UberGuy

Apologies in advance for the cross-post, but I wanted to put this out here.

Until they fix the Notice of the Well buff, I think I recommend two things for those who want to complete the trial.

• Shoot for 16 people max.
• Ask people to avoid summoning pets, even Lore.

I just went on two trials where we didn't do pets. The first was around 20 people. A couple of people popped Lore, but we took Tyrant down with only one or two out, despite having several people who had never done the trial. It took around 8-9 minutes.

The next one we did was 16 people. We melted his face. He shrank as the lights came out for the third time, including the first time right before the fight actually starts. So that was like four minutes and change.

I'd say if you try this approach and you still can't seem to take him down, go for Lore, but do it after a fresh set of lights have been shut down. That will hopefully focus the shifts on the players.

Until they fix the Notice of the Well buff, I think I recommend two things for those who want to complete the trial.

• Shoot for 16 people max.
• Ask people to avoid summoning pets, even Lore.

I just went on two trials where we didn't do pets. The first was around 20 people. A couple of people popped Lore, but we took Tyrant down with only one or two out, despite having several people who had never done the trial. It took around 8-9 minutes.

The next one we did was 16 people. We melted his face. He shrank as the lights came out for the third time, including the first time right before the fight actually starts. So that was like four minutes and change.

Alternatively, maybe if they like that powerset layout, a case can be made for extending the range of the "hard-hitter" attacks and the range of things like Life Drain.

I expect a new load screen next issue. That doesn't really address the complaint, per se, but it provides and opportunity for it to be shuffled into the background, probably to come around later.

I don't have a problem with it, other than the post looking awkward. But then, I'm a guy.

I don't think anything explicitly changed, by the way. I think they just finally came up with an action scene where, in the context of comic art, a pose like that fit existing standards. In other words, there was probably never any conscious decision to avoid it, so it eventually happened.

Edit: To the OP, apparently you missed some the reaction to the cover art for the "Who Will Die" SSA series a while back. Sis Psyche basically looked ... much less ready for combat compared to her male allies in the pic, striking a shocked pose while they all looked ready to kick butt. And her expression was ... interesting. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have given it much thought until someone pointed it out, but I think compared to that, Penny looks positively progressive.

Yeah, I have seen people who played what I consider a normal amount saying they got the 10 threads table about five times so far. That doesn't happen anything like that often in other iTrials, at least not any more, so I'm suspecting something is wrong with Participation in this one.

One of the main things they did to him was make him extremely resistant to -regen. In fact, because I'm a little fuzzy on how having two powers that resist -regen works, I'm not positive that he's not completely immune. He has two powers that resist regen - one by 87% (basically for being a level 54 iTrial AV) and another 80% resistance added to his version of Resist Physical Damage.

So either he resists it by 167% (reducing it to zero) or reduces it to (1-0.87)*(1-0.8) = 0.026 = 2.6% of normal. That's before counting any levels he has on you.

So basically -regen is going to do nothing to him now, whether it's literally nothing or not.

Oh, thank you. I am going to be pasting links to this all night.

Against everything up to about AVs, the -maxHP of Degenerative is actually better for time to defeat than Reactive's. However, you pretty much need to be looking at AVs and the like for that benefit to really show up. Against things with bigger maxHP than "regular" AVs like you meet in missions (which includes GMs, Hamidon, entities like Reichsman or iTrial AVs), Reactive starts to be better.

As PleaseRecycle mentions, in most situations, you will do best with the Radial side of the interfaces adding direct DPS than with the debuff side. Of the versions, Reactive probably comes out on top in raw DPS, because even on the Radial side, you still have a chance of -resist debuff. After that, I would expect Spectral and Preemptive to be next and basically tied, as they have the same DoT damage magnitude as Reactive but no debuff effect. Degenerative may come in closer here, because it has 80% of the damage per tick, but again includes the -maxHP debuff. Finally, Congnitive would be in last place for big game, as it has 80% of Reactive's damage but no debuff.

In theory, Cognitive and Degenerative have lower damage per tick because they are "exotic" damage types, which might make them seem attractive. In practice, versus critters, I don't find this compelling. Critters with strong "physical" protections frequently have Toxic resists as well. While Psi resist is not as common as physical resists, when it is resisted, it is often resisted very severely, with 50% being a very common value.

In contrast, and if I remember correctly, some analysis was done that showed fire turned out to be one of the most infrequently resisted things you could deal damage with.

I actually have an obvious fondness for powersets with click powers, being a fan of things like Regen, Fiery Aura and Dark Miasma, so that aspect of Hybrid is pretty much a non-issue for me.

Would I have preferred an always on power? Yes. Do I think Hybrid is in all cases strong enough to feel like its up/down time is warranted? No, in my opinion, it doesn't feel that way consistently, and how powerful it "feels" varies a lot by character.

But I don't think it was some horrible idea. It's just not what I might have preferred.

I don't have anyone, though, that I don't notice the benefit of Hybrid on, though. Maybe that's a function of how I play and what I fight, but I very much notice the difference. If you aren't noticing the difference, perhaps a different Hybrid would be a better fit.

Cool. I wondered if it would show up in a demo file, but wasn't sure if invisible entities would. I guess it makes sense that it would, since visible effects might emanate from it later.

OK, I found a pretty concise report of what's going on with the level shifts.