Erratic1

This is my first only one who has been built with extensive use of +Recharge procs. It really started as more of a knockdown thing, but that is one step away from +Recharge. About the only thing I avoid doing is relying on damage procs. Beyond that, there are boundaries--I am unwilling to bend theme/concept beyond a certain point but find I can often accommodate various options I had not initially considered. That is why I have characters without the traditional travel powers. Not like Black Canary flies, teleports, super speeds, or super leaps.

Well, that is the beauty of area damage. You just have to make sure the sum of the damage being dealt exceeds the single-target damage value to be pulling ahead. Brutes may deal better single-target damage, but there is a value at which it is more effective to deal area damage (so long as you'll survive things pounding on you longer while you do so). Staying within an single AT for calculation, I typically calculate that breakeven point (on melee's anyway) as hitting three targets with an AoE. Consider the below screenshot of me testing my most recent Tanker's target build on the test server: I did not think to screenshot things earlier in the fight when more things were alive, but notice the Recharge Time Bonus is 167.5%. That is on top of what is slotted in the power. My AoE attacks are up at under a third of their base recharge time. My big single-target attack hits for 440, but the big AoE hits for 213. Say the Brute would hit for 600. I only have to hit three targets to be at parity on my Tanker. And sure, I cannot chain my big AoE, but then the Brute's big attack cannot be chained either. As my Tanker is slotted, Spinning Strike is up every 4.7 seconds (if I maintain 167.5% recharge that is) whereas Crushing Uppercut is up 7.17s. So not only do I outdo the big attack so long as I am hitting 3 targets, but I can do it more often. This is what, at least in part, @DrunkFlux is getting at.

It's kind of of a joke statement as that is historically where the stuff has occurred. 😁

Farmers will. Missions certainly have trash to kill, but at that point Blasters outshine Tankers and Brutes for going nuclear. Bosses however, that is where a Brute will be leaving the Tanker behind, particularly once Tanker procs are reigned in a bit. It is NOT MY LOGIC. I noted it as the course of the developers. Moreover, I noted Tankers were stated by the developers to be the melee area damage specialists. Again, Blasters trump them instantly and handily. See upthread. All Brute vs Tanker discussions belongs in the Brute subforum.

The damage scalar is a guideline for assigning damage values, not something which is mechanically calculated in game. And yes, Brutes do fall behind Tankers for dealing area damage. Go read Captain Powerhouse's post--that is intended. Tankers have been adjusted to be the area damage specialists of the melee ATs. As for your calculations, go look in the Brute forum, find my posts. I am pretty sure most people of any time on these forums will point you to me questioning Brute/Tanker balance over the years. Where your calculations miss a step is the presumption of damage saturation for both ATs. It is possible for that to happen, sure, but it requires significant outside buffing for both. One Defender/Corruptor is not likely to pull that off solo. (Well, you could gobble inspirations, but that is rather limiting during a mission.) I think where you majorly lose a step is with: There is no purely defensive AT in the game. All have some sort of offensive capacity.

While a larger arc is more useful, 90 degrees is still a very decent arc. Though I have to say, the 10' radius is a bit short.

I was updating you on the new information. Specifically, the statement is changes to cones are being rolled back--no increase in radius, no change to damage.

Cake room is fine. The room I dread is the lab one with the machinery you can blow up by hitting it. Definitely my least favorite room.

Per Captain Powerhouse:

Even solo you have groups of foes. And nothing prevents herding.

Soloing is not likely to be balanced. Hard to see how the solo Defender is keeping up with any DPS AT. And in that regard, again, I will mention having tested my most recent Tanker's target build last night, and I can assure you that I was herding things up, and draging survivors to the next large pull to keep numbers up (though for clearing purposes, that is suboptimal currently). So who is going to clear solo more quickly (let alone safely), the Tanker or the Brute? Now, move into the team realm. Who gets more out of being buffed to deal more damage, the AT with lower target caps of the AT with higher? Fulcrum Shift means considerably more damage dealt if you can hit 16 targets rather than 10. And as noted, team size is going to drive the number of foes up. Go do a Mothership raid...plenty of targets there. Tanker are currently the best farmers. Why? Because of the AoE factor. So without hand-waving (and that is not meant as an insult), what exactly is the scenario you picturing where the Brute is the preferred choice? GM Hunting? That's pretty niche.

Pretty sure when you are in the character creator it lists Tank Damage at a 7, compared to an 8 for Brutes.

You could perhaps name the scenario where there are a bunch of single fights? Whatever it is, it does not strike me as being a significant portion of the game.

Never count out the DPS min-maxers. Last night I was testing out my planned build for my most recent Tanker. He has 0% global haste, but in the midst of fighting, hit the 142-167% range due to Force Feedback and attacks with guaranteed or high likelihood to occur knockdown/ups. That made the AoEs repeatedly spammable. Leftover bosses simply got drug along to the next group.

IOs NEVER STOP WORKING. YOU DO NOT OUTLEVEL THEM. That is the benefit. You stop wasting influence to upgrade them. As for the level of the IOs, a level 25 Accuracy gives you 32.0% whereas a level 35% give you But the 35 costs you 46,050 influence to craft versus 17,400 influence for the 25. I almost never craft anything over 30 while levelling, mostly live with 25s. There is no reason to waste the influence for the partial gain...unless you want to.

Heck, be lazy and just sell excess recipe drops. It adds up even unimportant ones. And sell all those regular enhancements too.

The cost to make level 25 and 30 crafted IOs is in the 20-25Kish range. Any crafted you slot should not be removed until you are slotting set enhancements. And once slotted, you are not needing to upgrade, so what you would have spent upgrading enhancements does not get spent. That adds up. I typically gift my starting characters with 1 million influence from a higher level character and then they are on their own. My most recent Sentinel is at level 42 and has 13 million influence. So take it he has made at least 12 million (though in reality it is higher since he had to pay for his crafted IOs at some point). A 40 makes plenty of influence for funding lower level characters. If you have a guild, you can even use your respec to recover those crafted IOs, stick them in a storage bench, and recycle them to other characters, really keeping your costs down. (Well, you could mail them to yourself too, but that is a headache since you have to mail them one at a time.)

Seems to have missed the miserable DDR Ninjitsu is saddled with.

Savage will lower endurance cost and recharge times while you maintain stacks of Blood Frenzy. Regen has its own endurancevrecovery boost, so you should not have endurance issues and you'll have a recharge boost. Claws boosts damage. I seem to recall seeing Regen has a minor (decaying) damage boost. Don't think either will be bad. Savage would probably tolerate global recharge boosting better but DoTs don't stack.

SS/Bio is one I have had great success with. Also have an Energy/Elec, who is not as far along as the aforementioned one, but performing quite nicely at 50.

Oh my God, Becky...look at her nerf...it is so big. It looks like one of those developers nerfs. Who understands those CoH developers?

Darn good question.

Logged in and popped a small red. It gave its advertised boost.

I never said otherwise. Build Up has a 90s base recharge rate and you can at max reduce it to 18 seconds. With a 10s duration, that is what...10s up and 8s down? So 180% damage for 10s and 100% damage for 8 on live, for an average of 144.44% versus on test having 170% for 10s and 100% for 8s, for an average of 138.88% or a reduction of 4%. And that is if you maintain maximum recharge reduction, with the loss being lower the less global recharge you are maintaining. Allow me to suggest that is basically a meaningless change. Rage applies on one, and only one powerset--Super Strength. You go from an 80% (or 160% double stacked) boost to 70% (or 140% double stacked). That is a 5.5% drop. Again, not that meaningful. I leave Follow Up as an exercise for the reader. In terms of what is causing tanker mission time clears to leap as much as they have, this is about as much of a non-factor as the new opponent healing factor.

My gut feeling was to go the other way as that keeps the proc reduction in place. Without falloff, you end up with just the reduction from the base, so Guarded Spin: 21%, Eye of the Storm: 23% reduction, Innocuous Strikes, 15% reduction. Is that still too steep? Let's say you're averaging 20% reduction across the various AoEs. If AoE damage is the primary mode of clearing trash, then you're looking at an increase in mission timers of 25%. So what took 2 minutes before will now take 2 minutes, 30 seconds.