So when people say they solo at +4/×8...

[Doomguide2005]

12 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Took BZB Tank into 801.1. No deaths, 33 minutes. Max diff. Insps that I showed up with were used. Combined what felt like too many for yellows cuz I hate missing.

SR/Claws Tank. Fully T4ed. Musc, Degen, Assault, Pyronic Core. Carnies, Rebirth Radial. Started with Ageless instead of Rebirth but rapidly saw that the +heal would be helpful.

 

Edit: Don't want to come across like it was a cakewalk. It wasn't. Especially when double-spawns got aggroed. There were certainly some oh crap moments including one where I was down to like 2% health, terrorized and was spam clicking Rebirth. Luckily, it went off.

Conclusion:  Bill knows Claws/SR 😁

[marcussmythe]

Its looking like DEF is >>> Res in this setting - which makes sense, given the focus on debuffing.

[Doomguide2005]

18 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

Its looking like DEF is >>> Res in this setting - which makes sense, given the focus on debuffing.

Yes,  ... and no.  Depends on which one you're running.  I think.  When I was running these with @Linea I got the definite impression they ran through the different 801 missions to test different things about a given build testing (various forms/combos of mitigation)against both spike damage and sustained damage.  It's also quite possible I misunderstood them.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Doomguide2005

[marcussmythe]

Well, its equally possible that Im just very very bad at building characters in CoH.  🙂

[Doomguide2005]

1 minute ago, marcussmythe said:

Well, its equally possible that Im just very very bad at building characters in CoH.  🙂

Ouch ...

 

Or you ran a version aimed at your particular overall weakness in that ATs mitigation 

[Linea]

On 6/7/2020 at 5:28 PM, Sir Myshkin said:

Any time someone talks about wanting a "challenge" in the game, I inform them of this mission and advise they take a box of tissues for their tears and a full Incarnate team to stay alive.

Ok, that's Hilarious.

 

801 is a Series:  801.0 Easy, 801.1 Intermediate, 801.2 Hard (My Benchmark), 801.3 Harder

801.2 is the Standard I judge my builds by, and was the original.  If you can solo 801.2 +4x8 with-in the 2 hour timer or less, you are officially Linea Approved. 

801.3 is because I had some teams just stomping 801.2.   801.3 departs from the "Soloable +0x0 on an SO build" benchmark.  It was rare to have a team steamroll 801.2 like that, but it does happen.  801.0 and 801.1 are for the teams that were struggling too much in 801.2.  If there's need I may or may not work on an 801.4 in the future.

 

The Spawns are very carefully balanced such that a Linea SO build can solo +0x0.  No promises on what anyone else can do, but in theory an SO only team of Tier 4 Incarnates should be able to manage +0x0.  Balance-wise there is at most 1 "Dangerous" EB at the center of each spawn.  Then at most 1 "Dangerous" Boss.  Then usually only 1 "Dangerous" Lt, however there is a chance to get 2 "Dangerous" Lts.  There are rare "special" enemies:  Sappers, Hard to Control, T9 Armor, Blind, ... etc.  However, these "special" enemies are carefully limited.  Because of the way AE spawns groups, (random starting index, then sequential) All of this has to be done with a special script that modifies the .cvg outside of CoH while you simultaneously edit the .cvg in-game ... or by using a text editor manually.  I got tired of doing it by hand and wrote the script.  (You can actually do this with in-game only tools, but it's so convoluted and time consuming I'm not even going to try to explain it.)

 

The Scary Ones (801.2):

Water/Atomic Blaster - +2x8     (I did it Once and Only Once +4x8 with the blaster, but I only officially rate this build +2x8.)

Empathy/Fire/Souldrain  - +1x8    (Are you tougher than a Squishy Empath? ... You need the //souldrain build for the offense to complete it within the 2 hours, but you need the armored build to survive it +4x8.  You can't do both builds at the same time.)

 

The Rest (801.2):

Time/Fire/Souldrain Def - +4x8

Plant/Time/Fire Con - +4x8

Illusion/Rad/Scorpion Con - +4x8

Kat/Bio Scrapper - +4x8

DB/Bio Scrapper - +4x8  (This one is very hard)

Kat/Ena Scrapper - +4x8

SD/Radm Tank - +4x8

Kat/Rad Brute - +4x8

StJ/Ena Stalker - +2x8

Dark/Rad Def - +1x8
Nature/Fire Def - +2x8

Fire/Nature Cor - +2x8

Melee Fortunata - +2x8

Dark/Storm Con - +2x8

Dark/RadA Dom - +2x8

Storm/Elec Def - +1x8

Huntsman - +1x8

Huntsman SO Only Build - +1x2

Water/Atomic Blaster SO Only Build - +1x4

 

Kat/Radm Tank - +4x8/+2x8  (I'm not sure she has the offense to finish it in time.  It's close, and I've not put the time into finishing testing it.  If you include offense, you'll have to rate this one +2x8)

Inv/Radm Tank - +4x8/+1x8 (Definitely does NOT have the offense to finish it in time.  If you include offense, you'll probably have to rate this one +1x8)

Eafn/Earth Con - +4x8/+0x8  (This one is odd ... as long as one pet or team mate is alive, she very very rarely dies +4x8.  This makes her very durable.  However, her offense is terrible, and if she's solo her pets die too easily.)

Eafn/Water Def - +1x8   (Same problem as above, but even more fragile due to lose of controls.  However, this does at least have a bit more offense.)

 

PS: Yes, I'm well aware of the one thing that (almost) just completely neuters them.  And it's there on purpose as part of the balance.  If it's ever considered too much of an issue, I'll adjust it; assuming adjustments are even possible within the limitations of AE while not breaking the "Soloable +0x0 on an SO Only build" standard.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Linea

[Linea]

Re: DDR

 

TLDR: "There IS still a DDR skew.  I've minimized it as much as is possible in 801 given the current limitations in AE."

 

Incarnate To-hit is a thing.  DRR is a thing.  Defense Base of +50 is a thing.  These are baked in dynamics of the game and they definitely skew things.  It's unavoidable.  It's the game we have. 

If there is DDR, there really should be an RDR to counter it.  Such that Defense Builds get DDR, Resist Builds get RDR.  Everyone else gets  Nada DR of Either.   The base 50% defense should really be eliminated or at least modified as well, if you really want balance between Defense and Resist Armors.  

 

Right now, from Zero To (+4x8) "Cimmie Test" .. there IS actually balance between Defense Builds and Resist Cap Builds, even though most players never realize it.  The increased HP/S combined with 90% resist and roughly 8% actual to-hit with +4s .... works out to a fairly even balance.  However, once you stress builds beyond the standard "Cimmie Test" and start pushing incarnates and higher incoming dps as well as other types of debuffs, the balance starts shifting more and more in favor of DDR.  *IF* RDR was a thing, it combined with resist debuffs could be used to help keep things balanced.  But it's not, everyone gets RDR for free:  "Resist Resists Resist (debuff)".   Because of this, I put in as much -resist as I could manage to help counter-balance the DDR issue, and then tested it extensively on various defense and resist builds.   There IS still a DDR skew.  I've minimized it as much as is possible in 801 given the current limitations in AE.

 

That said, one of the builds I run is a "Resist Cap Only, to !@#$ with defense build".   It can pretty much take a room full of these guys all the way down to -35% defense and still balance out indefinitely.  At -45% or lower it starts hurting, but that will only happen if you Leroy a Room, and the Room has a pretty high number of defense debuffs in it.  There will be at least one room like that on any given run, but there will also be lots of rooms NOT like that.

 

The other side of Resist Cap Build balance is:  *IF* you get defense buffs from your team, you can effectively be running around perma-T9 Armor, no penalties.  Getting that level of Resist buffs from a team is much more rare and considerably more difficult.  Which also comes back to the skew between defense buffs and defense bonuses and resist buffs and resist bonuses.  So yeah, lots of seriously baked in long standing skews that would need to be addressed.

 

The Cimmie Test:   Grab your ankles for 10 minutes inside a spawn of 6 +4 Cimmie Bosses and friends.  Make sure all 6 bosses are aggroed and stay aggroed.  Use only defensive powers, no offense.

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Linea

[Sir Myshkin]

9 hours ago, Linea said:

The Cimmie Test:   Grab your ankles for 10 minutes inside a spawn of 6 +4 Cimmie Bosses and friends.  Make sure all 6 bosses are aggroed and stay aggroed.  Use only defensive powers, no offense.

And yet still, my Regen can't go above +2/x8 in any of those missions because you gave them that forsaken and wretched -Regen Debuff. 😠

 

I know, small complaints to the guy whom others wise runs the rest of the game unscathed. And Crimson Prototype. That "AV" can burn in a volcano.

[marcussmythe]

Linea - I would love to see how you build Invuln to survive 801.2.  My experience has been that layers of incoming def and res debuffs melt me in a salvo or two.  I supposed if I rebuilt for softcap with noone in range (using crowds to get headroom) and found a way to resist cap Energy (anything less than resist cap doesnt resist the resist debuffs enough, I would think).  Of course, once you do that, there is precious little offense left.  But then, you noted that your invuln can tank a lot more than they can clear!  
 

I cant imagine what your scrappers look like if they can exist in that cauldron of hell.  Double spawns at the door, no room to run - my Tinpex Titan/Bio scrap walked in, the crowd turned, and she fell over dead in a single salvo of 801.2
 

Of course, you built the thing.  I imagine knowing each name in each spawn and its exact power list goes a long way!

 

Impressive as all heck.  Love this stuff.

Edited June 25, 2020 by marcussmythe

[Bill Z Bubba]

I really like this enemy group,@Linea. You did a great job.

 

801.2 Two sloppy faceplants and 1.5 hours. Same rules as my run on 801.1, max diff, insps used. Think it was the boss beam rifle ranger that could be suddenly problematic.

 

Edit: 801.3-K ... 3rd spawn just tore me apart.

 

Edit 2: My fire/bio sent doesn't stand a chance in 801.2. Barrier can only do so much.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Werner]

6 hours ago, marcussmythe said:

Linea - I would love to see how you build Invuln to survive 801.2.  My experience has been that layers of incoming def and res debuffs melt me in a salvo or two.  I supposed if I rebuilt for softcap with noone in range (using crowds to get headroom) and found a way to resist cap Energy...

I’m not Linea, but the Tanker on our run was an Invuln. The secret for him was hitting the incarnate soft cap to SLFCEN with a single enemy in range, making it very hard for defense debuffs from non-incarnate crowds to cause cascading defense failure, and making it hard for resistance or other debuffs to land. That’s probably how he handled not being resist capped to energy.

[marcussmythe]

59% with one in range?  Yeah, that would help.  I suppose that my first thought, have lots of tools to deal with the bad guys , is amusing but false here - probably a ‘play to your strengths and specialize hard’ situation.

[Bill Z Bubba]

56 minutes ago, Werner said:

I’m not Linea, but the Tanker on our run was an Invuln. The secret for him was hitting the incarnate soft cap to SLFCEN with a single enemy in range, making it very hard for defense debuffs from non-incarnate crowds to cause cascading defense failure, and making it hard for resistance or other debuffs to land. That’s probably how he handled not being resist capped to energy.

 

47 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

59% with one in range?  Yeah, that would help.  I suppose that my first thought, have lots of tools to deal with the bad guys , is amusing but false here - probably a ‘play to your strengths and specialize hard’ situation.

 

Makes sense. BZB Tank sits idle just above the incarnate softcap to all positions. I've no doubt that's what has allowed me to get through what I have with him. Especially after seeing my sentinel fold like wet tissue in there. Doesn't bode well for BZB Scrap or Brute, though, as they are just over the regular softcap.

[Werner]

4 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Doesn't bode well for BZB Scrap or Brute, though, as they are just over the regular softcap.

😳 Shame be upon thee! 😉

[Werner]

1 hour ago, marcussmythe said:

59% with one in range?  Yeah, that would help.  I suppose that my first thought, have lots of tools to deal with the bad guys , is amusing but false here - probably a ‘play to your strengths and specialize hard’ situation.

Your first thought was probably good too. Builds meant to survive solo need to have a response to every situation. So how do you handle every damage type? How do you handle defense debuffs? Resistance debuffs? Recharge debuffs? How do you handle endurance drains and recovery debuffs? How do you handle giant spikes of damage?  How do you handle to hit debuffs and enemy defense buffs? And so on. Some of those answers may be playing to your strengths. Others will be figuring out ways to overcome your weaknesses. There’s no one right way. I mean, there are the basics of defense, resistance, and healing, but that ought to be the starting point, not the end of the journey for a survival-oriented build. At a certain level of the basics, straightforward damage of common types shouldn’t be what kills you. It’ll be the unusual that kills you. So focus on that. And I suspect that’s a main point of the 801s.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Werner

[marcussmythe]

Layers are still good - but I think that you have to pick at least one of DEF or RES to be as high as possible, due to the way debuffs multiply themselves.  80% Res falls apart where 90 goes AFK.  45% Defense is quickly a joke where 59% goes AFK.  So probably the easy answer (inasmuch as anything in there is easy!) is going to be SR or Rad (Dark seems interesting for the CC and Heal, but suffers from a huge hole to Energy - and Energy js the endgame ‘Smashing and Lethal’)

That said, despite choosing Dark and Invuln as personal faves, SR and Radiation seem to be brilliant for this sort of challenge, compared to older sets.  Ill have to fiddle with some stuff on test - I wont be happy now until 801.3 is in the box.

[Werner]

I’m guessing s SR Tanker could hit 60+% defense 90% resist to all but toxic and psionic once they’re down to about 40% hit points, which could still be a lot, and immune to defense debuffs. 

 

I’m not sure how Radiation would handle it. It seems like whatever defense you have would get wrecked by defense debuffs, and resistance debuffs would cause a sort of cascading resistance failure. But I hear Radiation is great, so it must not got down in practice the same as I imagine it in my head.

[marcussmythe]

SR Tanker seems the right answer - depending on how common 'autohit' mobs are in there - my lower level SRs think the game is easymode until they hit Rularuu Eyeballs, DE Quartz, and Nemesis LTs - at which point the game just points and laughs.

 

As for Radiation - I think the idea is that your not going to get hit with ENOUGH -RES to any given type fast ENOUGH, when your resisting 90% of the first one that comes in.  Your basically laughing at DEF Debuffs, because you wont have DEF, and didnt waste your build space building for something that the 801 series is going to take away from you - and you have enough RES and Absorb to just bounce everything that hits - because everything hits.  You might want to overcap your RES some, just for safety's sake, particularly energy resist.

 

One thing I struggle with is that I tend to fall in love with characters, rather than builds, and powersets as attached to those characters - and this sort of extreme performance run has no room for 'characters' or 'preferred powersets', and pushing the powers this far outside the normal run of the game, in the specific ways we have available to push it, is going to create some real winner and loser choices.

Edited June 25, 2020 by marcussmythe

[Sovera]

I adore my Fire/Claws Tanker to the point I've stopped making alts (for anyone who knows me this is quite the feat). But I don't feel like even wanting to try this challenge since I feel it would just hurt. A lot.

[marcussmythe]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

I adore my Fire/Claws Tanker to the point I've stopped making alts (for anyone who knows me this is quite the feat). But I don't feel like even wanting to try this challenge since I feel it would just hurt. A lot.

This is the sort of thing that I tend to respond to by either digging really deep, tearing everything apart, and overcoming - or by throwing up my hands, deciding my character sucks, and walking away for a year.  🙂  So.. important to remember that this is the most outlier of outlier, the madness is real, and when in doubt, exemp down and go punch Frostfire.

[Bill Z Bubba]

10 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I adore my Fire/Claws Tanker to the point I've stopped making alts (for anyone who knows me this is quite the feat). But I don't feel like even wanting to try this challenge since I feel it would just hurt. A lot.

 

7 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

This is the sort of thing that I tend to respond to by either digging really deep, tearing everything apart, and overcoming - or by throwing up my hands, deciding my character sucks, and walking away for a year.  🙂  So.. important to remember that this is the most outlier of outlier, the madness is real, and when in doubt, exemp down and go punch Frostfire.

 

My farmer is a claws/fire brute. Such a beautiful combo, so full of goodies and possibilities.

 

To the topic... oh, c'mon, a little pain can be a good thing.

 

Seriously... sometimes I get a big damn grin on my face when I get my ass kicked into the dirt.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Sovera]

7 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

This is the sort of thing that I tend to respond to by either digging really deep, tearing everything apart, and overcoming - or by throwing up my hands, deciding my character sucks, and walking away for a year.  🙂  So.. important to remember that this is the most outlier of outlier, the madness is real, and when in doubt, exemp down and go punch Frostfire.

I just have a good grasp on the Fire/Claws character and I've picked up it really really hates debuffs. Unfortunately I can't really build to overcome this when they come from so many angles (beautiful AE missions, Linea, I wish we could have you doing a new TF). Otherwise it's an amazing character that is good to pulverize content as low exemped as level 15.

 

My Rad Armor/MA would tackle it better with the downside its damage is not all that amazing IMO, where the FA/Claws would kill much faster and give less time to be debuffed.

 

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

My farmer is a claws/fire brute. Such a beautiful combo, so full of goodies and possibilities.

 

To the topic... oh, c'mon, a little pain can be a good thing.

 

You know what? I'mma try it.

[Werner]

3 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

You know what? I'mma try it.

That’s the spirit! I plan to give it a go on my SS/Fire Brute with a full loadout of reds. It’s just a farm, right? Right? 😵

[marcussmythe]

Avē Imperātor, moritūrī tē salūtant!

[Werner]

Aut non!