Ston

Savage has very efficient AoEs. It’s probably the best AoE set on average and can but together a ST chain good enough to kill bosses. I found Psi Melee to be very frustrating. Mass Levitate can throw mobs to inconvenient spots. So you spend more time positioning your follow up attacks. It has very good ST attacks though.. just kind of fights against itself. Insight is also a very controversial.

Lately I've been curious about how melee sets compare to each other across all ATs (except stalker, for now). I've been doing a lot of Trapdoor testing the past 2 years on Homecoming and decided to use it as a benchmark for this test (lots of runs posted on my Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkPFdm3IxdIW6PdxApy55ng). After some discussion with Galaxy Brain, I decided to use Willpower for this test as it is the set that has the least impact on your damage output. The parameters for this test are as follows: - "Track Down Trapdoor" mission set at +4/x8 - Best two times recorded for each build (using the top two times and throwing out the others to account for getting better with the powerset with more practice) - Inspirations allowed: Oranges, Blues, Greens (Choosing to ignore survivability and just test the damage output from melee sets. Using these inspirations will keep me alive but still allow me to be debuffed, unlike purple inspirations) - Standard build: - Identical choices & slotting for all Willpower and pool powers - 90% recharge resistances on all builds - Same Incarnate powers: - Tankers/Scrappers: Musc Radial, Reactive Radial, Ageless Core, Assault (Passive) - Brutes: Vigor Core, Reactive Radial, Ageless Core, Assault (Passive) (Brutes benefit more from endurance/accuracy enhancements) Results: Melee_Test.xlsx ***Disclaimers*** - I don't claim these are the best way to build these combos. My goal for this test was to get a baseline for performance across melee ATs using my personal playstyle. Open to any suggestions or feedback on how to improve these results! - Some builds may not be correct, please send me a message and I will fix them. ***Note*** - Willpower has the weakest taunt aura of any Scrapper set. This will cause Scrapper times to be lower than Bio/Rad/Shield relative to their Tanker/Brute counterparts. I think this is a good thing since not all Scrapper secondaries get a taunt aura. Willpower ends up being a nice benchmark between taunt aura and no taunt aura. Discord: @Ston#0707

For my fire/bio, I put CS in Cremate and had 4 procs in all the ST attacks. The PPM there is about 50%, not the worst. It's more reliable in GFS but you probably have a higher DPS ceiling when putting it in Cremate. Was able to get 48s with Assault Radial active. The damage gets pretty nuts when you have good RNG between CS in Cremate, FF in Cremate, and BU proc in Moonbeam.

Put together this map to help anyone who wants to run this test. It can be useful for planning when to use certain powers and knowing which enemies to prioritize. /macro find "target_custom_next enemy alive archon$$target_custom_next enemy alive eclipse warwolf$$target_custom_next enemy alive night widow$$target_custom_next enemy alive tarantula mistress" I usually use this macro before running into a group of enemies to check if there's any that I need to focus. This can really help with avoiding cascading debuffs or to focus damage on bosses. After putting this map together, I think it helps me get an idea of how this test can be improved. I'm planning on creating a few AE missions to simulate different environments. Open to any feedback and what you guys think would be useful in testing!

Bunch of melee runs I've done lately: Spines/Bio/Mu Scrapper @ 3:34 Bio/Claws/Soul Tanker @ 3:33 Elec/Elec/Mu Tanker @ 4:20 Ice/Staff/Soul Tanker @ 4:43 Energy/Shield/Soul Tanker @ 3:54

It was probably because I used the same slotting for the Brute and Tank. The Brute probably needed more S/L resistance and maybe start off Parasitic Aura. I’ll run some tests later and post results in the Pylon thread.

Sentinels with Rad Armor... More & more impressed with what they can do the more I test them 👀 To be fair, Ground Zero has no business doing what it does. But it looks like Sents can put out some decent damage! Not quite enough to prevent runners like Blasters can though... And it seems like they're only off my a slight margin. SO MANY times I've had minions and lieutenants running away at <10% HP. I did have to use survival amplifiers too because I kept detoggling from end dropping 😞 Fire/Rad @ 4:36 Elec/Rad @ 4:54 Bonus Test: Stone/Bio Scrapper @ 3:50 Probably not going to be uploading any more Bio Armor runs as they're all looking about the same.. But I haven't seen any runs with Stone Melee yet! Gave it a try and was super impressed right off the top. It's only just behind Battle Axe now as my best average between trapdoor and pylon tests. Who needs achilles anyway!

I got bored of the leveling experience and play almost exclusively on beta now to benchmark and test builds. I usually build 2-3 characters per session. That’s probably over 275+ IOs and HOs between those characters. I stopped playing on live because I got bored of farming and playing content before lvl 50. Now I just get on live to join TFs with friends or PVP. However, the ONLY way I’d be able to make even one new build a day on live would be to either AE farm 1-50 and use the drops/inf OR level the normal way and use all the merits from arcs/TFs Either way I would be putting lots of IOs back into the market. I can only imagine the AH crisis if everyone was starting at 50, like others have explained. I think this would be horrible for the game. Like… complete ruin it. I also suspect it would change the culture of the game and make the community less fun.

Yeah.. The ceiling for Tanker performance feels so much higher than Brutes. Tankers are already near unkillable out-of-the-box, and now they can achieve insane damage on top of that. I often see this conversation resolved by "Brutes have better ST damage, Tankers have better AoE damage", but I'm skeptical of whether or not that is valid. When doing the Trapdoor tests, my Tanker was able to kill the Elite Boss a few seconds faster on average than the Brute. Adrenal Booster and Build Up procs made the Tanker melt things while it really didn't make any difference for the Brute. In all my testing, the Brute versions of my builds were much harder to keep alive while struggling to compete with the clear speed of the Tanker. I did some Pylon testing too.. What I found was that the Tanker could kill the Pylon slightly faster than the Brute with a proc-heavy build but they were pretty neck-and-neck. When I switched to the builds without heavy proc usage (only 1 IO set allowed per attack), the Brute was consistently beating the Tanker by about 30 seconds (3m30s vs 3m averages). Here's the kicker: The Brute needed a Defensive Amplifier and some purple/green inspirations to kill the Pylon without dying. The Tanker didn't need any outside buffs. All test results were pretty similar when using Fiery Aura, Bio Armor, Dark Armor, Savage Melee, Fiery Melee, and Battle Axe.

Did a couple runs with something that isn't Bio or Rad Armor.. I'm very impressed by Dark Armor's offensive output. If it weren't for the ridiculous endurance costs and accuracy penalties, I would say it competes with Rad Armor. It is definitely very tanky, doesn't need much help there! But would love to see an endurance adjustment and maybe some tohit resistance in Cloak of Fear. Savage/Dark Brute @ 4:30 Dark/Fire Tank @ 4:01 (I did need to pop a super blue during the trapdoor fight..)

So gathered a bunch of trapdoor times for comparisons yesterday. I wanted to compare Tanker vs. Brutes with identical powersets and how they perform based on proc usage. The sets I used were Bio Armor, Battle Axe, and Fiery Melee. I tested with Battle Axe and Fiery Melee to see how numbers would swing based on primary damage type. Fiery Melee might not have been the best choice though, since Tankers get Combustion and Brutes get Cremate. I'm hoping the exchange for ST and AoE damage would make them comparable enough. The builds were mostly identical. I only used one ATO set on each of them and it was placed in Genetic Contamination. I slotted the Tanker attacks with 2 acc/dam IOs and 4 procs. I slotted the Brute attacks with 1 acc/dam IO and 5 procs (since Brutes don't get as much from damage slotting) and used Vigor for more accuracy & end redux. (I tested with Musc and got around the same times as I did with Vigor). ** "Limited Procs" here means I only slotted 1 IO set per attack ** Tanker: Bio / Battle Axe (Heavy Proc Usage): 3:30 Bio / Battle Axe (Limited Procs): 4:50 Bio / Fiery Melee (Heavy Proc Usage): 3:37 Bio / Fiery Melee (Limited Procs): 4:22 Brute: Battle Axe / Bio (Heavy Proc Usage): 4:17 Battle Axe / Bio (Limited Procs): 4:56 Fiery Melee / Bio (Heavy Proc Usage): 4:20 Fiery Melee / Bio (Limited Procs): 4:50 What I found most interesting is that the gap between Tankers and Brutes is not that wide without heavy proc usage. I thought that Brutes depended on proc damage way more than tankers because of their base damage, but it seemed like the damage kept up pretty well. I think Tankers are always going to be clearing faster because of their target caps & radius buffs.. But if procs were to be nerfed, the gap between the ATs might be a little closer. Still though, the ceiling on Tanker performance seems way too high. I've gotten <4:00 times on Tankers with Bio Armor, Rad Armor, Fiery Aura, Shield, Savage Melee, Super Strength, Battle Axe, and Radiation Melee now. I didn't beat 4:00 on a scrapper until the Battle Axe update and still haven't on a Brute without amplifiers. EDIT: Realized I did the Tanker runs using Experimentation (Experimental Injection, SoS, Adrenal Booster) and the Brute runs with Leadership (Super Speed, Maneuvers, Tactics). I did a few tests with the Brute using the same Experimentation setup and got more or less the same results. I think the Brute really only benefits from the +recharge & +tohit from Adrenal Booster... where the Tank gets a good damage buff.

Great to see this combo didn't need the Burn nuke to melt things. Looks like you didn't miss a beat and the addition of Achilles & Fire Sword was a good trade! Do you think Combustion would be better than Rain of Fire with the animation buff?

Been doing a ton of trapdoor tests this week. Have a couple more to test the fiery melee updates: Bio/Fire Tanker @ 3:36 This time is pretty ridiculous, but most of that is because I didn't get any Warwolf bosses and got two lucky build up procs against Trapdoor. So while I would take the time with a grain of salt, fiery melee still melts stuff super fast on Tankers. Dark Oblit + FSC + Combustion is really good AoE. Was consistently getting 3:50-4:00 runs. Fire/Earth Brute @ 4:20 As usual with Brutes, AoE felt weaker but ST felt a little more consistent. Tried to throw in two epic AoE's to compete with the Tanker run. Could probably go with Soul for a better ST rotation, but FSC alone still feels pretty weak for AoE. Nontheless, it still feels better than before on Brutes! Cremate is a great power that isn't available on Tankers.. but Combustion would nice to have. I didn't even bother testing BoF.. Just doesn't seem worth the effort of positioning for cones like it is for powers like Shockwave or Throw Spines.

Oh oops that was an error I never fixed in the build! Replace the Touch of Death (or any) proc in Swoop with Crit Strikes 🙂 And lately I've been using Concealment instead of Fighting on some offense heavy builds. With Bio Armor I can usually survive a +4/x8 mob with just the absorb and DNA Siphon even if my resist/defense are pretty low. I start getting into trouble when the debuffs start to cascade (-tohit in particular on Trapdoor). With Phase Shift, I can use it as a panic button when this happens or proactively use it when running into a group to avoid their alpha debuffs (I use it at 2:30 in the axe/bio video). You can buff up and prepare a rotation while they can't touch you which is really nice. Tough/Weave still work fine, but I've been able to add more recharge and offense to my builds by skipping them and using Concealment, so I think I'll do that more often in the future. And I use the Experimentation pool just for the movement speed. I really like having either Speed of Sound or Combat Teleport on my builds to ignore travel suppression or get into good positions without having to move in between enemies/objects/etc. And Experimental Injection is just for the Prev Medicine proc. Could replace that with anything. This does mean I have to skip Tactics though which really hurts sometimes. The +6% tohit from Kismet helps a lot, but I've died on a lot of Trapdoor runs because of accuracy issues. But I skip leadership in order to get more recharge or movement speed. I try to minmax my trapdoor/pylon builds to the gills lol

I did think Swoop was the best spot for Crit Strikes. And yeah the main AoE chain was Swoop>Ball Lightning>Pendulum. I found that to be much better than Swoop>Ball Lightning>Axe Cyclone. I like using Axe Cyclone and DNA Siphon (w/ procs) in between for aggro/grouping management. The main ST chain is Swoop>Zapp>Cleave. There isn't much creativity in the slotting, I use my typical offensive Bio build (2 acc/dam + 4 procs). I do put an FF proc in 4 Axe attacks though, which I think helps push this set to do higher-than-average AoE damage. Scrapper - Axe - Bio Armor.mxd

Elec/Shield was actually the first trapdoor test I did, I posted it on my youtube channel about a year ago! I do think /Bio is way better for minmax’ing. Elec/Shield is still great and tons of fun, but it’s hard to beat the offense that /Bio provides. And right, damage procs don’t work well in pseudopet attacks. I did 5 armageddon (no proc) and Force Feedback +Recharge. Self-affecting procs do work very well in those attacks for some reason.

Well here's another surprise... Elec/Bio Scrapper @ 3:55 Don't take it to any Pylons, though.

I did do a fm/bio run recently but couldn’t get a crazy time like i did with axe. FM is still way better than it was though. GFS and GFS are way better to use and i was getting 4:15-4:30 runs pretty consistently. If BoF had a wider arc, i think it would be up there with the top times.

So Axe is pretty nuts now. Consistently getting 50-60s pylon kills (w/ hybrid) and now getting my fastest trapdoor time, beating my SS tank. Axe Cyclone is really something else.

Oh nice, this looks better than what I had. My AoE chain was Siphon Life (ATO2) > Fire Ball > Shadow Maul and I didn't proc DNA Siphon. I think I was used to playing DM on a Tanker and having SM hit everything in front of me. Looks like proc'd DNA Siphon and ToF would yield better results. Can't complain about ST though between SL, Smite, MG!

That’s funny, the most recent run I did was a dm/bio scrapper as well and I couldn’t break 5:00. The AoE is abysmal. Might try it again with ToF and Dark Consumption. I also tried rad/bio after spines and couldn’t beat it! I was getting 4:10-4:20. I think Quills + ATO2 is just really good at clearing trash. And Ripper is a good enough ATO2 power.

My fastest up until that was claws/rad at 4:07, which I thought was the best I'd get. I have a couple tanker runs under 4:00 but they're stupidly broken. I could try claws/bio and maybe get under 4:00. But honestly I think spines is just packing way more damage than I expected. I've tried a bunch /bio builds on trapdoor and usually end up in the 4:10-4:30 range.

Getting back into some Trapdoor tests with a couple surprising runs. Behold, my new fastest scrapper time: Spines/Bio @ 4:05 This thing shreds. I think all you really need is Ripper and two pool powers for an effective ST chain. You could throw in some AoEs in your ST chain too since they animate fast (Throw Spines, Ball Lightning, Fire Ball). This same build struggled against the Pylon (~2:00 average).. but it impressed my quite a bit on this test. Did a Sentinel run as well to test the changes. Rad/Rad Sentinel @ 5:12 Pretty happy with this one. I chose Rad Armor because I wanted to see how it would do without dodging all the debuffs. It held up pretty well. I did also try DP/Rad and couldn't even finish the test. I think Rad Blast is just particularly good on Sentinels. The updated damage mod is pretty noticeable too IMO & the new inherent is nice against bosses (even though I always forget to use it). I think this was 5 seconds slower than my Rad/SR because defense helps a lot with dodging the -tohit and -recharge from Trapdoor enemies.

Love the look of the new Rapier for broadsword!