Sovera

Who knows what the factors are? The dev's decision is my best guess. I just hit resistance agnostic mobs with and without Offense Adaptation and that's what I got.

So I went to test on a pylon. Turned off all sources of -res to not mess with the tests, did several hits without combos and several with. The increase for CU and Spinning was always 25% on the dot (combo less CU from 334 to 417, comboless Spinning from 83x2 to 104x2) so from that angle all is working correctly (I just overestimated the damage boost I suppose, Fake Nemesis surviving on a sliver of health and all). Considering that Spinning does literally half the damage of CU it is absolutely not worth it to do fewer CUs in order to do Spinning at full combo points. CU takes too long for just Shin Kicker, Rib Cracker, Heavy Blow, thus leaving a small gap that could be filled with a second Shin Kicker, but Spinning hits nearly as hard (though animates slower, but the slower animation is not a problem since we are tied to CU's recharge) and takes a -res proc which feeds the whole chain and nullifies the small damage difference (111 base damage from Spinning VS 131 base of Shin kicker). That -res proc elevates the number of -res sources to five in the build: - Evolving 7.5% native. - Spinning 12.5% proc. - Rib Cracker 7.5% native. - Genetic Corruption 20% proc. - Shin kicker 20% proc.

It's good, but the Offense Adaptation is not as good as it says on paper. It can boost as little as 4% and at most 21% averaging 18%. I have tests of it somewhere on these boards. Other than that /Bio is stupidly good when we pair it with a ranged primary as is the case with Sentinels.

I've tried the triple proc approach and it worked well. Shaved two minutes off a pylon run with a Rad/Ninja but still only 4 minutes. With less faffing around and procs Nihili's Fire/Rad Sentinel reached 3:30 if I'm not mistaken.

You best solution is using Google. The search of the forums is also unable to look for posts done prior to the forum migration, but, again, Google fixes that. So, for example, google up and go 'amazing blaster builds omfg dat damage site:https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/13-blaster/ '

First of all, I noticed this at the rear end of powering through the SLOG that is acquiring the last three accolades so I was too burned out to sit and test properly with numbers. I'll do so tonight. But I noticed that the 'does more damage with each combo point' that I took as gospel when making the character seems to be... well... missing? I had Fake Nemesis set as -1 and lieutenants which allowed me to nearly one-shot one with combo-less Crushing Uppercut. Then the next Fake Nemesis I would use my regular attack rotation, and I noticed I arrived at the following Nemesis with full combo points.... and CU would again nearly one-shot them. So, basically, comboless CU = mob with a sliver of HP. Full combo CU = same mob with a sliver of HP. This was repeated several times with the same result. I mentioned this to a friend who was playing an StJ Tanker in an ITF and they tested giving something like 500 damage without combo points and 550 with. This is not the 30% damage boost I read of. While the secondary effects are nice (the Terrify in Spinning Strike is darn good mitigation though I am not fussed about the Hold in CU) it does mean if the damage increase is so minimal then the rotation can be tweaked so CU's are fired more often. This because since CU's cooldown is a bit too long I do three combo CU, then build back the combos and do a three combo Spinning Strike. But this means CU is off CD by the time I have re-built three combos which mean less CU per minute. Spinning Strike's damage is okay and has the -res proc in it. At the top of my head Shin Breaker, Rib Cracker, Heavy Blow, Crushing Uppercut, Spinning Strike would be gapless for maximum CUs. I actually toyed with Rib Cracker, Shin Breaker, Rib Cracker (love the animation), CU, and it worked fine, but since Rib Cracker is where I shuffled the Critical Strike proc it happened that the proc went off at the first Rib Cracker making it go to 'waste' in the following Shin Breaker + Rib Cracker and not be up in time for CU/Spinning (assuming the proc works how I think it does).

I was surprised at the off-the-path -res source: StJ/Bio Scrapper. - 7.5% from Rib Cracker - Annihilation -res proc (12.5%) in Spinning Strike (part of the ST rotation anyway) - Achiles' Heel -res (20%) in Shin Breaker. - 7.5% from Evolving Armor - Fury of the Gladiator -res (20%) in Genetic Corruption. Now, it's not a Sonic Defender, but, still 😄

As I said, I knew I wasn't going to change your mind. You do you, knight of the pixies.

You could consider Street Justice if you can get behind it. KM is ok without being super amazing and the Stalker version helps it. Katana is darn good as long as you don't plan to exemp too much (one of the big ST attacks comes at 32, the other at 26). If you do go KM the idea is to stick to the first three attacks only. If you do want to go all natural then /WP would be spot on, /Bio is great and works well, but of the two I might lean towards /WP as the less IO intensive of the two

No need to white knight, my good internet person. Nothing that was said even borders on rude, it takes being 2020 to be offended if speech is not flowery. The very first answer was thorough and complete, including even numbers instead of a vague 'and it gives defense'. I'm not annoyed by the person asking a question and misunderstanding the answer (the term 'environmental' is pretty niche), but the timely jump to salvage their honor and the reputation of the CoH community, was funny. In the hilarious way.

You don't -need- to farm, broseph. Plenty of people here have amassed fortunes just playing the game. Check my signature for some tips because if you played the game to 50 you may be richer than you thought. If your first 50 is a farm baby, well, that's something else. Now if you -like- to farm it's something else altogether.

I'll be honest with you: tanking is a state of mind, not an AT. I've had a recent stint as a Stalker and while fun I could just not get into the mindset of having mobs ignore me and wander off. Now I'm leveling a(nother) Scrapper and I was confiding to a friend how much I was enjoying once again grabbing agro (weak(er) agro aura sed agro aura), which led me back to how I usually play the game: jump into a pack, brush myself against all the mobs like a cat marking territory, settle down hitting the hardest thing while unleashing AoEs. Everything nice and clustered, keep an eye on squishies and their HP (it's pretty common to see that the team split up and someone's HP is dropping and for me to drop everything and run over to help before things reach their lethal end). Once just a few minions left jump ahead for the next group so the team arrives and finds a nice clustered ball of NPCs. Repeat. I'd say don't feel -obliged- to play a Tanker to be a tank.

Yes, that's what I've mentioned above with just barely (0.2-ish seconds) left to activate one of StJ's finishers (which might be cutting it too close considering possible network lag). But I ask this because despite the common sense you've espoused, and which I agree with, the popular opinion appears to be throwing the Critical Strikes proc into a set's heavy hitter. I did not ask if this was done because heavy hitters usually have a longer animation and/or longer recharge which lends itself to triggering procs or laboring under the assumption that 'proc goes off, that means my big hitter just got boosted by it'. It would make more sense to place it on the set's second hardest hitter so it benefits the harder hitting one.

I sees it. After seeing yours I started a Fire/Bio Scrapper myself. An Annihilation -res in Genetic Corruption might help the times a bit. I'd try it over the test server myself but I think it's still in lockdown for free incarnates. (Ignore FA, it's just for friendly RP duels, Parasitic can replace it)

@Bopper, this is a bit of a niche info, but perhaps you've come across it in your meanderings through all the PPM data. Do you happen to know when the Scrapper's Critical Strikes proc happens? Is it: 1) - Skill activates, proc goes off, skill gets to use the proc but the animation time of the skill eats into the 3.5 duration of the skill 2) - Skill activates, proc goes off only once the animation is over but the skill still gets the effect of it. 3) - Skill activates, animates, proc only goes off at the end of animation and the skill did not get the effect of it. I'm curious because this is something I've pondered before regarding where to place that particular proc so it benefits as much of my attack chain as possible. Currently I'm trying an StJ Scrapper and the first most logical placement for it would be Crushing Uppercut, but I don't want to put it there for a couple of reasons. One of them is that the skill is too high up and when I exemp down I would simply not have access to it and the second is that in an AoE situation I would be spending my combo points in Spinning Strike so the proc would not be used. Shin Breaker is not a good choice either because it's my first skill in the attack chain (I was intending to go with Shin Breaker, Rib Cracker, Heavy Blow, then with the three combo points use Crushing Uppercut or Spinning Strike) and 3.5 seconds does not last long enough to still affect CU/SS. This leaves Rib Cracker. With Rib Cracker if it goes off the proc would affect Rib Cracker itself(?), Heavy Blow, and then barely barely eke out enough to still affect CU/SS. Depending on which of the three scenarios above works out.

Pretty decent. We live in a land of riches when 2 minute pylons are sniffed at 😄 Outside of a vaccuum and anyone who adds the -res to the target will boost those numbers. Could you show us what build you used?

That's a common theme with Market Crash. The hits from the Crimson Prototype debuff HP. They don't really hit all that hard, but after a while we are down to 500 HP and then we get one shot. Time to run around waiting for the debuff to pass.

Did you try one of these without Melt Armor?

Ice/Bio Stalker. Musculature 45%, Degen 75%, Assault (not clicked), 2:30 2:46 I've tweaked the build for occasional duels so it is overshot with accuracy and I removed Genetic Corruption (since it does so little for a Stalker) and took Focused Accuracy. The core of the build is present though and the times aren't very impressive for one of the Stalker's heavy hitter sets. I think Frost is to blame here but I had problems making an attack chain until I included it. For regular play Frost does great 'splash' but for pure ST the 2.5 second animation hurts and the -res proc doesn't make up for it. Changing epics and taking an ST attack from one of them might be better. Rotation was AS - Freezing touch - Frost - Ice Sword. Ice Sword skipped for Build-up when it was up. It's still a great build to play assassin with. FT and AS one-shot +4 minions on crits making roaming around killing sappers and surgeons a satisfying affair.

DNA Siphon only gives regen/recovery on corpses. In a farm this is fine since there are always lots of those around.

What times did you get when you tried just FU, Focus, Slash?

- For the raw stats of the Mako. The Superior Scrapper's Strike is split in half to get the 3 piece 5% defense bonus twice. - Hasten is not perma out of the box because of the sacrifices needed to lift S/L defenses on /Bio. But it becomes so by playing thanks to the Force Feedback procs in Focus and Shockwave. This build relies on Barrier to reach 45% defense to all (Barrier always gives a minimum of 5% and once T4 this is permanent). - I prefer Physical Perfection. I find I don't need Parasitic Aura since /Bio is sturdy. Taking Parasitic is perfectly doable though, just put two +5 recharges in the slots. - Musculature 45% damage, Degenerative T3 75% chance to lower HP, Assault damage buff, Barrier 120 seconds, Lore whatever. - I like Hover. Easier to manage when speedboosted, we can hover out of Caltrops or ground effects, we can chase flyers, I like the easy maneuverability, and it turns cones into PbAoEs. It's not necessary though, Combat Jumping/Super Jump works too.

3:34 without T4 Musculature? Hot momma 😄 Though you did turn on Assault. Let us know how it goes at T4 without Assault on, please?

I didn't overthink my answer, @oldskool, but it wasn't a dig aimed at you and your answer was a lot more elaborate than mine to begin with. I just meant what I said that so far Rad has been the best damage I managed to eeke out from Sentinels in a purely ranged build (btw, 6 minutes without procs) while also being very satisfying for AoE.

As an academic thing it's fine to look for -the- most unkillable thing, but in practice you don't want -the- most unkillable thing, just unkillable -enough- for content. Which is why I look at Tankers and dither because once we can throw ourselves at +4/x8 content and thrive the idea of needing -more- survivability is moot. Path of Exile works in the same system. Only niche builds aim for maximum uberest survivability. Everything else aims for survivable enough and then damage/utility/speed.