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Werner

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  1. Werner
    My namesake Katana/Regen has an I12ish build and hasn't seen play in a long time. I was wondering if the incarnate powers might breathe some new life into him and make him competitive with my current favorite, my Katana/Dark. Given the current state of Regeneration, that seems pretty much impossible, so here are my impossible build goals:
    • 45% soft cap all positions with one Divine Avalanche and the 5% tail end of Barrier
    • 59% soft cap with Moment of Glory, Shadow Meld or first 30 seconds of Barrier
    • 45% soft cap Psionic with Shadow Meld or first 30 seconds of Barrier
    • Gapless or nearly gapless Shadow Meld -> Moment of Glory -> Shadow Meld -> 30s Barrier -> Shadow Meld -> Moment of Glory -> Shadow Meld
    • Perma Hasten
    • Perma Dull Pain and capped hit points, and preferably over 1700 with Dull Pain down to make it safer to use reactively
    • Able to run the top DPS chain when survivability isn't an issue (Golden Dragonfly recharge <= 3.43 seconds)
    • Reasonable resistance (slot and use Tough, take Resilience, try to fit in Shield Wall)
    • 95% to hit +4s (yes, I know there aren't any +4s, so I'll settle for +3s if required)
    • The Lotus Drops for at least SOME AoE
    • Sustainable endurance with the two-Divine-Avalanche chain with Tactics off
    • Not completely horrible passive regeneration (I... uh... like passive regeneration, no matter what the numbers say.)
    No budget limit. Now, I don't know that I'll build it even if someone figures out how to hit all these goals, as it would still be pretty similar to my Katana/Dark I think. Also, by the time I get myself transferred to red side and back, finish shopping, and pick up the incarnate powers, probably additional incarnate powers and content will have been released and I'll be back to the drawing board. But even though I may not likely build it, I'd at least like to know what's possible at the absolute top end in I20.

    Below is something pretty close. It hits the defense goals, though that two minute cycle of the defensive powers isn't quite gapless. Hasten is probably 7-8 seconds from permanent. Dull Pain is fine. The top DPS chain should be doable. Not quite 95% on +4s, but OK for +3s. Resistance suffers a bit from lack of the Shield Wall, but you could easily take an Enzyme from Weave to fix that (leaving you only 0.12% shy of some of the defense goals half the time - likely worth it). The Lotus Drops is there and endurance is very likely sustainable with the defensive chain and Tactics off, though I haven't calculated carefully. Passive regeneration isn't too bad.

    If working from this as a base, the main thing I'd like to see is the Shield Wall and improved recharge without losing the soft cap. I'm also particularly unhappy with the Miracles in Dull Pain, as five slots seems too much to spend for only 1.875% AoE defense. I'd prefer Panaceas for the 7.5% recharge, but of course that leaves me shy of the AoE soft cap sometimes, though it might still be worth it. Of course hitting the goals probably involves things I haven't thought of yet, so my thoughts on it may be worse than useless.

    Anyway, here we are. Help?

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  2. Werner
    With sets it depends entirely what I'm after with the build, so I have no general advice there. However, there are some decent positional and typed defense bonuses available in resistance sets. Aegis is particularly nice in the regard. Reactive Armor and Impervium Armor find occasional use. Also, that's where your Steadfast Protection goes, and if you're rich, where your Gladiator's Armor goes.

    If I'm trying to get maximum bang for my slotting buck and I don't care about the set bonuses that are available, I'll put in a Ribosome or two.

    For leveling, I slot 1 endurance and 1-3 resistance depending on the strength of the power. Sometimes I'll frankenslot for endurance/resistance, which is a better approach, but I often don't bother.
  3. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jabba2006 View Post
    I got another question: I am looking at the code in Mid's and I am wondering why you have Hecatomb slotted in Gambler's Cut instead of one of the other upper end attacks that do more damage like Golden Dragonfly.
    The enhancement values from Hecatomb aren't really anything special. It's really the set bonuses and the proc damage that you're after. For set bonuses, it doesn't matter where it is slotted. But for the proc damage, you want it slotted such that you'll have the most opportunities to proc. So now we get into attack chains. Being a conservative sort, I would use the top two-Divine-Avalanche chain most of the time, even though I only need one to remain soft capped. That chain is this:
    Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Golden Dragonly -> Gambler's Cut -> Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut
    Every other attack in that chain is Gambler's Cut. By putting the proc there, I have FOUR TIMES as many chances for it to go off as if I put it in one of the top tier attacks. Even if I wasn't being conservative, here are the top one-Divine-Avalanche and no-Divine-Avalanche chains:
    Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Golden Dragonly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut

    Golden Dragonly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut
    Even with them, I get either three or two times as many chances to proc by putting it in Gambler's Cut. Ignoring some technicalities, these are the best DPS chains for that many Divine Avalanches being stacked. The technicalities being that the first chain I listed technically doesn't fit in a ten second window, so drops the double stack for a fraction of a second, and there's a more complicated chain at somewhat higher recharge that does a hair more DPS than the second one, but as I recall, it again isn't quite in a ten second window. Or maybe it was and it's just the recharge and complexity that makes me recommend the one above. Eh, whatever. I'm way off subject at this point.
  4. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Santorican View Post
    I am considering eliminating slotting and set bonuses for passive regeneration all together in my build. How can I quantify the decrease in survivability?
    Since regeneration and healing have a linear effect on survivability, and since they are not type and position dependent, it turns out to be simple. Take your regeneration rate plus any time averaged healing for your proposed build (time average your regeneration too if you're using Rebirth), divide by the same thing for your current build, and subtract from 1. Then multiply by 100 to get your percent decrease in survivability. Your actual level of mitigation is irrelevant to this calculation as long as it stays the same.

    Mind you, you might be doing it to increase your mitigation, and that's where things get more complicated since defense and resistance have a non-linear effect on survivability and are usually type and position dependent.

    Also, this will slightly underestimate the actual contribution of regeneration to survivability in my opinion. When facing the sort of incoming damage that can challenge top end survivability, you're looking at giant spikes of damage. Regeneration helps keep your hit points topped up so that you can survive those giant spikes. Hit points are in the same boat, but probably even more important, even though they show up as neither damage recovery or damage mitigation in the sort of survivability calculations I use. They only show up indirectly through their contribution to regeneration.
  5. Werner
    OK, soft capped. Same recharge sacrifice, but Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld have their original slotting plus Tactics is still in the build. In practice I'd probably take an Enzyme from Weave, drop 0.12% under the soft cap 50% of the time, and stick the Shield Wall back in, or find something else more useful to do with the slot. It still needs a lot of fiddling, but I guess it's a reasonable proof of concept.

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  6. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Elegost View Post
    I've seen this multiple times now...
    Why enzymes in DA? Why not Lysos?
    I fiddled with some things... it looks kinda weird, but the defenses are higher <.<
    I used an Enzyme in Divine Avalanche because at 93.45% accuracy already and with me short changing recovery, I likely need the endurance reduction much more than I need the accuracy. I haven't done any actual endurance calculations yet since it's not really there yet.

    Yeah, your edit is SO close on the defense. I don't want to give up what it gives up, though. The Shield Wall is a vague annoyance, but mostly I'm worried about recharge, both globally and in a couple key powers. I was trying to target enough recharge in Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld to do this:
    Shadow Meld -> Moment of Glory -> Shadow Meld -> Barrier -> Shadow Meld -> Moment of Glory -> Shadow Meld
    Not that I'd do that, but it'd be nice to know I could if things ever went really, really south during some incarnate content. That's kind of also why I went ahead and actually slotted defense in Moment of Glory. I don't lose much recharge, and massive defense may be good when incarnate content goes horribly wrong.

    So yeah, the trick is that not only do I want more defense, I want everything. I cannot be satisfied with less than everything!!!

    (Actually, in a way that's true. I'm very unlikely to respec out of my current I12 build unless I can make something just insane, something to make my Katana/Dark jealous.)
  7. Werner
    Since you brought up Barrier...

    This is very much a work in progress, but I was fiddling around, wondering what I could do with my namesake Katana/Regen these days if I invested some effort. The attempt here is full time soft cap to all positions with Barrier (doesn't quite make it yet), and cycle Barrier, Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld to be new-soft-capped (59%+) most of the time. I want to be able to run the top DPS chain when survivability doesn't depend on Divine Avalanche. Also perma Dull Pain, near perma Hasten, slotted Tough, the usual. It's not quite there, but it's close enough to make me think it's possible. Anyway, it kind of gives the gist of what I'd be after with an I20 Sword/Regen, even if it's not really a solid build yet.

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  8. Werner
    I rank them like this:

    1) Katana or Broad Sword for no or low defense secondaries
    2) Dark Melee for no healing secondaries
    3) everything else
  9. Werner
    I'm sorry to say it, but yes, it sounds like your build has gone horribly wrong.

    "Build towards your strengths" can be good advice or bad advice. A Super Reflexes' strength, for instance, is defense. And you should build for defense, at least up to a point. A Regen's strength is regeneration, but that is about the last thing you should build for. It isn't that it's bad; obviously more is always better. But just about anything else brings even more to the build. I can explain why in more detail if necessary.

    Caps are here: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Caps

    On Broad Sword, stay away from defense debuff sets and enhancement. Your attacks are there to do damage. Slot damage sets.

    Mind you, I'm a big fan of one full Numina set for the ranged defense, and Panacea sets are great for the recharge and for giving good enhancement to your click heals. So in some cases, you might have the right sets for the wrong reasons. It might not be as bad as I'm thinking.
  10. Werner

    BS/SD or BS/SR??

    POST-ACTION

    Sword and Board
  11. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Neogumbercules View Post
    Anyone have any experience with BS/Shield out there?
    It's the most fun I've had leveling any toon to 50. Didn't IO out when I got there, as I already had plenty of toons that could do everything an IO'd Broad Sword/Shield could do, but it was great fun. I can't really even point to what made it fun. It just was. Everything just came together with that toon, even if it wasn't ever really best at any one particular thing.
  12. Werner
    I don't have one, but yes, it should be quite good. You use Divine Avalanche and defense bonuses to mount a decent defense, maybe 45% melee, 32.5% ranged and AoE, so one small purple from soft cap. Then you lean on your heavy resistance and your self heal. Damage wise it would probably be only fair built that way, but it would be pretty survivable.

    Of course that's just theorycraft. I'm curious what people with them have to say as well.
  13. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Microcosm View Post
    I would keep the ability to do the AV chain, because if you are fighting an enemy with several others around him, the bonus damage from AV gets applied to all that are hit by SS.
    Let's see, in my DPS template builds, I have Sweeping Strike in the top chain doing 432.2 damage every 5.436 seconds. Gapless that would be every 5.28 seconds, so about 82 DPS in the cone. For Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals, Sweeping Strike plus the Attack Vitals damage is 540.76 damage every 6.73 seconds, so about 80 DPS. Basically the same.

    So I'd stick with the top chain and not worry about the Attack Vitals combo even if we're talking about AoE and taking crowds apart. And if you really want to do AoE damage, buff up Sweep I'd think. Skipping Attack Vitals would probably make buffing Sweep more doable too.
  14. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Pampl View Post
    Does BF's damage really contribute that much to overall DPS? I had assumed it was mostly contributing via its damage buff.
    Eh, you're right, or at least half right. Looking more closely, it looks to me like it's probably a difference of a bit over 10 DPS, and you're probably as a result splitting the difference between the top chain and the low/medium recharge chain. So missing the damage enhancement is indeed not as bad as I thought, but still, if 10 DPS isn't important to you, then why is the top chain important to you? Also, why wouldn't you slot damage in there? It's trivial to do so. You don't need that much recharge at all, and the to hit isn't all that critical, and could be partially addressed with a Kismet unique if there's a concern. Even if you love your slotting, you could at least replace the two straight accuracies with a couple Nucleolus to pick up SOME damage.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Pampl View Post
    For combos. I don't expect to use them much but they're nice to have. I didn't see a reason to treat VS, PS, 1KC and TE as attacks, rather than just parts of Sweep and Attack Vitals, when I'd always have a better attack up.
    Don't run Attack Vitals on this build. Your DPS chain does significantly better damage. But sweep might be passable mitigation if hard-pressed, so I guess I can see the logic in hanging onto that, and the logic of why damage from that combo isn't critical.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Pampl View Post
    with all the sacrifices required to reach BF > AS > SS > AS, would it be better to stick with second best and go BF > Attack Vitals? I could get damage bonuses instead of some of the recharge bonuses and use Musculature instead of Spiritual. Would it still be weaker?
    Your build doesn't seem badly compromised to get the top chain, merely expensive. Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals is worth a look, though. Throw together a build for it and see how you like it. I'd estimate about 10% to 15% lower DPS. Nothing too critical except when you really want DPS.

    But you don't really have to compromise damage bonuses for recharge bonuses. Here's an ancient build at 202.5% global recharge running the top chain nearly gapless without Spiritual and with a 32.5% global damage buff from sets and Assault. The main problem with this build, as with yours, is endurance recovery. Probably a lot of ways to address that these days. Cardiac would handle it. Probably dropping Darkness Mastery in favor of Conserve Power, Physical Perfection and Spiritual would be even better. And maybe Musculature would make up for the missing damage if we swapped some damage for endurance reduction. I should note that this is NOT intended as a finished build. It's just my "DPS Template Build" adapted very quickly for that particular Dual Blades chain. I was trying to use as similar a build as possible across a number of primaries to get an idea what top end DPS looked like when comparing apples to apples. None of them were endurance sustainable, which I consider important in a top end build. And none were optimized around the specific primary, or around survivability. But maybe there are some ideas in there. The main thing is to show that you don't need to sacrifice global damage bonuses for global recharge. You can get both at once.

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  15. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Auroxis View Post
    So for a top-end SR, Katana with Musculature will give you more DPS than DB with Spiritual.
    However, the top Dual Blades attack chain includes a much wider cone than Golden Dragonfly, so is likely better for tearing up crowds. But if we start bringing AoE damage into it, I suppose all bets are off.

    And since you don't need Divine Avalanche on a Super Reflexes, I'd think Fire would do more than Katana at the top end. Strange thing is, I've never actually checked.
  16. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Pampl View Post
    I've read that the best attack chain for DB is BF>AS>SS>AS but I can't figure out how to get the recharge on AS down low enough for it to work. Even with Quickness and Haste and +90% global recharge the chain would be more like: BF > AS > SS > .4s pause > AS > BF > .4s pause > AS ..etc. Am I doing the maths wrong? Is there some other trick I'm missing?
    In a sense you're doing the math wrong, yes. You're not 0.4 seconds off, you're only 1.622 - 1.452 = 0.17 seconds off. In an attack chain, you need to use Arcanatime as the cast time, not the normal cast times. Options -> Effects & Maths -> Use AracanaTime for Animation Times.

    To close that gap further, go into the incarnate powers and grab Spiritual Core Paragon. Now you're only 1.477 - 1.452 = 0.025 seconds off. That's perfectly fine, though you can of course continue fiddling with the build to get more recharge.

    With Spiritual Core Paragon, the third slot in Hasten is almost completely consumed by ED: 109.4 seconds vs. 111.15 seconds. And since it doesn't stack, even that small difference is really no difference. There's a slot you can save.

    Swap the Panacea set into Health for more regeneration. Use a Performance Shifter proc instead of the endurance modification in Physical Perfection.

    It's not going to do you any good to use the top DPS chain when you haven't even slotted Blinding Feint for damage. People with regular old boring attack chains could probably outdamage you. You don't need to hit buff and barely need extra recharge in that power, so you're really slotting the wrong things.

    Instead of the Obliteration proc in Sweeping Strike, consider the Fury of the Gladiator proc.

    Why even take Vengeful Slice and One Thousand Cuts if you're not going to slot them properly? Take something that's useful with only a slot or two, like Conserve Power, which you're almost certainly going to need to keep that attack chain going for long. Plus, with all that global recharge, Conserve Power gives much more endurance to your build than to most builds. Pick up the Miracle unique while you're at it. Maybe Assault for the other pick, which is fine with an endurance reduction in the default slot. If you want the top DPS chain, you might as well go for it.

    Consider a Kismet unique. Yeah, you have Focused Accuracy available, and Blinding Feint is a buff, but it still makes me nervous. Probably my personal hang up, though. I feel like I can never have too much accuracy. (Edit: Yes, I know this is inconsistent with my advice on Blinding Feint. The point there is that other things, like slotting your attacks for damage, are even more important.)
  17. Werner
    I agree with others. Smashing/Lethal, then Energy/Negative. If it's not practical to hit 45%, which it often isn't on a resistance set, 32.5% is a very good goal. It's not worth gimping your build to get higher unless you're dead set on no-inspiration survival challenges at the expense of normal play.
  18. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cyber_naut View Post
    How good is inv vs. the new stuff? I would think pairing dm with almost every other secondary would be superior to inv for various reasons, but i've only played one inv a while ago, on a brute before the inv buffs, but I remember the exotic stuff tearing me apart. I think I over slotted run on sentence making...
    Well, let's just compare to Super Reflexes. You still have better exotic resistance (well, arguably anyway), plus you have a lot more hit points. And at least on a top end build, you're at the old soft cap, and on a team, you're probably above the new soft cap most of the time. You also have an occasional but massive heal.

    This is purely anecdotal, but a well-built but not-top-end Invuln/Super Strength Tanker I sometimes play with is doing just fine tanking the incarnate trials. Dark Melee can be built even tougher. Tanker =/= Scrapper, of course.
  19. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kangstor View Post
    SR has best mez protection in the game part of reason why I couldn't play any other set is because constnat knoch down knock up hold sleep etc thrown at me.
    Huh? Are you saying you're getting knocked down, held and slept with other Scrapper secondaries? Knocked down I can see, because a few secondaries don't protect against that, which is why you supplement them with other powers or IOs. But held and slept? What's holding and sleeping you? With what secondary? Or are you comparing your Super Reflexes Scrapper to your Blaster or something?

    Because basically, unless you double stack the mez protection on Super Reflexes, it isn't superior. And I pretty much never get held or slept on any Scrapper secondary. Sometimes stunned in the mid levels when fighting a big crowd of uplevel Tsoo, I think the ones with the pink pom-poms.
  20. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
    Well it looks like you're over 5 on the 3.125% F/C defense bonus so I used some of those slots to get S/L defense to 59%
    Doh! Newbie mistake! *chuckle*

    Looks pretty good. Now I need to think about options.

    Siphon Life - Keep as is, or lose 3.75% smashing/lethal to turn it into a proper heal?
    Destiny - Barrier for mitigation or Rebirth for even more insane regeneration and healing?
  21. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards View Post
    I actually made the Tank version of my current DM/Inv build. Take a look for some ideas if you want, Werner: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=257596
    Well, there are a lot of similarities, probably because I was using your Scrapper build as reference. More comments and the build I've been fiddling with over in that thread so we don't derail this one further.
  22. Werner
    A bit of a necro, but you pointed me here personally, so there. Here's what I've been fiddling with. I haven't worried much about attacks because the person I was building it for spends more time on aggro control (Taunt and ranged attacks) than on anything resembling an attack chain. Slightly less recharge, probably significantly lower damage output, but significantly higher defense (including psionic defense). The request was basically the incarnate soft cap with one enemy in range, which this is almost at with Barrier, though I suspect I'd take Rebirth instead if I were playing it. He also insists on well-slotted Super Jump.

    I don't play Tankers much myself either, so I'd be happy to hear any suggestions from people who actually know what to do with them.

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  23. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus View Post
    Yes, yes you should.

    And you should definitely go Brute.

    Do you really want to say no to 3000 to 3200 HP and the opportunity to have a 90% Res cap as well as Darkest Night with Dark Consumption to help you run it?
    Or I could level my Invulnerability/Dark Melee Tanker and be even more insanely survivable. Jeez, I can't keep track of everything. Let's see what I have...
    L33 Invulnerability/Dark Melee Tanker
    L33 Dark Melee/Invulnerability Brute
    L28 Dark Melee/Invulnerability Scrapper
    I've been fiddling with a build for an Invuln/Dark Tanker recently, and not even for myself. I'd forgotten I even had one. I don't have it QUITE nailed down yet, but it looks like I'll be able to hit the incarnate soft cap to everything but psionic with just one enemy in range if I go Barrier (and psionic at over 30%). Chances are I'd go Rebirth, but it'll depend on what the numbers (or experience) tells me. Chances are I'll never have a top end Tanker, though, since I'm not really much for Tanking. Surviving I like, but I play my Tankers like I play my Scrappers, which is to say you don't want me Tanking for a team.

    I should probably level all of them at the same time, and see which one I get most attached to.
  24. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 4c3Player View Post
    and i dare to say 40% of damage in game is smashing,idk maybe not that high
    27.90%

    However, I suspect the vast majority of those attacks are melee attacks. Not much consolation when someone hurls a boulder at your head, but at least it should be rare.
  25. Werner
    I don't think you need a travel power, but for the sake of argument, I fiddled with the build bAss posted and here you go. Still at the soft cap, 7.5% more global recharge, Super Jump or Super Speed as desired. Achilles' Heel in Gambler's Cut (you want that instead of Sting of the Wasp), and enough recharge to run the top DPS chain. I've dropped Divine Avalanche to make room for the travel power, but it's situational at best, so probably not a huge loss.

    Two free slots and I'm sure there's still plenty of room for improvement. Endurance is probably something that should be addressed.

    This build is just begging for the Rebirth Destiny. Give in to its demands. Yes, it approaches the incarnate soft cap when surrounded, and Barrier would put it over, but Rebirth is just too ridiculously good here. You have a ton of mitigation already. Your shorfall is damage recovery.

    Katana is an excellent primary, though loses its min/max reason to be chosen when you don't need Divine Avalanche. Dual Blades is also a good primary. People telling you it's a joke don't know what they're talking about, or maybe just don't know how to build one properly. Or maybe they're just exaggerating about it being middle of the pack instead of a stand out most of the time. Do not, for the love of God and all that is holy, judge a set at level 8. No, you really can't get any idea how hard it's going to hit at that level. Katana is not going to be a top damage dealing set, but it doesn't suck either, particularly since the build I posted has the recharge for the top DPS chain. Divine Avalanche taken while leveling will make survival much easier.

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