Interface choice

[TungstenShark]

Starting the Incarnate process on my TW/Bio Scrapper. I need a better understanding of how the Interface Incarnates work, specifically Degenerative. I have several -Res procs slotted in to my powers, so Reactive is probably less useful. Paralytic seems nice to make the mobs easier to hit, but may be unnecessary once I am fully IO'ed out. How exactly does Degenerative work? Does it just take a chunk of hitpoints off a mob?

 

What is your choice for the Interface slot? Maybe I am overlooking better options.

[Hopeling]

Degenerative is a -2.5% debuff to the enemy's max hp. Due to the way CoH handles hp buffs/debuffs, this effect is best thought of as being like -res: it takes fewer hits to defeat the target. In fact, they are mathematically equivalent; reducing enemy HP by half is indistinguishable from making them take twice as much damage, if you couldn't see damage numbers overhead.

 

There is often some confusion over this; for example, I often see people say that Degenerative is useful primarily to reduce enemy regen, since regen occurs in 5% ticks. This isn't really accurate; -res makes it easier to outpace regen too, but "it takes fewer attacks to undo each regen tick" is qualitatively different from "regen ticks occur less often".

[TungstenShark]

Ah  ha, this is helpful, thanks. The Incarnate debuffs do not stack, correct? So in the case of Degenerative it is the ability to keep the -2.5% health debuff up for the entirety of a fight, constantly re-applying, right?

 

So is there any consensus for Scrappers as to which the best Interface choice would be?

[marcussmythe]

The default is the Reactive, Dot-heavy version.  More damage is always useful.

 

If you like hunting GMs, the -Regen MAY have value, not all GMs seem to get AV resistances, but the general choice for hard targets is -HP.  Note that on AVs/GMs its not a percentage, but a flat value -1000... this helps rather a lot, as the dot stacks to 4, and 4000 less HP max and associated regen makes them easier to wear down.

 

Ive not heard good about the CC based procs.  The Res debuff focus is... okay... 10% res debuff at best. 

[Hopeling]

I usually take the DoT interfaces. I'd rather have a decent amount of damage than a minor debuff.

 

Interface debuffs do stack, up to 4 stacks. But that's 4 stacks total between all players applying the debuff, so if you're taking a "popular" debuff like -res, then in teams you're not really contributing anything extra. So there is some incentive to take the less popular Interface powers. I believe the DoT powers also have a limit on how high they can stack, so again, there's an incentive to take the ones other than Reactive.