Werner

And those Wafer Jagermeisters, or whatever the Nemesis robots that spout flame are. And yeah, I don't think Behemoths, Council goons and Nemesis robot minions are going to stick out in anyone's mind, because nobody is likely to find any of them particularly dangerous. So I'm guessing that psi sticks out mostly due to observer bias, where you notice what's hurting you.

Again, I'm not sure how the person got their data. But I'm guessing that they gave equal weight to all attacks of all enemies of all enemy groups, both blue side and red side. They may or may not have weighted by attack damage. So if you're fighting particular enemy groups on either side, your numbers will likely be a lot different.

Neither is very prevalent. However, I have fire at 5.33% of incoming damage and psionic at 2.04%. Alas, I can't remember my source. Someone who did some sort of study of the thing, with who knows what assumptions and methodology. Your mileage will of course vary based on which enemy groups you spend your time fighting.

Purples aren't for defense. They're for recharge. It should be easier to softcap WITHOUT purples. Weave is a big help. And Tough provides a nice bump to smashing/lethal resistance. Have a look at the Blessing of the Zephyr set. Also the Steadfast Protection unique. And while it won't help your defense, I'd also get a Kismet unique.

Also, your datalink isn't working, and you didn't include the data chunk, so I can't pull your build up in Mids' very well. It ends up somewhat corrupted.

Hmmm, it's been different on mine. Shield Defense seems pretty fire and forget other than having your mez protection on auto. Fire is nothing but damage, so no special effects to worry about. I suppose if you took Breath of Fire you'd have to do some jumping in and out of combat, but I didn't take it. You're not stacking Parry. You're not in a mad clickfest like Regeneration. I suppose that positioning can matter a little, in that you want everyone around you for maximum damage. But mostly, I jump into the middle of a group and click attacks until everyone's dead. It seems pretty basic.

I'm guessing that the most psychotically active might be Spines/Regen or Claws/Regen. Both will probably have you hopping around, spamming different kinds of AoEs and ranged attacks, so you'll be in and out of the spawn. And Regen is about as active as a secondary can get, and very sensitive to hitting the right things at the right time when you're playing at the edge.

/em facepalm

Of COURSE it's going to go off in combat or right before it. If it's in something like Build Up or Follow Up, IF it goes off, it's going to go off right when you wanted it. If it's in something like Tactics, it will go off randomly all the time. Sometimes that will be in combat. Sometimes it won't. But the fact that you just spent an hour in Wentworths, or role playing, or whatever, doesn't make it any LESS likely to go off in combat. So who CARES that it's firing uselessly during those times? All that matters is that it STILL fires off in or right before combat.

Please don't focus on the word "assume" and reject an argument because assumption is supposed to be bad. It's a pet peeve of mine that certain perfectly-decent words have been removed from our vocabulary by bumper sticker nonsense. "If you assume, you make an *** out of you and me." "Do or do not... there is no try." The devs CAN safely assume that it will go off in combat or right before it. It has an average uptime of 5% * 5.25 second duration / 10 seconds between chances = 2.625%. That's not a lot of buff time, but it's going to be up 2.625% of the time IN combat, just the same as it's up 2.625% of the time OUT of combat. It is virtually impossible that you could have the proc and it NOT go off in combat or right before it. Almost as impossible as having a damage proc and it never firing.

I haven't done a careful analysis, but my money's on Fire/Fire.

You're looking for Build Up type powers (hit it as you're jumping in) over other forms of damage buff that take time during a fight, or build slowly. Fire/Fire comes with TWO Build Up powers, and the build up in the Fiery Aura secondary builds up Fire attacks the most. So hit two build ups for a total of +225% raw damage buff, jump in, and tear apart that boss in nothing flat. Plus you're running a damage aura. Not exactly burst damage, but every little bit helps.

Fire/Shield trades the damage aura and second Build Up type power for a full time damage buff powered by your enemies. Fully-saturated, it's a 81.3% (?) damage buff, so you're jumping in at +181.3% raw damage buff if there's a crowd. It's not as high as Fire/Fire, but Fire/Shield will be able to sustain a high damage output for longer. It's also a more survivable secondary. It also has Shield Charge. I'd probably choose it for those reasons. But I'm betting on Fire/Fire for pure single-target burst damage.

With no Fury to build, Scrappers are better at burst damage, some more so than others. Burst damage is an advantage. Not to take anything away from Bill's excellent work, but any attempt at a ranking like that is of necessity going to be overly simplistic. An overly simplistic analysis, while potentially useful, shouldn't have too much read into it. Use a different set of assumptions, and you'll produce a different result.

Well, I can try. If you're going for survivability on a Super Reflexes, your first task is to get to the defensive soft cap, which is 45% defense. You may or may not want to go a couple percentage points over to deal with defense debuffs. I didn't bother myself, but it would be nice.

There are some pretty standard things you do on a Super Reflexes while chasing after that magic 45% number. You take the defensive toggles and passives in your secondary, certainly. But I'd say almost as standard would be taking Combat Jumping or Hover, slotting a Steadfast Protection unique, and putting a Gaussian set somewhere. If you ALSO add Weave to that mix, you'll be practically at the soft cap without any additional effort. You then get to devote most of the rest of your set bonuses to chasing OTHER things, like recharge and hit points.

But you don't HAVE to go that route. You might intentionally or even as a side effect end up with other set bonuses that give you defense. Maybe the defense those bonuses give you makes up at least the difference in the defense between Weave and Maneuvers. I'd still recommend the Fighting pool for Tough, but maybe you're not planning on soloing any AVs without inspirations, or are willing to take a little more risk while doing so. You could skip the Fighting pool and take Leadership instead. You can still get enough defense, plus if you want, add on some damage and improve your chance to hit. The chance to hit, in particular, is quite useful when fighting uplevel. Also, Tactics is a great place for the Gaussian set, which is something we want in almost every Super Reflexes build anyway. And if you DO want to fight uplevel a lot, you pretty much need to take Tactics or Focused Accuracy. Tactics is a lot easier on the blue bar. Even if you take Tough, there might be no good reason to take Weave if you can get enough defense out of Maneuvers. Maneuvers is a prerequisite for Tactics, plus it helps the whole team instead of just you. If it's enough, better to take it than Weave, probably.

I'm not sure I've clarified at all when you might want to go one way or the other, but I'm not sure I can. It's hard to say what's better without planning out a whole build. In my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes, I have BOTH Weave and Maneuvers, which let me skimp a bit on my defensive slotting of my secondary powers, all to serve other goals in the build. Lots of ways to skin a cat.

Doable with the right slotting, yes. It feels strange to get all the way to Tough and not take Weave on a defense-based character, but yeah, Maneuvers and Tactics could be a better choice on some builds.

I just asked my magic 8 ball, and it said "Signs point to 'Yes'", so... confirmed!!!

Like I said in that thread, my build is way out of date (I12). I've learned some things since then, and you can get much more insane numbers these days. Also, if you've ever PM'd me, you may know just how bad I am at responding. Sometimes I respond immediately. Sometimes I respond a few weeks later. And sometimes I just never respond. Not sure why I suck so bad at PMs, but I do suck at them.

Really, Umbral's more of an expert on the current state of the art in Katana/Regen. The most survivable Katana/Regen build that I've looked at in detail was one he made (it solo'd four AVs at once, no temps no insps), and he consistently pumps out excellent builds at various budget levels, where I spend almost all of my time fiddling with cost-no-object builds. I can answer specific questions, but I can't really recommend using my build.

Edit: Oh, I don't know if this is relevant, but "consistently solos AVs" is up for debate, at least if we're talking about my Katana/Regen. My Katana/Dark solo'd 11 praetorian AVs in a row with no deaths (including Infernal). My Katana/Regen probably died 11 times in a row just trying to solo Infernal. Persistence pays off, and multiple deaths per AV was probably par for the course back in I12, but it may not be what people mean these days by consistently soloing AVs.

Yes, having control over something IS a benefit. I'm not denying that, so if that's all you were saying, then I agree. It is foolish to put Build Up on auto. It is better to use it when it gives you the most advantage. But to say that "you can almost never utilize the proc going off" is like saying you can almost never utilize Build Up on auto. Sure you can. 1/3 of your attacks are doing a lot more damage. Might not be the attacks you'd choose, but that's still a lot more damage over time.

But I think that the right thing to compare the proc to is OTHER damage procs, or things like Achilles' Heel. They're all in the category of random damage or "damage buffs" that you don't control. I agree that the Gaussian proc is weak in that comparison. But what happens if we double both its chance of firing and its duration?

Let's take an assumed attack chain doing 70 DPS raw, 210 DPS enhanced. How much "damage" do our proc options do?

regular damage proc = 20% chance to fire * 71.8 damage = 14.4

purple damage proc = 33% chance to fire * 107.1 = 35.3

Achilles' Heel = MAX of 20% chance to fire * 20% enhanced damage buff * 210 DPS * 10.3 seconds = 86.5 (but you could be attacking a minion that'll die long before you see that much damage out of it, mostly useful for bosses and up, unlikely to see that much damage most of the time in most builds)

Gaussian proc = MAX of 5% chance to fire * 100% raw damage buff * 70 DPS * 5.25 seconds = 18.375 (you could be at the tail end of a fight, but there's a much better chance of actually seeing that damage than with Achilles' Heel)

double double Gaussian proc = MAX of 10% chance to fire * 100% raw damage buff * 70 DPS * 10 seconds = 73.5 (more likely than before to not get full benefit from it firing)

Looking at that, I'd say it's too weak to bother with right now in most builds. Yeah, it looks slightly better than a regular damage proc, but it's FUTURE damage, not current damage, and while you may well be fighting for another five seconds, you might not. I'd just use a regular damage proc.

But with double the chance to fire and double the duration? I'd choose it over the Achilles' Heel. You're much more likely to get full advantage of it - it is much more likely that YOU'LL be fighting for the next ten seconds (Gaussian) than that your TARGET will be alive and fighting for the next ten seconds (Achilles' Heel). Useful in many more situations, where the Achilles' Heel is mostly just for killing bosses and above. Suddenly it's the most powerful damage proc in the game in most situations.

Might be a happy medium somewhere. Like maybe double the duration only. It then looks competitive with the Achilles' Heel (not as good for boss fights, probably better for regular fights). It wouldn't beat a purple proc most of the time, and shouldn't. It would beat a regular damage proc in high DPS builds, and would be competitive with a regular damage proc in low DPS builds.

My thoughts, anyway. Might have messed something up somewhere, and I'm sure Umbral will let me know.

Yeah, I'd just take the defeat and call it good. (Less applicable if I'm tanking, since my defeat could be a team wipe.) If I only use a power every few days, I'm pretty sure there's a better power for me. To me, Strength of Will and One with the Shield are like having a few extra inspiration slots. Yeah, I'd like a few extra inspiration slots, but I wouldn't skip a power pick to get them.

Also, you get 1/3 uptime (40% on Strength of Will). My hardest fights are LONG fights. If I can survive the 2/3 of the time that it isn't up, then I can survive the 1/3 of the time that it is up. I had similar reasoning for not taking Touch of Fear on an AV killer. Might be nice while the purple triangles are down, but if I can survive while they're up, then I might as well just keep punching their face in while they're down. Not particularly applicable to a more average build.

Not saying either is a bad power. I'd WANT them. But high end builds can get really tight.

For the OP, Siphon Life is MUCH too good of an attack to waste on a full healing set. Mind you, it's also much too good of a heal to waste on a full melee set. So it's one of the few powers that I recommend frankenslotting for maximum enhancement values instead of worrying about set bonuses. The classic thread on the subject is over here.

Also, while I like the Leadership pool, I don't like it as much as the Fighting pool. I would want both Tough and Weave to stack with the resistance and defense from your secondary. Were you dropping Flight to get Fighting though? I'd probably drop Flight to get Leaping, and just take Combat Jumping, which was another power you mentioned. A couple defensive powers are good. A lot of them are better. Look into fairly immediate purchase of a Kismet unique (+6% to hit. It says accuracy, but it's actually to hit, which usually helps a lot more.). Also a Steadfast Protection unique (+3% defense). If you stay in Leadership, I'd take Tactics and slot a Gaussian set (+2.5% defense). If you drop it for other goodies, I'd take Focused Accuracy and slot it in there. You might not have the endurance to use Focused Accuracy more than situationally, but you'll still get the defense full time.

Well, I've never tested. Kinda just trusted Mids', which isn't necessarily a good idea.