Sir Myshkin

Sudden Acceleration has a KB>KD IO in its set, and isn't Unique/Limited. So go nuts 🙂

Been doing experiments with procs, remembered this thread and thought I'd come back and post this: Amusing side note that might possibly be worth testing, but the AoE Holds could be turned into an AoE damage power. If there's a sufficient amount of Global Recharge in a build that can act as the supplementary recharge, and as a consequence the Hold abilities can be six-slotted with a ton of Procs. So I hopped into Mid's and plugged in Fire Control to get to Cinders: dropped the Lockdown +2 Mag Hold proc*, Entomb +Absorb, +Dam Procs (Gladiator, Unbreakable, GW, and Neuronic). Used Kin to get some quick global rech out of Siphon Speed, and turned on Hasten for a total of 130%. With the Absorb Proc giving Recharge enhancement (as a Purple), Cinder's sits at 84/s recharge with a 14/s duration and does 297 damage upon hit. Bonfires can't even do that much over 45/s, I think there's suddenly a nice "Mini Nuke" for Controllers out there we didn't even know existed. I'll probably run off and test this at some point since it sounds rather amusing. *this basically ups Cinders to Mag 5 since it will fast stack Mag 3 and Mag 2, which is nice for more resisted targets, doesn't necessarily mean much for most content.

So l had a funsies Pylon run last night, after an MSR ended l got lazy about traveling back and was going to let a Pylon Hosp-trip me back to the base. Standing there in front of it though l decided "Eh, why not" and opened the timer, turned it on, and started summoning my pets. So l did a zero-to-full-on time test of my Robot/kin MM to see how adaptive he'd be in a more realistic setting. End result was 5:22, or 248 DPS, no Pre-pull, no "ready to go" bots or pre-established buffs, just "oh crap, go!" And you know what? I'm actually pretty happy with that time. Forgot to add: That was T3 Musculature Core and T1 Radial, as usual no insp, no other temps, etc. So there's a decent amount of ceiling room for this kind of scenario considering my Kin MM isn't fully Incarnate-kitted-out, and only has one attack (Ice Blast).

But l like my unidentifiable blob! with PPM changes Theft isn't nearly as good as It used to be. In my current experience l was lucky to get one, maybe two Procs off a single activation of Dark Regen. Back before it was nearly a guaranteed full end bar. Don't get me wrong if you can afford the slot, go for it, but for high spec /DA builds, it was a slot to steal for better things. Leveling up, though, it is kind of nice until you get more of your end problems fixed. Right now the proc kind of just pays the bill, and sometimes leaves a tip. To the original question: Spines/Dark is still a blast to play. If you want something new, but similar, try Rad/DA.

Well, first, I missed later on when he says that there's a note about it not including global recharge, and just exclusively the values of the power itself for enhancement (plus Alpha if applied). That changed what values I was putting in quite a bit (basically undersold what the procs were capable of). The correct formula would be PPM(BaseRech/(1+RechEnhanced/100)+Cast)/60. I was basically missing the step where it just accounted for the base recharge, which is my fault on that one. Sucks when I had the right math, wrong formula. Makes a larger divide (not like crazy, but still larger) between Proc DPS and normal DPS. As for Mid's... If I take Apocalypse and put it in Mid's, it's exactly the same value. If I put it in Blast, it's a different value (2pts low) and in BiB (8pts low). But just plugging the proc in you can see what Mid's is calculating for that specific Proc's estimated damage, but it doesn't fall in line with the formula that was pulled (quite literally) from the source code. And I tested this on a blank build with no powers selected other than each of the three, with only Apocalypse dropped into the individual power each time. So no global anythingimpacting the value. So I dropped some other procs into the powers to see what returned, and how different and... they were all correct. Every single proc I dropped into it came back correct except for the "Purple" procs any any of the abilities but Freeze Ray, for Ice. I didn't expand into other sets cause of the time that'd consume re-validating over and over a formula. Tl;DR of tonight's lesson for me was that Mid's could be accurate, likely not on Purples, but easy to verify. What I did come to terms with is that the value return (after seeing this mistake bumping those numbers a bit further), if I cycle Freeze Ray every 4/s, ballpark, I'll have fired it off at least 4 to 5 times within 25/s (the next Lightning Storm up-time). If I drop Apocalypse and Unconstrained into it, that's comparable to +30 each swing (or 120 damage), and Mid's gives LS an estimation (with proc) of nearly 198 (+100 damage)

I did some "napkin math" at work today after reading the link to the proc studies for PPM changes--useful stuff! Thanks for the link on that Obitus. I wanted some more definitive numbers to really see what a hypothetical value would really translate as based on the way the formula actually works (scaling). Under the assumption that I slotted 1 Purple, and 2 Standard damage procs in Bolt, BiB, and FR. Arcanatimes for the chain is 4.884/s. With Procs: Bolt: 138.21 | 240.51 BiB: 296.24 | 520.64 FR 265.68 | 470.18 DPS: 143.35 | 252.11 Now this is purely a hypothetical DPS not accounting for things like all the -Res, other things going on, what-have-you that we've all come to terms with "get in the way" of a standard ST chain, but for relevant context, we'll assume it's the case here. Running Bolt > BiB > Bolt > FR, accounting for 50% time with standard value damage, and 50% time with Scourge value damage (which is not 100% accurate, but the simplest approach): 197 DPS As I have slotted (only ATO proc in FR): Bolt: 108 | 216 BiB: 244.9 | 489.8 FR: 244.76 | 459.56 DPS: 122.37 | 238.60 This chain came in at 180 DPS, a 17 point difference at optimal opportunities. Scourge only manages to close that gap by 4 DPS. So as Hjarki said, procs are definitely favoring the AT's with a lower base damage to work with. As a technicality, I did have that proc in FR, if I took that out it drops my base effective DPS to 116. When looking at this I have at least one purple proc I could've placed in each power within a single build: Apocalypse, Unbreakable, and the ATO Proc which allowed me to divide fairly. An obvious thing as has been mentioned, BiB does get a bit more bang out of the procs placed in it, but to bring that more in focus, there's only a .58/s difference in the recharge between FR and BiB, and very little difference in their animation times, but that translates as a pretty decent difference in the estimated value of the proc (35 damage average versus 30), but when it comes to what's actually available there, I (personally) don't see breaking up the ATO set and loosing the 10% global recharge bonus as a worthy loss for 5pts of damage, however FR does get that Hold Proc option, and can sport Apocalypse too, which is double the value of a standard proc in that power. FR is probably the best mule for Procs comparatively. The longer animation time of Ice Blast would also result in it favoring procs. If I assume a 2/s recharge on Blast, with its 1.67 animation, it gets the same proc values (relatively) as FR (~15 standard and ~29 purple). So, not a HUGE difference, but even with Scourge, the procs are capable of providing a reasonable advantage that what they potentially provide (on an average curve) is going to be greater long-term that off-setting with standard damage slotting. The only downside is that, typically, the powers they end up in are going to be under compensated a bit in one or two of their primary needs (acc/end/dam/rech, albeit typically probably acc/end, with acc being compensated through Kismet or Tactics). Turned out to be an interesting thought experiment. As a side note, Mid's apparently over-estimates proc damage by a small margin. The further into this whole analysis I've gotten, the more things I've actually found wrong in Mid's/Pine's!

Where are you pulling these values from? The hard proc damages aren't shown in the game in a convenient place (that I could quickly find), and what's listed in Mid's ("Mid's/Pine's/Homecoming Reborn") doesn't match up with these values either. I gathered you were taking enhanced value against proc damages and adding them together? Even still, the proc values didn't really line up. Mid's already does a fairly decent job on giving an approximation of damage based on the recharge of the power and the chance on the proc. It also includes the original base damage of the procs, and the calculations breaks that value down into the average. Given that I wasn't seeing math line up, I didn't really dive into it any further. I also, in this process, noticed that there are a few powers that don't correctly reflect the in-game values either (Freezing Ray is 11 ticks of damage, not 10, and Blizzard is apparently 76 ticks of 4.83, not 75, and Empty Clips is also wrong and... anyway, they were marginal differences that are ultimately irrelevant at the moment). Basically, I wasn't following where your damage came from, but if I used Mid's as a baseline, here's an example: Ice Bolt as I slotted it - 108, Ice Bolt with the only two procs available - 123. Technically Apocalypse could go into Bolt, but I'm not taking it out of Lightning Storm because it's more valuable there (imo), but I did drop it in just to see the value (138) and that is still much lower than your 160. Given that, there's not much I can really say about the rest of those numbers... Also, turn off Vigilance and there's a much wider divide between what a Corr is going to do 100% of the time versus a Defender, just saying. Leading into Chronicle Update #4 with Procs: I did some practical testing with procs tonight (planned outside of what was posted as responses in this thread), so I have some consideration for what I'd be looking at, but there's a few caveats to the process. Of my testing, the powers did not have any recharge in them, I wanted the hard value of what's possible. BiB with a Clouded Senses hit fairly consistently (like 2/3, sometimes 2/4 which is in line with a 58% chance ratio), but the actual damage value I got back wasn't very inspiring. As a 49 punching 53-54's, I was (on average) seeing around 19-23 actual damage which was only a small margin of the actual damage I was doing, unenhanced (about 18-20%) and I believe the variance was related to whether the target was under -Res from FR. In fact, this was about the same value range I saw for all the procs I used that fit into the "58% chance" class. Another proc I tested was Entropic's +Heal. That proc I saw go off an average of maybe every third, sometimes fourth activation if I was lucky, but it felt more like I was going ten in a row, and then getting two or three back to back, then five without, and then two, and then eight without, and then another one. I used a lot of proc practice for Freeze Ray since the power breaks down into ticks. I wanted to see if it would just be one initial chance, or if it might show up repeatedly (didn't expect it to, but wanted to see if there was anything broken there worth taking advantage of, there's not). If I loaded it up with three, my odds for seeing every swing proc something were pretty high, not 100%, but high, and I'd see two go off about 50% of those odds. Something that I confirmed with this, though, is 1.) It felt like this double-proc'd a lot more when a target qualified for Scourge, and I validated this wasn't a Scourge trigger because 2.) I tested for whether the Procs would Scourge by running a ridiculous amount of swings on low-HP targets to get Scourge, and validate that it a.) proc'd, and b.) whether it doubled on the proc when the ability scourged (which it never did). So honestly, what this tells me is that yes, the Procs can do some decent stuff when the value is there, but when it comes to Scourge effects, I'm going to want that trade off of higher enhanced damage because that's what's going to be my money ticket on tougher targets. Whether the value that Mid's is reflecting is an average estimate, or what-have-you, the values I got from all of the different procs (Impeded, both Hold Procs, Entropic, Positron's) weren't necessarily stellar (imo). If three went off for a 60 point hit, that's decent, but I very rarely encountered a triple hit, and even less-so a double hit, and there were plenty of swings with no proc at all. The only real way there could be a difinitive "yes/no" which is more worth-while would be to sit in front of a Pylon and run DPS tests (and it'd have to be a lot, at least ten or more both ways). For all that procs can give, I'm not sold they'd come out on top far enough to validate how much they mess with build options, sets, and just generally-wonky slotting, if they were to come out ahead at all (there's an upside down there from beginning to end performance). Tl;DR - For me, at current for this Ice/Storm, there's no way of changing the build without massive sacrifice. Having done the testing in-game to validate the decision, overloading the build with procs in the primary ST attacks isn't going to change the performance in a substantial enough way to warrant what would be lost in order to do it. We're talking what would likely result in what would only translate as a 5-15 point potential DPS difference, if not breaking even by the time the offset of Scourge were to come into play.

Something to add to this: Whirlwind (from the Speed Pool) can be used the same way. Drop Sudden Acceleration KB>KD into the power with a couple of End Redux and you can spin around the place dropping mobs to the floor, so any MM set can get away with doing this. An important thing to remember though, by the time you get to 50 a lot more mobs will come at you with some resistance/protection against KB/KD (I'm looking at you Rikti!) which can put a real dampener on doing this.

Hmm, new boards, can't go back and edit what was imported form before it looks like, but I forgot to actually post the build: Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build! | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1531;733;1466;HEX;| |78DA65944B4F135114C7EF3CCAD0774B29E50D2D8F9642A72D2DBAD3041483D2844| |8E2B669E8509A94B62925D1A55FC10D3B138D0F50405D18DDBAF623E8C695890F40| |FD00F574FE4706D326CDEFDE73EE79FDE7CEE4EE5E731DDFB87F5548DEA54A61672| |7BF546B3476EBCD5AC3962B94CA1B8A10A27BB5502D6E162A158D3683E707F2B70B| |D59251D457368CFC22C536472DD7E2EEE6A6BE4EABEDFCFAEEF676AD5AAE96FC2BD| |52DA361549BFABF857BAD56ABE8CBE5D25693FC5E73B76A148A466367AB5C7798FB| |F5BA61149D3858699F1CBA5E2F6FE856A95C81EAE7A8BCD1B8D74F0DC6E99F9405F| |F5A3611538548AB429E644641F5B1001F815D0FC1AFD2792C4D0B5B9AF2C1DC52A4| |29C477CD80C969E665D9640FA9A4488857C2ED78BB90C966E39C36CE99A1E31AF7A| |8BD514C5BF76BE621E838621E83AE57E037CA6F470DC51E944C9B27441CD1C4E0A9| |62D68C5E21B7A6882CD571A28EEC7C8F5E5D6F41CF3B30408DB8B917F713CCE17B0| |60E3F0727F7C1F853307D007EA7B25E9ECDFB51366B2F10FC9CCFBF8F1A3D07CC17| |60EF4BE621D87704FEA07C01CE1708432B85FA0B625E5B30090DFA52E0689A390F8| |63360220BAA141BE2D890035AF53B992E70D80D8E7AC0B4B74D4D44287600B1D2C0| |2C9EE520D349BE21F4290D7D8616894FB2196727DF08E2E4912072856FA19FA44F3| |2E3DBD7650CF1EAD825E8363E8F3CE31966160C2F8027141A615D235F906FE20F7C| |1367CCDFFCBC7E313F1003AA38A5D829AE3795866F3A85BAD309DEEB603409FA698| |E18E6506341F43DD3CBE4396602D02CDE8339EBD4D62CEB3DCB7ACFB1DE73ACF71C| |EB9DF84F6F55B4C7D7F9D9EBACB3E81322C5B614DFF561F5C23BDAA29F887758521| |D96748725D361C97658562C4B6BB5C3BBA69E7F1984645AEC3E7AFFF9FC4F0779F9| |5B204DE02E9F5A36590A2BA666BE3BD02E7A9318D5C4C9C5B818E2CE2C9B243DE07| |7710FF7AD5DB8B51CA23517DE0B58EBFD88B556DB6790A4F517B0D3F0FD| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Chronicle Update #3 Spent way too much time toying around with a Dual/Cold Corr build. Was something to take my attention off of Ice/Storm knowing I'd be able to look back at it with a shifted mindset and maybe look at it a bit differently. My Dual/Cold's approach is shifted more towards Resistance, more powers in that secondary don't really get any kind of sets to work with, and a lot of the attacks in the primary are AoE so it kind of sucks trying to cram things in. Anyway, packed some levels out on the streets doing a few different mob types (CoT, Carnies, Arachnos) and I realized I don't have any +Perception anywhere. Bit niche, but I kind of hate not having access to it. I also noticed that despite having it, I'm not really using Snow Storm at all. I expected to rarely use Hurricane, but the speed at which the Rains help drop mobs, Snow Storm just kind of felt like a waste of time. The only time I did use it was on an AV in a Bank Mission, and then still only because the "Tank" planted and I wanted to slow it down long enough to keep it within the rain patches. The AV itself ended up only lasting >30/s anyway under duress of two FR patches, two LR, and two Tornados (there were two of us running Storm :D). Also thinking about revisiting some slots towards Hurricane. I messed around with KB>KD in Whirlwind on a Kinetics trialing turning the toggle into a lighter soft-control and it might be worth the graphics mess when in conjunction with the <30% To Hit debuff. Right now I have almost nothing slotted aside from accuracy and a ton of procs... Scratch that, I just flipped the build upside down and did something stupid with it. So I removed Snow Storm, moved a slot from Steamy, Frost Breath, Blizzard, and two from Ice Storm. Given that I never accounted for Hover before, and moving those few slots around, I managed to squeeze in a tad more recharge and... Drum roll! 46% S/L, 53.9% E, 40.5% Ng, and 44.9% Ranged Defense. Lost some resists in the process, and 5% AoE (and thus some F/C) in the exchange, but between T2 purples and/or Hurricane, there's plenty of ways to get those few holes covered in emergencies. I also shaved down end cost across several powers because of the swaps I made, and even added Tactics into the mix now without adding more stress on to the build. I also did the math on endurance usage. If I were to consistently reapply FR, Tornado, and LS, the build goes dry under a ST chain within 30/s. As much as I want the DDR, I have to weigh that against how much time I want to spend either chugging blues, or chugging break frees. Go Core Ageless, or get Clarion. The MSR I joined tonight, I got stunned for a full 30/s through three different applications of Increase Density and a Clear Mind. Super frustrating and I so desperately wanted to just wipe out the problem with a single Clarion. Maybe I'll take both, situationally. Either way, big changes in the build from tonights play experience.

I'd be willing to bet that, if the live data could've been mined, the amount of players who actually took the AoE T8 holds would be a very low percentage of the overall Controllers created and having reached level 26. They were useless back when we only had SO's, and they're an even more regrettable choice in an IO world where earlier controls like Stuns can be reduced into "perma" status. Heck, Dark Control is the newest of the batch and even that set has two crowd controls that can be brought down to sub-45/s times. Granted the Fear can be temporarily broken, but in the realm of stopping two 16-mob groups, that set kind of has a power-house thing going on. I've shut-down and whittled away a room full of 32+ Council with that set just by cycling between a PBAoE stun, and a Fear cone that I was able to tag nearly the entire space while Haunts, Umbra, an Energy Font, and a Turantula went to town. There's not a counter-argument in the world that would convince me that having an AoE hold on a sub-45/s recharge, in that scenario, would've made me "too powerful." I had access to the T8 Hold, it's in my build because I literally had no other choice to pick, and I still didn't even consider dropping it even once, it's just that useless (to me).

I use it for damage. Does that mean slotting a PBAOE damage set is best? Hot Feet doesn't need Recharge, while most PBAoE sets bring recharge. I think it's best to Frankenslot it, say 2x Acc/Dam/End, 1 Acc/Dam, 1 Dam/End as a start. Then the last 1-2 slots for whatever you need, possibly including Fury of the Gladiator's -Res IO. The PPM calculator says that the last one should net about 3.4% -Res on the average, and getting a 3% damage increase for one slot is worth it. Although the thread linked above suggests that PPMs in toggles aren't working as listed. Generally speaking, procs have never really done much of anything in toggle powers because they often either lack a continual "activation" trigger beyond initial start, or their equation for actually procing while in an active power ends up giving you its true ratio, which is often very low. Given that, the advice to mule or focus on frankenslotting is pretty much the right direction. If OP is in need of the Obliteration set bonuses, then the way they have it right now is fine (End IO and all, just don't bother slotting the proc from the set). For me personally, out of well over 2,000 hours on a Fire Controller, Hot Feet is a cruel mistress. I only take it as a situationally convenient power (tons of buffs, or tight spaces that I'm forced to be in Melee anyway) with just two End Redux in it. The slows/panic-run help keep enemies occupied, and the damage becomes a plus, but I don't consider it an integral part of my build with most Secondaries. Thinking of ones that get more benefit, Time and Kin are probably the immediate two I can think of that have a reason to run the power. Stacked slows on one, and +Dam on the other.

26/s at near Perma-Hasten, but the plan is taking Ageless for the DDR, which shores up the minor gap I'm carrying. At that point, additional recharge (for me) isn't really adding much value so putting a slot just for the FF +Rech would only happen if I really don't find a better option for them, which is unlikely. The cost is kind of a non-issue for me. I already have the funds to build the toon in-full. My earlier mentions of "selling off converters" and not wanting to "invest" in the Winter Proc were mostly just me being 1.) Lazy (not wanting to transfer funds), and 2.) Frugal (no sense in buying an enhancement I'm figuring probably wont end up working). My build is actually posted a bit earlier up, on the previous page now I think, along with my conversation with Obitus about some of the choices, but I'll touch on them again here for brevity: My build has already hit 45% S/L and E defense. These three types carry the majority of the damage done in the game (Lethal primarily, smashing less, energy less-so). Having these capped covers me for a far wider margin of the game. My consideration at attempting to toss in some specific Ranged bonuses was just a thought of humor at the fact of whether it could be done without altering much. I don't feel it needs to happen, it's mostly just a "could I" curiosity. Incidentally the answer ended up being "no" after I messed with things. I still retain the ability to softcap to everything with a T1 Purple Inspiration though, so there's that. Amusingly enough I realized after moving two slots that I never did have Hover turned on, so there's another free-floating 3% I never accounted for.

Storm Chronicles: Entry 2 I've hit 38 and picked up Lightning Storm and Tornado now, so I have everything out of Storm I need to start testing and experimenting with slotting. I took a handful of my V-Merits and cashed out some Converters so I could buy every conceivable proc I could excluding the ones that require me to be 50 (also skipped the Winter proc since its a 20 mill investment). Trying to remember all of them off the top of my head: FF +Rech, Entropic +Heal, Explosive +Dam, Posi +Dam, Both -Res procs, and some lowball bids for Impeded Swiftness and Clouded Senses (so didn't have them there, but also didn't want to drop the 4mill a piece on those in the event that what I do have doesn't pan out). Grabbed a pile of T2 Purples and greens, a power analyzer, and started knocking on Pylons. Ice Storm with Posi and -Res: Positron's proc never went off in the combat logs, not even once over about 10ish drops (wasn't accurately counting, just watching the log). Annhiliation went off twice, but only as a blip. They lasted a whole of literally one second, and had I not been watching the Pylon's window next to the logs, I probably would've missed it. This seemed strange to me considering those debuffs are supposed to last 10/s. Lightning Storm: Given the variety of procs that can be dropped into this, tried a few to see what impacts it would have. Entropic only triggered on drop. Kind of expected this, but still wanted to try it out. FF +Rech went off also every time I dropped LS, but I'm not really convinced that the 5/s of +100% every 30/s is worth it compared to the success of damage procs in the power. Dropped a damage proc in and the initial hit was always a proc, but I did notice some follow ups that didn't, but it appeared pretty regularly. Tornado: Less options here, but I primarily wanted to know the regularity Achilles would pop up. I'd say it was somewhere between 2/3 to 1/2 the time. As things stand at the moment, I know I'm at least in a position to shift around a few slots now that I know that putting anything proc-based in Ice Storm is pointless, and I'm scratching Blizzard off that expectation list as well which opens up another potential change up. Not dumping the powers, but I'm either moving their sets around, or just reducing them and seeing what other bonuses I can pull together. Curious if I could find a spot to putt another 7-13% Ranged defense and have that softcapped on top of S/L/E still.

Side tangent about the TF focused on Lord Recluse and the Pylons, I know there were a few solo attempts documented back on Live (sic: attempts), but I believe the only method I'd for-sure say is viable would be an Illusion Controller with Cold, Rad, or what-have-you debuff secondary in combination with Incarnate Lore pets. Phantom Army to occupy Recluse, and the Lore pets to shred the four Pylons. I believe they should be able to clear 3, if not all 4 within 5 minutes. If I recall correctly, don't there end up being repair goons at some point too? Probably going to need a way to burst off AoE… Judgement would probably be enough there though I bet. For a Scrapper to pull that off while getting pummeled, I'd wager it'd have to be a high-spec Bio Armor or Regen to compensate the buffs Recluse would be getting by having a high regen rate behind a ton of resists/defenses. Once the pylons are down though... He's kind of a push over. I do have another */Regen character planned, maybe once they're 50 I'll see. I know my Regen build can hold up to Titan Cole, and I don't think Recluse (buffed) out puts as much power as Titan Cole does in his one AoE (10% HP per second). I'd just have to make sure I have a strong enough DPS to take those pylons down in a hurry, and then him.

While Transference is a great tool, you wont always have something immediately available to pop it off on, and just being more end-minded in general isn't a bad thing. There's also the fact that with Kinetics, nearly all the powers in the set require almost no slots, so I definitely have the surplus to do whatever with. For me, I'm kind of all over the place playing Kin. This go around is with Robotics/Kin MM, a totally different direction than when I did it the first time on Kin/Elec Defender. I'm spending a lot more time at range because of the bots. I could drag them into melee, but that's not always really wanted, or necessary. Even as a melee-centric sapper defender I slotted the extra range enhancement. There's just some situations where needing to fire off the power at a distance was/is just nice to do, and since Fulcrum Siphons the enemies and boosts around the source(s), and you at the same time, you can spread damage bonuses in unique ways. A balanced defensive kin doesn't have to live (or die) in melee, and as a MM, I don't have much personal reason to be there.

So I felt like chronicling some of this journey with Ice/Storm to see if or when my expectations shift as the character develops. I do technically have some experience with Storm, but it was on a Nin/Storm MM that I got to 32 way back in like 2009 and PL'd the remainder just to get him to 50 and didn't really touch it after that. Given that, my biggest drive at the moment is trying to get back into those last few powers and really get some field work with them. Another big thing that's driving my choice of an Ice/Storm is something I can carry on to MSR's for pets and patches to build V-Merits. Three patch AoE's and two active mindless AoE pets will grant a ton of coverage in that tiny fishbowl. I built up to 16 with two patches and Frost Breath to hit my first MSR to trial what kind of Merit building I could do for a team. Spiked up to 26. Since the team averages merits as a whole, I asked a few party members to keep track where they were, and even with the raid itself feeling a bitt slow on Rikti traffic, the team averaged 1,200, so gives me kind of a base line as I know an AoE light squad will struggle to get 1,000, and as I get more active recharge in the powers themselves, I'll have a pretty good idea whether this is going to get me closer to a consistent (and hopeful) goal of 1,600+. Now that I have Ice Storm I'm going to go out and drops some procs in it, see what sticks and what kind of information I can get back from that power. Just need to find something I can toss a power analyzer on that wont kill me :3

Do two DFB's with 2XP on and you leave the sewers at 12, so who has time to slot at 10? Do a third and get to 15, and then a DiB or two and suddenly you're 20. Heck, might as well trek over to the RWZ and get those sweet Raid Expees and be 35 in a heartbeat. Heck, since you're there, stick around and start collecting V-Merits now and be 50 in a couple of days with 5,000 V-Merits, turn those into regular merits, cash those in for converters and suddenly you have 200 million Influence and... I guess the cost of those Super Packs don't matter any more?

2 Acc, 1 End, 1 Range (optional). Kinetics has so much recharge typically going on that global will be more than anyone needs. I have it at 8/s I think? 8-10 for sure, and that's typically damage capping most ATs on a full mob.

If I had the extra slot, I'd've probably considered doing the KB/KD in Lightning Storm, but I'm willing to trial it without given how tight slots got. So far I've trialed the FF +Rech on other toons in areas that it was supposed to be "significant," and been underwhelmed. At the moment those short 5/s bursts aren't anything that will significantly improve any one thing across the build (IMO) so I'm not making massive expectations to include it unless convenient anymore. I have every intention of making this capable of ST performance, but as it stands there's going to be a gap in Bitter Ice Blast. Bolt vs. Blast, there's very little damage difference to them per second at max slotting (~4 pts), and even with Procs I don't see them being dramatically different enough to make me forgive the wrist-flinging animation of Blast (hate the animation, and the alternative isn't any better, why couldn't it just be a left palm-blast... ). As it stands Bolt > FR > Bolt > BIB will theoretically be equal to (or marginally 2-3pts better for base line pending rech variations) Blast > FR > BIB with a gap. Granted there will eventually be Ageless in there, but in this build that final lull of 10/s wont be enough to shave the .3 down enough to make Blast a better option for me. If I use Mid's as my basic estimator (plugging the set with and without the proc into each power), it's only a 5pt difference. In-Game maybe this reflects as a different potential but... yeah that seems inconsequential to me. Easy swap of the sets though considering, so not a big deal. :) Freezing Rain and Sleet are identical powers, and I'm going to go out on a limb as assume the Devs just cloned one for the other. Given such, a friend and I did some excessive testing on procs in Sleet trying to see if/how/what would happen with that power given how many procs it can take. We plugged everything into it that we could (KD, -Res, Dam), nothing came back consistent. In the end we both decided that the best that power was ever going to serve in the current environment is its base values. Yes I planned a few specific procs in Ice Storm and Blizzard in hopes that the primary blast version of those powers would behave differently, and my intention was/is to try and get those both tested myself to see whether there is a difference. I had actually forgotten about Intuition having a Damage boosting component, so definitely swapped that. Ranged and AoE only represent 30% of the positional damage in the game. Lethal and Smashing represent ~75% of all typed defense, and Energy another ~5%. Of all Incarnate content (where this is most prevalent), nearly all Ranged damage is Energy typed, so having S/L/E at 45% covers 80% of my incoming damage concerns, and gives me an easy pad to eat a t2 purple and get to 59% for Incarnate content. As for the Defender side of that, despite having intentions to be ST capable, I'm likely never to actually solo any content unless for an intentional challenge, so there's absolutely nothing in it for me on going Defender. Although for those wanting earlier access to Storm, or with intention to Solo, it makes sense, but I want my Rains more than I want my Storms :)

Got pointed this direction from the Pylon thread, and given the idea of sharing the build since it takes a different direction of certain aspects of play style, I figured posting it here was more relevant. Edit: Wanted to add a mention that the build has Mystic Flight in there under the pretense of sliding Rune of Protection into the build. But I'm rather on the fence about whether I'd personally end up relying on it or not. A two minute down time (to me) translates that I'd likely learn to live without it at all, as I tend to dislike "panic buttons" and would rather have a more diverse plan of action before I'd need to panic in the first place. Likely going to just swap it out for the real flight pool and slide in another LotG 7.5%, possibly restructure one of the other defense powers to drop one for the inclusion of Afterburner (maybe... I'd be left with some kind of throw-away power, maybe even consider tossing Tactics in during teaming). | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1527;716;1432;HEX;| |78DA6594DB4E13511486F7B4534BA1D89602E58C2D94B6B44C3B807A69028A41684| |224F1B699B4436952DA6628895EFA086A222FE0A128A026A878E97B78E315F1C449| |4DF4AA2EE65F76483A49F3EDF9F75E7BADF577EF49DFBDEEDEBD79FF9A903CB3456| |D7D3D335B368C8D4AB56C38D25ABE90B50B215A16B5526E452B169DF4D2D75890B9| |AD95F27A4E99CFEA99198AAD0E5953331B2B2BCA328DD632CB1B6B6BE552A194F7C| |D975675432F5595FF83F6A572B9A8CC15F2AB559A6F35DF962BBA9E73635836B2BA| |71CF63BE2CEA5A4E37D6570B95FE1B954256B172A5352A204DF9696D0F5518A35FD| |226F8A93B4444164295852DCA1C0565C50EC6C10B09F0406AC452BBC2D454DA0F72| |5D96C2884F8E3163CC3D5EBB0F7EA1003BEF630F429BA47D1C5C97E3890D799F82D| |E67E0C07370B406AA5BE014C1C9B1CE37A8B5E535731B6CDD61EE82EE57E057AAC5| |2521D6D525995ADFD1D99C4B440EC18949AC9D483255E8D394B78DF3B65D452DEE2| |BE0C529E634387E9979803D6C54703B7BD0CE5E7EA3F41ED63C7161E6380BF3710E| |5F0D7E766C315F809D2F99DB60F70EF89DF6F3F37E7EF6D94E79BBD0AFDCF50BB57| |4FF0687FE30FF82C1002D1CA4734031018E09B0473D9D4C2F38E007877C6088627A| |1123F59ABDB4883EEEE95158887EAEABFF137C7940DA206B83A3A8F5CCD261EE7D7| |80F3D5D7ACB7CC77C0F06F7991FC043CA1DE2D8D067F433F213B9468E99A77C9E4E| |981F897E591C516C98CF7458C5DC588A39C154C04812F451BF51F46B8F9A1EB944E| |C14E724C6E729B6803A2A8438FB19673F13EC6782FD4CB09F2AFBD941FB2B88114A| |103E3EA62253EC592A8E9C03F2B93B5AA7478C3729A926456D52A69A94E92665DE5| |2EA8B4DB34B72E3CB20245371791BF7BEFEA39566B91F6904FFF791A5D9A420BCF2| |DE41FF915B44FA5E1D9E8F8B22EED8D224E921DFB34D70812E808AB9FA5C80C69C7| |FD36F8D6B216BFC0FDC13F6D5| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

I think too many people are forgetting that certain sets like SR and Shield are getting pretty decent DDR, which is something you cannot build for on a Resist based toon. There are enough enemy groups out there that cause defense debuffs, and they will SHRED your unprotected defense within just one successful hit. The rule of thumb to me, whenever I power-crunch/mix-max/OP/whatever-you-want-to-call-it a build is "Make the set do what it was designed to do, to 100%, and then break it." Cap the primary form of protection, pack in the Recharge to maximize attack performance, add in the alternative form of protection in whatever means possible while not lessening the first two stages, look for any opportunities to sprinkle in additional damage, and then at the very end make sure I didn't do anything stupid. This game inherently weights Defense far greater than anything else. I worked with another number-cruncher back on Live with an algorithm designed to test structured survivability based on the metrics laid out in the game mechanics. It played against the odds of getting hit, damage type, damage positional, raw value of the damage, time to kill a player, and how much ramp was required to get there. The method was designed to brute-force kill a player until they were definitively dead, and a character with defense as a primary form of protection would always initially score better than a resist-only character, but in both cases the numbers would never be that high. It was only until layering the two would significant values turn out. The highest scores always came from Resist based builds that maximized Defense based solutions. If I could get a Resist based toon to their cap, and then apply at least 45% S/L defense, and then balance Melee to meet that same value, they would come out at the top of the ranking capacity every single time. The better that resist set could heal, and the better its more exotic protections were, the better it would turn out there as well. Typically Dark Armor was the best. Electric Armor has a lot of decent versatility that it comes close, but still lacks capacity on some of its resist values comparatively. Shield can get a lot of reasonable value depending on how much a player can pack into S/L, but Ranged and AoE damage positions have a much smaller contribution overall in the game, so sets with more resist coverage can balance, or potentially still exceed such a comp. Absorb mechanics weren't a thing back then either, and those would really mess with the scheme of things because they're kind of like soft-resistances, or free hits, maybe pseudo-defense, and something like that as in Bio Armor would make that a pretty strong beast, plus it plays into packing some added regen. I still believe Dark Armor is the king of armor sets due to its aggro-management utilities, but Bio Armor is probably right there with it for its alternative offensive solutions. Incidentally, which is somewhat amusing in contrast to this whole argument, is the fact that the one set that has the most explosive capacity in this game is Regeneration. Getting defense caps is one thing, spiking those defense caps is another, getting sustainable, or consistent forms of Resistance in with them is even better. Kind of makes me think of the line from the A-Team movie (remake): "Give me a minute, I'm good, give me an hour, I'm great, give me six months? I'm unbeatable." "Give me resistance, I'm good, give me defense, I'm great, give me Instant Healing? I'm unbeatable." So for what it's worth, the math has in fact been done, and defense is king in this game, but in a mixed-reality, a strong resistance set will consistently out-perform it when it too packs in certain equivalent defensive strategies, but it is a tentative and fragile lead that can easily crumble against the wrong enemy group. So which is better is determined by whether IO sets/bonuses are in the equation. Without IO's/Bonuses: Defense Armors, with IO's/Bonuses: Resistance Armors, with Incarnate abilities/IO's/Bonuses: Regeneration.

It's crazy how different a single concept can become between how two players build and play them. Looked at your build just to see because I've been planning an Ice/Storm myself and was curious as to how close your experience would relate to what I was anticipating. Pool Powers create a completely different paradigm between your build and mine; it'll be interesting to see what mine ends up being capable of in testing once I can get it completed (rolled and to 50, or whenever the Test Server comes back online).

Things are far less difficult than some might anticipate. I will say that, unless it is incredibly convenient, trying to get a Resistance based set to include a soft-cap defense to Energy while also chasing a primary S/L, isn't wholly realistic in 98% of cases. Given that, there's some important information to remember when trying to maximize survivability: Of the damage types overall in the game roughly 60% is Lethal, 15% Smashing, 5% Energy, and the rest broken down into Negative, Fire, Cold, Psionic, and lastly Toxic (in that order). I might be off on those by a couple +/- 1 or 2%, but that's what the basic breakdown used to be. From a positional standpoint its 70% Melee, 20% Ranged, 10% AoE. This is why S/L is directly tied to Melee when working with global bonuses (or so I'll choose to believe cause it makes the most logical design call). Considering that, S/L and Melee are the best categories to tie to 45%, and they kinda of just cause each other to get there equally if you balance your choices correctly. Now this build chunk requires running Ageless Radial (for the DDR, but also the static extra 10% and initial recharge boost). It'll carry the build to Perma Hasten due to needing a 9/s shave off. The chain Cremate > Incinerate > GFS is otherwise gap-less regardless of Ageless, so long as Hasten is up. 45.6 S/L 45.3 Melee Defense 74 S/L, 75 F/C/E, 44.4 N, 45.8 Psi Resists A little better end management (regardless of Ageless), and better slotting on the three primary attacks. Oh, and Ball Lightning. I also took out Power Sink since it's kind of unnecessary and Electric Armor lacks a +Perception ability. I swapped for Tactics for scenarios where it'd be useful over a "dead" power. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1547;728;1456;HEX;| |78DA65945B4F135110C7CFB65B4A4B0BADE57EAB2DB75264A582FA688C805168526| |DE29BA94B39C2C65A9A6D4DF4D1444DD41745137DF0FAE88B1FC4EB9730C60B05C4| |0B1A2F38BBFFA134E9A6CD6FF63F3367E6CCD9DDE4C549DFF3A3970F09A5F1484E2| |F1633E9ACA9170AD27425F505232BE8AA4F178C7CC934B26EBAE9DCF667923227A5| |366D48F312EC70C53529CFCA7C516A533999B5123387CDF34B66F0587E519A325FD| |2B60D5F6A6929A7CD4A9D0A2C78ED9B7441CA79BF6D4E1B0B8B2572346D47CD4BB3| |B86814DAA60A46564B97F4DC39AB8D0B99A45E2C5117EDD4DE08FDAF587DDAD7964| |3BC700A915085EF1538F8125CF1935BB1635CE21B34EF77E60FCED904FB7F82C3BF| |C0AB6E4EA55CE52D34C71BE66BB02EEEB0D9180323236099EA3AB9AEF33734F50FF| |32F58F78F73B7C03E8135AF515D17EA2A2E6BA3098F187E8698555AD78D759D6EEE| |37C0FD37F3FE22BCBF358AF52056F1B0AF9F7DAD54A3817D0D2D8A5D233043BE1EE| |A837C7ED4177E0FEAAE93D08478D1B40F6B5CA7B820CF27F840B5B55D0F998FC0E6| |C760EB13B0FF29F885D60BF17C421FB8A78F60FB27B0FB339FE50A182F830AD56D4| |15D674B8A105545EF0970E824389C069D14DB863A6A1BCFAB9D67D1C7B388F3FC12| |5620ED5FA59C0ECEE9B067A38ACE666600EC0E81BD41F006E574F12CBACE608F433| |A730E8C67C1C43C538241CAED413D470FD7EB6DC4998C7AC19B1413E6F5C37791B7| |FB16F33673198CDC0107F9D989526E94CF3ACA5A1F3344BE013ED78188B0F3DED13| |8627CFEB14E689B3EBC73D64C460EE299D8738039CE9C0047F783EF691D8DCF49FB| |0A6DEF06738DB90E6ED0F330C67D8C8DA266B75A79BFE9479708AB95B7792B5EE31| |DAB511235CA788D3251A3CCD62829B5F225108AAD94BDA470BF0AF7BBB6A3399453| |38C7FAE3C4216204CFD86A755E0C79EB3B9AA2DCE3192E839E80B0BE0AF68E535EB| |B23DB3E5D65EB55F65C953D13A225D8BE5F65FF07B7E60906| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

The rule of thumb is: Play what you find fun, ignore the rest. I've rolled Ninjitsu back on Live, it acts an awful lot like Super Reflexes for the most part, and the Reactive Defense Scale Resist IO makes it even more-so the case. Both with SR and with Ninjitsu, I didn't focus on any form of intentional resistances, but in both it is possible to rack up a pretty decent supply of passive S/L resists, and then have a moderately slotted Tough to double it when needed. In my play experience though, if something was going to roll the hit-lottery in a way that was going to kill me, it was likely not going to matter if I had more resists to fallback on. I spent hundreds of hours on an SR toon (KM/SR Scrapper actually) who was iCapped at 59% to the three positionals, and I ran around with Aid Self (while leveling) and then Rebirth +Regen Destiny (once Incarnate Level). The average odds that I ever suffered a significant issue was either cascading defense failure (something managing to ridiculously debuff you in a fast hurry, which is rare), or one massively succesful major hit that brings you down to near-death (because the game prevents one-shot), and then a follow up measely aoe or little attack that gets a lucky roll right after (also rare). When people are talking about combining the two, yes, this greatly increases the odds of staying alive, but one thing primarily-defensive sets usually have that resist sets do not, is Debuff Resistance. A lot of enemy groups in the game have this in some fashion, and if (sic: when) those start stacking, those Resist based toons quickly loose every ounce of that defense they bartered for, and now gamble on just their resists shields (and are thus taking a lot more successive damage). If you're truly concerned, but want to play a defensive based toon, then I'd suggest you roll a Shield based toon. You can still focus on the primary aspect of positional defense, but between inherent powers, and global bonuses, you can get 60% S/L resists packed into it and it kind of becomes a nice best-of-both scenario. Get a little Debuff Resist, Defense, and actual Resistances, a nice +Dam toggle, and a fun AoE.