Obitus
-
Posts
1215 -
Joined
-
Quote:Not sure it matters, though lacking any evidence to the contrary, I'd have to assume it's total revenue. Regardless, if the worst-case is that CoH brings in $7-8 million per year, then it sounds like we're safe for some time to come. Standard business rant applies, but I can't imagine their operating expenses are much higher than about $2 million.Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
Acemace beat me to it...
What defines 'sales'? New accounts created? Monthly subscriptions paid? -
Quote:Nope.Originally Posted by SchroedingerCat
I'd need to slot 35% in psi defense bonuses to soft cap it, wouldn't I? That would be like 17 sets or something, 6 slotted.
(CJ + Weave + Steadfast will give you, off the top of my head, somewhere around 14% Psi DEF before you even get started on set bonuses. And not all Psi DEF bonuses are at six slots.)
(Edit: And in any case, comparing 45% Psi DEF to 38% ranged DEF is silly. If all you want is 38% of either, then it'll be that much easier to reach your goal. Personally, I roll with about 32% in Psi DEF on my INV/SS, and it works pretty well.)
I'll reserve judgment until I have time to open up the build and look over it myself, but my gut reaction is that you probably should have Hasten if you're only taking two pools as it is. Usually, the only compelling (mechanical) reason to skip Hasten is that you've already used up your max of four power pools on other stuff (like cramming in every defensive toggle you can get).Quote:It seems easier to get about 38% to ranged and call it a day! I won't enjoy getting that 3rd kinetic set - and i really wish i had room for haste. end might be an issue.
Gloom particularly craves Hasten. -
Don't have time to look over the build right now, but if you want to cover the psi hole, then just cover it with Psi DEF. With Storm Kick's DEF bonus, you ought to be able to soft-cap to Psi, on top of S/L/E/N, fairly easily.
-
Quote:Don't have any personal experience with Water Spout, but I do have hundreds of hours logged with Tornado, and honestly I don't understand the Water Spout love on the forum. Back before the PvP revamp, I could understand falling in love with an autohit power, but for PvE purposes it seems to me that the chaos caused by Waterspout would be counterproductive on a melee character.Originally Posted by Vauluur
What are some thoughts you all have of taking Leviathan Mastery for this Scrapper? My concern with it is it lacks an AoE attack, but Water Spout seems good and the pet is IMO the most useful available to Scrappers. It also has Hibernate. That could come in handy.
Then again, maybe I'm missing a critical difference between Water Spout and Tornado. -
Quote:Those are some impressive numbers.Originally Posted by Werner
On TANKER Invuln, I'm pretty sure I'd be shooting for some decent Psionic defense, but then, on a Tanker, it's much easier to soft cap and more. I've been fiddling with Invuln/SS and Invuln/Dark builds for solo incarnate content, though I'm not happy with anything yet. Let's see... Invuln/Dark with one target in range, 59% SL, 53% FCEN, 32% meee, 29% ranged and AoE, 26% psionic. Eh, 11% psionic from sets. I guess that's all I figured I could get while working on other goals. But now that we're talking about it, why'd I crank fire and cold up so high? Maybe I can trade some of that for better psionic.
I guess we'll have to see what the solo Incarnate path entails. As things stand now, I'm personally of a mind that you're better off bringing your DEF values as even as you can (if any of them are lacking) than you are trying to push any group of them up to 59%. My theory is that if you're facing, say, a mixed spawn of IDF and Seers, you may feel like you'll have to pop a Luck for the psi attacks anyway, and if you're popping the Luck inspiration regardless you might as well get some mileage out of it on all vectors.
Also, fully saturated (Tanker) Invincie will give you very nearly the Incarnate soft cap if you start at ~45%. FWIW, I can fairly easily solo the collection phase of Lambda on my Tanker. The only real annoyances are Drain Psyche and the occasional Terrorize, both of which are (AFAIK) psi-typed.
As for the rest of Incarnate content, it's sorta pot luck. One of the reasons I ended up respeccing out of my extreme defensive Tank build is that I find you reach a point after which you're nearly immortal in any "traditional" content*. And almost no matter how much survivability you stack on top of that, you're pretty much screwed when the content doesn't obey the traditional rules. YMMV, as always.
Don't want to go too far afield here, but the little arrow in the Iggy quote in my sig leads to the original, thought-experiment thread, and I think I actually PMed you one of the subsequent max-defense drafts at some point. Anyway, those builds were very rough, barely playable. What I'm using now is this:Quote:I'm going to need to track down your Invuln tanker build, Obitus. I'm curious to have a look. I was pretty much starting from scratch since I've never made top end Tankers and don't frequent the Tanker forums. I'm sure I have some room for improvement. I was going for perma Hasten, though (I'm a couple seconds off), for the additional damage output (Foot Stomping and Fire Balling like mad, double stacking Rage, that sort of thing) or survivability (Siphon Life). However, surely I'd be going for Rebirth now that that's an option, so spamming Siphon Life is less critical. I still would love damage, though, since I play my Tankers as Scrappers. Eh, anyway, I should have a look.
- 45+% S/L/N/E DEF
- 38.2% F/C DEF
- 32.1% Psi DEF (enough to cap w/ one Luck if you have the Vet Inspiration reward)
- 80% global recharge (and Hasten)
- 3,524 HP (about 10 from the cap)
- 34 HP/sec regen before Rebirth (which at its worst will add (3524/240)*2 = 29ish HP/sec)
- (assumes T3 Cardiac Alpha)
Attack chain is Jab-Haymaker-Mu Lightning-KO Blow-Haymaker-Mu Lightning. With a single instance of Rage, and our slotting, that's 143.58 DPS without accounting for misses or Rage's crash.Code:| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1530;761;1522;HEX;| |78DA6594DB521A411086679631640123A8808AA020CA7961D5C4AB542A6A0E1A312| |8A9DCA5A8354E84B8AE142CA978998BBC406E729557C8C324D19C9E2095E31B9066| |BB55AAD852BEDE9EE9EE7F7A66B6FC72DDF7FEDEAB5B8CFBD64CA3DDAE3D32AC43D| |9726F1B76A765980C1EF76DF3A8B17F6CB9C18EE1706D5D3E93565B6A1BD68B8E69| |C996B1D7301BF6498486CBD29452AB769A6057ED96B40EEC7A60C3AA4B306DEDDC1| |8AE1C1F9BDADDC641DD6E58073EE76D4B1A4D78F1E290D91BF33876B529E57EF04E| |B3F1545B6D756C592B776A65A36DCBD6C90408CBC2FF07157E784F7257614930A28| |229F3C43432EF61F47487D87DE6F8C406711379651538015C435E5D477E84FC1CF3| |BB78188C3118A33A1ECAEF490163826950C78575842BA530A60BE64B1333C86B596| |20EC9A1C34318E31AAA002282F97750937F17382DD8681579065ADCA4C54D1A4617| |B0F6780ADF43A429047955EA8B1A046312E68C73A7666805DCC2C5BC30C78BB5993| |702CA55C13E418D618C13C30F30D7441998006E03E3824D3D44FF5405FD2EC83342| |B54648D734E998A6DE7C81BC01A7915D2510C4B118E989911E1DFA3746FB34D6EB4| |55465B11DE4EC2EB14A3C559C1CF133C5E98D000D41D210A4FC713FE68F53FE04CC| |09E31C1ECE017495CD11BF82BE498A9FECC5C33ECC0538CE19472E82BE08AE8145D| |E41DD11C13E435C94E2A2B4F6249DBF24ED8D0A7567A8CF33BDDC70AE6AD0EE04AD| |3591C7B3902C20173462915842A674E432E898A7D8F91FD887D42FE26F64E627B1C| |39C98CC6B780F0B6640DD349DD1F475CC975D262E116F20F32B4816622C87313CF7| |0DF3E6BF238BA045232D5A837CCF714F8AA6E2F4513F549C35EB75E211CE3B85DE9| |5B077ACB488E70FC2CEEFAA727E57F374570B7457972FE7C01F3C2C3BE0D1073C4B| |039EAD014F45D0C7043CDCF1FCF65CDC7FC60BD8CB3FFDBE34FAFE5EFA38DF04230| |57A1FE3F9FB7739A6F0593C6F85378AC3E25BEC51465C7CC7BAA5015DAAFFE2CBD2| |AD787A35D0DEEBB38D3EFB499F7D13AE944EF67FD3CDDE14| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
Toss in the 20% -RES debuff from Bruising, and that's 172.3 DPS. Toss in Reactive Interface, and Bruising DPS jumps to 209.22.
But we haven't accounted for Rage's crash. If we assume that we stop attacking for the duration of the crash, then the downside is that our DPS is modified by 120/130 = 0.923. The upside is that our attack-chain endurance drain is also reduced. So long story short, Reactive DPS w/ Bruising falls to 209.22 * 0.923 = 193.1.
Factoring in avg Recovery (incl. PS proc), toggle (incl. Hasten and Rage), and attack drain, burn time should be about 289 seconds. It's good enough for me, and I don't even have the best T3 Cardiac Alpha (took Partial Radial Revamp months ago for some reason I can't recall now, instead of the Total Core Revamp). YMMV.
TL;DR: The build feels very scrappy to me as it is, but if you don't want Fly I could see a lot of offensive improvement without compromising defense. With Rebirth Destiny, needless to say the survivability is obscene. -
A couple more BS/INV builds, per request -- sparing no expense and changing up the power selection a little. Keep in mind, as always, that I have no personal experience with BS; I'm sure that someone like Werner could improve on what I'm doing here, but FWIW I'm pretty happy with these builds.
First, a build that tries to split the baby -- good offense coupled with as much Psi DEF as I could reasonably cram in:
- 45+% S/L/E/N DEF
- 30.7% F/C DEF
- 30.6% Psionic DEF
- Capped S/L RES
- Capped HP (perma Dull Pain)
- ToHit-capped against +3 opponents
- +80% global recharge (not including Hasten)
- +14.5% global damage (w/ Assault)
Code:Hasten isn't perma, but it's reasonably close (should be a 10-15 second lapse). In any case, when Hasten's up, the attack chain is Headsplitter-Hack-Disembowel-pause 0.373s-Hack.| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1527;722;1444;HEX;| |78DA6594DB4E13511486F7EE0CD696635BCE87524AA1A585810ACA8507145183522| |CD478679A816EA0C9386DA645C43B5FC11B2FD41B8DB73E8D1A5F4123EA0B90BA3A| |EB6F69D24926DF9EB5FFB5E6DF6BEF99CCCB8DAE2F0F5EAF09D973D7322B957C6ED| |F31CB65E578B7CDEAB1635AA27E79E91E6DCCE433CA52CA58774A66219F3B293985| |48736A431D28BBA28C4DFBC5B1652BC7DC2B5AC5EA6960D33E528EB2AB4663D0952| |D952C634B99E5A27DE8771F7265A50ADDEEF07EF1F0A84A13BD0D55413995A36239| |78AF5CDC37D62DF395CA67CC4A5539A7C3642D4977DE2B70D57411F70891D685270| |1CE31F52498625EAFE74837C723623488EBE25282E99F619A5E48444D9367943741| |9ADFCCCB3F99FE13E1D6BB495A8DEBE9DA23E9C6BA1E8319664F16DC66EE514E07D| |7971DEFA95E88EABE63DEA0392FFC79E1AF0FFEFAE2CC41D2F858A3F906B8667095| |1E754DF49F0BD75FFF98E6C6A3A4ED64ADEC4CD53DFBC4202869AE1BEBECCE0AF7F| |DD34F98E95D7087B946DA5EF8EA85AF41F81A862F459A00D7EB0858DC9FD1E7A0CD| |1C473FC7D1CFF02FA646B921D40FA17E18F5C3A8AF9366009A01AC3B8275CFF5F3F| |36DD20CB1460CD50754FB806223382723F575467531B503EE8239E6F43EFBBC4339| |6352BABD19C3BBA6F1AED807DEAB18F62C40DA09F47802DA39680F696E123D99444| |F22E8C92C7A12474FE2E8491C3D59A7DC28D61B6DD4C53A9361CEFD481B38833D9C| |F9CA798B3FC06FCCF477E627D226E025B1C0DF43721E34980B8BE0127331CDFC4CB| |929F430B5CCB1F915F02A780DB9ABCC20F937B017C614FBBD45B125C496AE68AEAF| |333F7D6F88C905D6FDBD8849F990F77FF629AFFD4FAB3EC1FA7F17318F7CC3EF8FB| |D65CE4670F6F4E6FF421338EF419CEF619CFB08CEFDA4DEFC4FD4921779F5C71A39| |6F8BA4DB22CB6D9195B6C8565B24AB37FF3D42BA115F1FFD6138525B0BD142E02AE| |BAFF786C766CBF859CB78AF65FC1FE1B6E1D7| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
Without accounting for misses, that's 150.36 DPS with our slotting, 164.04 DPS w/ Build Up @ 33.8s. With T3 Reactive Interface, it's 175.32 DPS, 188 w/ Build Up.
Max End is 115.4. Recovery is 3.71 EPS, plus 0.23 from the Performance Shifter proc on average. Toggle cost (w/ Assault) is 1.21 EPS, plus ~0.11 for Hasten over time. That gives us a burn time of about 740 seconds running our single-target attack chain.
(It's also worth noting that if Valuur still wanted Tactics for the confuse protection, he could easily swap out Assault.)
The second build has the same basic structure, but instead of going for Psi DEF it goes for more single-target DPS:
- 45.3% S/L/N/E DEF
- 30.3% F/C DEF
- 17.7% Psi DEF
- 74.9% S/L RES
- Capped HP
- ToHit-capped against +3 opponents
- +90% global recharge (not including Hasten)
- 14.5% global damage (w/ Assault)
Hasten still isn't quite perma, but it's closer.Code:| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1527;725;1450;HEX;| |78DA6594DB4E13511486F774064BCBB12DE74329E5545A19A8A044018B881A9462A| |1C63BD30C74034DC669332D22DEF90ADE78A1DE68BCF51D7C0735BE8246D4173075| |CDACBFA54927997C7BD6FED7DAFF3ECC4E3FDF6CFF74EF654A289DB74DA35CCE650| |F6CA35492B677C7A89CD886299CC74BEF50AD279796A694FA865D34F2B9EC69D1CE| |47EA5D9BF2505A65A96F59CF4E4C4BDAC67EC12C54CE025BD6B1B4A555D16B8DF64| |CB168EADBD22815AC23BFFB912D4999EF709B770B47C715EAE8AAA9F2D22E1F174A| |C13BA5C281BE611A2F642E6D942BD23E1B206B717A735E81A7DA22663C422435E18| |981B34C2D0E2698F1CFC49026569C5CC5CDF588303566347129CAF48F330D2F24A2| |AA2AE794374A9A5FCCD61F4CFFA970EBAE9156E57A9AFA407163ED0FC134B33303E| |E30F729A785EB2B2D6FD957EB1BE62AF579E1CF0B7FDDF0D70D7F7DA4F1B146F5F5| |72CDE0327D6AAAE8F9275C7F3DC3AA1B8F92B68DB54A5BC2F1EC137DA0427D1D986| |74746B8E34F3C6226F7C05D668AB45DF0D5055F7DF035005F923401EC4BC0E4F519| |7A0A5ACC11ACE708D633FC93A9526E08F543A81F46FD30EA6BA4E9C55C7A31EF08E| |6BD4E7DFDDC27FA9D06D53CA4D820FC0C3AF38B6A627C17DC03B3CC8903F6378B73| |728B728715C55D9B618C3581B126DFB166127B1620ED287C8D423B0BED11F58DC1C| |3D8753E8B911BCCE915E6CC2AB806A654B7EE06E546B126D15ADD1E663CCC7EDFD3| |064E610FA7BEF05ACE7F07BF3293DF981F481B63AD169BC37FA133E7E6C105E67C9| |2F9917212C8492C72ECF2127815BC86DC6566907CEBD80B7D9C7DDEA4D802620B57| |54D7CFB99FFE33C49439D6FDB98829CA7DDEF7E9C73CE7DF8DFA18EBFF5EC43CCA2| |B1E7FF235D6378233A7D5EF0B55E09C0771AE0770DE2338EF635AFD7EA8C62FF29C| |CF2A396F8A249B228B4D91A5A6C8765324A3D5EF1CA1B8115F37DD2C1CA9A642341| |1B8CAF89DB5E1B6D1D07ED2D0DE6F68FF075997E019| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
In any case, when Hasten's up, the attack chain is Headsplitter-Hack-Disembowel-pause 0.306s-Hack.
With our averaged crit rate (11.25%) and the two purple damage procs (and again, w/o accounting for misses), that's 154.49 DPS, 168.68 w/ Build Up @ 32.6s. Reactive Interface raises those numbers to 179.6 and 192.8 DPS, respectively.
But we also have -RES procs. With three chances to fire Achilles' Heel, and one chance to fire Fury of the Gladiator per attack cycle, our average -RES against a high-HP target is 14.48%. So our Reactive Interface DPS rises to 205.6, or 220.8 w/ avg Build Up contribution.
Endurance is a little dicier. Max End falls to 113.6, and recovery down to an average of 3.747 EPS (including PS proc). The attack chain costs 2.84 EPS, and avg toggle cost remains at 1.32 EPS. So our burn time is 272 seconds, or about four and a half minutes. That shouldn't be unworkable, mind you; chances are you're not going to face opponents that last longer than that very often, but it's worth noting that you have a lot less head room to account for spam-AoE situations. -
Also, Stupefy is one of the best IO sets for a build focusing on Ranged DEF (+3.13% DEF, +6.25% Recharge). And, IIRC, all of Energy Manipulation's melee attacks can slot Stupefy, so in an indirect way even the melee attacks are good for a ranged build.
On a different note, I think Fire Manipulation is actually a very good secondary for ranged builds too, simply because Ring of Fire has monstrously good DPA. -
Quote:Ice Storm is a great power, both for damage and mitigation. Of all the procs to slot in it, I'd say the KD proc is probably the most worthwhile. The -RECH much less so. If you can, it doesn't hurt to slot some slow (movement) enhancement in the power too.Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Thx Obitus. really looking at Ice storm as a mitigation/harassment power. So KD and -Rech would be useful there IMO. But now I gotta ACC it up, thx for the clarification there.
Been looking at Red Tomax for data on it but I'm confused. Guess I'll look in game. Still, I'm liking the power. Big area, 16 targets, lotta flavor, and if I add in more harassment, even better. Too bad the KD is a 50 Purp. But I can slot the -Rech at 20, which of course gives me (slightly) more time to kill.
I also wouldn't sweat Accuracy all that much. The Rain should inherent your Aim/Build Up buffs, and you're unlikely to cast it for damage without also using one of those buffs. And if you're just using the Rain as a harrassment/distraction/mitigation power, it doesn't have to be Tohit capped. (Rains tick so fast that even at the ToHit floor they're not going to miss the target totally. Whatever non-damage effects will tend to apply to the targets regardless of your accuracy, in other words.)
The bottom line is that how you slot the power depends on your build goals/constraints. Usually, I slot powers like Ice Storm with five Positron's Blast (including the damage proc, but that's incidental). If I could scrounge up a sixth slot, that'd go to a slow enhancement of some sort or the KD proc. If you're leveling up and just using generic enhancements, I'd prioritize damage and recharge roughly evenly, followed by Acc and/or End enhancement, followed by slow, followed distantly by procs.
As always, YMMV, buyer beware and all that jazz.
As far as Ice as a whole set goes, the opportunity to slot cheap damage procs in basically every power is a perk. On fast-activating, fast-recharging attacks, adding a proc or two is never a bad thing. Likewise, spammable (click) AoEs really love procs.
Fire.Quote:Originally Posted by ShadowMoka
Before beam rifle, Ice was the best ST primary set for blasters if I recall correctly. -
Quote:That's a long-standing flaw in the game's Real Numbers Display: the rain doesn't have 200% Accuracy. Each tick of the rain has normal accuracy, but for whatever reason the game displays 2.0 for placeable pseudo-pet powers. Your chance to place the pet is guaranteed, in other words.Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
I have started running an Ice/energy. I was amazed when I took Ice Storm and saw it has 2.0 accuracy outa the box.
The proc will have a chance to fire twice over the duration of the rain -- once when the rain starts, and once after 10 seconds of rain. All pseudo pets and toggle powers obey that 10s rule, and so generally speaking, they're not the best powers in which to place procs. There are exceptions, but I'd say an Ice Blaster does enough damage already that he needn't (shouldn't) spend slots on proccing out Ice Storm.Quote:Originally Posted by MezegisI am also interested in proc's in Ice Storm, but more specifically the Rag chance for KD. Would it have a chance to proc on every tick of the rain, or just when I first set it? -
Quote:The compromises weren't as bad as I thought. A few months ago, I made an INV Tanker build with soft-capped PSI DEF (on top of everything else) as a thought experiment for a forum thread (see signature). That build wasn't playable by my standards, but I was struck by how easy the build was to make.Originally Posted by UberGuy
I don't want to derail the thread, but i'm curious which part you found wrong. Do you mean that the compromises required were more acceptable on a Tanker? Or that you weren't able to "suck it up" as a Tanker and get by?
A few revisions later, and I had a playable version for my own Tanker (didn't need to be in Hover but could still have Fly, decent enough recharge, near-sustainable endurance). Now as it happens, I ended up respeccing out of that build a few weeks later because I wanted a Patron AoE power, but in principle the soft-capped Psi build didn't give up anything outlandish; there are plenty of high-end melee builds on the forum that don't use APP/Patron attacks at all, and the build's ST DPS was surprisingly strong.
My current Tanker build has ~32% Psi DEF, enough to soft-cap with one small purple.
That said, a large part of the reason that those Tanker builds work as well as they do is that Super Strength (and to an extent, Bruising) gives you plenty of attack chain options that aren't particularly recharge-intensive. A BS Scrapper would be a whole different kettle of fish, not least because of redraw. Also, to play devil's advocate a bit: some would consider Double Rage a compelling incentive to stack recharge on an SS build, but after having played for a year or so with a perma-double-Rage build I personally just can't stand the extra Rage crashes. -
Quote:I used to feel that way too, but I've since proven myself very wrong at least with respect to Tanker Invulnerability. On a Scrapper, it's dicier subject, and perhaps especially on a BS Scrapper, because we've established that there's effectively no ceiling on the benefits +recharge conveys to a non-Parry attack chain. Will have to tinker around with it a bit.Originally Posted by UberGuy
- My philosophy has been to suck up the Psi mitigation hole. When it's bad, it's very bad. (I soloed a Safeguard mish with my BS/Inv yesterday on +4/x8 and all the Arachnos bank robbers were Tarantual Queens and Fortunata Mistresses. I lived, but it sucked.) Despite that, I'm not satisfied with the compromises I would have to make to get what I consider even moderate total mitigation to Psi. On the upside, high E/N defense gets you moderate ranged defense, which helps with Psi damage derived from Psychic Blast powers (as opposed to Mind Control or Illusion Control), so that's helps some.
-
Quote:Yeah, IME you're better off going for whatever Psi DEF you can scrounge up than you are trying to soft-cap F/C. Happily, you're gonna end up with a sizable amount of F/C DEF whether you try or not.Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
Just to pick a single nit, Werner, I don't know why you'd be concerned with softcapping FC. Nothing does pure cold damage aside from the winter horde and ice mistral and those are both easy in the first place. The main thing that comes to mind for pure fire damage is demons and again, not one of the toughest villain groups in the game. Really I guess this is more a beef I have with high end builders in general than with you so maybe I shouldn't have brought it up, but here we are.
-
Quote:His point was that we can't even begin to gather the game's population statistics, much less analyze how inherent Fitness influenced them. The fact that he used a fudged number to estimate just how impossible the task is only serves to reinforce his purpose in making the estimate in the first place.Originally Posted by Xanatos
Incorrect. The burden of proof lies with you, not me.
Sheesh. Nice work.Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Perhaps I should have written an optimized C search rather than just whip up something in python. I'm looking at the maximum number of possible builds with inherent fitness for each level. However, it might be a while before this program completes, since its currently only up to analyzing level 16, and its already examined about forty million different possible ways to select powers given a fixed primary and secondary. I didn't think there were that many.
-
Quote:People interpret as they will -- based on their own experiences, their own preferences, yes, even their own prejudices. It's also true that what we write can have unintended implications. Words have meaning, but so does the way in which words are chosen and placed. Heck, the entire field of literary criticism is based on the premise that you can interpret a given work based on what is and what isn't written. In this case, it isn't a matter of putting words into your mouth; it's a matter of having been conditioned to regard turgid prose as self-indulgent. In an age when, more than ever before in history, people seem to believe that their every random thought is worthy of public exposition (see Twitter, Facebook), I am perhaps over-sensitive to that interpretation of self-indulgence.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I disagree. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that this interpretation is both unfair and actually very rude. I hate a lot of things, but the thing that deserves a special place in the fires of hell is when people try to infer what I REALLY meant to say when I neither meant nor said anything of the sort. If you read one of my long bios and then suggest I wrote it because I believed I was important and you were expected to care, I would have many, many mean things to say about you. Being misquoted is my one single biggest berserk button, and implying what I meant with the structure of my bio is right up that alley.
I write long bios because I like writing long bios and because I enjoy writing long bios. If you infer otherwise, you infer wrong. In general, if you try to assume what people "meant" with anything other than what they said directly and in plain text, you're already wrong. Death of the author this ain't.
Moreover, as a writer of long texts, I'm more than well aware of how important it is to grab a potential reader right from the start, and do what I can incorporate this in my writing. Even if no-one else reads it, then at least when I go back and start reading, I will immediately remember why I wrote it and what I liked about it.
And yes, I apply that standard to myself as well. I can't tell you how many of my own posts in this forum make me cringe for their length, even when the length is warranted. It's just a pet thing, nothing personal.
More specifically, I was responding to and agreeing with True_Gentleman's assertion that a character's Bio can act as a first impression. As the post you quoted states, I would never go out of my way to avoid someone based on a bio, but sometimes a too-long bio provokes a mild twinge of annoyance.
As to the topic at large: no, it wouldn't be a terrible thing if the max length on bios were increased. Stylistically, though, I agree with True Gentleman that shorter is generally sweeter. Not always sweeter, but then I said that already too. See? The forum encourages us to make what should be unnecessary disclaimers all the time, because respondents are prone to react out of proportion otherwise. ("Fires of Hell?" Really dude?) -
Quote:Yup. That's why I like my Tanker. A lot of people like to say that Tankers are obsolete now because Brutes do more damage and can be buffed to the same levels of survivability, that with all the Destiny buffs floating around almost any character can be made nigh-indestructible anyway, etc. In theory, those people are right; there are situations where I think maybe I'd have been slightly better off on a Brute.Originally Posted by UberGuy
Let me give you an example.
[Lots of good points]
But there's just no substitute for knowing that you're as survivable as you can possibly be without outside intervention. The same reasoning can be applied to almost any build argument on these forums; regardless of the AT in question, there will almost always be two loose camps -- those who advocate maximizing self-sufficiency and those who advocate building for peak conditions. Neither approach is right or wrong, per se, but I think you make a good point about the unusually PuG-slanted iTrials, of which we're going to see many more in the months to come.
Trying your best to build so that you can carry a team isn't the same as wanting to carry your team, or even expecting that you'll have to. -
Quote:Yep. Though it may be true that, as Sam says, "It's all fan fiction no one cares about," it's also true that purple prose implies that the author thinks the reader should care about his not-so-special-snowflake character bio.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
On the contrary, character bios can make a first impression even before actual player interaction. While customized costumes may be a more obvious form of display, the written word has a central role in this genre of gaming. MMOs that offer them are far more likely to bring together like-minded players, fostering better communities overall, than those that do not.
I'm not saying it's a deal breaker; I'd never avoid someone based on their bio, but in the Twitter-Facebook-every-random-person's-every-extraneous-thought-is-worthy-of-public-exposition age, I gotta say that it's hard not to feel a faint smidge of annoyance with the owner of the info window when I see a max-length wall of badly written text in the bio screen.
Then again some bios, long and short, are very well written. Maybe I'm just old and crotchety before my time. And more than a little hypocritical, because I've written more than my share of too-long posts on this forum.
In short, brevity is the soul of wit. These days, brevity is also arguably the essence of politeness. -
Quote:Do you mean this thread?Originally Posted by Pyro_Master_NA
I believe Dechs did the math for this one. It *could* be done, but you would be overcoming their regeneration by like barely 1 hp/s and would have to not get hit by any DoT effects so the one shot rule keeps you alive. It was all buff based, since as mentioned, debuffs won't really do much of anything. Everyone on the team was defense and resistance capped, but it really doesn't help much if they manage to hit you. And when I say defense capped, I mean it was somewhere around 130% defense or something to that effect. I believe everyone had tactics running as well. And as for their tohit buff, I think someone in that thread said it leveled off after +10, but I'm not positive on that part. Look back a few pages on these forums and you should find it.
Not seeing a solution in there. -
Quote:Yeah, I accounted for them separately in the calculations. I probably didn't make that clear in the exposition, though. Will edit to clarify, thanks.Originally Posted by UberGuy
As a note on the -res procs, the two different procs to stack with one another. Each proc will not stack with itself, but they each grant different powers, so they will stack with each other. Consider it similar to the new Reactive-like DoTs they are adding to Interface.
-
Quote:You get one Alignment Merit for each arc the first time you run it on a given character who's reaffirmed her alignment. After that, you get one Alignment Merit per week from SSAs, total.Originally Posted by Garrott
I am trying to figure out how the rewards from these apply. If you run both part 1 & 2 on the same character, it prevents you from choosing the Hero Merit for both. Is this the proper behavior? Are you only suppose to be able to get 1 Hero Merit from the arcs each week?
I know they have changed it that you have to at least reaffirmed your alignment as Hero to claim Hero Merit which is a pain as it makes it so you have to be at least level 20 to get those.
Are all of the restrictions listed somewhere?
So as of now, the first time you run through the two available SSAs, you could get three A-Merits (two first-time bonuses for each arc, plus your one weekly A-Merit). After that, it's one arc per week.
The downside is that you don't get lots of weekly merits. The upside is that you don't have to feel like you should run every arc, every week, on every eligible character. Remember, we're eventually going to get at least seven of these things. What may sound like uber rewards now would become a chore later. Plus, giving people such easy access to so many A-Merits would devalue them, so you'd be doing all of that work every week for what would be an effectively reduced reward. -
Quote:That's the catch 22. No double spacing makes bios more annoying to read, making them seem longer and more self-indulgent (to the casual onlooker) than they might otherwise.Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Don't double space. Seriously. It takes up 10 characters.
But if the max length were increased so that current bios could be double-spaced, people would just write more.
-
Quote:Heh, yeah. Plus, Synapse is maybe the weakest Phalanx Hero. If I had to pick one not to fight, it'd probably be Psyche or Positron (310% strength Rad debuffs? Yikes) or even Statesman or Manticore (gotta love that unresistable arrow attack).Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
To expand slightly on what Obitus said, look at it this way. Eight cold/sonic defenders wouldn't be able to drop one of the AVs' resistance by one percent. If that team doesn't have a chance, nothing has a chance.
Seriously, even if it were just one generic AV at +20, the task would be basically impossible. The whole Phalanx minus Synapse? That'd be pretty hard even if they were level 20. -
Not a chance.
[EDIT: To elaborate, against +20 mobs, your powers are 1% effective, and theirs are 310% effective. On top of that, AVs have 80% debuff resistance. On top of that the normal DEF formula we usually use begins to break down when you fight anything over 5 levels higher than you are. (A +10 mob has a 40% ToHit bonus against you, which means that you need 40% DEF just to break even. I can't even find a source that will tell me the ToHit bonus for a +20 mob.)
So you'll have level 20 hitpoints, effectively no defense, and your debuffs will be 0.01 * (0.8-0.2) = 0.002, or 2/10ths of a percent effective -- and you'll be facing opponents delivering 3 times more damage than a typical level 40 AV. On the offensive front, you'll be fighting AV opponents with level 40 hit points when you yourself don't even have Single-Origin-tier enhancement values, and you'll be hit with a 99% gross damage penalty. And the damage penalty assumes you even hit in the first place, which is unlikely.
In short, I doubt you could do it with 100 players.] -
Quote:I don't think it's possible for soft-capped DEF to be hugely overrated on an AT that is designed to be a glass cannon. Somewhat overrated, maybe, depending on the context.Originally Posted by Ukaserex
Pardon me, a blaster of over 4500 hours to speak up on the topic of to soft cap defense, or not.
Short answer? Softcap defense is hugely overrated on some blasters, underrated on others. Depends on your playstyle and teaming tendencies.
There are definitely good ways and bad ways to approach IO set bonuses, but that's true of every AT. In the general case, I think it's fair to say that Blasters benefit far more from the IO DEF bonuses that are available than they do from the +damage bonuses available. Recharge is a stickier issue, but it is possible to stack a good amount of recharge on top of soft-capped DEF.
Then again, unless you really stretch, you're not realistically going to soft-cap to more than one position or two types (Smash/Lethal, or if you take Scorpion Shield, Smash/Lethal/Energy). I've drawn up builds that soft-cap to ranged/Smash/Lethal/Energy, but let's just say it's difficult to do. So anyway, if you're looking for a magic survivability bullet, you're not going to find it in IO sets. At a minimum, you probably need a host of IO DEF bonuses and Clarion Destiny to ensure that large portions of your DEF aren't randomly turned off before you begin to feel like a true juggernaut.
In that sense, you're right: a high-DEF Blaster build can encourage a kind of brittle over-confidence. You'll find yourself flying through missions you wouldn't have dreamt of completing before, but you'll also find yourself getting pwned mercilessly at times. Setting your difficulty slider up in response to the former case can lead to brutal (hilarious) disappointment in the latter case. If you want to learn how best to play a Blaster in the worst-case scenario, it probably is better not to build for DEF. But if you want a build that will perform better, all other considerations being equal, then it's almost certainly better to build for DEF.
If you like, post up your build so we can get an idea of what your preferences are. Running a Bolt-Blast-BiB attack chain shouldn't be that recharge-intensive. If you wanna stay at range as a rule, I'm sure we could scrounge up 45% ranged DEF for you without breaking the bank.Quote:Now, I honestly think, that if I ever finish looking and remembering all the details, if I can keep my current attack chain and recharge speed, I wouldn't mind the extra defense. But, I'm not a whiz at mids' by any stretch, so looking up all those bonuses takes me some time - and choosing between defense or regen bonus, well, that's a tough decision for me.
Is an extra 3% defense worth a gazillion inf? (or 30 Alignment merits) Are the toggles of tough and weave worth the drain on endurance? I'd rather faceplant from having too much aggro than faceplant because i didn't have any endurance. ( I would assume the steadfast proc is a no-brainer acquisition, provided folks are VIP/invention licensed and have actually heard of it.
Blapper builds are a harder sell, IMO. You can pretty easily cap Smash/Lethal DEF and stack gobs of +recharge, but personally I find Smash/Lethal DEF inadequate by itself. -
Quote:You're awesome. I didn't even think to combine the Jet Pack with Afterburner. My Defender (with 2 Blessing of the Zephyr in Fly and unslotted Afterburner) goes from about 72 MPH to the presumed (double-secret) Fly cap of 87.95 MPH.Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
Just to check:
Fly speed with Afterburner active: 116,40 Km/h
Fly speed with Afterburner and Dampfsprungjet active: 140,50 Km/h (This is denoted in blue as capped flight speed)
It should be noted that my Fly is not enhanced for fly speed. -
Quote:Again, you're implying that a study of the average player's pool power selection is the deciding factor in this discussion. It isn't; in fact, if we could somehow poll the playerbase we'd end up in an endless debate about what constitutes rational or irrational behavior. In other words:Originally Posted by Mazey
That'd be fine if you actually couldn't know either way, but you can know, but rather than going out and actually getting the information, you all just sit on the forums being certain of yourselves. Despite the fact the very principle of the scientific method has proven time and time again, that if you don't do a proper study, you don't know squat.
You're also implying that there exist, somewhere, two separate data points tracking the pool-power selection of the average player before and after inherent Stamina, and ignoring all other factors.Quote:Originally Posted by Obitus
We don't need to poll the playerbase to discuss the game's design, by the way. Remus himself has disclaimed that the so-called "concept build" is exempt from whatever point he wants to make, so the average behavior of all players is only relevant to the extent that we judge those players as conforming to an arbitrary standard of optimization.