Cawshun

TW doesn't really have a weakness between AoE and single target, so the way mobs spawn will have less of an impact on overall performance. DS both allows more mobs to be pulled and adds to the AoE damage due to lack of recharge. I don't know the exact threshold of recharge needed to make DS a damage loss in AoE, but just hasten might be close enough, which could be why it's less commonly seen. That or maybe the ability is just underestimated because the damage is lower than the other cones. If you look at @Galaxy Brain's ranking page on the spreadsheet, they are organized by the difference between the best and worst time. TW is 5th of 19 sets (74th percentile) in terms difference of highest and lowest times. There are about six sets that had similar difference in times as TW. That's purely Galaxy's runs, so it's just off of his skill. Looking at the consolidated rankings, TW is tied with Psy melee and Firey melee at a difference of 1:08 (47th percentile), and there are 7 sets that were more consistent. Based on the data, I wouldn't say that TW times were particularly more static than other sets.

Eh, before you reach defense cap DS is worth taking, which is a scenario of this test. The lack of use of it initially was probably an oversight and likely an underestimation of the value defense would have on such a test (Especially since initially the test wasn't going to take in to account survivability.) DS is part of the kit, and you can't disregard it just because it's not worth taking when IOd out. Without hasten and IOs there's also a lack of recharge, which makes an additional AoE more valuable as well. I would say it is an important survivability tool for TW, but I wouldn't say it was the sole factor that made TW perform so well. There are multiple other kits that have a similar ability and none of them reached the same speeds as TW did. Clearly there is something else about TW that is pushing it further. Also, @Hopeling's average time not using DS was 5:41. Katana, utilizing its +def ability, also is at 5:41, and Staff utilizing its +def is at 5:40. Is it really okay for a set that's not utilizing its defensive ability to run even with those that are in a scenario where survivability is important? I think it says a lot that TW can pull even with "similar" kits without utilizing all of the tools at its disposal while those other kits are.

There's nothing wrong with a power being important to a kit. Look at Staff Mastery, which is Staff's replacement for Build Up. Staff's kit is completely designed around it and if you didn't take it the set would be clunky and weak. It's more required for staff than rage is for SS yet it's not a problem. Managing cooldowns/buffs is not really unique to SS, there are plenty of kits in the game that have cooldowns they need to pop every 1-2 minutes. If you feel it's that much of a hassle, maybe consider that SS isn't for you. There are 22 other options to pick from. I'm not trying to be rude or anything by that, but sets are designed to offer different and unique play styles from each other. There are kits in the game that I don't like mechanics of, but that doesn't mean that the devs made mistakes when designing them and they need a rework. I think it's an interesting and unique mechanic as it is, but I'm not going to say it couldn't be changed at all. The main thing about a rework or rage would be to keep SS relatively at the same level it's currently at if not slightly lower. A take on rage could be to make it similar to offensive adaptation and Assault Radial. Basically make it add a % of damage done to each attack as smashing damage. Currently the only real issue I have with rage is that in a group setting with lots of +dmg buffs, SS will hit the cap before other kits because of its massive +160% with two stacks. Granted with the current balance, it still performs well above average, so the % smashing damage would have to be carefully considered.

Yet people don't have to farm to get a reasonable number of them. They basically just have to play the game. Not everybody who builds their character up farms to do so. I knew plenty of people on live that had multiple purpled out characters that hated farming even before merits were introduced. Anybody can get to that level just by playing the game. It's part of the natural character progression.

The idea was never to ignore IO existence when balancing, it was to make sure that any adjustment because of IOs did not hurt the viability of a set at SO level. Say a set was performing average at SO levels, but over-performing when sets came in to play. The solution isn't to lower the damage, because that would hurt it at SO level. The solution is to look at what about the set is causing it to scale heavily and adjust that instead. It takes a lot more time because the set has to be thoroughly investigated, but the end result is worth it. I'll also point out that you don't have to farm to get a character maxed out. There are plenty of people who use merit rewards to get the expensive sets. To me I think set bonuses themselves need to be looked at. There are some that are just way too powerful for what they are (including many of the defense bonuses). Rebalancing sets would be a huge undertaking though, and would likely be met with backlash.

I had started leveling a savage melee brute as one of my first characters coming back to the game and I really felt that the blood frenzy mechanic was a bit backwards. Using a finisher at 5 stacks is almost a punishment because you lose the buff from the stacks for 14 seconds. I felt it would flow a lot better if the buff came from the exhaustion effect instead, so using a finisher would give you a buff for 14 seconds based on how many stacks were consumed. I definitely am interested in testing of if spending at 5 stacks is worth it outside of build up. If it's not, even at SO levels, then the mechanic definitely should be looked at even if the performance of the set is average.

Just ran 10 runs with Staff with some pretty solid, but not too surprising results. Staff has a great kit for this sort of test with two cones and a pbaoe, a -res debuff from the pbaoe, a +def buff from a cone, and a +res buff from Sky Splitter to help with herding. Stayed in Form of Body for the damage bonus as well as the accompanying buff/debuff on the spenders. Serpent's Reach was useful for runners and deals decent single target for the bosses. I would usually dance around a little to optimize cones to hit as many mobs as possible, which I think is where a lot of variance in the time comes from. Pretty much all abilities were used often in order to keep stacks of form up as much as possible. The set is fairly consistent for the most part as long as I was getting good uses of the cones. Staff Times 5:49 5:38 6:06 - experimented with maximizing resistance from Sky Splitter, but maximizing 3 stack Eye of the Storm was definitely better outside of bosses and EB. 5:32 5:51 5:34 5:38 5:59 5:44 5:20 - This run had ideal spawns and very few runners. Average Time: 5:43

SS isn't singled out. TW is an outlier and I wouldn't be surprised to see its numbers adjusted in the future. Trying to balance around something that's over performing results in massive power creep.

Yeah, I think I was just looking at the .4s delay between haymaker's cooldown and gloom's cast time at capped recharge. Maybe WoW's global cooldown is just so ingrained into me that I don't notice the delay. It's really wonky with SS and is actually capping the damage early, possibly because of the live damage cap. You can see this if you look at Foot Stomp's damage with 1x Rage vs 2x Rage with the Gaussian's proc in. The damage remains the same. It doesn't quite hit as hard as your Energy build hits with ET, but it deals with bosses fairly quickly. The overall performance between the two kits is probably similar. Close enough at the very least that a player could run either and still be effective in damage while being a tanker. At the end of the day with the way CoH tends to play, it's not a big deal if one out performs the other as long as neither are under performing. I'm looking forward to seeing your results with a proc Bio/SS.

On Pineapple, though I just started a character on live. I have enough recharge to get away juggling gloom, haymaker, and Knockout Blow for the most part. In the rare moments of any downtime, foot stomp can be thrown in, as I believe it's the next highest damage ability in the setup. The rotation was generally something like KoB - Haymaker - Gloom - Haymaker - KoB repeat, throwing DNA Siphon in on CD below KoB in priority. What is the -regen% on DNA siphon, anyway? It seemed to be noticeable, but neither the information screen nor mids have an actual % for it. The numbers make it look like there would be more downtime between abilities than I experienced in testing. When I'd try to throw in another attack it usually resulted in delaying KoB. It seems to be worth waiting a fraction of a second for Knockout blow as it hits like a truck and delaying it tended to be a damage loss. That's just my feeling from experimenting with it, though. I think SS is one of those sets that can struggle a little early on, but performs well in the later levels, especially when fully built. It's not dethroning TW or anything, but from my experience with different melee kits it tends to perform above average. Foot Stomp is extremely satisfying in a group of mobs, too. Did you test the energy melee character much in AoE? A lot of content in the game has a focus on AoE, so I'm curious how procced out whirling hands performed.

I had fury of the gladiator in genetic contamination for a little bit of extra -res and yeah, double rage.. I'll include the build. I'm sure it can be improved, and you might be able to use procs in something like Genetic Contamination that has a low base damage to improve its performance a bit. I did try a variant with LBE for the achilles and got 3:32 in the one attempt I did with no hybrid, but the build loses AoE potential for that, which I'm not a fan of.

I just did a couple pylon kills on my Bio/SS tanker that I was doing testing with before and wound up with times of 3:43 and 3:37 without hybrid and 2:58 with. I think the nature of SS being heavily invested in +dmg lessens the value of damage procs for it, even with procs ignoring the crash. Buff procs like FF +recharge are still amazing though. If I have time later I might make a WP/SS with a similar build to get an idea how much of that time is due to Bio.

I think in that case the problem is recharge itself rather than Rage. I would agree that recharge on the whole is a bit out of control. Power creep has made it fairly easy to get recharge to very high levels with relative ease, especially with how much easier it's become to get sets and the like. It's affected a lot more than just SS. I've felt for a while like hasten should be reworked, as it's a go to power for almost every build. I don't think power pools were in the power percentages @ 50 post but I'd be curious to see just how often hasten is chosen. If it was part of a specific kit that wouldn't necessarily be a problem, as a pool power, it feels like it is. The question would be how would a blanket change to recharge go over with the community. I was intending it more as a discussion, not complaining. I apologize that it came across that way. I can own up to being a bit insulting/hypocritical with using childish. The same comments over and over were starting to sound like a broken record while not contributing anything on the topic of rage, so I probably over-reacted a little.

Metaphors intended to discredit the target using an immense amount of hyperbole. I'm not insulted by them, I'm stating they come across as insults. It's all well and good you think it's a distraction tactic, but I've already made my points about Rage. Using a distraction tactic after that while not defending your own position seems a bit silly, doesn't it? Edit: I was told to refer you to this book - https://bookofbadarguments.com/ What position am I supposed to be defending exactly? I've made many posts defending my position on rage and the iteration on beta, which is what this thread is supposed to be a discussion of. Regardless this is getting off-topic. Let's get the focus of the discussion back on rage itself.

The burden of proof is not on the defense. Either way, unless I somehow have Captain Powerhouse locked in my basement, I'm not sure how I would be holding a set hostage. I'm simply pointing out that attempting to insult the opposition is not debating, it's a last resort when you don't have a counter to their point. You lose all credibility once you attempt to insult a person's character. Speaking of proof, I haven't seen a solid reason that Rage is broken or ruins the kit. It's all posts that they don't like it. There's a number of kits I don't like, but I don't complain about them and say they need to change. I don't expect to like everything. It's impossible to make everyone happy, and trying to do so usually results in things becoming worse. I have on several posts shared ideas of possible changes to rage. Also the current iteration on beta IS a compromise. You don't have to crash if you don't want to, while those that want to enjoy the damage benefits of stacking at the cost of the crash can do that too. People that don't want to crash are getting their compromise, but they're the ones not agreeing to it. Several sets have received changes when going to other ATs without changing it for the original AT. That's likely what we will see in the case of SS on scrappers.