Sir Myshkin

Out of curiosity how much effort would be involved to put out a version of SS that has Rage as a 60/s duration, 240 base recharge, all crash removed, same buffs, and normalize Jab’s base damage to match the t1 majority. That’s it, just for us to test it. Let us mine out some data points so you guys can see what it’d look like and see what areas may need potential adjustment if SS takes that kind of direction. It is the experimental server after all, and I strongly believe this needs to be tried as an approach to find the correctional path for SS. It’ll also allow a lot of players to see what SS would look like in this form being one of the most requested alterations (relatively lumped). I don’t think this is the ultimate fix, but we need the data to see what else needs bumped.

I’d say do an Earth/(doesn’t matter)/Stone Proctroller. If you like Dark Affinity, I’d say do that secondary. Combo is a beast.

“I know why you all choose to have your group therapy sessions in broad daylight...” clicks tongue “Look, it’s simple, just kill the Bat.” ”If is so simple, why don’t you do it?” ”Because if you’re good at something, never do it for free.” That scene from The Dark Knight is all I can think of with these threads. I think they’re propaganda from other ATs to create chaos in the ranks.

Hmm... https://youtu.be/fS9wuABwvCU

Well, I really tried to keep things succinct in the same post, but the forum really freaks out when you start editing super long posts. Here is the video it wouldn't let me include in the original post: https://youtu.be/fS9wuABwvCU

Tank Testing: Update #5 General Comments Well, isn’t that just the frustrating event of the day? I twitch-trigger-clicked a button on my mouse and cause the page to go backwards and wiped about two pages worth of stuff. Guess that’s what I get for typing everything up in the reply box, eh? Anyway, looks like we’re getting some TL;DR edition of what I wrote before. Maybe that’s a good thing? /em shrug Anywho, going to be rounding out the testing for Tanks a bit earlier than originally planned. Most of the testing I’ve completed up to this point has been remarkably consistent to expectation excluding the outlier case of Super Strength and evaluating that set a lot more than planned. Due to the extended amount of specific testing done for that set (both being relevant to the Tank changes on test, and just general curiosity on how procs were integrating with its performance) I’ll be cutting short on going through some of the last few builds. In total I had roughly 12 planned Tank builds to run, @Rylas took a couple of those for me and fed back the info for study, which definitely helped, but each build takes upwards of 45 minutes to roll, level, and slot, which means there’s well over 10 hours of effort involved in just creating the characters, and I honestly haven’t got that much time right now just to validate what looks to be consistent returns up to this point. The last few builds in the pipeline weren’t containing any abnormalities or unique abilities that warranted extra attention, they were mostly just confirmation of survivability when building under a heavy proc-load. After Radiation Armor proved to be so well balanced from a survival standpoint having the least amount of crowd-control options, I know that the other Res sets should fair similarly Beyond that this update will cover a few things, and then once Kinetic Melee gets fixed on Beta (if it gets fixed any time soon), that’ll be the last set I really want to mess around with from a melee-proc stand point, and yes I could just roll it up on a Brute to get the same idea, but I wanted to scale it based on the Tank changes as that’d be the “bottom” of the scale, and Brute, Scrapper, and Stalker should, in theory all scale upwards from that value. Something that will be eventually coming down the pipeline will probably be a more comprehensive “How To” style guide on managing and building Proc Monsters. Testing Tanks comprehensively covers four AT’s alone, and the work between Defender/Controller covered another five-ish. I say “ish” because technicality in the primary of Blasters, Sentinels, and Dominators via Defenders and Controllers respectively. A few others have taken on the challenge of exploring Masterminds, so that leaves very little left in the way of validation (Epic AT’s). Super Strength To take a bit of a follow up on this set, SS got a lot of extra attention due to some of the Tank changes and the general conflict of Rage and the specific attention it was getting in the Beta discussions. I spent a lot more effort dealing with this attack set than originally planned and discovered the aspect that this set can/is so easily broken right now. Not in a “broken, bad” way, but a “broken, OP” way. I didn’t consider, or even officially recognize any set as being the “King” of procs, but SS is likely to finally be that set. They overshadow the disfunction of Rage’s crash in a huge way and help swing that set overboard in a way that it becomes an outlier set with Titan Weapons. I posted about the kind of measured performance times in a previous update, but I went further into the study on the Beta threads by measuring against Brute performance using the same (flipped) build. With a Brute’s added scale, I did end up breaking the 2:00 mark (1:55) which pushes SS into the territory of “this is bonkers.” I fully expect that at some point that our Dev team will be doing a sweeping pass over on SS soon™ and bringing this set in line, and I fully expect it to cause a lot of waves, but it’ll be warranted changes. What a lot of people won’t realize is that whatever happens, it will be a nerf. On paper though, it’ll look like a “buff.” We’ll keep the secret between us though, eh? 😉 If you want to do some stupid melee antics, roll up that SS character while you still can. Titan Weapons The elephant in the Melee Room. There were discussions I had with a few folks about validating interactions with this set, momentum triggers, additions of powers into the momentum swing, and how procs validate against the animation time changes. I intentionally didn’t test with Bio Armor on this one because I wanted to see more of how this set performed on its own merits, and also to play around with how Melt Armor would impact the set (also, Char). With momentum altering the physical time it takes an attack to execute, it doesn’t appear to alter the impact of proc triggers. I got relatively expected returns on Crushing Blow, Follow Through, Rend Armor, and Arc of Destruction (in order of least to highest probability, and total proc return). Something that was interesting to note in the process, if I got a poor proc return, and the minor DoT didn’t execute from FT, then FT became the weakest attack in my cycle. My average single-attack damage return (in total) was about 400, with a total average in the 500-550 range when accounting for RA and AoD, proc misses, and -Res variances. CB and FT were typically ~400 with procs, AoD and Char in the 600’s, and RA was my spike outlier at reaching over 900 with active -Res occurring (at least one recorded hit of 937.77). I did a build with Enflame, Char, and Melt Armor included into the structure in order to also inspect the impact on adding non-set abilities into the mix, and what value they might add or detract. Enflame became a pretty successful tool for Defender and Controller builds that needed an extra kick of -Res to help up damage, and in general the ability does a solid amount (comparatively for those AT’s). For TW, and realistically Melee in general, Enflame’s return doesn’t look to be as valuable. Its total impact was entirely weighed to its addition of -Res to the chain, and that one factor helped compensate its usage at all. Char on the other hand hit significantly well, but the downside is that it couldn’t get down to a reasonably chain-inclusive time (with FF+Rech I could get into the 9-10/s cooldown range, otherwise I was looking at 11/s). Given that it can’t be consistently wrapped into a momentum swing, I was more likely using it to tail the end of a cycle and using far less often than would’ve been worth value. When it came to cycling things in between TW attacks, one huge disadvantage that building for procs had on the set is the inability to measure my recharge times more effectively. I stuck to the ground rules of “no rech in the attacks” as much as effectively possible, but the value return needed to make a performance chain just can’t exist in global alone. I feel like the inclusion of procs compensated under performance here, and that there’s a fine line between the original “high yield” style of building, and proc-inclusion that must be found, and drawn bolder. I also want to point out that, with such a definitive base line of 400 effectual damage per attack, I don’t see Char or Gloom (the two most prominent choices of ST improvement for Tanks in their Epics) being a necessarily imperative add. Gloom ends up base lining near the same value as TW’s weakest option (CB), and Char has a recharge that’s just too high that it’d be balanced in a specific part of the rotation. For some, that added chaos would break concentration, but it would add a marginal uptake to the average yield. It’s not a bad attack to replace CB in a chain, or honestly even FT, but it would cycle in and out in abnormal places to use it. The difference Char would create is also an inconsistent roll. At full proc we’re talking ~600-650 damage all-in, but if it only rolls half of them, it’ll have much more variance than something like CB which has an average of 400, with a spike of ~480 (essentially whether it gets just 2 procs, or all 3). Basically, if Char could miss a proc, its overall performance improvement is enough to balance out to still be at, or slightly better than if you’d used CB in its place. If all procs stayed consistently high, then Char would swing DPS considerably upward (~25-30 pts). Right now my average consensus of measured times for Tanks is in the 3:00-6:00 range, with higher-performers breaking into the 2:00-3:00. Without the added benefits of additional -Res that Bio Armor offers, TW sits in the 2:45-3:15 window, just like SS does. Given that, I’d anticipate that adding Bio into the equation, TW should return, for Tanks, similar values (ie: I should be hitting 2:00 Pylon times on Bio/TW). For most of the sets, standard performance is falling within 4:00-6:00 on a Pylon run. I don’t really have a further, more in depth breakdown for TW, but I can add from a survival stand point, I had to give up a lot of padding you can, and probably should want in regards to resistance (at least S/L). I don’t know what the critters in Comic-Con got loaded up with, but there were a few in there that were able to chew through SR in a fast hurry. It felt an awful lot like someone had built something in there to annihilate SR, I just couldn’t keep that set alive in the farm at +4/8. SR does give a lot of freedom for leveraging a proc-focused build though, otherwise, and Tanks hit the softcap very quickly with that set. EDIT: I wanted to add in some additional information I didn't have time to do earlier when I was writing this up. I did the correction on the SR/TW build to set for "optimal" chain (RA > FT > AoD > CB > FT). Wasn't too far off, just had to flip a few powers into sets to get the recharge added in. This is a very tight scenario, too. I could only explain it as anything other than server delay with this attack chain, I'd get stuck on that first FT a lot where the game was going "wait... what'd they click? Should I fire that? I don't know... did we fire it yet? NOPE, oh well, they selected AoD, lets fire that off!" I had to have FT queued to make sure it'd trigger because the momentum fall-off was in the .0#/s of time shaved. During BU, that Momentum streak is 10/s so I'd go full chain+WS+CB, and try and que up FT, sometimes I'd catch it, sometimes it'd miss and I'd have to immediately hit RA. This chain is very much about paying attention, catching the server ticks appropriately, having attacks queued, and paying attention and it's super stressful. I've run a lot of attack chains, this is the only one where I've been like "argh!" So, I ran a crazy amount of Pylon runs with this trying to figure out the balance point. I tried running with, and without Char, and eventually also both versions of the Hybrid Assault. What I can say is that having Char used didn't really change anything. I tried swapping for CB in the momentum chain, and also just spiking it in whenever it was available, it didn't really matter. I had been getting times around 3:15-3:30, but was seeing an occasional 3:00-3:15 window and I knew I needed to tighten something, so I started eliminating Char completely and focusing just on TW attacks, and I managed to close 2:56, 2:58, and one odd 2:51 (I think I just caught a break on a server tick there). Comparatively these times were tighter, and consistent compared to my wide swing on the inefficient chaining with proc overload. It did reveal that my expectation on performance was accurate though, the Procs were compensating inefficiency. The adjusted build lowered proc count, and probability, but tightened to be much more effective. When I tossed in some testing with the Hybrid Assault Radial (the double proc), I saw my times waiver into the 2:45-3:00 window, but because the chain could be so easily disrupted (missed attack, failure to stack a -Res), I also ended up in the 3:00-3:15. Yeah, I ran a lot of Pylons in the last hour and a half or so. At the end, not expecting much, but hoping this would be the final Coup of the TW runs, I swapped over to Assault Core, and targeted the next victim. And I crushed it in 1:59, and I was like "...What?" I mean, I know I'd predicted 2:00 like four hours ago, but... to nail it exactly was a bit weird, and with SR no less. I ran it again, on the next Pylon. Even took a small 30/s break to just... kind of mentally prep for it, I dunno. But I hit the record button, and started swinging. Close out at 2:00 even. No bonus +Dam from Bio Armor, no bonus -Res from Bio Armor, 2:00. I honestly don't know that I even want to find out what the Bio Armor kicked one will do, but we know it'll be sub 2:00. I don't know if the world is ready for a Tank to do that kind of damage. Oh, one more note of interest, I had to swap a proc in Crushing Blow for a second Achille's Heel proc. Part of what I'd determined resulted in so many variances was the fact that I wasn't getting nearly consistent enough -Res, and adding one to CB gave me two kicks every 6/s, made it much more stable. Oh, oh! and just for proof, I uploaded the unedited file: https://youtu.be/fS9wuABwvCU The forum structure really hates dealing with large posts. So this is the original build I went in with: And this is the revised build that has a tightened attack chain of RA > FT > AoD > CB > TS/WS > FT, I'd probably do more (personally) to change this build further from an auxiliary power stand point, but left the rest of it as-is because I wanted to try and modify this enough that I could re-test without respecing. Technically I did pull Enflame for TS, but WS functions in the same place for this purpose. Build Management At this stage in all of the testing done so far I think, as mentioned at the beginning of this update, that the consistent pattern of improvement in melee attack sets is going to reflect a lot on build management and making the call of what sets to include, what to scrap, and what value you add or loose with those changes. This, I think, is going to be the biggest core on how someone needs to understand building and approaching Proc Monster design. The “how to” aspect of it is probably one of the biggest questions that’s come up, so that’d likely be the next approach for me. I wanted to show kind of more what specifically this meant in an actual scenario. So the Ice/Stone/Soul build that @Rylas tested for me was partnered with an Ice/Stone/Leviathan, and between those I mulled through the data given back to me, and the results of the experience, a bunch of discussion on their performance, and the return on all that. For me Ice/Stone is a particularly near-and-dear combination because it is quite literally the only Tank I have, and ever will play. Having someone else take the reins on testing it seemed justified as I’d personally be biased or carry a skewed perception. I took the info that was gathered and applied it to a secondary, adjusted build for Ice/Stone/Soul that was “performance tweaked.” I then, later on, returned to my own Ice/Stone who was idling around 34, and started working on him again in the last couple days. I cracked open my original (way before Proc Monsters) build and compared it to the adjusted proc build. Between the two the biggest difference I knew I lost was the ability to iCap the Ice Tank in a non-proc build. I didn’t want to personally give this up, but it wasn’t something I could manage to stack in the pure-proc build (small note here, technically the proc-build had Hasten and could double-stack on Energy Absorption, but that’s a relatively inconsistent thing to rely on as you’re dealing with variable body counts). My original goal with the Ice/Stone was also to focus on being a “pocket Controller” through the stone epic. Through feedback on power interactions in the proc builds, I’ve altered that conception based on how effectively I could leverage fewer powers, better. My new rules for the build I wanted: iCap potential, No Hasten. Simple. I knew that I could spam Tremor in the Proc builds at a 5/s kickback, which means I can have a pretty high chance of keeping FF+Rech proc going in a full spawn (which puts the build at 180% global, no Hasten). How do I get more AoE though? Dark Obliteration and Gloom give me two key attacks that fix AoE, and my ST problem (Stone kinda has a ST problem). I still wanted more soft control in there though, just as assurance, which is where I landed on Mighty Leap and Force of Will going live. That ability auto gives a Foot Stomp clone AoE KD, so bam, two-for-one since I planned for SJ anyway. I end up leveraging a lot more KD/KB effects in this build in exchange for the loss of sleeps/disorients. And yes, I took Hurl Boulder. Despite being a lackluster power it’s still really effective and stopping runners, and it looks pretty hilarious to chuck a giant rock at someone as they run away. This was the revised Ice/Stone/Soul from the tested build: This was my original, pre-proc build: And this is the build I ended with that took the proc-values and applied them to a performance build need. Basically a "best of both worlds" kind of take (and it functions without that pesky Hasten):

Quite a few interesting perspectives on this topic; I'll toss in a thought myself. Back on OG Live, in the last couple of years before sunset I became one of those few players who could take any combination of sets on an AT, spend an hour in Mid's, and produce the maximum potential output for that combination based on expectation of the AT, and Survival metrics. That wasn't a talent, it was a developed skill from spending a lot of time toying around in Mid's, and I honestly blame it on my enjoyment of Magic The Gathering. In that TCG I found a lot of enjoyment in looking for unique play mechanics that occurred in unexpected ways in new sets. I'd walk into a Friday Night Magic with something absurd and ride it all the way to the top seat that night because no one would know how to deal with it; may not have always won, but it was the journey getting there. When it came/comes to CoH, it was just a development of looking at the stats, seeing the numbers, seeing the power interactions, and creating that pathway. Also, I'm terrible at math, but I'm great at applied sciences (as in, I can crush Physics, but couldn't run a calc problem to save my life, and I hate imaginary numbers with a passion). So I don't see my affinity for build min/maxing as a math thing, but an application of practical development/use. I just need to know where the values exist, and how I can merge them together to build my monster rather than running values in my head and stacking and adding digits. This is how I simplify how my brain see things; and this is what is actually happening. At this point in the game's life, I can generally flip a build in Mid's fairly quickly, so I don't (generally) need to spend much time toying with them. Given that, what I do now is build a new character and give it an initial seed of 150k* so I can buy a few minutes of a travel pack and give it a market starter for some early cheap IO recipes. I'll then run a few DFB's or other basic content to get a feel for the first few powers. If I can't make a connection early on, I'll trash it (wont even care about the inf seed). Generally though I only build things that I go in with a significant expectation. Once I hit 20 I use the basic inf seed to generate out a couple dozen recipes I can market out for a greater value, and do this each time I log in to play the character. I'll use the development slush fund to buy the inexpensive attuned-IO's so I can level up with my build instead of "buying into it" later on. Gives me a lot more mileage, and a lot more desire to play the character because it feels a lot more like "leveling up" earnestly, because the character becomes stronger holistically, versus just theoretically. By the time I'm in the 40-50 stride the character will have generated its own 150-200 million influence that funds the core basics of my pre-planned build. If there's any inaccuracies in the performance, I may review the build and make alterations on the most "expensive" enhancement choices. Generally this wouldn't be a concern, but it does sometimes come up that a power doesn't hold up to practical play for my personal play style, and I might decide to exclude it. The only real major consideration is practical play, some powers turn out to be a better choice for a given attack chain, or IO slotting/mechanic purpose that doesn't show on paper (I'm looking at you Radiation Strike). Once my character hits 50, I make a play call on whether I'll revisit that character often enough to validate the inclusion of "chase" IO's (basically anything that might have cost me more than 10mill buy-it-now pricing). Usually at that point the build is around 85-90% completion anyway, so the exclusion of a few IOs wont necessarily hamper it. Those powers could be generically filled if I were inclined, but I more often just leave them blank for a "if I get around to it, I'll add them in." Since I can make any single character its own personal self-marketer/trust-fund, revisiting them later on means I can walk right back into easily developing their inf bank through my normal daily gameplay. Typically only doing the market tasks in between down period like waiting for a team to reach a door, or a TF to start, kind of thing. tl;dr It's possible to build every toon as its own market-funding entity without using a farmer or a dedicated marketer toon, it just takes a little research into marketing on the /ah and doing the basics of craft-flip-sell each day you log into that specific toon. Buy attuned enhancements to see the benefits quickly and level up with them, and by the time the character hits 50 they should've easily earned 100-150mill Inf to have the core of a basic build completed. If the character is worth full investment, a fundamental IO build can be done within 250-300m, with an "expensive" build in 650m. Even if all a player does is earn merits, convert merits to sellable goods, repeat, it's possible to earn 500-650 million Influence within three months of casual play at 10 hours a week. Builds are pretty easy to come by if you don't want to do the legwork on planning, they're easy to tweak in-process, and any given character is pretty easy to kit with IO's without much expense. It just takes the discipline to actually do the basic market craft-sell process on recipes to earn the Inf. Right now I'm sitting on... five or six fully geared 50's, another that's partial because I haven't returned to it, and two more toons..., three more toons around 40 that will be full-kit by 50 just by osmosis of playing them. With all the testing I've been doing, I haven't got a lot of time to really do any of that farming stuff, so I have to find other, simpler means to earn that Inf to afford anything on them, just so happens that its really not that complicated to earn a couple hundred Inf and afford a basic set build. *I have a "main" character now that actually houses the bulk of my marketting recipes and Inf, and my Inf-Seeds have actually become full Trust Funds of 100m Inf that I have stacked in e-mails. I stopped doing self-generating characters when I ended up with two that were drowning in excess. I moved 9-digit figures off them to other (newer) toons and figured it'd be simpler (for me) just to centralize on one that I log into most often.

Welcome to the slowest part of testing on Pineapple. Assuming you didn't delete your SO built characters, hit a respec (fastest way to rebuild without level-up process), and use the POP menu option. There's a topic thread on it in the Beta section; here is the thread. It's a menu you set in the game files that a command line is able to bring up only on the Beta server that will give you access to a menu of all the enhancements in the game based on level range, piece, or whole set. It's the fastest way to load up a character with IO's. And it'll still probably take you about 15-20 minutes per character to grant yourself everything. I sorta time it on one of my tests with Tanks, and from creation screen (no customization, all preset costume choices) to full build took about 45 minutes >_< But I was also catalysing and boosting certain parts too, which take extra time.

The Pylon's are a decent way to determine if you generally can take down an AV level target, and get a benchmark on DPS, but it sounds like you've already successfully killed an AV. If you want to test a slew of them in a row, there's an AE Arc that was posted into the Scrapper Pylon Thread that contains the classic Praetorians in one singular mission for this purpose. Sorry, don't have the Arc ID on me, but you should be able to find it within the last 4-5 pages of the thread. It was made to be simpler than bunny hopping existing mission arcs 🙂

That time for Kinetic Melee just didn't sit well with me. Didn't compute, felt too long, had to see for myself. 6:20 6:55 < -- Runner 6:42 5:57 < -- Perfect scenario of line up through the mission I've seen yet. 6:15 7:00 < -- Runner Maybe chock that up to an extreme amount of experience with Kinetic Melee and knowing what each sliver is worth on my attack bar, but I didn't shy away from using Repulsion Torrent, and in fact used it the same way I did Shockwave at times by jumping above the mob and firing it down to minimize the KB effect. There's also Disorients and KD's in the first three attacks so I could easily share those through the mob to mitigate incoming attacks alongside Burst's KD effect. Only use CS on a Lieut/Boss at full health, hit a target, tab to the next, hit, tab, hit, tab, never waste a finishing blow on a mob unless it's the last >3, use Burst to kill as much as possible. I also didn't waste effort on trying to save CS for a full-siphon, and avoid (as much as possible) wasting effort on Focused Burst by tagging stragglers (mobs that start running around the spawn instead of planting) with a Disorient/KD if possible.

No, I'm saying don't apply a second trigger of Rage during the crash period, which is a 10/s window. If you activate Rage while under the effects of the Crash, you'll completely invalidate the Guassian's proc, and honestly there's absolutely no reason to be double-stacked during the crash anyway, as it has no benefit. Once the crash is over, apply the second Rage as normal and reap the benefits of the Gaussian +BU for 5.25/s.

There's going to be quite a few outlier one-off's in several sets that are good choices to load up on a ton of procs, they're just not always stuffed into a set that already contains a ton of other options. Cold in general doesn't have a huge slew of benefits out of Procs so there will be those outlier choices people are going to have to decide on for themselves. And yes Ice Arrow, when loaded up with all its options, becomes a high-yield DPA attack, but Time Stop on the other hand doesn't balance out as well. Its other features are a little hit-or-miss, and its animation doesn't lend well for a good DPA balance (imo), but you can slot it up as a one-hit-wonder if needed. Not every set, for every AT, can actually pull this methodology off. Melee sets can get a lot of traction since there's a pretty wide variety of melee-based damage procs available, but in the cases of things like the Blast sets, there's far fewer options that really validate a "proc build." The thing you have to decide is whether you can sacrifice your core attacks from any kind of set bonus, and then decide if you can make your build work with only 2-3 functional enhancement slots per attack. In most cases you're either going to need Intuition Radial, Musculature (Core or Radial), or Nerve (either) to ramp either damage, or accuracy in your build. I found it generally easier to pile in extra to-hit/accuracy in most cases and leaned more towards the damage improvement. Get your attacks into a position of being able to hit +3 (minimum), and 80-ish% damage, and Musculature/Intuition will get you over that hump into the 100-110% range. You can still get reasonable end cost reduction in their too, and might even be surprised at how well most builds can function on what feels like a gimped endurance plan.

While actively playing, the total buff-capable cap Tankers are set to is 400%. That value I was able to hit between Hybrid, a few lingering +Dam bonuses, the Assault changes, double stacked Rage, and the Gaussian's proc. It was a small 5/s window of opportunity, but it's still there, every 70/s (no sense in wasting it during the crash). The Brute goal-post is currently 600% (I believe, I didn't actually confirm/double check that). More common balance point while Hybrid was running the Tank typically sat ~300%. With the Brute, following the same build (but not getting that same Assault differential), at stabilizing around 70% Fury, its damage window spiked up up to ~530%. Same deal, while Hybrid was running, ~400% common balance point. I wouldn't try and look at that as hard-math, Hybrid causes spastic jumping up and down, I could've gone from 344% to 420% in a heartbeat. I don't do the math, I just do the testing, and that's what you would see on the screen cap. Whether you continue to isolate on a solo stand point, or if you do want to include team buff potential in there, my point was still the fact that the Brute(s) still have a wider gap they can fill. The Tanker is closer to its peak potential than the Brute because the Tanker ceiling is much lower. Revisit the last couple of pages. You might not personally like the style and approach of Super Strength, but it is by-far from being in a "bad" spot. In its current incarnation it is vastly above the curve in damage potential. Sadly, I don't mean this in a positive way, either.

Oh man, I had a nice, solid post figured out, and then the browser ate it when the wifi on my surface dropped at work so... here we are again, with a little tl;dr'd version of before: You'll have to look at this IO side of things probably in the same way I did when looking for builds that I could bend survivability on for my Proc testing. Of course Tanks are a lot more flexible in that avenue, but since you're going down the lane of looking for a consistent base line, staying with Willpower as your secondary is probably the wisest choice. It'll still net perform the same areas, but now you'll be able to grow those aspects. The process I approached from with proc building was to maximize as many areas of the build as I possibly could without inclusion of any attacks sets as, in that scenario, I would be completely devoting those to procs, and thus no sets. Do that same thing here, build out for max Willpower potential without including the attack sets, and then you can see what options that may provide to fill in on a set-by-set basis. I would also evaluate whether you want to include Procs into the equation. Technically you get better performance out of them in a high-recharge build that doesn't place any inherent recharge in the powers themselves, and skews your numbers a bit. In general, procs are going to give you a metric value that's not 100% truthful of the state of that set without them. You'll also get wildly differing time points between sets that can use -Res procs versus those that can't. Your dynamic for clearing a room also changes in things like Shockwave when you put the KD proc in it. If you build a static base for WP and let others tailor the attacks to fit what they want to maximize, it would give you a pseudo platform that has fewer variations of significance that you couldn't take one run set and see something insanely different from another, using the same primary/secondary. Also, pool powers, I'd say Tough, Weave, CJ, Maneuvers, Hasten, and that's it from a "use" stand point. I put this base blank together for you, as a suggestion. It should allow (with some of the Winter sets) the ability to hit 40-45% on the elemental defenses, and capping S/L resists is trivial. I would (personally) use this as the standard, non-changeable base line, giving freedom of choice on the set/slotting for attacks. This leaves enough to 6-slot six attacks, and 3-slot the BU. If someone really wanted/needed to steal a couple of extra slots, Physical Perfection and Quick Recovery, pull one of those slots. Edit to add a hypothetical "completed" build going off the "blank." I did pull the extra two slots for relevance, and even moved one off an attack to catch a set bonus to balance defense numbers and show a minor tweak that doesn't break the core structure while packing in rounding sets in the attacks. Also went with War Mace just because it doesn't have a ranged attack, so it was going to be a tad harder to get E/N and wanted to show a path there for it. Despite trying to keep to a guide line... this is... actually a pretty straight-forward build that pretty much anyone would probably land on trying to raise their values up.

You might say that, in this specific scenario that math may work out, but unlike the Brute, in this case, the Tank reached its own damage cap, there's a ceiling in there that the Brute still (technically) had room to grow. If I had gone out and collected a group of enemies to surround me and help build up my Fury bar a little further, that case would've edge further and further into the Brute's territory. But basically, yes, we're pretty much in that zone of "this is the balance [we] wanted." For a fair point, when I achieved that 1:55 on the Brute, that was going in at 70% Fury, ramping up to it meant I was more likely to be around 2:10-2:15 (at best case). But, your point still stands, I just want to be fair about the evaluation of it. The Brute was definitely (same build) at a disadvantage compared to the Tank from a survival stand point. This point, unfortunately, this is a bit incorrect. When I performed that comparison test--and this is something I think a lot of people are missing--I hit the damage cap on the Tank. The Beta value right now is 400% buff, between Rage stacking and Hybrid Assault, I hit that cap. Technically when I did the test it was before the drop from 550% to 500%, but the highest value I recalled was 394%. On the Brute the highest I recall (without reviewing the actual numbers in the recorded footage) was 536%, which left me with 64% of buff I could've taken in (iirc the drop to Brute was 700%, so 100/600?). The buff to Tanks is definitely giving them a proportionate value contrast against Brutes, and is also giving them warranted application over Brutes (AoE Control/Damage radius). Just looking at this one isolated solo incident, though, there's a cap on performance where the Tank cannot go beyond, but the Brute still has a small window of growth. But, that's also exactly the way it is being balanced to so...

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Also, side note: Rage is Broken. Scrappers shall never see its true form. Sorry, my-fault-not-my-fault. Killed a Pylon with a Brute in 1:55 and a Tank in 2:09. No way Cap gives us Rage now.

I really want to rationalize how this thread keeps getting devolved into weird, non-focused pathways, but I seem to fail at seeing it when the posts just kind of show up out of no where. We all need to let go of the whole "This game is balanced on SO's." Those enhancements existed in this game for eight issues, alone, before Inventions came onto the scene in Issue 9. The game closed on Issue 23 (Beta 24), meaning 15 of those Issues were with IO's involved, spanning the greater portion of the game. Many sets were released in the years since that update that are very clearly designed around the Invention system. Can we fully grasp the pathway and intention the original devs had laid out? No, not in the slightest, but it would be foolish to not accept that there were still insights in how they developed new sets while using SO's as the crutch to give a minimum floor. "Where can I finagle this so there's at least this much performance at a basic level, while not overpowering its potential." I like to use Magic the Gathering as an example in scenarios like this. The card game is built around a "Standard" environment, and then proceeding play types beyond that based on age groupings of cards, all the way down to play formats that include "everything." Each time a new set is developed the design team has to look at that individual set, the whole of its block it lives in, and then the standard "T2" format it'll play in with the most current card sets, and then they have the evaluate how planned incoming sets may influence it, and how that specific set will influence older blocks. Each time, three times a year, for over 20 years. "How is this mechanic going to effect now, then, two years from now, and four years ago, eight years ago. Am I finding a chain that'll break the game? Will I be making a card I have to ban because I didn't foresee something unbelievably stupid?" The core of it, whether you've played that game or not, is that we're talking about decades of interactions that have to be considered, accounted for, planned for, resolved, and then, after all that, finally print and release a new set. No, we don't have the Dev team for that, but we do have some folks with a pretty good understanding of the game, its engine, what's under the hood, and pieces of a pre-existing roadmap that said, somewhere, "Hey, what about Tanks?" They're players just as much as we are, and they're here and willing to listen to feedback about how these tests run, what the metrics kick back, and what it does to improve the standing of the existing game. There's no guarantee anything will push-forward, it's on the block for testing for a reason. If we don't count IO's in the discussion, than 75% of Brutes are just slightly inflated Scrappers with less bursty-damage, and not-quite-as-good survivability as a Tank. Tanks, however, are still fairly under-powered in a Solo metric comparatively to any other Melee counterpart, so much so that it is often easier to roll a Brute and get more damage, with marginally the same survival, just to play "better." If I do count IO's, just on premise, then I now have a vast majority of the player base that choose Tank or Brute, choosing Brute because they can easily pack in the remaining offset of survival with IO sets, invalidating the need for a Tank holistically, and performing better in a team and solo scale because of better damage performance. Tanks, however, don't really have this option to scale damage output to fairly compete, so they just become "easy" Brutes, with subpar damage scaling. As Bruce said, "Why trust a [Tank]?"* If the Brute can do the job within reasonable proximity, we don't need the other choice. I've seen it, you've all seen it, there's a real offset of Tanks out there. I practically trip over Brutes on teams there's so many of them being rolled on a regular basis. There's an imbalance in the Force. So we look back at the basics, "How can we fix a Tank?" If the Brute can achieve 90% of the survival of a Tank, than the Tank should be able to scale up to 90% of the Brute for Damage. Junk bruising, fix the modifier, there we go. We can't look at that equation without considering IO's though, but it's a fair balance. If we take Super Strength off the table of evaluation, in a solo environment both AT's will perform at an adequate level, and in a team scenario Brutes will have the potential to marginally exceed Tanks at full capacity damage-wise whereas Tanks will more effectively (and earlier) achieve their survival and crowd-controlling goals. Where the beta testing sits right now is a pretty fair adjustment. None of that consideration had to look at "x performing, y performing, z performing" IO set builds, just look at the larger picture. "In general, IO builds achieved this-this-this-this." These changes being considered aren't devastating, ground breaking alterations, they're Quality of Life improvements, and basic ones at that. I think everyone can relax a little. If you have a reason to disagree with this sentiment, then go out and actually test something instead of just arguing about it wholesale. Prove why something shouldn't be changed. In the process, you might just find that the change is good. Yes, sometimes, change can be good. As a side note about this occasional, but on going concept of "billion inf builds," I want to point out that the SS-Breaking build I tested on both a Tank and Brute achieved that level of performance on a build that wouldn't cost (on current Homecoming prices) more than 350 million influence at a "buy it now" pricing. I have also yet to fund and build a character in this game who's total expense exceeded 750 million (and only because I rebuilt and purchased an additional 150 million in enhancements for the changes I made). The average performance build can be achieved within 500-650 million, and that cost can be earned through basic game play, Merit earnings, and selling of Converters/Boosters over the course of 1-3 months based on play volume. That is a casual estimation on a simple 1-3 hours a day, 10 hours a week max valuation. Now then, I'd say lets get back to actual testing, but I'm still stuck waiting for Kinetic Melee to be de-bugged on Pineapple 😛 *(Okay, it was 'Why trust a Shark', whatever, play along!)

Would love to get this bug addressed. Kinetic Melee is one of the last sets I want to really break into with the Tank changes, and.. well, obviously can't.

As promised, took a Reverse Flash to my Tank Bio/SS and transformed it into SS/Bio for a Brute. It is same-for-same except in the necessity of Jab. Since I did not utilize Jab in any way before, not being forced to take it became a plus, and I opted for Dark Obliteration instead (which I wanted to test out with this build anyway, just couldn't fit it with the Tank). From a survival front, I definitely felt squishier on the Brute since it doesn't end up carrying the same extremes of Resistance and Defense. My attack set was 100% devoted to Proc building, so no set bonuses there, and most efforts are after +Rech over any other priority. The Tank is able to soft cap elemental defenses, and hard cap S/L Resists (even in the onset of Bio's Offensive mode). The Brute suffers a -10% Defense squash, and -30% Resistance. Bio Armor is relatively pretty good at utilizing three different Regen/Absorb/Heal tools to stay alive, but despite that I don't think I could've safely accomplished a full-tilt Comic-Con style "everything at once" farm and walked out with sane stress levels like the Tank can. From a singular spawn-to-spawn approach, I was good however, and didn't have any real concerns. From a kill speed, it matched the Tank (for the most part). Dark Obliteration obviously changed the dynamic a bit as I was able to hit FS>DO>FS and clear most of a mob save Bosses, which were easy to dispatch with KO-B and Gloom (no different than the Tank). The big kick is in its efficiency to take down a singular heavy target (ie Pylon "AV"). It was a wash. If I walked blank into the fight, I'd hit a similar stride of 2:40-2:45 (which were my low-end ranged on a Tank), and if I hit the next Pylon at 70% Fury (where I pretty much tapped out in these fights), then I'd be in the 2:20-2:30 range; the peak non-hybrid zone for the Tank. The only tipping point where I was able to exceed the Tank at all was marginal in the fact that I could (technically) burst my +Dam into the 500%+ range for brief windows on the Gaussian's proc with rolling Hybrid stacks. The Tank tapped out its peak hits at just shy of +400%. My process for hitting the Pylons on both Tank and Brute was "clear them till I get bored, and then check the times." My best Tank time with Hybrid Assault Core running was 2:09 when I ran it. Tonight, with the Brute, the best time was 1:55. I broke two minutes on Super Strength, Solo, and (in my opinion) officially moved it into "outlier" territory. That time was hitting the Pylon just after "Weakened" passed, Ageless was already popped, Fury at 70% (again, was literally doing all this ping-ping-ping in a row), run in and hit DNA Siphon > Hybrid > Rage (Beat Pylon to Death); run only ended up with one drop of Rage, and honestly even in those drops I'm still doing ~150 DPS on Procs alone. For the first time in 15 years I'm actually like "Huh, maybe I should roll one of these." But then I know it's broken, so ... no. True, but these have to be looked at in a vacuum of solo performance to be fairly evaluated. Still sure about that given the changes we're facing?

Double Stacked Rage doesn't hide anything, it amplifies Super Strength to an absurd level with the modifier increased. I'm capable of pushing SS into the outlier category with Titan Weapons because of it. Tit-for-tat Jab is the one power in the set that is grossly under-par with any other set. Despite what some might agree in practice, on paper the numbers for Haymaker and Punch aren't much different holistically, and when under a single application of Rage, are over the curve. Given that, I've already pointed it out in the Rage thread quite a bit back that Super Strength does need to be reined in and given a passing balance mechanic, and to have Rage reduced to a single-stack-only perma option with nothing more than an appropriate end cost. But not because it is under performing, but because it is absurdly broken in a way that isn't good. And not "good" as in "oh, this sucks," but "not good," as in "despite this aspect, in its current state I can do things that I shouldn't be able to." I'm going to be running a counter-part test at some point today taking a Tank build I tested and flipping it IO for IO onto a Brute and running the same test(s) with it. I can tell you already that, despite Brute's having the same max survival caps as Tanks, they do not get there as conveniently. The build I flipped is 10% Defense lower, and 26% Resistance lower than its Tank counterpart. In order to fix those variances I'd have to dramatically sacrifice how I slotted the offensive side of the build (which for practical testing reasons, can't be done). So the variances aren't "small" comparatively out of the box. I think people forget that the game was "balanced on SO's," and on SO's, the Tank will always be better at survival.

I wouldn't stress it. I've thrown a lot of Tank builds at Pineapple since these changes went up, and I've honestly not really seen much of a difference not having it versus having it. Realistically the +20 End ended up making things more unbalanced in an IO world as I was barely seeing my blue-bar move at all.

Worth mentioning that even with the chance to critical-refresh Power Siphon on CS, and despite its actual damage, the fact that it can miss, and the odds of the refresh gamble are pretty low in general (or happen at bad/awkward times so often, like 3/s before it would've popped anyway), the first three tier attacks, cycled on repeat, will do nearly as much ST damage as a chain that actively engages CS. I did a ton of experimentation with it back before sunset and the inclusion of newer sets (like the secondary AT-O sets, and PPM changes). Vaguely recalling my data from back then, I hit about a 15-20 DPS difference between QS>BB>SB over any variant that included CS. Over a 5-10 minute period span, any and all chances that CS could (and/or did) miss meant I lost 3/s of damage that QS>BB>SB animates in. If I missed one of those shorter attacks, its loss was far less devastating. Something like that is worth looking at in an SO world where Accuracy at these levels isn't as clean/fleshed out.

At some point in the last patch or two, the way Proc messages hit the Damage Inflicted categories changed. It used to say "Bonus Damage" to indicate the proc, but now it just follows up in a line after the power has been activated and its initial damage has been set, saying something like "Your [proc name] has done [damage]." I would also include, along with Damage Inflicted, and Pet Damage Inflicted, the General Combat, and Pet General Combat, as you'll see a few notes pop up from those as well with certain procs that don't inflict physical damage. The combat rolls will show things like successful rolls of the procs for things like Force Feedback +Rech (but its actual hit will show up in combat general saying you've gotten boosted recharge). Panacea, Miracle, Numina, and Performance Shifter show up in the Healing Received and... one other (whichever category shows up blue, drawing a blank at the moment). The easiest way to really check for this stuff is to just log your chats with the above damage categories added (in the options > window > chat logging) and you can go back and see where you activated, and what/when, without trying to chase through the log while playing. Doing something like that during an MSR would probably be super chaotic, and super easy to miss with heals and buffs constantly going off too. If you want a real-time purview, do a solo mission and watch per-attack so you can see as it happens.

My testing/breaking of Rage is a few pages back. Interestingly, I didn't find the crash worthy of note on either a Willpower or a Bio Armor, and Ice has just as much flexibility to spike their endurance regularly with Energy Absorption. Both were tested using Musculature for an Alpha and Ageless Core for a Destiny ability. The Bio Armor didn't technically need the endurance portion of Ageless (was fine without it), just used it purely to pad more +Rech.

Ah, hmm, yeah: Something very important to note about this build, Rage must not be stacked during the crash. Activate the second Rage after the crash period and the Gaussian's proc will kick you up for a considerable amount in those next few attacks. Between that, and the Hybrid Assault, I could stack my damage up to 400%. This build does everything in its power to absolutely invalidate and make a mockery of the entirety of the concept towards Rage's crash.