Redlynne

Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.1 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Corruptor - Water Blast - Cold Domination.mxd

So, all the way back in July (on the 4th, to be exact) I posted a Corruptor build before all of the PPM research we all know and love had become a "thing" yet, where the idea was to buff/debuff your way to victory. Of course, since then we've had quite a lot of proc monster research done by @Bopper and @Sir Myshkin and even @SmalltalkJava using various archetypes and powers combinations ... meaning that a lot of the notions underpinning that old build wound up proving redundant and/or unnecessary when examined in greater detail using the PPM formulas that got released. And then I discovered just yesterday that Infrigidate (of all things) makes for an almost ideal proc monster power, and it's a T1 in the Cold Domination secondary! Needless to say, when I blew the dust off that old build of mine, it didn't 6 slot Infrigidate ... which of course meant I'd "need" to go in and rebuild it if I wanted to benefit from my own Proc Fu discovery. So here's what came out of that refactoring for Proc Fu effort ... and yes ... obligatory WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU!!! warnings are now in effect. Obviously the first major change was moving Infrigidate from a 2 slot power to a 6 slot power and just loading it up with procs, procs and even more procs (5 in total in fact). In the context of this build overall, since ALL of the set bonuses are in effect from Exemplar Levels 24+ I decided to "break with tradition" in my builds and go ahead and pick Hasten at Level 28 so that Hasten will always be available at Exemplar Levels 23+. This necessitated delaying Benumb until Level 30 instead of taking Benumb at 28, but that's an extremely small price to pay for the amount of Recharge buffing that can be obtained elsewhere throughout the build, and caused some other reshuffling of power picks (Victory Rush got dropped, for example). As detailed in my other thread on the subject, Infrigidate is simply too good of a power to NOT proc monster it out to the maximal extent ... and in this build from Exemplar Levels 24-50 it is capable of delivering three damage procs (71.75 each!) every 7.09s (6.09s recharge, 1s animation time), which is nigh insane(!) for a power that doesn't do any damage at all by default. With a 90% chance to proc each of the three damage procs (pre-clamp chance to proc is 93.33%) that averages out to 0.9*71.75=64.575 damage per power activation for each of the three damage procs, which then computes to an average of 193.725 damage (of three different types, Smashing, Lethal and Negative Energy) no faster than once per 7.09s ... for an average damage output of up to a theoretical maximum of 27.32 damage per second averaged over an infinite time horizon ... with an averaged damage per endurance cost of 26.04 damage per endurance averaged over that same infinite time horizon ... which is just NUTS(!). And that's not even including the defense, recharge and speed debuffing native to the power ... nor the effects of the Achilles' Heel proc nor the Pacing of the Turtle proc rendering whatever you hit with Infrigidate subject to what amounts to a "slow motion poor man's hold" that is not only perma but can be spread around a spawn group to cover 2 or even 3 $Targets simultaneously ... or just reapplied to the original $Target drain the life out of their green bar. Ouchies! So that happened ... ❄️ However, once I realized just how much of a proc monster Infrigidate was, it suddenly became less important to maintain copies of the procs in Infrigidate in other powers ... so out came the Pacing of the Turtle procs and so on that didn't need to be repeated elsewhere. At the same time, other sets which I hadn't known about previously (or hadn't understood well enough to use them skillfully) are now available through the current generation of build planners, further altering the opportunities for cleverness. Plus, I'd done a fair amount of research myself on the prospects of using low PPM procs in fast recharging powers, so I had a better understanding of what I could perhaps get away with and how to reshuffle sets around to better link desired procs with particular powers and ensure that those procs successfully activated more often. The result is a build where: Aqua Bolt and Dehydrate can generate endurance for you (always useful!). Hydro Blast can debuff recharge and speed (also useful) while buffing your own recharge (always useful). Water Burst can debuff resistances on a group of $Targets without coming into conflict with the resistance debuffing done by Infrigidate (pretty useful) while buffing your own recharge into the bargain (always useful). Whirlpool can Immobilize $Targets within it to prevent them from escaping the AoE (pretty darn useful). Tidal Forces has an uptime of approximately 1:3 from Exemplar Levels 24-50 (really useful). Dehydrate does almost as much damage on average as Aqua Bolt in addition to healing you and giving you endurance into the bargain (sweetness!). Frostwork not only buffs others for a ton of +Max HP but it can also proc an Absorb shield (awesome!). Water Jet has the Malice of the Corruptor damage proc in it so as to "get more bites at the apple" from consuming Tidal combo levels than it should (clever use of game mechanics!). Steam Spray not only has its range extended out to over 65ft(!) (65.52ft to be exact) but it also has an over 50% chance to proc Achilles' Heel onto anything has hasn't already been resistance debuffed yet (EBIL...). Geyser is a true NUKE power that can be used once every 50 seconds and has a 90% chance to proc Force Feedback even against a single $Target (say wha??). Sleet is slotted for Slow debuffing but has been given the Overwhelming Force proc for Knockdowns to help ensure that $Targets have a harder time getting out of the AoE and thus take more damage (nasty!). Heat Loss has been slotted with a full Efficiency Adaptor to turn it into an "endurance slurp" for an entire team that can be used every 120 seconds and offer a massive recovery boost for 90s (awesome!). And there's still room for One Slot Wonder versions of Maneuvers, Assault, Tactics and Vengeance for the endgame (nifty!). So to put it mildly, I'm rather inordinately pleased with how well this rebuild turned out, all things considered. There's less (wasteful) redundant overlap between procs on different powers and although Hasten isn't "perma" while standing still at the Auction House, it almost certainly will be perma once you start attacking using Hydro Blast, Water Burst and Geyser thanks to the Force Feedback procs slotted into those powers. Benumb will debuff regeneration while Infrigidate will debuff recharge, making it possible for groups to take down Big Bads™ more easily, and there's enough resistance debuffing in Infrigidate, Water Burst and Steam Spray combined with Assault from the Leadership pool to tilt the battles further in your direction by default. The one thing this build doesn't have is softcapped Defenses ... but that's what Vengeance and purple inspirations are for. 😎 So with all of that out of the way ... on with the build plan!

+2

Here's the way I approach the three Warshade Forms: Human: Dominator(ish) via mez and ranged + PBAoE damage Nova: Blaster via ranged attacks Dwarf: Tank via melee attacks As you can see from my latest Leveling Tri-Form Warshade build post, this forms the "core competencies" that I'm trying to build for in each of the three forms, so that I'm not succumbing to the desire to make everything redundant. That way the three forms serve different purposes and roles such that what one form CAN'T do another form can.

If you do wind up rerolling, please be advised that I wrote up that build post before I even started playing ... so if I were to rewrite it now (especially with the Proc Fu I've learned since then!) it would wind up getting built somewhat differently. So think of that build as being an early stepping stone pointing in a direction towards a later build than a build that is "perfected" in any sense of the word. Needless to say, my thinking (and understanding) of the game has ... evolved ... since then, so there are a number of changes I'd make now that I know Proc Fu.

If you're doing a full 9+9 of the primary and secondary powersets (recommended for Nature and Water) then you'll only have 6 power picks remaining. Speaking just for myself, I find it hard (almost impossible) to pass up the Leadership pool on almost any build I make, and that goes double for Defenders, so speaking just for myself I'd want to take 2-4 powers out of the Leadership pool (Maneuvers, Assault, Tactics (with Gaussian's proc!) and/or Vengeance). You'll also probably want to pick up Hasten in order to perma the long recharge powers in Nature, particularly if also slotting Force Feedback procs into your Water blasting attacks that do Knock effects (also recommended). If you take 2 Leadership pool powers (Assault and Tactics, let's say, due to slot pressures) and Hasten, that leaves you enough room to take Soul Mastery for Power Boost (2 power picks) and a travel power of some kind (I recommend Mystic Flight as the "best all around" One Slot Wonder travel power since it packs so much into just the one power pick).

I posted an Ice/Ice Tanker build on the forums back in May which might inspire you for your Scrapper build ... or convince you to reroll as a Tanker ... ❄️

Eye candy gets you noticed. Solid functionality is what will keep people coming back to reuse your toolset. Having the UI look like a respec screen is merely a "nice to have" feature, rather than a requirement for the tools to be usable/functional. So long as the backend is solid you can make the frontend look like whatever you want, so long as it's intuitive and easy to use.

Best answer I can give you is ... IT DEPENDS ... mainly because all the demonology is in the details. The details of the build, in its entirety, matters a great deal. It also depends on what you're striving/reaching for in your builds whether or not going the proc monster route is a superior option for you, partly because doing so will "negate" the value of specific powers as sources of set bonuses (or at least, the useful set bonuses that are like 4 or 5 slots deep usually). Also, since the current build planner doesn't compute proc chances for us, all the math for doing this stuff "has to be done by hand" right now, which is why discoveries such as this one for Infrigidate are still lurking out there waiting to be discovered (or in this case were discovered last night just before I posted here and in the Defender forums). Suffice it to say, there are enough ... variables ... in play for how build construct a build that it's often times an open question as to whether including a proc (for damage, mez or buffing/debuffing) is a "better" option than the alternative, making it a judgement call rather than a clear cut no brainer in many cases. At that point, it becomes a question of "style" for how you want your character to play and behave in combat, and the "shaping" of your own expectations for that facet of the gameplay experience. Not ... necessarily ... Again, the details of what's going on in a granular sense matter. You need to look at performance throughputs using multiple frames of reference. The infinite time horizon will give you average outputs over time, but tell you remarkably little about what to expect within a 3-5 hit chain before moving on to the next $Target because what you were just smacking around is already faceplanted. In a lot of cases, the procs function more like chances for critical hits, and the damage that they deal is not subject to the damage enhancement cap (because it's "extra" damage that isn't being enhanced) so there are ways to "finesse" things depending on what you're doing with your build. Or to put it another way ... just because you've got a cookie cutter that doesn't mean you're the master of all cookie shapes ... (so to speak). Best part is that the math behind this discovery works the same for every (single target non-chaining click attack) power in the game that has a combined base recharge plus animation time of 16 seconds, has no recharge in it and gets slotted with 3.5 PPM procs. 3.5 * 16 / 60 = 93.33% 3.5 * 15.4285714 / 60 = 90% So yeah, I "found" this statistical edge case with Infrigidate, but it's not LIMITED to only being true for Infrigidate. I'm sure there are other powers out there that can springboard off the same basic setup, such as Ice Arrow out of Trick Arrows, or Time Stop in Time Manipulation, for example (although obviously the parameters are slightly different in their cases due to base recharge plus animation time factors which allow more recharge to be added before hitting the 90% cap on proc chances). Depends on your perspective, I guess. I'm just accustomed to every build post feeling like the author has to "apologize" for taking the T1 power (at all) and if it's the secondary T1 there's often times a sense of resentment towards "needing" to take the power at all. And yes, it's an awesome debuff power, but I can easily envision it being something people are accustomed to devoting 1 slot to (as a mule at best) and then forgetting about it and/or never using it. I'd like to think that this discovery, courtesy of your hard work @Bopper and the research it incentivized @Sir Myshkin to do on this topic might have people start looking at "old powers in a new light" due to this specific discovery. That's assuming you're stacking all of those powers together AND assuming your debuffs aren't being modified by Level differences. Remember, against a +4 $Target your debuff effects are reduced, but the Pacing of the Turtle proc is something the $Target casts onto themselves meaning that the -20% Recharge for 20s is NOT modified/reduced by the Level difference(s) between yourself and your $Target. And while you CAN stack all of those powers together onto a single $Target (such as an AV or a GM), there are going to be times where you won't want to stack those specific powers, or you can't maintain 100% uptime (or whatever) ... and you would have been better off just spending the 1 additional slot on Infrigidate to cover that edge case. Yeah, I'm of the opinion that slotting the Analyze Weakness proc into Infrigidate would be a waste of a slot, all things considered ... but I included it in the listing simply for completeness of information so people can decide for themselves what they value most when it comes to slotting Infrigidate.

Uh oh ... I think I may have just found something ... something useful to both Defender AND Corruptor builds. Cold Domination T1 power ... Infrigidate. Defender version link. Corruptor version link. Okay ... big whoop. Infrigidate is a "worthless" T1 power in a powerset that isn't all that popular. So what? Well ... um ... take a closer look at the proc monster math the power produces with a 15s base recharge, +0% recharge enhancement and a 3.5 PPM proc: Infrigidate: 3.5 * ((15 / ( 1 + 0 / 100 )) + 1) / (60 * (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 0 * (11 * 0 + 540) / 30,000))) = 90% (Pre-clamp: 93.33%) In case anyone is playing the "home game" on this, putting as little as +3.97% recharge enhancement into this power gives it an 89.992% chance to proc a 3.5 PPM proc ... meaning that Infrigidate without ANY recharge enhancement is a maximal proc monster power "fresh out of the box" (ironically enough). Okay ... so Infrigidate is "cool" for putting procs into. So what? Well ... it turns out you can put a pretty remarkable collection of procs into Infrigidate ... specifically: Impeded Swiftness for 71.75 Smashing damage (3.5 PPM) Pacing of the Turtle for -20% Recharge for 20s (3.5 PPM) Achilles' Heel for -20% Resistance for 10s (3.5 PPM) Touch of Lady Grey for 71.75 Negative Energy damage (3.5 PPM) Shield Breaker for 71.75 Lethal damage (3.5 PPM) Analyze Weakness for +20% +ToHit for 10s (2.0 PPM) Whoa whoa whoa ... hold on. Are you, Redlynne ... telling us, the proc monster build community ... that "worthless T1 power" Infrigidate in Cold Domination can be slotted with up to FIVE 3.5 PPM procs that will each have a 90% chance to proc ... and that you can just use the 6th slot for ... Accuracy ... or for an Accuracy/* set IO to pick up a 2-slot set bonus ... AND THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO DO?!? Um ... yeah ... I kind of am saying exactly that. You can turn Infrigidate into a power with a statistical 72.9% chance to proc all three different damage procs for a combined 215.25 damage of Smashing, Lethal and Negative Energy types in a single attack as fast as your global recharge bonuses will allow you to cycle the power ... AND you can have the same power pretty reliably applying procs for recharge debuffing AND resistance debuffing right along with all that damage. Somehow, I get the feeling that a lot of Cold Domination builds are going to be reaching for respec tokens after reading this posting. Call it a hunch.

Uh oh ... I think I may have just found something ... something useful to both Defender AND Corruptor builds. Cold Domination T1 power ... Infrigidate. Defender version link. Corruptor version link. Okay ... big whoop. Infrigidate is a "worthless" T1 power in a powerset that isn't all that popular. So what? Well ... um ... take a closer look at the proc monster math the power produces with a 15s base recharge, +0% recharge enhancement and a 3.5 PPM proc: Infrigidate: 3.5 * ((15 / ( 1 + 0 / 100 )) + 1) / (60 * (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 0 * (11 * 0 + 540) / 30,000))) = 90% (Pre-clamp: 93.33%) In case anyone is playing the "home game" on this, putting as little as +3.97% recharge enhancement into this power gives it an 89.992% chance to proc a 3.5 PPM proc ... meaning that Infrigidate without ANY recharge enhancement is a maximal proc monster power "fresh out of the box" (ironically enough). Okay ... so Infrigidate is "cool" for putting procs into. So what? Well ... it turns out you can put a pretty remarkable collection of procs into Infrigidate ... specifically: Impeded Swiftness for 71.75 Smashing damage (3.5 PPM) Pacing of the Turtle for -20% Recharge for 20s (3.5 PPM) Achilles' Heel for -20% Resistance for 10s (3.5 PPM) Touch of Lady Grey for 71.75 Negative Energy damage (3.5 PPM) Shield Breaker for 71.75 Lethal damage (3.5 PPM) Analyze Weakness for +20% +ToHit for 10s (2.0 PPM) Whoa whoa whoa ... hold on. Are you, Redlynne ... telling us, the proc monster build community ... that "worthless T1 power" Infrigidate in Cold Domination can be slotted with up to FIVE 3.5 PPM procs that will each have a 90% chance to proc ... and that you can just use the 6th slot for ... Accuracy ... or for an Accuracy/* set IO to pick up a 2-slot set bonus ... AND THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO DO?!? Um ... yeah ... I kind of am saying exactly that. You can turn Infrigidate into a power with a statistical 72.9% chance to proc all three different damage procs for a combined 215.25 damage of Smashing, Lethal and Negative Energy types in a single attack as fast as your global recharge bonuses will allow you to cycle the power ... AND you can have the same power pretty reliably applying procs for recharge debuffing AND resistance debuffing right along with all that damage. Somehow, I get the feeling that a lot of Cold Domination builds are going to be reaching for respec tokens after reading this posting. Call it a hunch.

There's actually a badge for finding all of those inside the University ...

You can lead a man to water, but you cannot make him THINK ...

Point. Click. Read.

Does not stack from SAME caster ... means ...? /em waits expectantly

Paragon Wiki is right there with your answer. Use it to gain the knowledge that you seek.

Paragon Wiki is your friend. Go. Hunt. Kill Statesmuls.

Yes ... but only in Maneuvers and Tactics. Assault and Vengeance are best kept as One Slot Wonder powers that need no additional slots. Preferences: Maneuvers = full 6 slots of Reactive Defenses Assault = 1 Common Endurance Reduction IO Tactics = full 6 slots of Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control Vengeance = 1 Luck of the Gambler global recharge Victory Rush = 1 Common Endurance Modification IO If I've got a build that is crunched for slots, I'll 1 slot Maneuvers, Tactics and Vengeance ... with the Luck of the Gambler global recharge in Maneuvers and Vengeance (using them as enhancement mules) and the Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control Build Up proc by itself in Tactics. That way, no additional slots need be expended on any of the Leadership pool powers if you haven't got "room" for that kind of investment in your build. This means that Victory Rush is the most "expendable" power from the pool, with Assault being next on the pecking order, followed by Vengeance. If you're going to be taking Maneuvers, you really ought to also be taking Tactics, even if you can only run 1 of the two toggles at a time due to endurance budget concerns, and just run Tactics in teams for the Build Up proc buff.

I'm wondering why you aren't considering a Widow of Arachnos ...

However, ironically, it doesn't debuff their Perception either, so it's perfectly possible to Mass Hypnosis a group, move through them and have them all aggro onto you just from proximity while they were Sleeping. You can tell too because they'll "shift position" while asleep and make a noise to indicate that they've aggroed onto you ... all while being prevented from doing anything about it while they're asleep. Just one of the leftovers from EARLY game design where there basically was no Perception debuffing going on to benefit the Players lining up with Sleep effects (and which would presumably be dependent upon Sleep in a way that would expire the Perception debuff when Sleep is broken/expires).

At least spaghetti is straight before it gets boiled ...

We make every pretense of competency around here ...

Ranged Mace attacks do not crit from Hidden Status. This means that a significant source of damage increase will be denied to you if you take ONLY the Mace ranged attacks.

lshift+lbutton "powexecname Translocation" This keybind will allow you to Teleport to wherever you click on the screen while holding down the LShift button. FAR more useful for getting into hard to reach places and doing tricks like teleporting around corners into a gap up by the ceiling in the next room where you won't be aggroed upon arrival.