Yomo Kimyata

(7^0.5) - 2i

Can you point me towards evidence in the code? Again, I'd love to hear that I'm incorrect.

I do not believe that is true. I believe that the critical strikes window needs to be active by the time the effect is applied. Let's imagine that you can hit Seismic twice in a row (you can't, but let's assume it's an identical power because I don't want to post two pictures.) When you activate this power, it will take a total of 1.716 seconds before any other power will begin (Arcanatime). So you activate the power and then there is a certain amount of time that elapses before effects take place. In this case, that is 0.833 seconds (Animation Time before Effect). Lots of things happen at that effect time, including damage and checking to see if procs activate. That's when the Critical Strike proc is checked to see if it activates. If it does, then you get 3.25 seconds of enhanced critical probability. Some of that time is wasted, since the power needs to completely execute animation and prepare for the next power, even if you have it cued up. In this case, your "dead time" is 1.716 - 0.833 = 0.883 seconds (which is really pretty low) leaving you 3.25 - 0.883 = 2.367 seconds of remaining active proc time. Now we activate the next power, which we are pretending is identical to this one. Is there enough active time left on the proc? Yes! all we need for the proc to be effective is for it to still be active in 0.833 seconds! So making sure that there is enough time for the proc to be active for the next power is satisfied. you'd think that would always be the case, but it isn't. there are a (relatively small) number of combinations that will never pass on the crit strikes proc to the second power because the animation time before effect is greater than the remaining active proc time. Now, how about getting more than one power in the window? In that case, you need to execute the entire second power and have enough time left on the proc to reach the animation time before effect on the third power. So let's say we can hit Seismic three times in a row. It activates the proc and you have 2.367 seconds or remaining active proc time. the second power execution takes a total of 1.716 seconds (again, Arcanatime) which means after the second power we have 0.651 seconds of remaining time in the proc window. Since the activation time before effect is greater than that remaining time, the proc window will not be open for that one. I'm quite sure that this is how it works, and I've had verification from others on this board, but I'm absolutely open to hearing otherwise. Without delving into the code you really won't know because the combat log doesn't tell you the probability of a crit, so if there is a crit on the third execution you really don't know if that was a boosted crit chance or just a regular one. Anyway, there are cases when you can get three attacks off with enhanced crit. But for the most part, I assume I'll only get one and I'll check to see if a particular combo is even possible.

Stone is an excellent, excellent set. Seismic has a high proc activation rate, but you're not going to get both mallets into the window. By my calculations, you'll have 2.367 seconds of active proc time and you'd need 2.648 seconds to get off both mallets. One mallet and Stone fists, yes. But I generally put crit strikes in Fault and count on getting just one power off in the window.

I *believe* that Power Transfer proc only works once per activation, i.e., you're not going to see it proc on ten opponents and get 50% of your health back. I would love to be corrected if I'm wrong. My experience with it is that 5% is a really small amount to actively notice. This is more of a commentary on what and how we observe things, but since it is relatively small compared to, say, the 15% of the Sleep proc or even an active heal that gets you 50%+, it's more of a background/regeneration type of effect.

Especially when a power set has been revamped since the original got 50ed. I do this a lot with other strategies as well -- what happens when I go from defensive to offensive and swap out Force of Will for Experimentation?

Ditto. Just because I'm slotted to the nines doesn't mean I'm not still trying to solo Bride of Hamidon.

Kin Melee gets a lot of hate, because people don't think it generates as much damage per xxx as other sets. That is, in part, due to the fact that most attacks in the set have -damage (which I *think* is not resistible?) so the intended tradeoff was less damage for more survivability. That said, if you are zerging content with teams in today's meta, many people only care about the almighty dps. Solo, you'll probably notice the extra survivability (Burst is your real friend, an PBAoE that drops damage 12.75% for 7 seconds. That's in addition to any damage resist you have.) I would think that KM and EA would match relatively well together. the -dam is functionally equivalent to +resist, which layers with the mostly defense-based Energy Aura. That said, the KM gimmick works better in my mind on scrappers and stalkers, since getting a crit on Concentrated Strike instantly recharges Power siphon instead of doing bonus damage. You lack that mechanic on Brutes and Tanks.

Kin Melee is a lot better than people give it credit for, since part of its bonus is added survivability in the form of damage reduction (and KD). But you've got all the survivability in the world with SR.

In my case, inf is short for infinite.

Two comments on email. First, please send it to @Yomo not @Yomo Kimyata. Second, sometimes the email system is really screwed up. Like occasionally I will log on and receive an email that was apparently sent over a year prior. Maybe this is a server issue, since I notice it when I log on a shard I rarely use? Dunno, but if I don't respond rapidly I'm not ignoring you. In fact, if you send me another email a few days later because you haven't received anything yet, I won't mind at all.

Undoubtedly Jingo Updog Esquire (and to a lesser extent, his daughter, Jingo Updog Esq. Jr (titles are apparently inherited strangely in their universe) ). He is a hyper-patriotic broadsword/regen brute and he is very effective at what he does. The roleplaying is almost entirely just in my own head, but it's as bombastic as it gets.

I entirely agree with most/all of your observations, in terms of how the game has been changed to make it easy to acquire (almost) all of the goodies that the game has to offer. But I'm not sure how that leads to the implication that the game is now broken because of it. I'm not sure how the game is broken because everyone can now easily achieve, for example, a Shield Wall +res on every one of their alts. Someone else being stronger in no way weakens me. I will say, I play very differently than I did in Live. I rarely team nowadays, and that's not because I can run +4/x8 content solo whenever and wherever I choose. It's because my life is very different now than it was then, and my time constraints are erratic and inflexible. So if I am able to solo a TF myself over a few days 10-15 minutes at a time rather than spend six hours organizing a team who all want to do exactly what I want to do when I want to do it for an hour, heck yes I'll do that. Part of it is also that my understanding of the mechanics of the game is so much better than it was on Live, thanks in large part to City of Data (all hail @UberGuy). Part of it is due to the fact that the current devs made a bunch of conscious decisions, like offer 200 market slots on each character, and up to 5000 character slots on each account, and a theoretically infinite number of accounts. (THIS is what I think breaks the system, literally, since our relatively tiny population has the ability to eat up several magnitudes more strain on things like the /AH and the Character Items menu). The djinni has been out of the bottle from day one on HC, and although it can be fun to play with various personal constraints, it's impossible to enforce them on anyone else with the exception of playing in various hard modes. At this late point in the game, I personally wouldn't care if they made every item freely available like on Test. With few exceptions, anyone with a working knowledge of how the systems work can create pretty much whatever they want just by playing the game. And no, y'all can't have any of my 53 Provocations.

While such a QoL would absolutely make my personal game life easier, I also acknowledge that it is completely a first world problem. I was not on Live when they offered the Super Packs for pay, but I can imagine that the intention of the Live devs was that packs would be extremely rarely used due to relative expense. Although the current devs have done a great job of making the priciest items easily available to everyone, it's pretty clear that it put a major computational strain on the system. And the fix appears to have been to put a timed governor on things like opening packs and claiming items from the Character Items menu. I was "lucky" insofar as I was able to offload lots of things from the Character Items menu before the governor was instituted, since the actual opening packs and claiming items from said packs is now onerous enough that it discourages me from doing anything about those items. Again, first world problem! So rather than use packs as a profit maker, I think I'm using more as it was originally intended. If I need an unslotter or three, I pull them off the menu. Claiming converters are a problem, because I rarely need a converter or three, but pulling off 25x merits or three fulfills my needs. I don't care whether or not the devs make it easier to pull things off the Character Items menu. Yes, it would make my life a little easier and probably add to my Smaug-like hoard of useless inf, but I don't know if it would help the "average" gamer or even a majority of them. So I'm not particularly interested other than by noting that sometimes unexpected snafus occur when we make things easier and there is an unexpected strain on the system. On a purely personal basis, I would love to get rid of those damned enhancements, but meh, not a priority for me. EDIT: oops meant inspirations. Anyone want a few thousand team endurance inspirations?

Well, my Time Manipulation powers are strong. Less than 24 hours!

With VERY few exceptions, all my alts have Combat Jumping or Hover (and it's easily 10:1 in favor of CJ). For me, the question is "Which power can I have on 100% of the time that will not annoy me?" Hover is fine when you want to be hovering, but I'm not going to slot it enough for it to be as auto-useful as Combat Jumping is for me.

I think I agree with this. Lots of people look at something that has a different playstyle and say, "This sucks, make it more like what I already know and like!" Case in point: Mind Controllers. As always, if you don't like something, don't play it! But as time goes by you may be surprised that what you like may change.

Really, you can use any type of aaaaaaaarmor set.

RE: Meltdown. It's a great power but keep in mind what it enhances. It takes Endurance Mod sets, but the recovery is not affected, so don't bother slotting it for end mod unless you want a set bonus or a proc. I've found that slotting it for resistance is a bit of a waste, since it will pretty much take me to over 75% on whatever I'm looking at. The damage bonus is nice, but I also very much enjoy the endurance recovery, even unenhanced. I'll usually slot it with 2x lvl 50+5 recharge.

Untrue. Unless we are talking really difficult content, the trinity is me, myself, and I.

It's a different playstyle from the meta, which is softcap defense and DDR and kill everything before the RNG gets you. And it's a fun playstyle, and I've found it as effective as anything else at 4/8. It does deserve some sort of debuff resistance, in my opinion, but there are tools to work around that in the incarnates.

As always, it depends. But a typical regime for me: Do the tutorial and start self-funding. At level 2 I will go to P2W and get Athletic Run, buy a 5k jetpack, and usually spend 10k on Reveal. (Eventually I will get more stuff, like Mission Transporter and Portable Workshop.) For slotting damage powers, I will always start with an accuracy SO, then damage SO, then damage/recharge/endurance as needed. I'll generally slot damage powers to four slots before IOs. I'll buy attuned IOs before I need them (Kismet to hit, Shield Wall proc, Panacea proc, Steadfast Protection proc, Glad Armor proc). And I update my SOs as often as I think about it. I'll usually make a plan in Mids, but that's mainly for power selection. I'm not afraid to respec, so if I need endurance I'll put slots in places that I may take out later. I'll usually start shifting over to IO sets in my mid 20s, and I'm targeting set bonuses like recharge and positional defense. Everything attuned. As I'm approaching 50, I'll start to acquire things for the transition. I'll swap out my attuned PvP IOs for level 50s which then get +5 boosted. Purples also boosted (except procs).

Does Hulk even lift, bro?

Also, Reed Richards can flatten himself. Clearly a pressing issue.

My strategy is to remove accuracy until I notice I’m starting to miss, but after damage is effectively maxed, put in as much accuracy or to hit as you want. In particular, note if you have some/any -to hit resistance. I’ll often run Focused Accuracy (with maxed endurance reduction) just to avoid seeing my to hit drop into the red against foes like Circle. You’re still going to miss 5% of the time, and that’s the injustice of it all!