Sovera

@Beta968 is a gentleman and a scholar, kudos.

Continuing from the previous post since it was 3 AM - as what had started as a quick test turned into multiple ones - what I extract from these tests is that the value of procs go down as they cost something. FT at 700 damage should have blown FT at 540 out of the water, and yet casting fewer FTs ultimately caught up, and, in fact, surpassed it slightly. Casting our heaviest hitters as much as possible is common sense but its good that testing backs this bit of popular knowledge Look at Slash from Claws, for example. It fits perfectly within its rotation and requires no recharge to continue doing so, ergo loading it with procs adds something to the build at just the loss of a bonus set. But looking at FT the extra damage comes at the cost of casting more T2 or T3 which are laughably behind it in damage. So looking back at Ice we do have that one attack that fits perfectly in the rotation: Ice Sword. Even without any recharge slotted in it it recharges in 2.50 seconds... which is as long as Frost takes, so there is no loss in loading it with procs instead of aiming for IO bonuses. - First test: 3:51. Better, but I'm dropping Frost from the rotation which means lower upkeep for the ATO +res proc. - Tossed the four Might of the Tanker into Burn. The upkeep of the proc is now much better. Also 3:46. The differences are minimal so far though far from no-recharge-FT testing as I play with 5 Hectacombs. - Testing with minimal-recharge-FT to improve FT's damage changed little: 4:01 - Frost takes too long to cast and I find that I'm either waiting 1-1.5 seconds to pass to use another skill or using Frost and having my better skills up while it's still animating. So time to bring back Frozen Fists with full-Hectacomb-FT.... and nope. 3:54 - Perhaps Frozen Fists + procmonstered Ice Sword with minimum-recharge-FT: 3:25 ...alright, we may be on to something. One more try: ....3:48. Or it was just a fluke. - Everything fits perfectly with Hectacomb-slotted-FT, Frozen Fists, frankenslotted Ice Sword, Frozen fists.... but no, 4:10. - Frankenslotting and adding lots of procs seems to have brought very little dividends. So what of the regular slotting but with the Frozen Fist spam? 4:01. - Frankenslotted Frozen Fists: 3:40 - 4:10 - 4:06... how do we lose 30 seconds like this? It goes beyond just 'whiffing'. - Everything slotted regular like but Frost as the procmonstered carrier: 3:56 We are back on the starting line. Adding a boatload of procs did not really affect things either way as the times are firmly stuck on the 4 minute average. Things I have learned: Frozen Fists 'feels' better to use for ST. Faster animating and less time choosing whether to use a power when I have 1-1.5 for Ice Sword/FT/Burn to recharge. Ultimately it does not matter either way so what feels better may be the better criteria. This is merely on the animation side of things as Frozen Fists is a pretty terrible power all around. Same animation time of the T2 but with the damage of a T1? Yuck. Same deal with Greater Ice Sword. It has the same animation time of Frost but is ST and hits for a whooping extra... nine damage. Also, testing is as infuriating as ever with 30 seconds from one try to the next.

I've tried making this into a single bind and was unable to as it would get stuck in targeting Singy and would not move to Teleport Target. I resolved this by making a rolling bind. It still has some flaws such as Singy needing to be within LoS to be targeted which doesn't always happen. But, I must say, this gameplay is nearly mandatory now. I kept doing this and that and eventually figured my main AoE CC both trapping, CCing, and helping the team, was simply to teleport Singy into a new group of enemies. It was very satisfying and fulfilling. Singularity.txt Singularity2.txt

You're mistaking the -30 or 35% resists for the slow. The slow is useless. The -35% is not. Those powers are used and welcome for the -res, not for the slow. Your comment makes it seem like you believe it is the slow that is the useful component. A headscratcher but no worse than the rest. We already had knockback white knights, but now we also have mass immobilize protectors railing about the incompetent bad players who don't want to walk to the mobs they selflessly immobilized for us (to deal with).

After some time trying to figure out what was better but coming up empty (Bopper I ain't) I decided to go for the true-d and tried: testing. What is better? - Five Hectacomb with purple Hold damage proc. This is the lowest damage option at 540, but the global recharge and accuracy are good and also the recharge baked in means more uses of FT since the rotation can go down to FT, Ice Sword, Frost with a 0.5 second gap. - Frankenslotted Freezing Touch with no recharge (purple damage/endurance). Biggo damage increase. 700 damage. Booyah. A row of 90% chance procs. Downside is that the slower recharge forces a FT, Ice Sword, Frost, Ice Sword and still have a near one second gap. - Frankenslotted FT with minimal recharge (purple damage/recharge). Middle way damage option at 675, and the recharge is just perfectly edged by the fraction for FT to recharge after Ice Sword, Frost, Ice Sword. The tests were done without slotting -res procs since I've stopped thinking of them as important for other than pylon tests. I already know my 3 minute Fire/MA does it in 4 minutes without -res procs so that's my benchmark. Without overthinking it too much: 700 damage FT with no recharge: 4:20 - 4:23 675 FT with minimal recharge: 3:51 - 4:10 540 FT with Hectacomb: 4:01 - 4:12 No clear answers unfortunately, but about as expected from similar tests in the past. Full Hectacomb gives a bit more global recharge and accuracy which has its value. It's a 'DPS' option though, but having FT up more often is also nice. When the choice is Frost or Ice Sword it's nice to see FT up. FT with minimal recharge is the best of both worlds. Having a perfect rotation does not matter as much since Burn messes with it every 7 seconds or so, but still it makes a difference as the testing showed. FT with no recharge may not have given the best results but in a team setting it might still be the best choice. Anyone with Speedboost, or Accelerated Metabolism, or dropping an Ageless, and suddenly that gap isn't there anymore. It's the best burst with a row of 90% procs waiting to be unleashed: But overall the difference is minimal. It is the reason I stopped frankenslotting Burn despite the omfg big burst, because with the difference not being large and me exemplaring a lot I prefer to have the attack up more often while garnering the extra global recharge and accuracy. Testing Frozen Fists didn't show much better results. A quick respec to improve upon it and following FT, Ice Sword, Frozen Fists, Ice Sword: FT with full Hectacomb = 4:07 FT with minimal recharging= 3:57 Same old. I will prefer to keep Frozen Fists minimally slotted as a mule and keep on doubling Frost for ST and AoE.

Someone in this thread is confusing roleplay with gameplay, and making some really weird arguments that make me happy they are not a dev. If a TF is tagged as level 35 then it MUST be doable at 35. Hami spawning at 50 stops this. The bug where Doc Buzzsaw spawned as a +7 EB because it spawned at its max level and the TF could be started at level 8 broke many Positron part one TFs and it was a bug that (eventually) got fixed. Whether the fix to LGTF is for Hami to have the same dynamic level scaling as the other mobs OR for the TF's level to be 45 it does not matter. What matters is that the TF must be doable.

To me the the reason to go Defender is invariably because I want those powers earlier. If I make a Stormie something or a Kin something I'm actually playing a Storm or a Kin, the rest is fluff, so I want those powers early.

Heck, that's fine. You do you. As in, you slow or whatever and then deal with them as I move on to the next group. Wouldn't want to let those important slows and sleeps go to waste after all. The team would crumble with those important skills sitting unused on your bar!

I'm saying number validation. A lot of the back and forth when ever you bring up a spread sheet can be snipped by the root when you say 'I mathed this. You think it's wrong? I went and tested and got this as a result'. I'm not pissed at you or anything like it. But I have been around long enough in a number of games where under the hood mechanics or synergies not working as expected (Path of Exile is infamous for this since it has a lot of 'added damage' not being the same as multiplied damage despite having nearly the same nomenclature) that things mathed out turn out not to be what is expected when adding and subtracting. Even the arguments about the best attack chain can be boiled down to tests and results. Which may or may not show results. For example I got better results with my claws Tanker once I realized using Burn after Focus meant the FF proc in Focus had half its duration eaten by Burn's animation time. When I tested the -res procs against AVs I didn't do it all perfect and savvy like Bopper who started calculating regen of AVs, health ticks, damage done. I did super simple like: hit mob for 5 minutes. Look at HP. Hit mob for five minutes without -res procs. Look at HP. Subtract HP, get %. Done.

I have nothing against you personally, Under. I don't know you enough and our paths don't converge. But your insistence that you have some holy grail that only you from amongst all other players have noticed, who then point flaws in rotation or math, is becoming the stuff of legends. And then we have the opposite like Sir Myshkin who comes into a thread with hours of testing and lays it all down. You don't see people argue with him and it's not some thing about charisma or diplomacy or using soft words. He just shows the results from different slotings or rotations and then says, alright, this is what I found. I read your last incursion into the Blaster forums and saw you mentioned it here as being 'shouted down'. You could have shut down everyone by going 'alright, you said this was not possible, but I went and tested and here are my results. Suck on THAT!', but it always devolves into math and spreadsheets with the other side saying no while you say yes. It could be as simple as, 'Oh you say Fire is the absolute best? But Electric is at least on par. Here, I tested it, you got X for Fire? I got Z for Elec'. As for the Trapdoor it's over the Scrapper forums. It has all the details.

Some heroes don't wear capes. But some do and are called Solarverse.

Me, with less swearing and a bit more politeness before we even start the TF. Then I have to explain Spectral Terror counts since the mobs tremble in place instead of clumping around me. Then I ask not to use Sonic Repulsion. Then I ask again not to use Sonic Repulsion. Then I ask a third time not to use Sonic Repulsion. Then I start getting curt at the fourth request not to use Sonic Repulsion. Finally explain it is Sonic Repulsion doing it at the /Sonic's bafflement for me singling them out by name.

I read this whole thing before posting. I have to say it is disappointing and tiring to read the endless bickering and back and forth spreadsheet talking. @underfyre with his claims that are never substantiated and spreadsheets that are shown to have either rotation or math errors, @Monos King simple request of a test being deflected over and over, even @Obitus diatribe. Now, I'll say his upfront. I think Iv'e been around long enough to be understood I don't hate any of the persons I've named and that I am not someone who is aggressive. I think. Someone correct me if I'm actually these things. But guys, these arguments get TIRING. Spreadsheets, links to City of Data, math. For the love of god. We need actual testing. Go out, do things, report on your findings! If someone said to me 'well fah, your Fire Armor builds can't solo X AV because it is mathematically proven that...' I would not spend pages and pages arguing with the person. I would hop into the test server and test it. If it was true I accept it. If it is not I prove the claim is false. We don't NEED ALL THIS BICKERING! The thread could be a quarter of its size if right at the start someone started a test and invited others to show what they could do. Instead there is this love for arguing. When someone has claims what we need is testing. Someone says their Blaster can do X? Then do X and show us what you got. Someone claims their Sentinel can do X better? Go do X, report to us. So far the testing that has been done in the later pages shows Sentinels slightly behind despite the loudness of Blaster superiority. There is currently a Scrapper test that is the Trapdoor mission. I've tried it on my Fire/Fire Sentinel (75% resists, 45% S/L) and the poor thing tried three times and died three times (can't hover blaster). I reckon a Blaster would do better by killing faster. I don't recall a single Blaster doing better than their melee counterparts though. I have looked at the same test the first time I saw it and poo pooed about some of the times because my FA builds are so much damage fuufufufu and etc and etc, but instead of arguing about it I TOOK THE DAMN TEST, and got my expectations lowered by having worse times than the best Scrappers (so yes, I have wider AoEs, more survival, Burn is amazing, but I'm always a minute to a minute and a half behind the better Scrapper times). Guys, for the love of God, lets be adults here. Pick a test, show your results. Pylons, Trapdoor mission (I heartily recommend this one though the narrow tunnels cuts down on the strength of hover blasting), or something else. I love the pylon thread regarding to this. No spread sheet talk. People go, test, post build and results. There. No maths, no arguing. This is what they got. Do what you want with it. See where it can be improved by adding or removing procs or changing the rotation. But instead of bickering the changes are tested and results are posted. Is it better? Did it make no difference? Work from there on.

I confess I don't see what DB brings different to Claws. It's a Claws clone (or vice-versa) except having slower animations (sometimes substantially) and lower damage (according to Mids). So I keep looking at it and then never make one.

Kind words, Dove 🙂 It's mostly for me but I might as well post it so others can make use of it. This harkens from the early Homecoming days, forums brand spanking new, first page still... and so little information or builds being posted. What you've posted seems to be in order. Changing the power selection is fine since it's you who is using the build and thus it is suited to your playstyle. I find I don't need Tough or Weave for the mid levels since everything is easy and little in the way of debuffs to threaten us. We run things at +1 tops so there is not this big level gap to make things threatening. That's why I keep Tough and Weave so far down the list since at 50 is when we push the difficulty and when the extra defenses are needed. That's how I do it, but it doesn't have to be how you do it. That said you can burn a respec and see if you really notice a difference in survival by not having Tough and Weave. Just as note you don't need the Kismet as long as you're running Focused Accuracy. With FA you're overshooting 95% by a comfortable margin (and the reason I take FA is mostly because it resists accuracy being debuffed (as well as the Blind protection)). This is against +3 which is where the T3 Alpha leaves us. For +1 or +2 enemies you don't even need FA to reach the ToHit limits so either way Kismet isn't adding much. If you go into Mids' options, then 'Exemping&Base Values' you can change ToHit to 48 to mimic fighting a +3 enemy.

Correct. My bad. Now that you've mentioned it I've tried to find it but couldn't, but it's been almost two years. That build had a 1:53 best time. And the 1:23 had Hybrid toggled on too now that I've looked back at the posts under it. Even the Fire/Ninja had Assault toggled on.

People don't do pylon tests with red insps. Which is where the DPS numbers come from.

I also lied above. It was so long ago I didn't recall the details. It was not sub one minute but 1:23. At the time I reached out to Don Petro and he was kind enough to provide his build so you can peruse it if you'd like: There -is- a single instance of (barely) sub 1 minute I found and it was a Fire/Ninja:

Snarky, you are a fine internet undead dude, but you don't know enough to sprout certainties. If you want a better show of what an Ice Blaster can do you copy one of the proc heavy builds. Each attack can take at least three damage procs and still be slotted with three Thunderstrikes with no recharge in them (accuracy damage, damage endurance, accuracy damage endurance). I say this because you stated 'Ice Blaster'. But several answers you got from the Ice/Ice person and others in your thread in the Blaster forums already stated that purely ranged will cut on the damage potential by a large bit. Ice/Ice is not the most damaging combo so you would not do the 800-900 goal regardless. You would get closer with procs though. With procs purely ranged Ice is either on par with purely ranged Fire or slightly ahead. To reach these 800-900 numbers you must embrace melee on a squishy. You don't want to do that. Heck, -I- don't want to do that. If I wanted to be in melee range I'd play a darn Scrapper 😛 One of the sub one minute Blaster times I remember reading in the Pylon thread over the Scrapper forums was a Ice/Fire (or perhaps Ice/Energy? It's been a long while). They hugged the pylon, went nuts, and of course mixed the very high melee damaging attacks. These make the difference to reach such absurd numbers, but whomever achieves this in regular play deserves it. That said you can aim for S/L defense instead of Ranged defense and dip into melee range without it being such a dangerous thing to do without said 45% S/L defense. S/L would protect against Ranged, Melee, and AoE.

Nihili covered it well. The thing is that DPS has no great place in CoH outside of small niche things like beating up AVs. But wait, you might say, beating up AVs -is- a part of the CoH experience! And you would be correct, but thinking back on it how often and how long do we spend beating up AVs? We might spend 7-10 missions beating regular bad guys to finally reach an AV. So easily 200-300 enemies for one AV. And regular bad guys don't require DPS (damage per second) but rather burst. Sentinels are reviled for their mediocre DPS but are about kings for regular play (but since they suck at things like pylon tests they are shunned. The target cap is also a big bad nerf). For regular play a Sentinel will have their nuke + all their AoEs available at every single new group of enemies, and using it will decimate most of them in a brilliant flash of light and expanding pink clouds of what used to be people with dreams and aspirations and are now dispersing molecules of fle-... pixels. Ahem. So, anyway. Even regular bosses require no more than 10 or so seconds to defeat for most damaging ATs. So calculations on how much damage something will do over a period of hitting something for one minute are not very useful. A Blaster can bridge this with both burst and DPS. The smarter way I found of playing one was using nuke + AoEs on a pack of enemies, and the next pack of enemies use Build-up + Aim + AoEs. This because the nukes are so strong they hardly need the extra help in killing a group but are usually only up every two spawns, so alternating nuke and BU + Aim makes a Blaster a powerful force never resting. Pylon tests are useful, but also detrimental. It brings elitism when X powerset is poo pooed because it does poor shows in the test. But they are test with little usefulness. They are literally tests done for a segment of the gameplay we spend less than 1% on: the AV fight. Further they are skewed by the peculiarities of the pylon test which loves -res procs further favoring certain sets (Bio Armor for example, any attack set that allows to slot -res procs) and creating a gap with sets who do not have the chance to use those. Where, in testing against actual AVs, the effects are greatly diminished (in my own testing two -res procs can increase damage in 25% but on an AV the damage increase was lowered to 5-8%. Still good, but not overwhelmingly good as the pylon test would have led us to believe). A better test candidate might be the Trapdoor mission that the Scrapper forums have a thread about. That one is not about hitting an inconsequential target who does not move and soaks -res procs like ambrosia. It is a test of the actual gameplay we will find while playing CoH. Defeating low HP enemies, having to fear for our lives (there are many Blasters who tried the test and come out with defeats that killed their times. No 50 second times for them if they are hugging the ground, and that too is part of the 'real' gameplay experience), moving to the next target, then defeat a semi tough final boss. This is not the answering your question but I feel it was all already covered.

THE SMELL OF FRESH PAINT IS NEARLY OVERWHELMING! - Line from Citadel's TF and quoted for whatever mission that re-uses the same door.

To be honest I don't see Fire Armor having enough representation (OUTSIDE OF FARMS!) to warrant nerfs. Also, re-reading the last page(s) makes me ponder how many people are treating CoH as if it was WoW with a competitive race to world first raiding scene. Now having inspirations in mail is an exploit that needs to be squashed? What the heck, 0.1% of the population uses it to overcome a challenge or speedrun (also a challenge). Who does this for regular playing? I would rather have an hour or two spent increasing AH stacks to 100 so I don't repeat the same gesture 49 times, or 71 times like I did last night, in order to sell 710 Converters. That, at least, affects 100% of the population rather than the 0.1%.

I'll just quickly adapt from the other WP build I just posted. Same warning I'm not a WP expert, but also same deal, 'low' S/L resists will be upped by the proc in Radioactive Smash. I suggest Barrier with 120 seconds to give the last 5% to defense and 5% to resists. 81 HP regen with one mob in range. Because of this I did not frankenslot Siphon's heal and its 'just' going to heal 375 HP per use. Remember you can force these heals with Fusion.

It didn't do anything for me I confess. The bigger culprit is probably Soul Drain being a touch awkward with the long recharge. It can be made nearly perma but usually means I found myself deciding whether to whittle the rest of the mobs without using it again, or use it on the remaining 2-3 mobs instead of on the next fresh large spawn. Dark Consumption is not needed with Consume, Siphon Life is usually why DM is taken but its not needed and anemic anyway compared to Healing Flames. Shadow Maul should do twice the damage of Frost with the same animation time, but it does not feel it has the same oomph. Perhaps it is the 3y shorter range. The new Touch of Fear is a bit of a non entity. If it at least spread the -ToHit in the AoE... The ST is pretty decent though it suffers for exemplaring if using Midnight Grasp. MG, Smite, Siphon, Smite works just fine but makes slotting Shadow Punch a waste. But then if we exemplar just Smite and Siphon leaves gaps. Overall it's a good combo still and maybe I'm just too picky, just a pity it can't spread -ToHit in AoE other than with SM. It could be its 'ice patch' defense.

I'm not an expert on WP, buuut, sooomething like thiiiiis? I think? Don't mind the 'low' S/L resistance since you'll be getting +res stacks from the proc in Total Focus. I suggest you grab Barrier which will give the last 5% to your defenses as well as 5% to resistances. I've done what I could for E/N but it will gain another close to 20% with more ATO stacks and Barrier's 5% so a solid 73%-ish kinda sorta. Pretty impressive regeneration I must say. 78 HP with only one enemy in range is pretty solid coupled with the defenses and resistances. And when needing more regen because surrounded by enemies it goes up to 135 HP.