a kill is constant regardless of whether the remaining health is 90% of the damage of one shot, or 5% of the damage of one shot, or anything in between. This skews the lifetime percentages by a small but not insignificant factor.

Healing/regeneration complicate things even further, but the basic principle is there: averaging that effect out disadvantages defense.


Put it in ultra-extreme terms: suppose something existed that did 200,000 points of damage with 75% accuracy, say. Damage averaging would nullify the inherent advantage defense would have verses resistance in such an extreme situation. At more reasonable damage levels, that advantage gets increasingly smaller, but doesn't disappear. Averaging presumes the contribution is exactly zero.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For the defense case, I have to be hit 10 (or more) out of 20 times. The chance of that happening is around 1 in 100, which is an astounding 10,000 times more likely than the resistance case.

So, if you the question you are asking is "what is the average damage taken?" 25% defense is the same as 50% resistance. However, if the question you ask is "how likely am I to die?" then 25% defense is no where near as good as 50% resistance.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're going to drag us all through binomial theory aren't you.

truly thou art evil!

[/ QUOTE ]

Average lifetime analysis is a Markov Chain analysis, not so much binomial theory. Last time I said that, someone actually did it. I'm pseudo-lazy: I didn't want to calculate it, but I was willing to write a simulator to model it.

[/ QUOTE ]
Over on the Tanker forum, da5id has been working on a Markov Chain Time to Live model for the game - when not preparing for his Physics dissertation defense of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

He would be the one.

[ QUOTE ]

Yes, there is exactly no way to keep the debuff from stacking, whether you dismiss the pet or not.


[/ QUOTE ]

True, but we are talking about glue arrow here, so unlike something that debuffs defense, say, we have an extra out: we can make the debuff last a very short time, and have the patch continuously pulse it back on. If the patch was debuffing something like accuracy, you'd have to be worried that either there would be a tiny overlap, and occasionally the critters would have a double accuracy penalty, or there would be an occasional gap, and the critters would get a momentary free shot. But because we're talking about a slow, there's no serious problem with having pulsed debuffs momentarily overlap, because a fraction of a second of double-strength slow doesn't suffer from the same problems (the overall slowing would be a tiny bit stronger than a continuous debuff is the only side effect).

Recasting glue arrow like the spectral terror would mean if you cast it again, at best you could get a one-time better overlap of a single pulse, which isn't very problematic. In fact, the spectral terror itself is more problematic.


The difference here would be that critters could run out of the patch, and suddenly free themselves from the slow. But balanced against that would be the flexibility to give trick archers the ability to reposition and reapply the patch at a faster rate, differentiating it in several ways from things like tar patch and lingering radiation. It would actually become a closer cousin to caltrops, minus the damage.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My general complaint isn't that Trick Arrow can't defend a team.

[/ QUOTE ] This is isn't true either. My TA provides more debuffs, on average than my Rad. My TA provides more debuffs, on average, than other Rads I've teamed with. We kill stuff faster than FF, we have more utility than Sonic, we offer far more debuffing than Kinetics with a few exceptions, and the set is less potentially detrimental than Storm.

TA can defender a team very well. Not like Dark...and it's not as diverse as Rad, but it can defend a team. You just have to get out of the teens and have a general clue.

[/ QUOTE ]


You're teaming with bad rads. Which is not necessarily suprising: most rads don't get anything remotely close to maximum benefit out of rad - they don't even get remotely close to the average benefit I get while talking on the phone. If you are getting higher debuff benefit out of TA than rad, that speaks more towards your skill with TA and rad than the balance between the sets.

There are a lot of good rads as well, but unlike trick arrow, the set allows for bad rads: bad rads are semi-decent, bad trick archers are worthless.

[ QUOTE ]

I think you're oversimplifying the problem. My understanding is that Location AoE's are pets. You can't stop pets from stacking. Glue Arrow is a pet. If you allow us to overlap lay it down twice, then it will apply twice and I don't think think the game has as simple way to prevent it...unless it kills the other Glue Arrow.


[/ QUOTE ]

Which is exactly how they moderate the spectral terror; it would have probably been trivially easy to perform similar manipulations if they kept TA debuffs Location AoEs.


[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Following that, ED was introduced, causing the TA defender to spend inordinate amounts of time without the benefit of his debuffs.


[/ QUOTE ]

Once you get into the higher levels, this isn't true.


[/ QUOTE ]

Even at higher level there are problems. While the limiting factor might no longer be debuff availability there are other factors that create problems, especially endurance costs, and dps/activation time concerns. I'm finding that even with SOs, and even with hasten, sometimes there is a devil's choice of burning time applying debuffs to gain their benefit, or using offense. This choice is not just the same choice everyone else has, because the high activation costs of archery in general make it a qualitatively different choice.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After PvPing with TA, I really like that they chaged PGA to a targeted AoE

[/ QUOTE ]Very good point. When I first read Castle's post, I had Arcana's reaction. Then I realized that sometimes it's hard to find a spot to locate it...like if the target is flying, or in situations where mobs at are various levels. I've seen DA get stuck on some wall or ledge and not affect anyone. That's why I'd like the power to be able to do both...including the use of friendly's for a drop point. Of course I'm probably asking for something the tech can't support.

[/ QUOTE ]

Although its not as easy as a targetted AoE, you can hit things like flying targets with a location AoE. I can hit fliers with disruption arrow all the time: the foe itself is a valid target for the AoE. I don't remember explicitly trying it, but I believe you can target a friendly for DA. The trick is to keybind it: I use a "control+lbutton powexec_name disruption arrow" for the bind; if I control+left click on a villain, DA goes right to him.

Actually clicking on a flying (or superspeeding) PvP target might not be easy, of course, relative to just tabbing to him and letting the arrow fly. If they wanted to allow us to easily target foes with location AoEs, they could: they could add a "fire" macro or command that would launch the currently activated location AoE at the currently selected target. So something like "8" then "F" would activate disruption arrow, and then fire it at the currently selected target, if any, without having to mouse click (I don't believe there is any such command now, although I've been wrong on what keybinds can do in the past).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I assume you mean TA originally had four Location AoEs; flash, glue, and PGA are targetted AoEs now.



[/ QUOTE ] I think what he means is that you target where the AoE lands as opposed to a normal aoe in which you target a victim.

Flash, PGA are normal AoE's...you target an individual and anyone in a radius gets hit.

Glue is a Location AoE...like Nemesis Sniper fire...your target an individual and that spot continues to have the effect.

Oil and DA are are still Targeted AoE's...you target the location for the AoE.

That's how I interpret his post.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's how I interpreted his post as well, knowing what he was referring to. Its just that the in-game terminology appears to be used differently: attacks described as targetted AoEs target foes, Location AoEs target a spot (and some are just called "AoEs" which appear to generally be targetted) and generally apply a patch of some kind.

[ QUOTE ]
Story in a nutshell:
Trick Arrow used to have 4 Targeted AoE powers. That made using the set incredibly difficult (although, it was pretty cool.) During the test period, we decided to change 2 powers to standard AoE attacks. Poison Gas Arrow was one of them.

Originally, Poison Gas Arrow would leave a large pool of gas that lasted almost a minute. Any critter entering the gas cloud would be debuffed and a small chance of being put to sleep every quarter of a second. When we changed it to a normal AoE, though, the chance to sleep was left at it's original level. While that was fine for a power activating 4 times a second, for a one shot chance, it was patheticly (sp?) low.

So, I increased the sleep chance to a 'better' value. It's still not 100% of the time, but you should get between 50% and 66% of minions when it lands.

[/ QUOTE ]


I assume you mean TA originally had four Location AoEs; flash, glue, and PGA are targetted AoEs now.

That explains a lot, actually. But I'd prefer the original Location AoE version: a sleep cloud is a bit more interesting, because it synergizes with glue arrow: the slow can keep them in the cloud longer, which means even if awakened, there's still a chance to resleep.

The set is already difficult: trick arrow already has either constant weapon redraws, or the long activation times of archery (which is a potentially worse penalty), and the archery delay already makes arrows sometimes go to targets after they've moved from the spot we wanted to target.

I'd go so far as to say that while Location AoE's require a different skill set, it would actually be easier for me to get maximum effectiveness out of TA if all my debuffs were location AoEs, since given the activation times of the arrow shots, its more likely I can place the arrow exactly where I want with a location AoE than a targetted AoE (targets move, and targets sometimes die and reset queued shots before they can activate, so queueing shots is unreliable anyway), and I can also partially defer TA activation times by dropping location patches and having groups pull into them (or I could pull into them myself when solo).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For the defense case, I have to be hit 10 (or more) out of 20 times. The chance of that happening is around 1 in 100, which is an astounding 10,000 times more likely than the resistance case.

So, if you the question you are asking is "what is the average damage taken?" 25% defense is the same as 50% resistance. However, if the question you ask is "how likely am I to die?" then 25% defense is no where near as good as 50% resistance.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're going to drag us all through binomial theory aren't you.

truly thou art evil!

[/ QUOTE ]

Average lifetime analysis is a Markov Chain analysis, not so much binomial theory. Last time I said that, someone actually did it. I'm pseudo-lazy: I didn't want to calculate it, but I was willing to write a simulator to model it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not convinced that the average to hit really is 50. I think it's probably higher,

I think because of that 1 def probably = 1.6-1.7 res or something similar

I think that even so, the def values for EA might start to look very good after I7...

[/ QUOTE ]

you're right. right now, the tohit for minions is 50, Lieuts is about 60, Bosses about 66.

however the defense change puts them all at 50tohit and instead gives them acc bonuses.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even with minions, and not regarding LTs or bosses, I think weapon sets and to hit bonuses are fairly prevalent. Consider if every drawn weapon set has +5%, and that's just to start.

I think the average minion to hit is a fair way from 50 if this is considered. I'm going to guess the average is at least 55, probably more.

That said, this obviously depends on what you're fighting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Many things have accuracy bonuses, but so long as they are accuracy bonuses and not to-hit bonuses, it doesn't affect the balance between defense and resistance.

[ QUOTE ]
So when they fix the def versus higher conned mobs in I7, Def still has to worry about an abundent supply of mobs with +ACC from weapons. Does this skew the old 1 def = 2 res formula still?


[/ QUOTE ]

No.


[ QUOTE ]

From what I understand that only works when most mobs have a 50% chance to hit.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, which in this case they do.


A couple of things:


The I7 Defense Scaler - which is really a ToHit Scaler (it doesn't alter how defense works at all) - wasn't put in specifically to honor the 1 Def = 2 Res rule per se. The problem was that no rule balanced defense and resistance sets simultaneously at even minions and +5 bosses and everything in between, because those other things were getting tohit bonuses, which mathematically might as well have been unresistable defense debuffs, of increasingly stronger values.

But there's two ways to make a villain "more accurate" - tohit increases, and accuracy bonuses. If the devs wanted villains to get more accurate at higher conning levels, they had two tools to use. They originally picked the one (tohit) that whacked defense harder than resistance, which made it hard to balance defense and resistance sets. And it didn't matter if they gave defense sets more alternate mitigation, because it just smudged the issue, not corrected it: anything that had a significant amount of mitigation tied up in defense would be penalized more than anything else by higher Rank or higher Level foes.

Accuracy bonuses are "fair" to defense, because an attack with an accuracy bonus increases the number of hits proportionately: something with +15% acc hits a defensive set 15% more often, and a resistance set 15% more often: equally higher net damage in the long run.

So in I7, higher Rank and Higher Level villains will get +ACC instead of +ToHit, because accuracy works the way we want: for villains to get more accurate, but not in a way harder on defense than other mitigation. The +ACC that villains already have (flamethrowers, gunslinger cones, etc) was already "fair" to defense sets relative to resistance and regeneration sets. Its a problem, but an equally tough problem for everyone.


[ QUOTE ]

With the data so far it sounds like EA has about a MAX of 25% S/L/F/C/E/NE def. with both shields. Energy should be higher because both shields provide protection, but we have no data yet. That should be about the same as 50% resistance. But versus a mob with an accuracy boost that comes out to more like a 30-40% resistance depending on the boost.

[/ QUOTE ]


Lets start with something that has 25% defense, and another thing with 50% resistance, vs even minion. The defense set (on average) gets hit 25 times out of every 100 swings, the resistance set 50 times, but for half damage. Roughly even.

Now swap the minion for something with +25 accuracy. Now, the defense set gets hit 25% * 1.25 = 31.25 times on average for full damage, and the resistance set gets hit 50% * 1.25 = 62.5 times for half damage - still even. The 25% defense toon is still getting (on average) the same damage mitigation as the 50% resistance toon, even with the higher accuracy. If the minion was swapped for an I6 LT, with a 7.5% tohit boost instead, the results would be different.

[ QUOTE ]
Great, thanks. I'll work with that. Those DOTs make the file rather large...

Just as I ran out the door this morning, I noticed the telltale red letters in my chat box that informed me of impending server maintenance, so my second test (with no shield) may be somewhat too short. If so, I'll need to re run that tonight. sigh.

Still, I'm sure I'll have plenty to do with that one file.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the file is multimegabytes long, it probably isn't DoTs, its the fact that you're likely testing by using a mission, and using the first mob(s) in it. The file is big because its tracking the motions of every other mob spawned in the mission. If you don't care how big the file is, no problem. If you do care, maybe because the tools you're using to search the file don't like jumbo files, you could sweep the mission and leave just one thing behind, then test with that. The files will be a whole lot smaller. Of course you have to make sure you don't accidentally shoot the last thing.

[ QUOTE ]

Blazing Aura:
I have this power on my tank. I love it. But I wouldn't imagine using it on my blaster as it just further angers mobs that are already too close for comfort.


[/ QUOTE ]

Blazing aura for blasters should do the opposite thing that it does for tankers: BA should induce fear, much like burn does. That's logical, and would benefit blasters more (i.e. if a foe enters into melee range, they are compelled to run away for a certain amount of time, without attacking).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Sorry, I was a bit on the defensive after Arcana's posts - which were intended to be helpful, but the second covered something I'd already addressed.


[/ QUOTE ]

All I said was that it was theoretically possible for the streakbreaker to admit 6 misses in a row in that scenario. What matters in that situation isn't whether you hit build up before attacking the boss - I got that part - but rather whether the last swing before attacking the boss was a miss, and against anything that might have had any defense at all, which is possible in a mission like you're describing.

The streakbreaker will allow 6 misses in a row (breaking the streak at 6 by forcing #7 to be a hit) if the previous swing was against something with about 25% defense. Base tohit was running 55%, and the streakbreaker limit for net 30% to 40% tohit is 6, so if the last thing you attacked was something with at least 25% defense (or you were somehow debuffed), and that swing was a miss, then your streakbreaker limit going into the boss - even if your accuracy was fully at the ceiling - would have still been 6 until you recorded your first hit, based on my understanding of the streakbreaker (55% - 25% = 30%. 30% * 1.33 for accuracy slotting is 40%).

[/ QUOTE ]

And consider the mathematical odds of that happening?


[/ QUOTE ]

I did, and stated what they were, which is very very low.


[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
If you had said "the last swing I made before attacking the boss was a hit" or "at no time in the recent past prior to attacking the boss did my tohit ever fall below 40%, definitely" then the streakbreaker would have been forced to break that streak, but I didn't know if either of those two conditions were true.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know why I should have to clarify that my ~73-75% accuracy against everything else in the mission was not below 40%. I mean, fighting Arachnos minions and lts who are mainly hitting me with attacks that don't seem to have to-hit debuffs in them and I'm hitting them with my attacks because I slotted for accuracy.

I feel like I'm going over the same ground again and again. That's because I am. I am also more than a bit tired of it.


[/ QUOTE ]


I'm sorry you feel frustrated by the questions. It wasn't intended to doubt your observations, but to look for an explanation for them. Since you didn't describe the situation in total, there were a lot of details that would be potentially significant to me in looking at an accuracy problem. For example, you don't specify if the boss was the first thing in the spawn you attacked; its possible looking from my end that the boss might have been the last thing attacked, and you were already debuffed by smoke; that might have been enough to lower your to hit against other targets low enough to cause the streakbreaker to be "off" when you switched to the boss. Or its possible that you attacked an LT with sufficient defense to drive accuracy-slotted attacks to 40% without needing debuffing prior to attacking the boss: arachnos LTs sometimes seem to have significant defense from what I've noticed. Without being there, there's no way to be sure without clarification, and I double-checked very carefully to see if at any time you made a definitive statement about any of these conditions before mentioning them.

[ QUOTE ]

I'll just get to live a little longer and tickle people with my moderate non-EM non-crit damage.


[/ QUOTE ]

My MA/nin got to 40 just fine primarily landing crits from the alpha strike or placate, and only rarely "standing while waiting to rehide." If I wanted to rehide (especially if placate was taken out by slows), I would run to break LoS. My SR stalker would more often "stand and rehide" but only on teams when aggro had been mostly diverted - attempting to rely on defense to deflect every shot for 10 seconds to rehide for a crit when solo or if you have any significant aggro while teamed is both highly risky and very inefficient. The only stalkers I've seen do that also run to break off constantly if even one thing is shooting at them. I've never seen anyone consistently use the behavior you're claiming is necessary for stalker success.

If you're talking about PvP, then even more extremely I've never seen a stalker attempt to use *defense* to rehide; they might get lucky doing it, but more often they dash off for a second to break off combat to give hide a chance to reestablish. Its bordering on suicide to simply hope your opponent will miss for ten seconds unless you are eluded. And while you are waiting to rehide, you are sacrificing 10 seconds of damage to get one crit: unless its an assassin's strike, thats a net loss in damage. Even if it is an AS, its still bordering on break-even. In PvP, I *never* stop fighting for ten seconds to rehide, unless I'm hurt and attempting to buy time to heal (or my opponent is trying to break off and its unlikely that I'm going to catch him quickly); the rehide is an extra bonus. If I'm still in fighting shape, I press the attack because the loss of damage during the ten seconds isn't worth it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Scrapper Regen = Stalker Regen (minus QR of course)

In other words... Scrappers, Brutes, and Stalkers have the same base values.

[/ QUOTE ]

The regen value for stalkers and scrappers is the same because regen is based off your total health. (with stalkers having less health).

Hence you can use the same regen values for both ATs and still have stalkers at 76% effectivness of scrappers.

The actual numbers for defense and resistence powers are not a function of your health, hence they need to have different base values across the ATs.

[/ QUOTE ]

That isn't quite how it works. Regen scales differently than other types of mitigation, so direct comparisons are tricky, but the most congruent way to compare them is by looking at adjusted regeneration rates for regen and an alternate mitigation set, such as SR.

Looking strictly at SR's defenses, we'd compare SR to regen by looking at the defensive mitigation of SR, using that as an effective regeneration multiplier for base regeneration, and comparing that to regen's regeneration rate. Since that comparison factors out health, to a first order approximation health is not a determiner for balance.

If it was, then regeneration scrappers from level 38 to 50 would increasingly get stronger relative to defensive and resistive scrappers, just because of the increasing health levels. To a first order approximation, they don't.

What does happen at lower levels of health is that regen's margin for error gets lower: the range of damage between being virtually indestructible and quickly dead, relative to other mitigation types.

[ QUOTE ]

Even if FF gave mitigation that was better than every other Defender primary, FF would still be overall a worse set without some offense-boosting ability.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm unclear as to why. Or rather, what that seems to imply is that all defender primaries have to have basically the same amount of offensive benefit, because that's by so wide a margin the most important benefit, that no amount of defensive benefit can overcome an offensive lag.

But if they all have roughly the same amount of offensive benefit, they have to have the same amount of defensive benefit as well, or else there will be a marked defensive imbalance. They'd all have to provide, in possibly different ways, basically the same benefit. That seems to be an extreme point of view.


Or is it that *any* offensive boosting capability, however small, is somehow critical to the viability of the FF set for defenders. If so - if the issue is its mere presence, and not its relative equality with the other sets - I'm genuinely curious to know what the rationale is.

[ QUOTE ]

Imagine what a Super Reflexer could do. Not attack for 7-8 seconds and, as long as they weren't hit, re-Hide on the spot. NO PLACATE INVOLVED. That is what I'm talking about with Dull Pain. Instead of Scrapping away at their resistances and heals, I could re-Hide by taking their hits, (in some cases) hoping they don't kill me, and not attacking. In which, I could then AS (if they didn't fire off an AoE or hit me with something else). The Dull Pain bug was a knockoff of being able to dodge attacks to re-Hide WITHOUT Placate.


[/ QUOTE ]

Um, SR defenses reduce the chance to be hit to about 1 in 4, verses regen who even without SR defenses is only being hit about 1 in 2. The difference is significant, but not astronomical. If an SR stalker has aggro, she doesn't stand there waiting to rehide; unless you're only attacking one thing, that's virtually impossible. I only do the stand and rehide thing when I have no aggro at all, or somehow have bought myself some time through other means (if I'm playing ninjitsu, sometimes that "other means" is using caltrops). I can really only stand and rehide when under elude/Kuji-in Retsu if I have any significant aggro.

My understanding of the dull pain bug is that its consistently allowed regen scrappers to rehide *better* than having normal defenses a significant amount of the time, by essentially ignoring hits.


You don't get to rehide as easy because your damage mitigation is superior. That's the trade. And if you're saying that dull pain won't be "useful" to you anymore, thats either an incredible exaggeration, or an incredible downplay of how significant dull pain's net benefit to regen is. You're attempting to build a defensive stalker with the regen set: that simply wont work.

[ QUOTE ]

Sorry, I was a bit on the defensive after Arcana's posts - which were intended to be helpful, but the second covered something I'd already addressed.


[/ QUOTE ]

All I said was that it was theoretically possible for the streakbreaker to admit 6 misses in a row in that scenario. What matters in that situation isn't whether you hit build up before attacking the boss - I got that part - but rather whether the last swing before attacking the boss was a miss, and against anything that might have had any defense at all, which is possible in a mission like you're describing.

The streakbreaker will allow 6 misses in a row (breaking the streak at 6 by forcing #7 to be a hit) if the previous swing was against something with about 25% defense. Base tohit was running 55%, and the streakbreaker limit for net 30% to 40% tohit is 6, so if the last thing you attacked was something with at least 25% defense (or you were somehow debuffed), and that swing was a miss, then your streakbreaker limit going into the boss - even if your accuracy was fully at the ceiling - would have still been 6 until you recorded your first hit, based on my understanding of the streakbreaker (55% - 25% = 30%. 30% * 1.33 for accuracy slotting is 40%).

Something not well understood is that the streakbreaker doesn't "reset" when you switch targets, it only resets when you hit something, or if you miss on a target with even worse tohit. In other words, the streakbreaker will ratchet downward, if you attack harder to hit targets, but it won't go upward until its reset by a hit.

If you had said "the last swing I made before attacking the boss was a hit" or "at no time in the recent past prior to attacking the boss did my tohit ever fall below 40%, definitely" then the streakbreaker would have been forced to break that streak, but I didn't know if either of those two conditions were true.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

That's backwards, but also meaninglessly so. 55% base to hit and 91% tohit buffs means 146% base tohit before accuracy. To get anything approaching flooring you would require on the order of 140%+ defense and tohit debuffs combined. Nothing I know of has a combination of defense and tohit debuffs on the order of 140%, which is why I thought it was a bad luck streak. But if its happening repeatably, then its more likely a bug.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is not possible to have a miss streak that long with capped accuracy, which discounts the idea of bad luck, or should have right off the bat.

If I'd had something like 1 hit, 2 misses, 1 hit, 2 misses, I would've been annoyed, but not like "miss x 6 + 1 hit"

[/ QUOTE ]

Its possible, especially across all players, to see an event like that. At first, I thought the streakbreaker would make it extremely unlikely, because the only way for this to happen would be for someone to switch from very low accuracy to very high accuracy, so it can only happen under those conditions. But in fact, thats exactly what's happening when you go from attacking something with base 55% chance to hit and possibly high defense to +91% tohit buffs. It could happen *once* if you hit the lottery (my guestimate is that this scenario might happen to someone somewhere once or twice a year). Anything above two people seeing this phenomenon would place it outside the realm of reasonable probability, though.