Acid Mortar and procs

[JayboH]

2 hours ago, Psyonico said:

I believe there is a bug with Spectral interface, @Jacke and I did some testing with a full team running t4 spectral on test and power analyzer showed some stacking, but even 8 players couldn’t immobilize an even level Romulus AV in the 3rd mission of an ITF.

Has it been reported?  I've always wondered if the immob was working correctly.  You can tell when it comes to Cognitive's confuse pretty easily as they change direction.

[JayboH]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

Caltrops can hit the Slow Movement cap by itself (it's -90%; which means you need -148.5 vs +3s. Caltrops inflicts -80% base, so you need at least 85.625% Slow Enhancement in it including Set Bonuses and Alpha) and you have Web Envelope and the forced root vomit animation of Poison Trap available too. The Arsonist's Firebomb is only up once every 17.584 seconds, which is more than enough time for your other CC abilities to recharge... so personally I'd consider Spectral's immobilize effect to be very superfluous.

 

Simply put, you're choosing between an increased opportunity to inflict Immobilize and an additional -10% resistance debuff on the very things your henchmen are currently attacking. From a build efficiency point of view IMO the latter is the clear winner.

I agree if I soloed a lot.

[Maelwys]

6 minutes ago, JayboH said:

Has it been reported?  I've always wondered if the immob was working correctly.  You can tell when it comes to Cognitive's confuse pretty easily as they change direction.

 

There's no need to report it because it's working as intended.

 

As shown up thread, the Spectral Procs inflict a 4.3s base duration Mag 2 Immobilize and can stack up to four times. And to successfully Immobilize Rommy you need at least a Mag7 effect, meaning four stacks. 8 teammates shooting at him would still need to be landing an awful lot of hits every 4.3s to keep the stacks fully saturated, even if they chose Core Spectral (25%) instead of Radial Spectral (12.5%). (Spectral and Cognitive mez effects have a much lower activation rate than the secondary effects of other Interface Procs!!)

[JayboH]

11 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

 

There's no need to report it because it's working as intended.

 

As shown up thread, the Spectral Procs inflict a 4.3s base duration Mag 2 Immobilize and can stack up to four times. And to successfully Immobilize Rommy you need at least a Mag7 effect, meaning four stacks. 8 teammates shooting at him would still need to be landing an awful lot of hits every 4.3s to keep the stacks fully saturated, even if they chose Core Spectral (25%) instead of Radial Spectral (12.5%). (Spectral and Cognitive mez effects have a much lower activation rate than the secondary effects of other Interface Procs!!)

Sounds like an Interface rebalance wouldn't be a bad idea.  As powerful as Confuse can be, it seems Cognitive has been hit twice needlessly.  It does a lesser dose of psionic damage - why - because of the Confuse?  Then why is Confuse's chance so low?  etc.  Degen's toxic seems needlessly nerfed as well - it's not uncommon for game mobs to be resistant to toxic.  There was a thread awhile ago that showed that toxic was one of the most commonly resisted by critters, with fire being least.  Not sure if I can find that thread but I will look later.

 

EDIT:  would be nice to get lethal/smashing/cold DoTs on Interface also.

 

EDIT 2:  Found the thread.  HERE it is.

Edited July 7 by JayboH

[Maelwys]

28 minutes ago, JayboH said:

Sounds like an Interface rebalance wouldn't be a bad idea.  As powerful as Confuse can be, it seems Cognitive has been hit twice needlessly.  It does a lesser dose of psionic damage - why - because of the Confuse?  Then why is Confuse's chance so low?  etc.  Degen's toxic seems needlessly nerfed as well - it's not uncommon for game mobs to be resistant to toxic.  There was a thread awhile ago that showed that toxic was one of the most commonly resisted by critters, with fire being least.  Not sure if I can find that thread but I will look later.

 

Interface slot abilities are "always on", there's no lengthy cooldown or risk of attacking the wrong target. Their effects are set purposely low in terms of both Activation Rate and Magnitude/Duration so that it's beneficial to have more than one person on a team slotting the same flavour. However MMs get exceptionally good milage out of them because having 6 henchmen lets you make a lot more attacks in the same space of time.

 

The main issue I have with the Cognitive and Spectral effects is that whenever you're fighting +3 foes, due to Purple Patch the duration becomes just ~2.8s per stack. Realistically keeping two or more stacks up is extremely unlikely unless you have multiple sources focus firing on one single target. And even then, with a 25% proc rate ("best case" with a T4 Core Spectral) you'd need 15 separate attacks landing within a 2.8s period in order to attain a >90% likelihood of inflicting at least two Mag2 Immobilize effects. So it's almost impossible for it to reliability affect anything other than minions.

 

Personally I think a lot of the Incarnate abilities need a rebalance pass. Lore Pets in particular are ridiculously imbalanced. I'd certainly not be opposed to the Interface abilities all getting a standardized DoT plus one secondary effect, however keeping the damage types different for flavour purposes seems perfectly fine. AFAIK the Devs have never balanced abilities around how commonly restricted a particular damage type is.

 

Edited July 7 by Maelwys

[JayboH]

4 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

Interface slot abilities are "always on", there's no lengthy cooldown or risk of attacking the wrong target. Their effects are set purposely low in terms of both Activation Rate and Magnitude/Duration so that it's beneficial to have more than one person on a team slotting the same flavour. However MMs get exceptionally good milage out of them because having 6 henchmen lets you make a lot more attacks in the same space of time.

 

The main issue I have with the Cognitive and Spectral effects is that whenever you're fighting +3 foes, due to Purple Patch the duration becomes just ~2.8s per stack. Realistically keeping two or more stacks up is extremely unlikely unless you have multiple sources focus firing on one single target. And even then, with a 25% proc rate ("best case" with a T4 Core Spectral) you'd need 15 separate attacks landing within a 2.8s period in order to attain a >90% likelihood of inflicting at least two Mag2 Immobilize effects. So it's almost impossible for it to reliability affect anything other than minions.

 

Personally I think a lot of the Incarnate abilities need a rebalance pass. Lore Pets in particular are ridiculously imbalanced. I'd certainly not be opposed to the Interface abilities all getting a standardized DoT plus one secondary effect, however keeping the damage types different for flavour purposes seems perfectly fine. AFAIK the Devs have never balanced abilities around how commonly restricted a particular damage type is.

 

They already did a rebalance of Lore pets awhile back.  Remember Cims were completely dominant before the rebalance?

 

How common is it to resist the resistance debuffs, especially AVs and the like?

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, JayboH said:

They already did a rebalance of Lore pets awhile back.  Remember Cims were completely dominant before the rebalance?

 

How common is it to resist the resistance debuffs, especially AVs and the like?

 

The "rebalance a while back" was thirteen years ago. 

 

Homecoming has never done a Lore balance pass, and it shows. Banished Pantheon Radial and Talons are head and shoulders above the rest unless you need a very specific buff/Debuff (like Longbow for -Regen, Arachnos for Defence or Carnies for +damage)

 

Resistance debuffs will always multiply your existing damage output by the same percentage, regardless of the enemies damage resistance. This is because resistance buffs resist damage resistance debuffs proportionally; so applying a -10% resistance debuff to an enemy with 0% damage resistance results in you going from dealing 100 damage to them to dealing 110 (+10%) and applying the same Debuff to an enemy with 50% damage resistance  results in going from 50 to 55 damage (+10%). Meaning that Resistance debuffs act as a direct multiplier to your damage output (including Procs and pets) and are therefore always useful unless you're hitting the Debuff caps (VERY unlikely)

[JayboH]

16 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

The "rebalance a while back" was thirteen years ago. 

 

Homecoming has never done a Lore balance pass, and it shows. Banished Pantheon Radial and Talons are head and shoulders above the rest unless you need a very specific buff/Debuff (like Longbow for -Regen, Arachnos for Defence or Carnies for +damage)

 

Resistance debuffs will always multiply your existing damage output by the same percentage, regardless of the enemies damage resistance. This is because resistance buffs resist damage resistance debuffs proportionally; so applying a -10% resistance debuff to an enemy with 0% damage resistance results in you going from dealing 100 damage to them to dealing 110 (+10%) and applying the same Debuff to an enemy with 50% damage resistance  results in going from 50 to 55 damage (+10%). Meaning that Resistance debuffs act as a direct multiplier to your damage output (including Procs and pets) and are therefore always useful unless you're hitting the Debuff caps (VERY unlikely)

The link I posted before seems to make Fire and Negative the best.  Low chance of resist and low resist when it hits.

[Jacke]

One thing not being considered here is that all these Pets and Pseudopets do not get the benefit of the Caster's Global Buffs.  A few Pets (like Trip Mine) don't get benefits from Buff auras either.  (Only Pets that are an extension of the Toon and can't be targeted, like Electrical Blast's Voltaic Sentinel, get the benefit of the Caster's Global Buffs.)

 

These Pets see no Level Shifts.  To a Pet, +4 content is actually +4 (not the +3 that Toons with a T3 or T4 Alpha Boost slotted experience).  No Global Accuracy or ToHit.  No Global +Damage.  Etc.

 

I've worked with 2 rules to avoid needing to calculate the final ToHit of Pets to get that near to 95%:

• Slot the Pet Summon Power with ED-capped Accuracy (93% or more).
• If an important Pet Attack isn't autohit or doesn't have at least 1.2 Base Accuracy:
  • The Pet also needs either:
    • Tactics (even a single-slot only Tactics on Masterminds is enough).
    • -Def on the target the Pet is attacking.

Those attacks like Trip Mine that ignore external buffs like from the Leadership Pool (and only have the benefit of the Enhancements slotted) fortunately have 1.2 Base Accuracy on their attack.

 

 

[tidge]

From my MM (not a Corruptor) I found that 4-slotting Undermined Defenses (reasonable set bonuses, plus Recharge), a level 50+5 Accuracy and a %-Res piece was optimal. Any %Damage wasn't noticeable compared to getting a "damage boost" via -Res for the henchmen.

 

There is a slight subtlety (for me) for the choice between Achilles and Annihilation: Enemy critters can only have one %debuff from a particular (proc) source at a time, a second application from anyone simply extends the duration of the debuff... my MM happens to have a lot of powers that take Annihilation, so (when solo) there is a balance between maybe extending the duration of a smaller -Res, or maybe getting some periods of a bigger -Res. 

 

 

On 7/5/2025 at 12:52 PM, Maelwys said:

Poison Trap from /Traps doesn't proc well either

 

I find Poison Trap to be excellent for Superior Entomb's Recharge /%+Absorb.