Maelwys

It's only a maximum of about 102 HP/second. That's trivial to overcome even for a Tanker, let alone a Brute. (30677.2*0.05)/(15) = 102.2573333 HP/Second regeneration for a level 54 AV. Giant Monsters are substantially rougher, as they can regenerate ~353 HP/second before anything special. But there are still more than a few builds capable of Brute (hah!) forcing their way through that without Envenomed Daggers or Lore Pets.

Beam Rifle is actually one of the better sets mechanically speaking. It has a very solid Single Target attack chain with both -res and -regen; and it has a ranged Nuke with the ability to set up -res first (via Cutting Beam with Achilles' Heel and Annihilation Procs). However its animations can definitely be a bit bland though since the gun is doing all the work. And apart from Overcharge its AoE damage isn't anything to write home about unless you're a Sentinel (which get Refractor Beam instead of Penetrating Ray - and despite its description it isn't really a "chain"!) At least on a /Traps you can Toebomb Trip Mines I guess... and Epic Pools will open up stuff like procbombed Thunderstrike.

IMO Comics Iron Man and MCU Iron Man are both thematically an EnergyBlast/Invulnerability Sentinel with the Electricity Mastery (for Havoc Punch) Epic Pool. They can both withstand very heavy blows from very powerful foes; which translates into Damage Resistance (especially Smashing/Lethal)... however in the Comics Tony also tends to pack a hefty amount of Absorb and/or Defense (because his armor often completely negates minor/weaker blows rather than taking any noteworthy damage) so that version might be closer mechanically speaking to a Radiation Armor or even a Super Reflexes Sentinel (with Master Brawler!). IIRC in the vast majority of his incarnations he lacks a healing factor (with the possible exception of Extremis) but his suit has some form of self-repair routine; so that tracks too.

The server's litter tray is full. Devs need to empty it. And yes, legacy data chunks still work fine.

Yeah most of my characters only see the inside of a farm map from level 50 -> Vet 100; I enjoy playing the content too much to "Power level" them!

Spirit Ward from the Sorcery pool with a Panacea proc in it can be made to work; and I've gone that way on more than a few bubblers. However some MM primaries (especially Bots and Necro) don't really require external healing.

Funnily enough, despite having only a single AoE MA has long been considered one of the better active Farming powersets (due to Dragon's Tail's reasonable DPA and ability to use a FF +recharge proc).

If we're not just talking about toggles... then yes, Dark Regeneration is a major culprit too. Although at least there its high endurance cost is easily countered by sticking a Theft of Essence Proc in it.

Foes punching you in the face repeatedly whilst on fire does not automatically make you a melee set Snarks. (Although it does make for rather entertaining gameplay whenever it's a race to see just who turns to ashes first!)

I kinda like Yomo's breakdown. Me? I'll typically email or trade each newly created character about half a billion inf to start with and then have fun playing them + not caring one whit about funds. After they hit level 50 I'll finalise their build and Catalyze/+5 boost everything, then get them to T4 Incarnate and Veteran level 100 ASAP (sometimes with one of my AFK AE farmers, sometimes by running regular content and/or the DA arcs depending on how much I still enjoy playing them and how many spare Transcendent Merits I have in that account's inbox) and at least get them their four passive HP/Endurance accolades. I don't tend to Marketeer much, but I do farm occasionally and it's rare that I have any level 50s with less than 1 billion inf. Although IMO by the time each toon reaches Vet level 100 it's almost always paid for itself anyway.

INV has 3 toggles: Unyielding, Temporary Invulnerability and Invincibility. Combined, unenhanced they drain 0.73 End/Sec. Dark Armor has 7 toggles: Dark Embrace, Death Shroud, Murky Cloud, Obsidian Shield, Cloak of Darkness, Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom. Combined, unenhanced they drain 1.74 End/Sec (you have to detoggle Death Shroud, Cloak of Darkness AND Cloak of Fear to get it to 0.7-ish...)

Looks like text based Export/Imports still work... so try this: Open Mids > "Build Sharing" Menu > "Import Datachunk" > Paste the below datachunk and hit "Import". |MBD;26281;1816;2424;BASE64;| |G6hmICwKbBu29U1ULC3IlS7J73orRbr2fNt8lZ+e24RJXn4w0uMIvcoJWVOnTuXRzzO| |AtqvSV/LNotPV11StrNrA6N0U+doXPTGWZtfE0qJBUndRHguXKQxkAbzq2T/Dlk5y7z| |CtudX9pmP/Ti0wsNQCscNbZTAjdKt0GLOnQYlREs5sGGgbQ/N+jFXcSJC3aeunVyTHK| |cRd+9F9byG154dFJ3ZuQPFDtvB552VeA0ZDRF1wSeAH9CnyPpkU5aY7KRzGQkT38F1A| |5G7Yunl9gUfMuzw2sKYkyekyC6W+VhpoqlWS/LmtDN+r5Lc2vN7IPIL7KnaM+8XKrc8| |nl4syVX3fNaJOK2zI2rxC/1YAXXe4dREX6Z8cfGRXt30Qtzv1I/OXR2MsooBlNmqUTR| |wO9Na2/6A15dPE/tLwtQ0GskheuuWiXtsQK9pU/Jh2asau6bPH6uEuM17dm48qlGGr+| |q2Etc4Mb4/qLrsZVTdlte/unUcbJ4OjfplXKpmpze5qHmS2Ba+idFMCmlp+UvEP0xbA| |ghBb9Tu1h2lPXNp9iG2sKhkJGPUwhi4aghWuw3wDzX+E0eMzUUtqyqnxa9EE2nT6hz/| |ifzDT+2YnQmZ5zf+RLcjvGYFHsUtrlNSsgKVsj4ujRKiXCotJ663ILg7MV32bRKEg0q| |TiYShki97H/rrZ2aXe9VGDmesoCblOBHmNu6EryiOl442m48A9KFYYPr9SFfqiYBp7l| |m1Cs7tssubZ2r01Sp1K6zvj1VLBWvJ+M53npDiuwxjRI87kqkW0mmtG/EdKocxuh+cQ| |zooR8xZgMGmxbjzYNcl8kh1fQZDWy681GsMRcFaZ+TI+z4FfdjMo4DIbqt3H7JrcDxn| |oSzy4trpMLJdWJd8RgzkSXDM3aqeaMSVIYzOSq3ZF+yHXgZI+r0dIdsY38GwYizhHf+| |Sf5sUSjbQ6GtipVq+6Tg2TppEl34agNi0YxwtVzcEuj/VJmDbGEuIHXOgQ2XHLRwGDC| |/DNshZsBJEdcFF8q26g1SeSpacVu4X9g+VC1OP5Xgi+v6OJgUaUsoKP/kIHWaM0rZHB| |au8RaNI9zHBNDf5Y3NAUJk5jfBZePgv7lTZpiABWlGafZFaKGF4BhlG/OKLwXD1EZ4y| |5yC0XhRqEDa/bUbRo59J5TsqhraYUG5p0oBzOryVGiy8HehgjcwmEw2fve+bK0iZfcE| |XzuAWjfxLKzrZILfhCrroU60Pfo8BryQj+1V9yR9eMu+CwzR+v0tFnvKJKLDt9uJmw/| |TJa3925syaML2xzQTMwur3B1p0s6fK2FNtPbojUchEkTIXFue8w9wyHZWBgYNXz2yla| |eTzBn2vGquP7U9Bkx57h5MTIpINlHoIzB3drYei8BI7S8RQ6elfhG+HiJltFXFJ3YOV| |+jIW8a7hOl2o+4+n1yrE4w2+/OdkRXgfcxgiOnp5a4SNJFm0wu67s14HozyPtAKRdWL| |vDMse8jsyQcZDTiJylwHgiSmezgi22wKTPcY4Mwa4pKw/rXMmIHIwbYWYYrJjLzuOQ7| |FOAkyCBJiuFL13gMTAzAXQ8tIysOeOLyF2Wkw0jcusInyuQWl5Yb/z0K8dzIPxVythP| |qacLomR4ZmpNiE/MmWv7MzVmUC7fQCJZK/BS0j7pHgYQJVC0uf/h90AWR1wGFjUxcCU| |FimPCr09lbNhh8rsgXqLXEWiMEIwL+avW64VGcflAgHwv3b4lANUBBK+UrR+mP5AlJn| |8yL/UYSD9G97WJpjzGF7m9ZlAUr5ROSQZAzGX11GNrh0lPhMjmOw5VveIc3tgxMxUjp| |dboz+qoP+xiGjT+9J2LKYDp339yHue0UXXugnENy4cm3T9SG1xl4Vk2ymj0ZjwQPHXH| |dNN/uxT4eIMxORoFrSXS0+5jBbYK9OHXHJT7wSDRiM14IXjrz2GqUE6mZeIT0UVfaYm| |GyrDtC+wamVbwACeG4Or9diDypCxHSMzdDuNZZUvuT5oD72YSLLktFX7wK5OjYczxPf| |WvBRpDazXdSL/feTGXjAWxUg3+kKOn/n+TVhrXrk7tU4HZ8sxpdMzoxoUy2uSCXdBDQ| |1fjBKQGmnHQgm1/11YF3t7VO9M7ASgZNN+hNvzSshu+5cdv/3GW8V0LmRCbJPtU8IuR| |XJtWXaYwpu/TtSbG9t5hDTFQ3P8KOS8oZ7ZpqBkUeFAmAk/iGVTrK0vbPrGO0N62uKs| |sdIUNxGz3rimXUu8Uf1d9sCi/oneDDz9Xvbuoludc5ffFf/kdY+3X+P94M7wbM+VVrn| |LJ9YYHd8bQPG1irauTPlxD1KmmKrPlkDZhdnp6HQyh0ekfRm+9T4yVCoo7UFIuT9w1d| |2rNDZ25T4/aFqS3Fz3dPu2yLyfB4MRq6VGKO50wB/OkUBlSkh1m6mOuv4pqtMwThvFb| |OpELfqrbAQ==| The optimal ST chain in the above is: Water Jet (Slow) > Infrigidate > Hydro Blast > Dehydrate > Water Jet (Quick) You can work Steam Spray (Cone) in via: Water Jet (Slow) > Hydro Blast > Infrigidate > Steam Spray > Hydro Blast > WaterJet (Quick) Other stuff like Whirlpool, Sleet and Geyser can be used on cooldown; just remember to pop Tidal Forces right before Geyser.

AFAIK assuming that you're currently within range of multiple attacks, which one they actually pick to wallop you with is random. float randomPower = randomPositiveF32() * preferenceRange;

The forums are still not letting me upload anything unfortunately... but I can recommend Water/Cold. Whirlpool is nice with Scourge and Dehydrate makes up for the lack of a self-heal in the secondary. Procbombed Infrigidate also fills the empty spot in the Single Target Attack Chain.

(i) It's not 3.25s. It's 4.25s. (3.25 plus 0.5s ATBE for the IO plus another 0.5s ATBE for the set bonus) (ii) There's another Arcanatime roundup that you're missing: you need to round the power that the ATO is slotted in's ATBE up for Arcanatime as well. So the available buff time window for Scrapper ATO2 is the Slotted Attack's Arcanatime minus its ATBE rounded up for Arcanatime, plus 4.25 seconds. Then after you work that out you indeed need to figure out how to get as much damage out of that narrow window as possible (via fitting in one or two low-arcanatime-high-DPA attacks and finishing up with a very low-ATBE-high-DPA attack; which seems to be what you're trying to accomplish here!) 👍 Full details/testing here:

The base damage in Epic AoEs isn't too bad. However, they tend to have rather long base recharge times, which means that procs have a higher chance to activate in them. Typical slotting is 2x Acc/Dam HOs (or 1x Acc/Dam plus 1x Dam IO if you have sufficient global accuracy) + 4x procs.

Epic sets indeed have decent AoEs; and on Tankers/Brutes you can get two such AoEs via Mu mastery. Alternatively; Shield Defense (Shield Charge) or Fiery Aura (Burn) or Radiation Armor (Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy).

I think this is still relevant:

You need the Visual C++ Distributable too otherwise the Bootstrapper will silently fail. (and DotNet 4.x as well; although that's included by default with both Win10 and Win11)

The forum doesn't appear to be letting me upload files at the moment (and I still have a good 20% storage free!) but: Infiltration = Lv50+5 Winter's Gift Movement Speed, Lv50+5 Blessing of the Zephyr Movement Speed, Lv50+5 Thrust Runspeed Global, Gift of the Ancients Runspeed Global. Stamina = Synapse's Shock +Runspeed Global Sprint = Common Lv50+5 Runspeed [Sprint and Infiltration both toggled on] = 92.5 (capped) Runspeed + 78 (capped) Jumpspeed (Note that Mids is bugged and doesn't show the Jump Height buff in Infiltration; but if you toggle on Athletic run it should appear even though Athletic Run is superfluous) 🙄 If you want "almost as good with less slots"... you can strip Infiltration back to just a single Lv50+5 Movement Speed plus the Synapse's Shock +Runspeed Global; then drop the slot in Sprint (swap it to a Celerity:Stealth!) and the slot in Stamina. That's about 84.5 Runspeed and 74.6 Jumpspeed. And using Movement/EndRed HOs in Infiltration instead of the Lv50+5 Movement Speeds is an option too.

Hyperstrike has been MIA for a while (Health troubles I think? There was a Dev post a while back confirming that he was safe and being looked after by family) so a direct response might not be forthcoming. But in answer to the OP... reaching about 60-70% resistance to non-S/L on an INV Tanker is quite doable with IOs and ATOs. However going higher requires a fair bit of build sacrifice or specific melee powersets (like Staff) or alternating clicky buffs like Melee Core Hybrid and Rune of Protection. There are some examples here (check the linked post and the next 10 or so replies) That said... maybe just aim for Softcapped Defense with one foe in range of Invincibility plus 60% ish resistance then buy half a tray of Super Orange insps from the AH (or email them to yourself) before the LR mission?

I suspect anything more than six might be pushing it... 😉

Ground Zero had its target cap drastically reduced, it can only hit 16 foes now. There was a couple of weeks when its proc activation rate was lower but this was a bug and has since been fixed. So if you're only ever fighting up to 16 foes at a time it'll be the same as prior to the patch. Radiation Therapy got adaptive recharge (so recharges very fast if you hit 0-1 targets with it; but proc rate has plummeted) however its base damage got a bit of a buff and it's a lot better now for survivability purposes - especially whenever you're only fighting a single target. Unfortunately due to the way it was recoded it also runs afoul of the same "overcap" exponential diminishing returns curve - so the first target hit will take full damage; the second target hit will take 75% of that first target's damage, the third target hit will take 75% of the second target's damage... etc etc. including damage from procs. All that means it's a lot worse than before when it comes to dealing AoE damage; even after trying various wildly-different-to-before slotting combinations. It's worth noting that the devs subsequently trialled yet another version of Radiation Therapy which looked a lot better... however this has been put on hold until a future "balance pass" patch. So we may see RT's damage effectiveness boosted again "SOON (tm)". All that said; I'd still rate Radiation Armor pretty highly for boosting your AoE damage in its current state.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. There are lots of caveats to consider; whether or not a proc will work as you expect is never a "sure thing" so for anything other than very straightforward attack powers (non-pseudopet and no "adaptive recharge"!) you're almost always better off testing it yourself or asking someone who has. Offensive Procs need to pass an Accuracy "Hit check" roll to do anything. Pets and Psuedopets make this tricky. Some "Autohit" powers like Caltrops can make it impossible to boost proc accuracy so they have a much lower observed activation rate. Both Defensive and Offensive Procs also need the power they're slotted in to actually "activate" that enhancement type - and this is hidden behaviour that cannot be worked out just from glancing at the in-game detailed power effects screen or often even by looking at CoDv2. One example of this is Liquid Nitrogen from the Arsenal Control set (damage procs only kick in whenever enemies are knocked down!). Usually a Defensive/Buff proc kicks in straight away on using a power... but not always; like in some Blaster Sustains - Frigid Protection (for example) won't ever activate Healing procs until an enemy is within its range. It is a convoluted mess and makes no sense unless you dive deep into power mechanics... and even then there are unusual "WTF?" cases that you really need to test... 🤯

In the very early game (->25 ish) Brutes are ahead of the rest. This is because they can get away with largely ignoring slotting their attacks for damage (because their Fury Inherent pulls a lot of weight) so their few enhancement slots can be used to boost Accuracy and Endurance Reduction (and Survivability if needed!) instead. After that; enhancement slots become a bit more common and Invention origin enhancements (IOs) start showing their worth; so Scrappers and Tankers will start showing the benefit of their higher base damage and larger Defense/Damage Resistance scalars and close in on Brutes. By the time you reach level 50; Scrappers will be ahead of Brutes on Damage (even at high fury) and Tankers will be ahead of them on survivability (due to their higher HP cap and them having an easier time reaching the defense softcap and resistance hardcaps). However once you factor in Archetype Origin Enhancements (ATOs) things change drastically. The Scrapper ATO sets "special" proc/global enhancements are both extremely good at increasing their damage output. The first boosts their default Critical Hit rate and the second gives them a short period during which their critical hit chance is raised by a flat 50%. So it's possible (with CoDv2, a spreadsheet and a bit of patience) for a Scrapper to get an attack chain in which two or three of their attacks quite often have a critical hit rate of 66-71% instead of the baseline 10-15%. The Tanker ATO sets "special" proc/global enhancements are rather good at increasing their survivability. The first is a proc which raises their damage resistance to everything by 6.7% and can stack with itself up to three times. The second is a proc which adds a decent chunk of "Absorb" (15% of their Maximum HP - so it's affected by your +MaxHP buffs and accolades!) that lasts for 20 seconds. The Brute ATO sets "special" proc/global enhancements are complete and utter garbage. The first gives them an extra 7 Fury generation when attacking with one attack (which is pointless since Brutes already generate Fury quickly and anything higher than about 80-90 Fury will drop off fast. Even in AE Farms the highest I sit at is 93 Fury). The second is a proc which grants a slight buff to Endurance reduction and Regeneration which can stack with itself up to 5 times (it caps out at about +33.25% Endurance Reduction and +100% Regeneration - which is considerably lower return than a single Panacea Proc in Health). As a result, when min-maxed with both IOs and ATOs Scrappers tend to deal considerably more damage and Tankers have a much easier time reaching survivability thresholds (like the Defense Softcap and Resistance Hardcaps) compared to Brutes. I did some "Mission Simulator" runs both during and after the recent round of Tanker nerfs in i28p2; which showed that currently a min-maxed Scrapper is about ~30% faster than a min-maxed Brute and ~40% faster then a maxed Tanker when clearing the same "average indoor mission map" solo at +4x8 difficulty. And bear in mind that difficulty setting favours Tankers with their larger AoE radius and Target Caps - they are supposedly intended now to be the "AoE specialist" Melee AT! >>> In practice however these differences don't overly matter in most cases; because City of Heroes/Villains is a very easy game. It's quite possible for even the "squishy" ATs to clear maps solo - survivability really isn't an issue at endgame once you're IO'ed out and have your T4 Incarnate abilities. Most teams will want something that can deal damage and/or something that can hold aggro and not overly care whether you're capable of dealing a bit more/less damage than a different melee AT <<< IMO the real differences in playstyle are: (i) "Deals decent melee damage and can hold aggro" - Tanker, Brute. (ii) "Deals higher melee damage and can sometimes hold aggro" - Scrapper (any Scrapper can take Confront to tank AVs, some secondary sets also have a taunt aura) (iii) "Deals higher melee damage and comes with built-in stealth capability to complete certain missions quickly" - Stalker. You'll notice that Tankers and Brutes occupy the same niche there - they've been fighting over that very same spot for years (Brutes were better for decades, then Tankers pulled waaay ahead in i26p4; now since i28p2 Brutes are a little bit ahead again). Suffice to say that I'm not a fan of this and would much prefer Tankers and Brutes and Scrappers and Stalkers to each have a slightly different niche on teams. There are some very strong opinions on this whole Brute vs Tanker vs Scrapper vs Stalker performance/balance thing... and since a lot of players aren't min-maxing their characters (particularly Scrapper players; given the complexity of just how their ATO2 proc actually works) different people are observing very different levels of performance disparity. However I think it's fair to say that there is at least a loose consensus that the Brute ATOs are letting the AT down. Mostly. They did a balance pass pretty recently which reworked a lot of the Regeneration powerset (which had a loooong history of being continually nerfed - so much so it became a running joke) and some other sets got tweaked up and down. There are still sets that "stand out" in different ways though... As an example: Super Reflexes is probably one of the most effective sets once you're fully min-maxed as it can reach the resistance hardcap to everything (via scaling HP-based damage resistances) and cap its defence debuff resistance. Willpower is also very hands-off (no clickies) and easy to use but it has a much lower performance ceiling. + Radiation Armor is a Resistance and Absorb based powerset; which has a fair bit of AoE damage (even since the nerfs). + Bio Armor is a mixture of all sorts of things; but when min-maxed it can reach the Regeneration and Recovery hard caps (230+ HP/Sec regeneration!). + There's a new powerset called Psionic Armor which can let you do some very interesting things. + Stone Armor is almost always better off now not running in Granite Armor (Minerals and Brimstone Armor in particular have very beneficial effects!) But the other powersets are all pretty solid too; INV in particular has a reputation for being very reliable when IO'ed out (75%+ Res to all including Psi is quite possible!).