In your personal opinion...

As someone said earlier, to truly get a precise idea of survivability, we'd need nothing short of a simulation. We're trying to get to a 'good idea', the spreadsheet does that just fine.

It might be useful to take only the specific situations with the AV sets that you mentioned and have a survivability 'case' study for the tanks, based on the debuffs/buffs the AV's use; sounds like a lot of work though, for not 'that much' more data than we already have.

I think it would say more about the game than the powersets, or rather it would give a reference point for the numbers. When someone says a tanker can survive a thousand points of damage per second, is that a lot? What about 500 dps? What does that mean?

If I said a tanker can tank a spawn of three bosses, six LTs, and eight minions, that means something more to most players (I believe) than "500 dps" (*which* bosses, Lts, and minions is of course the $64000 question). And we have some actual interesting targets worth mentioning, which I'm not sure everyone is intimately familiar with. For example, long ago the devs said that the target for tanking performance with SOs was being able to tank for a team of four without significant team assistance. Lower performance than that was cause for concern. So that's a balance target, if not an especially interesting high performance target. But we also have the aggro cap, which makes the case of a full spawn up to seventeen, and seventeen bosses, also interesting targets. And then we have special case tanking: what does it take to tank Lord Recluse when buffed with all the towers? What does it take to tank Romulus? The entire Freedom Phalanx? We all know what those targets are, but I doubt anyone (including at the moment me) knows what those targets translates to numerically.

Does it say more than the current numbers if you can meet those specific targets numerically? Maybe not. But it does tell you what the current calculations mean by "X dps."


If nothing else, its a frame of reference. Here's an example of a frame of reference. Pre-I4, it was possible for a Regen scrapper, and *only* a regen scrapper, to solo tank Hami (the nucleus only). What did it actually take to do that back then? Although I know this one, its possible to calculate backwards. It took just about 200 dps regen to tank the nucleus. A perma-DP Regen had about 1870 health back then (without accolades). At +2000% regen with instant healing a regen could get about 164 h/s regen. Realistically, the most I think a regen could get is about 2400% total regen, which is 187 h/s. With DP's heal, that would get you about 194 h/s. As a practical matter, then, a regen needed perma-DP, maxed out regen, *and* reconstruction. With all of that, a regen scrapper could get to about 225 h/s. It actually took about 260 h/s to tank a yellow mito, so even the best Regen scrapper couldn't do that, and in fact I'm unaware of any regen scrapper of the time being able to do that. You could get close, but eventually the yellow would out-pace you. Many tried though.

A quick and dirty mental calculation suggests that berserk Bobcat in Tin Mage can probably dish out 6000 dps in melee range. That doesn't sound high because the spreadsheet shows smash/lethal numbers above 10,000. But that assumes 50% base tohit and soft-capped defenses bringing that down to 5%. If you had *50%* defense against her in TM *and* were level shifted she'd still be hitting you about 27% of the time or more: about 5.5 times more often. In other words, an apples to apples comparison would weight Bobcat as generating about 33,000 dps. And that's why even Granite tankers have issues there.

Knowing that Bobcat is kinda sorta a class-33000 critter is helpful in broad terms to give the spreadsheet's numbers some context. 10,000 dps sustainable is a lot. Few things - or even groups of things - hit harder than that. But some do.

This thread still going after this build???


Nice build

Coming from the Master himself, this is high praise indeed. Thanks.

Might even beat out Super Roy -- the best pitcher in the Majors -- for sig-worthiness. Will have to mull that over.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Majors? Is that like a brand of Iced Tea Pitchers?

*I come from Pittsburgh; we haven't seen good baseball in decades.

Have faith, my Pennsylvania brother! The land of Clemente will rise again.

I mean, it could happen.

Eventually. Maybe.

It's, uh, not impossible.

On the upside, PNC Park is definitely the most majestic hot dog stand in these United States.

(I feel your pain man, but them Steelers are a pretty good consolation prize. )

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build