Rad or Invuln

[nihilii]

This is confusing. Bill just demonstrated it is not useless. Even moreso on an invul without damage procs. The lower damage you have, the bigger relative boost from Musculature.

Really, there's no need to overthink it: Musculature is roughly an extra SO worth of damage that ignores ED. It's possible to subjectively feel extra damage is useless, due to personal build goals or what have you. But objectively, that extra damage will be useful in 99.99% of the game for most players.

 

There's one case where I wouldn't go Musculature: Super Strength. Double stacked Rage already raises your damage% high enough the relative boost of Musculature lessens, and there can be real opportunity cost compared to other alphas.

Edited August 5, 2020 by nihilii

[Omega-202]

9 minutes ago, Xanatos said:

 

Yeah those were my findings, too.

 

That's why I said musculature was useless [on an invuln not using damage procs in attacks].

 

Everyone who attempted to argue with me, for some reason, ignored the bit in square brackets.

 

But the bracketed part is still wrong.  10-20% overall DPS increase is pretty substantial, which is what those numbers are showing.  Its the difference of finishing a 30 minute TinPex in 25 minutes instead.  How is a 5 minute faster finish time "useless"?

 

By comparison, if you're not dying and not losing endurance with or without Cardiac, then the Cardiac is literally useless.

 

The part that shows you don't understand is that you think that Bill's numbers support your point.  They literally disprove it.

Edited August 5, 2020 by Omega-202

[Xanatos]

Bill's build uses damage procs.

 

Remember when I said this:

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by Xanatos

[Sovera]

I try not to nitpick decisions others have made for their builds. I loathed how such an easy and simple game as GW2 had people who did that. CoH is on the same level (more even) of easy so go, be fruitful and multiply, it won't be a bit more or less of damage that will be noticed as long as fun is had.

[Gobbledigook]

We have 2 builds on each character. Build one for Tanking and one for more dps and switch as needed.

[Omega-202]

27 minutes ago, Xanatos said:

Bill's build uses damage procs.

 

Remember when I said this:

 

It has NOTHING to do with procs.  

 

Basic math:

Battle Axe Chop on a Tank does 82.31 base damage.  6 slotted with lvl50 Crushing Impact (NO PROCS) it does 165.8 damage.  With Musculature Core, it does 192.4.  192.4/165.8 = 116%.  So you're looking at a baseline 16% damage increase that holds for all of your ED capped attacks and has nothing to do with procs.  

 

Now lets say even if you're packing Hybrid Assault and 30% damage bonus from IOs.  Then the numbers are 225.3 with and 198.7 without Musculature.  225.3/198.7=113%.  Still a 13% higher damage value across the board.

 

In sum, regardless of procs, even with all of your attacks already busting at the seams past the ED cap, you're looking at a 13-16% damage increase across the board.  Again, that means you're killing and clearing that much faster.  1 hr long missions drop to 51 minutes.  

Edited August 5, 2020 by Omega-202

[Xanatos]

Got curious, so decided to run the numbers on a procless Inv/Claws with three +5 Damage IOs slotted. (Roughly how much +damage a purple/WTO/etc IO set will add)
 

Without:
FU - 91.8
Focus - 173.5
Slash - 170
Total: 435.3 over 4.092 or 106.3 DPS

 

With:
FU - 106
Focus - 200
Slash - 196
Total = 502 over 4.092 or 122.68 DPS

 

Works out at:
~16 extra DPS
~15% damage buff

 

Not especially impressive. It'll have negligible impact when teaming, but I could see an argument made to take it when soloing. Although, the "damage buff: kill speed" ratio is not 1:1 due to attacks landing for surplus damage. I.e. If an enemy has 20HP left, and you hit him for 140 damage, you're still only taking off 20HP.

 

I find Cardiac's +res +range and reduced endurance cost of my AOEs much more useful overall. But yeah I could see an argument for using muscular when soloing. (Although if I was soloing a lot, I'd probably prefer a brute.)

Edited August 5, 2020 by Xanatos

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Xanatos said:

 

Yeah those were my findings, too.

 

That's why I said musculature was useless [on an invuln not using damage procs in attacks].

 

Everyone who attempted to argue with me, for some reason, ignored the bit in square brackets.

 

We were arguing with the use of the term "useless." 20 extra DPS is not useless. Full stop. Not on a blaster, not on a tank, and powersets don't enter into it. It may be useless TO YOU, but it is not numerically useless and especially not so for every Invul using tank out there. Or my Rad tank. Or my SR tank. Or even my FA/EM tank.

[Omega-202]

To each their own, but in teams, I find that my survivability and end issues completely disappear and everyone's role becomes DPS.  

 

And while there's overkill, there's also the disproportionate benefit of damage in AV fights.  The higher the DPS, the faster the kill rate, the less time the AV has to regenerate.  So while there's diminishing returns on damage to minions, the inverse is true for AVs.

[TungstenShark]

@Xanatos And not to get nit-picky, but you originally posted it was "like 20 extra damage", which is not the same as 20 more damage per second.  I would agree, if adding Musc only added 20 raw damage to your hits, (ie. hitting for 320 rather than 300) maybe not worth it. But adding 15%-20% damage per second? I fail to see how that is not useful. But as @Sovera  said, have fun, you do you. Your Tank obviously kicks plenty of ass and is durn near unkillable...hard to quibble!

Edited August 5, 2020 by TungstenShark

[Tsuko]

5 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Extra damage means things die faster and having 2 powers that grant absorption on top of another that heals self counts up to a lot of mitigation.

So why not fiery armor tankers ? Fiery Embrace is far above Offensive adaptation.

 

I used a build very similar to @Camel one with a Fiery / Nrj Tanker and with such build, i can guarantee you toughness and lots of damage.

 

 

[Xanatos]

9 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

We were arguing with the use of the term "useless." 20 extra DPS is not useless. Full stop. Not on a blaster, not on a tank, and powersets don't enter into it. It may be useless TO YOU, but it is not numerically useless and especially not so for every Invul using tank out there. Or my Rad tank. Or my SR tank. Or even my FA/EM tank.

 

I find 16 extra DPS less useful than the benefits of Cardiac. The Ageless -enddebuff and -recoverydebuff pairs well with cardiac's increased net endurance gain to let me shrug off the sappers/carnies that @Werner said he saw detoggle his friends's invuln tanks.

 

9 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

To each their own, but in teams, I find that my survivability and end issues completely disappear and everyone's role becomes DPS.  

 

And while there's overkill, there's also the disproportionate benefit of damage in AV fights.  The higher the DPS, the faster the kill rate, the less time the AV has to regenerate.  So while there's diminishing returns on damage to minions, the inverse is true for AVs.

 

Fair. Although in both of those instances (min/maxed teams and soloing AVs) I wouldn't want to play an invuln tank without damage procs. (Probably wouldn't want to play an invuln tank at all, tbh. Not when invuln brutes exist.)

 

Most teams aren't min/max'd, though. That's where my invuln tank tends to do well.

 

8 hours ago, TungstenShark said:

@Xanatos And not to get nit-picky, but you originally posted it was "like 20 extra damage", which is not the same as 20 more damage per second.  I would agree, if adding Musc only added 20 raw damage to your hits, (ie. hitting for 320 rather than 300) maybe not worth it. But adding 15%-20% damage per second? I fail to see how that is not useful. But as @Sovera  said, have fun, you do you. Your Tank obviously kicks plenty of ass and is durn near unkillable...hard to quibble!

 

FU - 14.2 extra damage
Focus - 26.5 extra damage
Slash - 26 extra damage
Average = 22.23 extra damage

 

I think it's fair to say 22.23 extra damage is "like 20 extra damage".

Edited August 6, 2020 by Xanatos

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Tsuko said:

So why not fiery armor tankers ?

question was "Rad or Invuln"

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

even my FA/EM tank.

yum.. bash and burn!

[Werner]

1 hour ago, Xanatos said:

 

I find 16 extra DPS less useful than the benefits of Cardiac. The Ageless -enddebuff and -recoverydebuff pair well with cardiac's increased recovery rate to let me shrug off the sappers/carnies that @Werner said he saw detoggle his friends's invuln tanks.

I have so far found myself in a similar boat on my Dark Armor, and on my Mids builds for Invuln and Shield. I want Musculture on Tankers. I’d love the extra damage. I always start the build with it in there. But by the time I’m done it’s always been sacrificed for a total package that I like even more.

[skoryy]

13 hours ago, Werner said:

I have so far found myself in a similar boat on my Dark Armor, and on my Mids builds for Invuln and Shield. I want Musculture on Tankers. I’d love the extra damage. I always start the build with it in there. But by the time I’m done it’s always been sacrificed for a total package that I like even more.

Same boat.  My WP/MA was solid enough I could take Musculature, and he kinda really needs it.  (Which is why he also runs Assault.) I'd absolutely love to put it on my Rad/StJ, but the defense plus recharge from Agility and Barrier were of greater importance.

[11Troy11]

On 7/17/2020 at 9:49 AM, Xanatos said:

 

 I've tanked all the aforementioned on my invuln and been just fine. Capped defense and resistances to all, plus dull pain, makes you basically unkillable. 

if you wouldn't mind sharing this build, I would enjoy looking it over.

[Hyperstrike]

1 hour ago, 11Troy11 said:

if you wouldn't mind sharing this build, I would enjoy looking it over.

Keep in mind he's talking about using Incarnate boosts.
So some of the stats he's talking about aren't up full-time and the default stats are lower.

[Xanatos]

1 hour ago, Hyperstrike said:

Keep in mind he's talking about using Incarnate boosts.
So some of the stats he's talking about aren't up full-time and the default stats are lower.

 

Not incarnate boosts, but you are right about the defaults being lower.

 

What I have is:

-A build that hits 90% s/l, ~70% everything else resistance

-A build that hits 53.9% positional defense (w/1 enemy in range of invince)

-P2W buffs

-Tanker ATO stacked twice. (This has an 100% uptime when fighting. A third of the time it's triple stacked, but I ignore that.)

 

This means, when fighting, I'm at 90% res to everything, and at/above the incarnate softcap for positional defense to everything except psi. It also makes the build friendly to exemplar with because it's not relying on +res or +def boosting incarnates.

 

The only time +res from incarnates (cardiac and hybrid) are useful is when the ATO can't be stacked twice (such as versus tower buffed Recluse or Hami Mitos).

 

I used to rely on Barrier for the small perma defense and resist buff it gives. But once I realised the P2W buffs did that, I switched over to Ageless for the -defdebuffresist -endresist and -endrainresist. (I also use the  "100% chance of 5% -tohit" diagenetic interface to help out versus +tohit enemies/act as a ghetto -defdebuff resist.)

Edited August 7, 2020 by Xanatos

[Bill Z Bubba]

9 hours ago, Xanatos said:

P2W buffs

I would really like to see these being blocked to any character over level 22. Yea, I know, ain't gonna happen. And it's damn nice having constant mez protection without the need of Clarion or Rune of Protection for squishies but damn they are making a mess of things.

[Xanatos]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I would really like to see these being blocked to any character over level 22. Yea, I know, ain't gonna happen. And it's damn nice having constant mez protection without the need of Clarion or Rune of Protection for squishies but damn they are making a mess of things.

 

Hahaha this is why I don't share my builds.

 

There's always someone calling for nerfs.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Xanatos said:

 

Hahaha this is why I don't share my builds.

 

There's always someone calling for nerfs.

Yes, cuz using "I Win" buttons is a great way to balance a game.

Yes, I use them as well when I'm not PLing alts to 50 and leveling them up normally. Why not? They're there to use. Why not build around those buffs? It's all just crunching the numbers to minmax anyway. Why run a max diff clear most ITF when you can just zerg the thing in 10 minutes at -1?

 

Doesn't mean I'd shed any tears if they were nuked from orbit.

 

Gods below, the hatred of bringing any type of sanity to a system under the idiocy that "all nerfs are bad and evil!!!" really needs to be purged from society.

 

Among a great number of other things.

[Werner]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Gods below, the hatred of bringing any type of sanity to a system under the idiocy that "all nerfs are bad and evil!!!" really needs to be purged from society.

Agreed in general, but I think we're well past any semblance of sanity in CoH, and some people still ask for buffs. Admittedly maybe some sets call for it. I don't know. I just shrug and play. I'd rather the devs take a hands off approach than attempt to bring sanity at this point because I don't trust that changes will be for the better, no matter how well-intentioned. But I don't think I'm in the majority on that, and that's fine. It's not my game, it's our game.

[Xanatos]

49 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Yes, cuz using "I Win" buttons is a great way to balance a game.

Yes, I use them as well when I'm not PLing alts to 50 and leveling them up normally. Why not? They're there to use. Why not build around those buffs? It's all just crunching the numbers to minmax anyway. Why run a max diff clear most ITF when you can just zerg the thing in 10 minutes at -1?

 

Doesn't mean I'd shed any tears if they were nuked from orbit.

 

Gods below, the hatred of bringing any type of sanity to a system under the idiocy that "all nerfs are bad and evil!!!" really needs to be purged from society.

 

Among a great number of other things.

 

lol

[Hyperstrike]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I would really like to see these being blocked to any character over level 22. Yea, I know, ain't gonna happen. And it's damn nice having constant mez protection without the need of Clarion or Rune of Protection for squishies but damn they are making a mess of things.

And this is why, when I present my builds I try to present the build with minimal addition of things like Incarnates stuff.

This way you know how the build itself performs.  Without having to try and factor in P2W buffs and stuff.

[Frosticus]

Not sure about you guys, but I always refill my warburg nukes and my shivians after each mission.

I also spend about an hr at the start of each session emailing myself large inspirations, so I'm always def, res, tohit, and damage capped

 

They are basically part of my base stats, hit me up for some builds :p