Cenozoic

Saw this post when researching Sonic/Sonic Defender. Very cool ideas from @oedipus_tex and team! Adding a few cents to help the conversation: SONIC ATTACK - EXTRA EFFECTS (ToHit and Recharge) If something is super loud and right in my earballs, then I lose accuracy and/or coordination. I mean, who else turns down the radio to make a difficult turn in a car? C'mon... Sprinkle in some -ToHit effects to help with the Defense and Psionic Def/Res holes Ex. Shout has a "Bitter Freeze Ray" kind of animation pain... add a -7.5% ToHit debuff to balance the power's cast-to-benefit balance Sprinkle in some -Recharge effects to help improve the pseudo-resistance components (less attack = less damage) Ex. Screech is a really great utility attack. Adding -30% Rech (non-stacking) on top of the Stun effect would be a helpful way to guarantee that hard targets like bosses are still mitigated, even if they are protected from the disorient effect. FIX THE PSIONIC PROBLEM (yeah, you!) If Sonic Resonance is going to patch one thing, I love the above suggestions from you guys, and focus on one in particular: Psionics Sonic Resonance's main objective is to "Lower enemy resistance - Raise ally resistance" so let's complete that thought creatively: Sonic Dispersion gets equivalent Psionic resistance (15% for defenders - enhanceable) Let's just say the sonic static that the field creates is a psionic disruption field, like Magneto's helmet. We already use that logic for the mez protection in this power. Since we're all Magneto about protection, how about buffing Clarity Clarity has the same though gap as Sonic Dispersion (psi hole, but mez protection) Clarity should be an AoE with higher recharge and end cost, but that's a different battle and forum discussion Clarity should add MOAR psionic protection. Maybe an unenhanceable +10% Psionic Resistance, something to make the power attractive? Anyway, thanks for reading, looking forward to your thoughts!

Yeah bro, moved most toons to Excelsior for the pulse. Tried to start ITF on Reunion, got 0 responses, so Los solo'd it on +4x8 to the tenth power, or whatever ridiculous setting folks mush on about (why not just go 0x8 and SMESH at high speed??? Much funner). Turns out he can stealth snipe the Nictus Essences to death without drawing aggro. Super cheap and highly entertaining. Shard transfers are great. The whole return of CoH through Homecoming is great. I hope folks remember that this game was in the ashes for a long time, and even watching @I-Dirty's stoner get violated by Carnies is better than not playing at all. No, we'd make time to watch that. Life is good!

OP, I have a Stone/Spines/Soul that is hilariously survivable. Also run a Mez Farm using Minerals (I am not efficient). I think it's called Not Quite Psionic. Anyway, @PLVRIZR is awesome and his tanking is pretty legendary, so I do what he says most of the time.

That build looks really fun! I like Confuse for having a pet boss or Immunes Surgeon, as well as the set bonuses. Looks like you are a mez blapper - Saw a Grav/MA who did something similar (spawn Singularity, then wormhole everything into Singy and drop PBAoEs while they fell about the place)

Hey man, I think we teamed together on a TF today. I was Pieta (EM/SR Scrapper). Your toon runs great!

Build looks good! There was a Mind Dom thread earlier that questioned the pairing of Mind and Martial. I figured the TAoEs would basically be PBAoEs as needed, kind of like you said about Total Domination and Mass Confusion. Are there any specific mobs types that give you issues?

OP, Agreed with the previous posters. Earth or Fire primary are fun, and Storm on a Controller is much easier to play with the -KB in either primary. Also consider a Cryovolcano - Earth/Cold. I have one and it is very team friendly. The controls are sky high and the defense buffs keep the Blaster and Dominator humming along nicely.

OP, May I suggest Gravity/Storm for your enjoyment? GRAVITY Plenty of ST DPS Plenty of Immobilize Plenty of -Fly Singularity - greatly improved and AMAZING with KB-to-KD proc Wormhole stuff into the Singularity STORM Even more DPS!!! KD/KU from Tornado and Freezing Rain Hurricane - for herding stuff into the scrapper and singularity deathpile Snow Storm for flooring recharge and speed (no escape) If you want to team, I have Laughing Gull (Grav/Storm) so let me know if you need a test drive.

Happy to show you if you're in the neighborhood. I'm @Cenozoic and usually on Excelsior or Reunion - happy to server jump if you're around.

Of course. Hit me up in-game tonight.

Follow-up for the team: Accuracy was indeed the key to the equation. I needed streakbreaker active at all times, and ONLY using powers with 95% Hit Chance allowed me to keep the 4 test AVs perma-held. I took some pictures and make some notes. Toon: Mind/Psionic/Mace Dominator Perma-hold note: For the purpose of this test, I considered holding an AV for 5 minutes as permahold with the powers below. I used the following active powers (no temps): Hover (+6% ToHit from Kismet) Tactics (5-slotted with Adjusted Targeting) Telekinesis (+6 mag Hold when Domination) Dominate (+6 mag Hold ... actually a +3 / +3 of different durations) Domination (perma) Hasten (perma) Nerve Radial Paragon (incarnate - 33% to Accuracy, Hold, and Confuse) Not an active power, but vital for holding 54 AVs AV NOTES & OBSERVATIONS Tyrant was the easiest to perma-hold. He has mag45 hold protection from Purple Triangles, which translates to about 5 less mag protection overall. Ghost Widow needed to be mezzed repeatedly to detoggle her dark aura thingy. Super technical description. Anti-Matter was strange. Even when perma-held, he was still able to "wake up" and follow me, although he was not able to attack. Kind of cool. Giovanna. Ah, our anomalous friend. 20% Psi Defense, plus Purple Patch, plus Purple Triangles. She was a beast. She ALSO has a cycling period of mag 50 Sleep Protection, which is why she kept waking up and slapping me in the head. I fixed that by adding Tactics, Kismet, and switching to Nerve Radial. Now, Dominate and Confuse have 95% Hit Chance. Once I simplified the Giovanna attack pattern, she was locked down like the rest. Harder to solve, but solved nonetheless. Pictures below. Hopefully everyone can see them.

Fire/Devices is a pretty wicked hover blaster. I enjoy mine thoroughly. A similar pairing with soft controls would be Fire/TA. Also fun! Ice/Devices is an old PvP winner, and it is super fun at range as well. Ice/TA is ... NAAAASTY if you're into playing a mez blaster.

Hey dude, All is well. Dug up an older Mids build that had the tweaks I was looking for, like which Incarnate powers helped best and recharge-to-hold balance. I had a bunch of old calculations when I was trying to perma-hold Avatar of Hamidon. While it did not work, the calculations helped. Keep in mind I have been theorycrafting this toon since shutdown, so there were years of data to review. I also started on a Mind/Earth to see what an ideal hold stacker could do. That toon is in progress, and very fun to play, similar to a Mind/Energy. After that, I tangented again and made an EM/SR scrapper because that is fun, and fun is why I play! If you see me online in-game, say howdy and we’ll run that test again. I can also post a video or something if that’s easier. I don’t stress about timeliness in this game, that would be a job and nobody here pays ol’ Cenozoic 😛

Mind/Earth Ever since Drain Psyche got nerfed, /Earth has been fun to play. Smashiness of Energy with the hold to stack with Dominate and TK.

OP, I rolled Earth/Cold to incarnate recently … turns teams into steamroll session. Very little solo damage, but good lord that thing is fun to team. Use Quicksand … stacks with everything and ready each mob. Proc out Volcanic Gasses … amazing pulse frequency! This toon is just nasty. Benumbed AVs, Defense Buffs, Snow Storm, Sleet, Quakes… so good.

Granite Animation Fun! I have Stone/Spines Tank, and Ripper’s backflip is very fun to watch. I think your Savage/Stone build sounds like fun, also consider Rad or Spines for the extra damage aura, which cranks up nicely with Fury.

OP, Both. On Fire/Dev, I am running Targeting Drone + Tactics. In theory, seems as overkill, but I can just mow through everything. Aim helps with … reducing the standing population. Tactics keeps the party going. Much recommend. Also Kismet +6% in Hover to make sure stay at 95% ToHit against 54s, even when their defense is up. Accuracy > Damage

To that point, a +3 AV (assuming 54 AV against 50+1 incarnate) would resist like this: -Regen of 250% is applied from Drain Psyche AV resists 35% of this due to Purple Patch. 250% * 0.65 = 162.5% AV resists 87% of this due to Purple Triangles. 162.5% * 0.13 = 21.25% Regen debuff It is still an effective attack, especially combined with -HP incarnate interface… but yeah, pretty brutal resistance.

Yeah, I am going to tweak the build then you can take a look. I also needed to do some math on the "54 Giovanna Problem" (long distance shoutout to Arcanaville). If you're into numbers, please check mine and constructively critique. Happy to answer questions or provide links if this your first dive into the basic attack mechanics. HIT CHANCE Dominate is based on accuracy. It is a very accurate attack, and is NOT typed as a ranged attack, only psionic, so it ignores Ranged Defense. In Giovanna's case, she has 20% psionic defense bonus, so I needed to make sure that wasn't an issue. Pre-i13 PvP, one of the hilarious aspects of a Mind Dom/Controller was watching folks lose their minds when they realized Dominate ignored their stacked Ranged Defense entirely. SR scrappers were especially salty 😛 but all in good fun. I do miss the old PvP days. HitChance=clamp[AccMods*clamp(BaseToHitChance+ToHitMods-DefMods)] AccMods=InherentPowerAcc*(1.00+PowerAccBonus+GlobalAccBonus)]=1.20*(1.00+0.74+0.63)=2.84 1.20 is Dominate's base power accuracy. The same is true for Seismic Smash. 0.74 is the accuracy improvement from enhancements. I run a "50+5" on a 5-slotted Unbreakable Constraint, plus a 50+5 Hold Duration IO 0.63 is the global accuracy added from set bonuses. Very important for maintaining the 95% streakbreaker system. BaseToHitChance This scales with the Purple Patch level system. I am -3 to Giovanna, so my base chance for each attack 48% instead of the usual 75% for an even-level enemy ToHitMods Running Tactics and Kismet, I was able to bring 17.81% ToHit to the party DefMods Giovanna's 20% defense also scales with the Purple Patch, so she actually has 20% * 1.33 = 26.6% Psionic Defense against me (yikes) HitChance=clamp[2.84*clamp(48+17.81-26.6)] = 95% (clamped from 111.36%) Summary - 54 Giovanna is gonna get tagged with some Dominate! Important to note that in our first live test, I did not have Tactics or Kismet. This meant my Hit Chance was 60.78% (explains the faceplanting). Cheers!

Another note. I am designing a Mind/Earth that will improve the hold ability with Seismic Smash and Power Boost, the former of which is far more important.

UPDATE: I have completed build update to Cenozoic 1.1, and the results are interesting. Ran AE mission for testing: Level 54 AVs Tested: Ghost Widow Anti-Matter Tyrant Giovanna Scaldi I am able to keep +57 hold magnitude on the AVs with consistency. It turns out that +57 Hold is NOT enough to permahold an AV at Level 54. That is super disappointing, as the general notes in most forums and guides are "+50" which is not accurate. Instead, I can confirm that the AV uses the following hold protections: Boss Hold Protection (+6) Arch-Villain Resistance (Purple Triangles) (+50) So, keeping a 54 AV steady at +57 mag hold (or confuse) does not lock the AV down. When I cranked up the hold to +60, there was no issue and they stayed held. So, the magic number is between 58 and 60. For safety's sake (and that the stacking is usually mag3), I posit that Magnitude 60 Hold is required to permahold an AV, especially at 54.

I appreciate the kind words bro! To update the mez community, I have completed a modified build that should solve the lvl 54 AV permahold issue. The specific AV, Giovanna Scaldi, has 20% psionic defense, so I needed to improve my debuffing performance in addition to increasing my inherent accuracy. Toon updates: Added "Poisonous Ray" to add permanent -Res of about -35% Psi (Giovanna has no Psi resists, only defense) Added "Tactics" to improve ToHit ... this will markedly improve hold stacking on Giovanna Changed "Drain Psyche" powerset --- the -Regen component is no longer modifiable, so switched to Preemptive Optimization set Change "Summon Tarantula" powerset --- added Achilles Heel proc to the tarantula's autohit -Defense debuff General streamlining to keep global recharge ~207% with permahasten, permadom, and perma-Drain Psyche (the hardest of the three to perma) Cheers!

As a general follow-up to Power Boost, it does positively impact the hold sequence, though Mind and Fire Doms will be able to perma-hold without it (I have never used Power Boost due to inconsistent cycling for stacks).

Good point. On that note, 9x6 = 54, which may not hold some AVs, as they also have the stacked, inherent protection of Bosses (+6 to overcome). So, you will need permanent Mag 57 or higher hold stacked. Still doable. I ran a test against 54 Ghost Widow in AE last night, and was fine at perma-mag 60. Anything less and she would invariable come out of hold and attack once or twice. Same with Anti-Matter. Neither of those holds went below 54, according to Power Analyzer, so take that for what it's worth.

Cool man. I am @Cenozoic in-game. Moved over to Excelsior. I am usually on 2200-0100 EST (0200-0500 UTC).