+Max HP Powers: Dull Pain, Earth's Embrace, etc. Absorb

[SeraphimKensai]

The last couple days I've been playing both an invulnerability and a stone armor tank. Both characters, among others have powers that give +Max HP. Each set has a power which boosts Max HP, and were originally designed before the Absorb mechanic came out. AT's have HP caps.

 

What I'm suggesting, to keep these powers useful, which seems practical given characters hitting hp caps with IO's, accolade bonuses and such is to make whatever amount of HP that powers like Dull Pain or Earth's Embrace would have in excess over the the HP cap if it wasn't there converted into an Absorb shield of equal value.

 

Why not just make Dull Pain or Earth's Embrace give their full amount to Absorb shields? The powers can act as emergency heal, and also increasing the Max HP plays into the character's HP regen/second. So moving the powers completely over to absorb shields would negate those aspects of the powers. Doing so would be a loss on regen, and would not be advised.

 

Anyone else have any thoughts given this?

Edited September 30, 2019 by SeraphimKensai

[tidge]

My Invulnerabilty (tank) experiences follow:

 

Early mid-game, before 'inherent' HP is really big and before resistances/defenses are swollen, I make frequent use of Dull Pain for both healing and as a sort of Absorption prior to specific, predictable encounters.  80/20 in terms of use.

 

By endgame, Dull Pain is only (99.9/0.01) used as a heal (and as an HP buff to support Regeneration). Endgame (post-40, including Incarnate content) turning Dull Pain into Absorb would be a loss for me, as the extra Regeneration contributes more to my lasting through a tough fight than just having an extra layer of Absorb.

 

Feel free to pass judgement: I also don't bother to try to make Dull Pain perma. I can see the appeal at lower levels, but after a certain point the HP boost is far less important than defense (and resistance) boosts that multi-slotting an IO set within it give you.

[SeraphimKensai]

I edited my original post by adding a sentence when I was talking about why not to just have the full amount of HP that Dull Pain provides going to Absorb shields to make it more clear. 

My intent is any remaining HP that Dull Pain or similar powers would give after you hit the HP Cap is applied to an Absorb Shield, that way that amount of HP is not lost, and building for +HP remains viable. I hope that clears up any confusion.

 

HP Caps for various ATs:

                 Base     |  Cap

Tanker      1874.1     3534

Brute        1499.7     3212.7

Scrapper   1338.6    2409.5

PB             1070.9    2409.5

 

So as a simple example in which I'll use rounded numbers to easier illustrate concept: 

Let's say I have an Invuln Tank and after IO's and Accolades my HP was hypothetically: 2800 HP

I popped Dull Pain, which we'll say adds: 1200 HP

 

If there was no HP Cap, my HP would then be 4000 HP

Obviously there is a cap so my HP is: 3534 HP

 

We lose 466 HP, gone to the wind. If we instead gained an Absorb shield of 466, our effective HP would be back to that 4000 that we would of had if there had been no HP Cap. In this example though because the HP Cap exists, we regen health based on the actual HP and not the shield, so at most in the example: 3534.

Edited September 30, 2019 by SeraphimKensai

[Steampunkette]

There's no way for the game to recognize "And this portion of the power goes over the cap so I should make it into an Absorb Shield"

 

That said, it might be -possible- to do what Afterburner does: Add a component to the power which temporarily raises the cap by a specific value while the power is active. Then you'd get the heal and full +HP out of Dull Pain, no matter how high your current HP is.

[tidge]

I checked my lvl 50 tank. All toggles off, w/no incarnates contributing. I think this is the correct math for my toon.

 

Base HP: 1874.08

HP from IOs and Accolades: 2600.27 (Reasonably well slotted with IOs, but not chasing HP boosts)

 

Using Dull Pain, this toon hits the HP cap, but only a few hundred HP are 'wasted'. (~350 HP?)

 

However, before Dull Pain, the regeneration is 25.67 hp/sec. With Dull Pain it is 34.89 hp/sec...so doesn't this mean that while DP is active it's only taking (on average) 10 seconds to 'regenerate' what would be the proposed 'Absorb' barrier? (again, there is some slotting contributing to Regeneration, but most of the extra is from slotting Health). Even if I was at a lower Regeneration rate, it isn't taking long (in tanker time) to recover whatever would be consumed by an Absorb field.

 

From my PoV, this is a solution in search of a problem. Other ATs may view HP differently, but for my Invuln tank I just don't think about Absorb-ing damage as much as I think about regenerating the HP I'm spending by tanking.

 

 

[Leogunner]

I think you'll just have to bite the bullet and accept that certain ATs will just benefit proportionally less than others using certain powers. 

 

And the majority aren't "wasting" part of the power if they aren't min/maxing IOs... Those players are out there. 

[Haijinx]

It also frees up some of your build.

 

For example, if you know Dull pain will shoot you over the HP cap.

 

Then maybe you should not grab the 7.5% hp unique, or run sets for their hp bonus.

[tidge]

Dull Pain is useful, but I personally don't find Absorb to be useful on Tanks. Why propose a radical change to a power when folks can just slot an Absorb proc?

 

EDIT: let me add this, in case it wasn't clear in my first post on this topic. My own experiences with Dull Pain (as a tank, as was described in the OP) is that the use of Dull Pain changes over the course of the character's advancement. Early in a career, before you have a lot of Inspiration slots and before you have coverage to most damage types (again, see Invuln and Stone Armor as described in the OP) and before you have many other powers, Dull Pain will get used a lot more than later in the career. Early in a career, it may seem like you are wasting a Tank's most important resource (HP) but my own practical experience is that this is not the case.

 

Squishier toons have a different perspective on Absorb HP barriers, but that is not my experience with an Invuln tank. BTW, the IO HP bonuses on my toon were never the goal (except possibly for one 3rd LotG slot) as they just appear on the way to other bonuses. I would say that as a Tank, an HP bonus is one of the better side effects, as HP is what a Tank does best among the ATs.

Edited October 1, 2019 by tidge

[Doc_Scorpion]

20 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

And the majority aren't "wasting" part of the power if they aren't min/maxing IOs... Those players are out there. 

This +1...

[tidge]

24 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I think you'll just have to bite the bullet and accept that certain ATs will just benefit proportionally less than others using certain powers. 

 

And the majority aren't "wasting" part of the power if they aren't min/maxing IOs... Those players are out there. 

I agree here. I just want to note that in my case most of the extra HP is coming from Accolades.