Redlynne

Supposedly the discount ticket accrues after being continuously logged out for 24 hours without a login during that time. Basically a login to the character resets the countdown timer for getting a ticket. Which I guess means you just need to logout in ICON/Facemaker and not log into the character for a week (or two?) in order to rack up the maximum number of discount tickets. Don't play the character for days (plural) ... get a makeover ticket(s)? Yeah, there's something wrong with this economic model ...

Well ... I've spent a little time playing the game in the past 6 weeks or so instead of writing posts all over the forums. In that time, I got to respec my Ninja/Time Mastermind into the Bow using version you see posted in this thread AND been able to run a few missions to start to get a feel for the kinds of changes having the personal attacks available makes to overall gameplay (in a solo context, since I'm playing a Praetorian). I actually waited until reaching Level 14 to respec to the Bow Time build, so that I wouldn't lose access to Time's Juncture (I wanted the -ToHit debuffing to help protect my Ninjas and to assist with Tankerminding). Since I want to run ALL of the Praetorian content in each zone before moving on, that means doing both Loyalist and both Resistance story arcs (meaning piles of reward merits!) and needing to lock XP gain before going too far. With my Ninja/Time Mastermind I've completed the Warden arc in Imperial and switched Loyalist to Resistance in order to do the Crusader arc ... which meant going up against a lot of Seers and PPD and Syndicate in the Imperial Warden arc. The first thing that I can report is that ... taking the personal attacks on a Mastermind is VERY GAME CHANGING(!) ... and I'm kind of underselling that point. I say that because I'm used to the conventional wisdom of taking 6 of the 9 primary powers on a Mastermind and just ignoring the personal attacks (like almost everyone else who plays a Mastermind) and letting my Pets do all the heavy lifting for me when it comes to damage production. However, with Ninjas at least, there's a very curious synergy going on that's kind of hard to explain, but I'll give it a (snap) shot here. Before the respec to the Bow Time build here, I was typically using 1 of 2 engagement strategies ... either ranged pull or jump in and grab aggro. There were problems with either strategy. For the ranged pull strategy, without personal attack powers from my primary powerset, I basically had two options ... the P2W Origin Attack Power (I picked Magic Origin for my Ninja Mastermind and the Amulet gives -Resistance debuffing that helps all my Ninjas do a smidgen more damage each) and/or the P2W Ranged "staff" Attack Power (either Nemesis Staff or Blackwand, and since I'm playing a Magic Origin I chose Blackwand). Neither of the P2W powers can be slotted with Accuracy, so as you increase in level the accuracy of these powers keeps falling further and further behind, making them increasingly unreliable for pulling. Additionally, the Origin Attack Power (Amulet in my case) is relatively short ranged, meaning you need to get rather close in order to use it. The Blackwand (or Nemesis Staff) use the full 80ft range of ranged blast attacks, but recharges slowly ... as in use once per spawn group slowly. But ... assuming the ranged pull is successful, a common response is that the $Target will use a ranged attack against your Mastermind (triggering Bodyguard to share the damage with the Ninjas around you) causing the Ninjas to retaliate and engage. However, curiously, the Ninjas don't initially charge into melee to start kicking/slicing as their first option. Instead, the Ninjas tend to unload their own ranged attacks throwing Shurikens (Genin) and Poison Dart (Jounin) at whatever has decided to bumrush towards your Mastermind ... and against a Minion this is often sufficient to defeat the Minion before the Minion even gets into melee range (a lot of the time they faceplant at the feet of your Mastermind) due to the incoming volleys of ranged damage from your Ninjas. That then leaves any adds brought along in the pull for the Ninjas to mop up and you'll want to reposition your Mastermind to put those adds inside your Time's Juncture aura radius in order to debuff them and protect your Ninjas from incoming damage (as much as you can). You can AoE Taunt using the Presence Pool power, but the duration on that is short (too short to be all that useful to you without enhancement slotting...) and because you aren't doing damage yourself, just debuffing via Time's Juncture while your Ninja Pets are doing all the damage, it is actually rather easy for your Ninja Pets to pull aggro from you while you aren't attacking because you're doing no damage yourself (damage inflicted is a multiplier for the effectiveness of Taunts, meaning that no damage has no multiplier when using Taunt). Your Ninjas basically do all the fighting while your Mastermind spectates and all you've really got to do is cast Temporal Mending from time to time (usually at the end of a fight, but also sometimes during) in order to keep your Ninjas topped up on HP. You're basically a glorified Empath with Ninjas, and it really isn't all that much fun. 😪 The alternative is to just dive in from the start, cast your Presence Pool AoE Taunt and let the Ninjas "get the idea" when you take damage that they ought to start fighting for you. You've basically still got only the two P2W Attack Powers (in my case, Amulet and Blackwand) and the Presence Pool AoE Taunt and ... you're basically a spectator watching your Ninjas fight for you again. It can be done, but it really isn't all that interesting to watch or play and it's kind of unsatisfying since you're "just watching the game, controlling it" rather than actively "shaping" the outcome of each battle through your own direct actions from moment to moment. Without attack powers of your own, the gameplay is more passive and observational, making it feel ... distant ... even when you're in the thick of things pretending to hold aggro for 4 seconds at a time (ha ha, I slay me!). So while either of these strategies are "successful" in isolation (in a one and done sense) neither one is all that satisfying to play when you're wanting to rip tear shred mangle maim bend fold spindle and/or mutilate your way through a mission solo in a way that feeds your inner need for ACTION BABY ... which is why I'm so pleased with what happened when I respecced into the Bow Time build. Okay, we ready? So with the Bow Time build you've got personal attacks at your disposal (2 ranged and 1 cone) which are actually pretty decent and for reasons that don't show up on the Hero Planner statistics (strangely enough). The first is that you've got "ranged blast" attacks that you can slot with enhancements (yay! accuracy!) and which don't wait "forever" to recharge (double triple yay!). So now you can do the whole ranged pull routine from further away than the P2W Origin Attack Power (still Amulet in my case) meaning that it will take a bumrushing Minion that much longer to reach your Mastermind meaning that you'll be able to get in more attacks over the time making them very much less dangerous to you and your Ninjas once they finally get close enough to faceplant in front of you. In fact, just doing a simple rotation of Snap Shot, Aimed Shot, Snap Shot on $Targets some 80(ish) ft away from my Mastermind has yielded some pretty surprising results that I wasn't anticipating. First of all ... you don't always pull entire spawn groups. This is something that I'd noticed back on Virtue when playing an Empathy/Archery Defender (don't ask, I got her to 50 for Hamidon raiding) which is that archery styled attacks seem to be really low threat relative to other ranged attacks. What I mean by that is that Bow attacks of any sort seem (to me at least) to be less likely to cause a $Target to do what I think of as an "aggro shout" letting their nearby friends know that they've been attacked. It's simply more likely that I'll be able to make single ranged pulls using archery attacks than I can (or do) with other ranged attack powers. It's as if the Bow attacks are "quieter" somehow, meaning that I tend to get more single pulls than I do entire spawn group pulls when using Bow attacks. I figure that game mechanically there's basically an "aggro sharing radius" around a $Target when they're hit and that archery attacks have a "smaller radius" for this making it easier/more likely to successfully do single ranged pulls than entire group ranged pulls. Now don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of times that I can Snap Shot one $Target and draw the attention of all of the Minions in a grouping, so that can still happen ... it's just less likely to happen that way when using Bow attacks. Anyway, back to the storytelling. So using your personal Bow attacks, I can quite commonly get a single bumrushing Minion from around 80 ft away about 1/3 to 1/2 damaged before the Ninjas "wake up" and also join the fray against that Minion, at which point the volley of Shurikens and Poison Dart and so on usually finish off that Minion in pretty short order with basically minimal (if any) damage taken on my side of the ledger ... and I've still got Snap Shot and Aimed Shot ready to go again for Round 2 and it just becomes a matter of wash, rinse, repeat to take out spawn groups. With clever timing, positioning and situational awareness I can often times pick apart spawn groups one by one so as to defeat them serially rather than trying to take them on in parallel, further enhancing my ability to "shape" the flow of battle while soloing in a way that keeps my Mastermind actively participating rather than passively observing (and directing traffic). It also feels like I'm defeating $Targets at a faster tempo than the alternative no attacks of my own playstyle, which increases my satisfaction with playing using the Bow Time build. But then you also have the collection of pulling adds ... and that's when the Fistful of Arrows comes into play, because you get the most "bang for buck" out of Fistful of Arrows when you've got a cluster of $Targets that you can get inside of the cone. Now, with the way that everything fits together, for the most part the only times you're going to be using Fistful of Arrows (until you can slot some Range enhancement into it) is at ranges shorter than 80 ft, so you aren't using Fistful of Arrows as an opening attack most of the time. You also don't want your Ninja Pets getting more than 60 ft away from you, since that's the limit of your Supremacy Aura that empowers your Pets. But above and beyond that you're often times going to be using Fistful of Arrows (or maneuvering to do so) while you've got one or more $Targets within your Time's Juncture Aura which debuffs their ToHit and movement speeds. So to get the most out of Fistful of Arrows you want to move into a position to get as many $Targets as possible within the cone while also keeping them within the radius of Time's Juncture ... which can be a bit tricky at times (but also feels really good when you pull it off). That then adds a bit of damage production to multiple $Targets making the "mop up" action for your Ninjas that much faster to finish and reducing their exposure to the risk of incoming damage. Right now, I haven't been able to slot up Fistful of Arrows with a load of enhancements (and I'm still only Level 15 so it'll be a while before I get Set IOs rolling in those slots) but already I can "feel" how use of Fistful of Arrows is starting to add that "thumb on the scale" feeling for being able to dispose of $Targets in a way that then allows my Ninjas to gang war up on the surviving $Targets in way that cascades against them and in my own favor. Fistful of Arrows is helping me to tip the balance of battle further in my direction, and I know that it's only going to get better as levels are gained and enhancements get slotted. It isn't a game changer all on its own, but in concert with everything else it is actually helping to make a difference that I find both favorable and discernable (and therefore, satisfying). I had respecced into the Bow Time build just before doing the mission for Doctor Steffard of meeting up with the Syndicate rep that wound up spawning some 8 Ghoul ambushes on the map and found that my ability to (actively!) control the flow of battle was seriously enhanced and increased by switching to the Bow Time build. I'd be shooting up Ghouls as they came into range, my Ninjas would engage as soon as I took any damage from them, and I was even able to hold some (some...) of the aggro on myself as the chaotic melee swirl around my position began while continuing to shoot up Ghouls and could even take down runners as they fled so I wouldn't need to pursue them. With the slotting I had in my personal attacks (not much, but some) the endurance cost was quite bearable and I only needed to use Temporal Mending between ambush waves to "top up" the HP of everyone on my side of the fight and thus really wasn't hurting for endurance the whole way through, even though I was running Time's Juncture full time. To put it mildly, it felt ... liberating. In other missions after that in the Warden arc, I kept noticing the same dynamics ... where even though I was using my endurance on Bow attack powers I wasn't draining my endurance too badly (it usually recovered just fine between spawns or I'd just take a knee since Rest recharges in 30 seconds on Homecoming) and everything just felt more ... active ... and stuff happened at a more satisfying and rewarding/engaging tempo of events. I was actually PLAYING my Mastermind, rather than just merely WATCHING my Mastermind, and that just made the whole experience "come alive" for me. So I don't know if anyone else will have the same experience as I have had where adding personal attacks to a Mastermind build changes things for the better so palpably. It might be something which is somewhat unique to the Ninja/Time combination and how the two powersets synergize together, since you can debuff and heal and "trade" aggro around rather effectively between your Mastermind and your Pets in a way that means (I at least) a resummon for Pets is almost never needed. It's not a steamroller, per se ... but it is a far more manageable way to play than the alternative of the armchair Mastermind that I had been playing previously. I figure that a very large reason for why that is so is because Time Manipulation isn't a very Click heavy powerset, meaning that it isn't demanding active attention/animations all the time, leaving plenty of opportunities to use the personal attacks with the Bow rather than needing to be casting supporting powers for my Ninjas all the time to keep them alive (or keep resummoning them a lot). Just figured other people might like to know that not only is the experiment "successful" (so far) ... but in my estimation is a superior way to play than the builds I'd made previously for Ninja/Time. The surprising thing is that a lot of the difference is something that has to be "felt" in actual gameplay (and "how" it plays), rather than something that becomes obvious when looking at a build planner. Nin nin!

More likely it's an oversight, since the Necromancer powerset was created and defined in advance of the Invention system, and the Accurate Debuff/Healing sets were a later addition to the Invention system. Meaning that the Accurate ToHit Debuff set probably wasn't enabled later when it probably should have been by Paragon Studios prior to game shutdown in 2012. More of an "oops" than a bug, per se.

It's not so much an exact chain I've got in mind so much as one that I've discovered/evolved to while playing my Peacebringer and Warshade in the lower levels (6-19 specifically when you can have Nova form but don't have Dwarf form yet). You basically wind up using the Nova form as a hover blaster, since basically the only thing you can do is attack attack attack attack with it (and you get +Damage and +ToHit bonuses while in Nova form). That then pushes you into a direction of wanting to use an attack chain that cycles continuously with no gaps in it. The shenanigans I'm talking about is basically THIS ... Changing forms (Human, Nova, Dwarf) is functionally "instant" on Homecoming because the explode-y/shake the screen animations for the form changes don't happen here on Homecoming when you toggle on Nova and Dwarf forms. This means you can shift forms with "no" delay to executing a power after shifting forms (theoretically) ... but in practice there often is a delay due to the manual dexterity of the Player and how ... complicated ... your bind control setup is, since if you're invoking different bindloadfiles for different forms there can be a potential network latency desync to getting new control schemes loaded on the fly (which animations for form changing made room for by imposing a delay before other powers could be used when switching to Nova or Dwarf forms). I myself use a keybind control scheme I developed (through much trial, error and cussing at the screen) that is an "all-in-one" bindloadfile that does not need to be swapped out every time I change forms, so I can use a single bindloadfile set of keybinds to command all three forms with their different powers without needing to reload keybinds for each form. However, as mentioned above, I've already found multiple single target attack chains for use in Nova form that "work" just fine with absolutely no recharge enhancement whatsoever (I'm still using Common 15 IOs and haven't gotten high enough to start slotting in Level 27 Set IOs yet) ... and that is the discovery that I was wanting to share, since it is something which is broadly applicable beyond just merely Kheldians (it's just that Kheldians get "enough attacks" early enough at Level 6 for this to become readily apparent in the early going). I'm sure there are other powerset combinations that can benefit from this application of recharge reduction analysis so as to set overall target goals for an entire build to determine how much "headroom" a build has to invest in set bonuses other than recharge reduction without compromising how a build "plays" through its attack rotations. Note that such information would also be useful for what are often considered the "ideal" attack power rotations when chasing max DPS output for a build. I'm thinking specifically of the Martial Arts powerset for Scrappers/Stalkers/Brutes/Tanks where the conventional wisdom is that your highest DPA and DPS attacks are a chain of Storm Kick, then either Cobra Strike or Crane Kick (same damage and animation time so they're interchangeable for this), then Crippling Axe Kick when attacking a single target. The question then becomes a matter of how much recharge is needed (from all sources) in each of the powers in order to sustain that attack chain indefinitely without pauses (assuming an infinite supply of endurance, of course). It's a matter of taking the recharge information for "solo" powers and learning how to apply it in a "group" context for attack chains that are meant to be repeated endlessly (or until blue bar runs out or $Targets all faceplant and it's time to go find more). That's taking recharge reduction from the single use case and taking it up another notch into the multi-use case ... and figuring out what sequencing of attack chains result from that based on the supply/demand for recharge reduction in a "multi-body problem" kind of way. It's basically taking knowledge of recharge reduction "to the next level" for a broader view in the context of the holistic entirety of a completed build. The motivation for doing that, of course, is that if you can get away with using only 3 attack powers instead of 4 in a rotation then you'll only need to (presumably) 6 slot 3 powers instead of 4, which will save you 5 slots and 1 power pick on investment in the build. Of course, with the way these things play out when you Exemplar, that may not ALWAYS be operative at lower levels ... but that's the basic idea and impetus/motivation behind wanting to be able to know this kind of info, and being able to compute it with a reasonable set of tools/guidelines for how to think about the problem and "do the math" that inevitably results.

THERE we go ... THAT is the distinction I was trying to make for the sake of completeness.

By the way @Bopper ... just between you, me and the Homecoming Forums here ... I've lately been wondering about something that's somewhat tangentially related to this purpose of this guide. Specifically, being able to compute the required minimum global recharge needed to close the gap(s if any) in a given attack chain sequence. Basic idea is basically this: If you have a repeatable attack chain sequence of 1-2-3-4 ... you will only need as much total recharge (enhancements, incarnate, set bonuses, power effects, etc.) as the following: Power 1 needs to recharge in the time it takes to animate powers 2, 3 and 4. Power 2 needs to recharge in the time it takes to animate powers 1, 3 and 4. Power 3 needs to recharge in the time it takes to animate powers 1, 2 and 4. Power 4 needs to recharge in the time it takes to animate powers 1, 2 and 3. So you basically wind up with something akin to this: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 So long as each power can recharge within the time it takes the OTHER powers in the chain to animate, you can "close the gap(s)" on having a continuous attack chain and any additional recharge bonus beyond that is unnecessary/wasted. The thing is, it starts getting ... complicated ... when you wind up with what amount to nested sub-groupings within those sequences, such as a 1-2-1-3-4 kind of arrangement where you need to pad out the attack chain duration (for insert reason here) and you can recharge power 1 within the time it takes to animate power 2 (for example) so you can do a 1-2-1 sequence before having a dead space "gap" between attacks which then gets filled by use of powers 3 and/or 4. The reason I've started to notice this kind of ... resonance frequency ... for use of powers has a lot to do with playing my Kheldians and the kinds of shenanigans I can get up to by exploiting the ability to use the T1 Human power while in Nova form (you just need to use the T1 Human power on a $Target before switching to Nova form). This then enables the use of BOTH the T1 AND T2 Human form powers while in Nova form, which then enables some really wacky attack chain sequences in Nova form that I hadn't been anticipating. 2H - 2N - 1N - 1H ... repeat. Powers all recharge in time for continuous use with zero recharge enhancement. 2H - 1N - 2N - 1N ... repeat. Powers all recharge in time for continuous use with zero recharge enhancement. 2H - 1H - 2N - 1H ... repeat. Powers all recharge in time for continuous use with zero recharge enhancement. 1H - 1N ... repeat. Powers both recharge in time for continuous use with zero recharge enhancement. Now, obviously, the mental calculus on the demand for recharge is dramatically different for long recharge powers like Eclipse or Light Form or Hasten and the like ... but I'm finding it rather interesting that for those most part, most repeating attack chains I can come up with seem to work really well with these kinds of bare bones "no recharge required" styled sequencing of attacks in the chain so as to "shape" it in a way that doesn't need a whole lot of recharge to be able to rotate on through indefinitely (endurance cost permitting). Being able to determine the "recharge required" thresholds for being able to continuously repeat a particular sequencing of attack powers when put together (quantity of powers and their ordering in the sequence matter greatly for this!) can then help inform decisions about how much recharge to "pile on" onto a build. Powers like Hasten, Domination and so on create their own somewhat obvious "perma" capability demands for recharge while can then (re)shape an entire build plan to cater to that demand for global recharge enhancement (obviously). But I'm finding it increasingly curious that there ARE ways to solve the kind of problem I've outlined here so as to be able to determine just how "much" recharge a build "needs" in order to be able to attack continuously with no downtime ... and THAT I figure is going to be yet another one of those things that only math geeks (and people who think WAY TO MUCH about their builds and build strategies) will either care about or be inclined to make use of. Still, there are so many things where knowing one thing then enables you to know something else that you weren't expecting to discover (or care about). So, just as an aside ... I'm looking into trying to figure out ways to ... codify is too strong a word ... hmmm. Perhaps I should call it "regularize" an approach to figuring out how much a build "needs" in recharge reduction in order to avoid downtime while attacking with a pre-determined attack chain that will synergize best with your resources and investment into any given character. Why? Because we don't have to jump blindly into thinking that no matter what MOAR IS MORE BETTERUH in every circumstance under all conditions ... and THAT is what pushes the frontiers of thinking about these kinds of things. Anyway ... digression over.

That's true for Dual Pistols ... but in the case of Dual Pistols you have a single power doing all of the work, it's just a matter of cross-checking which "enabling mode" is activated via Swap Ammo. Oil Slick is different in that it spawns a Pet (the unlit Oil Slick) which when ignited will "expire" the (unlit) Oil Slick and replace it with a new Oil Slick (that's on fire and doing damage). That's two separate Pets and only the second one is going to be doing damage. You cast the first Oil Slick Pet and then if the conditional is met the Oil Slick Pet casts the second Oil Slick Pet and it's only this latter one that is doing damage, not the first. My understanding is that in the database these two conditions are coded as separate Pet entity spawns, hence the distinction I was assuming would be there. Have you run the formula to compute what the proc chances for those ought to be (upon cast and every 10s thereafter)? If memory serves, Oil Slick has a huge radius that may be bringing down the proc chances on you below 90%. Although, against piles of Rikti Monkeys even a lower proc chance ought to proc at least once per dogmonkeypile if using Herd And Burn gathering tactics.

Yes, but that's not the distinction that I was making. For example, Slow sets include Impeded Swiftness, the proc for which does damage ... which is not the same as Target AoE sets that include Positron's Blast, the proc for which does damage. Both procs (when procced) produce damage, but that's not the distinction that I'm making here. The point that I'm trying to make is that I was under the impression that even if you can slot a damage proc into Oil Slick, if the power isn't doing damage (yet) but is doing slow debuffing, then I'd expect the Impeded Swiftness to proc (because slow effect is actively being applied) while I'd expect the Positron's Blast to not proc (because the power isn't doing damage, yet). However, once ignited and doing damage, then I'd expect the proc chances for both Impeded Swiftness and Positron's Blast to be checked (upon ignition and every 10 seconds thereafter until duration is exhausted). That's the distinction I was trying to make. However, it seems that this notion isn't exactly the way that Oil Slick works.

There's a reason for that. The power needs to be doing damage for damage set type procs to be enabled to proc. While the power is doing no damage, it isn't checking damage set type procs. At least, I think that's how it's supposed to work. Oil slick is just all kinds of wonky under the hood.

The downside to putting KB>KD in Repel is that if you don't depart the "Flop Zone" quickly you'll wind up draining a lot of your blue bar away since Repel will keep "hitting" things and every time it does it will cost you endurance, and since they're not getting flung away from you (as planned by the Devs at before game launch) you'll just keep hitting them with Repel. So if you're going to use that trick, it is very much to your advantage to use it in a sort of Suppress 'n' Scoot manner, rather than trying to Plant The Flag and defend it with Repel running.

Simplified hypothetical to illustrate the point. Suppose you need to hit something 4 times in order to defeat it without any enhancements slotted. What happens when you start adding slots? No slots = need 4 hits = 4 attacks = 4 attacks worth of animation+recharge time + 4 attacks worth of endurance cost 1 damage SO = need 3 hits = 3 attacks = 3 attacks worth of animation+recharge time + 3 attacks worth of endurance cost 1 endurance SO = need 4 hits = 4 attacks = 4 attacks worth of animation+recharge time + 3 attacks worth of endurance cost 1 recharge SO = need 4 hits = 4 attacks = 3 attacks worth of animation+recharge time + 4 attacks worth of endurance cost Point of the above exercise being that 1 endurance + 1 recharge = 2 slots equals the benefit gain of only 1 damage slot. Or to put it more simply ... 1 damage SO = 1 endurance SO + 1 recharge SO 1 slot = 2 slots In a ED world, once you've got all the damage enhancement you can usefully add, start adding endurance reduction so you can sustain your damage output for longer. You only "need" recharge reduction for closing gaps in chains.

Trick question ... what do you have slotted in the attack(s) that are doing this? Just want to eliminate some possibilities here, because "it could be anything" is a bit broad.

This is the part I'm still trying to get past ... 😅

Feel free to (*ahem*) cross-pollinate (*cough*) ideas from two of my Controller builds ... Gravity/Time (Propelling the Future NOW™) and Mind/Nature/Primal (Mind Over Vegetables) ... since there might be insights in there that appeal to you for making a Gravity/Nature build. I've posted a number of builds on these forums and I find that knowing how things work in other builds and how to "port" them into builds I want to play is extremely valuable. Often times there are little tricks that can be found in one place that can apply to other builds even with some adaptation.

Yes. No. Yes.

Telekinesis is basically nerfed into the ground and then the Cryptic Devs just kept PUSHING it to be worse and worse and worse than what it used to be when they imposed the aggro caps. You can see my thoughts on the topic HERE. Because Telekinesis is supposed to be able to do THIS ... and it can't ... because of the stupid stupid STOOPID(!!) max targets cap of FIVE that was put onto the power. Ideally speaking, if I was remaking the power today (from scratch) I'd do it using the Mystic Flight model of "while power 1 is active power 2 becomes available" and just rig it as power 1 is the toggle Hold and power 2 is the Repel so as to make it so you can turn the Repel "on and off" at will while maintaining the Hold. And I would increase the max targets to 10 (minimum) or even as high as 16 (maximum).

Yup. That's a bug.

While a lot of people do set up tray rotations, those are great ... until they get desynchronized by hitting buttons too fast. Point being that it's possible to "mess up" tray rotations where you switch trays around with your form switching, even when automated via bindloadfile executables. This is why for my Peacebringer and Warshade builds I decided that I was going to use fixed trays and just simply put all of the form powers in Tray 1, while all the Human+ powers went into Trays 2+, and made that a standardized feature of how I arranged by trays for ALL of my alts (so as to use a common backbone framework for all characters). You'll see in the respective bind file for each Kheldian that I've got things rigged up like so (this is the Peacebringer side): t "powexectoggleoff White Dwarf$$powexectoggleon Bright Nova" g "powexectoggleoff Bright Nova$$powexectoggleoff White Dwarf" b "powexectoggleoff Bright Nova$$powexectoggleon White Dwarf" 1 "powexectray 1 2" 2 "powexectray 2 2" 3 "powexectray 3 2$$powexectray 5 1$$powexectray 1 1" 4 "powexectray 4 2$$powexectray 6 1$$powexectray 2 1" 5 "powexectray 5 2$$powexectray 7 1$$powexectray 3 1" 6 "powexectray 6 2$$powexectray 8 1$$powexectray 4 1" 7 "powexectray 7 2$$powexectray 9 1" 8 "powexectray 8 2" 9 "powexectray 9 2" 0 "powexectray 10 2" The way this works out in practice is: The 1 and 2 keys are always going to activate the Human form T1 and T2 powers, respectively, in Tray 2 slots 1 and 2. The 3-7 keys use a "fall through" system to execute powers. If in Nova form, the 3-6 powers activate Tray 1 slots 1-4, which is where I put the Nova attack powers. If in Dwarf form, the 3-7 powers activate Tray 1 slots 5-9, which is where I put the Dwarf attack powers. But if neither of those forms are active, then the 3-7 keys activate Tray 2 slots 3-7. I use the T, G and B keys to switch forms. T goes to Nova, G goes to Human, B goes to Dwarf ... which makes things easy to remember. This whole setup means that I don't need to do any rotating or swapping of trays and I likewise don't have to be loading different bindloadfile control schemes for each form. It's, ironically, a much "leaner" and more reliable way to control form switching via a single bindloadfile for governing all three forms than an alternative that not only rotates trays but also loads different control scheme bindloadfiles every time you switch forms. That reliable simplicity gives me a lot more confidence in being able to make FAST form shifts without needing to worry about mucking up my control scheme through needing to make too many updates too quickly resulting in a desync of loading/changing control schemes on the fly (or teleport, or ... you get the idea).

White Dwarf Flare has an 80% chance to do 0.67 Knockback, resulting in KnockDOWN. Against everything except Knockback vulnerable $Targets, this is a non-issue. Bright Nova Detonation has a 50% chance to do 3.47 Knockback. Since Nova form can fly, the easiest thing to do is position directly above said tank and deliver the Knockback (if any, see RNG chance) directly into the ground around said tank. If that's not an option, reposition (if possible) to throw any Knockback sufferers into corners (or the proverbial Dumpster Fire/Fire) that help manage aggro. The other alternative would be to switch to Human form, which in this build has no Knockback in any of its attacks (go figure, eh?) ... only Knockdowns.

Eh ... I dabble from time to time ... 🤣 Hover basically serves multiple purposes. It gives you a way to go UP that isn't reliant upon Jumping. This gives you a way to get out of Caltrops patches that would otherwise mire you in Slows on the ground. It also allows you to "hang in the air the way that bricks don't" so as to stay out of melee range (since melee attacks typically do more damage than ranged or AoE attacks). Above and beyond that, Hover can be slotted with a Luck of the Gambler global recharge IO, which Fly and Mystic Flight can't be slotted with. On top of all of that, Hover is the cheapest way to hold position in the sky. Pets that can't fly will simple scuttle around below you on the ground (or try to find a path to jump up to you if you get too far away from them). Most of my travel is done using a combination of Ninja Run + Sprint (pick one) which will even with minimal slotting get up to around some 60+ mph of running speed which is often quite adequate, especially with the extra jump height and air control of Ninja Run for controlling jumps. It lets you hop rooftops rather effectively once you get some practice at it ... and if you miss a landing you can toggle on Hover and get right back into the run/jump of things. After that, it's mainly a matter of learning to navigate around zones (learning the "routes" to get to places). Back on Virtue I would somewhat routinely beat superspeeders to mission doors using just Ninja Run + Sprint + Quickness simply because I knew how to navigate from Here to There along a shorter route than they did. As I always liked to say about the comparative advantages of flight to superspeed ... superspeed may be faster in a straight line, but flight moves in straigher lines ... To be honest, the only times you're going to want to reach for a movement option other than Ninja Run + Sprint backed up by Hover is if you're someplace where there isn't "enough ground" to stand on (like the Shadow Shard) or you simply want to fly LONG distances without bothering with being close to the ground (The Hollows comes to mind for this, along with other hazard zones). But for the most part, Ninja Run + Sprint suffices for me as "speedy enough" travel to get around most zones (that aren't the Shadow Shard, and even then knowing how to navigate using the geysers can make up for a lot of deficiencies). Glad to hear you're enjoying more than one of my builds. 😎

The way I look at it is basically ask the question of whether or not the recharge is reduced enough to recharge the power during the effect in question. If not, then how much time is left over once the effect expires so as to compute recharge time beyond effect duration. The follow up to that is computing "how many" Force Feedback procs are needed to make up the shortfall ... and the easiest way to do that is using an additive process where you're trying to meet (or exceed) the threshold of total recharge rate over time needed to produce that yield. For the layman, simply knowing "how many Force Feedback procs are needed" to make up any shortfall in having enough recharge to accomplish a perma effect is the useful number that even laymen can grasp ... kind of like knowing you need to add up to 45% Defenses for the non-incarnate softcap.

Back on Virtue, I was excessively proud of the 2x2 medical room I built for my Hero SG base. It essentially put the Arcane Rez Rings as high as possible in a room with the floor as low and the ceiling as high as it could go. I then put under the Rez Rings a (lifted) Arcane Floor Dome which was then mated to a (lowered) Arcane Ceiling Dome so as to make a "planet" that hung in the air (the way that bricks don't). I then put an Arcane floor seal in between the two domes so as to make a "ring" around the "planet" at the equator. The nifty thing was that the "ring" was only visible from above the "planet" since there was no underside texture for it, meaning that from below the "ring" around the "planet" was invisible. Directly underneath the "planet" I put a Bonfire on the floor and then covered the Bonfire(!) with an Arcane Inspiration Storage. To the sides of the Bonfire, I had two Tree Planters ... and on one of the Tree Planters I lifted the Tree of Life item to look like it was a part of the Tree on that side, but was still low enough to be accessible from ground level. The whole functional/decorative part of the room fit inside of the 1x2 squares on one side, leaving me a 1x2 "through" passage on the other side of the room. It was very neat and compact and when you turned the lights OFF (low/mid/high) the effect was fantastic, since everything was lit from below by the Bonfire, but you had the magic rainbow rings of the Inspiration Rack covering it up and it just looked utterly awesome. I've always been a proponent of putting in enough local lighting sources to be able to turn off the global lighting in rooms so as to give them a better atmosphere.

Bopper I hate to suggest this, but I really think you've gone about explaining this in a way that is bass-ackwards for accessibility. I'm not saying your formulas are wrong ... just that they're hard to parse if you're not intimately familiar with what you're looking at. The way that I deal with this problem is to basically DITCH any kind of division arithmetic operations until the very last step ... and instead use an ADDITIVE process to do most of the heavy lifting for me, since it's easy(ier) to check the math for errors. Here's my approach to this, which is hopefully easier to explain. You want to think in terms of iteratively adding multiples of 100 per second until reaching a threshold. So if you've got no +Recharge Reduction in a power (at all, from enhancements or globals) then you're adding +100 per second to the "recharge stack" for that power. So the baseline starting point is +100 per second. If you've got +100 Recharge Reduction in a power (from enhancements or globals) than you're adding +100 and +100 makes for +200 per second to the "recharge stack" for that power. You essentially just ADD +100 to whatever the +Recharge percentage is to get the number you're going to use next. With me so far? You then look at the recharge time for a power (in seconds) and then multiply that amount by x100. So if a power has a 600s recharge time then is will need 600x100=60,000 "points" of stacked up recharge using the calculation above (and I'm only using "points" here to help designate and differentiate the numbers to help keep them straight). At 100 recharge "points" per second, where there's no recharge enhancement, it'll take 600 seconds to meet the 60,000 "points" of recharge threshold (because 600x100=60,000) However, at 200 recharge "points" per second, where there's +100% recharge enhancement, it'll take only 300 seconds to meet the 60,000 "points" of recharge threshold (because 300x200=60,000). Alright, still with me? The reason why this is useful is because it gives you a "fixed" target to reach ... the number of recharge "points" to fill in an ADDITIVE manner ... combined with the notion that once the threshold is met the power is recharged ... meaning you can go "over" without creating a numeric issue for your math of the stack overflow/divide by zero variety. So how does this work for something like Hasten, which is a temporary recharge buff? Hasten has a 450s recharge and adds +70% global recharge for 120s after the power activates/animates. Ideally speaking, you want to have a recharge time of LESS THAN 120s in order to account for the time it will take to animate in order to maintain perma status on the buff. So the target to reach is 450x100=45,000 recharge points, and ideally speaking you want to reach that total within 118s (or so) to prevent downtime on the buff. So we're aiming to ADD UP to 45,000 in 118 seconds. That means that you're aiming for being able to achieve an average of 45000/118=381.36 recharge "points" per second. Start with a base of 100. Hasten itself adds +70. 2 Common Level 50 +Recharge Reduction IOs will add +83.32 to the Hasten power. Note that a third slot will only increase this amount to +99.08 which is a mere +15.76 increase for adding an entire 42.4% Common IO, which is a really terrible return on investment for another slot. For this reason I recommend slotting no more than 2 +Recharge Reduction Common IOs into Hasten. So at this point we've got 100 + 70 + 83.32 = 253.32 recharge points per second just acting on Hasten itself. Which means ... what? Well, it means that in the absence of any other global recharge enhancement(s) ... during the 120s duration of the Hasten buff you'll build a stack of recharge points of: 120 x 253.32 = 30,398.4 ... leaving 14,601.6 to go after 120s of elapsed time. So how long would it take to finish recharging Hasten with no other buffs in play? Well, you'd have only 100 + 83.32 = 183.32 recharge points per second accumulating ... so ... 14,601.6 / 183.32 = 79.65 seconds Okay ... so what? (I hear you cry) Of what use is that to ANYONE? Well ... it's just the first step foundational underpinnings to being able to do things like factor in Force Feedback procs into the process. Huh, say wha? How would that even work? Actually, it's rather simple. Each Force Feedback proc is +100% Recharge Reduction for 5 seconds. Using the above "add up to a threshold" method that uses division at the end and you've got a simplified way to factor in temporary buffs to recharge. Specifically ... each Force Feedback proc equates to +500 recharge "points" added onto the stack needed to reach the threshold. In other words, take the 14.601.6 recharge remaning amount after 120s of Hasten buff time and simply reduce it by 500 for each Force Feedback proc. In other words ... if you were able to proc Force Feedback 29.2 times (let's round up to 30 to keep things simple) during those 120s of Hasten buffing you wouldn't need any global recharge buffs to make Hasten perma. And why is that? Because 30x500=15,000 which is greater than 14.601.6 ... as you can see. Now, the complication factor here is that each Force Feedback proc lasts 5 seconds and even under ideally perfect laboratory conditions you're only going to get 12 procs per minute(!) since 12x5=60 seconds, owing to the fact that Force Feedback procs DO NOT STACK. But that was doing a very simplified example of how using an additive process can make the math easy and accessible to use, since (like the New Math™) you know what you're doing at each step of the process and it's intuitively obvious. So to extend the example of what I was just doing ... let's say for the sake of argument and illustration purposes that we've got the same situation as above but with an extra +50% global recharge bonus from sets. What happens? Well, the first thing is that you move into a 100+70+83.32+50=303.32 recharge points per second during Hasten and a 100+83.32+50=233.32 recharge points per second outside of Hasten buffing regime. What does this do to the "speed" of building the recharge stack in time for making Hasten perma? 120 x 303.32 = 36,398.4 recharge points over 120 seconds ... leaving 8601.6 recharge points remaining. 8601.6 / 233.32 = 36.87 seconds additional recharge beyond 120 seconds of Hasten buff duration ... for a total of 156.87 seconds of total Hasten recharge time. How many Force Feedback procs would it take to bring that total of 36,398.4 recharge points over 45,000 within the 120 second window? Answer (rounding up to next integer): 8601.6 / 500 = 17.2 = 18 procs within 120 seconds This would be difficult to achieve ... since Force Feedback is a 2 PPM proc, but if it was slotted into multiple powers in a build it could be done. Okay, then what about something like a +85% global recharge bonus? 100+70+83.32+85=338.32 recharge points per second during Hasten 100+83.32+85=268.32 recharge points per second outside of Hasten buffing 120 x 338.32 = 40,598.4 ... leaving 4401.6 recharge points remaining. 4401.6 / 268.32 = 16.4 seconds additional recharge beyond 120 seconds of Hasten buff duration ... for a total of 136.4 seconds of total Hasten recharge time. 4401.6 / 500 = 8.8 = 9 procs of Force Feedback during 120 seconds of Hasten buffing to achieve perma Hasten recharge stack of 45,000 within 120 seconds (doable with multiple powers slotted with Force Feedback procs). In other words, you can use this additive method of computing recharge at different amounts over time in order to figure out how many procs of Force Feedback you'd need in order to reach a particular threshold. You can also use this method to calculate the "value" of a Force Feedback proc relative to a global recharge buff (kinda sorta). That's because ... 500 / 60 = +8.333% global recharge per minute ... per Force Feedback proc ... and Force Feedback has a base 2 PPM proc rate. In other words ... if you can get 2 PPM out of a power using Force Feedback, that's the equivalent of adding 1000 recharge points over 10 seconds during that minute ... which is the equivalent to a +16.67% global recharge boost ... assuming an average of 2 procs per minute from that slotted proc in that power. Name the other ways you can add +16.67% global recharge boosting for ONE SLOT available to you in this game? The "catch" ... of course ... is that you have to USE the power(s) the Force Feedback procs are slotted into in order to get the benefits of those procs to your global recharge amounts. Then again ... when do you "need" global recharge bonuses the most? In combat. When do you tend to be using your powers the most? In combat. Do you REALLY need your powers to be completely perma refreshing when out of combat? DEPENDS ... Sometimes yes ... sometimes no ... it depends on your build. Anyway, the point I'm making with this additive system here is that it makes it a lot easier to figure out "how short" you are of being perma on buffs like Hasten ... and if you are "falling short" of being perma, how much global recharge you'd need in order to close that gap AND how many Force Feedback procs you'd need to make happen within that time frame in order to close that gap completely. And best of all, the math is relatively accessible. 100 + enhanced recharge + global recharge modifiers = recharge "points" per second 100 x base recharge time = recharge "points" threshold to meet Each Force Feedback proc = +500 recharge "points" over 5 seconds (theoretical max of 12 per minute) Hope that helps you @Bopper ...

Yup, Projection all the way down. You argue in bad faith and have no problems with doing that. You're not worth talking to on this subject anymore either.

Have you ever considered piracy using procs in that?