Thoughts on the upcoming Issue 24 IO Change.

With the announced IO change (All Mez Resist Bonuses and Debt Protection Bonuses getting swapped out for other bonuses), I thought that I'd go through the list and see what enhancement sets are going to change for the better.

So far, I've identified five sets that are going to go from low-end to high-end. (In terms of bonuses, as opposed to any other utility.)

Touch of Death (Melee 25 - 40): This set is already desirable based solely on its Melee and Smash Lethal Defense Boost, but it's going to see a new 2 slot and 5 slot bonus on top of that. Depending on what those bonuses are, this could become the new Go To set if you don't want Crushing Impact. (Mako's bite is in a similar boat for the same reason, but ranged defense is way easier to get than Melee defense)

Sovereign Right (Pet Dam 25-50): For Masterminds, I am almost willing to say that this set will be the new set in high demand. If it weren't for its limited application to anyone but Masterminds, I'd rank this as the "MUST BUY!" set of my selection. It's getting four of its five bonuses replaced, and given that it's already got the Melee and Smash/Lethal Defense bonus and the very attractive aura, I don't see any way that this set can't out-perform Blood Mandate in every conceivable way. (I plan to pick up at least a couple of these sets while they're still comparatively cheap)

Multi-Strike (PBAoE 20 - 50): This set will get two of its bonuses swapped out, which will make it interesting. It's a weaker set compared to its rare competitors, but it just needs to get Ranged Defense in its 4-slot bonus to become a real competitor. As we've seen with Reactive Armor, a weak bonus that covers all aspects of defense is still a damn good bonus. Whether or not it GETS that bonus is the question.

Detonation (Targeted AoE 20 - 50): This one is the one I'm unsure about. Its desirability is seriously low due to the weakness of the bonuses compared to Positron's Blast, but if it gets even one more Defense Booster, this could become the best economic slotting enhancement for its type. On the other hand, if the new Annihilation set turns out to be uncommon, or if it gets the defense boosts instead of Detonation, this set will continue to languish.

Titanium Coating (Dam Res 25 - 50): This is the set that I am most excited about, bar none. It's going to see three of its bonuses get swapped out. It's already the only economical alternative to Reactive Armor or Aegis (Aegis might see a boost too), but in terms of effectiveness, the only way this set has to go is up. I predict it's going to get a recharge boost, and one more random defense boost. If it gets two defensive boosts, it will be the unquestioned master of the Dam Res sets. As far as marketability and usability goes, this is the enhancement set that I plan to stock up on. I could be mistaken, though. Unbreakable Guard is also coming, so it might get the better bonuses. Still, I feel that this is THE set to gamble on.

Even though we don't know what the bonuses are going to change to, I think these sets are going to see massive improvements and desirability. However, these aren't the only sets by any measure. Almost all melee sets stand to benefit to some degree once their Immob Res is replaced with something else, and a lot of other sets will see their dummy bonuses get upped to something else. We could see some real surprising changes that will contribute to market fluctuation and build diversification.

Well, this is interesting. Synapse just posted what some of these buffs are going to be. They're not the full alterations I'd been hoping for, but some of them are definitely going to see some use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synapse Actually, I think I can talk about this. What were previously +Immob, Hold, Sleep, Stun, etc. Resist have been changed to be +Res Fire/Cold, Lethal/Smash, Energy/Negative energy and resistance to all common statuses. So basically you get a small amount of +damage resist to 2 types and +status resistance. Also, all old damage resistance set bonuses have been improved to work this way too. Synapse

Yeah the value of this change really depends upon the magnitude of the new set bonuses. Resistance has several pros and cons compared to Defense so the question of how much we can build up is a very big questions.

For the sake of an argument on a Blaster I can reasonably expect to build up say 30% Ranged Defense without screwing my build up to much (yes you can soft cap Blasters but you normally get a good chunk of that from powers).

Now 30% defense provides about 60% damage mitigation against ranged attacks and effectively protects from mezzes and debuffs by stopping them from hitting me. So the question is how much Resistance will I get instead and is it worth the tradeoff? Now I'm pretty confident that the devs aren't going to let me get 60% resistance to all since they aren't insane but how much do I get?

My gut instinct is that I would need at least 20% resistance to everything but S/L and 100% mez resistance to feel like I got a fair tradeoff. I'm assuming here that I use a S/L resistance shield to make up that and the Mez Protection proc in the upcoming ATIO set. With 100% mez resistance mez durations are halved which makes the 3 points of protection I can maintain with the ATIO a lot more useful, it'll stop one mez but I need to avoid stacking which I figure I can do with halved mez durations.

Now 20% resistance is more of an ***-pull. That's about the same as an unslotted Blaster S/L shield but it feels about right.

So yeah, that's my view on it. Frankly unless the values are a lot higher than I expect then I still think that most people will build for Defense. A few sets like SR, Shield and Arachnos Widows will probably build more for Resistance since they can easily softcap but I expect that Defense and Recharge will still be the way to go for most characters.

I still think it would be nice if they actually may some of the +res bonuses just a BIT more realistic. Especially when they are usually just one or two types, were Def always gets Pos and Typed.
At the very least, add a second +res proc, or change the pvp one to 6%.

We're going to need to wait until we see what the bonuses are, but I would not go judging this too quickly.

Looking over my current scrapper build, I stand to rake in at least six of these bonuses without even trying.

I don't see Touch of Death becoming more popular, somewhat regardless of what new thing it gets (unless it's inappropriately awesome, like +10% to global recharge or something like that) simply because six slotting for Touch of Death puts the power in a weaker position than four slotting for Kinetic Combat and then filling up Kinetic Combats' weaknesses with more level-appropriate IO's or HO's.

Mmm, perhaps I'm failing to convey myself accurately. My value of Kinetic Combat vs Others is:

Fantastic S/L defense options
Only need 4 slots.

That Kinetic Combat doesn't require as many slots as other options means that I am free to slot in other (better) proc effects, which means I will be doing better damage. Kinetic Combat is also much more appropriate for powers I don't intend to use, but who can still take advantage of the set bonuses. For instance, I often want a good number of attacks to cycle through while leveling up, but only use 2-4 for a "top end" DPS chain. Kinetic Combat let's me put enough slots in those powers to make them useful for 1-50 without making their slots superfluous at level 50.

Touch of Death is simply too restrictive while offering me less damage. Depending on how much resistance it gains it may become more attractive, but if I've judged the playerbase correctly I feel that most would not be terribly willing to part with the higher DPS potential of Kinetic Combat.

I should also point out that, if I'm understand the proposed changes to IO's, Kinetic Combat should *also* be getting some resistance added to it as its' tier 1 bonus.

Yep. 4 KC + 2 ToD/Mako would get you two resist bonuses, just like a full set of ToD (although maybe not the same resistances, we'll have to see which sets get what).

I suspect KC vs ToD will remain a typed vs positional build thing, as it is now.

The big question is: what happens to Impervious Skin 7.5% mez resist?

Fair point, Hopeling, but the two bonuses are always linked together. I was referring to the combined Melee/Smash/Lethal defense boost. They go hand-in-hand. Could I have phrased it better? Sure, but they are the same thing in passing. (Although, yes, the higher value of the Smash Lethal is important, I certainly should have considered that in my phrasing.)

The point that I'm making is not the value of one specific bonus. The value is the potential for the combined bonuses.

Yes, Kinetic Combat is obviously superior in that it takes four slots to get an attractive boost.

HOWEVER, that attractive boost is the only thing it adds. Its other bonuses are completely worthless in comparison to other sets.

Had Touch of Death received another Defense Boost on top of its existing one, it would have become the better option by far. Six slots for three attractive boosts is far more economical than four slots for one. The strength of the enhancements alone shouldn't make a difference, as anyone who deals in Reactive Armor will tell you.

As is, the 2.5% damage boost in Touch of Death is a significantly attractive boost, especially when considering that you will get the exact same resistance bonus by four-slotting KC and two-slotting ToD, and six-slotting ToD under this change since the Immob Resist in the two sets is equal. The only difference will be whether you want more positional defense and a damage boost, or more typed defense and no damage boost.

Regardless, the point I was making in my first post is moot, as Synapse's clarifying statement invalidated it nicely.

And Granite, Synapse indicated that all of the mez resist globals were going to be changed as well in light of the change.

I say there are many ios that are terrible

I think

Detonation-TOTAL junk
All the slow movement sets.
Ranged dmg almost everything-low level
LOL cleaving blow only 4 pieces in a lvl 50 set.
crap of the hunter.
essence of curare.


and more....


not sure how the market will affect anything but i put in some lowball bids that cost me nothing so if i buy 50 of each set that i think stinks and they turn out to be in a little better i made all my influ back


We will see....


Also i think that the power pools being upgraded will mean a lot of people taking new powers and sets bonuses that will go into them so fear sets may spike etc....

taunt also...

Patch notes for I24 beta were visible very very briefly (looks like the beta forum was being setup and a flag wasn't set. Guess beta will be soon ).

I managed to fail to keep a copy. The list was....... long..... and I didn't process all the IO info.

Did I mention it was long?

You know that would be very, very interesting if they did something like that, especially with Impervium Armor and Impervious Skin. Unlike a lot of the other Globals these one isn't unique so you could theoretically slot 5 of each of them in a character. Now admittedly getting 5 resistance powers isn't something all sets can do but there are some options there.

EDIT: Well obviously this speculation was wrong. Still the changes to the globals are definitely interesting.

new changes make my head hurt.
Gotta redo all the builds.