Werner

The in-game cast time numbers ARE correct. They are also NOT the right numbers to use when doing DPS calculations or calculations of required recharge due to an irreducible delay BETWEEN the activation of powers. This delay can be calculated from the cast time of the power, and for simplicity, added to the cast time of the power. Arcanaville worked it all out, and we call it Arcanatime as a result. The Arcanatime for a power is (roundup(CastTime/0.132)+1)*0.132. There has been a little bit of evidence that even this may not be 100% correct based on some testing at very high recharge rates, but it's the best formula we have at the moment.

As for calculating DPS properly, yes, it IS "hard to get a good calculation" purely from a build. But here's an example of one of those hard calculations for the damage done by a single power:

95%*(50*(100%+96.48%+95%*37.5%*2+22%+10.5%+5%*5.25/10)*110%+20%*71.8+15%*71.8)*(100%+(100%-81%^2)*20%)*(100%+(100%-81%^2)*20%)

Which can be explained like this:

Chance to hit*(base damage*(100%+damage enhancement+chance to hit*follow up stacked twice+global damage bonus+assault+build up proc)*(100%+critical hit)+proc chance*proc damage)*(Achilles' Heel stacked twice)*(Gladiator stacked twice)

Hard doesn't mean impossible. It just means hard.

I'm also not saying that I've double-checked Frosticus's numbers. I'm just saying that the numbers CAN be calculated with a high degree of accuracy.

Right attacks anyway. Highest single target DPS for Fire is Incinerate -> Greater Fire Sword -> Cremate. But it takes a ton of recharge, which isn't doing Super Reflexes much good (other than Aid Self). I think the best general-purpose chain is the Incinerate -> Scorch -> Cremate -> Scorch chain. It has reasonably-low recharge requirements and is endurance efficient.

Confession: I tend to leave it on +0 until the mid 20s. Same reason as you - I HATE missing. So until I have a Kismet unique and a couple accuracy SOs in my attacks, I'm not going to start bumping the level. I may bump the number of bad guys before then, but not the level.

He needs the INTERSECTION of the two forums. Since that doesn't exist, and since cross posting isn't allowed, he had to make a choice. He chose SCRAPPERS. Yay Scrappers!

Well, it's been broken by the Blessing of the Zephyr and Miracle nerfs, but the unlimited influence build that I'm actually running is in the linked thread (and below), and a couple of things it's achieved (pre nerf) are in my signature and videos. The one really strange thing I did with mine was to sacrifice Golden Dragonfly and Soaring Dragon. I couldn't afford the slots for an extra attack, so I made a chain out of lowbie attacks (Sting of the Wasp -> Gambler's Cut -> Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut). I still average about 175 DPS. It's not going to excite anyone in the pylon soloing thread, but it works well enough.

I doubt that Arcanaville's comparison of Scrapper secondaries is very relevant today due to all the changes since then. But there's still a lot of good and relevant information in there, and the thread is well worth reading, even if I wouldn't use it for ranking secondaries.

Now, this isn't the build you should do it with due to the whole "lack of fun attacks" thing. But maybe you should follow a leveling build made by a min/maxer, and just COMPARE the experience to your normal leveling experience. If you hate it, fine, stick with your current approach. But I think you'll find that it's more fun playing a build that was carefully designed for maximum performance at all levels. (Note: You'll still be squishy at a low level.)

Are you REALLY judging an entire secondary based on trying out a couple Shield characters on the test system and playing through the first few levels on them?

OK, you're right. If you intend to only play the game to level 9, there's no reason to take Shield Defense.

On the other hand, if you want to play to 50, and are willing to take pool powers (I didn't realize that was a line in the sand that some people didn't want to cross), and particularly if you're willing to spend even half of the influence you're earning on making your character better, Shield Defense offers plenty of survivability plus greatly enhances your damage output.

So no, I'm not going to explain how to build a Shield Defense or Super Reflexes "on it's own merit". How you build it is you take pool powers and you spend some of that hard earned influence on occasion, like on the Steadfast Protection unique. That's also how you build ANY character. I can't even imagine that there are people playing this game without taking pool powers. But I suppose they must be out there, struggling, dying, burning out of endurance constantly, and wondering why their primary and secondary suck.

On paper, survivability when surrounded drops from 2826 to 2520. The big difference is the loss of Strength of Will. I'm not a fan of variable survivability and crashes, so I'd be very tempted to go with your version anyway, but the average contribution of Strength of Will is more than the extra defense and resistance you've put in its place, at least on paper.

Looks like more recovery, though I gather that wasn't a problem that needed solving. I'm glad to see Tactics make an appearance, but with the loss of the Kismet unique and some global accuracy bonuses, chance to hit doesn't really improve. A little extra recharge, but the build probably doesn't benefit much from recharge.

Anything else I'm missing?

On paper, I'm seeing MUCH higher survivability from Katana/Dark than from Katana/Will. By comparison, when surrounded by enemies, Iggy's Katana/Will has an I17 survivability score of 2826, while my I16 Katana/Dark had a survivability score of 5603, almost twice as much.

That said, there is a whole lot missing from my survivability calculations, and in practice, Iggy's build seems at least the equal of mine. Both of us can do a double Rikti War Zone Challenge, but he can do it while standing under a pylon and finishing off the pylon first. And you already heard that he did a Master of ITF run, but I don't think it was mentioned that he did it without temporary powers or inspirations. There's no way I could pull that off.

On the other hand, Iggy is magic, and I don't mean his character, I mean HIM. An Iggy-played Katana/Dark might well do more than I could ever do with mine. So yeah, hard for me to compare.

Oh HELL no!

You know, I'd never thought of it that way. But that totally makes sense.

So what are you saying, that the devs think we should lose all of our IOs when we respec? When THEY make changes to the game, and we're trying to adapt our builds? What an awesome idea for player retention. Punish us for game changes. Insult to injury is always the best policy.

Why do I doubt that's their attitude? I mean, I could be wrong, but that seems downright hostile.

I don't run the recovery uniques or the Performance Shifter proc while leveling. It's a good idea if you have the influence to blow, and technically I do, but I've still just been too lazy/cheap to do it. I've always leveled up on the cheap.

I personally also run Leadership on top of all of that, but that's too much for just SOs unless you really want to gut your damage output. By the time I'm running all that and Leadership, I'll also have frankenslotted my attacks, which is a much more cost-effective way of handling endurance than picking up the uniques (though again doesn't meet the SO-only qualification, even if it's easily afforded on what you earn while leveling). On my Fire/Shield with a gapless chain, it was still too much to also run Assault and Grant Cover full time, and I ended up running Tactics, Assault and Grant Cover situationally until I could pick up Conserve Power, and then I still did it out of habit. I'm guessing that most people will probably skip Leadership and Grant Cover, and won't have that problem.

Maybe it takes an understanding of the rules, builds and play that many players don't have?

On Shield Defense, I'm going to do this:

• Slot Deflection and Battle Agility with three defense SOs
• Slot Weave with three defense SOs
• Slot Combat Jumping with one defense SO
• Slot Active Defense with three recharge SOs for a nice margin of error
• Slot a Steadfast Protection unique
• Take Phalanx Fighting
• Use a single small purple inspiration at a time as required
• Never die

OK, yes, that technically isn't "just with SOs", but seriously, you can afford a Steadfast Protection. You just can. And if you're being a stickler, then fine, take Manuevers and slot it with two defense, and you'll get the same thing. I suppose you could say that using inspirations isn't "just with SOs", but I'm betting that 99%+ of the player population uses inspirations while leveling, so I'd call that a nonsense argument.

Those power choices and that slotting puts me at 32.4% defense. One small purple inspiration puts me at 44.9% defense, effectively soft-capped. I have my status protection. Oh, we're done. That's all you need to be almost unkillable in normal content. You can now focus the rest of your build on destroying your enemies, at which it will excel. Now, I DO recommend taking True Grit and at least slotting heal SOs in it. You'll want to take and slot Tough (had to take it to get to Weave anyway). But seriously, making Shield Defense unkillable is just that easy.

But a lot of players probably won't do that. A lot of players will probably have less defense than that. A lot of players probably don't realize how much more important purples are than greens for their survivability. A lot of players don't understand the soft cap. A lot of players are going to find Shield Defense fairly squishy.

You may want to review and implement the above list.

Edit: OK, that was unwarranted. Sorry. I don't think Shield Defense survivability is anything special. I'd call it around average, and you were just saying "less survivable" not "squishy". I'm not sure I agree that it's less survivable than the secondaries mentioned, but it's certainly arguable. Either way, though, properly built, even on the cheap, Shield Defense has plenty of survivability for most purposes.

Well, I THOUGHT so, but that's not what Mids' was telling me. Is it a problem with my Mids'? Maybe it messed up some settings when I uninstalled and reinstalled? Hmmm, it's set to average damage, and it says "Smashing(141.2x1) = 141.2". Trying in game. Leaving AAO and Assault off. It says I have a 2.5% damage set bonus, 97.2% damage in the attack, so +99.7% damage. That makes it easy. And poof, it does 400 points of damage, so 200 points base.

So from where is my Mids' coming up with 141.2? What am I doing wrong?