Werner
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Quote:Yeah, it's my system, though it's roughly based on Arcanaville's old "immortality line" analysis. John Printemps tried to clean it up and make it usable here, but I haven't actually used his version of it.Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
Werner, I admit I am not very familiar with your (or someone's) survivability rating system, so I would have two questions - how well do those numbers stack up to what other sets achieve in the same circumstances, and how does it look against normal tohit? I couldn't even make a guess on the former but I suspect that the difference is a good deal less stark in the more general case.
Yes, the survivability difference is smaller when facing normal to hit. Against 50% to hit:
6524 for Musculature + Ageless
HOWEVER, the reason that the difference has decreased so much is that I have 45% defense to all positions without Barrier, so the extra defense from Barrier then isn't doing anything. Still, you could consider that representative of what happens when you chug a constant supply of purples if that's your plan. It is STILL a significant difference though, amounting to a 28% increase in survivability just from the resistance (compared to faster recharge on the heal). So basically, half the survivability increase was defense, half was resistance.
8381 for Cardiac + Barrier
I'm not sure quite what you mean by how those numbers stack up to other sets. Like "how does that look on a Fire/Shield?" Or just other primaries like the Claws/Dark we're talking about for this thread? Honestly, I've done very little analysis of incarnate builds. The only other thing I've calculated was a whole list of Katana/Regen builds as we tried to work out what the absolute top end looks like these days. Again, just calculating with the Alpha and Destiny powers:
6406 for 50% to hit, Spiritual + Rebirth
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "Why would you take Rebirth on a Regen???" I thought the same thing until we ran the numbers. My starting point was a soft capped build with near perma Hasten that could incarnate soft cap nearly full time by cycling Moment of Glory, Shadow Meld and Barrier. Turns out it wasn't as good as dropping the ranged and AoE defense down into the lower thirties, cranking up the recharge and regeneration a bit, and using Rebirth. It caught me by surprise, but it is what it is. Anyway, that's my only real point of comparison with incarnate builds.
5470 for 64% to hit, Spiritual + Rebirth
As a more relevant point of comparison, maybe I should calculate for the Claws/Dark that Desmodos posted.
1431 for 64% to hit, Musculature + Ageless
The difference here is a bit more stark, 91% more survivability at 64% to hit, 71% more survivability at 50% to hit. That said, this is all "enough" survivability, particularly if you pop inspirations when there's a problem. So you could easily argue for Musculature on the grounds that you already have enough survivability and you'd like more damage, but it's very hard to argue for it on survivability grounds.
2727 for 64% to hit, Cardiac + Barrier
3677 for 50% to hit, Musculature + Ageless
6300 for 50% to hit, Cardiac + Barrier
And on damage grounds, even a 45% damage buff doesn't work out to be a whole lot of extra damge. I'm too lazy to figure out the chain for Desmodos's build, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that Follow Up is double-stacked, as it often is on high-recharge Claws or Dual Blades builds. Let's add in Reactive as well. Now let's take a simple basic attack like Swipe. It does 195.73 damage according to Mids'. Now let's add Musculature. Now it does 212.6 damage. That's a 9% increase. That's nice, to be sure, but to me it's just not in the same league as the difference in survivability. Are the Lore pets buffed by Musculature? I'm guessing yes, in which case the damage difference would probably be a lot more significant while they're up, so that might improve the damage-based argument. -
Survivability numbers for my Katana/Dark when facing incarnate to-hit:
3976 for no incarnate powers
So 56% better survivability from Cardiac + Barrier compared to something like 10% more damage output from Musculature + Ageless. That's kind of how I look at it.
4265 for Musculature + Ageless
6637 for Cardiac + Barrier
That IS ignoring the defense debuff resistance, Musculature + Ageless is perhaps a bit better than I make it look. But then, all the defense from Barrier is ALSO defense debuff resistance, in the sense that the enemy needs to hit me to debuff my defense. And if it's looking like cascading defense failure, a quick hit of Barrier should put an end to that. So I think Barrier isn't all that bad on the defense debuff protection front.
Numbers will, of course, very significantly with different primaries and different builds. And once you have "enough" survivability, you may well value 10% damage output more. But I really don't think Musculature + Ageless is competitive on the survivability front. -
Many secondaries also provide 10,000% knockback RESISTANCE, which prevents them from ever being knocked back. I don't really know how acceptable 7 KB protection is. I know that I still occasionally get knocked back with 11, but I have Hover, so it hasn't been a big problem. When I had 12, I can't remember ever being knocked back. I think 12 should be the target, and any less is a compromise. How much of a compromise you're making going from 8 to 7 depends on what enemy attacks do how much knockback, which is something I've never studied.
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As an example, have a full set of Obliteration in Eviscerate, all level 50s. I've never done an exemplar calculation, and Mids' doesn't do it for me, so forgive me if I mess up. I'll show my work.
At 50: 66% acc, 96% dam, 19% end, 90% rech
At level 21, my scaling factor is .587, maximum bonus cap is 41.5%, and these do NOT affect any benefits of 20% or less.
I have a quad of 18.55%, which isn't reduced, so 18.55% add/dam/end/rech. I have a straight damage of 42.4%, which is reduced to 41.5%, then multiplied by my scaling factor to get 24.36% dam. Acc/rech of 26.5% goes to 15.56% acc/rec, and the same procedure gives me 15.56% dam/rech. Finally, a 21.2% acc/dam/rech turns into a 12.44% add/dam/rech. Add it up and.. our damage is over the ED cap, but it'll round off the same.
At 21: 47% acc, 71% dam, 19% end, 62% rech
Now, let's slot 50 quad, 43 triple, 24 dual, 50 single. Well, Obliteration doesn't go to 24, but for the sake of argument let's say it does. Only the single is reduced, and to 24.36% like before. However, we'll be ED capped on damage by a little. Not showing my work this time.
At 50: 58% acc, 95% dam, 19% end, 76% rech
So the point is that you're better at low levels with the lower level enhancements, even apart from the set bonuses. But with the lower level IOs:
At 21: 58% acc, 81% dam, 19% end, 76% rech
acc: -8% @ 50, +11% @ 21
Unless you're spending half your time at really low levels, it doesn't seem like you'd want to make that trade off if we consider only enhancement values. Most exemplaring probably isn't all the way to 21, so the loss would be less. Upper level content should also be a little more challenging than lowbie content. I really don't think enhancement values is much of an argument unless it's an exemplar-specific build. I think the main argument in favor of lower level IOs is preserving set bonuses while exemplared.
dam: -1% @ 50, +10% @ 21
end: no change
rech: -14% @ 50, +14% @ 21 -
I agree that AVs are in an whole different league than EBs, but a soft-capped Fire/Shield with Aid Self would be just fine for no-temps no-insps AV soloing. I don't have a build to show because mine's a concept build with no heal and all sword attacks. It's kind of the opposite of an AV soloer.
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Quote:I didn't read the thread, so hopefully I'm not missing important context, but I have no problem farming on my Fire/Shield. First, you should really be farming on +0 if you're farming drops. I don't, though. I farm at +2 or +3x8. As I recall, +3 gives me a rhythm I like, which is to say that Shield Charge is ready to go on every spawn instead of every other spawn, but maybe it was +2. Hmmm, now I think it WAS +2, but with the level shift it's now +3. Charge in throwing a fire ball, fire sword circle once positioned between the two bosses, hit one boss with fire sword and greater fire sword, hit the other with fire sword, build up, shield charge, fire ball, fire sword circle, attack chain to finish off bosses, move to next spawn. The bosses can hit hard, but the greens drop much faster than I take damage in general.Originally Posted by Dz131
How do you farm with a Fire/SD? I can't even do 53x8 lethal ambushes because eventualyl enough dmg from bosses get through and drops me more than I have greens. I'm softcapped in all positions and have 35% resist to s/l
I can see how if I added ambushes to the +3x8, it MIGHT get a little ugly, so maybe our experiences aren't that much different. I just farm without ambushes.
Soft cap, 33% smashing/lethal, 1940 hit points, no heal. -
Depending on how long you've been gone, set bonuses used to be for a single type of defense. Now each covers two types of defense plus bleeds into positional defense. That makes slotting for typed defense practical.
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The pylon's regen isn't actually 127.8125. It's actually 30677.15 * 5% / 15 seconds = 102.257. But to overcome 102.257 HP/S of regeneration, you need to do 102.257 DPS AFTER resistance is taken into account, so as with hit points, we have to divide by 80%, giving us 127.844 or so DPS that we have to actually do to overcome its regeneration. That's slightly higher than previously stated because I forgot to take the Pylon's recent 2.5 hit point increase into account in its regeneration rate when I posted a revised pylon DPS formula.
It's worth checking with the power analyzer as well. I'd expect it to tell you 102 HP/S or so.
Edit: Argh. I just did it again, and I got 127.8215. I just can't do maths.
( 38346.4375 / time) + 127.8215 = DPS -
Quote:I agree. I went with all sword attacks. It takes a ton of recharge, and your single-target DPS kinda sucks since you're constantly mixing in Fire Sword Circle. It's pretty, though.Originally Posted by Dizzy_Dazzler
i like fire melee alot by concept but would nice to choose all fist or all sword
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I really wish they'd change it to ten seconds. It takes me about ten seconds to email myself something. So I'm always sitting there clicking send for five seconds. A ten second cooldown wouldn't exactly lead to an explosion in spam that a 15 second cooldown is preventing. Ah, well.
While I'm wishing, I wish they wouldn't require me to enter a message. I'm emailing myself or someone else some stuff. That's 99% of my emails. Why do I need a message? Did they not realize that email was going to be used this way? -
Quote:I don't have a typed defense Regen build to show. Here's what I'd run on my Katana/Regen if I brought him up to date, but it won't really be directly applicable. You need to look for typed defense sets, not positional defense sets. Also, the budget on this build is truly insane.Originally Posted by Ghost_Ripper
Do you have something I can look at for getting defense? Everything I was putting in severly hamppers my DMG output and Recharge.
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In my experience, most lowbie Scrappers suck. Not all of them, but the good ones are the exception. Also, what's good in your teens probably has almost no correlation to what's good for the rest of the game.
At a low level, I don't focus on survivability. I focus on damage output and killing them before they kill me. Small to moderate amounts of defense just don't do as much for your survivability as, say, doubling your damage output. And doubling your damage output will make those ugly, dying levels go by faster.
This is all just general advice. I haven't leveled an Electric/Shield. -
Quote:I have 47.5% global in my build. I'd personally run the two-parry Broad Sword chain, even though the build soft caps with one, because I like the safety net. Head Splitter -> Parry -> Disembowel -> Hack -> Parry takes 108% recharge in Head Splitter, and everything else is already handled by the global recharge. Head Splitter recharges fast enough with the existing slotting.Originally Posted by BrandX
I don't know if Werners KAT/DA build would have enough +RCH for a BS/DA to use, but it could be something to look into if you're willing to go all out.
For one Parry, I think you want Head Splitter -> Hack -> Disembowel -> Parry -> Hack. That takes 219% recharge in Hack, so yeah, no way.
Yeah, links don't work for me either, so I can't really comment on the build.Quote:Originally Posted by BrandX
Since I can't see builds without the data chunk (the link never works for me) I have no idea how much you're willing to spend.
Yay!Quote:Originally Posted by BrandX
That said, friend in my SG has Werner's KAT/DA build on her's, minus the +3 HOs and is only missing 1 Enzyme, and is loving the build.
It's always a little worrying when someone adopts something like this, because a soft-capped Sword/Dark is kind of a different beast, and not all of the differences are good (in my case - poor slotting of Cloak of Fear, poor recharge on Dark Regeneration, very so-so damage output, etc.).
With even-level Hamios, you're only at 44.8% ranged and AoE, and maybe not quite sustainable endurance, but it would be REALLY hard to notice the difference. I'm just obsessed. -
You have a lot of mid to high ticket items in there (Hamios, purple IOs, PvP IOs, Luck of the Gambler globals). Your defense is minimal. Your recharge is merely so-so (though on a budget, you probably won't get much better). You appear to have chased hit point bonuses, which do you no good much of the time since you have perma Dull Pain and it puts your hit points way over the cap. You're also over the rule of five on 1.874% hit point bonuses. I'm not sure if you chased regeneration bonuses or just picked them up as side effects, but they're not very useful comparatively, and you should be shooting for typed defense instead where possible.
You mentioned DPS earlier, and on your budget, you're going to be stuck with the moderate recharge chain, which you seem to have figured out: Blinding Feint -> Ablating Strike -> Vengeful Slice -> Sweeping Strike. Fortunately, it's a good chain.
I recommend Soul Mastery to get Shadow Meld over Body Mastery for Physical Perfection. The regeneration and recovery from Physical Perfection just aren't all that great for a Regen. On demand huge defense should be more valuable.
You should have at least something in Health or Stamina, even if you decide not to slot them. Physical perfection is weaker than either, so any slots there should likely move to Health or Stamina if they aren't used elsewhere. -
It's a great combination. Super Reflexes doesn't need to be in the thick of things to survive, and Claws rewards a dynamic, highly mobile play style. They work well together.
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Spiritual, Void, Reactive, and Rebirth (not sure what to do with Lore)
Barrier really sounded better to me, but when I put together a top end build and got the help of the forum gurus and started really poking at the numbers, Rebirth turned out to be better, at least on paper. Not the Max HP one, though, the regeneration one. It took me by surprise since the last thing Regeneration usually needs is more regeneration since it is already swimming in it. But it's SO much more regeneration. And as you said, for defense and resistance, you have Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld, one of which should be available most of the time. -
- Spiritual for the alpha slot
- Undecided for Destiny. It might be Barrier, but when I ran the numbers on a top end Katana/Regen, it came out as Rebirth despite the old rule of thumb, "the last thing Regen needs is more regeneration".
- Void for Judgment if you're looking for the extra survivability.
- I think most people prefer the Reactive Radial Flawless Interface.
- I don't have a build, but for a PvE DB/Regen, you're after recharge, recharge, defense, and more recharge, like pretty much any other Regen. Your recharge is going to be limited by budget (high recharge is very expensive), so you may be focusing more on defense than typical, as defense tends to be cheaper. Go with smashing/lethal, then energy/negative. I'd probably target 32.5% smashing/lethal (one purple from normal soft cap). Ideally, have Shadow Meld get you to the incarnate soft cap (59%) on smashing, lethal, energy and negative.
- Go red side to pick up Shadow Meld, then come back to blue side if you like blue side better.
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Yeah, alas, most guides are very old. We've just kind of stopped making them.
Willpower will be a very smooth ride. It offers consistent, effortless survivability 1-50.
Super Reflexes is very nice, and is also pretty effortless, but it's a late-blooming set.
When IO'd to the gills, Shield Defense can basically do everything Super Reflexes does, plus pump out more damage, so is worth considering. It's also not that bad for leveling, plus I love having an aggro aura. Some people hate it, though.
If you're leaning towards Super Reflexes, though, you might as well go for it. It's a classic combination, with nicely-meshing concepts, even if there's no specific and amazing synergy in the sets themselves.
Basically, there are no bad Scrappers. All combinations are good. Some are just better at doing this thing over here, while others are better at doing that thing over there. Martial Arts/Super Reflexes will have reasonable single-target damage, low AoE damage, and can achieve very high levels of survivability in the end game for very little expense. I soft-capped my Claws/SR at level 36 with a single IO and everything else with SOs before inherent fitness. Not that you SHOULD do that - I was proving a point to myself about cheap and playable survivability - but the point is that you can have massive end game survivability with very little effort.
Once you get a multi-billion influence budget on a level 50, Super Reflexes starts to fall behind some other options. But it's great at lower levels of expense. -
Yeah, I perhaps just shouldn't be using anything I did in my build in this discussion since the primaries are different. With Dark Melee, I'd go with typed defense, probably decide that soft capping isn't worth it, and end up with a very similar build approach and numbers to yours. I'd still probably shaft Obsidian Shield, but it's hard to know. I certainly WANT to slot it, but I expect not as much as I'd want other things. Still, without the insane needs of the soft cap, I'd probably have more room, so maybe it could get a couple more slots.
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A properly-built Tanker can beat many Scrappers for damage output. A properly-built Scrapper can beat many Tankers for survivability. The archetypes overlap, particularly given the flexibility that IOs give you.
An uber Fire/Fire Tanker will probably put out significantly more damage than my Katana/Dark Scrapper (outside of AV fight DPS). My Katana/Dark will probably also be significantly more survivable than that Tanker (outside of inspirations or buffs).
It's getting hard for me to not start a FA/SS Tanker or SS/FA Brute. The damage is just crazy good plus sufficient survivability. That's what I put my Fire/Shield Scrapper together for, but he just seems eclipsed by at least the Brute, and Nihilii is saying even the Tanker. Ouch. Besides, I love Super Strength. I hate the Rage crash, but it's a lot milder than it used to be, and I love the rest of the set well enough to get over it. I recently finished leveling my Invulnerability/Super Strength Tanker, most of that solo (I don't like actually tanking for a team - I just have an addiction to survivability). A Fire/SS Tanker should be somewhat faster to level, then I can decide if I want to kit it out with the best that influence can buy. Or do I go Brute for even more insane damage? Hmmmm. Yes, I need to give in, but to which? Hmmmm. -
I'm one of those people who ignored his Obsidian Shield slotting - that's where I put my Steadfast Protection unique, and there's nothing else in it. I still get a healthy 57.5% psionic resistance, or 62.5% if we count the tail of perma Barrier (though I only have tier 3 at the moment), but of course I'd love to slot it up to the hard cap. It's just a matter of trade offs to get the defense soft cap. As always, it's quite debatable whether the trade offs are worth it or not given how much else Dark Armor has going for it (and particularly now with incarnate to hit at 64%).
But I agree, it isn't the psi damage or endurance drain that's a problem with Carnies. It IS the Mask of Vitation. It typically misses, but when it does hit, it HURTS. Really? Ranged with no type? That seems the opposite of what I'm used to, which is non-positional psionic attacks. But with 27% psionic defense and 57.5% psionic resistance, it's not generally an issue, even if I could have built better for it.
And do the Master Illusionist pets have the typical pet 75% to hit? That's probably an issue as well, though I don't recall it being a big deal. -
Super Strength/Fiery Aura has done back to back RWZ challenges, so it doesn't have to be squishy. It's as much about power picks and slotting as it is about the secondary. On the other hand, it WAS Iggy Kamakaze playing the toon, and he can pretty much do anything with anything, so mere humans might have more survivability issues.
I'm a big fan of Dark Armor. It's one of the sets that you can build for near Tank-like survivability with enough work, but it's going to cost you in other areas. Still, it'll have plenty of survivability in a more balanced build. I'm a big fan of Katana, but if you're using Divine Avalanche for survivability, your DPS is going to suffer. Also, Katana isn't much of a swiss army knife.
How about Dark Melee/Dark Armor? Swiss army knife primary + swiss army knife secondary. Hmmm, lacking in AoE damage though, so even if single target damage is decent, you won't be a huge contributor on teams, particularly compared to an insane damage machine like Super Strength/Fiery Aura.
Hmmm. I'm not sure. Ah, well. At least you have some thoughts, even if you don't have a suggestion. -
I personally chase set bonuses very far indeed. That said, most sets at least offer decent enhancement of what they're enhancing. I don't consider, say, the 87% damage enhancement of Eradication to be a huge drawback. I DO think the 15% endurance discount of that set can be a huge drawback, but I've handled it with the Cardiac Alpha.
I won't set DPS records, but I think of it like this - I figure an average scrapper is getting roughly 1/3 of her damage from base damage, 1/3 from enhancement, and 1/3 from other. If that 1/3 from enhancement is down by 10% because you're slotting for set bonuses, you've lost closer to 3% damage from that attack. That's just not a big factor for me. -
I agree with Syntax42. If your goal isn't to be completely untouchable without inspirations, 32.5% defense is fine. I like positional defense, so I'd go 32.5% ranged and AoE, and lean on Divine Avalanche to hit 45% melee and lethal, preferably with one hit.
From that perspective, your melee and lethal defense are too high. You could consider swapping your Obliterations for Eradications and doing something else with your epic powers. And as Syntax42 says, focus on either typed or positional bonuses, not both.
Chances are excellent that the Cardiac Alpha will fix all your endurance problems and then some. My build is DESIGNED to burn endurance at an insane clip, and the Cardiac Alpha still takes care of me just fine.
Try to make room for Hasten. Having Dark Regeneration on a fast recharge is a good idea. Also get some more recharge in the power itself. -
Quote:Two RWZ challenges back to back without the level shift is far from delicate. If you can survive that, you should be able to survive most any farm environment, particularly on +0, particularly with ten thousand inspirations raining down on you from your kill speed.Originally Posted by mauk2
If you plan to do all-round stuff, any non-tanker on fire aura is going to be delicate.