Siolfir

Well, if it makes you feel better...

Suggestions Forum is ------->

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Correct me if I am wrong (and I do not think I am) back when Dominators first got /electric assualt in beta it had power sink in the secondary. In beta this caused a huge issue since power sink was also available in the Scirocco Patron powers at lvl 41. Enabling a Dom to have power sink twice. To remedy this the devs pulled power sink out of electric assualt.

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The initial beta of Electric Assault was the exact same power list as Electric Manipulation - so yes, it had Power Sink.

It was pulled out of Electric Assault because it wasn't ever really in it, they just cut 'n' pasted the Blaster powerset (complete with ST immobilize and melee-range hold) initially and called it a Dominator secondary.

The following damage powers that Corruptors get do not Scourge:
Cold Domination: Sleet
Radiation Emission: Fallout
Sonic Resonance: Liquefy
Storm Summoning: Freezing Rain
Storm Summoning: Tornado
Storm Summoning: Lightning Storm
Traps: Caltrops
Traps: Acid Mortar
Traps: Seeker Drone
Traps: Trip Mine
Traps: Time Bomb

All of these powers fall in their secondaries (and it's why I took the thread to mean which secondary powersets benefit from Scourge). The primary, power pools, and patron pool damage powers have Scourge to some degree or other - as an example, Jump Kick doesn't Scourge for full damage (nor do any of the nukes except for Blizzard - and Full Auto, but I don't count that as a "nuke" since there's no end crash), but Flurry, Rain of Fire, and Spirit Shark Jaws all Scourge for more than the base damage.

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Typically, it's just primary powers. Of the secondary powers, Gale is the only one I can think of that does Scourge - although if they add it to Oil Slick Arrow when it's ported over I certainly would be cackling with pyromaniacal glee.

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Pool powers scourge IIRC.

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Yes, they do - not every one has a full critical on the Scourge, but power pools aren't "secondary powers" and I was assuming the discussion was simply primary and secondary powersets.

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Thank you for repeating my point, that weaker attacks receive a greater benefit from Scourge due to less wasted overkill.

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No, you said:

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anything less than 1.95 scale was completely useless to use for a slotted attack given that the comparison was between damage of the attack to mob hit point levels.

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Now, was that a typo, and you meant that anything MORE than 1.95 scale is completely useless? Or did you mean that anything less than 1.95 scale is BETTER for Scourge, because of the damage compared to the MOB HP levels. Because your statement as you made it seems to be the exact opposite.

I can understand if you mistyped, or if I misunderstood, but I can only reply to what you type. I am not a mind reader.

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OR you could quote the whole sentence which mentioned that I was under the impression that it was referring to unslotted attacks - which I asked in the thread, and didn't get a reply about until two months later, long after I had stopped following the thread.

A scale 1.00 attack (unslotted) would become effectively a scale 1.95 attack when slotted 95% for damage. If you don't read what I type then I have no idea why you bother trying to reply. That is why (until I heard otherwise today) I ignored anything under scale 1.64, which I also explained in the post you quoted.

The only problems with Chain Induction now are the issue with slotting procs causing the jump chance to drop to the proc percentage, the high endurance cost/recharge for what's essentially a gimmicky single-target attack (especially if it kills the first target hit), and that it can leap the wrong direction and stop because it won't chain back to something it already hit (in which case I'd stop complaining about the end cost/recharge because I'd use it to bounce between two mobs for good damage).

The delay was removed from the jumps, the "Chain Shock" text was added so you could see it leaping, and it's considered damage you deal now (actually pet damage for a pseudopet you control) so that you don't lose exp for it working and it inherits damage buffs.

Typically, it's just primary powers. Of the secondary powers, Gale is the only one I can think of that does Scourge - although if they add it to Oil Slick Arrow when it's ported over I certainly would be cackling with pyromaniacal glee.

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If anything, the weaker attacks are the ones that give MORE Scourge, not less. The calculation was of the amount of damage that was "overkill". Note that Scourge itself does not become weaker or stronger as you slot attacks, it is a Critical, not a damage boost, and thus Scourge is boosted by Enhancement slotting. So the decrease in effectiveness is due to the increase in extraneous damage as the damage scale of the attack goes up.

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Thank you for repeating my point, that weaker attacks receive a greater benefit from Scourge due to less wasted overkill.

As for the slotting, see the replies upthread - I asked, it wasn't answered until later after I had stopped following the thread, and the slotting varied by level. *shrug* When the numbers work out to ~10-11% for the majority of what you run into and I'm using 10% I don't consider that too far off the mark.

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It's not a drastic difference in performance between the two, and it's in favor of the Defender until you factor in Scourge's effect on damage - even using the 80% numbers, that's a 20% difference compared to 15% for base damage.

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Saying "so-and-so isn't really different until you factor in Scourge" kind of misses the point.

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Actually, I said they really aren't that different once you factor in Scourge, and that the numbers are skewed in advantage of the Defender without it. You address that you don't like how imprecise I am with the approximations, but exact precision doesn't play out that way in the game due to so many other factors.

By and large, the performance is close enough that the ATs are interchangable with the difference being that fewer Defenders are "needed" to equal capped buff/debuff values and each Defender providing more team damage and/or safety until those caps are hit (debuffing requiring more to cap than buffing, particularly resistance debuffs), and Corruptors deal a bit more personal damage due to Scourge, a higher damage cap (which has as much or more effect than Scourge for any team with a Kinetic), and every set other than Kinetics (which already benefits from the higher damage cap) having at least one resistance debuff - something that Empathy and Force Field Defenders lack to aid their damage output while solo.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind the extra damage boost for both ATs (I've found myself annoyed since VEATs came out that they're "medium" damage but outdamage "high" damage Corruptors using the same damage scale attack with both at the damage cap), but I don't think there's any reason to buff just Defenders based on their performance relative to Corruptors. Since the only real issue is when comparing them to Controllers, I feel that you're looking at changes to the wrong AT.

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There was a thread about quantifying Scourge a while back. In a "best-case" scenario [...] Scourge was providing roughly a 15% boost in damage, [...] Against minions it frequently had no effect whatsoever

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Starsman's estimate for the average Scourge effect in that thread is as follows:

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Minions average +7% damage.
Lts average +11% damage
Bosses average +17.7% damage
EB average +19.7% damage
AV average +20.3% damage
GM average +20.7% damage


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He reported no boost against minions ONLY for attacks of more than 12 second recharge and 2.12 base damage. Due to the nature of his testing, that meant he was comparing to using ONLY that attack.

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Didn't it also get mentioned that he was talking about unslotted attacks, which means that anything less than 1.95 scale was completely useless to use for a slotted attack given that the comparison was between damage of the attack to mob hit point levels. I ignored anything under the 1.64 mark for that reason alone - I don't play my characters unslotted, and at +2 it's effectively 1.6 for 100% slotting (or 95% with a 5% average boost from buffs).


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This doesn't address the difference between Defender and Corruptor buff/debuff levels, but that is not as simple as Defender = 100%, Corruptor = 75%. In fact, it is 100%/80% for To Hit Buff/Debuffs, Dam Buff/Buffs, and Def and Res Debuffs. It is 100%/75% for Def Buffs, and Res Buffs. So really only the buffers are at 75% of a Defender, the Debuffers are at 80%. This is the same for a Controller.

It has also been calculated (I don't have those numbers myself, but would assume it's accurate) that Controllers and Corruptors have 88% of the healing of a Defender.

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Ranged_ResDmg is 1.00 vs 0.75 (75%), there isn't a seperate modifier for buffing or debuffing resistance (the Ranged_Res_Boolean is for mez protections) and if you'd just look at Enervating Field (-30% vs -22.5%) or Increase Density (25% vs 18.75%) you'd see that it works out that way; the healing wasn't anything I ever paid attention to but the modifier is 88%. So the tohit/damage/mez protection external buffs are 80%, healing is roughly 90% for some reason, and any other meaningful buff or debuff is 75%.


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Also, 0.65 compared to 0.75 is not 10% more damage, but 15.4% more damage, or counting the 10% more damage from Scourge, around 27% more damage. 0.70 compared to 0.75 would be 7% more damage, or 17.8% more with Scourge. Of course, raising both to 0.7 and 0.8 would bring the ratio between them closer to 10% as well.

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Since I never claimed a 10% difference in offensive performance and you reached the same numbers I did, okay, but so? I did truncate instead of round, though - didn't even pay attention to the thousandths place.

It's not a drastic difference in performance between the two, and it's in favor of the Defender until you factor in Scourge's effect on damage - even using the 80% numbers, that's a 20% difference compared to 15% for base damage.

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the support advantage of defender is about 10% less than the damage advantage of corruptors. Unless of course you look at a broken set like sonic blast.

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Again, don't forget Scourge, unless you plan to give Defenders an Inherent which does about the same additional damage as Scourge.

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I really don't see where that 10% figure comes from, other than a completely made up number that has no factual basis in reality.

There was a thread about quantifying Scourge a while back. In a "best-case" scenario (which isn't the absolute best-case, because not everyone is fighting AVs or GMs - mobs with a huge number of hit points, so that at less than 10% health doubling every hit still isn't overkill) Scourge was providing roughly a 15% boost in damage, with a larger effect on weaker hits because you end up with less overkill damage. Against minions it frequently had no effect whatsoever (due to the overkill factor - it kicked in late enough that the base damage of the attack killed them without Scourge), and iirc was around 5-10% against Lieutenants. So against the huge majority of PvE content, it's a 10% boost or less.

Corruptors have a few outlier powers - usually using pseudopets that weren't already created weaker for Controllers - that have the same debuff numbers as Defenders (they also have a few outlier powers that do more than Blaster damage because it was created as a copy, and then Scourge was added on top). But for the most part, they're doing 75-80% of the strength of a Defender's buffs or debuffs, and doing a base of 15% more damage (with a 10% Scourge buff it's roughly 26% more damage). So, 25% weaker buffs and debuffs, and 25% more damage. So where is this mythical 10% disparity? That's not even taking into account the higher mez modifiers for Defenders (take a look, they have Dominator base mez durations) which help them out in survival - after all, if you're going to talk about Controllers getting to leverage better survivability due to their controls helping then what about Fearsome Stare, Choking Cloud, EMP, Freeze Ray, BFR, Cosmic Burst, Dark Pit, Thunder Clap, Siren's Song, Screech, Stunning Shot, Will Domination, the secondary effects on most of the nukes being holds or stun, and probably more powers that I forgot? They all help Defenders more than Corruptors. Or are those conveniently ignored when talking about Corruptors because they don't support the "wah wah wah my Defender needs a buff" point of view and only valid when comparing to Controllers?

My SM/WP isn't built "optimally" since I haven't respecced after the hammer animation changes, but the idea was maximizing recharge and using Fault for an "oh " power, since the regen that happens while the mobs are standing back up amounts to roughly the same hit points recovered as using Aid Self.

I skipped Tremor and use Dark Obliteration (with a Ragnarok KD) for AoE damage and an extra -tohit; the DPA on it is nearly double Tremor's and it doesn't tie up a lot of time in your attack chain; I skipped Hurl Boulder because Gloom is the second best DPA attack you have available. If I respecced today I'd drop Stone Mallet (when I took it, the DPA was higher than Stone Fist, now it's not) and use Stone Fist for attack chain filling; Fault has the FF +rech proc in it along with 5 Absolute Amazements - I'd probably end up replacing the +rech proc with a damage proc also given that I have over 210% recharge in all of the attacks with global+slotting without it firing.

The Fighting Pool stacks well with your secondary, and with little to no work at all you can survive some rather insane things - it's typically recommended to aim for +hp and +regen set bonuses but I've found that with Fault you really don't need them at all, even Cimerorans don't present that much of a problem because you can use it before they trigger their mez/-KB power (if you wait until afterwards you'll want to hit SoW to boost your S/L resistance, though - Hapless Schoolgirl hits 82% with it up) and you really only need to worry about critical hits coming from a boss or EB.

Long and short of it, my SM/WP is as survivable as my FM/SA was (I deleted her at 50) while maintaining better single-target damage output and similar AoE output (due to the -rech in Granite).

I doubt they change the resistance values for Tankers - it's not like Brutes can't cap Fire resistance with Fiery Aura, and it was ported from Tankers.

Conserve Power will be redundant, so I'm hoping to see some changes to it but don't see that being likely either - I still like the Instant Healing idea... 41% resistance doesn't look so bad with 1000% regeneration (see: Willpower).

As for the earlier post by Tonality, one thing overlooked in your SM/Elec is that immobilizes hurt it far less due to the stun in Fault, and a -KB immob will allow the SS/ or ElM/ to use Hand/Lightning Clap more effectively. Now I agree that it's typically skipped, but in the 40s after you can pick up Electric Fences you can use that for mitigation without relying on other ATs to provide the -KB for you so it can be built around.

But the sequence you have for your ElM/ElA/Mu is remarkably similar to how mine runs, only I don't have (or often need, inspiration combining is a wunnerful ting) Aid Self on her.

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Blasters and corruptors can have our stygian circle when we get their...ok, forget it. They don't have anything we need or want. They will just have to get by as subpar warshade wannabes.

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Although I wouldn't mind Fulcrum Shift all that much...

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We can already cap our damage with our Mirey goodness so they can keep that too.

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I've self-capped on damage a couple of times with Mires, but I don't have Sunless perma. Fulcrum Shift is easily double-stacked so you'd almost have to be trying to not be at the cap.

But yes, it's less useful than it could be to other ATs.

I frequently use SS+StealthIO for pseudo-invis, but you'll hate GMs and turrets (100' perception), snipers (149'), Rikti drones, Knives of Artemis, and Rularuu Overseers (all of whom ignore any amount of stealth).

The nice part of the stealth IO is that if it's active when you zone into the mission you have just under 2 minutes of it stacking (for 60' stealth) on top of the 35' for SS.

Since all but two of my Stealth IOs are redside, though, I use Stealth+SS for my PB.

Kelly Marrey, my 50 WS, has used a few binds for the ITF cutscene, right after the "I AM NICTUS" line:

"So am I, and you don't see me going all psycho about it!"
"Join the club!"
"Never a void around when you need one..."
"I'm a Nictus, you're a Nictus, wouldn't you like to be a Nictus too?"

The one earlier in the thread was more... interesting, though.

Oh, and I also tell the team to blame any Voids/Cysts on the Cimerorans, occasionally just going "damned Romans" when one pops up instead.

Blazing Bolt, because it has DoT as a secondary effect.

Edit: Proton Volley has a slight bonus for being DoT but it's not enough to compensate for even one of the DoT ticks in Blazing Bolt; all of the other snipes (including Blazing Bolt) do scale 2.76 damage, with BB having 4 x 80% DoT ticks of 0.23 each, Proton Volley is 4 ticks of 0.7 damage for 2.8 total.

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If I've taken down Numina, how do I get the Patron Powers? Is it possible to get Black Scorpion as a Patron or do I have to do everything again?

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Go level, at 41+ it'll give you the option to select from the "epic power pool" just below where you click to select from power pools.

For completing the first arc you receive an earned respec, which you can use by going to Arbiter Lupin in Nerva (next to the trainer) or the new Arbiter (Sawyer?) in Port Oakes by the Black Market there. So even if you levelled to 50 already before completing your first patron arc you can still go back and choose the patron powers.

As for selecting the powers themselves, they used to be, but are no longer locked into the contact chosen for your patron; you can simply select Mace Mastery despite running Ghost Widow's arcs when you go to the arbiter (my Rad/Kin Corruptor is doing Scirocco's arcs but has Scorpion Shield).

And if you really want more AVs, pick Scirocco as a patron and don't drop any missions.

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Since it was asked and sortof answered but not explicitly stated outright: you can still bypass the Rage crash because the -defense is set to not stack from the same caster. This is why it will work when you zone, because the new Rage won't overwrite the old -defense penalty with the new one (which is suppressed for 120 seconds before going off).

Removing the "doesn't stack" from the debuff would make it always apply, and then if you wanted to prevent the buff from stacking simply add it to the +20%/+80% tohit/damage; changing the -defense to a resistable -resistance would balance the penalty for all sets by increasing the percentage of damage taken identically for them all.

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Last night I was on Guardian running the Croatoa arcs on my Warshade, passing the Citadel PuG that was forming on my way back from a WW trip to drop off some arcane salvage drops, when I got a tell from a global friend on Infinity asking me if I could come along on a BSF. I hadn't run it, so I switched.

What is this "only AE" stuff?

The damage for the various assassin's strikes is identical, but they have different damage types - depending on mob resistances this will cause a fluctuation in the damage dealt. Most notably lethal damage is resisted more widely and to a higher degree than the other damage types available to Stalkers.

Energy's "pretty", and it's "fun", but Ice hits harder on single target and has similar AoE (more due to the random KB causing scatter than any benefit of Ice's AoE damage - with something to bounce mobs against it's not bad), and Fire hits harder on both single target and AoE.

The 50% for non-SR (or Shields that use SHO/HOs to slot and doublestack Active Defense) is to allow for defense debuffing - most sets will only have around 50% and most defense debuffs are 7.5% for even-con.

With a +3 mob, that's roughly -10%, 50% defense debuff resistance would take that to -5%, which would put you at 45% from 50%...

Fire/Kin, although for the single-click "everything dies nao" Ice/Kin with a damage-capped Blizzard is the single highest damage click in a player powerset (even with a 400% cap instead of 500%).

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EDIT: UGH. I run out of end in 86 seconds.

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Okay, maybe you will want Dark Consumption.

With the levels of recharge you're looking at for that chain, it'll be up before those 86 seconds are up.

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Woe unto the poor Defender, having to deal with mezzes just like Blasters, Controllers, Corruptors, non-Domination Dominators, and non-Dwarf Kheldians.


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Blasters: Can use their first two attacks even when mezzed
Controllers: Have access to an epic that gives mezz protection
Dominators: Have mezz protection when in domination
Keldians: Have mezz protection in dwarf form

Care to try again?

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Defenders: get mez protection in two primaries
Corruptors: get mez protection in two secondaries

Tier 1 and 2 blasts from the primary and tier 1 from the secondary aren't helping Blasters that much - it's something but it's not like they can get Sonic Resonance, Force Field, or Traps.

Domination has to be charged up and available. If someone's complaining about being perma-mezzed then they're too incompetent to have Domination charged up when needed.

Controller epic power doesn't have a permanent duration until you're over 300% recharge in it and doesn't act as a break free.

Not all Khelds take Dwarf form in their builds.

And I still say that if you can't solo a Defender "at a reasonable speed" then either you have an unreasonable idea of what that means or else you're simply incompetent and should go back to Tankers, Scrappers, and Brutes so you can continue the "walk in, hit things" playstyle that's apparently the only way you can play. They're probably also the same people who complain about being in permadebt with their Blasters.

What's wrong with Defenders is that they whine a lot about Controllers - as far as I can tell, solely because of Kinetics and its effect on Containment. Should Vigilance work while solo? Sure.

But that's not the same as "Defenders should do at least as much damage as Tankers" - which has been said this thread, by the same person who said that they "didn't want more than Corruptors" and apparently doesn't have a clue what the AT modifiers are, nor does it mean that "Defenders are gimp and can't solo" - implied throughout the thread, nor does it mean that their buff/debuff modifiers are too low.

And for those clamoring for mez protection, just petition for every single mez to be removed from the game. Why not? It's what you're asking for - if every AT has blanket mez protection why have them in the first place? Why not just boost the damage of the attacks? Oh, wait, then you'd want more hit points or resistance. Just go read paragonwiki's writeups of the arcs, since you don't want to have to play the game anyway, you just want to walk through it and collect things.

Suggestion for Vigilance: make it work as a discount based on the Defender's endurance bar. That's it. Yay. Now you can solo, and it provides a benefit for being active.