Galaxy Brain

I agree with @Leogunner, I see Regen nowadays as more like supernatural regeneration like some monster that instantly regrow a limb or like, the terminator where bits get blasted off but then the metal reforms in an instant. Willpower is much more in line with a passive "healing factor" than what Regen is

Update: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W6KAQFJwSP44hd1MHJiPPYCw4yFetHvTomfbMQR3z2M/edit#gid=879927984 I have ran Elec, Fire, Ice, Katana and War Mace. Their rankings are updated in the sheet as well. I have noticed that I got much,m much different times on War Mace than @Hopeling, @TheAdjustorand @Lord_Cyclone91... so I have also included consolidated rankings per player to compare their own times given their own play-styles as well as vs the consolidated averages. For WM, did you guys try and group up 2-3 mobs as you go and slam them with Crowd Control / Shatter? They guarantee knockdowns which lets you keep smashing safely, and in a big group Whirling Mace is sure to stun some of the minions / etc. Shatter especially stands out as it is a straight-up better version of Head Splitter, Cleave and Golden Dragonfly. Those all hit in a 20* Arc at a 10 ft range, while Shatter hits in a 45* Arc and 8ft range. The extra 2 feet is not missed when you can much more easily hit 2-3 targets or more per swing vs the others. Vs a single target... well WM is WM still lol. Katana is just straight up a better Broadsword. Like they have the exact same mechanics but Katana is just faster in every way without any downside outside of not being able to use /Shield. Fire Melee's Fire Breath suffers a similar problem to the Shatter vs other cones issue, especially vs Frost, but it at least has real range to it and does very heavy damage. Fire melee overall had to stop frequently to recover some HP before the next mob and even kite some bosses for safety, which is a shame compared to other sets which can deal great damage + mitigate threats. Ice Melee is invincible or so it feels lol. I could herd multiple bosses and the EB together onto ice patch and the cold debuffs kept me safe while they kept slipping. Surprisingly great AoE too, a very very fun set. I will note though that the "Greater Swords" of both Ice and Fire melee are totally outclassed by Icy Grasp / Cremate respectively. Both deal super high DoT damage in 1/3rd the animation time for one, they also recharge faster and are pure Cold/Fire damage. Possible points of interest for tweaks? Elec has massive performance swings based on minion count. It has very big stop gaps when it comes to multiple bosses unless the planets align for knockdown on Thunder strike / Lightning Rod / etc. Lightning Clap even when used well ruins your offense potential due to scattering mobs you want to keep tight for your Melee AoEs. I only managed 5 runs of mace today, but I can add another 5 into the mix, but I think the average won't change much. SO far, we are still seeing a pattern of AoE & in-set mitigation mattering a lot!

Hello everyone! I'm making a separate thread from the Scrapper Melee Testing to highlight the resistances that enemies carry throughout the game. Often we tote how X damage type is super resisted, or Y damage type is great until end game, but I don't think there is any easy to use listing of how those types perform in practice based on not only the resist amounts, but on the odds of encountering them. This sheet covers 61 different enemy groups as collected by a user on Discord. However, it appears that this only covers enemy factions up until about Crimorera as it does not have data on Going Rogue and beyond. If anyone has access to the data on them, I can add them to the sheet to get more accurate representation! The document is broken down as such: Totals - Shows the culmination of all the data Group Averages - Averaged resists per enemy faction All Minions - All minion rank enemies per faction, averaged Minions 1-20, 20-40, 40+ - All minions within the respective ranges All LT - All lieutenant rank enemies per faction, averaged LT 1-20, 20-40, 40+ - All lieutenants within the respective ranges All Boss - All boss rank enemies per faction, averaged Boss 1-20, 20-40, 40+ - All bosses within the respective ranges I use Averages due to each enemy faction not being comprised of a single enemy type. Sure, that Council mission may have a Robot that laughs at Lethal or Psy damage, but for every bot there are probably 5 normal dudes who don't resist it at all. So in that example, an enemy group with 25% lethal resist on one type of unit, and 0% resist on an other would average out to 12.5% resist if you were to just run through a bunch at random. Probably even less than that if there are say, 3 non-resistant enemies for every resistant one! To factor the spread of different units across factions, I sorted the following data: This covers the raw, average resistance value as well as the odds of running into an enemy with said resistances, either positive or negative (for the enemy), and then factors those together for an "Adjusted Average". Putting everything together, sorted by the Highest to Lowest "ADJ Resist" we have the above ranking. Toxic is the most resisted overall throughout the game and has no enemies weak to it (in my sample of 61 groups), while Negative is the least resisted with the highest amount of enemies that are specifically weak to it. Smashing damage is the most likely to be resisted, and Fire is least likely. Further breakdowns per enemy rank, and level range can be seen in the doc. Its my hope this can be used as a tool for players looking into different attack sets and their effectiveness across various areas of game play. I am also looking for feedback on how to best sort /categorize the factions / add factions to better show the true "encounter rate" for many enemy types. For example, Rularuu has a decent presence here, but are they *really* commonly fought? I look forward to everyone's feedback! Link to Resistance Sheet Thank you, @Galaxy Brain

Ah, very good point... Maybe offer it at character creation before you enter the game / disable the alignment option unless you are in a neutral zone?

Hm, what if the Build-Up in the set were changed to "Overclock"? EM is unique in that it has Energy Transfer, which iirc is the only attack that costs HP to use. Why not add that as a toggle where you get Build-Up boosts and +Rech, but at the cost of draining HP per attack? (Just throwing stuff at the wall here)

Sure, but Full Auto cone is still booty

It looks cool on claws at least cus it feels very... *checks new user agreement* ... Canadian Mutant Origin-ish, on top of doing a ton of damage for that style of move. I do agree that the animation in particular could use a look as it is a detriment to many sets.

Kind of a silly request, but would it be possible to have a /command to bring up the Null's menu?

I dont mean to make it into an AoE set, but like having some method to do another AoE would be nice. Like if you kill an enemy with ET they explode or something for AoE 🙂

Hard agree. In our scrapper thread, there is a substantial difference in safety with Claws vs say, Axe thanks to one have guaranteed knocks vs not. I have posted a thread on this prior, but I do think that knockback actually should be buffed. TL,DR: Knockback is a superhero trope that unfortunately gets a raw deal in CoH. Knockdown and Knockup are often better due to the interactions with other team mates and even your own powers unless you can skillfully manipulate the map and position. That latter part is not reliable in the least for many factors. In superhero media you often see the baddies defeated asap once they are knocked away, or they take a good minute to get back up, or impacting a wall / other guy adds to the pain. Making Knockback powers have bonus damage or a longer "get up" / short stun when knocked based on knockback mag would be nice!

Ehhhhhhh, I'd rather AoE be put in while still having great ST. Even at the lowest difficulty, you get much more mileage from AoE attacks.

At least have it match flamethrower

What could be cool is like, Granite still sorta invalidates the other toggles at face value. But, while in granite you can activate each of the other toggles one at a time (like Bio's stances) and have different Granite-Flavors with bonus effects?

Can we get a big fish? Titan Carp Melee or bust

Ah ok, I've edited it in.

@Lord_Cyclone91, did you edit in an earlier post?

Ran elec melee 5 times, did not significantly change the average, Added a "Run Count" column so we can pool mission runs for data points. Elec Melee is super binary on SO's. You just wreck minions and LTs easily, but then you are suddenly blocked by boss battles. The ST damage is very lacking, and the mitigation is not reliable. It almost feels like reverse Dark Melee, but like that set it also seems to get much better when you pair it up or boost via IO than by itself.

Took some time to go over resistances across 61 enemy factions. This is based on an older list that was shared on discord, but it should still be relevant for the game today as it covers a ton of common enemies. It does lack Praetoria and other newer enemy types though, so take it with a grain of salt. The sheet is broken down as such: Totals - Shows the culmination of all the data Group Averages - Averaged resists per enemy faction All Minions - All minion rank enemies per faction, averaged Minions 1-20, 20-40, 40+ - All minions within the respective ranges All LT - All lieutenant rank enemies per faction, averaged LT 1-20, 20-40, 40+ - All lieutenants within the respective ranges All Boss - All boss rank enemies per faction, averaged Boss 1-20, 20-40, 40+ - All bosses within the respective ranges I use Averages due to each enemy faction not being comprised of a single enemy type. Sure, that Council mission may have a Robot that laughs at lethal or psy damage, but for every bot there are probably 5 normal dudes who don't resist it at all. So in that example, an enemy group with 25% lethal resist on one type of unit, and 0% resist on an other would average out to 12.5% resist if you were to just run through a bunch at random. To factor the spread of different units across factions, I sorted the following data: This covers the raw, average resistance value as well as the odds of running into an enemy with said resistances, either positive or negative (for the enemy), and then factors those together for an "Adjusted Average". Putting everything together, sorted by the Highest to Lowest "ADJ Resist" we have the above ranking. Toxic is the most resisted overall throughout the game and has no enemies weak to it (in my sample of 61 groups), while Negative is the least resisted with the highest amount of enemies that are specifically weak to it. Smashing damage is the most likely to be resisted, and Fire is least likely. Further breakdowns per enemy rank, and level range are in the sheet below. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1arWBGWuwGCWqSrkLgnWK26xNTrILUO_QNKn8034A3L0/edit#gid=1737774505 How does this relate to our testing though? Well, as we are trying to gauge "overall, standard performance", we can compare sets to these values. For example, Fire Melee deals Fire, Smashing and Lethal damage types in various proportions. Going by the AVG resist, those would be resisted by 4.88%, 12.29% and 13.97% each... or by 0.56%, 5.24%, and 5.96% each used ADJ Resists. So, if Fire Melee has an average time to clear of 6:44, and Broadsword 6:16, if we were to just apply the ADJ resist to each for Fire/Lethal we could adjust times to 6:46 for Fire and 6:39 for Broadsword. The gap in theory closes from 27 seconds down to 7 seconds due to Lethal being much more resisted. Thoughts? @Hopeling

Honestly, given the disadvantages you would think Granite gives ++Damage and not -Damage.

trick or Y E E T

The problem with End Drain is that it's all or nothing 90% of the time, and unless you have some means of sapping an enemy / group of enemies near instantly it pales in comparison to other secondary effects. Compare it to say, Ice or Psy's -rech. As you attack, enemies are able to hit you much like they are as you take away endurance. However, each attack from Ice or Psy builds up a -rech that makes subsequent attacks more infrequent as you continue to fight which adds up to a significant advantage. In order for end drain to have a similar effect on most enemies, you would need to attack them enough to where they are essentially dead anyways by the time you would get mitigation, in which point its just worse Fire. Short Circuit can get close to one shot if you slot it for End Mod, but then it is slow and you sacrifice AoE damage in the set and still do not get your whole effect unless you pair with Power Sink / Power Boost. If you just have SC, the other elec attacks are better off being used to kill rather than drain at that point. Elec Control works because it is made to have multiple, strong -End tools that can efficiently sap blue bars and keep them down. Elec Blast/Melee however do not have that luxury outside of Short Circuit, and the melee set is far more focused on what Elec should be known for: AoE damage by chain attacks / jumping into the fray like a lightning bolt.

PvP and PvE can be separated easily now.

I think a lot of the issue lies with how cumbersome it is to mark targets with opportunity, and is then compounded by needing specific powers + having 2 versions that are mutually exclusive to one another once you are able to make a mark. Currently the inherit is split into 3 parts: Every attack you land places a -5% Resist / -2.5% Defense debuff that can stack from different Sentinels (Groovy) You have an Opportunity Meter that builds up while in combat, with some variables that determine how fast it builds. Once full / near full, you can activate either Offensive Opportunity -or- Defensive Opportunity depending on if you both select, and hit, either your T1 or T2 blast respectively. Once your target is successfully hit by either power, they are visibly marked by a large Cross-hair and sustain a hefty -20% resistance debuff for some time. (Clunky, but the marked effect is nice) As mentioned, you can activate either Offensive -or- Defensive Opportunity once the bar is full by successfully hitting either your T1 or your T2 blast respectively. Offensive grants you a bonus Damage proc of some sort on all successful attacks for a time, while Defensive grants a Heal and Endurance proc on all successful attacks. (This is just confusing as it not only sort of makes players take both the T1 and T2 attacks to get the best value, but then the separate effects are not reliable as they are attached to powers that can miss or not be recharged in the crucial moment where you may want to use a specific version!) Having a basic debuff per hit is nice, as is the ability to single out a target for a much stronger debuff and/or added effects. If possible, I would rather see this: All sentinel attacks apply a -5% res / -2.5% def debuff on successful hits. Applications from AoE attacks can stack from multiple Sentinels, while the same Sentinel can stack the effect up to (3?) times with Single Target attacks. Your Opportunity bar fills up from Single Target attacks on the same target. After (2?) hits in a row, the bar will be full and the next Single Target attack will Mark the target. Marks last for (30 sec?) and can be refreshed on the same target though they cannot stack from the same Sentinel. You can have multiple Marks on multiple targets however as your Opportunity bar resets upon Marking a target. On top of the stacked (15%/7.5% ?) debuffs on the marked target, anyone who attacks the target will enjoy a small damage, health and endurance proc as they take down the targets the Sentinel singled out! The procs could be something like 2.5% of Damage dealt / 2.5% of Max HP/End AoE attacks would have the procs divided by the number of targets hit to avoid massive heals / endurance returns AIM could be used to make the opportunity bar permanently full for 10 seconds to allow the Sentinel to go nuts marking targets, This change would retain the spirit of the inherit with how you wear down targets to make it easier for yourself and your team to take 'em down, while also making the method to mark targets much more intuitive and free-form with the 1-2-3 format that sets with combo mechanics generally use. We could even keep the rings around all ST attacks in the set when you are ready to mark a target as a queue. Needing to select a target for 3 hits in a row, or have a very brief window via a power-up to apply marks also keeps it from being too potent, though the 15% vs 25% resist debuffs would be a step down for balance. The bigger part here is the Opportunity procs that occur if you hit marked targets. I wrote it as anyone could benefit from these, but if its more feasible these could still just be on the Sentinel to enjoy. Thoughts?

Also want to note, regen is incredibly popular because it is a very basic trope. Same with invulnerability, claws, super strength, etc. This doesn't correlate with its performance as a set.

I had a thread on this a while back. Regen is a very weird set in how it has had ups and downs throughout live patches, and in general has ups and downs in play. The best things to add would be a bit of absorb, a good deal of debuff resist, and probably some sort of scaling buffs as you lose HP to help fight vs spikes. Rad Armor essentially has a better Fast Healing *and* Quick Recovery in 1 power (and so does bio sorta) while Regen needs 2 powers. Have Fast healing give a smaller flat rate of regen but then allow you to double that amount as HP depletes to become much stronger than live. Quick Recovery should either offer the same for End, or give a ton of debuff resists (you recover from ailment ... quickly lol)