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Werner

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  1. Werner
    Gunther, my Broad Sword/Invuln Scrapper, was my first character once we were out of beta. Well, technically I think it was Klaus, a Martial Arts/Super Reflexes, but I rerolled him as an Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster after a few days of annoyance, and found out that was a whole lot of fun. So I was playing a Blaster through city of Blasters, and put in huge hours on him, finally taking him on endless Hamidon raids and kitting him out completely. That's when my attention turned to Scrappers, and I started Werner, my namesake Katana/Regen. By then I'd missed out on some of the best that Regeneration had to offer, but it was still quite strong when I started playing it. I've pretty much been a Scrapaholic every since.
  2. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards View Post
    Depends on how Invincible you want to be!
    Because if you want to be really invincible, you're looking at soft-capped defenses with one enemy in range and perma Hasten levels of recharge. That doesn't come cheap.

    But yeah, if you can afford to kit it out, Invulnerability is very nice these days. I'd probably go with that over Super Reflexes.

    Speaking of which, I should get back to leveling my Dark Melee/Invuln Scrapper. I'm kind of burned out on the incarnate trials. Haven't played for days. Though with the higher resistance caps and hit points, maybe I should actually get back to leveling my Dark Melee/Invuln Brute. Hmmm.
  3. Werner
    I think they're just set mules. Note that the set gives you ranged and AoE defense, which is one of the major things we're after. I didn't pick up Super Jump myself, as I got my bonuses elsewhere.

    Oppressive Gloom can do more damage to you than it prevents when you're at the soft cap. It WOULD be nice to have Cloak of Fear. However, when you're sitting at the soft cap, it doesn't do much for you, plus it costs a ton of endurance, plus it takes a power pick. So Ramia I guess decided it wasn't worth it on a cheapo build, and it makes sense to me.

    The endurance use shown does not take attacks into account. I typically aim for about 3 EPS MORE than the toggles in recovery. You'll note that I don't have anywhere NEAR that on my build - 1.94 EPS from toggles, 3.64 EPS recovery. Yet my build has sustainable endurance. What's going on? Well, I took the Cardiac alpha, so I'm getting a big endurance discount on my attacks. The recovery doesn't count the contribution of the Performance Shifter proc or the Panacea proc. Conserve Power isn't taken into account, and even though it has a long recharge, it still helps. Finally, I never really need all my toggles. If I'm fighting an AV solo, I won't need Tactics to hit them, and I'll want to turn off either Death Shroud (to keep feared minions alive to fuel Dark Regeneration) or Cloak of Fear (because I'll be killing the minions with Death Shroud and it won't fear anything else). In regular missions, you attack more slowly than you do when fighting an AV, even if it feels like you're constantly attacking. There's time between spawns. Blues drop. I basically almost never hit Conserve Power, even when fighting, say, Carnies.

    Given the complexities of calculating endurance use in this case, I can't say for sure that Ramia's build is endurance sustainable. But it IS running the Cardiac Alpha, and appears to have better net recovery than mine, so I'm going to guess yes. I'm going to guess that endurance is a non-issue.

    Now, if you're not planning to solo AVs or pylons without inspirations, you could probably afford the endurance to add Cloak of Fear to Ramia's build. The trouble is figuring out what to drop.
  4. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle View Post
    90% resistance and oodles of def is great but I don't see why you would ever take that when tier 4 radial rebirth gives you an effective... According to my calculations, four billion hitpoints. Huh, how about that.

    But really, only one of them helps against untyped damage, and would you really take permanent 5% def and 5% res over permanent 200% regen on an invuln?
    You take it because of just how much of a multiplier to survivability things become as you approach the soft cap for defense and hard cap for resistance. That's particularly true if you're already swimming in healing, as many Dark Melee/Invulns are. It's also particularly true on a brute with the higher caps.

    I'm not saying Rebirth isn't a contender. If you're on a Dark Melee/Invuln Scrapper, say, and already soft-capped to all but psionic defense, and are already almost at the smashing/lethal resistance cap, my money's on Rebirth. Rebirth looks pretty amazing.

    I really need to run some numbers, though, so I can stop guessing.
  5. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wanted_NA View Post
    While this is slightly off topic, what IS considered the top DPS chain for Fiery Melee? I was lead to believe it's Incinerate -> Cremate -> Greater Fire Sword (provided you have enough recharage to run it seelmessly, of course).
    Correct, at least pre I20.
  6. Werner

    Regen and Destiny

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Draugadan View Post
    Yah, I was refering to Soul Mastery. My Regen scrapper will not be going red side. So no Shadow Meld for me.
    Is it a role playing issue? I haven't done it, but what, you run twenty tip missions, two morality missions, a patron arc, twenty more tip missions, and two more morality missions, right? It takes a while, but if you like the character, you were presumably playing him. To me, unless there's a role playing issue, there's little difference in running those missions vs. running other content. And if you really hate it, you can set yourself on -1x1 and steamroll it.
  7. Werner
    Your hit points are low, your recharge is low, your defense is low, your damage is low, your accuracy is low, you're missing some key IOs (e.g., Theft of Essense proc in Dark Regeneration), and the budget is fairly high due to the purples. I'm not saying it sucks, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

    Now, what Claws and Effect and I have done (soft cap) is just ONE way to approach a Sword/Dark. There are other schools of thought, such as just picking up just a reasonable amount of defense (say, 32.5%) and focusing on other aspects of the build. Pros and cons of our approach are discussed in the thread. That said, with I20 and/or enough budget, common down sides like low accuracy can be eliminated.

    As a couple I19/I20 references, here's my current Katana/Dark build. I'm using the T3 Barrier though I will probably pick up Rebirth and maybe even Ageless for comparison. The budget on this one would make most people choke, though, so that's probably its big disadvantage.

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    And here's what I consider a very good budget build that hits what I think are the more important parts of a survival-oriented Katana/Dark. It's by Ramia Angriffe with a couple modifications by Iggy Kamakaze.

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    I feel bad just dumping a couple builds on you without explaining what's going on in yours, but I really need to get to work. If you have questions after reading the thread and looking at what we're doing, let me know.
  8. Werner
    It's the number outside of (), and since the time to cast the attack is the same in both cases, you want to look simply at damage.

    However, since 300+ damage from Gambler's Cut is completely out of line (base damage is less than 60), you also have some problems with what you're doing in Mids'. For instance, you might have Build Up selected, and also one or more powers with a Build Up proc, such as Tactics with a Gaussian set.

    For a clean start in Mids' with only that one power, we're looking at 149 damage with the standard purple and Achilles' Heel slotting. With all procs we're looking at 147 damage. We can call that comparable damage, but no accuracy, no endurance reduction, no recharge. And a 0.1 second delay may not sound like an issue to you, but since the attack would otherwise be 0.924 seconds in a chain, and now it's 1.024 seconds in a chain, you really have to compare it like you were doing 147 * 0.924 / 1.024 = 133 damage. So you don't do as much damage, and you don't have anything else in its favor. So other than the pure fun of it, no, it makes no numerical sense whatsoever. And on higher damage attacks, where normal slotting adds comparatively more damage, it makes even less sense.
  9. Werner

    alpha and wp

    POST-ACTION

    I'm not saying it doesn't add up fast anyway, but Claws has an endurance discount compared to other primaries.
  10. Werner

    Regen and Destiny

    POST-ACTION

    Can we get Demonic? I thought we only got the patron powers for a trip through red side. Anyway, without Demonic or Void, at high recharge:
    Shadow Meld -> Moment of Glory -> Shadow Meld -> Barrier -> Shadow Meld -> Moment of Glory -> Shadow Meld
    Then you're down for a bit, but that's two whole minutes into the fight with a big defense buff the whole time and quite often a big resistance buff. And yeah, I'd be picking up Void too. Of course you probably won't just chain those like that, but rather use them situationally, but it's nice to know just how thorough the coverage can be.
  11. Werner

    Regen and Destiny

    POST-ACTION

    Barrier. You shouldn't be hurting for endurance, recharge, healing or regeneration. You ARE likely hurting for defense and resistance. I'd cover your weaknesses rather than emphasize your strengths in this case.
  12. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpaceJew View Post
    Capped defense on invul? I'd be interested in seeing that build but I'll just ask you next time I see you on otherwise. I tried to build for psi resist/defense, but if you've got that too it would probably be superior.
    I'm pretty sure everyone was talking about the old soft cap (45%) instead of the hard cap (225%). The old soft cap is easy. You can old soft cap Invulnerability on a Scrapper with one target in range and without Barrier. This is a rather rough draft, but typed defenses between 53% and 56% with one target in range (68%-70% when surrounded). Psionic wasn't completely neglected, and sits at 26%, though perhaps it could be better.

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    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
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  13. Werner

    Willpower queries.

    POST-ACTION

    I suppose Moonbeam might be useful for pesky mobs. I've never tried it. As for Shadow Meld, it would probably be nice to have. However, it benefits from high recharge, where the rest of Willpower does not, so you wouldn't be getting as much advantage out of it as some secondaries might unless you had an unusual build. Still, why not? It can't hurt.

    Water Spout looks pretty good as long as it really is knockup instead of knockback, and "hurling them great distances" in the power description is a bit of poetic license. Again, it would benefit from high recharge, but again, just because you don't get as much out of it as others doesn't mean you don't get anything out of it. I'm not a fan of powers like Hibernate. Why take myself out of the action? Yes, yes, death takes you out of the action too. But some powers help you stay alive and keep doing damage without hitting the pause button. And if you really must, consider a temp power. Or just pop a bunch of inspirations, something.
  14. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zyphoid View Post
    Regen's REAL fix is to make IH a toggle as it was in the old days. I would stick it's constant healing at about what /WP's is with 5 mobs in Rttc.
    I used to be opposed to this. I like the twitch nature of Regen as an alternative to most sets. But Instant Healing isn't twitch - it's generally used proactively. So from that standpoint, as far as I'm concerned, it might as well be a toggle. I believe Arcanaville has also stated that if it was turned into a toggle, we wouldn't like how little it healed (and perhaps how much endurance it cost). But I'm starting to think I'd be happy to drastically reduce it's healing to have a little more consistent regeneration performance. Click heals seem fine, but click regeneration? I'd probably be happy with something like a second Integration, just with a slightly higher rate of regeneration to make up for not being your mez protection. Almost certainly never going to happen, but I don't think I'm opposed to it any more.
  15. Werner
    As a simple first pass, the DPS chain burns 4.15 EPS as slotted. The one Divine Avalanche chain is 3.60 EPS. The two Divine Avalanche chain is 3.31 EPS. So no, endurance is NOT in good shape. Putting the endurance reducer back in Quick Recovery gets us in range of the two Divine Avalanche chain. Whether we're good or not would take more calculation. Still a little rough, but Hasten is about 0.13 EPS. If we use Moment of Glory every time it's up, that's about a 70 second cycle, for which we get 15 seconds of 6.36-4.42... looks like an extra 0.42 recovery from that. Well, that's good. That makes the two Divine Avalanche chain almost certainly OK, and the one Divine avalanche Chain likely OK. I'm personally unlikely to use the DPS chain outside of a team or inspiration-use situation, so I'm not too worried about that.

    Edit: Mind you, this was meant as an excercise to see what was possible, not specifically to be my build. But it's kind of hard to avoid designing it around how I'd personally want to play it.
  16. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
    Willing to sacrifice some aoe defense?

    <build 1>

    If not then maybe a bit closer...

    <build 2>
    I don't think sacrificing AoE like that is a good idea, but I do like your second build. Pets were a good idea. I was poking at pets for a completely different build, and then they just slipped my mind here.

    Let's see... tiny bit less resistance, no big deal. Shadow Meld defense is a little lower, but having full time defense higher makes that a non issue. Moment of Glory... I'd really like the recharge to be at least a couple seconds faster based on where it appears in the sequence I showed, with 75 seconds between two of the activations. Eh, heck, I'm willing to sacrifice Build Up recharge. Damage shouldn't be a big issue with the incarnate powers, and several more seconds for Build Up isn't going to be a big deal. And now I think it's safe to move the Luck of the Gambler global back to Divine Avalanche for a little more melee defense.

    I'm liking the look of it. So very close. I wonder if we could get away with one less slot in Quick Recovery? That's still a net 3 EPS before attacks ignoring factors like the Hasten crash and Moment of Glory, which is what I typically shoot for before calculating actual endurance use. So I'll need to do some calculating, but for now, I'm moving a slot to Weave to pick up another 0.3% defense to all. Now the lowest defense is 37.7%, which means that we're normal soft-capped for half the duration of Barrier (not that being 0.1% below on AoE would ever be a problem). And we're THIS close to being old soft capped to all positions permanently, and new soft capped to either all positions or most types most of the time.

    Edit: Moved the slot back to Quick Recovery for sustainable endurance. Shadow Meld isn't recharging quite fast enough, but I haven't solved it.

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  17. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
    And then course peeps still thought it was impossible to do [the RWZ challenge] without primary mitigation
    Well, obviously! Wait, you did it with just Swipe? Unpossible! (Seriously, it's unpossible. It's yet another reason we know ur hax. )
  18. Werner
    It still has a lot of room for improvement.

    Global recharge is very so-so.

    Reconstruction would be better with Doctored Wounds because it has better recharge than Numina's Convalescence. You would normally five-slot Doctored Wounds instead of six slot because the last set bonus isn't very good. You'd probably typically skip the endurance/recharge or the heal/endurance. I do like having a full Numina set, but I'd put it in Integration.

    I'd take one of those recharges from Instant Healing and move it to Hasten. I'd tell you to pick up a third recharge in Hasten, but if you take the Spiritual Alpha (as I would suggest), that third slot does very little for you.

    I'd sprinkle more Luck of the Gambler global recharges around. I think those are particularly good to get with alignment merits, though I've never done so. Just saying that the extra expense of them doesn't need to be a big barrier if you're willing to work for it.

    If you're going to pick a hard-on-endurance power like Maneuvers, slot it better than the default slot.

    I'd find room for the Kismet unique, but I guess it's not critical.

    Stamina is giving you pointless set bonuses. It might be better to just put one or two endurance modifiers in there, maybe a Performance Shifter proc if you want to get fancy. Do trade one of the endurance modifiers for Performance Shifter in Physical Perfection. And I probably wouldn't bother with the second slot.

    I might go with three miracles in Health to pick up the Miracle unique, but chances are you won't need it and it's expensive anyway. You probably don't need the extra regeneration either, so consider short-slotting Health to get slots to use elsewhere.

    Use the Steadfast Protection unique in Resilience. It's not THAT expensive unless prices have climbed dramatically. It's cheaper than a lot of the other IOs you slotted. That would let you pull the Touch of Death set out of Disembowel. I'd replace it with a full set of Mako's Bite for the ranged defense.

    Or get rid of those Kinetic Combat sets instead. Yeah, dump both of those. Probably dump Slash completely. Hmmm, if you add a Luck of the Gambler global recharge to Parry, you wouldn't need the Touch of Death set either. Lots of room for other bonuses now, plus another power. Maybe Slice with an Eradication set.

    I wouldn't use Reactive Armor in Tough - too many slots for too little useful bonus. Consider Aegis instead.

    Don't put Gaussian's in Build Up if you have a full set in Focused Accuracy. The whole point of Gaussian's is the defense bonuses for the 6th slot. You can only do that once, so consider simply slotting two or three recharges in Build Up (depending on if you're taking the Spiritual Alpha). The to-hit typically isn't important, and particularly so if you have Focused Accuracy and squeeze in a Kismet unique.

    Moment of Glory wants more recharge.
  19. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    Still trying to get that 35% across the boards on a regen while maintaining a awesome DPS. So far no luck, but I'm trying! I'm probably just not seeing it yet. I'm sure (ie Hoping) it's possible.
    I'm guessing tough and expensive, but doable with Barrier. With Barrier and without Divine Avalanche, my latest edit is approximately 25%/40%/40%. Assuming you can trade ranged and AoE bonuses for melee bonuses, that's basically equivalent to 35% across the board. Then you can still spend the majority of your time at the new soft cap by juggling Barrier, Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld as required. Really, it would probably be almost as good. With all the defensive tools available now, Divine Avalanche, while still useful, gets a little lost in the crowd.

    As far as maintaining DPS, again it won't translate directly, but the build I posted can run the top attack chain and has purples and Achilles' Heel in the main attack. It's not a top DPS build, but it's really quite good (when it can avoid Divine Avalanche anyway, which non-sword primaries don't need to worry about).
  20. Werner
    A little more global recharge, melee defense covered, ranged and AoE slightly worse.

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    Edit: Oops, too many Luck of the Gamblers. Now a free slot to play with.
  21. Werner
    We don't have and probably won't get the recharge to pull this off exactly due to the cast time of Shadow Meld. Also, in practice you'd be using powers as needed, not just cycling them in a specific pattern endlessly. One of the benefits of Regeneration is your ability to shift survivability around in time, banking it when you're getting lucky, withdrawing when your luck turns. Still, I think this gives us a reasonable picture of how much time we can spend over the new soft cap when solo if we really, really need to:
    1-15 Shadow Meld
    16-30 Moment of Glory
    31-45 Shadow Meld
    46-75 Barrier
    76-90 Shadow Meld
    91-105 Moment of Glory
    106-120 Shadow Meld
    121-130 -
    131-145 Shadow Meld
    146-155 -
    So figure we can stay at the new soft cap for about two minutes before having a couple little over ten second breaks in the about two and a half minutes of the total cycle. Even during those breaks, melee will still be at the new soft cap due to stacking Divine Avalanche for those periods. One of those breaks is probably where you'd be refreshing Dull Pain due to increased incoming damage. Hopefully that and Reconstruction (and Instant Healing when it's up, about every other cycle) would pull you through the rough patches.

    I'm sure there are some Regens out there already cycling these three defensive powers. How's it working for you? Other than the obvious problems of long cast times and times when nothing is up, what problems are you having with it?

    Edit: Fixed a 5 second error, moved the breaks to the end.
  22. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    Well, I'm just thinking...with WP, I can go with any Primary, same with INV. Yeah, Dark Melee offers even more, but one doesn't feel limited to those.
    True.
  23. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    I'd say the dissappointing part of this, is you seemed forced to go Katana (maybe Broadsword) to say Regen is competitive. :/
    I don't think that's specific to Regeneration. If you want top end survivability in a secondary that doesn't include defense, then you need to add a whole lot of defense. For quite a few secondaries, that means you need Katana or Broad Sword for top end survivability.

    Similarly, Super Reflexes, Shield Defense and Invulnerability want healing, and that's what Dark Melee offers, so I think Dark Melee tends to be the best choice to combine with those. Still, at least with the defensive secondaries can pick up Aid Self instead, giving you more flexibility when building your top end survivability Scrapper.
  24. Werner
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Werner View Post
    I'm off to Mids'.
    I figured that Katana/Regen could be very competitive IF we could hit some goals:
    • Normal soft cap with one Divine Avalanche and the 5% tail end of T4 Barrier
    • Perma Hasten
    • Perma Dull Pain
    • Slotted Tough
    • Shadow Meld
    • Able to run top DPS chain during the rather frequent periods of high defense boost (Golden Dragonfly should recharge in 3.43 seconds or less)
    So the idea is that you're always at the normal soft cap, and then you juggle Barrier, Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld to spend the majority of time significantly above even the new soft cap (to handle debuffs along with a second Divine Avalanche) and a good portion of time with decent resistance as well. The multiple high defense boosts can also be used to interrupt cascading defense failure.

    I've failed to achieve all the goals, but it's not too far off, missing the soft cap by 4.2%, 4.8% and 1.7%, and missing perma Hasten by maybe 7 seconds. I threw it together pretty fast, so I'm sure there are still some improvements to be made. If we're going to miss the soft cap, I'd say we don't want to miss it by more than 2.5%, so that at least we're soft capped from Barrier for one minute out of two, and not too far off the rest of the time.

    There are some inefficiencies in the build. It has more hit point bonuses than it needs since it has more than perma Dull Pain. It's not that they're bad, but they're fairly wasteful. They just showed up as a side effect of the sets I was slotting for other reasons. Still, maybe they can be traded in some way for things we need more.

    Anyway, here it is. Can we fix it?

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  25. Werner
    I guess I'm preaching to the choir now, but yes, take Cloak of Darkness. It's a great power. Reasonable endurance cost, immobilization protection, perception (you're going to want that), and stealth. Stealth is subtle but powerful in its benefits I found out, almost always preventing pulling a double spawn when solo, and often preventing many of even a single spawn from seeing you for a while when you're dealing with large crowds. It breaks up the alpha strike, which significantly increases survivability. Mind you, I don't actually know the rules for stealth, so maybe I'm off base and if I'm careful with ANY toon without a taunt aura the same thing would happen. But it sure feels like it happens more with my Dark Armor.

    Combat Jumping, meanwhile, is about the cheapest defensive toggle around at 0.065 endurance per second. That's pretty trivial. And combined with inherent Hurdle, you get a reasonably-fast unsuppressable in-combat movement power.

    So yeah. Take both. Very much worth it.