Gospel_NA
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Quote:I have the feeling that this will, most likely, be a rather unanimous opinion.Originally Posted by Werner
I agree with Dark Melee/Invulnerability. You can soft cap smashing, lethal, fire, cold, energy and negative with one target. You won't have the defense debuff resistance to back it up, but you'll be over the soft cap in most fights to give you a little breathing room, plus you have your other layers (resistance, hit points, damage recovery) intact. -
I would have thought it was just to revitalize the game and attempt to keep their cash flow up.
I mean, NCsoft didn't aquire CoX that long ago, I'm sure they're still looking to recoup more on their investment.
Going free to play will definitely bring more people to the game. I've noticed people, on average, tend to spend more when there's a cash shop system in play.
Some people get carried away, especially when there's a point system and they don't realize that the 800 points they're spending is really $7 or $8 dollars.
Can't blame them for going free to play. Every game has a finite lifespan. One day CoX will shut down. But, who knows when that day will be. -
Oh wow....
This has made me realize that some of my builds really really really stink against +4's.
Thanks, Wonderslug. I actually thought there was a difference. -
Quote:Awesome, this is good information. I'm not a very mathematically adept person. I seem to have an issue with writing numbers backwards. 58 as 85 or 157 as 175, but I think I'd like to give this a try with some of my builds and see how it comes out.Originally Posted by Hopeling
The accuracy displayed is based on the normal 75% chance to hit an enemy your own level that has no defense. So, in those circumstances a 150% chance to hit is extremely overkill, since it caps at 95%. You can change that 75% value in options -> configuration -> exemping and base values -> base tohit. I often set it to 39 or 48, which is your base chance to hit a +4 or +3 enemy respectively.
To calculate endurance usage, you can add up the total cost of your attack chain, then divide it by the time it takes to execute the chain. That will give you the effective end/sec used by your attacks. Add that to the cost of your toggles and you have your total endurance consumption. If that value far exceeds your endurance recovery, you might have problems. Ideally your recovery will equal or exceed your total consumption, but for most builds in most situations it's good enough to have a small net drain (if you have a net drain of 1 end/sec, it still takes you 100+ seconds depending on accolades to run out of endurance when attacking nonstop). Powers that aren't strictly part of an attack chain are harder to translate directly into an end/sec number.
Thanks. -
Quote:Ah, I get it. So at 95% I'm technically at the accuracy cap to hit an equal level mob. But since that doesn't take into account enemy defenses, increased levels, (Lt and boss status?) and other abilities (like vengeance) the added accuracy/to-hit bonuses are there to account for that. I doubt it's a proportional trade off of 1% accuracy for 1% defense (That'd be too simple, I'd guess), so when I have an accuracy value of 200-300% I'm probably over doing it a bit in most instances. I guess unless I want to hit +4's with some accuracy.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Your chance to hit a target doesn't just depend on you, it depends on the target as well. It could be running defenses, for example. So there is no way to actually say what your chance to hit a target is, for all targets in the game.
Mids assumes that your base chance to hit a target is 75%, which is the base chance for a player to hit an even con target without any defense. It then calculates your chance to hit such a target after factoring in all accuracy bonuses. That's why you end up with these very large numbers: you've generally saturated accuracy against such a target to the point where its higher than the 95% ceiling the game enforces.
You can change that base 75% chance to hit the target if you wish by going into the Options -> Configuration -> Exemping and Base Values. There you'll see the base tohit that Mids is assuming in all its Accuracy calculations. You could change that to the base chance to hit a +1 (65%), or the chance to hit a +2 with 15% defense (41%) or whatever you want. Just keep in mind that your target has a say in whether you hit or not, and all targets are different, and that's why neither Mids nor the game can give one single value for your chance to hit.
As to endurance, that's highly dependent on your build and how you play. Its much harder to give guidance there. But its a safe bet that differentials as high or higher than base recovery with unslotted stamina (somewhere around 2.0 eps) tend to provide a lot of breathing room on endurance.
That helps a lot.
I'll just have to keep that in mind for endurance.
Thanks for the reply, Arcanaville. -
If I could tell a noob one thing.....
It would be play what you enjoy to play. Play any archtype and powerset combination you want that you feel is fun to you and once you've done that to your heart's content then start worrying about what's best, because what is best isn't always the most fun to you. -
You know, I've been using mids for years now and I really enjoy making characters builds and trying to come up with ways to do new and interesting things, but I started realizng there's a few things I don't understand very well.
For one thing accuracy. I don't understand how the percentage translates into your ability to hit a mob. If I have a 147% accuracy, what are my chances to hit an equal level mob minion, lt., and boss?
I've always been under then assumption that anything over 200% was great and anything under 150% was not so good, but that was just some crazy parameter I put in place so I didn't really have to understand it. Now I'm just curious, because I think understanding it would help me improve my builds.
Endurance usage was another thing. I've never quite understood what was a good rate of consumption compared to recovery. I always figured if I could double recovery over what the consumption was I'd be good, but then again I've never known how to take into account my attacks would use over time.
I pretty much understand everything else really well, but it was finally bugging me that I still didn't understand these values very well. -
Think it might end up be worth forgoing some set bonuses to try and max out primary stats on powers?
Such as putting as many quad IOs you can in a single power and boosting them in an attempt to max out damage, accuracy, end redux, recharge etc? -
Quote:That's true, I forget about DM. The -hit from the attacks and the self heal from siphon life in your normal attack chain are probably great survival tools.Originally Posted by Starflier
DM/Inv.
Touch of fear is pretty great for hard targets too with it's high hit debuff.
The /inv was expected though.
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It's a neat combination. I gave this a try a few years ago, but the desired effect was never really achieved.
I thought the combination of oppressive gloom and whirling mace would be incredible, but the fact that the stun on whirling mace had only a 30% to actually take effect make stacking it up unreliable. It was fun as heck when it worked though. You could keep minion perpetually stunned with just oppressive gloom as long as you put at least one stun duration in the power and lts. and boss would become stunned sometimes with whirling mace. Of course oppresive gloom and clobber together were a great boss stunner. It's just the duration on the clobber stun was a little short.
It was great watching mobs mill around you as you tore them to bits. It was extremely heavy on endurance use though. I had a real hard time balancing damage, defense, and endurance use with this build.
But this was on a brute and long before the incarnate system.
It might be worth revisiting though with some of the incarnate stuff available. -
I was thinking about my characters and I realize that I'm really enjoy characters that can take the most punishment and survive situations that most characters could not. However, I'm also realizing I dislike the damage tanks are capable of and am really starting to tire of the fury mechanics on brutes.
So, that leaves me thinking about making the must durable scapper I could possibly make without completely debilitating his damage.
So far I'm think Invulnerability seems like the top end survivability set even with it's major psi weakness. With the ability to cap s/l resistance, manage very high energy resists, and other resistances at a respectable level and the ability to reach s/l soft cap along with other soft capped defense with invincibility, it seems like the prime canidate. Not to mention the sorely needed hp increase from dull pain.
Willpower seems like it's up there too, but with the lower hp and the pain of having regen very reliant on mob proximity makes me look at invunleribility more.
What do you folks think about the most survivable secondary?
Then there's the primary. I've had a tough time with this. I don't see the advantages of parry and divine avalanche as much with a set like invulneribility. Maybe the -damage component with KM is useful? Battle axe for it's knockdowns? War mace for it's knockdown/disorient combination?
What would you do? -
Quote:Darn, I figured as much, but I had hoped otherwise. Thanks.Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Mids' is acting crazy. The APPs/PPPs seem to have no been properly adjusted with the new unlock at 35.
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I was wondering, if Shadow Meld is now available without having to take dark blast or moonbeam now or is mids just showing this as an error?
The description still says you need dark blast or moonbeam, but I can select it in mids without a prereq.
Just wanted to see if this was a mistake or if you could select it without a prereq. It would change my builds around quite a bit. -
I think burnout is a good addition if you can work it in without getting rid of any powers that you use on a regular basis or provide you with critical IO bonuses.
It could be nice to have an emergency stygian circle or eclipse when you needed it. Good way to get another fuzz ball floating about at the time too.
So far I've found burnout to be a so so type of power. Only set I've gotten incredible use out of it with was regen. Instantly recharging reconstruction, dull pain, instant healing, and MoG is pretty useful.
Solo, being able to stack up to four mires might be interesting, but in a group I typically have just enough time to stack up two of them. -
Quote:Well, that makes sense when it's explained. When the buffs were repeating they were always in pairs.Originally Posted by Sarrate
Pretty much all dynamically scaling toggle buffs have this effect (Invin, RttC, AAO, etc). These toggles have two attributes:
BuffA (does not stack, the "first target buff")
BuffB (stacks)
When it effects one enemy, you get both buffs. When you have two or more targets, it looks like this:
BuffA x10
BuffB x10
But since BuffA doesn't stack, that drops to:
BuffA x1
BuffB x10
Now here is the trick, the buffs last slightly longer than the activation (tick) period of the toggle. During this time, you'd get following:
BuffA x20 --> x1
BuffB x20
Thus why you sometimes get spikes in the benefit from the toggle. Why was it designed this way? If they made the buff last just as long as the tick period, it would be possible for the buff to momentarily fall off. It was deemed that the benefit of a brief double stack was better than a brief moment of no buff at all. -
Quote:Yes, I noticed this as well, but I couldn't accurately judge whether or not what I was seeing was an actual recharge speed increase or an error report to the attributes panel. I assumed the latter, though the first would certainly be a bug.Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
I don't know if this has been covered yet, but I noticed an oddity with the +recharge from entropic during an ambush farm.
Every now and then the effect would double and work on more enemies than it should. It's supposed to cap at 10 targets, but I've been able to get it to effect enough enemies to give me >70% recharge bonus for several seconds at a time. Maybe even as much as ten seconds at a time.
What may be be happening is the buff is persisting from a defeated enemy for whatever reason, but still getting re-applied from a fresh new target, as on an ambush farm you're constantly mobbed by 100+ enemies. Or perhaps there's some weirdness in the "pulsing" of the buff causing it to count enemies outside of it's cap. -
Quote:Right, I think everyone is agrees on this.Originally Posted by _Pine_
The Stealth proc and Super speed are not Concealment powers. Thus Energy Cloak can stack with them.
Invisibility, Stealth, Grant Invis, Group Invis as well as some PBAoE toggles like Arctic Fog and the like do NOT stack, as well as any temporary costume powers, since these are concealment powers with a stealth rating of 0ft
However, I don't think anyone has pointed out whether or not the effects are providing invisbile levels of stealth where you can stand in a mob without aggroing (Assuming you have no other effects on that will cause aggro).
I use do this with shadow cloak and superspeed on my WS or stealth and superspeed on other characters. I currently have no characters that have any combination of these powers, nor had I planned to make one.
I was waiting to see if someone else tested these. I noticed you had energy cloak and superspeed. If you turn off entropic aura and use just superspeed and energy cloak, how close can you get to a aggro capable mob? -
Quote:Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
I'm not sure what evidence you need other than the real numbers that tell me I have 30 feet from Celerity: +stealth and 35 from Energy Cloak. They're listed as independent effects.
Pretty much everything you're talking about we've disscussed.
You're stating something we've already stated. We know the radius stack. That's not what were concerned with. What we're considered with is whether or not the two effects stack to provide an invisible effect. Kind of like stacking stealth with superspeed does. With both (Stealth and superspeed) on you can stand right in the middle of a mob, despite that it is aggro capable, without causing aggro. (Assuming you are not placing any other effects (Such as taunts or debuffs) on the mobs around you)
((Had to change something here. I currently don't have a brute that has two stealth effects that are strong enough to stack together to test this. Stealth + Stealth IO is not strong enough to conceal at face to face range on at -1 mob))Quote:I don't believe there's a stealth radius a brute can achieve that will keep something they're standing on top of from attacking, if the thing is aggro-capable. I'm sure that if I'm wrong, though, someone will correct me.
If it helps the discussion remove the stealth IO from it all together. We'll just compare superspeed and any other stealth power.
This was actually pointed out in one or two other posts in the thread already.Quote:
Right, that was the point of the demonstration.
Honest question for you, there is no malice in this question, as I'm certain it will sound that way.Quote:Things that can aggro will aggro if you're close enough. The Celerity suppresses within a short range and leaves you with only the Energy Cloak, which at that range things will see through. I'm not sure of what you're trying to demonstrate with this last part.
But, have you read the posts in this thread or just parts of them?
We know mobs will aggro if they can aggro when you are close enough. This, however, is excluded when two stealth effects are stacked to a level that is higher than the perception of the mobs, as Siolfri pointed out. An example is the shadow cloak on a warshade with superspeed. With those abilities both on the warshade achieves and invisbility level of stealth that mobs (without some sort of perception aid) cannot see through and thus will not aggro you even face to face range.
Pretty much what's being discussed now is the ranges of entropic aura and at what ranges the effects of entropic aura take place. There is a side discussion about the effective ranges of stealth abilities. I've noted that I can get within 8 ft of mobs (specifically minions at this point) when Siolfir believes that the 8 ft I'm suggesting is actually 10 ft. I'm attempting to provide support for my conclusion which is what all the recent screen shots are about.
Though, I'm actually starting to lose interest in the entire thing. -
Quote:I actually forgot about that change Castle made to the -defense portion. I only recalled the "Only affects self" change to the -damage.Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
If you can click Rage again before it wears off, you have the -damage debuff, but you don't have the -defense.
I had actually mistaken that for the gladiator 3% defense IO. I certainly recommend it if it's in their budget.Quote:I don't think the Shield Wall unique is worth the price for the 3% resistance it provides. Did you mean to include the other 3% defense unique instead? -
Quote:I see. In that case a good question to ask is "What exactly are you looking to change?" are you looking to add more defense, more recharge, more damage capability, more resists, regen, endurance recovery? What are you looking to do.Originally Posted by Miss_Judgement
Sorry, I guess I should have explained a little better. The character is already 50 and I have already invested in a similar to the above build pretty heavily. Testing in S/L ambush farms at +3/x8, always stacking rage when it is up and with perma hasten, I have no trouble at all dealing - I use an orange insp during rage crashes and the occasional green when energize or rebirth isn't up. I won't be changing primary or secondary, I'm just asking for whatever minor tweaks are needed to 'finish' the build up right.
Thank you for your insights though!
What other incarnate powers are you using other than Rebirth?
What I consider a tweak, may not be a tweak for you. Eventually, you reach a point that you have to trade off one thing for another.
Looking at your build you've hit some of the most important high points. First, being softcap defenses on most damage types, fairly low on negative energy, but assuming you use spiritual to get hasten to perma (Though I'm not certain if the recharge buff from entropic aura is consistant enough with force feedback proc in footstomp to make up the difference) you can have a rather long double stack duration on energy drain which covers NE.
I'd put a winter's gift: slow resistance in super jump. I don't imagine you need superjump toggled on all the time, so the endurance redux in there is easily expendable. The extra 20% recharge and slow resistance is pretty helpful and boosts your debuff resistance from both of those from 20% to 40%. Doubling your resistance to those debuffs without having to change anything signficant or give up a slot somewhere is a good upgrade.
If you take that slot you have left over and put it in health and add a Numina: Heal IO it will add 47% regen to your build. That brings your regen per second up from 18.34 to 20.7 normally (With accolades), from 34.44 to 36.8 with energize on, and if you use spiritual radial or paragon it brings your regen from 20.95 to 24.75 (With accolades) and 47.84 to 51.65 per second with energize on.
That's actually pretty good regen for a set that isn't focused around it.
I'm sure there is quite a bit you can do moving things around with that one free slot available, but that was one of the first noticable things I saw. -
Quote:Ok, this is consistent with what I've seen. It does prove that energy cloak does not supress entropic aura's hostile effects at all, which one of my prior posts went into detail on.Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
My testing indicates that things are functioning exactly as they did at the end of Beta.
Level 50 ss/ea brute
Zone: RWZ, grey area
Powers used in testing: Entropic Aura, Energy Cloak, Sprint (for Celerity: +stealth), Super Jump (just cuz)
Test phase 1: Only powers active are Energy Cloak, Sprint, Super Jump
Initial stealth radius: 65 feet
Walk up to level 35 mobs. Bump up against them. Stand there, but do not attack. Stealth radius drops to only the 35 feet attributable to Energy Cloak.
Mob reaction: Nothing. Mobs that are -15 do not attack you unprovoked.
Test phase 2: Still standing beside those same mobs, turn on Entropic Aura
Stealth radius remains 35 feet. Mobs show green debuff rings around their arms from the aura.
Mob reaction: Mobs attack.
Feel free to try it yourself. This is completely consistent with what I've been seeing since before the issue went live. With the stealth from Energy Cloak still not suppressed (per the attribute monitor), I get attacked by things that should not aggro on me immediately upon, but not before activating Entropic Aura.
It, however, doesn't test whether or not energy cloak is stacking, as expected, with the celerity stealth IO and or superspeed as you did not test on a mob that would aggro if your stealth failed to conceal you.
You should test with a mob that is capable of aggroing you on sight and see if they aggro upon you when you stand in their position.
To elaborate on the situation you presented you are being attacked, because the taunt effect and -recharge effect are affecting the mobs causing them to attack. Entropic aura is now the taunt aura for EA. Your stealth is, however, not supressed. If you ran into the normal aggro radius of a mob able to aggro on you they will not aggrro unless you reach the modified aggro radius that has been affected by your stealth. -
I have a SS/EA as well and it has been sitting at level 39 for a long time, perhaps since a few months after the release of CoV.
The problem with the pairing of these two sets lies in the use and lack of use of rage. If you ignore rage, you lose quite an effective damage and accuracy booster. If you do use it you have to manage crashes which are slightly more managable when you're in the thick of it with EA now.
Energy drain, if well slotted for defense covers a little less than 6% of your crash defense debuff, if you fully saturate. You still need to use a purple insp or two to cover the rest of the defense loss.
The real issue with the defense loss is that once the defense is reduced there's little of anything to back it up. The resistance are middle of the road at best and the self heal won't sustain you through the duration of the crash.
Unless you plan on relying very heavily on inspirations I highly recommend another primary with EA.
It's doable, but unless you are doing it for concept or for the sheer heck of it, it's not a great combination. -
Quote:I'm certain the radius can stack.Originally Posted by _Toxa_
I suppose my confusion stems from the combat monitor which appeared to show stacking stealth effects from EC and Celerity. I have found power descriptions to be more frequently inaccurate than the combat monitor, but regardless.. if it doesn't, it doesn't.
Does the effect?
I guess Siolfir is right about that if you combine energy cloak with superspeed or celerity IO you should have complete concealment to the point you can stand on a mob and go unnoticed.
I recall doing this with stealth and superspeed and the warshade stealth ability and superspeed. Each of those state they cannot be stacked with other concealment powers.
As I stated before I had not tested it though, and could only assume based on your information. I was waiting for someone to test it after you said you couldn't "bump" into mobs with energy cloak + stealth IO. -
Quote:Assuming you haven't decided to completely blow off what I have to say with the "I don't care" portion of your post I did come up with the following:Originally Posted by Siolfir
And I can run up to a mob with just Superspeed (and its 35' of stealth) running, bounce off of them and rush through the spawn to the other side without any aggro. Mob AI doesn't react immediately, and the gauge you're using (less than Energy Drain, more than melee) isn't exactly extremely accurate - for starters, you don't know how large the visual effect for Energy Drain is compared to the power's actual radius of 12'. If you want to claim "I tested this to exactly 8 feet", get a kill-all, clear it until the last couple of mobs show up on the map, click on one of them and use the navigation pointer to measure the distance. I don't question your results as much as the conclusions you're drawing and methodology leading to them - I think you're hitting 10' and calling it 8'.
I certainly don't trust using Entropic Aura to say it's exactly 8' due to it counting you as a target (shown by the 8.5% recharge bonus instead of 5% whether you're near anything or not - not your "just jumped away" screenshot, but every single case of the power being toggled on with my level 10 KM/EA Brute plus a screenshot of someone standing at the market) and then apparently not giving any recharge bonus for others; it could be a glitch in the real numbers updating since most toggles that have stacking effects can appear twice on the same bonus due to update frequency, effect duration, and toggle activation time, but you don't see them not show up at all unless something is being suppressed (which shouldn't happen unless you're mezzed).
The Stealth IOs do stack with Energy Cloak, as does Superspeed. It's something that shows up in the stealth radius monitor, as well as the ability to stand near mobs for extended periods of time that would aggro on you if they didn't. The "incompatible" concealment powers are mutually exclusive toggles. If you don't believe me, I don't really care. I know better and have used this for years (specifically, since issue 8 on an EM/EA with Superspeed).
And if Fury was fixed, great. That was what I was hoping for when it was brought up in the thread. If not, oh well. I haven't specifically logged on my DM/EA (with a Stealth IO, for 65' of stealth radius in the monitor) and stood near things without attacking to check. Either way it would have no effect on low level mobs, because grey mobs don't attack you if they notice you regardless (only if taunted or attacked).
I more than certain that I was within 8 ft. The fact of the matter is that I could take a single movement forward (A whole character step or two to three stuttersteps) and be within range of a haymaker (7 ft). To provide some visual support, since I do not current have the time to figure out how to get a kill all mission on this character or time to do that mission I have some screen shots that can explain a bit.
This screen shot shows the distance of 8 ft (Using the arbiter as a marker). Compare that to the screen shot below it and I'm certain you can see the distances are the same. I've provided one at 10 feet below that one to show the difference between 8 ft and 10 ft. I used the edge of my monitor as a way to keep the zoom the same on each of the screen shots. Obviously I had to zoom out a little further for the 10 ft screen shot since 10 ft would not show on my screen at the previous zoom. I also noted that the targeting boxes around both the arbiter and the mob are similar distances away from the edge of the screen in all images. Using scaling, this would indicate a very similar distance on the first two images and a further distance in the latter image.
You are correct, however, that there is a difference in detection distances between minions, lts., and bosses. I cannot get within 8 ft of a lt. or boss. Especially if those mobs have some perception enchancing abilities.
I did note that my recharge bonus for stuck on in all the images. I attribute to the unidentified reporting are to the attributes panel which I indicated of in my other post. Dark was correct about that as well. My previous image of me with the bonus at the last arbiter was to prove that the effect could be fabricated. However, it is possible that his image was genuine.
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Once I have more time, I'll get the kill all and see if I can do it that way as well. (I just need to figure out what kill all I can get at 39 villain side and from what contact) -
Quote:Invulnerability is still going to be more survivable simply due to it's massive potential for resistance to smashing/lethal damage alone. Overall Invulneribility maintains better resists and can be softcapped against most damage types, barring psionics. Furthermore, with dullpain the hitpoint total for invul is going to much higher as well which means more bang for your buck when using siphon life.Originally Posted by RadioSilence
With the recent changes to EA, how does that armor stack up to INV when pairing with DM? If Im planning on a high-end build (soft-cap typed def except psi) would DM/EA be a better choice?
With EA you are really trading off resists for more endurance management tools and other goodies like the recharge aura etc.
EA can be, easily, softcapped to all types of damage like invuln (other than psi), but doesn't get the great resists that invul does, nor the increase hp total. EA gets a decent self heal/endurance use reduction tool in energize and an endurance recovery/defense tool in energy drain and a minor stealth ability in energy cloak. Furthermore, the defense debuff resist of EA only reaches 51.9% that is not enhancable. (Can't recall the DDR max for invul, unfortunately) This means that about one out of every two defense debuffs will take effect. (This could be potentially devistating against groups like cimoreans.) at least with invul you have the extra hp from dull pain, and the resists to back up your defense. I've made builds with invul that are always soft capped s/l and at the softcap for itrials with a well saturated invincibility.
I give the check mark to invul for survivability, but the check mark to EA for utility.
