Sarrate

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Lol. The Shackles I didn't mind, but the IV's were obnoxious.

No "Eventually" about it, I was play testing it after the first round of proliferation and have been waiting anxiously till I can build one on the live servers. Never played a more "tankish" feeling dominator, despite it having no armors.

Some very good guesses here on the powers, but Earth Assault will be a very melee heavy set. Also opted for the regular Hurl boulder Animation, since the Propel Boulder animation uses the full 3.5 second long propel animation. Now I may be a huge fan of propel for my grav doms/Trollers, but the thought of having 2 versions of it didn't seem too fun.

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Let's see, what pool of powers could be in the set...

Ranged: Hurl Boulder
AoE: Tremor, Fault (Tank Stone Melee) OR Fissure (Controller Epic) OR Stalagmites (Tanker Epic)
Melee: Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Heavy Mallet, dubious about Seismic Smash with its hold intact...
Misc: Mudpots, BU, EE (probably only one of the last two, not sure if EE can be disqualified as a "shield")

Hmm... Yeah, I'm liking the possibilities. I anxiously await more info, Sunstorm.

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EDIT: Sarrate, I hear you, but I don't consider that a problem. No one ever said that everyone should be able to accomplish everything they attempt to do. A solo player right now can run into an AV that they may not be able to handle. Failure happens.

Anyone attempting team content by themselves should know and accept this.

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If they are warned ahead of time, sure... but remember the operative word(s) Castle used was "newer players." Someone who might not have ever fought an AV before. They'd learn, but that's not an ideal way to learn.

Like I said, I'm not against it per se, but I understand the logic behind their stance. (A little bit of devil's advocate, sorry Bill. ) I'd be more interested in doing small team TFs than soloing them.

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As for the multi-glowy example, the devs have removed most of those from the game, haven't they? Perhaps they should remove them all.

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Well, it is team content, so it wouldn't be a problem for a team.

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Seriously, who will be hurt by this decision? Who will be helped?

Which population has more to gain?

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This will depend, but if there is no EB version of TF AVs (or if the devs don't want TFs to spawn EBs) then unless you're an AV soloer, you'll get through the rest of the TF and be blocked from completion at the last mission. Even if you give the players a warning, that leaves a very narrow subset of players who'd be able to actually be able to solo the TF. (Keep in mind that TFs aren't just lvl50, so if you can solo an AV at lvl50 doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to at lvl20.)

Don't get me wrong Bill, I'm not against soloable TFs, but I don't think the majority of people would pull it off. Now if you wanted to just relax the necessary group members for most** TFs, then by all means.


**Some TFs would be impossible to solo. TFs with simultaneous clicks (Hess) or ones designed to be super difficult (STF) come to mind.


[edit: Oh, and I've said it elsewhere, but the new difficulty slider is win. Can't wait to crank it up for my Tank.]

If you want to convert %hp/sec to regen%, multiply by 2.4**.

Regen Tissue: 0.2 * 2.4 = 0.48 (48%)
Numina's: 0.16 * 2.4 = 0.384 (38.4%)
Health: 0.33 * 2.4 = 0.792 (79.2%)

Those numbers are higher than what they should be, you say? You're right. The thing is those uniques aren't flagged to ignore enhancements, so if you slot them into a power that has heal enhancement, they'll be boosted as well. In this case, you have the Regen Tissue and Numina's slotted into a power with 92% heal enhancement.


** If you're wondering how I got that, the formula I use for players is the following:
hp/sec = (MaxHP * Regen) / 240

In this case, we know hp/sec in percent form, so I'd just set MaxHP = 100 (100%) like so:
0.33 = (100 * Regen) / 240

Just solve for Regen.
(0.33 * 240) / 100 = Regen
0.33 * 2.4 = Regen

Again, let me stress that is for players only. If you wanted to use it for mobs:
hp/sec = (MaxHP * Regen) / (TimeBetweenRegenTicks * 20)

The TimeBetweenRegenTicks varies from entity to entity. AVs, for example, tick every 15s base. Why multiply it by 20? That is to find the full time it takes for the entity to regen from 0 to full (each tick is 5% of their MaxHP). It works for a player too, players have a regen tick every 12s, so 12 * 20 = 240.

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Capped positional defenses with over capped melee for debuff coverage.

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MIDs bug - Phalanx Fighting always assumes you have 1 ally in range fueling PF, so it's giving higher than normal numbers. Two workarounds: 1) For a Tank, shut it off and manually add 5% to your defense. 2) Edit the power database to allow selecting 0 targets.

Short version: You have 53.8% melee, 41.3% ranged, 42.9% aoe, not quite softcapped.

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You can chain spam Siphon Life if/when needed (less then 1 sec gap with Hasten Up).

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Powers don't start recharging until they're done animating, so you'd still have to wait 3s between SLs.

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Has a powerset ever changed (as in powers swapped out) when it was ported to another AT?

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Yes: Fire Melee.

Combustion (aoe) [Tank] -> Cremate (st) [Brute, Scrapper]
Taunt (aoe taunt) [Brute, Tank] -> Confront (st taunt) [Scrapper]
GFS (2.44 scale dmg) [Brute, Tank] -> GFS (2.28 scale dmg) [Scrapper]

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this better mean TF/SFs are startable solo.

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Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full.


[edit: Dangit, ninjaed.]

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Wait, it doesn't?

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Nope. Neither does Health, Swift, or Hurdle.

The abbreviation I normally see for Electric Melee is elm.

Power Customization - This is cool and I'd never say it was a bad thing, but I've never been so conceptually hamstrung that I couldn't make it work within the current limits. Of course, I usually work within those limits to begin with, rather than creating something divorced from the game and porting it in.

Powerset Proliferation - There are some neat things being moved around, but also some lame ones. I could see myself giving Brutes another go with Claws (for the extra end efficiency) and making a Plant/Cold Controller (both sets look interesting, but I could never find a paring with them I was satisfied with).

Difficulty Changes - This is a huge win for me. My IOed characters have grown out of the default difficulty ages ago. Now I'll be able to customize the difficulty to something more suitable to each character. My /Fire Melee Tanker is going love making large spawns to saturate his AoEs.

Now, they did say more features to be revealed later, so who knows what else is still left. New content perhaps? (Though that may all be going into GR... hmm...)

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It reads: "...each will receive an alternate animation for their powers." To me, that sounds like one alternate animation for each power, excluding maybe Taunt.

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Exactly how I took it, as well.

You know, between that and Brutes getting Claws, I couldn't help but think BillZ will be one happy customer when he gets back.

Thanks for the link, btw. I was hawking Dev Digest for the info, didn't realize it would be posted on the actual CoH website. *chuckle* Good stuff!


[edit: My Fire Melee Tank is very happy about this. ]

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So if I am understanding correctly, in the build I posted most recently the only useful slotting for Hibernate would be a heal enhancement in the default slot correct? Since the recovery is already over 500% and the recharge is 95 seconds.

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PowerForge: Yep, if it's recharging in under 120s, don't bother with enhancing its recharge further.

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I would never do so. The fact that it's horrible to deal with makes it all the more intriguing!

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Umbral: Right on.

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No idea really. Looking at the description it appears to hold you but also render you untouchable for it's duration. Effectively locking you up totally while it works. This seems tolerable if it can restore my blue bar fast. and by fast I mean FAST. If it allows the AV to shake off my immobilize then that's a problem. If I can be rested and out in time to apply another helping of sharks before the bad guy is in melee then it's fine.

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PowerForge: Yeah, it basically puts you in stasis and lets your regen/recov for up to 30s. You can't do anything while Hibernate is active except turn it off. (You may be able to shut off toggles, but you certainly can't turn them on.)

As for how fast it will get you back into the fight... it will really come down to slotting. By itself (not counting any regen/recov you have in the build) it will take you from zero to full hp in 21s and endurance in 12s. If those aspects are fully enhanced, that'd be zero to full hp in 12s (capped regen) and endurance 6.8s.

Actually, wait a tick, capped recovery looks like it's 500%, that's just base recov plus base Hibernate. So zero to full end in 12s.

The thing I keep forgetting is how NoPhase works. It prevents you from phasing or hibernating again while it's active, but I can never remember if it's 120s from when you turn on the power, or 120s from when you turn it off. According to CoD, it looks like it ends 150s after you activated it. So, if you can get its recharge down to 120s, then that'd be as fast as you could use it. (Yet something else I need to test...)

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While Sonic Blast is an utter biyatch to calculate for, doing it for a Corr is easier than doing it for a Blaster (Defiance is teh debil!).

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Umbral: Give it to Werner to play with.

Also - depending on what AT you take into PvP (be it zone or Arena) you might get a res buff. I think Defenders get something like +40% res to all when they step foot into a PvP enabled zone. It's very helpful to avoid being completely plastered by high damage ATs (re: insta-gib). It doesn't instantly transform you into a Tank or anything, but it helps.

Someone who actually PvPs could probably fill you in with the actual numbers - I don't know what they are for all the ATs.

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If you can, work in more Scream and less Shriek. One of the things that you have to remember about Sonic Blast is that a large portion of its damage is delayed in the form of -res. Because Scream is a DoT, all of its damage except for the first tick benefits from its own -res. Shriek has the shortest duration (and thusly lowest delayed damage) along with worse DPA thanks to not benefiting from its own -res.

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Umbral: On the other hand, if you used Shriek, wouldn't it be easier to keep a higher level of -res on the target than if you used Shout? I haven't done any significant number crunching to support that, but I remember reading a thread about a Storm/Sonic Defender who used Shriek, Scream, and Screech to maximize res debuffs. (Of course, those res debuffs were amplifying all of Storm's powers, not just the Defender's attack chain.)

Hrmm...

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Yeah, sorry. Not sure where I came up with that. I believe all the big -Regen powers (HT, LR, Heat Exhaustion and Benumb) are 500%. The exception is Traps/PGT, which is -1000%. I was probably thinking of PGT when I typed that.

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UberGuy: Well, to be fair, EM Pulse has a -1000% regen debuff, you may have been thinking of that.

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One thing I'd suggest here is that +Recharge is really nice to Dark for general purposes. Some of DM's best tools are clicks. Two of those you'd use for AV/GM purposes are Tar Patch and of course HT.
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On the non-AV/GM front, being able to spam Fearsome Stare rapidly is devastating to the effectiveness of most lesser mobs.

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UberGuy: The man speaks the truth once again. If you don't have any +rech and you're either moving fast solo/on a team, you'll feel a bit hamstrung when you don't have at least one click up per mob.

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Excuse power choice order. I haven't investigated endurance management too closely and I'm unfamiliar with Hibernate so I don't know how that will play out. Any thoughts on this?

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PowerForge: Do you know how Hibernate works at all, or just how it'd work with respect to end management?

I agree with everything Uber said; well, aside from the Lingering Radiation is -1000% regen bit (it's actually -500%).

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On the other hand, Rad will beat Dark when it comes to offensive prowess against AVs. It has a much stronger (and permable) regen debuff, extra recharge/recovery, and its res debuff is a toggle (so AVs can't wander out of it). Rad is also less clicky than Dark, so that leaves you with more animation time to spend on attacks.

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Corr EF is only -22.5% though, while Tar Patch is -30% and, given that it should be able to doublestack for at least 10s even including cast times, that's really -40%. Corr -res from sonic attacks is "only" -15% as well, making -res from secondary more important than on defenders.

If we were comparing defenders I wouldn't argue, seeing as their EF, their AM and their blast debuffs are all stronger while tar patch stays the same, but for corruptors I'm wondering if it is so clear cut - snowball effect and all, it could be easy to believe son/rad is better on corrs just because rad/son is better on defenders, and not even giving a try to dark.

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True, but keep in mind that AVs can't run out of EF like they can Tar Patch. That and Rad also has +dmg/rech/recov and a -regen advantage. (If Dark wants -regen outside of Howling Twilight, it'd need to use Twilight's Grasp for a piddly 50% regen debuff.)

Like I said, I started to create a spreadsheet comparison to see exactly how much of a difference there is between the two, but I never finished it. I need to.

You know, it's kind of funny, just a couple days ago I thought "Man, PF has been very quiet, recently."

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OK, this is a strong contender too. Conceptually it might even work out. What advantage does /Rad have over /Dark? Is it a huge leap ahead?

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Rad has powers that do the same thing as dark except in the form of target aoes with def debuff added in the mix (that can be slotted with -res proc). Two toggle auto hits and one that needs a to hit check. The one with the tohit check also kills regen. The heal is an aura but not as strong as dark's heal. It also has an aura click power that adds dmg, speed, recharge, and recovery. With hasten and other recharge bonuses, that power can be made perma. In turn, help getting hasten perma as well. And the tier 9 is one of the best holds in the game. Hit that then a nuke and watch and see what happens. Oh. How can I forget fallout

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Here's my take: Dark spanks Rad hard when it comes to survivability [edit: against AVs]. It has more tohit debuffs (enough to make an impact, even on AVs), more -damage (which AVs don't intrinsically resist), and a much better heal (twice as strong, iirc). Top it off with Fluffy / SF and you can withstand a lot more punishment than Rad can.

On the other hand, Rad will beat Dark when it comes to offensive prowess against AVs. It has a much stronger (and permable) regen debuff, extra recharge/recovery, and its res debuff is a toggle (so AVs can't wander out of it). Rad is also less clicky than Dark, so that leaves you with more animation time to spend on attacks.

I started writing a spreadsheet to compare Dark vs Rad for the purposes of AV fights several days ago, but I never finished it...

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Actually his defense is off too (not his numbers but what is what). He soft caps Energy/NegEng and near soft caps Fire/Cold but has S/L at 25%. Also, all things being equal, it's usually very easy to slide in up to +100% regen on set bonuses while still getting other stuff (like +recharge) out of your IOs.

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True, but my first WP build (before the typed def IO change, and using /Fire, so no mitigation there) had ~2800 hp, 550%-600% regen w/1 targ, 19% s/l def, and 34% exotic def. It was still reasonably strong. Not "herd GMs without buffs" strong, but could handle almost anything I threw at it with inspirations or buffs. (This includes herding the four patron AVs on the STF and tanking Recluse.)

His build with the higher defense would likely be stronger than mine was at that time.

Keep in mind that he posted the build saying it was done cheap, so a lot of the high yield enhancers would be off limits (Numina, LotG, etc). For a high budget build, then you're correct, it's possible to get solid maxhp, def, and regen.

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If you're looking to branch out into more PvE I would grabbing Reactive Armors (fairly cheap) for your resist slotting and Kinetic Combats (haven't checked lately on price) for your melee attacks. That will notch your S/L resists by as much as 10-15%.

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I think you mean s/l def, right?

That, of course, would cost him f/c def; that's not usually a big deal, but it would be a con to the change.


(As an aside, keep in mind that there is diminishing returns in PvP, so his def would be much lower than you're seeing there if this was a PvP build. I don't PvP, so I can't give any real advice, but I don't think focusing on +def would really help there, considering players have much more tohit/acc than mobs do, not to mention debuffs, etc. That and WP doesn't have Elusivity.)

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You know, I didn't even notice his HPT slotting. I went right to the totals window, saw 130% hp and just assumed. (I was trying to figure out his res numbers, mostly.)

I just thought it was interesting that regen was the first thing pointed out instead of other stats, is all. He does have a lot of defense, so that compensates for quite a bit. Softcapped WPs are pretty ridiculous.

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Well I saw that the Resistances and Defenses were fine.
The regen was the one glaring "hole"...besides the HPT slotting which I did not notice at first.

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*does some calcs*
So, if he added some heal enhancement into HPT (I'd drop the status prot/+psi res one for 2 lvl50 heal IOs) and added the Accolades, that'd put him in the 2950+ hp range. Yeah, that'd be solid enough to start looking at regen.

You know, I didn't even notice his HPT slotting. I went right to the totals window, saw 130% hp and just assumed. (I was trying to figure out his res numbers, mostly.)

I just thought it was interesting that regen was the first thing pointed out instead of other stats, is all. He does have a lot of defense, so that compensates for quite a bit. Softcapped WPs are pretty ridiculous.

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Regen: 515% [52HP/sec] @1 Foe (881% [90HP/sec @10 Foes)

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Your Regen is pretty low.
On a WP Tank or Scrap I go for 740% or higher against 1 foe.

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Well, DocOz did say that his build was created on the cheap (so avoiding some big gains like the heal uniques), which would explain it. (That and the low heal enhancement in RttC.)

[edit: Also note his build doesn't have Accolades or many other forms of +MaxHP, either.]

At any rate, I find Regen to be one of the lower priority items for increasing WP survivability. Both +MaxHP and +regen increase the amount of hp you regen per second, but MaxHP comes with the added bonus of decreasing your susceptibility to burst damage.

Then there's no comparison between +def and +regen; adding even small amounts of +def on top of WP's base can exponentially increase your survivability. For example, adding just 5% def on top of 30% def (HS + Weave + CJ) would result in a 25% drop in incoming damage. Add another 5% (35% -> 40%) and you're taking 33% less damage (going from 30%->40% drops incoming damage by half). Even against s/l, stacking def is very beneficially because it helps you avoid def debuffs (which are mostly lethal), which keeps your exotic defense from crashing.

I'm not saying it's folly to get more of it, but it has less of an impact than MaxHP/def.

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I have a question kinda related to the topic at hand: Wouldn't the -def from Rage crashes be problematic for a Shield/SS Tank?

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Yeah, Rage crash sucks (though much less than it used to). Not sure why it would be particularly problematic for a Shield tank. It sucks just fine on my Invunlerability/Super Strength, but I suppose I do have more resistance to back up my defense.

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Note: The def debuff on Rage is set to not self stack, so if you activate Rage before or during the crash, the debuff will be eliminated. (The damage and endurance crashes are not prevented in this fashion.)

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Shield Tankers are just a smidge above Fire Tankers for squishiness in my experience. Ever hear of a tough */Fire Scrapper?

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With just standard slotting, this is the case. With heavy IO investment, I think a Shield Scrapper is more survivable than an SR Scrapper. (Same def, same def resistance, better resistance, more hp, a t9 that helps even when softcapped.) The con is that it'd be far more expensive and trickier to do.

That just goes to show you the potency of def stacking. Sets lacking any form of +def really get cheated in the IO game. (The counter view being that def sets have it too good with IOs.)

[edit: I don't think the OP said whether he was going for IOs or not, so my post may or may not be relevant to his decision.]