Yomo Kimyata

I have a few questions for you gurus out there. As we (mostly?) know, characters and mobs may have resistance to various debuffs. If you have a 20% resist slow debuff (from say, slotting a Winters Gift proc), if you get hit by a resistible slow debuff, only 80% of it will apply to you (amount of debuff, not length of debuff, I think). That makes sense (and a good reason to get 100% slow resistance to be able to dance over caltrops). Damage resistance debuffs are a bit different. If you get hit with a resistible damage resistance debuff for 20%, your character will resist some of that debuff based on how much damage resistance you have in each category. So if you had 100% smashing resistance, 50% energy resistance, 0% psionic resistance, you would resist 100% of the smashing debuff (leaving you with 100% smashing resistance), 50% of the energy debuff (leaving you with 50% - (50%*20) = 40% energy resistance), and none of the psionic debuff (leaving you at -20% psionic resistance). The debuffs also work off your base value, so if you got DR debuffed by two different mobs, it would work off your base value and not your currently debuffed values. It's covered in the wiki here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Resistance_(Mechanics) Also, there are some powers that are flagged as unresistible. For example, Enervating Field is flagged as unresistible for radiation Paragon protectors, but it is not flagged as resistible for defenders. Boo! Some of my questions for you technical lads and lasses and huges: 1. Let's say my scrapper has 90% smashing resistance, which is capped at 75% because she is a scrapper. Which number is used to calculate your resistance to resistance debuffs? In other words are you going to take 10% of the debuff, or 25%? 2. In City of Data (all hail Uberguy) you can find the unresistible icon (which looks like (only smaller) on various powers. I was presuming that if that icon didn't show up, then it is resistible. However, when talking to a Rikti pylon (with 20% resistance across the board, I noticed that things didn't add up. Then I just realized that even though the debuffs were listed at 100%, they were actually applied: So I guess I answered my own question, since the total resistance seems to be correct. So I guess I'm only asking about the first one. Thanks!

I keep coming back to my DM/Regen scrapper every few months, and come up with a better build each time. It's really interesting to me that there are a lot of redundancies, so you can explore other things in terms of slotting or pool/epic powers. Endurance? It's coming out your ears. You can easily skip Quick Recovery, and no need to slot Dark Consumption for endurance either. Healing? All over the place. Nowadays you can skip Fast Healing (and I usually do) and you probably won't even miss the 75% regeneration or even the regeneration debuff resistance (look out for those radiation enemies!). No need to slot Siphon Life for heal. Ask yourself how many oh @#$# buttons you want. Instant Healing counts as one, although not as much as some would want, and that really only needs mainly recharge. Moment of Glory, sure. Also really only needs recharge. People like Shadow Meld. I'm a big fan nowadays of Unleash Potential from the Force of Will pool. As a bonus, you get a half oh @#$% button in Takeoff, which is an autohit knockdown for up to ten targets when Mighty Leap is active. I also like Hibernate as a patron pool power, but not on this character. Also, throw a knockdown proc in some of your long term AoEs: Overwhelming Force or Avalanche work wonders in Dark Consumption or Soul Drain. Do your best to get as much slow resistance as possible. That's a real weakness of any Regeneration Build. At least 2-3 pieces of any superior Winter O. Winters Gift IO proc is a must have. You can also 3-slot Synapse's Shock in any power that takes end mod. to hit debuff resistance is also nice, but I think you're only going to get it from Focused Accuracy or Targeting Drone in the epic pools. If you are teaming, remember your -to hit from Dark Melee is the rough equivalent of +defense to your whole team. I wouldn't bother slotting for to hit debuff, but I would make sure your accuracy is high enough to consistently hit enemies in AoE. Shadow Maul does so little damage thanks to the wider arc, but it debuffs just the same. You could even double up by taking the Darkness Mastery epic pool.

For the record, I'll pay 50bn for the Bug Hunter badge, but only if it applies to all my characters.

I'd like to thank the person who wrote the lore that made my baby fall in love with me.

I'm still working on the costume for Hysterical Strength.

It seems like some sort of bug, but I'm fascinated. Let me know what they find out! This is precisely why I don't put in dummy bids for that much inf a piece. I'd rather store a bid of 10x at 100mm each than 1x at 1bn.

I hear you Lumi. I think you responded less to my point that power creep (which I detest) was both a function of Live and SCORE and HC, and more to that current admins are better. They're pretty good, as I say early and often. But they are not addressing balance like I would want them to. That's cool. You want a tank mage? Go ahead, I'm frankly just happy to be able to log on to a public server that the SCORE and HC people kept secret for many years. To the point I bolded and embiggened, take ten numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Underperformers have to be brought up! One way to go is : 5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5. Or even: 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. But power creep, which is not specific to this game or any game leads to people complaining that their 5 is not as good as the 10. There's no sense of balance or tradeoff. I can have a higher strength but a lower intelligence? Heck no, as long as there is a high intelligence out there, I *deserve* that and I want it the way I want it, and frankly, that better effing be right now. @Luminara, I'm gonna get you that green dress, by hook or by crook! Probably by hook, since I'm too pretty to go to prison.

Try a little WD-40. If that's not available, use goose fat.

Power creep was not just an element of SCORE and HC. I hear what you are saying about the availability of IOs (and frankly I've probably sold a sizeable percentage of them). But my problem has been a consistent cycle of "Let's introduce a new powerset, and let's not bother to see how people will exploit it." "Hey, this new powerset has one power in it that is *better* than the similar power in my power set!" "Well, the people have spoken, we need to upgrade this power set. Let's surprise them and make it the best power in the current meta!" I understand why they did that in a pay game, but I guess I hoped that some voice of reason would understand balance in the free game. This goes back to my observation that this is not, in any way, shape, or form, a strategy game. And I find that odd, and frankly unappealing in many ways. I guess that's why I spend so much time on the "minigames" of the AH and builds. But twevs.

If your objective is to farm as many bodies as you can as quickly as you can at as high a level as you can: As an active farmer, scrappers are great! As an AFK farmer, scrappers are no bueno.

Well... Of course it depends on what kind of game you want to play. Right now, HC is doing a good job of hosting a "I'm the greatest superhero ever!". Personally, I like strategy games. And resource games. So for engine building, as in figuring out a strategy to accumulating your resources and progressing, HC is terrible. It gives you everything you want from the get go. Or it gives you a strategy system that is so simplistic that you can get everything you want from the get go. That's fine if you want to be Superman, and they've done a great job of letting everyone who plays be the strongest character ever. That's my biggest complaint. Because when we all can solo anything +4/x8 on almost anything from the very beginning, what's fun about that? For me, strategy is a critical part of the enjoyment, whether it be "Take out that one first" or "slot the -kb first" or whatever. But this is a child's version of the game now, in my opinion. Your mileage, as always, may vary. On the other hand, they have done great things in terms of stability and fixing broken things. I have a presence on other servers, and maybe it's just my settings, but HC feels crisper and cleaner. If I had to pick my ideal situation, it would be HC's system of pooling (salvage, recipes, enhancements) but with a more parsimonious distribution of converters.

I've been running a macro of "powexeclocation 0:2 Combat Teleport" which essentially casts at your location ("0:2" has less tendency to spin you around than "me"). Pop that a few times before attacking a shielded Rikti drone!

How about when I give away 20mm inf to players, then I sell their in-game email to Crey Industries Extended Warranty Division for 100mm? Does that count as an exploit?

While leveling, every little bit helps. But by the time I get to 50+, there are usually one of two scenarios: you're capped at 95% to hit, or debuffers gang up on you. Nothing like a handful of Agony Mages or whoever to knock your to hit back to single digits. Lately, I've been looking more at epic pool choices just for the -to hit debuff resistance, like Focused Accuracy and just slot them with endurance reduction.

Hmm, have you signed up for a Yomo(tm) verified account? That could be the problem. It's only 8bn inf, and that's good for an entire year.

Also along the lines of an IT person asking you, "Are you sure it's plugged in?": You cannot sell purple or pvp recipes to vendors, just on the off case that's what you are trying to do.

How about a slower ramp then? People are complaining how hard it is to get to 100% fury, but it seems trivial to get to 80%. If they raised the "fury cap" from 200 to 250 or 300, but made it harder to build, then wouldn't the existing ATO have good value? I don't really have a horse in this fight.

What if they changed the 200% to 300%?

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.