Redlynne

Great, another reason to update my Peacebringer leveling build ...

I'll be glad to get back to the old forums so I can get my Signature back ...

If you're changing the secondary powerset, you may want to "rebalance" the power picks and slotting to better suit your preferences. Out of the Ninja/* powerset itself, I'd recommend the slotting for the Ninjas, training powers and Smoke Flash (so 6 of 9) either "as is" or perhaps look around for some damage procs you can slot into the Ninjas in lieu of the stock 'n' standard Acc/Dam/End mix. However, at this point, I'm seriously considering doing a rebuild on the Ninja/Time/Mace framework, simply because I wrote this up and posted it before I'd even started playing again (so, relying on 6+ year old memories of how to build and why) and I'm already running into second guessing some of the choices I made ... such as not taking any of the Ninja primary attacks that use the Bow ... while running around at up to Level 10 in Nova Praetoria. I've also run into various issues with my bindloadfiles that have forced additional tweaks and reworks, but since I can no longer modify my old postings after the forum move, I'd basically need to just write up a new build post and start over anyway at this point for that. So look at this build as being a first/rough draft that I wanted to have access to for leveling purposes, with the thought always in mind that it would no doubt need to be tweaked and updated and playtime accrued and experience with the build increased.

Something must be wrong ... since *I'm* listed on the all time leaderboard for some unknown reason(s) ...

Is anyone ever going to post some patch notes for what happened today? Aside from the forums update, of course.

That does seem to be an ... unfortunate(?) ... side effect of playing Time/Dual Pistols/* for some reason. Someday we'll get an answer as to "why" but until then, MORE RESEARCH IS NEEDED!!

1-24 Soldier 24-50 Huntsman 24-50 Crab 24-50 Bane

To elaborate more fully, in the time it takes to animate 5 different backpack attacks (with no repeats) you can animate 6 rifle attacks (with no repeats) in the same amount of time. This means that use of the backpack attacks results in a different ... tempo ... of game play. Whether that slower tempo is to your liking is a question that only you can answer. In order to use the Wide Area Web Grenade you HAVE TO use the rifle, since there is no backpack equivalent attack, since Aim replaces Wide Area Web Grenade on the Crab primary powerset, compared to the Arachnos Soldier primary powerset.

Reasonable request and programming would (probably) not be excessively difficult to do.

So ... 150 seconds is our target endpoint ... which is 2m30s for base recharge.

I'm still holding out for replacing the application with a web page solution.

I get the feeling that I just need to write a guide to put in the Guides Forum about how useful it is to slot Range enhancement into Cone attacks. Maybe in a year (or two) after one of my alts reaches 50 (at the rate I'm earning levels) ...

+1 Inf for you for that story. And other +1 Inf to you for that reaction to that story.

Watching that gameplay made me realize that all the times I've explained how to use the Hop 'n' Pop move on an Ice/Ice Tanker to convert the Cone attack Frost from being a "slice of the pie" in 2D into being a PBAoE-ish attack didn't go to waste. I see that you were repeatedly jumping up in the air and activating Empty Clips at the top of your jump so as to hit everything clustered up around you. Very nice. It's the difference between these two options ... of 2D versus 3D positioning when activating a Cone attack like Empty Clips:

Hold the aggro of FIVE RIKTI MAGUS during a Mothership Raid for up to 2 minutes (without help or faceplanting yourself) while waiting for the "cavalry" to arrive and help you with the beatdown so as to prevent those FIVE RIKTI MAGUS from wiping the raid. Extra bonus points for doing it more than once in the same Mothership Raid ... without resorting to use of Inspirations. I got a ... reputation ... for pulling this stunt back on Virtue server. The first time I did it, people were SHOCKED (shocked I say!) to find me alive (and still kicking) underneath a dogpile of FIVE RIKTI MAGUS. The second time I did it, people started sending me tells of awe. Then I did it twice in one raid ... and a reputation was born (as they say). The Extraordinary Death-defying Redlynne And to think, I was playing a Scrapper while doing that ...

This kind of thing is where you'd want to be "fitting" the chance to proc percentage to the frequency of use for the power itself. What I'm trying to highlight here is that the increased recharge time of Soul Drain would push the chance to proc WELL beyond 100% chance in a way that winds up being "wasteful" ... just like how dealing 1000 damage to something with only 15 hp left is wasteful. The flipside to this is that putting the Resistance debuff proc into Hail of Bullets instead of Soul Drain would (potentially) increase the uptime of the proc to potentially as much as 60-70% of the time, even though the chance to proc falls below 100% due to recharge enhancement on the power (as I mentioned above, it would be over 90% but not as high as 100%). So yeah ... switching back to using the Resistance debuff in your Hail of Bullets power rather than in Soul Drain is something that deserves some careful consideration.

+1 Inf to you too ...

Well, this was a "quick and dirty" look at Time/Dual Pistols/Soul so as to cross-compare it (more fully) with the precedents I'd set (for myself and everyone else, apparently) with my Time/Dual Pistols/Dark builds. So I wasn't thinking THAT deeply into it. More like a "here's an opportunity, might as well take it" kind of deal. To be honest with you, for 5 slots in single target ranged powers, I often times have a preference for Entropic Chaos over Decimation, since both get the same Recharge bonus at 5 slots. But that's just me. However, if aiming for maximal enhancement value while still getting the Recharge bonus from 5 slots, Decimation minus the Build Up proc is the way to go. Well, you've convinced me! Which is kind of why I do these theorycrafting of builds as a crowdsourcing of tribal knowledge the way I do, because it's always possible there's another angle which I've overlooked that would be superior to the choices I've been making. Things like slotting Resistance debuffs, which last longer than Build Up buffs, when they proc, and putting them into powers that have higher chances to proc is just one example of this sort of thing in action.

You can blame me for making Gale fun to use routinely. I mean, can you imagine that people used to think that Gale was a waste of a power pick that they'd never use? I know, right? Amateurs.

In terms of being predictable or controllable (or reliable) ... granted, the Decimation proc isn't going to be particularly high on chance to proc in Executioner's Shot. And also granted, that the 6-slot set bonus for Decimation is nothing to salivate over, I totally get that too. So really, if there is a slot anywhere in the build(s) I've made in this thread that ought to be thought of as being "loose" or even "low hanging fruit" if you prefer for reassignment elsewhere ... dropping this proc from Executioner's Shot would probably be my first option if I REALLY wanted to assign that slot somewhere else. The thing is, that since Decimation is an enhancement set for single target ranged damage attacks, out of all of the choices in Dual Pistols, putting that proc into Executioner's Shot is honestly the longest recharge power option you've got to choose from, if you're going to use the proc at all (and I get that you're saying you wouldn't). So the question then becomes (obviously) ... is there a better slot alternative than putting the Decimation proc into Executioner's Shot? And just as obviously ... that's a matter of opinion, depending on what you want to get out of your build. I would however point out that I'm assuming that if you're using Executioner's Shot (at all), you're likely to either be using it in a single target rotation of Pistols > Dual Wield > Executioner's Shot > Repeat ... or as a "filler" attack (for recharge reasons) between uses of Empty Clips and Bullet Rain when mowing down large quantities of crunchies. The Build Up proc lasts 5.25 seconds, but will "apply" to attacks that are queued up before the buff ends (just like how Eagle's Claw works for Martial Arts). Basically what this means is that you could potentially "stretch" the overall animation time of attacks that get to use the build up buff so long as the attack chain takes less than 5.2 seconds to animate completely, and you can then queue a long animation time power at the end of that to "carry" the buff beyond the 5.25 second limitation due to the fact that the game mechanics work on a Resolve First/Animate After basis. I'm thinking specifically of a rotation of Executioner's Shot, Pistols, then Dual Wield or Empty Clips or Bullet Rain (since all 3 of these attacks have the same arcanatime for animations) followed by Piercing Rounds as working well to exploit the Build Up proc (when it procs). The entire attack chain would last 7.5 seconds but would "stretch" the effect of the Build Up proc across all FOUR attacks, which wouldn't be that shabby of a return on investment (when it procs). Of course, in order to "get" that kind of return out of the proc, you'd need to be using that rotation by default, otherwise the best return you'd be getting is buffing to three attacks instead of four, simply because of the timing issues involved (1.848*3=5.544 which is greater than 5.250). Bottom line being that in order to stretch the Build Up proc across four attacks, you need to use Pistols after Executioner's Shot so as to be able to squeeze that start of the fourth attack in before the Build Up buff expires 5.25 seconds after Executioner's Shot began animating (due to Resolve First/Animate After game mechanics). Executioner's Shot (Build Up proc duration of 5.25 seconds beginning when Executioner's Shot starts animating) Pistols Dual Wield ... or ... Empty Clips ... or ... Bullet Rain Piercing Rounds (begins animating at 4.815 seconds after Executioner's Shot started animating when queuing powers successively) = ~7.5 seconds of total animation time elapsed Just a thought. Ooooh ... ouch. That may very well be a clearly superior slotting choice than a Decimation Build Up proc in Executioner's Shot. Probability to Proc = PPM x (EnhancedRecharge + CastTime) / (60 x AreaMod) AreaMod = 1 + Radius x (11 x Arc + 540) / 40,000 EnhancedRecharge = BaseRecharge / (1 + RechargeBoost_from_Alpha_and_Enhancements/100) Slotted enhancement from Level 31 Obliteration set (5 slots, no proc) is +76.3%. 1.0 * (105/1.763 + 0.132) / (60 * (1 + 25 * (11*360 + 540) / 40000)) = 26.09% per 1.0 PPM of the proc slotted into Hail of Bullets when 5-slotted with Obliteration enhancements. 26.09 * 3.5 = 91.3% chance for a 3.5 PPM proc on activation of Hail of Bullets Okay ... that's RUDE ... and looking a lot more reliable/useful than a Build Up proc in Executioner's Shot. Good call. Hence my reasoning behind wanting to put the Avalanche proc in Piercing Rounds along with a 5-slot Postiron's Blast (although I skipped the Positron's proc). Especially for a powerset like Dual Pistols which EVERYONE expects to be subpar on damage production owing to the fact the powerset lacks a Build Up power. That kind of Resistance debuffing is akin to having most (if not all?) of a Team-8 backing you running Assault. It truly is a force multiplication kind of deal ... AND you'd have the Farsight+Build Up buffing to Defense to be able to use it in relative safety. You're right ... this is getting SCARY ... and that's not even including all of the OTHER debuffing going on from Time's Junction and Distortion Field "pinning" your $Victims $Targets in place where you can do the most damage to them where they can't fight back all that effectively due to Recharge and Slow debuffing. Ooof. Fixed that for me. Now, if I could just stop playing the forums long enough to actually play the game for a while ... But if I do that, I'll stop INSPIRING other people to enjoy the game and the community as much as they do, and we all wouldn't LEARN quite as much as we do (and have). Hmmmm. Decisions, decisions ... But thanks oldskool. It's people like you that make all the effort I put in here on the forums "worth it" ... for everyone. Pass it on, indeed.

Okay, it's official. I'm a BAD INFLUENCE™ ON YOU PEOPLE. There, I said it. Besides, I'm amused by how my build threads have this tendency to turn into theorycrafting debate clubs (not that I mind, mind) ... mainly because that's exactly the sort of thought provoking I'd like to see come about as a result of my builds (and pontificating on them). Can't pull off nifty bits like this and not Share The Wealth (of Knowledge), right?

Maybe on a single target "nuke" power that has a slow recharge on it ... but otherwise, for the same amount of time involved you're better off doing 1+1=2 instead of 0.5+1=1.5 really ...

Sounds Canadian ... /em ducks and runs

In AoE, the probability to proc on one (each) target is less than it would be in an equivalent single target attack, but each target has a chance to proc. 60 / 3.5 = 17.14 If the recharge time on a power with a 3.5 PPM proc in it exceeds 17.14 seconds ... then mathematically speaking the proc chance exceeds 100%, making proc performance "reliable" (as far as that goes). Additionally, I'm kind of wondering if the reduced chance to proc on AoEs is something that only impacts AoEs that do damage ... meaning that AoEs that do no damage do not have their proc chances divided up by the number of $Targets being affected by the AoE. This would then result in a power like Slowed Response having an extremely reliable proc chance of over 100% on every $Target caught within the AoE, with respect to the Achilles' Heel proc. Likewise, the reduced chance to proc per $Target may be something which is only coded onto procs that do damage(?), which would then exclude Achilles' Heel once again (since it debuffs Resistance, not Health).