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Werner

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  1. Werner
    Repeating a bit - Super Reflexes is a late-blooming set, and most Scrappers suck before SOs. Yes, Martial Arts is fine. To not feel so gimp, keep leveling until it gets good.
  2. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
    And here's a build that most could probably afford...
    Iggy's "Affordable" Build:
    50% to hit = 6018
    64% to hit = 5098
    75% to hit = 3988
    90% to hit = 2154

    Really quite nice. 6-7% worse in normal situations, but a bit BETTER than the no budget limit version when the buffs and debuffs start. Maybe I should add a little melee/lethal. I would like to be a bit more solid under buffs and debuffs. I like consistent performance.
  3. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
    I think you might have put in the numbers with only 1x DA
    And I think in this case, I might go the extra bit of % to have it at 45% melee with only 1x DA
    I've been doing 2xDA, but I might well have accidentally done 1xDA for the earlier numbers that were suspiciously low. Alas, I've overlayed them with more recent stuff now, so we'll never know, but it's probably not important now.
  4. Werner
    Following Iggy's lead on Golden Dragonfly and Summon Widow:
    50% to hit = 6406
    64% to hit = 5470
    75% to hit = 3834
    90% to hit = 2199
    Basically identical numbers, but then, they're almost identical builds. Mine has a little more recharge and a little less defense. I'd probably go with the defense (Iggy's build). But here's what I did:

    Code: 
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    Edit: Things I'm liking with the more recent builds that may be less obvious than the raw survivability:
    • Psionic still soft-capped with one Shadow Meld
    • One purple from normal soft cap on ranged and AoE
    • This really has quite decent DPS when, say, the AV is being tanked and we don't have to use Divine Avalanche or do the dance of the Regen clicks
    • Less set muling than I started with, though Summon Widow is pretty glaring (Unless she's actually any good in a fight, like extra DPS when the AV is tanked? She's up four minutes of every five.)
  5. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
    OK sacrificed some regen to get a tiny bit more range/aoe defense
    50% to hit = 6412
    64% to hit = 5436
    75% to hit = 3838
    90% to hit = 2166

    Hmmm, that's pretty nice. Almost the same as my latest post, but with a properly-slotted Golden Dragonfly. I'm not sure exactly where the jump came from, as I wouldn't think a percent or two of defense would do it. I suppose I could have miscalculated before.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
    Really starting to like where all these are going ....
    These DO look kind of nice, don't they?
  6. Werner
    OK, just trying to catch up here. I'm also going to a little more accurately account for recharge, which is going to lower survivability scores a bit from here on out. My recharge simplification was really helpful on the Barrier calculations, but much less so on Rebirth, which seems like what we're all sticking with. I'll just keep adding to this post as I calculate things. I'll plug in pet to hit as well to get an idea about minor to hit buffs or defense debuffs. (Edit: And 90% to hit. Hey, let's see what happens with major buffs and debuffs.)

    John's Claws/Regen:
    50% to hit = 2865
    64% to hit = 1779
    75% to hit = 1188
    90% to hit = 818

    Obitus' Katana/Regen:
    50% to hit = 4307
    64% to hit = 2601
    75% to hit = 1723
    90% to hit = 963

    Linea Alba's "Cheap" Katana/Regen:
    50% to hit = 4956
    64% to hit = 4167
    75% to hit = 3316
    90% to hit = 1800

    Iggy's Latest Katana/Regen:
    50% to hit = 5716
    64% to hit = 4874
    75% to hit = 3416
    90% to hit = 2231

    Werner - corrected numbers for the earlier 38.6% ranged 36.1% AoE Katana/Regen:
    50% to hit = 6186
    64% to hit = 5197
    75% to hit = 3741
    90% to hit = 2055

    Werner - slight tweak to earlier tweaks to Iggy's earlier build (below):
    50% to hit = 6453
    64% to hit = 5526
    75% to hit = 3898
    90% to hit = 2237

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  7. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Obitus View Post
    Out of curiosity -- and with apologies if this is already covered elsewhere -- how do you weight different types/positions, Werner? I ask because for normal content I'd probably lean towards soft-capping ranged DEF at the expense of AoE. In the trials, and given all of your defensive clicks (and given the Drain Psyche flying around in Lambda), your more balanced approach is probably better.
    I weight the positions 70% melee, 20% ranged and 10% AoE when calculating. As with damage types, I've made no special allowance for damage positions in the incarnate content. I tend to favor ranged, but only by a bit. Regardless of what the numbers might say, I don't want to be overly weak to one position.

    A problem I see with that build is that Shadow Meld only gets AoE to the old soft cap. I suppose with energy, negative and lethal all at the new soft cap it won't be that big a deal. And the recharges on Shadow Meld and Moment of Glory just don't support being at the new soft cap as often, and it's the times that we drop away from it that are murder, and need to be kept as short as possible.

    I should take a look at the numbers, though, and see if they back up my concerns. I was wrong about Rebirth. I can be wrong about other things.
  8. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John_Printemps View Post
    I'd had this saved from when I'd looked at the first build and it was the only foreseeable change I could surmount that put Instant Healing where it needed to be and averaged the defenses reasonably. 45.8/35.5/35.5 (w/ one DA Application). With Rebirth being more seriously considered, I figure it's worth throwing onto the Pyre for comparison.
    50% to hit = 6150
    64% to hit = 5379
    I did some fiddling from Iggy's build. True perma Hasten now. Barely budged the numbers though. 250 HP/S average regeneration + healing.
    50% to hit = 6768
    64% to hit = 5931
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    John, I'll have to check the Claws build tomorrow. I'm wiped out! But thanks, everyone. Good progress, even if it wasn't in the direction I thought would be the right one. I suppose that's the best kind of progress, in a way.
  9. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
    How about a bit more lower r/a defense but getting IH and SM a little faster as well as getting some more regen
    50% to hit = 6731
    64% to hit = 5898
    Looks like you're moving in the right direction, though again, I'm not capping regeneration, and you're further over the cap for those 10 seconds. I should probably get the cap in there, but it probably won't make too much difference.

    I should also warn that I've made no special allowance for the increased incidence of energy damage in the incarnate content. So the lethal defense is still covering a lot of the ranged and AoE gap, perhaps more than it should for the 64% to hit number. But eh, that's just one among many problems with this method. It's a way to ballpark some stuff. I'm reporting way more precision than we have accuracy.
  10. Werner
    Ah, hell. Who cares about damage. We can run the top DPS chain when it matters. Take the Crushing Impact out of Divine Avalanche to pick up the Shield Wall unique. That turns out to be better than speeding up Instant Healing. There might be an even better use of a slot, but that was a pretty decent bump. (Edit: Bug fixes.)
    50% to hit, Rebirth = 6499
    64% to hit, Rebirth = 5666
    Edit: For amusement, my current I12ish build (soloed 2 AVs at once, etc.):
    50% to hit = 1963
    64% to hit = 792
  11. Werner
    Bug fixes, so new numbers for previous build (note that I've changed the order as well, so don't compare directly). Rebirth looking better compared to Barrier. (Edit: More bug fixes.)
    50% to hit, Barrier = 5649
    64% to hit, Barrier = 5131

    50% to hit, Rebirth = 6158
    64% to hit, Rebirth = 5352
    And for a 15% higher recharge build with 38.6% ranged and 36.1% AoE and better passive regeneration:
    50% to hit, Rebirth = 6228
    64% to hit, Rebirth = 5431
    So it's looking like Rebirth and giving up a little defense are the way to go. I should also note that one of my simplifying assumptions was sufficient recharge for some things that none of these builds have quite sufficient recharge for. So the higher recharge build is even better than it looks compared to the other two.

    I should note that this build, at least, isn't running amok at 301 HP/S. It's "only" averaging 229 HP/S, or just a hair under because you cap regen by a small amount if you hit Rebirth and Instant Healing at the same time, and I didn't account for that.

    The build:

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  12. Werner
    Here are the numbers for my Katana/Dark on his existing build (assuming T4 Destiny, which I don't have yet):
    50% to hit, Barrier = 8381
    50% to hit, Rebirth = 8436

    64% to hit, Barrier = 6637
    64% to hit, Rebirth = 5481
    So yeah. More degradation of performance going to incarnate content than on the Katana/Regen, but it's still significantly higher if I stick with Barrier (currently T3). That DOES assume saturated Dark Regeneration, but that's never been much of a problem in practice. The bigger issue is that it assumes you trigger Dark Regeneration when you're at 1 hit point, which doesn't really happen in practice. My method also underweights hit points, which Regen clearly has more of.

    I should fiddle a bit on the Rebirth build, along the lines you said, John. The comparison isn't quite fair since I'm taking a build optimized for Barrier then tossing Rebirth in instead. I don't think It'll gain much, but it should gain a little. Maybe, just maybe, it'll be competitive on incarnate content.
  13. Werner
    OK, assuming I did this right, here are the survivability scores:
    50% to hit, Barrier = 5963
    50% to hit, Rebirth = 5914

    64% to hit, Barrier = 5417
    64% to hit, Rebirth = 5521
    No clear winner, and very little degradation of performance in incarnate content. Nice. I really thought one or the other would be a clear winner. I didn't know which, but I didn't think it was going to be so close, particulary regardless of whether you're doing regular or incarnate content. Yay for balance and choices.

    Now I need to take a look at my Katana/Dark with the Destiny tier 4s and facing incarnate content. But here's where he sits right now.
    50% to hit, NO DESTINY = 6654
    And now you see my problem, and why Werner will probably remain retired. Even soft capped, running tier 4 Barrier and healing 161 HP/S, he'll probably still be uncompetitive.
  14. Werner
    I wasn't sure if Spiritual buffed Rebirth. It seemed like there was some confusion whether it was or not, and if it was, if that was intended. Maybe I'm thinking of recharge or something, though. But OK, I'll keep that in mind.

    I've started plugging Rebirth vs. Barrier with the posted build into my survivability spreadsheet. I should have a reasonable answer soon for both 50% and 64% to hit, even if I'm making a few simplifying assumptions. If it's Rebirth, I'll likely make some changes favoring recharge over defense, though I won't want to drop defense more than maybe five points or so.
  15. Werner
    On incarnate content, "More defense is better of course, but there's no longer any magic to 45%." You just want as much defense as you can get without overly compromising other aspects of the build. If you do a lot of regular content, 45% is still the magic number, but likely isn't worth gimping your build for. If you can get there without serious gimpage, though, it may be worth some compromises.

    35%-25% defense IS just as good, except when it isn't. Buffs are indeed everywhere in the incarnate content, except when they aren't. The lower your defense, the less likely you'll be buffed to 59% at any given point. But for much of the trial, 40% and 50% defense, say, will be functionally identical after buffs. So what do you want to sacrifice to remain solid on the rest of the trial?

    Me personally? I'll sacrifice a lot. I like extremist builds for their own sake, even if the numbers say to do something else. And I'm still a soloist at heart. I don't like being dependent on others. I hate dying, viewing it as failure, no matter how trivial it is to get back in the fight. I view inspirations as failure - I'll routinely take them when I don't really need them, but when the going gets tough, I'm ashamed every time I take one. Heck, I get angry when I need to use Dark Regeneration, "What the hell? How am I letting them get away with doing enough damage to me that I actually needed to HEAL?" I'll lower my DPS, I'll give up on AoE, I'll gimp core powers. But it's probably not a good idea to build that way unless you're a bit crazy in the same way I am.
  16. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samhain View Post
    So basically we're saying I'm not going to get much more survivability than SR with the Shield
    Right. Now, if you have no heal on your Super Reflexes, and you go with Dark Melee/Shield Defense, you'll be significantly more survivable just due to the heal. But if that's the only problem, you could add a heal to your current build to hit similar levels of survivability.
  17. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Syntax42 View Post
    Super Reflexes is about as tough as you can get for Scrappers. The only tougher sets are situational, like fighting S/L critters with Invulnerability.
    I consider Super Reflexes pretty middle of the road for Scrapper survivability. But it IS a matter of budget. At low budget points, Super Reflexes shines because it is so easy to soft cap. At higher budget points, other sets can meet and exceed it. The problem with Super Reflexes is that it is all but missing one of the main legs of survivability - hit points and resistance. That makes it vulnerable to sharp spikes of damage in ways that some other sets simply are not. It's also missing the regeneration and healing leg, but survivability builds tend to include either a heal or insane amounts of regeneration bonuses, so I kind of don't count that much against it.
  18. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samhain View Post
    I'm currently finding that softcapped defense simply isn't enough with my SR scrapper. I know that the resists are supposed to go up as I take damage but it simply isn't saving me in really tough spots when I'm on my own. How different are the numbers defensively for a shield brute vs a shield scrapper?
    They're not much different. The Brute gets more hit points. The Brute also has a higher resistance cap, but your resistance is low, so that would only come into play with some exceptionally high team buffs.

    Dark Melee/Shield Defense is liked because it combines what's usually enough survivability with big single-target DPS. But yeah, it won't be much more survivable than a Super Reflexes with a heal (which, mind you, IS pretty survivable).

    A high end Dark Melee/Invulnerability is about as tough as you can get on a Scrapper. A Brute would be slightly tougher due to the extra hit points and actually being near enough to the caps for the difference to matter more often.
  19. Werner
    One thing to learn is "the rule of five". You can only have five of any specific named bonus. To see where you are violating this rule, click on "View Active Sets". Scroll down through the "Effect Breakdown" section, and you'll see some things highlighted in red. These bonuses are over the cap, and are not applying to your character at all.

    Next up, for defensive bonuses, you want to focus on positional defense OR typed defense, but not both. As I think was already mentioned, the game applies whichever one is greater. It's therefore generally much more efficient to pursue one to the exclusion of the other. For resistance secondaries, we typically pursue smashing/lethal defense bonuses, and to a lesser extent energy/negative defense bonuses.

    Most builds benefit significantly from taking Tough and Weave, which unfortunately requires either Boxing or Kick as a prerequisite. So ideally, you'd find room for those three powers. Assault doesn't actually help a whole lot (low damage for the endurance), so I'd sacrifice that. I'd also personally sacrifice Rise of the Phoenix, the idea being that we're trying to make it so that you don't die in the first place, so the power is almost never useful. But some people love their rez powers, and that's fine. It just makes it harder to find room for other things.

    I'd recommend picking up Hasten. The recharge will help bring back Healing Flames faster, and also speed up your attacks, which will probably allow you to drop one or two, making the room in the build for Hasten. I suspect that recharge and smashing/lethal defense should be the two main priorities here, though I admit that I've never built a top end */Fire, even in Mids', so I could have even basic strategy wrong. We'll want confirmation from someone with more direct experience.

    There's surely plenty more, but we need to start somewhere, and addressing those issues will change a great number of things, which makes further comment probably a bit iffy at this point.
  20. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Angelxman81 View Post
    I dont use mids.
    Gotta say I dont understand very well about defense types and numbers.
    I usually just take a look at builds at forums, and I see what I can buy and what can I improve to get nice bonus...
    Shame on me, playing this game for such a long time, and only few months ago started with sets, so Im not an expert
    Eh, no shame in it. The game is easy to play with SOs and even with very little understanding of the rules of the game. I played for YEARS before I started caring about how the game actually worked, about the numbers. You don't need all that in order to have fun.

    But if you DO think you'd enjoy all that, I think a good place to start is with the attack mechanics of the game:
    http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
    It'll probably take a while to be able to digest all that information. In the mean time, download Mids' Hero Designer and just start poking at it. If you want to see your current builds, you can also download CoH Titan Sentinel, and there's a way to export your build directly from the game into a data chunk that Mids' can read.

    It's a good start.
  21. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Desmodos View Post
    I adamantly (perhaps stubbornly) refuse to sacrifice resistance slotting for defense bonuses. Luckily, such compromises are rarely necessary. I also don't believe resistance sets need to soft cap defense.
    If you aren't careful, "soft cap or go home" is a great way to ruin a perfectly-good resistance set. And even if you are careful, and even if you have an unlimited budget, you're still going to have compromises to get there, and in the end have turned the set into something it wasn't. You'll also have added "defense debuffs" to the list of things you really hate.

    And I think the current incarnate content makes the "soft cap or go home" approach even less practical on a resistance set. You'll never hit the new soft cap (59%), and the old soft cap then becomes a meaningless number. More defense is better of course, but there's no longer any magic to 45%. Why not 35%? 25%? There are usually a ton of defense buffs flying around. You'll probably usually be perfectly fine with less.

    Not to say that I've abandoned my quest to soft cap everything, no matter how inappropriate (currently considering soft-capping Regen). It's still what I do and enjoy. I like extremes. But I think soft capping has perhaps become more ubiquitous than the game really calls for. I love my soft-capped Katana/Dark, but in an old thread on the subject, someone built one and HATED it. Well sure! It's very different, and particularly on a budget, it has a lot of compromises. There can be just as much to hate as there is to love.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Desmodos View Post
    While Fiery Aura and Electric Armor don't have the endurance concerns Dark Armor does, I can't imagine any of the other Alpha Slot options being as useful as Cardiac. The additional 20% resistance slotting really impressed me in terms of it's impact on my survivability.
    The higher your resistance, the more dramatically Cardiac boosts your survivability. First and most obvious, the more resistance powers you have, the more you're boosting. Second and less obvious, the effect of resistance on survivability scales up as you get more the same way that defense does. Dark Armor (and other resistance sets) can get a pretty decent boost, plus of course Cardiac takes care of any endurance woes, letting you focus a lot less of your build on endurance management. I can see going with Spiritual in some cases, like to pull off a higher DPS chain or to refresh your heal faster and make it more powerful, but it's hard to argue against Cardiac on Dark Armor.
  22. Werner
    I'd expect you to be going for smashing/lethal defense primarily, energy/negative secondarily. If so, then as Syntax42 says, the Gaussian set isn't helping much.
  23. Werner
    So settle for only soft capping, say, melee and lethal, with something in perhaps the mid thirties for ranged and AoE. You're still soft-capped to the majority of damage, and even to the rest fairly often due to Shadow Meld and Moment of Glory. Improve recharge, then cycle Rebirth and Instant Healing for near constant insane levels of regeneration, with Shadow Meld and Moment of Glory there for emergencies and for the lowest points in your regeneration cycle.

    It is intriguing. Certainly better against many enemies (the melee and lethal ones), and of course worse against others.

    Not sure I'm seeing your diagram right, though. But for the sake of argument, we can easily put Instant Healing at a 180 second recharge, for 90 on, 90 off. Let's say we slot it for regeneration too. With each digit being being 5 seconds, and the digits representing hundreds of % of regeneration, G for 16
    Rebirth: GG6666444444222222222222GG6666444444222222222222
    Instant: ......000000000000000000..................000000
    SM/MoG.: SSSMMMSSS...SSSMMMSSS...SSSMMMSSS...SSSMMMSSS...
    So total regen and SM/MoG looking something like this (read the numbers downward, so the first 5 seconds is 2200% regeneration):
    221111222222111111111111221111111111......111111
    222222000000888888888888222222000000888888888888
    000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
    000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
    SSSMMMSSS...SSSMMMSSS...SSSMMMSSS...SSSMMMSSS...
    So for a long while, the only periods where we can't be 59% soft capped and we drop below the normal soft cap (and only on non-lethal ranged and AoE) are when we're at 1800%+ regeneration, and those periods only last for 15 seconds each, during which we can use Dull Pain or Reconstruction as desired. Not that you'd ever actually use the defenses on this fequency. We're looking at the worst case scenario, letting us see when they are simply not available.

    That's opposed to what I was shooting for (though didn't quite have), which would be something like this:
    .............111111111111111111................... .111
    66666666666665555555555555555556666666666666666666 6555
    00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000
    00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000
    SSSMMMSSSBBBBBBSSSMMMSSS...SSSMMMSSSBBBBBBSSSMMMSS S...
    Now eventually, we won't even have Instant Healing up for when we're at merely 45% defense. But generally speaking, it's fairly available. And again, Dull Pain and Reconstruction are there as well. And we only drop to 45% defense. And Barrier is still providing 5% more resistance, though that's not particularly significant. It's more significant during other parts of the cycle, though, helping us survive having a mere 600% regeneration on top of soft-capped defense compared to the much higher regeneration most of the time with the Rebirth approach.

    Hmmm. Wait, I don't have Barrier on the right cycle on the bottom one. Actually, I suppose it doesn't matter. Yeah, it completely drops for 15 seconds, but so? Shadow Meld is up. It's all kind of academic compared to how any of this would actually get used, though, which is on demand, not endlessly-cycled.

    Really, either approach looks great. Hard to guess what's better. For that matter, probably hard to calculate what's better.

    And I am up way too late. Where's the "I should have been in bed two hours ago and likely nothing I said made any sense" emoticon?
  24. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John_Printemps View Post
    This makes me think of the Arcana Build I solved in six slots, heh. I wonder if I could do the same here. Additionally, any consideration on Rebirth? Asking as Mids is loading, but the base of the T4 Heal/Regen is 200% through the whole thing, and at least 400% for half of it. Unslotted IH for 30 seconds every two minutes compared to...what 90/s every 200+/s? (What /is/ the Regen cap? Is there one?)
    I haven't given Rebirth much consideration, no. Although I have a lot of click defense available, losing Barrier would still double the incoming ranged and AoE damage a lot of the time, and allow me to sustain 59% for a much shorter duration. I'm also already swimming in regeneration and healing. Also, resistance is very nice for surviving the big damage spikes when your secondary gives you so very little.

    If you think you can do better with Rebirth than Barrier, I have no specific attachment to Barrier. It just seems like Barrier brings a lot more of what Regen needs to the table than Rebirth.

    And yeah, if you can pull the Arcana build fix treatment on this one, that would be great. I remember that one. I believe she called it a work of art? I saw that and I barely needed to see the build itself. Cut-paste-save.
  25. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Elegost View Post
    I started from scratch about half an hour ago. Worked on it, reworked on it, finally ended up with something I kinda liked.

    Opened your build to make a comparison.

    Same. exact. build.

    fml >.<
    Hah! I suppose that's a good sign?

    I've been staring at the thing all day long, I fiddle and fiddle, and whatever I do seems to make it worse. Well, technically I think dropping a little below the soft cap for a little more recharge and resistance may be worth it, but I'm at least trying to keep soft capped for the spirit of this challenge. Anyway, so far, I just keep ending up where I started.

    I'm hoping there's something though. I've always overlooked a few tricks, even in builds I've spent a ton of time on, and this one has less time invested than most.