Erratic1

A lot of your trivial is doing stuff I do not enjoy. I have nothing against AE farmers but farming, to me, is more boring than watching paint dry. And that before we talk second accounting to help powerlevel my characters while I farm as what I enjoy is doing the missions and playing up the character. You have already admitted in this thread to seeing the game from only one vantage point. People play the game for a variety of reasons. This is a good thing. That they do not follow your path may be inefficient but there is no reason a priori your method being easy means every other method should bear an increase in difficulty.

I am not sure why I would want to emulate that aspect of real life in a game. I am not saying things should be trivial to achieve but likewise, I play a game for fun, not to toil away at like a job. Why am I not playing Lost Ark? It became too much like a job.

Picasso did a lot of things and worked in half a dozen different styles. Picasso at age 16: Picasso at age 22: Picasso at age 29: Picasso at age 30: Picasso at age 58: Eye of the beholder though. It may all be junk to you. 🙂

Or quit the game in frustration.

Did Picasso do Impressionism?

My level 28 Dom, whom I mostly did not play this past week because AH prices for low level recipes was understandably high, has 2 Aethers. So too does my 50 Brute who I played considerably more, so yeah, she probably got a bit lucky. My level 37 baby Brute, whom I probably played 2-3 times as much as the Dom has 1 Aether. And one character played (44 brute) a bit less than baby Brute with no Aether drops. As is the way of things, I do not overly care about the locked costumes so of course they dropped for me. Still, half of the 10 you would need for an unlock from a week of playing. At that rate I would have two unlocked costumes in a month? Or let's say I have been running high and should expect half that many. A costume unlock a month?

Don't both have a cone and both have an AoE? Looks like the radius is bigger for both on Energy Melee (and wider cone) and StJ hits harder with Combo levels.

I would guess in the day of faster decay the proc might have helped sustain higher fury?

As what makes a good costume is equivalent to asking what makes good art? The following, originally painted in 1894, sold at auction in 2015 for $658,000. Allow me to suggest that what is art is what you would spend money to own because you like it. It varies from person to person. And what one person will praise another would see no value in or think is junk. The painter of the following was considered so poorly he was unmentioned in art history texts from 150 years ago. Now he is considered a master of the Rococo period. How times change, eh? I will say that my standards for praise are not the same as, "costume I wish I had come up with" or "a costume I want a character of mine to have". Over time I have gone from, "I find it outstanding on solely its merits" to "it causes me to pause when scrolling through the costume thread", to "it evokes the character name/bio", to "it strikes me as a labor of love", arguably becoming less discriminating over time, whereas if the criteria was, "I have to give the poster 10 million influence" if I indicate I like it I might be considerably more picky. On the other hand, there is "real world" artwork I have seen in museum which has floored me for reasons other than pure, aesthetic appeal. There was a piece at the Hirshorn depicting a street scene in New York City which, when I saw I wondered why there was a photo in an exhibit which was about paintings. Then I got close to it and noticed it was a painting. The artist had individually painted each brick in every building or wall and every other object in the scene was composed of the tiniest brush strokes. I was floored. The scene itself...nothing special. The painting however still leaves me stunned thinking about it a lifetime later. Like with that painting, I consider broadly what I see. But that is me. Your criteria are yours and completely fair for you to use for your judgments.

My first: Not anymore. I'd blame Carly but at this point that seems like piling on.

Thos of us who came up using HP calculators would. 😊

I thought Scranker referred to Tankers who thought they were damage dealers.

My active brutes are: SS/Bio - My go to Elec/Stone Savage/Elec StJ/Inv I kinda regret not having an SS/EA or WM/EA...at least not yet.

Very nicely stated.

A blaster plays in melee every bit as much as a scrapper? Clearly I have been playing my blasters incorrectly. What sold me on Seismic Blast as a set? When I copied to the test server, whipped up a level 22ish character and took out a spawn of Warriors without them ever getting to launch an attack at me...while at range. Scrappers don't ever do that.

It dawned on me the other day there was another character I could pay homage to with my Stj/Inv Brute.... I really like the original costume I came up for him in my previous post, but these look too nifty not to use from time to time.

Clearly I play too many character for whom Energy is not much of a consideration.

25% Smash/Energy. Also slows movement.

It is amazing how specific he suddenly becomes when responding to what someone else says. Moving target. 😛

Well since we're nitpicking, there is considerable difference between a power being accessible and a character having it. And having played and read on Kinetics considerably (nevermind having a few) amongst the most commonly regarded powers for skipping is Increased Density. I will grant you Fortitude but Increased Density? I do not think I have ever had it cast on me and I have only once taken it and think I later respec'd out of it.

I already covered this upthread. It is like you cannot recognize the ground has already been gone over. Just being on a team does not bring up a Brute's defense or resistance--the composition of the team matters. Bring along a Kinetics Controller and an Empathy Defender nobody will complain but the Brute will not be getting any tougher. Without set bonuses (around which the game is NOT balanced) or incarnate buffs brutes get the same defense and resistance values out of their powers that Scrappers do. SCRAPPER...NOT TANKS. My level 33 brute with 3 basic IOs in his secondary powerset's power is only tougher than a scrapper due to hit points, not by defense or resistance value. A tanker with the same investment is plainly better off. Lest you back-peddle and try to make your statement about teams, the wording was, " They already do - especially when teamed", which means they do when not on a team and moreso on a team. Points (1) and (2) say otherwise. I know, I know...I have been quite content to ignore your casual bending of facts and I am broadly content to let you carry on and trust other that you have been doing so. So do not take that invoking me with an @ mention is a way to provoke a response. But I had memed and so figured in for a penny in for a pound. Feel free to get back to stomping all over any view other than your own.

If you're going to go by that metric, can you not argue that Tankers need more loving? "After all, if they were properly balanced more people would be playing them," is the cousin of the logic you are suggesting. Popularity is not a meaningless metric, but you have to consider what feeds into it.

That is certainly the claim put forward by a certain someone. I will repeat myself from upthread: It is not a matter of Brute vs Tanker but rather where does the Brute fit and is their play fulfilling/worthwhile on the whole.

If anything, Brutes should have gotten the current Tranker proc and Tankers should have gotten a daamge boosting proc (or perhaps something that drop Res debuff on nearby opponents). As is, I use Brute ATOs for the set bonus. I am not seeing how it helps Brutes for other AT's ATO procs to be nerfed.