FupDup

The recharge provided by Agility and Spiritual is not global, it counts as slotted recharge (which reduces proc rates). Global recharge is stuff like Hasten and Luck of the Gambler.

There's a difference between relative balance and absolute balance. (Relative means that you stayed the same but other things changed around you, absolute means that you actually changed directly). From a relative standpoint, Brutes now feel worse because Tankers are almost a direct upgrade (15% higher ST damage on Brutes isn't that big of an edge). From an absolute standpoint, Brutes only received a very small nerf to their base kit (max damage buff reduced from 775% to 700%) in the same patch that buffed Tankers (the Fire Armor thing is separate from the AT as a whole). But then again, Brutes also got a slight buff to Fury in that same patch to make it generate a wee bit faster on teams and with attacks slower than Brawl. If the Brute changes were the only things that went through and Tankers never got touched, we wouldn't be having this conversation. If we compare Brutes and Scrappers in a vacuum, there are actually quite a few advantages in their favor. A bit higher base HP, much higher max HP, much higher resist caps, universal taunt auras, and being able to function without ATOs (Scrappers without ATOs don't really have an inherent, like at all, the base chance is so freaking tiny). The one edge (admittedly a very important one) that Scrappers have over Brutes is that they put up much bigger orange numbers when fully built out. Fortunately for Scraps, the game's meta revolves entirely around orange numbers. But when we compare Brutes to Tanks, their only edge is around 15% higher ST damage while losing a whole bunch of other stuff in the process. Virtually no one thought that Brutes were some irredeemable pile of trash before that fateful patch. They were what everybody used in place of Tanks because Tanks didn't put up as many orange numbers. I'm not saying that Tanks shouldn't have been buffed (they should've been) or that Brutes shouldn't get any more changes (they should), I'm just trying to remind everybody of the past so we don't keep repeating it. What I think should happen: Tankers: *Base damage modifier reduced down to around 0.875-0.9 (currently 0.95, used to be 0.8) to find a middle ground between pre-buff and post-buff, in order to increase ST damage gap between them and Brutes *Possibly nudge the AOE down a little bit if the above change is insufficient (but they still should remain the AOE kings of melee to distinguish them) Brutes: *Base HP increased a bit so it sits between Scrapper and Tanker a bit more evenly instead of being way closer to Scraps (max HP cap remains untouched) *Base armor modifiers increased to around 0.8-0.85 (currently 0.75 for Brutes and Scrappers, 1.0 for Tanks) *Replace +Fury ATO with something else, possibly Shin's recharge buff idea (but I would make it stackable similar to Unrelenting Fury) *Some kind of change to Fury to make it a bit more unique (like Ston's speed idea or something, IDK)

The Unrelenting Fury proc already adds a stacking endurance discount, along with regen too. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Superior_Unrelenting_Fury:_Recharge/Chance_for_%2BRegen/%2BEnd_Discount

In regards to "which direction to break Brutes in," I think slightly breaking them towards Tankers makes more sense since Scrappers and Stalkers are already kind of neck and neck against each other. We don't need a third AT competing for the same spot. Furthermore, a common character archetype in gaming and fiction is the "bruiser" (or off-tank) who has a combination of good damage and durability, so I think that having something sit between Scrappers and Tanks to fit that bill makes sense instead of making people choose all-or-nothing between pure tank or pure DPS. Tanks should retain their AOE advantage over Brutes to help them stay different but I think the ST gap should be widened a bit (15% is too small). In addition to that, something unique like the ATO suggestion in this thread and/or something else (like maybe Ston's idea for Fury to grant a speed boost). I really don't like the suggestion for Brutes to be basically better Scrappers but with a higher skill requirement because you're resigning the Scrapper to be nothing more than training wheels that experienced players will inevitably discard.

Maybe instead of a large upfront bonus, make it like the other Brute ATO (the regen/end discount one) where the recharge bonus can stack multiple times but is a bit smaller per stack? I think that fits the "building power over time" motif a bit more accurately than a single big number.

An issue to contend with is that the existing eye beam and head-psi powers have specific animation time durations but there's a pretty wide variety of different animation times out there for the various blast powers. We need to match them up exactly or things would look/feel wonky. If I weren't lazy I would put to together a list of the ani times to see if there was at least one whole powerset that would match the eye/head blast ani times...but I am.

Maybe the Warriors could be given a "Quantum Mace" or some other melee weapon to fill a similar anti-Kheldian role but being more thematically appropriate?

In terms of armor, I think plant-based alternate FX for Bio Armor would fit the bill here without needing to try to balance a whole new armor set. And Bio can be kinda ugly sometimes so it could really use some more options.

Savage Blast and/or Savage Control could be cool, but the OP already ruled out animals. 😔

In this particular example, most debuffs against a +5 enemy will have their strength reduced to just 0.30 of their standard strength. So that 5% (unenhanced) Cloak of Fear gets bumped down to just 1.5%. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch

I has an idea. Let's nerf Cloak of Fear by like 50% to increase the "power budget" of the set so we can do good things with the other powers (assuming we don't trust the devs to only give a slight heal reduction to Dark Regen instead of gutting it like a fish). Totes balanced.

The reason it has such extreme endurance cost is because it has extreme healing, like several health bars worth per click. It's complete overkill, so even reducing the heal a bit in exchange for reducing the end cost would probably be a net buff most of the time.

There's also the SG base empowerment station buffs if slotting endurance isn't working (or you don't want to). This just feels kind of redundant because a P2W/START power for helping your blue bar already exists. I wouldn't hate it or get mad if something like this got added, but I don't see any value in adding it either.

I think Ice Armor is relatively close to Water Armor as a concept, with the main issue being that Icicles needs a proper minfx version that doesn't make you look like a porcupine. Maybe something like the spines aura but shooting out tiny shards of ice instead.

A part of the issue is that there's already a massive number of melee sets, so making one that stands out from the crowd will be harder compared to set categories that are less crowded. There's also a number of presently crappy melee sets that really ought to be improved, which would almost be like adding "new" sets since they would see more than limited niche/concept use.

Someone did a comparison and found that overall, redside story arcs result in fewer merits than blueside ones. This is largely due to many redside arcs being a bit shorter, which could in theory mean more merits per hour at the end, but in practice I feel like my villains have to work a bit harder to earn money than my heroes.

Sents have a high enough base damage modifier that, in an environment with few damage buffs/insps active, Assault Core can give greater damage returns than Radial. However, Radial still has the advantages of bypassing the damage cap (if you're heavily damage buffed by allies/insps then Core doesn't do much or anything), energy damage type (helps against lethal-resistant enemies), and requires no stack building/maintaining (pretty easy to do on a Sent but it's still a little bit of added convenience). It's hard to go wrong in this case because even the "worse" choice is still going to be good (unless you're using Core and get a lot of external damage buffs), but Radial is a "safer" choice because of the damage cap thing.

For Ignite, the important thing to note is that it will always deal full damage to the primary target even if they run. Only secondary targets can escape the DoT by running. Ignite is advertised/slotted as AOE, but in practice it's actually a single-target power with some occasional AOE as a cherry on top. Due to Sents lacking Sniper Rifle, Ignite is a mandatory part of your ST attack chain.

I think there's potential for filling niches within the existing slots as opposed to adding entirely new slots, the latter of which may require a rebalancing of high-level content including the Hardmode stuff that was built with the existing incarnate powers as the baseline. Alternatively, perhaps some of the "new" powers could take the place of one of the existing slots, like replacing your Destiny with a Genesis ground patch for example. That helps keep it more of a "horizontal" power expansion as opposed to being a purely "vertical" straight buff.

The OP is referring to the default animation where the user stiffly holds their guns at their hips, pointing downwards and elbows not bending much while moving, for a while after attacking. Assuming we can't get an entirely new/unique animation, I think the standard weaponless jogging animation (but with guns in your hands) should just play instead so my arms don't look stiff. The Naruto run only triggers with Ninja Run animations active, and doesn't have the "stiff" feel that the OP is referring to.

Every Stalker set uses the generic build up power as opposed to set-specific deviations like Fusion. If I had to guess, the reason it was done this way is because Stalkers have an ATO that refreshes the recharge on Build Up, thus the abilities need to be based off the same generic power in order for this ATO to work.

Basically, a Scrapper without their ATOs slotted properly is just a weaker Brute. There are other strong ATOs out there like the Stalker ones, but even then the ATs can at least function without them. Scrappers need their ATOs.

The only idea I can think of that might be in the realm of sanity might be to have the game track your uncapped HP for determining your regen per sec (regen ticks scale off your HP). Since resistance debuffs already track your uncapped resists (100% resistance = immunity to res debuffs) I think this might be possible? But even if it's mechanically possible, there is still the legitimate counter-argument that it might be imbalancing to give certain armors this type of buff (Invuln, Stone). So status quo probably wins here.

On one hand I do understand this issue, being someone who likes to play armored ATs there are certain armors that push way over the cap without any effort. It does feel bad having any HP set bonuses become useless and feeling like I have to avoid them at all costs. But on the other hand, just globally buffing max HP doesn't seem like a good idea for balance because the game is mostly pretty easy as it is (although that will change over time as more NPC groups get revamped). Additionally, most of the armors that provide such massive HP boosts tend to already be high performers anyways, so this kind of buff might just make the rich get richer. ...I don't really know what to do about it.

My first HC toon was a DP/Dark Corruptor, but I skipped a ton of the /Dark powers because I basically wanted to play like a semi-tanky ranged character instead of an off-support like Corrs are designed to be. It was still fun, but definitely not getting the most out of the AT. I know I'm going to cause a lot of cringes when I say this, but I legitimately would've been better off playing a Sentinel at that point because it would give me the playstyle I was looking for but without skipping half of my secondary.