Effects of Power Boost on a Dark/Dark Defender

[BlackSpectre]

Over on the villain side, there is an Epic Pool power called Power Boost. Its info page lists a whole bunch of "secondary" attributes that it boosts for 15 seconds. I decided to test out the usefulness of the power with my Dark/Dark defender. I used Power Analyzer to view the stats of the enemies I was targeting/hitting (usually a lvl 30 Tank Smasher). Here are the results:

 

Tank Smasher lvl 30	Attribute	Results of Power Boost		Boost%	Attribute	Results of Power Boost		Boost %
		Before	After			Before	After
Twilight Grasp	ToHit	-19.38	-38.43	98.0%	Heal	480.46	712.36	48.0%
Life Drain	ToHit	-29.06	-57.64	98.0%	Heal	109.87	209.92	91.0%
Howling Twilight	Run/Fly Speed	-54.82	-82.1	50.0%
Darkest Night	ToHit	-84.51	-141.67	68.0%
Fearsome Stare	ToHit	-73.8	-132.8	80.0%
Blackstar	ToHit	-76.25	-151.23	98.0%
Night Fall	ToHit	-29.06	-57.64	98.0%
Tenebrous Tentacles	ToHit	-29.06	-57.64	98.0%
Gloom	ToHit	-29.1	-57.6	98.0%
Moonbeam	ToHit	-30	-59.5	98.0%
Weave	Def	7.6	12.51	65.0%
Tar Patch	No Effect
Shadow Fall	No Effect

  

 

Conclusion:

Overall, Power Boost doesn't appear to be very useful for a Dark/Dark defender. The most common attribute it buffs is the ToHit Debuff, but it's really not necessary. With the base values for Darkest Night or Fearsome Stare an enemy's ToHit will be floored to zero as is, so the buff from Power Boost doesn't give much benefit. 

 

Power Boost says it buffs defense, but it only buffs defense powers, not your base defense. Worse, it doesn't buff the defense in Shadow Fall at all!  So it's not very useful even as an emergency power.

 

The percentage that Power Boost buffs is not entirely consistent with the description in it's info page either, FYI. 

 

It's possible I don't see a way that Power Boost will help, and I'm open to consider other opinions. But sans any epiphany, I'll be RESPECing out of this power very soon.

[Doc_Scorpion]

Wouldn't this be best posted over in the Defender forum?

[MoonSheep]

i am surprised at your conclusion. your detailed analysis shows that power boost - a reasonably fast recharging power available with a single pool choice - benefits almost all of your powers quite considerably, yet your takeaway is that it has no use?

 

- twilight grasp has the same heal % as transfusion from kinetics, they are two of the strongest AoE heals available within all ATs. a powerboosted twilight grasp can really turn the tide of battle, especially if needing to heal a high HP tank in the later levels

- i haven't had time to run my own numbers, but the ones in your table look quite high. would i be correct that you are lvl 35 and casting this on a lvl 30 enemy, aka 5 levels below you? if yes, you will be seeing the strengths of your debuffs multiplied by 1.55 as a result of the purple patch

- consider that when you are fighting enemies that are +3 or +4 above you that your debuff effects will be minimised by 0.65 or 0.48. also consider that some enemies such as cimerorans cast vengeance, improving their to hit. many enemies also cast -def attacks, like CoT, making the team more vulnerable to attack. a powerboosted -to hit can really make a difference in these scenarios, likewise for a number of AVs - the situations where a debuffer is really valuable

- powerboost is fantastic for powers like vengeance too. a powerboosted vengeance gives the team around +63% defense and +68% to hit, this turns them into an unkillable machine. aside from a few niche cases, a defender is incomplete and underperforming without this combo

 

overall, i can't see how a dark defender could live without powerboost unless they were a role player and weren't interested in the efficacy of their alt

 

edit: from a quick numbers calc, looks like you might be a lvl 50 casting these powers onto a lvl 30, 20 levels below therefore benefitting from a 3.1x purple patch debuff booster as a result - let me know if my hunch is correct

Edited Friday at 01:56 PM by MoonSheep

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

9 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Wouldn't this be best posted over in the Defender forum?

 

Done!

 

Edit:  Also, I love Power Boost (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=epic.corruptor_soul_mastery.power_boost&at=defender) and it's cousin Power Build Up (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=epic.power_mastery.power_build_up&at=defender).  It not only boosts your defense and -tohit but also all your mezzes and heals.  Power Build Up also boosts damage and tohit for 12 seconds.  Great for sets that don't have their own Aim or Build Up.

Edited Friday at 03:45 PM by GM_GooglyMoogly

[Uun]

You don't mention it above, but Power Boost should also increase the duration of Howling Twilight's stun, Fearsome Stare's fear and Tenebrous Tentacles' immobilize. It should also be buffing the slow in Tar Patch.

 

The reason Power Boost doesn't affect Shadow Fall's defense is that Shadow Fall is flagged to ignore external strength buffs.

 

I also wanted to add a comment on the duration of Power Boost's effects. PB has a duration of 15s. Toggle powers and pseudo pets will be boosted until the 15s duration expires, but click powers don't have this limitation. For example, the increased tohit debuff in Fearsome Stare will last for the full 20s duration and the fear duration will be increased from 22s to 44s. This is why Power Boost is so loved with sets like Force Field - the increased defense buff lasts for the full 4 minute duration of the shields. Note, any defense shield that also has a resist component (i.e., Cold) cannot be power boosted.

[BlackSpectre]

18 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

i am surprised at your conclusion. your detailed analysis shows that power boost - a reasonably fast recharging power available with a single pool choice - benefits almost all of your powers quite considerably, yet your takeaway is that it has no use?

Mostly due to the 15 second duration. Most of the dark powers only debuff ToHit for about 8-10 seconds. With an 8 second recharge time, Twilight Grasp would only be able to get 2 heals in. A couple more with hasten... but not much.

 

The most I have been able to reduce Power Boost's recharge time is down to 42 secs, mostly using Hasten and Recharge IOs.

 

18 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

overall, i can't see how a dark defender could live without powerboost unless they were a role player and weren't interested in the efficacy of their alt

 

edit: from a quick numbers calc, looks like you might be a lvl 50 casting these powers onto a lvl 30, 20 levels below therefore benefitting from a 3.1x purple patch debuff booster as a result - let me know if my hunch is correct

That is correct, sir! Lvl 50 attacking a lvl 30 Tank Smasher. So yeah, the overall numbers are a bit boosted because of that, but their proportions or percent of boost should be the same. I did think about this when I wrote the comment about flooring an enemy's defense to zero, but I didn't know what boost the difference in levels would give. What do I do to get more accurate numbers? Divide them all by 3.1?

 

OK. Looking at the numbers divided by 3.1, it wouldn't floor enemies' ToHit to zero without Power Boost while fighting even con enemies... and even less of a debuff if the enemies are above my level.  Hmmmm.... 15-20 secs of "un-hittable-ness". Not bad! OK. I'm starting to see the light... 

 

Hitting Power Boost and then jumping into the middle of a group and using BlackStar would effectively floor their ToHit for 20 secs. That's a nice alpha strike avoider! The same for Fearsome Stare. Darkest Night would give 15 seconds of un-hittable-ness. The recharge time for BlackStar is too long to use in every battle, but Fearsome Stare at 24 secs recharge isn't bad!

 

Against a single target, my Twilight Grasp (~4 sec recharge time) could get in 3 heals before Power Boost is over... that would be -37.19 ToHit debuff at that point, but each debuff would last for 20 secs which would let me get in another heal before the 20secs is over giving me -49.58 ToHit debuff for about 4 secs, -37.19 for 4 secs after that, -24.79 for 4 secs after that, and -12.39 for 4 secs after that as the debuff durations tick away.

 

OK. Thanks for this! Looks like I'll be keeping Power Boost 🙂

 

Edited Saturday at 04:20 AM by BlackSpectre

[BlackSpectre]

10 hours ago, Uun said:

You don't mention it above, but Power Boost should also increase the duration of Howling Twilight's stun, Fearsome Stare's fear and Tenebrous Tentacles' immobilize. It should also be buffing the slow in Tar Patch.

I looked but I didn't see any changes in those powers. I can look again...

 

10 hours ago, Uun said:

 

The reason Power Boost doesn't affect Shadow Fall's defense is that Shadow Fall is flagged to ignore external strength buffs.

Bummer.

 

10 hours ago, Uun said:

I also wanted to add a comment on the duration of Power Boost's effects. PB has a duration of 15s. Toggle powers and pseudo pets will be boosted until the 15s duration expires, but click powers don't have this limitation. For example, the increased tohit debuff in Fearsome Stare will last for the full 20s duration and the fear duration will be increased from 22s to 44s. This is why Power Boost is so loved with sets like Force Field - the increased defense buff lasts for the full 4 minute duration of the shields. Note, any defense shield that also has a resist component (i.e., Cold) cannot be power boosted.

That's cool. 🙂

[BlackSpectre]

Here are the corrected numbers...

 

Tank Smasher lvl 30	Attribute	Results of Power Boost		Boost%	Attribute	Results of Power Boost		Boost %
		Before	After			Before	After
Twilight Grasp	ToHit	-6.3	-12.4	98.0%	Heal	480.46	712.36	48.0%
Life Drain	ToHit	-9.4	-18.6	98.0%	Heal	109.87	209.92	91.0%
Howling Twilight	Run/Fly Speed	-17.7	-26.5	50.0%
Darkest Night	ToHit	-27.3	-45.7	68.0%
Fearsome Stare	ToHit	-23.8	-42.8	80.0%
Blackstar	ToHit	-24.6	-48.8	98.0%
Night Fall	ToHit	-9.4	-18.6	98.0%
Tenebrous Tentacles	ToHit	-9.4	-18.6	98.0%
Gloom	ToHit	-9.4	-18.6	98.0%
Moonbeam	ToHit	-9.7	-19.2	98.0%
Weave	Def	7.6	12.51	65.0%
Tar Patch	No Effect
Shadow Fall	No Effect

Edited Saturday at 04:32 AM by BlackSpectre

[MoonSheep]

On 3/8/2025 at 4:31 AM, BlackSpectre said:

Here are the corrected numbers...

 

Tank Smasher lvl 30	Attribute	Results of Power Boost		Boost%	Attribute	Results of Power Boost		Boost %
		Before	After			Before	After
Twilight Grasp	ToHit	-6.3	-12.4	98.0%	Heal	480.46	712.36	48.0%
Life Drain	ToHit	-9.4	-18.6	98.0%	Heal	109.87	209.92	91.0%
Howling Twilight	Run/Fly Speed	-17.7	-26.5	50.0%
Darkest Night	ToHit	-27.3	-45.7	68.0%
Fearsome Stare	ToHit	-23.8	-42.8	80.0%
Blackstar	ToHit	-24.6	-48.8	98.0%
Night Fall	ToHit	-9.4	-18.6	98.0%
Tenebrous Tentacles	ToHit	-9.4	-18.6	98.0%
Gloom	ToHit	-9.4	-18.6	98.0%
Moonbeam	ToHit	-9.7	-19.2	98.0%
Weave	Def	7.6	12.51	65.0%
Tar Patch	No Effect
Shadow Fall	No Effect

 

that looks more like it! 

 

it’s personal preference at the end of the day, though i love powerboost on my defender and that’s just for transfusion or vengeance

 

goodluck with your continued journey on the dark/dark, one of the all time classics