2021 - the year of Elude

[nihilii]

Okay, probably not. But I had to get you to click the thread open.

So, I've been having some fun rethinking Elude recently. Conventional knowledge says it's not so useful in a general sense, and I tend to agree.

But at the same time, once you fall down the rabbit hole of heavy proc builds and doing weird stuff...

Almost all my builds these days look like this:

- Ageless to take care of all end troubles, almost no end management otherwise

- attacks with 3-4 damage procs, as close to capped damage as I can get, some end reduction if no better option, generally 0 accuracy which is taken care of through Kismet, Tactics and set bonuses

- Musculature and Assault to maximise damage

This is fine. It works. On Sentinel SR, it's not too difficult to get your defenses at 45% while also including all of the above.

Although Sentinel DDR isn't capped, so defense debuffs can hurt soloing +4/x8. Likewise with tohit buffs. Or Incarnate content, where most foes have higher tohit and require 59% defense to be effectively softcapped.

However: luck inspirations are plenty, and will drop fast enough to always stay overcapped. So again, this works. This is fine.

 

Still. Thinking about Elude there's some interesting points that come to mind.

1) it doesn't merely boost your defense to god levels, it's also a sizeable recovery buff. +100%, base. Enhance it and you're looking at +3,74 end per second when all is said and done. This is comparable to the middle part of Ageless - and unlike Ageless, this is a constant 3 minutes buff, bereft of the "desert valley" during the last 30 seconds of Ageless.

2) ... and it really does boost your defense to god levels. At above 100% with toggles, you don't care about tohit buffs, defense debuffs, incarnate content... You don't care about incarnate content where mobs with extra tohit buffs throw defense debuffs at you. You are truly untouchable against anything that isn't a Devouring Earth quartz

 

Which, in turn, lets you turn all insps into rages rather than lucks. Or blues - there's the crash managed.

 

Admittedly, the crash is a pain in the ass. First there's the endurance bar drain. It isn't *as* bad as I expected: for some reason it's very rare for all toggles to drop, and since the Leadership activation buffs these toggles are faster to put back on too.

 

The really painful part is the 10s of -recovery post crash, meaning even if no/few toggles drop, it's easy to drain yourself if you attack carelessly.

 

On the flipside of that flipside, not "having" to pick Ageless for maximum damage opens up Barrier as a Destiny choice. And oh boy, is an Elude-using, Barrier having Sentinel with Master Brawler sturdy. I have taken on solo +4/x8 Apex and Tin Mage task forces several times and kicked butt, with almost no insp use (any other of my Sentinels, including the non-Elude version of that SR Sentinel, would need many insps to survive).

 

Barrier also has the benefit of completing your Elude cycle. You're looking at roughly a ~80s gap between Eludes on a final build. So you pop Barrier at the crash, that's 30 seconds of Elude-level defense when stacked on your regular toggles. And you still keep +7.5% for the first minute, +5% for the second minute. Not *perfect*, but smoothes the gap for sure. A single luck inspiration tends to cover what remains.

It's also fun to zip around with the extra runspeed Elude gives you. And, finally, in the end taking Elude is only a single power choice and 5 extra slot investment. My build gives up almost nothing to get Elude, compared to the previous build. Passive defenses are slightly under the 45% mark, but that's reached again using even the lowest part of Barrier.

 

Would I recommend it to anyone else? Probably not. The appeal of Elude here comes down to building for heavy proc usage regardless, wanting to solo incarnate team content, liking the convenience of high defenses without inspiration use, and choosing a higher ups, lower downs performance cycle rather than stable great performance.

 

I'm left thinking the Ninjitsu and EA versions of this could be pretty interesting.

 

Ninjitsu gets a free +60 end click, obviously ideal to handle Retsu crashes. It's also harder to build for the softcap on Nin, and you end up with low DDR; so Retsu's benefits should be magnified compared to Elude.

 

On the EA side, Overload gives you Dull Pain on top of massive defenses which is always nice. It's not AS nice as you might think, because Sentinel HP cap is relatively low and Power Armor already boosts your maxHP, but it's an extra something. A well timed Power Drain can also refill your bar at the moment you crash - although I find that difficult to pull off reliably. One downside to Energy Armor compared to their defense-based brethens might be that the status protection is a toggle. In the chaos of refilling your end bar and toggling back up, it's conceivable you might get mezzed every now and then.

EDIT: wait, that latest part is kind of silly. With Master Brawler, SR Sentinels have their mez protection in toggles too. It really hasn't been a problem, at least so far.

 

Anyhow. Fire/SR build below for reference:

Spoiler

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build |
		|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
		|MxDz;1554;724;1448;HEX;|
		|78DA6594CB4F135114C6EFD02938A53C0BF2062950FAA0034563E22B240A1804920|
		|6DC29D6815ECA985A6A0B092E5DBAF3B1706314DDB971ED9FE273A75191376AE2C2|
		|D4D3FB1D4A6327697E77BEF3BC67EEEDF4DAA8FBF5E57B2342ABBE94B4B2D9D8AC4|
		|CADD82999744E5B097B41E49F0AFAB51EEAB1192B95907173DCCEC8D8450A59E92A|
		|9846E5A24C65A539BB9A9699D88C5C4CCA359915EEE8F272D29C9256DA4E255CEA6|
		|5362D65BC4A2DC7EDC41285276A0EBDE232935DB2D32D63697BC12CE48E66EDD834|
		|559399BBCDD48F49BF659FE027E7149F742122BA28FF081EFBC07C0FBADE31DF82D|
		|7FC14A671EC81436965FBCC3D50DF65EE80E5DBE01D1F8752ACF6155AFD70996277|
		|9953B1C70BBDE78D50EC3D0DFB75AAEB405DDD31099FE3E360FB15E604D8F997DC3|
		|A7491A17A4EAEE78C208F7B284F43B8C360B5C91C046B079063D587EF47B15AC52B|
		|C4B68684F299A35E0CF4A2198D9AD23A1BC01B64ABE49A955BC855FB83F7BA01367|
		|C676EF23EBE31A96015F28AAA366816E5ABE179D7FCC637E8FD05F6EF82C13D307C|
		|000EFE04BD94AF8EF3D571EF37299F877BF7FCD7BB46FE8DBCE7C6475CEB31E8205|
		|B13E21C4DF905CDB779183D36FF015B7FF27727DF16AEDBC235E6A96E1B6B6D617C|
		|DB3AF2EB60AD83FDEED3DCBB787E5D1730F713E799679867F9CC9C638EA0EE02D5F|
		|0F2DEBC9CAF87F716275B1FE7EDE3F3E853E7D510BE7DE60ECF7583B9A92BFD7340|
		|083FC7FA43A81908327D4C3F188C915B3F3180F72F141BE2D8D004B48131D41FB8A|
		|D8116E619E6B3177E4AEE5E5D78683E269F79F31962075F829175E673E60BB09E62|
		|8678A643DD9873BB5EB8EF9A78C067E421782B90BFCFF95B92CB058FFCF2AF39CA5|
		|0A2444A949325CAA91265AA4489EA85FF02A129C5A8A51B0E257795AC065B0D65DD|
		|72913FEF4BE3F3B353AC756376DBC59A1F7EBBC5DA13CC69D24380968BBAD464D47|
		|AAE686D15ADE78BD647CF7A3E0BF7FC0F22F0064C|
		|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by nihilii

[oldskool]

Sometimes I like to use Ageless Radial Epiphany instead of Core.  That's the variant with DDR.  Not all of my Sentinels have the same level of end spent per second as a build like Fire Blast.  

Dominate, Mind Probe, and Fire Ball can get hella expensive when you're chain casting them.  So the Ageless Core Recovery buff has a lot of appeal.  However, this may be overkill for some other builds not abusing this.  Those may not spend as much end per second (also won't achieve as much damage dealt) and so the Radial option may work out.  Barrier is also a really good choice.  

100% agree on the value of the Nin T9.  There is a lot of DDR in that one power and it is really low without it (or Radial Ageless). 

The only Sentinel I currently have that gets close to that level of end use is Psi/SR so these ideas are worth considering there too. 

Edited January 3, 2021 by oldskool

[Underfyre]

I did Master Apex solo on my Water/SR, but I just swapped from Ageless to Rebirth for badger purposes recently. I'm not sure how end hungry the character is without Ageless. I try to make my builds more on the self sufficient side before I try patching holes with incarnates. I don't really feel like doing the math right now, but theoretically the Water Blast rotation is limited by how long it takes for the instant Water Jet mechanic to recharge, which is 10 seconds. At my current recharge rate I kind of just end up waiting until it's back up.

[Doomguide2005]

On 1/3/2021 at 6:59 AM, nihilii said:

Okay, probably not. But I had to get you to click the thread open.

So, I've been having some fun rethinking Elude recently. Conventional knowledge says it's not so useful in a general sense, and I tend to agree.

But at the same time, once you fall down the rabbit hole of heavy proc builds and doing weird stuff...

Almost all my builds these days look like this:

- Ageless to take care of all end troubles, almost no end management otherwise

- attacks with 3-4 damage procs, as close to capped damage as I can get, some end reduction if no better option, generally 0 accuracy which is taken care of through Kismet, Tactics and set bonuses

- Musculature and Assault to maximise damage

This is fine. It works. On Sentinel SR, it's not too difficult to get your defenses at 45% while also including all of the above.

Although Sentinel DDR isn't capped, so defense debuffs can hurt soloing +4/x8. Likewise with tohit buffs. Or Incarnate content, where most foes have higher tohit and require 59% defense to be effectively softcapped.

However: luck inspirations are plenty, and will drop fast enough to always stay overcapped. So again, this works. This is fine.

 

Still. Thinking about Elude there's some interesting points that come to mind.

1) it doesn't merely boost your defense to god levels, it's also a sizeable recovery buff. +100%, base. Enhance it and you're looking at +3,74 end per second when all is said and done. This is comparable to the middle part of Ageless - and unlike Ageless, this is a constant 3 minutes buff, bereft of the "desert valley" during the last 30 seconds of Ageless.

2) ... and it really does boost your defense to god levels. At above 100% with toggles, you don't care about tohit buffs, defense debuffs, incarnate content... You don't care about incarnate content where mobs with extra tohit buffs throw defense debuffs at you. You are truly untouchable against anything that isn't a Devouring Earth quartz

 

Which, in turn, lets you turn all insps into rages rather than lucks. Or blues - there's the crash managed.

 

Admittedly, the crash is a pain in the ass. First there's the endurance bar drain. It isn't *as* bad as I expected: for some reason it's very rare for all toggles to drop, and since the Leadership activation buffs these toggles are faster to put back on too.

 

The really painful part is the 10s of -recovery post crash, meaning even if no/few toggles drop, it's easy to drain yourself if you attack carelessly.

 

On the flipside of that flipside, not "having" to pick Ageless for maximum damage opens up Barrier as a Destiny choice. And oh boy, is an Elude-using, Barrier having Sentinel with Master Brawler sturdy. I have taken on solo +4/x8 Apex and Tin Mage task forces several times and kicked butt, with almost no insp use (any other of my Sentinels, including the non-Elude version of that SR Sentinel, would need many insps to survive).

 

Barrier also has the benefit of completing your Elude cycle. You're looking at roughly a ~80s gap between Eludes on a final build. So you pop Barrier at the crash, that's 30 seconds of Elude-level defense when stacked on your regular toggles. And you still keep +7.5% for the first minute, +5% for the second minute. Not *perfect*, but smoothes the gap for sure. A single luck inspiration tends to cover what remains.

It's also fun to zip around with the extra runspeed Elude gives you. And, finally, in the end taking Elude is only a single power choice and 5 extra slot investment. My build gives up almost nothing to get Elude, compared to the previous build. Passive defenses are slightly under the 45% mark, but that's reached again using even the lowest part of Barrier.

 

Would I recommend it to anyone else? Probably not. The appeal of Elude here comes down to building for heavy proc usage regardless, wanting to solo incarnate team content, liking the convenience of high defenses without inspiration use, and choosing a higher ups, lower downs performance cycle rather than stable great performance.

 

I'm left thinking the Ninjitsu and EA versions of this could be pretty interesting.

 

Ninjitsu gets a free +60 end click, obviously ideal to handle Retsu crashes. It's also harder to build for the softcap on Nin, and you end up with low DDR; so Retsu's benefits should be magnified compared to Elude.

 

On the EA side, Overload gives you Dull Pain on top of massive defenses which is always nice. It's not AS nice as you might think, because Sentinel HP cap is relatively low and Power Armor already boosts your maxHP, but it's an extra something. A well timed Power Drain can also refill your bar at the moment you crash - although I find that difficult to pull off reliably. One downside to Energy Armor compared to their defense-based brethens might be that the status protection is a toggle. In the chaos of refilling your end bar and toggling back up, it's conceivable you might get mezzed every now and then.

EDIT: wait, that latest part is kind of silly. With Master Brawler, SR Sentinels have their mez protection in toggles too. It really hasn't been a problem, at least so far.

 

Anyhow. Fire/SR build below for reference:

  Reveal hidden contents

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build |
		|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
		|MxDz;1554;724;1448;HEX;|
		|78DA6594CB4F135114C6EFD02938A53C0BF2062950FAA0034563E22B240A1804920|
		|6DC29D6815ECA985A6A0B092E5DBAF3B1706314DDB971ED9FE273A75191376AE2C2|
		|D4D3FB1D4A6327697E77BEF3BC67EEEDF4DAA8FBF5E57B2342ABBE94B4B2D9D8AC4|
		|CADD82999744E5B097B41E49F0AFAB51EEAB1192B95907173DCCEC8D8450A59E92A|
		|9846E5A24C65A539BB9A9699D88C5C4CCA359915EEE8F272D29C9256DA4E255CEA6|
		|5362D65BC4A2DC7EDC41285276A0EBDE232935DB2D32D63697BC12CE48E66EDD834|
		|559399BBCDD48F49BF659FE027E7149F742122BA28FF081EFBC07C0FBADE31DF82D|
		|7FC14A671EC81436965FBCC3D50DF65EE80E5DBE01D1F8752ACF6155AFD70996277|
		|9953B1C70BBDE78D50EC3D0DFB75AAEB405DDD31099FE3E360FB15E604D8F997DC3|
		|A7491A17A4EAEE78C208F7B284F43B8C360B5C91C046B079063D587EF47B15AC52B|
		|C4B68684F299A35E0CF4A2198D9AD23A1BC01B64ABE49A955BC855FB83F7BA01367|
		|C676EF23EBE31A96015F28AAA366816E5ABE179D7FCC637E8FD05F6EF82C13D307C|
		|000EFE04BD94AF8EF3D571EF37299F877BF7FCD7BB46FE8DBCE7C6475CEB31E8205|
		|B13E21C4DF905CDB779183D36FF015B7FF27727DF16AEDBC235E6A96E1B6B6D617C|
		|DB3AF2EB60AD83FDEED3DCBB787E5D1730F713E799679867F9CC9C638EA0EE02D5F|
		|0F2DEBC9CAF87F716275B1FE7EDE3F3E853E7D510BE7DE60ECF7583B9A92BFD7340|
		|083FC7FA43A81908327D4C3F188C915B3F3180F72F141BE2D8D004B48131D41FB8A|
		|D8116E619E6B3177E4AEE5E5D78683E269F79F31962075F829175E673E60BB09E62|
		|8678A643DD9873BB5EB8EF9A78C067E421782B90BFCFF95B92CB058FFCF2AF39CA5|
		|0A2444A949325CAA91265AA4489EA85FF02A129C5A8A51B0E257795AC065B0D65DD|
		|72913FEF4BE3F3B353AC756376DBC59A1F7EBBC5DA13CC69D24380968BBAD464D47|
		|AAE686D15ADE78BD647CF7A3E0BF7FC0F22F0064C|
		|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

 

Try adding in Geas of the Kind Ones and Eye of Magus accolades into the mitigation plan/rotation.  Those two were my go to if still in mid-combat on my Claws/SR back in the pre-invention days. The +recovery of Geas is enough to offset the debuff of Eludes crash.  Eye is a nice boost to defense and resistance.  Between your passives, the 3% defense uniques and Eye your defense should be quite solid (you'd be at/near soft capped except for the defense debuff in Geas) while re-toggling mid combat.

[nihilii]

7 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

The +recovery of Geas is enough to offset the debuff of Eludes crash. 

Are you sure on that one? I assumed it wouldn't. Ageless with its +800% recovery in the initial phase doesn't work, and according to Mids Geas also does +800%. Monitoring in Combat Attributes, the recovery debuff from Elude seems to be -10000% or some similarly asinine value designed to prevent ANY sort of recovery.

 

Which makes +end clicks or procs very useful here.

 

But I love Geas and Magus as a general rule. It's interesting how we default to getting the passive +HP/+end accolades, while few of us go for Geas and Magus (and I am just as guilty of that as anyone) even though they're so useful to patch up spikes in intensity. Indeed, even moreso here with a build relying on T9.

Edited January 25, 2021 by nihilii

[Doomguide2005]

I'm fairly certain I recall it being listed in Mids as +1000% recovery.  And while all I've got is this phone for internet I know I used it on my SR for just that reason.  Usually I'd jump start it by popping a blue (again being pre invention my net was not what it would be these days with Miracle etc.).  But after that Geas would handle my recovery until after the debuff were off.  And since this was pre invention, (pre real numbers even) it always dropped me to 0 end (no Perf Shifter etc. to generate +end getting around the debuff).  

 

Should be able to verify easy enough between combat attributes and Mids in any case that I'm not having a serious senior moment. 

 

Edit: missed your Mids comment.  Maybe because of the blue and fairly normal end slotting it slowed the loss enough to get by on the blue I'd popped until the debuff went away.  I assume your specific build has high consumption maybe it wouldn't be enough by itself.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Afterthought

[Bill Z Bubba]

I rather enjoy knowing there's always a power to skip in my SR builds. Especially since the other 8 are not optional.

[Crysis]

I generally do take Elude, single slot it, and use it as a mule.  Most SR builds give me enough free slots to six-slot all my attacks and anything important without wonky IO set mixing.  Don’t like the crash, but I often only pop it during the last quarter of health of soloing an AV when I need that extra bit of Recovery to get past their own god mode powers.  And then the crash hits after they are down.  

 

I’m kinda a sucker for “beat the clock” jolts of adrenaline anyways.  I enjoy knowing the crash is coming and I timed Elude just right.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Crysis

[nihilii]

2 hours ago, Crysis said:

I’m kinda a sucker for “beat the clock” jolts of adrenaline anyways.  I enjoy knowing the crash is coming and I timed Elude just right.

Definitely one of those underrated small pleasures to be had in CoH. I find satisfaction in exploiting "forced downtime" in various ways, be it simple things like popping Shadow Meld or other long but non-rooting clicks on the way to a mob, activating MoG during a jump towards the mob so the momentum lands me in the middle, jumping OUT of a mob and blasting Inferno so the momentum lands me out of sight and retaliation, and so on. Fun times, if not always strictly efficient.

[arcane]

On 1/26/2021 at 11:21 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

I rather enjoy knowing there's always a power to skip in my SR builds. Especially since the other 8 are not optional.

Was looking through the thread for you. Thank you for validating my opinion with your greater SR experience.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

Was looking through the thread for you. Thank you for validating my opinion with your greater SR experience.

It's not just SR. I don't take any T9 that crashes my ability to kill things.

[DSorrow]

This thread actually has me wondering about a /SR or /Nin character that rotates Elude/Retsu and whatever the Rune of Protection equivalent with +Def is. With the ~80 second downtime on Elude, you could pop Rune of Defense just before the crash and continue enjoying high levels of Def despite it, then have Elude up again right before RoD ends. RoP + Barrier + Elude cycling probably gives a significantly better net survivability, but if Elude + RoD cycle is sufficient to keep you alive, you might be able to go for Ageless and more DPS.

[Arcadio]

4 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

This thread actually has me wondering about a /SR or /Nin character that rotates Elude/Retsu and whatever the Rune of Protection equivalent with +Def is. With the ~80 second downtime on Elude, you could pop Rune of Defense just before the crash and continue enjoying high levels of Def despite it, then have Elude up again right before RoD ends. RoP + Barrier + Elude cycling probably gives a significantly better net survivability, but if Elude + RoD cycle is sufficient to keep you alive, you might be able to go for Ageless and more DPS.

I love this idea. I've been thinking about armor T9s a lot recently and maybe they're not as useless as I first thought. Originally with my ice/regen stalker, where I feel like MoG is a must-have for the survivability. And for my DP/Fire sent, I know I can't build for capped defenses comfortably, so now RotP is another tool. I cycle between barrier, unleash potential... and death, and it actually keeps me going pretty decently. It's also just fun to have dying be a part of my attack chain 😄 

[Crysis]

4 hours ago, DSorrow said:

This thread actually has me wondering about a /SR or /Nin character that rotates Elude/Retsu and whatever the Rune of Protection equivalent with +Def is. With the ~80 second downtime on Elude, you could pop Rune of Defense just before the crash and continue enjoying high levels of Def despite it, then have Elude up again right before RoD ends. RoP + Barrier + Elude cycling probably gives a significantly better net survivability, but if Elude + RoD cycle is sufficient to keep you alive, you might be able to go for Ageless and more DPS.

Been there, did that, got the t-shirt....

 

PS Works well, although I found few times I had to use BOTH in the same mission/encounter.  Being able to swap between max +DEF and max +RES is pretty cool actually.

 

But you may have been thinking about the Unleash Potential power from the Force of Will pool.  I've used that on Blasters but not on a /Nin or /SR scrapper before.

 

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Crysis

[Bill Z Bubba]

I don't like faceplanting. I fully grok why other people don't care, it's a badge, debt is gone in an instant, etc. I just find that getting knocked out means I didn't build correctly. Taking a power that relies on me getting defeated simply doesn't work for me.

[nihilii]

11 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Taking a power that relies on me getting defeated simply doesn't work for me.

Honestly, I am not sure I have died from an Elude crash yet. The crash is a deterministic event that can be planned for.

 

It's harder to foresee lucky hit streaks and spikes of damage. I find most of my SR deaths happen when I'm at 30-50% HP right after a couple hits, unwilling to disengage for mitigation, and whatever big guy I'm facing lands another punch and send me to the grave.

This happens on an Elude build or a normal build, but given that a Sentinel SR build that keeps the same damage output is at barely 45% defense and midtier DDR, it happens a lot more often on the latter in situations like i.e. buffed Goliath War Walkers in the Tin Mage finale.

 

The Elude build has more flexibility there too, because I can stack Barrier on Elude for resistance as well (as I don't have to run Ageless to sustain the same procced out attack chain).

It is all ++ for me personally. Still wouldn't recommend the approach in general, but I can't agree with the idea Elude "relies on you getting defeated". It's not Revive!

 

Looking ahead, I'm even considering taking Elude on my SR/SS *Tanker*.

- taking care of end management through Elude would let me really milk that 90% res cap through Barrier. As is (standardish ~64% defense build), I cannot solo Apex pylons without inspirations. Even a single buffed Goliath War Walker eventually kills me.

- Rage crashes would be easier to handle. I crammed as much defense as possible without damage sacrifices to be at ~44% during a Rage crash, but I run Incarnate content most of the time so in the end I'm 15% short more often than not.

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 hours ago, nihilii said:

Honestly, I am not sure I have died from an Elude crash yet. The crash is a deterministic event that can be planned for.

My bad, man. That statement was specifically in regards to the rezzes. (Two posts before mine.) Can't use them without faceplanting first.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[nihilii]

40 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

My bad, man. That statement was specifically in regards to the rezzes. (Two posts before mine.) Can't use them without faceplanting first.

Ohh. Haha, I feel so very foolish. I guess I was looking for any excuse to expand on my Elude love of late...

[Doomguide2005]

21 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I don't like faceplanting. I fully grok why other people don't care, it's a badge, debt is gone in an instant, etc. I just find that getting knocked out means I didn't build correctly. Taking a power that relies on me getting defeated simply doesn't work for me.

Truth, one of the last times I died on my main on Live was, in part, responsible for why the next build aimed at really pushing the +max health and +regen.   Got double whacked by the BBEG and brought from full health of 1700 some to dead by roughly 1800 damage.  

 

And still wondering why Geas worked so well back in the day for my scrapper to counter Elude's crash.  Only thing I can think is Geas does last well past the recovery debuff and the blue inspire plus old,old, all toggles dropped, no massive recharge, etc., pre IO build was simply enough to last through the 200% debuff till Geas wasn't battling the whole debuff.  Either way Magus +def real sweet addition.

[nihilii]

19 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

And still wondering why Geas worked so well back in the day for my scrapper to counter Elude's crash.

I could swear it worked like that too. Which made discovering Ageless not working a disappointment. I don't have memories with Geas specifically, but I remember you'd get Adrenalin Boost from an empath and you'd power through a T9 crash. My memory might be shaky, or maybe the T9s were changed at some point to specifically enforce that -recovery period. Like you say, it's easy to "miss" the 10s of recovery between managing the crash itself and retoggling.

[Bill Z Bubba]

16 minutes ago, nihilii said:

or maybe the T9s were changed at some point to specifically enforce that -recovery period.

That sounds right. Gut-wise... don't trust my memory at all though.

[Doomguide2005]

Yes an Empath with Adrenaline Boost could (and potentially still can) over come the crash because you can slot Endmod into AB.  AB has the same base recovery of 800% as Geas and peak Ageless).  But neither Ageless or Geas can be further enhanced of course.   Empaths in Green Machine were expected to slot a Endmod in AB for the express purpose of overcoming the Nuke crash of their buff partner (that crash also being a -1000% recovery debuff).  As well GMs or other Empaths could have used RA which while not enough +recovery by itself would add further to AB.

 

 

[nihilii]

Right, but the Elude crash right now is -10000% rather than -1000%. So even a full endmod slotted AB would be a drop in the water against that. You raise an interesting point on nukes, it could be that I'm misremembering overcoming nuke crash rather than T9 crash (the former a more common usecase!). I still want to believe the T9 were changed...

Edited January 30, 2021 by nihilii

[Doomguide2005]

10,000%???!

 

Okay maybe I am getting old or some serious Mandela effect is occurring.  Or there's a typo but I am almost positive it was NOT 5 figures back in the day.

 

Edit: On the other hand when did "real numbers" become a thing?  i5 for Croatoa was the earliest Geas could have existed was real numbers a thing then?  *Wanders off to check when things became a thing thread*

Edited January 30, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Afterthoughts