LiquidAir

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For the defense case, I have to be hit 10 (or more) out of 20 times. The chance of that happening is around 1 in 100, which is an astounding 10,000 times more likely than the resistance case.

So, if you the question you are asking is "what is the average damage taken?" 25% defense is the same as 50% resistance. However, if the question you ask is "how likely am I to die?" then 25% defense is no where near as good as 50% resistance.

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You're going to drag us all through binomial theory aren't you.

truly thou art evil!

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Average lifetime analysis is a Markov Chain analysis, not so much binomial theory. Last time I said that, someone actually did it. I'm pseudo-lazy: I didn't want to calculate it, but I was willing to write a simulator to model it.

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I have been using 1D random-walk theory, but in the world where there are only two possible outcomes (hit or miss), Markov chains, binomials, and random-walks all work out to be the same thing so it ends up not mattering which notation you use.

The trick I am using to vastly simplify the caculations is to approximate the damage distribution as a gaussian. That way all I need to keep track of is an average damage and a standard deviation. The method may be a tad mathematical for these forums, but if you can handle a square root, you can use the results.

On a side note:
Yes the range of possibilities for a defense build is much wider than for a resistance build. While you will sometimes die in a situation where a resistance build never would, if you get lucky you can do things that are impossible for a resistance build. One particular event triggered my investigation down this road:

I went into a mission to fight Luimary. This is the Elite Boss version not the Hero version (after the patch). The first time I faced her, she downed me in seconds. I came back from the hospital to try again and I took her down with barely a scratch. The difference in the two attempts was so striking that is really piqued my interest in the topic.

Of couse, the second reason I have been doing this investigation is to answer the question many people have asked: Are the EA passives worth taking?

Once issue 7 goes live, 25% defense will be equivalent to 50% resistance in in terms of average damage taken. It is not that way now because of how the accuracy calculations scale for +levels, lieutenants, and bosses.

However, that is not the entire story.

Lets say a mob attacks me 20 times. With 25% defense, on average he will hit me 5 times. With 50% resistance, on average he will hit me 10 times for half damage. In each case I take 25% of the incoming damage.

However, ask this question: how likely is it that I will take 50% of the incoming damage?

For the resistance case, I have to be hit all 20 times. The odds of that are around 1 in 1,000,000 (2^20).

For the defense case, I have to be hit 10 (or more) out of 20 times. The chance of that happening is around 1 in 100, which is an astounding 10,000 times more likely than the resistance case.

So, if you the question you are asking is "what is the average damage taken?" 25% defense is the same as 50% resistance. However, if the question you ask is "how likely am I to die?" then 25% defense is no where near as good as 50% resistance. Generally, most players care more about the second question than the first.

I am (slowly) working on a guide for comparing defense to resistance based on the probability of dying rather than average damage. Unfortunatly, the relationship is not as simple as you might like, both because it is mathematically a tad subtle and also because the answer varies depending on the scenario.

When you test fire, use a Fire Thorn Caster rather than the council Flamethrower. Flamethrower gets a bonus to accuracy, but I don't believe that any of the powers a Fire Thorn Caster uses do (Fire Sword, Flares and Fire Blast are the set I think).

Most of the powers with accuracy buffs are documented. Look through the power descriptions and you will see it.

I know the Fire Breath has buffed accuracy from practical experience with my Fire Blaster (20% or so) and I think Flamethrower does too. The power description is

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Spews forth a cone of flames setting foes on fire. Accurate and deadly at medium range.


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which to me indicates better than normal accuracy.

On a side note about feeling squishy: that is the inherant nature of defense builds. Resistance builds are more predicable than defense builds. So, if you repeat a given scenerio, the amount of damage taken by a defense build will vary much more than the amount of damage taken by a resistance build even if the average values are the same. What this means is that you are much more likely to be surprised by a defense build either by taking more damage than you expected or less. The net result is that they are more squishy in a practical sense because the times when you take more than you expect have dire consequences. I have a spreadsheet I developed which demonstrates this pretty clearly that I plan on posting at some point.

I thought Scrapper, Stalker and Brute numbers were all the same and Tank numbers were higher.

I think the 12.5% numbers were a guess based on a comparison with /SR.

Actually, those numbers would explain some of my experiences in game. For instance, the CoT Spectral Demons rip me to shreds; they are one of the few mobs in game that I treat with kid gloves. A 10.5% base defense against negative energy would go a ways toward explaining that. By contrast, I can wade through Longbow and Scrapyarders with little worry. My guess is that is the 15% fire resistance kicking in.

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3. Also make Illusion controls power Psi/Eng instead of just

I don't think that will cause any untoward imbalances.

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OMG. Thats the best idea I EVER heard!!!! /agree.

**Master Solaren jumps with excitement.. lol

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You realize that Blind and Flash are energy already? The only Psi in Illusion is Spectral Wounds.

Second, when you use a dual damage type attack against a mob with defense, it gets to use the best defense value for calculating chance to hit. So right now, Spectral Wounds, which is all psi, punches right through Dispersion Bubble. If you change Spectral Wounds to Psi/Energy then Dispersion Bubble will provide defense against it. Personally, I like Spectral Wounds as it is, thankyouverymuch.

In general, remember that while dual damage types are in general an advantage against mobs with resistances, they are usually a disadvantage against mobs with defense. Be careful what you ask for... you might get it.

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Finally got the Gangbuster badge. Took me a real long time and go back to PO mutiple times over teh course of 2-3 weeks. My advice on that badge would be to get a team and just go through PO killing everything, since the bosses seem to spawn more often if you also kill all their minions.

Now can anyone tell me how I go about getting Slot Machine as a contact now?

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If you have a team, don't even screw with Port Oakes, as has been said before, go to St Martial.

Now that you have the badge, there's nothing esle to worry about, just go and talk to the slot machine.

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Errr yeah if I want to get obliterated by lvl 35+ things. If your in your 20's you want to stay in PO.

My question as to Slot Machine is where is he?

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Level 30-35 contact in St. Martial.

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Now I have a couple of question sabout the "Kill X amount of Y Mob".

<ul type="square">[*]Luddites - Is there one and do any count or only bosses[*]Clockworks - Any count or only bosses[*]Freakshows - Is there one and do any count or only bosses[*]Sky Raiders - Do any count or only bosses[*]Council - Is there a general one and if there is one is it any or just bosses[*]Council Werewolves - Now do any council werewolves count or only the ones that transform after you kill them the first time[/list]
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Luddites--dont' know

I think the rest of these are the same as their counterparts in CoH:

Clockwork: It counts the gears that spawn after you defeat a boss.

Freakshow: Tank Bosses

Sky Raiders: Only the Sky Skiff Bosses (not Assault Bots)

Council: Two badges, one for vampires, the other for werewolves. Any vampire or werewolf counts.

Note: I haven't tested any of these in CoV yet.

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Now grated, I still have not gotten DO's yet, but should that really matter THAT much at my level or is this level 12 just a touchy level?

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You won't start seeing reliable accuracy until you slots with 4 Trainings, 2 DOs, or 1 SOs. Pre-DOs, on a power I really care about hitting with I will use at least three Training accuracy enhancements. Generally I don't start slotting for damage at all until I hit 12 and start buying DOs. Even then, Damage is often low on my list of priorities if I am short on cash.

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Well considering 90% of all missions are instanced then people are most likely in instanced zones and only use the city zones for traveling. With the number of zones it would be easy to not see 1000 heroes in a gaming session. With Peregrine Island, you can run missions for days without ever leaving portal corp.

Now with the contacts giving phone numbers earlier there is even less reason to hop, skip and jump to them after every mission. Just call them up and go to the next instance.

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The bump in the mission completion reward (I3 ish?) also significantly changed playing habits. I see much less street hunting than I used to. I'd like to see the frequency of the zone events bumped up some to pull people back out of instances and make the city zones feel more populated again.

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The servers aren't yellow because they had their capacity increased before CoV was added to the existing servers, unlike companies like SOE they don't like to see the servers buckle under the pressure of players before they decide to fork out the cash to upgrade them.

If there was actually a number counter for the active population you'd find that the number of players has actually risen quite sharply.

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Ding! We've got a winner!

We substantively increased the number of CPU's in our servers to account for new players....We've hit new highs in active concurrent in the past 24 hours.

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The new server capacity is quite remarkable. I logged into Training Room 01 during the end of beta event when is was only yellow (the Training Room server was red) and there were 15 active Mercy Island island instances and many of them were full, along with around 5 Port Oakes and 3 Sharks Head. My guess is that there were between 4 and 5 thousand people on the server and that only rated a yellow server load.

The other thing to remember is that most of the folks that left CoH beta went to the same server when the game went live and it took a while for the population to distribute across the servers. With CoV, most of the people in beta went back to their home server for the live game so the population distribution is much better this time around.

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When you first enter Brickstown from IP you come to this big bridge. See if you can find out what this bridge is for.


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You could do a piece about the bridges of Paragon City. I have been wondering about Valor Bridge for a long time.

Why does it take the long route across the harbor?

Why such a big bridge if all it connects to is a power station? (most industrial support is handled by barge--much cheaper if the loads are large but the traffic is low).

Another possible piece: Write about security arrangements at the Zig. Generally, I think the reputation among Heros is that it leaks like a sieve, but the view might be different from the inside...

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Is Petrifying Gaze (2 Acc, 2 Hold Duration, 2 Recharge) useful enough as a hold that i should ask about being part of the holding team during Raids?


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Yes. Better would be more hold and less recharge, but what you have is good enough.

Limit the SG to 75 accounts rather than 75 characters. That will let everybody bring their alts into the SG and still guarantee that there are no more that 75 online at any time.

To make this work there needs to be a way to tell from the SG window that multiple characters are from the same account. There are two ways I can think of to do this: Put the Global Chat handle in the SG window or assign each account a number indicating the order of joining (so the SG creator is 1, next account is 2, etc.)

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Oh my God, I know what's happened!

The Fifth Column have found the Ark of the Covenant!

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No worries. I am certain that the Ark is still the last blinky in a warehouse mission.