Omega-202

Yep, always been that way. I can't count how many times I've been in the middle of Twilight Grasp, trying to heal myself, when it would have been smarter to just mash greens. But then it's too late because I'm locked in for 2.5 seconds of animation.

That's not what's going on, and it's also why I haven't made suggestions regarding the base concept, because I feel that this is a really non-optimal way to handle your endurance concerns. Endurance reduction, by the base nature of how it is calculated by the game, always has diminishing returns. End Cost = Base Cost * (1 ÷ [1+End Reduction%]) So in your example it's base * (1/1.3025) or 0.7678% of base cost. That's where you get the ~24% reduction instead of the 30% you expect. And it just gets worse as you add more end reduction via enhancements. You get WAAAY better bang for you buck going for +Endurance bonuses, such as the one in Annhilation 2-slot. Increasing your total End pool acts as a psuedo end reduction, while also boosting overall recovery and the benefit from the +End procs (Panacea and Performance Shifter).

Note that the -Res procs of the same name do not stack. So having 3 Annihilations is a bit of a waste, especially when you could put the Gladiator's Fury -Res in Arm Lash and the Achilles Heel -Res in Suppression. Not to mention that Annihilation has the worst stats (lowest PPM and value) of the 3 -Res procs.

For absolutely maximum performance in Siren's Call, yes, you'd want lvl 33+5 standard IOs or lvl 50+5 PVP/Purples. But that's a real niche scenario. Regarding cost, all IOs of the same name are bucketed on the Auction House on Homecoming. A lvl 50 Gamblers and a lvl 30 Gamblers cost the same because once posted, the AH converts one to the other. Same for attuned vs non attuned. A lvl50 posted IO can be purchased as an attuned IO by someone else, saving the need for a Catalyst. Back in the day, especially before attuning, lower level Gambler's +Rech were more expensive because it's not a proc. It behaves like a single IO set bonus, so you only get the benefit of it down to lvl - 3.

The proc levels don't matter for them having their individual effects, but they do matter for set bonuses. A lvl 50 proc with 2 other atttuned pieces of it's set will only give the 3-slot bonus at 47 and above. The best scenario is to always attune your procs if feasible, just so you can definitely get any set bonuses.

A) 45% defense is not some magical value and is generally pretty meaningless on Corruptors and Defenders because they completely lack debuff resistance. It's just a "more is better" situation. And that's not accounting for a lot of sets that have effective overcapped defense/-tohit anyway. A Dark Miasma of either AT will be pretty easily softcapped just with standard defense slotting + Fearsome Stare. B) IO bonuses and Incarnate values are the same between ATs, Scorpion shield has the same values for each and Defenders don't have a huge advantage over Corruptors on the defensive scalars (Corruptors are 85% or 75% depending on the power). A Defender that hits 45% S/L defense with Scorpion Shield will be a Corruptor that hits 38-40% with the same slotting. C) Again, if you want to talk min/max, you'd know that it really depends on the powersets. Some are better suited for Corruptors and some are better suited for Defenders. And if you want to get into team dynamic, then the defense argument is stupid because any decent min/maxed team that is sticking together is running 5+ Manuevers and the Corruptor is soft capped anyway. And if they're not sticking together then both the Corruptor and the Defender are dead weight.

Generally, that's a decent way to think about how single aspect enhancements work, but it's actually way more complicated for multi-aspect enhancements. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Exemplar_Effects_on_Enhancements

This is completely incorrect. The order does not matter. When you exemplar you get all of the slots. Please don't spread misinformation.

On a team though, the Defender loses their Vigilance bonus, the 400% Defender vs 500% Corruptor damage caps matter more and Scourge start mattering more as hard targets (bosses and AVs) become more common. It also really depends on the power sets. Sure a Sonic Blast Defender will be better than a Sonic Blast Corruptor, but a Fire Blast Corruptor's higher damage will be better than a Fire Blast Defender. A Storm Defender's higher -Res Freezing Rain is better, but a Corruptor can make better use of Fulcrum Shift without overcapping themselves and half the team like a Defender would. It's not black and white.

Except the difference in their damage and the difference in their buff/debuff scalars are about inverse of each other. It's not as wide as everyone makes it out to be. Most Corruptor scalara are 0.85 or 0.75 compared to Defender's 1.0. And Corruptors are 0.75 (with a theoretical 30% boost from Scourge) compared to 0.65 for Defenders. Even assuming half of Scourge is wasted (lets say 15% boost), the Corruptor has a larger advantage in damage than the Defender has in buff/debuff. Lets do a "best case scenario" comparison to show how "Defenders do the same damage as Corruptors when Solo" thing is not really true. Scalar 1.0 damage attacks backed by Radiation Emission. Corruptor: Base attack - 0.75 Enhancements - 95% enhancement Accelerate Metabolism - 20 % damage buff Enervating Field - 22.5% res debuff Scourge weighted half - 15% damage boost (0.75 x (1+.95+.2) x 1.225 x 1.15) = 2.27 Defender: Base attack - 0.65 Enhancements - 95% enhancement Accelerate Metabolism - 25 % damage buff Vigilance solo - 30% damage buff Enervating Field - 30% res debuff (0.65 x (1+.95+.25+.3) x 1.3) = 2.11 So even on a set that heavily favors Defenders by providing both a + Dam and a -Res, while also writing off Scourge as only half it's theoretical effectiveness, a solo Corruptor still outdamages a Vigilance boosted solo Defender.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/5th_Column#Reichsman When his Unstoppable is up, he has overcapped resists to most damage types. His Unstoppable also has pretty decent up time during the fight from my experience. I really feel like a lot people don't know the details of that fight and are just making assumptions. There are other fights in the game where -resist and -regen are huge helps, Reichsman just isn't a great example.

Is it a separate conversation? Those two sets are examples of why this shouldn't be a thing / examples of how the devs originally balanced some sets with Uniques to compensate. They gave those two unique containing sets a very strong 6 slot bonus to compensate for the fact that you can only get it once. Allowing for 4 Expedient Reinforcements 6 slots on an Illusion/Storm for example (PA, Phant, Tornado, Patron Pet) + the 2 Def uniques is 18.5% ranged defense, just in IOs.

I stepped on a crack outside and it started raining. Correlation meet causation. I've had debuffer-less runs go really well and debuffer runs go poorly. A Scrapper doing 900 DPS will outperform a Defender doing 200 DPS contributing debuffs neutered into dirt by his debuff resistance.

Except that's not how it shakes out for Reichsman and debuffs. He has AV standard debuff resistance AND an extra level of Reichsman specific debuff resistance. He eats debuffs for breakfast and in practice, taking another heavy DPS is pretty much equal to taking a Rad or Dark Defender. A -300% regen debuffs against him gets neutered to double digits. If you had runs that worked out better with debuffers, it wasn't just because of the debuffers.

Some are. Gaussian's and Expedient Reinforcement are two examples of Unique limited sets that have pretty strong 6 slot bonuses that probably shouldn't allow multiples of.

Your example was about a fight that can be made faster via -res and -regen which are both debuffs that simulate and equate to increased damage. You can take a Defender with -regen and -resist doing half the DPS of a Scrapper, where the Defender's debuffs result in a 10% DPS increase for the whole team and in the end, the result is the same as if you took that Scrapper. So your example was an encounter where damage is all there is to be concerned about and then say "simply pointing out that damage is not the only metric to be concerned about ". Your example was bad for the point you were trying to make. But go ahead and get snippy and insist that your point made sense.

Have we confirmed the relevance of Arcanatime in the modern HC world? I've taken it as gospel, but have heard from pretty knowledgeable individuals in game that the concept is outdated and not applicable to the HC net cycles, like it was on live. I've been meaning to test it but haven't had the time (stupid real world job).

I'm with you. I don't get the complaint there.

I don't think you actually understood what I wrote, so let me clarify: A) I disagree with the base premise that there is a major imbalance between the support ATs (or at least Corruptors and Defenders), both in practice and numerically, as noted in my previous post. Having extensively played Defenders, Corruptors and Controllers the base complaint of this thread is factually incorrect. B) When you have 15 cars on the track, and 4 of the cars at the back of the pack have a flat tire, you fix the flat tire FIRST and then discuss suping up their engines. Doing any other upgrades first before fixing the obvious flaw is backwards logic. The Support sets are the flat tires. And I think you're misunderstanding me. ALL Support sets need a balance pass, thereby boosting all 4 ATs. This wouldn't be picking and choosing individual sets, but some do need more help than others. Then once they are all in a better spot, we can discuss how each AT should be better differentiated from one another. But boosting Corruptor Scourge damage first, and then eventually getting to the Support fix means you will break them in the other direction, or that Support sets wouldn't get tuned up to where they need to be, for fear of creating overpowered Support ATs. Say we redo Scourge so that Corruptors do better damage, but short of Blasters. Then what happens when Support sets get addressed and made endgame relevant? All of a sudden Corruptors are outperforming Blasters with a better toolkit to boot. ...Except your example of Kahn and Reichsman is all about damage, just indirectly. The debuffs that are useful in Kahn are the ones that help you do and keep damage on Reichsman. That fight isn't all that hard from a survival perspective, so I don't know what your point is.

@Luminara I get where you're coming from and I am not opposed to a Scourge revamp or an inherent revamp as a whole, but I don't think that would be the most effective use of development time/resources. All 4 of the Support set ATs need help fitting in the current meta, so we should start there instead of trying to fix each one individually in different ways. Personally, I would start with a revamp of the endgame bottom tier sets (FF, Empathy, Pain) and then look at animation times/general uptime QoL on the higher tier endgame sets (Storm, Dark, Radiation). In terms of differentiating Defenders and Corruptors, I don't really agree with the premise that one is out performing the other in a way that requires addressing ahead of fixing Support as a whole. The fact is that there are sets and combos that Corruptors do better than Defenders (Ice and Water primary due to the rain+Scourge synergy, Kinetics and Dark secondaries) and sets that Defenders do better (Cold, Thermal, Time and Sonic Blast) is more than enough in my view. Anyone saying that one AT is objectively ahead of the other is incorrect in my view.

Are you certain that you have 3 slots of Superior Malice slotted in the same power and not a mix of Superior and normal Malice of the Corruptor? It's a common mistake that people often post about thinking something is broken and then they realize they have 2 purple icons and 1 orange.

SOME Corruptors and Defenders are effective in that role. Not all Corruptors and Defenders have -regen and/or -res. And that's also part of the problem. A Cold or Dark support will be a boon to a late game team, whereas a FF or Empathy might as well have a blank set a lot of the time. But even then, having at least one Reactive and Degenerative Interface on the team, a few P2W Daggers and 2 or 3 people cycling attacks with Achilles, Annihilation and Gladiator's Fury slotted (which a lot of well built endgame characters will have) can make the Defender/Corruptor less needed.

Assuming "1:1" means a 1% chance at 99% health, 50% chance at 50% health, 99% chance at 1% health, etc., that would work out to an overall 50% boost to Corruptor damage, assuming no wasted Scourge opportunities. Being that Scourge would be more prevalent, instead of being bottom heavy, there would be less Scourge waste. That's compared to the theoretical 30% boost current Scourge gives (which gives them a theoretical 0.975 damage scale). So, that 50% boost would put Corruptors at an equivalent 1.125 scale damage (0.75 × 1.5 = 1.125), the same scale as Blasters. I get the idea, but that seems like stepping on toes a bit, especially when there are sets like Kinetics that allow a Corruptor to permanently cruise at 500% damage cap, with a heal, an endurance drain and a bunch of +recharge from 2x Siphon Speed, as well as a better shield modifier on Tough/Weave/APP armor. Why play a Blaster at that point? Hell, why even keep Sentinels as an option? I agree that something needs to be done to make Defenders and Corruptors more effective in the current 'MOAR DAMAGE' metagame, but we also don't want to just play see-saw with the game balance where they just invalidate Blasters.

I've noticed a growing trend amongst the playerbase on Homecoming recently. I have no idea what's causing it but there's a lot of "confidently incorrect" information spreading going on, both on the forums and in game. It's really baffling to me. Why comment on things you have no idea about? There's nothing wrong with not knowing the correct answer to something, but people constantly do more harm than good by then spreading wrong information. And the worst part is that so much of the information anyone could want is easily available. @Bopper and others have given us encyclopedias of easily accessible information and yet people will interject in threads with utter nonsense. No, I take it back...the actual worst part is when they get upset when you correct them.

That would help more than a little. 2.33 s being dropped down to 1.23 s is a lot. I would prefer a fix to things in the base Bane kit to help at lower levels, but this isn't a bad starting point. Three things I would want to see are: - Banes getting a Venom Grenade variant that fires from the mace, just like Crabs getting a Venom Grenade firing from the crab arms. This would cut out the unnecessary redraw between the gun and mace. - Cut all/most of the mace ranged attack animation times in half. Bane's don't get Whirling Mace, but they do get Mace Beam Blast and Disruptor Blast. If those weren't both 2s animations, then they could do some respectable AoE damage. Poisonous Ray could be a great mix-in for a melee Bane, if it's animation wasn't complete garbage. - Change Web Cocoon to Toxic Web Cocoon and add damage to it. Let it be turned into a true proc monster power instead of a mediocre hold.