Umbral

My own math to figure out the DPS (using my own build, of course, couldn't load yours because Mids wasn't liking your data chunk) only got 211.9 DPS. I'm trying to figure out why exactly there's such a disparity (especially since I assume 100% chance to hit). The FU>Focus>Slash>Wait attack chain that I'm assuming manages ~215.

Just looking at your numbers though, I can see at least one thing that's blatantly wrong. You've got Focus listed as having a base damage of 106.4 in the FU>Evis>Focus chain when the base damage is only 86.96 while you've listed it correctly as having 87 damage in the FU>Focus>Slash attack chain. Fixing that error correctly displays the DPS of the FU>Evis>Focus chain as being 226.

That's because it's not just a heal (especially considering neither of those heals is considered to be a "baseline"; Recon is the "normal" self heal). It's a swiss-army knife power. It's not just a heal. It's a heal with a HoT component and an endurance assistance component. It shouldn't recharge as fast as the other powers simply because it does more. It "heals", at the very minimum, 50% more than either Healing Flames or Reconstruction (thanks to the +regen component) and provides a much more significant secondary benefit (because we all know how wonderful that toxic resistance is, right?). The very fact that it does so much means that it's going to recharge slower.

There is a reason that I'm still using the old Mids. A lot of these little bugs, as well as the loss of a number of the QoL features that I've become used to, prevent me from using it.

And this is why you're going about this in a completely wrong way. This is purely your opinion. The power is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a +regen power. It was redesigned to be a self heal with a couple benefits attached. The end redux remained to prevent breaking the cottage rule. The +regen was added to provide a small amount heal after the initial big heal. The +regen is the exact size and duration that it needs to be because it's not the primary focus of the power.

While you could make the argument that those power sets would be a bit too powerful when paired up with shield (though that wouldn't explain why no Katana is allowed), I'm still pretty sure that the reason we don't have them paired together falls with BABs (for either aesthetics or greater workload having to create entirely new suites of powers for every single power) or Positron (for thematic reasons) rather than Castle (for being too powerful).

Katana/Shield wouldn't really be any more powerful than BS/Shield and that's actually a rather expected difference. The only issue would be theme (Katanas are actually heavier than virtually any western one handed sword thanks to the higher carbon content not to mention that shields were never really used alongside a Katana thanks to the relative uselessness of a blocking object when the blade can go through plate steel rather easily) or work load (making an entire suite of new one-handed animations; you can't just use the BS animations like it used to because the animation times are different). Claws/Shield (aesthetics would be against many of the claws sticking completely through the shield; theme would be against using a weapon in that exact same hand; work load would most likely require some heavy coding to prevent the shield hand from spawning a set of claws and designing one handing animations for the set), DB/Shield (aesthetics would be against using the sword and shield clipping in so many of the DB animations; theme would be against a one handed variant being made when the set is called "dual blades", though it would be feasible to create a variant wherein it was a double sword, but that would most likely constitute something more like an entirely new set; workload would be incorporated into both of those previous issues), and Spines/Shield (aesthetics and theme would be against the spines sticking through the shield) all have substantial design reasons not to allow the choice.

You honestly think that just because you don't see much use behind a fully enhanceable 25% heal and the equivalent of 2 end redux SOs applied to all of your powers compared to some +regen only slightly better than Fast Healing that every other value should be ignored to balance around the weakest contributive factor of the three? Really?

Mods, I'd like to ask for a forum facepalm please. I mean really. It's situations like these that we need something to demonstrate our frustration with the ignorance of some people.

*/Regen has 4 click powers, 1 passive, and 1 toggle. Elec Armor has 4 toggles and 1 clicks (ignoring Power Sink and Power Surge, the first because it's more often used as an endurance tool and the second because it's a traditional god mode). */Regen is having to use those powers to save his/her "A#$" a lot more often than */Elec (with its not insubstantial resistances) is.

I'd say go Body Mastery for FA and Physical Perfection (and possible Energy Torrent as well). Melt Armor is an atrocious power for Scrappers (and Tankers... and Blasters...) thanks to its increased recharge and halved values further compounded by the horrible -res modifiers of the ATs. It's a pittance of -res (9.75%) that is barely worth the animation time, especially when you're figuring its use against groups, most of which are minions which will die in the first Spine Burst anyway.

I didn't miss your point. I caught it easily. In fact, I agree with you to some degree, except that I qualified your position by saying that, even though it's worse for the weapon sets that it is for non-weapon sets, they're still bad for the non-weapon sets.

First off, 100% is a perfectly large buff, even with 50% uptime. Even averaged, it's larger than health and that's all that health really does (woo... sleep resistance). Energize isn't just a +regen buff. It's a full strength heal, a substantial +regen buff, and a powerful end assistance tool. You're acting like the +regen is the only trait on the power that matters. The heal is, in fact, more powerful than the +regen will ever be (you'd have to have more hp than the cap in order for it to be more powerful), and it's instantaneous to boot.

Considering that you apparently think that the presence of any debuff resistance is supposed to completely and total remove the threat of the debuff, I'm pretty sure that I'll never convince you that it's enough. Honestly, if you think that debuff resistance is supposed to allow you to completely ignore the threat of the debuff, I'm curious as to how you feel about the debuff resistance of any set that isn't */SR or */SD. If 40% isn't enough, you must think that */Invuln's debuff resistances are useless because even it's defense debuff resistance only totals up to 50%.

I have a */regen scrapper. I live off of recharge. You're not really making much of a point whenever you're trying to claim that one of the guys that regularly claims that -rech is unfairly disadvantageous to a click based set is wrong because 20% +rech and 40% +res(rech) is not enough by your own standards.

Remember: debuff resistance isn't supposed to make the issue disappear completely. The only debuff resistance that does that is the defense debuff resistance on defense exclusive sets, which makes sense considering the threat of cascading defense failure rendering the set completely obsolete. 40% -rech is more than adequate when you remember that it's not supposed to nullify. It's supposed to ameliorate.

Once again, I play a */regen scrapper. You're trying to claim I don't know about stuff that I've known for way longer than you've even thought about them (Elec is only just now having to think about these issues). Besides, it's not even like -regen is a common debuff type. Unless you're trying to get */regen and */WP more regen debuff resistance, you're just asking for more stuff that has no real reason for being there beyond your own personal demand.

Debuff resistance is present to protect the important native attributes of the set (in general, */Invuln gets some of its more exotic protections simply because it's thematic and the powers needed some oomph to make them more popular). Energize, with it's relatively low -regen value (*/regen and */wp grant more than 250% +regen base at all times; */regen has no debuff resistance and */wp has only a pittance of it) has no real reason for having the debuff resistance whatsoever, especially considering that the same power that generates the +regen is also a self heal (the reason, straight from Castle, as to why */wp got regen debuff resistance and */regen didn't is because */regen has a self heal and */wp doesn't).

Nihilii, I agree with you. I've often brought up this exact same concern to Arcanaville in her use of the spreadsheet to demonstrate that */regen is balanced with every other set out there. Of course, I brought up the fact that */regen has no debuff resistance whatsoever rather than claiming that the debuff resistance that one set has is somehow fundamentally worse than what another set has. You can't really get around the fact that a defense based set has functional debuff resistance. That's unavoidable (and, honestly, makes defense based sets a bit more powerful than non-defense sets). It still doesn't allow anyone to completely discount the fact that Elec Armor has debuff resistance. It's got perfectly decent debuff resistance, especially considering the levels of it that most other sets have.

It's also reaching incredibly far to claim that, just because Elec Armor lacks defense debuffs, that the spreadsheet is completely wrong. I've never claimed that the spreadsheet (Arcanaville's) is completely accurate. In fact, I've claimed that it's actually wrong quite a few times under a specific subset of criteria because it discounts debuffs. I've always brought up these concerns when comparing the performance of sets that are inordinately affected by a debuff that they have no resistance to whatsoever (*/Regen to -regen and -rech). Elec Armor doesn't have a debuff that it is inordinately weak to (by "inordinately" I mean "weaker than it should have reason to be by performance of its powers").

Elec is a purely resistance based set so there's no reason for it to have defense debuff resistance (unless you're advocating for all melee toons to have some degree of defense debuff resistance, but that's a completely different topic). Resistance resists debuffs to itself, so that's another debuff it's not inordinately weak to. It's got a nice chunk of recharge debuff resistance, which is enough to ensure reasonable use of its 2 oft-used powers on reasonably low recharges. It's got unholy gobs of endurance drain resistance, which fits with the theme of the set (end drain is generally electric) and the functionality (endurance recovery and end redux).

There isn't any plausible reason for Elec to get defense debuff resistance nor is there any real balance reason for the improvements you want beyond "I think it should be stronger even though the mostly accurate spreadsheet that even Castle uses and checks out says that it would make Elec Armor more powerful than more than half of the other sets, even though the set discounts the additional non-survivability utility of the powerset as well as the additional survivability contributed by Power Sink".

Hectaomb in FU (all but Dam) would give you 89.92% +rech. 20% from Quickness. 5 LotG +rechs would give you 37.5%. 5 piece Hecatomb, 5 piece Apocalypse, and 5 piece Ragnarok net you another 30%. If you mule Boxing, that's another 10%. Crushing Impact 5 piece in Slash and Swipe get you 10% more and Obliteration 5 piece in Spin/Eviscerate give you 5-10% more. Should be easily within reach, especially if you're willing to dump a 6th slot into FU for another IO (level 50 common rech IO would net you roughly 11% +rech).

You're bringing up the only case wherein Boxing is actually better than the native attacks for a melee power set and there's a reason for this: Boxing sucks, but the first two attacks for Super Strength suck more. All of the attacks in Super Strength are balanced around the presence of perma-Rage (if you doubt me, just look at their DPAs). Boxing isn't.

Bringing up how Boxing is better for Super Strength than it is for Claws as an example of how the pool powers are inherent unfair to weapon users is also trying to stretch your argument too far. Sure, weapon users have to deal with redraw (something that was actually asked for), but Boxing sucks for non-weapon users too. The only set that can actually find an effective use for it is Super Strength because, as I said before, the first two powers in that set suck miserably to make up for Perma-Rage.

Considering that Elec Armor brings massive endurance solutions, a damage aura, and a passive +rech power, I'm more than willing to say that they're equal. Elec actually has better survivability than Fire Armor does. And 100% +regen that is fully enhanceable isn't "low regeneration buff", especially on a mitigation based set. Health is a low regeneration buff. Energize is actually a rather substantial regeneration buff.

Lightning Reflexes is 20% +rech and 40% res(slow). In order to debuff global recharge to normal levels, it would require a 33.33% -rech debuff and, from that point on, it's going to take 40% more recharge debuff to equal the reduction for a set without it. I assure you, 40% is more than enough.

[quote]-resistance, -REGEN, and -defense debuffs will all hit you with ease, making you even more vulnerable.[]

-Resistance is resisted by the resistance you've already got so Elec Armor, which its highly respectable resistance numbers, shouldn't really have much to fear, especially considering that almost all of those -res debuffs are Energy damage. -Regen is a remarkably small part of Elec Armors survivability so it makes sense for it not to have any resistance to those debuffs. Defense debuffs are going to hit Elec Armor just as hard as everything else because it's not a defense based set. The only sets that get defense debuff resistance are those sets that actually have that have defense in order to allow the set's defenses to actually exist (albeit at a lower level) when they're hit with substantial defense debuffs. Elec Armor doesn't have any defense so it doesn't have any debuff resistance.

Good thing the sets aren't balanced around IOs though. Elec Armor does perfectly fine as is in SOs and receives roughly the same increase to survivability as every other non-positional defense based set out there. Allowing Energize to be permanent at SO levels would make the set stronger than it needs to be because the set brings so much more to the table than survivability.

What debuffs are you worried about? Elec armor has mountains of endurance drain and recovery debuff resistance and 40% recharge and move speed debuff resistance. It's not packing any defense debuff resistance, but, then again, it's not a defense set. It's also a resistance based set so it's naturally resistant to resistance debuffs. The only effect that it's bringing that would be debuffed would be the regeneration from Energize. You'd still have the heal, which is substantially stronger.

Elec Armor actually has better debuff resistance than most other sets out there. Are you really operating under the assumption that defense debuffs are the only debuffs worth mentioning? Elec Armor has great debuff resistance except that it doesn't have defense debuff resistance which makes sense.

And I'm saying that it means even more than it used to considering how much freeing up an individual power selection can do to a build, especially when you allow said build to get rid of some set mules in place of others that are easily more powerful.

And you're completely ignoring the difference in what I'm saying and what you're saying. The cost is the fact that you're having to select a power you otherwise wouldn't pick. It doesn't matter what it is. The cost is the fact that you have to select a power you likely wouldn't otherwise take in order to access a power that you most definitely would take.

The reason I said it as I did was because of what end attribute you're generally looking at when enhancing said attributes.

When enhancing your regeneration rate, you're not generally looking at the rate at which you receive each regeneration tick. You're generally looking at the end rate of hit points you recover every second.

When enhancing your recharge rate, you're almost always looking at the actual recharge time, not the increased contributive value of the power.

Of course, when doing this, you also have to take into consideration the power in question. When trying to get an attack down to a 1.848 second recharge so that you can use your fancy new attack string, it doesn't really matter that, even though you're calculating 50% more usage thanks to a faster recharge rate, you can use it more often. You're trying to get it down to a specific recharge time so that you can use the attack in the most efficient way possible. The time of the recharge is more important than the rate of use in this situation. This same logic applies when trying to get an effect permanent. The goal is a specific time. When figuring out how much healing you're getting from Reconstruction or Healing Flames, the contributive value model works much better because you're not aiming for a defined recharge value: no matter what value you've got, each percent makes the power more effective (in a roughly linear manner).

The balance point was never that you were going to use Boxing and lower your damage to make up for the increase in survivability. If it were like that, Boxing would have a reliable survivability contribution like DA, Parry, Cobra Stike, etc. As it stands, it's a pool attack and thereby weaker than a primary attack.

The entire balance point is that Tough is a power that requires 2 power choices. It's worse than a native resistance toggle (because it's more expensive for each point of +res) but it's also more expensive to take because it requires another power (that you may or may not use, most likely not because it's a pool power and generally weaker) to be taken first. The devs have said just as much to players that continually request this (mainly because they don't want to have to devote 2 of their pre-20 power choices to Fitness). If you didn't have to take 2 other powers before getting to the final power in a power pool, Castle has said that it would be weakened to make up for it.

As to the people that keep saying they would take Swift or Hurdle even if they didn't have to take them to get Stamina, I'mma smack you upside the back of your heads if you honestly think that those powers would have any place in an optimized build. There are much better powers that could be taken, if only to be another set mule.

And I would side with myself having actually seen the comparative survivability numbers (via Arcanaville's survivability spreadsheet), I feel confident saying that it will never happen because it would be too friggin' strong. With only 7 powers directly devoted to survivability (Lightning Field and Lightning Reflexes aren't directly devoted) and 2 of them ignored by the spreadsheet (spreadsheet ignores Power Sink completely and Power Surge is only considered in the overdrive category; wherein Power Surge gets hit hard because of the relatively crappy Scrapper resist cap), Elec Armor would have better survivability at less endurance cost than SR, Invuln and Shields, all of which have every power and attribute factored into the spreadsheet (except the tier 9s, which are held in the overdrive area).

The numbers are perfectly fine where they are. Making Energize perma that easily would make the set too strong considering all of the other tools that the set brings to the table (loads of endurance assistance, +rech, end drain, damage aura).

That's completely beside the point. The tiers requirements don't exist to simply force annoying powers upon you for annoyance's sake. They exist to require additional power choices in order to get the greater benefits of the higher tier powers. If you didn't have to take the prereqs, can you honestly tell me that anywhere near the same number of people would take Swift or Hurdle? The fundamental balance behind Stamina (and many of the 4th tier powers) includes eating up 2 other power slots. Tough and Weave are incredibly potent and pretty much everyone could (and probably would) fit them in if they didn't have to take any of the prereqs. Hell, Tough could quite easily see a drop in popularity considering it doesn't really do much for low resistance powerset combos.

While I've never thought that Cryptic was particularly good at balancing anything, how they incorporated the power pools was actually quite well done. You have to figure out whether Stamina is worth the 2 previous power choices. You have to figure out whether you're willing to waste a power choice getting a power that is largely useless if you want Tough and Weave. If the higher tier powers no longer required that choice, you'd be getting rid of a necessary balance point to those powers and that is not a good thing.

It would help by providing more of the wonderful +rech that DM/* loves for awesome attack chains and Soul Drain, and */Regen loves for getting those click powers back fast enough. Of course, it's not going to have nearly as much synergy as a */DA Scrapper, but it's also going to have a much easier time soloing and doing flashbacks, which is going to be important. As I understand the OP, he plans on soloing the character as it levels and then dual boxing with the fire/kin for the flashbacks, so you're not going to want to design something that is very heavily dependent on the synergy with the fire/kin. Solo functionality and two man team functionality should be equally important and DM/Regen does fit that requirement quite well.