'Nerve: Is it worth it?': A discussion on the value of Nerve.
By
Auroxis,
Posted on: 2011-02-08 10:49 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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I did have PBU once, but it only lasts for four casting of the bubbles. Not worth it, since I want to softcap the entire team, not half the team. Plus I really missed Dominate and Mind Over Body when I tried out Power Mastery.
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Originally Posted by Pyrthas
You shouldn't have any trouble with this even without Nerve (as long as you have PBU, of course).
I'm with Gargoyle_KDR. My FF def (with no PBU; I still rely on Dispersion) already softcaps everybody (including himself to all positions and psi). I was using Cardiac at first, but once I got my Miracle and Numina's, I was fine without it. I carry a few blues just in case I screw up and bubbles start running out in the middle of a long fight that's drained my end, but so far I've never needed them. (And in my case, there's Dark Consumption, too, even though I only took it as a less useless stepping stone to Soul Drain.) So I went with Musculature, because an ED-free 32.5% damage buff is better than nothing. The longer duration on Tenebrous Tentacles is better than nothing, too, I suppose. I did consider Nerve for the +3% buff to all my personal defenses (running Dispersion Bubble, Maneuvers, Weave, and Combat Jumping), but I couldn't find a way to turn the slots it freed up into as big a boon as a global 32.5% ED-free damage buff. |
Aegis Rose, Forcefield/Energy Defender - Freedom
"Bubble up for safety!"
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Originally Posted by McNum
I did have PBU once, but it only lasts for four casting of the bubbles. Not worth it, since I want to softcap the entire team, not half the team. Plus I really missed Dominate and Mind Over Body when I tried out Power Mastery.
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I just checked and noticed that Power Boost (Black Scorpion) is a bit better in some regards than PBU. Recharge 120s instead of 240s, and a 15s duration vs 12.5s. I can do six bubbles while PB is active.
Now the value of PB is much less: 65% boost to def vs. 98% for PBU, but I think PB is still the more useful of the two.
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Oh, sorry! I misunderstood the implication when you said, "if they're in Maneuvers range" (because Maneuvers has a larger radius than Dispersion Bubble, and also because I still had gameboy1234's post on my mind). It does take slightly heavier slotting to softcap everyone with just Maneuvers and the big three from FF, but it's still doable. (3 common IOs will do it easily. I'm just barely squeaking by at 45.035%, though, with mostly set IOs.)|
Originally Posted by McNum
I did have PBU once, but it only lasts for four casting of the bubbles.
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I do agree about PBU; I didn't bother with it for the same reason. Edit: Interesting point about PB vs. PBU. If Soul Mastery didn't double the recharge on Soul Drain, I would probably consider it more as an alternative to Dark Mastery. But I'm not ready to give up my Soul Drain any time soon (especially because I'm still gonna run my toggles for myself).
Edit: More generally, none of the alpha benefits is really that exciting to me. I guess that comes in part from the way FF works. It's already borederline overkill (especially on a defender), and it doesn't really benefit at all from anything. It's not end heavy (well, it sort of is, but only once every four minutes), it doesn't need recharge, etc. The level shift doesn't even do anything. For FF, I think you can look almost exclusively at your other power set to decide what alpha to use.
I got nerve on my tank, thinking it would buff the taunt strength of my ranged attacks. Unfortunately, they don't take taunt enhancers. Please fix!
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I agree with the minimal impact the current incarnate benefits have with respect to defense, but I think this is a hard statement to accept. It comes close to a very telling issue though.|
Originally Posted by YoumuKonpaku
The only thing they'd benefit from on Nerve is the Defense increase, and if they're softcapped, it doesn't really matter, does it?
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It really does matter because a player wouldn't simply take that alpha slot and ignore the changes. He or she would substitute sets chosen for defense bonuses (which may or may not have been slotted yet) with other IO sets for other bonuses such as recharge, max health, recovery, etc.
The most extreme example I can think of would be a shield tanker with combat jumping and weave that, using your enhancement values (56% vs. 70%) would take an SO'd build with about 40% defense to one with 43% defense. For such a character, that's about the defense gained from the gaussian's set. Not every character uses that set, but even fewer will see that much of a difference.
So, I don't think that there is an issue with being unable to utilize that benefit for characters that have defense powers, it's just that it's much harder to imitate an effect of the other incarnate options with a single IO set bonus.
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Power build up enhanced for recharge combined with a small amount of global recharge makes PBU available twice within the duration of the forcefield buffs. I can provide PBU boosts to both forcefield buffs applied to three people each time, allowing 6 people to carrying the boosted buffs throughout a mission. The only decision I have to make is who the one person (besides myself) that doesn't get the boosted shields, and that's typically a very easy choice. |
Originally Posted by McNum
I did have PBU once, but it only lasts for four casting of the bubbles. Not worth it, since I want to softcap the entire team, not half the team.
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I've gone through entire pickup taskforces without missing people when it was their turn to get the pbu bubbles, surprisingly. In the relatively rare instance that someone doesn't catch it, They'll just have to manage dealing with dispursion bubble to get their godlike defense.
It's quite liberating to give the team that level of defense without them tied to dispursion's radius. [censored] small buff that it is.
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Yeah, this was my problem. Nerve wouldn't let me stop using Maneuvers to softcap my team (so no savings there), and while it would have freed up a couple sets and would have given me a few spare slots, I couldn't turn those into something better than 32.5% damage. (In fact, I couldn't turn them into anything on the majority of my attacks, which are already slotted purely for damage.)|
Originally Posted by Dersk
So, I don't think that there is an issue with being unable to utilize that benefit for characters that have defense powers, it's just that it's much harder to imitate an effect of the other incarnate options with a single IO set bonus.
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The accuracy, of course, is a non-issue with set bonuses and Tactics.
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Which I believe I touched on in my post, the character has to build around Nerve, rather than tack it on and go. Most players (although with mids supporting alphas this may change) seem to build around not having the alpha and then the added effects are just nice to have.
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Originally Posted by Dersk
The most extreme example I can think of would be a shield tanker with combat jumping and weave that, using your enhancement values (56% vs. 70%) would take an SO'd build with about 40% defense to one with 43% defense. For such a character, that's about the defense gained from the gaussian's set. Not every character uses that set, but even fewer will see that much of a difference.
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It's a little more than that, at least in my case. It's not just that I'd need to build around the Nerve bonus. It's that I can't build around the Nerve bonus and get as big a benefit as I can if I build normally and use a different alpha, because the Nerve bonus is so minor. (Well, the def bonus is minor, and, as you pointed out in the OP, the acc bonus is useless given the prevalence of acc set bonuses.)|
Originally Posted by YoumuKonpaku
Which I believe I touched on in my post, the character has to build around Nerve, rather than tack it on and go. Most players (although with mids supporting alphas this may change) seem to build around not having the alpha and then the added effects are just nice to have.
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Edit: I think that Cardiac and Spiritual only fare better because it's harder to hit a "softcap" for end usage and recharge. This means that it's easier to reslot and take advantage of better end usage and recharge than it is to reslot and take advantage of better accuracy. Musculature, of course, will only have this problem if you're getting FS (or something similar) regularly.
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I will admit that doing the softcap though Maneuvers and Alpha is a bit of laziness on my part, too. Plus I am constantly amazed how my teammates can manage to get behind something or run out of bubble range when I try to rebubble them. Which is why I have Vengeance, too. I can't defend anyone from their own recklessness, but I can use their body for Vengeance afterwards. |
Originally Posted by Dersk
Power build up enhanced for recharge combined with a small amount of global recharge makes PBU available twice within the duration of the forcefield buffs. I can provide PBU boosts to both forcefield buffs applied to three people each time, allowing 6 people to carrying the boosted buffs throughout a mission. The only decision I have to make is who the one person (besides myself) that doesn't get the boosted shields, and that's typically a very easy choice.
I've gone through entire pickup taskforces without missing people when it was their turn to get the pbu bubbles, surprisingly. In the relatively rare instance that someone doesn't catch it, They'll just have to manage dealing with dispursion bubble to get their godlike defense. It's quite liberating to give the team that level of defense without them tied to dispursion's radius. [censored] small buff that it is. |
What? It pays to be prepared, and as long as people are in the big bubble of happiness, they're fine. 48% Defense buff fine, actually. Run off alone, and I assume they know what they're doing.
Aegis Rose, Forcefield/Energy Defender - Freedom
"Bubble up for safety!"
I actually went into mids and tried to build an FF/Ice/Psi who took advantage of the full acc, def and hold aspects. Ended up with so much acc regardless that Nerve's primary bonus was STILL largely wasted. I'd literally have to build with SOs/generic IOs only.
Defense buffing characters will find use in Nerve. So will characters with SR/SD/EA as their armor set, in certain defense debuffing situations(ITF, Apex TF 2nd mission).
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
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Wouldn't help SR as much as you think, since they've generally capped DDR: it takes 100% def debuff to take down 5% def. SR would find more use of cardiac because of end-eating toggles, and because they attack faster, hence using up even more end.|
Originally Posted by Auroxis
Defense buffing characters will find use in Nerve. So will characters with SR/SD/EA as their armor set, in certain defense debuffing situations(ITF, Apex TF 2nd mission).
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Now, in to-hit situations that's arguably more useful.
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If you're getting all the way to the softcap from powers alone, Nerve might get you 4% def. (This is what happens to an FF def softcapping the rest of the team with shields, Dispersion Bubble, and Maneuvers.) But that almost certainly won't let you drop a whole power. At best, you'll be able to save some slots on those powers. But those slots won't provide as big a boon as 32.5% dmg or whatever end/rech gains you'll get from Cardiac/Spiritual.|
Originally Posted by Auroxis
Defense buffing characters will find use in Nerve. So will characters with SR/SD/EA as their armor set, in certain defense debuffing situations(ITF, Apex TF 2nd mission).
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If you're not getting to the softcap from powers alone (and irrespective of whether you're actually softcapping anything), Nerve might get you 2-3% more def (the exact amount, of course, depends on what +def powers you have). That might free up a couple slots, and it might let you reslot 2 or 3 powers. But, again, for most people, those gains are going to be hard-pressed to outstrip the bonuses from the other Alphas.
I'm also not sold on its usefulness against def debuffs or tohit buffs. Either you have lots of DDR, and the debuffs don't make much of a difference, or you have crap DDR, and then 3% more def isn't going to help, because the debuffs are all too big. And if 3% tohit buffs were really common, I'd be all for Nerves, but they aren't.
I'm not actually convinced that Nerves are totally useless. I think the best candidates for them are Cold defenders that don't use PBU (or PB) and FF and Cold secondaries (especially with PBU or PB), like gameboy1234. They're close enough to softcapping their team that the extra 3% will be substantial, but they don't have a way to get all the way to the softcap without it. (Of course, a Cold def with PBU usage like Dersk's should again have no reason to use a Nerve.)
Still, if Nerves are only really useful for people with good but not spectacular team def buffs, one might think that they need to be reworked.
It's not true that characters either have enough DDR that defense debuffs don't make a difference, or don't have enough DDR that 3% buffer defense won't make a difference.
Maybe SR with great slotting can get 95%. AFAIK other primaries can't. How much DDR can SD get?
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
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Not having tried it, scuttlebutt says the defense buffs from ice domination are not affected by the relevant portions of power build-up or power boost. They are flagged as such; I think it's described as "is not affected by buffs" or somesuch. The reason why, as I've read, is that allowing resistance powers the capability to accept buffs and enhancements makes them susceptible to crazy and unintended side effects. The same situation can be found with sonic resonance and its buffs. NO PBU BUFFS FOR JOO!|
Originally Posted by Pyrthas
Of course, a Cold def with PBU usage like Dersk's should again have no reason to use a Nerve.
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It's all very unintuitive, but only things like fortitude and forcefield buffs, which have no enhancable resist component, get the awesome defense softcapping capabilities when mixed with PBs
So, what you have is cold domination characters who simply do not gain buffing benefits from PBU but in this instance can benefit from Nerve since it's an enhancement but not a buff to the character, and do so in a way that cannot be replicated by IO set bonuses.
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Originally Posted by Dersk
Not having tried it, scuttlebutt says the defense buffs from ice domination are not affected by the relevant portions of power build-up or power boost. They are flagged as such; I think it's described as "is not affected by buffs" or somesuch. The reason why, as I've read, is that allowing resistance powers the capability to accept buffs rather than just enhancements makes them susceptible to cray and unintended side effects. The same situation can be found with sonic resonance and its buffs. NO PBU BUFFS FOR JOO!
It's all very unintuitive, but only things like fortitude and forcefield buffs, which have no resist component, get the awesome defense softcapping capabilities on their own. So, what you have is cold domination characters who simply do not gain buffing benefits from PBU but in this instance can benefit from Nerve since it's an enhancement but not a buff to the character, and do so in a way that cannot be replicated by IO set bonuses. |
It was explained to me that it is basically any power that has an enhanceable Resistance component. Force Field actually does have Resistance (to Toxic damage and to endurance drain) but you can't enhance them, so Power Boost still works. My understanding isn't perfect, but basically I believe there is a programing connection between global Resistance buffs and global damage buffs that would basically cause Resistance shields to max out every time you cast them with Build Up active that causes the issue. But I could be describing the situation incorrectly.
Crap, I completely forgot that accepting res enhancements did that. I was just being lazy and using Mids' (which shows the Cold shields' buffs being affected). Thanks for catching that.
I had a character that I had planned to use Nerves but my initial calcs were slightly off. He is an Elec/FF Controller. I miscalculated how little benefit the +Defense would give on my spreadsheets so when I built out in Mids he came in a little further under soft capped to multi positions that I intended. But this may still be a helpful RL demonstration.
Assuming the two pet +Defense procs apply to all of your pets, and you can stack both procs together, a Force Field Controller or Mastermind can get reaaally close to capping pets. On the build below, going to the top with Nerve boosts would grant 19.28 (small bubbles) + 13.14 (big bubble) + 4.56 (maneuvers) + 10 (defense procs) = 46.98 defense when near the Controller/MM. Without, its 43.9, which is so close I'm not sure it would make a difference.
HOWEVER (and its written in all caps because it is a huge however) an argument could be made that because you can switch between alphas at will, you lose nothing but time by chasing any particular path. The strongest characters, at least among those who team, would be the ones who can swap from alpha to alpha to fit the situation. Facing enemies with lots of -ToHit? Put on your Nerve. Lots of -Recharge? Go Spiritual. And so on. The system really is brilliant in that regard; there are months and months of things for us to collect on our favorite characters, making them "laterally" powerful rather than strictly "vertically." The power up is flexibility.
Link to discussed build below.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.92
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Code:
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Originally Posted by Pyrthas
Crap, I completely forgot that accepting res enhancements did that. I was just being lazy and using Mids' (which shows the Cold shields' buffs being affected). Thanks for catching that.
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To clarify, Nerve does work here. Alpha Boosts are not actually globals. They're like an invisible 7th slot in your powers with an extra enhancement in them, that happens to be partially immune to ED. It does make calculation confusing, but luckily the Mids guys are on top of it!
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SR doesn't need GREAT slotting per se, 3 50 IO's worth of def on two of the three toggles (ranged and melee), and 2 IO's worth on the rest, will hit it.You're going to want to slot in that much def anyway, not just to get more def, but SPECIFICALLY for the DDR as well. Even if we don't shoot ED and just slot two def IOs on each of the 6 def abilities, you're hitting 93.23% DDR, which is still very good: that's 6.77% debuff from 100%.|
Originally Posted by Auroxis
It's not true that characters either have enough DDR that defense debuffs don't make a difference, or don't have enough DDR that 3% buffer defense won't make a difference.
Maybe SR with great slotting can get 95%. AFAIK other primaries can't. How much DDR can SD get? |
Compare to any other character. Most builds would drop from 50% chance of being hit, to 95% (cap). Most softcapped builds will drop from 5% chance of being hit, to 95% (cap). Most def-based builds would drop from 5% chance of being hit, to at least 30% (assuming an optimistic 70% DDR and 5% buffer), and the extra hits making it easier to drop that further, significantly. While a SR would drop from 5% to 10% (assuming no buffer), and any cascade effects would be minimal (say, cascade to 200% def debuff: SR chance of being hit is now 15% (assuming no buffer), other def builds would be above normal chances of being hit, everyone else would still be at 95% chance of being hit).
But SR is the only one which can hit capped DDR easily. Shield Def can't get anywhere close without the Hamidon Enhancement bug and doublestacking active defense
I went with Nerve for my grav/ff controller. Most of my other characters have gone cardiac or spiritual. I went musculature on my TA/A defender to buff up it's offense and he can use many of the other debuff effects.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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I meant that Mids' shows Cold shields being affected by PBU. (As for Mids' and alphas, yeah, they're working fine, it seems, although for these sorts of comparisons, I find it easier to calculate the Nerve def buff with a calculator, because I find it easier to think of it as a single 3.37% def buff (for Cold shields, Arctic Fog, and Maneuvers on a Cold defender) or whatever. Edit: Assuming that 6.67% puts all the powers into 15%-territory for ED, of course. But still, I find it easier to think in those terms for making these comparisons.)|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
To clarify, Nerve does work here. Alpha Boosts are not actually globals. They're like an invisible 7th slot in your powers with an extra enhancement in them, that happens to be partially immune to ED. It does make calculation confusing, but luckily the Mids guys are on top of it!
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Brief side-comment on the build: Why not swap the slotting between Tough and Charged Armor to get the bigger res enhancement into power with the higher base res?
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50-60% on a Brute (or Scrapper; the numbers should be the same for both.) My softcapped Shield Brute sits around 55% with ED-slotting and the Nerve Radial Uncommon. She has a brief window around 70% while Active Defence is doublestacked. |
Originally Posted by Auroxis
How much DDR can SD get?
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Mids is giving a value of around 66% for Tankers, which would go to about 88 with doublestacked Active Defence.
I can softcap the team (if they're in Maneuvers range)
I'm with Gargoyle_KDR. My FF def (with no PBU; I still rely on Dispersion) already softcaps everybody (including himself to all positions and psi). I was using Cardiac at first, but once I got my Miracle and Numina's, I was fine without it. I carry a few blues just in case I screw up and bubbles start running out in the middle of a long fight that's drained my end, but so far I've never needed them. (And in my case, there's Dark Consumption, too, even though I only took it as a less useless stepping stone to Soul Drain.)
So I went with Musculature, because an ED-free 32.5% damage buff is better than nothing. The longer duration on Tenebrous Tentacles is better than nothing, too, I suppose.
I did consider Nerve for the 3% buff to all my personal defenses (running Dispersion Bubble, Maneuvers, Weave, and Combat Jumping), but I couldn't find a way to turn the slots it freed up into as big a boon as a global, ED-free 32.5% damage buff.