PBU + Benumb

So, I finally got my Cold/Ice defender up to 41 tonight and picked up PBU because I heard how amazing it is with Benumb's -special

But, I want to know, what's all the hubbub over? I don't seem to notice *that* much of a difference in normal game play (though it amused me to see the healing Nictus in the ITF heal for less than before)

What is affected by it? is it just a couple things, or is it everything in the -special, in which case, is it really all that useful for a purely PvE player? looking at my planned build, it doesn't seem to matter if I keep it or drop it, odds are I'd either get Aim or break down and actually get a travel power if I were to drop it.

For a Cold I believe it would increase the -def and -spd of Sleet, the -def and -spd of Infrigidate, the -end/+end/-spd in Heat Loss, and then the -special in Benumb. I'm not sure it's worth taking solely for using with Benumb, as it also provides a decent tohit and damage bonus while it's active, which for a Defender is never a bad thing. If you don't already have Aim though, I'd take that over PBU for a PvE Defender build.

While I don't know if I'd pick it up purely for use with Benumb, remember that it also buffs any Defense power you use. Thus, if you fire off PBU then cast the Ice Shields, they will have roughly double the defense values for the next 4 minutes. While you aren't going to be able to hit a whole team with PBUed bubbles in the 12.5 sec duration of PBU, it does let you "solo" soft cap several folks, say the Regen scrapper whos going to be tanking the AV at the end of the TF and the blapper who's going to be helping for example. And you can do that for every shielding cycle, based on PBU recharge and duration of the shields. With recharge slotting and doing part of the team at a time, you might even keep doubled shields up on an entire large team.

So I'm planning to pick it up for the versatility; if the team needs more defense, use it on shields, if it needs more AV/boss debuffing use it on them, etc. I like powers that let me tweak my support in more offensive or defensive ways depending on what the team needs, I've seen that vary WIDELY depending on the team makup.

To elaborate, it's not true because the ice shields have an enhanceable resistance component. Due to a quirk of the power system, any power with an enhanceable resistance component must be flagged as 'cannot be buffed' in order to avoid having damage buffs boost the resistance granted. So, the ice shields are thus flagged and their defense is not boosted by power boost.

Force field bubbles, on the other hand, have no enhanceable resistance, and thus power boost works just fine for them.

It also boosts any To Hit buffs or Healing you do. In the case of my Cold/Ice this includes Aim. Between PBU and Aim he'll be sitting just shy of the +To Hit cap and Tactics puts him at the cap. Have fun enjoying ignoring the fact the +4 (or even +6) boss PP just hit his Tier 9 version of MoG or Elude, you will hit him with the PBU Infrigidate (about -80% def prior resistances etc.) and ruin his afternoon.

As part of my build I have Entropic Chaos in the blasts and noted the PBU effects the Entropic Chaos chance for self heal. Make or break, not a chance normally, but fun.

And yes it will effect the -end to target and your +end in Heat Loss. Prior to any resistances (purple patches, whatnot) that's nearly an entire full end bar in AoE form (about -95% end from each target and +58 end back to me also from each target hit).

And Blizzard after Sleet+PBU+Heat Loss+Aim with Assault running ... yummy.

Edit: And PBU effects To Hit Debuff in BIB as well.

Slightly off topic of the thread, but does that bit about damage resistance mean that Power Build Up is useless for Sonic Resonance's core shields? Is it still useful for the -damage res powers?

PBU: Take it or Leave it. It has it's uses, but they aren't often enough or powerful enough IMO to be a must have. Personally, I skipped it since it wouldn't work with the cold bubbles. Change it so that PBU worked with the cold bubbles and I might rethink it's use.

Standard Benumb already ruins a PP's day, you just have to use it FIRST, the same applies to almost any uber-buff. Hit the target just before they use their Tier 9 and their day is over. The Healing Nictus as well, the standard benumb does more than enough to neuter one, PBU+Benumb would be cute, but dead is dead and standard benumb does the job.

Standard Heat Loss already does it's job exceptionaly well, too.

The strongest argument for me would be adding PBU to the nuke chain, THAT almost has me salivating, but as that was the only real selling point for me, I decided to go another route. After all, I'm already nuking for near blaster damage after the debuffs are taken into account.

Er, yeah, now that I think about it what I said applies to fewer defender sets than I thought. By tier 1 blast I mean the standard four second recharging attack that comes first in most sets. For sets like the defender version of archery and radiation, this is what the second blast is.

I believe it is because it won't do anything if you hit it afterward. The -special works almost like negative enhancement, and so it takes effect when the godmode is cast. If the godmode is already cast, since it's a click power its buff is set at the time of casting. Applying -special afterward won't change the strength of an existing buff anymore than deleting the enhancements out of a godmode while it's already running would.

For an ongoing effect like an autopower, a toggle, or a frequently cast click, it doesn't really matter when you apply -special. But for a long duration, long recharge click, you'll have to be careful to apply it before it's cast to actually do any good.

Precisely. If you're fighting Mynx and she hits Elude without Benumb on her, she gets fully buffed Elude numbers. If while Elude is up you hit her with Benumb, she still gets the full numbers for Elude because it was a click power and she hit it before she got Benumb'd.

So generally you want to hit AVs/Heroes with defense-based godmodes with Benumb as they're at about 1/3-1/2 health so it nerfs their godmode before they use it. Unfortunately doesn't effect resistance buffs so for AVs/Heroes with Unstoppable just hit Benumb as soon as it recharges for the -dam and -regen.

Finally got a Cold defender up to a level to try this, and tested out PBU plus Benumb. I used a Fake Nemesis boss, since I could hit it while it had its Dispersion Bubble up and see the effects using the Mark III Power Analyzer. It was -3 con, since I wanted to be able to survive multiple cycles of doing this while it was beating on me.

I didn't see any difference in the effect on its stats whether I used PBU before Benumb or not. Its defense dropped from 30% to 3% either way, Mezz Protect from Mag 2.0 to 0.2, Regen from 0.22% to -1.44% (-31.27 HP/s), Heal to -90%, -Damage unchanged at -83.13%.

Is this because the effects of Benumb were capped either way due to the -3 level of the boss relative to me, and I need to go try on a tougher boss, or am I missing something?

It's because Dispersion Field is a toggle. It applies a new short duration buff every second or so, which means it doesn't really matter when you apply Benumb. If it was a clicky, like Elude, which applies a long duration buff once, you'd see the difference.

OK, update on this; I used Oroborous to get to a lower level, and tried it on a +2 FN boss. This time its defense (while its Dispersion Bubble was up) dropped from 30% to around 10% with just Benumb, and from 30% down to 3% with PBU plus Benumb. Duration seemed to be the duration of Benumb. Similarly, -Heal was more with PBU. Oddly, -regen fluctuated between two different numbers that didn't seem to correlate with whether or not I used PBU, might have tied in with whether or not it had Disp Bubble up but it was hard to tell as it would run off (I was perched on a crate so it wouldn't kill me while I watched numbers, and FNs apparently don't jump so it was looking for stairs or something).

Evidently Benumb is affected by the purple patch, which I wasn't sure of as I don't remember seeing it mentioned and if it acted as a "self granted" power like some procs do it might not have been.

Another interesting point, the FN has built in Mag 2 protection from Terrorize and Confuse. These weren't affected by Benumb, though the Mag 2 Stun, Hold, etc. protection from the Disp Bubble were. So Benumb probably won't do much to AV protections, other then as has been discussed when they pop Tier 9s.

Finally, an oddity when using the Mark III Power Analyzer temp power to get this info it seemed to be replacing the numbers in my Real Numbers display for personal defense and such with the numbers it was reading from the FN. So for example it would show 30% Smashing defense for me when the Fake Nemesis boss turned on Disp Bubble, and zero when it was off, instead of the ~8% Ranged defense I normally have from Arctic Mist and 3% smashing defense from the Steadfast IO. I haven't played around enough with this to know if thats typical.