The Problem with Armageddon

[cohRock]

My stone/rad tank has reached 50, and I plan to have him 6-slot the Armageddon set.  He can place it in Mudpots (currently 6-slotted), Irradiated Ground (currently 4-slotted), or  Atom Smasher (currently 6-slotted).  None seem a particularly good fit for Armeaeddon.

 

Why this isn't posted in the Tanker forum is my general question about Armageddon and endurance cost.  The set seems to be designed for a direct attack.  Three of its elements include recharge, but only one reduces endurance cost.  That is great for an attack, but backwards for a damage aura.  Mudpots in particular is quite expensive (.78 end/sec unslotted), and is a major factor why the tank has endurance problems.  Currently I have it slotted with two vanilla end-reduc IOs.   Confusingly the set's proc is extra fire damage 4 to 5 times a minute.  This is a great addition to a damage aura, but he may not even get the chance to use Atom Smasher near that often.  Thus the set feels sort of schizophrenic in design, sort of an odd fit for either an attack or an aura.  Am I missing something?

[Omega-202]

13 minutes ago, cohRock said:

My stone/rad tank has reached 50, and I plan to have him 6-slot the Armageddon set.  He can place it in Mudpots (currently 6-slotted), Irradiated Ground (currently 4-slotted), or  Atom Smasher (currently 6-slotted).  None seem a particularly good fit for Armeaeddon.

 

Why this isn't posted in the Tanker forum is my general question about Armageddon and endurance cost.  The set seems to be designed for a direct attack.  Three of its elements include recharge, but only one reduces endurance cost.  That is great for an attack, but backwards for a damage aura.  Mudpots in particular is quite expensive (.78 end/sec unslotted), and is a major factor why the tank has endurance problems.  Currently I have it slotted with two vanilla end-reduc IOs.   Confusingly the set's proc is extra fire damage 4 to 5 times a minute.  This is a great addition to a damage aura, but he may not even get the chance to use Atom Smasher near that often.  Thus the set feels sort of schizophrenic in design, sort of an odd fit for either an attack or an aura.  Am I missing something?

All 4 of the purple attack sets are that way.  At 6 slots, they're all set to give waaaay too much damage, a lot of accuracy and recharge and some end redux.  

 

Regarding your comment on AtomSmasher and the proc, check out this thread for an explanation on how Procs work:

In summary, its not really an issue if you can't use AS 4-5 times a minute due to recharge.  The PPM calculation compensates for recharge, animation time and the area of effect of an attack.  Atom Smasher is actually a fairly good place to put the Armaggedon set, and you'd get good mileage from the proc there.

 

EDIT: Also forgot to mention, damage auras are usually "just ok" with damage procs.  They can only proc once every 10 seconds so there's often proc attempts that whiff because you're between mobs.  However Radiated Ground is a weird one.  I believe it calculates on the standard 10 second window but it spawns a patch every 5 seconds, meaning it has double the proc rate of what it "should" have.  

Edited September 19, 2020 by Omega-202

[Luminara]

All of the purple sets use the same enhancement design outline.

 

Primary Effect

Primary Effect/Recharge

Accuracy/Primary Effect/Recharge

Accuracy/Recharge

Primary Effect/Endurance Reduction

Proc

 

None of them are really good for toggles, from an endurance management perspective, unless you only slot 5 of the set and use the sixth slot for more endurance reduction.  You can push Damage, Hold Duration, Sleep, whatever, and Recharge back up to the red line if you +5 the Primary/Recharge IO.  You can do the same to the Primary/Endurance (more applicable in your case) for slightly better endurance reduction (41% instead of 33%).  Boosting the others doesn't really pay off much.  The single effect enhancement can then be dropped in favor of a different IO, or the power left at 5 slots if you're only pursuing the recharge bonus.

[cohRock]

@Omega-202 and @Luminara , thank you for the information and experience.  I guess Atom Smasher gets to be the one to receive  Armageddon.

[Turric]

So here is my 2 cents on purple sets: they are very rarely worth their cost. Don't get me wrong, the bonuses are nice, but aimed at weird statistics. For fire farmers, they are pretty good, though I would also make the assumption that fire resistance isn't much of an issue by 50 for most. The recharge is great for dominators but is it really worth the cost? Depends on build I suppose but I would rather find it elsewhere. When I do a build, I aim for S/L resistance, positional defense and recharge last.

 

Now what I would really like to see are regular enhancement set families that are all aimed at different resistance / defense areas. For example: a whole family of different sets that aim at toxic/psionic resistance in addition to a grab bag of other stats that you would need. So that if I wanted to max out my toxic resistance, I could do that. I've actually tried to do that and could not do it.

 

The variable level of enhancement sets needs to be thrown out. Everything should be level 15+ and geared for a 50. Likewise, I think that each set should be a 6 piece set. OR, if it does remain a 3 piece set, then the bonuses should reflect that in a more significant way. How many people here really utilize Airburst? Or Annoyance (honestly, +0.625% Melee defense? Really?). Manticore's Sting should be a +Toxic Resistance set. What set gives Toxic Defense? (none that come to mind). 

 

I have gone off on a tangent and I apologize. But there are only a few enhancement sets that I buy over and over and over. I have 30+ toons all twinked out. That is like 50 sets of Obliteration that I have purchased at least. I want to make different builds. I feel like this should be its own thread...

[JnEricsonx]

I have that issue for a lot of PBAOE powers. especially the end heavy ones.  I sometimes wind up using Scirocco just for the extra +end reduction.

[tidge]

It's been a while, so consider this post my standard request for Purple and PVP sets for Fear and Taunt.

 

I don't know why Fear has been ignored, I especially would like a Purple %proc that allows for Contagious Fear (similar to Coercive Persuasion for Confuse) as that would be a natural piece to consider for the single-target Fears, making those attacks slightly more relevant for 50+ characters.

 

I can understand why Taunt would be ignored for PVP (must consider the ability to slot these pieces in attacks), but I feel like there is some design space to be explored. For example, I feel like some set bonuses which improve Defenses (more evenly than the existing Taunt sets) and/or a %proc that Debuffs ToHit (possibly too powerful?) or even just another %Damage proc would be welcome additions to the options for Taunt powers.

[MTeague]

If endurance is an issue, I am a big fan of the "discount to all powers" set bonuses.

• Unbreakable Guard gives 2.5% discount to all powers at 2 slots
• Reactive Defenses gives 3.75% discount to all powers at 5 slots, 
• Preventative Medicine gives 3.75% discount to all powers at 5 slots
• Annihilation gives 3% discount to all powers at 5 slots. 

slotting a few of them can make a biiiig difference, since it's every toggle, every clicky.

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, MTeague said:

If endurance is an issue, I am a big fan of the "discount to all powers" set bonuses.

• Unbreakable Guard gives 2.5% discount to all powers at 2 slots
• Reactive Defenses gives 3.75% discount to all powers at 5 slots, 
• Preventative Medicine gives 3.75% discount to all powers at 5 slots
• Annihilation gives 3% discount to all powers at 5 slots. 

slotting a few of them can make a biiiig difference, since it's every toggle, every clicky.

If you have a lot of +recovery already, you get amazing bang for your buck from the +End bonuses.  The larger your end pool, the faster your recovery also.  Clouded Senses, Decimation and Annihilation are all great sets for it.  

 

While end redux has diminishing returns due to the (1/(1+redux%)) formula, + end does not, and achieves a similar result.  

[skoryy]

10 hours ago, Turric said:

The recharge is great for dominators but is it really worth the cost? Depends on build I suppose but I would rather find it elsewhere. When I do a build, I aim for S/L resistance, positional defense and recharge last.

The recharge is well worth it since you get much more pounce for the ounce with tighter attack chains and faster AoEs, heals, buffs, and debuffs.  0 health is 0 DPS works both ways, after all.

[Bopper]

+5 your DMG/END. It should get your endurance reduction into the 42% range.

[Turric]

1 hour ago, skoryy said:

The recharge is well worth it since you get much more pounce for the ounce with tighter attack chains and faster AoEs, heals, buffs, and debuffs.  0 health is 0 DPS works both ways, after all.

 

I understand that. All 3 of my doms have perma-dom but none of them use purple sets. My point being that for the expense, is the extra 2-4% really worth the 20 million influence (or 100 merits, which ever), further sacrificing some of the other stats that you might achieve from another set. Maybe...

[Riverdusk]

4 hours ago, MTeague said:

If endurance is an issue, I am a big fan of the "discount to all powers" set bonuses.

• Unbreakable Guard gives 2.5% discount to all powers at 2 slots
• Reactive Defenses gives 3.75% discount to all powers at 5 slots, 
• Preventative Medicine gives 3.75% discount to all powers at 5 slots
• Annihilation gives 3% discount to all powers at 5 slots. 

slotting a few of them can make a biiiig difference, since it's every toggle, every clicky.

I've always wondered whether the global endurance reductions kicked in before the slotted endurance reduction (therefore lowering the base end cost of the power) or if they are just added into the slotted endurance reduction.  The former would make them more effective than the later.  I'm not sure how I could even test it as it is hard to track endurance.

[Omega-202]

7 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

I've always wondered whether the global endurance reductions kicked in before the slotted endurance reduction (therefore lowering the base end cost of the power) or if they are just added into the slotted endurance reduction.  The former would make them more effective than the later.  I'm not sure how I could even test it as it is hard to track endurance.

It is simply additive, as far as I recall.  For example the equation is just:

 

End cost = Base Cost * [1 / (1 + slotted end redux % + bonus end redux %)]

 

So a 10 base end power, slotted with a +5 Purple Dam/end (42%), costs 7.04 end, and adding a global 3% end redux bonus takes it only down to 6.90 end.  It's better than nothing, but the diminishing returns makes it so that powers with decent end redux slotted don't get a lot of benefit from the bonus end redux.  

[Outrider_01]

16 hours ago, cohRock said:

@Omega-202 and @Luminara , thank you for the information and experience.  I guess Atom Smasher gets to be the one to receive  Armageddon.

Slot the -resist from Achilles heal -defense set in the 6th slot of Atom Smasher, You can get around 5 second recharge with enough recharge so that second AoE attack can tag for bonus damage.  Unless its very short like the BU proc and Scrapper ATO, really hard to get a decent attack chain when you are buttom mashing and it pops up while the attack you want to use is more then half way recharge, then the stupid 2 second animation and fail to capatilize on the proc 🤥

[Ironblade]

17 hours ago, Turric said:

So here is my 2 cents on purple sets: they are very rarely worth their cost. Don't get me wrong, the bonuses are nice, but aimed at weird statistics. For fire farmers, they are pretty good, though I would also make the assumption that fire resistance isn't much of an issue by 50 for most. The recharge is great for dominators but is it really worth the cost?

I agree they were rarely worth the cost back on live.  It's not as bad now.  Of course, having said that, I buy most of my purples and AT sets using merits rather than influence.

 

As for Dominators, I had one back on live where I specifically chose his sets and powers in order to get the maximum number of purple sets in.  He was absolutely devastating but horribly expensive.  It was an experiment that worked very well but that I never repeated.

 

 

9 hours ago, tidge said:

It's been a while, so consider this post my standard request for Purple and PVP sets for Fear and Taunt.

AND - why do we not have a purple set for something as widely used as heal powers?  We also need purple sets for defense and resistance.  Should we expect to never get purple sets since they gave us the PvP sets for these power categories?

 

[Machariel]

5 hours ago, Turric said:

 

I understand that. All 3 of my doms have perma-dom but none of them use purple sets. My point being that for the expense, is the extra 2-4% really worth the 20 million influence (or 100 merits, which ever), further sacrificing some of the other stats that you might achieve from another set. Maybe...

For me, my dominator was my first character on Homecoming which means she had a 'budget' permadom both for the leveling experience and until I had enough rewards to get all the purple sets and PVP IOs and such.  I would say that it is definitely worth the expense as the purpled build gets a lot more recharge with a lot fewer slots devoted to recharge.  The most dramatic example is that I had Carrion Creepers slotted with 6pc Kinetic Crash for the 7.5% recharge on the budget build and 5 damage procs on the final build.  Does the character play differently? Not really, but the final build goes through +4x8 significantly faster than the budget build went through +2 or +3x8. 

[DSorrow]

11 hours ago, Turric said:

My point being that for the expense, is the extra 2-4% really worth the 20 million influence

I like to look at this the other way around: 20 million inf is such a small amount, why not get the extra +Rech?

 

In general, a lot of the time purple sets are very efficient slotting choices given the powerful procs and the very useful +10% Rech. However, sometimes other choices such as Basilisk's Gaze, Obliteration and so on might be better slot-by-slot depending on what goals the build has.

[Nemu]

Problem with Armageddon and purple sets in general is that people are taught to chase +recharge bonuses since IOs were introduced to the game and they completely ignore recharge debuffs which is pretty common in the game.

 

You know that as a stone tank granite already has a hefty -recharge penalty. I'm assuming you want to use this tank for more than farming. If so, do you want to be susceptible to slows even more as a stone tank and allow a couple of council galaxies to completely neuter your recharge? Or would you like to not wait an eternity for your tier 1 attack to recharge, never mind your higher tier attacks, which probably will take 2-3 eternities when you get hit with some -recharge debuffs? In addition a great many of these recharge debuffs are autohit which means having softcapped defenses won't help you dodge them.

 

I used to chase recharge too and then the winter IOs came into the picture. Once I realized what those brought to the table I shifted my build philosophy to accommodate for building enough slow resist, among other things, in all my builds. Now all my builds have at least 60% recharge debuff resist, most hover between 80-100%. I can tell you I don't really miss the 20-30% or so extra global recharge that I lose out from not slotting purple sets building that way, but I'm sure glad I have slow resist when I go up against animus arcana with all their ice storms and times juncture slows.