Sir Myshkin

Back on Live some time after AE first went live, but before the player base really sunk into IO's, I put together an arc that was designed around being an SG "intro" for new members. My initial testing has it play out that the player would be working a case that would overlap with running into the SG leader (me), but initially in opposition so they'd have to try and fight the leader. The character was a Fire/FF Controller, and I'd dropped standard powers into the AE build to keep it as "real" as possible. The character was bloody untouchable and trying to fight him and the surrounding spawn was an impossible task between +30% Defense and Force Bubble playing shuffle board through hallways, and so few things in the game actually have Repel Resistance/Protection. As such, I'm very self aware out how much Force Fields ironically screws with players when its in full force on the opposing side of the fence. I struggle to think what I'd consider the optimal mix of characters, but this is probably what I'm envisioning: Rad/SS Tanker Ice/Atomic Blaster Storm/Energy Defender RM/DA Scrapper TA/A Defender DP/Cold Corr Demon/ElecAff MM TW/Regen Scrapper What's most amusing to me about this list is what the characters themselves actually are that I didn't realize I had been doing until much later on. Four of them are ghosts/unliving/embodiment, one is a vampire, one is a sentient sword, one is a remotely controlled android, and the last one is a schizophrenic speedster and the only one technically "living."

Battle Maiden's "Blue Patch" is mostly an unresistable pile of damage meant to give preliminary expectation to an attack that player's encounter in a later Incarnate Trial (the "last" trial, as it were currently). The one later on is a bigger, more aggressive unresistable patch that does 10% of a players HP every second, and the only way to survive it is to be a crazy high-performing Regen, or delay fire off Rebirth Radials to keep a league's Regen at ridiculous levels as most player's don't make it out of the patch alive after it hits them. Both of these abilities were intentionally meant to chew apart anything in their path, the Devs didn't really want us to survive them (well, not the second version anyway, the first is a "training patch"). As I recall she is casting it, but the patch itself is a Psuedopet summoned and being location dropped on who's she's targeting. Like Bonfire.

For those of us who played the game for a rather significant chunk of time (years) having to unlock Capes and Auras on every toon was a massively monotonous task. I knew plenty of individuals who chose to completely forgo the two options altogether, myself included (although in my case I just frankly don't care for either in most situations). This concern, in conjunction with travel powers, were argued that while it may seem to make sense from a level-scaling perspective, there are plenty of cases and reasoning behind a character having access to certain things out of the gate, and that how some character designs are folded around the very aspect of their travel power like Super Speed (Flash-like characters). The travel power case was a consideration in why the unlock was moved from 14 all the way down to level 4 (among other dev rational) when the game was still Live; that wasn't a Homecoming alteration. They weren't really that "common" on Live in the last couple of years either. With Veteran Rewards many players already carried several freebies, plus you could purchase a Respec Recipe from the Auction House or grab it from a Merit Vendor. The "once every ten" grant here on Homecoming essentially replaced the "Vetspec" we used to get. Personally I've only respeced one character out of my stable since I joined (oh gosh has it really been nearly two years now?!) and that was a massive fine-tuning ordeal. Some aspects of what you're likely remembering changed before the game actually closed down, and some of those factors are just being carried over. A big reason why some of the other, smaller considerations are "unlocked" is because player time is an extreme commodity for many, especially in a game that has been resurrected from the past and so many original players want to get back what they'd lost without the fuss and grind. The beauty of it all is that the content is all still there so there's nothing stopping you from "playing the course" as it were, it's just your own self-control holding you back at this point.

The debuff effects from the Interface triggers have never really demonstrated significant impact on most mob bashing below an EB (really AV) just because they're highly unlikely to survive long enough for the effect to matter, and/or stack enough too matter. The DoT component is always the better option to have at max percentage, by the time something like an AV comes along a consistent chain of attacks will almost always stack up max quantity of the debuff even at 25% chance. Your request to go AV hunting is a bit skewed though. Yes they may resist the -Res procs, but the scale of performance isn't weighed in just the effect of that one proc, but by how much of a fulcrum it creates for the rest of the attacks, what natural defense/resistances the target enemy already has, and what level it may be shifted to (damage procs scale down with increased difficulty). Those -Res procs also result in more effective utilization of included damage procs, making them more valuable in a one-for-one exchange than a single damage proc in its place, exponentially. To your point on the limitations of the -Res proc, since they don't stack including more than one of a given proc is typically wasted, yes, and being in a group of other players also running that proc can result in wasted "stacking," yes. The -Res procs are typically slotted in powers focused on ST execution, and those that can be slotted in AoE-centric abilities will rarely hit more than one or two targets within a spawn which is the only case where they may (or in some cases may not) result in a significant value exchange, but will typically result in an end damage-add that breaks even with what a damage proc would've provided. Given that, in a group setting not everyone will be always targeting the same thing (more likely not), and AoE effects including those -Res have a greater chance of spreading the proc to unaffected enemies resulting in wider net positive. I'd say there's probably a bit of headroom to be given to more players not fully IO'ing characters, or including those -Res procs compared to those that do when talking about "should I or shouldn't I include this..." conversations as well. I'd stick by the expectation that it's highly more likely I'll have benefited by having the -Res slotted compared to not. In the more-likely-scenario I'm the only one carrying it, the team will have much better impact on something like an AV than compared to if I'd skipped it over a single one-off damage proc. Furthermore there's not much of a reason to exclude 2-3 damage procs from most attacks anyway. Most builds can compensate the addition of them alongside a -Res or two. Have cake, eat it too. That's really all logistics I already encountered back when I did the Proc Monster threads.

Coyote covered the tl;dr, but I wanted to add this from a standpoint on practical uptime: While the practical net "up time" will probably be ~50% for a average-to-higher FF slotted build, this isn't due to a proc restriction, and a restriction like that would likely be coded to result in a lower up time (30%). As Coyote pointed out, it is stackable but very difficult to get more than two, there aren't many powers in the game that can assure a triple stack, and the tactics needed to get consistent up time are pretty rigorous. My Storm/Energy has between 50-75% up time depending on combat speed, but my Rad/SS Tanker can get closer to 90% because the proc is slotted in very specific attacks on a cycle that results in lots of proc chances, and a lot of (double) stacking with minimum blips between that results in a long effective use period; in both cases these builds have to be constantly engaged with enemies to sustain that trigger making it awesome, but taxing. For most casual players that drop one in their build are typically going to see what amounts to ~16-30% global value add. It takes an aggressive use of the proc in multiple powers to really break it into the 50+ percentile.

Victory Rush and Conserve Power will completely eradicate your end problems

It sounds like you could use a little Madness in your life. 😉

Acid Arrow’s ability to carry multiple procs is nice, don’t get me wrong, but the core purpose of having that power was the -Res debuff that now no longer exists in it. I—among some others—felt since alpha testing the changes that the alterations made AA a rather skippable power (which incidentally the conglomerate changes demanded for at least one or two “junk” powers). There was never a circumstance that really made it a warranted or worthwhile inclusion in an attack cycle. I do get that the proc aspect is a considerable value, but it lacks consistency to be a spam-focused power just for the random proc alone. Back before the change when I was playing TA/A Defender I never applied Acid more than once per spawn because I was easily clearing with RoA and Fistful alongside the few burst procs and debuffs. Also given how the algorithm for procs in AoEs works, once a spawn starts shrinking below five bodies the probability tanks. Definitely play to what makes you experience the most fun, but from an analytical aspect there are far more better combinations of power choices for nearly every possible build configuration. -Damage is a far more powerful debuff than many might expect and a good chunk of that debuff is unresistable. Between PGA and Flash a TA player should be looking at what best balance/benefits the team. Those two debuffs give the set a very unique ability to equally support Defense and Resistance based allies in a big way. I’d be looking at my team dynamic and choosing the opener that will provide the most dynamic support. A team of resistance characters with average slotting in the 50-60% are going to get a big boon from -50% acting like +50 shield. As a TA Defender I rarely used Flash pre-buff because it was a pretty gimmicky utility in my experience once a character was soft capped. My troubles were always dealing with damage that did get through, and PGA easily softens that blow leaving me down to PGA+Disruption as openers over what used to be AA+Dis.

Winter Packs are my 401k.

This is a somewhat ironic thread given that a year ago when the Tanker patch hit, many cried that Brutes would no longer be relevant. With the AoE improvements baked into their inherent, I personally would never consider rolling a Brute over a Tanker as the later has rock solid performance now, and the damage indifference just doesn't mean enough.

Yes. In fact I added a post back in May about such a thing. I worked together a very special project build that primarily used the Fighting Pool as its attack set and it worked perfectly fine and was capable of taking down an even con AV solo. Since you mentioned MM, I’m certain the tactic would work on them as well. Take a look at the linked reply, the build there should easily translate to a MM. No. The proc chances do get pretty low, but when you saturate the attacks with 3-4 procs and constantly fire them off you’re bound to get an average performance of at least one proc each attack on average, and any damage is good damage.

The Storm/Energy lives in my “Mad King” thread (although I’m sure it was posted somewhere in this one at some point, it’s hot linked in the other), which is in my Signature (or found in the Blaster AT section).

You be the judge 🙂 Took a minute to find the last archive link, hopefully that works correctly.

Something that’s not being mentioned: set bonuses that would award S/L also tie to Melee, which ever one is the primary given bonus you receive half that value for the alt option. This works for all the Positional versus Typed (Melee:S/L, Ranged:E/N, AoE:F/C). Because of this there’s really no difference in the effort involved, and since Scorpion Shield is focused on classes that don’t have inherent armors they’re usually adding things like Weave or Maneuvers which are +Def (All) in what they grant, so it doesn’t matter. Another unmentioned noted about Energy (the third component to Scorpion Shield) is that a surprising number of Mez attacks in the game have an Energy damage component, and nearly all Mez attacks (majority) are Ranged positional, so these tend to tie together well.

A lot of what was talked about before is still relevant now. For reference I’m referring to Trick Arrow notes from the Defender version of this thread as they apply here (link in Sig). The two more core things that have changed are Acid Arrow and PGA (and a third slightly lower relevance in EMP Arrow). Acid Arrow (in my opinion) has lost its relevance now and isn’t nearly as worthwhile, and PGA now has a significant debuff worth using. EMP’s changes also make it useful for the altered duration of its debuff and bonus features. Flash Arrow is also worth slotting a bit to max out its -ToHit. None of these changes particularly cry out to the proc side of things however, and actually end up with a reduction of proc compatibility. Since you asked in the Controller edition: Dark or Earth Control. In general though? Storm/Energy Defender (and upon just know thinking of it, slightly curious about a Dark/Storm Controller all of a sudden).

After a certain point you've gone from "not wanting" to "full dive" in that build. What I can tell you straight up is that you are not capped to resists. You have high resists sure, and the +Res Tanker Proc is pushing your E/N/Psi to 90% with one stack, but the rest of your stats aren't there. While some folks attest to its usefulness I personally don't choose to rely on the +Res proc to manage resistance gaps on a Tanker build because it doesn't cover Alpha, and in most cases that's the biggest area where having those capped resists matter the most. If you're going fresh into a spawn and not carrying over a +Res proc, you're going in 10% under and that can be a big enough difference in some content. Dark Armor is a strong setup, Dark Regen is a massive heal, but there is a world of difference between 70 and 90, and still yet between 80 and 90. It is doable to reach 90% to pretty much every stat without the aid of the +Res proc, Energy and Toxic being the two difficult ones (and Toxic isn't even a consideration, Energy would just barely be off). If you really are wanting to be "Unkillable" then getting that baseline of S/L/Melee 40% (minimum, ideally 45%, but that's a bit harder to pull off) defense, and get as many of your Resistances within the 85-90% range before the proc (ideally get to 90% without it) so it can otherwise cap you with one activation. Some other things I didn't really think too deeply about on first look: You don't need Tactics. Rage can easily be double stacked and provides a hefty +ToHit on each application, and Cloak of Darkness gives +Perception.

On a 1 for 1 exchange, no they do not. At a minimum grabbing a purple Dam IO and +5 it, but I advise using the first two slots of any attack to buff Acc/Dam into reasonable levels. Ideally between a combination of enhancement and Musculature you can hit 95% on any given attack (as a minimum). If you've managed to get into the 80-90% range, an additional +Dam at that point is unlikely to continue adding more damage than a proc could, but remember that Procs are potential damage whereas enhancement is guaranteed damage; if the amount an enhancement would add is at least 50% what a proc might add then I'd consider the Dam over the proc, especially in an AoE of any form. If you haven't updated into a version of the Builder that includes the Homecoming updates to Tanker damage, then the values you're seeing for Tankers is considerably off and I would not trust any of the numbers you're seeing. There's also tweaks across many powers that you would be missing that isn't just damage values. Nothing really jumps out as egregious, you've got enough accuracy across the board, you've balanced your proc to enhancement ratio well enough. One bit I could suggest is just doing a revision of slot placement for certain sets. Unbreakable Guard gives 3.13% Melee at four pieces, and you're using three pieces of that set in four different powers which means you could potentially gain 12.5% Melee, and with Maneuvers providing a slight bit more to Tankers in-game than Mids reports, you'd be pretty close to 40% there. You have two slots in Jab, cannibalize those for sure because the power isn't worth using (I know you're stuck with it, but you don't/shouldn't have any need to use it).

Rad and Fire armor have both been successfully taken through the challenge under Buffed Enemies (but I don’t think any of us went back on Debuffed Player), and Rad was one of the first sets to try. The trigger points come down to needing full cap resistances, and layering in some additional mitigation like KD’s, -Dam, and -ToHit. my first attempts with no self defense at all were a bit rough because the Cims would send me into the massive negatives for debuff. Going back at it with even just 30% massively changed things both from general avoidance (even at that value), and how having defenses padded against the debuffs taking it away. It’s a lot better to be at 0% Defense rather than -40%. Plus, if I tossed out Darkest Night I could stretch my defensive values further. I haven't bothered going back to do player debuffed (mostly because I’m trying to pull it off on a Storm Defender), but the -ToHit -Dam really wouldn’t have been a concern with Rage stacking on Rad/SS. I stripped out a good portion of my Rad/SS/Soul’s extra damage performance* when I did this way earlier in favor of some added survival and had absolutely no issues taking out the PC or Rommie and his Goon Squad in a reasonable time. *originally had Musculature and three procs minimum per attack, stripped that down to one for most, two on KO Blow and Foot Stomp due to chasing set bonuses. Double Stacked Rage is absurd, and having Hybrid Assault was added insult to injury.

There are two stages to Oil Slick, the KD portion that packs -Def, and the ignited portion which deals damage. The second, ignited phase is what takes damage enhancements and don’t trigger until after it lights, so in that regard no it couldn’t self-ignite no matter which way you look at it. The slick itself is ignited from both fire and energy/negative sources, so anything carrying a proc of that nature has a chance for setting the slick off, but it has to be targeted directly, or fall within an AoE field’s effect to do so.

I found that for me this sentiment is the exact opposite of addiction, but a realization that I probably need to step away and do something else because I've lost interest in the game and I'm sooner to burn out than enjoy continue playing. In fact I've personally been on sabbatical from the game since roughly the first week of October. The most I've done was to log in on a high-roller and drop some early Winter Pack bids so they'd be filled if a sale took place before I came back (it did). It all started from logging in one night and pulling up the Auction House to check bids and I just went "... Yeah, nope, time to do something else." On the positive side, somewhere in January or February I'll get to log in to a character and go "Look how rich I am!" with all those Winter Packs I bought at discount 😄

I think I'm too late to the trend. I tried to get "Shiny McShiny Claw" and it was already taken.

Teams, who needs teams?

On Retail we also had several thousands more people playing throughout the day (albeit across more servers so it didn’t always feel so “busy”). The dislike of a dedicated healer was there, just not quite as profoundly as now, and that really comes down to the fact that there’s a lot more people capable of getting “Billion Inf Builds” here with a much more accessible market than before. Having said that, it really widens the divide of specialist focus builds when it comes to pretty much any support class, they can’t really just rest on using half their power sets. The struggle is real, but thankfully there’s a lot of resources at your disposal in the game right now that can make that trip faster. Keep in mind I’m only suggesting this, nothing more, it’s up to you to decide if you want to go through with it, but given that you’ve gone 50 levels with Ill/Emp, I think it would be a worthwhile experiment for you to take an Ill/Pain along the journey as well and see how different they are, how having not just a singular buff, but team buffs, plus AoE debuffs, dynamically shift your impact. You can obviously still keep the original and just roll this as a secondary version to try out. From an RP perspective maybe make it a possessed version of your original, an ancestral spirit getting angsty and wanting to get back out into the world or something. If you can get someone willing to help you PL into 20-something quickly to skip the dull drum of early levels, the important part where you should see the difference is in that 26-38 zone where the good powers reside for Pain on a Controller. And ultimately if you get to 45-50 and you still prefer the Empathy version, then you’ll know it’s still there available to you. 🙂

The opinion of debate: Empathy has not had value in this game since the advent of the Invention System, and is only in the game as a "token" set (there because every other game had one, so CoH had to, too). Empathy has some value in the early game since players barely have any powers yet, let alone enhancements, so there's plenty for the "healing" side of things to keep active. As players flesh out their builds and get IO's and bonuses going, more and more of the need for "just heals" starts to go out the window since so many try and build Defense and Resistance to high levels. It's fairly simple for nearly any character in the game to get 45% S/L or Ranged Defense with a bit of build effort, and that single stat alone eliminates a huge amount of potential threat. This effect is even more compounded with the addition of Incarnates. Your four key powers are Fortitude, Recovery and Regeneration Aura(s), and Adrenalin Boost. Ageless and Rebirth both invalidate three of those by giving that functionality to 40 people from any build that slots the power. Barrier invalidates Fortitude by an aggressive amount by giving that insane boost to, again, a huge chunk of people. You've now become a Resurrect Bot, and even in that you'll probably fail to be useful as someone will most likely have a Barrier that also includes the Resurrect utility. Or any number of temporary powers that do the same thing. These are unfortunately the current dilemmas of an Empathy character. If you say you're making a "Dedicated Healer", many are going to interpret that as "no attacks", and that translates as "I'm just sitting here waiting for you to get hit and not bringing any other value to the team besides waiting to fill your green bar back up that isn't moving because everyone's a walking tank." Empathy can have a useful place in the right team, but in the current state of the game it just can't be the only thing you bring to the table. Bring Holds, have perma Phantom Army, keep Spectral going, keep Phantasm alive, make sure you've got a contribution to the damage aspect too. To an extent, yes. You can definitely play the game however you want, and in fact there was one player who documented soloing with an Empathy Defender (a set that ends up only carrying three self-inflicting abilities) just to prove a point. So you do you, and own it. If you're open to some thoughts on a different path within the wheelhouse you're looking at, I would suggest doing an Illusion/Pain Controller instead of Illusion/Empathy. You can color the powers however you see fit to keep a theme, and ignore the names of any of the powers to effect, but Pain Domination has (in my opinion) a much better aresenal of tools that support a team (and you) more dynamically in the current state of the game. It has enemy debuffs, player buffs, still keeps active healing, and will keep you engage in a positive way with any team irregardless of your primary. My opinion, between Empathy and Pain Domination, Pain is the set that the game ultimately deserved and is the superior version of the "Healer" support role. To give you an idea what an active Ill/Pain would look like I actually have a build one of my own:

I'd probably just plan it out very similarly to the Rad/SS I posted in the Mad King thread in all honesty. Most of the build should translate into Fire pretty easily. I pulled the v2 build and flipped it over quickly. Might be some areas that could still be tweaked a bit, but Consume and Burn easily fill in additional AoE like Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy do, and Burn will be a much more aggressive option especially with Fiery Embrace. As for Hand Clap... Personally I just don't see it having a significant enough impact to include. The stun is relatively weak (even if you do try and stack other stun procs to increase mag), and most of what's available for procs in the stun sets are just weak effects stand alone. The KD in Foot Stomp is frankly just so good as a soft control for SS that it doesn't really need to rely on anything else. In Bash I'd personally just go for the full set of Might of the Tanker and get that 6% S/L to cap you out without having to worry about whether you've got a stack of its proc active or not. For the rest of your attacks you've got them mostly flooded with damage procs and damage-focused enhancements with no accuracy slotting which isn't good. Without a fully saturated Invincibility none of the attacks will hit more than an even-con enemy, and even with full Invincibility you're only looking at +2 successfully. Now you don't need a ton of push to get to a good value, but you definitely need at least 25-30% Accuracy in each attack at a minimum to get you closer to +3 and being able to safely function with an Alpha raising your level at 50. If you're leveling this build, it's going to struggle in +4 content. Also not having any damage enhancement in your attacks is quite literally leaving damage behind. The first 2-3 slots of any attack should exist to enhance the power itself before loading it up with procs. Accuracy, Damage, and Endurance are all things you have to be mindful of, as it stands now your build doesn't fully account for all of this. The current endurance slotting the build will dry up within 35-40/s of attacking because most of the attacks are swinging for their full 9-12 endurance and the recovery difference is only 1.2/s, every attack is putting you -6 to -9 in the hole. Take another look at your attacks, see what beneficial sets you can use in pieces of 2 or 3 (or 4 with a proc) to get more +Res packed into other areas of the build while fixing Acc/Dam/End. This is a nitty-gritty aspect of building and isn't a quick flip, but you've got a lot of potential build growth still in there based on how you balance your set choices.