BlackSpectre

I was looking at inFrigidate as a contender for proc slotting too, but have been on the fence because I wanted to take other powers Instead. They way the ice/ice co troller powersets are shaping up, I suspect a huge RESPEC will take place once the toon hits lvl 50.

I had no idea Mids includes proc damage in powers! that makes it an even more amazing app! Very cool! I went through my new ice/ice Controllers powers using the proc calculator and it looks like only a few powers are worth procing out at all. The trade offs are killer. “Nope, that defense debuff needs to be stronger. I can’t take any enhancements away to use for damage procs.” ”Nope. I need that set bonus to boost _____. I can’t take any enhancements away to use for procs.” Etc. just killer. I did discover one power that would work fantastically… Sleet. 4 slotting to get the defense debuff and acc up, lets me add 2 different 22% -res procs, both of which should proc most of the time on a hit. It’s not damage, but it makes that power super good! The mobs just melt away when I’m on a team! I need to put in more thought and research to try to get that toon’s damage up. Most of the powers that do damage in ice/ice do so little damage, 6-7 pts, that they’re not even worth counting as sources of DPS for that toon. Thats what prompted me to look Into procs, but initially it doesn’t look like procs will help get damage up much with that toon. I’ll keeping looking though. Maybe I’ll have a breakthrough? 😀 Thanks for the answers and the examples. Super useful!

If I wanted to take a crappy tier 1 attack power that I'd normally skip and try to make it a good power using damage procs, what would the general guidelines be? For example, would it generally be best to 2-slot accuracy and then add 4 damage procs to a single power? Should all 6 enhancement slots be procs? If 4 enhancements with procs are in a power, will all the procs have a 90% chance to proc so all 4 can proc in one hit, for example, or will only one proc activate at a time? I see on the wiki that an enhancement will proc a range of damage, 7-72 for example. What determines how much damage a proc does? I'm using this calculator to answer most of my other proc questions https://proc-calc.weebly.com

Thanks guys. Good info!

Is there a hold enhancement that also does damage? I'm playing and ice/ice controller and he only has 2 damaging attacks... a hold and sleet.

Zero times. Work hit me hard over the last few months. I think the number of times I've logged in over the last few months can be counted on one hand. Things are getting a little better now, and I have a little more free time. So you might be seeing more of me until May when the stuff hits the fan again. Honestly, I'm only slightly aware of the marriage event and have no idea about it's benefits, whether or not it was good, or anything!

"Toxic positivity"... bah! There's no such thing! I deny everything!!!

Were their character’s name in your SG members list?

Lol Well… people that participate in random pick-up-groups have many, many horror stories AND triumphant stories to tell. You just never know what you’ll get. I’ve heard leaders of teams tell horror stories about their PUG teammates, and players tell horror stories about their team leaders. Team leaders being picky about the AT, powersets, or builds of another toon could easily be attributed to multiple bad experiences with other players who have played those kind of toons. It could be that the leader is attempting to build a specific team for a specific mission or purpose. There are many, many reasons possible. When I run a team, I usually am just concerned with gaining XP, what kind of toon or even what level of toon joined me is completely irrelevant. I don’t really even care if they participate. I also dont care if they go off by themselves and try to complete the mission by themselves. It doesn’t matter to me because the toons that I build can carry any team (yes, even defenders). I also don’t mind dying, not that I do a lot of that. LOL. Im not tooting my own horn here as much as I’m letting you know that I’ve had lots of bad experiences with PUGs. Players have done all sorts of crazy, selfish, disrespectful, and offensive stuff and have even actively tried to sabotage the rest of the team just for fun. I’ve teamed with control freaks, anarchists, noobs, incompetent players, foul-mouthers, insulters, little kids, and griefers. Nothing phases me anymore. On the other hand Ive played with a LOT of really great players. The kind you just want to instantly invite into your supergroup. And that is what I recommend you do… when you play with a great player, invite them into your SG or ask if you can team together again. Ask for times and days that they play and put each other in your global friends list. One thing I have noticed on Excelsior is that different times during the day host a different character of people in general. Adults and veterans who work tend to log in between 3-5PM PST on the east coast, 6-8PM PST on the west coast. After 8PM we start getting a lot of players from Europe logging in. Between Noon and 3pm PST a lot of middle school, high school kids log in after school. Retired players can play at any time. These are generalities of course with tons of exceptions. what time do you generally log in?

You can be a decent human being and be sent to jail. You can be a decent human being and make really bad decisions because... well... there is so much guesswork in life and life is complicated. Sometimes too complicated for our meager human intelligence and perception. You can have good intentions and get evil results. Doesn't make you a bad or even a gray person... just a very unlucky, ignorant, or unwise one. Unforeseen consequences even. As such, the true hallmark of a decent person is the desire and striving to make things right if they break something (assuming that's possible).

Guud eeevening... Do you want to suck our blood? Again?! Welcome back. 🙂

Here are the corrected numbers... Tank Smasher lvl 30 Attribute Results of Power Boost Boost% Attribute Results of Power Boost Boost % Before After Before After Twilight Grasp ToHit -6.3 -12.4 98.0% Heal 480.46 712.36 48.0% Life Drain ToHit -9.4 -18.6 98.0% Heal 109.87 209.92 91.0% Howling Twilight Run/Fly Speed -17.7 -26.5 50.0% Darkest Night ToHit -27.3 -45.7 68.0% Fearsome Stare ToHit -23.8 -42.8 80.0% Blackstar ToHit -24.6 -48.8 98.0% Night Fall ToHit -9.4 -18.6 98.0% Tenebrous Tentacles ToHit -9.4 -18.6 98.0% Gloom ToHit -9.4 -18.6 98.0% Moonbeam ToHit -9.7 -19.2 98.0% Weave Def 7.6 12.51 65.0% Tar Patch No Effect Shadow Fall No Effect

I looked but I didn't see any changes in those powers. I can look again... Bummer. That's cool. 🙂

Mostly due to the 15 second duration. Most of the dark powers only debuff ToHit for about 8-10 seconds. With an 8 second recharge time, Twilight Grasp would only be able to get 2 heals in. A couple more with hasten... but not much. The most I have been able to reduce Power Boost's recharge time is down to 42 secs, mostly using Hasten and Recharge IOs. That is correct, sir! Lvl 50 attacking a lvl 30 Tank Smasher. So yeah, the overall numbers are a bit boosted because of that, but their proportions or percent of boost should be the same. I did think about this when I wrote the comment about flooring an enemy's defense to zero, but I didn't know what boost the difference in levels would give. What do I do to get more accurate numbers? Divide them all by 3.1? OK. Looking at the numbers divided by 3.1, it wouldn't floor enemies' ToHit to zero without Power Boost while fighting even con enemies... and even less of a debuff if the enemies are above my level. Hmmmm.... 15-20 secs of "un-hittable-ness". Not bad! OK. I'm starting to see the light... Hitting Power Boost and then jumping into the middle of a group and using BlackStar would effectively floor their ToHit for 20 secs. That's a nice alpha strike avoider! The same for Fearsome Stare. Darkest Night would give 15 seconds of un-hittable-ness. The recharge time for BlackStar is too long to use in every battle, but Fearsome Stare at 24 secs recharge isn't bad! Against a single target, my Twilight Grasp (~4 sec recharge time) could get in 3 heals before Power Boost is over... that would be -37.19 ToHit debuff at that point, but each debuff would last for 20 secs which would let me get in another heal before the 20secs is over giving me -49.58 ToHit debuff for about 4 secs, -37.19 for 4 secs after that, -24.79 for 4 secs after that, and -12.39 for 4 secs after that as the debuff durations tick away. OK. Thanks for this! Looks like I'll be keeping Power Boost 🙂

Over on the villain side, there is an Epic Pool power called Power Boost. Its info page lists a whole bunch of "secondary" attributes that it boosts for 15 seconds. I decided to test out the usefulness of the power with my Dark/Dark defender. I used Power Analyzer to view the stats of the enemies I was targeting/hitting (usually a lvl 30 Tank Smasher). Here are the results: Tank Smasher lvl 30 Attribute Results of Power Boost Boost% Attribute Results of Power Boost Boost % Before After Before After Twilight Grasp ToHit -19.38 -38.43 98.0% Heal 480.46 712.36 48.0% Life Drain ToHit -29.06 -57.64 98.0% Heal 109.87 209.92 91.0% Howling Twilight Run/Fly Speed -54.82 -82.1 50.0% Darkest Night ToHit -84.51 -141.67 68.0% Fearsome Stare ToHit -73.8 -132.8 80.0% Blackstar ToHit -76.25 -151.23 98.0% Night Fall ToHit -29.06 -57.64 98.0% Tenebrous Tentacles ToHit -29.06 -57.64 98.0% Gloom ToHit -29.1 -57.6 98.0% Moonbeam ToHit -30 -59.5 98.0% Weave Def 7.6 12.51 65.0% Tar Patch No Effect Shadow Fall No Effect Conclusion: Overall, Power Boost doesn't appear to be very useful for a Dark/Dark defender. The most common attribute it buffs is the ToHit Debuff, but it's really not necessary. With the base values for Darkest Night or Fearsome Stare an enemy's ToHit will be floored to zero as is, so the buff from Power Boost doesn't give much benefit. Power Boost says it buffs defense, but it only buffs defense powers, not your base defense. Worse, it doesn't buff the defense in Shadow Fall at all! So it's not very useful even as an emergency power. The percentage that Power Boost buffs is not entirely consistent with the description in it's info page either, FYI. It's possible I don't see a way that Power Boost will help, and I'm open to consider other opinions. But sans any epiphany, I'll be RESPECing out of this power very soon.

Parodies and farces featuring exact copies of copyrighted characters are allowed under copyright law… That said, “inspired by _________” should be perfectly acceptable. Just use different names, costumes, and back stories… and most of the time the powers will not be an exact match anyway.

If you can get large amounts of regen or recovery, it’s better than having bigger hp or end pools. With enough regen or recovery you can be the energizer bunny and just… keep… going. But getting high enough values of regen is more difficult than high recovery. Ideally, you want enough end to be able to fire off your entire attack/power chain plus a little more, and enough recovery to restore it so that your attack/power chain can continue uninterrupted. Ideally, you want enough hp to weather an alpha strike, and enough regen to get your health back fairly quickly… but getting enough regen is hard to do. Just a small amount of any of those stats has a small impact if you’re looking at them isolation.

Team play vs solo play matters. Solo, high defense and resistances are important. Team play, it’s not as important because in most cases the rest of the team’s buffs, debuffs, heals, and damage strengthen all the individuals on a team. I do a mix of solo and team based play, so my toons are generally built to be useful in both arenas.. versatile. That said, I have not found that balancing offense was more difficult when attempting to balance defense except for a few archetypes/power sets. My dark/dark defender, for example, has always been a difficult balance to make. However, I have managed to build him so that he can solo most of the content in the game. His Achilles heal is lack of damage… and that’s not really a balancing thing as much as it is an AT/power set thing. So I guess my overall answer is “It depends”. LOL

Some players make the playerslot.txt file READ ONLY so that the game will not rewrite the file and mess up the order. Of course, if you do this any new characters would t be listed. So then you’d need to make the file able to be written over again. Then lock it down again. Kind of a hassle. However, for the most part my order has been retained after I edited the file. The game doesn’t seem to be putting my characters in random order like it used to. Could just be me though.

I e got 2 characters with bad pun names… Agent Snipe Hymn and Ice Scream Crone

Wait! I want to be smacked!!! What now?

And for any Devs who are reading this thread… https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/96091066151/understanding-the-angry-gamer/amp

@Snarky, please make sure you’re not taking this too far. Don’t let anyone run you out of the forums or a game you love… or anything you enjoy. It seems more like you’re punishing yourself more than anyone else. Of course, we will be punished as well because we won’t have your snarky face around to laugh with. Do you mean to punish us too? Further, your “consequence” should match the crime. An eye for an eye, not a beheading for an eye. Really, unless you don’t enjoy the rest of us anymore, it would be a good idea for you to continue doing what you enjoy with the people who are your friends. I understand you’re upset, and don’t dismiss that. Just keep balance in mind my friend.

OK! I've finished writing up the quick "Understanding Folder Paths" tutorial. Please look it over and let me know if it's easy enough for someone who knows very little about computers to understand. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/User:BlackSpectre/Testthis

Well, I only added the most common folders players would create in the data folders. There are many more potential things players could add. They’re completely optional and the data folder is completely blank unless players mess around with it. I guess I could add links to the folders… the first could link to /customwindow, the second to /popmenu, and the third is a bit trickier as it is typically used to replace the maps but with the advent of the COH modding app, it’s been replaced by the \assets\mods folder. I thought about leaving the data folder blank, and I still can, but part of me thought it would be useful for people to know a couple things that would go in it. Maybe it’s more trouble than it’s worth though and it would be better to remove the sub folders? Most of the folder names tell you what is stored in that folder… screenshots in \screenshots, costumes in \costumes, \builds in \builds, etc. I didn’t think any additional description is necessary. However, I did note 4 settings files and their locations in the \live folder because what’s in the “live” folder is not self explanatory, and the playerslot.txt file is also not described by \account. The devs and current devs did and do a pretty good job naming files by what they hold or their purpose, so even describing the files that would go in \architect, for example, is a bit redundant. A guide might be better for something like that. More and more I’m trying to keep things simple and brief. Clear and concise. People’s eyes glaze over so easily when they see a lot of text… as your eyes are most likely already glazing over by the text I wrote here. LOL 🤪