Sarrate

Personally, I don't think Brutes should have been given Tanker hp/res caps to begin with, but that's a different story.

Keep in mind, that even if their caps are the same, Tankers start much higher. This means they can survive situations with less buffing than a Brute can. This may not be as important for buffer overrun teams, but it can be a huge boon for unoptimized teams. Just something to consider.

This raises one very important question: Will being able to tank 3 more mobs really impact a fight? Okay, you're fighting Council and there are 25 mobs, is there that much of a difference between 5 loose mobs and 8? Assuming the rest of team isn't Blasters (in which case spawns would die in seconds since they don't have to worry about eating the alpha) there would be other control / buffs / debuffs in the equation. If you're in a situation where you're just getting completely swarmed (say the trench in the ITF) then an extra 3 mobs would be a drop in the pond and not noticeable anyways.

As for the "You can smack em in the face and they still beat on the blaster" line, it's completely false. You can Taunt mobs all day at the aggro cap and they won't turn to fight you unless a) one of the current mobs on you dies b) aggros something else. The moment you deal damage to it, however, aggro is yours. If you have 17 mobs on you, and you damage something, you'll immediately push one of the other mobs off the list. My suspicion is that it would prevent someone from aggroing 17 weak mobs then killing a tough mob without it being able to fight back.


So, to answer the thread, no, I don't think an increased aggro cap (to 20) would do anything.

I agree with you, Failsight. I tend to leave the group when the spawn is say 3/4 dead, take the alpha on the next one, bunch 'em up, then start AoEing while the group catches up. Rinse and repeat. I've noticed that setting t he pace helps speed up groups.

lol at the cone bit.

This sounds like an excellent subject for HeroCon attendees to grill the devs on...


[edit: Actually, I may have read that wrong. First impression of "branch" was more like "division" - art division, coding division, phantom division. After I posted, I thought "maybe he meant branch as in 'development branch' in source control." Joke fail. Bah!]

[edit: Oh, but mad props to you guys for persevering - both the players for data gathering, and the devs (Synapse) for continuing to look despite not uncovering it at first glance.]

Well, I know that (s)he has had a focus on +runspeed in past builds, so that threw me for a bit of a loop.

Sorry for missing any humor, I'm too good at that sometimes. :\

Grant Cover has 30% rech resistance.

Did you accidentally slot the wrong set in MIDs? The build you posted uses Trap of the Hunter which (for 4 slots) only offers +5% immob, +1.88% maxhp, and +9% accuracy. From what you're saying, it sounds like you meant to use Enfeebled Operation, which would yield 3% immob, 1.88% ne res, and 2.5% s/l def. If it wasn't an error, you should have justed used Crushing Impact.

If cost is an issue, yes, that's one way of doing it. If money isn't an issue, then it's not the best choice. (Another reason I don't post builds - budgets are different from person to person.)

Sorry if I missed it, but was this a joke / sarcasm? If not, I'm not sure what you just proved, since (from what you wrote) you were still aiming for +def, not runspeed.

If you're only worried about end reduc, why not frankenslot it with Erradication / something else? For example:

Erradication (lvl30): Dmg, Acc/Dmg/Rech, Acc/Dmg/Rech/End
Scirocco's Dervish (lvl50): Acc/Dmg/End
Multi Strike (lvl50): Acc/Dmg/End
Generic (lvl50): End Reduc

Would leave you with 74.5% acc, 96.4% dmg, 95% end reduc, 32.63% rech (worthless, I know). It would also have +1.8 max end and the very useful 3.13% e/ne def. Compared to Multi Strike's 0.94% s/l/f/c def, I think it's a much better investment... more expensive, though.

Nope, it's not required. If you don't have that, though, I'd suggest 45% def to neg energy so that it doesn't land in the first place. It has a 45s recharge, so if you can kill her fast enough, she won't have a lot of chances to fire it in the first place.

They were going to make the +status protection on CM (and similar powers) not stack - it even made it to test. The reason it ended up being repealed was because it could cause toggle drops. When applying a non-stacking buff, the game first removes the old buff, and replaces it with the new one. So, CM's protection would drop for a split second. If you had an active status effect on you, that split second of no protection would be enough to drop everything. *

This was before toggle suppression, but it would still effect sets that utilize offensive toggles (such as Rad Emission, Dark Miasma, etc).


* Hmm, this makes me wonder... status protection toggles for meleers are set not to self stack, but they don't suffer from this problem. No idea why it's different.

The hold does 10 ticks of ~400 dmg over 10s. That's definitely enough to kill a Tank. The more hp you have (WP, Inv with DP up, etc) or the more passive resistance you have (WP w/SoW (can be activated while held, remember), Invuln, etc) the better. As you mention, she can deal damage on top of the dot (remember the Tanker's toggles are suppressed, so they'd hit harder / more often than normal).

I've seen Tankers die from the hold and I've seen them kept alive. I can't say how hard it is to keep them alive through it, though.

No, I absolutely refuse to say something else is more effective (in terms of effectiveness) when it isn't in reality just to drop prices. Defense is highly sought after because it's a very strong way to build. A player may not need that much defense / survivability depending on what they do / how they play, but that's a completely different matter. (I usually try to say that, as well.)

I won't argue that people have different perceptions of what is fun. I fully believe that you find getting QR at 20 to be worthwhile, I don't doubt it for a second. Likewise, I don't think pushing it that early is worth it. It's why I suggested he play it by ear - it's actually how I plan a lot of my builds. I'll fidget with a build for a while, but I won't know exactly what I'll need when until I actually get in game and start playing it.

Tying that to your first point, however, it's possible that other bonuses may be more important to an individual (such as how you like +runspeed), but that doesn't mean they're the most effective. It's also why I very rarely post full build suggestions - they're examples of how I would build to suit my playstyle, but it doesn't mean they'd work for anyone else.

----

On a different note, I thought of two other suggestions:

1) If you can swing it, try to get a good mix of damage and healing enhancement into Siphon Life. It's actually a good attack now and worth the investment. If you don't care about set bonuses, one of the best slottings I've seen is 2 Acc/Dmg HOs, 2 End/Heal HOs, 1 lvl50 Dmg/Rech IO, 1 lvl50 Heal/Rech HO. That's 66.6% acc/end, 90% dmg/heal, and 53% rech. (Just a suggestion, not necessarily the best for your build in particular.)

2) Make sure to slot MG as an attack, not an immobilize. I think Midnight's Grasp is the second best DPA in the set, so you don't want to skimp on its damage enhancement.

Understood - sorry if my post was a bit harsher than I meant for it to be. It just hasn't been the first time I've seen people talking about positional WP builds, and they always mystified me.

Hmm, well I took 8 powers from WP (all but Resurgence), 8 powers from Fire Melee (all but BoF, the 6 attacks are 6 slotted and Taunt has 5), 2 for a travel power, 3 for Kick/Tough/Weave, and 3 for Swift/Health/Stamina. I'm guessing that I'm spending less slots in powers like QR (2 lvl50 generics) and Health/Stamina (1 lvl50 generic in each) compared to you.

As for trying to solo a Pylon, those can take quite a bit of punishment, so it's unlikely you'll be able to take one down without a pretty focused effort / concentration on a high st attack chain - likely focused enough to break your 8 DB powers.

Well, there are a couple reasons, now that I think about it.

1) Tanker res/def numbers start higher, so stacking Tough/Weave on top of WP brings those numbers up a lot higher than they do for a Scrapper. Due to the non-linear curve of mitigation, the increases mean more for a Tanker than for a Scrapper.

2) Solo, Tough/Weave pushed my mitigation really high, enough that the build wasn't being stressed enough to notice increased hp/regen. On a team, buffs likely filled in the gap. (The one villain group that consistently roughed me up was Arachnos - their def debuffs really hurt.)

So, if you said you could feel a difference adding +maxhp and +regen, I'd believe you. However, I think that stacking defense past a certain point will have a more noticeable effect.

(Btw, the reason I said to focus on +maxhp before +regen is because +maxhp has two functions and +regen only has one. Regen only increases how much you heal over time. Maxhp, on the other hand, increases how much you heal over time (since it's a function of your maxhp) and increases your ability to survive spike damage.)

I personally think pushing for Stamina at lvl20 is wasting too many powers too early on end management - it's a third of your powers. If you still have issues you can pick it up in the 20s. Besides that, at lvl22 you get SOs will make QR that much stronger anyways. (Heraclea and I disagree on this, so I'd just suggest you play it by ear. If you're not having trouble with end, you don't need to push for Stam as early. If you still feel the end crunch, start the prereqs for the pool.)

Dark Melee has an edge at lower levels due to Shadow Maul anyways - it is incredibly end efficient. Against a single target it beats out most other other st attacks, and it can hit up to 5 targets. Learn to line up the cone and hit 2-3 targets with it and it will carry you far. For an illustration of what SM's cone looks like, here is an example. You can think of it as a short V starting at your character. (If you already know what cones look like, my apologies! I know the cone has gotten a bad rep in the past.)

I disagree with this assessment of SoW. Normally you won't need it, however there are two situations (STF, ITF) where is is a tremendous help and I wouldn't want to be without it. If you (Solgath) don't plan on running / tanking those TFs, then you probably won't miss it. If you do plan on doing them, however, I think skipping it isn't wise.

While a maxhp / regen build is pretty good, keep in mind that defense oriented builds will be able to take more damage. Focusing on +maxhp / +def with regen as tertiary yields the best survivability.

Some IOs that are useful for +def (no particular order):

Kinetic Combat (single target melee): +3.75% s/l
Perfect Zinger (taunt): +3.13% s/l
Aegis (resistance): +3.13% f/c
Eradication (pbaoe): +3.13% e/ne
Mocking Beratement (taunt): +2.5% s/l, +3.13% f/c
Reactive Armor (resistance): +1.25% s/l/e/ne
Rectified Reticle (tohit): +1.88% s/l

Keep in mind that defense is also far more expensive to build if money is a concern / constraint. A lot of the advice given will vary if you're on a tight(er) budget than if you're able/willing to blow hundreds of millions.

WP's aggro aura (RttC) sucks horribly compared to other auras. It's not even in the same league, barely even the same sport. Most taunt auras had a duration of 13.5s at lvl50 with a few being longer than normal (Invuln and Shield have a 16.875s duration). In comparison, RttC's duration is 1.25s - that's not a typo. This causes two problems:

1) When fighting up level enemies, it can fall off before it refreshes (every 1s). Against +2s it lasts just long enough, and against +3s it falls off.

2) In short, taunt efffects are gigantic threat multipliers on the order of 1000 times their duration. If there is a 1.25s taunt on the target, 100 dmg would suddenly be equal to 125,000 dmg to the mob. Compare that to the threat generated by a 13.5s taunt (1,350,000) or 16.875s taunt (1,687,500) by that same 100 dmg attack. **

That said, WP can hold aggro, but it involves liberal use of a well slotted Taunt, AoEs, and getting into mobs some time before the rest of the group. It can be done, but it's not something that just happens like with other sets.


** This is the short version for brevity. There is a lot more to it than that. Also, taunt effects add threat themselves equal to 1,000*duration. So, RttC applies 1,250 threat per tick while Invincibility applies 16,875 per tick. Also, to take aggro from someone, you need double their current threat. So if you loose aggro to someone with a taunt effect (like a Shield Scrapper), you have to work double time to get it back.

Ahh, gotcha!

Physical Perfection is a passive power in the Body APP pool. It requires you to take one other power in the pool (Focused Accuracy or Conserve Power) and be level 44 or higher. It gives you +20% regen and +12.5% recovery.

I don't understand the fascination for positional defense for WP, it really has no synergy with the rest of the set. Remember, typed and positional defenses don't stack - the game always uses the higher of the two values. If you have 20% ranged def and 30% energy def, an attack like Lightning Bolt would use your 30% energy def. Likewise, if you had 20% melee def and 30% energy, Total Focus would always use your 30% energy def. By focusing on positional def over typed, you're throwing away all of Heightened Senses (~3.87% s/l, ~15% def to f/c/e/ne) (a power you'd want anyways for +perception and def resistance) to start from scratch. Besides, sets that offer +typed def tend to require fewer slots (3-4) while typed generally requires 6. (The enigma to this being BoZephyr.) This allows you to frankenslot the remaining slots for solid enhancement value.

Example:
4 Kin Combat (lvl33s, all but proc), Mako's Bite Triple and Quad (lvl50) - 62% acc, 95% dmg, 79% end/rech

Soft capping a WP Scrapper is hard, and may not even be worth it to push it all the way. It would depend on what you were trying to accomplish. Keep in mind, getting your def to the 35% range should be sufficient for most times while still being a single purple away from the softcap. Personally, I'd focus on +maxhp and def first, and any left over for +regen.


Note: My experience is as a Tank, but I noticed a much bigger performance boost from adding defense to my build than +maxhp or +regen (not even noticeable).

The two blasts it does have cannot be activated while jumping / flying. To take it even a step further, Stone Spears cannot hit an airborn target.

He has, in fact, done just that. He slowed down Stone Melee's mallets from ~1.16s to ~1.6s because they were interrupting too early. That was a purely aesthetic change. Now, I don't think he does it willy nilly, I'm sure he runs any animation change by Castle first, but that's not the same as all animation changes originate from Castle.

I think the reason Spines didn't get the weapon draw time removed from their powers because Castle thinks the set is (too?) strong now and can't justify a buff like that without tweaking something else. Until that time, he's just leaving it alone for better (powers not getting changed) or worse (slow animations).

Think about this for a moment.

Mobs have a finite amount of hit points. The Blaster(s) on your team have enough damage to kill those mobs without your help. Even if you got Spine Burst off before them (be it getting to the spawns faster, animation tweak, etc) it would be completely superfluous because the Blaster(s) would have killed the mobs anyways. The only difference is it made pretty graphics and more orange numbers. Performance wise, the team wouldn't have noticed. Yeah, corpse blasting isn't fun, but for the scenario you described it's just perception - the mobs were already dead.

Personally, I have a hard time imagining that most groups level spawns that fast. When I play my Tanks, I generally get off AoEs that take as much time or more than Spine Burst (Combustion - 3s, Tremor - 3.3s). My WP routinely gets off at least Taunt (1.67s), Combustion (3s), and Fire Sword Circle (2.67s) before spawns are dead. The only thing I can really suggest (besides pointing out the minions are dead anyways) is that you move between spawns faster. (Not very helpful, and I'm sure it sounds a bit harsh, but I can't think of any other way to phrase it. It's not meant to be an insult.)

Self Destruct makes you untargetable, so targeted rezzes won't work. Dark Miasma/Howling Twilight, however, will work since it's an aoe and doesn't require you to target the body.

Well, it's not just fliers that get hit, but people who jump as well. On squishies I'll hop around in combat (not as much as some, though) and activate powers in mid air. I can't do that reliably with Earth Assault. For you it may not be an issue, but it's something I run into often.

Some of your numbers seem off still, Shoe. For example, your dpa computation for Stone Mallet only works if the activation time is ~1.716 (95.76 / 1.716 = 55.8). The ArcanaTime for Stone Mallet is higher than that:

ArcanaTime = ( ROUNDUP(CastTime / 0.132) + 1 ) * 0.132
ArcanaTime = ( ROUNDUP(1.6 / 0.132) + 1 ) * 0.132
ArcanaTime = ( ROUNDUP( 12.121212... ) + 1 ) * 0.132
ArcanaTime = ( 13 + 1 ) * 0.132
ArcanaTime = 14 * 0.132
ArcanaTime = 1.848

So the DPA of Stone Mallet would really be 51.8181(...). Heavy Mallet and Seismic Smash have a miscalculation somewhere, too.