Obitus

Soft-capped against what, though? I don't disagree with your general points in this conversation, but I do wonder how we can compare even an IOed-to-the-gills I-24 Blaster with a comparably IOed Brute, from a defensive standpoint.

The Blaster can't (as far as I know) soft-cap to all positions or even most types. That's always been (to me) one of the sticking points about Blasters and IOs: +DEF bonuses theoretically allow Blasters to blap better than they ever have before, but the positional limitations also tend to encourage Blasters to go all or mostly ranged.

You can split the baby, I suppose -- grab up ~32% in DEF to multiple types and positions, and rely on Inspirations to cover the gap to the soft-cap. Or you could go the extra mile to soft-cap to Ranged AND S/L/E -- but I'm not sure the last option is worthwhile, not least because you then lose the stacking resistance from an Epic pool (because you're stuck with Scorpion Shield). Or at least I wasn't sure back when I made up that build. Maybe the sustain (and in the case of MA Blasters, the combat teleport attack) will change my opinion.

Yup. Characterizing the aesthetic of cloak as a debuff was her first mistake. It was downhill from there as she ranted about how Cloak's DEF and +stealth are useless -- which of course they aren't.

As is so often the case, the OP would have been better off saying less. I'm sure we're all in favor of more cosmetic options, but the OP wanted to argue not just that she dislikes Cloaking Device; she wanted to make a case that Cloaking Device is undeniably the least attractive power in Devices for everyone, which is preposterous. On the contrary, CD's probably the most widely appealing power, from a mechanical standpoint, in the entire Devices' set. It's certainly the only Devices power to which I often wish my non-Devices' Blasters had access.

You disagree that I will continue to prefer Clarion? The devs must've buffed Mental Manipulation without our realizing it.

More seriously, I'd rather build as much as possible for inspiration-free play, and mez protection is the only glaring hole I can't fill (or compensate for) without inspirations (or Clarion). Even a half second without access to my AoE powers can seriously throw me off against large spawns of opponents -- and if I do have full-time access to my AoE powers, I find that I don't need Respites as often as I would otherwise need Break Frees.

(I'm also not a fan of retoggling, even just one or two powers, every time I get hit with a half-second mez -- but that's a matter of preference.)

Rebirth is mighty strong, no doubt. Generically, I think Rebirth's probably the strongest Destiny power available. But for Blasters, for me? No. If it weren't mutually exclusive with Clarion, then I'd snap up Rebirth in a heartbeat -- but it is, so I don't.

Your mileage may vary.

This is even more true now that the game is free. Anyone could come back at any time without so much as looking for their credit card.

Coming up with cool character names can be a bit of a chore, but even after eight years there are plenty of possibilities yet to be explored. The main thing, I've found, is to go to the name-check part of the character creator before you spend a lot of time working on a costume. It'll save you a lot of grief.

And who knows? With a little imagination, you might even end up creating a cooler name than the one you originally had in mind. Necessity is the mother of invention, and all that jazz.

It's really very cheap to make a purpose-built SS/Fire Brute. I'm not disputing that the people you talked to spent billions, but if all you want is a farm-capable Brute build, you don't have to break the bank.

Absolutely. Like you said before, Blasters lack everything; mez is just one of the most obvious attendant side effects of that lack. Maybe the new toys in I-24 will make D2.0 better, and vice-versa.

I was just rambling about D2.0 by itself, which probably wasn't fair.

(I have a feeling that Clarion will still be my no-brainer pick for all Blaster builds, though. )

Yup. The only question is whether the sustain + Defiance 2.0 is enough to correct that lack of everything including mez protection.

Still think Inner Will, as I've come to understand it, will be a clunker of a power, though.

This is mostly a semantic nitpick, but it seems to me that the ability to toss out AoE controls and/or debuff whole spawns into the stone age qualify as much better "partial protection[s]" against mez.

If I get mezzed against a single target, then sure, it's a bonus that I can keep attacking. But Defiance 2.0, in my experience, can be characterized as more a reminder of the powers I can't use when mezzed than as a tangible benefit in mez-heavy situations. Rational or not, my perception is that Defiance 2.0 is most likely to help in situations I'd survive regardless. The fact that I can spam Flares when I get mezzed right before I'm about to unleash AoE fury on multiple opponents? The futility of that consolation adds insult to injury.

It's like having someone smirkingly hand you snorkeler right before your plane crashes into the ocean.

Oh good. Wouldn't want a long-recharge niche power on a weak AT to have any unique applications, after all.

Yup, sounds like Inner Will is the equivalent of an extra Break Free every 8-10 minutes, not counting the heal. The heal could be immense (even a full bar), and I still don't think I'd take the power.

When I read the description of the power, I thought the cycle time would be more along the lines of 60-90 seconds, which would make the power useful as a spot heal or a mez break or both -- but if the cycle time is significantly longer than that, then it'd be hard to justify using the power for just one of those purposes. I'd feel compelled to wait until I needed both a mez break and a big heal, and if I find myself in that situation regularly enough that the power is useful, then ironically the power is also almost certainly inadequate. In other words, if I find myself both mezzed and below half health every few minutes, then chances are I've bitten off more than I can chew. Better to lower the difficulty to avoid the situation than it is to take a power that'll occasionally help me deal with that situation.

Clarion Destiny is still mandatory, as far as I'm concerned, for all Incarnate-eligible Blasters.

Yeah, even if the recharge were 60 seconds, I can't see how the power would be obviously balance-altering by itself. The forum's (over)reaction to Blasters' getting a heavily conditional mez break power, when other ATs are given full time near-immunity to mez, strikes me as bizarre.

If the cycle time of Inner Will is as you say, I'm not even sure I'll take the power. Style considerations aside, Burst of Speed is the major selling point here, IMO.

That is true of Incarnate Shards and probably Threads. IIRC, that aspect of the Shard system was explicitly touted as new and different.

Salvage, recipes, inspirations -- all of those drop more frequently for soloists. The design intent is (I think) that teams kill faster, and that therefore teams should give you more-or-less the same amount of drops over time, but in practice that's not usually how it works out. Not even close. You can quite literally build a solo character around Inspiration use -- but a team character not so much.

Good topic. Regarding #2, do we know the proc rate for Reach for the Limit? Do we know what the proc conditions are? Does, "chance to proc per attack," refer to any attack, from any pool, or does it just refer to MA attacks?

Apologies if those questions have obvious answers. I haven't watched the coffee talk video.

Excellent news, thank you.

Can't watch now, but I'll look forward to the recap later.

Practical joke or real scoop?

After dealing with the uncertainty of the baseball trading deadline for the last 48 hours or so, I can't handle more ambiguity.

Defense.

Against WP's energy DEF? (~20ish% before IOs or pool powers.) I don't think that event is as common as you think it is.

I'm also not convinced that the scenario you describe above is as clear-cut as you seem to think it is: 40 points of end drain in 10 seconds may or may not cripple you depending on how much end you start with, and depending on your net recovery. If you have 0 net recovery while attacking at full speed, then given a sufficient margin-of-error cushion you're basically fine even if an opponent drains nearly your whole bar.

But hey, let's say that your build has a -2 net recovery while attacking at full speed; getting hit with 40 points of end drain over ten seconds would still leave you with 40 end to play with, or about 20 seconds worth of attacks after that initial 10 second period, assuming you don't get drained again.

What really kills builds that are (or near) endurance sustainable is the combination of endurance drains with recovery debuffs, or just recovery debuffs if they last long enough. In order for drains to cripple you without any accompanying -recovery debuffs, the drains have to be applied consistently (or they have to be effing huge). Situations in which you'll face consistent drains equivalent to ~4 EPS are rare, and even when you do face that kind of consistent drain, that number only describes the point at which Invuln's resistance starts to outpace Quick Recovery; Invuln still won't have a noticeable advantage until drain grows well beyond that point.

Regardless, Quick Recovery doesn't require that you be drained/debuffed for you to benefit from it. QR is better than Stamina. Invuln's endurance-drain resistance does diddly squat unless you're hit with a drain. I was willing to entertain your anecdote about Lambda because it honestly confused me, but let's not lose the forest for the trees here. Would you seriously trade away QR for Invuln's drain resistance? Is it even a choice you'd deign to consider?

Resist Energies gives you 25% Endurance/Recovery drain/debuff resistance. Quick Recovery gives you 30% in recovery, unslotted.

Base recovery is 1.67 End/sec (without +End-boosting IO bonuses or accolades). Stamina gives you +25%. So ignoring IO bonuses for a moment, an Invuln Scrapper with standard SO slotting in Stamina will have a gross recovery of 1.67 + (1.67 * (0.25 * 1.95)) = 2.48 EPS.

A WP Tanker with standard SO slotting in both Stamina and QR will have a gross recovery of 2.48 + (1.67 * (0.3 * 1.95)) = 3.45 EPS.

In order for the Invuln Scrapper's recovery-debuff resistance to outpace the extra ~0.97 EPS from QR, you'd have to face a debuff worth 0.97 / 0.25 = 3.88 EPS (or, since debuffs are expressed as proportional values, -232% of recovery debuff).

In other words, both characters' recovery would be floored at the levels of recovery debuff required for Invuln's resistance to be better than Quick Recovery. Now I grant you that the comparison shifts as your other recovery bonuses rise. But chances are, you're not going to reach much higher than 3.88 EPS on your Scrapper through IO/Accolade bonuses alone. You can reach higher effective levels of net recovery if you use Conserve Power (and/or Physical Perfection) from the Energy/Body Mastery pool, but then again, if you take Conserve Power you're paying an opportunity cost that WP doesn't.

(Body/Energy Mastery offer sub-optimal attacks, so it's a goal of my Tanker/Scrapper builds to try to avoid those pools if I can.)

You can also obviously boost your net recovery through Incarnate powers (alpha, destiny), but my point is only that WP has to spend fewer resources on endurance management, not that Invuln can't be made endurance sustainable.

The only explanation I have for your experiences in Lambda is that you got lucky with your Invuln Scrapper. For whatever reason, you were hit with fewer endurance-relevant drains/debuffs on the Scrapper than you were on the WP Tanker.

Regen and Resistance aren't directly comparable. Regen is a fixed value -- X amount of HP/sec is equivalent in broad terms to X amount of damage, assuming you have no other mitigation. Resistance is a proportional value (as you know).

So which is "better" depends on how much DPS you're taking. If it's below a certain threshold, the regen will be better. If it's above a certain threshold, the resistance will be better.

I feel like we're talking past each other here. Yes, I know that's the topic of the thread. I understand why it's interesting to compare the Scrapper with the Tanker for the purpose of the original test. But as soon as you shift to a scenario in which the WP Scrapper loses, the fact that you're comparing two uneven Archetypes becomes problematic.

Or if you prefer, that wrinkle renders your numbers irrelevant to the conversation to which you responded. No one in his right mind would question that an Invuln Tanker is better at surviving burst damage than a WP Scrapper. I surely never questioned it. What I don't accept as self-evident is the proposition that an Invuln Tanker is meaningfully superior at surviving (non-SL) burst damage than a WP Tanker, just because one relies more on regeneration than the other.

And although I didn't explicitly spell it out before, that question includes the idea that an Invuln build will be more vulnerable to bursts in any situation that features considerable psi damage. It's not obvious to me that Invuln is necessarily the more stable set overall, in any practically significant way.

Regeneration as a set has very little stacking mitigation to go along with the eponymous regeneration. We're discussing WP, which does have stacking mitigation; WP also has a higher sustainable regen rate, given a fully saturated Rise to the Challenge.

All I'm saying is that you can't simply look at two sets, see one that has high regen (along with whatever else), and one that has low regen (along with whatever else), and declare that the latter is axiomatically better at surviving burst damage. The "whatever else" in parenthesis is crucially important. The exact window of time you choose is also crucially important.

Are we talking about Invuln's end-drain resistance here? Or are you saying that your Invuln also has higher DEF, and therefore gets hit with fewer debuffs? I'm not trying to patronize you; I really don't understand exactly what your point is.

The end-drain resistance is nice, but it's not anywhere near high enough to account for the situation you describe. Also, Lambda heavily features Seers with Drain Psyche*, which opposes AoE and Psionic DEF (neither of which are strengths of Invuln), so I doubt very much that any DEF advantage your Invuln character may or may not have over your WP characters will help you much to avoid the copious endurance drain in that trial.

In any case, even if we stipulate that your Invuln character is mechanically superior against endurance drains in Lambda (as opposed to simply luckier) than your WP character(s), endurance drain resistance does not help you to make your build endurance-sustainable. Quick Recovery gives you some small amount of insulation against endurance/recovery debuffs, and it gives you more than a Stamina-equivalent recovery bonus to use as you wish.

There really is no comparison. I don't question that your experience in Lambda is as you describe it, but at best what you describe is a niche scenario that's only tenuously relevant to the point at hand.

Again, a combination of lower DEF + higher regeneration isn't intrinsically inferior to a combination of higher DEF + lower regeneration.

And do forgive me; i wasn't criticizing you, I was just clarifying what I saw as simplistic reasoning not because I think you need the education, but because someone else reading might come away with the wrong idea.

Not disputing your conclusion or his, just questioning the underlying logic he appeared to be using. With regard to your conclusion, though, are we still talking about an Invuln Tank versus a WP Scrapper? If so, then that's not a definitive statement on the relative strength of the two power sets.

The point isn't that Invuln is necessarily worse than WP at short-term survivability (even against non-SL opponents); you can always construct a scenario for which Invuln will be better, numerically, than WP. The point is that the burst-damage-survivability difference may not be big enough to matter in practice, because it isn't axiomatically true that sets featuring regeneration are crappy in short-term scenarios.

I use the term as a holdover from launch, when the general convention was (or seemed to be) that anything not S/L was 'exotic'. It's a catch-all for E/N/F/C/P/T, but I agree it's not a very precise term.

As for how exotic Fire/Cold are, that's a different question. I maintain that pure Fire/Cold attacks are rare enough to be irrelevant from a build-strategy standpoint. That doesn't mean that Fire/Cold damage is irrelevant, especially if you spend a lot of time in Praetoria or the Rogue Islands.

With respect to your test, none of the above is important, because you were using base Invulnerability without pools/IOs. That is, you had exactly the same amount of F/C DEF as you had S/L.