Maelwys

/jranger

It's a single casting. However I activated LN three times in the middle of two training pylons and screenshotted the activation where the most damage procs triggered. If memory serves... of the other two activations; one had no procs trigger on cast, but did have a few procs trigger midway through; and the other had a single proc trigger on cast and one more proc trigger midway through. The Interface Incarnate damage ticks were landing pretty consistently though.

It DependsTM If your secondary is already buffing their defense and/or resistance but can't quite get them to the Softcap? Of if you're already wanting to take one/both of the Recharge Intensive Sets for their 4-piece Set Bonus? Or if you simply have some extra enhancement slots free? Go for it. I've got an Illusion/Time with 1x Def Aura IO (because with PB'd+Clarioned Farsight+GroupInvis they're sitting at >40% Def already) and both the Res Aura IOs.

Banished Pantheon usually isn't the best option; especially for MMs. The buffs that the Invulnerable support pet brings are mostly Recovery/Regen (which you don't need as a /Marine) and its additional damage is more of a gimmick. The Boss pet is OK and deals decent -Res though; and MMs can keep it alive better than most ATs. However Talons Radial (constant AoE buffs throughout it's duration; plus a Boss pet which has an 18s Nuke that has a target cap high enough to hit every enemy on the map) or Arachnos Radial (90s AoE +Def buff, once per summoning) tend to have a higher performance ceiling for MMs. And either Carnies Radial or Seers Radial (both of which can constantly buff the damage output of one target indefinitely) tend to be better for non-MMs. So personally the only AT I take BP Radial Lore on is a Brute. Also in answer to your other query: (1) Set the relative enemy level slider (top of the Mids window) to +3; and detoggle any "Build Up" procs and Supermacy. Doing that should get the unbracketed accuracy values to something more sensible/useful - you want the figure to be 95% or above (giving *YOU* a capped Hit Rate against regular +3 enemies) (2) Now that you know what YOUR powers look like; leave the slider at +3 but remove all your Accuracy Set Bonuses - that's what your T3 Pet's accuracy will look like. Then increase the slider to +4 (what your T2 pets will look like) and then to +5 (what your T1 pets will look like). Supremacy and Tactics will apply against your pets as well; so the actual numbers for your pets will be a bit higher in practice as long as they're closeby... but Demons are decidedly unruly + they can end up half a map away from you before you can blink!

Demons/Marine indeed doesn't get any -Regen. However you are not going to need -Regen to take down AVs on a Demons/Marine. The sheer scale of the single damage output that combination is capable of (mostly reliant on -Res and Damage Procs; but still) can destroy a Pylon in ten seconds. (And FWIW, I posted a rather more tame/general purpose build last week here)

Marine is incredible. Even ASIDE from Shifting Tide Procs and Power of the Depths +MaxHP buffs (both of which are ridiculously good on MMs); Toroidal Bubble plus Ember demon buffs can Hardcap your Smashing and Fire Resistances without going anywhere near Tough or the Epic pools. Of course, Barrier Reef plus Protector Bot Bubbles, Maneuvers and Barrier can softcap all your Robotics Henchmen's defense permanently too. And then there's Whitecap's AoE procbomb goodness and Brine's ST -res debuff and ("Let's delete this Sapper from 80ft away") MaxHP debuff. And it ALSO covers AoE Healing and +Recovery and has a Slow Patch... 🤯

Looks like this is indeed the case actually...

Building for S/L Defense still gives pretty good mitigation; because the PVE typed defense changes really only had a major impact to a few enemy groups. Melee positional defense will certainly perform better than S/L typed defense if you're always in melee... but it won't help hugely if you regularly go over the aggro cap (such as when AE farming) because enemies beyond the aggro cap SHOOT at you instead of close to melee range. That said; generally melee ATs can steamroll through newspaper missions without even toggling their armors on. "Resist Based" melee ATs will typically aim to cap the important damage resistances; get their MaxHP up a bit; and achieve as high a damage output as possible. If the player driving them wishes to sacrifice some damage output to chase defense; then it's USUALLY Melee typed... but the opportunity cost (in terms of having to chase +Def set bonuses and +Def granting powers over chasing more Damage and Global Recharge) can get quite prohibitive. Also without any Defense Debuff Resistance it's not uncommon to experience cascading defense failure when fighting certain enemies (like Romans!) and maintaining a "buffer" of 10-20% additional defense in case of debuffs isn't always doable. Different people also have VERY different opinions on what constitutes "sturdy enough"... we were having this very same argument discussion just yesterday... 😉 One thing I will say though is that there are plenty of situational powers such as Rune of Protection and Shadowmeld which can drastically increase your survivability temporarily to let you get past a particularly difficult spot. One of my favourite melee toons is an EM/Rad/Soul Scrapper who can quite happily "Active Farm" AE at +4x8 etc even though they can only reach the Softcap with Shadowmeld running.

"Being the Batman is not about gadgets! It is not about body armor! It is about three things; speed, skill and sense!" (If you've never heard this particular one... looky here; it's at approx 1:07 in!) 😉

Get the accolade RedSide instead. Chugging through the mayhems solo takes considerably less time than it does for a PUG to complete a Synapse.

The thing is... mechanics change. They changed in i7. That's what triggered Arcanaville to post their original thread. IIRC up until then harder enemies like AVs had been getting additional ToHit buffs, not Accuracy buffs. Our method of interpreting, modelling and predicting those mechanics also changes. Arcanaville's original post was extremely useful but it was using information that was compiled from raw combat log values and whatever the devs decided to expressly share with us. CoH players didn't yet have tools like City of Data or in-game "real numbers" and it was actually very fortunate that we were given even a few table scraps of real data to chew on by the devs (because Jack Emmert's philosophy back then was that the players shouldn't know how things function under the hood!). The players had to figure out the difference between typed and positional defense (for example) on their own. The HitChance formula has been refined a bit over time too. But it still largely represents the same thing, as does the Accuracy figure in Mids, which is "how accurate can I expect this attack to be". And it's almost always going to be a "best guess" estimation because it's unlikely we'll know exactly what variables are in play (particularly ToHit and Defence buffs/debuffs from sources other than our own character) unless we're in game watching the combat log like a hawk. Whilst all Thermometers are used for measuring temperature; it's probably a good idea to understand how everyone else is using it. Otherwise you may be left with a funny taste in your mouth. I suspect @Mack008 could be onto something in their above post, so it might be a good idea to double check some of your assumptions. I look forward to seeing the chart! 👍

This is completely correct. (Although it might be worth clarifying that this DefDebuff effect would be subjected to enemy debuff resistance and purple patch scaling the same as any Debuff effect...) And FWIW it's actually happening in my above combat log screenshot against the Comms Officer, as I got two Neutrino Bolt shots off on it. The first shot had the expected 91.5% Hit Chance; but the second shot (which would have been made whilst the target was under the effect of one DefDebuff stack) was capped at 95%.

The problem with that it's a pseudopet with all of its inherent damage hidden behind an "if...then" mechanic so that it only gets an opportunity to trigger if the targeted creature has already been subjected to a knockdown effect for 0.5 seconds. See here and note the green exclamation marks against most of the effects on the bottom right. All of the power's base damage plus any regular damage procs won't get a chance to trigger in it until the foe gets knocked down. The only component of the power that isn't gated in this manner is the -RunSpeed effect, so technically damage procs from the Slow sets can bypass the knockdown prerequisite... however it's a pseudopet with a big radius so Proc chance is rubbish regardless. Therefore IMO either use it for Muling set bonuses or just stick a common recharge IO in the base slot. [EDIT: Testing shows all types of damage procs get an opportunity to trigger regardless of the knockdown. The chance is still pretty rubbish though]

Personally, if I was to set out to build a new Bio Tanker right now for general PVE content; my main priorities would be aim for high damage (obviously) and high recharge (because DNA Siphon, Parasitic Aura and Ablative Carapace all love it). Then I'd aim for capped S/L Damage Resistance (or within one SMoT proc worth of it) with Offensive Adaptation running. This should be pretty easy to do without noteworthy build sacrifices; and much of it might happen organically (Bio-organically?!) as a result of building for Damage/Recharge. However next up, I'd aim to softcap the build's E/N/F/C Defenses. This might require sacrificing a couple of damage procs etc. for set bonuses... but assuming I have room for a few extra power picks such as "Weave" and "Combat Jumping" any offensive performance reduction should be relatively minor. And finally, I'd look at softcapping its Defense to either S/L or Melee. This last one will be the real killer; because Bio starts off with no native S/L or Melee Defense. So unless my offensive powerset has an ability that grants a +Def buff (which is why I really like my Bio/Staff), I'll likely need to make major build concessions in order to get enough +Def set bonuses to reach the softcap. Because low-downside options such as 4-piece Unbreakable Guard sets can only get you so far. And yes... I may well decide that actually getting all the way to this particular softcap is simply not worth the performance tradeoff and instead aim to be within a single Purple Insp of the softcap (12%? 20%? 33.5%? - I've got a few Blaster builds in the stable that intentionally get a smidge over 12% so that a Large Purple can softcap them in a pinch!) AFAIK nearly all builds in CoX will have a sweet spot where the opportunity cost of attaining more mitigation is a practically negligible (if even measurable) reduction in damage output. However as you pursue more and more mitigation that opportunity cost will get greater and greater until you finally reach the point where going any higher is no longer an acceptable tradeoff to you. And obviously different people will have different views on what an unacceptable level of opportunity cost is. If you handed @Spaghetti Betty and @Hyperstrike each an identical level 1 Tanker and came back a few days later, you may end up wondering if the two now-matured builds you're looking at are even the same AT... heck, I'm sure Betty could make a good stab at emulating at least five different ATs on the same raw toon chassis by herself. Possibly even simultaneously. I'm a tad OCD (surprise surprise) and I probably place more emphasis than most folk do on trying to get each of my builds to hit particular number and percentage thresholds because doing so "FEELS RIGHT" to me even if they're usually superfluous... but for me playing with the numbers is a large part of the fun. On average I probably spend about twice as much time poking at each toon's build than I do actually playing it...

It's basically a Set Mule. You want recharge and maybe some -Slow. -RunSpeed/Slow Set IOs are the only ones that won't require a foe to be knocked on their ass for 0.5s before they can activate; but the PPM chance is a bit rubbish. I stuck 5x Ragnaroks in it on my Dominator; purely for Global +Rech (they use Intuition Radial Alpha + so don't need extra -runspeed)

I think this is the answer TBH. Using one of the combat log analysis tools (like Carni's or Cyclops') might help narrow down the culprit!

That's just one of Arcanaville's many theses on Defense; dating from the rework in issue 7 which landed in June 2006. I was around at the time and keenly aware of the math even back then; taking part in various discussions in the UK boards on the ramifications of the Defence changes and how it affected our builds. Despite being on the other side of the pond us Brits were keenly aware of the US board antics; and a quick search shows I even linked to an earlier version of the very study you're pointing at as early as November 2006. None of it contradicts anything I wrote above. At this point I'm honestly not sure how I can make things any more transparent. I have quite literally used the given raw numbers from examples supplied by you; substituted them into the universally accepted CoH Hit Chance Formula using BRIGHTLY COLOUR CODED VARIABLE VALUES and gotten results which match the listed accuracy figure in Mids (here). And that listed Accuracy figure in Mids is also matching the in-game Hit Chance displayed in the combat log (here). If you still believe that the numbers are not making sense then unfortunately as far as I can tell that's an issue at your end; because from what I can see there are no outstanding discrepancies being highlighted here with either Mids or the above calculations.

The takeaway is that it's far more likely that the Clobber build will have 2-3 stacks; and the GFS build will oscillate far more randomly between 1 and 3. So I imagine that having (6.7*2)+3=16.4% less Negative damage resistance at a few inopportune moments is the main issue here. The third build has 5% more global recharge I think? (Purple set in Shield Charge) and so technically GFS will be a smidge faster to cycle (and therefore it's a smidge more likely that you'll have more SMoT procs up at any one time); but honestly if it has performed noticeably better than the second build then I suspect that's more due to the random number generator happening to prefer it on the runs in question.

Yeah that was importable. +18.37 (Protector Bot bubbles) + 7.86 (Barrier Reef) + 3.79 (Maneuvers) +10.00 (2x Aura IOs) = 40.02 So you'll need to run Barrier to Softcap 'em. This is your Whitecap: Ideally this is what it should be: Detoggle Vengeance and the Gaussian in Tactics and Vengence (and probably Tide Pool too!) and try to get 95% Hit Chance on +3s via base Tactics; a Kismet and Set Bonuses alone. Also: Fit the Annihilation -Res in somewhere. Consider taking Weaken Resolve (and procing it up with the Achilles' Heel and a bunch of damage procs) Stick an Explosive Strike Proc in the Drones and AssBot. There's more, but that's the cliff notes. Rather than trying to go through the rest power by power you'd be better off checking this post for a better idea of what's achievable:

At a quick glance, you're losing out on rather useful Damage Proc opportunities in the Assbot and Drones; and I very much doubt that your pets are softcapped (I make it a smidge over 35% as things stand). I also don't see much in the way of Recharge Debuff Resistance or any -Res debuffs; and Whitecap is criminally underslotted. If you posted an importable Mids build (or a copy of the *.mbd file itself) rather than just a textdump then we could probably be of more help...

FWIW I'm home now. Clobber with that slotting should be getting 76.9567% chance for SMoT proc activation; and be up every 7.552s. Greater Fire Sword will be getting 61.4467% chance for SMoT proc activation; and be up every 6.244s. The SMoT Proc only persists for ~20s and best case (if you're utterly spamming each power) you'll get 3 chances to stack it over that window. And plugging three trials with those values into the ol' handy Binomial Distribution Calculator gives... Clobber = a 1.224% likelihood of 0 procs, 12.259% likelihood of 1 proc; 40.941% likelihood of 2 procs and 45.576% of 3 procs. GFS = a 5.73% likelihood of 0 procs, 27.4% likelihood of 1 proc; 43.67% likelihood of 2 procs and 23.2% of 3 procs.

Global Recharge has no impact on Proc rate (that's the whole point of stacking Global Recharge over slotting the attack power itself for recharge). The at-rest numbers look fine, so it has to be something like an unlucky run of SMoT Proc activations occuring. If it was me I'd pin a few relevant resistance figures (S/L for most AVs, but Rommy deals considerable Negative) and see what it sits at during the fight. To be fair, Clobber has a base recharge time of 16s to GFS's 12s so the expected Proc rate in it will be considerably higher (I'm on mobile at the moment so can't work out the exact PPM differences unfortunately)

The BaseHitChance against even level foes (which you have selected in the top "Enemy relative level" dropdown box in Mids) is 75%. The fact that you're not yet adding any personal +ToHit buffs "ToHitMods" or subtracting any enemy Defence buffs "DefMods" from it is irrelevant. (And Mids won't know about any enemy Defence buffs anyway. That's the whole point of it not clamping the final HitChance value!) So of course Mids can calculate its unclamped HitChance... ...it'll be AccMods x Clamp(0.75 + 0 - 0) which reduces to AccMods x 0.75 Your Tactics is granting +18.02 ToHit. That makes the equation HitChance = Clamp(AccMods x Clamp (0.75 + 0.1802 - 0)) which reduces to Clamp(AccMods x 0.9302) And since we already know from earlier that AccMods = 2.3462 that results in: HitChance = Clamp(2.3462 x 0.9302) = Clamp(2.18243524) Therefore since Mids displays an unclamped HitChance, it is correctly spitting out an estimated HitChance of 218% Clamp that 218% figure at 95% and that's your actual "chance to hit" in the game, providing no additional ToHit debuffs or Defense buffs come into play. Again, this isn't rocket science, it's a very straightforward substitution of a few variables into a predefined formula. And from what I can tell Mids is getting things completely correct here providing that you remember that it is intentionally not clamping that final Hit Chance at 95% for you.

As far as I am aware you believe wrongly. This is backed up by in-game testing (see my previous post which showed me using Neutrino Bolt with the slotting and set bonuses you previously specified against a +4 foe in the RWZ, and getting exactly the same ToHit chance in the game itself as Mids predicted against a +4 foe). Because whenever the BaseHitChance is 75% (vs even level foes) and the active +ToHitMods and DefMods are zero; the value that you will be trying to clamp is "75%". 75% is already between 5% and 95% and therefore clamping it will have no effect. In this case the formula will first reduce to HitChance = Clamp (AccMods x 0.75). Mids' listed 'Accuracy' value is an unclamped estimated HitChance, which means it should be a figure equal to (AccMods x 0.75) Earlier we worked out AccMods to be 2.3462 (with +59.62% Accuracy Enhancement Slotting within Neutrino Bolt itself plus +75% Accuracy Set Bonuses!) This results in a Mids Accuracy Value = (2.3462 x 0.75) = 1.75965 = "176%".