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I started working on a fire/elec but I've been thinking about trying mind/psi instead. TK thrust looks similar to power push w/ longer activation and higher damage.
The question is, does the end drain from DP make up for the lack of a bu/aim/fe? -
Barrier is correct.
Example of how it works:
Attack is slotted with 90% (.9) damage from enhancements.
DR is applied to the enhancement value. (Base damage is not affected, only the enhancement)
Then the damage bonus is added; 10-19% (.10-.19)from assault, buildup (.8), +damage IOs, whatever...
Then DR is applied to the total damage bonus.
As barrier said, the value varies per power due to however the power is slotted. I'm not sure what the cur is for +damage so I can't say how much DR's effect is exactly. However, it isn't terrible like it is for some attributes. Some things like defense and to-hit are forced into soft-caps more or less. +Damage does not fall into this category, if it did, BU and Aim type powers would be pretty useless. -
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Its been months since my fortunata/widow has been an effective pvp toon. Feels like its time for me to roll something new. I've been having a problem choosing the new toon though.
I'm fairly picky and want my new main to be able to be above average if not outstanding at most aspects of the game, be it pvp, soloing, running tfs, etc. I've had a few ideas and was looking for some input/opinions.
Note: Not looking for mids builds, just opinions on powerset combinations effectiveness in pvp/pve
Spines/ELA Scrapper
PvE: decent for teaming, nice amounts of AE for farming
PvP: high end drain protection to combat therms and elecs
Fire/Elec Dominator
PvE: decent farming and not bad for teaming either
PvP: fast activating hold in fire and end drains from elec
Dark/Psi Defender
PvE: easy to softcap def, dark/ always welcome on teams
PvP: weaker psi blaster with a heal and some debuffs
Thanks for the guidance in advance! -
It is possible to do, a build that can maintain permadom without hasten in pve would be able to do it in pvp with hasten. I don't play a dom, but because of the mez protection to resistance change, I think that to get those levels of recharge would require a sacrifice of nearly every other important pvp stat. Getting 120% or so recharge isn't worth the loss of +hp, +damage, etc.
I think more experienced pvpers/doms would agree.
Edit: BB beat me to it -
Quote:Let me preface this by saying I have the utmost respect for BABsThe issue with epic archetypes is the powers come from the same fictional source, function in the same ways, and presumably should look the same. This is somewhat true of patron powers as well, where the powers are boons granted by a particular patron and aren't really a power of the player character. We haven't made any firm decisions to do or not do customization for Epic Archetypes or patron powers. Ancillary powers is perfectly reasonable, but we wouldn't be able to do those without doing patron powers at the same time...even though we hate villains.
Limiting the customization on VEAT powers because they come from the same fictional source is blatant archetypism (new word). It is also contradicted by in-game lore.
During the Westin Phippis mission Check out Longbow attack on Crey Facility the captive Dr. Nova states, "It was only a matter of time until something like this would happen. Recluse was ingenious. He's had Arachnos gathering psychic children for years, and built two great forces, each army part of his strategy to fully control the forces that destroy all conquerors. The Fortunatas are his front line troops in a war against fate itself.."
From that statement seems arachnos was not picky on how the young, soon-to-be fortunata's power manifested. The child could've been a muntant born with their abilities, or something that came about do to experimentation or magical influence.
In contradiction, the Issue 12 preview trailer described Fortunatas as Blood Widows who had natural psychic talent. Now if this is what you were referring to by coming from a fictional source i'll give you that. However, if that is the case, any character who gained their mental powers through discipline and training should be forced to the same restriction. IE.. any natural origin character with psychic powers. There are no such restrictions placed on other psychic powersets. Why are Fortunatas punished in this way?
Might be something to run past Manticore? -
Set your difficult to fight AVs as AVs and not EBs. +0 difficulty.
As long as you choose AV and not EB amount of people shouldn't matter. I recommend starting with Numina or Countess Crey as they're easiest for widows. -
Quote:When I added Aim to the dps I replaced strike's damage in the process as they have the same inanimation time. Adjusting the dps for the redraw would be adding .65s or so for every 26s. Combine that with the always 5% chance to miss it probably accounts for the dps difference between the paper and what Nihilii experiences.You need to figure in redraw times. I have no idea what the redraw would be on those attacks, but for claws calculating in redraw when I was attempting to add gloom to one of my brute claws users caused a *substantial* decrease in DPS. And that was with factoring in Gloom's considerable damage.
If you want to get an estimate, claws redraw takes ~.63 seconds. If I recall correctly, Widow redraw might be the same, but again, that's going off of memory and may not be accurate.
I'm not going to adjust the mace value since thats a bit of work, and I'm never going to take it for concept reasons. Someone else can feel free lol
Edit: correction that's .65 every 26s for aim, .65s every 90s for ml, .65s for every 120s for hasten. -
Its great on paper, but we have many disadvantages compared to SR. Defense debuffs make me sad
Also having to cast mind link slows our dps. Using Aid Self completely destroys my dps, but SR probably has the same problem.
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Quote:I use a melee fort as well. I have a different approach tho. I use FU, Lunge, Swipe, Dominate when triangles are down; FU, Swipe, Lunge, Swipe when they're up. Melee fort actually does more dps using your chain then a NW does.Personally, after experimenting for a bit I went with a melee fortunata. FU, Lunge, Strike, Swipe with Aim does about the same DPS as FU, Slash, Lunge, Strike, Swipe, and Confuse makes it a bit easier (either perma-confuse a lieutenant to add DPS, or confuse the AV when purple triangles are down for extra mitigation). While ML is harder to perma, the recharge required to run the above chain makes it so anyway.
The only reason I use my chain because I wanted to have both full melee and range chains in the build. Since i use my fort for everything and there are times where melee isn't the best option viable (ITF EBs with tier 9 and auto hit nictus)
The highest dps chain i've been able to come up with is the one you use +shatter armor. (probably a little lower from the redraw with aim and the mace)
Followup > Lunge > Strike > Swipe
.86/2.1/1.3/.985 in 4.488s = 1.17
Follow up = (50.72)*(1+.9749+2*.3+.15) = 138.21
Lunge = (123.67)*(1+.9749+3*.3+.15) = 374.09
Strike = (95.49)*(1+.9749+2*.3+.15) = 260.2
Swipe = (57.84)*(1+.9665+2*.3+.15) + 10.77 = 167.89
((209.53*85)-566.3)/85
((202.87*26.5)-260.2)/26.5
(193.05*.19) + 193.05
((229.73*20)-802.18+419.09)/20
(210.58*.2) + 210.58
DPS
209.53- no ML
202.87 w/ ML
229.73 w/ aim+ML
252.7 w/ aim+ML+shatter armor -
I have lots of night widow chains done up, if you toss out what the top Claws ones are i'll do the comparisons.
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I support this. I've been playing a Widow since they became available and stopped participating in PvP since the elusivity nerf. The past week or so I've been getting back into it and had some good times in kickballs and RV.
Members of the community have been generally friendly and willing to help me test. Surprisingly haven't had anyone talk **** to me yet. But, that might be just because i'm playing a widow lol
When you're given crap, might as well make a crap pie! -
Anything over 45% doesn't make a difference. The benefit to being over the soft cap is when you come up against mobs that do defense debuffs. One shot from the average gun/sword will drop you 5.5% since widows have fairly low defense debuff resistance. If you have that much padding it'll increase your survivability quite a bit against those foes (ie cimerorans).
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It'd be a little easier to give a few suggestions if you state what you intend to use the toon for; solo, farming, pvp, teams/tfs, etc.
But a few suggestions from a quick glance. You're over the soft-cap for melee/range without mind link which is good. Your attacks however, i'm not sure exactly what chain you're shooting for. The awesome sustainable DPS widows can achieve is through follow up, while the burst DPS from crits out of hide is improved with the use of build up and placate. You skipped all of these powers.
You're ok on the defenses, need to spend some time working on your attack choices and slotting. -
The -recharge from mental blast is not very effective against AVs. A lvl 50 AV has 85% resistance to recharge debuffs, so mental blast is only -4.5% recharge, not really noticeable.
As for the build, you are over the soft-cap without mind link assuming you're running mask presence and hover. However the down time on your mind link is very long, for teaming you want to get that as low as possible (optimally no downtime) and then you can remove some of the other defenses you have in there and improve the build elsewhere. What you have now is workable, but perma-ml makes you more attractive and effective for teams. Also Aim is a pretty nice damage booster, I'd switch it in for Soul Tentacles. -
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/fixpvp
Sorry, couldn't resist -
Quote:I hadn't thought of that either. But i'll give it a shot, lets see if i can get this math right. We'll still use the squishy and fortunata from the op, for the attack let's use mental blast (blaster version) slotted with 5x Apocalypse and a Gladiator's proc, and assuming the same accuracy/to-hit bonuses as before. I'll try to make this as accurate as possibly applying DR everywhere as it is applied in pvp.when someone misses their procs miss too. pvpio and purple procs firing off every 3rd attack is something resistance based toons have to worry about alot more than defensive builds. to be fair you should probably add something in for that too.
First figuring out the defense stuff
0.6 + 0.75 = 1.35 -> 59.62% acc from slotting
1.35 + 1.4 = 2.75 -> + 40% global acc
2.75 = 2.28 -> DR on the acc
2.28 x .9 = 2.054 -> elusivity applied to the acc
50 + 9 = 59 -> Base to-hit w/ tactics
59 - 31 = 28 -> subtract defense
28 x 2.05 = 57.4% -> chance to hit
Now the damage of mental blast
0.8992 = 0.77 -> DR on damage slotting
145.31*(1+.77) = 257.2 -> Damage of Mental Blast
To my understanding of the math, factoring in the procs needs to be done separately because they're irresistible.
Squishy
(257.2)*(1-0.42) = 149.18 -> dmg from attack - res
149.18*100 = 14918 -> dmg over 100 attacks
(71.8*0.3)+(107.1*.33) = 56.88 -> average proc damage
56.88*100 = 5688 -> average proc damage over 100 attacks
14918+5688 = 20606 damage taken total
Fortunata
(257.2)*(1-0.1) = 231.48 -> dmg from attack - res
231.48*57 = 13149.36 -> dmg over 100 attacks
56.88*57 = 3242.16 -> average proc damage over 100 attacks that hit
13149.36+3242.16 -> 16391.52 damage taken total
In this instance the defense does win out in damage mitigation. One thing to note, i'm not 100% on how DR applies to accuracy when there is a global accuracy bonus. Someone with stronger math-fu can point it out if i did it incorrectly. This doesn't take into account any secondary effects from the squishy, nor does it take into account buildup/aim or any other effects applied to the attack (except tactics). -
Quote:Good catch, I edited the op to reflect DR on tactics and rage. One thing to note, even with DR applied to rage dropping it from 31.5% to 19.5%, it still completely negates the defenses (with the current elusivity of 0.1).I didn't look closely at your calculations to verify their accuracy, but I noticed you DR'd defense, but never applied DR to any of your tohit buffs or acc values (ie rage is not a 31% tohit buff in pvp). tohit and acc trump defense, but I think your results are skewing the issue.
Edit: That actually brought the numbers closer. Thanks for pointing out the error -
Ok, I know everyone is going to be like, "Defenses suck" or "Defenses were OP". Please hold your comments until you've read through the entire post. There is no tl;dr version since I think that most of the thread is relevant to the topic i'm discussing. If you're not interested in reading it or here to flame, please move along.
With I13 most defensive sets and defensive ancillary/patron shields had elusivity added to them. This was done to bring defense sets back into line with resistance sets in pvp. Many people believed elusivity was overpowered but few took the time to try to understand how it worked. Originally all elusivity was of the 0.3 value, currently it is 0.1.
The best way I could think of explaining how all this pvp hitting stuff works is through example. Let’s say that we’re trying to fight against a Fortunata with 45% defenses (pre-DR) and elusivity.
First we start with the attack accuracy multiplier. Pick the power you’d be interested in hitting with and see how much +accuracy% you get from slotting. For this example lets say you have 72% accuracy slotted into a power from enhancements. You take that as a decimal and add it to the base pvp accuracy (75%).
0.72 + 0.75 = 1.47
Next we take into account global accuracy from set bonuses. Let’s say for this guy we’ve got 40% accuracy from sets.
1.47 + 1.40 = 2.87
This is where the elusivity comes in. Elusivity is a .1 value or 10%, so the accuracy multiplier is reduced to 90% of its value.
2.87 x 0.9 = 2.58
Hold on to that number for a bit, we need to skip over to figure out the defense/to-hit numbers. As stated earlier the opponent had 45% defense prior to diminished returns. With diminished returns the defense is reduced to 31%. The base to-hit in pvp is 50%. First thing we do with defense is apply our character’s to-hit bonuses to the base to-hit. For this example let’s assume our character has slotted tactics, that adds 10% to-hit bonus(DR'd to 9%).
50 + 9 = 59
From there we subtract the defense values from the to-hit.
59 - 31 = 28
So we’ve accounted for defense and to-hit values all we have to do now is apply the accuracy multiplier we found above.
28 x 2.58 = 72.24
So our character running Tactics with 40% global accuracy and 72% accuracy from slotting has a 72.24% chance to hit a Fortunata with 31% (pve soft-cap) defenses and elusivity.
For the heck of it let’s say the character was SS and had rage. (rage slotted with 5-Gaussians)
50 + 19.5 = 69.5
69.5 – 31 = 38.5
38.5 x 2.58 = 99.33 = 95.00
With rage running the chance to hit is maxed. There’s always a 5% chance to miss or hit any attack so values will never be below 5.00 or above 95.00. No reason to wonder what the number would look like with aim since its to-hit is higher then rage, but build-up has the same +to-hit value as rage.
So from this we see that rage and pretty much any +to/+dmg click power completely negates defenses.
Let’s take a minute to compare the amount of damage taken by some average squishy and the Fortunata from the example above. Lets say an attack that does 200 dmg fired 10 times. For this example squishy has say 42% resistance (arbitrary number I pulled out of the air) and the Fortunata’s defense (74.83% chance to hit) protects them from 3 of the 10 attacks.
Squishy
(200)*(1-0.42) = 116
116*10 = 1160 damage taken total
Fortunata
(200)*(1-0.1) = 180
180*7 = 1260 damage taken total
That actually doesn’t look too bad. On average from the 10 attacks the Fortunata would only take 100 more damage then the squishy. This isn’t a truly valid example though. Most cases in pvp you’re facing someone with another to-hit buff (ss tanks, blasters, defenders, scrappers). So let’s do the same math with the numbers against a toon running rage.
Squishy
(200)*(1+0.38) = 276
276*10 = 2760 damage taken total
Fortunata
(200)*(1+0.7) = 340
340*10 = 3400 damage taken total
Since rage completely negates the Fortunata’s defense the damage difference here is more significant. The Fortunata takes 23% more damage from the attacks then the generic squishy. Also 200 damage is rather generous, a slotted KoB would be doing significantly more damage.
Allow me to rewind for a second and take it back to the good old days when elusivity was 30%. The chance to hit of the original build (40% global accuracy and 72% accuracy from slotting +tactics) would be 56.28%. Using that math let’s reexamine the damage taken.
Squishy
(200)*(1-0.42) = 116
116*100 = 11600 damage taken total
Fortunata
(200)*(1-0.1) = 180
180*56 = 10080 damage taken total
Here the Fortunata takes 1520 less damage then the squishy over 100 hits. This tips the balance in defense's favor by 15%. Creating an example of what would happen with rage would be pointless, as the chance to hit would still be 95%. With the same slotting rage still negates all defenses even with elusivity.
From these examples I’d dare to say that Castle got it right the first time. This is debatable, the Fortunata has 15% more damage mitigation, but is running several toggles/set bonuses while the squishy only runs one. The squishy also has other forms of damage mitigation; blasters do significantly more damage and have higher hit points then fortunatas do, corruptors/defenders/controllers get buffs, debuffs, and/or heals.
Some people have proposed moving elusivity to a middle ground of 20%. Using that example I’m fond of that would put chance to hit at 64.29. For sake of validity let’s take damage out of 100 hits.
Squishy
(200)*(1-0.42) = 116
116*100 = 11600 damage taken total
Fortunata
(200)*(1-0.1) = 180
180*64 = 11520 damage taken total
The difference from 100 hits would only be 80 damage. That is less then a 1% difference. IMO that is about as close to balance as can be asked.
I feel that when elusivity first came around, people were not objective on their complaints and didn’t look at actual damage mitigation provided and simply saw that they were missing a lot (duh the point of defenses). Did anyone truly look at the amount of damage that defenses were mitigating compared to resistances? Please discuss, I’m interested on seeing how people take this.
edit: adjusted numbers to reflect DR applied to to-hit buffs -
You could drop maneuvers for TT:L and use the 6 slots there for a gaussian's set. To make up the additional defense lost, switch the impervium armor sets in Foresight to Gift of the Ancients (keeps the end rec set bonus). Then steal the 6th slot from tk blast (since its not really that important) and move it to mind link to re-slot the LoTG lost from maneuvers. Also have to steal a slot from TT:A and stick one more recharge in hasten (from the loss of the 5% recharge of the red fortune set in maneuvers)
You end up with no defense loss on the positionals (melee 52.2% ranged 51.6%), more end recovery (since TT:L costs less then maneuvers), and more hp. The only area where you lose is in the psi defense. This isn't so important in pve as positional avoiding attacks are not terribly common, and we have the psi resistance to fall back on.
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Quote:Forgot about that. It is indeed worth considering in that case. +1 for you sir!Force Feedback has a 10% chance of activating per target.
1 target: 10% chance
3 targets: 27% chance
6 targets: 47% chance
12 targets: 72% chance
As an opener against a thick mob of enemies, it has a pretty darn good chance of activating. Not guaranteed, but worth considering.
However, given the OP's build I would still recommend switching out that proc for the 6th Coercive Persuasion. The additional recharge would not really serve a functional purpose. The build already has perma-hasten and mind link (with a good amount of overlap), a seamless single target attack chain, and using dart burst -> psy scream -> dart burst -> psi tornade, a seamless aoe chain. The only benefit to having more recharge would be having psy wail up more often.
On the other hand, adding in that last Coercive Persuasion gives an additional 5% ranged defense. I assume that he'll be spending most his time at range since the build has no melee attacks and he'll need to line up the cones. Also he said he was building for endgame strikeforces, which means ITF, RSF, LGTF, and Cuda, maybe treespec. The only true danger (minus lucky AV hits or being severely outnumbered) is cascading defense failure. With the additional 5% range defense he'll be able to take a hit from a sword user or a gun and stay above the soft-cap which is a boon to survivability in those cases. -
First, nice build. Like how you got psi defense above the soft cap.
The attack chain, I don't think you have a pause. With your level of recharge you have everything recharging in time. Even with a proc in subdue it will recharg in 2.35s, faster then the animation of tk/dominate which is 2.508. As for whether to use the proc or not, thats usually a matter of personal preference. It will increase the average damage very slightly, and you don't have any problems with endurance usage, accuracy, or recharge. I'd say go for it. The same thing could be done with the thunderstrike in TK blast using the explosive strike proc.
One recommendation would be to move that force feedback out of psi tornado. The proc was once amazing when it would always go off, but now 10% chance for 5 seconds of recharge doesn't seem worth it. If you moved that slot to AoC and stuck in that last purple it would give you some more padding with the ranged defense in case you get debuffed.