skoryy

That actual players are okey dokey with what the forums would consider 'bad' and 'worst'.

There's a balance to strike between 'this is what the number crunching says' and 'this is what the players are actually doing.'

Two things that can be done to improve the brute, just off the top of my head: Replace the Fury building mechanic with something like Quick Form. It starts building the moment you're considered in combat, and it builds on a logarithmic scale so you have to stay in combat longer to get more out of it. The fury ATO builds Fury quicker and/or unlocks Fury above 90. Honestly, the really big thing would be making Fury 100 obtainable again. Why have a whole bar if you're never going to use more than 90% of it?

Spreadsheets and High Scores right back atcha. Seriously, though, there's a discussion to be had about lackluster ATOs and making the Fury chase more meaningful that doesn't also mean that Brutes Bad. Brutes are fine. They can still be improved!

I mean, there's an awful lot of brutes I see out in the wild despite the constant refrain around here of 'Brutes Bad'.

That means you won't get it for Midnight Grasp, though, and that's your heaviest hitter. Also, having it in Smite means its rolling for proc twice every 7~ seconds. The proc rate's lower, but it's going to pop up more often in a longer fight. I'm curious if anyone's ever done the math on that.

There's still teamwork involved in 'semi-solo,' though, and teamwork that works since we are running through mobs far faster than if I was soloing.

He's fun, even if I'm having to continually run ahead of everyone just to keep Soul Drain fueled. Solo, I need to keep popping purples until he gets to T4 Barrier, so I'm wondering if I should fine-tune his regen powers a bit. More so since Torrent is just a set mule I use to play Bowling For Skulls in Atlas Park, but having all that recharge is handy for keeping the attack chain up. Also, still sorting out how the Critical Strikes proc works. If'm going Smite -> Siphon Life -> Smite -> Midnight Grasp, it makes sense to put it in Smite so that it procs for Midnight Grasp, right? Shaolin Midnight II - Scrapper (Dark Melee - Willpower).mbd

Which is why I'm constantly running ahead as safely as possible to get off my nukes and soul drains. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Gunny Highway had it right the first time.

And as it's been argued already, this is quality of life and not a buff. The buff's already there, this is just reducing the running back and forth from your base to get it.

You heard the man, no more nice things ever. You thought you were playing a game? You thought you were here for fun? No, you're lucky we haven't made you suffer like we did back in the day when we leveled uphill, both ways! Sister Psyche in a fridge, man. Are y'all listening to yourselves?

See, its stuff like this that I can't take the talk of 'powercreep' around here all that seriously. I mean, if you want to balance this around the START buffs, that's a good idea. Throw in a couple orange salvage items in the recipe, boom, now you're talking real inf. There, now you can make it stackable.

Haven't fought Warwolf and Mage bosses recently?

Especially since I'm not sure Trapdoor catches the current meta. Consider where we went with nuCouncil and nuCircle and X star task forces.

Given how things went the last time the devs touched Rage, good luck with getting that through the fire and flame.

You still get your attacks later than a brute, will get them fully slotted later than a brute, and not everyone farms their way to 50.

Condider that the tanker advantage at the high end game could be their reward for being less fun leveling and exemping than the brute. An SG mate's Dark/Dark tank had me considering one of my own until I realized what few attacks he'd have for the first half of his leveling journey. So I made him a Dark/Dark brute instead. Much more fun.

Which is why it'll never get ported to Scrappers without changes to bring it in line with other melee sets.

Thinking on it... L;ight-based powers as a counter to all the Dark melees, blasts, and what have you. Yeah, there's Energy or Rad, but this wouldn't have all the stupid knockdowns. Its just holy light that does energy/fire damage, maybe returns back buffs or a minor heal as its special trait.

I'm sorry that proc-bombing is the way things are and will be. Thoughts and prayers.

Having run around the island doing radios as of late, I think this is just muscle memory. Heck, I'd say that Malta's easier since they're just targets once you take out the sapper.

Since Actionette's staked her claim as my main...

Between the ability to delete bosses, the crit chance bbnuses you get for sticking around the team, and that even at low levels you still get crits and assassination, stalkers are possibly the most all-purpose non-EAT in the game: Solo, team, hard mode, or exemp!

Yeah, I think we do need the different thread, 'cause I'm just going to re-iterate that the old S/L/E defense cap meta just isn't going to carry you anymore. My S/L/E capped blasters get toasted against nuCouncil but I can breeze through them with my elec/elec stalker with his capped resists and Power Sink. So, yeah, any builds that could just cap S/L/E and call it a day are going to be suffering disproportionately.

The more I think on it, the more I really should put up a post on how HC has shaken up the S/L/E defense meta. I'm getting a lot more mileage out of other sources of damage mitigation now.