Preliminary Hybrid Slot Discussion

For those unaware (where have you been, sleeping in a cave?) some information for issue 23 was leaked. It is summarized on the wiki. See below for a link.

Of this information, the eye-catcher is the Hybrid slot. It has since been confirmed in a post by Zwill (which I can't find at the moment) that Hybrid powers are toggles.

There's technically not a lot to discuss as of yet, but my mind is already racing with the possibilities. Which means I want to speculate.

One tree seems to offer additional defense. I could maybe use that on my Scrapper to get the incarnate softcap and profit. The same tree may also offer regen and/or resistance. I could theoretically make use of all of that.

Yet, the other trees are interesting too.

One seems to be the incarnate version of Leadership, which could be amazing. Another tantalizingly offers the ability to control enemies. I doubt I'll want the damage enhancing ones (I do a lot of damage already) but even they could be interesting.

All of this made wonder, in general, will you be using the Hybrid powers to get abilities you don't already have? Or will you be using them to supercharge those you do have? Both choices seem to have an equal reward, which offers an exciting level of customization.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

I read that one of them is supposed to work like Scourge and another gives a damage buff based on enemies around you. Those are the ones I'm most interested in.

There's no damage buff based on nearby foes. There's a survival buff based on nearby foes (Hybrid Melee), a damage buff somewhat like what Blasters get now, where each attack buffs self damage (Hybrid Assault), and a damage buff that's analogous to Leadership/Assault bundled into a set of Leadership-like abilities (Hybrid Support).

Edit: Vauluur, your wiki link is sort of hosed up.
Edit2: This is where Vauluur was trying to send us.

Probably pulled. Nothing about i23 was supposed to be announced outside the Magistarium.

Oh, I didn't realize that the Hybrid assault tree worked like defiance. That would push me more towards support if I was torn between the two unless the +dam buff from assault was MUCH greater.

Just wait til the beta goes live today and we can actually read the info.

It is really dependant on how much % each tree will be giving.

I have at least a few pointers in my head for my kat/SR scrapper;

For melee I expect at least weave/tough level of def/resist but I am not sure how much I will be relying on it.

For support if it gives same level of bonuses as current leadership pool even as T4 than I may get it to remove three powers from my toon (assault, tactics and weave) get CJ, aid other and aid self instead.

For control tree I may go to scourge route depending on how much damage buff it gives and what else.

For assault it really depends on how much damage it stacks up but I think I will get at least T4 of it regardless of others.

The dreams of the numbers my SoA can reach with the "Leadership" hybrid are better than what reality probably will be... so I'll keep daydreaming a few more hours.

With everything I've seen above so far, I'm now leaning towards either melee or support. I'll have to wait until the beta launches to know for sure. Also, it's a pain to access the beta on my laptop so I hope someone posts that info in the beta forums.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

The weird thing is I already have a lot of my toon's weaknesses worked out via the other five slots we haved. For most of these I would either go with something extra, or try to fill that last hole that exists in the set.

Just bear in mind that it's not clear if the mez protection is static, or scaling like the mitigation, and if it's scaling, whether or not it has a nonzero base value.

I like to Faceroll with Control.

It sickens me the number of high level foes that resist controls. So I will enhance my controls on my controllers in the hopes that I may finally be able to do what I love most: fighting statues. It irritates me to have to double control or notice which unit type something is and remember that one dude resists holds but is easy to confuse, while the one next to him will ignore basically all my controls.

If none of the control options let me Faceroll with Control, then I will switch to a damage hybrid. Damage is the ultimate control, after all.

Lewis

So unlocking it seems to require Hybrid experience.

Just gonna leave it here with where you think you'll get that at.

It does look like the mez protection requires foes in range. So that's only a good replacement for Clarion if you already spend a lot of time in melee range.

Assault has some odd damage type restrictions as you go up the tiers. I don't like that, as it could make certain middle tiers mostly useless to certain characters, depending on the damage types they deal. However, the high end looks amazingly powerful. +15% damage for 10s stackable 5 times.

This thing is expensive. 0.5 EPS base. Presumably Cardiac will reduce that.

These things are supposed to be pricey and most likely not meant to be Toggle and Forget with 0.5 end/s?

Sounds good to me!

Yeah I have to say I'm not too keen on the endurance cost. Lots of builds have been optimized to be just about endurance stable, and then this comes along.