Theorycrafting: Ice/Bio proc heavy-ish build.

[Sovera]

Here we are again. I was going to continue this on Sunsette's Project thread following up with @oldskool but felt it would just derail the purpose of the original thread.

 

With trying to maximize procs being the new rage I have tried to cobble something as well. If anyone has tried the Elder Scrolls Online combat (ugh) they will be familiar with the concept of 'throw AoE DoTs on the floor then keep on doing your ST rotation'. This follows the same idea which is why I did not go for Dark.

 

Throw Ice Storm + Blizzard on ANYTHING THAT MOVES! Packs of mobs, even hard targets. Then pick a hardier target and go to town with the ST rotation. Bonus points by applying Fire Cages first, which has a 5 second recharge, then apply both rains, which coincidentally require 5 seconds to cast, so once cast we can reapply Fire Cages and neatly keep everything bunched up for the rains, even bosses.

 

Frost Breath is kept for solo play/exemplar where we have a better handle on the flow of battle but also as a mule (if we need to mule might as well go for a useful power). For endgame teams Frost Breath is not expected to find use.

 

 

At first I tried for the very proc heavy approach of three procs per attack frankenslotting the remaining slots. But this cost too much recharge and left a big-ish gap in the rotation requiring a fourth attack. We do have a fourth attack in Chill Ray/Fire Cages though.

 

I decided to go for a weaker approach with just two procs per attack. @Redlynne posted math on why a Decimation BU proc on a T1 can be made to work and the math seemed solid so I incorporated the idea.

 

With Bitter Ice Blast I'm torn between five slotting a Decimation for the recharge, but then only have one damage proc in the attack (I don't particularly favor the BU approach anyway preferring damage procs), five slotting Apocalypse with the proc and then adding another one, or finally use three ACC/DMG HOs and then three damage procs.

 

The problem lays in the gaps that it causes. Ice Bolt + Bitter Ice Blast + Ice Bolt only achieves 3.7-ish seconds with Bitter Freeze Ray recharging in 4.4 seconds if slotted for recharge. This makes a compelling argument for Ice Blast since a longer animation time would 'stretch' the recharge requirements. Unfortunately Sentinels require our T1 for Offensive Opportunity. That said Defensive Opportunity still applies the -20% res (arguably the most important part of the whole Opportunity shtick) and getting endurance could be considered an indirect benefit that changes Incarnate and slotting approaches.

 

In any case it is not a *big* gap and for normal play this could be a moment to insert Fire Cages. If we are taking down a spawn it does a bit of AoE damage while stopping runners (everyone knows about those, there will always be some who will see things are going badly and run to the other side of the map and then come back later to shoot us in the back). But it also applies to hard targets such as an AVs as well since my god do they love to run nowadays! That said using Fire Cages can be otherwise said to be a DPS loss (though we can rejig the slots and incorporate a -res proc in it though I did include those in the rains) in a more min maxed setting but if using it in the ST chain then it might further 'stretch' the recharge requirements allowing for the whole three procs per attack. Three proc slots would be a lot of recharge bonus lost though, and that would *increase* the recharge requirements.

 

Bitter Freeze Ray's slotting alternates with Bitter Ice Blast. If one is using Apocalypse then the other will be using the HO/Decimation slotting. I am really not in love with the uber slow 2.6 animation. That's on a go-to-the-kitchen-and-make-a-sandwich level. Perhaps Chill Ray could be considered since it animates nearly a second sooner, but it would be difficult to make a compelling argument when Chill Ray does nearly half the damage of Bitter Freeze Ray.

 

An alternative that would lose Fire Cages and cram a useless pre-power into the build would be the mighty Dominate. Very low base damage though, and the useless pre-power makes it a hard sell. What makes Dominate so strong for other ATs is obtained in Bitter Freeze Ray with the exception of Dominate's much much faster animation times at the cost of doing three times less base damage than Bitter Freeze Ray.

 

 

Other alternatives: with all the proc slotting we can/are be short on accuracy, so ditching Combat Jumping and Athletic Regulation to grab Maneuvers and Tactics. Our poor endurance though...

 

 

I ramble, it's late, so here's the build:

 

 

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Edited August 1, 2019 by Sovera

[Redlynne]

49 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I decided to go for a weaker approach with just two procs per attack. @Redlynne posted math on why a Decimation BU proc on a T1 can be made to work and the math seemed solid so I incorporated the idea.

Yet more proof (as if we needed it) that I'M A BAD INFLUENCE™ ON PEOPLE ...

 

[Sunsette]

I'm not particularly strong on Ice or Bio, so withholding comment for the moment since I'm diving into something else. Will come back if no one else says anything. Wanted to say the idea of bottoming out the PPM chance intentionally on a build is pretty novel/clever and a useful way to get around the lack of Aim naturally in the set.

[oldskool]

Further down, the math is that the Build-Up proc is around 3 DPS and a damage proc is 6.9 dps.  This sub forum has already noted that the proc was around an 8% increase which is only slightly off the numbers in that thread.  

I'm all for the chuck lots of dice method of doing things, but the Build-Up proc is dubious.  It also has a lockout period where nothing happens (Edit: full duration 10 seconds, 5.75 seconds of benefit with 4.75 seconds of downtime which I assume is an internal cooldown but may not be in reality), but to each their own.  I considered it in Scramble Thoughts on Psi Blast as well as the Sentinel Opportunity Strikes 5pc (including proc) since it is one of the few attacks in a set with 20 second base recharge.  You can shift the damage proc madness to Dominate and chain it with Will Domination.  But I digress.  

The damage layering idea is actually one of many reasons I have Tashibishi (Ninja Tools) in my build.  Unlike in ESO, enemies run out of it in CoH (which actually works to my advantage), but if anything was dumb enough to sit in it they'd have a bad day.  For ESO it's ground attacks (that is being changed, the current meta is about to flip), but in CoH the Burn Patch concept has always been there.  Not every power set can use it, but it has always been a thing. 


 

Edited August 1, 2019 by oldskool

[Sunsette]

See/understand those points. Question: Are we sure build-up has a lock-out period? I know one was hypothesized for Force Feedback but our testers haven't seen corroboration of that and am now a little suspicious of claims of internal cooldown. Thanks.

[oldskool]

Fair enough.  The power HAD a 10 second duration where part of that buff was 4.25 seconds of nothing happening.  I do not recall in my own testing if it still behaved that way because that wasn't what I was looking for.  I was looking to confirm chance of the event and it's added DPS value along with Gaussian's in Tactics.  

I opted for a small sample size, due to my own time constraints, but what I observed fit with hypothesis from mathematical expressions.  I'm not sure I can devote a lot of time to really checking that on Dual Pistols since no power in that set has a good chance to trigger it, but I'll keep it in mind whenever I get around to Psi Blast.  I haven't checked my game characters yet, but I suspect I just sold a few of those procs.  If not, I'll check what the in-game text says. [It says nothing useful 😞]

Edit #2: And I really should be careful about my use of terms.  Lockout not a good choice of words.  The power granted has a portion of the duration where nothing happens.  I'm assuming that means it cannot proc again, and on Reddit there was a person claiming that Gaussian's in Tactics can double up [I *think* Gaussian's have a similar duration, but it may just be a straight 5 seconds].  I take that with a grain of salt, but it could be interesting to investigate further.

Edited August 1, 2019 by oldskool

[nihilii]

I can confirm Gaussian BU and Decimation BU stack. I frequently get both procs going, which makes for a nice nuke. 🙂

[oldskool]

1 hour ago, nihilii said:

I can confirm Gaussian BU and Decimation BU stack. I frequently get both procs going, which makes for a nice nuke. 🙂

What powers are these in, and are you using the Decimation by itself or as a set? 

[nihilii]

Gaussian BU is in Aim, Decimation BU is in Dominate (which is slotted with 5 procs in total + Thunderstrike acc/dam/end).

[oldskool]

Dominate makes sense.