Two random Tinpex thoughts.

[Greycat]

1. Has anyone intentionally run this (or even just one of the pair) without Alpha slotted? Yes, there's a level drop for you. But for someone looking for a challenge... or with the right team...

 

2. With the above, is it necessarily just alpha? If you deliberately unslot Alpha but leave Lore and Destiny at t3 or t4, are you just slightly less debuffed?

[Pzn]

Not having alpha slotted gives you a -4 level shift debuff.  So all the enemies would be +8.  Lore and destiny shifts have no affect on either TF.

 

[oedipus_tex]

I wouldn't recommend trying this Task Force without an Alpha slotted. You could maybe convince a team to run it without using their other incarnate abilities.

 

Back when Apex was first introduced, Destiny wasn't around yet and it was way, way harder. Also back then a lot of IOs we take for granted now, like Gladiator +3% Def were outside the budget of anyone but ultra-elite players (so expensive people didn't even put them on the auction house--if you did find one, it was usually smarter to sell it than slot it because it was so valuable you could build out 10 other characters for its price). The archetype ATOs were pay to win and mostly unavailable. I never slotted one on live or made a build that incorporated them until Homecoming. 

 

I do miss that version of the game a lot. 

[macskull]

To put this in perspective, you'd be fighting +8 enemies, which means all the enemy debuffs/attacks/mezzes/etc would have about twice their normal effect on you. Your powers, on the other hand? Those would be 5% as effective as when fighting an even-con enemy. You'd be looking at a base hit chance of 5% for your attacks as well, while the NPCs would have a 1.5x accuracy multiplier due to level difference (actually 1.725 for lieutenants, 1.95 for bosses/EBs, and 2.25 for AVs) as well as a 15% tohit bonus. This means you'd need 60% defense to be at the softcap and even then most mobs would still have almost a 10% chance to hit you.

 

Is it possible? With a team, probably, but it would be extremely slow going. Solo, almost certainly not. You'd probably get stuck on the AVs because you wouldn't be able to outdamage their regen. Realistically with a stacked team you should have no problems surviving but you'd be doing so little damage and hitting so infrequently that it wouldn't really be a challenge but more of a slogfest.

 

EDIT: Some actual numbers here - if you take Blaze (considered to be one of the best and highest-DPA Blaster attacks) and include all DoT ticks, you will deal 944.678 damage to an even-con target if you're at the Blaster damage cap (base damage x 5). Against a +8 that drops down to... 47.2339 damage. Woo. Procs will boost that though - but by like 5 points for a purple proc and like 3 points for a non-purple proc.

Edited February 6, 2021 by macskull

[brasilgringo]

And yet you always have *that person* who argues they should be able to run it on your team without alpha slot .... or who gets pissed when you ask them if they have their alpha.  *shrug*   If i wanted to carry people, I'd be a fireman.

[Greycat]

Heh. You know, I think I'd still want to try it... *once.* Even if it's just "ok, we're just doing the first mission this way, then reforming to do it seriously." Just because.

[siolfir]

3 hours ago, macskull said:

This means you'd need 60% defense to be at the softcap and even then most mobs would still have almost a 10% chance to hit you.

Wouldn't it be 74% because the Incarnate softcap is higher? Or are these TFs not considered incarnate content for the extra base mob to-hit?

 

Genuine question since I rarely look at the combat log for hit chances unless I feel something is seriously out of whack.

[Uun]

There was a bug floating around a few months ago that would cause your Alpha slot to be ignored intermittently and all of a sudden you would be at a -3 level shift in the middle of Apex. It wasn't challenging - you were completely ineffective and couldn't hit or damage anything.

[nihilii]

I tried to solo an Apex with alpha unslotted on purpose, on a TW/bio that was otherwise fully incarnated and at the height of their overpowered glory. I think it took me 10 minutes to clear the first 2 groups of the first mission. A +8 minion is harder to defeat than a +4 boss.

[macskull]

21 hours ago, siolfir said:

Wouldn't it be 74% because the Incarnate softcap is higher? Or are these TFs not considered incarnate content for the extra base mob to-hit?

 

Genuine question since I rarely look at the combat log for hit chances unless I feel something is seriously out of whack.

I think that only applies to enemies in incarnate trials. I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary on tinpex or in DA.

[Doomguide2005]

On 2/6/2021 at 5:59 PM, macskull said:

To put this in perspective, you'd be fighting +8 enemies, which means ... <numbers and stuff> 

Hmmm,

Hypothetical Defender/Support superteam of 7 plus 1 very lucky very buffed Brute at the damage cap with resistance debuff capped foe(s), what would that look like?

 

 

[macskull]

3 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Hmmm,

Hypothetical Defender/Support superteam of 7 plus 1 very lucky very buffed Brute at the damage cap with resistance debuff capped foe(s), what would that look like?

Let's start with the Brute side of the equation. Brutes have a damage cap of 700% (or +600%, since base damage counts as the first 100%) so you could realistically expect something like Greater Psi Blade to deal 673.788 damage at cap - 1010.6946 if you have Insight. If the +8 NPCs have no resistance that would deal 50.53 damage. The cap for -res is -300%, so at that point 50.53 damage becomes 202.14 damage (enemies at the -res cap take 4x damage). That seems okay, right? But how much -res actually needs to get applied to reach that point? Purple patch to the rescue again - with debuffs at 5% effectiveness you'd need to have 6000% -res stacked on a target to actually reach -300%, and that's assuming the NPCs in question have no inherent damage resistance. On a good day, a Cold Defender with Burnout can probably achieve -182.5% -res on a target (3 stacks of Sleet, 2 stacks of Heat Loss, and Annihilation and Achilles' Heel procs), and they can realistically only do that once every 5 minutes or so. If you assume all 7 support characters were Cold Defenders, well... you see the issue here. You're nowhere near the 6000% you'd need to actually be at the -res cap against +8s.

[Doomguide2005]

@macskullYes I did expect something along those lines.  More a thought exercise on just what might be achieve after all you have 6 more stacking on that plus secondary blasts.   Downside 5% is very rough and is it really needs to be sustainable mob to mob.  Mitigation no problem, hitting no problem, it's the debuff and damage dealt where it gets difficult.

[dopeninja]

19 hours ago, Uun said:

There was a bug floating around a few months ago that would cause your Alpha slot to be ignored intermittently and all of a sudden you would be at a -3 level shift in the middle of Apex. It wasn't challenging - you were completely ineffective and couldn't hit or damage anything.

It is still around. Happened on a team I ran with the other day. Usually if you leave and come back it will fix itself, or when you enter the sewers the game figures out you have your Alpha slotted. So you're useless for only part of the mission.

[Pzn]

45 minutes ago, dopeninja said:

It is still around. Happened on a team I ran with the other day. Usually if you leave and come back it will fix itself, or when you enter the sewers the game figures out you have your Alpha slotted. So you're useless for only part of the mission.

You can also toggle walk on and off to fix it.  You'll have to retoggle but it seems to reset the level shift bug.

[dopeninja]

6 minutes ago, josh1622 said:

You can also toggle walk on and off to fix it.  You'll have to retoggle but it seems to reset the level shift bug.

I hadn't heard of that trick. I'll give it a go if it happens again.