We are happy to bring you Episode 40. Well, half of it at least As has been the case lately, this went very long, and this 1.5 hour chunk is the first to see the light of day. The second chunk is another hour+ of fluffy feedbacky goodness and will be out as soon as we can prod the edit monkeys back into action. Lazy monkeys…
In this episode we disuss:
Video of Issue 13 Powersets on MMORPG.com
Castle Comments on Issue 13 Powersets on Massively
Matt Miller talks with Gamezone.com about Issue 13
Issue 13 New Missions: Ten Ton Hammer Exclusive!
Battle of Good vs. Evil Coming to the Mac!
Existing Player Exclusive: Closed Beta Mac Test
Issue 13 Enters Open Beta!
No Heroics
Promo: The Seanachai
Bumper: Calls for Cthulhu
Click through for the full IO Set Feature that covers Accuracy bonuses, Damage bonuses, boosting Endurance, boosting Health, and as an odd addition, set IOs that offer Debt Protection
As usual, I order the sets from lowest number of pieces required to highest. As an additional reminder, the full text of this will be in the show notes, as I won’t be reading every single set name — only the ones that give the biggest bonuses.
ACCURACY:
Accuracy is an attribute that pretty much everyone understands, even if they don’t have the actual to-hit calculation memorized. As a frame of reference, an even-level accuracy SO grants +33% benefit.
Except for two of the following sets, to get any accuracy bonuses requires 4 pieces of an IO set in a power, which makes +accuracy more expensive than the attributes earlier discussed, since the more pieces you need for a set, the more likely you will run into set piece shortages or high prices for the recipe or salvage.
Accuracy bonus sets requiring only 2 IOs:
Defense Debuff: Exploited Vulnerability +3% accuracy [ 2 pieces
required out of 3 available.]
Accuracy bonus sets requiring only 3 IOs:
To Hit Debuff: Deflated Ego +3 % acc [ 3 out of 3 required, the full set. ]
Accuracy bonus sets requiring 4 IOs:
Melee:Crushing Impact +7% acc
PBAOE:Scirocco’s Dervish 9+% acc
Ranged:Thunderstrike +7% acc
Target AOE:Positron’s Blast +9% acc
Sniper:Exploit Weakness +3% acc
Sniper:Calibrated Accuracy +5% acc
Defense:Serendipity +3% acc
Defense:Luck of the Gambler +9% acc
Confuse:Perplex +5% acc
Slow:Pacing of the Turtle +9% acc
Immob:Trap fo the Hunter +9% acc
Hold:Neuronic Shutdown +7% acc
Fear:Nightmare +5% acc
Fear:Glimpse of the Abyss +9% acc
To Hit Buff:Adjusted Targetting +9% acc
Defense Debuff:Undermined Defense +7% acc
The following require 4 IOs, and are the unique level 50 purple sets, therefore very expensive and can’t be used more than once per character.
Melee: Hecatomb +15% acc
PBAOE: Armaggedon +15% acc
Target AOE: Ragnarok +15% acc
Sleep: Fortunata Hypnosis +15% acc
Immob: Gravitational Anchor +15% acc
Hold: Unbreakable Constraint +15% acc
Stun: Absolute Amazement +15% acc
The good news, even though you have to invest 4 slots, there are enough power groups that accept +accuracy bonus set IOs and the percentages are in general high enough that getting +20% accuracy on all attacks relatively easy. I wouldn’t recommend changing your slotting strategy to stop slotting Accuracy SOs or IOs and compensating with bonuses (especially since bonuses aren’t guaranteed to be there if you exemplar down), but having +accuracy in general is nice, especially when fighting enemies that debuff your overall chance to hit, like spectrals and vampyrs.
DAMAGE:
Okay, everyone loves damage. Well, all the cool kids do. And damage bonuses are pretty handily available, in the form of inspirations, inherents, buffs, etc. so people may not be sweating using IOs to pump up the damage. But it is nice to break the Enhancement Diversification dampeners on damage, or beef up the damage of a power that is sacrificing a damage SO or IO for some other effect (which is not unreasonable with high end IOs, which get close to ED norms with only 2 IOs instead of 3[...]
