Unthing

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Any ideas on the day/time yet?

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I'm thinking of Sunday afternoon. The Eden trial lasts about 4 hours max and I think there isn't any danger of running out of time. You either can get through the walls or you can't. So is starting at 3 okay?

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I have been wanting to ask this for a long time:
if you have powers that give resistance 'over the cap' - and that of course means your resistances are at the cap in actuality - what happens when resistance gets debuffed? Does resistance get reduced from the cap downwards as if you didnt have any extra, or does the debuff affect the extra part first, making you less affected?

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Resistance debuff is really a misnomer. Your resistance is unchanged but the damage you take is increased. So a 25% resistance debuff actually adds 25% to all of the damage you take. So a 100 damage attack would do 125 points of damage.

However IIRC the amount of that extra damage is protected by resistance so if you had 50% resistance and you had a 25% resistance debuff you would only be debuffed by 12.5%, so a 100 damage attack would do 50% * ( 112.5% ) = 56.25. This means your resistance protects against the extra damage twice.

So for defence debuffs are the Achilles Heel of defence based sets, but Resistance debuffs are mostly ignored by resistance based sets. Seems a little unfair to me.

It also means there is no reason for having over 90% resistance.

My advice is to copy on to test, jump into a hazard zone and see how your combat endurance levels are. I don't think you can really judge these things well until you have fought until your endurance runs out. I think you are underestimating the cost of running tough, weave, temp inv and unyielding. I recommend 2 ends in all of these. IMO invincibility does not need an end reducer. However my build uses perma-Hasten and has a differnt secondary so I possibly eat up endurance a little faster than you.

Also I noticed Unstoppable has 3 damage resistsance in it. This gives 109% damage resistance, over the cap. However 2 gives 94% also over the cap and 1 gives 84% which means you will hit the cap for S/L/E/NE due to your passives if you tunr everything else off. Personally I would slot it with 1, but 2 is okay too. 3 is just unnecessary.

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As a quick guideline, all your resist powers should be slotted 3 resist/2 end. Don't bother putting anything but the default slot in CoD. Slot your heal 3 Recharge and as many Ends as you can spare.

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I would slot Dark regeneration 1xACC, 2xEnd, 3x Recharge ( I haven't got the last Recharge yet ) as it has to hit. Not everyone has Focussed Accuracy.... I also found it was pretty good even slotted 1xACC, 2xEND.

Momma Crow lvl 33 Warshade ( Saturday afternoon )
British Lion - Lv32 Fire/Ice Blaster
TsubaXIII - lvl 28 scrapper ( not sunday morning )
Tufty's Scrapper - lvl 27 scrapper ( not sunday morning )
Terra Girl - lvl 29 controller
Booster - lvl 30 defender

Sorry Rock I'm not familiar with all your toons.

Anyway, if we sk the 2 scrappers up to 32 and 31 we may have a chance. For some reason they were spawning level 32s and 33s in the respec I did last night.

Momma Crow lvl 33 Warshade ( Saturday afternoon )
British Lion - Lv32 Fire/Ice Blaster
TsubaXIII - lvl 28 scrapper ( not sunday morning )
Tufty's Scrapper - lvl 27 scrapper ( not sunday morning )
Terra - lvl 29 blaster??
Booster - lvl 30 defender

No tanks interested, or don't tanks exist anymore....

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IMHO, you need Resist Elements and Energies. Invuln has little enough defenses to anything other than Smashing / Lethal, ignoring the passives doesn't make sense to me.

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You need something against non slash/lethal certainly. In my view this is either the Resist E passives or Weave + Combat Jumping. Obviously the second option is more costly on slots and endurance ( need to 2 slot end in Temp Inv, Unyielding, Tough and Weave ) but is more defensive. You could do both but it looks like Captain Solaris is more offensively minded than defensively minded.

Personally I wouldn't even think of any tank build these days without 6 slotting the self heal ( Dull Pain in this case ). It makes far more difference than some of these meh defensive powers.

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For a tanker 1.5 per mob up to 10, but the first gives an extra 6%. Unlike the ACC this is actually useful as you need more defence when surrounded.

For a brute 3 slotted this should be 4.68 + 1.17 per mob or about 10.5% for 5 enemies. 16.5% for 10 enemies.

If you have other defence powers such as Tough Hide or Combat Jumping , or are under the influence of defence buffs like Force Fields this becomes much more significant.

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Didn't think it was that high. Are those the base values?

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1.5 per mob is the base vale for tankers. Brutes are 75%I think, I gave 3 slotted Brute numbers with SOs...

For a tanker 1.5 per mob up to 10, but the first gives an extra 6%. Unlike the ACC this is actually useful as you need more defence when surrounded.

For a brute 3 slotted this should be 4.68 + 1.17 per mob or about 10.5% for 5 enemies. 16.5% for 10 enemies.

If you have other defence powers such as Tough Hide or Combat Jumping , or are under the influence of defence buffs like Force Fields this becomes much more significant.

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@Kraver - The Leadership pool isn't worth it for Scrappers, the bonus is minimal, 5% I think. As for Defenders, I think it's 20%. Both unenhanced. Then again, you can't enhance the damage of Assault.

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Yeah, but slotted that's 10%. Can't remember which is the defense bonus but surely that 10% is worth considering if you've got nothing else in mind. I'm thinking of my toons lvl49 power. I;ve got nothing in mind and would like even a minimal boost in defence.

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IIRC
Maneuvers is 2.5% defence, 3.25% for defenders
Assault is 10%, 15% for defenders.
Tactics is 7.5%, 12.5% for defenders.

Both Maneuvers and Tactics use Schedule B enhancements, so 3 slotted is 56% extra rather than the 95% extra for 3 schedule A enhancements.

Of the 3, tactics is the most worthwhile, an 11% to hit buff 3 slotted is enough to remove the second ACC in any attacks. However if you are happy with single ACC SO accuracy don't bother.

For tanks this is either 1% or 2% per enemy, so given that Brutes secondaries are 75% of tank primaries, you are talking about about 1.2 - 2.4% to hit buff per person 3 slotted with SOs....

I wouldn't consider relying on less than a 10% to hit buff to replace second ACC slots or a 25% to hit buff to replace the first.

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6 slotted pre ed stamina you could get away with the toggles with no endurance reducers, but with 3 slot post ed its crippling, even with a couple of end redux in them its still crippling.

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I'll take your word on that one, I never tried it as I went from no end reducers in I5 on Temp Inv, Unyielding, Invincibility and Combat Jumping to 2 end reducers on Unyielding, Temp Inv, Tough and Weave and also running Comabt Jumping and Invincibility in I6. However I did work out that I had about the same amount of endurance to attack with all things taken into account before and after the change.

I found it was the attacks that really made the difference in I5, if I stayed away from Greater Fire Sword I was usually okay, so I only really used that power once I got Conserve Power. This is still the case, although I have added end reducers in them too.

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http://www.google.com/search?q=herostats

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Or even http://www.herostats.org/
It also lets you find out lots of really useless info about each play session.

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Too bad it didn't work for me, sounded nice :> I only got some fatal error everytime I started CoV..

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I couldn't get it to work with this current patch. I suspect that something in the patch broke it. Normally that only happens with new Issues. You can try the 'Unstable' version at http://unstable.herostats.org
That should be more recent, or you could wait a week or so and try downloading it again. Usually they are pretty quick at getting it working with a new patch.

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Yeah, definately calm down

And by the by, i've been playing this game since European Beta and i still click powers as i find it's fast. But that's personal choice.

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I've been slowly moving from only mouse to one hand on mouse and one hand on keyboard. I use mouse to look and the keyboard for powers and motion. All my characters have similar key binds. I only think it is faster because I find it less confusing. I think the major cause of slow reactions in this game is the long rooting animation times rather than control method.

Does anyone want to do the 1st respec trial this weekend. My defender Booster want to do it so anyone around the top end of the level range would be good.
I tried last night with a random pickup team but it all went horribly wrong as I was the highest level character by 2 levels.

Here's my advice.

Endurance management looks like it will be nasty. You have no end reductions in attacks or toggles, I would put some in somewhere, 1 end reducer in each attack works wonders. Tough, Temp Inv and Unyielding are all expensive toggles and I recommend if you want Tough to put an end reducer on each of them.

Slotting Disorient duration on Boxing and Jab seems like a waste to me, the chance of disorientation seems pretty small. Slot Damage and End reducers or put the slots somewhere else.

Putting 2 ACCs on 3 of your attacks ( Air Superiority, Haymaker and Knockout Blow ) seems excessive whilst running Rage, unless you plan on doing a lot of PvP. PvE I think you only need 1 ACC maximum for those never hit attacks.

Slot Dull Pain with 3 recharges and 3 Heals, the heals add to your max hitpoints as well as increasing the Heal when the power is activated. Dull Pain is one of your best defensive powers.

If you are planning to exemp down to do PvP it might be worth getting Tough Hide earlier. However I'm not sure about this, ask a PvP expert.

Out of curiosity are you likely to use all those attacks?

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3 slotted EndMod, with Transference, it pretty much equalizes Empathy's Recovery Aura.

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I think it is the same as Recovery Aura without Transference. IIRC RA ( for defenders ) is about 1.25. Speed Boost ( for defenders ) is about 0.9, so for Corruptors it will be about 0.675, so 3 slotted will be about 1.31.

Edit: I didn't remember correctly the base is 0.97 for defender, 0.73 for corruptors, so you get about 1.41, however RA for defenders is 1.67, so Speed Boost is less than defender RA but not Controller RA for Corruptors.

I have Booster and Cryostrike in the correct level range for both. I'd prefer to be Booster, as I'm thinking of promoting him to main hero now that GG is done. Also Booster has a good record of Task Forces, having completed Moonfire, Hess and Sister Psyche.

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ok so does that mean in your case its generally good to have 1 end cost in every power or what?

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This is rapidly going off topic ...

For best return on slots it is best to slot end reduction in the most expensive power over the mission*. In my case it is worth having an end reduction in both shields and all attacks. Tough, Knockout Blow ( 2 end reds currently ) and Haymaker needed more IIRC. Powers such as Healing Flames and Combat Jumping were not endurance hungry enough to need an end reduction.

*Ideally you would want to compare this with the total damage done by each power, so if jab is doing less damage than punch but costing about the same endurance, it may be worth replacing a damage in jab with an end reducer.

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5% defence for hover. Not worth it anyway if thats the sole reason for getting it.

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It's 2.5% defence not 5%.

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My End consumption sucks at the moment too but I reckon I'll tough it out.

*Edit* Just pondering out loud here. Given that (a) I've so many slots that I don't know what to do with em (ta ED) and (b) I don't PvP and probably won't be I wonder if I should drop the two toggles of Assault and Tactics altogether to save End.

Then Hover and the medicine pool could go in instead somewhere.

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I would try it. I just tried out some respec builds and removing the Leadership Pool really helps. Although I do have my heart set on getting both Acrobatics and stamina.

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As for Hover / Fly I'd hope once I get to 26 and Transference my End problems would be nowt so I could run Fly for knockback protection (I think. I never take the flight pool normally). With Supression it'd be an expensive hover most of the time but I don't see the point of taking Hover just for the End saving. Siphon Speed should minimise the Surpression problem too.

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Okay, having gone through the pain of making a staminaless flight pool build with hover and fly I would say this.

Without Siphon Speed up, Hover is too slow so I sometimes end up using fly to enter combat. Fly is inaccurate and nasty, you can end up overshooting and that means your transference is wasted. So whilst you won't get knocked back with fly on you are in serious danger of running out of endurance. Hover provides far far better accurate control over position. With the leadership pool running too I think your endurance management will be in serious trouble.

I wouldn't recommend this...

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http://www.google.com/search?q=herostats

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Or even http://www.herostats.org/

It also lets you find out lots of really useless info about each play session.

Resist energies doesn't help resist acc debuffs as far as I know. I would take Tough Hide over Resist energies or Resist Elements any time because it stacks more significantly with your powers.

A few comments,

Accuracy: 3 slotted Tactics does the following to your to hit chances
3 slotted Tactics < 1 SO
3 slotted Tactics + 1 SO > 2 SO
3 slotted Tactics + 2 SOs >> 3 SOs = unnecessary accuracy for anything other than PvP.

So you may want to rethink slotting once you have tactics.

Slot tranference for recharge first, it drains and gives you about 60 endurance so you only really need 1xEnd Mod.

Is Aim really that worthwhile?

I found that I needed stamina in my late teens, siphon power was very expensive to keep running. However that was in I4 before the endurance reductions.

With Fly and no stamina I really suffered, but then I'm not a flight pool fan anyway. I found Hover was great for knockback protection which, as you'll be relying on being close to the action for your endurance hit and to get your Short Circuits off I believe is essential.

I think for my next respec I'll be putting back the fitness pool and getting the leaping pool too for Acrobatics as mezs are my bane.

Run herostats on it. The crash happens when there is approximately 18 seconds to go on the timer.

If you switch off Unyielding whilst Unstoppable and have Dull Pain ready you can get back up in less than 5 seconds without inspirations, ( Dull Pain then Unyielding ) and then start bringing the most important toggles in one by one.

Personally I found on my tank it was rarely needed, but I think I went overboard on defensive powers ( Tough, Weave etc ) so I was usually fine.

I've don't use it on AVs except when I know we have less than 3 minutes or once by accident ( Killed by Nemesis Rex after the crash, how embarrassing ). However for a Brute rather than a tank it might work better as you aren't expected to hold as much aggro.