Erratic1

Most teams are not going to notice. They want you to take the alpha. The group I just got out of before posting this? I was the only melee, and my scrapper was leaping in first.

Its less the formatting change then selective replying to portions of entire sentences, as if the phrase is not within a context. As example... Replied to in the following fashion: In fact the sentence is not false, but the formatting makes it appear what said was something about how defenders uniformly must play the game when what was said was that if a defender wants to get maximum damage they have to spend time setting it up all the blather about agreeing to terms of service in the game and being free to play the game your own way notwithstanding.

This presumes the Brute survives the 16 minions and the boss as well as the Tank does. What...the extra hp and higher resists/defense stopped meaning anything?

The entire "raw" damage bit is nothing the game says. But tell you what...since it is only raw damage, how big the hit is, that counts then let's give Brute's unlimited area of effects--they hit everything in the map (or zone if outside). Since that does not impact their damage standing relative to other ATs by your claim, nothing will have changed vis-a-vis Brutes and any other AT. I am imagining Brutes will take to hovering and farming entire zones by just repeatedly spamming their area attacks, but hey...damage will not have changed. The raw hit is not the only consideration. Why would it be? Again, infinite range for Brutes.

Being able to hit more through AoE is still doing damage. Increasing AoEs is meaningful to damage considerations. And if you are going to say it isn't, then fine, increase Brute's area of effects too. Edit: Obviously one could simply increase Brute survivability to be within 8% of a Tanker's. Of course at that point, probably easiest just to do away with one AT or the other.

I am pretty sure the below shows Brutes doing more damage than Tankers and not just barely. Curiously, if you compare 10 to 8 its a 20% greater value--in line with Bubba's post. But if you compare 9 to 7...well, 8% ain't anywhere near 28%.

I think you have this reversed. It pitted the Tanker against the supposed Brute strength of greater damage and the Brute barely coming out ahead is one of those things that in college football happens from time to time where the favored team does win but does so by so close a margin that their standing drops in the polls the following week. 8% is so close as to be meaningless.

Certainly. And before I would advocate any sort of change I would want a careful examination of Bubba's setup, examples from other powerset combos, and careful analysis of why the results are whatever they turn out to be. My pushback was with the notion that, "Supperior aggro management, superior survivability (more hp and higher defense/resistance) and 92.5% of the damage output of a Brute" is equitable.

The game is not fighting pylons, at least not for most people. Shouldn't the consideration be performance in the realm where most people play?

Supperior aggro management, superior survivability (more hp and higher defense/resistance) and 92.5% of the damage output of a Brute sounds equitable? What is your gain for making a Brute exactly? But can you do so without hurting damage? Because if you end up with Tanker equivalent survivability and less damage on top of having a harder time maintaining aggro then you made a serious mistake in playing the Brute.

Keep in mind that Bio's Offensive Stance lowers your defense in exchange.

My twofold response would have been: Asking, "You expect Brutes to build to not survive just so they can have more damage?" If you don't like Claws then give me another offensive set to work with, but do NOT dare dream that you then get to complain about it as it will have been your choice.

Given damage does not occur once you're dead nor are people going to do suboptimal things when building a character, I would assume validity would require (a) satisfying survival criteria first and (b) then maximizing damage. If that requires different builds between the ATs for the same powersets then that is what is valid.

No, the debate is now:

Highest reward for least effort is a strategy that allows the species to be here at all. Wasteful species tend either to not survive or quickly become more efficient when resources drop depending on how quick the drop is. As for short-sightedness, we tend to fall short of what we know we could do. Compared to other species? Leave a bag of open dog food accessible and go away for the weekend while leaving the dog at home. Most dogs would not understand you having a big metal box full of food which you do not immediately and completely empty by stuffing yourself. But yeah, talk about weird hangups... I will visit a farm from time to time because it can be neat to see someone operating at such an extreme. But the thrill wears off quickly and I depart. But invite me to a +4/8 PI Radio Mission team and even though its effectively the same thing, its engaging. My higher brain has not figured out why the one is boring and the other not.

True but only meaningful if needing the 5 or 6 slot bonuses from the available sets. Bonuses to Recharge and Toxic/Psi Resistance look to be the most common and desirable bonuses on those slots which might be hard to get elsewhere (not to say there are not other desirable things in those slots).

Fury should also increase the damage from the damage aura. Granted, that is not going to be a major thing.

Tankers don't get Fury (extra damage for being attacked/making attacks). I am not saying I think WM/FA is going to be god's gift to any AT but there should be a noticeable difference between its performance on a Tanker and a Brute or Scrapper.

Beaten to the statement but yeah, your powerset choices have merits on both sides of the fence. Crits are a beautiful thing but then not having to deal with runners is not just a plus for annoyance sake but the more things attacking you the more Fury you build and the more damage your attacks and damage auras deal. Like Dark Dove, I would probably lean more Brute on this one.

Fair point. I think part of what troubles me is that eve with all of the qualification on what the ranking of powers is meant to indicate some chunk of the populace is simply going to hop to the last pages and walk away with, "X good, Y bad". KB->KD took Energy Blast from 9th to 2nd. But perhaps its okay to stop there and leave it to players willing to go beyond the simple take away to see if they can push Energy Blast (or any of the KB sets) further up the list by milking Force Feedback.

Forced Feedback is as fundamental a shift to function as KB->KD. Moreover Force Feedback is dirt cheap on the AH. I cannot think of any other IOs which stand to do so much for so little investment.

Thx! Will check it out.

Psi/Kin, at least at level 24, just wasn't doing it for me. 😢 Not a power (as in what could be soloed, because being able to put part of a group to sleep definitely had its uses), just it wasn't clicking for me. Put the Psi/Kin aside midway through the Protean story arc and created a Water/Kin. Hadn't touched Water since Live and had forgotten what fun it is. Manage to get back to the Protean story arc and finish it, even taking Protean down solo (admittedly with some elevator scumming). Kinda wondering if I can cap her on ranged defense without warping her build.

Pretty awesome. So much so, you inspired me to riff on it. Thx!

Because they both occur. The sections would have to be different if one part has 100% and the other 0% (unless they could set the 'after 0.5s' part to zero damage).