RelativeQuanta

I'm running Barrier Core as my destiny. I haven't tried running Ageless, but that's certainly a possibility, though maybe not against AVs. I used to have Dark Grasp 6-slotted, but it didn't proc as much as Midnight Grasp which also does more dpa. I do regularly use Dark Grasp when fighting groups to lock down any mobile bosses, but it's lower priority when I'm trying to maximize damage. Hmm... I could try dropping the Numina's heal enhancement for Theft of Essence

I'll add on some extremely minor tweaks after @Meknomancer good suggestions. Move Unbreakable Guard +Max HP from Mind over Body to Tough and Unbreakable Guard Res/End/Rchg to Mind Over Body as Mind over body gains a lot more than Tough does from Res enhancement If you want to recoup a slot, you can three slot Mind over body with Reactive Armor which will give you more S/L resist, a bit more Ranged and E/N defense while sacrificing 3% melee defense. You could then use this slot to put Force Feedback Chance for rechage on Tremor (32% proc chance) Fissure's proc could be swapped for Force Feedback as well with a similar proc chance (33.4%, though Menomancer's suggestions for it's position have MUCH higher proc chances) @Galaxy Brain has a nice breakdown of enemy resistances. You can swap a few of your procs that are smashing/lethal for less resisted ones Heavy Mallet Gladiator's Strike Smashing ↔ Touch of Death Negative (Unless you PvP!) Carrion Creepers has both a smashing and a lethal proc. You can exchange one of them for Ice Mistral's chance of +Cold. This also could be a good place for Annihilation -Res You can eek a tiny bit more damage (read about 6 pts) out of Seismic Smash by swapping one of the 72 pt damage procs with a regular 50+5 Damage IO. I'd suggest one of the Psychic damage procs since Touch of Death's Negative is the least resisted and exchanging Psychic ↔ Smashing has similar resist levels

Well, I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but my Mid's install won't import this data chunk.

Hey everyone! After dealing my earlier bout with FOMO 😳I've got something close to a final build for my dominator. I've been soloing with this build or something close to it for a bit and it works pretty well. I've been soloing the Maria Jenkins arc on +2x8 fairly easily and did the last few missions with AVs turned on. So the AVs I've taken down are Infernal (easy), Diabolique (annoying), Dominatrix (slog), Marauder (easy), and Olympian Guard (harder, probably would have been easy if Manticore hadn't decided to agro 3 groups and get me and my lore pets killed. Ended up beating with no lore pets and no Manticore!). All in all, I feel pretty confident with this build, but I'm interested to know if people see anything I can do to improve it. Some notes: Flight is part of my theme, so I really don't want to change that I try to keep my chance to hit above 90% at +4 I'm using Living Shadows to mule Ragnarok. Perhaps these slots are better used elsewhere? I'm trying to maximize DPS so my rotation goes Midnight Grasp → Smite → Gloom → Moonbeam → Smite Midnight Grasp is really only used for Chance for +Damage procs and is woven in when Smite, Gloom, and Moonbeam are all on cooldown This is why Life Drain is set up as a heal, I don't use it for DPS I do use both Haunt and Umbral Beast regularly It's EXTREAMLY endurance heavy. My current plan has me using Intuition Radial Paragon when fighting groups of enemies and switching to Cardiac Core Paragon when fighting an AV (haven't actually tried the last part yet and I've used Intuition Radial for everything). Any tips on solving endurance in general would be greatly appreciated I may swap the slots between Umbral Beast and Haunt to give Haunt a slightly higher recharge (it's 1 second off from completely permanent) Thanks! Dominator (Darkness Control - Dark Assault).mbd

This is a complicated topic and the answer is going to depend a lot on your build. There's a discussion here on using multiple -Res procs. Basically, if you can use both, use both. Proc damage generally ignores damage buffs but -Res will increase the damage it does. So they compliment each other.

Hi Icehero! Just thought I'd give you my 2 cents and include an example build with a different philosophy. I don't really know what you're going for other than looking to increase the damage you do. So here's my suggestion and build philosophy: Build Priority: Get perma-dom Damage Defense/Resists #1. Perma-dom is the most important thing you can do. Controlled enemies don't hit back. Building for enough recharge to get perma-dom also increases the damage you do so it works into #2. #2 . Use procs and, if possible, avoid recharge enhancements. #3. Only after #1 and #2 worry about defense and resists. You should be locking stuff down, not getting shot/punched. I tend to think Ranged defense is the most important because after you charge in and use heart of darkness or shadow field you're likely taking a ranged alpha so ranged defense is your friend but can be hard to get. I like to also get S/L resists to cap or near the cap. If you need more, I'd suggest using Barrier. That will plug any holes you have. On the example build I tried to match the powers you took, I just reslotted with one exception, I dropped Evasive Maneuvers and picked up Possess. That power and the 6 slot bonuses from Coercive Persuasion are too good to pass up. Possess lasts a REALLY long time and under domination even against +4 bosses that beat on their friends aren't beating on you. You should see a huge DPS increase with this build. 🙂 Example - Dominator (Darkness Control - Icy Assault).mbd

That's cool. What are the restrictions? I assume I wouldn't be allowed to make a Dominator with nothing but snipe assault powers.

I got lifetime to CO back in 2011. Now, I wish I hadn't. I logged on a couple of times in the last month or two and it was extremely buggy. Many maps had invisible floors and a mission that was supposed to remove a force field after I shut down some generators didn't remove the force fields. I couldn't complete it. I don't know how they keep it running, honestly... On a complete tangent, here's my rant about its freeform system. 😛 Freeform is a cool idea, but there was hidden stuff I didn't like. For example, Strength = melee damage and Ego = ranged damage. Yes, it was modified by your "super stats," but those got to double dip. You couldn't really make a blaster that was just as good in melee as at ranged with the notable exception of the Psy powerset that used Ego for melee too. Certain sets benefitted directly from certain super stats too that made mixing stuff awkward. Then again, I've got this weird thing where I have to like the concept of the character to play them, but I get huge FOMO and stop playing if it isn't somewhat close to the meta...

It's not quite that simple. The thermal values are truly random and seed a CTR_DRBG with AES random number generator which provides values that are indistinguishable from true random numbers. At least, Intel's does in the link I gave earlier. You could also use the thermal values to create your random numbers directly, if you want something non-deterministic.

@shortguy on indom Thanks! I'm afraid I didn't make it very user friendly. The calculations are all in HeroData.py if that helps. Feel free to ask any questions about it and I'll try to help.

More recently, there are true random number generators that use stuff like thermal readings of your CPU as another option.

That's a bit uncalled for. No. Like I said in my very first post in this thread, I found the question interesting. This entire thread has been in the context of a Rad/Rad sentinel. The established wisdom is "just use one" and I wanted to see if that held up. It doesn't, at least not in the way implied.

Well, I am and I did. I'm currently leveling the build I tested and I've already done the math on it. The math basically shows that you won't really observe a difference between an extra minor damage proc vs an extra achilles' heel. However, if you're teamed, it should make a much larger difference to have the extra Achilles' heel procs. The argument on commonality of Achilles' Heel reducing the value of multislotting for teams doesn't make sense. I've been the only person on this thread that suggesting that running Achilles' Heel on more than one power is potentially a good thing. This suggests that others don't tend to carry more than one and that's among people who put a lot more time into their builds than the average player. So I conclude that you can safely expect multislotting Achilles' Heel -Res to greatly benefit your median team.

True, but check out the up-time of the proc in my test. None of them are at 100% and most hover in the 40-70% range. It would take two people with the ridiculous slotting I'm testing here to have a hope of saturating the bonus.

That's unfortunate. A separate to-hit roll is mathematically the same as a lower PPM count but computationally expensive. 😕 If it exists, it should be removed IMHO.

Ok, here are my latest results after including the Average Adjusted Resistances for level 40+ minions, LTs and bosses from Galaxy Brain's post (linked above) TL; DR: The purple patch is now showing a greater difference. -Res proc wins against even con enemies and minor damage wins against +4. Likely due to "double dip" penalty against -Res that drops the duration AND the magnitude. However, a difference in performance is unlikely to be noticeable for a solo player and still hugely in favor of -Res in groups. Boss_resists = { "Smashing": .0874, "Lethal": 0.0973, "Energy": 0.0510, "Negative": 0.0002, "Psychic": 0.0681, "Fire": 0.0435, "Cold": 0.0396, "Toxic": 0.0966 } LT_resists = { "Smashing": .0781, "Lethal": 0.0973, "Energy": 0.0453, "Negative": 0.0013, "Psychic": 0.0608, "Fire": 0.0234, "Cold": 0.0211, "Toxic": 0.0954 } Minion_resists = { "Smashing": .0314, "Lethal": 0.0454, "Energy": 0.0135, "Negative": 0.0029, "Psychic": 0.0897, "Fire": 0.0044, "Cold": 0.0256, "Toxic": 0.0995 } super_boss_resists = { "Smashing": 0.5, "Lethal": 0.5, "Energy": 0.5, "Negative": 0.5, "Psychic": 0.5, "Fire": 0.5, "Cold": 0.5, "Toxic": 0.5 } Changes to the simulation: Simulation tic rate changed from 0.05s to 0.132s to match CoH tic size All powers and damage procs have the correct damage type associated Electron Haze is in again and Neutron bomb is out (Electron Haze has a higher adjusted DPA and I had a mistake on the damage of Neutron Bomb before) I've, yet again, changed when -Res is applied Power damage is applied first The -Res is applied after the cast time of the activating power Why: I didn't want to make the simulation any more complicated by considering things like travel time, multiple hits, and DoTs. Applying the -Res at the end of the power cast time keeps that debuff time from being "lost." Trial 1 x-ray beam: no procsIrradiate: achilles_heel Cosmic Burst: achilles_heelElectron Haze: Annihilation, PosBst_dmg Proton Stream: achilles_heel, Apoc_dmg, ToLG_dmg, ShdB_dmg]Atomic Blast: achilles_heel, Arm_dmgGround Zero: achilles_heel, ToN_dmg, Obli_dmg, ToLG_dmgFire Sword Circle: Obli_dmg, Erad_dmg, SciDer_dmg, FotG Cremate: Hec_dmg, ToD_dmg 1,000 trials of a single Mob with 10,000 health, super boss resists, and level shift of +0: Average mob defeat time 76.78s Standard Error 0.07s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 91.80% Standard Error 0.23% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 41.87% Standard Error 0.27% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 0.00% Standard Error 0.00% 1,000 trials of a single Mob with 10,000 health, super boss resists, and level shift of +4: Average mob defeat time 188.04s Standard Error 0.09s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 68.73% Standard Error 0.16% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 20.70% Standard Error 0.08% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 0.00% Standard Error 0.00% 1,000 trials of an x8 group and level shift of +0: Average mob defeat time 6.87s Standard Error 0.06s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 24.38% Standard Error 0.32% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 15.39% Standard Error 0.22% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 3.38% Standard Error 0.09% 1,000 trials of an x8 group and level shift of +4: Average mob defeat time 19.02s Standard Error 0.15s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 48.96% Standard Error 0.31% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 17.42% Standard Error 0.20% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 8.80% Standard Error 0.13% Trial 2 x-ray beam: no procsIrradiate: achilles_heel Cosmic Burst: achilles_heelElectron Haze: Annihilation, PosBst_dmg Proton Stream: achilles_heel, Apoc_dmg, ToLG_dmg, ShdB_dmg]Atomic Blast: achilles_heel, Arm_dmgGround Zero: achilles_heel, ToN_dmg, Obli_dmg, ToLG_dmgFire Sword Circle: Obli_dmg, Erad_dmg, SciDer_dmg, FotG Cremate: Hec_dmg, ToD_dmg 1,000 trials of a single Mob with 10,000 health, super boss resists, and level shift of +0: Average mob defeat time 83.42s Standard Error 0.06s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 0.00% Standard Error 0.00% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 38.45% Standard Error 0.25% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 0.00% Standard Error 0.00% 1,000 trials of a single Mob with 10,000 health, super boss resists, and level shift of +4: Average mob defeat time 184.11s Standard Error 0.07s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 0.00% Standard Error 0.00% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 21.96% Standard Error 0.09% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 0.00% Standard Error 0.00% 1,000 trials of an x8 group and level shift of +0: Average mob defeat time 6.77s Standard Error 0.06s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 6.30% Standard Error 0.14% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 15.34% Standard Error 0.22% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 3.35% Standard Error 0.09% 1,000 trials of an x8 group and level shift of +4: Average mob defeat time 18.29s Standard Error 0.14s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 14.05% Standard Error 0.18% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 18.65% Standard Error 0.21% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 7.90% Standard Error 0.12% Conclusion One change from earlier, now -Res wins by 4s on even con single target but loses by 4s on +4 single target. The purple patch appears to be the downfall of -Res, likely due to its "double dip" penalty on duration and magnitude. Notes: RelativeQuanta/CityOfHeroes-Damage-Sim: A python damage simulator for City of Heroes (github.com) if anyone wants to take a look at how I did everything

Any chance you have a source for this? It's extremely counter intuitive.

Nope! You can have negative resistance. You can see it by activating rest. It puts a huge -Res debuff on your character.

I included purple patch shifts in my last update. This didn't change the result. Ok, I did not know this is what people meant by resistance resisting -Res. I still maintain that since Radiation blast is energy damage, that assuming 0% resistance IS the general case, but I'll bite. I'll add enemy resistances in, but this will take a bit. Unless there's a better source of enemy resistances, I'm going to test using values posted here:

Ok, thanks to feedback from @tidge, @Sunsette, and noticed other bugs in my code, I've updated the simulation. TL; DR: -Res proc is ahead at even con and damage proc is imperceptively ahead at +4. The moment you team -Res will pull ahead, by a lot. Edit: Updated with 1000 trial results Electron Haze had the wrong target cap of 10. This was fixed Electron haze was dropped for Neutron Bomb Level shifts (purple patch) was added and a new trial is at +4 mobs Group trial now is closer to an x8 group: 2 bosses (2650 hps) 4 Lieutenants (858 hps) 8 Minions (431 hps) PBAoE powers now hit only random mobs and don't always hit the targeted mob All trials assume the -Res debuff applies to the power that procs it I've added Annihilation -Res debuff into the mix too Build Proc Chances Per Power Irradiate: 26.44% Cosmic Burst: 45.87% Neutron Bomb: 38.35% Proton Stream: 79.74% (3.5 ppm), 90% (4.5 ppm) Atomic Blast: 90% Ground Zero: 90% Fire Sword Circle: 90% Cremate: 37.99% (3.5 ppm), 48.84% (4.5 ppm) Trial 1 x-ray beam: no procsIrradiate: achilles_heel Cosmic Burst: achilles_heelNeutron Bomb: Annihilation , minor_dmg Proton Stream: achilles_heel, epic_dmg, minor_dmg, minor_dmgAtomic Blast: achilles_heel, epic_dmgGround Zero: achilles_heel, minor_dmg, minor_dmg, minor_dmgFire Sword Circle: minor_dmg, minor_dmg, minor_dmg, FotG Cremate: epic_dmg, minor_dmg 1,000 trials of a single Mob with 10,000 health and level shift of +0: Average mob defeat time 44.04s Standard Error 0.06s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 86.53% Standard Error 0.32% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 31.16% Standard Error 0.40% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 1.43% Standard Error 0.18% 1,000 trials of a single Mob with 10,000 health and level shift of +4: Average mob defeat time 104.61s Standard Error 0.07s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 71.87% Standard Error 0.23% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 18.96% Standard Error 0.13% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 0.39% Standard Error 0.04% 1,000 trials of an x8 group and level shift of +0: Average mob defeat time 10.52s Standard Error 0.07s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 21.19% Standard Error 0.29% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 6.31% Standard Error 0.15% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 15.49% Standard Error 0.26% 1,000 trials of an x8 group and level shift of +4: Average mob defeat time 20.59s Standard Error 0.14s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 49.28% Standard Error 0.32% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 10.14% Standard Error 0.15% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 16.87% Standard Error 0.22% Trial 2 x-ray beam: no procsIrradiate: minor_dmg Cosmic Burst: minor_dmgNeutron Bomb: Annihilation , minor_dmg Proton Stream: minor_dmg, epic_dmg, minor_dmg, minor_dmgAtomic Blast: minor_dmg, epic_dmgGround Zero: achilles_heel, minor_dmg, minor_dmg, minor_dmgFire Sword Circle: minor_dmg, minor_dmg, minor_dmg, FotG Cremate: epic_dmg, minor_dmg 1,000 trials of a single Mob with 10,000 health and level shift of +0: Average mob defeat time 47.70s Standard Error 0.06s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 0.00% Standard Error 0.00% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 31.57% Standard Error 0.40% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 0.85% Standard Error 0.14% 1,000 trials of a single Mob with 10,000 health and level shift of +4: Average mob defeat time 104.01s Standard Error 0.07s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 0.00% Standard Error 0.00% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 19.41% Standard Error 0.13% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 0.16% Standard Error 0.03% 1,000 trials of an x8 group and level shift of +0: Average mob defeat time 10.64s Standard Error 0.07s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 10.29% Standard Error 0.23% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 6.08% Standard Error 0.15% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 14.00% Standard Error 0.24% 1,000 trials of an x8 group and level shift of +4: Average mob defeat time 20.22s Standard Error 0.14s Mob average lifetime debuffed with Achilles' Heel: 33.13% Standard Error 0.33% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Fury of the Gladiator: 9.40% Standard Error 0.15% Mob average lifetime debuffed with Annihilation: 14.45% Standard Error 0.20% Conclusion Ok! With 1,000 trials it now shows that the debuff build is ahead of the damage proc build on an even con single target by nearly 4 seconds. However, against a +4 single target, the damage proc build pulls ahead by 0.6s. Group defeat times match within errors at even con and damage proc build is ahead by about 0.1s outside errors against +4. -Res proc is ahead at even con and damage proc is imperceptively ahead at +4. The moment you team -Res pulls ahead.

Quite possibly! Though, for this particular build in an AoE situation the -Res build had basically the same personal damage as the one with an additional minor damage proc everywhere except a single high proc rate AoE. The uptime on the -Res proc in the build with Achilles' Heel slotted all over the place on average mob was over 50% of its lifetime. Granted, I set mob hitpoints at 2,000 in the AoE test (basically making them all LTs), so with a more realistic mix, it might not work as well. Perhaps I'll test this next!

@tidge Exactly!! That's what made it interesting enough to warrant simulating. 🤓 I tested a build that I'm currently leveling towards that tries to get a balance set bonuses around Global Recharge, Defense, Resistance, and Damage. I don't think it's that far from a "typical" min/max build for a Rad/Rad Sentinel, so I'm definitely extrapolating results on that build to hold "in general." Perhaps that means I'm overstating my conclusion?

My earlier reply to @tidge still stands here. The more resistance a critter has, the more valuable a -Res debuff is. A critter that has 50% resistance to everything that has a -20% Res debuff applied to it will take 40% more damage than it did before the debuff was applied and a critter with 90% resist all will take 3x as much damage once a -20% Res is applied. Overcapping Resistance isn't something normal Mobs do.

Achilles' Heel -Res is a -20% debuff: Power 'Achilles' Heel: Chance for Resistance Debuff' (Boosts.Attuned_Achilles_Heel_C.Attuned_Achilles_Heel_C) (uberguy.net) Unless I'm mistaken, only AVs and giant monsters have resist debuff resistance Every single resistance debuff I tested is attached to a damage power. This example falls short of the actual hero build I tested with. Most damage powers had a proc AND Achilles' Heel so a minor damage proc was nowhere near half the damage of an attack This ignores the 10s duration of the debuff. Every follow-up power + any procs they have will deal increased damage for 10 seconds, guaranteed. This makes the -Res proc objectively better if you can slot it in a single power vs another damage proc in that one power. The whole question the experiment is answering has to do with the fact Achilles' Heel doesn't stack, so any overlap in proc application is "wasted". The results show that even with "wasted" applications, it still comes out ahead of a minor damage proc. Edit: I fixed the bug in FotG and Achilles' Heel -Res stacking, it didn't change the result.

Yeah, but we're talking about averages here. This statement is also true of damage procs. Interesting, but I don't think this changes my general statement for two reasons: Radiation Blast deals energy damage which isn't commonly resisted and on the build I tested with the powers that have high proc chances had multiple damage procs in addition to the -Res (proton stream, ground zero). Replacing the -Res on those would mean subbing in a much more commonly resisted smashing or lethal damage proc. The math on the resistance calculation is still working in favor of the -Res. For example, an enemy with 50% energy resistance and the -20% Res proc is now at 30% damage resistance, this means the -Res increases your base energy damage by (1 - 70/50) * 100 = 40%! It would take some rather unique circumstances for a minor damage proc to beat that level of increase. Though, I will say that this discussion made me realize I coded the stacking of Fury of the Gladiator and Achilles' Heel incorrectly... fix coming shortly...