Is Interface balanced?

My Ninja/FF is ready to take Interface and I find myself leaning towards Reactive, just like all of my other toons.

The Fire DoT is just too good to pass on.

I thought about tohit debuff and -regen but I read that the -regen % is actually quite low? In that case, I am better off using Reactive (unless there are other people using Reactive as well).

And I thought about -Defense/-Damage. I am considering this one but what is the %? Stack 4x up to 20% defense and 20% -damage?

What about that -recharge and -recovery? I'll only consider this one if I have a zapper type build that may find -recovery more useful.

Has anyone tried other paths and actually notice a big difference? I am curious to find out.

The damage debuff stacks quite nicely with things like Seeker Drones on my bots/traps: I can hit 90% damage debuff against Pylons and other hard targets, which really boosts survivability.

Diamagnetic is primarily a defensive choice. The extra offense from the -regen is small. It may save an attack or two vs. bosses, but generally you choose this because you want to prevent damage. Enemies will hit you noticeably less, the to-hit debuff is nice.

The Paralytic is also a defensive choice. The -def may be useful while on leagues with lots of 50s and 51s. If you fight 54s in regular content a lot, you may value the -def (although that is doubtful). But the -damage is effective. I think it is a bit less valuable than Diamagentic, unless of course you are already capping Defense, in which case the defensive value of this is quite handy.

Gravitic is solely defensive in nature (I have not tested the -special against enemies that godmode, it is possible you could reduce the strength of those and get some offensive benefit, but I am not sure). My Emp/Elec/Power has the Gravitic, and before you get to tier 4, the recovery debuff is far too uncommon to count on (I never saw any benefit at tier 3 from this Interface choice, I don't even think it is very good outside of the -recovery). Even at tier 4, a fair number of enemies will still get to recover endurance. So while at tier 4 the recovery debuff is noticeable and helpful, it is not always reliable. I have not done any kind of testing to see how well the -recharge may be helping me. I like slow effects in general, but this character generally fights enemies who are out of endurance or health quickly.

Reactive is generally awesome. I do not think there is some hidden secret to the other Interfaces that most people miss. Reactive is that good, IME. Of course, on a league, it is likely so many people will have it, that it could be handy to have a 2nd one to switch to for trials.

i pretty much only choose reactive for interface because the debuffs on the other stuff is negligible vs strong targets (such as GMs and AVs due to debuff resists) and is not super useful vs weaker targets (like normal mobs of minion to boss)

if the debuffs from the other interfaces were unresistable, then i would reconsider my options but until then i am strictly going with reactive

The problem is two fold, as far as Gravitic and Diamagnetic face: The debuffs are both fully resistable and short lasting. Unless changes were done (which I believe were never mentioned on the patch notes), the debuffs last somewhere in the realm of 2-3 seconds, i.e. barely long enough to matter. If you're a fast attacking character or you simply throw out a sheer number of attacks (blaster/MM/etc), then you may actually get some value out of these two.

Of course, the second problem is that Reactive and Paralytic are just THAT much better. -res and -damage are resisted through an entirely different manner then the rest of the debuffs (specifically, through resistance itself), meaning that while the other stuff faces 70% or more debuff resistance to be anything but negligible, you'll most likely be hitting full or close enough to each increment of Paralytic and Reactive that apply, nevermind the extremely awesome dot.

Interface isn't balanced because, while the choices are interesting, it feels like it was designed by someone that didn't fully grasp the mechanics of the game. If they all got procs of some sort (probably damage), and then likewise had their debuffs unresistable, Interface would be in a really good place right now and, more importantly, doesn't step on any ATs toes. Until then, Diamagnetic and Gravitic provide a "hidden" value of nothing, while Reactive is basically a god among choices. After all, while debuffs and whatnot make you live longer, making the enemy live for even less time is the best defense.

Reactive is hard to pass up for the reasons stated. Basically the debuffs in the other powers are very short lived but extra damage is permanent. The main reason to skip it is if you have powers that combine Sleep with Damage. (I really wish those powers simply wouldn't proc anything that breaks a sleep, because that is kind of lame).

I'm hoping for a proc in the future with knockdown. Even with just a 10% or less chance to proc, it would be very competitive with Reactive. The other three procs are not that great unless someone on the team already has Reactive. They really kind of need a duration and effect increase to be competitive. The main purpose of attack powers is to damage.

Defense can be built for! Building more for more damage is harder.

Reactive gives more damage that's useful for single hard targets and taking on mass spawns.

It's also the issue that they stacked the dot and the -res on the same interface. It is really the only choice to add more damage. The alpha slot did a much better job of combining a more diverse group of effects for each one, but interface basically says if you want damage, take this.

Do the debuff duration all last the same time? Only 2-3s?

On reactive, I can see the burning effective.

I've tried one with -recharge (by accident!) and I didn't even notice anything for a while.

I just don't like it when one of the four paths performs that much better. I mean just the fire dot alone makes it so good. It really adds a lot of damage overtime.

The other 3 incarnate powers seem more balanced to me because at least you see people taking different powers.

I would say 90% of interface is Reactive or maybe it's because reactive is the only proc with burning effective? I can't really tell other interface graphics.


I may give Paralytic a try. I run tactics on my MM but my Lore pets have trouble hitting +3 targets. The -def should help a bit.

First-- the debuffs last for 8 seconds, and always have as far as I know.

Another problem with Reactive is that the damage procs can stack 6 times while all other debuffs are limited to 4 stacks.

im fairly sure the debuff duration is about 5 or 6 seconds

its not too hard to keep 2-3 of the debuff stacked, but because the debuff values are so small and are resistable, its just not worth it

iirc, the debuff values are:

-dmg = -5%
-def = -5%
-tohit = -5%
-regen = -15%
-resist = -2.5%
slow = -5%
-special = -5%

if you throw any of these at an AV a large majority of them will be resisted into nothing, the few exceptions being -special (there is no resistance for it) and -dmg/-resist (resisted by dmg resist)

The debuffs last 8.3 seconds, and reactive's DoT lasts 4.3 seconds(according to power info anyway).

I took Diamagnetic on my FF because the - to hit sounded really good for giving that extra bit of defense.

On my Mind/Psi Dom I have Paralytic and Reactive. I like her enough to grind all of em. If there is a ton of AOE teammates Ill equip reactive because my sleeps and fears are less needed and - res is good, as is extra damage.

However my main selection is Paralytic almost always because - Def helps my team and I am going the debuff damage route, and I combine it with my Void Judge which does the same damage debuff. My mains attacks put me in melee because of Psi Assault, so when constructing the theory of debuffing recharge, Drain Psyche (Awesome debuff) and Void it means less damage taken by friends on all accounts. I combine this with Melt Armor to actually just offer more ooomph

Depends on the AT. Fire DoT makes some controller powers not work well. Sleeps etc.

So while one might be the average cup of tea we are lucky there are others which fill in the gaps.

Thats how I think this interface slot is. It's about filling the gaps which you lack and for the most part can offer that and does it well.