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.

It's a childish descriptive is what it is. So is comparing people who like a mechanic to drug addicts. I have no power over decisions regarding development of Homecoming nor am I somehow addicted to a mechanic within a game. You're welcome to that opinion. Not everybody is going to like every mechanic for every set in the game. That's why the game has so many sets with different mechanics and play styles. Rage was designed as an extended period of increased damage to give SS the feeling of heavy hits with the damage crash to balance it so it wouldn't become over powered. Game balance is important. If Super Strength could always do the damage of two rage stacks with no downside, other sets would feel awful by comparison. If you remove the damage crash, you have to bring the damage of the set down as well to compensate. I don't know about anyone else, but I like being able to hit hard.

You're ignoring that rage is permanent when it comes to the damaging abilities. SS is balanced around rage, so of course Stone Melee will come out on top when you ignore the affect of rage on the abilities. If you actually take one stack in to account (since one stack will no longer crash), Punch beats Stone Fist, Haymaker beats Stone Mallet, Knockout Blow beats Seismic Smash. So now it's 2-5 in favor of SS. That's actually why one stack would crash, because SS was over-performing in that time if it didn't. Now there's less reason for crashing at 1 stack because there are some other sets that can out-perform the single stack's damage even without the crash. Why is it not okay? It's a matter of opinion about the play style of the set. It's not under-performing, in fact it's well above average in terms of performance. There has been no solid argument for change other than "I don't like it." SS is supposed to hit hard, and it does, but you can't let it hit that hard for free, especially when it's already such a popular set.

I made a Shield/SS tanker to see how the crash felt on a character that doesn't have a self heal. +4/x8 non-farm AE mission and it was a breeze. The lowest I got during a crash was 50%, and even then that was with aggro cap and I didn't have darkest night on a good mob to have the debuff on everything. By the time the next crash came around, I was back at full life with the issue solved. If I was really that worried about it, I could swap hybrids from Assault Radial to Melee Core for the regen and resist buff. I'd probably do something like that if I was tanking incarnate content, but for regular +4/x8 it didn't feel necessary. Shield also was a bit nice because I could cast active defense during the crash, giving me another worthwhile ability to utilize during the damage downtime. Using gloom and dark obliteration is also useful to keep the -tohit rolling. Taunt can also be used to help pull in any ranged stragglers. Foot stomp will still throw almost all the enemies in the air to keep them from hitting you. It's a bad idea in your opinion. That's fine and nobody is making you play SS. Seriously, there are a lot of other melee sets, and StJ is great if you want the brawling feel without rage. There are plenty of people who enjoy the play style it offers and don't want it to be dumbed down. It's not a play style for everybody, and honestly no set should try to be. Look at Archon Wizard in D3. Ungodly damage in archon form and then does effectively no damage when archon drops while also losing some survivability. The play style is pretty similar, with D3 just having the highs and lows to the extreme.

Not a stupid question at all. The crash doesn't lower the resist cap, it simply applies a -20% modifier. So if you have 120% resist, the crash would take you to 100%, leaving you still at the cap.

Most kits have ways to mitigate that to decent extent and you can always pick up barrier incarnate, which has a 120s CD so it can be used every other crash to completely negate it. Either way, it's unlikely you'll die in those 10 seconds. Pretty much every resist set has a self heal or increased regen, which is normally complete overkill at 90% resist, so dropping to 70 just means you might actually get more value out of the self healing. In a group, buffs come in to play too. A lot of people run maneuvers, so the defense loss is basically already countered most of the time, and if you happen to have anyone that provides resist buffs, that hit will be countered too. This isn't even taking in to account CC, which SS has some of on its own.

The difference in duration and recharge is what makes it a different mechanic. Think about the build up proc from Gaussian's. That's a different mechanic from the build up ability because it has a shorter duration and it is a proc rather than on demand. It doesn't matter that the %tohit and %damage bonus are the same, the abilities are used differently. The SS kit is balanced around the way rage works, it's a key part of the set. Different kits work differently, and that's a good thing. I don't want every kit to just be a reskin of each other; that would be incredibly boring. In terms of damage, SS wipes the floor with Ice and Stone Melee. Those sets have great CC, which is where they shine. While yes, some abilities like Knockout Blow are baseline weaker because of rage, Knockout Blow actually scales to above average damage for its recharge even with one stack. That's why the crash applied even with one stack, because crashing would bring the overall damage more in line with similar power sets. It's fine to remove it now, as there are other kits that do well above average without the need for a permanent buff, but don't make the mistake in thinking one stack of rage is even with similar kits. If one stack is above average, then two stacks is well above average, so the damage crash is needed to pull back the overall performance of the kit to reasonable levels. You more than have perma double stack at that value of recharge. Keep in mind you won't refresh the stack immediately when it falls off or you're wasting 10 seconds of the buff in the crash. It's a little pricey to get there, but I wouldn't say it's difficult, especially with incarnates available. Certainly anyone built towards perma hasten will also have perma double stack of rage, which is probably more than a very low percentage of SS players.

For 10 seconds. YOU might not enjoy high damage output with a small period of downtime, but that doesn't mean other people don't. Not to mention you can still judgement for full damage and there are plenty of non-damaging abilities available for most kits that might be worth activating or re-applying during the downtime. Defense is dropped by 10%, resistance is dropped by 20%. For 10 seconds. If that drops you to "minute" amounts, you were probably in trouble to begin with. What exactly is stopping you from stacking recharge? Why would your kin friend care that you don't want to cast rage more often? Rage will not crash in this iteration without overlap. Recharge does not cause rage to overlap unless it's left on auto, at which point the user has nobody to blame but themselves. I don't understand how it's hard or inconvenient to press a button every two minutes. Put it on a hot key and keep an eye out for the glow. Build up is a short period of burst damage. That's what it was designed to be and it has never been anything different. Rage is a prolonged period of increased damage. Sure they both increase damage, but they are very different mechanics. There's nothing wrong with some kits having unique mechanics. On a character with high up-time or perma double stack, very much so. That's not just a feeling, that's simple math. The average damage, even with the crash, is higher than with a single stack. It's not absurdly higher, but it is high enough to be noticeable. On a fully built character (on beta), I found that foot stomp hit for 232 with a single stack and for 275 with two stacks. That's a nice jump in damage. If you were constantly hitting for the 275, then logged in one day and could only hit for 232 because a patch removed stacking or drastically reduced the duration, wouldn't you feel weaker? That's the case already, though. Getting to perma double stack is rewarding, and with recharge buffs from team mates you could triple stack if you really wanted to for some extra burst at the cost of sustained damage. Sure if you're still leveling or building the character and are struggling to survive already, then probably don't double stack, in which case that additional recharge won't help rage. Rage is just one power of many that benefit from recharge, though, so more recharge is still rewarding. That's irrelevant to rage because ALL tanker melee damage is buffed by the change, not just Super Strength. Saying that one kit can be nerfed because the whole AT is buffed doesn't really make sense unless the kit is over-performing, which I don't believe it is. SS is also popular on brutes, which don't get any benefit from the change in tanker modifiers.

The problem is then damage has to be adjusted either to rage or to the kit as a whole to adjust for the lower up-time. Not to mention characters with perma-double stack will feel weaker regardless because with your example they would be hitting for less during 60 of those 120 seconds. Even if the numbers were balanced perfectly to compensate so that the damage over an extended period was the same, going from hitting hard permanently outside of crashes to only hitting hard for half the duration would feel awful. It's easy to give players something. It's very hard to take it away once they have it without leaving a bad taste in their mouth. Inherently an ability having a consequence for its use means it will involve a decision on its use. I'm not saying it's a complex decision, but you can't say it doesn't add one. For a fully built character that's built to ignore the crash that's sort of true, but some level of thought had to go in to planning the build around being able to ignore it. There's also the thought of, "Do I save judgement for the crash for additional damage during the downtime? Are there any active powers that I can delay re-applying until the crash so I can fit in another damaging ability?" Things like that. Again not complex decisions, but still decisions to be made mid-gameplay. Also I'll mention the bio/ss tank I fully built on pineapple with the design idea of using defensive adaptation during the crash, then swapping to offensive outside of it for additional damage. While the fully built version could ignore the crash even in offensive adaptation, the idea worked great in some lower level testing, where I didn't have all the means to ignore the crash. It's a very fun and active play style.

As the title states, I crash to desktop when the pets spawn from the lore incarnate Banished Pantheon Radial Superior Ally. I've tested this on two different computers with the same result. One of the characters testing this is also unable to be logged in to as a result. I do not have the T4 of this incarnate unlocked on live to test if it happens to me there, but as I tested on two different computers I think it is possible that it is something on the beta. I have also run the re-validate on tequila just in case a file was corrupted and still crashed upon activating the power. If somebody else could test this as well, that would be helpful.

Rage isn't a new mechanic, so people who made a SS character knew what they were getting in to. SS isn't the only melee set either. A Street Justice character can have similar animations to SS if strength is the theme of the character and you don't want to deal with rage. If you don't like one of the primary mechanics of a kit, maybe consider that kit isn't for you. There are plenty of people that like the rage mechanic because it requires thought to bring out its full potential instead of being another mindless damage increase. If rage was affecting the overall balance of the kit, that would be a different issue, but it's not with the changes on pineapple. One approach to the thematic issue some people have mentioned could be to change the way recharge affects it. I've seen several people state the crash isn't thematic because Superman doesn't crash, however there are a number of different super heroes who have time limits to their full strength before a "crash." These heroes tend to train those powers, and as they get stronger they can last longer before crashing. Perhaps an approach that might be more appealing would be to change recharge from decreasing the cooldown to increasing the duration. As you level your character and get stronger (slot recharge, etc), you would be able to last longer before crashing. This would come with its own slew of issues, though. It wouldn't be very intuitive, so it would need to be in the description of the power. It would likely snapshot the current recharge on activation, as I don't know if there is a way for the duration to shift around like the remaining cooldown can, which would likely lead to popping ageless or proc fishing for FF +rech procs before activating rage. It would take much longer to get to the second stack than it currently does with decent recharge. This would probably create more problems that it's worth, but I had the thought and figured it was worth sharing.