Hold Strength

irondawn17 · February 2014

It says that presence increases "hold strength" but what is "hold strength"?

ayonachan · February 2014

Time it takes any given entity to break free from your hold. Hold Strength also increases the duration of various holds.

One can perma-hold a mob by increasing their hold strength high enough to where 'smart' cycling between two holds will render the mob helpless.

But holds are turned off on the mobs that one tends to 'want' to hold...and players have the ability to spam (key) to break-free as well as pop an active offense/certaindefense in order to break the hold.

ayonachan · February 2014

gradii wrote: »

I have a telepath with over 700 pres and manipulator, running support role and a rank 7 sentinel mod in a legion helm.

what would you suggest the best way for me to try this would be? I just wanna do it for fun sometime :biggrin:

Any hold + Sleep.
Back when I tested an extreme case of holds my Ego Sleep held the mob for much more than the hold resistance buff could last. Ego Sprites allowed me to easily damage and kill the sleeping mob if I chose to end its life in such a humane way...

But 'tis but a fragmented memory of the past..

cyrone · February 2014

Continually stacking holds on an enemy will grant that enemy hold immunity fairly quickly.

ayonachan · February 2014

cyrone wrote: »

Continually stacking holds on an enemy will grant that enemy hold immunity fairly quickly.

Hold resistance buff also decreases the amount of time any given hold can hold onto the mob for until the mob gains full immunity after three stacks....but if you 'smartly' cycle between your active holds you can hold a mob for longer than the remaining time on their hold resistance buff.

Ego Sleep when combined with high hold strength can yield a 'held' time of much greater than any other hold under the same circumstances can sustain.

Only problem is human error and the outside variable of other players...still, for solo-play it feels good to lock down mobs...even if said mobs could have been easily killed by sneezing on them...or them just tripping over their own two feet....

"And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye, and soothing to the smell. Poppies... Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep. Sleeeeep. Now they'll sleeeeep!"

ayonachan · February 2014

gradii wrote: »

Wicked Witch of the West? I think this is the first time I get one of your references ayonachan :biggrin:

Indeed it is and as your reward I will pray for you to my deity.

lordhavelock · March 2014

I tried to make a "dream warrior"-themed character, and I thought would be cool to try the sleep/sprite powers, but I was very disappointed with the results. Mostly because in solo adventures it just seemed to slow everything down. My other characters can steamroll mobs without having to waste time sleeping them and waiting for sprites to kill them.

In Alerts, it's nice to put some mobs to sleep, but since mostly there's no real communication or team work in PUG Alerts, someone will end up damaging the foe and wake them up, so it's often pointless.

I've seen some powers with "slowing" abilities, various damage debuff powers that seem to weak foes, and knock downs that interrupt, but otherwise things that I think "hold" (and I might be misusing the official term) like sleep or paralyze, do seem useless.

Are there any positives to having such crowd control other than RP or "Theme" reasons?

riltmos · March 2014

lordhavelock wrote: »

I tried to make a "dream warrior"-themed character, and I thought would be cool to try the sleep/sprite powers, but I was very disappointed with the results. Mostly because in solo adventures it just seemed to slow everything down. My other characters can steamroll mobs without having to waste time sleeping them and waiting for sprites to kill them.

In Alerts, it's nice to put some mobs to sleep, but since mostly there's no real communication or team work in PUG Alerts, someone will end up damaging the foe and wake them up, so it's often pointless.

I've seen some powers with "slowing" abilities, various damage debuff powers that seem to weak foes, and knock downs that interrupt, but otherwise things that I think "hold" (and I might be misusing the official term) like sleep or paralyze, do seem useless.

Are there any positives to having such crowd control other than RP or "Theme" reasons?

You can use it to stall for time to heal, cooldowns or PFF to regenerate. Also the Ego DoTs do not wake enemies from sleep. But overall holds are pretty weak since they do not work on enemies you'd want to spend the cast time holding.

rtma · March 2014

So, Does Crowd Control Resistance from Presence reduce overall CC effects on yourself?

flowcyto · March 2014

rtma wrote: »

So, Does Crowd Control Resistance from Presence reduce overall CC effects on yourself?

yeah, but its not very effective at it. Not a good reason to stat Pres in itself.

theravenforce · March 2014

rtma wrote: »

So, Does Crowd Control Resistance from Presence reduce overall CC effects on yourself?

It would be better to use CC resist gear than rely on PRE. It does help if combined with a relatively healthy amount of EGO, but then again you'd contribute that success to EGO, not PRE.

It has never really been clear how much PRE actually does contribute to the cc resist factor, but EGO does whatever PRE could do in those terms infinitely more so.

theravenforce · March 2014

irondawn17 wrote: »

It says that presence increases "hold strength" but what is "hold strength"?

Just a quick note:

Hold Strength does not equal Hold HP.

Ego Sleep has a hold HP of 1, this means that one tick of damage outside of Mental Storm, Ego Sprites, Mental Leech or Shadow of Doubt will destroy the hold, regardless of how much strength it has (Strength = duration in seconds).

You'll note that Ego Sleep and Mental Storm (and quite possibly all charged Paralyze powers) now share the same duration in strength in general and when under the influence of Manipulator Form, despite the fact that Ego Sleep is meant to be the highest order hold in terms of duration.

lordhavelock wrote: »

....but otherwise things that I think "hold" (and I might be misusing the official term) like sleep or paralyze, do seem useless.

Holds are any of the following:

Sleep

Paralyze

Incapacitate (which is a different sort of paralyze)

Stun

Root (arguably)

As they render, or attempt to render their target(s) entirely helpless for a duration and can be broken out of using Breakfree Damage from various sources and all grant HOLD RESISTANCE stacks.

Other named forms of Crowd Control are:

Confuse

Placate

Snare

It is possible to gain resistance stacks for these effects although it is mostly observed on NPC's not players (because no one really uses Placate or Confuse for their primary effects on players).

In team situations where the team members don't know how to work with a crowd controller, utilizing holds outside of Stuns, will seem useless.

lordhavelock wrote: »

....Are there any positives to having such crowd control other than RP or "Theme" reasons?

Outside of theme and RP reasons...realistically there is very little appeal with regard using Crowd Control as a mechanic as it is completely static in CO and is no longer able to be increased by PRE/Gear, since Manip/PRE/Gear now only affects duration not HP.

So I could have XXXX PRE and gain 7 min Ego Sleep which has a Hold Strength of a Category 4 Hold and have 1 Hold HP, regardless of the duration, one tick of damage will kill off the hold.

Aside from Ego Sleep's innate ability to be AoE, not take damage from 4 Telepathy powers, bypass holds and all but one form of shielding that have been in game it is on a direct level with Mental Storm, except for the fact it doesn't do damage or reduce resistance to Ego Damage (outside of spec debuffs).

As someone who runs a CCer for theme and RP, I tend not to team up unless I am with a group of people who know how to play with a CCer. Generally I just solo missions and instances where I can and just walk off as my opponents sleep themselves into oblivion.

Hold Strength

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