Hjarki

I was wondering if there was any chance for an option to re-purpose the animations from one weapon set for another. Let's say you're playing a Dual Pistols/Tactical Arrow Blaster. Currently, you're shooting enemies with your pistols and then, when you use your secondary, you pull out a bow. While no doubt some players like this idea, it tends to be thematically jarring for most characters. What I'd propose is that for Trick/Tactical Arrow (at the very least - potentially also for Dual Pistols/Beam Rifle/Assault Rifle), there be a visual option that permits you to use animations from another weapon set. So if you're the aforementioned Dual Pistols/Tactical Arrow Blaster, you could select an option for your Electrified Net Arrow that would use a pistol animation instead of a bow animation. These animations (mostly) already exist. For example, the same animations for the 1.188 sec activation "Pistols" could be used for the 1.188 sec activation Electrified Net Arrow, so it's really just a matter of adding another option rather than having to create new artwork.

I don't believe Domination affects either power. You're just stacking two Confuses. Arctic Air is only a 30% chance but if you've got it fully slotted up it should have an 8 sec duration with a 2 sec activation. So you have ~75% chance to have its Confuse active. With full slotting, World of Confusion will have ~75% uptime. So you're probably looking at ~56% chance to Confuse a boss (assuming you aren't hitting target caps).

No one is forcing you to use Hide.

The debuffs last 0.75 sec.

This is my primary Blaster atm and it's a beast. Blizzard is the best ultimate any Blast set receives - albeit with a long recharge. For a Blapper, Ice Blast's two heavy-hitting main nukes coupled with strong melee attacks makes for a very high DPS ST rotation, especially alongside the -14% resist debuff. My build tends to emphasize defense a lot more (SLER capped, lots of emphasis on Hold) than yours and it requires Agility to hit its breakpoints, but it still does strong damage. Added: Looking over it again, I think the slotting for Kick/Sonic Thrust is switched (Kick is a pure mule, while Sonic Thrust is only used defensively for knock back).

No, it needs to change. This should be what I'm playing now (the power order may be off): Perma-Hasten, Perma-PA, Perma-Indomitable Will, soft-capped Ranged/Psi. EMP Arrow can generate -382% Regen over time, this should rise to -535% over time with the Acid Arrow debuff. Note that this sort of build is far more 'strategic' than most CoH builds. You've got a huge array of weapons to use and you need to pick the right ones rather than just spamming a rotation. The bulk of the damage comes from pets, although Trick Arrow does do significantly more AE damage than most Illusion builds.

When you're just wandering around attacking things, wouldn't you want to do AS > TF > EF give the chance to hide proc?

I rarely use Overpowering Presence since it gives typed defenses and no recharge. For Will of the Controller, the problem: I can't slot it in Sleep or non-notify powers. I can't slot it in Confuse (because that's where Coercive Persuasion goes) I can't slot it in AE Immobilize (because I want the Winter proc and/or damage) I can't slot it in Hold (because of Unbreakable Constraint proc and/or Basilisk's Gaze) I (obviously) can't slot them in powers whose only purpose is damage. This pretty much leaves Spectral Terror and the AE Disorients.

It depends. A single Defense IO in Hover yields +0.45 universal defense. On a melee build, you could argue that this is worth +1.35 total defense since it covers three categories of interest for you. On a Blaster, you're ignoring many of the defense categories for a few. If you're a standard Hover-Blaster, you only care about one of those categories: Ranged. So it's only worth +0.45 Ranged Defense to you. Spending two slots on BotZ would ned you +0.625 Ranged Defense per slot, so it's better to slot it up for speed. On a SLER Blapper, you care about two categories of defense: S/L and E/N/R. So it would be worth +0.9 overall defense to you. But two slot BoTZ would still only be worth +0.625 Ranged Defense per slot (I'm assuming the first slot is LotG since most Blasters don't have piles of defensive mules just lying around for LotG). However, BotZ isn't actually all that great in Hover. It's fantastic when you're dumping it into Super Speed or a similar power because you otherwise wouldn't slot that power at all - so you're getting that +1.25 Ranged Defense for only one slot (since the first slot is free). Let's compare against a really strong set: Basilisk's Gaze. With 4 slots (3 more than the free slot), you get +1.25 Ranged Def and +7.5% Recharge. Recharge costs about twice as much in IO set bonuses than defense (the best recharge is 10%; the best defense is 5%). So for your 3 slot investment, you're getting +1.25 Ranged Def + 7.5 / 2 equivalent 'defense' = +5 'equivalent defense'. That's +1.67 'equivalent defense' per slot you invested. This, of course, assumes you need recharge in your build - which I view as a safe assumption with a Blaster. In most cases, you'll find it's more efficient to mule extra offensive powers that you may not use much of the time (such as an epic pool Hold) than it is to try to eek every last bit of performance out of your toggles. Tough/Weave will generally be the only defensive toggles (from standard pools) that most Blasters would bother slotting for extra effect.

This is part of the reason I view Combat Teleport as nearly mandatory on most Scrapper/Stalker builds. The other part is, of course, it makes navigating chaotic battles much, much easier. The fact that it can slot either BotZ or Retified Reticle is just gravy.

This thread would disagree: While that's just one test under particular conditions, we can also break down the various rotations to demonstrate that your '5%' notion just ain't so. There's a massive gulf between the top sets and the bottom sets. Moreover, the Assault sets are very different in character. You're going to pursue different builds using sets like Tactical Arrow or Devices than you would with Electric or Dark. The OP's question was entirely reasonable - and most of the responses are not. There are very real differences between the sets and "play what you like" is not a useful answer.

Nature's Affinity has two key powers - Wild Growth and Overgrowth - which are long recharge team buffs and central to the set. Achieving perma-Wild Growth is relatively easy. Achieving perma-Overgrowth is incredibly difficult and will likely require Hasten and Spiritual or Agility Incarnate (that being said, it's not strictly necessary to have 100% uptime on Overgrowth because it's an offensive buff). These are fantastic buffs, but like all 'gather'-type buffs, of limited use in most teams (where players are off doing their own thing). Beyond this, Corrosive Enzymes and Spore Cloud are powers you're going to want to take for the powers themselves. The rest are powers you can use to hold sets or maybe some fringe uses, but aren't particularly important. In terms of slotting, there aren't really many great options for slotting the above powers. Wild Growth and Overgrowth have a limited number of sets and they're going to need a lot of internal recharge, so you're not chasing set bonuses except in the most perfunctory manner. Corrosive Enzymes can't be slotted with sets. Spore Cloud can take standard (not accurate) ToHit Debuff sets, but these aren't particularly great - Dark Watcher's Despite 4-slot is about the best you can expect, and it's not all that great. For Archery, Snap Shot is strictly inferior to Aimed Shot. This can be a motivation to go for Archery/Nature Corruptor rather than Nature/Archery Defender. You can simply choose to waste a power on a Snap Shot you'll never use or you can choose a slightly lower dps rotation by skipping Aimed Shot. The ST rotation will be (depending on recharge) SS/AS -> Blazing Arrow -> SS/AS -> Ranged Shot or SS/AS -> Blazing Arrow -> Ranged Shot. Since you'll probably have Hasten (see above), the latter is achievable and higher dps. However, no Archery rotation is going to be particularly good dps on a Defender. In terms of slotting: Explosive Arrow. I strongly recommend Force Feedback proc and Overwhelming Force proc in this power. Ranged Shot would almost certainly take Sting of the Manticore 5-set. Most Defenders end up 'splitting the ATO' - getting the 10% recharge bonus from Superior Vigilant Assault twice in two separate powers. Assuming you get 3 10% recharge bonuses from the ATOs, you'll want two more - probably Ragnarok and Apocalypse, although other options exist. For pool powers, you're taking Hasten (per above). Super Speed can provide a form of stealth without having to invest in another pool and it can take a BotZ unique to reduce knockback. Fighting is almost universally taken and Tough/Weave can be slotted with all the various resist/def uniques as well as whatever +resist/+defense you like. You'll want 5 total defense powers for Luck of the Gambler; you've got 1 (Weave) and 2+1 more pools. Leadership is fairly standard for Defenders, which nets you another defense power. Either Hover or Combat Jumping is a decent choice for the 4th pool. Vengeance (from Leadership) can be a 4th Luck of the Gambler slot. If you go with Hover, Afterburner could be a 5th. You can also grab Scorpion Shield from Epic/Patron Pools for the 5th. This makes building defenses easier and you have less need for the resist toggles in other pools due to Wild Growth. Something like so:

I usually discount the pet because it's so fragile.

Darkest Night is -30% damage. Twilight Grasp can stack -10% for 20 sec every 8 sec. I suppose you could get another -50% or so out of it if you're constantly using Twilight Grasp. Siphon Power applies -20% damage for 30 secs every 20 sec. It's not unreasonable to stack -80% from this power alone. Fulcrum Shift will stack another -20%. So Kinetics is almost always going to yield more -damage than Dark Affinity. Siphon Speed will also substantially reduce the damage of a single target since it can be triple-stacked for -60% recharge. Tar Patch can usually be double-stacked for -45% resist. However, Siphon Power + Fulcrum Shift is likely to increase your total +damage enough that you're dealing 50% more damage even against a single target. Howling Twlight is -500% Regen for 30 secs every 3 minutes. Realistically, this will probably end up being -250% Regen over time. Transfusion is -50% Regen for 20 secs every 8 secs, so it's fairly easy to hit the point where you're getting -250% Regen over time. Dark inarguably has better personal defenses, though.

I actually use MA/Fire. At early levels, the damage auras from Radiation and Spines are great. But they only scale with +damage, not with +recharge. So you get about 3 dps from Quills and about 4.5 dps from Irradiated Ground. On top of that, you've got the 2.6 dps from Atom Smasher or the 2.5 dps from Spine Burst. They do have two additional cones, but these have trouble hitting more than a few targets and generally don't belong in the rotation. In early levels, most of what you're doing comes from those damage auras. But as you scale up your recharge, your actual attacks tend to become more important. This becomes important when you consider KB AE. A Force Feedback will boost your effective recharge by 100% (or some percentage of that). This affects all of your powers - including your 3.83 dps Burn and something like a 1.38 dps Fireball (Electrifying Fences has higher dps by a bit). So let's say we have +100% recharge. Radiation would deal 4.5 + (2.6 + 3.83 + 1.38) * 2 = 20.12 dps before we account for +damage (including Fury). With Force Feedback, our MA is dealing (3.18 + 3.83 + 1.38) * 3 = 25.17 dps before +damage. You also have to account for procs. On an 8 yard, 360 radius power, you're getting the equivalent of 1.33 PPM for each of your standard procs (higher for purple procs). Each of those procs translates into a static 1.59 dps (again, higher for purple). With Quills, you get this standard proc rate. With Irradiated Ground, you get double the proc rate. With an attack like Dragon's Tail you get triple or more the PPM. Note: This additional damage is less impressive than it might sound because it's unaffected by +damage. So that "25.17 dps" you might be comparing it against is more like "100 dps without Inspirations". Still, an additional 4.5 dps per slot in Dragon's Tail is significant. Fury of the Gladiator would - with that 100 dps figure above as a rough guideline - be around 8 dps per slot. The knockdown is also useful from the standpoint of mitigation. While 90% FR is a given, it's a lot easier to run with 30 F/C Def than it is to run with soft-capped F/C Def (or, at least, a lot easier to build). Since half the time your opponents will be on the ground, you don't need the higher F/C Def on a Knockdown-based build. So why MA and its single AE attack? The first issue is that the additional AE attacks in other sets are all Cones. Even the best arcs - think Pendulum or Crowd Control - are only going to hit half the targets of a PBAoE (they also have half the target cap). Still the 2.5 + 4.66 / 2 = 4.83 dps of Battle Axe is going to beat the 3.18 dps of MA. In theory, Titan Weapons should be the king here. While it doesn't have 180 arc Cones, its 120 arc Cones are still plenty nice and Whirling Smash is a 1 sec Activation KB PBAE. However, while all of these other sets might be decent options, there are two issues that crop up: Overly tight attack chains. When you're talking about firing off that KB PBAoE every 5 - 6 sec, you don't have a whole lot of time left. So you can't just pile on every AE you can find - you really want the best AEs you can find. Note that the methodology I'm using above - simply add dps - is a bit flawed once your attack chain starts getting tighter. AFK farming. It's one thing to attempt a speed clear of an asteroid. However, my personal playstyle involves a lot more "sit in place with a single autofire power" because I'd much rather take twice the time doing something else rather than perfectly optimize speed while being actively forced to play a completely mindless activity for hours on end. Living outside the fire farm. Your fire farmer is going to have piles of Incarnate xp as a matter of course. So you might be tempted to take them outside the fire farm. While this normally requires a secondary build, MA/Fire tends to be much stronger baseline for such a build than the other options due to its exceptionally good single target damage and +defense on Storm Kick. However, it's very likely that a build like TW/Bio would actually work better than */Fire builds. TW has three AE - the 3.81 Whirling Smash and two 4.7 dps 120 arc Cones, all with KB. Since the Cones are likely to hit the same number of targets as Burn would and they're higher dps, you don't really need Burn and you might as well grab the -7.5% resistance debuff and additional +damage from Bio. The fact that your FR isn't remotely close to cap isn't all that important because everything will be mostly flopping on the ground, you've got great regen and your F/C are easily soft-capped.

Storm -> Cobra -> Storm -> Axe would be (103.2 * 2 + 134.9 + 145.9) / (1.056 * 2 + 1.848 * 2) = 83.88 dpa Rib Cracker -> Shin Breaker -> Rib Cracker -> Crushing Uppercut would be (90.84 * 2 + 112.9 + 248.62) / (1.584 * 3 + 2.376) = 76.21 dpa or 81.73 dpa once 7.5% resist debuff is factored in. There are obviously many possible rotations - these are just achievable rotations near the limit of recharge you're likely to have. The -7.5% resist debuff would obviously more useful for your team. Less obviously, Street Justice suffers far more than MA when you're talking about fights that aren't just a pylon. A key advantage of MA is that if the rotation is interrupted, it restarts at the high dpa point. Street Justice is a more conventional set where interruptions cause you to emphasize the low dpa parts of the rotations and compounds this with the disruption of the combo building mechanic. Street Justice also slightly underperforms the numbers above because only part of Crushing Uppcut can crit.

I've found this accurate on everything I've checked so far: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/index.html According to the data there: Poison Trap has no 'initial' -regen. You just get -1000% Regeneration for 10 sec, which is refreshed if they remain in the gas. Acid Mortar grants -20% resist for 20 sec, fired every 6 sec. The Mortar itself will exist for 60 sec, but it's easily destroyed and it can be out-ranged.

I suppose it depends on how you define 'a lot'. +25% damage (?) will translate into about 8% more actual damage. One way to think about this is that 4% damage = 5% single defense = 6% Resist = 10% recharge (in terms of how it's costed on enhancements). The exchange rate is more imperfect than I'm making out because you're considerably constrained about which enhancement sets you can use, but you can trade off one stat for another at the rates listed to a large extent. So an argument could be made that the +25% damage you're receive would be roughly equivalent to getting something like +15% to S/L Def and +6% to all resists - which is similar to what Bio gives up defensively. I think it's fair to say that if you're largely unconcerned with your defenses, Bio will out-perform Willpower - and that most Stalkers have a rather cavalierly attitude towards defenses because impervious-to-all-harm is not why you're bringing a Stalker along. However, I'd quibble over "a lot of difference". Simply having an attack in primary that can effectively slot Achilles' Heel is likely more important than your secondary choice for the purposes of a pylon test.

If you feel there is a Stalker build that can solo every TF in the game at +4, then feel free to present it. This is an example of a claim that - if false - is easily shown as such by counter-example. "Knowing where people come from" is only useful if your intent is an ad hominem attack or an argument from authority - in other words, you have no actual argument. Which is why reasonable people refuse to engage such debates. The "strict DPS requirements" are ones that can be met by essentially any combination of Stalker power sets because potential single target dps from Stalkers just doesn't vary all that much when your two hardest-hitting attacks are the same across all sets.

Combat Teleport provides a +hit bonus and I'd call it nearly essential for any melee build. In terms of sustained +damage, the question becomes: at what cost? Most sets that offer more than just standard Build Up don't do as much damage, or require you include low damage attacks in your rotation. So you really need to map out the entire rotation to see whether it's beneficial. You also need to take into account the situational nature of some of those damage boosts - for example, Dark Melee is great against large spawns, but almost pointless against a single tough target. The real benefit of these damage bonuses is when your primary isn't the whole story. Consider Fire/Dark for a Tanker. If you're only concerned with AE damage, you'll be running at a high +damage almost constantly and applying those bonuses to your Aura/Burn in primary.

While I've played a number of Illusion Controllers, the one I play most often (which is, admittedly, not that often) would be Ill/TA. This is one of the two support sets that can reliably (albeit eventually) set Containment on an AV/GM due to the ST Immobilize. It's far less useful than a standard Controller Immobilize since it (a) doesn't do damage and (b) is only Mag 3. In theory, you could potentially put Avalanche (both superior and normal) into Acid Arrow to have ~85% chance of a Mag 2 Immobilize being present on a target at any given time - this would allow you a reasonable chance to Immobilize bosses. But I've never tried it because randomly proc'ing Immobilize on large spawns is very sketchy in a team. Likewise, you can set Containment (briefly) with Poison Gas Arrow and Blind. However, this is a Sleep so you're only getting one shot at it every 45 secs (before recharge). That being said, I don't find that Containment matters that much. Against normal, everyday mobs, simply rotating Blind and Spectral Wounds will set Containment via Hold. Against AV/GM, Containment can come in handy, but most of your damage is Phantom Army anyway. In terms of overall play, I'd separate team and solo. Team-wise, it's actually one of the more useful Illusion secondaries. Most of Illusion just doesn't do a lot for you in a standard team - it's almost entirely a single target set. Trick Arrow allows you to do some decent AE damage and one of the better -resist debuffs for running on a fast team. It's also the ultimate Stealth spec, since it combines top tier stealth with top tier -perception bonuses. Once you get to the final AV/GM, it can cripple that AV/GM like no one else - you can floor their hit chance and damage so effectively that even virtually undefended players (or your Phantasm) can work in safety. Solo-wise, it's a bit more problematic. Essentially, you have the tools to win virtually any battle - but you need to be able to use those tools. You can't just go stampedinging into a spawn like a Brute, but need to be able to layer debuffs. This makes long recharge defensive powers incredibly useful, even if they come with a full crash - after all, you don't care if all your toggles dropped when the target has another minute worth of Ice Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow and Flash Arrow to wait out before it can do anything particularly harmful. However, while this is nice in theory, implementing in practice requires you have decent knowledge of what you'll be facing. With Superior Invisibility + Flash Arrow, you have the initiative against virtually any static spawn. But what if they see through stealth at ranges beyond Flash Arrow? What if there's an ambush? What if they're immune to attacks for some reason? That one guy hidden off in a corner that you missed with debuffing can ruin the whole encounter for you.

The 'abstract and pointless' debate is the only one that matters. I'm not sure why you'd want to derail the conversation into an endless e-peen debate.

Mid's numbers are a bit sketchy these days. In most cases, you have to look at the in-game numbers to confirm the Mid's ones. In the case of Cross Punch, you have to actually build a character and test it.

The ST rotation for Dark is generally Dark Blast, Gloom, Dark Blast, Moonbeam - and there's no room for Life Drain. The reason to use Tentacles as a mule rather than a damage power is that you won't have time to cast it much. Since it has radically different use characteristics than everything else you do (in terms of the Cone range/arc), it makes more sense to use it for set bonuses. Something to keep in mind is that this is a Defender, not a Blaster. Very few of the Blast set powers are worthwhile in themselves - they're really just a mechanism for carrying procs or set bonuses. So if you're not doing the one, you should probably be doing the other.

A 5-proc'd Acid Arrow and a 3-proc'd Fireball (from Epic pools) are about the same dps. However, as I noted above, Acid Arrow actually exists in the set while Fireball requires taking a specific pool power. This is a major issue with certain primaries (Illusion, Cold, Dark, etc.) which may have no other decent way to ignite the Oil Slick. It's not all that significant an issue with primaries (Electric, Fire) that are likely to ignite it as a matter of course. In terms of the -special, it's awfully hard to tell because most of what it does isn't displayed by the Power Analyzer. However, we can run some basic tests to observe what happens. For example, on a TA/Electrical Defender, a fully slotted Short Circuit will drain about 70% of an (even level) enemy's endurance bar. With Acid Arrow, it will floor their endurance. From my perspective, the main value is that it can act as stacking -regen. A perma-Hasten TA Controller will average -375% Regen over time, which jumps to -525% over time with Acid Arrow. In terms of the -resist procs, having both procs will average about -20% resist on a single target over time at perma-Hasten (it's a 25 yard radius, so the area factor is punishing).