Maelwys

So as an 8ft Toggle, Aura of Insanity would have a 39.47% chance (per target) of a 4.5PPM Proc like Contagious Confusion Proc kicking in every 10 seconds. However Cupid's Crush is only 2.5PPM; which is a 21.93% chance of kicking in once every 10 seconds. (i) When Contagious Confusion kicks in, it applies a 20ft Radius AoE (hitting up to 5 targets; excluding the original) which has a 33% chance to inflict a 10s Mag3 Confusion. The upshot is that there's about a 34.142% likelihood for at least one target to be hit by that Mag3 confusion effect (which will affect up to LTs). (ii) When Cupid's Crush kicks in, it applies an 8s Mag2 Confusion (which will only affect minions) So if you have enough spare enhancement slots then they'd both technically be able to stack with each other; sure. But in terms of comparative power a ~21.9% chance to affect a minion is much worse than a ~34.1% chance to affect at least one minion or LT; so IMO slotting Cupids is probably going to be a waste of a precious enhancement slot.

To my knowledge it's just a daily "whose posts got the most reactions today" leaderboard. I've never noticed it doing anything other than a congratulatory message popping up occasionally at the top of your profile page; even when you "win" multiple days in a row. It's not like it results in some kind of tangible reward (unless @Snarky has been siphoning them off...) 🧛‍♀️

FWIW: If you're checking for updates within Mids, and it tells you that there's an update available but nothing happens whenever you press the go button to download/install it... then there's very likely something up with your Bootstrapper. Check your Windows Application Event Log (Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application). Chances are that there'll be an entry in it that looks like this: Faulting application name: MRBBootstrap.exe, version: 1.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x6854594d Faulting module name: MSVCP140.dll, version: 14.29.30133.0, time stamp: 0x60ff28cc Exception code: 0xc0000005 If so, then the issue is that the Bootstrapper (which is a separate application within the Mids folder that is only used to download and install updates) is erroring out because your PC doesn't have the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable installed. Download it at https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe then install, reboot, and retry. (there are are alternative downloads of that distributable at https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x86.exe for 32-bit devices and https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.arm64.exe if you're running on a ARM64 device... but most folk here will likely want the x64 one!) Lums is 100% correct in that Mids has now gotten to the point where even the devs are apparently having a hard time keeping track of just what you need to properly run it.

(i) Get their accuracy up to scratch (they need 95% Hit Chance vs foes that are +3 to YOU) (ii) ED-Cap Damage aspect (iii) Handle any Endurance Reduction requirements (example: for Bots the T2 and T3 pets guzzle Endurance but the T1s are fine) (iv) Fit in the Aura IOs (typically four for me; but it depends on the powersets and buff potential - if you're going to overshoot the hard/softcaps there's not much point) (v) Fit in -res and/or damage procs (the usefulness of each proc varies wildly; depending on how many attacks each pet possesses that inherit various enhancement types. As an example: Mercs T1 and T2 pets gain a lot from -Def damage and Achilles Heel procs because almost all their attacks inflict -Def and inherit Defense Debuff enhancement) (vi) Fit in the "Soulbound Allegiance: Chance for Build Up" Proc - sticking it in the T1 pet will affect all three of them; but they will only get +60% Damage when it procs... whereas if you stick it in the T3 pet they'll get +100% when it procs. Which is "best" will depend what level of mobs you're fighting (T1s are 2 levels below you so get negatively affected much more by the Purple Patch; especially whenever you're fighting enemies that are +3 to you or higher) Often you can accomplish all of the above whilst also picking up a few set bonuses; but it's unlikely that you'll get everything covered optimally before you hit level 50 and can pick up "superior" ATOs, purple IOs and HOs and boost them all. I find that a good generic starting point is something like: Acc/Dam HO + Dam Superior Mark Of Supremacy + Acc/End Superior Mark Of Supremacy. Acc/Dam HO + Acc/Dam/End Superior Mark Of Supremacy + Dam/End Superior Mark Of Supremacy. Acc/Dam HO + Acc/Dam Superior Mark Of Supremacy + Superior Mark Of Supremacy Proc + Overwhelming Force (or Cupid's Crush) Proc. That leaves 8 free enhancement slots for 4x Aura IOs; a Soulbound Allegiance and 3x Procs (or other boosts like +def or +acc); whilst providing +30% global recharge. However your T1 Henchmen will likely need a bit more accuracy (or the Soulbound Proc) unless you have additional +ToHit buffs or -Defense debuffs. On Henchmen Accuracy Slotting: Since your pets don't gain the benefit of your Kismet +ToHit or Accuracy set bonuses; they'll need some help in order to hit things reliably. And in non-incarnate content the T1 pets (that spawn at -2) need considerably more help than the T2 pets (which spawn at -1) which in turn need more than the T3 pets (which spawn at your level). In short; if you're NOT taking Tactics nor have any allied +ToHit buffs other than Supremacy; then you want ED-capped accuracy AND a Soulbound proc on the T1 pet (because they need "+135% accuracy"; which is unfeasible to reach via enhancement aspect slotting); ~94% accuracy on the T2 pet and ~64% on the T3 pet. However; if you ARE taking Tactics then you can get away with considerably less - even with just a single Cytoskeleton HO in the base slot of Tactics (providing +9.23% additional allied ToHit) you'll only need ~93% accuracy on the T1 pet; ~64% accuracy on the T2 pet and ~42% accuracy on the T3 pet. With Tactics six-slotted with a full Gaussian set (providing +12.01% allied ToHit) it's ~83% accuracy for the T1 pet, ~56% for the T2 pet and ~36% for the T3 pet. And if your powers (including those of your henchmen) inflict -Defense then the accuracy requirements will drop accordingly - unless you're fighting AV/GMs.

It has a fairly low chance of triggering, however the Proc's effects inflict a separate AoE confuse which can kick in once every 10 seconds regardless of whether any enemies are currently being subjected to a Confuse effect by the aura power itself. So if you're surrounded by tightly packed enemies you'll notice some extra minions and LTs getting confused for 6-10 seconds at a time.

If you want to mez higher-level bosses; you'll need 3x Acc/Mez HOs. If not, then 1 Acc/Mez HO is enough to mez even-level Bosses and +3 LTs. Offensive Procs aren't wonderful in it; but buff procs (Like Entomb) work just fine. I personally like putting a Coercive Persuasion "Contagious Confusion" Proc in it too - I've got the Stalker version slotted like this: Note that you'll need a fair chunk of accuracy to reach 95% Hit Rate in it vs +3 foes. Mids still falsely claims it's got a 1.00 Accuracy Modifier whenever it's really only 0.80

Warshades covered the damage-per-activation numbers above... however another thing to consider is how complete your attack chain is. This is particularly true whenever it comes to AoE attacks. If you have so many good attacks that you can chain them all back to back constantly without any gaps... then by all means just procbomb each of them out as above. However if you only have 1 or 2 good attacks; then it can sometimes make more sense to slot them for local recharge aspect; despite the fact that doing so reduces your proc activation rate... because if you can activate a good attack more often then that attack will end up contributing more damage over the same amount of time; and there is only so much global recharge you can get from set bonuses. As a simple example: In Fiery Melee's case; Fire Sword Circle is an excellent AoE. On Tankers you can pick up Combustion plus Electrifying Fences and Ball Lightning from the Mu Patron Pool; so there is no need to slot any local recharge aspect. On Brutes you can pick up Electrifying Fences and Ball Lightning from the Mu Patron Pool; so there is probably no need to slot any local recharge aspect. But Scrappers and Stalkers can only get one other good AoE from epic/patron pools (such as Ball Lightning or Fireball) so it may make sense to slot local recharge aspect. To a lesser extent it can sometimes also make sense to slot a little local recharge aspect into a few of your single target powers (in order to optimize your Single Target attack chain) and there are lots of examples of builds where I have intentionally slotted set enhancements at an unusual level or refrained from boosting them all the way to +5; in order to *just* get my single target attack chain to the point where no gaps occur. You can go down a real mathematical rabbit hole here and try to get the damage dealt by your AoE attack chain to *just* one-shot or two-shot an average +3 minion or LT (so that there is minimal "overkill" damage!) ...but for most players that's getting well beyond the scope of what constitutes "fun"... 🧮 📝 🤯 🤓

Last time I tried a fresh Mids install (on a newly imaged laptop; about two weeks ago) it was a case of: (i) Download Mids (ii) Ensure I've got the Microsoft DotNet bits installed (DotNet 8.0 Desktop Runtime and DotNet Framework 4.8) and the latest Visual C++ redistributable. (iii) Run Mids (by opening the executable "MidsReborn.exe" directly; not by opening an associated file) (iv) Within Mids, do a check for Updates. At this point it downloaded the update; then errored out with a whinge that it couldn't extract something. I found a zip file in my Mids Hero Designer folder that contained the new bootstrapper files (MRBBootstrap.exe and MRBBootstrap.pdb) so I extracted it manually over the top of the original files. (v) Run Mids again. (vi) Within Mids, do another check for updates. This time it found a new Database file; and the new bootstrapper kicked in and downloaded it successfully (the download screen looks a bit flashier than the old one). Mids then autolaunched properly. (vii) Within Mids, do another check for updates. This time it reported there were no updates. (viii) Perform various manual amendments to the Mids database to fix incorrect values and pet/pseudopet buffs that don't display properly in the UI (urrrgh...)

Honestly? I think given Scrappers can already Tank the hardest content in the game; giving Brutes higher baseline survivability probably isn't going to matter very much. Whilst it might aid the levelling process... I'm of the opinion that things are currently already very nearly balanced right (Tanker overcap notwithstanding) before ATOs are factored in. Therefore (as stated previously) I personally am more of a fan of: (i) Ensuring that all four of the traditional melee ATs get their damage output adjusted to the point where it's balanced appropriately both excluding and inducing ATOs (and I appreciate that my ballpark pulling-numbers-out-of-my-arse notion of "Scrapper and Stalker DPS roughly equal; Brute DPS about 10-15% behind them; then Tanker DPS about 10%-15 behind the Brutes" might be waaaay out of whack with Developer intention!) (ii) Ensuring that all four of the traditional melee ATs have some place on the team. Stalkers (Stealthy Single Target damage dealers that can't Tank at all) and Scrappers (all-round Damage Dealers that can occasionally Tank) are pretty obvious. But Brutes and Tankers are perhaps less so; since they have very similar levels of aggro control and peak survivability. So it would be nice if they each ad a useful niche to set them apart from each other that doesn't necessarily revolve around how much damage they deal. Like a higher aggro cap for Tankers; or some kind of buff aura (although I appreciate that might be a stretch!) Haven't we been over this very same topic at least once before? I'm seriously getting flashbacks... 😳 Even with just SOs and Basic Inherent Critical hits on non-T9 attacks versus non-negligible foes (LTs+), Brutes still typically need to be operating at ~65 Fury to draw level with Scrapper average damage numbers. When you factor in additional damage buffs (like Build Up, Follow Up, AAO, Set Bonuses, Teammate Buffs and/or Alpha Slots) realistically the only time Brutes compare favourably is at very high fury levels (~80+) when the Scrapper is lacking any of their ATOs and isn't fighting enemy ranks above minion. As a few quick examples: + A solo Scrapper without ATOs but with a Musculature Core Alpha and a /SD secondary (AAO vs 1 Foe) @10% Crit Rate will remain ahead of a Brute until 83+ Fury. + A solo Scrapper without ATOs but with a Musculature Core Alpha plus a /Bio Secondary (Offense + Hardened Carapace) @10% Crit Rate will remain ahead until 88+ Fury. + Even if we just have a Musculature Core Alpha it would only take an additional +17% damage (@80 Fury) for the Scrapper to begin to pull ahead. You can easily hit that passively just via Set Bonuses and a non-activated Assault Hybrid, let alone with stuff like Follow Up or outside buffage from teammates/pets. And that's before ATOs.

Easy: they shouldn't. Compared to Scrappers; Brutes have a slightly higher survivability baseline, a considerably higher survivability ceiling and vastly better aggro control. Therefore IMO Brutes should always be dishing out less DPS than Scrappers (and Stalkers too; at least for ST damage) regardless of whether they're playing at +4x8 or -1x1. (Which they already do... however whenever you add ATOs the difference in their damage output becomes incredibly more pronounced; so I'd like it very much if the Brute ATOs got rebalanced. And since rebalancing just one AT's ATOs is very unlikely to happen; I'm hoping for a more general ATO balance pass. Since other AT's ATOs could use some love too; particularly Sentinels!)

Well you'll be waiting for quite some time if you're expecting me to attempt to volunteer one 🙂 ☮️ ⬆️ ✌️

IIRC Ston's testing was (as mentioned earlier) more than a little bit biased. He was supposedly trying to establish a baseline of each melee powerset but his ST attack chains leant heavily into Cross Punch and Epic Snipes, and didn't quite make the best use of Scrapper ATO2. His Trapdoor testing typically leant into what we would now consider to be non-optimal Epic Sets (a good example is taking the Soul Mastery Pool for Dark Obliteration instead of Mu for both Electrifying Fences and Ball Lightning) and the Scrapper times are inflated due to runners (Willpower's Taunt Aura is pathetic). His builds were also based on "old" pre-recharge-time-nerf epic snipes and obviously his testing took place prior to the recent i28p2 Tanker Changes. All of which meant that whilst there is a lot of hard work and potentially useful data there; it needs to be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to applying it to real builds. I really wish I had sufficient free time to do more comparative testing of various Powerset combinations. There are some numbers in the latter half of the Tanker Feedback Thread from when multiple people started to run the Mission Simulator at +4x8; but it's far from definitive. I've only personally fully tested (and subsequently retested again after the patch hit Live) a small selection of my own Scrapper, Brute and Tanker builds by shuffling them across multiple different AT variants. Below are a couple of examples (times listed are an average of 3 runs for each toon): EnergyMelee/RadArmor (originally built as a ST-focused Scrapper) SCRAPPER: 5:14 BRUTE: 6:45 [+28.98%] TANKER: 7:32 [+43.95%] Staff/BioArmor (originally built as an all-rounder Tanker) SCRAPPER: 4:38 BRUTE: 5:54 [+27.34%] TANKER: 6:40 [+43.88%] I have a few others; but most of my toons that start out as Brutes are designed to exploit a more-powerful-than-usual interaction between Fury and a specific ability such as Stone Armor's Brimstone Armor or Fiery Aura's Burn. So they throw the average off a bit (e.g. my RadM/Stone Brute only takes ~20% longer than its Scrapper variant!)

It does when that fraction is 30% or 40%. I'm not proposing nerfing Scrapper ATOs. I'm proposing BUFFING THE BRUTE ONES. (And the Sentinel ones as well; because their ATOs are both utter pigswill too). Stalker ATOs and Scrapper ATOs both provide those ATs with a major buff to damage (although properly leveraging the Scrapper ones for optimal performance requires employing primary school level math skills). Brute ATOs do not. The reason that I am not talking about Controllers and Dominators here is that all three of the aforementioned ATs are supposedly primarily melee damage dealers; as denoted by their primary powerset options and the fact that all three dish out very similar amounts of damage before ATOs are in play. However the disparity in the performance of their ATOs is glaring, and that is a major source of my annoyance. Whilst Tankers share the same offensive powersets as Brutes/Scrappers/Stalkers; their offensive powerset is their secondary, not their primary... and their traditional role and inherent and the benefits granted from their ATOs also lean into mitigation and aggro control instead of primarily dealing damage. Therefore we can't reasonably expect a Tanker to deal an equal or greater level of damage compared to a Brute (let alone a Scrapper or Stalker) and their ATOs already do a decent job at enhancing their survivability anyway. And I'm also proposing that it would be a good idea if whenever the dust settles; Stalkers and Scrappers and Brutes and Tankers could each have some kind of "niche" that makes them a mechanically attractive addition to a team. Because prior to i28p2 Brutes were effectively pointless - Scrappers did more Single Target damage, Tankers did better AoE damage; both had sufficient levels of aggro control to fulfil the same requirements for the same role as a Brute would occupy on a team. Currently Tanker AoE damage has dropped below that of a Brute; so they are losing popularity; and I would very much rather that we didn't get into a constant merry go round of "who's the useless melee AT going to be after THIS patch?" You're in the Brute subforum posting in a 12-page deep thread containing cyclical arguments about Melee Damage AT balance... 🤷‍♂️

Most of the game's content takes place within instanced missions. Contact Missions, Radio Missions, Ouroboros Missions, Task Force Missions. Very little content (mainly "hunts" and "deliveries"; plus some GM battles and raids) take place outside. Whenever you're within an instanced mission; you will inevitably end up fighting the same foes whether you're soloing at default difficulty levels or teamed at +4x8. Therefore seeing how quickly you can defeat foes within an average instanced missions solo IS a valid measure of comparative character performance - especially for Archetypes who specialise in dealing damage; regardless of whether or not those characters are likely to join a team or not. Whilst I certainly agree that team composition can provide a lot of variables, especially if you mostly PUG, I firmly believe that establishing your character's baseline performance is useful because it indicates how mechanically effective that character can be either solo or as an addition to any team regardless of what number and combination of teammates they might happen to end up with (whilst they might not get a chance to hit that performance ceiling if a Blaster is nuking every spawn; it's still an indication of what they're capable of - a "performance ceiling yardstick"). And I believe it is better to run that sort of comparative testing solo at +4x8 because: (i) +4 is the baseline difficulty I've always used for endgame soloing on melee ATs ever since issue 7. (ii) x8 means that the performance of characters that are weighted more towards damage from large-target-cap AoEs (e.g. Tankers) is not adversely negatively impacted. (iii) +4x8 results in an identical enemy level and mob density to what is (in my experience at least!) by far and away the most common configuration whilst teaming. If I can establish how quickly each of my melee characters can complete such a mission then that allows me to rank them based on how mechanically effective each one of them is likely to be. So if a team is looking for a melee damage dealer; I can choose to bring the character that is most mechanically effective for that role. However (and much more importantly!) this sort of testing has also been firmly established as a means of providing the CoX Developers with usable data on the comparative performance of each of the melee ATs; which they can then utilize in balance passes. As Player-1 pointed out to you personally in the recent Tanker Inherent feedback thread. + Hard mode, as Betty has pointed out earlier, is almost so different from the rest of CoX content that you might as well be playing an entirely different game. All of the ATs that I ever bring on Hardmode content have a separate build that is designed exclusively for that content. In order to build for that on a melee AT you need to focus almost entirely on high single target damage output; have a decent taunt; and ideally be very quick on the ball with your unsuppressed movement (especially teleportation for many fights). It's virtually impossible to have a build that is simultaneously optimised for regular content and Hard Mode Content - especially if you're assuming Barrier Spam. + Solo Performance is definitely represented by the above testing. + Pre-50 Performance can be too; you just need to set the character's level on Beta and turn off EXP gain. + Small Team performance can be ballparked; but not extensively tested unless you know in advance exactly what the team composition is going to be. For example: is a Kin coming? If so, assume you'll be constantly at the damage cap. Bubbler? Won't need as much focus on survivability. etc. Combining powers like multiple leadership buffs; or chaining Fold Space > Nuke or AoE Immobilise > Rain/Debuff patch just smoothes things out and hurries things along... but in most cases you'll still want to keep stuff clumped whilst hitting them hard; and that's what the above testing is good at modelling. Larger team performance is where it gets very tricky to model (as there are so many variables) but is also where the most leeway lies... and power creep being what it is; chances are that any one of your teammates could solo the map, given sufficient time. So is this sort of thing necessary? Of course not. It doesn't matter if you're just there to have fun and do whatever. But I think it does matter if you're trying to balance melee damage across multiple melee ATs; which I still thing is a worthwhile goal for the CoH Powers team. Which brings me back to my earlier point about "niches" - trying to balance the raw damage output of the four melee ATs when each of them is ATO'ed up is definitely not the only thing worth focusing on here. it's just one thing that is rather glaringly (to me at least) imbalanced at present. Also, personally I very much enjoy poking at builds and eeking performance out of unlikely "underdogs" - and that's a big part of why I still kept playing Brutes after i26p4. So if they decided to cut Brute damage by a full 50% but increase their aggro cap and make them buff teammates; I'd probably still play them.

Let me rephrase then, for the sake of clarity: It is my opinion that whenever ATOs are considered Brute (and to a lesser extent Tanker) damage output is sub par, as demonstrated by how quickly identically specced Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes and Tankers can each currently defeat foes on an average mission map (with the difficulty slider set to x8 in order to not disadvantage Tankers due to their larger target caps and radiuses). Since most content in the game consists of instanced missions this is a good indicator of AT damage output performance, and setting the difficulty slider higher at +4x8 will effectively represent the enemies encountered by both experienced soloists and large teams. Better?

Pick a mission that has a good variety of targets with a minimal damage resistance spread (like the aforementioned Galaxybrain mission simulator AE map) then set your difficulty slider to +4x8. That's an argument that gets brought up a lot. And it's a valid one, because CoX is notoriously a very easy and forgiving game. However when taken to its logical conclusion that results in thinking like "why do the melee ATs need to deal any damage at all on a team whenever there are multiple Blasters available to just nuke every single spawn?". Because frankly they don't... yet dealing decent levels of melee damage is obviously still fun for a lot of people, myself included. To reuse yet another chestnut: just because it's possible to play this game on a Tanker who only uses Brawl or a Petless Mastermind... doesn't mean that the three ATs whose main schtick is dealing decent melee damage shouldn't have their respective levels of damage output be at least somewhat sensibly balanced. At least when it comes to not whomping a poor defenseless pylon. ⚖️

Nah. Running regular mission maps constitutes an awful lot of the game's content. Maybe not always solo at +4x8, but I certainly find facing the equivalent of an x8 mission map on a team to be the rule rather than the exception. And in those cases the ATO performance disparity will usually apply because ATO Procs/Globals are slottable from very low levels and almost every Lv50 build will be racing to Catalyze them. IMO Pylon times are definitely not representative of most content. But the older Trapdoor times and Current Mission Simulator times are. That's the entire reason the Devs asked us to provide them in the recent Tanker changes Beta thread.

Damage Output on an average mission map? I'm not sure about "meeting or exceeding", but surely the fact that Stalkers and Scrappers and Brutes all have Primary Powersets that are focused on Melee Damage output suggests that they should all at least be "roughly within the same ballpark"? In my view, having Scrappers deal about 10%-15% higher damage than a Brute feels about right considering that Brutes have a higher Survivability ceiling and better Aggro Control. But whenever a Scrapper is consistently dealing >30% higher damage than a Brute, that feels like too much. And since the damage differences become so much less pronounced whenever you take all the ATOs away, personally I blame the ATOs. Pesky ATOs. **shakes fist**

FWIW, currently post-i28p2 world the numbers I've seen still suggest that whenever ATOs are considered; clear times for fully IO'ed-out toons on an average mission map (Galaxybrains Mission Simulator at +4x8) have Brutes taking ~30% longer than a Scrapper and Tankers taking ~40% longer. So from what I can see; the performance difference between ATO'ed Scrappers and ATO'ed Brutes (in terms of damage output) is definitely more just a few percentage points here and there... even if it's true that on a team with multiple nuking Blasters the benefits of bringing any melee toon over another largely evaporates. I'm not sure it's worth overly focusing on Pylon time; since as Someguy pointed out earlier there are specific setups that WILDLY favour the Scrapper's higher base damage and forced Crits. But suffice to say that Brutes seem to lag behind Scrappers even more (it's not uncommon for a min-maxed Brute to take 50%+ longer to drop a Pylon than an equivalent Scrapper). For Stalkers; their mission simulator times can vary wildly (since most Stalkers suffer from a lack of noteworthy AoEs) but they're much higher up the Pylon charts than a Brute is (and Energy Melee in particular can throw out considerably higher damage output than on an equivalent Scrapper). However I think it's fair to say that Scrappers and Stalkers are both in a decent place relative to each other balancewise (with Stalkers favouring ST damage and having more consistent crits). So IMO if we take the performance of those two ATs as a "baseline", then Brute damage could do with being buffed by quite a lot (to go from 30% longer mission simulator cleartimes to at most 15%) and Tanker damage could do with being buffed by a little bit (to go from 40% longer mission simulator cleartimes to at most 30%). And personally I'd rather these buffs were brought about via adjustments to the Brute and Tanker ATOs; because if you take the Scrapper and Stalker ATOs away then their damage output plummets but Brute and Tanker damage output remains largely the same. Meaning that the vast majority of the Melee AT performance disparity is almost entirely down to how effective their respective ATO procs/globals are. And Brutes' are provably 💩. (And yes; naturally another way to go about it would be to severely nerf the Scrapper and Stalker ATOs; but we know what sort of backlash that would result in... 😅 )

I mean... since Brutes are the only AT that are currently sitting noticeably below the performance curve [whenever ATOs are considered] it suggests to me that tweaking them would be the most straightforward. But if the devs decided to completely upset the apple cart and rebalance multiple ATs then sure, that could work too, providing Tankers and Brutes and Scrappers and Stalkers all end up (i) capable of soloing at a decent pace AND (ii) being seen as a worthwhile addition to a large team (even if it's just for specific content and/or team compositions). So your example of reworking Tankers to give AoE buffs? Sure; you could do that. Maybe amend their ATOs to give AoE +Absorb and +Res; then rejig Gauntlet to apply a blanket ~10% resistance debuff. That'd also bring Tanker AoE damage up to scratch again without making any further adjustments to the overcap damage reductions. This is all hypothetical naturally... but if the above changes happened I'd expect that fully IO/ATO'ed Scrappers and Stalkers would end up dealing roughly ~130% of the damage of both Brutes and Tankers on a mission simulator map. And Tankers would again become the "preferred melee AT" outside of Pylon and GM fights. So Brutes would then need their damage output raised up to the point where there's only about a 10-15% difference rather than a 30% one (simple enough!) as well as something else that sufficiently sets them aside from the other ATs to make them attractive to a team... and that last bit is where the headaches start. Inflicting mez has been suggested, but it isn't overly thematic and would only serve to slow down Fury generation. Plagiarising Scourge and giving Brutes a chance for double damage as enemy HP drops might work; making them better vs Single Targets and Tankers better versus groups... but it'd need to be very carefully balanced so as not to step on the toes of Stalkers (Scrappers at least are equally good at both AoE and ST damage!). Alternatively you could perhaps just make the Tanker ATOs apply AoE +Resistance/Absorb and the Brute ATOs inflict a hefty amount of -damage resistance (say 5% for standard and 7.5% for superior; stacks up to twice). That'd solve the Brute damage performance and team attractiveness issues; and Tankers would keep being the "make my team safer" AT (although they'd likely still need their overcap damage reductions made a bit less harsh to flatten out the performance curve!). It's all a big balancing act; but from where I'm sitting the #1 culprit is ATO performance disparity; with "Brutes not having much of a niche on teams" coming in a distant second.

This right here is the problem as I see it in a nutshell. Even in the content where you might expect a Brute's particular balance of Survivability, Aggro Control and Damage Output to make them the most mechanically worthwhile pick... Scrappers actually still win. Brutes just make it safer or require less skill to pull it off (which to be fair can help make things more fun... but the performance disparity still exists!!)

I think this might be the point of disconnect, so to tease my view out a bit... Let's take Corruptors. As you noted earlier, they have a Blast set yet less base damage than a Blaster; and they have a support set yet lower base buff/debuff/healing values than a Defender. So all else being equal, why would a team ever desire a Corruptor over either a Blaster (if they're after damage) or a Defender (if they're after buffs/debuffs/healing)? The answer is partly due to "role stacking": Teams tend to value both high AoE damage and high buff/debuff numbers... but one Defender and one Blaster combined tends to result in less overall damage and buffage/debuffage than two Corruptors. And partly due to the Corruptor Scourge inherent: if you're in a situation where normally a significant chunk of the team's time would be spent fighting things that have 50% HP or below (like in 4* content, especially Boss fights) then Corruptor damage output will skyrocket and vastly reduce your clear times. Now take Brutes. As things stand, a Brute can inflict reasonable amounts of damage (since i28p2 more than a Tanker, but not as much as Scrappers or Stalkers) and hold aggro and withstand punishment (better than a Scrapper but not as well as a Tanker). So all else being equal, why would a team ever desire a Brute over a Scrapper (if they're after damage with a bit of aggro control) or a Tanker (if they're after solid aggro control and tanking)? Unfortunately I'm not aware of any scenarios in current CoX content that require two melee ATs tanking targets independently (like constantly surrounded by two aggro cap's worth of targets, or multiple AVs/GMs who become invulnerable when near each other). So two melee ATs are never required (and even in those hypothetical scenarios I imagine most teams would just CC half the adds and Immobilize the superfluous AVs/GMs instead of trying to facetank them all simultaneously!). Most teams either want something that can solidly hold aggro (so you're just there to take the alpha and clump up the targets for them between nukes, the damage you dish out is almost irrelevant) or an additional source of damage with a side of aggro control (so you're there to deal damage, and maybe clump targets a tiny bit and/or hold the attention of the occasional AV/GM)... and whilst Brutes can fulfill both of those functions mechanically-speaking they are not the most optimal choice for either. So they're lacking a niche that sufficiently sets them apart to make them an optimal choice of teammate in even very specific content. Now it's worth pointing out that I agree that this issue with Brutes is almost entirely down to the performance disparity in the Melee AT ATOs. But I don't think that Scrapper and Stalker and Tanker ATOs necessarily need nerfed - buffing the Brute ones (alongside rebalancing ATOs for other ATs!!) would work as long as they can be made to almost deal as much damage as Scrappers/Stalkers and survive almost as much punishment as a Tanker. Or the Brute ATOs could be tweaked to increase team performance instead in order to allow Brutes to bring something new to the table that specific team compositions might find desirable enough to take them over a Scrapper/Tanker. Alternatively, another way to approach it might be to adjust Fury so that Brutes deal more damage as enemy hit points decrease (so they'd become mechanically better at raw damage output in the same situations as Corruptors)... but that would likely still result in them being sub optimal in everything outside of 4* Boss fights, and without tying it to the ATOs it would throw off the balance at lower levels before you're IO'd out. In short: Brutes don't seem to ever be a mechanically optimal choice of teammate on larger teams, for any content, especially once ATOs are considered. And I think that is a problem. However when soloing or on very small teams or before everyone is IOed out IMO they're perfectly fine.

Also, just to address these ones: (i) Brutes currently win at Passive (AFK) farming. But for Active Farming (where you are present behind the wheel to combine inspirations and press buttons) speedwise they are not even in the top three... unless you're intentionally limiting yourself to the traditional four melee ATs only (and even there Scrappers still beat them into the ground) because survivability simply isn't a major issue when you can customise your enemy type and trigger inspirations and click buttons. (ii) Stalkers have two major advantages over Scrappers when it comes to survivability. Firstly, Hide - this not only allows them to get off a heavy opening hit without immediate retaliation, but it increases their Defense by a non negligible amount making it easier to reach the softcap. Secondly, Placate - since the rework in i27pg3 this has very much become worth taking for both offensive and defensive purposes. Now personally I think that Scrapper's higher base HP and HP cap probably make up for at least some of that. And you're correct in that those powers come with an opportunity cost since Stalkers lose access to some other abilities. But to my mind the biggest performance difference between Stalkers and Scrappers comes from the availability of Taunt Auras in the latter.

I am not, and it isn't. I am looking for a way to ensure that a Brute, a Tanker, a Scrapper and a Stalker can each provide something beneficial to the team that is sufficiently different that each of those ATs ends up filling a separate worthwhile niche and being attractive as a team member (albeit perhaps more attractive for specific content or team compositions). Brutes' current placing of being "slightly more survivable and dealing significantly less damage than a Scrapper" is unfortunately simply not a worthwhile niche. They therefore are not currently chosen for what the AT can mechanically bring to the team, but because of other factors (such as being friends with the person playing them, or there are no Tankers/Scrappers available, or the difficulty level of the content is so trivial that team composition simply doesn't matter). With the recent Tanker AoE damage nerfs, Brutes lot has improved slightly, but in most content they will still mechanically pale in performance compared to a Scrapper with a Taunt Aura (and Confront, for facing AVs) and for 4* content a Tanker's larger buff caps and MaxHP pool will win out - because the melee AT's native defensive powerset buffs are irrelevant since with alternating Barrier spam your toggles might as well be switched off. There is certainly a valid argument that teams nowadays steamroll through missions so quickly that the differences in Melee AT offensive and defensive performance become largely irrelevant. And if all you need is someone to take the Alpha and occasionally taunt AVs then you might as well just bring a /Devices Blaster or Illusion/ Controller or Arsenal/ Dominator or whatever. But I do firmly believe that getting each of the melee ATs to a point where they can each be seen as attractive to a team in different ways would be a good design goal. And the fact that a well built and intelligently piloted Scrapper can survive most content in the game is IMO not a bug... because the same applies for a well built and intelligently piloted Blaster (and often an unintelligently piloted and/or soundly inebriated one!!) especially when teammate buffs are applied - heck, even back before IOs and crashless nukes and sustains a single Empath plus a Blaster could tackle most things in the game...

Masterminds? They already have 'em.