Trapdoor Test Results - the other half of Pylon testing?

[Kanil]

so here's something vaguely interesting.

 

rad/bio/mu scrapper with ball lightning and zapp instead of fireball.

this build is more realistic, with 31% s/l def but it has a massive endurance issue if not actively using siphon DNA/paraistic aura AND t4 ageless core.

 

rad/bio/mu scrapper with ball lightning and zapp instead of fireball.

t4 muscle core/ageless core/degen core

t3 hybrid assault (off)

avg: 4m38s

times
 

Spoiler

4m21s
4m48s
4m40s
4m45s
4m40s

 

 

so here's something strange. the average is VERY consistently slower than using fireball (fireball usually has 4m20 times avg) but it's just heinously solid overall. very low variation upwards, with random dip on the first run downwards.

 

i can't place why, but ball lightning despite being statistically so similar to fireball just seems to produce 'worse' results than things that hit immediately. i wonder why that is.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Kanil

[jojogladco]

10 hours ago, Kanil said:

so here's something vaguely interesting.

 

rad/bio/mu scrapper with ball lightning and zapp instead of fireball.

this build is more realistic, with 31% s/l def but it has a massive endurance issue if not actively using siphon DNA/paraistic aura AND t4 ageless core.

 

rad/bio/mu scrapper with ball lightning and zapp instead of fireball.

t4 muscle core/ageless core/degen core

t3 hybrid assault (off)

avg: 4m38s

times
 

  Hide contents

4m21s
4m48s
4m40s
4m45s
4m40s

 

 

so here's something strange. the average is VERY consistently slower than using fireball (fireball usually has 4m20 times avg) but it's just heinously solid overall. very low variation upwards, with random dip on the first run downwards.

 

i can't place why, but ball lightning despite being statistically so similar to fireball just seems to produce 'worse' results than things that hit immediately. i wonder why that is.

Zapp lacks the flags to pick up the bonus +crit from the ATO and BL has 70.58% of it's damage in DOT vs 33.39% in Fireball.  Those are the two major differences which come to mind for me that might account for some of the gap. 

[Ratch_]

Something a bit different for me: Fire/Poison/Psi corruptor.

The idea behind this toon originally is to be a force multiplier for a team - and in retrospect I wonder if a poison/sonic defender would be even more effective at this.  But fire blast feels good and sonic doesn't so here we are 🙂

Anyway, i just did some solo runs through the trapdoor for some good measure and I could not survive 4/8 without inspirations. So i had to break the rule a slight bit and popped some impenetrables occasionally when things were rough.

Fire/Poison/Psi Corruptor (avg. 6:53)

Spoiler

6:53
6:23
7:01
6:48
6:44

I have no idea if these are good times for a corruptor or not. Frankly, soloing with this combo is rough - and I'll be glad to make it purely a teaming character if I ever decide to go through with building it on live.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Ratch_

[Ratch_]

TW/EA/Blaze scrapper (avg. 5.21 seconds)

Spoiler

5:45
5:08
5:23
5:14
5:18

larger time variations were due to me somehow getting runners...seemed very odd since EA has a taunt aura like bio but who knows. Overall I'm happy with this scrapper.

EDIT: Switched to TW/EA/MU (avg.5mins)

I made a discovery during testing with the TW/EA/Blaze by hitting ageless right before fighting Trapdoor. If you sit at recharge cap you can FT -> Rend -> (Snipe/Arc/Whirling) over and over again. I've never seen trapdoor get bullied so hard. It's really kinda funny since you put the crit strikes proc in FT - but with this high of recharge and cycle rate your FT can benefit off of it's own Crit Strikes proc lmfao. So I went back, respec'd and now I got a build that can fairly regularly sit at recharge cap utilizing FFB in FT. 

I'm clocking in pylon times at 1:55 avg and 1:30 avg with hybrid assault radial toggled on.

For trapdoor, I had to do a few rounds of practice but now I can regularly get 5mins solid. Pretty damn good for a non-bio scrapper

Edited April 19, 2021 by Ratch_

[StriderIV]

Interesting thread! Rad/Bio is an interesting pair. I’ve looked at Rad Melee on Brutes and Tankers, but haven’t thought about picking it up on a Scrapper.

[KaizenSoze]

Folks running this test might find this useful.

 

 

[KaizenSoze]

Now, that we can stream again. It would be great is from folks to record their runs.

 

I must confess, my times suck compared to the good times. My Fort is no near as fast @Kanil

 

I love to see the difference. Or any sub 6 mins build.

 

 

[Kanil]

8 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Now, that we can stream again. It would be great is from folks to record their runs.

 

I must confess, my times suck compared to the good times. My Fort is no near as fast @Kanil

 

I love to see the difference. Or any sub 6 mins build.

 

 

yep! been recording a bunch of first attempts. forgot to turn off xp in a lot of them, but shrug

 

i've done just about every single thing posted on here except the variations.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRcxfxypPPGjsGMnEwDzswMxGqKDniZcl

 

 

Edited May 14, 2021 by Kanil

[Kanil]

okay, just recorded first runs of just about everything i could.

 

playlist is here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRcxfxypPPGjsGMnEwDzswMxGqKDniZcl

 

show me your gatdam runs!

 

[Parabola]

2 hours ago, Kanil said:

okay, just recorded first runs of just about everything i could.

 

playlist is here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRcxfxypPPGjsGMnEwDzswMxGqKDniZcl

 

show me your gatdam runs!

 

Just watched a couple of these. You might want to silence the 'power not recharged' sound, it drives me absolutely nuts and you seem to be an impatient button masher like me!

 

Also I find the no insps but yellows rule a bit odd, I generally build to have focused accuracy so I can't be blinded but of course that means forgoing something like fireball. It does mean that all I ever need are reds but the trade off I make is penalised under these rules vs the trade off someone else makes by taking fireball and using yellows to avoid blindness. Would it not be more fair to either ban insps entirely or to say that you have to start with an empty insp tray but you can use whatever drops in whatever way you like?

 

I like the idea of these tests though, something a lot more 'real world' than pylon testing.

[Kanil]

1 hour ago, Parabola said:

Just watched a couple of these. You might want to silence the 'power not recharged' sound, it drives me absolutely nuts and you seem to be an impatient button masher like me!

 

Also I find the no insps but yellows rule a bit odd, I generally build to have focused accuracy so I can't be blinded but of course that means forgoing something like fireball. It does mean that all I ever need are reds but the trade off I make is penalised under these rules vs the trade off someone else makes by taking fireball and using yellows to avoid blindness. Would it not be more fair to either ban insps entirely or to say that you have to start with an empty insp tray but you can use whatever drops in whatever way you like?

 

I like the idea of these tests though, something a lot more 'real world' than pylon testing.

 

yeah i figured people would just mute the vids, haha. i usually play muted but for recorded vids i tend to turn sfx on.

 

the rule is mostly for convenience sake - stuff like tactics and focused accuracy is usually good for that, but it's basically my own comparison point to i feel like picking up random insps and huffing them into reds can skew the results more vs 'sometimes i gotta use a yellow insp when i'm blinded'. it's not meant to be huffing yellows down 100% of the time or whatever.

 

a more fair comparison would probably just totally disable inspirations but being blind 100% of the time there's a night widow feels weird because it feels like i'll probably have a yellow to stop blind. it's definitely one of those things where focused acc/target drone doesn't get as much benefit as it would but in my own experience the main places where they really shine isn't really stopping blind insomuch as being able to shit on carnies despite them just dropping a billion -tohit on you.

 

 

 

[Parabola]

15 minutes ago, Kanil said:

 

yeah i figured people would just mute the vids, haha. i usually play muted but for recorded vids i tend to turn sfx on.

 

the rule is mostly for convenience sake - stuff like tactics and focused accuracy is usually good for that, but it's basically my own comparison point to i feel like picking up random insps and huffing them into reds can skew the results more vs 'sometimes i gotta use a yellow insp when i'm blinded'. it's not meant to be huffing yellows down 100% of the time or whatever.

 

a more fair comparison would probably just totally disable inspirations but being blind 100% of the time there's a night widow feels weird because it feels like i'll probably have a yellow to stop blind. it's definitely one of those things where focused acc/target drone doesn't get as much benefit as it would but in my own experience the main places where they really shine isn't really stopping blind insomuch as being able to shit on carnies despite them just dropping a billion -tohit on you.

This is one of the interesting things about building characters in coh. You can shore up weaknesses by adding in powers from epic pools or planning on inspiration use. There is a level of fungibility between different elements that helps to prevent there being one clearly best answer.

 

It does make it very difficult to make tests like this completely fair though. Any restriction or lack of a restriction will inevitably favour some builds over others. I agree that being able to chew down a load of reds would have a bigger impact than taking the occasional yellow but that does mean that some epic pools are clearly better choices than others. Of course the reverse would also be true, if insps weren't allowed then anyone without tactics or FA in their build would potentially really suffer.

 

Anyway, I like this test because it covers both aoe and single target performance and it's against one of the less convenient enemy groups in the game. When I have some time I'll see if I can do a few runs but I'm sure I won't be scaring anyone with my times!

[KaizenSoze]

12 hours ago, Kanil said:

okay, just recorded first runs of just about everything i could.

 

playlist is here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRcxfxypPPGjsGMnEwDzswMxGqKDniZcl

 

show me your gatdam runs!

 

Thought while watching them.

 

Rad melee is a monster. I wish I liked the animations more. Fire is also a monster. I feel alt-ist coming on. 🙂

 

The balance of single vs AOE is very nice on Battle Axe. You 6 shot Trapdoor with Axe, where Energy Melee took 5 shots.

 

As for the widows. I underestimated the damage potential of dominate.

 

The AOE difference is, as expected, is huge with Forts and Night Widows. The single target parity was disappointing. I thought Night Widow would have a noticeable advantage due to slash.

 

Lovely videos, much to learn. Savage/Fire/Axe looked like fun.

 

Side note, when trapdoor runs. If you  run in front of him, he'll stop for a bit before running another direction. It helps keep him on the platform.

Edited May 14, 2021 by KaizenSoze

[Ratch_]

Just did a few trapdoor runs with one of (might actually be) my favorite character(s) in the game, Fire/Fire/Fire dominator - aka Fire Control with Fire Blast 🙂

Trapdoor Run: 

Roughly 5:30-5:40 range pretty consistently. I wasted some time in that vid chasing a dead werewolf 🙄

[RageusQuitus2]

LOL I just completed on my pvpish build demon/rad MM.  no deaths but SLOW.  stopped clocking after 20 minutes but I think it was closer to 35.  Eventually gave in and started using all incarnates and a shivan on trapdoor.  This map sucks for MMs in general though not just the caves, but dropping between levels caused my pets to sit above me at watch all the mobs surround me.  Twice was the closest i came to death.

 

Just to be clear on the notoriety settings.  

Solo AVs - EB

Solo Bosses - Yes

Team size - 8

level - +4

 

 

I AM SO OP!

[RageusQuitus2]

1 hour ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

LOL I just completed on my pvpish build demon/rad MM.  no deaths but SLOW.  stopped clocking after 20 minutes but I think it was closer to 35.  Eventually gave in and started using all incarnates and a shivan on trapdoor. 

 

So turns out the only cheat I used was shivan.  And actually shivan shows the biggest problem with my build for PvE.  No lingering radiation.  Id have ripped Trap a new one with it.

 

Also what about things like p2w secondary mutation?  Accolades like demonic and Fon?  Or the psy clicky?

[Kanil]

4 hours ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

LOL I just completed on my pvpish build demon/rad MM.  no deaths but SLOW.  stopped clocking after 20 minutes but I think it was closer to 35.  Eventually gave in and started using all incarnates and a shivan on trapdoor.  This map sucks for MMs in general though not just the caves, but dropping between levels caused my pets to sit above me at watch all the mobs surround me.  Twice was the closest i came to death.

 

Just to be clear on the notoriety settings.  

Solo AVs - EB

Solo Bosses - Yes

Team size - 8

level - +4

 

 

I AM SO OP!

 

lol, yeah, i guess MMs are so out of my mind that i didn't even consider how they would be affected by the layout of the map. probably not a great check for them!

i bet hoverblasting specifically probably has an issue too since there's no overhead space to stay safe from attacks.

 

as for accoaldes/p2w mutation, i usually try to avoid those and temps for skewing but honestly it's kinda whatever most of the time anyways so i don't think it's a big deal. just making note of them works like a, 'right, this can change up some stuff' reminder

[Ratch_]

I was looking around to see if I could make a melee AT that also had plenty of range and the cards aligned for me to try something quite different. Honestly, it feels very fast, frantic, and impactful. 

Claws/Inv/Mu Stalker (about 5m30s)

And yes, I got some tunnel vision there and mistook for that second mu from above being my mu pet lmfAO. It happens

Edited May 19, 2021 by Ratch_

[KaizenSoze]

Enough with you high damage types. Here is my Trick Arrow/Dual Pistols defender run.

 

Averaging between 8:45-9:45, depends a lot of the randomness of procs.

 

This is my first video. So, there might be mistakes.

 

 

[Sancerre]

On 5/18/2021 at 11:44 PM, Ratch_ said:

I was looking around to see if I could make a melee AT that also had plenty of range and the cards aligned for me to try something quite different. Honestly, it feels very fast, frantic, and impactful. 

Claws/Inv/Mu Stalker (about 5m30s)

And yes, I got some tunnel vision there and mistook for that second mu from above being my mu pet lmfAO. It happens

 

tried out claw scrapper and it felt odd constantly repositioning for 'better' shockwave use... i guess i could have tried doing the hover thing, but that wouldnt work too well in this kind of map for example.  wasnt a big fan of it overall.

 

the stalker build you have there looks really unique and fun.  specifically unique to stalker variant cause you dont need to particularly worry about spamming follow-up... and also not having spin.  seems super durable too -- i would guess mostly from the bounce house effect... and invulnerability is just a solid defense set.  awesome find!

[Ratch_]

Running Spiritual Core alpha and a bunch of force feedback procs in the build hehe. Sitting at recharge cap for many of my powers just on my own lol. This controller is an absolute monster that starts with low damage but ramps up exponentially once you start stacking freezing rain debuffs (which comes back every 15s or less) and have out 3 lighting storms + tornados. I threw in Sorcery for arcane bolt and enflame for even more damage. Soul drain is up over half the time...sooo yeah. For an AT with only a .550 damage scale it slaps.

[Ston]

 

Got about a 4:48 run with an elec/shield scrapper. Was happy to see this combo can still put up respectable numbers. I have a feeling this would beat a stalker as well because of the better AoE modifier. This build could definitely use tactics and more accuracy enhancing, but nonetheless it gave me my fastest trapdoor run.

[Bionic_Flea]

Soooo . . . I tried this last night on my new Rad/Dark Melee and came back to this forum to compare times . . . I was terrible.  Over 8 minutes.  I thought I would drag the last mob with me to fuel Soul Drain, which worked except a widow and spider stayed at range double blinding me through the last two yellows I had.

 

Anyway, I forgot to log off and came back this morning to several hundred Trapdoor bifurcations!  His regen is over 9000!

 

Here's just a few of them:

 

 

[Tsuko]

On 4/11/2021 at 6:46 AM, Kanil said:

i can't place why, but ball lightning despite being statistically so similar to fireball just seems to produce 'worse' results than things that hit immediately. i wonder why that is.

 

Because Ball Lightning and FireBall are not similar 🙂

 

 

[Kanil]

ended up slotting out my archery character. archery sucks, wow. tac arrow is still pretty amazing though - the amount of CC it provides allows for a lot of stability combined with the ranged aoes of archery. definitely my most stable blaster character in terms of runs just because of the combo of tac arrow and the low recharge on rain of arrows+weak damage on archery allowing for a nuke every single group due to how long it takes to kill them, haha.

 

archery/tactical arrow blaster

avg: 9m3s

video:

 

runs:

Spoiler

death
death
death
death
8:25
9:18
death
8:31
8:55
death
10:22 (?!)
8:39
8:48
9:33