Dull Pain/Hoarfrost et al

I feel like a noob asking this question since I've been playing for nearly 3.5 years but...

What baseline do powers like DP/HF use when you activate them? Do they use the Base HP for the AT, the character's current HP, or the characters max HP which includes +HP accolades?

Examples always help...hypothetical of course.

I have a Claws/Inv Brute. Dull Pain provides +50% HP to the brute upon activation. The Brute's base HP is 1500, current HP is 1800 (due ot being in battle) and max HP with accolades is 2000 HP.

What is the Brute's HP after activating DP in this example?

Please be gentle.

Technically they actually use neither but use a scalar amount which just so happens to coincide for all existing ATs with the base HP, in the future there may be an AT created that this is not true for, but lets just call it base HP currently.


Now for the scary Math.

At 1800/2000, (90% health) the first step is the application of the +HP (50% of base or 750 HP).

However, the proportion of health is also stretched to remain constant (90% in this .example)

So after step 1, the Max health is now 2750 and the current HP is 2475

After that, the heal (in the example 60% or 900HP as the heal is fully enhanceable) is applied, which obviously caps the HP at the new Max.

Stupid Fanboy has an excellent gudie to Dull Pain:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=114355

Easy rule of thumb, for maximum effect with 95% healing hit Dull Pain at about half you HP bar and you will go all the way up to full on the new higher HP.

Wow, excellent information. Thanks!

To full, i usually won't bother with it until i'm lower on health though personally. I usually won't use it until i'm at least 25% outside of AVs. Cause if you can last without it, you should try to do so as to not waste it if possible.

On my regen I sometimes pop Dull Pain before a fight if I'm anticipating a lot of incoming damage. Since healing and regeneration are my main methods of mitigation, having higher Max HP at the beginning of a fight means my regeneration is healing more per tick and I have a buffer of more HP to make those hard hits hurt less (that's why they named the power Dull Pain!). It does absolutely no good against Dr. Aeon in the STF though, since he is capable of hitting for more than scrapper HP cap.

If I'm expecting to get the crap knocked out of me I will activate Dull Pain and Instant Healing simultaneously, having the net effect of turbocharging my regen rate. Instant Healing dramatically increases the rate you regen at, and Dull Pain increases your Max HP, resulting in more HP healed per regen tick.

Of course my regen scrap is to the point now that I don't even consider it a real fight if I don't have to hit a heal during it. His passive regen is high enough with just Integration running I almost never need to be proactive about it anymore.

Its also important to note the hp caps, its different for every AT and some it almost makes hp buffs near useless on some ATs, here is the % from the cap each AT is at at lvl 50 with no buffs:

blaster\stalker 25%
Corruptor 33%
controller\defender\dominator 36%
Tanker 41%
Scrapper 44%
Mastermind 50%
Brute 53%
Epic ATs 55%

Everybody can get a free +20% hp from accolades, so with that blasters and stalkers are only 5% away from the cap, making hp buffs pretty much useless as you could easily and cheaply get the last 5% from IOs. Its a similar issue with other ATs, though not all have access to +HP powers. I see this as a huge problem for stalkers though.

Yeah, Dull Pain is nearly useless on a stalker that is already at HP cap. It essentially becomes a really big heal since it has no other effect.

Brute and tanker HP cap is in the 3000-some-odd range...which is the main reason neither of them have Regeneration as a Primary/Secondary choice. That many HP would be regenerating at an obscene rate, it is not uncommon for a Regen to hit 800% passive regeneration. My scrapper regenerates 44.80 HP/sec with just Integration running, he has just a tiny bit under 1800 hit points. A tank with Regen would be regenerating around 80 HP/sec....just standing there. Add a self heal, and the ability to hit HP cap on a regular basis and you have a damn near unkillable tank...and that's before IOs and Tough/Weave are taken into account.

I completely understand why tanks and brutes don't get regen, it would be pretty overpowered to have a set that's main function is to heal based on amount of HP given to the two ATs with the highest HP.

Willpower works differently, they can hit the same levels of regen, but only in the middle of a crowd, a Regen has those levels all the time.