Galaxy Brain

As I mentioned in the OP, we really do not know the ratio of people using IOs straight-up. If I had to guess, like many other posts I've made here, I would wager that many more players (not necessarily characters, but individual players) use the IO system to where it can be seen as the HC norm. @Luminara, I'll bite but we need some parameters. Luckily, I have a suite of Scrappers with basic SO builds as a baseline that happen to have a ton of results. They also happen to be an AT that deals great damage and has decent survival out the gate, so both aspects can be tested like in the OG test on SOS. I figure we can try going full-procs on one build, and then going more for set bonuses on another and see what gives better results. For the sake of results though, it'd probably be better to pick only a few sets out of the nearly 20 scrapper sets as many would likely have the same slotting options. Some of the sets should have less options, some more, to show the impact of certain options available. We could also probably isolate some things like Battle Axe on SO's but with a spread of Force Feedback procs. Or a run with just Gaussian's in build up vs not, etc.

Honestly, its a preference point for what feels more fun to you, much like how you could pick War Mace or Claws for similar overall performance, but one may feel better for you that day. A few other ATs are like this too but don't have this battle. Why no Stalker vs Scrapper debate? Dominator vs Controller for CC? Corr vs Def? Multiple ATs have a lot of overlap with many being essentially the same with some dials tweaked back and forth. Its part of the fun!

Its more that DM is good and FM is..... not. Try a DM/FA brute instead!

(Double post but w/e) If you'd all like, I have some BS custom mobs that can make it into the "no really, it's brutal" mission sim 😄

Main thing folks see is on the bosses and elite boss the brute pulls far ahead.

Or they could have 2 brutes... or just F it and have controllers and blasters that cover both safety and damage

They don't serve a unique role. But, they provide a 2 for one special of something that CAN tank and CAN deal great damage.

I think its normal to think linearly about that. I mean it makes sense, Brutes do more damage so they should be less tough, vice versa for Tanks. The issue is there is so, so much variety where you gotta think about a Earth/Stone Brute with tons of mitigation vs a Fire/Fire tank with lots of offense.... kind of gets real muddy real fast there. I think these two AT's tho end up basically similar enough to where it is just a playstyle preference IMO. Do you want to be a wrecking ball with more damage potential? Brute. Do you wanna be a steamroller that hits everyone in the room? Tank. With the current meta overall, they're probably neck and neck enough to just be whatever you feel between the two outside specific power combos on each side.

So, there is nuance here: This is the damage-type spread for Council and Carnies with regard to proportional damage in your average 8-man spawn. Proportional in this case being the number of attacks, as well as the damage the attacks do per enemy/rank/etc. S/L are lumped together as they always are for all armors across the board. What's surprising is that proportionally, they're about equal in SL. Negative attacks are usually more defended against that Psy tho, so it often ends up with Carnies inflicting more from that... though overall its not that much of their output. The phasing bit is annoying as hell tho and is a bad mechanic since it just makes you wait randomly.

So, lets strip all that away then since the ATO's are what is really throwing things for a loop (also, Combat Jumping was turned on for one of them). The closer you build them in effectiveness (shoring up Defense or Damage shortcomings) they should perform about the same to where its more a fun-factor of Smashing vs AoEs The "brutal" sim (named for this thread lol) has a balance of all damage types relative to how often you'd run into them in-game, well proportionally. It is mostly S/L damage, but so is most all content to begin with as about 50% of all attacks have a S or L component.

@Replacement hit the nail on the head with testing as well. My mission sim is meant to test just that: your average mission clear. It does not test raw ST output, so sets like EM fall behind there. It does not test raw AoE effectiveness like a Farm map would, so even sets like Spines fell behind as the difficulty got turned up. Theres an old addage I'm likely butchering, but you wouldn't test a goldfish on how well it climbs a tree or a monkey how well it swims. If youre looking at a test where you compare something highly optimized to pass the test against something that isn't, it should not be a shocker who wins.

No, that is ok. The #1 ST set should probably outperform the worst ST set even between ATs with different damage values. Much like how a spines tank will likely wipe a mission faster than an EM Stalker which would blow all the rest out of the water with ST pylon times which do not even matter in real gameplay. If we wanna compare pylon times, why not only run stalkers or debuffers which ruin pylons?

Try it with an em/shield scrapper, fully saturated, as well. Comparing two way different power combos on different ATs, especially with one having a big X factor in AAO seems a little off...

Technically... it is natural for us to use tools. Even little kids know how to pick stuff up and fling it around 😛

Put in Warrior-Berserker bosses who's power is 1000 pushups a day and use SS or StJ

I don't want to keep doing giga-quotes so I'll just respond as such. Nothing should be equally useful to everyone. This is very true, but when it comes to the options available to make cool / fun builds (not even meta ones!) there is a balancing act for how many options + the quality of those options. This ties to the comment about the Dam/End sets (as well as the new just regular End set, and before that the added TAoE sets!) and how the HC team doesn't "own" the IO system... which fair, its not their baby but they have custody of it now and have shown to make solid additions to it following basically the same structure you outlined. If by following the same conventions as the OG devs did to add new options or tweak existing ones to be better is somehow a bad thing... then I'm confused? In my eyes, more options can only be good, something like the End/Dam sets was mentioned as it broke the mold with the addition of +Dam, even if its not a *lot* of it, it is still there and recognizes that certain categories can intermingle as many attacks carry that effect. If a theoretical Dam/Stun set or two emerges, that would mean attacks with Stun can now slot even more options alongside the existing choices to lead to more player diversity. The mention of City of Statues here is odd as.... well you can do that if you slot these attacks for Stun currently? I don't appreciate the call for me to be grateful for the options currently available when I'm tossing out ideas for improvement either, especially when you follow it up with "I'm not opposed to getting more IO's". Me pointing out that X family of sets are lacking is not me taking an authoritative stance demanding X be done, but raising awareness and getting group discussion going of the matter is something any of us could do. Do I need to be on the HC team specifically to say "it'd be nice if we had more options"? Yes, a proc bomb can miss, just like any other power. True, and there is a 10% chance of failure minimum, per proc. But, you can optimize yourself through global bonuses to minimize those chances and have enough recharge to roll the dice often enough for it to on average get the results you planned for. The question though is if that is a good thing or not. This relates to the comment about the purples as well, yeah you can do better with them but then is that the expectation? Everything you said is 100% true, but it also doesn't exist in a vacuum. If you're slotting purples + purple procs, you're also getting purple bonuses that often give Acc and Recharge which help proc powers in a sort of feedback loop, as do things like Force Feedback, etc. Yes, they can fail, but all powers can by missing / etc, and with a 90% proc rate odds are high that you can rely on proc powers to work if you set yourself up for it most of the time to where it is often way better to use procs than other options, in the meta sense *limiting* player options if they want to be effective. When it comes to Inf and Purples/Etc, that ties into the availablity / player expectation point as well that was part of the OP. A build not having access to any proc or unique IO, or even any IO set, is a choice, not an inherent limitation. This is sort of 50/50. My earlier example of Battle Axe vs Broadsword showed that one has more slotting options than the other due to having -Def as a trait. These two sets predate IO's for sure, so there clearly was no intention of one having more opportunities than the other, but it's there. We have seen certain powers tweaked to allow/disallow certain set categories for slotting in HC patches, so it is something that is at least considered (Like EMP arrow getting +Res but specifically not allowing Res sets, or hell the mess about Combat Teleport not having +Def in it specifically). If you pick Battle Axe, or Energy Melee, etc, you'd know they inherently have less options than some other sets so yeah it is your choice, but then when we look into adding purples to the mix it opens the doors to slotting options.... at which point we gotta ask if lack of options *is* part of those set designs? I'm curious though @Luminaraas most of your responses have been specifically aimed at me. What is your take on the subject as a whole? You say you'd be open to more IO sets, but at the same time seem set on them being the same as they are now in many way / opposed to changes to them. That seems a bit confusing to me in terms of what your stance is?

Very true! Its just that *particular* AT and power combo has lets say.... connotations lol It seems like they picked up on some things but not others, which is fine though a little odd that they knew about the difficulty settings at all for +1/x6, but not how to readjust? Anywho, I don't mean to pick on this guy through proxy but this goes to more just learning the game, which this person was clearly in the process of if they went with that particular build + was messing with Oro and their difficulty in the first place! It seems like most of us are in agreement that post 50 content could use some more bite, and from some anecdotal evidence from other threads + testing by @Infinitum.... Incarnates probably have far more power than IO's do there but that is another can of worms. Heck, difficulty when it comes to content is a whole can of worms with the sort of "ecosystem" you deal with. We've beaten around ideas regarding risk vs rewards, why some enemies are more "frustrating" than difficult (carnies phasing is more just a time trial than difficult), and also how sometimes its a matter of even accessing the crunchy stuff (vanguard arcs, rularuu arcs, etc). On the whole though, I think we are all in agreement it should be more of an endgame thing anyways due to that being where you truly get power from being IO'd/etc when it comes to really meaty content. As for the IO's themselves, I'm more curious on the IO System's balance between drops / creation / set-to-set balance / powerset balance with them in mind. The last bit especially when it comes to what can slot certain effects / how certain IO families are simply far worse than others.

On the whole, if you were to compare each combo against each other (En/Ea, Claw/Ea, Claw/Regen, etc, etc) head to head, the Stalker will for sure have better ST on average due to Assassin's Focus + other tweaks, but as mentioned worse AoE on average too. They are also a *bit* squishier, but overall not by much.

In a grand-scheme sense, it is not as bad but what @ForeverLaxxsaid holds true in regards to all the blaster has to devote to in order to sort of just "match" what armored damage dealers can do. Melee primaries are also more.... I guess "solid" than Blast primaries in terms of design in my testing to isolate them. Granted, this means I did not use a blaster's secondary attacks but still they only exceeded Scrapper averages when I tested on x8 with invincibility turned on in the AE to focus on output. In that regard, yes they are great for team content but the melee's are not too far off without needing to sacrifice as much as the blasters do.

There are conditionals such as Brute's Fury that check if attacked (not hit, just somebody swings at you) that you get X (fury meter)

Well, tbqh its a bit of an unspoken rule to exclude Incarnates as they make everything kind of homogenized. All judgements hit the same AT to AT, etc. The office map is made to be run multiple times and is one of the best in terms of being linear but "real" in terms of limiting herding the whole map and so on with elevators and blocked off segments (gentleman's rule to not herd through the doors you can open to not have tank n spank be as powerful). That said, with the same build and agreements the players should get *similar enough* results over time to be valid.

Honestly, yeah.... I remember pointing this out in live back in the day with an analogy of like, a Blaster does say 20% more DPS than a Scrapper, but a Scrapper is 200% more survivable and that's an issue.

I understand what you mean by them not standing out, thats the same boat I'm in with them! I was more confused by the specialization between Offense and Defense, needing to pick either. That is where Brutes and Scrappers stand out as high-damage offensive ATs that are also armored to the point of being essentially immortal in many cases.

I'm very curious as well by your numbers given that BZB and Inf both got much much longer times. You mention being fully Incarnate, were you using all the Incarnate powers liberally? @Bill Z Bubba, @Infinitum, could you perhaps slap on t4 powers and see if you match?

@tidge, just curious due to the AT and powers... how did they get to 50?