Koopak

Alright less than 4 days left to go, so time to reveal the super secret extra prize. List up gang, the winner of the Dominator time bounty will get to pick the next AT for the same bounty.

That's fair, in the context of the discussion my point is that the times on that sheet are more reflective of endgame performance than people often give credit. The EXACT build @Clam Leader used for what is still the best PeaceBringer pylon time documented is the one they use in all normal play and routinely leave other players in the dust in clear speed while being able to briefly off tank in our 4 star runs. Changling IS powerful and it IS game changing. But it also can't hold a candle to top end dps ATs, which is why I feel any fears of it being OP are unfounded. Now arguments about it being significantly stronger than non changling play are understandable as it necessitates a certain playstyle to get the most out of the AT, one many may find unacceptable. However I don't personally see that as appreciably different from the fact that to minmax a scrapper you have to take Hasten and optimize proc and rotation sets and in many sets case play Simon says with the set mechanics. If you don't want to do that, then don't, because if you aren't willing to setup some binds and macros which have evolved to be nearly fool proof to use now to play optimally, you probably weren't willing to lock down 99% of your power and slot picks for optimal dps either and THATS OKAY. What id love to see is someone spend some time optimizing both changling and non changling versions of both AT's triforms so we can stop spitballing about how powerful things are or arent and have some hard data beyond proof that even changling cant scratch dedicated dps ATs

Correct, I was simply teasing some things I'm looking forward to. I wasn't aware that a blasters job was to tank a pylon. Yes it IS possible to gimp your AT by over focusing on damage. However this is exactly what I mean by the dismissal. Many people just ASSUME that pylon times are all hyper specialized. In reality aside from the top one or two times currently on the sheet, they are all builds able to be used normally and even then since they are damage ATs an argument can be made it's fine to run them in teams. There is a constant problem with people over building durability and under building damage. Just recently the player with the first build pinned in one of the at discord channels needed help changing their build to solo Kronos Titan in LRSF on +4x8 in less than 2 hours. My build which is the top pylon time for the AT does it in only 6 minutes, while tanking it. Their problem was the lack of a ST rotation and an over focus on durability. They were BARELY out dpsing the AVs Regen. This is an example of the problem with this dismissal of ST damage. I almost never see a build get stuck or take hours longer because it lacks AoE outside extreme solo runs through old content where fighting 500 packs of mobs was considered good game design. I see it all the time because of lack of ST damage and, as you said, durability.

I actively hate this time as its using a new build meant to take advantage of offensive amp and so on and just was not beating my old build until i put geas in the mix and even then its HEAVILY RNG dependent. (i swear im missing 1 in 10 attacks instead of 1 in 20) I also wasn't recording so rip but here's a screeny.) Run Type: Pylon Archetype: Night Widow Primary Powerset: Night Widow Training Secondary Powerset: Widow Teamwork Time in seconds: 77 Burst: Burst Hybrid: Yes Number of Runs: 1 Version: I27P7 Acinus Night v3 experiment - Arachnos Widow (Night Widow Training - Widow Teamwork).mbd

I'll also note PBs can easily solo +4 AVs. Additionally damage is a survival tool. It's great you have a personal standard but that can't be used proscriptively. I care how other people perform because when I'm asked 'what's best', 'how do I build x', or any other build or gameplay question i intend to answer accurately and not based on personal anecdote. To that effect there is a new log parser in development that can prove or disprove the translatability of pylon dps to 'normal' gameplay. I won't name drop the dev in a public forum till they are ready to share but the results of testing are showing a high correlation so far.

ill caution that people often overestimate how different a pylon is from real gameplay. Builds that can do good pylon times often have more than sufficient AoE to clear sub EB targets, and the exceptional single target potential is directly applicable to EBs and AVs I say this because the argument is often used to completely disregard pylon testing when a more nuanced approach is to recognize that pylon speeds directly translate to the part of missions that often take the longest or in rare situations form actual barriers for a team. To use a racing analogy iv heard, saying your drag race time is useless is inaccurate, every track has a straight away. And when you take that straight away three times faster than anyone else, well that makes up for a lot of slower curves.

Update as we close in on the final week. Vertigolguana solidified his lead with a new time on 2/18. I will be reviewing beta times this week to confirm if they remain valid now that page 7 is live

Sure thing, @Frosticus what are the two empty slots in Health and Stamina? Alright i think iv got everyone if i missed anyone else let me know.

Sheet updated, also what i did today Run Type: Pylon Archetype: Night Widow Primary Powerset: Night Widow Training Secondary Powerset: Widow Teamwork Time in seconds: 84 Burst: No, sustain Hybrid: Yes Number of Runs: 1 Version: I27P7 Video Link: Notes: No temps or accolades used Build: Acinus Night v2 - Arachnos Widow (Night Widow Training - Widow Teamwork).mbd

I have not processed your latest time @VertigoIguana, will do so after work. I may not get to it today but now that p7 is out ill need to re review all times and changes and ensure everything is valid for the competition as we approach the final week.

if thats the case needs to be reported to mids

Ill have to remember to comb through and manually update things when page 7 releases.

And EnjoyTheJourney takes is on 2/16 only to have VertigoIguana pull ahead early in the next day 2/17

Great work @EnjoyTheJourney and @VertigoIguana records updated. Its interesting how when you cross the 35 second mark or so Degen slips ahead of Reactive due to how short the fight is.

DM provides a solid heal, it's best synergy is on a set that has a high effective health to make the most use of it. Additionally you want a taunt aura bad for soul drain. Thus my number one suggestion is invulnerability. The -to-hit is nice but overhyped as hitting defense cap, especially in teams, is easy enough.

Things are really heating up! Lead was taken by Frosticus on 2/10 and then by Mezmera on 2/11!

Thanks! I'm trying to keep track on any temp powers just in case they are missed in the build files and such so people know exactly how to replicate. @Mezmeraseems there is some parsing issues with the build so I'm cleaning it up manually (the build save is human readable) before posting your time. Seems this method does not handle Hamios very well, that said a random titan shard in your build feels like a flex, props Sheet update, congrats on taking the lead!

this is after using the /buildsave command on the character in game? Also make sure thats not an old install, i used my root directory, you can double check it via the launcher go to settings and check this

Congrats on taking the lead, at least until Maxzero get me their build! It looks like you have some kind of offensive temp power on, did you have the Aura of Mot as well? Telekku's Blessing doesn't impact times bot Aura of Mot does a little bit (very minor)

I just need the build, you can do /buildsave or /buildsavefile "filename" and then upload the text file created in this directory

I did a deep dive on Psi melee rotations but sadly lost my notes. I do however recall the conclusions after breaking down rotations for a day and calculating average proc rates of insight and its damage boost. Ignoring Insight and doing the best rotation without it averages a ~10% dps loss compared to changing your rotation to leave GPB till the last second when Insight is up. Meaning you absolutely want to try and maximize your Insight gains. Boggle when used optimally AND slotted with damage procs to minimize its dps loss, is a ~5% dps gain over not using boggle and just playing around Insight as best you can, assuming average luck and perfect execution. To be clear Boggle doubles the chance of Insight procing on an attack. However, that 5% gain is lost on a single deviation in luck, or if you queue up the wrong attack to quickly before noticing it triggered, and in many cases becomes a dps loss instead. My final conclusion was that Boggle was essentially worthless as a DPS tool and had the marginal value of every other single target confuse in the game. The one kinda sorta exception is Stalkers where boggle turns Slow AS into a 100% chance to proc Insight, letting you start a fight with Insight. However that means delaying your opening the full 5 seconds it takes to animate both boggle and slow AS. Ignoring insight however is a fast way to handicap Psi melee's damage. So you want yo react to it as best you can, and queue up attacks so that you start GPB just before Insight ends in order to maximize your dps.

One week in and current lead is held by EnjoyTheJourney!

I think others have mostly hammered home the point that a badge is just not a reward that will hold any meaning to experienced players, but looking at this from a player education perspective I feel it's completely lost it. Critiques (the valid ones at least) about the roles and what goes where in them aside. A valuable reward that helps a new player for trying to form a diverse and cohesive team helps teach what a strong team usually looks like, helpes drive player behavior toward successful patterns. A badge doesn't accomplish this because there is no value. Unless the player is an active badge hunter it won't incentivise any long term behavior. At best it just acts as a vector to deliver this tooltip, a tooltip that is inherently flawed in its role definitions in order to facilitate the reward in a balanced way. Obviously this thread is still young but I think it's telling that a lot of the detractors of the system are responding to this change with some version of 'this has no value's with several saying to just scrap it. I never expected this system to be as polarized as it is and am still baffled but I feel confident in saying that without a consistent reward, it's just needless chaff in the system. If the goal is to test the community by adding these badges and see if people get toxic over them, then add some regular reward next page or whatever, I can see the idea, and I can even see why you'd avoid saying that outright, but as is? Id rather just see the system scrapped too, everything about this is now self defeating.

I mean its a couple badges. I just don't see a point to this, without the constant reward the value dips even further. The Aether reward needed to go live to actually see real testing. I guess this badge can form a soft test for the idea to prove people wont be as toxic as people feared but this will only matter to badgers, and they will get it on accident, and then this will just be some background detail forgotten immediately. Really displeased with this change personally, but I guess its less contentious.

long term plan is these 'best of the month' bounties to get good times posted in general, and then follow up with gated bounties like that.