(Re)Learning an important lesson about Dark Armor and Knockback

[tidge]

I want to say that I once knew Dark Armor didn't include any form of Knockback protection, but it has certainly been re-learned! We occasionally have threads like this, but it has been a while.

 

I almost always drop a +4 KB protection piece in all my builds ASAP, and the current /Dark Scrapper also had a +3 set bonus for a total of 7. I typically use Positron's TFs to judge how I am feeling about KB... and things seemed good. I suppose I could have been lulled into a sense of security from teammates, but between those TF and solo, I was feeling good... my mistake.

 

Getting knocked down is one thing, but getting knocked away from the spawn I am trying to fight/use to heal is murder! Ranges are short and I have multiple PBAoE that won't help me if I am tossed across the room.

 

I am aware of the SG base temp power, but I don't like relying on those to cover this sort of problem.

 

A relatively easy change of my plans from 3xOverwhelming Force to a PVP set gets me +3 more points... no big deal I was just hoping to use some OF pieces. 10 points should be enough except for a couple of things. Setting aside FREEM! the worst is happening when multiple enemies hit me with KB. The defenses on this character are going to be mediocre, and I would have to make serious compromises to my power choices to make significant improvements to defenses.

 

I'm thinking that I should just go to 14 points of protection by swapping a LotG for a Karma. I have a couple of long-recharge powers, by my calculations it is roughly 4 seconds max difference in recharge times of the longest wait powers. The attack chains are already pretty smooth with simple slotting and minimal global Recharge. If this turns out to be overkill, I can always unslot.

 

So what say you all? My experience has been that 7 is effectively the same as 4... but is 10 really enough for x8 spawns of enemies that will be focusing fire on me? Is 14 going to cover me?

[Jacke]

I've heard that once getting KB Protection to either 3 or 4, to be better against usual sources of KB needs Protection of 10 to 12; 7 or 8 doesn't really provide much benefit over 3 or 4.  I tend to follow that rule in my builds.

 

I also have a Claws/Dark Armor Scrapper that I made for @ineffablebob's Classic Hero Challenge:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/24761-the-classic-hero-challenge/

Making the toons and playing the game as much as possible as it was on Release.  I took Super Jump as the Travel Power but didn't take Acrobatics for the KB protection.  Instead, I learned to live with Knockback, effectively using it to redistribute my Toon around the battlefield.

 

I modify my keybinds a lot and I used these two to get into Melee range and scrap (which I tend to do on Melee ATs anyhoo):

• Q               "follow"
• A               "targetenemynear$$follow"

Using them, I could stand having no KB Protection on a Scrapper that just needed to keep attacking to keep Follow Up boosting Damage.  On toons with more complex Melee Powersets and a Toon trying to control the mobs with Taunt effects, getting knocked back would be more frustrating.

 

[SomeGuy]

It's either 4 or 12 that you want.

[biostem]

It's interesting - my "Crabbermind" has the RES IO that grants 4 pts of KB protection, but against some of the new Council, he gets knocked around, whereas he didn't before.  I think one of their updated mobs or powers does the "FREEM!" thing with extra KB...

 

You could always just take hover or toggle on flight, though...

[SomeGuy]

14 hours ago, biostem said:

It's interesting - my "Crabbermind" has the RES IO that grants 4 pts of KB protection, but against some of the new Council, he gets knocked around, whereas he didn't before.  I think one of their updated mobs or powers does the "FREEM!" thing with extra KB...

 

You could always just take hover or toggle on flight, though...

 

That's cause it's basically 4 or 12. They do +12 KB. Or they are attacking you quick enough to stack the KB they have past 4.

 

Obviously there are going to be exceptions, and whatever does more than 12 KB is VERY rare, but things either do less then 4 OR they do more then 8, but less then 12. Yeah, odd one to me too. But how it is.

[tidge]

When the build is complete, I'm sure I'll be at 14. This is at or above the sort of protection I typically have from other armors.

 

Here is another re-leraned lesson about Dark Armor, but about offense.  My build includes Cloak of Fear (for thematic reasons). I knew it had a terrible Accuracy and I have plans to mitigate that, but what I'd forgotten was that while using it, and while it is missing (with poor ToHit chances) it was basically ruining my AoE Streakbreaker chances by pushing all my AoE attacks into the ghetto of requiring more misses to get a Streakbreaker.

 

I picked the power knowing full well that it barely rises to a mediocre level of utility, but this extra level of minor handicap has me seriously considering if I want to keep it. I probably will, again because of theme, but it will always slightly bother me. When the build is complete, the final Accuracy of Cloak of Fear should be on the order of 110%...but I think I'll be delaying it until much later in the build.

[Uun]

My DA tank has 14. There are still a handful of foes that are problematic (i.e., Recluse in MLTF).

[Duckbutler]

I usually take the mez protection from my armor set and call it good enough with the mez resistance I'll passively pick up from set bonuses to shorten the duration if anything does get through. My fiery aura brute I just built got annoyed by all the knockback so I added one of the KB resist IOs. I'll have to double check when I get home but I think I did add a second KB prot IO and that should bring him up to 9, and I know if I did it that I did so because something was still getting through at mag 5 protection often enough to matter.

 

I hate the Freem! attack. Less the high mag knockback and more the popup text that's just annoying.

[Jacke]

On 5/1/2024 at 1:33 PM, tidge said:

My build includes Cloak of Fear (for thematic reasons). I knew it had a terrible Accuracy and I have plans to mitigate that, but what I'd forgotten was that while using it, and while it is missing (with poor ToHit chances) it was basically ruining my AoE Streakbreaker chances by pushing all my AoE attacks into the ghetto of requiring more misses to get a Streakbreaker.

 

I picked the power knowing full well that it barely rises to a mediocre level of utility, but this extra level of minor handicap has me seriously considering if I want to keep it. I probably will, again because of theme, but it will always slightly bother me. When the build is complete, the final Accuracy of Cloak of Fear should be on the order of 110%...but I think I'll be delaying it until much later in the build.

 

Cloak of Fear.  I've often considered it.  Perhaps with 6-slots, 3x Acc/Mez HO, 3x ToHit Debuff/EndRed HO.  It's a high End/s cost toggle in a set with an overall high level of End/s for its toggles.  Fear is nice, but I want to hit mobs in Melee Range to apply the -ToHit.  And that beyond slotting, it's going to need a goodly amount of Global Accuracy and Global ToHit at a minimum.

 

Then I think of the hard times, against Targets that are +3L higher, thus Purple Patch effect is at 65%.  -ToHit values cut to 65%.  Fear duration cut to 65%.

 

And I'd not thought of it, but you're right @tidge, there's the effect on the Streakbreaker too.

 

Then I consider I'm wasting 1 of 24 Power Picks and 5 of 67 Extra Slots in the build on a Power that's still bad.  Getting 6 HOs that aren't cheap.  That even having the Power in the build is affecting the stats that the HC Devs look at.  They see if most Dark Armor Toons don't have Cloak of Fear, then it's more likely to be considered for a redress and perhaps improvement at some time in the future.

 

It comes down to we should not include bad Powers in our builds.  There's likely another Power that can be taken that will do effectively more to help the Toon during play, even with just its base Slot.

 

 

On 5/1/2024 at 3:36 PM, Uun said:

My DA tank has 14. There are still a handful of foes that are problematic (i.e., Recluse in MLTF).

 

When I've been running with the skills Players and Leaders from Everlasting TFs, on those TFs with high Mez/high KB threats, they pack extra Inspirations with the highest Protections per Inspiration.  They find the threats in a TF that need a good tough Tanker build, then back it with enough Inspiration boosting to guard them against those threats.  The Tanker has those Inspirations ready and knows when to gobble them and what to do.  Even to handle Ghost Widow Mag 100 Mezs.

 

Can give enough coverage to get through those known threats.

 

 

On 5/1/2024 at 3:58 PM, Duckbutler said:

I usually take the mez protection from my armor set and call it good enough with the mez resistance I'll passively pick up from set bonuses to shorten the duration if anything does get through. My fiery aura brute I just built got annoyed by all the knockback so I added one of the KB resist IOs. I'll have to double check when I get home but I think I did add a second KB prot IO and that should bring him up to 9, and I know if I did it that I did so because something was still getting through at mag 5 protection often enough to matter.

 

I hate the Freem! attack. Less the high mag knockback and more the popup text that's just annoying.

 

Dark Armor has 0 KB/KU Protection and worse 0 Resists.  (Fiery Aura now gets a petty 1 KB/KU Protection in Temperature Protection.)  As I indicated above, while Scrappers and some other Toons may be able to put up with operating with no or low Protection in the threat environment, it's another case for Tankers.  Tankers should have 10 to 14 KB/KU Protection at a minimum, so it's going to be IOs and IOs set bonuses for Dark Armor and Fiery Aura Tankers.  But they won't have any Resists so when their Protection is breached, they often go flying.  This tends to be a fateful event.

 

It is stupid to gimp 2 of the Protection Powersets in a way that can only be patched with significant and expensive build resources that the other Protection Powersets get and better by just picking and using 1 or 2 Powers.  At least give Dark Armor and Fiery Aura 4 KB/KU Protection and some Resists.  That way they need to allocate less IOs/IO sets bonuses to KB/KU Protection than now.

[Duckbutler]

I checked, I did indeed put in the second KB IO for a total of 9 on that brute. 

[Nayeh]

I believe the recent Council changes dramatically increased the amount of knockback enemies have and find myself basically getting rag-dolled with +4 KB Protection now...

 

As for Dark Armor specifically, you need it so bad. You will get chain-locked fighting the freakshow in Penelope Yin's TF if you don't have a sufficient amount.

[Maelwys]

On 5/1/2024 at 11:24 AM, SomeGuy said:

 

That's cause it's basically 4 or 12. They do +12 KB. Or they are attacking you quick enough to stack the KB they have past 4.

 

I'm pretty sure High level Council "Freem" is a 5% chance for Mag 20 KB.

 

There is a (slightly out of date) list of enemy knockback power Mags on the wiki which is fairly useful for determining how much KB protection you need depending on what you're fighting. Mag 7 protection does give some benefit over Mag 4, but Mag 12 is very much the "sweet spot".

[tidge]

I was running my 14-point KB Scrapper against Council with the +10 point KB SG base buff and was shrugging off the FREEM! It was nice to see nothing but the message. I probably could get 20+ KB protection on Dark Armor without too much effort, but I feel like I'd be compromising some of my other build choices.

 

I suspect I will be making some slight adjustments to my Dark Armor Tanker who will be coming out of mothballs to get some anniversary goodies.