arcane

We could totally delete amplifiers and I’ll have nothing to say but good riddance.

Fair. Relevant that the Scrappers and Brutes aren’t exactly faceplanting. But I farm vet levels AFK on all my tankers because they’re still on a whole nother level. Whatever that’s worth.

Oh I’m not the kind of guy to imply that any of my characters are being rendered useless. That’s just hyperbole. But the number of respecs and rebuilds I could have to go through could be staggering and tiresome.

Sad day 😞 RIP dozens of my 50’s

You are correct that fixing PPM would be an alternative approach that would bring brutes and tankers closer to being balanced. I’m just not nerf-herding on that issue because I’m a certified proc monster addict. You are of course incorrect that Brutes are only behind Tankers in survivability in the HP category. That’s only correct if you assume everything to be capped by default, which is an absurd proposition. Tankers have a far easier time reaching those caps due to greater base values, the incredible SMotT ATO proc, etc. Tankers are almost immediately in AFK invincibility territory. Brutes have to really devote a giant chunk of their IO’s and slots and power choices to get anywhere close.

Yeah, the implication that anything coming out of some gal named “Pay2Win Vendor” has any place in a balance discussion seems pretty plainly ironic and silly.

Think you’re reading the wrong thread. Brutes aren’t “comparable” - they’re mostly obsolete unless (1) you PvP (DR curves do some completely stupid stuff between different AT’s - you can literally have situations where certain brute sets have more mitigation than the equivalent tank set by default) (2) you shake up the equation by looking at a set like Energy Aura or Regeneration or Super Strength that either Scrappers or Tankers can’t have.

I love it how it is. Awesome solo xp. Literally only place street sweeping is still fun. And balances itself somewhat by having what would actually be pretty hard enemy groups were it not for your level shifts.

Same. Hence why I think we leave it as is and rollback the tanker damage modifier instead.

Trigger warning: getting ready to invoke an idea that has been referred to as a sort of rule on the game. I’d prefer not to destroy existing repel powers, but they should roll back some of the nerfs they did to this power that make its effects suppress etc. I can’t be super specific because I don’t even understand how the power works anymore. Off the top of my head, I want to say they broke it circa i13. Back when Mind/Storm, Defenders with TK, etc. were really cool.

I love inspirations just fine. I just think the email trick in particular - as if 20 isn’t already enough - sounds akin to a cheat code - cheesy, lame, and antithetical to a meaningful gaming experience. And I don’t want to have to buy those stupid temp powers from a pay to win vendor either while we’re at it.

I thought Brute fury already did like 200% +damage at 100% full. Shows how much I study the numbers I guess.

I consider this game 99% pretty easy and I will never use my email for more inspirations. Design a rare thing or two around incarnates and IO’s by all means please, but absolutely nothing should be designed around people that abuse tricks and temp powers etc if you ask me. Fuck that.

Maybe an unpopular opinion but I don’t think Scrappers should have taunt auras.

I have maybe 9 or so brutes. Only times besides my 5 /fire brutes that I picked a brute specifically because I thought it was my best option was for Regen and Energy Aura. In both cases I was wanting to play non-tank sets but play them like a tank. I would’ve played them as scrappers but I personally like melees to feel like brick walls so I just don’t have very many scrappers/stalkers (yet). I’ve made a lot of tankers since this debate first started to pop up in the forums and they’ve quickly become my favorite melee AT. So you could say I’ve come around to agreeing more with ole Bill than I used to. Helps that I’m a sucker for proc monsters.

I dunno. You could think of it the other way: resistance and defense gets exponentially better per 1% as you get more - when you look at it from the angle of how the enemy’s damage/accuracy adjusts with each 1%. And tankers often can use IO’s to cap quantities they never could before. Like non-S/L resistance on most resistance sets. Semantics, perhaps. Point is I’m not convinced Blasters need any help at all 😉

Depends how you use them but sure. I’d argue that the difference between IO potency between AT’s is negligible compared to the difference between an IO’d build vs. non-IO’d build for any given AT though. Also I would clarify that only 10-20% of my blasters are IO’d according to the soft cap meta. Because it’s not necessary. I’d rather load up on more damage and procs than sacrifice all my bonuses for something inspirations can handle fine. So, not sure I’m meeting this concept of patching holes with my IO’s.

Disagree on Radiation Blast needing help at all. Fantastic set. Agree on Assault Rifle and Sonic Blast.

Interested to try this 🙂

Of course I only play with IO’s, but I don’t buy the implication that blasters are underperforming in non-IO land. If I haven’t finished my IO’s on any given character, I just compensate with more inspirations. It’s never as if IO’s make an AT go from worst to best; they only amplify what’s already there.

I don’t actually want Fire Blast nerfed. I’m just saying that IF you were to try to bring equity to DPA, it would be less bad to nerf Fire than to make every other set monstrously OP too. Since I’d prefer not to nerfherd, my logical preference would be to leave the status quo and focus on actual underperformers.

Yeah, Blasters and Tankers are the two AT’s right now where I feel I could pretty much make any possibly powerset combination play like easymode.

Fire being extra OP is not a logical reason to buff everything else. It’s a logical reason to nerf Fire. That being said, since people like Fire, better to leave the issue alone than to highlight an issue that logically calls for a nerf. Blasters are OP in general right now and further buffs should be completely off the table beyond the bigtime duds. Ignite, Shout, etc.

I don’t think the DPA of one attack merits buffs. Balance is far more nuanced than that. Obviously more buffs to still-underperforming sets like Assault Rifle or Sonic Blast are welcome, but that’s about it. If you actually play other blasters instead of just reading data and fighting pylons, you’ll know that most of the sets in question - Rad, Water, Dark, Psy, Beam, etc. - are in great shape. Blasters in general are easily one of the top AT’s across the board. Even my AR/Dev outperforms more meta combinations from other AT’s. They simply need zero help at best (nerfs at worst) outside of the rare dud attack.

You don’t even have to set a pattern. You can ignore the mechanic entirely and the set would still be great because of Savage Leap.