Cold / Dark Optimization

[Maelwys]

Salutations 'fender forum dwellers.

It's new toon time again... and I've been cooking a build which started out as more of a concept thing, then quickly evolved into a "just how far can I push this?" exercise.

I realize that Cold is more of a meta pick on Corruptors (for good reason, especially Ice/Colds) but I wanted to make a new "useful" Defender. And since the base buff/debuff values of Cold are better on the Defender AT it is almost able to bump an otherwise unbuffed ally directly to Softcap by itself. Combining that with Dark Blast (whose -ToHit debuffs are likewise maximized on a 'fender) can push things even further; providing plenty of wiggle room for incoming Defense Debuffs even before Ageless etc.

So this pairing on a Defender should be able to handle all a Team's +Defense needs plus the usual gamut of Cold Debuffs; whilst also leaving plenty of opportunity to procbomb its own attacks and fit in a few fun/utility picks.


What I've got at the moment:

MITIGATION (Others) 

• Cold Bubbles + Arctic Fog + Maneuvers = Allied +Defense sitting at ~40.18% before Clicky Incarnates.
• Arctic Fog is also granting 31.4% Resistance to Fire/Cold/Energy and Slow Debuffs.
• Frostwork can be kept up on 6 allies simultaneously; increasing their MaxHP by >1000 (hardcapping the majority) plus some Toxic resistance.
• Spirit Ward can be kept up on one ally, granting a +506.28 Absorb buffer (renews at +50.628 every 2s) plus some healing via a Panacea proc. 
• Each of the blasts inflict -9.38 -ToHit. The basic ST attack chain can keep at least 5 stacks up constantly on a single target; so even versus a Level 54 AV that's still another 0.13*0.48*(5*9.38)=2.927% -ToHit. Tenebrous Tentacles can stack it twice for a little ongoing AoE debuffery; and Blackstar inflicts a whopping -62.5% for 20s every ~40s.
   

MITIGATION (Self)

• Personal Mitigation is leaning quite heavily on S/L Typed Defense (45.31%) and Ranged Positional Defense (28.86%). Due to all the -ToHit inflicted via the blasts; when pew-pewing stuff it will almost always end up effectively softcapped vs Ranged.
• A good chunk of MaxHP (a hair over 1.5k) and a >200HP Life Drain every 6.204s. Plus both Defender ATO procs (meh) and the Preventive Medicine Chance-for-Absorb Unique.
• Resistances aren't wonderful (at least for S/L/N/T/P - it's at 75% vs Cold and not bad vs Fire and Energy) but I'm not sure they're needed. I've got a variant of the current build with Rune of Protection (via dropping either Snow Storm or Assault) but I'm currently leaning towards not taking it; and picking up Clarion for Mez protection.

 

OTHER DEBUFFERY

• Heat Loss and Benumb and Sleet are Perma. A Sleet pseudopet patch can nearly be out constantly (could shave another ~0.5s off with an extra slot). Infrigidate (with an Achilles' Heel Proc @71.6% activation chance) is part of the regular attack chain. Snow Storm is taken too, albeit perhaps a bit late in the build. Blackstar is up roughly every 40s and aside from the aforementioned -62.5 ToHit also has a capped chance of activating the Fury of the Gladiator -Res Proc.

DAMAGE OUTPUT

• Lots of procs. Activation Rate admittedly suffers a bit because I've chosen the Agility Core Paragon in order to bump up the Defense numbers and get the important Cold Powers perma'ed... but it also *just about* gets the Infrigidate > Gloom > Moonbeam (fast) > LifeDrain ST Attack Chain seamless (using truncated Arcanatime and assuming no additional delays/lag - unlikely - leaves Infrigidate 0.144s short, which is virtually unnoticeable in practice and can technically be closed with another +10% Global recharge via Ageless/Lores/Empowerment Buffs/Whatever).
• Patron pool Build Up with a Gaussian Proc is almost up as often as Blackstar.
• Assault Radial Hybrid, and Lore Pets (BP's extra -Cold res is pretty nice).

There's also a Patron Pet (I know they tend to die to a stiff breeze, but hear me out...) whose main attacks gain the benefit of two damage procs plus Soulbound; and has at least 25% inherent Defense on top of the Bubbles/Fog/Maneuvers. It's also Perma. The extra damage, debuffs and CC it provides may be forgettable whilst teaming; but it can be a target for Spirit Ward and Frostwork when soloing.


Anyway, here's the actual build: Defender - Cold_Dark (IceMastery+Infrigidate).mbd





Thoughts?

I've been going back and forth a bit over whether or not to pick up Rune of Protection (which would likely involve dropping either Assault or Snow Storm) - aside from the obvious benefits of RoP itself, that would let me swap the Steadfast Unique in Arctic Fog to a 3rd Gladiator's Armor, then swap the Zephyr IO in Mystic Flight to a Winter's Gift Unique. Or alternatively, I could drop the Sorcery pool entirely in favour of the Medicine Pool (swapping Spirit Ward for Aid Other + moving the Panacea back into Health; and swapping Mystic Flight for Super Jump).

Whilst I have played several bubblers in my time; Cold's buffs not gaining any long-term benefit from Power Boost / Power Build Up and factoring in consistent high -ToHit debuffs makes the balancing act a bit more interesting... 🤔🥶



[EDIT:] I messed around a little on Brainstorm this afternoon ahead of building it properly on the Live servers. The toon seems to perform more or less as expected; and the Defender ATO procs are actually triggering pretty reliably in TT (~26.95% chance per enemy hit for a 107HP AoE heal every ~4.5s; although it won't trigger more than once per activation) and Sleet (~25.64% chance per enemy hit for an AoE +7.5% Absorb buff on cast only... but it lasts for 20s and doesn't stack so is effectively "perma") which might actually be useful given that those powers will be spammed vs larger mobs.
 

Edited 22 hours ago by Maelwys

[Uun]

• I'd be inclined to drop Snow Storm for Rune of Protection. I dropped Snow Storm on my Cold/Beam and don't miss it.
• If you're going to take Tenebrous Tentacles, slot it with %dmg procs and move Defenders Bastion elsewhere. Its damage is really low. 
• Move Vigilant Assault from Sleet to Life Drain. You'll get more mileage out of the +absorb proc as the AoE will center on you, not the pseudo pet. Slot Sleet with 2 recharge IOs or Undermined Defenses rech, rech/end, def/rech/end.
• Does the Panacea proc in Spirit Ward buff you or the target?

[Maelwys]

Thanks for the response.

Point taken RE Snow Storm/RoP.

TT is mainly there as a mule for the DB set (plus the stacking immobilize effect to keep larger mobs away from me and/or bouncing in Sleet) - it was either that or Night Fall... AoE damage output is not really this toon's forte! 🤣

Unfortunately Life Drain is currently procced; and moving the Recharge-laden VA set to it would floor its activation rate (even the 5PPM VA Proc would only have 47.58% chance). I'm also not sure that the Absorb would actually benefit much from this - its buff seems to currently center from the caster (me!) anyway rather than the Sleet pseudopet. Currently Sleet is recastable within the VA proc's 20s duration; and with an average spawn of enemies it'll have capped liklihood of activation. So best case it might just overrwrite itself a bit sooner (on average every ~12.5s rather than every ~18.5s). Without ATOs being a concern I'd typically Slot Sleet with 1x Lv50+5 Rech plus 1x Acc/Rech HO or Ragnarok.

Panacea Proc in Spirit Ward does indeed buff the target; they'll get a chance for some Health and Endurance upon casting and every 10 seconds thereafter (chance is exactly 50%). In *most* heals Panacea proc will end up buffing the target; Spirit Tree and Triage Beacon are particularly worthwhile...
 

Edited 19 hours ago by Maelwys

[Maelwys]

Swapped Snow Storm for RoP and played around a bit more on Brainstorm...

With all /Dark's ToHit debuffage I'm finding the extra S/L Defense from Frozen Armor to be overkill for everything short of Cimerorans; and I'm not overly impressed by the Ice Elemental's performance (whilst their Proc chances are nice; their kamikaze AI is making them rather prone to dying even with well beyond softcapped defense + MaxHP + Arcane Ward + Panacea).


So I've changed Epic Pools to Soul Mastery and managed to wiggle a bit more global recharge out of things: Defender - Cold_Dark (SoulMastery).mbd



And with RoP toggled on:


This new variant can swap between Agility Radial T4 for "full-turtle-mode" Teaming and Musculature Radial T4 for everything else. The smidge higher Global Recharge gets the ST attack seamless with Agility Alpha (and about half a second shy with Musculature Alpha... Infrigidate needs ~30% additional Recharge% to fully close the gap. Ageless + an Empowerment Station buff can get it there without negatively affecting Proc rate). Saturated Soul Drain provides better uptime than Build Up did; and the extra +Res doesn't hurt even without RoP. 

It is even more slot-starved than the original build however, so I've had to drop the Kismet and the 3rd slot in Stamina. Thankfully the former isn't missed with Soul Drain + Infrigidate/Sleet (Moonbeam's Fast Snipe damage bonus gets capped even with 1 foe hit by Soul Drain); and the latter is very superfluous with Heat Loss (or Ageless) running.

The Fortuna Mistress pet is not quite as damaging against a Single Target as a Procced-up Ice Elemental. But it's not far off. And it's considerably more survivable (with "Prefer Ranged" AI + Flight; plus up to 30% scaling Damage Resistance) and it comes with a variety of CC (including a stackable Mag3 Hold and a Mag4 Stun). It also has a rather decent Nuke that's available once per summoning which inflicts a -RechargeTime debuff for 20s that is even more potent in strength (70%) than a Cold Defender's Snow Storm (62.5%).

So I suspect I have a winner...

Still interested in other feedback/opinions though! 👍
 

Edited 32 minutes ago by Maelwys