Is secondary effects "worth" it?

[Xandyr]

For example,  Ice Armor slows. Spines also slows. Bio Armor lowers enemy damage output, and Kinetic Melee also lowered enemy damage output. Is it worth combining these power sets?

  In my mind, if you rolled an Ice Armor/Spines Melee tank, and jumped in the middle of a mob, they would practically stand still and their attacks would take quite a while to recharge...thus increasing your durability. Plus it would be funny.

  Thoughts on pairing powers that do similar secondary effects?

 

Thanks

-x

[Uun]

 

 

Slows are an interesting thing to combine. While 50-60% slows don't do much, once you get closer to the movement speed floor (90%), it really messes with the mob AI, especially if they're also trying to flee the area.  On my Fire/Time corruptor I stack Rain of Fire with Distortion Field. On my Water/Martial blaster I stack Whirlpool with Reaction Time. On my Ice/Kin corruptor, the slows from all the blasts stack with Siphon Speed. 

 

Even though Ice Armor only has one power that slows (Chilling Embrace), combining it with Spines could be effective. (Plus you get 2 damage auras.) On the other hand, Bio Armor/Kin Melee seems like it would be underwhelming. 

[Xandyr]

Bio/Kinetic could stack a lot of 

-damage in a hurry. Just not sure if -damage debuff would be helpful.  Especially as how teams practically steamroll everything so fast.

[tidge]

I find AoE Slows to be "ok" if the radius is large enough, but I don't think trying to "double up" would yield particularly noticeable results. The ones that require ToHit checks stand a better chance of affecting more critters, if the spawn size is big enough.

 

I used to think of AoE Slows as a sort of damage mitigation tool (and I suppose they are), but I tend to treat them as a way of getting aggro. The primary downside to slows IMO is that the enemies I most want to slow are ones that have Protection and/or Resistance to slows, and an AI behavior that makes them want to skedaddle all over the map.

[Sovera]

I've tried slows to no particular visible result. At least with Mudpots and Spines. That particular combo made nothing I could see. Stuff like Rain of Fire is something else as the slow combines with the fear.

 

The -Recharge might do something but it's hard to tell since at best it adds half a second as mobs have fast cooldowns.

 

The -Endurance needs to be coupled with -recovery but we have extensive proof is works. Even on an Elec/Bio Sentinel I could sap EBs or Paragon Protectors into not being able to use their annoying T9s.

 

The -defense is, IMO, useless. We already build towards having capped accuracy and the 5% chance of missing will always be present regardless.

 

The -ToHit probably does something, statistically, but those building towards defense ought to be defense capped and those not building towards defense won't have the defense to add to the -ToHit.

 

The -regen only shows sign of existing against AVs.

 

The -res has been extensively tested by the player base and works well.

 

The -damage is another statistical thing. Probably does something, but does it really matter? If we already survive hits from AVs we will continue surviving them. This is more of a WoW thing where certain mechanics are one shots and require special skills so it is barely survivable for the healers to immediately heal to full.

 

 

To further compound this most of these become less effective the higher level the foe is while also having a shorter duration. For a Controller who is slotting for CC this is countered but any other AT who is slotting for damage instead of -def or -ToHit finds those debuffs falling off even harder as they hit +3 or +4.

 

So, the boring answer is, IMO, no, not really for the most part. The -res will always work and be appreciated but everything else is either niche or with a higher perception of being effective than it really is (cross reference with all the claims from players of how their -regen Incarnates makes a difference despite doing zilch). Even the -endurance usually has mobs dead by the time they are sapped and the EBs and PP example are niches. Good to have when in that situation, but still niche.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

-speed can be quite impactful, especially against mobs that do most of their damage through melee attacks. Large amounts can also be quite helpful when fighting part-time olympic level speed runners like Director 11 from Tin Mage and Romulus from the ITF. 

For a while I ran an ice / ice / ice dominator and the stacked -speed from arctic air, ice slick, chilling embrace, and attacks was very effective at limiting AV movement. From City of Data, here are raw numbers that are high enough that even with purple patch effects and AV resistances AVs were pretty much crawling around ...

ice slick ...  -350% maximum running speed, -90% run speed

arctic air ... -350% maximum running speed, -65% run speed, fly speed, jump speed

chilling embrace ... -40% running speed, flying speed, jump speed

+ attacks, which contributed more. 

If I was to hazard a guess, it's probably the large debuff to maximum running speed that is causing the bulk of the slowing done to AVs with these powers being stacked together. The direct -running speed debuffs would contribute to slower movement speed, but probably not nearly as much as reducing maximum running speed.

 

[Frosticus]

It can, but it usually only really matters if you are trying to solo something and you are right on the cusp of succeeding.

For example, on my earth/psi dom I put almost the entire build into making stoney resilient enough to tank +4 AVs. If you can get him to survive barrier cycles you will likely win the encounter. In cases like that even something as small as the -damage debuff from paralytic interface can make the difference.

Another example is on my ill/cold where the heavily resisted -rech still makes enough of an impact in slowing down the dull pain cycle of Reichman that I was able to drop him. Without it, the fight may have never resolved.

 

But in a team? it is almost irrelevant (outside of -res) because you'll just be hammering anything hard with your lore and/or multiple destinies in play. You'll have so much cross-buffing and powerhouse debuffers present that whatever minor debuffs you contribute will be a drop in the ocean. 

[Ironscarlet]

Spine/Ice Scrapper is great. The slow stack and you can farm very good with it. Secondary effect are good if you can floor the mob.

 

Sent get a 90 sec nuke that cap at 8 mob but with recharge u can get it to below 30 sec. You might think meh blaster better. That may be true but when you realise those nuke have massive debuff and you can spam it way faster than a blaster. Blackstar can go -55%  to hit. That is simmilar to if you have 45% def. So you can make a strong survivability toon by flooring there -tohit.  

 

If you focus on secondary do it all the way or nothing in my opinion. Some secondaries do not need to go to 90%. I been out for awhile and explaining the hit mechanic might be off but going above -45% tohit  does nothing but help counter + level so at -55% tohit you counter +2  and so forth mix in alittle Def and you are Def cap to +4 with one blackstar using -tohit and alittle Def.This was a toon I thought up to counter cascading Def failures.

Edited June 26 by Ironscarlet

[biostem]

On 6/22/2024 at 8:48 PM, Xandyr said:

Is it worth combining these power sets?

IMHO, these debuffs shouldn't be looked at in a vacuum;  The question is whether those debuffs contribute to the overall goal of keeping you alive and defeating your opponents.  The hard part, here, is determining just how much of those goals they actually help with.  Frankly, I select sets based upon what fits a particular character's theme/concept or what about teh set as a whole interests me in playing it...

[kelika2]

Thinking of pairing well sets yes.  mace or martial arts and dark armor to stun bosses asap hellyeah.  fire/trick arrow controller to stack all the dots?  fuckyeah.  sr/ma tanker so i can have softcapped defenses without IOs but then IO for resistances or damage?  of course  i got a long list of fire armor alts to stack dots with but.

 

thats like 90% the reason i keep playing is finding sets that work well together

[Yomo Kimyata]

In my experience, it depends on the secondary effect and on the relative level of your enemies.  If you are playing at or close to your enemies' level, you should be golden.  But if you are dealing with the purple patch and fighting +4s, some of the secondary effects will fade into irrelevance.

[ninja surprise]

Another aspect to consider is if the secondary effect means the attack has reduced damage.

Then the debuff has to be good enough to make up for the lower damage.