Interface questions.

I had a question for the scrapper forums at large.

When deciding on which interface incarnate power to choose to build, what is the top suggestion these days? Is reactive still the king for pure damage? or are some of the newer ones like Degenerative and Preemptive better?

More damage = better.

The only trick is that on itrials, if everyone is using reactive then you're losing out on a lot of that extra power because it only stacks together so many times.

They're all petty gravy otherwise.

For your question. At anything at minion or liteunant level you don't see much difference. On boss level and higher Degen is better at the moment becuase of its effect not only works similiar to -res but it also does -regen and itd DoT is second best.

Spectral isn't too bad from a dmg perspective. Not as good as reactive, but it almost is, and not as many people use it, so you don't have to worry about stacking issues.

And when the immob actually procs on something that might otherwise run away, it is very satisfying (it's a rare confluence of events, but really nice when it happens).

Reactive or Degen would top my list.

Preemptive too...they can't attack if they have no endurance...and energy damage proc is equal in damage to reactive...

Nice, I came here for the exact same questions.

I'm trying not to go Reactive mainly because I always choose it and because on teams it loses effect. I am testing Degenerative on one character but I haven't soloed with him and I can't tell how well it's working.

So my question would be this: is it worth it to just make the investment in taking two or three interfaces and swap them out based on situation? I have a katana/SR scrapper and thought maybe Diamagnetic would be good against Elite Bosses and higher but Reactive or Degenerative might be better on regular missions with bosses.

Degen is the shizzle against hard targets which is really where you need Interface the most.

Reactive is probably better for 4/8 farming etc.

So... What is the deal with Degen? I've tried to look up the numbers and it says 0.8 as much damage as reactive and 1,000 hp per stack on hard targets, which doesn't seem all that high compared to reactive with my weak napkin math.

Level 50 AV = ~28,272hp, regens ~93.75hp per second
93.75 * (28,272 - 1,000 / 28,272) = 90.43
93.75 - 90.43 = +3.32 DPS

On the other hand, -2.5% res is already +5 DPS on a 200 DPS character, +7.5 DPS on a 300 DPS character and +15 DPS on a 600 DPS (i.e. while Lore is up) character.

What am I missing? Genuinely asking, I just resubbed and I haven't had the chance to test one yet.

Edit: I see. Thanks!

This post talks about how to compare Degenerative and Reactive. The short version is that, against foes less than AVs, Degenerative is actually a bit stronger than Reactive in terms of letting you defeat a foe sooner. When I wrote it, Degenerative only gave -150 maxHP vs. hard targets like AVs, but the same general comments apply, except that obviously -1000 maxHP is a lot more effective. It's actually somewhat close to what it would do if it had the -3.5% maxHP against AVs, but is less effective vs things with more HP. (Which includes zone GMs, Hamidon, iTrial AVs with maxHP buffs, and Reichsman.)

Not really. If the AV has full HP at the start, then yes. Once it's damaged, the effect of -maxHP on actual HP is proportional. So if it has 70% of its max HP when you whack it with -1000 maxHP, it still has 70% of its new (lower) max afterward.

Actually, you have to know the foe's normal current and maxHP to know how much it loses

If it's got a max of 10,000 HP, is at 7,000 (70%) and you lop off 1000 from the max, I believe you lop off 700, because that's (1,000)/(10,000) of its current HP. But if it had, say 36,000 HP, it would lose 2520.

Edit: The chances are, like reactive, 25%, 50% or 75%, depending on which branch and tier you're using. Folks going for the higher rate of DoT (which probably is more useful against non-AV foes) usually go Radial, which maxes out at 25%. I believe the debuff can stack up to four times.

MaxHP changes change your current health proportionally. So if you lose, say, 10% of your maxHP, you lose 10% of your current HP as well. (The same thing happens when you gain maxHP, but obviously then your currentHP go up.

1000 HP is 2.78% of 36,000 HP, so when you lose that much from your max HP, you lose 2.78% from your current HP as well. It keeps your current HP at the same percentage of maxHP as you had before the change.

Only if your maxHP is 10,000.