Maelwys

See: Also; I suspect that it's not going to stay as-is for too long. They were trialling another change to RT on test a few weeks back; but it's been put on-hold until the next balance pass.

I had a Sonic/Elec Blapper many moons ago on Live who was softcapped to S/L. At the time it was both fun and very effective; since back then Blasters had no sustains (and consistent mez protection via Clarion etc. wasn't a thing) and a lot more attacks were S/L typed so softcapped S/L defense plus Aid Self drastically increased their survivability and let them hang in melee range to "blap" things almost indefinitely. And it wasn't a hugely difficult or expensive endeavour - in fact, I still have their original non-optimised build from ~2008 (empty slots are where the non-inherent Fitness Pool was: Hurdle with 2x Jump IOs, Health with a Miracle proc, and Stamina with 2x Efficacy Adaptors and a regular EndMod). Their playstyle essentially just involved closing to melee range (firing off Scream and Shriek on the way) then whacking away with Charged brawl, Havoc Punch, Shocking Grasp and Thunder Strike. Their Health was just over the 1600 mark; so they had a fair bit of leeway for a streak of unlucky hits; but Snow Storm and Siren's Song could be used to split up and/or mitigate damage from a particularly tough spawn; and Hibernate worked well as an emergency button. Power Sink kept their Blue Bar looking healthy (oh the days before Blaster sustains and crashless nukes!) They weren't my first choice for bringing on non-PUG TFs; but they were a good choice in PUGs and smaller groups. These days I only have one Blaster who is softcapped; and they're an Archery/TA. Their playstyle is almost the exact opposite of my old Sonic/Elec Blapper - they try to stay at very long range (up to ~150 feet away) whilst churning out a constant stream of AoEs (e.g. Snipe + Oil Slick + Explosive Arrow + Repulsion Force Bomb + Rain of Arrows + Fistful of Arrows) with the recharge rate of the two "nukes" being maximise via Hasten and FF procs (plus Ageless, if desired). Ranged Softcap plus passively three Heal Procs and regenerating ~40 HP/Sec keeps them healthy; and they have Repulsion Field, Force of Nature and PFF to fall back on in an emergency. Whilst at first glance it might look like most of their AoEs have been gutted to use them as set bonus mules; neither Oil Slick nor Rain of Arrows proc well (Pseudopets) so they're losing hardly anything; and Repulsion Force Bomb is appropriately frankenslotted + procced. So Explosive and Fistful are the only ones that are lacking; and they're essentially "fillers". The result is an effective AoE-focused Long-Ranged Blaster which is very self-sufficient. They're not quite as much of a rolling AoE engine of destruction as my Fire/Ice Blaster; but they're holding comparatively little back by building for the Ranged Softcap. (and yes, they struggle a bit more on cave maps; but they're decent on most other indoor maps and very good when "outdoors") I wouldn't bring this build to a 4 star team; but then optimal 4 star builds require very different approaches to general content builds anyway. I enjoy tweaking builds; and I like to hit arbitrary thresholds (like "round numbers" of Maximum HP - it irks me no end if a toon is sitting at 1592 instead of >1600!) but I also believe that having at least some level of mitigation is always desirable in CoX for general content... the trick is finding the balance - sufficient levels of mitigation; then ramping up damage output (typically via procs; but occasionally through other things like -res stacking and/or pet summons etc). And certain powersets (like Archery and TA) gain less benefit from having their core abilities procbombed, so on those sets you have much more leeway to chase "superfluous" set bonuses (like +Def; or +Rech; or whatever). So I think it's important to note that there are some occasions where you can "have your cake and eat it too"... even if they're in the (vast) minority. And I 100% agree that a lot of builds posted here (whether they're chasing +Def or not) are not remotely optimised.

It was faked, sadly. (but hey; at least I have chicken...) 🐔 🍽️

Oh I'm sure all those -1 endurance drains every ~6 seconds (-0.167 end/sec) were contributing. I'm just not so sure that they (or "the Endurance System in General") were the primary issue. A /Shield would be dodging at least three quarters of those blasts and just 3 enhancements (a Panacea, a Miracle and a Performance Shifter) can grant >0.875 end/sec. Choosing not to use all the tools available to you is an option, certainly, but if/when you subsequently start struggling there aren't that many directions to start pointing fingers.

Ahh yes. The one where your level 17 Brute was apparently getting their blue bar drained from 100% to zero in a single salvo, by three "Cog" minions on a rooftop. (Cog minions possessing exactly one attack that can drain endurance, at a whopping -1 endurance per shot).

AFAIK regular Clockwork drain between 1 and 3.75 endurance per ranged blast (before Purple Patch) and we're talking about a Shield Defense toon with a presumably decent chunk of Ranged Defense. So I'm guessing the plinking isn't the problem.

To be fair; Axe is extremely endurance hungry. Its attacks all have a very high Base Endurance cost plus a fairly low Cast Time; so if/when you get sufficiently high recharge buffs to cycle them all back to back the resulting drain on your blue bar can have you gasping pretty quickly if you haven't factored that in and adjusted your build to accommodate it. Sure; most of the old hands won't even blink at this and will just intrinsically tweak their characters to cope; or will pick powerset combinations that make it a non-factor in the first place... but I can definitely picture some less experienced players getting caught out. I have an Axe/FA Brute (so 3x toggles, plus Fighting Pool and CJ) who has a decent amount of EndRed slotting in their attacks (Gash and Swoop have ~70%; the others have between 15% and 41%) and both Superior Conditioning and Physical Perfection plus all the usual passive accolades and various IOs and set bonuses; giving them a recovery surplus of about +2.53 End/Sec (before Procs and Consume). They can still comfortably blow through most of their blue bar between Consume cycles; and whenever they're fighting a Single Target and Consume gets an unlucky "miss" things can occasionally get a bit dicey. They're one of the few toons I have which intentionally keeps more than one Big Blue Insp in their tray. So whilst I'm a big fan of Axe's high performance ceiling... I'd be rather unlikely to recommend combining it with a powerset like Invulnerability which doesn't get any +Recovery boosts or Endurance Recovery clickies (at least without relying on Ageless). However Willpower (with Quick Recovery) is another matter entirely.

I'm guessing it looks something like this? Whenever it could look more like this: With Parry to fall back on I really wouldn't recommend getting Weave (particularly at lower levels) as softcapping your Melee Defense is trivial. Whilst stacking S/L resistance (Tough and True Grit/Deflection) is definitely worthwhile... IMO that's a "later on in the build" thing when you have more Enhancement slots and the Might of Tanker ATO and the two +Res Globals. At low-levels my focus would be on melee defense plus regeneration/healing procs; and making sure my (few!) attacks hit reasonably hard. Shield is also a very easy framework for 5x LotG +rechs; and you can fit them in early (as shown above) so your attacks and Active Defense could all be benefiting from almost a SO's worth of global +Rech with minimal investment. But the main thing will be just getting Health and Stamina + your attacks all slotted properly. The rest can fall into place later.

Insufficient endurance recovery has not been "far too much of an issue" since 2010. High endurance consumption can however be a slight issue for some builds whilst levelling up. Assuming that you're not using the usual IOs and not using START or Base Empowerment buffs. Battleaxe is certainly an endurance heavy powerset. However Willpower is one of the strongest sets for raw passive +recovery. Realistically you should not be having any endurance consumption issues on a Willpower, even a low-level Axe/Willpower, unless you are running multiple travel power toggles and/or have completely neglected Endurance Reduction slotting in both your defensive toggles and your attacks. This sounds like a build problem. As such I'd very much recommend posting an enhancement screen screenshot (or a /buildsave ) and letting us know what toggles you're running constantly. It's true that at level 50 there are additional things (like Alpha slot and Destiny abilities) which can drastically boost recovery and/or endurance reduction, but there are very few builds that actually require them. And the worst offenders are min-maxed VEATs with multiple procbombed low Cast Time attacks and sky-high global recharge, not a SO'd melee AT with zero global recharge and Quick Recovery.

Yep. Twice, actually. The power got the "reactive recharge" treatment, which means Proc activation rate dropped a good bit. It went from from 90% (@60s base rech) to 46.72% (@25s base recharge)... and then later on to 28.7718% (@15s base recharge). So procbombing it is pretty worthless now, but slotting it for damage and healing and recharge aspect works out pretty well. There's a breakdown in the link below. And on top of that, all damage dealt by RT to foes beyond the first target is subject to the same sort of reductions as "Overcap" Tanker AoEs. This started off as a scaling exponential -30% reduction, then got reduced slightly to a scaling exponential -25% reduction. The silver lining is that RT is now a LOT better than before for damage mitigation (eg healing over time) especially whenever you only have a single target nearby. And its damage dealt when fighting lower numbers of targets is still pretty decent (after I adjusted my Scrapper's slotting... compared to before vs one target its damage per activation has dropped slightly but damage per second has more than doubled; however vs 10 targets it's dropped to roughly a quarter of the damage per activation and a third of the damage per second) It also got a +Regeneration buff baked into it on all ATs (previously it was only giving this on Scrappers but not on the rest!) The good news is that there appears to be an intention to undo some of the negative impact to procs (the proposed change was going back to a 25s base recharge rate) But this has been put on hold until a future "balance pass" patch because there are currently more than enough other things for the Devs to worry about.

Single Target damage shouldn't have changed, aside from very minor differences to "damage buff" and "resistance debuff" scales. Perhaps if you're a Bio/SuperStrength Tank with double stacked Rage plus Evolving Armor and Epic pool Melt Armor... maybe. On Brainstorm back before they'd sorted out the Cone and AoE base damage changes my Bio/Staff Tanker's ST damage output was noticeably weaker since it's attack chain relies on two cones... but it's been fine on live.

Regarding "other things"... there were lots, but the main ones that might have impacted proc damage output for a Tanker are: The Proc Damage bug (which was fixed prior to i28p2 hitting live) And the Ground Zero proc activation rate bug (which a fix has been found for but hasn't quite made it to live yet)

So first they took away the global radius/arc buff (which was previously part of Gauntlet). Then they went through and manually increased the base radius (but not the arc) of most Cones and AoEs... which resulted in a reduction of their base damage as well as their proc activation rate. And at the same time they introduced a reduction to all damage (including proc damage) dealt by both AoEs and Cones to targets beyond the regular target caps (eg 11+ for AoEs and 6+ for Cones). Then there was outcry. And much testing. Then several cycles of tweaks, each followed by yet more testing. The TL;DR of it all is: + The manual increase to base radius for Cones (and the resulting Damage Scalar and Proc activation rate reductions) effectively all got reverted. So compared to before the patch Tanker Cones have lost their global buff, and now currently possess the same radius and arc as on other ATs. + The manual increase to base radius for AoEs technically still remains in effect, however at the last minute (the night before golive!) the Devs raised their base damage to compensate. So compared to before Tanker AoEs with a base radius of <15ft really just now have a slightly lower proc rate. + Whilst the higher target caps remain in effect for both Tanker AoEs and Cones, "Overcap" targets (meaning anything beyond the base caps so targets 11+ for AoEs and 6+ for Cones) now take only 33% damage from the attack itself as well as any additional sources like Incarnate Interface DOTs and Damage Procs. I wrote a fair bit about all the various bits during the Beta Feedback thread. Here's a summary of the original changes: Then they reverted the Cone radius changes: Although it took them a few tries to catch them all Then they finally raised AoE base damage: The nature of the "Overcap" damage reduction fluctuated a bit too- originally it was two different scaling exponential curves, one for AoEs and another more harsh one for Cones. Then they changed it to a flat -67% damage reduction for both. I'm still personally in favour of toning the Overcap reduction down a bit (to ~50%)... but to be fair to the Devs, they did listen to feedback and reverted the base damage reduction to AoEs and Cones, instead letting the Overcap reduction be responsible for the vast majority of the "tanker damage nerfs". And that has made the impact (i) far milder than it would have been, especially to those who don't regularly saturate their AoEs (e.g. soloists and non-farmers!) (ii) much more even across all powersets. The radius changes were originally disproportionately negatively impacting specific powersets like Staff and TW.

PPM calculations don't use radius as a straight multiplier. Taking Fire Sword Circle as an example: With a 10ft base radius (on Brutes, Scrappers, etc and Tankers before i28p2) each 3.5PPM damage Proc in it will have a 62.2314% activation chance. With a 15ft base radius (on Tankers post i28p2) that drops to a 49.2062% activation chance. Since 3.5 PPM Damage Procs typically deal 71.751 damage, that works out to an average loss of just -9.3 damage per proc per target, before resistances and Purple Patch. And due to the "Overcap" damage reductions, that number will drop even further whenever you're hitting more than 10 targets, for just -3.1 damage per proc per target. Even taken across the maximum 16 targets that's not a huge deal considering that FSC even when completely unslotted was dealing nearly 1500 damage before the patch. It's honestly a drop in the ocean. And it's even less of a concern for Cones if the Devs were to just manually bump the arcs up rather than reverting back to a global buff.