Siolfir

You're missing a few.


Invulnerability (+def), Willpower (+regen, -tohit), Shields (-dam), Dark Armor (heal, stun, fear, -tohit), and (arguably) Electric Armor (end drain) all get better mitigation for having things near close by.

Knocking things down gives you a few seconds. Knocking them away is just plain stupid for most melee characters - note that most of the "proper use of KB" involves knocking things to group them together, or preventing them from ever getting up again.

I'll assume you're talking about Stalkers still, since Soul Drain's longer duration would provide a better performance boost over time than Build Up would (it also means I can be lazy and not factor it in, since BU affects all of these sets equally) - note that whether or not that pushes it ahead of MA for Scrappers is something I haven't looked at.

Dark Melee:
Midnight's Grasp: 1.23
Smite: 1.111
Siphon Life: 0.928
Shadow Punch: 0.795

Without criticals, MG->Sm->SL->Sm does scale 7.36 damage in 6.732 seconds for an average of 1.093; with 10% criticals it would be 1.202.

Both EM (1.211) and MA (1.273) are ahead at that point, although Siphon Life certainly offers some benefit to mitigation. If I felt like playing around with it I could probably find the critical rate needed for DM to pass EM, but once again... I'm lazy.

Whether or not people can identify the difference doesn't mean that they have any sense. After receiving a couple of complaints, I tend to warn people with melee characters while playing my Mind/Energy Dominator when I get on a team. It typically goes something along the lines of "If I knock something away from you, don't chase it and just switch targets. It'll be dead before it hits the ground anyway."

<3 Energy Assault's Power Push.

I know, so much change! At least there's consistency with the copy tool, though... it's still down.

Don't expect it to remain that way - Castle posted that he changed it late in beta when someone else mentioned the guaranteed critical, but I guess it was either overwritten in another patch or else hasn't made it completely through the pipeline.

Why is this irrelevant data? Because the proportional benefit of Rage is far greater when it's the only +dam you're using in the situation. The conclusion stays the same, but the example could be called skewed by someone who wanted to ignore it, so I'll try again using damage slotting. Since the initial argument was about Tankers, I won't include Fury which will change a lot of things.

Trying again, using damage scales:

Base numbers:

Super Strength:
Jab: 0.68
Punch: 1
Haymaker: 1.64
Knockout Blow: 3.56
Hurl: 1.64
Footstomp: 1.42

Energy Melee:
Barrage: 1.32 (1 Sm, 0.32 En)
Energy Punch: 1 (0.7 Sm, 0.3 En)
Bonesmasher: 1.64 (1 Sm, 0.64 En)
Whirling Hands: 1 (0.6 Sm, 0.4 En)
Total Focus: 3.56 (1 Sm, 2.56 En)
Energy Transfer: 4.56 (1.56 Sm, 3 En)

Factor in 95% damage slotting, applying single effect of Rage to SS:


Super Strength:
Jab: 0.68 * (1 + 0.95 + 0.8) = 1.87
Punch: 1 * (1 + 0.95 + 0.8) = 2.75
Haymaker: 1.64 * (1 + 0.95 + 0.8) = 4.51
Knockout Blow: 3.56 * (1 + 0.95 + 0.8) = 9.79
Hurl: 1.64 * (1 + 0.95 + 0.8) = 4.51
Footstomp: 1.42 * (1 + 0.95 + 0.8) = 3.905

Energy Melee:
Barrage: 1.32 (1 Sm, 0.32 En) * 1.95 = (1.95 Sm, .624 En), 2.574 total
Energy Punch: 1 (0.7 Sm, 0.3 En) * 1.95 = (1.365 Sm, 0.585 En), 1.95 total
Bonesmasher: 1.64 (1 Sm, 0.64 En) * 1.95 = (1.95 Sm, 1.248 En), 3.198 total
Whirling Hands: 1 (0.6 Sm, 0.4 En) * 1.95 = (1.17 Sm, 0.78 En), 1.95 total
Total Focus: 3.56 (1 Sm, 2.56 En) * 1.95 = (1.95 Sm, 4.992 En), 6.942 total
Energy Transfer: 4.56 (1.56 Sm, 3 En) * 1.95 = (3.042 Sm, 5.85 En), 8.892 total

Now, with the 50% Smashing Resistance:
Super Strength:
Jab: 1.87 * 0.5 = 0.935
Punch: 2.75 * 0.5 = 1.375
Haymaker: 4.51 * 0.5 = 2.255
Knockout Blow: 9.79 * 0.5 = 4.895
Hurl: 4.51 * 0.5 = 2.255
Footstomp: 3.905 * 0.5 = 1.9525

Energy Melee:
Barrage: 1.95 Sm * 0.5 + .624 En = 1.599
Energy Punch: 1.365 Sm * 0.5 + 0.585 En = 1.2675
Bonesmasher: 1.95 Sm * 0.5 + 1.248 En = 2.223
Whirling Hands: 1.17 Sm * 0.5 + 0.78 En = 1.365
Total Focus: 1.95 Sm * 0.5 + 4.992 En = 5.967
Energy Transfer: 3.042 Sm * 0.5 + 5.85 En = 7.371

Note that SS with Rage is still ahead on most attacks, but the numbers are a bit closer. It's not until you start working in Fury that EM starts pulling ahead, so it's really only "good" on Brutes - and that's still debatable.

I'm going to go with both - obviously "not working as intended" for many of them, because several patches recently have seemed to reduce how many ambushes were showing up to one at a time, and the next would wait until it was cleared on most of the missions I've tried. But there are an inordinately large number of ambushes of both types in Praetoria, especially for characters with a lack of powers, lack of slots, and lack of staying power in a fight. At a higher level (ie, post-Stamina with at least SOs), the same "what were they thinking" ambushes would be a great deal of fun - at those levels you can build for the constant fighting; it's only a problem in Praetoria due to what level you are when you run into them.

Specifically with regards to Stalkers, I'd rather see -resistance attached to AS than -regen, as it would be more useful in any situation that you don't immediately kill the target with, and likely provide as much or more extra damage as the -regen would against AVs. But that was given to Tankers instead.

And yet it "criticals" more often than anything else for a Scrapper - since 20% is higher than the otherwise-highest 15% that the "extra critical chance" attacks get (barring 2 seconds after Eagle's Claw). Scrappers also get a longer-lasting benefit that provides more +damage - which is part of the reason that Power Siphon has a longer recharge than Build Up.

So having it happen more often than other criticals isn't broken for a Scrapper, but being able to stack BU for all of one attack is broken on a Stalker if it worked as often as they could critical?

It's a flat 20%, and doesn't get the extra chances. Personally, I like it as an in-set gimmick, and it's something different - but I also feel that it should've been given to all of the ATs or left out entirely and then throw in a partial critical a la Total Focus for the 2 ATs that can critical.

Fair enough - I just got a bit insulted at the implication that I didn't know enough to turn off an aggro aura before making such a claim, so responded a bit defensively.

If City of Data were up when I posted the video (I was going to post the link to the specific section, but it's apparently down along with the other cohtitan pages), I would've provided the link to the portion. When it comes up, you can use the drop-down to select "Inherent", and there are 4 listings for Fury - each do a different part. One provides a damage buff based on your current "Rage" (the internal term for your Fury level), one contains the decay rate, a third is what modifies "Rage" based on attacking or being attacked, and the last (listed as an AoE) checks what's nearby once every 10 seconds to modify the rate at which you gain Fury for each incoming/outgoing attack (probably done that way to save a smidge of processing since then it can just do a straight add for each attack rather than recalculating all the time).

That last one is the problem child - in the lower-left corner of the power stats, you can see a "Notify mobs" field that's set to "Always". So every time the power goes off, the mobs are alerted that you're standing there.

Except that it's not wrong, and it happens on Brutes at the hard cap on Stealth, and you're apparently magically the only person in the world that it doesn't happen to. And Energy Aura doesn't have an aggro toggle (which is when I first noticed the issue), and it happens without the aggro toggle on, but if you're going to assume I'm a complete idiot then I'm just going to call you a liar with your claim about being within 5' "indefinately". You're full of it and need to check it - preferably in game - before you start spouting off.

Fury has 4 components. One of them notifies all of the mobs within 10' of you that you're there. What it does do is make it completely irrelevant because the mobs know that you're there, and you're added to their aggro list, and they then proceed to attack no matter what level your stealth is.

Edit: Here. A nice little recording of my EM/Elec running a Stealth IO and Superspeed in Cimerora (at least, after the annoying commercial) - note that the mobs don't attack until I get close, but I didn't do anything to aggro them - I added the stealth radius for monitoring so you could see it was higher than 35' (if you watch at full screen, you can read that it's at 95' until they aggro, the toggles all stay on, and it drops to 0 as soon as they aggro - all with no action on my part).

I guess some of the tip missions are broken for ambushes, as well - and it's been a long-time complaint about mayhems, but if the number of mobs is reasonable the ambushes are easy to deal with.

Note that what's "reasonable" is vastly different based on level and primary; the biggest issue with the hoards of ambushes in Praetoria is, as already mentioned, that you don't have the endurance to deal with it and you're so quickly overwhelmed.

Except that Corruptors have a higher damage cap to a higher base damage - and since the solo Vigilance buff is a straight +dam which is quickly lost to a Kinetic by hitting the damage cap, it's one of the few buff/debuff sets where I'd say the Corruptor is almost always better off.

From my perspective (with a 50 Kin/Dark Defender, 50 Rad/Kin, Ice/Kin, and Fire/Kin Corrs, and a 38 DP/Kin that I played with during the open beta for Dual Pistols) I'd say go with the Corr, take Scorpion Shield for the defense, and kill them faster. Due to the longer animations and redraw slowing down what you can do, my Fire/Kin Corruptor was more survivable than the DP/Kin due to less dead time, faster reactions, and being able to kill thin the herd much faster.

Part of this is playstyle, though - your mileage may vary.

This. It's a question of whether you prefer Build Up or Power Siphon, not whether or not you can control the critical. Personally, I went with a Stalker but that was solely because I wanted to go with Energy Aura because the pairing looks pretty - the set works fairly well for both ATs. From a Stalker perspective, it's nice being able to hit BU+AS+Burst without having to stack extra hits before the AoE - however, a Scrapper is going to easily break the 80% that Stalker BU provides within a few seconds and maintain a higher buff for a longer duration.

Re: highlight in yellow - okay, then it doesn't fix the issue. *shrug* I have been playing lowbies since GR hit, and didn't put Stealth IOs on them. It was a guess at a reason, based on comments made during the thread.

Re: highlight in red - are you using a Brute? Stealth doesn't work for Brutes unless they're in an "Only Affecting Self" state, due to one of the aspects of Fury (although if the timing is right you should be able to get up to 10 seconds of standing within 10' of a mob before it aggros).