Yomo Kimyata

Quick two questions. What is the brute damage cap? What is the most that Fury can contribute to that cap?

I think the purpose of staff in concept was to provide some flexibility in utility. In practice, I will sometimes play in form of soul at lower levels until I solve my endurance issues, then form of body consistently. But yes, I believe the dps is a bit on the low side compared to other offense sets.

No, that's just a generic PPM calculation for a 3.5 proc in that power, and I put it in there mainly to get a rough idea. The standard CS proc is 2ppm and the superior is 4ppm, and of course there is some recharge build into the IO itself. What I was doing wrong on this alt (and this is from years ago!) was putting CS in Eye of the Storm. My rationale was that it would be very likely to activate in combat, and that part was true. However, we can see that because of that really short time before activation, there's a lot of dead time, and not enough time left in the proc to affect the critical chances of Sky Splitter or Serpent's Reach. Which was a problem.

Here is how I'm looking at it (all data from City of Data [all hail Uberguy] 😞 A power that has the CS proc in it must be activated. After the animation time before effect, the proc is checked to see if it activates. If so, the 3.25 second timer starts, but unfortunately we have to wait out the remainder of Arcanatime before we can activate the next power. That's what I'm calling Dead Time, and then Remaining Time is how much more time the CS proc is active. So if we put the proc in Sky Splitter, if it activates there will be 1.314 seconds left on the timer. That is enough to activate any other power and have it be affected by the increased proc rate (Serpent's Reach is pretty close, since it has 1.233 animation time before effect, and we only have 1.314 seconds, but that's enough.) We can also see that if we want to get two powers off, we are out of luck. Mercurial Blow is the shortest, and takes 1.188 seconds to fully run. The quickest animation time before effect is Guarded Spin which is 0.2 seconds, and that puts us at 1.388 seconds, leaving us just a bit short. I look at the last few columns for when I am fighting lots of mobs. Eye of the Storm at 90% recharge rate only has a 33% chance to proc on any given target (I'm assuming 100% accuracy, which I know is not the case, but I'm concerned with relative levels rather than absolutes). That means it has a 67% chance to NOT proc on any given target. If I am working with an average of three hittable targets, it would have to NOT proc on all three targets to not activate, and that's a 30% chance (0.67^3) that all three will miss and a 70% chance that at least one will hit. edit: those proc rates are assuming a generic 3.5 ppm.

I played a lot of staff early on to my return to the game (and before I understood a lot of the mechanics that had changed since I left Live). Sky splitter is kind of an annoying attack, and from an enjoyment perspective, you can certainly skip it and do just fine. But as G says above that 10% resist all from form of the body can be awfully useful at times. Also, something I've realized is that in the past I've put the Critical Strikes ATO proc in Eye of the Storm, and I've realized that even though it triggers a lot there, there is not enough time on the ticker to get some of the powers off in time. Like you can't get off a Sky Splitter after a EotS. So I'm thinking about Crit Strikes in either Sky Splitter or Guarded Strike.

My vote is going in based on if the primary/secondary of one is the same as the secondary/primary of the other and that Soul Mastery/Dark Obliteration is off the table, because that's an insta-win no-kill-me for the tanker, imo.

In other news, recently I realized that you should always check accuracy numbers in game, specifically for PBAoE in armor sets. I've never seen where the base accuracy is noted in City of Data (all hail Uberguy), and it's usually absent from Mids on the main screen. The real shocker was that Radiation Therapy has a base of x3.00 accuracy, but there were a number of pleasant surprises that will lead to less accuracy being slotted in the future.

Here's a simple model. I'm not going to swear it's correct, but it makes sense to me. In the beginning, there were two melee classes. And they were distinguished by many factors but (IMO) primarily by two: survivability and damage inflicted. There was a tradeoff and if you wanted to do damage, you were a scrapper, and if you wanted to be unkillable, you were a tank. In general, you wanted to do as much damage as possible while maintaining your safety profile (or to be as safe as possible while maintaining your damage profile. And there was a fair amount of variation within the AT, but in general, the tank was more survivable and the scrapper inflicted more damage. Also, you could characterize damage inflicted by ST or AoE and there were specialists for each. With CoV they introduced brutes and stalkers, and the basic model continued. Brutes ended up in a middle ground -- more survivable than scrappers, more damage than tankers. Stalkers ended up mostly as ST damage dealers (and PvPlol gankers!!!) Now as time goes by, both on Live and then SCORE and HC, risk profiles began to change. Survivability became easier to build for with IO sets. Damage much less so. Also, the penalties for not being survivable were reduced (xp debt became mostly irrelevant, travel times to get back to a mission became shorter, etc.). The risk-reward profile shifted more towards damage, and people complained that they wanted to be able to do more of it. Changes to ATs (not just specific builds) made achieving more damage for a given amount of safety significantly easier for some ATs, and that put a (perceived or actual, that's up to your interpretation) squeeze on the middle players. I know, I know, I blame everything on power creep. I have no problem with a specific well-crafted tanker being able to outperform a scrapper or brute on the safety/damage profile (and I realize that strong build can really help). And I do love me some underdogs. But when it's really easy to build up against limits like damage resist and defense and harder to build up against limits like damage caps (certainly solo), I do think that the pendulum has swung too far in favor of tanks. Your opinion may differ. No tankers were harmed in the writing of this post.

This is the way. Try it, see what you like, get rid of what you don't. I find Power Crash to be skippable in general, but with Burn you are going to be set for AoE damage.

I used to run grandville paper missions for anyone who wanted some xp on my bio/energy tanker villain, and every time someone would say “Wow, an evil tank!” and assumed I had just Null-ed to redside. I’m like, “Fresh outta Breakout, yo.”

The only thing vaguely threatening about traditional DE is when a group drops 2 cairns and 1 or more quartz. Now THAT'S interesting. Sadly, I think Guardians stop dropping pets at 39? That's totally something that should be fixed.

What would the intended purpose of this tool be? Active SGs advertising for new members/new members shopping for active SGs? Bragging purposes? Other? I'd love to bring back prestige purely as a way to burn influence, but I suspect I'm in the minority there.

It's a Tier 5 power now. You get it at level 8. Frankly, it's still wildly overpowered there.

I think you may have missed the crafting fee, which at 600k each is not nothing! I have and still do deal in crafting purples, but as you say it's a lot of work. I mean it's not back-breaking labor, but it's a pain to buy or store 5 different pieces of salvage per recipe. As a rule, I only craft purples in bulk, minimum 10 of a specific recipe and that's a bare minimum. I just hate the effort and the usage of market slots buying two Energy Weapons. Yawn. And I definitely don't do it every day, so yeah, someone(s) still making good inf out of this.

I'm going to try to avoid the cliche of "it depends," but that's going to be hard. I'd start out by asking how familiar you are with the chosen AT, primary, and secondary. If the answer is "not very" then I suggest playing it organically to 50. You're a little light on offense? Add another attack at the even levels. Don't know what a power does? Pick it and find out. Running light on endurance? Throw a slot into Stamina or Health and know what IOs will help you directly. I say this a lot, but respecs are plentiful and cheap. And if you pick up powers that you like or dislike, you can note whether or not they are going to make the final cut for you. If you are going to power level the character, then I guess this isn't great advice. Personally, I like to know a character will be more or less playable in terms of offense, defense, endurance, etc. no matter if I am exemped down for low level content, so I don't make builds that "Oh this will be ok once I T4 my Destiny slot". Another question has to be about your budget. Most of the builds listed seem to have superior WOs, and that's ok. Inf is also very easy to come by, but if you don't have it, try to figure out how to get it. Sometimes you can make a budget cut. Example: if you need A/R for a Melee AoE power, you can use a level 53 D-Sync Provocation which gets you +38.3% to both accuracy and recharge, and you can use it multiple times in a build. It will also probably cost you well over a billion inf, if you can find it at all. You can use a lvl 50 Armageddon A/R and boost it 5 times for +41.4% to both A and R. You can pull this off for under 20mm inf, but only one per build. You can use an attuned Obliteration or S Dervish A/R that will provide +26.5% to each at level 47+, and get it in the 1-3mm range. Sometimes you cannot make a budget cut: I think every build needs a Panacea proc, a Perf Shifter proc, Shield Wall proc, Reactive Defenses proc, Kismet proc, Steadfast protection +def, Glad Armor proc. I'll walk you through how I currently build something I know. I just made a WM/Bio scrapper because I wanted to use the coralax hammer for my costume and I think it looks like a big tooth. So I made Tooth Justice and his archenemy Cavity Creep (Bio/TW tanker). I'm very familiar with scrappers, war mace, and bio, so I expect to be mostly leveling this character quickly. So I open up Mids. First step is figuring out what powers are must-haves and what powers are ASAPs. For War Mace, I have to take either Bash or Pulverize at lvl 1 and I take Pulverize. For WM, I'll have enough recharge more or less to run a three-power "AoE" chain (Shatter, Crowd Control, Whirling Mace) and a three-power "ST" chain (Shatter, Clobber, Pulverize) so I really don't need Bash or Jawbreaker. I *could* take Jawbreaker and slot Pulverize as a mule and just not use it, but we can look at that again later. I will need Build Up eventually, but not ASAP. I don't need Confront. So for now I'm putting in Mids: Pulverize at 1, Clobber ASAP at 8, Whirling Mace ASAP at 18, Shatter ASAP at 22, Crowd Control ASAP at 26. I'll put in Build Up at 49 for now so I don't forget it. All these are in Mids now with the default slot. However, please note that in real life I did take Jawbreaker so I have two attacks early on and I will respec out later. For Bio Armor, I have to take Hardened Carapace and Inexhaustible at 1 and 2 (because I don't want to take Jawbreaker or Bash). I consider Inexhaustible the only possible "skippable" power for Bio Armor, but that is not to be skipped today. Environmental Modification is ASAP at 4 as your mez protection, Adaption ASAP at 10, Ablative Carapace ASAP at 16, Evolving Armor ASAP at 20, DNA Siphon ASAP at 24, Parasitic Aura ASAP at 30. I will take Genetic Contamination eventually, and that will need a few slots, so I'll place it in at 44 for now. For power pools, I'm at the point where I usually default to Fighting (Kick ASAP, Tough ASAP, Weave), Leaping (Combat Jumping ASAP), and Speed (Hasten). I'll get Kick in at 6, Combat Jumping at 12, Tough at 14. Hasten I work in at 28 and Weave at 32. I need to do some thinking about what I want to do for epics/4th pool, but I'll start with some preliminary slotting. Since Mids gets a bee in its bonnet about when you add slots, I tend to start with a rough estimate of slots and assign them early on. Every attack/utility power starts with 5 slots, and I can add or subtract later. Every defense power starts with three slots. Every resistance power starts with four slots. Inexhaustible (Perf Shifter proc), Kick (Accuracy), Build Up (Gaussian's proc) all get the default slot. Hasten gets two slots for recharge IOs. Combat jumping gets 4 slots, because I generally slot it with Kismet, Luck of the Gambler +recharge, shield wall +res, reactive defense +res. So now I'm looking like this: Now is the time I start thinking about what to do with my remaining 4 powers. Bio means a little squishy and a lot of endurance tools. War Mace means lots of KB for mitigation and for Force Feedback +recharge procs. I'm going to want plenty of recharge, maybe not enough to perma-hasten, but as much as I can get. I tend to focus on melee defense mostly, even though Env mod is typed defense. I could probably use an oh shit power or two and that's what I'm going to look at. Force of Will with three powers will get me Unleash Potential, which is well worth six slotting. Mighty Leap at 35 (base slot of Winters Gift slow resist), Weaken Resolve at 38 (two slot with Achilles Heel proc and an accuracy IO), Unleash Potential at 41 and six slots. That leaves me with only a one hit wonder for my epic, so I'll go with Focused Accuracy from Body mastery and two slot it with Endurance Reduction IOs. I'll probably second guess myself on this, and that's the beauty of it, because respecs are cheap and cheerful. Ok, 7 free slots left. One into Tough so I 4 slot Unbreakable Guard (with +max hp) and add the Steadfast protection which helps make up a little resist. One into Hardened Carapace so I can put in the Glad Armor proc and either 4 slot of Unbreakable Guard or 4 slot of Reactive Armor. Evolving Armor gets either 4 slot of UG or RA as well. I should be good with the base slot of Health (Panacea proc) and Stamina (Perf Shifter). My defense powers (Env Mod and Weave) get a LotG +recharge and either: 2 more LOTG; 2 Shield Wall; 2 Cytoskeleton. I usually go with the last but it's pricey. Bonuses from defense sets aren't particularly good with low slot investment. I'm going to put the other "extra" slots into the AoE attacks as well as Ablative Carapace. For Ablative, I usually 5-slot with Panacea or 6-slot with Preventative Medicine. Parasitic Aura is so good, and I usually franken slot it with a bunch of DSOs and the stun proc from Energy Manipulator, but for today let's 5 slot it with Panacea. (Don't forget to switch to Defensive Mode before popping PA, since that adds bonus -res!). Now we are down to slotting the attacks, DNA Siphon, Unleash Potential, and Genetic Contamination. For attacks, I'm going to want to split the Scrapper's Strike 3-3 for the double defense bonus, I want to put at least the proc of the Critical Strikes set in the right place and maybe a few more pieces, I want to 5 slot Blistering Cold and Avalanche for the defense bonuses as well as the slow resist. A little more clever stuff and I realize I can take a slot away from Pulverize and put it in Genetic Contamination, which I will now slot with 5 pieces of Armageddon (including the proc) and an end red IO. Unleash Potential can go a lot of ways, but focus on recharge over all else. It's also a place to triple slot Synapse shock for some more slow resist. And DNA siphon is my favorite power of all time, and I slotted it for the cheap. And I end up with: Now as I play it, I'm sure I'll find some things that I don't like, so It's not written in stone and I lose zero face by changing my build. Happy hunting!

I ask this in all seriousness: why not copy the tools from Test server to the regular servers so that you can get everything you want instantly and for free?

Yes, but you have to wait for all your powers to recharge before use. It looks like switching builds functionally activates then de-activates all your powers. So you can't really use this in the middle of a fight, although you could use it between missions. Although, now I'm curious what Burnout would do for this, if anything. I suspect that it would probably act as if it had been activated and take 30 minutes to recharge, but it might be really interesting if you could switch builds in the middle of a fight, hit Burnout and go to town.

An even level HO/DSO is 33.3% but +3 gets you 38.3% for Schedule A stuff.

38.3%

I look at my builds from a year ago and I’m like , “God, what an idiot!!!” Because I have so much more information and knowledge now. All my builds can solo just about anything soloable. I’m not going to insist everyone else can’t make a build that isn’t my style. At the same time, I’m not going to join a team and then act like a jerk just because I have learned more about my build than someone else knows about their build who I know nothing about. I can’t believe I still have to say this, but don’t be an asshole. If someone has a crappy build by your standards, so what? If it’s a MO run, then it’s your responsibility to screen. Other than that, it’s basically you telling people that they are eating the wrong foods and watching the wrong movies.

Tanks should certainly be nerfed. Their reward to risk ratio is an order of magnitude better than anything else. They won’t be, since people on the development team chose where they wanted their tank mages to be.

Something I didn’t realize about DNA siphon at first is that it provides a fair amount of endurance even without the Theft of Essence proc. So all my builds had the proc and I was crowing about how good the proc was until I tried it without the proc and it wasn’t much difference. if you are not fighting big crowds, the Theft proc is useful. Once I get to x8, I’m getting full blue bars without it, so I’d use the slot for something else.

Scrapper version: See the pop up "Stacks with existing effect." Tanker version: See the pop up "Replaces existing effect".

Slip Lord Recluse a fifty and the Tarantula mistresses stop mezzing and debuffing you. True story.

I ran two test cases last year around this time and gave some details in this thread here: I think the upshot is that you should expect to get 1.2 ATO/WO per pack, and that for the most part selling those generally convers the cost of the pack and everything else in the pack is profit, but there's not a ton of profit there. Interestingly enough, when Winter Packs were on sale (either at 10mm or 15mm), the prices of the WOs in the aftermarket tended to move down to about 60-80% of the cost of the pack. My completely unproven theory is that if they raised the price of Hero packs to 25mm, the prices of ATOs would move into the 20mm range, which I frankly think is a pretty good place for them.