Maelwys

Assuming it's a Tanker, then that'll be primarily due to the effect of the new "Overcap" damage reductions. The activation rate of Procs on AoEs with a base radius smaller than 15ft were also reduced a bit via the way they tweaked Gauntlet (moving the improved radius into each attack instead of treating it like a global buff). Thankfully the reduction in base damage for Cones and AoEs didn't make it out of beta so the nerfs to Tanker AoE damage are not anywhere near as uneven and heavy handed as they could've been... but there's still a noticeable negative effect on clear times whenever their AoEs are fully saturated. Like on farming runs.

(i) Swap the Numina Proc in Phoenix Rising for a Preventive Medicine Global; then swap the Heal/EndRed Numina IO in Physical Perfection for the Numina Proc. The Numina Proc won't work in a clicky unless it gets used at least once every 120s... but the Preventive Medicine Global doesn't care if the power gets used or not. I'd be very wary of deaths due to Spike damage - you're at the absolute bare minimum HP/Sec figure here even with accolades; and you don't have any Superior Unrelenting Fury +Regeneration proc activations to help take the edge off. So in addition to the above, I'd also recommend adjusting your Stamina slotting to fit in another Power Transfer proc (e.g. Power Transfer proc + Power Transfer EndMod + Performance Shifter proc). At a net recovery of ~1.15 End/Sec you'll also need to be careful of your endurance consumption; but even before getting the accolades clicking on Ageless and/or Radial Banished Pantheon at the start of the mission ought to take care of it. (ii) Providing you run BOTH Tactics AND Focused Accuracy you'll be OK accuracywise without Nerve Core - Atom Smasher is just about reaching 95% hit chance vs +3 foes. (iii) Finally... this slotting: 6x Damage Procs is fantastic for ACTIVE farming; when you have lots of different AoEs to procbomb and use one after the other without any gaps. However for AFK farming you only have one single AoE that you can set to autofire, so you really want to be getting as much damage over time from it as possible. Currently, best-case with 90 fury and T4 Musculature Core Alpha you can expect this to be doing an average of 609.1 damage every 19.168 seconds (31.78 DPS) If you swapped to a Spiritual Core Alpha it'd be 486.2 damage every 15.218 seconds (31.95 DPS) but with this slotting (which has the entire Obliteration set except the Acc/Rech, plus an extra damage proc): You gain damage and recharge aspect and a +recharge set bonus; for 459.3 damage every 13.708 seconds (33.51 DPS) By swapping the Musculature Core for a Spiritual Core, it becomes 418.2 damage every 11.878 seconds (35.21 DPS) and with this slotting (which has Lv50+5 Dam/Rech IOs in the first 3 slots, plus damage procs in the last three slots): With Musculature Core, 475.6 damage every 12.648 seconds (37.60 DPS) With Spiritual Core, 435.5 damage every 11.478 seconds (37.94 DPS) and if your budget can stretch to 2x Purple IOs (Armageddons - a +5 Dam/Rech and the Proc): With Musculature Core, 533.4 damage every 13.568 seconds (39.31 DPS) With Spiritual Core, 468.1 damage every 11.788 seconds (39.71 DPS) Note that these last few examples have a net recovery of ~1.15 End/Sec before procs (~1.23 with the two Purples); and will be consuming ~1.76 End/Sec (~1.71 with the Purples) by spamming Atom Smasher. However the Panacea and Performance Shifter procs will add an average of ~0.625 so you should be fine even without Ageless.

I'm pretty sure back in the day slotting Acc/Mez HOs increased the Magnitude of Intangiblility effects; as I distinctly remember using Sonic Cage to collar problematic AVs in tricky encounters solo without having to have another teammate with a similar effect to stack it with. Phasing Infernal whilst we killed his Summoning Portal was one of the earliest uses IIRC; and I'm fairly certain it still applied whenever the original Statesmans TF was released - I recall teams caging Ghost Widow; as well as the towers.

I wonder if we could convince Dark Watcher to help us resurrect HotBot...? 🤔💀🪄👻

FWIW I've found Mojeek tends to always show a decent grouped-up summary of the contents of the HC Forums by default; so that might be a better option if all someone is looking for is a quick replacement for how Google used to work whenever you just type something quickly like "maelwys homecoming forum". Brave on the other hand seems to prefer showing you a variety of results from across the web rather than focusing in on one particular domain - so you really need to add the "site:" qualifier (like "maelwys site:forums.homecomingservers.com") if you want more focused results. Haven't tried Kagi. Yandex searches seem to be laden with random murky bloatware/malware references for some reason. Swisscows and Gigablast also exist but the former isn't wonderful and the latter is total garbage.

Personally? I'd give Staff a try. After the Regen rework (I hesitate to claim the Devs have "buffed Regen" for fear of fracturing reality) you've got Health Regeneration and +MaxHP and Endurance Recovery (even on Stalkers now!) covered. Instant Healing being replaced by Reactive Regeneration means you have far greater sustain than before; and Moment of Glory and Reconstruction still provide you with some "Spike" mitigation. Dull Pain Second Wind might be skippable now depending on whather or not you can cap your MaxHP without it after Ailment Resistance + Accolades and Set Bonuses. However it still has plenty of room for Damage Resistance and Defense buffs (and even provides some inherent DDR now via Ailment Resistance). Stalkers have always had the "best" version of Staff - as the set lacked Spike ST damage (e.g. "Assassin's Staff") and Build Up on other ATs. But it's just had a buff to its regular ST damage - now Sky Splitter gains a sizable chunk of additional bonus damage whenever you activate it with 3 stacks of Perfection of Body (which Stalkers get by default without having to sacrifice a power pick for "Staff Mastery"!) so instead of 203.93 base damage it's now dealing 245.57 (before Crits) in addition to granting you a non-stacking 9.98% Damage Resistance buff for 15s and inflicting Knockup (FF Proc!). Compare that to Crit Fast AS's 306.97 base damage. Since AS adds one Perfection Stack; you need two more attacks to complete the basic AS > X > Y > SS chain. Serpent's Reach is a decent DPA ST attack with a 40ft range that happens to also take Ranged IO Sets (another purple proc!) and inflict Knockdown (FF +Rech Proc!). So that's one. Guarded Spin deals reasonable damage for a 90 degree melee Cone and applies an enhanceable and stackable +11.25% Melee/Lethal defense buff for 10s; making it a pretty good filler. The other option is Mercurial Blow which is a little higher DPA and also inflicts -Def (Achilles' Heel Proc!) but has a low base recharge so isn't hugely worth procbombing. Therefore I'd go with Serpent's Reach and Guarded Spin. A chain of AS > GS > SR > SS (or whatever order you decide on) requires a fair amount of recharge for Sky Splitter (+192%) and Assassin's Staff (+115%) but you can prop that up a bit with FF proc activations if needed. If you throw an Epic Snipe in there too then it'll drop to a mere +123% required for Sky Splitter so you'll really just need to focus on stacking Recharge for the snipe itself (e.g. Moonbeam needs +194% recharge for a chain of MB > AS > GS > SR > SS to be seamless). Either way you'll end up dealing decent damage and getting +9.98% Resist to all and +22.5% (Enhanceable) Melee/Smashing Defense. SS can be swapped for Eye of the Storm if/when you need more AoE.

IIIRC the main impact is to the damage ticks. They now obey the AT modifiers so Controller version deals less damage than Dominator version etc.

In 2005 maybe? These days I almost certainly would've gone with Plant/ before today's patch. Now I'd probably be leaning towards Arsenal or Illusion (depending on whether you're primarily leaning more towards AoE damage or Single Target damage). As for secondary? Arsenal gets a substantial chunk of its AoE output from procbombed Sleep Grenade and Flash Bang which both have low base damage; and Illusion gets a substantial amount of its output from Phantom Army which can't be buffed (other than via Assault Hybrid) so IMO /Kinetics (e.g. Fulcrum Shift) won't be doing as much for either of them as /Marine (Procbombed Whitecap plus Shifting Tide stacks and Brine). However /Traps or /Storm or /TA would all be decent options too.

Nah; from what I could see there was actually a LOT of engagement on the Open Beta focussed feedback forums this time around - especially in the Tanker thread where the Devs specifically asked us to post clear times so they could see the effect of the changes. They made pretty major revisions and concessions based on it; revoking the radius nerfs first partially (Cones) then almost fully (AoEs) and changing the new "overcap" mechanic from two different exponential curves to a single much easier-to-understand flat reduction. There were also several bugs spotted and fixed over the course of the testing and feedback (e.g. Staff). Yes, there are certainly things requested that didn't make it into the patch (like lowering the cast time on Ground Zero!) but it's a whopper of a patch as it is, and the result looks much better now after all it went through on Beta.

I always assumed that the real reason that Illusion Control's PBAoE hold has a ~3.0 second cast time is to properly fit a 108 BPM tempo. (if you listen carefully you'll notice it takes six just-over-half-second beats after "FLASH!" before Freddie the Phantasm and the Phantom Army respond with that iconic choral "a-ahh") 😜

No worries. It's rather easy to miss the "-" at the beginning of "-Res modifiers lowered to match other melee ATs." 👍

With that sort of cash you'll be looking at a Granite build. I'd aim for something like the below; which can handle both S/L and Fire farms. (Note there are a few IOs that need +5'ed in Stone Skin, Granite Armor and the two damage auras) Brute (Radiation Melee - Stone Armor) - NoPurples.mbd After you have a bit of scratch you can look at a more expensive Graniteless build which uses Purple and Superior Winter sets to cap Fire Resistance and Defense. (Like this one: zBrute (Radiation Melee - Stone Armor) - Purples.mbd)

Elec's definitely getting some love; that extra sustain is going to help. Probably won't quite be top-tier but still much more solid than it is currently. Combined with SS? The Rage Crash won't hurt much; and Lightning Reflexes plus a FF +Rech in Foot Stomp pulls a fair bit of weight. Should be fine.

Sure. Step #1: Look at this thread: Step #2: Go to AE and search for terms like "Farm" and "AFK" and you'll see plenty of maps that state they're been revamped for the Page5 changes. America's Angel has some good 10 minute Asteroid Farm maps for both AFK and Active farming that deal either Fire or S/L damage. Worst case you can make your own custom enemy group + map (I've done it for Cold and Psychic damage enemies for my MM farmers!). Step #3: Make sure your difficulty is set properly. Typically this will be+4x8 with Allow Bosses when Solo and Enabled AVs... but you can reduce the level all the way down to +0x8 and disable bosses if you're struggling to survive. For AFK farming on +4x8 you need 90% resistance and 45% Defense plus AT LEAST 35 HP/Sec passive regeneration. Step #4: Stick all your toggles on, put your chosen PBAoE on Autofire and Zone in. for Asteroid maps; parking yourself towards the middle of the map rather than at the very edge tends to speed things up; as does starting off by summoning your Lore Pets (Radial Banished Pantheon typically) and enabling your Hybrid (Assault Core/Radial). The America's Angel maps have a glowie to click on otherwise it'll kick you out after 10mins (which can be helpful as it means you'll need less clicking to get to the next map with a fresh batch of enemies) Some maps have helper NPC allies - these need to spawn as Archvillains not Elite Bosses or they'll die too fast to be useful. Don't bother with the "40 minute AFK" cave maps. You'll be better off spamming the 10 minute asteroid ones.

Even just yoink the character animation from Void Judgement (pretty sure it's 2s base) and speed up the particle effect to match. You big tease you 😛

Hopefully involving a reduction to the cast time of Ground Zero? 🤞🥺 🥺 🤞 I know I've been posting about the Radiation Therapy changes; but they make perfect sense balancewise IMO. It's become a lot better as a survivability tool; and it was never supposed to be a Nuke. (Honestly even one big damaging "AoE" per secondary powerset is plenty; even if my EM/RA Scrapper's clear times are going to be taking a notable hit!) 😛

Thankfully the Devs have just revoked the AoE base damage decrease across all Tanker AoEs. This means Eye of the Storm will perform pretty much the same as on Live until it hits >10 targets - it'll just have slightly lowered proc activation rate than before. Guarded Spin and Innocuous Strikes also look to have properly recovered their base damage - in fact Guarded Spin is even a smidge higher than before. So good news all around; at least for Tankers. I'd still be very in favour of advocating a buff to the Arc of Innocuous Strikes and Guarded Spin (possibly driven by a global buff in "Staff Mastery") given that they were so much more useful with a 135ft arc than with a 90ft one; but that's more of a balance tweak request for Staff across all ATs; not just on Tankers.

Thankfully the Devs have just made a liar out of me. All the Tanker AoEs should now be getting practically identical treatment; therefore Fiery Melee and Staff (for example) won't be getting nerfed any harder than Super Strength. So it's currently looking like the only real loser this patch is going to be Procbombed Radiation Armor.

*Checks the listed base radiuses* Yeah... they've not actually reverted the entire radius changes from the looks of it; just increased the base damage of each attack to compensate for it. So you're quite right, proc rate will be reduced a bit on those attacks compared to Live due to the higher base radius. However I can definitely live with that one. (also: average of 62.44 on Brainstorm compared to 62.43 on Live - technically MA got buffed!) 🤣

Foot Stomp, Combustion, Axe Cyclone, Spine Burst, Tremor etc. are all 15ft Base Radius AoEs and never had their damage reduced by the radius tweaks in the first place. That's the main reason why we've been decrying the radius changes as "unfair" and are very happy to see them go - they hit some powersets much harder than others.

The overwhelming majority of them, yeah. As of this build; Tanker AoEs should only be getting a reduction to their damage via the "overcap" damage reduction mechanic... which is much fairer since it's hitting all Tanker AoEs equally instead of just the ones with <15ft base radius. And IMO it's also a far less heavy-handed way to reduce high-end tanker performance; since the same percentage reduction will be applying to damage from any source (including procs)... but it'll only affect you whenever you're surrounded by >10 targets; so most of the soloists and lower level Tankers won't be howling loudly about unfair nerfs. It also makes it considerably easier for the Devs to balance/tweak the reduction values in the future if it turns out they were still a bit too harsh or a bit too lenient. Personally I still think the overcap reduction figure might be a little bit too harsh... but I'm more than happy for this revision to go live and see where the dust settles. Again, thanks for listening to all the feedback devs; it's much appreciated.

Update: Base recharge of Radiation Therapy just got changed from 25s to 15s. With a single foe it's now recharging in 27s instead of 45s. That's better for survivability, obviously. However the base activation rate for 3.5PPM procs just went from 46.7205% to 28.7718% In other words; average damage increase from procs is utterly pathetic in it now. Best case slotting I can find is with ED-capped Damage and Recharge and only ONE DAMAGE PROC (which is likely providing more value via its +damage set bonus!) (Dam, Dam/Rech, Proc, Heal/Rech HO, Heal/Rech, Acc/Heal) On the plus side, that gives ED-capped damage, healing and recharge aspect. On my Scrapper it's now recharging in ~9.348s with one foe and ~23.868s maxed out. When optimised its average Healing and Damage Per Second has increased drastically vs a single target; but damage per activation vs 10 targets is just 27% of Live. TL;DR: If this new current build goes live, strip out your procs.

Thank you for this! 🍻

Head's up: The Radius Nerfs have been revoked on Brainstorm! 🎉 That should just leave the Overcap damage reductions, so the fallout should be drastically lessened and individual powersets won't be getting hurt more then others. Thank you for listening Devs! 👍

Kismet is a +120s Proc. As such it should work in any pseudopet that has the "boosts are copied to entity" flag unless it also has the "ignores enhancements and other boosts" flag. Freezing Rain has both flags, so Kismet's buff will probably not work for it. However Enflame only has the first flag, so I'd expect Kismet's buff to work for it just fine.