Dechs Kaison

As I notice, you're on Virtue.

Give me a ring sometime, I'll show you what I can do. I am by no means the best, but I have been called "The most aggressive warshade I've ever seen" by a SG mate.

Self-rez is a challenge.

Also, I direct you to this thread. There's plenty of build advice later on, but (I may be biased here) I think the OP is worth reading.

Aim for recharge bonuses. You want mire and eclipse up as often as you can. Most recharge bonuses come at the fifth enhancement in a set, and most times five slots is all a power needs, so that works out well. All Kheldians suffer from the slot-crunch, so saving a slot here and there will pay off.

Warshades really have no one way to be built, and the slotting depends very highly on how you like to play it. I'd assume you drop to human for the fluffies, which is a great power for six slotting. If you use the human drain essence, it can ED cap recharge/heal and get a little accuracy in four slots if you frankenslot. Same goes for the dwarf heal. I slot my gravity well for hold first, then damage, but many people slot it for damage only. Unchain essence is a great power, but only if it fits your playstyle. Quasar is entirely skip-able, but you may want to be able to go boom. I know I do, but I've only got three slots in it (Damage and a hint of recharge).

Many warshade builds will fit stealth, grant invisibility, invisibility, nebulous form, and combat jumping. I have all five in that list, but the stealth pool never actually gets used. They're just spots to put Luck of the Gambler +recharge bonuses. Tri-formers have way more powers than they have slots, so the stealth pool powers are great picks for levels 41+.

I've recently got my warshade slotted up and running very near perma eclipse on about 400 million (and 1000 merits), and it was worth every penny. Even with a ton of planning, though, I ended up burning five respecs before I felt like the whole thing was "right." And again, that's only "right" for me.

All well and good, but what happens when you have two builds, with a total of 6 power pools between them?

That's just another reason why the tech and UI upgrades will be significant.

Ok, this will toggle off dark nova instantly. After that, it gets fuzzy. It will go to tray 1, then queue up hasten, then queue up Dark Nova, then go to tray 9 all so fast that the only thing that will happen is that you go into Nova form and end up on tray 9. The queuing up of hasten doesn't actually happen.

This will toggle off Nova, then toggle on Nova. Just like the last one, except without the tray swapping.

Can't be done. The bind/macro system is built to avoid people being able to automate their play experience, and as such, you can only activate one power in one bind. It always activates the last power in the bind because the speed it goes through the macro. "Queue up three attacks in a row, but the first two were hit so quickly that they didn't actually have time to queue up."

I have a lot of experience in the gambling industry, and now that I don't work there anymore, I can talk about the slot machines I worked on. I still won't go into major detail, but any slot machine is pretty much the same thing as a video game. The player has an input, then pictures scroll by on a screen while a computer does the thinking and figures out whether you win or lose.

There's a random number generator running all the time, spitting out thousands, maybe even millions, of random numbers per second. The slot machine (or game) makes a call when it's time to determine an outcome.

Every call is truly* random and independent from the last. One card in four, I'll draw a diamond. One card in thirteen, I'll draw an ace. One hit in three, that purple proc will go off. That, of course, doesn't mean that it will proc once, then not for two hits, then proc again. The proc could hit three times in a row, or never in three days. Regardless, the chance is constant.

In your example, AlienOne, that damage IO in gravity well amounts to 20 extra damage on every single hit. Putting the proc in its place will give you 107 damage every third hit on average. That translates to over 35 damage to every hit, again, on average.

If you hit three enemies with gravity well slotted one way, and three more slotted the other, there's no telling which would be better. Odds are the proc setup would come out ahead, but because of randomness, it might not.

If you did the same exercise over 100 enemies with each setup, I would be extremely surprised if the proc setup performed worse. As the number of enemies approaches infinity, I can guarantee that the proc does more damage.

The major point I'd like to make is this: We know, without a doubt, what the damage output without a proc will be. We know, and over a long enough time, can prove, that the proc will do more damage. What we don't know is whether it will be better for this mission, this task force, or even this weekend. Odds are that it will be, but in such a small sample, there's really no telling.

So as far as I'm concerned, casual player or not, the proc adds more than that damage enhancer.

*No machine can ever be truly random because on a long enough cycle, there will be a trend. However, the random number generators used are on such a large cycle that we aren't likely to see any such trend show up.

My WS doesn't use too many chance for stuff IOs. I have the chance for buildup in nova bolt, and while it doesn't go off frequently, it's noticeable when it does. The chance for +end procs are in both forms, and those were an amazing addition for sure. I have one damage procs in each of the nova AoEs, and it's very nice to watch extra enemies drop sooner than I'd expect. Also, they add a different type of damage which helps punch through resistance. Finally, I have the chance for buildup in fluffy, and I can swear I've seen that little icon with a number 2 on it, so it stacks.

I'm not sure if it belongs in this thread, buy my mastermind uses procs quite liberally. I put four damage procs, plus the chance for knockdown in caltrops alone (there's something oddly entertaining about watching enemies trip over caltrops and minions almost dying when I throw them down). Chance for -res is in acid mortar, and there's nothing you can do to make me want to take it out. I have the chance for hold in webnade, which is incredibly effective. Seeker Drones carries the chance for recharge slow, but I'm not sure how much that does. Finally, the chance for buildup is in the Assbot. Built up burn patches. *shiver*

EDIT TO ADD:

I happen to be a gambler, and by default, a statistician. I can look at the procs and mathematically determine which ones are helping and which ones aren't. Like Obsidian pointed out before I could, there's a determinable amount of damage they add. Though it may be random, in the long run (which is how all statistical math is based), the effect approaches a constant and reliable damage increase.

Generally, though, a low damage attack benefits from a proc much more than a high damage one will. This is because the proc adds a set number of damage, while a damage enhancement adds a percentage of the attack's total damage.

Defensive and Attack my target is NOT bodyguard mode.

Bodyguard mode is only in Defensive Follow, Defensive GoTo, or Defensive Stay.

This is a very good point that I did not consider.

I am very well versed in masterminds, so I can see just asking to see a build that's been bragged about.

I don't do blasters, so I'm not going to just ask for a build.

No. Very no. Sharing a build is giving the man the fish.

Teaching him to fish is helping him to understand how to personalize a build.

You again with the "Everyone needs mez protection."

Put your torch and pitchfork down. Mezzing opponents are not impossible to deal with. Both kheldians have ways of dealing with mezzing opponents in human form.

EDIT: Forgot to add, "Learn to play."