Lazarillo

Okay, so, I've been futzing around with the new goodies on an SS/Regen I made and it seems pretty grand to me. Not gonna unseat Claws Scrappin' as my favorite way to melee, but it's a fine, non-stop brawl, with some punching, a little more punching, and then just a bit of punching, as a treat, and is gonna be something I look at a lot more for Brutes if it goes through. The wide-cone juggle with a bit of bonus damage on Hand Clap is solid, too.

Been checking the numbers in the CC so far, since sometimes the "scale" damage doesn't always put things in perspective. Looks like the extra damage from Unleashed Might for most attacks is around an extra 30%, 15% in KO Blow and Foot Stomp (because those are a pretty oomphy anyway, so sensible) in a bit. That seems, on paper, pretty evenly balanced with single-stacked Rage over time, so I'm optimistic. Two kinda pre-questions (well, one pre-question, one pre-ask) as I get into actually trying a character out. First: I am assuming that it's got (or at least is supposed to get) melee AoE sets? That seems like the "logical" one to me but sometimes my sense of logic doesn't always jive. Second, I don't wanna be too greedy because these changes do look nice, buuuuuuut...any chance of Jab getting a little more love too? It still feels like it's kind of an underperformer, even compared to some of the pool power attacks (especially so since said pool attacks actually got buffed too in this patch, albeit only slightly). It's still a tad disheartening that seems to still be getting relegated to "just skip it", doubly so since both its animations look so cool, compared to, say, Punch, where both have kinda bleh animations. Okay, anyway, said my peace there, I won't bring it up again unless someone else raises the issue. Let's see how this goes...

Y'all gonna make me want to try Super Strength again. Don't hurt me like you hurt me last time. Just to be clear, does this mean that all Brute powers now give higher defense/resistance than they did before? 'cause if so, hubba-hubba. I'm gonna have to redo all my builds that I set up to just hit caps, though, but I guess I'll have to grin and bear it. Or am I misunderstanding?

I think I'll find no such thing if they're not in the patch notes because I'm never going to bother with missions that include Nemesis again, frankly. I'm not going to waste my time hunting for secret tricks because devs think they're being cute by hiding little gimmicks.

So y'all saw that Nemesis were lame to fight because Vegeance made them take forever to kill despite but utterly ineffectual at killing players, too, and your solution was to make it so that it makes them even harder to kill while also been even more ineffectual at killing players? Great, super.

Then you recall incorrectly. My usual habit redside is to streetsweep Mercy to 5 and then immediately head to Port Oakes and start paper missions. It's never been an issue.

That just turns things around and makes buzzsaw and proc-brawl the meta again and whatnot. Keep the respect of AT modifiers, and raise the chances of most/all procs to be close to 100%...but make it so that only one would fire per-target-per-power-activation. That gets things back to encouraging the use of them as part of sets, as they're designed to be part of.

An Assault/Henchmen AT done pretty much the way you're describing, is one I suggested wayyyyyyy back when. IIRC, I called it the "Vanguard", though I realize in retrospect that's kind of a loaded term in the game.

Thanks, this worked perfectly! I'm not sure what the "+" does on its own, but it stops me from moving once I turn to face the target and use the power.

Nemesis apparently hates "computers", so he's gotta do a lot of workarounds to avoid them.

There's also a rule, to my knowledge, that basically says "no creating real/historically noteworthy figures", though like all the "no [x]-type characters" rules, enforcement is pretty spotty in execution. So making a direct "tribute" to Ozzy would likely be an enforceable conduct violation. Just because of the ways the rules are presented, I'd imagine explicit parodies (the "Spazzy Spazbourne" example above would also be as likely to get acted on as other such examples. But more indirect references through lyrics or song titles are probably going to fly unless you just happen to get spotted by a GM who really hates heavy metal, or something.

I appreciate the responses. Just a couple other bits for clarification. Do you happen to know if there's a way to make the bind I mentioned turn me towards the target but not make my character move? I tried the one I posted and it didn't work, changed it to "Backward 1" and that makes my character auto-run backwards until I hit another direction, which is still kinda not quite what I wanna do. I managed to work it into the build, with about a 75% uptime. We'll see how it goes, thanks. These are about what I was thinking. I ended up going with the LotG and Reactive Defenses bonuses, some pieces of the Numina's set to get it close to the ED cap on the absorb. Alpha-wise, I'm currently leaning now towards Agility, for the EndMod bonuses Auroxis mentoined plus more recharge for better PotD uptime and stacking Brine.

Yes, and then never use them so that my beautiful pattern remains in tact. Actually, though, there's a practical reason for it, too, in that by sticking an Awakening in the f5 slot, if I alt-tab to a web-browser and refresh the page there, a slip in timing doesn't end up popping an inspiration by accident.

I've been feeling both a strong urge to give /Marine a try, and to make yet another new Mastermind, so two points put together, and figuring out which primary I want, and I'm leaning towards Thugs with it. It feels like it could have some interesting synergies, and so if anyone's got an general comments on how they work together, consider that question 0, I guess. But more specifically I'm wondering a few things: Soothing Wave works the same as Nature Affinity's heal, correct? Just sort of a general cone in the direction I'm facing? So for situations where I wanted the power directed towards a certain target, I'm told working it into a macro/bind with /follow would work. I seem to remember binds execute in "reverse" order but also that they carry steps out simultaneously, so I'm not sure if this would work, but if I wanted to ensure my character turned towards the target and used the power, but didn't start running towards them I'm wondering if this would work: /bind b "backward$$powexec_name Soothing Wave$$follow". Anyone tried to do something like this and can speak to its effectiveness (or not)? How big is the Shifting Tides? I figure my own character is likely to play pretty close to enemies thanks to Whitecap, and obviously the Bruiser will be in close, so we're both getting the benefits regardless. I'm not sure if the otherwise-ranged t1 and t2 henchmen should also be brought into it when possible, given the risk of getting hit by enemy AoEs, but it might be possible to keep them closer to the edge? Or it might not matter at all? Power of the Depths: Is it worth it? Because it looks cool, admittedly, but also looks like kind of a dud power, with even the half of it that lasts the full duration having kind of lousy relative uptime compared with the power's Recharge, and Marine seems to be a pretty "hungry" set in terms of both "needed" powers and in terms of slotting. So this feels like a possibility to free up some room, but maybe there's something about it I'm missing. If there is something I'm missing, is there anything else that's skippable? What's more worth focusing on when slotting Barrier Reef: absorb or defense? Or should I try to split it 50/50 (or some other similar way)? Finally, any recommendations on an Alpha slot, when I get that far? Vigor's one I like for MMs just because it shores up a lot of issues henchmen seem to have, and being able to heal a little harder is also nice (also, do Healing enhancements influence the -HP in Brine? Mids shows it taking them but it's wrong on these sorts of things sometimes). I could also see an argument being made for Cardiac, Nerve, or Agility, or maybe even Spiritual or mayyybe even Resilient (and then there's the common fave of Musculature, though in this case it seems like there are so many other, potentially even more valid options that can help build into the buffs). What do other people like to use?

Director 11 has an actual "power" that makes him run around like a chicken with his head cut off that will supersede taunting. I wouldn't be surprised if Battle Maiden has something similar that makes her "want" to stay inside her damage zones. Both of these AVs being non-responsible to taunts is probably "working as intended", for better or worse.