MirrorDarkly
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Posts posted by MirrorDarkly
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Of those I would personally go with Temporal. The extra recharge should help in getting out Cat5 significantly and for me Storm Blast is all about that power.
That being said, if you like controlled chaos you might want to consider Storm/Fire/Fire. The DoT aura's add extra passive damage leaving you free to call down lightning and thunder. I made one on the test server when the set was in beta and it was a lot of fun.
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Very exciting and honestly not something I ever expected to have happen! Looking forward to what the new year brings. 😄
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On 10/4/2023 at 11:42 AM, SeraphimKensai said:
Any speedster. I mean Wally West perceives Attoseconds so a punch to him is like taking a whole year for it to reach it's destination.
More like a billion+ of years of relative time (assuming the punch took a fraction of a second).
Approximently as many attoseconds pass in one second as seconds have passed since the big bang.
Even for comics I've always had a hard time buying that one...
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1 hour ago, Rudra said:
Very good point about the Build Up. Just checked to verify, and there are exactly two differences between Stalker Staff Fighting and Scrapper/Tanker/Brute Staff Fighting. Stalkers give up the taunt for Placate, and more importantly, they give up Staff Mastery for Build Up. That's it. The powers available are the exact same otherwise.
(Edit: It's also telling that the author says Scrapper Staff Fighting is the worst of them all while Stalker is the best of them all, when Scrapper Staff Fighting does more damage by itself than Stalker Staff Fighting. For instance, Sky Splitter has a base starting damage before adding in the attack's later damage or the chance to inflict damage of 76.7421 damage on a Stalker, but 86.3349 damage on a Scrapper. And the Scrapper's add on damage, both guaranteed and chance for, are higher than the Stalker's.)
You are missing that they get an Assasin Stike for a hard hitting single target as well (giving up the second cone I think). Also they also get Forn of the Body for free, they just can't switch to the other two.
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6 hours ago, Rudra said:
I'll let @Ston handle figuring out attack chain DPS. I'm not inclined to tackle something that complex. However, this still discounts what other things those powers do. Without any of the form stances factored in, which is an additional complication I am disinclined to factor in, just the basic abilities of each of Staff Fighting's attacks, you have a constant stream of knockups, knockdowns, stuns, defense reductions, personal defense buff, movement buff for all movement types, chance for bonus damage to pets, minions, swarms, and small mobs; a ranged attack, and immobilize; while still maintaining comparable DPS per power to War Mace. (Better even on 4 powers. 5 if you factor that Serpent's Reach is a ranged attack being compared to a melee attack, and still does nearly the same DPS.)
I don't look at pylon times. I don't look at Trapdoor times. I'm not sure about the Trapdoor test, but pylons only look at the character's ability to inflict massive amounts of damage in as little time as possible. It does not look at anything else the character can do. Get yourself a pocket Empath to hang nearby and keep you alive while you wail on the pylon. (Or make a Tanker and just tank it while you wail on it.) That is just straight damage. Staff Fighting is a solid set. It may not be the highest damage set, but they can't all be the highest damage set. It may even be the lowest damage set, I don't know. I am not inclined to go through all the power sets across Tankers, Brutes, and Scrappers to see if it is. That doesn't make it a bad set. That doesn't even make it a weak set. The more any given power does, the less damage it will do. That is by design. And Staff Fighting does a lot. The only reason I don't much play Staff Fighting characters? Is because I tend to get bored playing my staff characters.
If Staff Fighting is under-powered, not looking at just DPS here, looking at set performance overall, then the devs will address it. However, I don't see anything wrong with Staff Fighting's DPS.
(Edit: There is also the consideration, at least in my book, that players are using Form of the Mind and the proposal would take that away to replace it with a different power. Especially since Perfection of the Mind already grants +51.8009 psi damage to Sky Splitter and Guarded Spin isn't a finisher, but is a charge builder.)
You raise many good point which I'd like to think my idea took into account. I'm going to highlight some and give my thoughts on why I think this is a reasonable proposal.
I'm using pylon and trapdoor times as evidence for adjusting the set but they are not the reason. The main thing that stands out to me as problems is that for two ATs the optimal ST rotation ignores both the core mechanics of the set and any of the set's attacks you'd pick up after level two. The other two ATs are Stalker where the set ranks in the low middle and would not be changed with this proposal and Scrapper where it is dead last in the ranking so I feel safe that raising it up a little would not harm the game or lead to power creep.
Nothing in my proposal changes Guarded Spin, which as you note builds stacks. And again I don't see why it would need to be changed.? The defense bonus is not out of line with the ones other sets offer that do better ST damage and have better trapdoor clear times. People think if Staff as a defensive and AoE focused set but there are actually several sets that outshine it in both of those areas. Again just using the brute numbers MA, TW and Katana all have attacks that buff your defense and beat it in both pylon and trapdoor times with MA and TW being at or near the top of both rankings.
As for people who already use Form of the Mind I'm not advocating they lose much and perhaps they wouldn't need to lose anything honestly. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most likely people in FotM are doing so for the recharge bonus the stacks give you before they are spent, which I'm not saying should change. The reason I'm advocating for buffing FotM specifically is for the tradeoff you already make using it. Being in FotM already locks you out of the resist bonus and -resist debuff FotB generates and the sustain FotS grants.
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Lets look at actual attack chains, which of course are highly sensitive to recharge. I am going to use the ones posted by Ston since I have no reason to suspect they are not honest attempts to make the best possible single target attack chains for each set with all other variables being as equal as possible. Also I'm using brute numbers which was the second best overall showing. Stalkers (#1) are outliers with several unique things about the set and that would not be affected by my purposed change.
The Staff attack chain as an unenhanced damage of about 39.5 DPS.
(60.9 + 73.4 + 55.0 + 35.0)/(1.848 + 1.32 + 1.32 + 1.188*)
War Mace's attack chain produces about 51.2 DPS.
(121.7 + 73.4 + 95 + 81.7)/(1.452 + 1.32 + 2.508 + 1.98)
So War Mace second per second will put out almost 30% more damage before any other factors such as procs, secondary effects etc. Now again I am not saying there are not advantages to Staff. I'm only suggesting that the least (I believe) used stance be adjusted so there is less of a difference in the DPS at the cost of sacrificing some of the set's utility if you choose to be in that stance. If you remain in Body or Soul you would see no changes at all.
*I used arcanatime since that is what you experience in the game.
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Yes of course recharge matters some but activation time is by far the most significant "time cost" after you have enough attacks to make a gapless rotation. Also recharge can be reduced significantly which heavily favors powers with low animation time but long recharge times.
There is a reason War Mace takes nearly 60% longer to take down a plyon in the test data I linked earlier.
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I don't understand what you're doing for the DPS of each attack, it seems like damage/(cast time + recharge) but unless you're standing around waiting for attacks to recharge its the damage/cast time that determines each attacks value to your overall DPS.
So using your numbers, Clobber has a base damage per activation of 148.52 (182.6796/1.23) where as Serpent's Reach has a dpa of 63.62 (112.6107/1.77).
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2 hours ago, Luminara said:
Tests which eschew the use of 7 of the 9 powers in a set aren't an evaluation of the set, by any measure.
All three forms already add damage to Sky Splitter, and damage and secondary effects to Eye of the Storm, at 3 stacks.
As Guarded Spin currently buffs Lethal and Melee Defense, balance would necessitate moving Guarded's effects to Eye if Eye's effects were moved to Guarded, or removing the Defense buff entirely, either of which would be shitastic. No, thank you.
That is exactly my point, most of the powers in the set are underperforming to the point that pool powers are better from a damage perspective. So I'm floating the idea of making one stance where using the core mechanic increases damage enough that it outperforms using mostly pool attacks and just using a few quick attacks to build FotB stacks and never spend them (trading the utility in that form only for more damage in that form only).
As you said the three form do buff the damage of EotS and SS, along with providing other benefits, but its such a small buff that it is more single target damage just to skip the majority of the set (as well as being average to below average AoE damage despite having a large number of AoE attacks). I see that as undesirable.
As for Guarded Spin why would that need to be adjusted? Other sets such as Katana have very similar powers and overall put out more damage. However if it was for some reason to much to allow Guarded Spin to keep the +11.25% bonus to Melee and Lethal defense then the obvious fix would be to remove or lower it only when you're in Perfection of the Mind. But again I don't see why that would be needed since the Katana version gives +15% to those same defenses (comparing Brute numbers here).
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Look it's another staff idea.....
So it's no secret that outside of the Stalker staff does poor damage, being at or near the bottom in both single target and trapdoor clear times, and that at least for Tanks and Brute you're better off shoving as many pool attacks in your single target chain as you can (seriously it's use both your level 1 attacks and pool picks) than using the later attacks.
Now in theory this was probably intended to be balanced by the defensive and utility bonuses the set provides but given how easy it is to get those in IOs that is often not worth the trade off. So I was wondering how people would feel about changing Perfection for the Mind to a stance that actually increases the damage of Sky Splitter and Guardian Spin (maybe add strong Psi DoT's to each at 3 stacks) to the point that they would be competitive for their very long animation times? That would leave you with the choice of Body which is currently the most used stance still offering a modest overall damage increase plus survival bonus, Soul which some people use for the sustain and Mind which would be more damage/finishing move focused in exchange for losing much of the sets utility.
Since Stalkers don't get to change stances you wouldn't have to worry about this making the version of the set which currently does the best damage too powerful by accident. It would also reward people who use the build stacks and spend them mechanic which was clearly the intent of the set as opposed to the current situation where you actually do the most damage by building three stacks of body and then *not using it* while still allowing for that playstyle if you enjoy it.
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Storm Blast is what finally broke my alt-itis. I find it immensely satisfying when Cat5 drops and lightning starts flying everywhere.
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2 hours ago, biostem said:
Oh no doubt. My guess, though, would be that the most likely implementation would be one where the clouds are a generic grey/white and only the lightning takes the color you select - they can "bake in" other colors to get around the limitation...
I would be fine with that. But if that is the case and if it's even seen as a reasonable project by the devs it should be added as new aura so that people who are using the existing one still can.
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2 hours ago, biostem said:
I don't think auras work off of the same system as powers, even if some of the effects look similar - AFAIK, all auras only accept 1 color. Compare the leaves aura to how you can color the nature powers...
I would not be surprised if that is true and if it is time consuming to change I don't think it should be a priority. But if it's not difficult it would make that aura in particular many times more useful.
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Late in the beta for the last release the Storm Blast powers Storm Cell and Cat 5 were changed so that you could set the color of the lightning to be different from the color of the storm.
Is it possible to do the same for the Thunderhead costume aura? I have wanted to use it on several characters but always end up frustrated that the cloud color and the lighting color are the same and usually one ends up looking bad.
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36 minutes ago, jprewitt73 said:
Hmm...When I try to open your build it just opens Mids without importing it.
Maybe try File --> Open --> My file in Mids?
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Here is a stab at a build. I have no idea how to get it in a state you can read in the forum but you should be able to load it into Mids.
I went for resist and more or less ignored defense. It has 90+% to everything besides Psi (82.63%) and Toxic (24.45%). Seems End stable as long as you use Power Sink when your blue bar dips to below half. I'm not great at this so I am *sure* there could be improvements made. Power Surge is mostly there for if you start taking heavy toxic damage. You could probably take out Weave and use those slots for something else if you wanted. FF is on all attacks and they all have one or more additional proc. Likely expensive as a lot of purple sets were used.
Edit: I skipped Beheader and Gash.
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9 minutes ago, Wimbochismo said:
In my build I have a 23.69 sec recharge on Meteor. If I'm reading city of data correctly, someone correct me if I'm wrong - every Seismic ability you use reduces the cooldown of the other abilities by a flat -1 sec. At max stacks, Seismic Force reduces the cooldown of the other Seismic abilities. For Meteor, this is -15 seconds. So 8.69 sec, less if you use other Seismic powers.
It's not sustainable, but if you add +5 recharges to Seismic Force on a perma Hasten build... maybe some FF procs on top of that? Fastest recharging nuke in game.
Thanks for the breakdown! I have not played Seismic yet and didn't realize it got a flat recharge reduction.
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57 minutes ago, Wimbochismo said:
I don't think I've made any huge achievements in game on my Sents...
But, in my Seismic/Super Reflexes build I have 45 def to all positions, perma hasten, and a sub 8 sec recharge on Meteor. Yup, a Tier 9 nuke every 8 secs...
How have you gotten over 1,100% recharge? I thought there was a hard cap of 500%.
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12 minutes ago, Hjarki said:
Not to interfere with the griping and fanboying, but does anyone have a clear idea how procs work in Storm Cell? From what I can see, procs in the baseline powers (Cloudburst, Gust, etc.) do not translate over to the Storm Cell nukes. Procs in Storm Cell should work, but it seems like the 25 yard radius would be punitive on the proc chance.
Procs placed in Storm Cell have a chance to go off when it attacks with lightning, however it doesn't happen all that often.
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It's possible to like something but not think it is balanced or well performing.
My feeling on Storm Blast are complex. I *love* the set and have more fun playing it than I have any other blast set since I joined the game way back in the preorder early access/beta.
But there have also been times where I felt almost any other set would have performed better. And I have never been in a situation where I noticed storm blast performing significantly above average to balance that out.
So is the set "good enough"? For me the answer is yes but I could absolutely see others come away from it feeling differently.
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Sorry, that should have been a reply to your post on the other thread.
I'm not sure what procs you tested. When I tried, one of the few I felt might be making a noticeable difference against pylons and AVs was -Res in Cat5.
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You might try the -Res Annihilation proc in Cat5. I've done some Pylon testing on my Storm/Regen that makes me feel like over a long enough fight it can make a difference (One Test I have 5 slotted Ragnarok leaving out the immobilize and the -Res). But I find my times fairly swingy with storm overall, that may come down to how an unusually high % of the damage is left up to chance.
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Replied to the wrong thread somehow.
As a wise man once said.... D'oh!
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21 hours ago, JasperStone said:
Lvl 50 SB/Sonic T4s Corr
Lvl 43 SB/Earth Blaster
Lvl 50 SB/Fire/Ice Sent
The Corr holds its own and through the secondary very active.
Not so much time on the blaster because...
SB rocks on the Sent, especially paired with Burn and Consume, both solo and team.
I slotted a few sets of Unbreakable Guard to offset endurance cost
Would you be willing to share your SB/Fire/Ice build? I tried for a bit to put one together on test but I was never happy with what I came up with.
Secondary for Storm Blast
in Blaster
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Gun drone might be very nice for Storm helping to tank while you get out your ground targets. But my big hang-up with Storm/Devices is how badly Targeting Drone performs with Storm.
If you look at the CoD info you'll see targeting drone is a +18.5% to hit and a +20% damage buff that is reapplied every .6/.75 seconds so neither Storm Cell or Cat5 will see an meaningful benefit from that part of the power. What's worse (in my mind) is that the separate +60% damage buff only lasts for .75 seconds and stops applying once you enter combat. Meaning you'll have to use another attack to open up combat other than Cat5 (or any other sudo pet) if you ever want to to make use of that bonus.