Yomo Kimyata

Hey there Lippy-- @macskull (and others, but I use his) has a link to a proc calculator in his signature. If you open it (and save a copy so you can edit), you can play around with the parameters to get an idea of roughly how often a proc will activate. all those parameters are available in Mids or in game. In particular, I like to use procs when 1. they add functionality that I can't otherwise get in a power (like Avalanche knockdown); 2. they can be expected to activate a significant portion of the time; 3. I have an extra slot to add damage; 4. one or more of the above.

I doubt this outcome wasn't already a forgone conclusion to anyone, but at this point in the cycle, all I really care about is shaking the jar and seeing what happens. By making it so obvious, maybe more people will try it? Maybe there will be a run on converters? Maybe there will be a glut of LotG +rech? Who knows?!? Running experiments on the /AH keeps me warm at night.

See, there's more than one way to skin a cat!* * No cats were skinned in the making of this metaphor.

Counter-offer: add a -25% damage modifier for every power that does NOT slot it.

"I wonder how the Passive Aggressor is doing?" I'm sure you were wondering. Great! In fact, I improved the build! Having spent a bit of time at post-50, running +4/x8 content, I realized that I could optimize things a bit more. First, mitigation. Initial build relied on knockdown, fear (and attendant -to hit), and a little bit of stun. Having been exploring stun on other builds, I decided that I would probably be better off in focusing more on the stun aspect, and less on the fear aspect. So Oppressive Gloom enters the build a lot earlier and gets three slots, including a Triumphant insult proc (mag 1). I swapped out a damage proc in Cloak of Fear for the stun proc (mag 2) from Unspeakable Terror. And I cut the Presence pool entirely. I've come to realize that that entire pool could probably use a bit of help to make it more useful to the rank and file, and I'll be exploring more fear in other builds, but here I'm going to focus more on stun. And it helps a bit, but what puzzles me still is that I rarely see bosses stunned (or even lieutenants). And when I do, it's only for a second or two. I'm starting to wonder if bosses have significant stun status resistance. The wandering is a little annoying, and I may look into ways to add an AoE immobilize in here, but for now stun seems to be almost exclusively to neuter the minions until my auras destroy them. Second, single target damage. It's awful, and I need a better path in order to take down a pylon or even one of 3-5 healing lieutenants in reasonable order. So with a fresh pool available, I'm adding Weaken Resolve. Three damage proc, an Achilles Heal, and two A/R IOs. That should be maxed out proc chances, and I always like having -res on demand. Remember that -res increases the effective damage of procs as well as base damage. Mighty Leap makes the cut as a power choice now, and that's where a BotZ -kb goes (also one in Super Speed, as well as a Winter's Gift slow resist. Finally some rejiggering of slots and IO picks. Aid Self stays with two slots, but both are interrupt reduction now. The power is up every ten seconds or so now, so being able to get that off in times of need is more important to me. I added Field Medic as my last power as well. In and of itself it increases your healing and gives you resistance to healing debuffs (which I don't have any idea who inflicts these), but it gives a +20 endurance bonus to Aid Self, which is really useful in long battles. And let's face it, with the Passive Aggressor, every battle is a long one. I cut Whirlwind down by a slot and took out the knockback to knockdown proc. Now it's really an effective "oh sit" button which almost always gives enough breathing room to pull off an Aid Self. I took some set bonuses away from Irradiated Ground and went with some more traditional proc choices. I really enjoy this build, and it certainly helps me with some build ideas on my less constrained alts! No defense debuff resistance/no to hit debuff resist means that some enemies are really nasty. I'm not so proud that I don't pick off the edges of a mob if, for example, they have a plethora of Arachnoid Mistresses/Queens. But it mostly gets the job done. This is not a DPS build, and I don't think I will ever be able to take down a pylon. My Trapdoor times are over 30 minutes, but that depends a lot on how lucky I get with knocking him down before he spawns a regenerating pal. 10/10. Would play again. Current build:

Thanks @Andreah for doing the computational work I didn't feel like doing! Also, I made about 500mm by actually doing it, so I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Yeah, the reason why I target guaranteed conversion from uncommon to rare is that it costs more. It drives me nuts to convert from one uncommon to another, then back again. It’s also trivial to demonstrate that a guaranteed path is cheaper.

The Mission Transporter will not work if the mission chosen doesn't have a door entrance. Example: talk to Joe Blow. Otherwise it should work just fine. Also, if you haven't specifically chosen a mission, it will default to the first mission in your mission list. I mess that up all the time.

Let me see. If I've counted correctly (and someone certainly should double check me): There are 52 different uncommon IO sets at level 25. There are 66 different rare IO sets. There are 3 uncommon defense sets. There are 4 rare defense sets. There are 9 categories that will guarantee a rare from an uncommon with one conversion. So, starting with a random non-defense uncommon IO, a conversion by rarity has a probability of 3/51 of rolling to a defense set, a 9/51 chance of rolling to a set that will have a guaranteed rare conversion (none of the recipes I bought were in those categories), and a 39/51 chance of rerolling. Once you have a non-defense rare, you have a 4/65 chance of rolling a defense and a 61/65 chance of rerolling. That defense has a 1/7 chance of being a LotG (and from there, a 1/6 chance of being a +recharge). Once you have a non-LotG defense, you have a 1/6 chance of rolling a LotG (and a 1/6 chance of being a +recharge) and a 5/6 chance of rerolling. Once you have a non +recharge LotG, you have a 1/5 chance of rolling the proc and a 4/5 chance of rerolling. Based on a post by @UberGuy (all hail UberGuy), the conversion process entails creating a list of possible sets, picking a set randomly, and then picking a member of the set randomly, so this seems pretty straight forward to program. I just don't feel like doing it!

I've been working on ice builds that don't use ice swords. A little light on damage, but doable. I also have some sweet stone melee builds without hammers (until I just discovered there is a hammer free hammer animation available). Fire melee is a lost cause. Jury is out on Psionic Melee.

What if I told you that there was a piece of salvage that could let you convert by rarity? What if I told you there was one that would let you convert by category? And what if I told you there was one that lets you convert in set? Of course, all these things come from the same wonderful, magical animal that we know and love as the enhancement converter. At this point in our program I decided to try to answer the question that nobody is asking: how many licks does it take to can I make all of my IOs into Luck of the Gambler +rech and make a profit? To begin, I put in bids on level 25 uncommon recipes at 5 inf each, hoping to be able to pick up a hundred of them within a week. Why level 25? Well, I figured that was probably the sweet spot where the number of uncommon/rare defense IOs had the highest ratio when compared to the entire pool, and it was the lowest level so therefore the cheapest crafting cost. Why uncommon? Didn't want to pony up for the rare salvage. Now, I know that there probably aren't many/any recipes just sitting around for sale there, so I put in bids of 5 on blocks of ten in likely areas. I think it took a day or two to get filled, which was the first lesson: people continue to dump their stuff on the /AH for the sake of convenience. I also found a few recipes that converted directly into rares at that level, and I put those aside for other purposes. I bought all my salvage at vendor levels, so 250 inf each for two commons and 1000 for one uncommon. Tack on the crafting fee of 37,400 and my all-in cost basis of each IO was 38,905. To be honest, this number isn't really that important. But it adds up. Next, I wanted to develop a crafting strategy. I decided to eyeball it instead of actually crunching the numbers because I felt pretty confident that it was a good method that would minimize the number of converters used. The procedure was as follows: 1. Start with a level 25 uncommon IO. 2. Convert by rarity (so "uncommon") until either: a. I rolled an uncommon defense IO (Karma, Serendipity, Red Fortune); or b. I rolled an uncommon that was guaranteed to convert to a rare if converted by category. 3. If a. then convert by category ("defense") until Luck of the Gambler, then if necessary convert in set until the +recharge piece. End. 4. If b. then convert once by category to get a rare IO. 5. Convert by rarity ("rare") until rolling a rare defense IO (Kismet, Gift of the Ancients, Reactive Defenses, Luck of the Gambler). 6. If not LotG, convert by category ("defense") until Luck of the Gambler, then if necessary convert in set until the +rech. End. Honestly, I could have made a Monte Carlo process to simulate this, because the probabilities are relatively straightforward, but I'm a glutton for punishment. So I loaded up with 100 uncommon IOs and went to town. Much clicking ensued. At the end of the day, I ended with a data set that I will share with you here: But I anticipate that this graph may prove more informative: The mean was 40.3, median of 35.0, standard deviation of 26.0. You may draw your own conclusions from this. I have to go ice my clicking finger.

“Do you think this ‘A’ stands for ‘France’?!?”

Suicide express was a enormous time saver.

Howard the Duck

Sometimes on my "support" characters I'll make a solo build and a team build.

Today I learned that Stone Melee hammers have a "no hammer" visual option. My mind just went FREEM!

As you note, regen pairs very well with soft controls. But knockdown works on enemies in melee range and not those taking potshots at you from afar. Even though regen lives and dies by +recharge, I'd consider 6 slotting Numina's in Fast Healing to help out a bit with ranged defense.

I've definitely converted from a specific piece (let's say Celerity Run Speed) to something else, then back to a Celerity Run Speed in two conversions. The odds are long, but I've done a LOT of converting in my day. You can also convert by rarity and get the same category, e.g., convert a GotA run speed by rarity and get a Reactive Defenses D/E. But you cannot convert by rarity, or by category, and end up in the same set after one conversion (much less the same exact IO you started with). It's programmed so that isn't possible. If that happens, it's a colossal bug that I've never seen before. Might I suggest that maybe you thought you clicked the convert button, but it didn't take because of lag or whatever?

Well, it's about reward creep and power creep, to be honest. Every character I get to 35 first goes and joins Vanguard, kills ten Rikti (pro tip: the silos about a half mile directly in front of the entrance generally have well over ten Rikti monkeys hanging out), runs around and talks to everyone and gets the badge so that defeating Rikti gets me a little extra reward. I can understand not fighting Rikti at level 35 until you have the Vanguard badge, but I don't see the rationale in not fighting Rikti beforehand? Are you going to fight Council, who also don't drop Vanguard merits, instead? Or Crey, who also don't drop Vanguard merits? It's not like there are a limited number of rikti that any given character can spawn. that said, I have no idea what I can save up those vanguard merits for to spend on, so I guess I'm wasting my time even getting the Vanguard member badge, since it just means I have more of a currency I'm not going to spend anyway. Shrug.

Oh, I'm not saying this from a canon aspect. I'm saying give the Council equivalent powers to the Carnival, or whatever. Beef them up. Give them unresistable debuffs. That sort of thing.

Given the revamp that Crey got recently (which I personally find overly annoying, but tweves), can we please revamp high end council? My suggestion is to merge the powers of council and carnival of shadows.

I do, but except on Excelsior! they are all VEATs and HEATs and I don't think I've gotten any of them significantly past 20. To OP: I used to run a spreadsheet, but at this point, if someone wanted one of my names and snookered me out of it, power to them. Not very high on my list of concerns.

No thank you.

That's a fun strategic question, and of course it depends on who I'm playing, how developed a character they are, if I am playing on a team, and who I am fighting. If I'm on a team, I will always go for the hardest target, because I know that everything else will melt in AoE. If I'm on a lowbie, I try to assess my risk profile. If I'm fighting skulls and there are three minions, two lieutenants, and one boss, I'll go for the minions first. It will take me some time to put down the boss, and while I'm doing so I'm taking fire from the boss and three minions. So I take out the soft targets first because at this point in the game, they can hit me and do real damage, so by the time I'm chipping away at the boss, I'm only really worried about the boss's attacks. Shotgun LTs are always last, because they don't present a real danger, even if they are standing right next to you since they have no melee attacks. Debuffers have to go right away. Fighting scrub bot minions is the worst on some of my melee characters because there are a ton of them, they are ranged (and I'm not soft capped to range or energy usually), and their attacks debuff my melee defense so now I'm toast to the hard hitters. Anything that uses radiation debuffs (which I think are autohit?). Most of my characters create a targeting macro by level 40 or so (/macro T targetname [xxx]) and usually the only thing I use that for are sappers, cairns, quartzes (which I haven't been seeing much of lately), and mission specific targets if I'm trying to find them on a large outdoor map.