I'll just say a couple of things about traps, I've never seriously played ice.
My bots/traps can doublestack poison gas trap, but I'm not sure if the -regen stacks. If it does stack it's not noticeable versus AVs.
Not sure how long the -res from acid mortar lasts, there are so many damage numbers flying it's hard to know where they all come from 
. They're still worth doublestacking, if only to cover more mobs when 1 of them decides to target 1 guy off in the corner instead of a big crowd.
You can do amazing proc shenanigans with traps, i.e. chance for hold in both acid mortar and poison gas trap, chance for -res in pgt, and the knockdown proc in caltops.
I think sleet takes a -RES proc, dunno about the rest of cold.
And yeah sonic doesn't have the best AoEs, can't have 1 toon excel at every facet of the game... but I expect it's an AV murder machine.
You should have people begging you to join teams with either build. I'd probably prefer the cold/ice for a RWZ ship raid and the traps/sonic for a MoLRSF but I'd be very happy to have either toon in any PVE team.
If you farm tips at x6 or x8 with the cold/ice and get invited to a bunch of task forces with the traps/sonic, you could be so wealthy you'll purple them both.
Traps and cold are pretty similar in that they both have great buffs and debuffs. Cold is a bit more defensive, while traps is a bit more offensive. Don't worry too much about AVs resisting more of cold's debuffs than traps, because slows are not cold's most effective debuffs by a long shot. Both of them supply large amounts of damage and resistance debuffing, which are the most important things you can use to debuff an AV. Both will be pretty useful in I19 content.
Random question answering: If you really want to make your cold/ice's area damage crazy, you want to put damage procs into sleet instead of damage enhancements, since those will be more effective. The minimum regeneration an enemy can have is 0%, so 100% regeneration debuffing is all it takes. However, AVs heavily resist most kinds of debuffs, so overkill is good. On an even level AV at level 50, a single poison trap will debuff 150%, which is more than enough. However, if you're up against a +4 AV, then the debuff will be about 62% (I pulled the values from memory, so I'm not guaranteeing that one) in which case two applications would be useful.
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This is true. In an ideal environment, traps will outperform a lot of sets. However, this relies on you acting quickly to debuff ambushes and constantly keep everyone within your force field, which just isn't possible at all times. Cold is a lot more reliable since the ice shields will continue affecting people as long as you can keep them up. It comes down to whether or not you want greater personal defense and maximum killing power against a controlled AV (traps) or better personal area damage output and reliable teammate defense (cold).
| On paper Traps seems a lot stronger in general than Cold. Especially since Traps has good inherent mez resistance in FFG. |
Don't multiple Sleets stack(Or can you only have one at a time)? That plus the Achilles -res proc and Heat Loss should provide better sustained res debuff potential than Traps.
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
I missed this question the first time around.
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Thunderstrike has a rather small area, and only a portion of its full damage is area. It also does knockback, which is a terrible thing for a melee area attack to do. I wouldn't suggest it.|
Originally Posted by Adaptionist
Also would Thunderstrike from Electric pool be a decent AOE to combine with Sleet and Snowstorm?
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Originally Posted by Auroxis
Don't multiple Sleets stack(Or can you only have one at a time)? That plus the Achilles -res proc and Heat Loss should provide better sustained res debuff potential than Traps.
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The Achilles' vs. Damage proc argument is pretty much reliant on the level of mobs you're fighting and the amount of teammates you're with. If you're teaming a lot, the -res will be more beneficial. Of course with the amount of slotting you need for Sleet(just two recharge IO's) you don't really need to choose unless your build is super tight.
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Originally Posted by Garent
I missed this question the first time around.
Thunderstrike has a rather small area, and only a portion of its full damage is area. It also does knockback, which is a terrible thing for a melee area attack to do. I wouldn't suggest it. Yes, multiple sleets stack. I wouldn't suggest putting an achilles' heel proc in it though, since damage procs will be superior in most situations. Achilles' heel is best against bosses or higher ranked enemies, so attacks like neutrino bolt or acid mortar are good places to use it since those are things that hit quickly and repeatedly and you can be sure you can get the debuff on the targets that count. |
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
On hard targets, running debuffs, will Traps/Sonic be able to crank out comparable DPS to my Fire/mental blaster (range capped, perma drain psyche)? It is hard to see from Mids. I see blaster fire attacks doing over 2x the damage of defender Sonic I guessing I need over 100 -res stacked to do she same damage?
And lastly. If I go mu mastery. For Charged armor and Adpet. Will the Adept contribute well DPS wise and will I be able to keep it alive with FFG, manouvers and the +5 defence from the set in it? I am guessing it adds up to around 31% def to all for the Adept (if it has 0 defence to begin with). I also have enough recharge to have it near perma. I dont know what kind of DPS the Adept does but was thinking it must be pretty stellar when combined with massive -res debuffs from traps and sonic? Also can the adept be controlled or will it behave stupidly attacking random targets etc?
Or is there a different pet that would perform better?
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I won't attempt the math, but the answer is very different if you're solo or teaming.|
Originally Posted by Adaptionist
On hard targets, running debuffs, will Traps/Sonic be able to crank out comparable DPS to my Fire/mental blaster (range capped, perma drain psyche)? It is hard to see from Mids. I see blaster fire attacks doing over 2x the damage of defender Sonic I guessing I need over 100 -res stacked to do she same damage?
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If you're teaming the -res boosts everyone else's damage too, which will quickly eclipse the damage any one toon could inflict, no matter what build.
Solo you'd have to run the numbers, there are people here much better at it then I.
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It depends a lot on the specific character and how they're built, but I can run some average numbers and at least give a ballpark estimate.|
Originally Posted by Adaptionist
On hard targets, running debuffs, will Traps/Sonic be able to crank out comparable DPS to my Fire/mental blaster (range capped, perma drain psyche)? It is hard to see from Mids. I see blaster fire attacks doing over 2x the damage of defender Sonic I guessing I need over 100 -res stacked to do she same damage?
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Sonic blast will do somewhere around 42 dps before any damage enhancements, vigilance, or -res outside of the blasts themselves. The fire blaster will hit about 74.6 dps if they don't use mind probe before counting damage enhancements, defiance, or aim/build up. Add in damage enhancements, vigilance, and double acid mortar debuff and the defender will hit somewhere around 124 dps. I've never really crammed numbers on defiance, but just for fun let's say that it's giving an average of 40% damage buff, which puts the blaster at 175 dps if you add in enhancements too. Unlike defender aim, blaster build up and aim are worth the time to use, and give bursts of 280 dps. These numbers aren't extremely accurate, since I didn't do things like account for damage loss from the animation times of acid mortar and build up, but they should give a general idea of what both sets are capable of, though both can put out a lot more than what I showed if they have enough recharge and use damage procs.
The blaster defiance does not add more than 10-20 percent i believe. Or am I wrong? Also are you including the -80-100 res from chaining sonic attacks?
Lets say:
-140 res from sonic chains and double mortar
30 + dmg from vigilance
20 + dmg from defender assault
and of course floored -regen from poison trap
If i understand correctly +dmg only works for base dmg (unenhanced) so it is in effect halved. Which makes it:
25% damage from vigilance and assault
and +140% damage from - resistance stacking
=165% dmg
So lets say slotted attacks have on average 70 dps, that would ammount to around 180 dps for the defender would it not?
In addition the damage from procs will be twice as potent for the defender (caused by -res)
So with an apocalypse proc in flares I would add on average 33 damage per attack on the blaster vs 70+ damage if slotted in shriek (and part of debuff chain)
no calculator used here, just an approximation from how I understand the mechanics.
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Honestly, I don't know if you're wrong. I've only played blasters up to the 20s, and defiance doesn't start giving a respectable damage buff unless you're using a constant attack chain. The number I got was based on the equation I pulled from paragonwiki that determines how much damage buff an attack gives. The buff lasts for 7.5 seconds AFTER the attack is finished animating.|
Originally Posted by Adaptionist
The blaster defiance does not add more than 10-20 percent i believe. Or am I wrong? Also are you including the -80-100 res from chaining sonic attacks?
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Damage Bonus = 6.6% * Activation Time
So you could, on paper, accumulate a 49.5% damage buff, except it'll be lower than that because the formula uses listed animation time instead of arcana time, area attacks like fireball don't give as much of a boost, and there are lots of small things that stop you from constantly attacking like having to jump out of melee range or using aim/build up. The 40% number I used was just an estimate and I'm sure that it'll be lower than that in actual play, though I don't know how much lower.
I did include the resistance debuff in the 42 dps figure, as that's about what a defender will put out (minus damage enhancements) if they use one of the two attack chains which don't require a ton of recharge bonuses. The resistance debuff of these chains will waver between 40% and 80% depending on what part of the chain it's in and which one is being used.
Link to graph here
Because there are a lot of variables that can't be accounted for like whether or not your target is moving (yes, that matters with sonic blast) there's no such thing as a completely accurate figure for sonic blast dps, but the graph is as accurate as I can be without actually going into the game and determining it with a battery of tests and various slottings.
And you're absolutely right about the apocalypse proc. Sonic blast defenders leverage procs better than anything else in the game.
What kind of recharge will I need to chain screech/fence by the way? Have 185 in current build. Also to eliminate endurance as an issue, will it be a good solution to slot a performance shifter in electric fence that will trigger (i believe) at 20% on every activation (100% withing 10 secs)?
Also is the Mu mastery Mu Adapt significant extra dps in a debuff build like traps/sonic? Better than using screch/fence chain, and instead using shriek/screech/shout (+Adept)?
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Are you sure you mean screech, the disorient? I think you're meaning to say scream here.|
Originally Posted by Adaptionist
What kind of recharge will I need to chain screech/fence by the way? Have 185 in current build. Also to eliminate endurance as an issue, will it be a good solution to slot a performance shifter in electric fence that will trigger (i believe) at 20% on every activation (100% withing 10 secs)?
Also is the Mu mastery Mu Adapt significant extra dps in a debuff build like traps/sonic? Better than using screch/fence chain, and instead using shriek/screech/shout (+Adept)? |
You don't want to put performance shifter in electric fence. It'll give the bonus endurance to the things you're targeting instead of yourself.
As for the Adept, I honestly don't know what kind of damage he puts out.
I love my cold/ice. It plays extremely fast and has tons of utility. Sleet+ice storm is crazy, there is a rumor ice storm and blizzard kept the blaster numbers in the port. Also I went with ghost widow to powerboost the shields and found it lets me soulstorm AVs. (I have all 3 holds but I will probably drop bitter freeze ray) Great video of a cold/ice vs Infernal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFoOS9RSTPE
I am PL in RL.
Freedom- Magnet Man, Hott Sauce, Stand-Up Comic
This made me very sad to learn when I first hit 50 and respeced into a Powerboost build, but PB does not enhance either /Traps' FFG or /Cold's Ice Shields.
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It's not like you have a melee attack chain to worry about. The issue is knocking things out of range for Sleet and Ice Storm.
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Originally Posted by Garent
Thunderstrike has a rather small area, and only a portion of its full damage is area. It also does knockback, which is a terrible thing for a melee area attack to do. I wouldn't suggest it.
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Have 48 Traps/Sonic and 50 Cold/Ice defenders. Traps I have played up the hard way and slotted with sets. Cold I have levelled in AE missions (I know shame on me). I play a Dark/SS tank as main, and have fun flying around with my range, energy and negative capped Fire/Mental blaster (50).
Now trying to decide which debuffer to focus on (Traps or Cold). My impression is that Traps is the more potent debuffer. I am wondering however how the Acid Mortar mechanics work. In particular I am wondering how long the debuff from each mortar round lasts. Do they only last until the next round is fired or is there some possible overlap from the same mortar? I have a mids build (Softcapped and with 190 recharge..perma hasten) where the recharge on mortar is 24 seconds, hence I can have 2-3 out at a given time. What will the net ammount of -res and def debuff be from the combined mortars firing? Also I can double stack poison trap for 10 seconds. Is there a point in 2k -regen on any GMs or AVs`? Or do they all floor at 1k? Also will I with this kind of recharge be able to keep a chain of shriek/fence going gapless?
The Traps defender plays interesting but strange compared to the other AT's. It is not immediately obvious what effect i have on the mobs (also with sonic attacks) during gameplay (even though the numbers are clear). Easy content (speedruns etc especially with many minions are not very effective for him....also hate tripmine and timebomb) because he lacks good AOE.
The Cold/Ice plays out very differently and is actually pretty good for farming (even just using basic IO's ...sleet and icestorm. Should sleet be slotted with damage or just recharge so it fits in with icestorm? (17 sec recharge in mids build on both). Also would Thunderstrike from Electric pool be a decent AOE to combine with Sleet and Snowstorm?
Most of all: For end game content (with I19), what would be most wanted in teams? I feel stronger using Cold since i get immediate feedback on what i do when I apply the various powers and since I have pretty good AOE. I am wondering if a lot of the debuffs from Cold will be resisted by AVs/GMs (slows etc), and I understand this is not the case with most of the debuffs (-res -regen) from Traps. On paper Traps seems a lot stronger in general than Cold. Especially since Traps has good inherent mez resistance in FFG.
So that is my rant with some questions packed into it all... Hoping for some input.