Greyhame

Dark Regen:

Theft of Essence: +End
Six slot DR with the above proc and Acc, Heal, Rech, and MAX end redux. Look at Healing and Accurate Healing sets to max the bonuses.

Also Cleaving Blow: Acc/Rech may come in handy

[ QUOTE ]
This isn't a smart-azz question.

I am trying to figure out what makes them so super-uber that they require a "kryptonite" npc (aka quantum and voids) with "I win" button weapons ... especially at the lower levels.

[/ QUOTE ]

The most accurate answer is: they don't. Which is why the (current) devs made Q damage resistable (it was unresistable originally).

The original/middle years dev team had some strange ideas. Kheldians were introduced in I3 when people were running around with perma-tier 9s and solo herding/killing whole maps with 8-man spawns even w/out tier 9s (no aggro caps or mob-stacking prevention). In spite of this, the devs said they didn't want khelds to be "tank-mages" and designed the ATs with multiple overlapping weaknesses, both internal and external.

IMO it was a bloody obvious case of overkill. The current dev team must agree, because now we have resistible Q damage, Inherent applying in forms, and break-free-dwarf. The only thing I'm still wishing for is human Auto powers applied in forms.

Uncommon, not because of expense, but because it is boring and tedious (for most of us, to each their own etc etc).

there's also a damage proc (Lady Grey?) in the defense debuff sets.

[ QUOTE ]
I guess no one here slotted Cloak of Fear for tohit debuff?

...

I hope I'm not the only one with 5/6 Siphon Insight In Cloak of Fear.

[/ QUOTE ]

I went 4/6 Cloud Senses in the build linked to my previous post, mainly for the recharge bonus. I had 5/6 Glimpse of the Abyss in a previous build.

Having tried both, I see it as a toss up. Fear slotting increases duration noticeably, and -tohit benefits a defense stacking build with 2-3 extra percentage points of "defense"*. Both helpful, neither crucial.



*Assuming you aren't fighting an AV with massive debuff resistance, etc. And yes, I know tohit isn't defense.

[ QUOTE ]
Would that make it worth taking and slotting on a Brute? I've always avoided the power on my scrapper, because really, at mag 2, what's the point?

[/ QUOTE ]

(1) If you're playing DA, get the Theft of Essence +End proc in Dark Regen ASAP. It has one chance to proc off *each* enemy hit.

(2) On topic: my CoF vs. OG comment on another thread:

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with Frost that most of the time neither mez toggle is needed. But on those occasions when you do want/need it - CoF is far more powerful, and end management is easy w/ IOs. Especially for a toggle that you don't run 24/7.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also my build is posted here, along with others in the thread.

[ QUOTE ]
In the end it seems to be a bit of a balance:

Hp/regen/etc is easier to build for, and allows a bit more room for other bonuses, yet yields comparativley less survivability than building for +def?

[/ QUOTE ]

On this at least, we agree.

[ QUOTE ]
the problem is , def bonuses have no -def debuff res, making a few baddie sthat have "burst" (the MAJORITY do...) into the anti-you after like 2 hits.

Where as significant amounts of hp/rgn/res can shrug it off, then recover after the battle quickly.

You dont need to be 100% hp AT ALL TIMES to survive, you can easily make it hoverign around 80%, seeing as it wont drop too much unless you did somethign silly :P

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why I said:

[ QUOTE ]
I should also point out that common def debuffs are not as big a detriment to this build as some people believe - they tend to be very short in duration, and only cause serious problems if *every* attack hitting me has significant -def (e.g. Cims.).

[/ QUOTE ]

You and others have made this point, but it doesn't work out in practice.

Whether it's short debuff duration or most mobs closing for melee brawls or a combination of factors, I can say that in practical game play a couple mobs with slug won't destroy the effectiveness of stacked defense as you imply. I monitor my melee defense stat on-screen as I play; it does yo-yo a bit, but generally stays high versus common enemies.

[ QUOTE ]
I find that +hp and +regen on a Res based set actually works pretty well...

Look at it this way:

You take less damage, with more HP while taking less damage, and what little HP is removed from your Health Bar comes back even quicker.


The best part is that its consistant, no cascading failure

[/ QUOTE ]

True, but... building for/stacking defense offers much higher survivability (in most situations) than stacking HP/Regen (for a Res based character with no native defense or +hp). When you face large groups res+hp/regen will die much faster than res+def (assuming sufficient def, etc).

I'm arguing this because I have a Fire/Fire tank and a SS/DA brute both with ~30% melee def. Both are Res/Heal based with no native +hp or defense (except CoD). My experience has been that stacking defense provides much greater survivability teamed or solo in the vast majority of content. I should also point out that common def debuffs are not as big a detriment to this build as some people believe - they tend to be very short in duration, and only cause serious problems if *every* attack hitting me has significant -def (e.g. Cims.).

Obviously I haven't done the math, but it would be possible to do a survivability comparison. Given my experiences I'm pretty sure defense would come out ahead (for characters of this type, in most situations etc).

[ QUOTE ]
Trying this with a different title...

Redoing an old Fire Brute and wanted to know if building for +regeneration is viable. Looking at approximately 350% on regeneration bonus currently, but should I focus on +hps/+resistances instead?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd suggest looking at melee defense bonuses. Obviously, you want decent recharge for HF, and HP will provide a good boost to survivability - but defense can be easily stacked to ~30% or higher, and it makes a *huge* difference in survivability, solo or teamed*.

*Uber def-debuffing mobs like Cims. excepted.

[ QUOTE ]
I personally loathe speed boost. None of my characters are /kin, and none ever will be. Generally speaking, Speed Boost is less than useless to me. I don't care about recharge - I've either slotted my powers to handle it already, or I've *avoided* it because I'm dealing with endurance issues. Out of nearly thirty characters, I believe I have two with Hasten or Superspeed, and well probably burn a freespec to get rid of it from them, in favor of a power I'll actually use.

Personally, I wish there was a way to dismiss "beneficial" buffs, like in the "evil" MMO with the orcs and humans. And to those self-righteous /kin players who shout "I'm doing you a favor, take it and be happy!" No, you're not. I'll ask nicely once. And then you're costing the team whatever buffs/debuffs/dps I was bringing, because I'll have sent a /tell to the leader saying "Thanks for the team, but I gone." And then I will be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, just checking but are you aware that SB also provides a massive Endurance Recovery buff?

[ QUOTE ]
As far as the bubbles go: "My mindset is that if he can't be worth a damn, damage wise then everything he does (Epic excluded) will be control."

I stated enjoying Mind/FF only pre-teens and completely hating it at the 20's. Total Domination and Mass Confusion have terrible accuracy, hence the added Acc IO. The Psionic Epic isn't really going anywhere because the character was designed to be a telepath. I don't expect controllers to have blaster style AoE damage, but as far I've noticed, only Mind is so horrid at any sort of AoE damage. I don't see myself spending on HOs or sets until I'm convinced it's worth getting to 50.

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly? Play a dominator and prepare for Going Rogue. If you mean that first sentence literally, then controllers are not for you - they have an entire secondary that is neither control nor damage.

so... 80 views and nary a comment? hrm. didn't think the kheld forum folks were so reticent...

I'm trying to build the 'best' tri-form 'shade that I can for the constraints below. I'd appreciate any feedback on the build so far. Right now, the only thing I see that I could do to improve it is adding the PvP sets.
<ul type="square"> [*](near) perma eclipse, mire and hasten[*]as much ranged Def as possible[*]nova and dwarf as viable combat forms (i.e. not gimped for set bonuses, etc.)[/list]I also want human to be functional for:
<ul type="square">[*]obviously, self-buffing (hasten/mire/eclipse) [oops, and stygian circle][*]pets[*]grav well[*]grav em[*]effective PvE invis[/list]
I think that's everything. This is the build so far:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

P.S. Hands off the KB protection! I'm kinda fanatical about it.

Since I'm weird and I like probabilities, I pulled up Excel and did some embarrassingly brute-force calculations:

# of enemies hit with DR - % chance of at least one proc

1 - 20%
2 - 36%
3 - 49%
4 - 59%
5 - 67%
6 - 74%
7 - 79%
8 - 83%
9 - 87%
10 - 89%

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Its got a 20% chance for 10% end.
1:5 chance for +11 end.
or 2.2 end recovered per target on average.
Even with end cost reduced to 18.4, you would need to hit 8-9 targets to "break even". As I recall the max targets for a PbAoE is 10 so you pretty much have to have a "large group" for this to pay off reliably.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm so it wouldn't be a chance for +10 end against every guy you hit with the proc? So lets say you hit 3 guys with the proc, it wouldn't restore 30 end yielding a net of 12 (30 - 18)?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you hit 3 with DR, you would have three separate* 20% chances to regain 10% end. Netminder is talking about overall average numbers. So yes, the numbers you give above are possible, if you won each of the 3 20% rolls (which is unlikely - it does happen in groups bigger than 3 though).

* I'm assuming the code is written to keep these chances statistically independent because it makes sense, but no, I haven't seen the code.

[ QUOTE ]
Its got a 20% chance for 10% end.
1:5 chance for +11 end.
or 2.2 end recovered per target on average.
Even with end cost reduced to 18.4, you would need to hit 8-9 targets to "break even". As I recall the max targets for a PbAoE is 10 so you pretty much have to have a "large group" for this to pay off reliably.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your numbers appear to be correct. Of course, with team-sized spawns "large groups" are average.

Perhaps I should have added a qualifier that I always use DR on as big a group as possible to leverage this. In any case - even solo it provides significant endurance mitigation.

And for the record - 'average' and 'reliable' are not the same. A description of overall average behavior is not a claim that random procs are reliable in individual occurences.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Theft of Essence: +End. This proc is *the* answer to Dark Regen's end cost. On average it breaks even, in big groups it makes Dark Regen an end recovery tool.

[/ QUOTE ]

OH OH OH!!! So does this have a chance to hit against every enemy? Niiice, I will definitely pick this up then.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. Personally, I suspect it was created it with Dark Regen in mind. I'd been bugging Castle off and on for some way to mitigate that cost.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So it's better to replace something broken with something stupid and broken?

Pre-13 PvP was far from perfect, but PvP 2.0 is two steps backward and sideways.

[/ QUOTE ]
Now hold on. I could have almost have agreed with your prev post - 4 sec sup on buffs may be much - BUT thats under the assumption that the rest, including DR, is a general improvement.

So I would say they replaced something broken with something thats better, but still broken.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say they replaced something broken with good ideas that have broken implementations and its clearly a work-in-progress.

I'm not giving up hope just yet.

Don't give up just yet. I finished IOing my SS/DA this week (looong process, that), and I do have a few suggestions.

[ QUOTE ]
- endurance is *still* a problem in any prolonged fight. By prolonged I mean one over 20 seconds long. This is without running Cloak of Fear constantly.
- Enough bosses and I'll get hit enough where my recourse is either to run, pop inspirations or pop my heal (with an enhanced endcost of 20 per cast).

[/ QUOTE ]

Theft of Essence: +End. This proc is *the* answer to Dark Regen's end cost. On average it breaks even, in big groups it makes Dark Regen an end recovery tool.

I'd want more end redux in CoF and Weave, but that's a fairly minor point. The end redux in your attacks looks good. I know Kinetic Combat is considered great these days, but I suspect that the negative effects of such diminished Acc and Dam are severely underestimated (without sufficient set bonuses to make up the difference - which you don't have).

[ QUOTE ]
- Cloak of Fear works really well against the minions and stacks soon after that on Lieuts. I don't think it was able to fear a boss.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct - it isn't supposed to.

[ QUOTE ]
- Cloak of darkness messes up my costume!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

/sigh. It also slows my computer with its ridiculous particle count (as if the rest of DA wasn't enough). Sad but true.



This is my build, just for kicks:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>| Copy &amp; Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1403;705;1410;HEX;|
|78DAA593D96ED3401486C7B1D36C4ED33549D37D499B6E6E7 3C77281805209D4A0A|
|294456DA91595218D9A26C17624B8E301B8E2A6D0D20DDE02 5E87E5159058C29CF3|
|BB155C1329FFE7393373FE3367ECC2F325538897D78416BB5 92DB9AE7DC3697A325|
|828952BDB9135B9D790AE57922121448667EC82AC4A69159B 0DE9D845CF91B5B2B7|
|93C6D4927C2A6BAEB4964ACEAE7DDDD9AB3B9DB76B3B52ADF 1ACF30773B55EAF5AC|
|B15AF265D178315596A546AE5B83F53DEF1D428CAA36243CA 27A95B8DCAB6058B62|
|BD59B50B25D793CE8BB42A6A5AFDC734E1FF5A41B1AE3025C C0D46FB26A3E331B0C|
|5E8B21907B48177B60C31A1512890651853408ED196561814 E39ABF5A99683009C0|
|A40B263D30E981491226EF94EABE890E93B614E70BC3240C9 37698B4A93E07B15C0|
|4730A794125857CDF107CD3F0CDC03703DF01F80EC0F74869 0489F4089CA259B688|
|A20A13BE49953AE61BC6BE0B5A9052A1380C451C358454288 1555AE28146A1E41DD|
|E4FA93B358DCFD7F921403343278C9153E08C3171CC08AB44 DD4814E81EE1DCA3AF|
|B1609F71AC62BDDCE756B0779743E9BB6C389ED41929608D8 3135D3A95ACA9B429B|
|FE4D428A7D555A8CF6F401F1A3089DB9D440326D18031B5AE 1F5B03FDB3BC75E81F|
|1C5253902838D8E0D0C83354EE30A65DC68CC7986F22A8760 CFBB736FC83CF31FA9|
|331F50BF8CD986E0128FA8C5E66FF1C63190E19AABEAC7F8E AC819E47180B2120CC|
|D8568DC8F986B97D7E0766DE006F1973C79C6FEE10A303C6A 9D259FFF59CFD1CA05|
|ECE7F01BE32165058FE1B8F4ED4C0F2AFCF42317954914715 EFD5D422AE4F2CA27F|
|03C6C5C72904B2ADFC1DD2B901ABC6C5D725346C5C362EBEC FFFFA7D34CFF344EE4|
|5D5535189B84FF290868F48D6493628B649B2456293B43E99 E7B5262E51419749AE|
|905C2579458B423125311293244ED24E9220E920E92649926 4488E485A7F00C683E|
|A0B|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|</pre><hr />

PSW is your favorite attack and you are afraid it will be nerfed, therefore you nerf-herd to Drain Psyche, which is far less important (not saying its unimportant, just less) in a heavily IO'd build due to the abundant Recov/HP/Regen/Def/etc bonuses available.

And:

[ QUOTE ]
NOT balancing for a set-IO'd build, you can put 2 rech, 2 heal, 2 end in it, run haste, and have it up a fairly huge percentage of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

this says its been so long since you played a non-purpled out build that you've forgotten some of us don't have +438392% Accuracy bonuses. Your entire perspective seems unbalanced this way.

[ QUOTE ]
Ah, thanks, yea that's important info, the pet summon was info I couldn't find on Mid's or in game CoH. Pseudo pets cause me trouble sometimes when they're not given their own tabs in the powers.

[Also, just curious, why exactly would a pet summon (summon: rain of arrows) have such a high accuracy.Does that have any determining factor on the amount of times it hits the mob? (I know RoA can possibly hit 3 times)]

[/ QUOTE ]

I remember when Archery came out - high base accuracy is a signature characteristic of the set by deliberate design.

No opinion on the question of the thread. I have no practical experience with either set.

I suppose you could PM Castle and ask. I do know that specifically calling them out on the forums is against the rules, so don't do that. Its also possible that some of the AR players on the blaster boards have been around long enough to know the history behind various changes.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It makes sense. An empath is someone who can feel another's emotions. Now imagine an Empath who is completely psychotic? Feeling everyone's pain around them, getting a kick out of it, a rise out of it. So they use their powers of Empathy to twist up their opponent's emotions driving them to the brink of insanity while getting their own allies in the right kind of mindset to promote more misery.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be Apathy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sadism, not apathy. Big, BIG difference.

[ QUOTE ]
they are.

the ticket drops are in proportion to the prices of things on the markets.

people use their tickets to get the salvage they need for their own rolls and only that.

no more "excess goes on the market for cheap" because there is no excess anymore... just scarcity.

strange, because so many patches were in place to increase and balance the rewards... this patch is like 180 from that.

simple math- less tickets = market prices increase.

scarcity breeds criminal behavior in society.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't go that far. Yes, prices will go up w/ fewer tickets awarded, but rare salvage is still relatively cheap in terms of tickets - that will limit the rise.