Given you don't see the value in softcapping your defense and its a malefactoring-heavy build, *shrug* looks fine. What you might want to do is swap the Doctored Wounds set in Transfusion for Panaceas (5/6, minus the proc), since they exemp like purple IOs so you'll have the recharge, +rec and +hp at whatever level.
If he's a blank check character, maybe give him a 2nd build built for endgame? Apocs in Blaze, softcapped s/l*, maybe swap Patrons so you have 33% s/l and give you another place for a LotG?
*Yes, it really is worth it. With Veng on you're still not softcapped. Softcapping your defense means a)you're much better equipped to "outrun" people on your team and b) if someone does die Veng is pure bonus for you but will help people without zomguber builds on your team outrun better themselves 
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Quote:
I'll put the Panaceas in Transfusion. Good idea.|
Originally Posted by Silas
Given you don't see the value in softcapping your defense and its a malefactoring-heavy build, *shrug* looks fine. What you might want to do is swap the Doctored Wounds set in Transfusion for Panaceas (5/6, minus the proc), since they exemp like purple IOs so you'll have the recharge, +rec and +hp at whatever level.
If he's a blank check character, maybe give him a 2nd build built for endgame? Apocs in Blaze, softcapped s/l*, maybe swap Patrons so you have 33% s/l and give you another place for a LotG? *Yes, it really is worth it. With Veng on you're still not softcapped. Softcapping your defense means a)you're much better equipped to "outrun" people on your team and b) if someone does die Veng is pure bonus for you but will help people without zomguber builds on your team outrun better themselves |
Why would I want Apocs in Blaze instead of Fire Blast? Sadly, I use Fire Blast more often. Thus, I have the proc in Fire Blast.
No, the extra defense is not worth losing those resists over. Thanks for your opinion. *EDIT* Resistances are more important to me. Transfusion can be machine-gunned at all levels. I can be at full health within 3 seconds at pretty much any point in time. Resistances give me more time to fire off my inspirations and Transfusion when I actually get hit. Defense may, over the long term, reduce the amounts of hits I take but it doesn't buy me more time to fix myself up. I don't get hit all that often. I'm not concerned with reducing how often I get hit. I am concerned about how long I have to react. There is a very large very significant difference between having 1 second and 2 seconds to react. Every instant counts.
Quote:
I disagree, however you are obviously welcome to build however you like. Being soft-capped to smashing/lethal defense and also having permahasten makes a huge difference for the tough high-end content. As far as exemping, luckily all the content below the exemp point of the patron shields is easy enough so you don't really need it.|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
No, the extra defense is not worth losing those resists over.
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<--agrees with everything silas said
Being that I survive all the late game content... at difficulty settings far above standard... I'm not going to be easily swayed to change my view on what it takes for me to survive things.
It's hard to improve "not dying". I can't die less than zero.
Quote:
True enough. Have you tried soloing a +4/x8 Longbow map? There is a spectrum of survivability... very little in this game can stand up to all possible scenarios. Even a tank will fall if it tries to solo the Freedom Phalanx, 16 copies of positron in the AE, etc. If, however, you find that for the majority of encounters you personally find yourself in that the resistance shield is better for you, that is fine. I still disagree, having tried both on my kin corr, but recognize that this is a choice of personal preference.
|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
Being that I survive all the late game content... at difficulty settings far above standard... I'm not going to be easily swayed to change my view on what it takes for me to survive things.
It's hard to improve "not dying". I can't die less than zero. |
Quote:
Your example of surviving all late game content at far higher settings than standard was you bumrushing the Freedom Phalanx. Now, you did acknowledge that you were buffed to the gills, in fact so buffed to the gills you took a direct hit from a +4 AV and it barely hurt you for more than 20% of your health. |
Originally Posted by Smurphy
Being that I survive all the late game content... at difficulty settings far above standard... I'm not going to be easily swayed to change my view on what it takes for me to survive things.
It's hard to improve "not dying". I can't die less than zero. |
But that's a reflection on how many buffs you had on you, not the value of a resistance shield vs softcapped defense. If you've got softcapped s/l you can pull off that kind of stunt even without buffs.
I'll admit, softcapped defenses help most on buff-light teams or small teams. If you've got 2 sets of cold shields and thermal shields on you, it doesn't matter unless you're out of their range and/or they're terribad at shielding. But if you're on a full balls-to-the-wall speed run without any kind of significant buffing? It's a godsend. It also gives you a lot more freedom for inspirations.
My Fortunata (softcapped to all 3 positions) takes nothing but greens and oranges on TFs. My kin (softcapped to s/l) takes nothing but 1 row of greens, oranges and a row of blues for Transference after nuking. My fire/fire dom (softcapped to s/l), same deal as the Fort, nothing but greens and oranges.
But yeah, it's a build preference and having tried both I know which I prefer
Last thing being about the Apocs: For a malefactoring build it's fine because you're not gonna have Blaze for the lower level TFs whereas Blast you'll have at any level. For an end-game build, Blaze should be your main attack, not Fire Blast. It gains a much greater benefit from the enhancement values of the set (most importantly recharge, 89.9% vs 62% from a set of Decis).
If you look at the DPA and DPS numbers, Blaze is just stupidly, stupidly good. In a build where you've got Perma-Hasten level recharge you can be throwing it out every few seconds. Plus with all the Fire AoEs and kinning being so busy it's not like you're going to be knuckling down into a full attack chain very often. My kin uses X-Ray Beam (a mistake, will respec back into N.Bolt sometime I can be bothered) just as filler. If I'm not kinning, or AoEing, Bam, Cosmic Burst.
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
My survival cannot be computed by the standard methods. If I don't die in an incredibly short amount of time, the window might be 2 seconds or 3 seconds then I don't die and am at full health. Essentially, enemies have to hit me fast and hard. If they don't I can machine gun transfusion, eat inspirations, escape, or simply fry them.
Defense reduces the amount of times that window of possibility of death comes into play.
Resistance decreases the time of that window. For example: enemies might only have 2 seconds to take me from full life to dead instead of 3 seconds to take me from full life to dead.
Currently, that window doesn't occur very often and when it does it is the most frequent cause is player error. I want the greatest amount of time for me to correct my errors and the shortest amount of time for enemies to have an opportunity. Resistance gives me that. Defense doesn't.
I don't care about my ability to solo. The only time I solo is to make a stupid video of something.
I'm aware on the numbers of Blaze and Fire Blast. Sadly, I busted out Herostats and I use Fire Blast more 
The only time I really care about my single target attacks is when I'm shooting an EB or an AV. In those situations, sadly, I use Fire Blast more. At other points in time I'm tossing AoEs. I'm always around lots of enemies. Throwing single target attacks simply pale in comparison to Fire Ball, Rain of Fire, and Fire Breath when their are multiple enemies to hit. I am shooting multiple enemies a vast majority of the time.
There are only 4 situations when I die or am in danger of death.
1) An AV or Multiple AVs are attacking me. Here I'm in danger of getting hit by 2 or 3 big shots in rapid succession.
My resistances are only to S/L/E. This one might be a push between Resistance and Defense or it might favor defense.
2) Mezzed and no break free.
Occasionally when I fight Rikti and some other enemies I don't have a break free, get mezzed, and get wailed on. This one might also be a push between resistance and defense. Resistances let me get wailed on for a few instants longer but defense lets me sometimes avoid getting mezzed entirely. Push?
3) Multiple attacks hit me through my defense in a short span of time.
This one is the most frequent danger (other than EBKAC). I get to the enemy spawns first very often. I stand in the middle of them and fulcrum shift. Often they are Romans or some other enemies and they all use their first attack on me. If I survive that attack, even at a sliver of life, I live.
In every situation I've played in, in my experience in City of Heroes, my resistances let me survive that alpha virtually every single time. If I had defenses, over the long term, I'd probably take less damage. That doesn't necessarily correlate with surviving more, however.
If you did a statistical analysis of me taking alphas from enemy groups and compared results from Resistances verse Defense it might look like this: The number represent how much damage I took from the enemy groups alpha attacks.
Resistance
800, 1000, 500, 400, 800, 600, 1000, 500, 600, 800
Defense
200, 400, 1500, 400, 200, 600, 300, 200, 1500, 400
Total Damage from Resistance: 7,000
Total Damage from Defense: 5,500
Deaths from Resistance: 0
Deaths from Defense: 2
My play experience shows me that I survive those alphas on Resistance sets... and often not by much... but I always survive. I don't want to take less damage overall if it means sometimes I randomly get unlucky and splat.
4) Player error
My stupidity and not paying attention causes me deaths sometimes. There's a scene in Happy Feet where a seal attacks the penguins on land. Seals are incredibly slow and pathetic on land. The penguins laugh and simply slowly walk just out of the seal's reach. That's how I play on Trafficker. When paying attention on Trafficker I can be in Transfusion/Fulcrum shift range on enemies yet outside of enemy melee range. I can maintain this distance against all enemies. Sometimes I forget to return on Siphon Speed or Inertial Reduction. Sometimes I'm not paying attention enough. In these situations I get stabbed. Just like the example above I'm not concerned about the long-term taking less damage overall. I'm solely concerned about "will I splat in an instant." Resistance reduces the amount of times I simply get stabbed in the face and die. I take more damage... but I don't die.
I get stabbed a lot on Trafficker. I get shot a lot on Trafficker. It would be nice if I was stabbed and shot less on Trafficker. However, I don't want to trade less damage for larger spikes. The spikes are the danger.
Well, you've got your mind made up about how defense and resistance work for you so we can just agree to disagree on that one
About Apocs in Fire Blast though, using Fire Blast more often doesn't necessarily mean the Apoc set is going to do more damage in there. While yes, you generally want purple procs in powers where they'll be able to go off as much as possible, with your level of recharge you've got Blaze recharging in what, 3-4 seconds? (sorry for estimating numbers, at work so I don't have Mids to check)
The Apocalypse set gives significantly higher recharge numbers than the Decimation set, so its better in Blaze which needs the recharge more than Fire Blast. Not to mention having a way higher base damage to profit from the damage enhancement. For me, Blaze/BiB/Cosmic Burst are powers I hit all the time. If they're not recharging, I have been remiss in my duties :3
If you've got Blast and Blaze both recharged and you go for Blast first, that is saddest song played on unhappiest guitar :C
Blaze is the sentence, Blast is the puncuation Not the other way around.
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
With Apoc in Fire Blast and Decimation in Blaze...
3.74s. Blaze recharges in 2.74 + 1 =
2.25s. Fire Blast in 1.05 + 1.2 =
Reversed...
3.63s. Blaze
2.3s. Fire Blast
I could run Herostats again and see which I use more and by how much. The damage % slotting is roughly the same on both sets. The end discount is a little higher with Decimation, actually. That comes into play at low levels though most of my costs come from the AoEs. With all the bonuses on the build the Accuracy and Recharge don't really affect all that much. You can see the 20% recharge slotting difference equates to less than a 1/10th of a second. I'm not sure if it actually changes things with the server ticks or however "arcanatime" or whatever its called works.
I'll give Herostats another run through and if the use is close I'll give them a switch.
would put jav volley proc in fireball
I made my own Trafficker-knock-off after teaming with the toon. Here's the most recent (revising to a S/L softcap build for fun in I17) version of him if you wanted to peek at it:
Code:
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Silas
But if you're on a full balls-to-the-wall speed run without any kind of significant buffing? It's a godsend. It also gives you a lot more freedom for inspirations.
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I've also done many-many 22-25m ITFs where I was the only support, and I never had a problem dying. When you're at an unsuppressed speed cap 96% of the time, it's incredibly easy to use the geometry to your advantage.
I play my toon exactly like Smurphy does; fire ball in Positron's face and all. I never exemp, though.
However:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
2) Mezzed and no break free.
Occasionally when I fight Rikti and some other enemies I don't have a break free, get mezzed, and get wailed on. This one might also be a push between resistance and defense. Resistances let me get wailed on for a few instants longer but defense lets me sometimes avoid getting mezzed entirely. Push? |
I'll give you a shout when I respec, you can check it out.
Quote:
This is an important point. I now understand your choices a little more.|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
I don't care about my ability to solo. The only time I solo is to make a stupid video of something.
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I am surprised you end up using fire blast more than blaze. On my fire/kin corr, I end up using blaze much more than fire blast, largely due to how busy kin can be and the need to prioritize.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Smurphy
If I had defenses, over the long term, I'd probably take less damage. That doesn't necessarily correlate with surviving more, however.
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For me playing my Kin on TFs and stuff, defense is a clear winner. I'd rather get hit for more far less frequently than get hit all the time for less. Less time healing myself, more time melting face and kinning.
For example, the Freedom Phalanx. You jump in first, you get them all aggroed on you. 50% resistance is not meaningful in the face of the kind of damage they pump out. I'd rather not get hit by a train than get hit by a train but only take the damage of half a train.
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Tested. Resistance was the clear winner for me.
As others have described, Defense will usually take less damage and often leave you free and clear of damage. Against many packs no damage was taken. However, sometimes you just die.
Personally, I want control over when and how I die. Defense does not give me that control. Occasionally the random dice rolls come up against me and I just splat. In contrast, on a resistance character I can get hit a few times and then take the appropriate actions: move in and transference, eat a green inspiration, shoot the bad guy until dead, move into the center of the pack for Fallout placement, or simply do nothing. I, personally, don't like dying randomly without having any say in the matter.
Walking into the Freedom Phalanx without using inspirations, buffs, accolade powers or anything else is simply stupid. Anyone who does such a thing, whether they are built for defense or resistances, is simply going to get killed rather quickly. I give resistances the nod in this scenario because it sure is easier to get up to the cap on defenses with outside sources (inspirations, Demonic Aura). Resistances are harder to achieve. Build for resistances, hit demonic and a purple, eat 2 oranges, and you are good to go. In contrast, a Defense build probably needs 4 - 6 Oranges plus Demonic.
*EDIT*
Whoops. Forgot to mention Blaze. I do use Blaze more now. I was playing wrong.
Blaze recharges in roughly 2.6-2.8 seconds. Normally I'd hit Blaze, Then Fire Blast/Fire Ball, see Blaze wasn't up, then hit Flares. I've learned it is more effective not not hit flares, let the .2 seconds or so be dead-time and hit Blaze the instant it recharges. This has increased my damage and put Blaze up to #1 on my list. Otherwise I'd hit Flares and sometimes Fire Breath, Rain of Fire, Fulcrum Shift, Fire Ball, or some other "high priority power" would recharge in that 1 second Flares would take to animate. Under my old, flawed playstyle I'd use Flares and then not Blaze because one of those "High Priorities" came back up. Instead now, I don't use Flares, wait .2 or whatever and use Blaze. Then use a high priority, if its up, after.
You're welcome.
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Link to the build with Video
Level 50 Magic Corruptor
Primary Power Set: Fire Blast
Secondary Power Set: Kinetics
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery
Villain Profile:
------------
Level 1: Fire Blast (A)(3)(3)(5)(5)(7)
Level 1: Transfusion (A)(7)(46)(46)(46)(48)
Level 2: Fire Ball (A)(9)(9)(11)(11)(13)
Level 4: Flares (A)(21)(21)(45)(48)
Level 6: Rain of Fire (A)(13)(15)(15)(17)(19)
Level 8: Hasten (A)(17)(19)
Level 10: Siphon Speed (A)
Level 12: Fire Breath (A)(34)(34)(36)(43)(50)
Level 14: Hurdle (A)
Level 16: Health (A)(31)
Level 18: Blaze (A)(23)(23)(25)(25)(27)
Level 20: Speed Boost (A)(27)(45)
Level 22: Stamina (A)(29)(29)
Level 24: Maneuvers (A)(31)(43)
Level 26: Tactics (A)(31)(33)
Level 28: Inertial Reduction (A)(33)(33)
Level 30: Vengeance (A)
Level 32: Increase Density (A)(34)(37)
Level 35: Transference (A)(36)(36)(37)
Level 38: Fulcrum Shift (A)(39)(39)(39)
Level 41: Boxing (A)(42)(42)(42)(43)
Level 44: Tough (A)(45)
Level 47: Charged Armor (A)(48)
Level 49: Weave (A)(50)(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl (A)(37)(40)(40)(40)
Level 1: Sprint (A)
Level 2: Rest (A)
Level 1: Scourge
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I believe the power order is correct. Some notes...
Budget is not a factor. I don't care what things cost. Trafficker is my favorite character. He gets anything he wants. He gets a blank check. Actually, he gets two blank checks: I rolled a 2nd Fire/Kin Corruptor named Trafficker.
I think that's the most up-to-date build. The power order might be slightly off in places. I'm open to altering some of the power choices but I don't really see that as being likely. The powers that I can contemplate changing are: Stamina/Health/Hurdle, Inertial Reduction, Increase Density, Fire Breath, and Flares (Which can only change into Siphon Power or Repel). You'd have to blow my mind to convince me to change one of the other powers. Charged Armor can change into one of the other Resistance Armors.
Malefactoring is very important to my build. I have an outrageous and astounding amount of fire power at level 7. Fire Blast, Fire Ball, Flares, Rain of Fire and Fire Breath are all available. Hasten, Siphon Speed and 40% Global Recharge are at my command to let me unload those 5 attacks even faster. All present at level 7.
Survivability is not an issue. I do not see the value in soft-capping my defense. I prefer the +HP slotting. If you can squeeze in more defense, HP or resistances without sacrificing something significant I would be very pleased. I'm open to viewing alternative choices (something like 5% recharge for 5% HP) or other such potential equal exchanges. As you can see in the video I make excellent use of inspirations and binds to combine inspirations to what I need. I can crank out purples, oranges and Break Frees. Survivability, to me is simply a question of "do I have enough to survive anything?" Currently, that answer is "yes". I've literally jumped up to an enemies buffed, players debuffed Statesman and Freedom Phalanx in the Lord Recluse Strike Force and hurled a Fire Ball in their faces and held my ground while the team leader called for buffs 100 yards away(really, it's on youtube). Granted, I had lots of buffs on me... but I can get those buffs anytime I want. Demonic Aura recharges in something like 8 or 9 minutes and inspirations are flowing at my fingertips.
Also, Vengeance is incredibly useful and is close to always active in actual gameplay. There's a joke about two men in the African Savannah. They spot a lion coming towards them on the horizon. One of them calmy takes out his running shoes and proceeds to put them on. The other states "you can't outrun a lion!" The man putting on his running shoes responds "I don't have to outrun the lion. I just need to outrun you." That's pretty much my take on Vengeance. I just need to do crazy stuff. Teammates will follow me in or try to emulate what I do. I just need to "outrun" them.