Maelwys

The quote marks used in the second bind are different than the others. Bind gets fussy about stuff like that and the pink text you're referring to in the chat log typically corresponds to a syntax error. Try copying/pasting the working rightarrow bind EXACTLY and amend it to use the downarrow key.

The thing to remember about Poison Dart's -Regen... And since its base recharge time is 4s it'll be up very often. A lot of the Widow Claw abilities have an Arcanatime of 1.056s; so you can comfortably weave it in after every other attack. Doing so lets you keep almost exactly 4 stacks up constantly; which is -100% Regen and can start making a noticeable dent in things. However using Poison Dart so often will hurt your average DPA, so it'll depend on the target you're facing if that tradeoff is "worth it". A -100% regen debuff is roughly equal to 9 additional damage per second vs a regular +3 (lvl 54) AV. Versus a Giant Monster on the other hand? That -100% regen debuff will be doing a lot more - roughly 53 additional damage at level 50. For comparison; START Temp Envenomed Daggers inflict -250% Regen for 10s and have almost the same base damage as Poison Dart (but can't be enhanced!).

Nice to see another mitigation-focussed /regen! Last I poked at my old Kat/Regen Scrapper (who admittedly tends to prioritise a more offensive form of mitigation since they can fall back on Divine Avalanche to situationally softcap their melee defence in a pinch) they were just about hitting ~72 HP/Sec passive and ~50% S/L res before Incarnate Clickies. Betty's earlier point about RechargeTime Debuff resistance is well put; but personally I'll often settle for 50% or a smidge less on my builds in the name of chasing higher red numbers; and my /Regen is no different. If you do choose to go that route, then equipping the right Incarnate Clickies (and certain Radial Lore Pets!) can be lifesavers. And keep the Geas and Magus accolades handy "just in case"... 😉

You're welcome. And whilst you're waiting for Inferno to recharge... try copying your character onto Brainstorm and try moving the Overwhelming Force Proc into Fireball instead. Call it humouring an overly-pedantic forumite. (Spoiler alert:) The alt text for that one rocks. (Admittedly sometimes I really struggle to recognise when someone is just wilfully doubling-down on Cunningham's Law...)

I'm a Blaster too. And I'm not just going off a spreadsheet. I extensively used epic pool Bonfire with a KB>KD IO before the nerf on multiple toons, and I was heavily involved in testing the proposed changes on Brainstorm. I didn't get the powers that be to stop all of the negative changes, but I did get them to acknowledge and revert the duration nerf. Until recently I still used Epic Pool Bonfire on my Fire Blaster, and I currently still use it on one of my Masterminds. I can assure you that Bonfire works in practice just as I've detailed above. The links to CoDv2 I posted above are simply there to clearly highlight the numbers and back this up. Bonfire has a target cap of 10 targets. That means with a KB>KD IO on average if you use it in a target saturated environment then it'll bounce just 2 foes (20%) in its initial "tick"; and spawn distribution being what it is those foes will often end up being minions. That is not anywhere close to "mitigating 90% of incoming damage". In practice whenever you pop Bonfire on a spawn without layering on any additional CC; most of that spawn will just turn around and shoot you, then run (at full speed!) out of Bonfire's 15ft radius and proceed to eat your face. So that 3.3s will almost always be better spent focus-firing on a few of the more problematic targets instead of casting Bonfire. It is still possible to leverage Bonfire for survivability: don't slot a KB>KD IO and then just stand inside it. Or alternatively, team with someone who has an AoE immobilize.

I think it makes thematic sense to have Empathy's resurrect represented as "extremely concentrated healing energy"... and if that level of energy gets infused into someone who is only mostly dead (at worst!) then it should end up overcharging their vitality somehow. Heck; maybe just apply the effects of Moment of Glory to them and call it a day.

Actually what I want is more attacks that are like Blaze; ideally a sufficient number of them to let me achieve a seamless high-DPA Single Target attack chain! I imagine part of this might be down to a difference in playstyles and build goals. One of my main goals with every single toon I make is to work out what their "optimized" seamless (infinitely repeatable) Single target attack chain will be (within the bounds of whatever primary and secondary power pools I happen to have chosen). Often this means that my Epic/Patron Pool choice is dictated by whatever one has the most powerful attack or buff/debuff... although occasionally there'll be a case where theme overrides performance slightly (such as on my Staff Tanker; which intentionally uses the staff attacks only and neglects Pool power and Epic Attacks!). Obviously AoE powers are important to have too; even whenever you're not constantly teaming. Often a toon will have one or two really strong AoE attacks which will end up forming part of the optimal Single Target chain anyway; but I'll generally try to take at least 2-3 decent AoE abilities (aside from the Judgement Incarnate nuke) one way or another. However I never try to make a seamless attack chain out of them - instead they're there to be situationally substituted into my Single Target attack chain depending on the number of enemies around me and their current location. Unfortunately usually this approach won't end up producing the highest possible damage output from all of my chosen attack powers... because it's rare that I'll have full leeway to slot damage procs everywhere (I tend to need to use some enhancement slots in my attack powers to achieve specific set bonuses like +Recharge/Resistance/Defense) so there's always a little bit of a balancing act, and that's where the fun (for me!) of repeatedly poking at builds comes in to attain the maximum performance + minimum slotting sacrifices. Anyways; as a quick example: here's the current ST-damage attack chain for my Fire/Ice/Fire blaster; which corresponds to the DPA power listing I gave earlier: Note that Fireball, Fireblast and Firebreath are nowhere to be seen here because they simply do not provide any benefit to my Single Target DPA. However in practice, I'll almost always end up weaving Fireball and Firebreath and Rain of Fire etc. into my attacks providing that I'm fighting more than one enemy. If I need to hang back out of Melee Range (and so can't reliably use Frozen Aura or Ice Sword!) then Fireball and Fireblast start getting more use: It's certainly possible to start off with AoE attacks and plug the gaps with ST attacks instead of keeping the AoEs in reserve and using them situationally. I imagine that someone who approaches things that way likely won't need to bother slotting up as many attacks; but will be a smidge slower when fighting AVs/GMs/etc and may end up with an insufficient number of filler attacks to utilise whenever they're exemplaring. I simply place higher value on having a "more optimal" single target attack chain to spam on GMs/AVs/Pylons/etc. whenever the need arises. (And this post is intended to be an explanation of sorts rather than a slight against Tidge's playstyle!) 😉

By spending slots on a single-target Attack, and the second-best one available to me by the numbers. (albeit one which happens to have a hold effect built into it as a oft-inconsequential bonus of opening up additional damage proccing opportunities... 😁 ) Personally I don't think level 35 is hugely long to wait. That means Char is available when exemplaring down as far as Lvl30 (e.g. the vast majority of repeatable content) Heck, until relatively recently Tankers had to wait until Lv35 just to get their T8 attack let alone their T9. I do appreciate that some folk like to get everything in early for the likes of DFBs or Positron TFs though.

That's kinda the point of Char for my line of thinking. It's a hold, yes, but it might be better to think of it as a low-animation-time ranged DoT that happens to take Hold Set Damage Procs. Here's my Fire/Ice/Fire Blaster's list of attacks: Note the one with the second highest DPA? And not by a small margin either.

In the olden days before crashless nukes it was considered a sign of a good Empath to have >1000% recovery in Adrenaline Boost; to let the Blaster keep on trucking after a Nova/Inferno (and if you could perma it on them they'd be your friend for life!) It was also a sign of an attentive empath to accurately track + predict when the Tank's crashing T9 power was about to expire; and hit them with a Clear Mind and Fortitude before it dropped and a chunky Heal (Absorb Pain for preference!) just afterwards. I remember a few occasions where I was on my /Empath Controller and a friend that mained an INV Tanker (and who was skilled enough to be able to consistently time their Dull Pain activations to kick in just after their Unstoppable crashes) told me outright to stop doing such a good job of buffing/healing them because they could no longer feel even the slightest hint of danger and were missing their usual adrenaline kick. How times have changed... 😛

20% at best unfortunately; at least when slotted with a KB>KD IO. Look here and note the effect line that lists "120% chance" of inflicting a Mag 6.231 knockback; with the yellow "ReduceIfKD" tag beside it. This "ReduceIfKD" flag works by taking a flat -100% off the power's KB activation chance whenever a KB>KD conversion IO is slotted within it. See here and note the line "-100% Power Chance Mod (self only) for 10.25s" with the matching yellow tag to the far right. The upshot is that Bonfire will end up with a 20% chance to inflict KnockDOWN instead of its original 120% (capped at 100%) chance to inflict KnockBACK. Bonfire has an Activate Period of 1 second; meaning its Knockback/Knockdown effect can get a chance to pulse every 1 second. Cumulative Probability means that even after 10 such pulses you'd still have a >10% likelihood (10.737%) that a particular foe hasn't been knocked down once yet. Unfortunately the Epic pool version of Bonfire only has a 15ft radius; so the chances of a particular foe staying inside it for more than a few seconds are slim-to-none unless you stack other CC (like -MovementSpeed effects) on top of it. Without slotting a KB>KD IO in Bonfire it works fantastically as mitigation. You can stand inside it and nothing will be able to approach you without getting subjected to a 100% chance for knockback every 1s; which makes it brilliant for ranged toons when soloing. But it's much less useful in teaming situations.

Agreed. However leaving aside the pet issues (which I mentioned in my previous post!)... I think Pylons are still a fairly useful yardstick of what order you can expect different ATs and powersets to end up in; regardless of whatever "external performance doping mechanisms" you choose to allow or not. Every power set is always going to be limited by its attacks' base damage, animation time, and recharge rates; plus whatever damage procs they are capable of taking. Allowing additional temp powers/buffs that grant -res/+damage/summons/whatever on top of that is mostly just going to end up increasing the performance of everything equally. In "real world" situations you're going to have to contend with a lot more variables such as enemy resistances; "overkill" damage (AKA "my attack dealt 1000 damage but it only had 1 hit point left") and long animation times (AKA "my teammates killed it before my attack even landed"). FWIW I personally can't stand the idea of one of my toons having a build that is so "specialist" that they become incapable of functioning decently in regular gameplay. Even my AFK AE Fire Farmers still have softcapped S/L defense and a Single Target attack chain... 🙈

Generally I'll get T3 Judgement and T4 (Reactive) Interface. Because they unlock first after the Alpha Slot and I keep plenty of spare Transcendent Merits in my global email box. Lore and Destiny next. I typically focus on Lore first (because having a buffpet for 5mins out of every 10 is more useful unless the toon needs Ageless) but some squishy sets really benefit from getting Clarion Core for the constant mez protection. Hybrid last; and almost always either Assault (although split between Core and Radial) or Support Core. A few toons have Melee Core for added survivability. After I've T4'ed everything I'll usually go back and make other "situationally useful" options like a T4 Degenerative Interface and T4 Barrier/Incandescence Destinies too. EDIT: It can really help to run Heather's DA arc a few times when you're starting out below Vet level 10 or so for the Salvage rewards. You'll be T4 before you know it.

Agreed. And unlike some of the other powersets listed, this especially hurts Ice Blast users because the power in question was such a big part of its optimal attack chain. Which means that in order to make a viable attack chain on an Ice Blast Sentinel you're forced to either suffer using Chilling Ray or some combination of one of the lower-DPA T1 and T2 blasts and/or an Epic attack (which isn't as viable these days since Dominate was nerfed!). All of which drag your DPA down. The only saving grace of the set is that Bitter Ice Blast is still good (at least until you look at Blaze) Elec Blast on the other hand came out waaaaaay ahead because not only did it gain in Snipe damage; but it also got handed a viable extra attack in Tesla Cage AND some of the best performing Epics Pool Powers (Elec Mastery's Havoc Punch + Shocking Field; or Mu Mastery's Thunder Strike) are thematically aligned with it.

Urgh. Flashbacks to my non-SR Scrappers earning their debt badges under the old when-you-get-mezzed-all-your-toggles-drop-including-mez-protection system. At least these days you'll not have to retoggle most of your armors afterwards, and whilst you're mezzed you keep a basic level of mez protection (AFAIK most of the toggle-CC-protection abilities only get their KB protection component cancelled; but their Held/Stunned/Sleep/Immobilized protection component stays active...)

Sentinel - Dark Blast - Energy Aura.mbd Chain/DPS Math: And FWIW here's my last attempt at getting Ice Blast to work: zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Elec Mastery).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Leviathan M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Psionic M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Elec Mastery).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Leviathan M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Psionic M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Energy Aura (+Procs).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Energy Aura (+Rech).mbd Chain/DPS Math for the /EnergyAura variant:

I'm not a huge fan of Sentinels; however the one that I still play occasionally is Dark Blast. As a set it's a little bit lacking in AoE damage but has nice ST (especially when procced out) and doesn't need to close to melee range for anything except the Nuke. It's also got very good synergy with the likes of SR, which is better than usual on a Sentinel due to Master Brawler. (Mine's a Dark/Energy Aura; but I did dabble with Dark/SR!)

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=blaster_ranged.ice_blast.freeze_ray&at=blaster https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.ice_blast.chilling_ray&at=sentinel That's why. On Sentinels they took most of the Ranged Blast sets; then removed the Snipes + "normalised" the Nuke recharge + reduced the maximum target caps of most AoEs. However they also adjusted most of the single Target mez effects (e.g. holds) to ensure they dealt appreciable damage and had similar CC durations. For most sets this has been a buff - Tesla Cage from Elec Blast actually deals pretty good damage on a Sentinel. However Freeze Ray from Ice Blast already dealt decent damage; and they absolutely gutted it. They reduced its damage, nearly doubled its activation time and made it a sleep instead of a hold. Ice Blast is still reasonable on Sentinels, but unfortunately it's not a top-tier set; even when fully procced out. Elec Blast on the other hand is surprisingly good on Sentinels.

It's not. /Marine MMs and -res-stacked Crabberminds take that crown these days; with the former being far easier to focus-fire on a particular enemy. If you discount any builds that leverage most/all temp powers ("Division 2+" or "Division 4+" in the above linked thread) as well as any that leverage multiple pets (since their performance can vary wildly depending on the currently-active level differences between each pet and your target!) then Scrappers are still up there; just behind Stalkers and roughly on par with Dominators. With animation-cancelling-exploit Kheldians plus a few Blaster, Controller, Corruptor and Sentinel builds hot on their heels.

Life Drain Their power list is a bit short - they've Ghastly Blast (4s rech, 310ft blast), Life Drain (15s rech, 60ft blast) and Necroplasmic Grasp (15s rech, melee hold). Note that the first two powers accept -ToHit debuff enhancement; so if you're looking to add damage output I'd stick a Cloud Senses proc in it first.

Make Fortitude an AoE and add +Absorb to the Heals. Done.

My main issue with /Sonic used to be that /Thermal exists. Now it's that /Marine exists. Sonic ends up granting ~41% res to S/L/F/C/E/N/T (providing your pets stay within Sonic Dispersion range) plus -22.5% AoE res debuffage in Disruption field and another -22.5% Single Target res debuff in Sonic Siphon. It also has Liquefy (AoE -ToHit debuff patch that can't be perma'd) Thermal gives ~46.7% res to F, ~23.5% res to S/L/E/N and ~11.7% to C (from both bubbles) plus -22.5% AoE res debuffage from Melt Armor. But it also has PBAoE and targeted healing; ST +30% Damage and ToHit from Forge (which can typically be kept up on 4-6 allies simultaneously) and a -500% ST Regeneration debuff in Heat Exhaustion. Marine gives ~14.7% res to L/C/E/N/T/P and ~29.4% to F/S (from Toroidal Bubble) and +8.7% Defense to everything (from Barrier Reef) plus -11.25% AoE res debuffage (and substantial AoE damage) in Whitecap. As well as another -22.5% Single Target res (and MaxHP) debuff in Brine. But it also has Cone AoE healing, AoE +Damage from Tide Pool, Damage Procs from Shifting Tides... plus capped MaxHP and substantial AoE +Recovery and +Regeneration and +Range from Power of the Depths. At first glance the damage mitigation which the above sets can grant mastermind henchmen might look reasonably balanced between Sonic and Thermal (although /Marine is in a league of its own!) because the first has more +res; and the second has less +res but regular healing... once you factor in the +35% res from the Aura IOs; a /Sonic will be giving their pets ~76% to the main resistances; a /Thermal ~58.5% (~81.7% vs F!); and a /Marine ~47.9% (~64.4% vs F/S!). Plus another 5% (minimum!) from Barrier Destiny. However most henchmen also have inherent resistances that apply on top of this. Mercs for example will get ~41% to S/L (with ED-capped Equip but before Serum); Necro gets a whopping ~42.3% to S/C/N/P/T (again with an ED-capped Equip) and even Bots gets +39.1% to L/C/P. Demons (with their inherent resistances plus 'Ember Shield') can get completely silly. So much of the +res from Sonic (and even some from Thermal) can become "wasted" as your henchmen end up well beyond the 90% hardcap. Liquefy getting a faster recharge cycle has taken some of the edge off Sonic's poor performance... but the set still needs some love. There is a lot of micromanaging required for a /Sonic MM to get similar levels of performance to a "cruise control mode" /Thermal; particularly for Primaries with "Prefer Ranged" Pets. Nothing comes anywhere close to /Marine though. Not even a powerboosted+clarion'ed /Time... 🤦‍♂️ I do however agree that out of the various available MM /Sonic combos, either Necro/Sonic or Bots/Sonic are probably going to be the best performing (the -ToHit and +Def will largely cancel out until you start fighting high level/ranked targets... but Necro will end up more offensive with better ST damage output and require much less micromanagement to leverage Disruption Field; whereas Bots will end up more defensive with a bit more AoE damage plus on-demand -Regen for soloing AVs)

FWIW; if you're having trouble with two commands not being able to kick in simultaneously on a single button press; you can try something like: [c:\Temp\cohbind1.txt] KEY "+down$$-down$$command1$$bind_load_file_silent c:\Temp\cohbind2.txt" [c:\Temp\cohbind2.txt] KEY "+down$$-down$$command2$$bind_load_file_silent c:\Temp\cohbind1.txt" Holding down KEY will activate the first command and load the second bindfile... and releasing KEY will activate the second command and load the first bindfile. Pressing KEY (holding then releasing) should do both providing the first command doesn't take too long to process/activate (in which case it'll usually just queue it up)

Panacea/Miracle/Numina/ImperviousSkin are all Procs rather than globals, which is a good start. The "others" flag in Panacea means that it can kick in on other targets. So if you slot it in a regular power that affects someone else like "Aid Other" it'll get a chance to activate its effects on the person you're healing as well as on you. This becomes particularly powerful in some pseudopet AoE powers like Triage Beacon and Barrier Reef. Putting procs in a summon pet power is a little more complicated. Each of the pets conjured into existence by that summon power will have various subpowers (their attacks, passives, toggles etc) and each of those subpowers will automatically attempt to inherit whatever enhancements you have slotted in the 'parent' summon power; and the same goes for any extra-ability-granting pet upgrade powers. Each pet subpower can accept different types of enhancements; so you'll need to carefully check through your summoned pet's list of available subpowers in CoDv2 to see exactly what each one can inherit. This is how people work out what damage procs are good in what pets (e.g. a pet might have multiple subpowers that inflict -defence but only one that inflicts hold - in which case they'll get far more milage out of a TouchOfLadyGrey damage proc than a GhostWidowsEmbrace damage proc!) It might help to imagine your summoned pet making multiple copies of any enhancements you give them (including procs) and then trying to see if they can "slot" these copied enhancements into each of their own subpowers. If any of the pet's subpowers ends up successfully inheriting a Proc then any "self only" effects of that proc can kick in on the pet (because effectively that pet is activating a power that belongs to them and which contains a proc!) As an example... if you put a Panacea Proc into Mercs Summon Soldier then whenever your summoned Medic activates their Med Kit subpower (which inherits Healing Enhancements) that subpower will be treated as if it contains a Panacea Proc; and the Panacea Proc's effects will get a chance to activate on both the Medic themselves as well as whatever target they're healing. Likewise slotting any of the Healing Procs such as Panacea or Numina into the Necromancy 2nd upgrade Dark Empowerment will make those Procs inheritable for all the extra new pet abilities that are granted by that upgrade. One of these abilities is a Passive subpower (which is confusingly also named "Dark Empowerment"!) that buffs each pet's Maximum HP... and since this passive subpower inherits Healing Enhancements, it will successfully inherit any Healing Procs. So every pet technically ends up with a passive 'auto' ability that contains an inherited copy of those Healing Proc(s), and which will happily continually reapply the effects of each of those Procs on that pet every few seconds. The upshot is any healing procs you slot in the Dark Empowerment upgrade power will continually kick in on all your pets, separately. (However IMO the only one really worth slotting in it is Panacea, because the Base Regeneration and Recovery rates for henchmen are tiny!) Also I already pointed to this at the bottom of my post in the above linked thread; but because a picture is worth 1000 words...

The short answer is "it depends". To gain the benefit of a Special IO; the pet summon ability needs to accept slotting it and the pet themselves needs to possess subpowers that also accept slotting that flavour of enhancement. And the Special IO itself needs to be coded as a proc (rather than as a set bonus) and have effects that are capable of affecting non-players (most of them are flagged as affecting "self" with no restrictions on the entity type, and so will work ok if they're slotted in the pet). More reading here: