Sarrate

I wonder how much work that would actually take since all NPCs have a 400% dmg cap. Not sure if they'd have to make new NPC ranks for each different damage cap (400%, 500%, 850%) or what.

Just checked, Windenergy has the right numbers.

Normally, that wouldn't be a problem due to Fury... except for that sticky issue of psuedo pets only having a 400% dmg cap. So a Scrapper's BU + Shield Charge (95% dmg enhancement) > Brute's Shield Charge damage capped at 400%.

[edit: By 'normally,' I mean for all non-psuedo pet damage powers.]

Patch Notes on Test

I've participated in an all Scrapper STF on Live over a year ago. (3 Darks, 3 SRs, 2 Invulns, iirc.) There were plenty of deaths on it, though, as we didn't have access to the IO changes since then (such as the grouping of typed def).

Not trying to take away from your accomplishment or anything, mind you! I look forward to your AS-MSTF.

I elaborated because I could easily see someone misinterpret "the heal is the same" to be the same in all properties (rech, etc) and not just in heal size. I wanted to clear any possible ambiguity.

There was no intended snark in my post, I'm sorry if you took it as such. It was not my intention at all.

Range enhancers will do this for ranged cones. So something like Fire Breath gets a lot bigger with extra range. AoEs and melee cones, however, are out of luck.

Of course, as mentioned, the target cap is still in place.

This is a pretty personal question, and it spans all types of Tankers, not just WP/DM, or WP/, or /DM ones. It depends a lot on your playstyle and habits. For example, do you team more or solo? If you solo, you can be considerably more lax on your primary than if you group. (If you do PUG groups more often than groups with friends, extra survivability would likely be helpful) Another consideration since I16 is how you increase your difficulty while solo. Some people also use a "leveling build" then swap / respec later on to a more finalized build.

Personally, I do a lot of soloing at low levels, so I tend lean a bit heavier on my secondary than you have so far. That's probably not much help, since one size / template doesn't fit all. You have to evaluate for yourself how you spend your playtime and go from there. (Make sure that you don't build yourself into a corner that you don't enjoy just because it's "better," though.)


One more thing, while I tend to make planned builds before I start, I keep them flexible, knowing that things may change when I start playing. I might find my survivability needs more help sooner than I think, or a power I thought would be really great, isn't, etc.

The heal size is the same, but that's the only similarity. Healing Flames heals 25% of your health every 40s unenhanced, while Energize heals 25% of your health every 120s with a 100% regen buff for 30s.

(HF also has a 20% toxic res buff on it, while Energize offers ~60% end dicsount for 30s.)

This is because the proc is designed to give proc to the target of the power. If a power targets an enemy, they get endurance. In Stamina's case, the player is the target of the power, thus gets the end boost.

Well, to be fair, there is one, but good luck getting it. (It has a defensive analogue too, and both IOs give +3% to their respective mitigation.]

No idea. I didn't even think about looking at that till just now. I new it functioned by granting a temporary power (I'd looked at that before), just never thought to look at the maximum. It's a little surprising, though, considering there is another unresisted tohit debuff that will stack from different users (Flash Arrow) and it's a lot easier to get off (ranged, autohit, no hide-requirement). Of course, Demoralize doesn't have a target cap...

Most would be, yes, but not the Stalker demoralize:

[edit: Hmm, post was deleted?]

Actually, the debuff doesn't stack:

Demoralized

Not only that, but it's much easier and more frequently broken through by things like def debuffs and tohit buffs. Autohit powers(Romulous' Nictus, Chill of the Night) are more common than unresistible damage (Manticore's Teleport Arrow).

Ah, you are correct, it would be 66%. That's insomnia and a cold talking.

If you want to compare the mitigation you get from def and res separately, all you need to do is def*2 and you'll get the equivalent res. Now, if you want to compare them mixed together:

Mitigation = 1 - (1 - res) * (1 - (def*2))

For example, in the example above we know we have 0% res and 45% def, so how much mitigation do we have (taking the long way)?

Mitigation = 1 - (1 - res) * (1 - (def*2))
Mitigation = 1 - (1 - 0) * (1 - (0.45 * 2))
Mitigation = 1 - (1 - 0.9)
Mitigation = 1 - 0.1
Mitigation = 0.9
90%


Now we know how much mitigation we need to equal (90%), how much def we'll have (35%), so much much res will we need?

Mitigation = 1 - (1 - res) * (1 - (def*2))
0.9 = 1 - (1 - res) * (1 - (0.35 * 2))
0.9 = 1 - (1 - res) * (1 - 0.7)
0.9 = 1 - (1 - res) * 0.3
0.9 - 1 = -(1 - res) * 0.3
-0.1 = (1 - res) * -0.3
0.1 / 0.3 = 1 - res
1/3 = 1- res
1/3 - 1 = -res
-2/3 = -res
2/3 = res
0.6666... = res

Note, 1% def = 2% res for any mobs +5 or lower that don't possess tohit buffs or def debuffs. This only works in isolation, once you start mixing def and res, it's not clear cut.

It's autohit and therefore incapable of missing.

If you hit Rage before the crash, it never hits you to begin with. If you use Rage again during the crash, it will eliminate it. If you're worried about survivability, it's best to use it before the crash to stop it entirely. Luckily, it doesn't take much extra +rech to do this. If you have 95% rech in Rage, it would take less than 15% global rech to allow you to fire it before it crashes consistently. (Assuming no rech debuffs, of course.)

I said could to emphasize that I could be wrong. Since I don't know how it is implemented, it could go either way. Until this knowledge is made available to us, we can't jump to conclusions about how it would work. It's a very real concern.

(I just thought of a way to test it, followed by the realization it wouldn't work due to diminishing returns in PvP. D'oh!)

As I mentioned before, a character dropping from 45% def to 40% def would require 50% res to achieve the same mitigation as before. That means for the cost of 1 power (CJ) and 1 IO (Steadfast) you'd need to get +50% res. I highly doubt the devs would ever make it that easy to stack that much resistance. Remember, characters dropping from 45% to 35% would need 75% res. (To make things worse, it would make some sets unable to attain the same mitigation. Invuln, for example, would be pretty badly hit by this. It could require as much as 85% s/l res.)

Further, just because you'd have the same mitigation doesn't mean it would be identical in gameplay. One big example I can think of off the top of my head is debuff admitance. A character would be looking to soak up two to three times as many end drains, slows, etc. The worst of all of them would be def debuffs (which would make cascade failure much more of a problem) and mezzes (that would normally be deflected).

(There was something else, but I can't remember what it is. )

Okay, it would be a minor change to make, but the implications on gameplay would be anything but minor.

Again, I vehemently disagree with raising the res caps due to the non-linear way def/res scale in this game. It's just asking for trouble.

Don't worry about it - defense mechanics aren't exactly intuitive.

Err... somehow, I doubt it.

(*) Woah, full stop. That would have a gigantic ripple effect. Any character that is currently softcapped would end up taking 2-3 times as much damage as before. I'm not just counting IOs, either. The simplest example is lucks. A very squishy character like a Blaster could not eat 4 lucks to get through a hard fight, for example. There are a lot of situations like that, too. Force Field, Cold Dom, Arctic Air, VEATs, Maneuvers, etc.

I'm not sure exactly how the game stores its variables, but such a low hard cap on def could bring up another problem - mobs with +tohit / -def. Currently, players can get extra def above the softcap to act as a buffer against +tohit / -def. If they were hardcapped at 35% / 40% def, they wouldn't be able to raise their def higher to act as a buffer.

I know you mentioned adding more / higher magnitude res bonuses, but that's not the same thing. A character going from 45% def to 40% def would need 50% res to make up the difference. Dropping from 45% def to 35% def would necessitate 75% res (current cap for most ATs) to have the same mitigation.

(*) First, 90% res offers as much mitigation as 45% def already, raising the res cap from 90% to 95% would be the equivalent of having a def soft cap of 47.5%. As mentioned by others, current mitigation curves don't increase linearly. That "small" 5% increase in the res cap would be doubling the effective max mitigation. For example, instead of a tower buffed Lord Recluse hitting a tank for 580 dmg with Energy Smash (KO Blow), it would only hit for 290 dmg. Keep in mind the raw damage of that attack (with the Red Tower up) is 5800.

For similar (but less extreme) reasons, I think that raising the res cap for Scrappers would be a good idea.

---

I'm not saying a change in def/res mechanics will never take place, but there is no way I'd call it minor. I'd consider it a huge change that I wouldn't make without thinking it through very thoroughly... several times over.

So, it does a total of ~56 dmg (using this formula for terminating dots, double checked vs Arcana's, sorry Werner!), with a cast time of 2.64 (ArcanaTime modified). The final DPA is ~21.2157.

Brawl deals 22.52 dmg with a cast time of 1.056 (ArcanaTime modified), for a final DPA of ~21.3257.

So, Barbed Swipe costs a power slot, has the same DPA of Brawl, costs end, and has a longer cast time (locking you out of better attacks, further hindering your DPS). What does it have over Brawl? It recharges in 1.5s instead of 2s, and it has the following slows:

Yippee. If you do take it for lower levels, respec out of it later, it's absolutely worthless higher up.

Keep in mind, that vet reward powers really help at low levels, Sands of Mu (for the cone) especially.


[edit: This was meant as a response to Local_Man.]

Want to know the funny thing? Shield Charge for Tankers/Brutes summons a different pseudopet than Scrappers already.

Scrapper Shield Charge -> Scrapper Pseudo Pet:
Tanker Shield Charge / Brute Shield Charge -> Tanker / Brute Pseudo Pet:

It does need to land extra tohit rolls, but the jumps have higher than base accuracy that declines per jump.

Jump 1: Accuracy - 2
Jump 2: Accuracy - 1.5
Jump 3: Accuracy - 1.25
Jump 4: Accuracy - 1

To put it in perspective, attacks with higher than normal accuracy (Controller st holds, Tanker t9 attacks, etc) have a base accuracy of 1.2.

I believe I read previously (from Castle) that Phalanx does have a target cap of three - it's just that you count as one of the three. So I think it's WAI.