Question about Sonic Cage

Untouchable powers have been a mystery to me, even when I've taken and used them.

Culex's spreadsheet on mob mez resistance (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115749) doesn't have any info on Untouchable/Intangible type powers. So I pose this in hope of some clarification from someone who knows these answers.

With Sonic Cage, if I throw 1 Endoplasm in the power, according to Mids, the Untouchable magnitude goes from 5.96 to 7.9447. A second Endo makes the mag 9.9294.

So, what sort of mobs would I be unable to use Cage on with just one Endo that I could Cage with 2? That is, who has untouchable mez protection between mag 8 and 9.9?

Is there anyone/anything with mez protection between 10 and 11.62? 11.62 is what I'd get with a 3rd Endo.

I'm hoping the answer is that 1 Endo is good, because I have 1 slot to play with and if I use it for Recharge, I can keep Cage perma. If I use it for a 2nd Endo, there's a 7 second gap. Since I basically use it only on LR's towers, I have a preference to keep it perma.

I do have a request to not make this about the viability of Sonic Cage or caging powers in general.

I thought Intangible enhancements only affected the duration of the effect, not its magnitude. Like other status effect enhancements.

I believe if enough magnitude is increased, you can even cage bosses. Of course, that isn't a good idea if you have taken down the boss' HP down half way, as it will regenerate fairly quickly during the duration of the cage.

It's worth noting that the magnitude of Sonic Cage and Detention Field is resisted by level scaling. Your Sonic Cage, enhanced to 7.9 magnitude, will be able to cage an even level Elite Boss (with innate protections of mag 6), but will fail against a +3 Elite Boss when its magnitude is resisted to approximately 5.1 mag.

There is a study done by Linea on caging lvl 54 AV in STF.

However, the AVs in STF are harder from ordinary AVs. I did some small testings using an ordinary mission with Ghost Widow as a defender (result should be different for controllers.). With 1 endoplasm exposure HO, detention field is effective up to +3 AV and +2 EB. With 2 such HOs, the detention is effective for +4 AV (don't know if it's effective for +5) and up to +3 EB. The detention time is 30 seconds unchanged by HO.

Thanks Twilight_Snow that's great. Not the answer I was wishing for, that one isn't sufficient, but that's certainly a credible analysis. Looks like I really need to go with 2 Endos. I think these are cheap so I'll go 50++.

One of the strategies I read about is caging the pylons around Lord Recluse at the end of the Statesman TF. I wonder what mag of caging you need for the healing nictus around Romulus in the ITF.

The math for calculating final cage magnitude is (I believe) fairly straightforward. It just ends up as initial magnitude * (1+enhancement value) * purple patch reduction. Where the question comes in is, what is the mag required to cage various entities?

From Twilight_Snow's tests and my own experience (unslotted defender cage doesn't work on even level EBs), my guess is that you need mag 6+ to get an EB and mag 4+ to get an AV (It's somewhere in the range 5.96-6.34 for EBs, and in the range 3.8-4.75 for AVs). I wouldn't trust that for the really important nasties like towers, LR, nicti, etc, though, since I wouldn't be surprised if they had special protection.

Also, remember that defender and controller cages have different magnitudes. It's easy to forget that, but it would be very important for actually figuring out what you can and can't cage.

According to Paragon Wiki, Endoplasms affect Intangibility duration not magnitude. So what am I missing here?

(Honest question. I've never seen much point in increasing the intangibility duration, but if you can affect its magnitude, that's another story.)

I just slotted 3 Acc/Mez Ectoplasm Hamios into Sonic Cages, and it did not increase the Magnitude, just the duration. So its still mag 7.45, but instead of 30 seconds, its 58 seconds.

Not always shiny things. And not just scrappers. Before they made the anchor of rad debuffs and darkest night easier to identify, I had many teams where I'd cast the debuffs, and no one would attack till they figured out who the anchor was. THEN they would target the anchor first. Then complain when I can't stay on top of the healing, even though I tell the team "Stay near me, I'm gonna be in melee range". It got really annoying, and was a big reason why my old Rad/Rad got deleted. Frustrating to play on teams, and boringly overpowered solo.