Stupid_Fanboy

Well, revision time. I first wrote this guide before Enhancement Diversification and while it was still useful afterwards, the Devs decided to throw all of us for a loop and actually buff Dull Pain(now we know they're crazy. So here's the updated guide.

This is going to cover how the power works, the various situations it's useful in, and slotting for all the sets that have Dull Pain in some form, i.e. Earth's Embrace, Hoarfrost, etc.. If you want, you can pretty much skip all the math and just read. The advice is still good and you don't need every figure to the 19th decimal point to have fun and play.

In the interests of those who don't want to read the entire post, I want to tell you a few things.

1. Read the first few sections that have green questions
2. Make sure to always pick up DP as early as you can and 6 slot it with 3 recharges and 3 heals.
3. The best time to use DP depends on the Alpha Strike of the group you face. If they can kill you fast, go in with DP up. Otherwise take the alpha, and then use DP. You end up with more HP that way.

If you don't want to read this long freakin post, at least do those three things and you'll be alright.

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Dull Pain: How does it work?

Dull Pain is a click power with a 120s duration and a 360s recharge time. 3 SOs will make it available in 185 seconds. If you are a Hasten junkie, well then the math is too annoying for me to figure out. =) It will take off about 15 seconds or so but that's about it. There is also a cap to how much you can buff your Max HP. For example, two instances of DP used to put you at the cap. If you had accolades, they count towards this cap. You can't use both accolades and DP to buff over 180% of your Max HP. I've found with my scrapper that I can't get past 175% due to ED and the way the enhanceable buff to Max HP works. Tankers were getting a similar number, but not different enough to warrant a lengthy discussion.

Dull Pain, hereafter referred to as "DP", does 3 things.

1. Max HP increases by 40% of base HP. This can now be enhanced, but is only half-enhanceable. This is not affected by accolades.

2. DP scales whatever actual hitpoints are left in your bar so that they are the same % of your new total. There is a scaling factor which is the ratio of your new max HP to your current max. This does take accolades into account but can not be enhanced through slotting.

3. DP heals you for 40% of max HP. This can be enhanced by SOs. This is not affected by accolades or another instance of DP, i.e., if you have 1 accolade for 10% HP, you are running around with 110% as your base. The 40% heal works off the 100% number, not 110%.

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1 and 3 make sense but what the heck is that scaling thing?(#2)

Here are some examples of how DP will affect your hitpoints. This will make the scaling clear. I bet you've even noticed it before if you already use DP.

1. At Full Health (1000/1000)

Your total max HP becomes 1400, and you are healed for the same amount, 40%. You're now at full health again. You'd never notice the scaling effect because the heal would make you full anyway.

2. At nearly no Health (0001/1000)

Your total max HP becomes 1400. your 1HP is scaled up according to the new total HP. 1HP * (140%/100%)= 1.4 HP. Not exactly the biggest jump. Then DP heals you for 40% and you are at 401.4 HP. You'll never notice that in combat.

3. With a large chunk of HP missing (400/1000)

Now it gets interesting. Your max HP is increased to 1400. Then your current HP(400) are scaled *(140%/100%). 400*1.4 = 560 HP.

You are now at 560/1400. Then you get the 40% heal from DP. This bumps you to 960/1400. Cool, eh? You'd expect that you would end up at 800 (your original 400 + the DP heal), but that doesn't account for the scaling factor which acts like an extra heal.

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I've got other healing powers. How does Dull Pain affect them?

Excellent question. Click heals, like Aid Self or Reconstruction, are based on a % of your unbuffed HP cap. They will always ignore Dull Pain. If you have 1000 HP and use Recon, you get a 25% heal, or 250 HP. With DP up, even though you have 1400 HP max, Recon will still only heal you for 250 HP.

If you have regen buffs, like health or fast healing, then they combine nicely with DP. Essentially DP buffs your regen rate by the same amount it buffs your Max HP. While it doesn't change the actual amount of the other powers, it does affect the umber of HP you will heal back. Makes sense, right? If you have health 3slotted, you'll heal back a total of ~45% of your HP each minute. If you have 40% more HP, then you'll heal back 40% more hitpoints.

This works because all regen works on ticks. You always, always regen in ticks equal to 5% of your max HP. Nothing changes that. All regen buff increase the speed of the tick, not the amount But again, if you have 40% more HP, each tick wil give you 40% more HP back, even though it's still 5% of your total.

here's an example.

you have 1000 HP and 3slotted health.
you regen in ticks of 5% (50HP), every 6.7 seconds.
with DP up, you have 1400 HP and 3slotted health.
you regen in ticks of 5% (70HP), every 6.7 seconds.

70/50 is 140%. we cool?

What happens when DP ends?

Another great question. 2 of the DP effects reverse themselves.

1. Your Max HP drops back down to normal levels.
2. Scaling factor. whatever % of your total HP you have before DP ends is what you will have afterwards.

- - -If you have 1260/1400 HP (90%) then afterwards, you'll drop to 900/1000 HP (90%).

DP will not damage you when it ends. It can't kill you or anything if your HP is very low.

Great, what does all that crap about scaling mean?

Essentially, the more HP you have when you use DP, the more it heals you for. You always get the 40% heal +enhancements, but the scaling factor sorta expands the HP you already have so that you have the same percentage of HP after hitting DP.

Super, how can I take advantage of this in combat?

Even better question. Before, if you were a Kheldian or a tanker, you probably used DP as simply a massive heal or maybe as a permanent boost to your HP for increase survival in tough spots. If you were a regen, the standard advice was to make this power permanent because it affects all your other heals by 40%, which in light of the somewhat, ah - "fluid" nature of the regen set, made DP a consistant and great power that helped your defenses.

Thanks for the history lesson, Gramps. How can I use it *NOW* ?

You're rushin' me, boy; quit rushin' me. The way that you use DP now depends on how you want to deal with the alpha strike. It's really a simple question. Are you gonna die in the first 5 seconds? If the answer is no, it's actually more beneficial to take the full brunt of the alpha, and then use DP to recover from it. Now, if you think you will die to the alpha, you should use DP before you rush in to keep you from falling.

Here are two examples that show this nicely. Great, more numbers Shut it. I'll turn this guide right around.

1. you can't be killed by the alpha. start with 1000HP

You rush in and are struck by whoever for 500 points of damage. You are now at 500/1000. You hit DP. Your 500 is scaled to 700, and you get the 40% heal. You end at 1100HP. If you had hit DP before rushing in, you'd be at 900HP. Grats, you just got a free 200HP heal.

2. you can be killed by the alpha. start with 1000HP

You rush in and are hit for 1200 points of damage. You're dead and your teamates are laughing. Instead of that, hit DP first. Now, you've got 1400HP. You rush in and are hit for 1200 damage. You don't die and have 200HP left. Pop a green and get to work.

Awesome. So, how should my tank/brute/kheld/scrapper/stalker use DP?

Khelds and Stoners can still use it pretty much however they want. Stoners have the tools to mitigate a heck of a lot of damage. In combo with granite, and rooted, you can get an effective regen rate of over 4000%. Pretty spiffy. I wouldn't neglect a tool that gave me that. Khelds, well, there are lots of stuff they can do. Depending on which forms they have, it could be more useful as a heal or as not. Lots of choice there. Thankfully, there's a skilled player behind that kheldian who knows the game well from reaching 50 once already. (0_o) (;'.') what?

Regens pretty much hold to the question of the alpha. Stalkers have to be a bit smarter about it though. Unless yoy're goofing around trying to scrap, you shouldn't be drawing enough aggro to ever get alpha struck. In which case, DP is just a massive heal for you. But hey, stuff happens, teammates happen. If stuff starts going south or the MM doesn't understand how to grab aggro with pets, then be ready to hit DP when all those mobs turn your way.

Invulns (tanks, brutes and scrappers), however, now have to deal with their severely slashed resists to all damage types apart from Smashing/Lethal. If there is a lot of elemental or energy damage going around, in moderate but constant amounts, DP is going to be a hugely important part of your defense. DP is really, really important for an Invuln now. I do not recommend you skip it.

Hey, what about Hasten? Can I still have perma DP?

Sorry, no. That's gone for good. Arcanaville has pointed out that with 6slotted Hasten with +++SOs, you can get a 3slotted +++SO DP down to around 20-30 seconds of downtime. I'd imagine upping DP's slots from 3 recharges to 6 rehcarges would make this even lower. The question is, is it worth it? I'd have to say no, I do not believe it is worth the effort and slots. Even aside from how valuable slotting heals for the bigger max HP is, it involves keeping a constant vigil on Hasten, keeping lots of enhancements green+++ and won't even be needed most of time. I'd rather be smart about using it than just spam the damn thing whether it's needed or not. But hey, this is a guide so if you like doing that go for it.(please don't)

Ok, cool. How should I slot DP then?

well, you may have asked yourself, "When is the best possible time to use it? When will it heal me to full?" And that's a great question.
Here's a little chart that shows that.
I totally stole this from Catwhoorg the first time around and then made him make a new one for this revision.

0, 1, 2 and 3 SO heals are shown. (whites assumed,no accolades)
At the bottom of the guide, there is a footnote on accolades.

To heal to full
With this-----Hit DP at
# of SOs----- This HP
---0 -----------63%
---1 -----------56%
---2 -----------50%
---3 -----------45%

So, with 3 heals slotted, you can be hit to 45% and still heal to full. Damn useful. Even if you have trackmarks from hasten,slotting DP with 3recharges and 3 heals will be awfully useful. Personally, even without hasten, I've switched to a 3 recharge, 3 heal setup. I'd been leaning towards this ED slotting for a while. I had switched DP to a 5 recharge, 1heal setup to take advantage of the recovery from big hits. Now, the 3/3 slotting is not only the ED way to go but also the best way to go because of the enhanceable Max HP buff.

Look at the chart again and what it's really saying. With 3 heals slotted, you are going to heal from 45% of your normal HP up to 159% of your normal HP. That's freaking huge! An effective 114% heal!!

Yeah, I heard about the change. What's going on with that? How does this change my slotting?

Before the recent change, you could not enhance the buff to your max HP. You didn't need to since you could perma hasten and DP and just stack DP for about 20 seconds. Now, however, we can enhance the effect but not totally. Only half of the buff is enhanceable. I'll show you how this affects your slotting.

The base buff is 40%. Heals affect half of that.

So for 1 white heal slotted, you get a:
20% buff to max HP, not enhanceable
20% buff to max HP, enhanceable. 1heal brings this 20% up to 26.67%

Your total buff to max HP is then 46.67%

Here's a chart that shows what the heals will do. Remember, ED affects the 3rd heal

Heals___unenhanced buff___Enhanced buff___Total Buff to Max HP
0_____________20_____________20.00_____________40.00
1_____________20_____________26.67_____________46.67
2_____________20_____________33.33_____________53.33
3_____________20_____________38.98_____________58.98

This is actually a really big deal. Remember, the scaling factor increases your HP based on the ratio of your current max Hp to your new max HP. With no accolades and no heals slotted, that amounts to a free heal of 40% of your current HP. But with 3 heals slotted, that's ~60% of your current HP. That really can make a difference.

I wouldn't slot DP or its equivalent with less than 3recharges and 3heals. In a world of ED and slashed resists, this is too powerful and useful to pass up on.

How can I figure this stuff out for myself?

Here is the formula that will show what DP will do when you have it slotted a certain way, have certain accolades and based on what your current Hitpoints are. The scaling factor is simply your new maxHP/current maxHP. I like to show it as % of base hp, but you can also just use the numbers themselves. I could have written this example's scaling factor as [2333.2/1539.4] and got the same answer.

New HP = [current HP]*[scaling factor] + ([current Max HP]/[1 +Accolades])*[0.4*enhancements]

a final example

lvl 50 scrapper. 1000/1539 HP. both accolades. DP has 3 heals(+2)
After DP, the max HP will be 2333.2

[1000]* [174/115] + ([1539]/[1+ .05 +.1])*[0.4*(1.965)]

[1000]* [1.513] + ([1539]/[1.15])*[0.78]

[1513] + ([1338])*[0.78]

[1513] + [1051] = 2333.2/2333.2


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Footnote: Accolades.
Accolades affect how your HP is scaled when you hit DP. With no accolades, your max goes from 100% to 140%. I had a chart here before, but to redo it for each of the 4 instances of DP(0-3 heals) would be silly. Instead, I'm going to simply say that the scaling factor is your New Max HP divided by your Current Max HP.

For example, if I have 1000 HP, no accolades and a 2 slotted DP(53% buff) my new max is 1533. my current max is 1000. So for the Scaling Factor, I can use [1533/1000] or 1.53. Notice that comes out to a 53% scaling factor. The Portal Jockey Accolade(+5%HP) would change it too [1533/1050] or 1.46. You can figure out what your guy would do based on his slots and accolades. When figuring out how much DP will scale your HP for , make sure to use the correct scaling factor. Also, if you have accolades you'll need to know the % they increase Max HP by so you can figure out how much the 40% heal from DP is worth.

What about slots? Can I slot differently if I have accolades?

No, the percentages are close enough to the regular ones that it really doesn't matter. It's way too tough to accurately gauge your HP bar in a fight anyway. If you have accolades, your max HP will be higher, so techinically you will have to fire off DP a tad earlier in order to get to full. But if you look at this chart, the percentages are a little bit higher than if you have no accolades but once you have one accolade, you don't have to change anything if you get another.

To heal to full

Accolade------Portal----------FPRM---------Both
With this------Hit DP at------Hit DP at-----Hit DP at
# of SOs------ This HP------- This HP------ This HP
---0 -----------73%-----------74%-----------75%
---1 -----------65%-----------66%-----------67%
---2 -----------57%-----------58%-----------60%
---3 -----------53%-----------54%-----------55%


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THE BOTTOM LINE

Remember, this is a guide. Guide. This isn't some list of commandments that you must follow or else you suck. If you gave some of my suggestions a try and you didn't like them or they didn't fit your playstyle, great! I'm glad you took the time to try it out for yourself. As long as your powers let you have fun, congratulations, you chose wisely. Don't let a bunch of stuff you read on here ruin your fun.

special thanks to : Zhure, Smelt, Black Sly, Catwhoorg, Storm of Orion

can we get a warning about the claws changes?

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I hate when people respond to stuff like this with their own limited agenda. That's why I'll keep this short...
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Toggle-dropping is one of the only useful things a Dominator brings to the table in PVP. This is from experience (I have a 40 Dom and PVP a lot). Holds don't do anything thanks to the Break Free candy stores in every PVP zone, and Dom damage is the lowest in either game. On a small team or in a massive villain-vs-hero battle, the best way I can help my team is to plug away at Scrappers and Tankers with my Dominator toggle-dropper melee powers. Without these working reliably (and they only drop 1 toggle per hit), I would really be dead weight. Please keep that in mind when you're reducing toggle-dropper powers. Thanks.

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You are severely understating the usefulness of holds. I've had plenty of Dominators blow through the status protection of my tankers and scrappers. It's a race to see if I can beat them before they hold me. Note that. They hold me, it's only a matter of time. Break frees only last so long and can also be broken through unless you stack a bunch and so far, it hasn't taken too long for a Dom to make me run through all the break frees in my tray.

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It disheartens me to see those of you who play primarily meleers actually celebrating that another AT is getting nerfed.

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no, i believe they are celebrating the toning down of a terrible kludge that adds to extremely unbalanced nature of pvp. PvP is and has been woefully unbalanced and if if this is the start of them actually making real strides towards balancing it, then it's a great thing.

perhaps they'll actually encourage and incentivize blasters to stay at range through further changes. who knows.


also, i'm tickled at the irony of you berating people for celebrating someone's nerf.

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We just received tech that will allow players to pass buffs onto certain powers (such as Blizzard).

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So burn won't suck as much as it does now?

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yep burn would be in this category of powers. yay burn buff!

also, Who are this Statesman and what did he do with Jack?

where the hell's Recluse? it's gotta be a trap.

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This is bait and switch how?

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Its a bait and switch because most people didnt see this as a problem to begin with and as such needed no solution. Now instead of just leaving it alone, we are happy it just not being nerfed like it was planned.

They can say they listen to the playerbase because it was suggested by a few that suppression be used instead of no clicky, but most people said just leave it alone.

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Just because most people didn't see it as a problem, doesn't mean that there isn't/wasn't one.

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in this case, i'm gonna have to say yes, it does mean there wasn't a problem. especially since all the people saying that this was an exploit were the ones saying that Phase shift was an exploit and that we should just use stealth or invis because that way is perfectly fine.

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Are we sure this even affects PvP? I was in Siren's last night and was reliably hitting those pesky squishy villains who like to jump around like rabbits. Not once did I notice this bug happen. I either got a MISS! or some lovely orange numbers.

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perhaps since gauntlet doesn't work in pvp, the bug isn't present.

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First...I confirm that we're working on right now (as in pohsyb in the next room) to add CoV costume parts into CoH if you own both games....
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Then we repeal the hated stealth nerf. The reason why: many well reasoned posts. It's that simple. You guys pointed out the problems.
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AND now...we're changing the way Archvillains spawn. A ton of forum goers disliked adding so many AV's into missions a while back...so we've come up with a solution. If the team size and mission difficulty are ABOVE a certain level, an Archvillain spawns. Below that, players will face only an Elite Boss. If the mission is set on the first two levels of difficulty, it takes 4 heroes or more to spawn an Arch Villain. On the third level, 3 heroes or more. On the fourth level, 2 heroes. On the highest (Invincible), a solo hero will spawn an AV. Note this works in BOTH City of Heroes and Villains.
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In order to incentivize larger teams, Positron is going to add a bonus to AV rewards!

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Just to calrify: The Archvillain thing is ONLY for Mission AV's, Archvillains in Task Forces/Strike Forces and World Spawns will not be changed.
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In City of Villains, Archvillain-class enemies are called "Heroes" and this change applies to them as well. (With the exception of Strike Forces and World Spawns of course).

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three things, you guys.

1. holy [censored]

2. what address do I mail my firstborn to?

3. holy [censored].

you don't have to worry about them using one of our ideas. Everything they've done so far has been far and away worse than anything our twisted little minds could fathom.

though, i still like my idea of making FH and QR exclusive.

10 points for you!

so seriously, what do you guys think the next nerf will be? or maybe, what change will that make that also affects regen?

double post, sorry.

maybe I'm just getting antsy from the lack of posts, but does anyone else feel like something big is coming in this next issue. I mean, yeah sure, blahbity blah blah, new pvp zone and whatnot but I really feel like there's gonna be just a ton of stuff in the next issue. Aside from the huge list of Villain nerfs, I think we're gonna see the first of the epic ATs, some new powersets, more costume stuff for COH, and mission art.

anyone else optimistic?

nutty. definitely nutty.

excellent. time to PM him my claw thread.

weird, that's almost exactly the version of regen i've been toying with on my personal spreadsheets.

do you think they do something to allow us to 6slot for heals in FH and Int? or is that asking too much?

so what do you think we've got coming our way for I7?

speaking of which, where has that rascally dev gotten to? haven't seen him post in weeks.

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I don't pay much attention to these boards anymore and I haven't had the time I wish I had to play my stalker outside of beta, but since when (and under what circumstances) is it even possible to one-shot anything as a stalker?

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Assassin's strike when slotted with SOs, combined with Build Up and about 4 reds will one shot anything under a Blaster and maybe even a Blaster.

I'm a nerd.

some devs reply. I've had some nice chats with Cuppa.

Jack replied once to me re: community reps. he said we're gonne get one eventually. probably so that we start looking forward to beating that guy up instead of him

wow, that was awesome!

okay, so I'm bored and thinking of ways to annoy the devs and I immediately started thinking of more regen ideas.

here's my cool tagline. "unenhanceable = unacceptable"

so how to change regen and make it totally enhanceable?well integration should just be 150% fully enhanceble. Nothing strange there. it then becomes twice as strong as Fast healing.

that leaves IH. we can't make it 800% fully enhanceable. they'll never go for that. it would give a well slotted regen nearly issue 3 healing for a little bit.

so what about lowering the overall healing it has but then dropping the recharge as well? At 300% fully enhanceable, 3slotted with heals, it's still less that IH is today, but that leaves us room to really lower the recharge.

i think 300s is fair then. gives us 90s up and ~60s down.


not that i ever think this'll happen, just bored.

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Honestly, if this is "nerfed" regen, I'm really, really, REALLY in awe of the power of an un-nerfed regen.

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fixed that for you

yep. on my claw/regen, i got my Fake Nem badge at 39 from hunting on the PI docks. Fake Nem / Warhulk duos were tough but were taken down in fairly good time mainly due to Claws and how I kept the fake bouncing for the entire fight. No bubbles for the huk and no stupid phasing and aggroing 20 other dudes. taking out a pair of +4s without inspirations was not impossible. But again, that was only again fakes and hulks and due in large part to my knockdowns from claws.

the only non-concept reason for me would be the knockdown. i've used other sets that have it and am a big fan of its reliability.