Frosticus

Enhancement unslotters are cheap, so I'd say try it out and see where it works best for you. 45% of the time it works 65% of the time.

I'm partial to ill/cold.

I wish. But no, it just so happens that the Siege robot you can use in AE is the one that is used in the BAF trial as opposed to the Warwalker one used in the Maria arc. They are quite difference in many ways as detailed here:

Siege (lvl 54) BAF version (I was unable to lock insp/temps as this was through AE, but I avoided using them as usual. No lore as always) I'm still searching for an easy way to access to other big robot version of Siege that has the heal. This is the version you encounter in the BAF incarnate trial with the rings of death. He is no joke, put me into the red 5 times throughout the fight and took nearly 15 min to defeat. His resistances are extremely high pushing 75% res to psi and 50% res to smashing, which are my main damage sources.

Lt. Sefu Tendaji (lvl 54) This guy can be a handful. I think his resistances are pretty solid, but his main thing seems to be he uses forcebubble. It flops me all over the place. He can do a lot of damage and popped me for over 1k with some ranged force blast. All in all a little over 4 mins to defeat him.

Nope, I mean for every single rank increase, for every single additional mob and for every single increase in level difference. Their controls lose effectiveness and their damage often becomes more difficult to leverage. It affects doms more than any other AT. Being severely restricted against EB/AV/GMs is just the most glaring example that most users can quickly understand. However, it is their less tangible, but no less pronounced, decline in performance as settings increase, that ultimately deters many players.

If nothing else you should get some sort of badge just for this. This encounter was perhaps the most boring challenge fight I've done and I was getting his generals to pop out every ~10 min and then taking them down in 2 min or so. Even that pace was so slow that I was struggling to maintain focus on the fight. Your commitment to this task is impressive.

It's an example of what a high damage AT can do with procs and more -res than most defenders can put out. I'm sure your own claws/bio has virtues that the proc heavy one doesn't though. I've got a freshly lvld em/fa scrapper that I've gone the proc route on. No it isn't particularly tough, I think of it more as a "blapper" than a scrapper , but the burst damage is....high enough that I don't worry about anything that other ATs /builds are up to.

My personal favorite debuffs for AV's are -resistance and -damage. The interaction they have together is also noteworthy. -regen is generally overrated for AV's. DPS is so high on most late game builds that base AV regen just isn't the hurdle it once was. There are of course times it is still fairly important. As far as interface goes I use reactive on my poison/fire because it fits with the build which heavily leverages procs and -damage debuffing. So additional -res is welcome for boosting both those aspects. On my ill/cold I use degen (75% damage proc/25% hp). I have so many sources triggering it that the -hp is usually maxed out and the 75% toxic proc damage adds up pretty significantly.

Definitely a worthwhile examination. I can tell you what happens to my poison/fire/psi defender, which is about as proc heavy as any build you will come across. I love team survival buffs. I had to sacrifice a ton of my own mitigation via bonuses to put in procs so even forcefield and empathy are my personal heroes. Procs don't benefit from +damage buffs so the classic kin based speed teams are of little benefit to me. I can already hit my own damage cap pretty often thx to low defender caps. My damage capped fireball isn't turning the tide of many fights. + recharge buffs are always welcome, but most late game builds already have compete attack chains, my proc builds are not different in that regard. I do like other -res debuffers, but so does everyone. Ultimately my proc builds benefit more than my other builds from team survival buffs, controls, aggro management and similar, but not much else is different.

Great info. This is the one I seek. But I don't think you can access him via ouro, just as a normal mission from Maria? The BAF/architect version will be worthwhile looking at too. Thx.

I dont worry about containment on my ill/cold. It is a drop in the bucket so to speak. It is nice at low levels though

Just for clarity: Acid arrow is a 15ft radius debuff, but the damage is only 8ft radius. (at least that's what I'm recalling) So you'd want to make sure to slot the defense related procs if you want to do damage over a larger area as the aoe procs should only proc on the 8ft portion. I'd have to test it again, but when I used it during the beta I wasn't amazed by the proc rates, or aoe damage capabilities of the power. Plus the debuff lasts super long now (45 sec) so I don't feel tempted to reapply it in most fights. It could well be better than I recall though.

I think the purpose is because AVs and GMs represent the big named opponents. It's ultimately a super hero game, so topping out at arresting common thugs is fine for some characters, but falls short of what other characters want to achieve. At the end of the day I personally RP very lightly, but I imagine some of my characters as the one that they call when a major threat is detected. Some of my characters are more in the background of such fights. Some don't show up at all haha. As far as rewards go? Fire farms eclipse all if that is one's primary motivation.

Weigh the proc probability vs the cast time vs the duration/value of the debuffs. Acid arrow does a lot of cool things, but I'd probably just leave it as base slot. It would be on the chopping block if the build got tight. If I dedicate a bunch of slots to a power (forgoing bonuses) I expect to use it often. If you are spamming acid arrow you might want to rethink how you are approaching enemies.

How does that work at lvl 50? Did they add lvl 55 mobs? I don't think 54+1 is the same

Unrelated, but what arc is big robot seige found in thru ouro? I can only ever find him when I encounter him leveling up.

I am 100% on board for any IO's that increase slotting options and expand cool build avenues. Elec just had several sets dedicated to them, maybe they aren't the best, but they certainly offer some options. Slotting out 5 elec powers with synapse certainly goes a long way to helping a player live out a synapse type of play. I'd enjoy more of that. Poor ice control and similar, 4 sets dedicated to slows and they are all junk. I still don't see the issue with infrigidate. Yes procs take it from "wish I could skip" to "good power", but it isn't even a top 3 "attack" on either my cold/fire or my illusion/cold. I'd be remise if it went back to being a waste of a power pick. I could also be mistaken, but I don't think most empathy (or similar) players give a hoot about what the debuff sets are doing with procs. I think they just wish someone would need their buffs and heals in the late game. Same as most controllers. They just wish their controls still had good value to teams. At least that is the sentiment I get from many threads talking about the value those sets/AT's bring in late game. I really think this whole damage proc issue is largely about certain AT's/builds not "staying in their lane". It has even been said in this very thread about how defenders invalidate corrs and how they encroach on blaster damage. It doesn't matter that neither of those are true in the least. My response is that Blasters and Scrappers left their lane first. Go die every time you jump in to a spawn first to nuke them without waiting for someone to control/aggro before you. When that starts happening again then I'll be happy to give up some of my own personal damage to help out the team. But right now the teams don't need help, so I may as well pile on more damage.

Yes and no. Webnade, trops, mortar, seekers and tripmine* are all pretty bad for procs. They either don't fire often (trips, webnade, mortar) or fire at all (seekers, tripmine). * Enemy based damage procs don't seem to work in tripmine, but ffback will trigger on you when you cast it. Maybe worth it? Poison trap is pretty good for procs, but the cast time is so slow.

Or is it the control sets being proc'd out that is upsetting? I mean I guess I could understand that my single target hold hits about as hard as your bonesmasher being cause for concern. I mean you still have total focus and energy transfer, but I get it. Or that I can turn my pbaoe stun in dark control into a decent aoe attack that hits about as hard as BU+whirling sword... But it is your fault for building a softcapped blaster, or unkillable scrapper, that doesn't NEED, or even benefit from me controlling anything. So what else would I slot it for? I don't want to step on blasters/scrappers toes here 🙂

I know I would find it helpful if I could understand what others find so upsetting about these supposed debuffing proc monsters? I see them very rarely in the game, but maybe I have a different definition of what they are. Of the debuff sets most of them suck at procs other than poison, storm and maybe time? Traps is junk for procs, some powers don't even trigger them (seekers) and the others roll them at such low chances it is a waste of time. Cold has 1 power worth proc'ing and it is single target TA is at best mediocre. What am I missing? Is it the blast sets that are being leverage by the debuffs that upset people? Ice takes some nice procs, but its aoes don't roll procs well Fire has no procs really Is it radiation and dual pistols that cause this pushback? Because even with procs those two sets don't outpace fire blast. I guess I could see a rad/storm doing a LOT of proc damage, but what does that build do for endurance, or when they get mezzed? It kind of needs ageless AND clarion to function well. And probably barrier too because it won't have much def bonuses with all those procs taking up every power.

Dom. It shines on them. You'd likely be better off with dark or illusion if you want to go controller and still have similar powers (confuse and fear).

And yet it is the high damage AT's that have generally more access to damage procs. Every melee attack has 3 and pbaoe's have 3, not including purples/special/-res procs. Ranged sets have 1, target aoes have 3, not including purples/special/-res procs. The melee AT's can easily build enough survivability to jam in all the procs they could ever want. Most people choose not to because their damage is already terrific, so they chase other bonuses like making themselves virtually unkillable.

I think the fact that you are able to get the recharge of a 20 sec power down to ~5 sec without slotting the power is much more worrisome than being able to squeeze a couple hundred extra damage out of it with procs. Yes set bonuses derived elsewhere in the build feed in to the ability to proc several powers in a build. I guess I don't see how that is any different than set bonuses feeding in to the ability to perma hasten (or any other long duration, high benefit power), or set bonuses feeding in to the ability to add incredible survivability via defense. The point is that it is very difficult to have your cake an eat it too. Very few builds can build for high rech, procs, defense, etc all at the same time. I'd say the build combinations that can might have an issue that isn't coming from procs. It is a bit of a tangent, but many of the high damage AT's can easily slot all 3 types of the -res powers. They are bonkers of some builds that already do heaps of raw damage. Comparatively they are a drop in the bucket on something like poison, cold, ta or storm and ultimately improve output much less (from a solo perspective). A blaster/scrapper able to leverage the -res procs well doesn't NEED damage procs to do absurd damage. But they can still use them almost as well as most debuffers at that point. Elec is a good pairing for Earth assault for the exact reasons you highlight. That same synergy doesn't extend to all earth assault combinations. The endurance cost of proc'd out powers is a huge concern for many/most proc builds leading to large and tangible sacrifices elsewhere in the build. My point for /cold domination is that those slots have to come form somewhere in the build. It is probably worth it, although proc'd out infrig is mostly a waste of time casting in most team scenarios. It is definitely better than many t1's that are a complete waste and are only picked because you are forced too. Under the old system Sleet used to trigger Achilles with ease hitting entire spawns with 50% -res. Now we get a single target achilies. It is still very good though I agree. Sure why not? there aren't that many powers that are worth jamming full of procs. Even seismic smash is generally best when enhanced for some internal recharge (ignoring end/acc concerns). It tends to be the highest dpa attack wherever it is found so many users may want to get it cycling as often as possible because your overall dps might drop using fillers waiting on the proc bomb seismic. I've made a lot of proc builds now across various AT's. That means I want at least 3-4 key powers to be proc'd out heavily. In doing so I always struggle with accuracy and endurance in those powers and have to build to accommodate that. I also struggle to hit def goals, usually forgoing softcap unless it is a def based combo, and struggle to hit extreme global rech. I'm usually shoehorned into tactics and have to pick either cardiac or ageless to fuel the endurance burn of proc'd attacks. If I made a more conventional build and just slotted one attack for procs I'd probably feel differently.

If I was looking at seismic smash with: 6 procs vs 6 maximized slots I'd also be sure to look at total cycle times of the power, how it is going to hit enemies, endurance cost, how it fits into an attack chain for my build and what set bonuses I'm gaining/losing and how that impacts my overall build. I don't play in a vacuum, so I rarely look at powers that way. I do that for every attack because you can't get many set bonuses if you are procing each attack and as far as playing this game goes set bonuses > procs when it comes to making it easy. Some powers are easy proc choices. As above, the example of infrigidate is shown. It turns into one of the best t1 powers with procs. I'm sure infrig has some downsides though? like recharging ~4x slower than other single target t1 debuffs? Or costing a nice chunk of endurance? What about slots to make it hit the target? If you are going to proc out infrig you end up with 5-6 slots in it unless you bend your build considerably. Where do those come from and what does that cost your build? Doesn't everyone also say you need a ton of +rech to make cold domination shine? I get why people kneejerk when they see procs. And yet most peoples' attempts at proc builds end up pretty bad because of the various other factors that you have to juggle. Believe it or not, adding fury of the glad -res to burn results in a comparable dps increase on my scrapper than 15 damage procs contribute to my poison/fire. And then there is the critical strikes proc eclipsing that. A major damage proc nerf will just cause proc builds to go back to softcapped def+perma hasten (trivial to build on most combos) and need/benefit from teams even less. At least all mine will.