soft-cap question

Yeah, by about 1.5%. Usually that's offset by the 2.5% Damage bonus it provides, but since you already had that Damage bonus, you'd end up with a Damage/Defense trade-off instead.


But in return Dragon's Tail would be recharging faster, and at x8 difficulty, AoE rules the day. However, EC certainly has its benefits too.
edit: Focus Chi would also be recharging faster, and that would also act counter to the damage drop


Unless you slot Elude for Defense, you would however "just" end up around 100% Defense, and in the situations you'd most need it <cough>DE</cough>, that wouldn't actually make much of a difference (with maximum Elude slotting you'd end up around 120%, and that's actually quite an improvement).

Elude can definitely be nice to have in situations where your foes have moderate ToHit bonuses, but in the cases where you *really* want more Defense, it's not quite enough unless you actively slot for it.
(usually I find that the crash bothers me enough that I'd rather pop a Luck or two though. Then again, I tend to avoid DE, and take care when fighting Nemesis...)


Oh. If you're considering giving up SJ, another option could be to replace it with Hasten (now that Fitness has become inherent, I've found that the extra three power choices tend to make Hasten rather attractive for many builds where I'd chosen not to get it before).

Personally I wouldn't want to lose CJ. It offers (together with Hurdle) great combat mobility, and while Ninja Leap offers much of the same, it doesn't quite offer as much control (and the extra Def is nice too).

It's certainly a matter of preference though.

And, now it doesn't:

So now that we've cleared that Dilemma

On the fly, what did I do to get here? Shifted, mostly. I performed the basic essentials, switching Enzymes with Cytoskeletons to keep the build "Legit," took the third slot out of Hasten and put it in Aid Self to replace the Interrupt (Note: A Personal building tool - never steal from your attacks, they should always be the last place you look. I will always try and build up the defense in as many ways as I can before I slot any attacks to make sure that I have as much room to improve the attacks without punishing the rest of the build). Also moved the Regen Tissue, upon request.

So, these moves did afflict the build, cutting AoE, and dropping Hasten down to 120.##/rech. Preferring to keep Hasten just a hair under 120, I saw an opportunity in Eagle's Claw and switched it over to a Hecatomb format. Lost a couple percentage points on endurance, but also dropped some net eps into the build as a whole, and squeezed another 10% Recharge, so now Hasten is at 119. Just enough to keep it tight. This move ended up cutting 15 HP and dropping the build below the 1900 mark, desiring to keep this goal, I swapped Fighting and Senses slots, and dropped a LotG threesome to restore the 15 HP I stole from EC (done entirely on the basis that melee was sitting at 48% and could spare to notch down without hurting the performance of the build). In regards to the gimped AoE, I immediately popped the second slot out of Elude and scooted it over to Evasion as another Cyto, and brought AoE back to 47%. Looking at the perspective that Elude is only a beneficiary tool, rather than a primary prospect; I felt no shame in stripping the slot I stole for it in the first place. M/R/A Still stays collective at, or slightly above, 47% now and all previous build arrangements were maintained.

Edit:

There's just literally no room for it, unfortunately. Hasten far outweighs in value over a little combat mobility (imo), especially when the Defense from CJ isn't needed, nor missed. And with as functionally well as this build can perform on it's own, add a team scenario where someone might be adding a bit of +End, and one could easily be running around with Ninja Run on all the time anyway.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Warning: crazy space limit reached. Please delete some crazy and try again.

I believe that there is (and has been for a looooong time) an easier way to resolve this.

The entire problem is because HOs have multiple Types.
I believe that this is no longer necessary (to the same degree).

Back when HOs gave 150% of SO bonuses, there was a point to slotting them even if you only had use for one of their aspects. People slotted Golgis into Health not because of the EndRdx, but because they gave a higher Regen bonus. Similarly, there was a point to slotting Enzymes into powers that didn't have any Def debuffs, simply because they offered a greater EndRdx bonus than EndRdx SOs.

That is no longer the case. SOs now provide the same bonus as HOs to each aspect, and IOs (at high levels) provide an even higher bonus. HOs are now only "useful" (compared to the alternatives) if you are able to take advantage of more than one of their aspects. The only "legitimate" (intended) use of HOs is when the Types of the HOs match up with what the power they are slotted in do. For instance, taking advantage of an Enzyme in a Def *buff* power is not intended, but using them in a Def *debuff* power is.

So, how can we prevent Enzymes from being slotted into Def buff powers? Simple. Remove their EndRdx Typing (while of course leaving the bonus to EndRdx). You would only be able to slot Enzymes into powers that accept Defense Debuff enhancements (Type being what determines which powers an enhancement is slottable into - something that's not strictly connected to what an enhancement *does*), but while slotted into such a power it would still provide a bonus to both Def debuffs and EndRdx. In addition to preventing the unintended uses of Enzymes (slotting them into Def buff powers), you would also no longer be able to use Enzymes as fill-in EndRdx enhancements in powers that have nothing to do with Defense. Since there is no longer any benefit from doing so anyway (except for places to hold HOs that you haven't respeced out of your build yet), I don't see this as a major problem (I would however suggest that people get a chance to respec out old HOs before such a change would be implemented though).


So, my suggestion would be to make certain HO aspects "passive", i.e. to leave the bonuses, but remove them from the HO *Typing*. This would make it so that having a power accept those Types of enhancements would no longer be a sufficient condition to slot the HOs - they would now require that the power is slottable for the "active" aspect of the HO.

At the very least EndRdx and Recharge should be made passive, but if you want to be more complete you can do the same for Acc and Range.

i.e.:
Dmg/Acc would only be slottable into powers that accept Damage enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Resistance.
Dmg/Range would only be slottable into powers that accept Damage enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Resistance.
Buff/EndRdx would only be slottable into powers that accept Buff enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Defense.
Acc/Mez would only be slottable into powers that accept Mez enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended boosts to the Mez debuffs in powers like Benumb.
Debuff/EndRdx would only be slottable into powers that accept Debuff enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended boosts to Defense.
Heal/EndRdx would only be slottable into powers that accept Heal enhancements.
Acc/Debuff would only be slottable into powers that accept Debuff enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Defense.
Buff/Recharge would only be slottable into powers that accept Buff enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Defense.
Move/EndRdx would only be slottable into powers that accept Move enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Slows.
Res/EndRdx enhancements would only be slottable into powers that accept Res enhancements, preventing people from getting unintended bonuses to Damage.

Dmg/Mez would still be slottable into powers that accept either Damage or Mez enhancements.

This would not take care of *all* unintended uses of HOs, but it would take care of most of them. You would still be able to get unintended bonuses to one of the passive aspects (e.g. you'd still be able to sneak Recharge into powers like Mind Link), but that's relatively rare (and at least in the case of Mind Link, you can do it with IOs anyway).


So, there are some downsides:
1) Doesn't take care of all unintended uses
2) In some cases (the passive ones) prevents people from using HOs as single-aspect enhancements.
3) Could get a bit confusing for people when HOs suddenly no longer work as they did in legacy situations.

3) would be a problem for just about any "fix" to this situation though, so I don't see that as a problem specific for this particular implementation. 1) would seem to be relatively minor, and 2) isn't anything that's actually *good* for the players anyway (except for when you're using them because you haven't respeced them out yet)).


And again, it wouldn't be blocking any intended uses (with the possible exception of the previously mentioned non-benefit of using them as single aspect EndRdx/Recharge/Acc/Range enhancements).


Ideally I think I'd suggest that any such change to HOs be accompanied by a (slight) boost to HO values. Nowadays HOs are for the most part only "good" (compared to the options) when you use them in one of the unintended fashions. I'd like it if there was some larger benefit for using them in the *intended* ways too (though of course, if this were to happen, people might have a larger reason to complain that you couldn't use them as single-aspect EndRdx/Recharge/Acc/Range enhancements...)

Well, I guess John has made the point moot, but I really wouldn't worry about that. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that there are other things that will make your build obsolete before you have to worry about your 48% defense dropping to 45% defense. And if I'm wrong, 45% defense will be perfectly playable while you consider your next version of the build.

I should point out the devs considered this long ago and concluded it was a cottage rule violation for people who had slotted them for just one aspect, such as end reduction or recharge, as odd as that might seem.

The Alpha propagation technique, which makes individual buffs follow individual slotting rules, would work perfectly for HOs if the devs wanted to use it.

Been a bit busy lately and haven't had a chance to really study this, but this is quite a work of art. About the only things I would consider tampering with is shifting to get Lucky earlier if I was concerned about exemp, and about the only thing it loses relative to my build is the slow resist IO, which is mostly swamped by the higher overall recharge.

Going to be looking at this one for a while.

Unless you are side-kicked up and do not have your aoe def...Nems will shred you like an Enron exec in the records room!

do eet!

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Warning: crazy space limit reached. Please delete some crazy and try again.

May not work, but damn it'd be hilarious to try.

EDIT: The toggled-off powers are toggled off on purpose...

I'm guessing the fact that one can get beyond the Apex softcap for everything but Negative Energy (where you'll be around the regular softcap) and Psionics (the typical, trite psi-hole of typed damage types) without much trouble - and then there's the Tier 9 if the SRHTF.

That, yes, and the heal/end recovery power on a seventeen second timer. It's not a STRONG heal by any stretch, but hey, it's SOMETHING. Plus it's not in the least gimped on damage, either.

The worst issue is the brutal end burn, but, there is that huge end drain power every seventeen seconds....

Surprising. Hmmm.....

Dark obliteration should get you there vs most things, and gloom helps a lot against single hard targets. If that's not sufficient, then find a couple of slots and six slot the gaussians, although I didn't really sweat it.


SD does not have a self-heal or end power, and this gets both in the same package, assuming Mids is right.

(Add 3% from Hide, which is toggled off to avoid the misleading +def of being hidden).

It IS light on recharge, but yeah. Adding a 3% PvP IO would probably make it tweakable to have more recharge. I mean, for one thing, there are no LOTGs in there! Add some LotG sets in the defensive powers, add a couple of purple sets if you can drop some of the current ones by using the 3% PvP IO and/or the T4 incarnate, and you're set.

Haven't poked at the brute version, but shouldn't be too hard.

EDIT: Forgot to say, this IS my current Stalker, who ages ago took on the RWZ challenge and won =) I may actually tweak the build to drop something and get Overload back, just because it's a fun power.

(While I have selected the T4 incarnate alpha, the truth is that the T2 alone is enough to get you to that Apex cap).

Ah, nice.

You should slot Energy Drain for healing. It is a great heal slotted and for a Brute at the soft cap is quite impressive. Surrounding yourself with enemies is quite normal and if you slot for the heal you will heal for 60% of your health bar with 10 enemies, 30% with just 5. It is very nice.

Wow.

A 60 percent heal every 17-20 seconds on a WAY soft-capped toon?

That's....impressive.

It goes down as enemies around you do as well, so it's not as useful for, say, 1-on-1 with an AV, but it's still a very good power for bread-and-butter fury-chasing. The change that added that little heal to the power was very win IMO.

Yeah, I know. I first discussed this option years ago, and brought it up as a potential problem then too. However, I believed (and still believe obviously) that *if* the HO situation is considered to be significant enough, it is not a big enough problem to prevent a change.

HOs have ended up in a position where they're often the most useful in situations where they are not intended to work at all. I would much prefer it if they were better in the situations they *are* intended to work instead.



I haven't really been looking very closely at the mechanics of the Alpha powers, but they seem to essentially work by granting the user several different enhancement buff powers (e.g. a Musculature Core Paragon gives you one Damage buff power, one Immob buff power and one Defense debuff buff power). Is it clear that this will work "within the confines of" a power too? i.e. Can multiple "buffs" specifically be assigned to an individual power (by an enhancement)?