Pylon Damage Thread

[StrikerFox]

One thing I'm curious with on Savage Melee:  how does Hemmorage impact DPS.  I want to look into this myself, but my cubital tunnel syndrome (carpal tunnel syndrome's lesser known sibling) is flaring up and preventing me from playing any WASD-controlled games (which is like... 75% of everything I have) for more than a dozen minutes, so it'll be a while before I can look into it myself.  So, if anyone wants to look into it, I'm curious on these scenarios...

 

1.  No Hemmorage

2.  Use Hemmorage all the time

3.  Hemmorage > Blood Thirst only (no/minimal loss of Blood Frenzy stacks)

 

If anyone wants to look into those on some Pylon tests, that'd be great.  If not?  Well, I'll get to it myself in a week or two and share when my left wrist isn't wanting to nuke me for using WASD controls, holding my steering wheel a certain way, or whatever other arbitrary actions it decides it doesn't like.

 

Did some testing last week. 5/6 of the most recent posted videos are SM testing. It was underwhelming no matter what I did. Hem at 4 stacks, Hem at 5 stacks, and no Hem at all. https://www.youtube.com/user/longlivekenny2011/videos

[greenstalker]

Sting of the Wasp has a 5s base recharge. If it had a 10s recharge, but kept the DPA/stats it has, in "theory" it'd have a higher chance to proc attacks but it'd be an awful move with that amount of recharge.

 

Gambler's cut is still the way to go for filler.

 

Back in live, I tested GC a lot to see if each attack in it would have a chance to trigger a proc and it had. I remember seeing first attack of GC triggering Achille's heel proc resulting the second hit having more damage however critical hit for the attack triggered only once still sometimes it would add damage after the second attack instead of first one so GC literally double checks for trigger but won't trigger twice or it was that way back in live.

[Sir Myshkin]

1) For bio armor, you can only achieve this level of recharge by either A) taking Agility Alpha (not recommended for scrapper) and/or B) the first substantial boosts of ageless destiny (which is doable but requires a little more attention to watching your recharge time and switching mid-attempt).

 

Trying to be concise on points without going to far down the rabbit hole: Spiritual Core is the best choice for Bio Armor in maximizing recharge potential between it and the attack set paired with it. The Heal enhancement benefits a third of the abilities in the set, plus Health, and help reduce necessary slots. Spiritual Core with Ageless actually gave me enough reduction to make Follow Up gap-less for 30/s, .1/s for the next 30, and then .2 for the remaining minute. Given that there's nothing really in Bio Armor that truly benefits from that level of recharge however, I stayed with Musculature for the across-the-board improvement in damage.

 

I didn't know what kind of recharge you'd tried packing into your builds, so that's why I asked if it was possible for you to achieve that attack chain. And the second -Res Proc isn't really a big deal to have Shockwave for, because Water Spout can provide that option, plus I personally would rather stick the KB to KD proc in Shockwave over a -Res for overall gameplay.

 

2) I think it's entirely possible that degenerative could shave off time on my pylons, but I want to clarify that in these tests (up to this point) my goal has not been to have the "ultimate pylon kill times..."

 

While what you're doing with these test-generated builds is interesting from a statistical stand point, most people that come in to this thread aren't chasing purpose-built AV (Pylon) killing builds, but seeing how well their general PvE build holds up, its sustainability, and whether it can take down an AV on its own. Of which, it was already determined back on Live so many years ago that anything less than a Boss generally dies too fast for any of the Interfaces to matter, so it's really everything above that which has to be considered, and Degenerative is just hands-down the best choice. Of course we can't all run into an Incarnate Trial with Degenerative, we'll hit the effect cap on the ability and kind of waste the effort. When I asked about trying to run Claws with Degenerative, it was purely a curiosity of what would be the best ST it could manage; I wasn't trying to get you to min/max your build.

 

When you talk about Neutering your build though, that raises questions for me on what you believed you had to sacrifice to make a "general" build versus why that particular build couldn't actually unify more damage potential to increase overall effectiveness. I am also curious as to why you went through so much focus on getting S/L Defense Soft Cap when Bio Res caps to S/L. When I did the Pylon test I activated Ablative before hand (as I have it capable of being Perma), and didn't touch anything else after that. In all the test runs I did (which'll be below), I only activated any of my click abilities when the Drop Ship came by and nailed me for ~1,500 damage.

 

I wanted to also be assured that I wasn't sure experiencing an isolated scenario with the Pylon and my build (since I don't have an actual 50 with Bio Armor yet), I went out and started hunting level 54 Rikti around the mothership en masse. Turns out I just had a really solid build and didn't really care about what kind of mob I jumped into, the passive effects took care of anything that managed to hit me. As an ultimate back-up I put Hibernate in as an emergency ability just as I put Shadow Meld on my Regens and Dark Armors.

 

Anyway, at this point its gotten kinda late and I burned my night and hoping on Test to verify this myself. Kinda bummer it takes so long to put together a build, but I really did want to know where Claws would sit optimized with Bio Armor's Offensive Adaptation. So now I head to bed super late after posting this:

 

Running:

T4 Musculature Radial, T4 Hybrid Assault Core, T4 Degenerative, and T4 Ageless Core (Purely for the Recharge, don't need the recovery, and I definitely wouldn't use Ageless outside of this specific test if it were an active build, Rebirth +HP is a far better tool for Bio Armor).

 

As the standard, no insp, no temps, (and no pets of any kind).

 

3:33 (307) - Baseline (no activation of Hybrid) of FU > Focus > Slash with its widening gap. Rech on FU was 3.63/s, I wanted to see how impactful the gap would be.

2:40 (367) - Inclusion of Shockwave to fill the gap after the first 20/s. I had my global recharge up, once it dropped below 156% I had to cycle in Shockwave. Of note, this is without the -Res proc in Shockwave.

2:20 (401) - Ran FU > Focus > Slash > SW with Water Spout (-20% Proc), and activated Hybrid

2:10 (422) - Moved the -20% Proc over to Shockwave and didn't use Water Spout any longer, activated Hybrid

2:50 (353) - Swapped to Musculature Core and T4 Reactive to test comparatively. No active Hybrid

2:17 (407) - Musculature Core, Reactive, and Activated Hybrid

 

So Degenerative Core and Musculature Radial: 422, Reactive Radial and Musculature Core: 407

Musc Core on attack values is about 6-8 points difference (more) per attack, would average around a +/- 7 DPS difference, so the flip/flop on those would be like 429/400

 

 

[Sir Myshkin]

I am confused.  My guess is having a proc sitting after the stealth from AS is doing crazy things to damage out?  Also, results are wildly variable.  Not sure what is causing variation, though lag may impact times - Im on a wireless network.  Also, that 2:27 time is such an outlier that I have no idea - I looked up in the middle of that run and went ‘WTH?’.  My best guess is a very lucky string of Quick Strike generating Assassins Focus (I may try a version with no recharge bonus slotted into it - my guess is that Assasins Focus is treated as PPM, and Quick Strike has an already high recharge thar doesnt want enhancing - coupled with Assassin Strike seeing more Hide procs by chance (I notice that it seems AS is procing Hide very unreliably on my test server high recharge slotting - on my live lowbies, with little recharge yet in AS, it proced hide more often, it seems.  This also goes to the idea that the chance to hide proc is PPM, but I dont know how Id leverage this, other than to make sure your Assassin Strike’s recharge is no better than the recharge of the heavy hitter your planning on using with it - not an issue with KM, as KM has no worthwhile heavy hitter to run off of AS)

 

If it makes a difference for comparison's sake:

 

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Also, for that odd time of 2:27, are you sure you didn't activate the Hybrid on accident? Because that time would've lined up more with Active Hybrid, otherwise anything roughly around 3:40 without Water Spout or a Hybrid is in line with what I had.

 

Edit; Posted the wrong build first time.

[marcussmythe]

I should have said - this is KM with Invuln, rather than SR, and the build is a bit lower recharfe than yours - theres a slight hitch in Hasten, as I want my softcap-all more than I want perma-hasten.

 

Ill try to look at the build when I get to wok, even so.

 

RE: Triggered Hybrid - Maaaaybe?  I mean, error creeps in.  Id have sworn I didnt, but thats why they are errors.

 

In any event - No Water Spout in my build, would make a real difference I think from the -Rec proc you can put there.

 

My gut tells me if we kept everything else and switched to Bio, wed see damage out go up by a bit around ~30%, which doesnt leave KM looking terrible.

[Rumors]

 

Did some testing last week. 5/6 of the most recent posted videos are SM testing. It was underwhelming no matter what I did. Hem at 4 stacks, Hem at 5 stacks, and no Hem at all. https://www.youtube.com/user/longlivekenny2011/videos

 

I'm not expecting Savage to have outstanding single target DPS, considering its big move is a massive AoE rather than a mega-smash or something, so underwhelming isn't the real concern.  Your videos suggest Hemmorage literally doesn't increase or decrease DPS by any appreciable amount, so using it seems somewhat pointless.  But I kinda feel like there's some missing variables in there.

 

...although I do wonder why you're using Shred in a ST attack chain.  I'm not a numbers guy to calculate this myself, but Pines suggests it has among the worst DPS and DP-Animation in the set and its DP-Activation is slightly worse than Maiming Strike.  I mean, I get you can put a -Res proc in there, but I'm not 100% sure the proc is worthwhile when the base DPS is about half of the other single target attacks.

[Dismiss]

I did 2:55 on an illusion dark controller. This did require me keeping the tarantula from mace mastery alive which can be problematic under AOE. Better than I expected. DPS number of course doesn't make sense since I was taking advantage of -500% regen debuff.

 

T4 agility

T4 flawless radial reactive

T4 assault - not clicked

[StrikerFox]

...although I do wonder why you're using Shred in a ST attack chain.  I'm not a numbers guy to calculate this myself, but Pines suggests it has among the worst DPS and DP-Animation in the set and its DP-Activation is slightly worse than Maiming Strike.  I mean, I get you can put a -Res proc in there, but I'm not 100% sure the proc is worthwhile when the base DPS is about half of the other single target attacks.

 

Adding Achilles' and/or Fury -dam res procs is usually a dps gain. Sir Myshkin's KM tests showed a massive improvement when he remembered to slot Achilles' into Water Spout. He was getting an average time of 2:45 until slotting Achilles', he got a time of 1:57.

[Rumors]

If I understand right, Waterspout is a pseudo-pet with a 30 second duration and a rather long recharge (not 100% sure how PPM works with pseudo-pets, but, at worst, the Spout would be attempting to proc on its own while you do other things).  It also only has a ~1.3 second cast time.  Shred has a cast time of 2.3 seconds, which is enough time to use both Maiming and Savage Strike and is slightly faster than Savage + Vicious (before lag and server time), and you're using it constantly.  And since it has a muuuuch shorter recharge, you have to use it constantly to reliably proc.  I think you might be spending too much time animating Shred to get the same value from it as in Waterspout or a lot of other -Def powers in other sets

 

It's also about the same cast time as Blood Thirst (which REALLY needs to be dropped down to Build Up's cast time), which you can easily have up 50% of the time before you even touch set bonuses or Blood Frenzy.  I'm not sure on the duration for Achillies or Fury procs or how much uptime is possible on them in PPM, however.

 

 

I'm not super mathy on this game, but I think if you're going to utilize the -res debuff procs in Savage, you might be better using Waterspout from Leviathan for them and running different melee powers.  Maybe a lot better even.

[Kaeladin]

A few points I wanted to respond to:

 

I didn't know what kind of recharge you'd tried packing into your builds, so that's why I asked if it was possible for you to achieve that attack chain. And the second -Res Proc isn't really a big deal to have Shockwave for, because Water Spout can provide that option, plus I personally would rather stick the KB to KD proc in Shockwave over a -Res for overall gameplay.

 

Water Spout is a great move, but it also comes with a very large base recharge. In previous sets, when I tested with water spout, most of my results ended up with the difference in times being net neutral. It's possible that it might favor a set like Claws, where most of its set moves are relatively moderate DPA moves (while water spout has strong DPA), but I've also noticed how much the -res procs in general bring for sustained damage; Katana, which numerically is inferior to Martial Arts (in terms of total DPA per move in the proposed chain, for similar time spent) beat out MA's times handily and I'm reasonably confident it's because of the presence of two -res procs in its attack chain (one achilles and one fury of the gladiator) that it can keep relatively high uptime on. It might be worth testing the difference in DPS times with using water spout (with -res proc) AND having -res slotted into shockwave. The KD/KB IO is totally fine and a quality of life thing; in this testing, I was mostly focusing on numbers.

 

While what you're doing with these test-generated builds is interesting from a statistical stand point, most people that come in to this thread aren't chasing purpose-built AV (Pylon) killing builds, but seeing how well their general PvE build holds up, its sustainability, and whether it can take down an AV on its own. Of which, it was already determined back on Live so many years ago that anything less than a Boss generally dies too fast for any of the Interfaces to matter, so it's really everything above that which has to be considered, and Degenerative is just hands-down the best choice. Of course we can't all run into an Incarnate Trial with Degenerative, we'll hit the effect cap on the ability and kind of waste the effort. When I asked about trying to run Claws with Degenerative, it was purely a curiosity of what would be the best ST it could manage; I wasn't trying to get you to min/max your build.

 

I made this plug because of certain features I noticed in some recent videos I watched of people's kills. I remember seeing (I think an old) /SR stalker who had something like low-mid 20% defense values to melee and ranged defense, but softcapped AOE, and an incredibly high % damage bonus value (which I know only came from cramming as much % damage boosts from sets as humanly possible). I have no issue with it myself, but I wanted to differentiate that, in my testing, I am aiming for what "I" consider to be a reasonably built, general purpose PvE /bio build.

 

I'm also actually now a bit less certain about the impact of degenerative vs. reactive in my testing; I still think it's quite possible that degenerative, on average, leads to slightly faster completion times. I went with reactive because that is normally my choice for general play (and it's a very solid interface that is pretty staple), and also to keep some of my variables relatively within control; the fact that I end up with somewhat different recharge %'s in my builds already bothers me, just due to how each set is slotted slightly differently, but I can at least keep the "core" components relatively constant (all my T4's, softcapped s/l defense as a build goal which normally is very close across primary sets).

 

When you talk about Neutering your build though, that raises questions for me on what you believed you had to sacrifice to make a "general" build versus why that particular build couldn't actually unify more damage potential to increase overall effectiveness. I am also curious as to why you went through so much focus on getting S/L Defense Soft Cap when Bio Res caps to S/L. When I did the Pylon test I activated Ablative before hand (as I have it capable of being Perma), and didn't touch anything else after that. In all the test runs I did (which'll be below), I only activated any of my click abilities when the Drop Ship came by and nailed me for ~1,500 damage.

 

This is a two part response from me. First off, I do believe that I am creating a build that does unify damage potential (and keeps the utility skills reasonably powerful); my attacks are generally slotted well, I think, and I've grown reasonably efficient with my slotting so that I can maximize my "bang for my buck." When I say neuter, it means in this case doing things like dropping parasitic aura to a single slot, removing any healing/endurance IOs for DNA siphon and dropping it down to a single slotter (when it's one of your most versatile moves in your kit), dropping ablative carapace to 1 slot, all for the purpose of squeezing more slots in for offense. That's what I'm referring to.

 

Also, I'm not sure how you're managing to softcap s/l resistance on bio armor with offensive adaptation; it provides I believe a -7.5% res all penalty to you, and getting capped 75% s/l resistance despite that? I'd need to see how you're building your characters to believe it, respectfully.

 

As for why I work to cap my s/l defenses, this table should provide some idea as to where I'm coming from:

 

Defense/Resistance milestones for achieving multiples of effective HP.

Credit: Angelhood

 

1x effective HP at 0 defense/resist

2x effective HP at 25 defense or 50 resist

3x effective HP at 33.3 defense or 66.7 resist

4x effective HP at 37.5 defense or 75 resist

5x effective HP at 40 defense or 80 resist

6x effective HP at 41.7 defense or 83.3 resist

7x effective HP at 42.9 defense or 85.7 resist

8x effective HP at 43.8 defense or 87.5 resist

9x effective HP at 44.4 defense or 88.9 resist

10x effective HP at 45 defense or 90 resist

 

Defense effective HP and resist effective HP are multiplicative (i.e 43.8 defense and 83.3 resist is 48x effective HP)

 

Non-tank non-epic ATs can achieve 40x effective HP

Epic ATs can achieve 66.7x effective HP

Brutes and Tankers can achieve 100x effective HP

 

3:33 (307) - Baseline (no activation of Hybrid) of FU > Focus > Slash with its widening gap. Rech on FU was 3.63/s, I wanted to see how impactful the gap would be.

2:40 (367) - Inclusion of Shockwave to fill the gap after the first 20/s. I had my global recharge up, once it dropped below 156% I had to cycle in Shockwave. Of note, this is without the -Res proc in Shockwave.

2:20 (401) - Ran FU > Focus > Slash > SW with Water Spout (-20% Proc), and activated Hybrid

2:10 (422) - Moved the -20% Proc over to Shockwave and didn't use Water Spout any longer, activated Hybrid

2:50 (353) - Swapped to Musculature Core and T4 Reactive to test comparatively. No active Hybrid

2:17 (407) - Musculature Core, Reactive, and Activated Hybrid

 

So Degenerative Core and Musculature Radial: 422, Reactive Radial and Musculature Core: 407

Musc Core on attack values is about 6-8 points difference (more) per attack, would average around a +/- 7 DPS difference, so the flip/flop on those would be like 429/400

 

It's great seeing your times! However, I noticed a problem with your testing protocol. If I'm counting correctly, here's how many times you tested each condition:

 

Baseline (no hybrid; FU - Focus Slash): 1

Baseline w/ shockwave (no res proc): 1

Hybrid with Water Spout (-res): 1

Hybrid without Water spout, moved -res to Shockwave: 1

Swapped Alpha and Interface, no hybrid: 1

Used new Alpha and Interface, hybrid: 1

 

You tested six completely different conditions, once each. You cannot create any generalized conclusions based on this; if you notice in the times I sampled (which, statistically at a number less than 30 or so attempts, is very hard to create generalized conclusions about and not statistically robust, but testing takes awhile!), I at least did multiple (4 - 10) attempts with the exact same kit because you can see for yourself that some of those differences in time were pretty drastic even with the exact same kit.

 

I would encourage you to focus on replicated testing, I'd say an absolute minimum of 5 kills (I know the statisticians are rolling their eyes back like it's an exorcism; it should be preferably more; I'll try to do this myself), just to at least get "something". As it is, there's far too many variable changes and not enough attempts/replications.

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

Wow. This thread blew up. Good reading. Amazed at some of the times I'm seeing.

Rebuilt my main Claws/SR back to his scrapper origin.

Followup, focus, slash, repeat.

Alpha Spiritual T4

Interface Reactive T4 75% DR debuff/25% fire dot

Hybrid Assault dbltap energy

Achilles' in slash

Both AT +crit IOs are slotted, the proc in followup

Focus has Javelin's chance for toxic.

280 DPS.

Guess I'm gonna have to look at BIO armor.

 

Are my incarnate picks just plain wrong? I have to go spiritual for the fu, focus, slash chain to be pauseless.

[Dismiss]

Not using musculature on a scrapper is a pretty significant DPS drop. I'd try to work it in somehow.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Roger that, Dismiss. Seemed to be the trend throughout the thread.

[StrikerFox]

If I understand right, Waterspout is a pseudo-pet with a 30 second duration and a rather long recharge (not 100% sure how PPM works with pseudo-pets, but, at worst, the Spout would be attempting to proc on its own while you do other things).  It also only has a ~1.3 second cast time.  Shred has a cast time of 2.3 seconds, which is enough time to use both Maiming and Savage Strike and is slightly faster than Savage + Vicious (before lag and server time), and you're using it constantly.  And since it has a muuuuch shorter recharge, you have to use it constantly to reliably proc.  I think you might be spending too much time animating Shred to get the same value from it as in Waterspout or a lot of other -Def powers in other sets

 

It's also about the same cast time as Blood Thirst (which REALLY needs to be dropped down to Build Up's cast time), which you can easily have up 50% of the time before you even touch set bonuses or Blood Frenzy.  I'm not sure on the duration for Achillies or Fury procs or how much uptime is possible on them in PPM, however.

 

 

I'm not super mathy on this game, but I think if you're going to utilize the -res debuff procs in Savage, you might be better using Waterspout from Leviathan for them and running different melee powers.  Maybe a lot better even.

 

My response didn't really have anything to do with Water Spout, it's about -dam res proc. Sir Myshkin had an average time of 2:45 with WS integrated. The 1:57 time was with WS + Achilles'. He shaved off about 48 seconds off his pylon time with a single IO replacement.

 

I was testing SM, and SM only. Any Scrapper, regardless of primary/secondary, can take WS. I wouldn't consider SM to be a great powerset if it relies on non-SM powers to get it there.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4:19 with T3 musculature vs 4:13 with T4 spiritual. Just notating for later.

[Rumors]

 

My response didn't really have anything to do with Water Spout, it's about -dam res proc. Sir Myshkin had an average time of 2:45 with WS integrated. The 1:57 time was with WS + Achilles'. He shaved off about 48 seconds off his pylon time with a single IO replacement.

 

I was testing SM, and SM only. Any Scrapper, regardless of primary/secondary, can take WS. I wouldn't consider SM to be a great powerset if it relies on non-SM powers to get it there.

 

 

I can definitely understand the sentiment of wanting to see the set by itself on its lonesome.  But, not to be uh... rude or confrontational or anything, but it seems like a weird place to draw the line at APP/PPPs when, in your videos, you were using Hasten, Assault, Quickness, and Incarnate passives.  Not to mention all the set-bonuses that come from non-SM powers.  I think at that point APPs/PPPs are all fair game since you have everything else any primary can have.

 

 

And I went into Waterspout since... in best case scenario, Shred you have to continously activate to get its -Res debuffs and it's a long, slow attack, so much that you're way overslotted for recharge in your Hemmorage-less videos versus 'Spout having roughly same up-time from pseudo-pet ticks while you do other things.  Worst case, Shred's low cooldown means it's harder to maintain the -Res debuffs due to PPM while Waterspout pretty much applies them 100% of the time for a looooot less animation time over the course of a fight.

 

You use Shred for your debuff, you use it a loooooot, and its low DPA/S may potentially be negating the usefulness of the proc over a naturally stronger ST chain.  Especially since Shred is going to be affected by the "area factor" that reduces its PPM since it's a cone.  (Waterspout is affected too, but seems like less of a big deal since you fire it and then it does it's thing instead of needing a recast every 5 seconds.)

 

Mind, I'm not 100% sure what the superior option is since there's frustratingly little information on how current PPM works in any real detail and Paragon Wiki's equations are probably outdated.  I'll try to make note of looking into it myself whenever my wrist stops being a dick lest someone beats me to it.

[Sir Myshkin]

Water Spout is a great move, but it also comes with a very large base recharge. In previous sets, when I tested with water spout, most of my results ended up with the difference in times being net neutral. It's possible that it might favor a set like Claws... in this testing, I was mostly focusing on numbers.

 

30/s Up, 30/s Down, that's not terrible, and for many who've included specifically for heavy targets, that 30/s time window is significant enough that it massively swings over all time down. Typically this would only be the choice in situations where access to the proc is not possible (like Kinetic Melee). In the case of Claws, Shockwave can take the extra proc, and by incident moving the proc into Shockwave was enough that the continual consistency of the attack improved (marginally) over all times compared to relying on the proc being in WS itself. In a higher recharge situation, where Shockwave could be skipped, then Water Spout is a competent replacement to access the proc. That is my determination from testing.

 

This is a two part response from me. First off, I do believe that I am creating a build that does unify damage potential (and keeps the utility skills reasonably powerful); my attacks are generally slotted well, I think, and I've grown reasonably efficient with my slotting so that I can maximize my "bang for my buck." When I say neuter, it means in this case doing things like dropping parasitic aura to a single slot, removing any healing/endurance IOs for DNA siphon and dropping it down to a single slotter (when it's one of your most versatile moves in your kit), dropping ablative carapace to 1 slot, all for the purpose of squeezing more slots in for offense. That's what I'm referring to.

 

Also, I'm not sure how you're managing to softcap s/l resistance on bio armor with offensive adaptation; it provides I believe a -7.5% res all penalty to you, and getting capped 75% s/l resistance despite that? I'd need to see how you're building your characters to believe it, respectfully.

 

As for why I work to cap my s/l defenses, this table should provide some idea as to where I'm coming from:

 

So, I've seen that table before, and I've seen it, and other similar ideas applied to several survival concepts for this game (in fact, I still have one of them that weights all aspect of a character and determines total survival "value"). Without really getting into the weeds of it all, that chart doesn't account for the other aspects of what sets like Bio Armor employ (Regen and Absorb). Capped resists, backed by high regen and complete hit-mitigation with Absorb mean Bio Armor can pretty consistently ignore most of what it gets hit with from S/L damage types as they'll easily be repaired in a fast hurry. If you don't have 45% on F/C/En/Neg to go along side that 45% S/L, then you've gimped the very point of what Bio Armor is designed for with its multi-layered mitigation approach.

 

For slot reductions, after messing around with the various values, DNA Siphon, Ablative Carapace, Parasitic Aura, and Inexhaustible, those all kind of max-out at 3 useful slots, 4 for Inexhaustible since a performance shifter +end is useful in auto powers. I found by simply taking Musculature Radial (for the End Modification), I could drop each of those abilities by one slot and move those 4 new slots somewhere else in the build, essentially taking out what would've been my end modifier. To help boost end/rech enhancement in those respective powers I also used Enhancement Boosters on the IO's slotted there to bring their effective use back in-line on those two aspects. I was able to 6-slot six attacks, and 5-slot a seventh, which is about all that most would have anyway.

 

For Resistances, its not "soft cap," there is only a Hard Cap. For Scrappers, that's 75%. For the Claws/Bio I used, with only one target in range, it actually was at 73%. If I'd had four more Rikti on me, I'd've been at 75%. The build could technically squeeze in the Shield Wall 5% +Resist, but I felt that a Perf. Shifter +End proc was worth more considering that normal gameplay would've seen cap on its own, and 73% is still really strong. And yes, that is with Offensive toggled on. If I turn Offensive off, I shoot to 80.59 (capped to 75%). I intentionally over-drafted on S/L resists so that I could have perma-Offensive, and also maintain "cap" resists. However, I will mention that this all hinged on Water Spout being in my build on how I managed some of these slots. Given that the build can't full optimize for a lack of Shockwave, leaving it in (-Res proc or not), and taking out Water Spout gives me five slots to mess with as I'd flip Leviathan for Soul and get Shadow Meld into the build for Incarnate content, and then I could dump that 5% into the build, flip a couple of .. well, basically there's a bit of domino effect that I could actually fine-tune the build a step further if I wanted to.

 

But it sits at 32.5% S/L, 47.5% F/C, 44.5% En/Neg (Defenses), 73% S/L (Resists), 472% Regen (Only Ablative active) and 124.9% Max HP. If I max and activate DNA Siphon: 864% Regen (and that power has a 31.48/s rech). If I also then activate a max Parasitic: 1,781% (that's 124 HP/s, not as good as I can get get with a Regen character, but then Regen doesn't spot 73% S/L Resists...).

 

Edit to add: Figured you're probably just want to see the actual build so this is what I ran on test ...

 

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
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|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

 

You tested six completely different conditions, once each. You cannot create any generalized conclusions based on this...

 

I would encourage you to focus on replicated testing, I'd say an absolute minimum of 5 kills...

 

I'm going to be brutally blunt on this: I've been playing the game long enough, and been a part of Pylon Testing for so long that I already know what to expect in variance, and can most definitely come to a generalized conclusion. In this particular case I was testing multiple different aspects, all based on a baseline you already determined. Of each scenario you've posted multiple times with Bio Armor, on average they've been within a variance of 6/s from top to bottom, and all had a fairly consistent middle ground within 2-3 seconds from a median value. I haven't got the time, or honestly the patience to go out and test five variables five times--25 instances, when there aren't even that many Pylons for crying out loud, at 4:00 a piece to have all powers recharged equally each test... just, no, not happening, that's nearly an hour and a half--just to prove what one or two times is sufficient to do when I'm only altering one simple thing in a given run based on an existing baseline you created.

 

Inconsistencies will show up on their own. If something demonstrates too radical, I'll retest to confirm by course of action, but if its within reason of what I expect to see based on past testing data, then there's no point in repeating more than twice, at best. If someone wants to go out and make the effort to reconfirm on their own, more power to them, which is exactly where this whole effort even came from. You didn't want to run the one extra test, just to see, so I went onto test and did it myself.

 

Five of my six runs were weighing their variance against the established baseline you already posted. Since none of them were outside expectation, or wildly variant, there was no reason to keep running them, or be concerned with the expected variance. All I wanted to see was a simple, potential optimal number, and I shared those findings. We're not writing the next scientific review paper on game design, we don't need that insane a data-sample.

 

[Sir Myshkin]

4:19 with T3 musculature vs 4:13 with T4 spiritual. Just notating for later.

 

Welcome back Bill! Interesting to see a familiar name when so many have decided to use different ones this go-around.

 

Want to toss some food-for-thought your way since I was just testing Claws with a different Secondary. We had looked at FU > Focus > Slash as being the "best" we could get back on Live, and I still believe that when it comes to maximized recharge, that can be up there, but with the changes to PPM and the ability to access another -Res proc with Shockwave, it looks like a T4 Musculature Core with a FU > Focus > Slash > SW (-20%'ers in Slash/SW) is a solid choice, maybe even the optimal choice if there's not other reasons you'd be chasing Recharge with Spiritual.

 

If your Follow Up's recharge (without Spiritual) is over 3.3/s, and you have Shockwave with a Recharge at 4/s or less, then I'd say shoot for the Musculature route with Shockwave, and put a -20% Res in it (the Annihilation one so you have two different effect sources, Achilles -20 in Slash).

[nihilii]

But, not to be uh... rude or confrontational or anything, but it seems like a weird place to draw the line at APP/PPPs when, in your videos, you were using Hasten, Assault, Quickness, and Incarnate passives.

 

Bit of a tangent, but I think it's not illogical to be dubious of Water Spout specifically. It makes your DPS great against a lone, immobile static target. But in many other situations, the DPS gain is negligible or even null. Hasten, Assault, Quickness, incarnate passives will boost your ST DPS whether you're against a pylon, jumping from group to group gunning down minotaurs in the ITF, chasing down a flying Diabolique... You get the idea.

 

There's nothing wrong with Water Spout for what it is, a great situational DPS buff. But if you want to use pylon tests to extrapolate your overall performance, things get muddier.

[Kaeladin]

So, I've seen that table before, and I've seen it, and other similar ideas applied to several survival concepts for this game (in fact, I still have one of them that weights all aspect of a character and determines total survival "value"). Without really getting into the weeds of it all, that chart doesn't account for the other aspects of what sets like Bio Armor employ (Regen and Absorb). Capped resists, backed by high regen and complete hit-mitigation with Absorb mean Bio Armor can pretty consistently ignore most of what it gets hit with from S/L damage types as they'll easily be repaired in a fast hurry. If you don't have 45% on F/C/En/Neg to go along side that 45% S/L, then you've gimped the very point of what Bio Armor is designed for with its multi-layered mitigation approach.

 

I could see a case being made for E/N, but F/C damage? There aren't really many in the way of those damage sources at the high end, and in your build I noticed that you softcapped defenses to those damage types but none of the others; however, it's pretty easy to softcap your e/n defenses with a little tweaking as you're already just about there.

 

I'm going to disagree with your assessment that "I've gimped the very point of what Bio Armor is designed for with its multi-layered mitigation approach."

 

Most moves in this game are tagged with a smash or lethal component, and defense utilizes the better defense value for whichever components are tagged with it (e.g. a fireball that does smash and fire based damage will use the defense rating of your best one to either). I don't want to pull out arbitrary percentages, but it's a LOT of damage sources where smash/lethal are the primary components tagged. I'm not pulling this type of build approach from "Kael's book of wisdom "; this has been considered, just from the small sample of the building community that I've worked with over time, one pretty solid approach to building that allows you to handle a significant chunk of the game's damage intake especially when things such as "getting hit, with some of those moves, = getting debuffed (whether with defense debuffing, any other secondary effects)." If we disagree on this, that's totally fine.

 

For Resistances, its not "soft cap," there is only a Hard Cap.

 

Thank you for the correction; I type a lot and sometimes I make mistakes (especially when we're slinging these terms around). My hope is that you understood what I was getting at, regardless.

 

I also now understand perfectly why your resistance values are the way they are (thanks for sharing that build!); without aiming to softcap s/l, and given our considerable differences in recharge (my "standard" template uses anywhere from 155 - 170% global recharge depending on attack set, while yours is 126.3%), you really went ham on those s/l resistance bonuses. While not personally the way I would build, this did actually bring up a few interesting build points for claws/bio (and similar sets) that could maybe incorporate features of both of our approaches:

 

1) Claws only needs a very modest amount of recharge total to do its optimal rotation, with shockwave (the one with the highest requirement) needing about 210% recharge to do the chains we did (FU - Slash - Focus - Shockwave - repeat). Both of our builds exceed that requirement, albeit mine substantially so.

 

2) Ageless is probably not even needed for claws at all, given its end efficiency + low level of recharge required especially if you put ample slotting into stamina + inexhaustible. This opens up build opens for something like barrier (which would allow both of our builds to get to whatever defense values we want with less slot effort, and/or shore up resistance to hardcap in my case), or perhaps Rebirth.

 

3) For a set with a mostly moderate DPA moveset, like Claws, and also your comment earlier about water spout being the sole -res proc of some sets, that might make me heavily consider incorporating it into those types of sets. I might need to go back at some point, if I can find the time (and will; having 40+ test toons on the beta server was a nightmare to create @_@) to retest.

 

4) Movesets with low recharge requirements for their rotation, by virtue of needing less "recharge bonus-oriented sets", can chase things like s/l resists or HP% boosts.

 

I'm going to be brutally blunt on this: I've been playing the game long enough, and been a part of Pylon Testing for so long that I already know what to expect in variance, and can most definitely come to a generalized conclusion. In this particular case I was testing multiple different aspects, all based on a baseline you already determined. Of each scenario you've posted multiple times with Bio Armor, on average they've been within a variance of 6/s from top to bottom, and all had a fairly consistent middle ground within 2-3 seconds from a median value. I haven't got the time, or honestly the patience to go out and test five variables five times--25 instances, when there aren't even that many Pylons for crying out loud, at 4:00 a piece to have all powers recharged equally each test... just, no, not happening, that's nearly an hour and a half--just to prove what one or two times is sufficient to do when I'm only altering one simple thing in a given run based on an existing baseline you created.

 

I'm very sorry, but I cannot agree with this at all as it goes completely against all my statistical, and research-oriented, training. I can fully agree with you that you've played this game "long enough." I can fully agree with you that you've been part of Pylon Testing for a long time.

 

But to say that you already know what to expect in variance and can come to a generalized conclusion from a single data point for each condition? I absolutely cannot agree with that, no matter what level of expertise a person might have. That simply goes against all reasonable conventions of testing/verifying. Experts in the "hard science" fields, or any statistician, with enormous amounts of expertise, would never be able to make that claim. We're obviously not talking about hard science here with CoH, but "some" level of verification/replication is needed to make ANY sort of conclusion when we're talking about "how good is X compared to X?". If we disagree on this, then I have nothing more to add on this point unfortunately other than "We disagree."

 

Look at my little Katana/Bio sample for reference:

 

2:01 = 449.7

2:16 = 414.75

2:06 = 437.13

1:56 = 463.36

1:54 = 469.16

2:00 = 452.34

1:56 = 463.36

1:58 = 457.76

 

Now look at something like my StJ/Bio stalker testing sample:

 

2:17 = 412.69

2:12 = 423.3

2:22 = 402.81

1:56 = 463.36

1:50 = 481.4

2:25 = 397.25

2:20 = 406.7

 

That is a VERY notable difference in times. Had I just stuck with (if my first attempt, for example was), the 2:25 time, I'd say...that StJ/Bio armor stalker does the same DPS as my ice melee/bio scrapper? That's obviously not the case, but that is why I needed to test it out more to see what kind of trend I noticed.

 

You are correct that, in terms of "seconds" of time variance, it wasn't that massive from a mean. However, seconds in pylon testing start to matter more as you reach lower times because DPS does not increase/decrease in static amounts for time spent. You can see this by comparing DPS values in 2 second increments (e.g. between 1:54 to 1:56 vs. 1:58 - 2:00). At these values that most of us are looking at (e.g. > 2 minutes), it's not a massive difference but there is one. As you get to lower times, your DPS goes up more (e.g. going from 1 minute - 50 seconds is a HUGE DPS increase versus 4 minutes - 3 minutes + 50 seconds).

 

If I remember correctly, did you not also say that this was your first go at /bio armor for the purposes of this type of testing? That would mean you do not have previous testing data with this set to compare it to. It'd be one thing if, on Monday, you tested Conditions A + B for 5 attempts each, then on Wednesday you tested A + B for 3 attempts each. That would totally be legit. But I don't believe that is the case here, unless I am remembering horribly.

 

Finally, I wouldn't run each condition 5 times myself. I'd ignore the "base" one that you used, and probably choose maybe 2 of them that I had the most interest in. Run 5 attempts each, and then just take a peek. I didn't want to run the "one extra test" mostly because I knew that "one test" would really be 5+ (I know this sounds ironic given what I stated, but I had done a lot of testing up to that point of the day >_>), and...I just wanted to try out other characters and do other things. I'm a build, and test, aholic. I divert my attention rather quickly.

 

If you want to talk about this further, feel free to hit me up in PM; otherwise, I'd suggest we both just continue onward from here.

 

Edit: Added my samples for Katana/Bio and StJ/Bio to clarify.

[Kaeladin]

After looking at both of our builds, here's a build I came up with. Now THIS looks like a really well-balanced build:

 

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962

http://www.cohplanner.com/

 

Click this DataLink to open the build!

 

Level 50 Magic Scrapper

Primary Power Set: Claws

Secondary Power Set: Bio Armor

Power Pool: Fighting

Power Pool: Leaping

Power Pool: Speed

Power Pool: Leadership

Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

 

Hero Profile:

Level 1: Strike

• (A) Superior Blistering Cold - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (3) Superior Blistering Cold - Damage/Endurance
  
• (3) Superior Blistering Cold - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  
• (5) Superior Blistering Cold - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (5) Superior Blistering Cold - Damage/Endurance/Accuracy/RechargeTime
  
• (46) Superior Blistering Cold - Recharge/Chance for Hold
  

Level 1: Hardened Carapace

• (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)
  
• (7) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP
  
• (7) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance
  
• (9) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance
  
• (9) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance
  

Level 2: Inexhaustible

• (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
  
• (11) Performance Shifter - EndMod
  

Level 4: Environmental Modification

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  
• (13) Luck of the Gambler - Defense
  
• (15) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance
  
• (15) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Recharge
  
• (50) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
  

Level 6: Boxing

• (A) Kinetic Combat - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (17) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance
  
• (17) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Recharge
  
• (19) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  

Level 8: Combat Jumping

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 10: Adaptation

Level 12: Hasten

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
  
• (19) Recharge Reduction IO
  

Level 14: Tough

• (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%
  
• (21) Reactive Armor - Resistance
  
• (21) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance
  
• (23) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (23) Reactive Armor - Endurance
  

Level 16: Ablative Carapace

• (A) Preventive Medicine - Heal
  
• (25) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime
  

Level 18: Weave

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  
• (25) Shield Wall - Defense
  
• (27) Shield Wall - Defense/Endurance
  
• (27) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All)
  

Level 20: Evolving Armor

• (A) Reactive Armor - Resistance
  
• (29) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance
  
• (29) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Recharge
  
• (31) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
  

Level 22: Maneuvers

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  
• (31) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage
  
• (46) Reactive Defenses - Defense
  

Level 24: Slash

• (A) Hecatomb - Damage
  
• (31) Hecatomb - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (33) Hecatomb - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (33) Hecatomb - Damage/Endurance
  
• (33) Hecatomb - Chance of Damage(Negative)
  
• (34) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff
  

Level 26: Spin

• (A) Armageddon - Damage/Recharge
  
• (34) Armageddon - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (34) Armageddon - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (36) Armageddon - Damage/Endurance
  
• (36) Armageddon - Chance for Fire Damage
  
• (36) Fury of the Gladiator - Chance for Res Debuff
  

Level 28: DNA Siphon

• (A) Preventive Medicine - Heal
  
• (37) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime
  

Level 30: Follow Up

• (A) Superior Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (37) Superior Critical Strikes - Damage/RechargeTime
  
• (37) Superior Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime
  
• (39) Superior Critical Strikes - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
  
• (39) Superior Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
  
• (39) Superior Critical Strikes - RechargeTime/+50% Crit Proc
  

Level 32: Focus

• (A) Apocalypse - Damage
  
• (40) Apocalypse - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (40) Apocalypse - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (40) Apocalypse - Damage/Endurance
  
• (42) Apocalypse - Chance of Damage(Negative)
  
• (42) Gladiator's Javelin - Chance of Damage(Toxic)
  

Level 35: Genetic Contamination

• (A) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (42) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (43) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  

Level 38: Eviscerate

• (A) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Damage/Recharge
  
• (43) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (43) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Recharge/Critical Hit Bonus
  
• (45) Eradication - Damage
  
• (45) Eradication - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (45) Eradication - Chance for Energy Damage
  

Level 41: Parasitic Aura

• (A) Preventive Medicine - Heal
  
• (46) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime
  

Level 44: Moonbeam

• (A) Empty
  

Level 47: Shockwave

• (A) Ragnarok - Damage
  
• (48) Ragnarok - Damage/Recharge
  
• (48) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (48) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (50) Ragnarok - Damage/Endurance
  
• (50) Annihilation - Chance for Res Debuff
  

Level 49: Shadow Meld

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 1: Brawl

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Critical Hit

Level 1: Prestige Power Dash

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Slide

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Quick

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Rush

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Surge

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Sprint

• (A) Empty
  

Level 2: Rest

• (A) Empty
  

Level 4: Ninja Run

Level 2: Swift

• (A) Empty
  

Level 2: Health

• (A) Miracle - +Recovery
  
• (11) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance
  
• (13) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery
  

Level 2: Hurdle

• (A) Empty
  

Level 2: Stamina

• (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
  

Level 10: Defensive Adaptation

Level 10: Efficient Adaptation

Level 10: Offensive Adaptation

Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon

Level 50: Assault Radial Embodiment

Level 50: Barrier Core Epiphany

------------

 

Key notes:

 

1) Assuming end-consumption is not an issue, barrier (just the 5% component alone) lets you softcap your s/l/e/n AND f/c (I decided why not if using barrier) defenses.

 

2) With barrier, s/l resistance goes up to 73.2% while in offensive adaptation. Runs reactive armor; the moment you drop below 80% health (or you're fighting a group of 4 enemies, or any combination between those two), you're hard capped for scrapper.

 

3) Maintains ample recharge to run the FU - Slash - Focus - Shockwave rotation. Recharge sits at a respectable 157.5% global (with hasten).

 

4) Runs the full package of ST and AOE tools that claws would use with the exception of water spout; I could probably come up with a build that runs it, but things would have to shift.

 

Edit: for anyone interested in actually using this character as a leveling template, PLEASE do not follow my power selection exactly in the order I did; this was mostly to just put something together. The actual skills are correct, but I would take a lot of the attack powers WAY earlier than this build shows; again, this is just for build testing purposes!

[Bill Z Bubba]

4:19 with T3 musculature vs 4:13 with T4 spiritual. Just notating for later.

 

Welcome back Bill! Interesting to see a familiar name when so many have decided to use different ones this go-around.

 

Want to toss some food-for-thought your way since I was just testing Claws with a different Secondary. We had looked at FU > Focus > Slash as being the "best" we could get back on Live, and I still believe that when it comes to maximized recharge, that can be up there, but with the changes to PPM and the ability to access another -Res proc with Shockwave, it looks like a T4 Musculature Core with a FU > Focus > Slash > SW (-20%'ers in Slash/SW) is a solid choice, maybe even the optimal choice if there's not other reasons you'd be chasing Recharge with Spiritual.

 

If your Follow Up's recharge (without Spiritual) is over 3.3/s, and you have Shockwave with a Recharge at 4/s or less, then I'd say shoot for the Musculature route with Shockwave, and put a -20% Res in it (the Annihilation one so you have two different effect sources, Achilles -20 in Slash).

 

The chasing of +recharge may very well be nothing but a holdover from the old days. I lost all my DPS spreadsheets and just don't have the energy these days to recreate them from scratch. You may very well be absolutely correct on the Musc + fu, focus, slash, sw chain with 2 -res debuff.

 

It's just... not as pretty. Ya know?

 

But you can probably answer this: does the recharge buff from spiritual affect the recharge rate of the other incarnate powers?

[Kaeladin]

Bill, I can give you the actual recharge % for the claws rotation of FU - Slash - Focus - Shockwave:

 

The big one is shockwave (needing 206% recharge total to achieve "gapless", so say 90% recharge slotting + 116% from global sources including hasten). Others can actually run with a bit less than that. Realistically, having say 200% recharge only adds approx .08s delay for future shockwaves, so claws has a very modest level of recharge required for that rotation.

 

After that, you're mostly adding recharge to boost availability of utility skills (and/or skills like water spout) + decrease cooldown of hasten.

 

 

[Gobbledygook]

Awesome looking build

 

Makes me wish bio didn't leak puss all over the place in the adaptations. This would be a great build to replace my 1st toon from Issue 1, claws/regen.

 

Thanks for all the testing you've been doing.

[greenstalker]

Bill, I can give you the actual recharge % for the claws rotation of FU - Slash - Focus - Shockwave:

 

The big one is shockwave (needing 206% recharge total to achieve "gapless", so say 90% recharge slotting + 116% from global sources including hasten). Others can actually run with a bit less than that. Realistically, having say 200% recharge only adds approx .08s delay for future shockwaves, so claws has a very modest level of recharge required for that rotation.

 

After that, you're mostly adding recharge to boost availability of utility skills (and/or skills like water spout) + decrease cooldown of hasten.

 

Hasten requires %275 total recharge to be perma. it adds %70 itself and with %90 in it the global drops down to %115 ironic enough if you get enough recharge to get perma hasten you won't be needing hasten.