Luminara

It's always a good day when I can do something I like, and I really like logistics. I have a natural aptitude for it. That's all an attack chain is, a logistical problem to be solved. Animation and recharge times are supply, key presses are demand, the chain is delivery.

Neither of them have filler missions, and they're both available as Flashbacks, so you could've continued.

I like her.

The question proposed in the original post was how to understand the process behind creating a seamless attack chain. @EnjoyTheJourney didn't ask which sets were easier to make attack chains with, or for advice on selecting sets for face-rolling without bothering to make attack chains, he/she very specifically asked to be educated on the process of making attack chains. After the question was answered, you interjected the following: I politely invited you to expand on the assertion that there was something wrong with the answer. If my information or methodology was inaccurate, it should be corrected so that misinformation doesn't spread. Inquiry, not defense. Are you, perhaps, trying to say that certain sets are "better" than others for attack chain optimization due to generally lower animation times? Because if so, that would be misinformation in need of correction. Attack chain optimization is independent of sets. Whether or not an attack chain can be made seamless relies only on two mechanics, animation times and recharge times. The choice of primary or secondary is purely preferential, not a mandatory element of seamless chains. If you scroll up and review my first post in this thread, you'll note that I have a character with an attack chain which uses one pool attack (Cross Punch) and two APP attacks (Fissure and Seismic Smash). The attack chain mentioned, Cross Punch/Fissure/Cross Punch/Seismic Smash, is perfectly fluid, despite none of those attacks coming from the primary or secondary. So, clearly, neither primary nor secondary sets have anything to do with whether or not an attack chain is seamless. Furthermore, sets with almost all fast animations actually make it harder to create seamless attack chains, as those short animations create more potential for gaps in the chain. What that means is unless the set also has almost all attacks with very short recharge times, the attacks with longer recharge times force the player to either develop a lower DPA attack chain, or an attack chain which uses some attacks non-sequentially (randomly tossing in an attack with a short recharge time to fill the gap), or requires attacks from outside the set (pools, *PPs, temp powers) to achieve viability. Using one or two attacks with comparatively slow animations is mathematically better for making an attack chain perfectly fluid than trying to hammer together a lot of rapidly animating attacks, and can often be the factor fixes an attack chain which would otherwise be interrupted by a recharge time gap. /Martial Assault provides a perfect example of this problem. It isn't possible to create an attack chain with fewer than 5 of the attacks, and even with 5, it's a stretch, requiring non-sequential attack use and more than 175% global +Recharge in addition to slotting every attack with maximal Recharge Reduction and using the Spiritual or Agility Alphas... or throwing away the highest DPA attack, Masterful Throw. So, clearly, a set with a lot of fast animations is not better suited for building a seamless attack chain. Fluidity is reliant on either incorporating enough animation time to allow attacks to recharge when or before they're required, and the brute force "THROW MOAR RECHARGE AT IT" approach is not only inelegant, but fails as often as it works.

Did you have some insight into the mathematics and methodology of creating perfect attack chains that you wished to share? Were my calculations erroneous? Was my approach unworkable? Please, enlighten us. Which addresses the question of designing and implementing a fluid attack chain... how?

It will be filmed on location, just like the originals. We'll spare no expense.

We're all our own worst enemies. Not to be confused with wurst enemas. Though some people are that.

The AH sorts enhancements from level 1 (top) to level 50 (bottom). It sorts recipes from level 50 (top) to level 1 (bottom). That's an entry barrier to the player market. Pick a sort order and apply it universally.

Heads of state are assassinated. Religious leaders are assassinated. Powerful figures in organizations are assassinated. I'm a nobody, and nobody wastes a bullet on a nobody.

Buffs and heals never reduce other player characters' XP and won't pull aggro off of the target. As long as she doesn't deal damage, she's not depriving other players of XP with debuffs/controls, either. Deceive will actually increase the potential amount of XP the stranger can gain, but it's probably better not to use it since Confuses aren't well understood by most players. This, though, you might want to curb, at least until you're certain she's cognizant of the con system. There are some missions which spawn open world ambushes, and those could be deep purple to her. Being pancaked by a level 50 ambush squad in three seconds is a learning experience, but as Cryptic and Paragon discovered, not one that most people enjoy.

So... that would be a no to the request that you be less combative and provide test results instead of armchair patch note analysis?

Who is a defender, not a mastermind.

I believe that this development team should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a character on the Moon and returning it safely to the Earth. No single content project in this period will be more impressive to players, or more important for the long-range exploration of the game, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 20 years ago, fly over Steel Canyon? Why does Lumi play Savage Assault? We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon... *pause for applause* We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

If it moved, it'd have to be changed so using the power again would replace the existing one, instead of the current summoning of another. We'd only be able to have one out at a time, instead of two or three. Going to have to pull out the nope on that. Nope.

I've only done this task force once, ever. I was solo. Didn't have any trouble beating myself up, but I've had a lot of practice.

Recharge begins after the animation ends. Always. That's cycle time, the time between uses of an individual power. I suspect that's where your errors have been appearing. I've done it more than a couple of times, with the expected computer punching and logging out in a huff. For attack chains, you separate animation time from recharge time. You do it that way because each attack's recharge time is only relevant to the total animation time of all of the other attacks in the chain in this context . Attack 1's recharge time is checked against the animation times of Attacks 2, 3 and 4; Attack 2's recharge time is checked against the animation times of Attacks 3, 4 and 1; Attack 3's recharge time is checked against the animation times of Attacks 4, 1 and 2; and Attack 4's recharge time is checked against the animation times of Attacks 1, 2 and 3. In other words, you're grouping attacks to count total animation time, excluding one attack, and comparing that animation time total to the excluded attack's modified recharge time. You rotate attacks into and out of the group as you go, adding in the previously excluded one and excluding a different one sequentially, comparing numbers each time to ensure that all of your attacks are recharging at rate equivalent to or below the total animation time of the other attacks. Your goal is to match (or go below) each individual attack's recharge time to all of the other attacks' cumulative animation time. It's worth mentioning a well optimized attack chain has as few attacks as possible. The more you use, the less DPA you're dealing. Stick to your strongest 3-5 attacks. I almost never use more than 4, and when I do, the fifth is always another AoE or PBAoE. You can let Mids' do the recharge calculations, and it has a setting to add Arcanatime to animation times, so you don't have to do this in your head. Open your calculator program, or the app on your phone, and use that to plug the numbers in while referencing your Mids' build. Just be certain that you double-check the animation and recharge times at City of Data. You're better off using Mids' and/or City of Data anyway, because even though Arcanatime is a known value, the game rounds animation times up to specific numbers. 1.188, 1.32, 1.452, 1.67 and so on. If you try to fit Arcanatime in manually, your numbers will tend to be a few hundredths of a second off.

Exactly.

*holds up fingers* This much.

By the way, I took that picture of the deer. It wasn't tame or corralled, and I was only 15' away from it. I'm Steve Irwining like a boss in my little piece of the forest. Now get that resolution bumped up. Or I'll go all Disney Princess on your asses with an army of wild animals.

Client bug with particle effects. Unless you're a mad scientist and you've been growing pituitary glands in inanimate objects, in which case... well, congratulations?

Start by figuring out how long each attack in your chain takes to execute. This is where Arcanatime, the extra 0.132 second of server processing/response time, is important. The more attacks you use, the greater the discrepancy if you don't account for Arcanatime. If you use 4 attacks in your chain and fail to account for Arcanatime, your chain time would be off by over half a second. You get the "still recharging" sound, punch your computer and log out in a huff because the game is a lying asshat. Once you know that, you then have goals for the recharge times of your powers. If your attack chain is 1/2/3/4, you want 1 recharged by the time 4 is finished animating. Here, you have the opposite problem from factoring for animation time. The more attacks you use, the easier it is to build an attack chain, because you're adding more animation time to the chain and leaning less into recharge time. The same is true if you're using attacks with longer animation times. Of course, that also means cluttering up your trays with more attacks, reducing room for other powers, like buffs, debuffs and controls. Then you punch your computer and log out in a huff because the UI is an uncooperative douche nozzle. Designing and implementing a fluid attack chain is a multi-step process. For each attack, you have to calculate the animation time of the rest of the chain, but not that attack. The number at which you arrive is when that attack has to be fully recharged. So to figure out the minimum recharge time in an attack chain with 4 attacks: Determine the total animation time for attacks 2, 3 and 4. This is when attack 1 has to be fully recharged. Determine the total animation time for attacks 3, 4 and 1. This is when attack 2 has to be fully recharged. Determine the total animation time for attacks 4, 1 and 2. This is when attack 3 has to be fully recharged. Determine the total animation time for attacks 1, 2 and 3. This is when attack 4 has to be fully recharged. Now you have your recharge time targets. You want each attack to recharge no later than when the previous three attacks have completed their full animation time plus Arcanatime (again, 0.132s per power). Thus, if you have an attack with a base recharge time of 10 seconds and the other three attacks in your chain total 4.7 seconds of animation time, your goal is to have that attack recharging in 4.7 seconds or less. Again, this has to be factored for every attack. Example: my Fire/Rad sentinel's attack chain is a very simple Fire Blast/Blaze/Blazing Blast/Fire Ball. Fire Blast has to be recharged in 1.188+1.848+1.188=4.224 seconds. Easy peasy since its base recharge time is only 5 seconds. Blaze has to be recharged in 1.848+1.188+1.452=4.488 seconds. Base recharge time is 10 seconds, so I need more than 100% total +Recharge in it. Enhancements make most of that, so still easy. Blazing Blast has to be recharged in 1.188+1.452+1.188=3.828 seconds. Base recharge time for Blazing Blast is 12 seconds, and we need it to drop to almost a fourth of that, so we have to lean much more heavily into global +Recharge. Fire Ball has to be recharged in 1.452+1.188+1.848=4.488 seconds. With a 16 second base recharge time, we're once again looking at a heavier investment in global +Recharge to bring it down to almost a fourth. With target recharge times, it's a simple matter of tailoring enhanced values and global +Recharge to ensure that your attack chain is perfectly fluid. You can use Mids' to do that, or even scratch it out on paper with a pencil. Recharge is very easy to calculate, as all sources of Recharge are applied collectively toward the total. If you have 95% from enhancements and 200% from global +Recharge, then you know you have 295% total applied to that power. As all powers have a base 100%, you add that to the total, move the decimal two places to the left and divide the power's recharge time by that number, which would be 3.95 (95+200+100=395, 3.95 decimal shifted) in this example. If your attack chain is non-sequential, meaning you repeat one or more attacks before the end, it's the same process, but you have to ensure that the repeated attack has an acceptable recharge time. My Grav/TA's attack chain is Cross Punch/Fissure/Cross Punch/Seismic Smash. Fissure's animation time is 2.244 seconds, so I need Cross Punch to recharge in less time than that. Not terribly difficult, as Cross Punch's base recharge time is only 8 seconds. Attacks with very long recharge times requires either longer attack chains, attack chains with longer animations, or exorbitant amounts of +Recharge. Using my Grav/TA as an example again, Seismic Smash has such a long base recharge time (28s) that I need an extreme amount of +Recharge bring it down to 5.94 seconds or less in order to make the attack chain fluid (117.6% in the attack and ~255% global). So, figure out the animation times, figure out the requisite recharge time for each attack based on the total animation time of the other attacks, then make each attack recharge by or before then.

The MMORPGs given as examples are all gear treadmills, with the game giving the player leveling gear each time they complete quests, with gear constantly being replaced, so having to purchase all of one's gear (enhancements) or get "lucky" drops does present a hurdle for players accustomed to that model of progression. The "problem" is that we don't have a gear treadmill, and acquiring "best-in-slot" gear, set IOs, requires the player to interact with the market or spend merits. They come into the game expecting to be given what they need to progress, rather than being given the option to acquire what they want to progress. And there is no solution which doesn't have game-wide ramifications. If the game is changed to automatically grant all of the enhancements, even if it's just SOs, that a character needs while leveling, the sub-25 content is unbalanced. Most of that content was designed around the expectation that players wouldn't be fully slotted, and what they had slotted wouldn't be at maximal efficiency. If the game is changed to guarantee players all of the inf*/merits they need to be fully slotted, the same balance conundrum is present and the player-driven economy is horse-fucked. And even if there were a way to make Co* more accessible to players accustomed to gear treadmill progression, without alienating the existing player base, it wouldn't be satisfactory because we don't have an end game. A player can have a full end-game build within 5 minutes of hitting 50, by purchasing purples and Superiors from the AH and /respec. We have unlimited content in the form of scanner/newspaper missions, tips, Ouroboros, *Fs, Trials, PUGs, GM hunting and other activities which don't grant material rewards, but the end-game grind people have come to expect from playing other MMORPGs isn't present here, so they don't see anything to work toward. That's the real impediment to bringing players from other MMORPGs here. They're accustomed to a straight path that leads to a mountain which takes a long time to climb. Co* gives players a path that meanders through hilly terrain. It's not a matter of in-game finances, but of expectation and personal preference.