macskull

So are you saying that Scrappers aren't an AoE damage AT either?

So... almost every new Stalker melee set keeps all the AoE of its non-Stalker version and in some cases (hello, Staff Fighting and Elec Melee) the Stalker versions are better than the version every other AT gets - and with the changes to the way Stalker crits work on teams (plus the Stalker ATO procs) Stalkers absolutely are an AoE damage AT now. They're basically slightly squishier Scrappers that can crit on command. If you really wanted to, you could dip into the Presence pool on a Blaster, Defender, Sentinel, or whatever else, and given the right build, manage aggro, at least until a Tank/Brute/Kheld shows up and pulls mobs off with their more-effective taunting. Issue 18 blurred the lines between ATs when side-switching was introduced and it's been getting blurrier and blurrier ever since.

Scrappers also get the taunt component as part of the port. I've had at least two people quote me saying that it isn't shown ingame or in Mids and those people are correct - the ingame numbers and Mids often lack all the information about the power so you have to look in places like City of Data, which shows a 2.25s mag 3 taunt. This makes it one of the weaker taunt auras from any defensive set, but it is there.

Energy's Entropic Aura has a taunt component.

As I understand it enhancement converters only work on power-unique enhancements (like, I can't slot two LotG def/end pieces in any given power), so if enhancement converters were able to be used for Hami O's they would become power-unique as well. I don't know the technical background there since I am not familiar with the code but it would either require a significant rework of the enhancement converter system or you'd have to deal with not being able to slot duplicate Hami O's in a given power. That being said, I'd love it if converters worked on Hami/Titan/Hydra O's.

It's a lot more work and doesn't solve the problem.

The toggle itself doesn't drop (unless you get mezzed while it's animating but that's another can of worms), but the intangibility suppresses until the combat tick after the mez wears off.

1:08:30 Dr Q.

@Captain Powerhouse Any chance Phase Shift could get a pass while we're testing PvP changes? Toggle suppression isn't supposed to be a thing in PvP and right now the intangibility suppresses while mezzed which means that even if you manage to get it toggled on when you see the first attacks against you in your buff bar, if one of those attacks is a mez it's like you didn't even phase at all.

SR on Tankers and Brutes has a taunt aura (Evasion). It also has scaling resists to the point where if you're shoring up your numbers with set bonuses you become very hard to kill once you're below 15-20% health or so. SR also has about 95% def debuff resistance when slotted, EA gets about 65% outside of Overload.

My main since the game came back has been a Fire/Cold Corruptor which was on SOs for the first 4 or 5 months. I'm a proponent of SO balance because that is what the live devs repeatedly said the game was balanced against and because rebalancing the game around IOs would turn this game into a grind for loot (unless IOs were made free, which you know would never happen).

The second the game starts to be balanced around IOs is the second the IO system no longer becomes optional.

Fire doesn't have any secondary effects so you lose out on the ability to slot non-unique damage procs (the only one you'll have access to is the Glad Jav proc) but it works. PvP damage numbers mean you get into weird situations like Fire Blast doing more damage than Blaze, for example. Ice is a bit weird too - Bitter Freeze Ray is sort of worth it on a Sentinel because you're tough enough where its long animation time isn't as likely to get you killed, but Chilling Ray is an awful replacement for Freeze Ray and most of your damage is going to be in proc'd out Bitter Ice Blast but one attack isn't a good chain. For what it's worth you can change the tinting/color of powers now.

Energy isn't great. It can work but sets like Ice, Beam, Psi, and Fire are going to give you better results.

What

I would be okay with using this sort of data for entertainment purposes, or maybe for investigating underperforming IO sets/set bonuses, but I would absolutely not be okay with using this data to change the way the game plays because that takes the invention system from the realm of "optional but really nice" to "required."

Anecdotally, I've found it easier to keep targets alive with slightly weaker but longer-ranged heals (though it is pretty much impossible for a solo Emp to heal through anything but the sloppiest of spikes in anything larger than a 5v5). I don't have to get as close to get my heals off and like xhiggy said it's more about the timing than the actual heal values. Additionally you practically have to AP to keep a teammate alive these days so the farther away from someone you can do that, the less likely you are to be seen doing it, and the easier you can evade if you do manage to draw someone's attention. As I'm sure you've noticed as you've started to play more, being an Emp can be really rough in the current meta - even when things are going well your teammates may die a frustrating number of times and the second you hit AP you practically turn into a magnet for the entire enemy team's damage lineup. Positioning is pretty important so at the end of the day you want to stay as far away from the action as possible while still being able to heal people. I've seen some Emp builds start to take Medicine instead of Sorcery and I can certainly see why it's attractive but I'm not entirely convinced it's the better choice.

FWIW prevailing wisdom has changed a bit regarding Emp builds, moving the focus more toward maximizing range (Emp/Ice is popular, I've seen a few builds with 190ft range on the heals), and Grav/Emp is also gaining traction because Dimension Shift is awesome.

I don't get why Spine Burst isn't getting a target cap increase. It's a pretty horrible DPA power in its own right and if the concern is that Spines is too common a farming set and shouldn't get buffed because of that... well, Spine Burst is a gap-filler on those kinds of builds and it isn't used that much anyways.

And it will hit more targets.

At first I was wondering why Powerhouse didn't just raise the AoE radius/cone arc instead of reducing it or leaving it the same, and then tacking on this buff after the fact, but it makes sense to me now - in the case of Footstomp, what used to be 15ft radius becomes 16ft (not a big deal, right?) but because its power-defined radius is now 10ft, any procs slotted into it will perform better right out of the gate (bigger deal, for sure) since proc chances in AoEs are based at least partly on radius and arc.

Oddly enough, it was my thread that pointed this out when I asked that it be disabled in PvP zones. Leandro came into that thread and said it's a GM command that no one is supposed to have access to, and that it was going to be removed because it is not a command players are supposed to have access to, and everyone lost their minds and blamed PvPers for taking away their toy. Of course, everyone also conveniently overlooks that this entire conversation is going to lead to some significant buffs for the click-to-location powers like the existing SG teleport power. But sure, blame the PvPers. EDIT: This wasn't directed at the person I quoted, just more of a general observation.

Congrats to the winners!

You seem to have missed the part where I said Brutes already weren't the best at any of those things.

I think I made my position on this clear earlier in the thread. My opposition to lowering the Brute damage cap comes from the multiple occasions in the past month where the powers developer said Brutes weren't getting nerfed as part of the Tanker changes, and now here we are with Brutes getting nerfed as part of the Tanker changes. I do not care at all about inf/hour because the amount of inf I make from farming is a fraction of the inf I make playing the market and playing converter roulette, but it is a good metric for determining performance in a specific set of conditions. Your entire argument hinges around the assumption that Brutes are the best farmers, or that they make inf the fastest, or that they do the most damage, and none of those things are true. And, really? "Brutes should be grateful they're not getting nerfed more" as if people should be grateful they're getting nerfed at all?