Softcapping damage types: Are there any benefits?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-01-12 10:59 in Player Questions
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From what I remember the only attacks that don't have a positional tag are some of the Mind Control attacks, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. In those cases you would need to soft cap to Psi damage.
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Originally Posted by Pyrthas
I know that softcapping all three positions gets you most of the way there, but I've read that there are a handful of attacks without position tags. What are those attacks? Do they have damage tags? Put another way: Is there any benefit at all to softcapping any of the damage types if you've already softcapped the positions, and if so, which damage types are beneficial?
Sorry if this has been covered somewhere on the forums. If it has been, I couldn't figure out a search that would find it. |
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
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This. There maybe one or two others, but I think those are Hamidon's "untyped" attacks, so nothing will help you there. But I'd say that if you're softcapped to Melee/Ranged/AoE, going for Psi isn't going to help you that much. There are likely better things to build for at that point.
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Originally Posted by Tired Angel
From what I remember the only attacks that don't have a positional tag are some of the Mind Control attacks, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. In those cases you would need to soft cap to Psi damage.
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Most of the attacks that lack a vector flag are not a big threat. I have never died to them on my Shield Defense Scrapper.
Going for positional or typed defense depends on your chosen power set and your build. If your power set adds typed defense, it would be a bad idea to try to slot for positional defense. Some power sets make it harder to get one or the other based on the power slotting options. If you have mostly single-target ranged attacks, obtaining anything other than ranged or E/N defense will be difficult.
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I think so. This also illustrates somewhat why positional defense is slightly better than typed defense. There are a handful of psi attacks that lack a positional tag but there more debuff and mez powers that have a positional tag but no typed tag and overall I think those are more common on NPCs.
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Originally Posted by Tired Angel
From what I remember the only attacks that don't have a positional tag are some of the Mind Control attacks, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. In those cases you would need to soft cap to Psi damage.
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Pretty sure toxic doesn't have a tag either.
Unless you already have a path to cap psi (stone, dark armors for example) I don't see much point in focusing on it. Have to pull too much from other area's for my comfort.
All right, thanks for the replies, everyone. As an FF def (who hasn't played since the defense nerf), it's not too hard to softcap all ten if I try. I just wasn't sure what would actually helped. It had looked like psi might be it, but I wanted confirmation. Thanks again!
I can think of one time, back in the dark ages when all toggles would drop when you're mezzed, that I'd taken my Super Reflexes scrapper and lept headlong into a group of Council spawned for a team of 8....without noticing the 3-4 Vampyr lieutenants. Who all activated their (non positional) psychic holds at once on me. And overpowered my mez protection. And then my toggles dropped...
It got messy from there.
Nowadays, without toggles dropping even when that sort of thing does happen, the rare psychic attack bypassing positional defense isn't likely to do much of anything (in particular, as above, it IS likely to be a mez, in which case if you're softcapped on defense, you either have a mez protection power, or are an AT in the habit of having a breakfree available JIC, anyway)
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while there is no attack vector "Toxic" it (almost?) always has a positional tag associated at least. Also, depending on the source, typed will also help (Spines and Lethal Defense, for example)
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Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
Pretty sure toxic doesn't have a tag either.
Unless you already have a path to cap psi (stone, dark armors for example) I don't see much point in focusing on it. Have to pull too much from other area's for my comfort. |
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Off the top of my head, Fearsome Stare only uses the Negative_Attack vector. The only powers I can think of with one single attack vector that haven't been mentioned are a few of the Kinetics powers, which use Ranged_Attack, and therefore don't meet the criteria for the question.
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Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
This. There maybe one or two others, but I think those are Hamidon's "untyped" attacks, so nothing will help you there. But I'd say that if you're softcapped to Melee/Ranged/AoE, going for Psi isn't going to help you that much. There are likely better things to build for at that point.
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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
Off the top of my head, Fearsome Stare only uses the Negative_Attack vector. The only powers I can think of with one single attack vector that haven't been mentioned are a few of the Kinetics powers, which use Ranged_Attack, and therefore don't meet the criteria for the question.
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Yeah I've always noticed when playing my main (EI Kin/Rad Defender) that even when an AV goes into "godmode" (Elude/etc) and no one can hit the AV, I can usually land Transfusion and Transfusion 90% of the time.
In fact, thinking about it...I think I can land Siphon Speed, Siphon Power and FS as well....but not 100% sure about the last 3.
But yes, like others have said, it depends on the build/powerset(s), but usually if you can't get softcapped to Melee/Ranged/AoE most just softcap to Smashing/Lethal damage types since most-to-all attacks have some Smashing or Lethal damage component to them.
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The ally-affecting portions of Kinetics are autohit (as are all buffs). Fulcrum Shift is not autohit, but the pseudopet appears to have no attack vectors at all (so, while it can miss, defense buffs on the target don't help). The rest use Ranged_Attack.
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Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion
Yeah I've always noticed when playing my main (EI Kin/Rad Defender) that even when an AV goes into "godmode" (Elude/etc) and no one can hit the AV, I can usually land Transfusion and Transfusion 90% of the time.
In fact, thinking about it...I think I can land Siphon Speed, Siphon Power and FS as well....but not 100% sure about the last 3. |
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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Fearsome Stare was mentioned as being non-positional. |
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
This. There maybe one or two others, but I think those are Hamidon's "untyped" attacks, so nothing will help you there. But I'd say that if you're softcapped to Melee/Ranged/AoE, going for Psi isn't going to help you that much. There are likely better things to build for at that point.
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A couple Gravity powers are non-positional as well, but they are pretty rare as NPC powers.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Toxic attacks are usually Melee/Lethal (Spines, Widow Claws, Snake and Arachnoid bites) or Ranged/Energy (Bane and Crab Spider blasts), with a few Ranged/Lethal, AoE/Lethal or AoE/Energy.|
Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
while there is no attack vector "Toxic" it (almost?) always has a positional tag associated at least. Also, depending on the source, typed will also help (Spines and Lethal Defense, for example)
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I'm not aware of any attack that deals Toxic Damage and doesn't have at least one positional and one typed tags, though I'm not sure what the tags on Vahzilok zombie barf is.
@Roderick
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Also Smoke Grenades and Web Grenades only have a positional vector.
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Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
Off the top of my head, Fearsome Stare only uses the Negative_Attack vector. The only powers I can think of with one single attack vector that haven't been mentioned are a few of the Kinetics powers, which use Ranged_Attack, and therefore don't meet the criteria for the question.
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I know that softcapping all three positions gets you most of the way there, but I've read that there are a handful of attacks without position tags. What are those attacks? Do they have damage tags? Put another way: Is there any benefit at all to softcapping any of the damage types if you've already softcapped the positions, and if so, which damage types are beneficial?
Sorry if this has been covered somewhere on the forums. If it has been, I couldn't figure out a search that would find it.