Finduilas

Heck, I'm a 51 month vet and I haven't done a LGTF before. And if you look at the "What I haven't done" thread in this forum you'll see we're certainly not alone.

Heckling someone because they haven't done a particular TF/mission before is just plain rude. I'd much rather have someone admit they haven't done something than pretend they have and possibly screw things up.

I've played both, and I certainly noticed the difference. Not so much in the lower levels, but once you get the last two attacks, WM has significantly better AoE.

I'd also add the following to the list:

Blessing of the Zephyr (travel): +1.56 e/ne (2 slots), +1.56% f/c (3 slots)
Smashing Haymaker (single target melee): +1.88 s/l (4 slots)
Thunderstrike (single target ranged): +2.5% e/ne (3 slots), +3.75 e/ne (6 slot total)
Basilisk's Gaze (hold): +2.5% e/ne (2 slots)

Though I must admit some ambivalence about recommending BotZ; the 2 slot bonus is great, but the third slot requires that you get a costly -KB IO that most tank builds will not need.

Here are the relevent patch notes from Issue 13:

12/2/08
· War Mace set Changes:

o Shatter - Reduce Max Targets from 10 to 5
o Crowd Control - Increase Max Targets from 5 to 10


This supports what I recall; both Shatter and Cleave were orignally set to 10 targets and CC/Pendulum were sent set to 5. It got changed for WM during the great War Mace Buff of '08, but not for Axe. Whether the fact that BA was not changed was due to an oversight or to a decision to make Mace better at AoE, only the devs can say.

No problem, glad to help!

The greater radius of Shatter does indeed make a difference, but the fact that Crowd Control can hit twice as many targets as Pendulum also makes a very big difference.

Actually, I consider the KD vs. Stun/KD issue to be one mostly of taste. Stun lasts longer, but some players hate the wander that comes with it.

Before Mace was buffed, Axe was pretty widely considered the better and certainly more damaging set of the two. Currently, Mace is demonstrably better in AoE and at least as good as Axe in ST capacity, due to changes in three powers:

Clobber vs. Swoop: Once a stun-only ST attack like Stun, Clobber now does more damage than Axe's highest damaging ST attack, Swoop. (2.92 vs. 2.28) Swoop has a 70% chance of KU, and Clobber a 100% chance of mag 3 Stun.

Shatter vs. Cleave: Both have 100% chance of KD, and of the two, Cleave does more damage. (2.76 vs. 2.28) However, Shatter has a much wider cone--45 degress vs. 20 degrees. Cleave has a higher target limit, 10 vs. 5, but in practice that doesn't help much because it's highly unlikely you'll be able to fit 10 targets in a 20 degree cone.

Crowd Control vs. Pendulum: Both are 180 degree cones, and Pendulum does slightly more damage (1.9 vs 1.61) The big difference is in the max targets, CC gets 10, for Pendulum it's 5. Since you certainly CAN hit 10 targets with a 180 degree cone, this makes a very significant difference in the AoE capacity of the sets. In addition, CC has a 100% chance for KD, and Pendulum 50%.

Hope that helps!

I don't believe it was buffed. Stupid Fanboy did a pretty extensive analysis of WM pre-buff, and I'm sure at that point Whirling Mace was one of the few WM attacks better than its twin in Axe.

AceMace and some of the other Mace regulars can probably confirm that; we all followed the Mace changes very closely, not surprisingly!

Not sure why we would, considering that it makes absolutely no difference which Resistance power you slot the SP +Def in; you get the 3% def to all regardless.

Well, I guess it might make a small difference if slotting it meant that you underslotted a power for resistance that probably should be fully slotted, like UY or TI, but barring that, it really doesn't matter.

If you are going by this part, I think you are misreading it. The 51.4% is what he calculates are the odds that a player will dodge six attacks in a row in this scenario. That is different than than the chance a foe has to hit you with a single attack. I skimmed through this whole guide, and didn't see anything that would support your claim, but if it's there, please post it.

Looking at the ParagonWiki page that Dechs Kaison references, you'll find this:

Final hit chances are forced to stay in the range of 5%–95% to preserve a measure of uncertainty and prevent modifiers from making a power automatically hit or miss. This range limit is also applied once in the middle of the calculation, after adjusting for ToHit and Defense modifiers but prior to applying Accuracy, to prevent situations where strong Defense buffs and/or ToHit debuffs render Accuracy irrelevant no matter how high it was.

EDIT: (What I said intially was not quite right, just goes to show that I shouldn't post early in the morning! Let's try it again.) Here's the HitChance formula:

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )

Please note that the Clamp (which keeps the values between 5 and 95%) is applied directly to the results of the ToHit calculation. Defense is part of that calculation, so critter ToHit can never fall below 5%, no matter how much defense you have.

Since the AccMod is applied to the results of the ToHit calculation, it will never be lower than AccMod x 5%. If the AccMod is 1, as is the case for even-level minions and below, the final HitChance remains at 5%. [(BaseHitChance(50) + ToHitMods (0) - DefMods (45)) = 5] If you look at the bottom of the same Wiki page you'll see that bosses and AVs up to +5 have 1.3 and 1.5 accuracy modifiers, which makes their lowest possible HitChances 6.5% and 7.5% respectively. Note that the 6.5% and 7.5% apply to even level and below, there is also a level Acc modifier for foes that are +1 and above; so a +4 AV has a 10.5% chance to hit you, as Dechs Kaison says. Again, because of the way the formula works, that will not change, no matter how much defense you have.

The fact that the defense cap is above 200% doesn't matter, the only time you can "put it to good use" is in the case of defense debuffs when your effective Defense falls to 45% or below.

Unless I'm misremembering how defense works, it is not true that defense above 45% will help you against bosses in most cases. Bosses do get a better than 5% chance to hit you even with 45% defense, but any defense above 45% has no affect unless your defense is being debuffed to below 45%.

Can't speak for everyone, of course, but the reason I didn't reply is because although it's not a bad build by any means, it's hard to tell what you are trying to accomplish with it.

A very common tactic for Invul players is to try to soft-cap defense with IO bonuses, and although you're not too far from the soft-cap for S/L, you've also built for a modest amount of Psi defense, which doesn't do much for overall survivability.

You've also slotted a lot of recharge, so is perma-DP a goal? Lots of recovery? Regen?

If you let us know what you're trying to do, you'd have a better chance of getting feedback on whether this is the best way to do it.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that one thing I definitely would change is to take Invinc when it's available at 18. You can easily delay the fighting pool until the 20s or beyond (my soft-capped Invul tanker waited until the 40s) but Invinc is an absolutely key power.

Several of the Carnie hunt missions--specifically the ones given by Harvey Maylor, are indeed zone-specific to PI, so missions with Carnies--even PI radio missions--don't count.

And yes, that makes some of the Carnie hunt missions a complete PITA, (Bad Harvey, BAD!) which is why they are so often dropped.

EDIT: I went back and checked the contact list, and evidently Madeline Casey is the other Carnie hunt mission offender. She has at least a couple of level 40-45 "Combat X Carnies in PI" missions. Harvey's missions are 45-50, so the OP has more Carnie-killing fun to look forward to!