InvaderStych

Anything that adds recharge is good for Savage. Scrapper Savage is a double-edged thing: On the one hand you can game ATO2 in Leap for the 90% proc rate, then get crits on Flurry with the radius boost it gets from Frenzy stacks. On the other hand DoTs are not counted in Critical Hits, so downside on that. Brute Savage had the DoTs boosted by Fury, so advantage there in terms of damage output. Stalker Savage, like most stalker primaries, improves ST performance on the set. As to secondaries? Pretty much an open field on that for Savage. I personally would avoid Stone because (unless this has been fixed) Brimstone doesn't work with Leap (Or Lightning Rod, btw). Outside that you're pretty much good on any secondary. Among the Savage Scrappers I've made Savage/Invuln was pretty interesting as it allows for putting Gaussian's in the toggle and using Blood Thirst as a reactive power eliminate the Frenzy lockout and get those 5 stacks back up again. (The damage buff on BT is 41.5%/33% depending on AT). Having Gaussian's in BT on my Brute (sav/wp) was always frustrating. Honestly, I've considered re-rolling that toon as a Tank (Invuln/Svg in that case). RF with 5 Frenzy stacks and Tanker's AoE size buffs has to positively massive in radius.

I was gonna undo it, but #$%^ it, it might as well stand.

If you absolutely must comment on changes you've not tested to a portion of the game that does not hold your interest, the very least you could have done is to read the patch notes. Emphasis from the original.

Another Civ VI update. Going after a cultural victory with French Eleanor has an interesting side effect. Each great work in a city causes -1 loyalty in a wide range (9 tiles!). I wound up assimilating the entire Aztec empire just by stacking GWs in border cities. Turned out to be a snowball effect after taking the first two as they also had huge GW collections. Pangaea map was a lucky draw on this one. Not shown to the northeast, several smaller cities I snapped up from Portugal.

Yeah. Should have been more specific. Its definitely an issue with my Mids install. Half the time those +/- icons don't show on mouse-hover, and the other half they display but do nothing. Much like Rainier Wolfcastle's Goggles. I haven't figured out a way to work it into my actual build, but this delayed damage affect means that -Res from a proc in ML is applied before damage is calculated. ML is one of a handful of powers boosted by its own FotG in a single activation. Food for thought.

I haven't really tracked discussion on this one, but is Weave supposed to be granting Toxic Defense (noting that it now seems to grant Psi def) similar to Hover (also EvM) and Combat Jumping (not pictured). Or is the omission on purpose?

/Shield is the correct pairing. Charge fleshes out AoE options and coupled with ML makes for excellent mitigation via juggling. I ran a Psi/Nin to the mid 40s, re-rolled to /SD and it immediately became my main scrapper. Besides, matching the Energy Shield colors to PM attack effects looks just epic. I'm considering making changes or an alt build for Hard Mode stuff, but the only thing I might end up changing for sure is getting one or two pieces of Hypersonic into EvM; at least the Fly protection piece. Also considering exchanging the Unbreakable proc in GPB for the +Absorb one from SupEntomb as an experiment. Ignore the boosting where it doesn't make sense to be boosted. IDK how to get mids to boost individually, so in game only pieces with an enhancement value (all of them tho) are actually boosted. I went a little bonkers with them just for kicks. 😄 | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1450;680;1360;HEX;| |78DA5D94CB6E125118C7CF3083955B9122945A5A844AB9155ADC79375AD1AA3524E| |8D2E0B44C5B12020430B10FE023188D97D685D6FA18BAF4BAD717D045D5446D7461| |C68FF9FE47C049263FCE7FBEFB3987C55BF3EE9595C269A10C9FADE9ED76B9B4DCD| |29B4DA3357445EFDC6CE935D17D86E80DCB2FE545A36618B962BBDAA857977915F9| |F771DE5831EA6D23575AAB1AB58A5C8A9162A351CB5D25DB66A3D5D13BE4EBB2A44| |2ADBABAD6715ABF4B4DC3A87858EEAAD5FAAAEF5CB3BA9C3BD3A8AC9717F576C768| |AD87A89638BDF7E2423EA65DDCD084C83B846D89A955409DE93498EE3B587BC84D9| |1CE17554B1C2980E799FB17C09364A6A922384A1E130EE12267453A2B700EC23904| |E7109C272F31B301C5E234CD5245D98AFAC16689E98FCCFBD4935DF6647FC2E29EA| |7E01673EF33709BE97CCE7C10E78DB29C878EB0E83ECA1C3E061E67EE3B019EE2F2| |3CD493033D09474658A283C2B920DA5CA835855A65432E32F220ADCD33CEE112FF1| |9BBC9C22B47E6FD84D17C66466799870E33A77F80BF992FD342F8E4C87C889C45E4| |618AEC57ACBD34853FCA857B490CC8C2037F84B56D09149CF8CE616354F8A86C791| |42D6FD010C7E410C7129CE340124C31C36930C39C5CC03029EDB88C388E74364A33| |818862C2A4476C5292081F3FD31E79C847F2E0237003DC64461F83B739898F92C4E| |42863AFB897A9D7E01BF02D46FA0E7CCF2CA97C79AC62E2E8F91A8949885A32C596| |A919663A8F23BACDC6F917B4F63B844A6D6550869AC18ECDFC0477C15F4C8D8C733| |0D672B831B3B831B31740DC983C06B7458DCEC14999DBE529E4EF723911AD7781CD| |B0D6FB2BE8AE69C49707A42CD75ED4A40F898A65B7E3ECDD65A14CB1DD970131C9E| |2D73E5151A238A23BCC6F031F51AB0DB57613993A59E465C14BFD8BEBFD8B62FF42| |047B57CBFC0BA2DCD727| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Preface: None of what is to follow is to be in any way construed as an invitation to debate; as per the rules of this forum section we are not here to debate each other. We are here to post feedback for the Devs to read and do with what they will while also posting any and all bugs that we find along the way. A specific testing scenario was requested by a player and I have performed a short test under the requested conditions. I am posting my thoughts here solely for the purposes providing feedback to the Dev Team on Typing vector changes in the requested scenario. To be clear: while I am about to quote the post in which the request was made I am in no way interested in engaging in extensive back and forth, "moved goal posts," or really any debate about my conclusions at all. The Dev Team can do with my comments what they will. 🍻 Notes: 1. I have never used Seismic Blast before this toon, and used freebies menu to start off at 30. 2. Went straight to Night Ward and used Sir Lionel's missions to make sure there would be ample debuffs and mez thrown around. 3. No P2W visit, no Pocket D visit. Only used Inspirations that dropped. 4. When I level a toon for realzies I run them through a mix of solo/team mission arcs and TFs. All my toons start on SOs only and most stay that way save for a handful of finished builds on my favorites. Those will also get IOs peppered in along the way journey to 50 as appropriate. TLDR: I am familiar with the "SO Only" game. 5. All missions were run Solo with Bosses On. Tests: Light street sweeping in NW: 1 death against double-spawn of 3lts each. Got a pop-up about a tip and thought I died, then I actually did die. As much user error as anything else. +0x1 Mission against Drudges, Cave map: Complete cakewalk. I was embarrassed for them. +0x2 Mission against Apparitions, Resistance Underground map: This was mostly a breeze. 1 death in the hostage room when I pulled multiple groups of +1s before realizing there was a boss and hostage in the room. Tangentially: As I suspected the big rooms with rail lines running through them and mobs spread out amongst very little cover are more difficult as a result of Aggro changes outside the scope of this thread. +0x3 Mission against Talons of Vengeance, Resist Underground Map with the Swimming Pool bits in big rooms: This is just about my expected breaking point for a squishy toon running SOs soloing difficult groups. ToV are no joke without significant defensive (in general, not Def the mechanic) resources. On easier groups I'd expect maybe up to x4. Took this mission slower, more pulling. 1 death in one of the dried up swimming pools, then I had to bail about halfway through due to time. I could continue this by going to +1x1, etc, but I don't think there is any real reason to and I won't have time again until next weekend anyway. Ditto for team testing. Conclusions: I don't think the change to typed vector defense checks is even relevant for a mid-range blaster running just SOs. Let's take a closer look: Any blaster in that level range who is running SOs only, if they have any defense at all, has a negligible amount of it that is of equal value to all vectors. It doesn't matter if an incoming attack that used to check Ranged, Smashing, and Fire for the highest value now only checks Ranged and Fire if all values for Ranged, Smashing, and Fire were equal in the first place. I haven't checked Hover, but even if said blaster were to cram Weave into the equation the only tag it is missing on Brainstorm is Toxic. That should probably get fixed as I did notice it has a Psi def tag now. But that's also outside the scope of this thread. The point is that there are not a lot of sources for a Level 30 Blaster Only Running SOs to get +Def, and the ones that exist are near-as-makes-no-difference-to-almost-always +Def(All). I'm sure there are a handful of outlier cases, but the overwhelming majority of L30BORSOs will have equivalent defense to all vectors, and not enough of it to really be of consequence. So, unless I am completely missing something (possible, likely even!), this change has precisely zero impact on an L30BORSO. 🍻

Youngblood Brass Band - Brooklyn

File me under "The 'Ain't Nobody Got Time For That' Meme Goes Here." Call me a snob or whatever, but I totally prefer to "Only Winning Move" that "Strange Game" of Forum PvP as much as I can. Except when I don't because I often forget my own policies before coffee or [other assorted reasons one might not be in the right headspace to post]. Heresy! 🤣 Those are reserved for people who got jokes. Good ones that elicit responses varying from a whimsical chuckle to a keyboard-endangering full-on beverage laden spit-take. But in a good way, because it was funny on purpose. 😉

That tracks with what I know of small coteries of studio execs.

Ok. Going to admit that I had no idea there was a Batgirl feature happening. Or maybe I heard about it going into production and forgot. Either way, just heard of The Shelvening yesterday. It would be interesting to hear in what ways it "tested poorly;" even NPR noted that we got Clooney-Nips Batman on the big screen - how well could that have possibly tested? Whole lot of DC/CW in this thread, really just posting to say ... The only reason I know her name is because she did a Reasonably Priced Car lap on Top Gear and Clarkson was rather ... interested ... in his guest's ... interests. Generally hilarious watching him embarrass himself, even if it is on purpose most of the time. 🤣

Wait? We're farming 👎nao? What's the going rate on the /ah for 👎? I gotta get in on this action, let's see ... .... DS9 is the best Trek and Sisko was the most interesting Captain! Am I doing it right?

Brief background: I basically "main" two of my toons these days: A Fire/Martial blaster that runs a Scorp Shield S/L/E soft-capped build and a Psi/SD scrapper which I used to test the player side of the attack type changes. My personal testing was not even remotely comprehensive. If anyone has done low-level testing, particularly in Praetoria where many people solo, or on DFB where there is a lot of Fire and Toxic at very low levels please do post your thoughts. I only ask as I am not certain I will have any more testing time between now and when the page goes live. First the blaster: (Mob attack type changes impact on players) I would like to encourage anyone who feels that their Scorp Shield build is being directly targeted by this change to actually do some comparative mission runs between Live and Brainstorm. Having done so with my blaster I can say the following about the difficulty levels (between +1 to +3 at x8 unless it's something like Shadow Shard where the mob count has to come down to survive) to which that toon is accustomed to soloing: 1. For the most part: Groups that were a snooze-fest (Council, etc) have been given a slight bump in strength that is easily countered by changing up target priorities. Fire/Cold wielding opponents in these groups seem to have the strongest bump, which makes sense given the build being run. (can post if others would like to import it to Brainstorm and give it a test) 2. Coincidentally, because high level CoT include a great deal of fire and cold wielding Demons that group sees more of a bump than other groups. This is fine. If some of the more difficult CoT mobs that don't spawn between levels 45 and 50 (Succubi for example) are added to those levels then this group could be very interesting indeed. 3. Common groups that were already "more difficult" (Malta, Carnies, etc) are seeing about the same differential as the easier groups listed in comment 1. 4. While many attacks are being changed, the overwhelming majority are still S, L, or E, with many that included Smashing now typed to Energy. SS still covers the three most common attack types. Ranged defense will go up in value as a way to cover holes and as a result of changes to Aggro also included in this page. Not a big deal. The meta changes and we adapt as required. I'd like to echo @Sovera's "gentle nudge" comments that in the grand scheme of gaming this is an infintesimally small change. Compare to the old "Rotating Meta" of Planetside 1, where it was basically a constantly rotating "This faction's unique weapon is superior to the other two this week. Next week your faction gets a turn at supremacy" approach that was a total mess. Wide swings in balance are rarely effective or well received. Changes to attack types are not a wild swing, they are a minor technical adjustment. In brief: The change can be felt, but not so much that I feel a dire need to alter my build. Altering tactics seemed to be enough for most situations. On a toon that exclusively solos I might be more inclined to rebuild, but given the mix of solo/team play in which I engage I don't think I need to alter the blaster's main build. Now, on to the Scrapper: (Player attack type changes impact on mobs) At first I thought this as well, but in PvE at this time there is negligible impact because ... ... even before we build there is very little impact to the change. Most mobs in the game have defense that is equal against (All), it is exceedingly rare outside of buffs/T9s that mobs get more or less defense depending on damage type. It is resistance where they vary. It is my understanding that the addition of tox/psi defense to player T9 powers is NOT being ported to the NPC versions of the same powers. For example: Cim EBs who drop Unstoppable are unchanged, meaning that Psi Melee still cuts through as it has in the past. Testing in Sis Valeria's arc (very early on) seemed to bear this out (unless there was a change that I've missed and not tested). Further. Psi Melee has a positional component, and going to be subject to mobs melee defense even if they lack Psi defense. But again, most of them have just base defense that is equal to all types/positions. Overwhelmingly that value is 0 anyway. Even further: Mass Levitate is all Smashing, and only has Psi damage (as a cancel on miss DoT) when Insight is up. 😉 With that in mind, this feels like the first step in making the system more robust with future changes. I cannot speak to PvP nor the impact of the player-side changes in that environment. As to why do it? This feels like a change that lays the ground-work for fleshing out the "Typed Damage" system to become more granular in the future. I'm all for it.

Hard pass on the gourd. Big fan of the curse breaker though.

Hmm. Single Mission? Got to be the DA finale - from the "Paragon Assemble!" moment through to the final showdown with Mot. That's basically one long mission. Good stuff. Does well on the "Existential Threat To Everything That Is" vibes. Favorite Arcs? The entire line of Animus Arcana contacts. (Fireball, Trilogy, Ward, etc)

What's there to like? 😉

Well, on the ... bright ... side, Miller knew how to use contrast so at least the entire frame won't be obscured in darkness if the camera/lighting/art teams follow in his footsteps. 🤣

Trailer is super derivative, yet still promising ... ... somehow ... ... in a "don't take this too seriously and it'll all be fine" sort of way. 😄

Yup. That math was done against slotting Stamina. PP is half the values of Health/Stamina, so definitely with the Perf Shifter/Power Transfer pieces in that power. You might try moving the EndMod from Stamina to SC - More Max Endo == More Recovery since it is % based, IIRC. Not sure on your slotting for Savage Leap. Showing an Acc SO in there among the other pieces?

Are these improvements carried over to the NPC versions of Unyielding and Unstoppable?

In Deflection I've got 4 pcs (D, D/E, D/R, D/E/R) Shield Wall, 1 Ribosome (End/Res), and Steadfast Res/+3%Def. Looks to be worth about 15% S/L Res over 11% without enhancing, not much but it adds up with Tough quite nicely. FWIW: in Battle Agility it's 5pcs Shield Wall (as above + Unique piece for the tiny dmg bump) and the obligatory LOTG. True Grit looks like this: Ignore the +5s on the two unique pieces in there, I can't make mids ++++ things individually. In game only the numeric pieces are boosted. Preventive: Heal and Heal/Endo ~ Gladiators: Res and Unique ~ Unbreakable: Res and Unique. The set bonuses (S/L Res, Recovery, and Endo Discount) are all useful as well. (Edit: Before anyone asks, the Preventive unique is slotted into Health) Por Que No Los Dos? Layered mitigation is generally a good way to go. That nets 247 extra HP before the Unbreakable unique is counted (according to Mids, I'd have to login to confirm the amount added in game, but I don't recall it being incorrect). I suppose that about 113 or so from slotting and 133 ish from the base power. I'd have to look but with this setup and accolades my scrapper sits north of 2K hit points in game. Probably should hear from a Stalker expert if, with lower base HP, the 2 slot investment is worth it or better used elsewhere. That said, the slotting shown is beyond ED cap for +Res and kissing it for +HP, so worth some though. In terms of the raw math comparisons? Yeah, above my pay grade. 😉

BAMF! Melee is the Best Melee. Shield Charge doesn't proc quite as well as its recharge would imply, but it can be and has been done. Spring Attack is ... not great. Once you've got the build rolling you'll find SA redundant anyway, and it doesn't proc well either. It is a fun power, so by all means go for it, just know it's sort of meh compared to Leap and Charge. Savage Leap, on the other hand, is your proc bomb. Without slotted recharge it is in the 90% sweet spot for 3.5PPM. Charge and SA shouldn't break Hide. I don't remember for sure, but I want to say that SL does not either? I've not got a finished Stalker, so unsure what should be different from my SVG/** Scrappers/Brutes, or my /SD Scrapper. The +HP in True Grit can (and maybe should?) be enhanced, and I prefer to add some enhance to +res in both that and Deflection. I'd probably start with Sup Conditioning from Bod Mastery. Extra Max endurance is a big deal. You can always get Phys Perf on top of it from that pool. Dunno if the endo discount from Savage is strong enough to compensate for /SD's heavy costs. I do know that my /SD scrapper needs all the blue she can get. 😄