Bopper

The dev team has a really good knowledge of the history of the game, so they probably can look into it. But honestly, it just feels like an oversight or a workaround for the times. Perhaps the devs had no way of setting a default debuff resistance that was trivial and decided a simple workaround was to set the minimum resistance to the default value. Since there was no tohit resistance debuff powers (I assume), it made sense. What I'm getting at, I trust HC's judgement on if they should change that seemingly arbitrary resistance minimum. If there is a reason for it, I hope they share it. It is certainly an oddity I'd love to know more about as it makes almost no sense to have. As I'm typing this, I'm sifting through def files trying to see why it might be... there are settings for AttribMin and AttribBase. There are StrengthMin and StrengthMax, there are ResistanceMin and ResistanceMax. I'm surprised there isn't a StrengthBase or a ResistanceBase. Even if it's all 0s for most things, you'd have something for default values that you may want to set so you don't have to adjust values for every villain class created.

I am in agreement, but when you mentioned a set not being balanced because of a single attribute not being useful it came off as something else. I hope you can see the source of my confusion. But let's press with what matters. The thing that needs to get fixed doesn't have to be AA, it is to address mobs that have an unnecessary minimum debuff resistance. AVs, I get (and it's not like we'd have an easy time reaching their current minimum anyways). But lesser ranked mobs should just have a default resistance level along with the standard -300% debuff resistance minimum that we all get. Let the current minimums be the default resistance and call it good.

It won't fix what folks are clammoring for. There is no way you'd get a 10s timer, that's just asking to make it perma. Total Focus is only a 20s recharge, so you'd hit perma with just slotting. You're more likely to get something like Eagle's Claw where the buff would only last 2-3 seconds. You're not gonna get two Fast Energy Transfers with that, but you could get two EF spenders. However that forces everyone's hand into a rotation of TF > ET > BS/PC then filler until TF comes back.

If you would like to see how balanced the set it, check out my analysis on page 9 of this thread. As for the strength of the power, I don't know what you're missing. It makes your debuffs 40% stronger. To-Hit is a weird edge case that might need its own address as to why a minimum resistance is even given to Lieutenants and Bosses, but that's outside the scope of this thread and is a worthwhile topic to bring up in the Suggestions and Feedback forum. Let's also not forget it does more than just To-Hit resistance debuffing. But if you're worried Trick Arrow can't debuff an AV's To-Hit ...don't worry it can. The only thing that can match Trick Arrow's To-Hit debuffing ability of an AV is Dark Miasma, and they're neck and neck. But let's get back on track with Acid Arrow, what else does it do? Well, 40% Resistance debuff to Regeneration. Is that useful? Maybe. You happen to have EMP Arrow that provides 500% Regeneration Debuff for 15s and another 500% for 45s. Let's compare the same +3 AV scenario for Regeneration, and for the sake of argument lets ignore the first 15s and just analyze the 500% that lasts the entire 45s: +3 Level 54 AV, EMP Arrow, No Acid Arrow: Resistance: 87% Purple Patch: 0.65 Final Regen Debuff: 42.25% +3 Level 54 AV, EMP Arrow, w/ Acid Arrow: Resistance: 83.62% Purple Patch: 0.65 Final Regen Debuff: 53.24% For an AV, their Regen ticks are once every 15s. When debuffed it becomes: w/o Acid Arrow: 15/(1-0.4225) = 25.97 seconds w/ Acid Arrow: 15/(1-0.5324) = 32.08 seconds Maybe that doesn't seem impressive. Perhaps delaying their regeneration ticks by an extra 23.5% isn't useful. Let's find out. Let's convert these numbers to HP/sec Level 54 AV has 31,285.9 HP. At base regeneration the AV heals 104.2863 HP/sec. For the 45s that EMP arrow is active without Acid Arrow, the numbers become: 60.2254 HP/sec For the 45s that EMP arrow is active with Acid Arrow, the numbers become: 48.7643 HP/sec That delta of 11.46 HP/sec multiplied out the full 45s is effectively 515.75 damage you were able to add because of Acid Arrow. Granted, this does not include the regeneration debuff contributions of your teammates which you also helped boost their performance by 26% (due to purple patch, 40% if even con). But hey, for kicks, let's check out the 15s we ignored. Let's do the math right, for fun. We know our performance for the 15s-45s block, we can include the first 15s of the 1000% regeneration debuff. w/o Acid Arrow: Final Regen Debuff: 84.5% w/ Acid Arrow: Final Regen Debuff: 100% Not much math involved with looking at Acid Arrow performance since we single handedly removed 15s of the AV's regeneration (1564.3 HP). As for the performance without Acid Arrow we get: 16.1644 HP/s So let's complete the math, Acid Arrow provided a net gain of: 16.1644 x 15 + 11.4611 x 30 = 586.3 HP That's useful. This is including purple patch, bypassing the target's resistances impact. Does it take 45s to play out? Sure. But it's a contribution you made with Acid Arrow. But let's not forget whatelse Acid Arrow is. A Damage TAoE with Defense Debuff on a moderate recharge. It's a debuff power that is easily weaponized with procs. Damage and Resistance debuff. If you can't find use in that, I don't know what to tell you.

You might be thinking of experiences from playtesting an early Beta version, not what currently is on the HC Beta server. The Knockback was removed from Sound Cannon and is now a Knockdown. Also, Sound Booster's buff to your chance to Hold effects was increased making the migraine mechanic (or is it SoundBoost mechanic?) much more reliable. Sound Booster also now buffs your chance to knockdown in Sound Cannon, which is nice for targets that are protected from the Disorient effect. Overall, the mitigation in Sonic Manipulation is far improved from early versions of the set.

It would not. Dark Servant is a pet with its own attacks, some single target some AoE. Whatever debuffs you slot into it will transfer to attacks that accept those enhancements. Dark Servant has the following powers: Chill of the Night, which is a Toggle (use Toggle formula) that does 30% To-Hit debuff in a 10 ft radius around Dark Servant. Twilight Grasp is on a 10s cooldown with 2.37s cast time. It is single target and does 5% To-Hit debuff and 10% Damage debuff. Darkest Night is a Toggle that hits in a 25 foot radius around a target. It does 15% To-Hit and 30% Damage debuff (for some reason, I think this doesn't get enhanced, so To-Hit Debuff procs likely won't work on it) Tenebrous Tentacles is a 15s cooldown with 1.67s cast time, and it a 40 foot, 40 degree cone. It does 5% To-Hit debuff. So, To-Hit debuffs will likely be your best bet, but you can use Immobilization or Accurate Heal procs if the pet accepts them

I didn't work out the math, but was this the post you're referring to? If so, I wasn't sure which ATs you were referring to exactly. My numbers: Defender 40% Res(ToHit) against a level 50 AV (+0) gives me the following Final Resistance Debuff: 6% -> 40% x (100% - 85%) = 6% New ToHit Resistance Debuff: 79% -> 85% - 6% = 79% Get a team of 8 TA Defenders: 320% Res(ToHit) which makes the numbers: Final Resistance Debuff: 48% New ToHit Resistance Debuff: 37% (close to the minimum resistance of an AV) Certainly, stronger AVs will negate much of this thanks to having a stronger resistance and purple patch. Assuming +3 AV, we get the following: Single TA Defender Debuffs: Final Resistance Debuff: 3.38% -> 40% x 0.65 x (100% - 87%) = 3.38% New ToHit Resistance Debuff: 83.62% -> 87% - 3.38% = 83.62% Team of 8 TA Defender Debuffs: Final Resistance Debuff: 27.04% New ToHit Resistance Debuff: 59.96% That certainly may not seem like much, but apply 14.44% To-Hit Debuff (resistible), which would be 54% enhancement in Flash Arrow, the end results are (I am ignoring the unresistible portion since it will not be impacted by what we're concerned with): Single TA Defender (+0 Lvl 50 AV) ToHit Resistance: 79% ToHit Debuff: 3.03% (2.17% without resistance debuff) Single TA Defender (+3 Lvl 54 AV) ToHit Resistance: 83.62% ToHit Debuff: 1.54% (1.22% without resistance debuff) Team of 8 TA Defender (+0 Lvl 50 AV) ToHit Resistance: 37% ToHit Debuff: 72.77% (17.33% without resistance debuff) Team of 8 TA Defender (+3 Lvl 54 AV) ToHit Resistance: 59.96% ToHit Debuff: 30.06% (9.76% without resistance debuff) It's noticeable that it can be quite the force multiplier. It takes a bit to ramp up, but with enough of these types of debuffs you can reach some pretty high debuff numbers.

I'd like to clarify this just a little bit. Acid Arrow is unique and potentially awesome. We already know a -defense debuff will be useful for using two damage procs and a resistance debuff proc, so I won't get into that. Let's talker about the resistance(special). As you are probably familiar, whenever someone talks about damage resistance debuffs, they translate it to, a resistance debuff of X% will make you and your teammates to X% more damage. The math just works out that way, I won't bore you with a proof. What we can take from this, it is the same for "special" resistance debuffs. What does that mean? It means when you apply a resistance debuff of X% to a special attribute (such as defense, regeneration, recovery, etc), your debuffs of that special attribute will become X% more debuff. For example: Let's say you do 100% regeneration debuff on a target, but that target has 50% regeneration debuff resistance. When you use your debuff, only half of it gets through, so the target would be debuffed by 50%. Now, if you use Acid Arrow, it will apply a 40% regeneration resistance debuff on your target. And much like how resistance resists resistible debuffs, the same concept applies. The target will resist half of that debuff, so it only gets hit with 20%. The 50% - 20% = a new 30% resistance to regeneration debuffs. Your 100% regeneration debuff will now do 70% regeneration debuff, which is 40% stronger than the original 50% debuff. So, let's look at what Acid Arrow does: Defender Values, it applies a 40% resistance to ToHit, Regeneration, RechargeTime, Recovery, Endurance, and Endurance Discount. That means, if you apply Acid Arrow on a target, your debuffs of ToHit, Regeneration, RechargeTime, Recovery, Endurance, and Endurance Discount will be 40% stronger against that target. HOWEVER, there are some limitation to what this does in game. First, we found out some ranks of targets have a minimum resistance to ToHit debuffs. Minions is -300% (which is what we'd expect), but Lieutenants have a minimum of 10%, Bosses have 20%, and AVs have a minimum of 30%. So basically, LTs and Bosses will not be impacted by Acid Arrow because they are usually starting at the minimum resistance before the fight begins. So debuffing those ranks will only happen if they buffed there ToHit resistance somehow (which I don't think is common). So effectively, AA will serve to neuter Minions (which we're not scared of, normally) and ArchVillains (which at level 50 start with 85% ToHit debuff resistance, so AA will be very useful for those fights). Endurance Discount isn't really in the game...yet. So there's not much this effect will serve for the time being. I would be curious to get a list of all the Endurance Discount powers in the game (both player and NPC) to see how many ignore resistance and which ones do not. Those that do not would be impacted by Acid Arrow. Recovery and Endurance debuffs are already somewhat not popular due to how the game uses these mechanics for various ranks of enemies. But...for those that do use Recovery and Endurance drain, Acid Arrow will make those effects stronger. That mostly leaves us with Recharge Time and Regeneration. Recharge Time is not too difficult to reach the debuff floor on a target, but... if the target happened to have resistance to slows, then AA will help greatly. So truly, Regeneration is the big winner here. You can single handedly buff your entire team's Regeneration debuff output by 40%. That plays. That plays nicely. Also, it's a 20s recharge for a 45s duration that can hit up to 16 targets. So...it's pretty nice. Even if you find the -Res(Special) situational, that is a lot of opportunities to hit enemies with damage procs and resistance debuffs.

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It doesn't seem to indicate that from the power files. The 1s animation has the effect applied at 0.83s. The 2.67s animation has the effect applied at 2.2s.

Performance Shifter should be able to. You might be thinking of Power Transfer, which has some weirdness with its "only proc once" mechanic

By Target AoE I mean it is a sphere, centered around a target, which is not a cone.

Ice Arrow is incredibly strong. I understand not wanting to have to spam a power that is already going to be easily perma'd, but it might be fair to reduce the -Special effects to something like 45s. But ultimately, I'm good with where it's at.

Good work is going on in our small test community. Up to 33 members so far. Feel free to Join and help flesh out Issue 27 before it goes Live.

I'm not at a computer, but let me try to work it out here...math in public, let's see how it goes. TF (crit) > BU > ET > BO > ET > TF > ET > stuff > ET Starting at the end of BU, we have the following arcana times: 1.188+1.188+1.188+2.772+1.188 then stuff. So far, we are at 7.524s. ET can recharge in as little as 2s (capped recharge), and we just need to be within the window for a moment to retain the buff. So yes, it is possible in theory, but incredibly difficult. You have that 2.476s window to try to fit that 4th ET in. If you can recharge in 2.3s, that would require +335% recharge, leaving you with about 0.1s to fire off the 4th ET.

ET can't recharge that fast. You'd be looking at a 1-2s gap between EP>ET

It's not a cone, it's a target AoE, similar to Spinning Strike. The AoE is centered on your target

Pretty much. Just use an epic snipe. TF > ET (fast) > EP > Zapp > ET (fast or slow) If your recharge isn't high enough you can sprinkle in another EP.

I was hoping to see how quantifying a 100% regen debuff (effective dps, depending on target), a -30% special (debuff their attempts to support), and a guaranteed Mag 3 stun (control) is considered useless. I'll take a shot. TF already provides a guaranteed Mag 3 stun, so spending your 2nd EF on BS will result in a hard stun on any boss (and if any other chance for stuns triggered, you neuter an EB). Thats not nothing. But let's say you're fighting a level 50 AV that won't succumb to your stun. You also apply a 100% regen debuff, which gets reduced to 15%. What does that do? A level 50 AV has 28,218 HP, so it recovers 1411.9 HP every 15s at base. Because of your debuff, it now is every 17.65s. That converts the the targets Healing per second from 94 HP/S to 79.95 HP/S that is a net of -14.05 HP/S, which lasts for 15 seconds. So, that becomes 210 HPs effectively lost. A scrapper's base damage for Bone Smasher is 102.6 damage, enhance that by 100% and it becomes 205 damage. So basically that 210 HP lost is equivalent to Bone Smasher doing a fully enhanced crit. That's not nothing, especially since I am assuming 0% damage resistance in that comparison. If the AV had resistance, then multiply that effective damage appropriately. Finally, it has -30% Special. Neat. Very situational, but that's why I used the term Jack of All Trades, when any situation arises you will have a use for Bone Smasher if you have to use it. Perhaps a better term would be to call Bone Smasher a Swiss Army Knife

I should include in my statement no proc abuse either. Just raw Damage per second. Outperforms old EM by roughly 12%. And that was back when EP only had a 0.57s cast time.

I'm actually surprised nobody challenged me on my claim that new EM is better than original EM (with raw damage, no crit manipulations or anything). But...I'll go back to my spreadsheets.

You should put BU after TF. Maximize your chance to fit 3 ETs into one BU window.

Missed this part, but I'll address it separately because it's worth emphasizing. Energy Melee in its current version is sort of remarkable in how well it gives each AT a different benefit that helps trump the others. For example, Tankers (although they are stuck having to take Barrage), get the increased target size for Power Crash...so in a way they get a free EF version of PC (if you want to think of it that way). Then you have Brutes who get to have the high HP and resistance that the other ATs don't get, plus Fury that so so nicely plays with the high base damage of the EM attacks. Then there is scrapper, which gets the opportunity to crit for two EF, giving them Fast ET and something else in each rotation plus their magnificent AT modifiers that pairs with high base damage. Then you have Stalkers which with AS is just lulz...plus a Power Crash that is borderline OP, but only you and I seem to know that because no one has really bragged yet about Stalkers getting a TW size cone that hits harder than Foot Stomp. So I love the set for all ATs for different reasons.

It is worth remembering the -100% regen is useful, as it has an exponential impact on your target's regeneration periods. Also, BS hits like a truck and is capable of performing a full crit. So, it's good. But it's maybe 80% as good as fast ET (arguably, I dunno...it's kind of situational).