2nd build to Ouro Goldside

[Snarky]

I am using a second build to do all Gold (and a few blue badge missions) through Ouro.  I have a general question about how to slot the beast.

 

Of course I know all my enhancers will be cut in value.  I also know that on this build I can "front load" all my enhancer slots onto the few powers that are available through those low levels.  (including health and stamina!) 

 

But the question is how exactly to do that?  How many 50 damage SOs (or 53 damage generic I/Os?) equal 90-95% effective damage?  How does one go about doing this so you have effective slotting?  Are Purple sets better than just cramming on X# SOs when running 15-20 content? 

 

 

[Astralock]

IMO, you're better off going with SOs for gold side, (at least through First Ward).  IO enhancement set values are cut in value pretty steeply at low levels, unlike SOs.  You may want things like the KB protection IO enhancement, but in general, go SOs.

 

With SOs or generic IOs, I generally slot attacks with one accuracy, one endurance reduction, two or three damage, and a recharge.  Non-attack powers, it all depends.

[Snarky]

  Level          Value               Level          Value   
1    0.022         17    0.454
2    0.045         18    0.486
3    0.068         19    0.519
4    0.092         20    0.553
5    0.116         21    0.587
6    0.141         22    0.623
7    0.166         23    0.659
8    0.192         24    0.696
9    0.219         25    0.733
10    0.246         26    0.772
11    0.274         27    0.811
12    0.302         28    0.852
13    0.331         29    0.893
14    0.361         30    0.935
15    0.391         31    0.978
16    0.422         32-50    1.0

 

As you can see in the level 15 range your level 50 Dam SO loses 60% of its oomph.  this makes your 2-3 Damage SO idea great for levelling, but not so good for exemplaring

 

My first thought is efficient use of Hami-O type enhancers and Purples will get about as far as possible, provided you can find good matches and the budget holds out.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Snarky

[Captain Fabulous]

Does putting in SOs of the level that you exemplar down to work? Never tried it.

[Darmian]

Not considered this!

 

For lower level Gold I just pick up some Grenades and Plasmatic Taser from TFV, mainly to keep Ghouls the hell off me!

 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Does putting in SOs of the level that you exemplar down to work? Never tried it.

all enhancement values get squished.  you cant even put low levels in a 50.  if you could...they would get squished

 

Purple and winter "damage" sets get squished to about +60% damage at 15 using a full set.  drop/switch one non damage from the set with an I/O dam 50 or a hami and get 75-80%

 

Edited February 20, 2023 by Snarky

[Luminara]

30 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Does putting in SOs of the level that you exemplar down to work? Never tried it.

 

All enhancement values are reduced when exemplared.  Level 10 IO, level 50 IO, +3 SO, HO, DO, ATO, Winter, anything in a slot is treated generically by the exemplar code.  There's no bypassing it, and attempting to do so by slotting an enhancement at the level at which the character is exemplared results in even lower total enhanced value than simply leaving your higher level enhancements in place.

 

And you can't slot an SO that isn't your real level when you exemplar, anyway.  No back doors, no loopholes.

 

 

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

But the question is how exactly to do that?

Maybe you could make the build using lower level generic IOs so you suffer a minimal degradation in enh effectiveness...

[Luminara]

4 minutes ago, biostem said:

Maybe you could make the build using lower level generic IOs so you suffer a minimal degradation in enh effectiveness...

 

Scroll up and read the post just above yours.

[Snarky]

7 minutes ago, biostem said:

Maybe you could make the build using lower level generic IOs so you suffer a minimal degradation in enh effectiveness...

everything gets degraded, at 15 by a lot lol.  i am thinking 5 slot purple or sup winter and then adding a hami dam or a 53 i/o generic dam.  possibly using sup ato on lesser damaging powers for set bonuses

Edited February 20, 2023 by Snarky

[Captain Fabulous]

Or just play at -1/0 and not worry so much about it? How difficult can it be?

[Snarky]

8 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Or just play at -1/0 and not worry so much about it? How difficult can it be?

i will do that too!  in case it was not clear i am dead lazy.  i was trying to get you guys to do my math for me in fact.  right now i am doing it kitchen table style.  the ideas are flowing and i will pop mids open today or tomorrow.  but yes, i will be doing it at -1, badges are same.  with temp p2w powers, and as enhanced as i can prop up the thing.

[Captain Fabulous]

3 minutes ago, Snarky said:

i will do that too!  in case it was not clear i am dead lazy.  i was trying to get you guys to do my math for me in fact.  right now i am doing it kitchen table style.  the ideas are flowing and i will pop mids open today or tomorrow.  but yes, i will be doing it at -1, badges are same.  with temp p2w powers, and as enhanced as i can prop up the thing.

I don't pretend to understand all the math going on behind the scenes. But what I do know is that my (nearly) unkillable lvl 50 tank is just as unkillable when I exemplar down, even to the lowest tier. Far more sturdy than a tank of that natural level. 🤷‍♂️

[huang3721]

I tried to make a build to deal with those ***** ambushes without inspiration. I failed miserably. Since I eventually had to use inspiration, then why bother? I set the diff to -1.

(I experimented once with purple sets. I relied on their set bonuses to cut the recharge time. It was effective, but I think it was too expensive.) 

[ZemX]

1 minute ago, Snarky said:

i will do that too!  in case it was not clear i am dead lazy.  i was trying to get you guys to do my math for me in fact.  right now i am doing it kitchen table style.  the ideas are flowing and i will pop mids open today or tomorrow.  but yes, i will be doing it at -1, badges are same.  with temp p2w powers, and as enhanced as i can prop up the thing.

 

You and I have a different definition of the word "lazy". 🤪

 

If you're really gonna run at -1, you will blow through this stuff like tissue paper.  Unless planning this out and optimizing is gonna be part of the fun for you... 

 

I would at least give in a shot first.  You might be surprised how well your existing build works.

[Snarky]

38 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

You and I have a different definition of the word "lazy". 🤪

 

If you're really gonna run at -1, you will blow through this stuff like tissue paper.  Unless planning this out and optimizing is gonna be part of the fun for you... 

 

I would at least give in a shot first.  You might be surprised how well your existing build works.

planning it is part of the fun for me.  i love to overbuild   why i love mids, and this game.

 

but gold is not always that easy.  especially as you are exemp down in the gold zones

[ZemX]

Okay, so for giggles, I hit the crystal and dialed up the Nova Responsibility Chapter 1 mission from Praetor White.  It exemped me to level 10.

 

I am running all 3 armor toggles in rad armor on this tank.  And the taunt aura.  I have two attacks and Taunt (not ideal).  But here are my resistances (oh, I also hit up the base empowerment station for a few of these.  Could have gotten more if I bought the right salvage.  That's another boost to think about.  Also amplifiers from P2W if you're willing to shell out that much money (level 50 amps are VERY expensive):

 

For level 10 this is ridiculous.  Oh and it stacks up another 6% res(all) when I hit with the Might of the Tanker proc I have in Frost, one of the two attacks still active at this level.

 

Also funny:

100% slow resist at level 10!  And 3.28 end/sec recovery NOT counting the Panacea in Health and the Perf Shifter procs in both the taunt aura and Stamina.

 

This is touching nothing and just exemping my existing tanker build.  This will get even better in the later arcs at 15 and 20.  Granted, I can't solo x8 with even this (I... accidentally just tried that by forgetting to change my current setting of +1/x8), but +0/1 or -1/1 would be trivial.

 

Yes, individual powers don't look great for stuff like damage enhancement.  Here is Frost with a full superior MIght of the Tanker ATO set in it:

Yeah, 35% damage enhancement sucks and you can get more by stacking more damage IOs instead of this set, but you'd be skipping out on all the other enhancement here AND the set bonuses, which are considerable.  Not worth it.

 

Edited February 21, 2023 by ZemX

[Snarky]

yeah, i am looking at a corruptor, dark dark.  so damage is important.  knocking them down is key.  and, almost as important, being accurate and having debuffs up so they politely wait their turn. due to weather i will prob be off wed and will dig into mids then.

[Luminara]

To answer @Snarky's question, you'll never hit 95% Damage or Endurance Reduction or Recharge or anything else in any individual power when you're exemplared that low, no matter how you slot.  Set bonuses, temporary powers (amplifiers and empowerment buffs) and pool powers are where you should be looking.

 

My advice: slot low level sets in the powers you'll have access to, and purples/ATOs in unavailable powers.  I know, you're thinking that having the purple sets in the low level powers will mean they're better enhanced, but in actuality, at level 10, they're not.  For example, on my latest 50, I have 5/6 Decimation slotted in Call Swarm (89.2% Damage), and 5/6 Apocalypse (89.9% Damage) slotted in Call Hawk.  Exemplared to level 10, Call Swarm drops to 22.6% and Call Hawk drops to 22.8%.

 

You do want the purple and ATO procs/uniques in the low level powers, if you can squeeze them in, since you'll be able to directly benefit from those, but otherwise, slot sets which are appropriate for the exemplared level, sets which will give active bonuses at that level, in the powers that you'll be using.  Treat the purple sets and ATOs like mules, you're just using them for set bonuses, and you can get those bonuses by slotting them in disabled powers.  You'll have more active set bonuses that way, and that'll be what gets you where you want to be.  Not from cramming in 50+5 IOs, but from piling on set bonuses.  PvP sets are good in low level powers, better overall bonuses than standard sets.  A lot of uniques and procs work below their minimum slotting level, too, so grab some of those (tested Miracle and Numina's, both work at level 10 (in Health)).

 

Grab all of the amplifiers, Secondary Mutation and whichever empowerment buffs you want (Increase Attack Speed and Increase Recovery are worth ten thousand times their salvage cost).  Assault for more +Damage.  Build Up or Aim, if they're available.  Et cetera.  I'd skip Hasten, you shouldn't need it since you'll be at 100-125% global +Recharge with purple sets, ATOs, Increase Attack Speed and Offense Amplifier.

[Hedgefund2]

I thought there might be an interesting work-around to the exemping reduction with quad IOs.  I remembered some oddball way quad-IOs could be used to minimize exemping reduction but it looks like it won't do you any good in the 10-20 range.  Here's the specific text from the exemp page on HC Wiki:

 

 

1. The Minor Bonus Threshold. The game doesn't scale down bonuses that are small to begin with. Any individual benefits of 20% or less are unaffected by Exemplaring down as far as level 21. Enhancement benefits of 10% or less are unaffected by Exemplaring to levels 11-20. Benefits of 5% or less are never reduced by Exemplaring. Ignore Steps 2 and 3 for each separate bonus you have that's at or below these minimums.

 

Lvl 50 Quad IOs give values of 18.6 so would actually be quite good for the lvl 20 content since they're not reduced at all, but that's just some fraction of the 10-20 Praetoria content.

 

Then I thought "what happens if you use 2 lvl 53 acc/dmg HOs and then 4 dmg IOs?" and the result was still unimpressive, about 42% for dmg down to lvl 10, 80ish at lvl 20, which is not bad frankly.  66ish at 15.  

 

Honestly after going through this exercise I'd just make sure I had a full attack chain at lvl 10 (so including the 12 and 14 powers) and not make any changes if that's the case already.

[Hedgefund2]

If you +5 your purples you can get decent damage numbers from them.  Don't bother doing it to the pure damage piece, there's an exemping rule to cap values at .415 before beginning the reduction (step 2 on the exemping page), the pure dmg purple is already at 53 so will be limited before any boosts.  +5ing all the damage pieces of a purple get you to 157.4% (I'll leave reduction to specific levels up to the reader) which ain't shabby.

[huang3721]

4 hours ago, Darmian said:

For lower level Gold I just pick up some Grenades

 

Tami Baker's Defend TPN mission: You get a grenade! You get a grenade!

 

Luckily, there is no friendly fire in CoH. Otherwise, we could have something funny back then. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

If inf is no object, and frankly why should it be an object?, don't just +5 boost your purples and pvps.  If there is a set bonus you are chasing, buy fixed level at your target and +5 them.  Use SOs otherwise.  

[Scarlet Shocker]

Is there not a better way to do this, or at least partially?

 

I seem to recall that if you open a 2nd build you start at level one and have to effectively respec that build to whatever your max build is (I'm presuming 50 in this case)

 

Would it not be better to just level to one or two levels above the content you're running and slot appropriately, rather than building the entire build then exemping down?

 

I don't know if it's actually possible but I wonder if it would be more fun to restart and visit level 1 Goldside contacts and run the content as if you were actually gold. I do appreciate that there's more gold content that a single pass can achieve but that might give you some partial mitigation.

[Andreah]

That's an interesting idea, but I don't think it will work. Iirc, the level the enhancements work from is the maximum level you've earned, not the level you've trained up to.