What to focus on in /Bio?

[Seroster01]

I'm in the process of trying to decide if I want to push my WM/Bio Scrapper into higher levels.  The biggest hang up I have going on at the moment is basically that I have no familiarity with the set other than looking at it in Mids, where basically every power looks both valuable & needs slots.  This leads me into a problem where I end up with far too few enhancement slots for the build compared to the powers that seem to need them.

 

As such, I figured you Friendly Forum Folks could fill me in a bit on what is & is not worth taking from Bio, and where to best invest my slots.  A sub-question to that one is basically whether I should slot any of the +regen/+recovery powers for recovery or just focus on the regen for survivability.  In a bit of a different vein, is it worth it to try and stack some defense on a /bio character? Putting in the 2 3% def IOs seems easy enough to be worth it, but it seems difficult to find set bonuses for typed defenses AND the bonuses on those sets are so low that it looks kinda pointless to chase them.  It seems like it'd be easier & probably more effective to pick 1-2 positional defenses (probably melee & AE?) & work on boosting them instead.

 

I'm mostly concerned with that first bit, but in a slightly different vein I'd like to ask if anyone can give tips on the Adaptation mechanics. I know that they all have unique effects on certain powers, but my lack of familiarity makes it a bit hard to grasp the nuances of all of it.  Do people usually just camp Offensive Adaptation? What overall bonuses does that give?  Is "stance dancing" a significant part of the set, IE switching bewteen adaptations frequently during combat in order to maximize their benefits?  If Offensive is the default, are there specific situations where switching is a good idea?

 

I've said it in my other posts cause I know I write bricks of text: folks don't need to feel like they have to respond to ALL of these questions.  Any bits of feedback or advice about Bio is much appreciated.  Thanks for any answers y'all can give!

[marcussmythe]

Stance Dancing:  -generally- more of a thing at lower levels.  Most people who choose scrapper (over brute or tank) do so because they want to do damage.  As a result, as the build matures, they tend to build in survival and recovery elsewhere, to allow them to lean on the massive damage boost that is bio armor - offensive mode.

 

Even so, efficient mode has been helpful to me for extra healing and recovery.  I do not find defensive mode provides enough extra survivial that I really notice it, though this is likely due to the nature of lvl 50 villain groups.  (Health when fighting lvl 50 mobs tends to be pretty binary.  Either your fine, or their debuffers/heavy exotic damage - defensive adaptation helps with neither of these)

 

As for what powers to take?  I take them all.  The DOT aura as always does halcyon duty finishing off ‘hp sliver’ mobs.  The three survival clickies all have role - Ablative Carapace’s extra hit points are used before every pull, Parasitic Aura once into the scrum if its up (I try to keep as large a PA buff up as often as I can), and DNA Siphon either as emergency heal if surrounded by active foes, or as a regen/rec buff if surrounded by unconcious ones. (Note its very inferior to Parasitic Aura as a regen/rec buff, but is a very powerful self heal)

 

The rest are your usual def or res toggles - take and slot like any other, and then IO set bonus shop around the holes left over.

 

Youll never be particularly burly against energy/neg energy/psi, and I would personally suggest adpating to those damage sources with play choices (know what to put down first), incarnate abilities, temp powers, or the like.  You can in theory build up decent psi and nrgy resist if you devote your build to it, but I find it a bad investment (yes, you can softcap Enrgy/NEnrgy DEF, but we have no DDR, so thats a slender thread)

[Maslow]

What is DDR?

[nihilii]

Dance Dance Revolution. The better your moves, the less defense debuffs affect you. Most defense sets know how to get down, but bio armor has no sense of rhythm whatsoever.

[Murcielago]

What is DDR?

Defense Debuff Resistance, any attack that debuffs your defense you character will take the full effect rather than a percentage of the effect.

 

 

[Seroster01]

What is DDR?

Defense Debuff Resistance, any attack that debuffs your defense you character will take the full effect rather than a percentage of the effect.

 

As a follow-up, DDR is important because without it certain mob types will debuff your defenses to the point that they're useless. This is usually referred to as "Cascading Defense Failure" (CDF). 

 

Basically if an enemy hits a player with a defense debuff, each hit of such a power lowers the effectiveness of any defense you have & thus each hit becomes more likely than the last. This is frequently a large concern because theres a lot more mobs than players on any mission, so 1-2 lucky hits can quickly escalate to the whole mob group wailing on you unimpeded.  Thus vs certain groups with large amounts of defense debuffs it can quickly "cascade" from you being only hit 5% of the time to having such a negative defense that you end up MORE likely to be hit than if you had no defense.

 

This seems an intentional design decision because not getting hit due to your high defense is in itself a defense against CDFs.  The trouble basically comes from the fact that once the CDFs start the end result is usually a death, and the only real way to prevent them once they start is to have the aforementioned DDR.  The only spec I'm aware of with high DDR is SR, though several other sets have low-to-moderate DDR. 

 

Given all of this, CDFs are a major concern for most defense based characters & as a result it's hard for most of the sets that rely on a combination of defense & resistance powers to put much faith in their defensive abilities, because IF they have any DDR at all it's not usually enough to be useful.  Bio is such a set.

[marcussmythe]

What is DDR?

Defense Debuff Resistance, any attack that debuffs your defense you character will take the full effect rather than a percentage of the effect.

 

As a follow-up, DDR is important because without it certain mob types will debuff your defenses to the point that they're useless. This is usually referred to as "Cascading Defense Failure" (CDF). 

 

Basically if an enemy hits a player with a defense debuff, each hit of such a power lowers the effectiveness of any defense you have & thus each hit becomes more likely than the last. This is frequently a large concern because theres a lot more mobs than players on any mission, so 1-2 lucky hits can quickly escalate to the whole mob group wailing on you unimpeded.  Thus vs certain groups with large amounts of defense debuffs it can quickly "cascade" from you being only hit 5% of the time to having such a negative defense that you end up MORE likely to be hit than if you had no defense.

 

This seems an intentional design decision because not getting hit due to your high defense is in itself a defense against CDFs.  The trouble basically comes from the fact that once the CDFs start the end result is usually a death, and the only real way to prevent them once they start is to have the aforementioned DDR.  The only spec I'm aware of with high DDR is SR, though several other sets have low-to-moderate DDR. 

 

Given all of this, CDFs are a major concern for most defense based characters & as a result it's hard for most of the sets that rely on a combination of defense & resistance powers to put much faith in their defensive abilities, because IF they have any DDR at all it's not usually enough to be useful.  Bio is such a set.

 

The lack of DDR is the one fly in the Bioarmor ointment.  This is okay, the set is super-duper good, it needs a few flies to avoid becoming the one set to rule them all.

 

More broadly, CDFs are a common endgame/late designed mob feature.  They are one of the reasons I prefer my scrapper to my brute/tank these days - the scrapper is (effectively) TOUGHER, as it can bring down the debuffing mobs more quickly, and the advantage the tanker holds in RES or DEF melts nearly as rapidly.

 

I will note, to return the conversation to Bioarmor - once you are fighting Vanguard/Longbow/Arachnos/Banished/Talons/etc., monitor your DEF and RES.  Keep the monitor where your eyes track it.  If it starts to fall, take candy now.  If it starts to fall fast, eat your whole inspiration tray while clicking survival powers and running.  Nothing allows you to survive (long) at -100% RES -100% DEF 0 Regen, and those groups will take you there, quickly.  Bioarmor has to be extra careful here, as you may not notice the start of the collapse, due to your healing keeping you up as your DEF fails.. but once DEF fails, Regen and RES happen in seconds, and your dead and dont even know why.

[Seroster01]

I managed to get some leveling in on my WM/Bio & now that I've got more experience I have more refined questions:

 

1.) Offensive Adaptation's bonuses have me a bit flummoxed. Near as I can tell it's both a 30% damage bonus & an effect that causes a 2nd hit of Toxic damage for 10% of damage dealt and THEN has a boosted effect on the -res aura.  Is all of that right? Cause thus far my damage feels pretty freaking OP.

 

2.) Can someone explain how Ablative Carapace works?  I got it pretty late into my session today so maybe more playtime with it will clear it up, but I couldn't tell that it was doing anything ither than boosting my regen when I used it at full health out of combat.  This is partially a question about how Absorb works in general, but a secondary question is whether the +regen of the power is linked to the absorb shield still being in effect or just a normal 30 sec regeneration buff.

 

3.) What do folks usually try to accomplish with sets for Bio?  It looks like reaching the DEF soft cap for F/C is relatively simple so long as you can throw money at WIOs, and there's quite a bit of resistance to F/C floating around as well.  Getting close to or at the Scrapper S/L RES cap also seems pretty doable, but I'm not sure there's much hope for capping S/L defense, unless someone has a trick for this.  Marcus mentioned E/N being a major hole & I'd have to agree at this point.  I can't find pretty much any E/N resistance to speak of, and E/N def is in pretty short supply as well.  Global RECH bonuses also seem a bit hard to fit in since there's not that many places for LOTGs.  How much of any of this is worth pursuing in y'alls opinion?

 

Thanks folks.

[Sovera]

I worked a sentinel with /bio. Not quite the same beast, but... Basically I managed to get it to 33% defenses to be softcapped with a small purple. Taking the sentinel to a comic con farm to test it managed to survive a +4x8 with solely Ablative Armor and Rebuild DNA (their version of DNA Siphon). Parasitic Leech  was not necessary, but take this with a grain of salt because it was a different AT and a character tricked out in Justin (no incarnates used though).

 

As for Ablative Armor it does exactly as it says. Every heal you slot into it both boosts the regen as it does the absorb shield. Five slot Panacea with one generic recharge IO will bring it to ED. I found it pretty powerful on the Sentinel, I could see the ticks of regen and the shield soaking the damage.

[Seroster01]

So this isn't terribly relevant to anything given that the thread has died out, but WM/Bio is one of my favorite characters I've ever played. He's not in any way as supporty as most of the other characters I've liked this much, but he does SO MUCH DAMAGE!  Both AOE & ST he chunks mobs HP with a nice hearty smash. And every piece of his primary has CC!  He seems much more survivable than I expected, can't really put a finger on why (unless it's just all the CC).  He hasn't really fought many of the TRUE nasties though, so this may be false confidence.  Closing in on 50, he already feels exceptionally strong compared to basically any character I had on live.

 

In quasi-related news, I've come to the opinion that Offensive Adaptation is OP as shit.  A permanent 30% bonus damage, 7.5% to-hit, additional-res for the PBAOE, AND bonus toxic damage on every hit.  That's a hell of a lot to gain for 1 power slot & -7.5% to all resistances.  Made me decide to make a /bio Sentinel.

 

Last general thought: I still don't think I'd make a TW/Bio, but if WM/Bio is this strong I can scarcely imagine what that monster is like...

[Zumberge]

Sliding in here, don't mind me.

 

I managed to get some leveling in on my WM/Bio & now that I've got more experience I have more refined questions:

 

1.) Offensive Adaptation's bonuses have me a bit flummoxed. Near as I can tell it's both a 30% damage bonus & an effect that causes a 2nd hit of Toxic damage for 10% of damage dealt and THEN has a boosted effect on the -res aura.  Is all of that right? Cause thus far my damage feels pretty freaking OP.

 

Yes.  This is absolutely the kind of thing that would get hit with the nerf bat if the game didn't suddenly stop existing for a couple years.  The drawback is meant to be a reduction in resistance and defense, but it's actually fairly manageable since it's a numerical reduction and not a percentage-based one, so it's effectively less of a penalty once you factor in SOs, then IOs, then set bonuses.

 

2.) Can someone explain how Ablative Carapace works?  I got it pretty late into my session today so maybe more playtime with it will clear it up, but I couldn't tell that it was doing anything ither than boosting my regen when I used it at full health out of combat.  This is partially a question about how Absorb works in general, but a secondary question is whether the +regen of the power is linked to the absorb shield still being in effect or just a normal 30 sec regeneration buff.

 

Okay, here goes: You activate Ablative Carapace and get a regen boost for 30 seconds.  You also get a buffer of temporary hit points - it's not like Dull Pain, where your maximum hit points increase; it's a bonus, represented by the health bar gaining a grayish-green part, stacked on top of your current health, that can exceed your maximum health value.  Those temporary hit points are taken off first if you're dealt damage, and remain for the duration of the power even if you're healed to full.

 

It's basically armor points.

 

3.) What do folks usually try to accomplish with sets for Bio?  It looks like reaching the DEF soft cap for F/C is relatively simple so long as you can throw money at WIOs, and there's quite a bit of resistance to F/C floating around as well.  Getting close to or at the Scrapper S/L RES cap also seems pretty doable, but I'm not sure there's much hope for capping S/L defense, unless someone has a trick for this.  Marcus mentioned E/N being a major hole & I'd have to agree at this point.  I can't find pretty much any E/N resistance to speak of, and E/N def is in pretty short supply as well.  Global RECH bonuses also seem a bit hard to fit in since there's not that many places for LOTGs.  How much of any of this is worth pursuing in y'alls opinion?

 

Bio's good, but it's also bad because it has typed defenses so maximizing stuff is a little tough.  Depending on your primary and what sets it can take, your options are going to change, but if you're gonna metagame it then probably start with S/L resist and then energy defense.

[marcussmythe]

I managed to get some leveling in on my WM/Bio & now that I've got more experience I have more refined questions:

 

1.) Offensive Adaptation's bonuses have me a bit flummoxed. Near as I can tell it's both a 30% damage bonus & an effect that causes a 2nd hit of Toxic damage for 10% of damage dealt and THEN has a boosted effect on the -res aura.  Is all of that right? Cause thus far my damage feels pretty freaking OP.

 

In my testing, it came to a 30% Damage Bonus (calculated like any other damage bonus) and an additional toxic hit that seemed to be about ~22% of the base damage of the power (so ~10% once you have hit ED from damage enhancements, etc).  My testing wasnt perfect, and there were some anomalous results - for some reason, it provided a much larger bonus, % wise, with Brawl than any other power, but for the rest of the powers it seemed to hang out at close enough to 22% so as to not matter.  I should rerun the testing, though, on a no-enhancements 50 punching another player with known 0 resists, or with a power monitor.

 

And you are right, the result out the back end is pretty crazy.  I can also confirm that the result in play on a mature Titan/Bioarmor Scrapper is insane (as pylon times will indicate).  My gut feeling is that the original design intent was EITHER 30% Dam Bonus OR ~20% Addon to Toxic, and then a mistake was made and both were left in.

[Bloodofcaine]

 I am playing a wm/bio now and I have to say it is fairly overwhelming. Nearly every power in both sets feel necessary, but I am severely starved for slots and picking up tertiary powers. I mean in war mace at level 35 currently I have bash,pulverize,jawbreaker,clobber,shatter,whirling mace, and crowd control. In bio I have everything up to genetic contamination. I know eventually with enough +recharge WM can survive fine on 3 attacks for it's rotation but obviously I am nowhere near that point with this character. I am guessing I can probably safely drop whirling mace at the least, even though I enjoy the power immensely.

 

 I feel more than a bit squishy as I was doing the Midnighter's arc in firstward/nightward and was getting hammered by the lamplighter mobs (guessing cause they heavily use NE attacks) I digress though, anyone have a wm/bio build so I can get an idea of where the bio veterans eventually take their characters? Bio doesn't seem as straight forward as other sets that follow a logic I am familiar with as far as other sets go, but it's bag of tricks seem to keep me entertained over many of the 'set it and forget it' type secondaries.. I actually have to pay attention rather than be half asleep most of the time.

[Snakebit]

Parasitic Aura is the endgame power. While it is up you have so much regent and recovery its almost stupid. On my spines bio I am currently peaking at 154.4 regen with 54% smash lethal. That is in defensive, and I almost never need ablative or the pbaoe heal. 

 

Jump in, hit PA, clear the next two spawns, and then use a purple or 3 for the next two  spawns while you cycle the self heals. 

[Bloodofcaine]

ah I see, well parasitic aura is in roughly 2 and a half levels for me, will see how things pick up then. I usually end up in efficient mode because WM sucks so much friggin endurance even when I have all of the +endurance recovery uniques slotted.

 

 Offensive mode is awesome but I can barely get through a handful of attacks before the endurance bar turns to fumes.

[Snakebit]

On 8/5/2019 at 11:17 AM, Bloodofcaine said:

ah I see, well parasitic aura is in roughly 2 and a half levels for me, will see how things pick up then. I usually end up in efficient mode because WM sucks so much friggin endurance even when I have all of the +endurance recovery uniques slotted.

 

 Offensive mode is awesome but I can barely get through a handful of attacks before the endurance bar turns to fumes.

 

I play mostly in defensive. I'll switch to offensive if the spawns aren't much of a threat and I'll switch to Efficient if I have to single target slog against +4 bosses. 

 

Defensive+PA will keep you killing like a threshing machine. With common IO's slot go 1 Acc 1 Endmod 1 Heal 3 recharge. Get some of the better set IO's and frankenslot it to hell as you get the influence. Keep procs and uniques out of it is my advice. Cheaper sets with +10% regen are pretty good for buffing your surviveability.  My spine/bio doesn't have a full set of purps yet and only 1 ATO but is capable of +4/8 but it's slow as sin. +3/8 has a good pace and is not really much of a challenge. It takes sustained max aggro at +3 with no insps to bring him down., although a misclick on a longer animation attack can get dicey. 2 purple Insps and nothing under +4 can really do much to hurt you. 

 

Make sure you don't use it against 1 or 2 mobs, it's a waste. You want your first click in a fresh spawn to be PA, the more mobs the better. 

 

This is all smash lethal mind you. Things get hairy against attacks that have large amounts of non-SL damage.