Perma Phantom Army

How is PA slotted?

Perma PA is being able to summon new PA as soon as the old one's disperse.

You cannot replace PA already in the field.

Nor can you activate new PA if the old PA are still out.

The system is supposed to be designed so that you cannot, under any conditions, have two PA's out at once.

4 Expedient Reinforcement (All 4 that include Recharge) and 2 leve; 50's Rech Rdx IO's

So let me get this straight..

Unlike Fire Imps where you can summon whenever they are and just replace the previous imps you cannot summon a new set of PA until the previous one has expired?

yep. several differences between the two as well.

Fire Imps can be killed. Phantom Army is Untouchable.

The developers had never intended for players to be able to have Phantom Army out all of the time. The Decoys are simply too powerful. However, the developers have expressed the opinion in the past that because "Perma Phantom Army" is so hard to reach, they didn't see any particular need to punish players who had managed to get there.

In recent issues the Developers have begun modifying PA's specific behavior, such as allowing Hamidon to blast PA away, to try and mitigate situations the developers actually want players to be in.

You can summon a new set of PA while the previous set is active. However, when a new set is activated the old set is immediately dismissed and there is a slight delay before each Phantom appears so there will be a small gap between the previous set disappearing and the first new Phantom appearing. I'm not sure where Je_saist's impression that you cannot activate PA while PA is active is coming from.

QFT.

Are you activating PA, then Hasten then AM? these lost few seconds may account for your guys not being out fast enough.

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

Nope, this is wrong. If you cast PA a second time the first batch disappear. There's a brief second between the switch-over too and you're going to get the aggro from the disappearing pets (just as you do when they expire naturally)

Henchmen do as Je Saist describes, in general (with some which don't like Necros Spirit), but PAs act like any most other pets (except Warshade fluffies) in regards to stacked summoning (at least since i5).

You CAN cast PA while your previous set is out, but casting the new set will cause the old set to disappear. (Just like Spectral Terror, or Dark Servant -- you can only have one set at a time.) The term, "Perma-PA" is actually a bit of a misnomer . . . Even when you get enough recharge so that PA recharge before the last one expires, there is still a moment when the previous guys despawn and the new guys come in. Each PA guy appears about a second after the previous one appeared, so it take a total of about 3 seconds to replace PA.

"Perma-PA" simply means that the Recharge time for the power is shorter than the duration of the pets. It lets you re-cast to keep PA out all the time except for that short period during re-casting. (Of course, you need to keep Hasten and AM and any other powers that boost your recharge running at all times. While most people keep Hasten on Auto, it may be hard to remember to keep re-casting AM all the time.)

As a result, even a "Perma-PA" Illusion controller needs to take that short time into account when casting PA, as sometimes an AV might take a pot shot at the controller while PA are being recalled. (This is a big problem on the Statesman's TF if you want to try to tank Recluse with a Perma-PA Illusion Controller. It works better with two who stagger the cast time of their PA.) Often, Phantasm's Decoy can fill the gap and pull aggro while PA are re-summoned. It is also useful to be invisible during this time, as it may keep you from being noticed quickly enough for an attack during the re-summon.

There is no indication that the Devs have sought to modify PA with only a few exceptions. A long time ago, PA used to summon a random number of 2-4 army guys, but that was in the days of 6-slotted Hasten and multiple controller pets; this was eventually changed to a fixed number of 3 at the same time that other controller pets were made perma but you were only allowed one set. The only changes since then have been (a) all pets are not affected by recharge buffs and (b) Hamidon is the ONLY thing in the game that can hurt/destroy PA. This was done to eliminate a common practice in the Old Hami-Raids of a "drop team" floating overhead dropping PA to draw Hamidon's aggro -- it was done to force a change in strategy for the new Hami-Raid, and not some overriding desire to change PA.

I have seen no indications that the Devs plan any other modifications to PA . . . and I keep an eye out for such things.

You forgot the change where all pets now favor melee-range combat - even the ones who work best at range or have no melee attacks to speak of (Phantasm and Medic Soldier BLARGH)

Recharge goes as Base_Recharge/(1+x) where x is the recharge bonus. It would be far easier to calculate if you could also give us how much recharge you have slotted in PA...but backing that out from the base recharge you gave us:

240/(1+x) = 60+53 -> x = 113% (...wait are you saying that you have no recharge at all slotted in PA and that is just from your global recharge? I think we have found the problem!)

In which case, you should get the entire benefit from the alpha slot, which is 33%. So your total recharge should be:

240/(1+2.1375+.33) = 69 seconds.

If you want perma PA, you really need to slot PA for recharge as well. You can't just rely on your global to do that. It is my understanding that for perma PA you need PA to recharge in 57 seconds which means that you need a total recharge of 321% (you only need 300 if you want 60 second recharge. That means that you need another 75% recharge in PA which you should be able to get easily by slotting...which means with the alpha slot you need to hit 108% recharge in PA...but you get 11% free over the cap with the first alpha, so with ED you only need to hit 97%. Which means without ED you need to hit 113%, but you get 22% from the spiritual so you need 91% pre-ED slotting in PA to hit the 57 second recharge mark.

edited for completion:
If that's 113% recharge slotting (which would have to include the alpha slot) in addition to 113% global recharge, then PA should recharge in 240(1+2.1375+1.13) = 56.2 seconds

That was not a change . . . it is a bug as confirmed by Castle. They know about it and it is supposed to be "on the list" to be fixed. For Phantasm's sake, I would love to see a fix soon.

and we were actually addressing whether the Devs have specific plans to nerf Perma-PA.

I think you can assume that he has 95% Recharge slotting in PA. He mentioned that he shows 213% when AM and Hasten are running. It appears that he has 4 Expediant Reinforcement and two Recharge, but I would suggest changing the two recharge to the Dam/Rech and Chance for Build Up from Soulbound.

He has "Perma-PA." The concern he has is related to the short gap that happens when you re-cast.

It was unclear to me if that's what was happening, which is why I included the other recharge calculation below: