Takarik

The Law of Infinite Internet Contravention
Without regard to any set of environmental variables, people on the internet will find something to <CENSORED> about. In the complete absence of environmental variables, people on the internet will <CENSORED> about the lack thereof, and/or past environmental variables without regard as to the continued existence of aforementioned variables, or lack thereof.

The Law of Internet Assignment of Libertine Attributes
As the number of people discussing a topic increases, the probability of someone being ascribed unfavorable, inhumane, or otherwise derogatory personality traits approaches 1. As an individual's post count to total posts ratio approaches zero and perceived authority remains above the mean, the probability of the individual being targeted for such ascription approaches 1.

Not much experience, much like with Archery.

The Ice Arrow seems to violate the new policies for Holds; whereas most Holds now are limited to half duration and doubled recharge, this one recharges as quickly as it wears off- I don't know if this was intentional. I expect to have some /TA Controller put a hit on me for mentioning this.

The Glue Arrow was a bit confusing; it seems to act like an anchored effect, in that the area moves with the target. However if the target drops, the animation disappears. I know those people already affected by it remain affected for a bit, but I don't know if new targets that enter the animation area are affected when the anchor drops. I suspect no; if otherwise, it might be worth changing the animation.

The Entangle Arrow is pretty well useless as it stands, when you can get the Ice Arrow to Hold someone instead of just Immob. Bringing the Ice Arrow in line with the new Hold durations would change that. Again, I don't know the intent here, so I can just guess.

I haven't tried any other arrows, so can't speak for those.

So far I've only encountered two new missions, as such.

The first I think was a 'wave' mission; I'm not really sure. I got a 'stop the gang war' timed mission and when I got there I was supposed to defeat all the thugs. I cleared all the map save one room, where I was on the second floor and looked down on two Skulls next to one of the glass case artifact things. They didn't do anything. After ensuring I'd cleared the whole place, I leapt down, at which point they declared they were going to destroy the artifact. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do, but I knew I had a timer counting down, and needed to defeat all the Skulls. So I arrested them. Nothing happened, and I saw no way out of the room other than back the way I came. Two more Skulls appeared, and I defeated them. Another pause, and I decided to leave the room- I heard a gunshot and came back. Yup, more Skulls. These I also finished off. I think there were another two, and then I got mission completed.

The second was a mission a teammate had, while I was testing out Force Fields. We had to escort some hostages out of the sewers. It seemed simple enough. We beat up a few Lost, then while we were saving the first hostage we'd run across, I noticed the Nav bar said 'save the last hostage!' So we finished the fight, and escorted him back to the sewer entrance. He followed my teammate without any issues- we got him to the door, and after some profuse thanks, he left. But the Nav bar still wanted us to escort hostages out. We wondered if we were supposed to arrest all the Lost. We weren't sure, but there were some more Lost; it seemed like they'd followed us and then stopped moving when the hostage left the map. My teammate disconned and I got sent to the hospital, so we didn't complete the mission.

I like the idea- and the situation with Flower Knight in the tutorial was a nice switch. However, I think there needs to be more work done on explaining the missions and making it clear what the mission goals are. The missions themselves seem great- I just wasn't sure what my lines were in them.

Maniacal laughter with upraised fists

One hand pointing at someone, other arm out to the side, elbow bent, hand up, making a fist (The 'You shall pay' stance)

Recluse's pose on the cover of the new CoH comic, issue #1.

Half turn (180 degrees) with arms folded over chest, looking over the left shoulder.

The warwolf howl.

Power Mastery, no question.

Conserve Power and Power Build Up will both be six-slotted with recharges. Temporary Invulnerability and Total Focus will each get four slots, damage resist and damage respectively.

Conserve Power is a bigtime bonus for my build; even with end reduction enhancements tossed around, accelerated metabolism with two slots of end recovery, and six-slotted stamina running all my toggles drops my end recovery to half of base. With Conserve Power running my endurance is no longer an issue, as suddenly I'm regenerating 110% of standard even with all of those going. Six recharges means it'll be down 60 seconds, then up for (I think) 120-150 seconds. I can be patient!

Power Build Up is just flat out good. At level 43 I'll have all the big damage attacks of Radiation Blast at least three-slotted; the boost to damage means I'll be able to lay down some serious firepower. Further, the increase in secondary effects means I'll fly faster, hold longer, debuff better.. it's basically doubling everything a Rad/Rad is good at and then some. Six recharges means it'll be up for 60 then down 15. A long time if it drops mid-fight, but again, I can be patient!

Temporary Invulnerability.. four slots might be excessive, depending on how the cap falls. Regardless, it means that against the most common attack forms (especially in melee) I'll survive longer. I tend to ignore my own health in favor of my teammates, both in terms of not watching my bar and putting myself in precarious situations to keep them alive. This will help mitigate the consequences of that somewhat. Depending on caps, might end up 3 slots of damage reduction and 1 slot of end reduction, just to keep this from sapping me when CP is down.

Total Focus gives me yet another attack- and a good one. Total Focus and Cosmic Burst together should mean that I have some serious short range hitting power without resorting to Atomic Blast. EM Pulse followed by Total Focus, Cosmic Burst and Atomic Blast ought to render even highly resistant enemies dead or held. Four slots, along with AM, EF, and Assault, should be enough to put me at 300% damage, which I believe is going to be the cap; if it'll stay at 400%, then PBU and that fourth damage slot ought to do it. I'm gambling on this with my slotting for my other big damage powers as well, so knock on wood.

I'd guess Irradiate, like other radius powers, would form a sphere around you. If I'm not mistaken, the range on Cosmic Burst is about 20 feet. Irradiate I think has a radius of about thirty feet. Now, according to a drawing I made (and utterly ignoring the fact I got a 47% in sleep- I mean, Geometry- when I took it fourteen years ago) I think you'll effectively create a 20-foot radius of effect on the floor below you, if you're 20 feet up. The lower you are, the wider the circle. The higher you are, the smaller the circle. Since I'm just eyeballing things here, I can't be certain.. but I think you might want to consider a couple of /binds for Irradiate- one that shuts down Hover and fires off Irradiate, and a second that makes you leap back up into the air and activate Hover again. And maybe yell 'Boingy, Boingy, Boingy!' while you're at it. That's kinda a matter of taste.

Lemme see if I can be a bit more helpful on this than on the accuracy thing.

Head on over to this Toggle Costs Calculator. That ought to provide you with everything you need as far as how much you can run and when for toggles. It doesn't have endurance costs for non-toggles, but you ought to be able to get those from Hero Builder or some other resource.

No.. pretty sure this was talking about accuracy, and any modifiers to it were directly added or subtracted- I believe they gave the example of an accuracy inspiration directly adding 25% to your base accuracy. Not the best example for this discussion, but.. eh. From what I've seen there's about a half-dozen different theories on how accuracy is calculated.

Even by the numbers you're quoting though, there's reason to get Leadership- it just doesn't show up until you're facing bigger nastier bad guys with boosted accuracy and power effectiveness reductions. For example, ArchVillains. Base accuracy is something like 165%. 3-slotted RI drops that to 66%. Adding in Maneuvers six-slotted, that drops to 52.25%. So instead of about 2 out of 3 attacks hitting you're dealing with something closer to one in two- less if you add in the bonus from Hover, Hasten, etc. Works for me.

Now see, that's entirely different than the way I've been told the formulas work- percentages directly add or subtract, not take a percentage off. I'll admit that didn't come directly from a developer's mouth (or keyboard), but the original post was being quoted at the time- so I'm fairly positive it'd be as I've done it.

And I'm honestly not sure how you're coming up with the second set of numbers. Accuracy debuff enhancements at SO level give a 33.3% boost. So if you have 3, you have effectively a 100% increase- it's doubled. Similarly, three endurance reduction enhancements should drop your endurance cost to half.

Eh. Whatever.

Unfortunately that's not quite true. Lemme toss out the numbers, as best I can- it's been a while, so I'm going on memory (and what posts still exist) here.

First off, let's look at base villain accuaracy.

Minion - 50%
Lieutenant - 65%
Boss - 75%

Now, RI in and of itself reduces villain accuracy by 30%. So minions drop to 20%, lieutenants to 35%, and bosses to 45%. Not too shabby, right? Right. RI's an excellent power.

If we then assume 3 accuracy debuffs in RI, the accuracy reduction is doubled- i.e. minions and lieutenants both hit the 5% minimum and bosses are staring at a 15% accuracy. That's pretty substantial right there- but we can still drop boss accuracy.

So you activate Maneuvers. Maneuvers boosts your Defense, at base, by 6.25% (note one person says Defenders get a 7.8% boost out of Maneuvers- I'll lowball it to be conservative). For fighting minions and lieutenants, that doesn't mean much. For bosses, that 15% just became 8.75%. With 3 Defense buff SO's in Maneuvers, you can drop that boss's accuaracy to the baseline of 5%.

Because of of the way that effectiveness scales with level, this ability to reduce enemy accuracy through the floor degrades as you increase- but Maneuvers remains at its original effectiveness. So while Radiation Infection's 60% decrease will drop to 39% when facing +3's (i.e. red minions) Maneuvers will retain its full bonus. The aforementioned minion would have a 11% chance to hit- but with Maneuvers you drop that back down to 5% again- halving the damage taken by halving the amount of hits that will land. A +3 boss hit with RI has a 36% chance of hitting you- but with Maneuvers six-slotted with Defense buffs that 36% becomes 22.5%; not the baseline 5%, but that's still a significant drop from a little more than 1 in 3 attacks hitting to closer to 1 in 5. Add in a defense bonus from Hover, Hasten, or Combat Jumping and you're talking an accuracy of 16.25% or less.

If you were to do the same calculations for Accuracy, you'd find similar results- except that because Accuracy gives a larger bonus for Defenders (12.75% IIRC), then you'll see a 95% to-hit rate against even more powerful foes.

So yes, Radiation Infection is an extremely powerful weapon in the Radiation Emission set- but it does not in and of itself remove the utility of the Leadership set . If you had to pick one or the other, then yes, by all means go for Radiation Infection. And if you aren't up for being a hyperdefender, then other things will probably suit you better. I honestly would suggest people not try to be a hyperdefender from the start unless you're going to be with a team 90% or more of your time- it isn't fun being unable to solo until 28th level. If I was to try and do it all over again I'd definitely go for a more balanced setup and then switch to this at 28 with a respec.

Oh, and just for a quick response mentioning that without the Leadership pool taking up slots, I could probably take on reds- I decided to test that out the other day in Brickstown. I am indeed capable of taking on a group of reds and oranges with this build; I just never tried it before. Now whether that will change with different groups (I expect Freakshow tanks will be more of a problem than Nacht Ubermenschen) .. I guess I'll find out. But I've also just joined a new, active Supergroup, so I might not have to.

Cheers, and good hunting.

[ QUOTE ]
1) As you yourself said above, Assault probably does little if any for Blasters, since they probably slot for damage already (and are at, or near the cap). The same logic applies to the other leadership toggles as well. Most good players will build their heroes with the ability to hit targets even while solo (slotting ACC, for instance). I suspect Maneuvers does nothing for your Tank, or most Scrappers for that matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're correct; I'm positive that most Tanks will have hit the defense cap and most Blasters will have hit the damage cap. I don't know about Scrappers and Maneuvers: I just haven't seen the numbers there. However, I'm willing to bet the Tanks will greatly enjoy the Assault and Tactics boosts, and I'm sure the Blasters will enjoy the Maneuvers boost- and I already know from personal experience that Scrappers enjoy the Assault/AM/EF combination after being SK'd to a guy who was hunting Brickstown when I was still working on hitting 24. Every AT is good at one thing; by maximising Leadership and adding it to Radiation Emission's already potent powers, I can make the other AT's good at all the things they're supposed to be weak on, and possibly enhance the things they're already good at.

And beyond this is the situation that's going to crop up more as I move up in level- or at least it will judging by some screenshots I've seen: debuffs from enemies. If you've structured your character to just hit the cap, and then you get hit by a half-dozen debuffs by some Knives of Artemis, you're in trouble. My hyperdefender can effectively render those debuffs moot, or at least mitigate them somewhat- which is always helpful.

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps an experiment is in order? Try going with your usual group and don't turn on the Leadership toggles. Use the etra END you now have for attacking or healing or casting LR (which you probably can't do so often with your current set-up) as the case warrants. If your group's effectiveness is the same or better, then that may argue against Leadership as a power pool for you. If you are so inclined, now try out other powers you may have skipped on the Test server (or do a Respec) and see how even more effective you are with these powers instead of Leadership.

After all of this, you may still find that you are most effective in your group using the Leadership pool. Which would be great -- and now, you would be even more convinced as to the appropriateness of these powers for your build, for you have tested other alternatives.

I suspect, though, that if you do test it out as I suggested, you will find that RI and EF (and the other rad powers) do a good enough job on their own. I believe you will find that you will be an even better defender with all the extra END you now have, and all the other new powers you now have at your disposal.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've involuntarily conducted this study many times while fighting Fungoids, Eidolons, and Lost with their array of toggle-dropping powers. I've come to the conclusion that the boost from Leadership powers is substantial, even if they're overshadowed by Emission- which is about as they should be, being only pool powers. More than once I've gone into a fight after dealing with some dizzying effect and wondered why my teammates health bars were dropping a bit faster than normal- and then realized Leadership was off. I reactivate those powers and things shift back to how they 'should' be. Given that at this point I've yet to six-slot Maneuvers and Tactics is still a few bars of XP away (and some debt... curse those who don't understand the words 'stay here'...) I'd say that's a pretty good argument for how they'll operate later.

With regards to endurance, this is something that I've been worried about myself. However, after doing some digging on these forums I was able to come up with the endurance costs of the various toggles and the boosts gained by AM, Stamina. After juggling the numbers a bit, I've come to the conclusion that with a few well-placed endurance reduction enhancements and heavily-slotted Stamina, AM, I can maintain an endurance recovery rate about equal to the standard 100 endurance/minute rate. My toggles aren't the problem for me here.

The big draws are Lingering Radiation, Radiant Aura, and Cosmic Burst- each costing around 20 or so endurance per click (I can't get exact numbers right now; for some reason Hero Planner's on the fritz). If I stick to my build theory and focus on using these powers when necessary, and not start blasting ineffectually with Neutrino Bolt (with 1 damage SO, EF, AM, and Assault, I do about 20 damage at 29th level), I don't have endurance worries. I can heal when my team needs it, Cosmic Blast any Sorcerers or Porters or other such things to dizzy them, and cast Lingering Radiation when we need a slight edge, the last casting has worn off, or we've got a runner. I'm considering ways of slotting these, with plans to experiment once I hit 30 and can stop begging people to buy me SO's in Brickstown Right now with 6 level 30 Heal SO's in Radiant Aura, I heal around 275 per casting- it might be worth it to replace one Heal with a End Reduction, and one with Recharge. Shall see.

In any case, our two build philosophies certainly prove how much Rad/Rad Defenders can customize their role and get the effect they want; I expect there's at least one build out there that maximises offensive capability at the expense of defense, such as by slotting RI with all Defense Debuffs. I expect if one was to combine all three builds together on a team, it might well be unmatched.

And just as an aside, I do plan on boosting my offensive capabilities in the near future. Once I have Tactics, I'll have picked up all of the powers I intend to get to fulfill my primary role. My power slots for 32, 35, and 38 are going to be EM Pulse, Atomic Blast, and one of the other Blasts- the two I'm strongly considering are Proton Volley and Neutron Bomb (the first for when my team needs a sniper shot to pull, the second for a solid AOE). Past that I'm leaving things grey- I want to see what our epic power pools offer before I start planning.

Here's my two cents.

My build is significantly different than the given one, but I'd like to think I can still chime in here, based on my calculations.

First off, I refer to my build as a 'hyperdefender'- I have almost no offensive capability whatsover, but I make everyone else on my team look great. By the time I hit level 14, I'd already maxed out Radiant Aura with Heal buffs and was getting quite close to six-slotting RI as well.

I picked up Assault at 24, Maneuvers at 26, and plan to grab Tactics at 30. Maneuvers and Tactics are going to both end up six-slotted- for a good reason. By my calculations, with RI set up 3/3 with half Defense and half To-Hit debuffs, and Maneuvers and Tactics both filled with buff increases, you drop the chance of even-con mobs hitting your teammates to the mimimum 5%, even bosses- and maximise your teams' to-hit chances to 95%. This remains the case as you move up- against reds only bosses stand a decent chance of hitting you, and by decent I mean about 50% chance or the same as an even-con minion. Considering that just about every other hero out there is going to have some means for boosting their defense and to-hit, you're going to be weighing the scales heavily in your favor. Or, to quote a Tank I teamed with once, "I'm pretty much invincible."

As for Assault, if you add the percentage it boosts damage to the amount Enervating Field and Accelerated Metabolism boost damage, you're looking at about 66.6% of base damage versus even cons- or the equivalent of two Damage SO's. For Blasters that might not mean much, as they'll already going to be hitting the cap most of the time, but for every other AT is going to appreciate that boost to all their attack powers. Obviously the bonus is going to lessen against tougher opponents- +4's drop that to about 20% or so, but still a nice boost when you've got four people doing a couple hundred points per attack.


And speaking of attacks, right now I have a total of two attack powers- Neutrino Bolt and Cosmic Burst. Before I hit 28, I was pretty well toast; my Neutrino Bolt had a total of two slots in it, both Damage. This meant that I basically could not solo missions- my only option was to team until my missions were filled with blues and greens, and then clean them out. Now I can handle missions without much trouble at all. My standard attack string is as follows:

1. Neutrino Bolt
2. Neutrino Bolt
3. Neutrino Bolt
4. Cosmic Burst

Right now I have perma-Hasten, perma-AM, and no recharge reducers in these two attack powers. As it stands every time I fire off that third Neutrino Bolt, Cosmic Burst is ready to fire- and it cycles fast enough to keep the target permanently dizzied. This might be decreasing my DPS, or it might not; honestly I don't care. My target remains dizzy so I don't get hit by them, while any friends he might have are under the effects of RI and I'm enjoying Maneuvers' boost to my defense so I rarely if ever take damage. With that in mind... what does it really matter if it takes me another two seconds to drop my target?

“…owhere near sufficient for our purposes. Development is irregular at best in pairs 14 and 37…”

“…showing no signs of improvement… project… shelved... careful…”

“…cant the lot… destroyed… left to… visor..”

Takarik’s first moments awake were spent on all fours, hacking up liquid as he tried to take a breath. His world began as fluid, but now he was on something slick and cold, a dark gray color. There were other bodies nearby- some moved, others did not. There was a sliver of light that spilled across the floor, widening out into a blinding square that reflected off the slime-like fluids coating the smooth flooring. He was growing cold as the air sapped the warmth from all the liquid, and reflexively he shivered.
Boots moved across the floor, and then there was a soft hiss, followed by the soft sound of gas igniting. The newly conscious Tak lifted his head just enough to look, and saw a man in dark clothing- some sort of jumpsuit- with a mask and what seemed like a flamethrower. The man pulled the trigger, and an unmoving body- blue-skinned like Tak- was enveloped in fire. When the flames stopped, the body continued to burn.
Takarik crawled towards the exit, still gasping for breath. There were others moving, but he was only vaguely conscious of them- his survival was the only thing that filtered through the fugue-like state he was in. The boots moved, and the fire blossomed forth again. He kept moving, finally crawling through the door. The world beyond was harsh- rough concrete and noxious odors, brightly lit by a noonday sun. He dragged himself behind a large brown dumpster and curled up in the shade. He could hear others moving- but for the moment, there was only sleep.

***

When Takarik’s eyes opened again, he was alone. The door he had crawled through was shut tightly, and there was no sign of anyone nearby. He was in an empty lot, the only features being the dumpster he was behind and a nearby sewer entrance, the grating partially open. Night had fallen, but there seemed almost more noise than before- people were about, nearby. Tak pulled himself to his feet, hobbling across the parking lot. He saw people moving back and forth on the sidewalk, but no one seemed to be paying attention to him. Behind another building he rested, trying to determine what was going on.
Instead he realized he was hungry- and cold, and naked. Pushing off the wall, he moved into an alley and began searching through the refuse littering the area. There wasn’t much available, but a torn shirt and blanket gave him some protection. Nothing was even close to food; he moved out past the alley and onto the sidewalk.
What greeted Takarik was the steady mass of people and thin layer of gray that coated all of King’s Row. His eyes followed the power lines stretching northwards, only to be jarred back to his immediate surroundings as he was pushed aside by a passer-by. No one seemed to take notice of his appearance- perhaps this was normal. He followed the flow, walking south along the road.

***

“So you have no idea why you can speak English?”

Takarik shook his head, then lifted the steaming mug up to his mouth and sipped at the soup within it. “No more than I know anything else.”

The man, Simon Teller, shook his head and walked to his desk. “I’d say you were suffering from amnesia, but that wouldn’t explain what you remember of the lab- if that’s what it was. I’ll talk to a few people, see if we can’t get a hero to try and find that building you told me about. Maybe that can provide some answers. I’d also like to send your photograph over to Atlas Park, see if anyone recognizes you.”

“Your call, doc. I’m not sure why you think I’d be a hero though.”

“Well, it isn’t exactly normal for someone’s eyes to glow- usually if you run across someone like that in Paragon City, they’re either a hero or trying to take over the world.”

“So why wouldn’t I be one of the ones trying to take over the world then?”

“Just call it a hunch. Anyway, your laugh isn’t maniacal enough.”

“That explains the bad jokes.”

***

(More to be added dependent upon time, requests, and inspiration)