Hrmmm ... I wonder.
Looking more in depth at the
Lethal Force Authorized (City of Data v2.0, for Homecoming, link) problem ... and I'm wondering if there's another angle to attack the problem from.
Specifically ...
Interface slotting choice.
Which one would be the most "broad spectrum useful" in terms of Elite Boss+ shut down potential?
For a Main Tank ... I'm thinking it would be T4
Preemptive Core Flawless Interface.
The rationale here is that the heaviest hitting attacks from the three flavors of Extinction War Walkers and the Avatar of Hamidon during the Underground Trial all require expenditure of significant amounts of Endurance by the EB+.
When I say significant, I'm talking like 20-30 Endurance per attack for a 1-2 combo punch (setup, then the heavy hit).
So against the Extinction War Walkers, casting the
Targeted condition costs 20 Endurance.
Casting the
Arrest Mode (hold),
Crowd Dispersal (terrorize) or
Lethal Force Authorized (4x 30% Max HP DoT over 4s) requires an ADDITIONAL cost of 20 Endurance for those attacks.
In other words ... so long as Endurance can be debuffed below 20 (and sustained below that threshold) ... the
heaviest and most dangerous attacks from the Extinction War Walkers can be rendered "unavailable" and therefore moot. This in turn would make the Main Tank's job MUCH easier!
The same apparently holds true for the Avatar of Hamidon (20 END to set up for Cripple, 30 END to actually cast Cripple) ... and even for Maelstrom at TPN Campus (14 END to cast Marked For Death, another 14 END to follow through 7s later on a 4x 50% HP over 2s).
Against the major scripted bosses of Trials, they're going to have an 87% Debuff Resistance to Recovery Debuffs ... so the -5% Recovery for 4s debuff from T4 Preemptive is going to deliver a throughput of approximately -0.65% Recovery for 4s worth of debuffing (which is nothing to cheer for) and can only stack 4x ... for a maximum throughput of only -2.6% Recovery debuff for 4s with a full 4 stacks, which is pretty wimptacular all things considered.
No, the valuable part of a
Preemptive Interface proc is that it will SUBTRACT -1 END 4x over 4s PER PROC.
That's -4 END per proc (over 4 seconds) ... with a max limit of 4 procs ... meaning that it's possible to drain away up to -16 END per 4s using (stacked) Preemptive Interface procs ... and scripted boss battles tend to "last for a while" (usually longer than 4 seconds).
In other words, an iTrial league would only need a smattering of participants with Preemptive Interface procs (for endurance drain) stacking up in order to essentially "nerf" the biggest bosses that we have to fight in those iTrials.
Yes, the biggest bosses would still have attacks that cost zero END to cast, but those are mainly the "filler" attacks (punch, kick, smash) rather than the massive heavy hitters that produce league wipes.
Yes, the benefit of this strategy is something that has some ramp up time to it, so it isn't an "instant thing" that can protect you (as a Main Tank) at the start of an engagement ... but using a "sapper strategy" with your Interface procs to suppress the biggest bosses from launching their most powerful attacks while wearing them down COULD be an alternative (backdoor?) route to enhanced survival as a Main Tank wanting to protect a league of teammates from the heaviest attacks that can be thrown at the group.
Also note that 25% chance
Tempest set proc for -13 Endurance that can be slotted into Ranged attacks can also come in QUITE handy in this regard when it comes to suppression of casting the heaviest attacks by iTrial bosses when deployed by a sapper oriented ranged attack build that is invested in suppression of
Big Bad Stuff™.
Now, what makes this especially interesting, is that in the case of the Extinction War Walkers their big three heavy hitter attacks have a really peculiar recharge cycle behavior to them.
Arrest Mode, Crowd Dispersal and Lethal Force Authorized all have a 9999s recharge time on them.
However, the Targeting power has a 15s recharge time on it.
Basically, when it's time to use Arrest Mode/Crowd Disperal/Lethal Force Authorized ... the Extinction War Walker will just make a to-hit roll and the results of that roll determines what attack gets used.
- 0 to <33 = Arrest Mode (hold)
- 33 to <66 = Lethal Force Authorized (4x 30% Max HP energy DoT over 4s)
- 66 to 100 = Crowd Dispersal (terrorize)
Now the clever bit the Paragon Studios devs did here is that if any of the attack powers are recharged (and therefore ready to be used) they get cast ... but if they're on cooldown, then the Targeting power will instead instantly complete the cooldown of that attack power.
This means that the Extinction War Walkers need to "roll a whiff" before they can reuse a particular attack.
They can't do ... Target > Lethal > Target > Lethal > Target > Lethal > Target > Lethal ... if that's the way the dice roll.
Instead, you can have this behavior ... Target > Lethal > Target > Instant Recharge Lethal > Target > Lethal > Target > Instant Recharge Lethal ... but the key linchpin to that behavior is being able to cast the Target power.
No Target, no recharges (and no attacks into the bargain!).
So with sufficient Endurance Debuffing (not Recovery Debuffing, actual blue bar Endurance Debuffing), I'm thinking it is perfectly possible to "take the big toys away" from major scripted boss events during iTrials ... such as Extinction War Walkers and the Avatar of Hamidon in the Underground Trial ... from Maelstrom in the TPN Campus Trial ... the Sentinel in the Dilemma Diabolique Trial ... Antimatter in the Keyes Trial ... and possibly even more (BAF and Lambda anyone?). I'm thinking it might be a good idea to test this notion out on Live and see how it plays this week, because
IF IT WORKS this could be a solution to a LOT of Main Tanking threats we need to deal with on a regular basis in iTrials.
Just something to think about. ^_~
