Originally Posted by Arctic Soul
That's a fairly nice build.
My Grav/Rad is by far my favorite toon.
I still only play my Grav/Rad even though I have a few others, I also pvp my Grav/ Rad and do pretty good. I team up with some scrappers that just refuse to believe they would ever get a kill in RV. While my life bar is rather small like 1083 I use a fire shield and tough and weave to help with my squishiness. Packed with insp and experience Im ready. I obtained my disruptor badge a few weeks ago which means I reached a pvp rep of 400. That doesnt mean I made 400 kills. Probably a lot more actually. It works on a time table and its something like kills per a time table thats ticking even when youre not playing. So my rep is lessoning when I dont play and kill, but I keep the badge right.
In RV the last hit gets credit for the kill so Im sure this has added to me being able to earn most of my rep. You also get divided rep points when you are teamed up and someone kills. Oddly enough I can take on the brutes, some masterminds and corrupters but the ones that I just cant seem to even begin to touch are the dominators, unless I have help. I have my three favorite Rad powers, Radiation Infection / Enervating Field / Lingering Radiation / Im not sure what they do but man, they work. Just kidding. They run, most of the peeps in pvp run when I toggle them with all three. And they should. I tested these powers to find what seems to be lowering there defenses to well over 60% making it much easier for me and other heroes to take them out. Of course I did the costume settings up so you can see these three different smoke colors spewing out of the target, basically advertising to other players to attack this guy quick. Slow is in there too so that helps catch them. These toggles will stay on them for what seems to be the limit of target distance, another words when you can no longer see them in the target frame; you lose your toggle lock. Its a good way to bring those villains that have a 3 to 4 times larger life bar then mine down to size so I can fight him fairly. The radiation toggles can cost you a lot of endurance so I recommend either a set with good end or two end IOs or three HOs that have End in addition to another applicable category.
One of the things that I noticed in the first couple of weeks of playing COH is the slotting option. My girlfriend at the time was just getting into MIDS and even at that I noticed something she totally overlooked. Of course we all know we don't get 6 slots in every power, so that immediately caused a problem in my mind. Speaking strictly level 50, I have my Grav/Rad troller slotted with about 30 HO's.
I can't believe how many people overlook this important little option. This is all a numbers game, getting the max out of your limited slots. With sets there always seems to be a compromise. There might be a better set type that works better with the rest of the way you have slotted but the fact is if you can slot 3 HO's in that power, you certainly would be a fool not to. The other thing is that the standard two rule with IO's changes to three with HO's. Unlike IOs where 42.4% times 2 yeilds like 83% and thats as far as you want to go because another one would be a waste and a severely decreased amount due to the 100% cap.
Ho's usually cover you 33.3% in two sections like Dmg and Acc so you would get 66% total out of one slot. Find an IO that does that. More importantly using three pays off unlike an IO. Any more then 2 generic IO's turns out to be a waste where as three HO's works fine.
Heres a sample of the difference.
IO's percantages with each slot using heal IO's versus heal / end HO's in radiant aura. The base appears to be 117.8% unslotted.
Slotting 42.4% IO's
42.4% / 83.32% / 90.08% / 105.44% / Heal only
Slotting 33.3% Heal & 33.3% End reduction HOs
33.3% / 66.6% / 94.93% / 99.98% / Heal
33.3% / 66.6% / 94.93% / 99.98% / End reduction
The way I see it is using 4 is a waste because you only get 5% times two in that one slot. It makes more sense to use that other slot for 42.4% somewhere else.
Since 100% is max, you yeild 95% improvement with 3 HO's. More then 3 HOs would place you over 100% which is a waste. It drops off so much that its not worth it. You have to also consider that your getting Endurance included with these three slots as well.
Three HO's would add up to 33.3 x 3 or 99.9% above base heal and 99.9% from End base, but it only yields 95% in both.
The big loss after two IOs is also where I learned that an endurance modification set of 6 did nothing for me like 2 IOs and using the other four slots for End reduction in the most frequently used and highest End sucking powers.
In my opinion its much better to save three slots to only lose a total of 10% and bonuses. I'm not fond of the skimpy 1,2,3,5,or even 7% bonuses that are offered from sets. If a set of three could ever yield more then 190% grand total then you need to look at it. If you feel there is something that your toon is lacking and just has to have from offered bonuses, you might also want to consider the fact that you now how three more slots open to do it with.
Hamidon HO's come in many packages available at level 50 and up.
At the time I'm writing this, they are costly at Wentworths, but the prices can vary from time to time. I have found them costing from 110 thousand to 200 mill each, of course depending on what they are. On the average around 20 to 30 mill. Some HO's cover several things at different percentages. Like you might have one that offers 33.3% in ACC and 33.3% in defense and 20% in tohit debuff. Some can cover many areas like mez that covers about 7 or more areas and offering 33.3% across all of those categories. Understanding what to use is the key to benefiting the most from their use.
If a HO covers say 33% in Dmg and 33% in Acc, any power that utilizes Acc will allow you to slot it, but you wouldn't get Dmg out of a power that doesn't have Dmg. So you wasted the HO and only get the 33% Acc benefit. Make sure you benefit from at least 2 or more of the things that the HO covers otherwise its a waste.
While 3 Hos may not cover everything that a set would, I have also found that slotting the other 1,2 or 3 slots with either needed IOs or sets still yields a better power. I will admit though that there is always something that just ends up with no improvement like (range or recharge, only because thats what I chose) reduction that might have had a slight improvement with a set. But math wise the large difference from using the HOs still outweighs that small cost. In addition to the free slots. Planning this out, I would consider what all the weak areas are, and which powers simply cant use HOs. Then the cost of the HOs Some might argue the trade off but as an example I used HOs which saved me a lot of slots and in turn allowed me to add another slot in Hasten which significantly speeded up my recharge time for all powers. It seems that with my toon Im getting about a 30% increase in the majority of my powers by using them wherever I can.
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