jthig32
-
Posts
99 -
Joined
-
Quote:So the screenshots from Dersk weren't enough huh?Originally Posted by Folonius
My last day of subscription is the 13th, which is a saturday. I'll try to get herostat, and keep count of the damage that occurs from lvl 50 and lvl 52 groups, and I'll keep my defense at 45%. I'll post the results here if I get the chance. No promises since my wife plans out my weekends
-
I'm in a discussion with someone in the Controller forums about the Chance ToHit calculation and the Defense Soft Cap. The guy I'm arguing with is completely dismissing the documented Chance ToHit formula and relying completely on his own play experience, where he claims he has better survivability on 52 Boss farms with 55% S/L defense as opposed to 45% S/L defense. And he's not talking about defense debuffs. He's claiming that the extra defense negates their increased accuracy, which according to the algorithm is completely bogus.
So I turn to the Tanker forum, where I figure the majority of the defensive expertise lies. So is he crazy? Is the algorithm incorrect? I'm pretty convinced I'm right, but I figure it's worth posing the question to a different player section (although I'm sure there's plenty of people who read both forums, probably including Folonius).
Here's the link to the discussion -
Again, the idea that two minutes worth of data could prove any kind if theory like this is ridiculous. It would take hours and hours of data to definitively prove the theory.
You're a market guy. Have you seen how much data they've collected researching the change in drop rates on test? You can't just do a couple runs and decide whether the drop rate has changed. I did a one mission run on test and filled my entire recipe inventory. That is WAY above the standard drop rate, never mind the supposedly new lower rate.
Besides, I have my own anecdotal evidence, as I described with my Scrapper. A Scrapper with only 30% effective defense, no heal and very little resistance would not be able to tank 8 man Invincible spawns. I would not run into huge crowds and see "deflected" going up all over my head if my defense were not truly capped. -
Quote:*sigh*Originally Posted by Folonius
Yes it does ....
It's very simple to test to. Fight level 50's with a soft capped toon. I used a tank who's defense to S/L is 65. I shut off enough toggles so the defense was at 45%. As expected, I was hardly hit. Next mission, I made them 52's, and was hit more than usual. Turned on enough toggles to hit 55 defense, and was hit about the same rate as I was being hit by the level 50's. Up the Mobs to 54's and the rate you are hit with 45% defense is much more noticably different than fighting 50's. Running with all toggles on with 65% S/L defense, the rate I was getting hit by 54's using 65% defense was the same as fighting 50's with 45% defense, hence the conclusion of requiring 5% defense for every level your target is above you.
Of course, you will still feign ignorance, so try it out yourself. It's an easy test, and only took me about 10 minutes. I used an ice/SS tank and the mobs were slammer bosses. Really, you could use anything that gives 65% defense to S/L to test this.
I assure you though, I am correct.
The idea that one mission at each level range will statistically prove your theory is ludicrous. Defense is about probability, and probabilities are only proven out over long period of time. You could walk into a mob of lvl 50 with capped defense and get hit five times in a row. Would that prove that you are not soft capped? Of course not.
The algorithm for determining HitChance is public information. It's been talked about over and over on this board. It's been referenced in plenty of guides. It is because of that knowledge that we know that 45% is the defense soft cap.
Do you honestly think that the entire COH community has been wrong all this time? That no one's ever noticed the difference between 35% and 45% defense when fighting enemies only TWO LEVELS above yourself? Do you not understand that that makes no sense whatsoever? The difference between 35% defense and 45% defense is HUGE.
I have a low 40's Shield Scrapper with capped defense to all position. Getting him from 35% defense to 45% defense was a night and day difference in his survivability. He regularly tanks 8 man Invincibility missions with no self heal and almost no resistance. And your stance is that whenever I go up against a +3 boss, he's only at 30% defense.
It's absolutely ludicrous. And you honestly think you've discovered this secret and an entire community of Tank and Scrapper min/maxers has never noticed it.
Unreal. -
If you can only cap one position or one type, capping S/L is easily the way to go. It gives decidedly more coverage than any other one defense type.
After that, Melee would be next. I had Melee capped on my Fire/Fire tank, switched to S/L and it was a world of difference.
If you can cap the three positional s, that's obviously the best route, but that's generally only realistic on Shields I believe. -
Quote:No, it doesn't.Originally Posted by Folonius
And higher defense negates that accuracy.
Again, the accuracy is outside of the to hit calculation. And the to hit calculation can never be lower than 5%. So unless the critter has a bonus ToHit (which only happens to hose +6 over you) then more than 45% defense makes no difference. -
Quote:These two statements are absolutely incorrect. Unless you're fighting mobs +6 above you, any defense above 45% makes literally no difference (except in the case of defense debuffs).Originally Posted by Folonius
If you have 45% defense, and you are fighting 52's, you fight them as if you had 35% defense. It's still good, but it's not capped.
It's sufficient, but it won't be capped if that's what your tanking.
The calculation is (in a dumbed down version) Accuracyx(ToHit - Defense).
The thing is, ToHit - Defense can never result in anything less than 5%. And the ToHit of any opponent less than +6 over you is 50%. Hence the 45% soft cap.
Now, enemies do get better ACCURACY as they go further above you. That's very true. But having a higher than capped defense will not change that. Which is why fighting 52 bosses is harder than fighting 50 bosses. That's absolutely true. What is incorrect is the notion that having 55% defense will give you more mitigation than 45% defense against those 52 bosses. -
As to the OP, I would say that you find the /Fire build better because of the stacked resistances. Since you're not building for S/L defense, stone armor isn't helping you as much as a resistance shield would because Tough combined with a resistance shield is better out of the box than Weave plus a defense shield.
If you actually build for S/L defense and cap it, AND you use Fissure and stack it with Flashfire (and perhaps slot it for Stun instead of damage) you'll noticed a marked improvement in your survivability. -
Quote:First of all, if you actually look at his build, he's not building for defense at all. I'm not really sure why, but he's not.Originally Posted by Folonius
If you are going for Soft Capped Defense S/L you may want to think about getting it to 55 instead of 45. 55 S/L will allow you to farm 52's as if you had 45% S/L ... you lose 5% for every level of what you are fighting is above you.
Second of all, where the hell did you come up with the above? Everything I've ever read about defense calculations says the defense algorithm happens before the level of the opponent is even taken into account. It may change if they're +5 to you, but beyond that I've never seen anything saying that you actually lose defense based on an opponent being one level above you.
From an experience perspective, I've tanked 52 and 53 (very slowly) boss farms with my Fire/Kin/Stone build and I believe his S/L defense is at 45.5.
The soft cap for defense is 45%. Other than to combat the effects of defense debuffs, there is no reason to be above that. If I'm wrong I'd love to see proof. -
As someone who went the full purple route in search of max recharge, I would advise to back off the recharge push just a tad. All you really need is enough recharge to make Hasten perma with two Siphon Speeds, which is easy to do once you get up to ~+70% global recharge.
I respecced out of half my purples about a month after finishing the build because I honestly couldn't feel that much of a difference with the extra 20-30% of recharge.
If you can afford them, puples are still nice because of their other bonuses. The issue I have is slotting damage sets into Char and Fissure. You're losing a lot of damage mitigation by going that route. -
Quote:On a defender perhaps it's a key power. On a controller that has other things to do, ID is a breakfree power that doesn't work on a very common type of mez.Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
ID is a key power if you team with a lot of squishies...any anti-mez power usually is. And slotted out with just 1 res IO, it provides around 23% smashing/energy resists. That's a great power to put on a tank or a scrapper to allow them to take an alpha. Because of it's short duration and the fact it has no sleep protection, I can see why people dislike it.
In the early-mid levels the resistance can be useful for your alpha taker, no doubt. Late game any tank worth his salt is going to be largely unaffected by ID.
I'm not saying it's useless. My Fire/Kin had it all the way up to 50, through several respecs before I finally dropped it.
But it's certainly not "key", in my mind. I don't bat an eye when finding a Kin that doesn't have ID, and that's the definition of key, to me. -
Quote:ID is hardly a key kinetic power.Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
It depends a lot on what you're building your fire/kin for. A lot of farming builds have tough/weave to either cap smashing/lethal or because they honestly don't know any better and generally follow the herd.
I personally prefer leadership (maneuvers/tactics) largely because I tend to use my fire/kin for TFs first, farming second. I've teamed with a number of pure farming built fire/kins in the past, and I notice that many of them don't have good accuracy (especially if they fall outside of my leadership buffs and are in any way debuffed), don't have key kinetics powers (increase density, speed boost, siphon speed), and often do pretty poorly in situations where the mobs aren't neatly packed together in a certain city map. This isn't to say, that all of them are bad...some are phenomenal, but those that are have builds that reflect billions of influence of investment. But I digress...
I definitely agree that a lot of kins don't build for enough accuracy. I buil global accuracy into my IO build and thus don't worry about any of the leadership toggles. -
If you use Fulcrum Shift on 10 foes, you're at the damage cap and Assault is no longer doing you one bit of good. So once you hit lvl 38 you need to take that into consideration.
Most of the posts you've seen with Weave are combining them with Combat Jumping, Stone Armor and IO set bonuses for very high level defense numbers.
If you take a different ancillary, like Fire, your shield is resistance based, which stacks with Tough, making Weave perhaps skipable. -
Quote:All numbers refer to Smashing/Lethal defense:Originally Posted by TimeWellSpent
Thanks.
Still 45% seems a lot ... how much does the Stone Armor grant?
Weave is like 4.5%
Enfeebled 4.06%
Kinetic Combat 3.75%
Steadfast Unique 3%
Thats still quite far from 45%
Can anyone who has actually soft-capped defense list their bonuses and how they managed it?
Powers:
Rock Armor - 22.5%
Weave - 7.04%
Combat Jumping - 2.61%
Set Bonuses:
Enfeebled Operation - 2.5%
Kinetic Combat x 2 - 7.50%
Steadfast Protection Unique - 3%
Total: 45.15%
You can finish off the Enfeebled Operation set to get an extra 1.56. You can add maneuvers to get more. There are other ways, this is just what I have. -
Excluding epics, a Fire/Kin's number one damage dealer is Hot Feet. Contained, FS capped Hot Feet is significant damage.
-
I spent parts of this weekend crafting and selling lvl 50 LoTG +Recharge IO's. That was good times, although I did get stupid and list two too late in the day Sunday to go before the bottom fell out.
Ah well, they'll sell next weekend. -
I handled several 8 man lvl 53 boss spawns with my Fire/Kin yesterday after the rest of the team quit. My toon has the Stone epic and capped S/L defense. I did die once when they all hit at once, but other than that I was pretty safe. Lvl 52 should not be much of a problem at all, but you're not going to farm them very quickly. For efficiency you really should be doing lvl 50's.
The key for survivability is to stack Flashfire and Fissure and keep spamming Fissure to keep them mezzed.
That's what people miss so often when the talk about the Stone epic. The capped S/L defense is nice. Very nice, in fact. But against big boss farm, Fissure is just as key, because it's an AOE stun that stacks with Flashfire (or itself) and also damage great damage. It's a huge damage mitigation tool. -
Quote:No. I've kicked around picking it up, but haven't yet.Originally Posted by dave_p
Nice. I got a bit over S/L cap, but only around 20% for ranged. I should work on that a little more.
Edit: Is that build using the PvP IO? Even though I can afford it, I refuse to pay 500M for the stupid thing, or whatever it's going for these days.
Now that I looked at my actual build, my Ranged is actually 22.8%, so not quite "just under 25%". -
I have capped S/L and just under 25% for ranged.
-
It's obviously personal preference, but I disagree with the advice to go with the Fire ancillary. I've tried both, and both worked fine. And Fire Ball does do more damage than Fissure. But Fissure has a secondary stun effect that stacks with Flashfire to stun bosses. And yes you do have a heal that's up all the time, but having to spam your heal takes away from your DPS because you're not spamming another attack.
If you're going to JUST farm, ever, then Fire is somewhat defensible. Depending on your play style you might farm a bit faster with it. But capping S/L defense with some resistance thrown in is safer. You will spam your heals less and your attacks more.
And if you ever do anything besides farming, such as high level TF's, stone is much, much better, imo. The biggest difference being that capped S/L defense means you get mezzed much less often, which is huge for a Fire/Kin.
Again, I've tried Stone and Fire, and I much prefer Stone, although that's coming from the perspective of someone who mainly runs high level content and sometimes farms, as opposed to someone who just farms. -
1. It's fine, as long as you'll be farming with fillers. If you're farming solo with no fillers you'll not be at the cap.
2.You're not ever going to so much as farm with a single team mate? Ever? I tend to keep SB up on my Imps when I'm farming the Cim wall just so they can keep up with me. That's less relevant in a Boss farm where they'll probably die.
3.As noted above, Imps tend to not live very long in a Boss farm. But if you are in a situation where you need them, you'll want them slotted with as much accuracy as you can get in there, because they spawn a level below you.
4.I personally have never even taken smoke. It's just one extra thing to do, thus slowing you down.
5.Procs are not affected by damage buffs.
6. There is no simple answer for this. With /Kins, especially those built around recharge, stuff is up a LOT, so some don't mind missing a bit. I personally hate missing, so I slot a lot of accuracy. Seismic Smash is at 160% accuracy on my Fire/Kin and it still misses more than I would like.
I opened your build in Mids and the only power that is really under where I would want accuracy to be is Siphon Speed. Personally, I would trade that second Recharge for an Accuracy. The second Recharge is only gaining you 1.4 seconds with Hasten and one Siphon Speed running. Even less with stacked siphon speeds, which should almost always be the case.
I would also say Fulcrum Shift is over slotted. The second recharge is gaining you almost nothing, and you're at 130%+ with just the one accuracy, which is probably enough. I could see the argument for keeping the second accuracy, but the second recharge is really wasted.
7.You will still get the SP Defense bonus. However, you're still going to get hit even with capped defense. Not running Tough is going to lower your surviviability. Think about taking a slot from FS and maybe another power and slotting Resistance/Endurance IO's in Tough and running it. -
As the Goat said, one KB IO isn't nearly enough for the Katie. My Fire tank has two and still gets thrown around at times on that TF.
-
I've been tweaking my Fire/Fire build for weeks and I think I've finally come up with a build that I love. Most Fire/Fire tanks tend to gear their defensive sets towards Melee defense. After playing with near capped Melee defense and being somewhat underwhelmed, I decided to shift my focus to capping Smashing/Lethal defense. S/L gives much broader coverage than simply Melee.
For a specific example, when fighting Cimerorans, they would hit me with their spears which weren't affected by my melee defense, and their defense debuffs knocked down my defenses so that once they closed to melee I was struggling. Capped S/L protects against their spears and their melee attacks.
After that I focused on getting *some* ranged defense, mainly to protect against Psi foes that don't have S/L in their attacks; and focusing on limiting endurance costs so I don't have to take Consume.
If you're trying to cap either melee or S/L, taking an Immobilize from an Ancillary pool is key because you can slot in Enfeebled Operation which is dirt cheap and gives a huge defense bonus. I went with the Earth Ancillary so that I could take Quicksand and drop Combustion for Burn, with Quicksand keeping mobs in Burn longer. That change also dramatically decreased my endurance costs.
Below is the build. I'm very happy with this so far. It's quite expensive, considering what Kinetic Combats are going for right now. But you can drop something for Consume and get rid of the three Endurance focused procs.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Red Hot Fury: Level 50 Mutation Tanker
Primary Power Set: Fiery Aura
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Earth Mastery
Hero Profile:
------------
Level 1: Blazing Aura Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(3), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(3), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Oblit-%Dam(7)
Level 1: Scorch KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(7), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(9), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9)
Level 2: Fire Shield RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(11), RctvArm-ResDam(11), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(19)
Level 4: Healing Flames Numna-Heal/Rchg(A), Mrcl-Heal/Rchg(15), Mrcl-Heal(17)
Level 6: Combat Jumping Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-ResKB(23)
Level 8: Swift Run-I(A)
Level 10: Taunt Mocking-Taunt(A), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg(13), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(13), Mocking-Acc/Rchg(15)
Level 12: Plasma Shield RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(19), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(21), RctvArm-ResDam(21)
Level 14: Super Jump Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-ResKB(40)
Level 16: Health Mrcl-Heal(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(17), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(25)
Level 18: Burn Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(27), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(29), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(29), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Oblit-%Dam(31)
Level 20: Stamina P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(23), P'Shift-End%(31)
Level 22: Boxing KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(25), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(27), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 24: Tough S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx(33), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(33)
Level 26: Weave LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(33), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(34)
Level 28: Fire Sword Circle Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(34), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(34), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Oblit-%Dam(36)
Level 30: Fiery Embrace RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(37), RechRdx-I(37)
Level 32: Build Up GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-Build%(42), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(46), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(46), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(46), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(50)
Level 35: Incinerate KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(37), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(39), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Zinger-Acc/Rchg(39)
Level 38: Greater Fire Sword KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(40), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(40), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(42), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(42)
Level 41: Stone Prison Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(43), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(43), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(43), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(45)
Level 44: Quick Sand Slow-I(A), Slow-I(50)
Level 47: Stalagmites RzDz-Acc/Rchg(A), RzDz-EndRdx/Stun(48), RzDz-Acc/EndRdx(48), RzDz-Stun/Rng(48), RzDz-Acc/Stun/Rchg(50)
Level 49: Rise of the Phoenix RechRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1408;720;1440;HEX;|
|78DAA594C972125114866F4323019A308410C840802410242 161E7B0B02C1334A95|
|0852495954A75621BDA504DA49B68763E800B4D1C56EE1C1F C172A356393C83E50B|
|F80C0E78864BAA2C9776C1FFDDBEF7BFE79E739AA67A67491 3E2EE39A168175ABA6|
|D3736746BD7E80C54BB8EEE986D4BAB1BD7D397DA4EBAD2ED 1C788510493634968C|
|1B86651BA58A69740E1AE7BB1D3D2157AA46CBE8CFD338B26 2358D8E6139A5FE40A|
|BB5DBADD29AA1EF99D60EDF544CC7326C3B286F769A0E2C45 E86EC5DA376D73CB6C|
|99CE417479CFDC2E2DEB1DA7D9A8EAB603872420AB027CDFF 94014F88A9E47FC700|
|99115AE9F8C5F04F537A3473821DC88885FC8ABE71635412B 97090375C63AE13D44|
|5738BA5B49C1202FFC938C2C219A217C009F9BE3B9DCEB0A6 E1DBC4808AF10E2D04|
|50F07523C5F2995F83740597860C5CB2BC23B2F702A06D9F9 6476BE26B93493F668|
|370983BB848F600AC8EC029C5D94B38B715A314E72048E087 23C25C887E7F1F0BCF|
|0C24A8823B8429C69789590D8247C822322BCD513E1F68E72 7BC7B9BDE3DCDE14B7|
|37C5ED1D80B04332ECD0219D143F22A49E1014300CCB0A87B 9FF096EFC283F8639E|
|EBF1B7C2332D0080E26443ACE5854B02F2A1892D2900CD354 DA4FC8A85C3BF4724C|
|1630C60564B8800C1730C5054C7101535CC0671F9EC161278 A94CAF45F8843D8491|
|976F2196D2DBCA62735FF9CEEE65F305E12CAAF08093F2AED 52B35CF634D79BE3EA|
|735C76EE16D993609F91F619B6E7D99E677B81ED851DFAD91 C41EAB332A7D9FBF4F|
|84E3E601C328E08730F198F08DFE19FA0287F1CC5050A5466 3C867825797CC9A6AE|
|2F388C2E639F50BE4DF8023D5B64BB58E42E8DABC7AF197CE 0126BFFCCD454F9FEC|
|28C423305F5F895FEAFEB8DD68FE3ABE3FBBE815243D944B9 827215E51A8A8EB205|
|A26CE3A8F756EB671A3A85099D4639837216E51E9ABC01900 08A861244194409A18|
|4518650E228A3284F517A7F003F1F0057|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------| -
I definitely prefer Super Speed over Inertial Reduction, mainly for the ability to combine it with an IO for Invisibility.
Earth's Embrace is nice, I had it originally. But once you pick up the key accolades, it only adds about half the hit points because of the hit point cap.
It's pretty easy to mess with builds in Mids and see how your changes effect your defensive numbers. I tweaked Das Berts build for some accuracy, better endurance recover and to be a bit stronger on individual powers, mainly by adding in some purples that I already had slotted. I posted it around here somewhere. -
Quote:City of Data has this next to the pet that is spawned by ice storm:Originally Posted by Frosticus
The normal versions of icestorm (ie corr, def, blaster) certainly gain by slotting acc in them, regardless of the source, so IO's like detonation work very well.
On the other hand tactics does not really benefit the power because the tohit buff pulses so fast and as soon as one pulse expires the icestorm stops benefiting.
I haven't tested the troller version with acc slotting, but it should benefit as well. It is just strange it doesn't accept normal acc SO's/IO's. Very few powers fail to benefit from multi-enhancements unless they are specifically coded to ignore it (such as +rech in pets, and the -def in quicksand). I don't see a reason why icestorm wouldn't benefit, but without actually testing I can't say for certain.
So no, I don't think it is effected by enhancements.Quote:[Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]