BillyMailman

...Uber, have we told you enough lately that you're the best? You're the best. One suggestion, though. Where you're listing the sets, also list what kind of set they are. Ranged Damage or Tanker ATO or whatever. There's a lot of low-level sets that give potentially-useful bonuses that I never remember what they actually slot into.

Having run a Relentless DASF to get the MDC summoning power last night (111 deaths and two hours!), I've now gone looking at the enemies' stats in City of Data, and between that and actually running it, I've noticed a couple of issues. First, Gaussian's description is literally 'P2187202314'. Second, Dark Watcher has two AV resistance powers; his own, and Hero 1's.

Except they aren't quite the same as a pylon, so they can't be used for pylon time testing, at least not in a way that's comparable with existing. They're missing one important thing, which is that the pylons have the flag turned on that makes them always show as even-level. The MDC is always 54, doesn't have that flag, and thus can't be even-level, since even spawning it in Ouro/Pocket D/DA only shifts you up to 53. Is this intended, a known bug, or just something unintended that wasn't noticed before?

One more thing you're probably aware of, but that's not per se new, and is missing: Some of Seismic Blasts powers (e.g., the Build Up variant) do the thing where they affect the recharge of other powers. But CoD isn't quite displaying this right. I'm not sure which bit is responsible (the AdjustTimer flag?), but somehow that's only actually recharging those powers by an amount, not completely. The same thing is on a bunch of the attacks, too. Though, on those it's one effect group, on the BU variant it's a separate group per power.

Also, half an hour later, I am a kid in a candy store with all this info. Thanks again!

It also looks like the Hardmode powers just aren't on the pages at all. I've done every type of cache clear, and I'm still not seeing, e.g., the Brickernaut meltdown stuff on either version of the Brickernaut.

The Brickernaut's page (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=goldbrickers_au_boss_elite) doesn't show a Class Name, which is presumably also why the links to powers then don't link to the AT-specific versions correctly. ...and a quick check says it's missing from everything now. Even a simple Freakshow Buckshot (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=freakshow_shotgun_freaks) is missing the AT.

Ah, damn. I was expecting it to be purely done by making the powers on the NPCs all just require some other power, like how pools work for players, and CoD would be able to just display 'em all by default, and the added ones you'd have to look at to find out they were optional. That or a granter-power system like what, say, the final version of Maelstrom uses on the TPN to manage all his complexity between the phases. Well, at least having the default list on the entity, and the extra powers at least being findable in the powersets, should be enough that I can start really pulling apart how stuff works. Especially the bit for the Unfriendly Fire badge, since that didn't grant the first time and we just thought the explosion's damage was debuffed, but then now I'm certain they 'cheat' the friendly fire aspect, so I wanna know exactly what's happening. Also, I am looking forward to the info on, like, every single bonus boss in there, because holy crap the entire optional section of the DASF is amazing and has several bits I'm curious to see the inner workings of. 😄

Super happy to have you back, Uber! Was getting worried you weren't around at all any more. Hope everything's going well. FYI, while you were absent, we had an in-depth dev diary about knock effects, which you may have to read up and start parsing the parameters for at some point, since it sounds like we're going to be seeing more and more powers that are 'knockback' (mag above .75), but push down, so it'll be useful to have CoD display that somewhere at some point (besides the raw JSON thing, which does work already)

So, semi-related, we now have confirmation from Cobalt Arachne in the official HC Discord that: So 'All AVs' doesn't work if the SF lead can and does trigger that, since that fight's not actually needed. So maybe put the specific list of 12 in the Notes section like what's done with explore badges? Definitely will need to be the precise list.

Then yeah, probably the Notes section on that badge should either list the exact twelve, or mention the one that's required and doesn't count. My group got confused by the thirteen, and while we guessed right, we were definitely guessing as to which AV wasn't part of the badge.

Two problems with the new badges' descriptions. First, Worthy Opponent says you need to run it with "Incarnate powers disabled", but the actual requirement is the new Old School Challenge option. Second, Ripple Raider says "All 12 AVs", but I think there are more than twelve that you need to kill (five in each of the first and second, and three in the last), since the twelve is AFAICT not counting one AV in the third? section who is required for the SF anyway, just the optional ones. Maybe it should say "all 12 optional AVs"? Or maybe I'm just entirely wrong and still missing something optional? Definitely could use a full listing of who's required on the badge's own page, if possible. Also: Thanks to everyone involved for this tracker! Been using it basically since it was created, and it's fantastic.

It's happening on Billy Mailman on Excelsior, I actually reported this separately on the bug reports forum yesterday. Everything I can see, is that it's the badge progress for MoDASF.

And now, without having relogged, zoned, anything, it's changed. I looked back after chatting with folks, and it now has the hint text of the Deincarnated badge, which I've already earned.

I was in Cimerora on my main badger, idly killing Minotaurs/Cyclopses for the new badges while waiting for friends to get online. I opened the Closest to Completion menu, and saw this. That's two badges saying I needed to "Defeat 100 minotaurs in Cimerora to earn this badge.", with different progress. The second one shows '1 (25.00%) of 4 complete!". Which basically means it's Master of the Dr. Aeon Strike Force, since that's the only badge of the new ones which is out of four. Zoning didn't change it. Nor did relogging. That badge is just showing Minotaurs as the hint criteria. For the record, if it is MoDASF, I have only Power Overwhelming towards that.

Why? Incarnate stuff is so easy to earn now. iXP starts awarding instantly on hitting 50, and threads drop everywhere. Plus, Vet Levels mean anyone can have an Alpha Slot power as soon as that first ding happens for Vet 1. Was there really enough problems around these TFs that their interesting unique part needed to be removed? I was always hoping for a couple more incarnate-ish-grade TFs, not to lose these two.

You don't even need me on this one. I literally reported this as a bug months ago. Full explanation for the devs as to why it's not working, links to City of Data, etc.

A Beast Mastery MM gets the Summon Lions power, which summons two Lionesses. We're gonna ignore that the power ought to be called Summon Lionesses, and instead focus on the slotting options. Summon Lions takes defense enhancements, as well as heal, move speed, stun, etc. Any +Defense or +Heal or whatever that you slot into it, gets slotted into all the lionesses' appropriate powers, and boosts their stuff. Healing boosts Lick Wounds, stun boosts Ferocious Growl, etc. Except Defense. The lionesses have one power that has a defense buff - Lion's Roar. Lion's Roar doesn't actually benefit from Defense enhancement (see the icons in the upper-right, there's just the Endurance Reduction one), so the power always does a flat 6% defense, no matter what. Any slotting for increased defense, does nothing. I've confirmed this in-game separate from City of Data; my Summon Lions power has a 25 defense buff IO in it, but the buff is still just 6% per lioness. I dunno whether the better solution is to make defense slotting work (almost nobody seems to slot any, since MM slotting is often pretty tight anyway, which is likely why I could only find one post even mentioning this problem, which was from mid-2020), or just make Summon Lions not take defense enhancements/sets any more.

Ahhh, yeah. See, I was thinking something like what's in Bonfire/Whirlwind/Tornado/etc. with the ReduceIfKD tag, where knock powers would have one component at 100% chance with ReduceIfKD and the normal vector, and another component at a 0% chance with the same magnitude, tagged IncreaseIfKD and set to vector downwards. Then the KB-to-KD IO becomes purely the tag chance changes. It would mean KD-ifying things wouldn't actually change the magnitude, and a six-piece Sudden Acceleration wouldn't be a massive contradiction. And Bonfire/etc. just need their KD component set to something like -60% starting chance, or whatever, to still have the lower chance when KD'd. I realize the crazy amount of work that would be needed to get that rigged up in every single player-usable power, of course, and hoped there was a less ridiculous way I wasn't seeing. Unfortunately, while you might be able to automate some of the changes, a lot of knockback powers also have complicated crap, have two knockback effects for PvE/PvP, etc., so probably a lot of it would need manual adjusting. Ah, well. All of this is still damn awesome. Thanks again, Six!

Okay, I know the answer is probably completely useless, but the power math nerd in my heart has to ask: Why 38 distance 7 - - 19 / dup dup * * and not 45 distance - 19 / dup dup * * ? Is there some magic where the - operator is removing non-negatives and resulting in distance 7 - being a minimum of zero, and that's what stops the magnitude from going off to infinity? Because if so, that's both terrible that it clamps out negatives that way, and also a fantastic hack to prevent infinite magnitudes, even though the inner radius 7 should do that anyway. And if not, that just seems like a really odd way to do the subtraction. Actually, City of Data (the main view, or the raw power definition) shows (45/19 - distance/19)*(45 - distance)**2/361 but I'm assuming that's just weirdness with whatever processing he has to do to get the expression to not be in RPN. Same end numbers, though. Oh, and as an addendum because I realized I hadn't mentioned it: Thank you for this entire post. As my group's resident powers/math nerd and City of Data Interpreter, I am super happy both for the explanation, and to see the work being done on improving how Knock/Repel work. I look forward to the day when you're hopefully able to have the KB-to-KD IOs just change the vector stuff, so a KD-ified power doesn't still knock Clockwork backwards. Because that would be amazing if you could eventually make it happen

Oh! Then yes. Ageless Radial. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=incarnate.destiny.ageless_radial_epiphany&at=tanker Resists debuffs to defense, endurance, to hit, speed, regen, recovery, and recharge.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.bio_organic_armor.inexhaustible&at=tanker https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.dark_armor.murky_cloud&at=tanker https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.electric_armor.static_shield&at=tanker https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.fiery_aura.consume&at=tanker https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.invulnerability.resist_energies&at=tanker https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.radiation_armor.gamma_boost&at=tanker https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.stone_armor.rooted&at=tanker I may have missed something, but I believe SR, Shield, WP, and Ice are the only tanker primaries without an end-drain resist. Recovery-drain resist (being entirely separate) is more rare, but still present in a few.

I haven't gotten onto beta, and likely won't for a bit, but still wanted to jump in early and say a huge Thank You. Been an Elec/Elec Blaster main since live, and just the change where I don't need to keep an eye on Voltaic Sentinel to know when to recast, is nice. Because it didn't stack, and didn't show up in the pet window, it was a constant guessing game if I was wasting my time re-summoning it too early, or losing DPS by summoning it too late. Has it despawned? Is it just wandered off? Always a pain in the ass. Even if 90% of this gets rejected and reverted, even if VS ends up entirely changed before release, that all doesn't matter too much to me. As long as the guessing game isn't a problem any more, THANK YOU.

I've been running some iTrial runs lately that Bill's been on, and his SR/Claws Tanker has main-tanked several of them. The whole thing Werner was talking about is that SR really isn't just that one trick. The scaling resistances, along with the scaling resistance IO and a little bit of slotting, gets you, as Bill himself put it, "capped SL and 89.1 FCEN" with a decent amount of HP remaining. You definitely need to get used to riding much lower HP numbers than many are comfortable with, and for some trials that's pretty damn dangerous, but there's not a whole lot of places in the game that have both autohit attacks that bypass SR's main purpose, and unresistable damage sources that ignore the resistance protecting the tail end of your HP bar. At least, not all together. Oh, and you need some way to handle psi/tox. MoM will do nasty things to his tank, since it's basically just an iTrial of autohit psi damage.

Nah, Bill's Claws/SR, not SR/Claws. The man's very heart is a Scrapper. Per the discussion that spawned this thread, I still assert that it's probably because the folks that want to play Claws or SR are just going with another AT. After all, it's not like original-flavour Bill Z Bubba is really all that much less sturdy than your tanker, and the damage output's much higher. Neither set is bad on a Tanker at all, just that if you wanna play one or the other, you probably want to be a scrapper, where both Claws and SR did quite well. Aside: The brute versions also don't see much more use than Tanker. Stalker sees a decent bit of SR, but not of claws. Though the latter makes sense; Claws isn't really Claws without Follow Up. Really, the two sets both mostly get used by Scrappers. Maybe they're all following in your footsteps, Bill? 😛