Koopak

Admittedly I solo +4x8 content semi regularly so that's going to skew my view on this bit. That added DDR to /SR only after SR had become known as near useless due to it. They may have had the tools to monitor it but my personal impression of balancing decisions by Cryptic and Paragon after were reactionary rather than proactive analysis. This is reinforced by how long it took for /SR to get said DDR. /Regen lacking debuff resists is only intentional 'by default' if you ascribe significant intent to the application of debuffs. Not to disparage the live devs, but I just don't think that was a priority to them, and I don't hold it against them. To a point, some groups or enemies just have debuffs on everything that are scaled to ridiculous degrees. The math here doen't matter, debuffs and debuff resists don't scale with level and have a relative impact. If you assume you want to keep the experience at each level range about the same, adding debuff resist only matters in which power, and thus what level it becomes available at. And yet this is the only place where debuffs can be reliably countered by any methods other than kiting on a melee AT, which I'm not adverse to, but it shouldn't be necessary to the degree it sometimes is. Debuffs are actually disproportionately worse to deal with at sub 45, you just generally don't see as many, meanwhile at 50 you are piginholes into Ageless Radial to give yourself the ability to not be flatlined by a bad rotation of luck and massive debuff stack even when using MoG. Again this isn't to say you cant handle it, just that the effort is more than other armor sets, either because they have debuff resistance or because they have defenses that soft counter debuffs. Regen it going to be hit more than any defense set, meaning not only does it not have defense debuff resist, it will take all debuffs more often. Regen has less resistance than resistance sets and thus cannot resist -resistance as effectively. At least one of these weaknesses is not present in most other armor sets, and for some neither is. The 'extreme' here is agro on 7-14 +2-4, Arachnos, Cimerons, IDF, Tsoo, Banished Pantheon, and so on. Casual players face this all the time. I've not said any of this was insurmountable, just that its one of if not the biggest threat to Regen's survival and one of the key ways it feels weak to so many players. If we want to use an appeal to authority and arguments on anecdotal performance. I ran the entire DA arc on +4x8 solo and only lowered the diff for AVs because when they bumped to lvl 54+3 I cant out dps their regen. Trust me I'm WELL aware of how to survive the hell that is Ancients of Sorrow. Doesn't mean that should be a skill set expected of everyone, or even half that. Something like 1/3 of my SG mates regularly miss cooldown rotations, we aren't talking about a community of extreme raiders here. If you have defense cap defense debuff will struggle to build up, regarding a build with about 25% +defense, i have eaten more than -50% defense debuff in: ITS, Aeon TF, Arachnos groups, Carnivals mask stacking, and probably one or two things slipping my mind. I'm so used to having to track my debuffs that i have all of my monitor slots used in my UI and still pop open the overall combat stats window on certain content, and have Ageless Radial hotkeyed. Yes, but actually no (meme) Regen has tools that allow it to trivialize any damage spike assuming it is not debuffed to hell, namely MoG and Dull Pain. Let me make this very clear, Instant Healing, Fast Healing, and Integration do almost NOTHING to keep you from being killed inside 2-3 seconds. If you use the small calculator to the side of my main regeneration calculator and compare any idle standing set to Regen you will find that your Effective Health without MoG is terrible (if memory serves its about 1/2 that of a radiation build), and you can and will get smacked down HARD by a damage spike if you dont have it or another tool lined up. As long as we are claiming to know the intentions of the original developers, I would point out Regeneration has a self revive and the only other armors with self rezes are notorious for being weaker or having similar problems. It seems reasonable to assume the self rez is a concession to this weakness, one overlooked when later content added death limits. If theres a relative difference between two sets then eys one can argue there is a balance issue. The question is whether or not its significant. I would say the real issue is not the balance of Regeneration, but its inaccessibility to more casual players. I think that should be improved some. If you dont care what happens at 50 then yeah you aren't going to have about 90% of the issues iv outlined because the game is... i don't want to say easier prior to 50+ because that's not right but the difficulty curve is more in line with a more linear growth of power. You don't see that whack debuffs, the attacks that hit for well over 1.5k damage before resistance. Unrelated but if you feel that balancing lvl 50 characters is impossible you must think the HC devs are on a fools errand because thats been their primary project for the last year in preperation of developing more endgame content. This isn't speculation its in their own public announcements here on the forum. Either way we are not going to agree one ounce on that point.

That's if you are in a team without support. Stormwalker was reacting to my comment about how support, outside buffs, greatly enhance the set's potential. This solve the damage spike issue by simply giving you the resistance and defense to eat it and not care, raising your Effective Health. I'll also note that while running lvl 40 without a full IO build you will struggle to perma Dull Pain, you still can get very close. The requirements are about 265% total +recharge between hasten and IOs to perma it. a low bar given 95 of that can come from a pair of recharge IOs at 50 and you can get msot of THAT with appropriate level SOs. You wont perma but you can get close, and especially with support buffs. Gonna try to address all three quotes here. Firstly I wouldn't dare to assume the weakness to debuffs is intentional, frankly debuffs seem overlooked by the live devs in a lot of situations regularly throwing things way out of alignment. Perhaps it was but the main reason id suggest focusing on debuff resistance as it is kind of a lame thing to deal with, and more importantly you can give regen debuff resistance without drastically effecting its overall performance, just patching the spots where damage spikes come out of nowhere and you don't have tools because of stacked debuffs which are only monitorable via the powers menu which as a non standard UI component and numbers heavy is very unfriendly to more casual players. Again this would be a 'test and see' thing not a 'we need this or riot' thing. As for how to really truly solve the damage spike issue, well I think debuff resistance handles it gracefully by reducing the frequency of stat crashes and reducing overhead for the player, but if you want to solve it in a direct fashion the set needs a way to raise its Effective Health without raising its Effective Regeneration. Its EfR (Effective Regeneration) is top notch, second only to two sets and those in specific modes (Granit Stone and Defensive Bio), but its EfH (Effective Health) is well bellow most of its competitors. This could take a number of shapes, from allowing Regen to bypass the health cap but get less regen% to adding an Absorb of some kind, perhaps excess healing becomes a barrier, to a stagger mechanic that causes a hit of say 1k to be applied in 250 damage chunks over the next couple seconds. Whatever it is, that's how you'd solve it. The issue is that might be to drastic, which is again why I focus on debuff resistance as a starting point. It lowers the skill floor while keeping the skill ceiling about the same, and doesn't drastically impact its overall performance. Off topic but ill fight anyone who says you need Physical Perfection in a build for endurance. Conserve Power is pretty baller though.

Essentially agree with all of that. My biggest issue tends to be with the rather common assertion that Regen needs hard stat buffs when the real problems are, like you mentioned, an over abundance of edge cases that make otherwise solid stats insufficient. Other armors take debuff resistances and high Effective Health for granted.

I agree this is where things should start. Ish? As I mentioned, theoretically its one of the best if not the best, even solo. The problem is, like some strategies in speed running (GDQ is live i have it on the brain deal with it) it may be optimal, but human execution of it isn't. This is part of why there is such a wide disparity in opinions on the set. I feel confident that anything you can do on a scrapper of another armor set, Regen can do too, it just might take a bit more practice. That all said I 100% agree that you have to put far more effort to accomplish the same performance of other sets for little to no reward. Your only reward is that Regen can uniquely survive situations other armor sets cant and almost always has an option to handle any situation, assuming you can recognize and use that option quick enough. Now, that's an awesome power... but only for a tiny fraction of the game. 90% of the time, you are working hard for no reward and I think that should be changed.

This is not my argument and that's a rather reductive way of phrasing it. Regen, numerically, stands with its brethren in the armor power set category just fine BEFORE you factor these in. That is to say that in terms of the raw amount of damage it can theoretically take per second and remain standing (Effective Regeneration), it is fine. When you factor in the fact that its weaknesses are easily patched by outside sources the result is that it becomes extremely strong. The weakness is not holes in defense or resistance, but in timing of power usage and enemy attacks, and how that plays against Effective Health, and the lack of protection from debuffs that uniquely harm it, or harm it especially badly. This means that the performance of the set fight to fight is dependent heavily on both RNG and a players ability to mitigate that RNG, which is why raising its Effective Health would patch up its only weakness in the case of damage only considerations. To make myself abundantly clear, Regen is not 'weak' because it cant handle damage per second, its 'weak' because it cant handle damage spikes specifically, and debuffs specifically. At least not without an unreasonable amount of game knowledge and experience to mitigate those effects since those weaknesses are to somewhat obscured mechanisms. Predicting alphas and monitoring/knowing debuff sources. These issues largely fall away with support, especially the damage spike issue, and makes the set vastly stronger than its contemporaries. However without support Regen demands to much of the player for admittedly I believe the strongest THEORETICAL performance, even solo. The trade is not worth it to 90% of players.

ho boy we doin this again. Mostly, but not entirely, and not in the same ways Troo disagrees. And what the other side keeps missing is that this is false. Respite =/= Dull Pain or Instant Healing, there is no inspiration that will give you the HP cap, no inspiration that will give you regeneration rate, and precious few pool powers or temp powers that can do those two things either. Meanwhile if you are defense capped, purples are useless, if you are resist capped oranges are useless, if you are both, they are both dead weight. This goes too for pool powers, an SR character cannot make significant use of +defense powers, a resistance character the same for +resistance. At the end of the day you can cap Resistance and Defense from numerous outside sources, both when solo, and ESPECIALLY in a team. You cant cap your hp and regeneration as easily from outside sources. For this reason alone, on a mathematical scale, assuming perfect execution, Regeneration is actually the strongest armor. That doesn't translate well to human play however because this game lacks for tells, its hard to tell when a damage spike is coming and the animation time before a power takes hold is a constant challenge to master. As such in practice it often falls far behind the other powersets, this goes double if you are coming from any other armor or expecting it to perform similarly. If you want to argue this is a poor match for the games inherit systems? I agree If you want to say the set requires to much effort to perform at its maximum? I agree a little If you want to say the set mechanically, mathematically, is inferior? You are dead wrong. If you asked me what Regeneration needs? Well my answer has shifted over the years as I've worked to master the set, but my answer now would be: -Debuff Resistance buffs, Defense would be great but not on theme, but recharge and regen are on theme and recharge at least will matter (regen debuff resist is overrated, there is very little -regen in the game and much of it is of a magnitude so high you'd need 99% resistance to not just be turned off) -Shortened or removed 'animation time before effect'. (Note that's not cast time, that's just how long it takes to get the damn power to start working, you can lock me up all day in a fancy animation but if its a self heal to save my life, can it please take effect quickly? I'll do the dance after, just heal me NOW) -An absorb layer or a way to exceed the max hp cap, a system that staggers damage, or just some more resistances. Anything to just take the edge of damage spikes as Regen has a very low Effective Health compared to other sets, especially resist sets, and runs the risk of being alphaed more than any other armor. (This is a maybe, and the last issue that id focus on only if the others didn't bring its average performance up) The issue with buffing regen though is that if it is mishandled, the set tips over into OP territory FAST, and even if you handle it well, those who are comfortable with the demands of the set will begin performing much higher than the average. Its a catch 22 leftover from the live devs, the only people left maining regen are the hardcore players who have committed to reaching its theoretical maximum, and those playing it for theme. If you buff it, sure more people will play it, and the theme players will be happy, but the hardcore players will start soloing things that shouldn't be soloed. If you buff it in a way that prevents that, you risk ruining what draws those hardcore players to the set in the first place. tl;dr: Nerf Regen, it is the only way

Okay lets see if i cant keep my thoughts together today. That is just a fact that players wont perform a set to its optimal potential unless it is one of the sets that is just a series of toggles with no room for skill expression. When I said it is 'false due to scale' and 'edge cases' I was intending to refer to your note on how Regeneration does nothing while at max health. This complication simply doesn't yield useful, actionable information. This is because if you are under an amount of fire sufficient to need the use of your survival tools, you will not be at max health for more than a game tick or two. As such your regen is disabled for a very small amount of time, often less than the regeneration tick rate. Further trying to model this element requires simulation, not just computation. All of this combines with relatively high damage spikes compared to Effective Health in the game such that often using a power like Instant Healing on reaction rather than proactively will simply get you killed as the time it takes for you as the player to process you need to use the power, and then physically start the activation, and then for that power to complete casting, and in the case of +regen powers, for it to tick enough times to save you. The problem with this is the model you have chosen, while it yields a seemingly intuitive result, a 'Survival Time' it's actually misleading. This is because a Survival Time is actually a largely useless piece of information without an accurate damage model, and, preferably, a target survival time. Sure you can focus simply on getting this value as high as possible, but that doesn't yield valuable insights in my opinion as every stacking source of defense, resistance, and regeneration modifies the Effective Regeneration and Health contributed by every other source. Further this shift is not easily visible, since the result is considered in seconds. I feel quite certain this 'Survival Time' model is the source of a significant amount of misunderstandings on the actual durability of Regeneration specifically. If your goal is to understand the fundamentals, then I assure you they are exactly as simple as the model I outlined, it is only when factoring in player performance and edge case attack types that it changes. I cant speak to the degree to which one person or another may have argued with you but I will say this. Most Defense sets reach defense caps to either all damage types or to the three positions very easily, and almost never have +MaxHp. As such Tough becomes a critical source of Resistance to reduce the risk of a bad luck streak resulting in their death or as simply the only path forward in durability after hitting the defense cap. I would definitely agree that for many defense based armor sets, Tough is a key power to making the build able to handle tough customers like AVs or to solo +4 Incarnate content, especially if the player is not comfortable with Rune of Protection. Alright I think that about covers my main points. I want to apologies if I came off a bit antagonistic. Keeping my thoughts together lately has been hard, which is a lot of why I have Brute added to the spreadsheet but not Stalker despite Stalker being about as easy to implement.

Sorry yes this is correct, i cant tell i should probably wait before replying to this discussion further im making some trivial mistakes i should be able to remember and did when making the calculator above. One note is that -def does still effect a character at 100% pre cap resistance since the base to hit is 50% and you can be debuffed to a capped 95% chance to be hit

This is a bit frustrating because your math and examples are correct, as is your understanding of the mechanics at play, but your conclusions are false due to scale. To put it simply you are focusing on the micro, small segments of activity, and attempting to incorporate all edge case scenarios. This results in a very top heavy model that, given correct information will result in the same conclusions, but only after you provide it the correct data, that being the real hp values, real regen values, real attack rates, and real damage values at play. Extrapolation is key here to remove this, and I start with resolving the first problem I see most people make when talking about calculating durability, assumed damage values. In your example for instance you assumed 20 damage done evert second by a single attack. This normally is fine on the surface, but as you outlined, it makes defense weird to calculate with regeneration due to not regenerating while at full health. This is ultimately a useless piece of information in my opinion however as if you are at max health then the only thing that will matter is your Effective Health for the next attack. So in order to eliminate variables we do not have, I have rearranged the problem, instead of calculating the 'survival time' of a given amount of health, regen, resistance, and defense, I have instead calculated the total amount of damage necessary to tend one's health down, and how much beyond that must be done to bring that health down to zero, all averaged. This eliminates the need for assumed damage, and attack rates by scaling our calculations to a larger scope. This scope id a bit to large to be 100% accurate, there are after all attacks that can just one shot you (with the exception of one shot protection), but for 90% of situations it is accurate. Addressing your assertion that resistance is reduced in value by defense, I feel you are conflating two details in your example of a 50% def and 50% resist characters. As I stated +30% resistance is more valuable to the +resist character, this has NOTHING to do with defense however, this is simply the result of exponential growth from linear scaling. I feel that mentally linking the two stats in the way you outline is detrimental to an understanding of the system even if it is, on the the surface accurate that more defense is better as you gain more defense, the same is true for resistance, and its merely a matter of where the caps lie and the costs of obtaining those stats. They DO scale multiplicatively however and your example does not disprove that, it merely proves what I outlined above, that Resistance and Defense grow exponentially in value the more you have. To reproduce your math in a better model: Effective Health: MaxHP / (1 - resist) / (1 - (0.5 + defense)) DEF only (this is zero +def as the base to hit is 50%) 100 / (1 - 0) / (1 - (0.5 + 0)) 200 EHP RES only (removing base to hit to match your example) 100 / (1 - 0.5) / (1 - (0.5 + -0.5)) 200 EHP DEF + 30 RES 100 / (1 - 0.3) / (1 - (0.5 + 0)) 285.71 EHP RES + 30 RES 100 / (1 - 0.8) / (1 - (0.5 + -0.5)) 500 EHP This seems to support your point, but the real issue here is the exponential value, lets look at the reverse, +30% defense added to both. DEF + 30 DEF 100 / (1 - 0) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.3)) 500 EHP RES + 30 DEF 100 / (1 - 0.5) / (1 - (0.5 + -0.2)) 285.71 EHP These EHP values are the amount of damage, on average, that needs to be thrown at you. This extrapolates away attack rates and magnitudes. As we can see the results are the same, this has nothing to do with defense and everything to do with scaling. Again you are right in that an attack that doesn't hit doesn't benefit from the other stats, but its also a 100% mitigation, thus we can treat defense as eliminating attacks. The other benefit to this model over yours is that it handily handles regeneration, easily, again not longer needing to worry over edge cases. Lets look at that with real numbers on a real scrapper with max hp cap, 200% regeneration, and 25% +defense (plus 50% base) and 50% +resist, these being chosen because on average +defense comes in values roughly 1/2 that of +resistance, for every 1.5% defense you can get you can usually get 3% resistance for similar investment. Scrapper hp cap is 2409, 200% regeneration is 20hp/s. Effective Regeneration: Regen / (1 - resist) / (1 - (0.5 + defense)) Effective Health: MaxHP / (1 - resist) / (1 - (0.5 + defense)) DEF only EHP 2409 / (1 - 0) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.25)) 9,636 EHP DEF only EHP/s 20 / (1 - 0) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.25)) 80 EHP/s RES only EHP 2409 / (1 - 0.5) / (1 - (0.5 + 0)) 9,636 EHP RES only EHP/s 20 / (1 - 0.5) / (1 - (0.5 + 0)) 80 EHP/s So what does this mean? Well it means that if you are taking 80 dps or less, you will never die. If you are taking 100 dps a second it will take EHP / (EHPs - DPS) seconds to die. Thus... 9,636 / (80 - 100) = 481.8 seconds or 8.03 minutes on average. Now lets try +10% Resist and +5% Defense respectively, and if you want a time to die, we will assume 200dps DEF + 10 RES - EHP 2409 / (1 - 0.1) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.25)) 10,706.66 EHP DEF + 10 RES - EHP/s 20 / (1 - 0.1) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.25)) 88.88 EHP/s 10,706.66 / (88.88 - 200) = 96.35 seconds RES + 10 RES 2409 / (1 - 0.6) / (1 - (0.5 + 0)) 12,045 EHP RES + 10 RES 20 / (1 - 0.6) / (1 - (0.5 + 0)) 100 EHP/s 12,045 / (100 - 200) = 120.45 seconds DEF + 5 DEF 2409 / (1 - 0) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.3)) 12,045‬ EHP DEF + 5 DEF 20 / (1 - 0) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.3)) 100 EHP/s 12,045 / (100 - 200) = 120.45 seconds RES + 5 DEF 2409 / (1 - 0.5) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.05)) 10,706.66 EHP RES + 5 DEF 20 / (1 - 0.5) / (1 - (0.5 + 0.05)) 88.88 EHP/s 10,706.66 / (88.88 - 200) = 96.35 seconds Again we see defense compounding with defense better and resistance compounding with resistance better. Forgive me if this is a bit rambling, i'm struggling to keep all my thoughts in order currently due to work

Okay I think this clarified your point that was confusing me, however I personally don't think this is a very useful fact, even if its true. City of Heroes applies a clamp that ensures that there is always at least a 5% chance for an attack to hit and a 5% chance for it to miss, regardless of stats. This is a call back to the tabletop games that influenced it and their use of the 20 sided die and rules regarding it. For our purposes this means that one in twenty attacks will hit you, period, no matter what. When calculating durability this means you cannot discount, or ignore, or reduce the value of resistance simply because you have high defense. In a large pack, at agro cap you can safely assume that within 5 seconds you will take between 40 and 80 attacks, this means that at defense cap an average of 2-4 of them will hit. In high difficulty content these hits will be substantial, around 500-1000 damage, this means that you will take between 1k and 4k damage, which the high end of which is enough to flatten even hp capped tankers if you remove resistance. At the end of the day you simply cant get enough defense for its impact on the value of resistance to matter.

+def will always out perform +res on average. This is because there are no ATs capable of 95% resistance, and because resistance only helps against -res, all other debuffs are unaffected. The only exception is against heavy single hits, where bad luck can end you at any time, this is why SR has some resist. Your comment of inverse scaling is confusing me. If I understood it, then its wrong. All three defensive stats stack multiplicativly. Effective Regeneration: Regen / (1 - resist) / (1 - (0.5 + defense)) Effective Health: MaxHP / (1 - resist) / (1 - (0.5 + defense)) Apply caps to above, plug in your values, and you have your definitive durability stats baring debuffs/buffs. This means that, for say a scrapper with a caped max hp of 2400 (real cap is 2409) defense cap brings that to 20 times, or 48000 and a resist cap of 75% will further multiply thag by 4 to 192000 effective health. This is why people tend to suggest "layered defenses" however the equation above means that every 1% of resist or defense is better than the last. As an example 5% defense at 0% reduces damage taken to 90% of prior. Meanwhile 5% defense when already at 40% reduces damage taken by half. Youve gone from 10% of attacks hitting you to 5%. So its almost always worth more to continue to build toward a cap than it is to invest in the other durability stat.

I actually slot the scrapper ATO into Lotus because the proc rate isnt THAT much worse than SD which is the optimal placement for single target, and it check for every target hit. I actually don't bother with FS most of the time since it and SotW are the most droppable attacks (after DA which you keep on some builds for the option durability wise or to mule something) Unless you are Scrapper Locking onto someone away from the pack, you will hit everything around you for about 2-3 ranks deep.

Here's a build from about a year ago i did for someone else. It probably doesn't have the same level of optimization id expect of myself now but its still solid with good dps. Main thing is to remember that as Regen your survival is in your own hands, management of your survival tools is the key, and with this you have several. Also recommend Ageless Radial for dealing with debuffs. You can also look at fine tuning it yourself with the link in my signature. This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.2.17 https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn Click this DataLink to open the build! Talon X: Level 50 Technology Scrapper Primary Power Set: Claws Secondary Power Set: Regeneration Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Presence Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Speed Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Strike -- SprScrStr-Dmg/Rchg(A), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), SprScrStr-Rchg/+Crit(7), TchofDth-Dam%(48) Level 1: Fast Healing -- Prv-Heal(A), Prv-Heal/EndRdx(5) Level 2: Reconstruction -- Prv-Heal(A), Prv-Heal/Rchg(5) Level 4: Kick -- FrcFdb-Rechg%(A) Level 6: Provoke -- Acc-I(A) Level 8: Follow Up -- SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg(A), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), TchofDth-Dmg/EndRdx(9), TchofDth-Dam%(11), SprCrtStr-Rchg/+50% Crit(11), GssSynFr--Build%(13) Level 10: Dull Pain -- RechRdx-I(A), Prv-Heal/Rchg(37) Level 12: Slash -- SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg(A), SprScrStr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), TchofDth-Dam%(36), Hct-Dam%(37), AchHee-ResDeb%(37) Level 14: Tough -- RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctArm-EndRdx/Rchg(15), RctArm-ResDam(15), RctArm-EndRdx(17), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(17) Level 16: Integration -- Pnc-Heal/EndRedux(A), Pnc-EndRdx/Rchg(19), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux/Rchg(19), Pnc-Heal(34), Pnc-Heal/+End(36) Level 18: Spin -- Arm-Dmg(A), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Arm-Acc/Rchg(40), Arm-Dam%(42), Erd-%Dam(42), FuroftheG-ResDeb%(43) Level 20: Resilience -- RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctArm-ResDam/Rchg(21), RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(21), RctArm-ResDam(27), GldArm-3defTpProc(27) Level 22: Maneuvers -- ShlWal-Def/EndRdx(A), ShlWal-EndRdx/Rchg(23), ShlWal-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(23), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(25), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(25) Level 24: Focus -- SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg(A), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(39), SprWntBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(39), FrcFdb-Rechg%(40) Level 26: Intimidate -- Acc-I(A) Level 28: Instant Healing -- Prv-Heal(A), Prv-Heal/EndRdx(29), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg(29), Prv-Heal/Rchg(33), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx(34), Prv-Absorb%(34) Level 30: Weave -- Rct-Def/EndRdx(A), Rct-EndRdx/Rchg(31), Rct-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Rct-ResDam%(31), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(33), Ksm-ToHit+(33) Level 32: Shockwave -- Artl-Acc/Dam(A), Artl-Acc/Dam/Rech(43), Artl-Acc/Rech/Rng(43), Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(45), Ann-ResDeb%(46), FrcFdb-Rechg%(46) Level 35: Revive -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 38: Moment of Glory -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), RechRdx-I(39) Level 41: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(42) Level 44: Unrelenting -- Prv-Heal/Rchg(A), Pnc-Heal/Rchg(45), NmnCnv-Heal/Rchg(45) Level 47: Moonbeam -- Thn-Acc/Dmg(A), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx(47), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(47), Dcm-Build%(48) Level 49: Shadow Meld -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(49), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(49) Level 1: Critical Hit Level 1: Brawl -- SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(A), SprBlsCol-Rchg/HoldProc(46) Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 2: Rest -- EndMod-I(A) Level 1: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 1: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 1: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A) Level 1: Stamina -- PwrTrns-EndMod(A), PwrTrns-+Heal(3), PrfShf-End%(3) Level 49: Quick Form Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon Level 50: Reactive Radial Flawless Interface Level 50: Assault Core Embodiment Level 50: Portal Jockey Level 50: Task Force Commander Level 50: The Atlas Medallion Level 50: Freedom Phalanx Reserve ------------

All true, I'll say that you aren't wrong about reflecting this being 'impossible' in a spreadsheet but that's mostly because to approach anything like a valuable equation you have to omit outlier or impossible to know data points. A key example is how this sheet does not attempt to calculate the impact of -to-hit attacks. This is because the sheet cannot know how many enemies were hit with it and how much of the incoming damage those enemies are responsible for. However extrapolating certain things can give us close approximations. I have plans to possibly add -to-hit calculations with the assumption "you gotem all chief" and with the ability to choose the level of your enemies for the calculation with 54 being the default. Another thing is id like to get a good description of the average damage of each enemy group and the average presence of different enemy groups then use that to create Effective Regeneration values for those expectations. I'd also like to do this for debuff amount averages. This is all possible, just research heavy. At the end of the day tools like this aren't for telling you the theoretical limit of a set in a specific piece of content, you'd need a full sim for that, they are merely to give you a better picture into what's going on under the hood.

Update: V1.2 -Added a Brute sheet and subsequent calculation. I'll likely migrate this post to the general builds forum once I finish stalker and Sentinel -revised versioning to something a bit more logical

The fact that you feel its necessary to conflate certainty with urgency baffles the mind. As I said, Stalker is in a good position. Just because I say something can be improved, should be improved, does not mean it is somehow urgent or immediately important. I've made my points and at this point further arguing with you seems to be an exercise in futility, rather than proffering new arguments or points you continue to exaggerate my points then use that to dismiss them.

I don't mean to be rude but we HAVE discussed this. And I want to highlight that YOU are okay with a 3.67 second cast time to open your fights. Not everyone is, personally it drives me batty some times. And to reiterate my points about solo, yes, you can solo in this game. However it is an MMO with a large amount of content not designed to be soloed. Yes people have done it but those are the same people that 'speedrun everything'. A power variation that is only good in solo play if you have no care about the time cost it adds, is kind of hard to justify. The 3x crit is easily compensated for by using a strong ST attack for a 2x crit followed immediately by Fast AS for a 33% chance at another. Mathematically this is often if not always better. Demoralize is great, but only useful in certain situations, namely, soloing, namely without a defense capped build. There are no other powers that are only useful in solo play, and while Slow AS is only one part of AS, it is a part that in all other situations is overshadowed by Fast AS and becomes a tripping hazard for playing AND building Stalkers. That is a bad experience. Should Slow AS be buffed? I think it should at least be standardized Should Fast AS be nerfed? maybe Is the issue that power creeped builds have devalued Demoralize? The point is that this false choice between Slow and Fast AS should be either made into a REAL choice, or removed. Again im sorry if this feels like im jumping on you, you just brought up poitns already discussed and frankly i got some IRL shit making me snippy.

At no point was i suggesting that, i don't think it being a gap closer is a great idea, MAYBE for some variants of confront but definitely not AS. If you read my wording that way then I don't really know how to compensate for your projected hyperbole. At no point am I arguing Slow AS is 'worthless' or 'no damage' what I am arguing is that I believe it is inferior to Fast AS in all, or nearly all use cases and that makes the choice between Slow AS and Fast AS a false one. There is a correct choice, not a situational choice, and that, to me, is bad. Its EXACTLY 15% DPA + minor annoyances bad. No more, no less.

To quote Galaxy Brain without pinging the man. On average, this means that fast AS animates in roughly 36% of the time while doing 39% of the raw damage of slow AS. Without diving into the details yet, the mismatch here also means fast AS will usually outcompete slow AS when it comes to damage/animation time. Only a handful of slow AS's outcompete the DPA of their fast ones at base value, with Broadsword/Ninja Blade/Fire Melee/Ice Melee having 15% better DPA All others have about 85% the DPA of their fast counterpart, with Stone/StJ having 94%, and KM having an astonishing 64%! Just about 4/5 Stalker sets have their fast AS as better DPA from the start! This is the crux of the issue. Can anyone offer a reason why not every AS should compare directly with Broadsword/Ninja Blade/Fire Melee/Ice Melee? If we accept the Slow AS DPA of those four, then I do not understand the reasoning behind the others. (Save for KM which is just busted anyways.) To answer the question of lost dps, you can look at the above, most Slow ASs give up 15% damage for a +50% damage spike. @Troo The issue is that we are comparing slow AS which 9/10 times means you can get AS and 1 extra attack off before the enemy can complete an attack of their own due to the lag time in alerts. Due to this, Slow AS loses its damage spike utility, and is left only with Demoralize to compensate for lower damage.

Sorry for the double post, your post came out mid way through my last. This isn't about my personal play, and its not about 'the meta' as its often derided. Its a matter of incentives. The sole incentive right now to use Slow AS over any other attack followed by Fast AS for MOST powersets is horribly skewed and is reflected by the fact that most stalkers do avoid Slow AS like the plague. It is a false choice that's a bad design element and it should be improved. I defaulted to buffing Slow AS, because I always default to buffing because its an easier pill to swallow for people. I do not care if Fast AS needs to be nerfed instead, please do, iv said this.

The DPA of Slow AS is, with few exceptions, worse than Fast AS already, adding on the cast time of Placate does it no favors. Sure the burst damage 'feels' good, but its not actually good performance wise. You ultimately are trading a lot of dps for Demoralize, which is fine in personal gameplay choices.

This as well, i was omitting the proc since its been repeatedly argued that ATs should not be balanced around their AT procs, but id note that Placate slipped my mind because until its relatively recent buff it was worse than Confront in its usefulness. These tools however provide a strong argument that slow AS IS meant to be used in normal combat, which again leads us back to the DPA issue. When Placate + Slow AS, or hide proc + Slow AS is objectively worse than using any other power during hide, that is a problem. Particularly since the proc could trigger if its in any power other than AS unexpectedly and force you into slow AS. Most Stalker builds explicitly try to bypass this by putting the proc in AS.

This is not always the case, and is not a situation I would consider a problem. Usually I experience teams clear a pack, and in the time it take them to close, stalker included, hide will be up. Similarly Snipe will be half way through casting or more by the time the stalker reaches the target. Support ATs having powers that only effect teammates is in line with the AT's role. If you want to argue Stalker's role as an AT is solo play, particularly if you wish to claim it is slow solo play, then hell I have no debate for you beyond thinking that's kind of a bad design for an MMO. I get your point of trying to draw equivalence here but I don't believe there is an equivalence to be had. Solo play may be a big advantage CoX has and a guiding principle for much of its content, but I think you are going to have to work hard to prove that TFs, Trials, and Giant Monster spawns don't emphasize that team play is the core focuses of a Massivly Multiplayer Online game. I say this as an avid soloer. That is a potential fair argument, but its essentially an appeal to original intent. I disagree with the often held assumption that original is automatically good. More importantly however I feel that Fast AS ultimately invalidates Slow AS, and that's the problem. I feel like we should all be able to at least agree on the idea that Slow AS should be the best opener in most cases for Stalker. If we do not agree on that then we will have to agree to disagree because there is simply not much of an argument to be had anymore. I cannot speak for the OP obviously though I get the impression that, like a lot of people who pop into the suggestion forums they simply had an idea they wanted to suggest and thought would be an improvement and didn't come prepared to back it up like peer review of a research paper. This forum is very hostile at times, immediately attacking ideas or even dismissing them outright. As for myself I am in no way cherry picking or arguing in bad faith. Everything I have said has been with the intent of exploring a possible improvement to Stalker play experience, unrelated to actual mechanical performance. If it needs to be nerfed in some way to make playing the AT smoother, I would be fine with that. Every example and argument I have brought forward has been based on my own experience, knowledge, and research. Granted I cant make many definitive statements without spending a lot of time doing real honest to god experimental research, and thus some of my arguments should be taken with a grain of salt. However everything I have said has been based on an authentic attempt to convey and defend my opinion on the matter. If I have given you the impression of bad faith argument, I apologies, and am open to any criticisms you may have for how I can make these same arguments in a more positive and easily understood manner.

Yes, and there's a debate to be had as to weather or not that is a balance concern. However my argument has never been about giving Stalkers power, but instead about making the experience of playing one a bit smoother and removing what is largely a false choice. One could EASILY argue that Fast AS should be nerfed and Slow AS left alone, and id be open to that idea provided it succeeded in making the use of Slow AS as an opener a good decision in more gameplay situations.

Snipe has the benefit of range, it is very possible to target an enemy, and start a snipe, and finish it in the time it takes your team to close the distance. Thus its functional DPA is much higher than its raw numbers. AS does not have this benefit, as I outlined, because the Stalker must get into melee range, this means that, assuming the team is all moving at roughly the same speed, they will begin their up to 3.67 second cast time at the same time their teammates land their first hit. Thus the DPA is relevant, because the Stalker would be better served simply attacking with another power to start. AS may have perhaps been envisioned as a gank tool originally, but id argue that's kind of crap experientially, and it seems the devs agreed, choosing to make it a more active part of the Stalker playstyle. You can call this a change made because of player complaints if you want, but I'd like to give the Live dev team a little more credit than simply saying they changed it because people complained. Lastly I am not calling Solo niche, please do not misunderstand, or misrepresent my words. I am saying that Solo play, on a stalker, without caring about clear time, and without being annoyed by spending 3.67 seconds starting many if not every pack of enemies, is probably fairly uncommon. Especially when you consider that yes, the game is designed to be equally playable solo and on teams, so perhaps Slow AS, a part of a core powerset should have enough value in teams to be worth considering using. Not to be rude, but you are either very much misunderstanding or are intentionally ignoring my argument by placing it in a box you've predefined. At no point have I argued you shouldn't use Fast AS when Fast AS is superior to Slow AS. What I am saying is Slow AS is almost NEVER optimal. Yes, that is a problem, because at that point all Slow AS is, is an annoyance you have to play around. You seem to be laboring under the assumption that teams that move quick enough, quick enough defined as "the same speed as their melee dps AT" to make Slow AS as an opener an inefficient option, is an uncommon situation. I do not know how you can have this view, I would assume your experience with the average team must be very different to mine if that is the case. I say you must have this assumption because you repeatedly focus on the idea that situations in which Slow AS is a good option are common, at least common enough to make any discussion of improvements to its cast time either a negative, or at least without positive for the game as a whole. This is an assumption I do not share, if I did, I would not be having this debate with you right now. So allow me to be clear. The situations in which using Slow AS, as it stands today, is a good gameplay decision with positive incentives that are not outweighed by simply using a standard attack followed by Fast AS, are so uncommon as to be a problem. A problem because they relegate Slow AS to such a narrow range of use that if given the choice many, if not most players would disable Slow AS entirely. Before you counter with "so just don't use it" I would like to add that this argument, while usually quite valid, falls on its face when discussing AS due to the fact that its mere existence and method of function means that while one can choose not to use it, they cannot choose not to interact with it. It is a mechanic that all Stalkers must always interact with, even if that interaction is choosing to use a different opener from stealth. A player cannot simply walk up to a pack and play normally opening with their strongest hit, they must remain conscious of this mechanic and choose to bypass it. That is a very unpleasant QoL experience to force on people because you personally like it, or because of fears regarding insurance policies on cottages.