Peacebringers in play?

Wow... ok I am not really sure where to start here other than the number 1 mega huge glaring problem I saw - Why 6 slots in Sprint? Seriously?

I'm not trying to insinuate anything here, I just truthfully don't understand what your logic was on that one.

Secondly you've massively underslotted Health and Stamina. Your not getting the extra recovery bonus from Forms since you decided to go all Human Form and I cannot imagine how you can't be sucking wind every 30 seconds or so.

There's more but I think it would be easier for me to mess around with your build and then repost it in a little bit. I'll edit this post once I come up with something while still trying to keep most if not all of the power selections you chose.

EDIT-

Ok here is the build I came up with, and I only switched out one power which I'll go over below.

Ok first, i took ALL of the slots out of sprint. You can put whatever you like in there but it only needs one slot. Stamina got 2 slots and Health got 1. I 6 slotted some of your attacks that were not before, and totally upped the resistance on your Quantum Shield.

Instead of putting the 2 uniques in there you will get a much better return putting them in incandescence. In fact, I dropped the +def unique entirely. The reason being that you are built around resistance, and nothing else in your build was built towards chasing Def bonuses so the measly +3% from this IO combined with even both Combat Jumping and Combat Flight would have barely gotten you to 10% defense. You'll get a MUCH better return for investment by going for recharge and +HP bonuses so the Def IO had to go.

Secondly, I dropped one of your KB Protection IO's. Yes, you wont be immune to KB from everything but the few things that will be able to KB you should only be smacking you if you are tanking (which you shouldn't be in a Human form PB unless you have to or with Light Form) and then you can easily compensate for that with Combat Flight.

The power I dropped from your build completely was Dawn Strike. It's a bad crash, especially for a build that is going to be as END intensive as yours and you lack any real AoE attacks. So instead I switched in Proton Scatter. You wont have a full AoE attack chain still but at least now you have something to work with.

Lastly, this build focuses a great deal on Recharge and +HP as I said above. With these bonuses (And more could be eeked out if you really tried) you will have nearly perma Essence Boost giving you 2100 HP all the time, 50ish% S/L Resist, 55ish Nrg/NNrg resistances and capped resistances to both while in Light form. Also your Reform essence will be on an Average recharge time of 20 seconds if you keep Hasten cycled everytime it is available.

Incandescent Strike and Radiant Strike Both will be available more often with my changes which is really good as they are your best attacks.

As for a solo strategy on spawns my recommendation would be something along the lines of Open by summoning Photon Seekers, fire off Proton Scatter, Gleaming Bolt or Glinting Eye, and then Proton Scatter again after Photon Seekers knocks the spawn away from you. Solar Flare any that didn't get blasted back by the Seekers which will get the whole spawn in front of you again, and use your ranged powers until they get back to melee range. Then start using Incandescent and Radiant strike and Solar Flare as needed. You can refine that to whatever works best for you but that should make you pretty tough to kill when factoring in your Essence Boost and your heal.

Your end issues shouldn't be a huge issue anymore as I got your toggle usage down to .83%/Sec with nearly everything toggled on, and your attacks have been nearly optimized in the end reduction department. The Cardiac Radial wouldn't be a waste for this build if you wanted to go that route but probably Spiritual will be better for the extra recharge.

Anyway best of luck.

Let me turn that one around on you, Jersey - Nearly everyone in the "PBs r fine" camp seems to pull out recharges and damage figures that can only be attained with IO's. (A 90 second recharge in Photon Seekers from one of your previous posts? Fully slotted for recharge and with hasten up I can't bring it down below 2 minutes)

While I'd love to see your build, that's mostly for selfish reasons. So do this instead: swap over to one of your other two builds and run with SO's only. Then come back and give us your thoughts. Uuuunless you already have run on SO's sometime in the recent past. If so, then bring us something from that SO experience.

I"m not saying PB's are meh. I'm saying they need help. In fact, before 32 they actually come out ahead of warshades imho.

I"m still working on those spread sheets - nearly completed the damage comparisons - anyone have any problem with me using Plasma's Gold Standard builds as a baseline? I'm comparing based on SO's, and neither of those builds used or needed the fitness pool.

The builds have the fitness pool (I've imported them into the new mids) but nothing is slotted. Since they are triform and originally didn't need stamina, that ought to be enough now that stamina runs in forms, don't you think?

Hey, just sitting down for the 1st time since posting last and I'm looking at Red's/Star's builds now. Honestly Joe, I'm not opposed to PBs getting a buff, but I'm saying they currently work fine for me. I can't remember when I stopped using SOs completely (probaly i11 or i12) but running on SOs is like having the money to buy a new Lexus but deciding to purchase a 1989 Honda instead. Nothing wrong with that, but I just can't do it since you get so much more performance out of IOs AND they're so easy to get now even if you don't want to spend a lot of money. Why run around with a Defender that has 1000hps when you can vroom vroom it up and operate with 1300 or 1400?

I don't think any toon plays as well on SOs vs IOs, but it sounds like PBs actually need them to be able to go hard. I am going to pass on the SO challenge and say that I agree with you b/c I really do. I just hate to see so many people dislike or not play a PB when I know they're probably basing that opinion on prebuffed conditions or running it strictly on SOs. It is what it is...all I can do is enjoy mine and throw my 2cents in here and there.

Awhile back, Solient Green told me to figure out what I wanted to maximize on my PB in PvP and to run with that instead of trying to build on everything. Because they're more of a meh 5 in 1 tool...I focused on the couple of things that I wanted to do well, pushed it that direction and that's what Ive done with my human form build now also. I am not trying to use Pulsar to stun opponents, duke it out with minions or really heal allies; my goal for this build was to run in with Scrappers/Brutes and do as much damage as possible to hard targets. I'm on the road but have an older build with me on the laptop before I tweaked it's current form. Really looking forward to you dropping the #s and let me be the 1st to say thanks for putting in the time.

Red, I will take a look at you build later because after reading your posts in both threads, I realize you're not like some of the others simply stating that PBs need a buff. It seems like your looking at PBs and WSs, saying that PB's powers don't synergize etc in comparison. Even though I'm not a Mids master, I was going to try tweaking your build to up the performance but I won't be able do anything to make a PB's powers mesh better compared to WSs.

With what you say in your post, I agree with you...WS > PB as far as how powers are laid out etc. When everything is said and done, I've never been comfortable comparing ATs or even powersets within ATs. For instance, I don't see the point in saying that WSs are underpowered compared to PBs in PvP; the things that make WSs so powerful in PvE seem like they also make them one of the weaker ATs to play in that environment. Its just a moot point to me.

Except that I *am* saying that PBs need a buff. I just happen to think that taking the "training wheels" off the PB and allowing their powers to synergize better would go a LONG way towards achieving that. Remove a lot of the restrictions (if you do THIS, you CAN'T do that) and the Devs would be well on their way to improving PBs.

Heck, even adding a Mag 1 Stun to Gleaming Bolt, Glinting Eye and Gleaming Bolt would go a long way towards giving Pulsar something ... anything ... to synergize with for Crowd Control. It would also allow those powers to slot Stun Sets. Add a Mag 1 Hold to Radiant Strike, to give Incandescent Strike something to synergize with ... and give PBs a 1-2 combo to use on Bosses to help control them.

Seeker Drones in the Defender Traps/* set have a 90 second recharge.
Photon Seekers in the Luminous Blast set are on an excessively PUNITIVE and UNNECESSARILY long 300 second recharge. Bare minimum, something has to be done about Photon Seekers. Rain of Arrows in Archery on a Defender is better than Photon Seekers as a crashless nuke power. Seriously.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

I hear you and agree, just as much as a lot of other ATs/powersets could use a buff, PBs could too.

More people probably would use Pulsar based on your suggestion. I am able to currently stun Bosses since Incandescent Strike cycles through every 6secs. With it doing about 380dmg (~700 with CB + BU), I never bothered slotting for holds because I went for the Scrapper approach on my build.

Photon Seekers are on a long recharge but I look more at the damage numbers. Defender Seekers are on a 90sec cycle with the base damage at like 28dmg while PB Seekers are based at 273dmg. I currrently have mine on a 90sec recharge doing almost 600dmg and again with CB+BU, they are at about 1000dmg. The Seekers would do even more damage if could six slot them, but I ran out. I'm a fan of Defender Rain of Arrows but if it was putting up those kind of #s, I'd be pretty impressed. Would I like Seekers to do 1000dmg every 30secs on a faster recharge timer...sure.

My concern with the 'buff PBs' conversation is that certain changes would probably also call for other aspects to be debuffed. With the Seekers example, I don't think the devs would allow them to do 1000dmg every 30secs, seems like it would be too powerful.

I just happen to play the toon the way I think the devs intended with the inherent constantly on. I have no complaints because I IOd my PB trying to eliminate some of the weaknesses and CB does the rest. I am fortunate because I have a large VG, probably too many people on my globals and plugged into all the TF Channels, so I am usually on a team (on all of my toons). If we had the choice to turn off inherent buffs and someone expressed concerns about Trollers not doing enough damage but didn't use Containment, then yeah. With everything said and done though, I speed villain tips on +2/x2 and I don't have any more problems than I would on my other toons because of the way I built it.

First off, Jersey, thanks for posting the build! I've been thinking of IO'ing out my human form build, and this gives me a lot of food for thought.

Having said that, regardless of how we think anything plays on SO's, that's how the game is balanced. You say you've never seen any archetype play well on SO's, and I say IO's can make any archetype uber. With IO's you can accomplish anything with virtually any archetype, and that's why you can't balance the game around them. You're coming from a standpoint that you can do amazing things with your peacebringer, and I could only shrug. Looking at your build, I could do amazing things with that peacebringer, too.

But we're not talking about accomplishing awesome things in a vacuum. We're talking about balancing a powerset with the other powerset in the kheldian archetype.

A Warshade on SO's only with hasten can keep two extracted essences out permanantly, and because one will always be summoned with hasten running, it will be hastened as well.

Between the two of them, they can do 1000 damage every ten seconds just by cycling through their attacks. I don't think what you're saying would be too powerful at all in that light.

No problem Joe, I'm not that great with Mids but borrow from other builds a lot to try and make mine based off of that.

I never said, "You say you've never seen any archetype play well on SO's", but I did say, "I don't think any toon plays as well on SOs vs IOs". Biiiiiiiig difference man. Trying to build a Scrapper PB, I don't think the build is that awesome at all because I'm sure a lvl50 IOd Scrapper's #s make my PB look very meh. I like my Scrappers, but just haven't been able to get any of them past lvl25-30 b/c I have always been more of a ranged toon type and that's why I decided to put this PB together awhile back.

I totally agree with you and I didn't IO this PB to try to make it uber. Like I said, I start frakenslotting and IOing all my toon around lvl15. It's so cheap and easy, I don't know why anyone still uses SOs unless they are very new to the game. I just never have seen some of the glaring deficiencies others have posted and I admit that is probably due to IOs and Cosmic Balance always being on.

Can you imagine how a PB would play being rebalanced with the recommendations in this thread AND being IOd or purpled? I think it could make other toons obsolete lol.


"Between the two of them, they can do 1000 damage every ten seconds just by cycling through their attacks. I don't think what you're saying would be too powerful at all in that light."
I know my WS is OMFG amazing on IOs, but never played it with SOs. If the timer was reduced and damage output kept the same on Seekers where I could do 700+dmg every 10secs on top of my normal attack cycle, I'm all for that. I say . . . BUFF PBS!

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want game balance determined by what people can do with purpled out toons. ANY character of ANY archetype and powerset can break the game with the right IOs. Ask me, that's a problem with IO's, not the archetype.

And at some point an overpowered build starts to level off. Just because you can afford a build that will unleash photon seekers every ten seconds (and I'm not even sure you'd be able to do that) doesn't mean that most of that damage isn't going to be wasted most of the time, and the level of performance you're seeing on your PB now is probably pretty close to what a PB with photon seekers every 10 seconds is going to be, since most of that PB's heals aren't going to be needed and most of the damage will be done to corpses.

But enough anecdotes. If I've got time to post here I've got time to finish those darned old spreadsheets. We could go 'round and 'round about IO's verses SO's, but in the end - whether anyone likes it or not - the game is still balanced around SO's, and it's on what people can do with SO's that dictates balance decisions.

BTW, anyone got a good formula for measuring mitigation value, or is that something akin to the holy grail?

Indeed I do. Here's a link.

How many ways do you rock? Thanks, man!

Easy now, it's not a perfect tool by any means. The values it generates are largely useless, as we don't know how much DPS is incoming. It is a very useful tool for comparison's sake, however. The best thing I have found to use it for was answering a question:

"More HP and regen, or a few more % of defense?"

I can plug in the values for two builds and clearly see which one survives more damage.

For my purposes, it's all I really need. BTW, I haven't had much of a chance to look into it, but have you managed to quantify the value of knockup/knockdown in those figures?

I saw your recent topic on this subject and it got me curious. However, I think what you're asking for is a daunting task if ever there was. It's not impossible, but I certainly don't feel like doing the work on it.

You'd need to establish a formula to tell you how controlled a foe affected by KB is in terms of time. This would require an enemy with enough ranged attacks that he would fire immediately upon recovery, some way to time from the moment of KB until that retaliation, and a variety of KB magnitudes (at least three) to create as points on a graph. Sample size is key, as it needs to be large enough to be fairly certain of the times.

All these recorded data points would correlate KB magnitude to "time controlled." At that point, you could begin comparing knockback value to other forms of control.

Again, I don't feel like doing the work myself, but that's what would need done. Also, I have no idea how to reliably obtain those time measurements, short of sitting there with a stopwatch. If you go with the stopwatch, then the sample size needs to be significantly larger to diminish the presence of human error in the results.

That part is easy. Once you have a KB magnitude to time controlled equation, you can calculate how much time a foe spends on his back in relation to the recharge time of the power. For example: if a power has 50% chance of KB that will take 3 seconds to recover from and a 6 second recharge time, then the enemy affected will not be doing damage for 25% of the time on average. If he's one foe in a mob of seventeen (the aggro cap), you can now quantify how much survivability that KB gives you. The missing piece right now is that time to recover bit.

The math part isn't so bad. If you have a means to record those times I described reliably, get me the results and I'll give you the rest.

Sounds like a daunting task, but... it might be a really interesting data point that would speak to KB as a mitigation tool in general. With Peacebringers relying pretty heavily on KB (at least as the AT is designed) as they do/are supposed to, it'd be interesting to see if design intent is actually translating into an actual, in-game benefit.

Star, I have been looking at your build in my spare time. First, take a look at this thread...(post #3, props to Big_Soto), it's what I looked at when playing with respecs on my human PB a few times last month:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=246739

General things that I usually look at on Mids depending on AT and what I see in your build:
+dmg @ 13% (I'm at about 20.5% +dmg with Assault and IOs)
global recharge @ 61.25% with close to perma hasten @ 131.3%
global accuracy @ 32%
resistance smash/lethal-51.2%, fire/cold-2.5%, nrg/neg-42.5%, tox-15%, psi-6%
max hp @ 172.9%
KB protection @ 8
status resistances hold-30%, stun-32.2%, sleep-86.7%, immob-37.2

Again, I'm no Mids expert and my slotting isn't pro insight like a Silas (props), but just what works for me and the concept of my toon. I don't have purple sets in mine, but I think I have 1x purple IOs in GBolt (Apoc dmg proc) and Photon Seekers (Soulbound dmg/rch). Lets take a look at some of your powers and possible slotting...

G Bolt - Can be slotted many different ways with 3 set types to pick from. I respecced a few times shooting for +hps initially and finished with treating GB like Neutrino Bolt for Defs/Corrs with a cast time of 1sec and recharge time of 1.5sec. You can basically spit this out every second and it seems the strength is loading it with procs to up the dmg. I put it on auto and let it go.
- 3x Ruin for 12.5hps, 3x Devastations (w/hold proc for mitigation) for 24.1hps = ~50dmg and +36hps
- 2x HOs acc/dmg, 1x Achilles Heel res debuff, 1x ToLG chance of dmg, 1x Apoc chance of dmg, 1x Devastation chance hold = ~100dmg with all procs firing every second

Incandescence - I went with +hps and extra status resitance.
- 3x Impervious Skin for 16.6hps + 7.5% status resistance, 1x Aegis status resisitance mainly for 20% status resitance increase

G Blast - Same as G Bolt with 4 set types to pick from. I slotted mine similiar to yours.
- 5x Decimations for 12.5hps + 6.25% global recharge, 1x Devastation hold proc = ~150dmg

Essence Boost - Looks like you are permad for 1851hps with hasten up.
- 2x Miracles for 2.5%, 4x Numinas for 20.8hps + 6% global heal increase

Radiant Strike - I usually use this to finish off semi hard targets to negate the KB issue; I slotted mine similiar to yours.
- 5x Crushing Impact for 5% recharge + 12.5hps, 1x ToLG chance of dmg = ~214dmg

Incandescent Strike - Same as the other attacks with 5 sets types to pick from; similiar slotting.
- 5x Crushing Impact for 5% + 12.5hps, 1x anything with recharge or dmg proc = ~370dmg

Shields (Shining/Quantum/Thermal) - I decided to finally leave out Tough/Weave and took all 3x shields slotting for resistance and endurance.
- 3/4x Titanium Coating for 16.6hps + mezresist sleep/stun 2.2% + status resitance 7.5%, 1x Impervious Skin status resist 7.5% proc

Getting winded at this point so take a look at the build I posted in the thread. A lot of ways you can get better dmg by using procs and also increasing your mez resistances. Our builds are similiar in a lot of ways with similiar stats. I recommend definitely getting your accolades which I never did before casual PvP, six slotting IS and focusing on your attack chain. Minus Seekers, it looks like you have 7 attacks and I would say you probably dont need all of those unless you just like them (Glinting Eye does look pretty hot). I am running a good chain with 5, six slotted attacks.
- steal a couple of slots from Health unless you just prefer higher regen rates
- take Acrobatics to free a couple of slots used for KB IOs
- possibly go with Leadership for +13.5% dmg
- more slots into BU, you're currently at 39sec recharge w/hasten up; we have the same global recharge approximately and my BU is at 27sec recharge...faster BU =s more dmg
- may as well throw a lv50 heal IO into Glowing Touch instead of a lv44 heal SO
- look at using 7.5% global rechages in your build instead of a purple set and taking Pulsar for what looks like a 6.25% recharge mule; they're easy to get running hero/vill tip mishs

Don't forget to take a look at the post by Big_Soto that I linked up top. Hope some of this helps you; I just read Moonlit's recoomendations and liked them as well. If you still feel like playing your PB solo is a slight step up from a Defender in terms of survivabilty and damage, I don't know what else to say but wish you luck.