Galaxy Brain

Hm, ice/ has a damage aura now doesn't it?

+9000000000

I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn't be balancing around procs. If the power is good without procs instead of only being good with them, then the procs become gravy.

With the new buffs to this secondary, I'm curious as to what sets would compliment it best as a primary?

Exactly! Making a Tanker more like a Brute still ends up being a conundrum. Tankers should stand out in a different way, and there have been plenty of suggestions in here so far: Make their AoEs bigger / hit more targets (not taunt more targets, but the actual AoE powers. This would make them feel different than Brutes in practice in direct set comparisons) Increase their damage cap (sorta going toward Brute territory, but without Fury this is only relevant in team situations) Increase their damage per team mate (would make it fury-esque, but could be a nice perk and make multiple tankers on a team be able to smash more effectively) Add team-buffs to their primary powers in some way (again more geared towards solving the problem of multiple tanks on a team) Expand on Bruising in some way (Stacking, attach it to Gauntlet, something...) Any / All of these could be looked at to help out, but the more geared towards "playstyle" the suggestion the better IMO.

Yes, but compared to other types of damage boosts + how it plays out in a team setting its.... eh?

Have you tried a tw, ss, or fire brute for comparison? Anyway, Leogunner has a point that Tankers bigger issue is that they dont provide a hook as a melee AT that significantly stands out. Scrappers, Stalkers, and Brutes all have hooks to their playstyle. Stalkers are obviously stealth oriented and can do awesome stuff with that and Assassination mechanics. Brutes are tougher and have a minigame of chasing fury, and have access to some sets that stalkers and scrappers dont have + generally benefit more from damage aura sets due to both fury and the taunt effect that feeds fury. Scrappers are a sort of baseline where they have some sets/combos that may work better over brutes/stalkers and offer a balanced experience with no extra frills. Blasters, Defenders, and Corruptors all have ranged damage sets. Blaster hook is of course raw damage + manipulation set perks. Corruptors are balanced between damage and support with a hook via Scourge, and Defenders are more geared toward support with much better numbers on all support stats. Controllers and Masterminds also have support but play way, way different. Dominators and Controllers are only similar in that they crowd control, the support vs assault secondaries are super different. Blasters could be compared to dominators but again the powerset differences make them stand out. Sentinels, and EaTs all have variety to them and offer a bit of X Y and Z that make it hard to compare to other ATs directly. The Tanker hook is that they are bulky and have taunt effects to keep attention on them easier. As we have talked about for many pages, this is the same general hook as a Brute but without the minigame of Fury, but lacking the bonuses of a Scrapper with crits to spice up gameplay. Aside from being... a tank I suppose, what really grabs people onto tankers that they cant get elsewhere? Brutes and even Scrappers have fine survival in many situations while leveling + have the kill speed to survive encounters with less potential hits taken due to time in combat. In a team setting, more damage is always welcome as you can buff survival through the variety of support or control ATs available. Tankers, IMO, don't have something to hook many people to them.

Throwing this at the dart board, but what if tankers got a damage bonus per team mate?

Title says it all, but I can see Elec Blast being way better now that it sorta has a T3 blast!

Mind/savage dom with only the t1 ranged attack Or a bots/ X mastermind (oprahbots) with the fancy new Vial of Bees temp power for purchase

The assault set has a new mechanic that powers up some moves... that could be ported here?

https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Vial_of_Bees

Is Conductive Aura + Drain Psyche as fun as it sounds?

I cannot beelieve this is not something we can do already. This power causes quite a buzz, especially among bug-themed characters like myself and my honey play. But for real, I think if it were a little pricey, but still craft-able in some way it would be fun!

You can queue up a lot of powers in 10 sec, often enough to wipe a mob as a blaster

Hell, are there other powers that have significant "chance of" side effects that aren't crit? +1

This would be very cool if it is as simple as cloning an existing set and reskinning 🙂

The reason I ask though is I feel that would be the best comparison if all powers are equal. You mentioned yourself that the StJ stalker was a way, way different experience than the Psi Melee stalker which was different than the Katana Brute... which was different from the scrapper, and so on. Your points are definitely valid of course! But I think giving a fair test with as few variables outside of "AT differences" could be worthwhile.

@Bentley Berkeley, can you run the same tasks again with a brute, scrapper, stalker and tanker using the same power sets?

Imo, making tankers aggro better is not a solution. Sure, this means it is easier for them to hold aggro over a brute when they are teamed together, but a bigger issue is that multiple Tankers don't play as well together as multiple Brutes. Multiple brutes on a team mean you have multiple characters who should not only be self reliant for survival, but also deal good damage. More damage is always welcome, so if Brute A on the team is feeling Tanky, Brute B can always go off and smash enemies. Tanker A and Tanker B don't have the same luxury if all they are geared to is aggro, if anything they would be fighting each other for control of a group. So breaking it down in my eyes, we have the following issue: A Tanker can already more easily hold aggro over a Brute in a team setting with Gauntlet and higher defenses in most content. This is not a huge gap though as a Brute can hold aggro nearly as well due to their Punch-voke and AoE taunt powers if they so choose. Brutes have the same defensive (as in mitigation, not Defense stat) caps as Tankers and are very close to them in HP. Tankers however cannot come as close to Brutes for damage. Boosting Tanker damage directly could work, but is kinda uninspired? As mentioned above, due to Brutes having dual roles as DPS and Tanks, in a team setting with multiple Brutes they have flexibility. Tankers are primarily Tanks, and aren't really designed for DPS so if there are multiple Tankers on a team their role is a bit odd in comparison. Multiple Tankers can work in a setting where a team splits up into smaller groups, but that almost never happens on purpose in the current meta to my knowledge. Based on that, I think the best course would be to make multiple Tankers on a team as valuable as multiple Brutes. Increasing their damage cap would be nice, but without the means to buff themselves up to high damage like a brute it still means multiple tankers kinda take away from the ability to offer damage buffs from other AT's to reach said cap. To make a Tanker more team-friendly, why not add a small, but stack-able -Res to their taunt effects? Bruising still works as-is, but then Gauntlet and the actual Taunt power can provide an AoE -Res for a much smaller value but that could be stacked passively per Tanker. This would help solo as you can maintain a healthy amount of -Res on targets, and IIRC the debuff would even add to aggro? On top of this, I'm still in the camp that their primaries should follow Shield and Rad's example of providing ally benefits as a Tanker should be a more team-centric AT. Something along the lines of how Blasters got Sustains, a Tanker could get "Coordination" powers that provide say, passive X/Y/Z stats to you and the team while running along with the original power's effects. Grant Cover provides Defense still, but could also give your team light Dam and ToHit. Another could give +Regen, and so on. While neither are game changing alone, I think the combination would make Tankers more fun in a crowd and with each other as they can push the team's advantage on top of being the focal point of aggro.

After some thought on the matter, I think that an actual weak point of the set is Blood Thirst. Currently, Blood Thirst grants you 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy and a boost to damage and tohit for 15 sec. Both values are less than Aim/BU though you get +5 sec of the buff. As is, this lets you skip the exhausted portion of a finisher in the set and then use another finisher right after. The restored Blood Frenzy doesn't really do much aside from let you fire off the PBAoE or Hemorrhage right away, which isn't too strong since it makes you exhausted anyways. And ~35% damage buff for 15sec does not match the 80%~100% for 10 sec of Build Up, at 15 sec you would think it would be 50~65% to match. Instead, what if Blood Thirst was converted into a sort of "Beast Mode" where it is only available at 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy, and once activated keeps you at 5 stacks for 30 seconds with a 3-4 minute recharge. While active, the PBAoE and Hemorrhage will always be their super forms, you maintain a 35% damage buff + the ToHit values, and if you would normally get a bloodlust stack you instead heal yourself. Once the "Beast Mode" ends, you become exhausted for the current amount of time. The two spenders in the set would no longer make you exhausted on use, but instead just spend your stacks as it takes some time to build them anyways and that feels fitting for the wait. Thoughts?

Block of ice / ice armor effects have that whirlwind around you as it activates iirc

Just plugging this here as it goes into detail on what I'd like to see on elec blast. I mained an elec^3 blaster for years on live. I could 2-shot most endurance on most mobs in a team, but even then that should not have been my primary role and I couldn't do that until very late in the game. Elec as-is seems to have been balanced for both PvP and NPCvP as vs players these attacks can wreck humans as we wanna use our endurance fast (both in PvP or vs say, 5 clockwork zapping you). But vs NPCs the effects are not immediate unless you have very potent powers as found in elec control.

The GF and I made a duo last night of Demon/ MM's, but it got me thinking... what two characters could be the most powerful if paired up and sharing the same powers? This would extend to having the exact same powers (two A/B's), and not just one shared powerset. Thoughts?