Berzerker_NA

What I mean is that, your Jounin's basic defense of 14 + 3.75 (enhanced to ~5%) from shadow fall + 5 from Edict of the Master +5% defense proc, should get you close to soft cap.

Your debuffs are each 11.25 (enhanced to ~16%), so total of 22.5 (enhanced to ~32%)

Ninja Defense ~19%

BaseHitChance is 50% for most mobs. (A little higher if they're higher level than you.)


The full attack calculation is HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) ),, but when we talk about soft capping, that's only the last part:
Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) So it would be: Clamp( 50 - 32 -19) And the clamp would definitely have to kick in to prevent that from being a zero chance.

So I've been reading the paragonwiki article on this: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics

Apparently the calculation is: HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )

Clamp means, if the calculation is lower than 5% or higher than 95%, it gets set to 5% or 95% respectively. AccMod is what enhancements do for you. ToHitMod is from Aim or Build up powers, and it's what -ToHit powers inflict.

Anyway.... from what I can see in this article, you're right that -Tohit does exactly the same thing, to exactly the same degree as +defense. The only exception would be AV's, because they've usually got debuff resistance, so your -Tohit will be cut down by some kind of fraction when you use it on them.

So Dark, gives you -3.75 from your targeted heal, -11.25 from Darkest Night, and -11.25 from Fearsome Stare. So the latter two are -22.5 together (more with enhancements), so that should get you to soft cap on most enemies. Also, fluffy continually debuffs them by -30 (more with enhancements) in a 10 foot radius, so he's basically immune to melee. (And he adds another Darkest Night with -15, so maybe that would super cap your boys.)


http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Archvillain_Resistance

From this article, it appears their resistance is 60-87% ToHit Debuff Resistance, more if they're higher in level than you. So, /FF would be way more powerful against them.



When they're at soft cap, however, there's plenty of time to heal them between hits, and if they get defense debuffed, you can just use smoke flash on them so they get a break for about 10 seconds, long enough for most debuffs to clear.

I think it all comes down to Endurance. If you've got plenty of endurance recovery, then by all means, just resummon them when they die. If not, well then healing them uses a lot less end than resummoning. (Plus there's the added bonus that you can take self heal in the power pool, which is nice.)

On /FF, part of the problem is that I just don't want to have to maintain that many shields. When I'm on a team of 8 people with a /FF MM, I try to perma buff everybody. (Makes your teammates very happy. :-) ) Cutting my # of henchmen down by half really makes my life a lot more convenient.

I think I don't really understand how -tohit factors into the soft cap. I'm wondering with my Jounin's defense at about 25%, how much -tohit would it take before they were effectively at soft cap?


The thing with taking medicine on /FF is you can heal a Jounin from the very brink of death up to about 2/3 his health or better. If you use your smoke bomb to save them when they're in trouble, then heal them immediately afterward, you can make it so your Jounin hardly ever die. It's almost an advantage not to bother with Genin because your medicine power is only useful for keeping a small handful of henchmen healthy.


The other advantage I'm thinking with Ninjas and Dark is that most of your Jounin's attacks have def debuff, so if you're careful to target their target, then your heals will hardly ever miss. But....as you've been pointing out (and I very much agree), heals are only marginally useful on ninjas.

.... Maybe that seals up the decision: Why take the one set with the most powerful heal in the game (small radius, but very high hit points), when your Jounin don't even have that many hit points?

Trouble with Thugs is that, except for the Arsonist, everything is smashing/lethal damage, which is highly resisted in later levels.

If you position your enforcers right, so your thugs are always within the radius of the Enforcers' Maneuvers powers (the two Enforcers' auras stack on your Thugs), that set becomes quite possibly the most survivable set in the game. The Defense from stacked Maneuvers auras is greater than the defense from stacked shields from your protector bots.

Trouble is... it's a huge hassle always trying to keep track of which thug is where, especially with your Bruiser wanting to run ahead and do melee. I ended up binding a Goto command for my enforcers, so as to make them follow him, because it was just too much trouble trying to keep him from running away from them.

So, would you call someone "Executioner Jones"? or "Commando Jones"? I'm curious what titles are workable. It doesn't appear that Arachnos uses any of the common rank designations like "Private", "Sergeant", or "Lieutenant".... etc.

I have a hard time drawing that line properly sometimes. I had a Ninjas/FF and I could never decide whether the FF was unique enough to deserve to be the origin. Do you think FF generators are pretty normal in Paragon City?

Maybe you should try putting the bomb in the middle of some caltrops. Then they probably can't get away in time.

Not on Bots/Traps. The ones you can slot recharge intensive to are:

Primary: Thugs, Necromancy, Demon Summoning.
Secondary: Storm Summoning

If you go with the Concealment Set and get Ethereal Shift, your pets go Ethereal when you do. You can even summon more pets, or heal them while you're still Ethereal. It's just a total time out.

Enemies will still attack them, and they'll try to attack enemies, but nobody does any damage. Great if you're on a team that's about to wipe, because the enemies will often keep attacking your indestructible henchmen.

Dark isn't bad in these areas.

DPS: Tar Patch debuffs damage resistance pretty well. (Not quite as good as Acid Mortar, since it does both damage resistance and defense.)

Heal: Both you and fluffy have a very powerful near proximity heal, with the disadvantage being that it is prone to miss.

Temp Hold: Petrifying Gaze isn't an AOE, but its recharge is 16 seconds instead of a minute and a half.

Protection: Shadow Fall is not as good as Force Field Generator, but you've got quite a few powers that debuff the enemies' attacks, which is just about as good as having more defense yourself. (Your targeted heal, Darkest Night, and Fearsome Stare) Fluffy perpetually debuffs every mob that gets close to him down by -30 attack (more if you enhance it), which will help if you fall short of total defense cap.

The main thing Traps does well and Dark can't compete with is Detonator, and the fact the Force Field Generator shields you from Hold, Stun, and Immobilize. It's nice not to get mezzed.


This is why it is best to go with either Defense by Damage Type OR Positional Defense, but not both. Why waste your time if they overlap anyway?

The advantage of Defense by Damage Type is that most attacks have more than one damage type, and the game always chooses the most favorable. So if an Arachnos Widow's Dart attack deals both lethal and toxic, and your lethal defense is better than your toxic defense, the game will use your lethal defense.

The drawback to Defense by Damage Type is that, insofar as I have seen, there is no such thing as Defense vs. Toxic, so any purely toxic attacks will always bypass a Damage Type Based Defense. (Such as Zombies Projectile Vomit, for example.) That's not a serious problem for Demons, though, since most of the resist Toxic damage pretty well.


Yeah. The enemy's chance of missing is usually 50 + Your Defense Number. So, if you're at 45%, then most enemies miss chance is 95%, or 19 out of 20 tries. Bosses and such have a slightly improved chance to hit you, but it's not too much higher. (I think in most cases it is 6/5 the normal chance. So if a normal mob had a 5% chance to hit, a boss would have a 6% chance, but I'm not entirely sure how that is calculated, so I may be wrong.)

Don't any of them accept sets that allow for it?

Dark has the advantage that it covers holes in your Demons' resistances. Shadow Fall will give them psionic, energy, and negative resistances which they don't already have. (They're very good about the other 5: smashing, lethal, fire, cold, and toxic.)

Traps has the advantage that it gives you very good defense and mezz resistance, so you can use your whip attacks and not worry as much about aggro.

I would definitely second that. (Or I guess third that, since Xiroth is already seconding it.)

Good rule. And I think the flip side of the coin us useful too. For a tech origin, we could ask ourselves: would the tools be useful without the skills of the operator? One gets the impression that the Iron Man suit basically flies itself, almost to the point where just anyone could put one on and be a super.

Here the problem is that we're getting outside of COX reality. In COX, natural heroes have abilities that no Olympic athlete in the real world could ever have, like super jump, or running faster than a car, or beating a tank to pulp with your fists.

Think of a cheesy martial arts movie, like one of those classics, where you've got people karate chopping telephone poles in half. That's more like COX.

I think this doesn't even square well with the real world. I know Chobam armor tanks can stand up to almost anything, be rockets, artillery shells, or probably even meteors, but a suit of battle armor a human being can wear? I don't think they even make a suit of full body armor that can reliably block an AK-47.

Certainly it exists in the COX world, but then.... you've got to let Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee into that picture as well.

If you take this argument too far, I think you'll end up comparing a sniper rifle with a bow and arrow, or comparing a knife with a fist (since a knife technically represents "technology" when compared with a fist). Artificial limbs give an advantage, but so would custom made spring loaded shoes. Neither is really a technological marvel.

With guns, the question is whether it matters more to have high quality trigger men, or high quality hardware. How easily could a bunch of hillbillies with top of the line, experimental assault rifles kill a group of Army Rangers armed with standard M16's?


Even with the best automated targeting in the world, you still need a human being to tell the computer what targets you want shot, and which ones you want spared. It's not a very good quick draw device.

Batman's style of fighting would never allow for something like that. He's got to bust a move in the moment. He can't be fidgeting with buttons and click down menus on some digital imaging computer while the bad guys speed away, and he has to dodge most of the bullets coming at him, or some will certainly tear through his armor.


The question is: who's piloting that machine? In the Air Force, there's all kinds of discussion about the "lost art of dog fighting" and whether it's worth it to bother teaching pilots that kind of basic maneuvering when most of the important stuff like target acquisition, radar tracking, and counter measures, can all be done by clicking a few buttons.

Would you consider the increased training an asset, or should the Air Force stop trying so hard to train its pilots to fly better, and and instead focus its whole budget on improving the electronics?

The question for Batman is: if he wanted to become a better hero, what would progress him more: spending more time at the gym, or investing more money in his gadgets? If spending time at the gym is the key to moving further, then he's natural.

For a mutant like say Colossus: Should he spend his time more on practicing turning his body into steel, or leave the steel turned off so he can lift weights at a gym?

For a science like the Hulk: should Bruce Banner spend his time trying to find medical treatments that allow him to stay intelligent when he changes, or just practice changing on demand by biting his tongue until it makes him angry? - (Cause if you're a natural mutant, there's little point in doing experimental research to increase your powers. )

Now, when Iron Man wants to become tougher, I think he's in the opposite place of Batman. A few more gadgets will go a long way, but training at the Dojo will only help him improve his martial arts skills from novice to mediocre.

I haven't tried this neutral naming thing. That might not be a bad idea, but you can't put the /clear_petnames in the same macro with the rest. It screws up for some reason.

Good to know. I was thinking of giving my Spec Ops one in order to add more of the effect. I think you just saved me 20 million Inf.

I skipped Genin on my build. (Squishy compared to the others, and too much hassle maintaining 6 shields instead of 3)

Jounin have 14% base, you can slot bubbles to 17%, Dispersion Bubble to 11%, and then throw in the Edict of the Master +5% proc, and you've got 47%. If that's not enough, you can take mace mastery, and use Empower just before shielding them for probably another 5% or 6% or so, but it only lasts long enough to shield up 3 people. (6 total shields).

Easy for a lot of them. With Force Bolt, you can keep them on the ground for most of the fight. You have to let them stand up and take a shot at you in between (otherwise the next bolt doesn't add to their knockdown duration), but they spend a lot of time on their back.


IDK. Haven't been that far yet.

I don't see the benefit of tanker minding when you've got such tough henchmen, but I have to warn you that the mobs aggro to you really easy. Every time your Jounin placates or you use smoke bomb to save his life (that's what I use it for), the mob that was attacking him starts looking for a new target.

Just take personal FF, though. Then just about nothing can kill you.

I'd say the set is totally unplayable without medicine.

I don't think you need it, but I only manage 3 ninjas. I'd rather take hover, because you have to stand near them if you want them to benefit from Dispersion Bubble, and hovering keeps you out of melee.