Bosstone

I haven't played Beam Rifle seriously yet, so I'm not familiar with the animations, but that looks more like a sword stance than a gun stance.

Either way, new weapon models of any kind are always awesome.

omg squee

omg third pic is that a titan weapon squeeee

Sure, let's go with that.

The +5 (or +1 or +2 or +3 or +4) is not an indication of level, which really bugs me because it's always placed with the level and leads to misconceptions.

For every +1, it multiplies the values on the IO by an extra 5%. A +5 IO will have its values boosted by 25%.

Not precisely. If you're using a character without any kind of direct mitigation (defense or resistance), then the damage you take goes from 50% to 64% of total damage thrown at you. That's a 28% increase in damage taken, which is indeed painful. However, if you're using a defense set or set IOs and you're sitting at 45% defense, you go from 5% of total damage thrown at you to 19%. That's a 280% increase in damage taken.

In other words, players who find the sweet spot of how many enemies they can fight with a 45% defense (like being able to fight at 2x8 or something) suddenly get mauled to death because they're taking vast amounts of damage. That sweet spot is where their mitigation is just barely able to keep them alive under the amount of damage being thrown at them, and suddenly getting almost four times that damage pushes them over the edge easily.

However, the players who find the sweet spot with 0% direct mitigation (probably something like 0x4) might have to tone it back to 0x3 or something, maybe. It's not that big a deal.

And even then, those characters with indirect mitigation (everyone else except Blasters) most likely aren't going to notice the to-hit increase very much, if at all. A spawn is locked down/debuffed either way.

It is true that the defense-based melee characters who merely perform well in regular content and aren't tricked out to the ears get shafted in Incarnate content. You are right there, that for that specific subset of powersets, you kind of have to push the envelope in build design.

...Well, either that or just load up on purples, which is ridiculously easy these days. One small purple is 12.5%, which covers most of the distance from 45% to 59% defense, and these days I find myself using as many mediums as smalls. My Energy Aura character is running with about 49-52% defense pre-Barrier, and a single purple per spawn is quite sufficient, usually netting me a return of 1-2 purples per spawn provided I regularly combine and otherwise keep my insp tray open.

So you'll just make stuff up then? Good to know.

Nope, it has it. Any aura that doesn't do damage has taunt for Scrappers.

Yeah, that's why Mids exists. SOs work well for 'feel', and they helped the game survive pre-Real Numbers because of that. That's gross tweaking, whereas working with IOs and optimizing set bonuses is fine-tuning. And it does all add up eventually; you wouldn't think 3% defense here and 3% defense there can eventually make you near-invincible, but it certainly does. It helps to have a simulator so you can see the totals and figure out if what you're doing is right for what you want to do.

But judging effectiveness by playing the game and noticing if you hit harder or don't get hit as much isn't 'empirical methods', that's casual observation. Empirical methods work fine for determining small changes too; if I add 2% To-hit, I can figure out that out of 100 attacks I'm hitting with 2 more attacks than I did before by reviewing the combat log and counting hits and misses. The difference isn't whether there's an actual improvement or change, but whether you notice that change without relying on measuring tools.

I mean, I do get what you're saying and I understand what you mean, but small changes do affect the game in the same way big changes do; it's just the degree that differs.

Well, that's why I said it's not relevant to your situation. You'll need that 3.75% Ranged in this situation, so it's not really an option to skip it. Honestly, I hate substantial 6-slot bonuses because of that myself, but the dev team who designed the majority of set bonuses had their reasons.

Mainly I just wanted to provide some reassurance that the proc is not actually a wasted slot, and will do more for you than a bit of Damage enhancement in the long run. Hell, that 14.35 average damage is 22% of Power Slice's base damage and 30% of Nimble Slash's. That isn't even touched by ED; the only way you can match that kind of damage increase is with T3 or T4 Musculature once Damage enhancement is capped out.

You're missing part of the picture, though. Mako's Bite includes a proc, which at level 50 has a 20% chance of doing 71.75 lethal damage, which averages out to roughly an extra 14.35 damage per attack with that power.

If you put CI into, let's say Power Slice, that attack will do 130 damage according to Mids (I had to turn off the extra damage factored in for criticals to make these numbers a bit simpler, so they may not immediately match your Mids). If you put MB into Power Slice, it will do 126.9 PLUS an average of 14.35 extra damage, for 141.25.

In reality, of course, it'll do 126.9 damage 4 out of 5 times and 198.65 damage 1 out of 5 times. It's up to you whether you like the proc's randomness, and I seem to recall that you don't like randomness much, so perhaps it's not much comfort.*

But there's more: Mako's Bite also includes a 3% damage buff as part of the set bonus. That means that the drop in damage from CI to MB isn't 7.83% but 4.83%, and also buffs the damage of those attacks for which you aren't compromising damage enhancement (IOW, the attacks with CI will effectively be 104.47% instead of 101.47%, or more if you slot additional MBs). That's going to make your high-damage attacks hit much harder.

Further, the actual numerical loss is not that big. We're talking a few points of percentage, which will get diminished further if the base power of the attack is under 100 damage. As you can see above, going from CI to MB in Power Slice only loses you 3.1 damage, and in return you gain 3.75% Ranged defense, which can do far, far more for your survivability and resulting lethality than a mere 3 points on a single attack. Plus, because of the 3% damage buff, you're gaining 4.7 damage on Assassin's Blades. That right there should make up for the loss in Power Slice.

Lastly, seriously? You don't get to complain about compromise and then handwave away SOs. SOs are all about compromise. Even with Mako's Bite, not counting set bonuses, you're getting 93.64% Damage and 66.25% Acc, End, and Rech. With SOs, you'd get 97.23% Damage, true, but you'd also be getting 38.3% Acc, End, and Rech, assuming you did 1 SO each. Common IOs bump those up to 101.94% and 48.76% respectively, but you're still losing 17.49% in three categories (so 52.47% worth) for 8.3% damage. I guarantee you the combined extra recharge, end, and acc (provided you're not fighting +0s) add up to way more total damage than 8% on a single power.

Really, right now? You're someone who's used the oven to cook food all his life and has been shown how to use the microwave for certain meals to decrease the prep time considerably, and now you're waffling between two microwave models because one has a popcorn button but the other cooks food 3% faster. Compared to the oven, they're both pretty awesome. (Yes, I know, the oven is still very good for a lot of things, and SOs and common IOs still have their place too. Like I said, certain meals.)

*This is not relevant to your situation, but if you weren't going for defense and all you cared about were the Acc/Dam/End/Rech numbers, MB still offers more value because it's getting its numbers from 5 IOs, not 6 like CI. Dropping the proc and adding the Acc/End/Rech from Focused Smite or Dam/End/Rech from CI makes the numbers on that attack really insane.

You realize that in no way justifies saying the token itself is worth $15, right?

Oh bollocks.

One, a token is not worth $15. You can't buy tokens directly, they come as a bonus when you buy $15 worth of points (which are then used for store items) or a month of subscription time (which is used for, um, a month of subscription time). If you're going to claim the token itself is worth $15, that means you're claiming the month of subscription or the 1320 points you're actually buying is worth $0, which is obviously incorrect. $5 is a reasonable value for a token, if you must attach worth to it.

Two, true enough $5 worth of super packs is lower on a dollar for dollar basis than the other Tier 9 options, though not wildly so:
8 Windfalls: $9
8 XP Boosters: $9
8 Enhancement Unslotters: $9
25 Enhancement Boosters: $6.25
1/3 of a VIP costume pack (for which $15 is a reasonable price, but $10 if you're stingy): $5 (or $3.33)

But that leads into three: The actual value of what you get out of a Super Pack is worth far more than $5. I worked it out in a previous Super Pack thread and you get something like $20-25 worth of consumables out of 5 Super Packs, and that's not counting ATOs, Catalysts, and reward merits which don't have an obvious per-unit cost.

If you lean heavily on Windfalls or XP Boosters or Unslotters, then you'll get a lot of value out of just those repeatables. But if you use all the consumables on a regular basis, Super Packs are ridiculously valuable for the price. Not to mention you can't exactly trade those Windfalls in for reward merits or ATOs.

That all said, I wouldn't have a problem with putting old Tier 9 costume sets into Super Packs. It'd be a good way to keep them in circulation.

(Seriously, I love Windfalls but $9 for 8? They are not that valuable.)

Entropic Aura. It's mez protection, a Recharge siphon, and taunt aura all in one. Which I think is kind of overkill for one power, but there you go.

Except for Titan Weapons, they all use the combo mechanic, but in different ways:

Dual Blades: Three specific attacks must be executed in order to cause a bonus effect. The bonus effect that occurs depends on the specific combo of three attacks used.

Titan Weapons: A non-Momentum attack must be used at its slow speed, then all attacks, Momentum-only and non, may be used at their fast speeds for 5 seconds. This really doesn't use the combo mechanic at all.

Street Justice: Any attack that is not a Finisher will build points, and Finisher attacks will use points, with a limit of 3 points stored. The number of points indicates the strength of the Finisher.

Staff Fighting: Toggles similar to Dual Pistols' Swap Ammo grant you either -End Cost, +Recharge, or +Damage, and each attack builds points. When 3 points are accumulated, either of two specific attacks will expend those points for bonus damage.

Assassin's Strike (all Stalkers): Any attack that is not Assassin's Strike will build points, then Assassin's Strike will convert those points into crit chance.

Again, except for Titan, they're all the same core mechanic but applied in different ways. StJ and Assassin are the most similar, and even they do different things. (I still want to try an StJ Stalker for the heck of it.)

Of course, that then reminds me of Galaxy Quest: "Look, I have ONE JOB on this lousy ship! It's stupid, but I'm gonna do it! Okay?"

We could.

Or willing to shell out.

I bought my way out of Tier 7 right up to Tier 9. It actually wasn't that bad a decision, I shouldn't need to spend any more money on the game for another year.

But Brute damage auras do have Taunt attached to them.

I know, right?

I have to admit, if it were Titan Weapons that had been pushed off like this, I might've been in the crowd going "Just RELEASE it already *sob*."

Staff...I don't know. I'll probably buy it anyway just to try it out, but it hasn't caught me up the way TW did. And quite frankly I'm pretty melee'd out. After TW everything else pales.

You know, there's a not-insignificant portion of the playerbase who doesn't even read the forums. The only time they know about a powerset being released is on the day of the release.

If you're personally that concerned and that attentive to detail, then pay attention to the Community and Dev Digests. Those show all redname posts regardless of which thread they happened in. That's a much more effective way to get the latest news than watching the Announcements forum.