FupDup

Yes, that is the problem. Those dimensions suck in a lot of cases, across all ATs.

The def values given are quite low, the set has no DDR, and Sents are a redheaded stepchild in general. Letting them have full value from both would still leave Dark Armor on Sents below several other armors on an underperforming AT.

To expand on this, it specifically lacks Toxic and Psi defense. It also lacks positional defenses. Given that Cloak of Darkness does legitimately give defense to ALL types and all 3 positions, it would be logical for Shadow Dweller power to also follow that.

Brutes really do need higher armor modifiers regardless of any Tanker nerfs. Sharing the same 0.75 value as Stalkers and Scrappers is dumb design for an AT that is meant to be an offtank, and this makes it pretty hard to actually leverage their high caps. Tankers are a full 1.0, so I’d suggest between 0.80-0.85 for Brutes.

The first thing that pops out at me is that I think G-Force should buff your slow effects for a short time similar to the Charge Up power in Elec Blast, to follow the trend of sets getting slightly different Aim/Build Up powers. Otherwise, I'll just leave this here to set the mood:

There's a lot of pool powers that are total ass and have been total ass for years, I think we should look into those first. If Fold Space remains king after that, then we can have a discussion. Right now there's not much competition.

It looks like they wanted to reduce the size of the Toxic hole and that's just the power they chose to stick it on. Maybe they chose it since it currently only gives Psi, so adding a second type to it adds more incentive to slot that power for resistance. Whatever the case may be, it appears to be a step towards "soft holes" as an armor design philosophy rather than "gaping holes" like classic armor sets used to have. If Invuln is allowed to have Psi def + res, I think Elec can have its Toxic hole plugged up a bit too.

Maybe Nemesis for lore? They have a steampunk aesthetic and the blunderbuss weapons, which is the closest we can get to cowboy stuff currently.

If the rest of the set were designed to be more "range agnostic" on those ATs then I'd actually agree (i.e. I actually strongly support things like Sents getting Terra Firma in place of Mud Pots on Stone Armor), but AOI/AOM and MM both want you to be in the thick of things anyways. This is just a direct downgraded version rather than a sidegrade like most other aura replacements.

Everyone should get it is my point.

Definitely sad to see the psi damage go away. Other armors already have -dam effects but no we of them add bonus psi damage for the user (it was unique).

Well, the upcoming patch will be helping quite a bit. >Obscure Sustenance (previously exclusive to Sents) will be getting nice buffs, and you'll get the option to pick Dark Regen like the melee ATs in case you still don't want it >Clock of Fear buffs >Tenebrous Regeneration (exclusive to Sents) is getting a small defense buff >Soul Transfer changes So basically, post-patch the only difference in power structure (relative to melee ATs) will be that Sents lose the damage aura in exchange for a bit more regen and defense.

...To be more specific, are you asking for opinions on the effectiveness of such a combo? For a completed Mids build? Something else?

I've been saying this for a while now, change the name to "Insulated" if that's what it takes to justify it.

I really feel like a simple reduction in the base melee damage modifier would've been way easier than all this stuff with overcapping and cone nerfs.

I think Troo is indirectly referring to Regen, given his presence in the open beta regen thread. It might also be referring to the split choice power thing that just got expanded in many places in open beta (like in Regen and Dark Armor now).

The reason for adding damage to MOG was basically just throwing a bone out to people saying (correctly) that Regen's clickiness cut into your damage output, so the damage buff is basically trying to level it out to having a neutral damage impact. Certainly, MOG is the only place where damage would make any sense in this set (thematically speaking).

I think there's a better way to phrase the concern about Stalkers getting left out of the stealth crit thing. Let's look at the Ninjutsu armor as another example that has a similar mechanic. If you play the armor on a Scrapper (or Sent), you get a stealth crit effect that no other Scrapper or Sent armor currently has (Psi Armor will be added to the list) to make up for the fact that Nin is much squishier than its cousin Super Reflexes. But if you play Nin on a Stalker, you get the exact same inherent stealth crits that all armors get, which means you just end up with a shittier version of SR since Stalker SR gets that stealth crit too. The argument is that they want some kind of offensive boost added to the Stalker version of Psi (and I think Nin deserves it too!) to make the armor contribute more damage than its competitors. If not an extra bonus stealth damage buff, then perhaps just a consistent Psi damage proc kind of like Offensive Adaptation or Brimstone (and maybe do this for all ATs instead of the stealth crit to keep Nin more unique).

The only one I remember was when HC reduced their max damage cap at the same time that they did all the Tanker buffs. Specifically, Brute max damage went from 775% to 700%. I don't know if I'd call that giant however, since it takes a team with diligent damage buffers and/or a lot of red insps to still reach that reduced cap. I think there might have been some other nerfs to them in the pre-HC days but I don't remember that stuff.

The way I would've done it is something a bit more direct and simple: The melee damage modifier (all other changes reverted/removed). Once upon a time, this value used to be 0.80. Today, it's 0.95, and for reference Blasters are set to 1.0. I think it's kind of stupid that the tankiest thing in the game is allowed to have 95% of the melee damage of the quintessential glass cannon class. I have an oldschool mentality/philosophy that in general, more damage should equal less survival and vice versa. I would set this value to around 0.875 or so, trying to find a midway point between new and old (0.90 might not do anything and 0.85 might be too close to the original value). This would result in a reduction in both ST and AOE melee damage, but not the extreme exponential dropoff that the new overcap mechanic uses. They would probably still keep their AOE edge, which I think is fine, but this would increase the size of the ST damage gap between them and Brutes without buffing up Brute damage to start stepping into Scrapper territory and repeating the cycle all over again.

The reason for this is that the devs actually intended Psi Armor to be a "regen set" rather than a resistance set. The resists are just there as a sort of secondary layer, but the way they designed it was for regeneration to do the heavy lifting. So basically, Psi Armor is Dark Armor trying really hard to be Regeneration.

I'm not going to complain about the added damage buff "ghetto crit" thing because Psi Armor does need a little extra cowbell right now, but I kinda liked it being unique to Ninjutsu. Maybe instead add a Psi damage proc to make it more different from Nin and help you against enemies who are weak to Psi (giving more utility to the set).

Yeah, basically the build would probably need to be adjusted assuming that they only build F/C defense up to 45% and no higher. Somebody weird with overcapped F/C defense can potentially ignore the nerf, but that's probably not too common. It's not some sort of extreme struggle to find that extra defense (maybe grab a Winter Set somewhere) but it's kinda unnecessary. IMO, the current live version of Energy Aura is an almost perfectly balanced armor. I can understand nerfing the Tank version a bit (because their scalars are so high) but I think the other ATs don't need any negative changes applied. It's definitely weird to give Tanks a better version than other ATs when the original fear was that it would be too good on Tanks.

Ironically enough, Malta also has a hole to toxic resistance, so maybe there's a link there?

I think it might just be ignorance on his part, because it's objectively better than Cutting Beam and it's unique to Sentinels, so skipping it reduces the point of playing Beam on a Sent to begin with.