Maelwys

I've voiced this idea before... but I'd actually quite like to see the "Brute's Fury" and "Unrelenting Fury" ATOs both tweaked to become AoE Damage and Survivability buffs (adhering to the cottage rule as they'd still buff the Brute in much the same manner as before; whilst also giving teammates a potential reason to bring a Brute over a Scrapper). For example: Unrelenting Fury could grant 5% Resistance (or a decent amount of +Absorb) and 10% Regeneration/Recovery... and Brute's Fury could grant +15% Damage (but not tied to Fury). Each of those buffs could last several seconds and stack a few times (IMO ~5-7 PPM and a 10.25 second duration that stacks up to 3 times would seem feasible, as per the existing Tanker and Dominator ATO effects) and the effects could apply in a 60ft AoE radius to all teammates (either at full or half strength depending on balance testing). Whilst that'd not hugely impact the Soloing capability of Brutes; it would make them substantially more valuable as team members - at least to smaller teams. Alternatively, the Brute's Fury ATO could simply be recoded to cause all their powers to have a chance to inflict a substantial Damage Resistance Debuff (which would buff Brute performance when solo *AND* help teams out). Meh, I can dream...

I don't think a given Brute now performs any worse in 2024 compared to that same Brute in 2019; in terms of what it can do and clearspeed (the i26p4 changes buffed overall Fury generation and Ranged power damage slightly, so they're actually a smidge better now AFAIK). However I do think the same Brute now performs much worse versus any given Tanker in 2024; compared to that same Brute versus that same Tanker in 2019 (because of the i26p4 Tanker Damage Scalar and Gauntlet changes). So yeah, I'm with @tidge on this one - Tanks were given a (IMO much needed) buff to make them viable compared to the other Melee ATs, let alone attractive compared to just bringing another Corruptor/Blaster. Whilst this by itself doesn't detract from Brute Performance; it does rather bump Brutes to the back of the queue for most folk when picking a teammate. Brutes are now demonstrably lagging behind Tankers, Stalkers and Scrappers performancewise when IO'ed and ATO'ed up. (And I for one am in the "Buff Brutes Plz" camp rather than advocating for Nerfing all the rest! )

A quick look throws up these: (Bill also mentions gaining roughly 1 vet level every 20mins, although as that was on a Claws Scrapper and roughly 5 years ago at this point, I suspect it's going to be a smidge faster on an up to date optimized Tanker build?)

Honestly, running Incarnate Content (so those DA Arcs) at x4/8 is probably your best bet if you're all T3+ and your damage mitigation isn't totally lopsided. The increased kill speed from all the Incarnate Level Shifts more than offsets the greater mob density on AE Farms. Non-Incarnate-System drops are better on AE Farms, no question. And you don't need to be T3ed or have a range of survivability and utility powers to pull maximum clear speed in custom AE maps (Travel Powers and Fold Space can really help in the DA missions IIRC; and they deal a range of damage types unlike AE) but I'm pretty sure raw XP/Hour can be pushed much higher outside the holodeck. As a totally non-definitive example; I recently took my mostly-T3'ed-with-a-few-T4 AFK-Fire-Farming RadMelee/StoneArmor Brute through the DA contact arcs; and I intentionally left the difficulty set to x4/x8 in order to see if they'd be able to cope OK with the mobs' non-Fire-typed damage and higher ToHit rate. They did just fine; and their vet level climbed just as fast if not faster than in AE maps, despite me not charging through the arcs at anything resembling a breakneck pace. (and I believe @Bill Z Bubba settled on the DA arcs as the best method of quickly increasing his vet levels to 666 some time back...?)

True that. However they can tackle the ATO imbalance whilst they're at it. If the HC Devs reworked one or both of the Brutes ATO sets so that the proc/global is brought up to par with the Stalker or Scrapper ones then they'd recover in a heartbeat. Brutes aren't in a bad place as long as you ignore ATOs and dealing maximum AoE damage at level 50. Pre-50 and expensive IOs, when soloing or on smaller teams they're still decent (and often better than an equivalent Scrapper) and I imagine that's where a lot of "the 90%" experience them...

It's actually the other way around. SOME Brutes might be a little bit better than SOME Tankers in particular circumstances. However the vast majority of the time; hitting more targets for high damage is better than hitting fewer targets for very high damage. There are a few edge cases where the mechanics of a specific power favours Brute Fury over Tanker Gauntlet; and you specifically mention Burn and Shield Charge further down your post. Both of these are good examples of an edge case. I showcased how Burn is better on a Brute in that same thread I linked above but the TL;DR version is that Burn doesn't benefit from Gauntlet's radius or target cap increases but it does benefit from Fury; and it also has the Brute 700% Damage Cap rather than the regular Pseudopet 400% damage cap. And as a result, the additional +damage% bonus from a Brute's Fury will outpace a Tanker's higher base damage pretty quickly. The relevant graphic is below, for ease of reference: Like Burn, Shield Charge also does not gain any benefit from Gauntlet's increased Target cap or Radius; and it inherits the owner's "boosts" (meaning it benefits from Fury). However unlike Burn, Shield Charge does NOT inherit the owner's "modifiers" (and so it uses the Pseudopet 400% Damage Cap rather than the Brute 700% or Tanker 500%). With ED-damage slotting, a Brute will only need about 27% Fury to break even with a Tanker... however the Tanker version will peak at 507.17 damage compared to the Brute's 400.39. Shield Charge will therefore favour Brutes at lower levels of damage buff (soloing) but that low 400% Pseudopet damage cap will greatly restrict the Brutes from gaining any benefit from additional damage buffs (such as Build Up; let alone Fulcrum Shift!) so Tankers will tend to pull ahead at higher levels of damage buff (e.g. when teaming). This is the crux of the matter, I think. The increased +50% Radius/Arc and Target Cap buffs granted by Gauntlet; alongside the Tanker higher base damage scalar will virtually always win out over Fury; assuming that you take and use your AoEs and you can keep a sufficient number of targets around you (which, I suppose is where playstyle might come into it - as if someone never fights more than 10 targets then their AoE powers having a target cap of 16 is irrelevant!) Most Tanker AoEs benefit from both the Radius and the Target Cap buff, such as Fire Sword Circle (10ft Radius and Target Cap of 10 becomes 15ft Radius and Target Cap of 16). Some Tanker AoEs only benefit from the Target Cap buff, such as Foot Stomp (15ft Radius and Target Cap of 10 becomes 15ft Radius and Target Cap of 16) This is coded via disallowing the "Radius" Strength buff on that power. A few Tanker AoEs only benefit from the Radius buff, such as Blazing Aura (8ft Radius and Target Cap of 10 becomes 12ft Radius and Target Cap of 10). This is coded via setting their "Max Targets Hit" value to a static number (rather than to "See Expression Above" and referencing the Gauntlet formula). There are also a couple of AoEs that do not benefit from either the Radius buff or the Target Cap increase (mainly Pseudopets and Quills) Whilst you really need to check CoDv2 to pick up on the nitty gritty details; you'll almost never encounter a situation in the game where a Tanker deals less AoE damage than a Brute. The sole exception I'm aware of is a Fiery Aura toon that relies on Burn for the bulk of its AoE damage output... however those are a rarity these days (a Spines/FA Brute with Quills and Blazing Aura running and Burn on Autofire might still technically be a better AFK AE Farmer than the equivalent Tanker... but only as long as you ignore the fact that Brutes require far more build investment to actually survive AFK AE Fire farming on x4/8 ever since the critter aggro behaviour changes!) and even then Blazing Aura having 12ft radius (Tanker) vs 8ft (Brute) makes the Tanker version a smidge better at aggro control.

They can also AFK AE farm (albeit not quite as fast as a Tanker even with sky-high Fury and Brimstone Procs). So there's that too.

This topic came up a few threads back but to summarise: Brutes aren't currently the "best" at anything. Scrappers and Stalkers are better than them at Spike Damage even before ATOs. After ATOs they leave Brutes in the dust. Tankers are better than them for AoE damage and survivability. On teams and farms, generally a Tanker will be better than a Brute. Brute's niche (if it has one) is that it's extremely easy to level up solo before you're fully IO'ed up. However Brutes at endgame are still more survivable than Scrappers/Stalkers and they're still better than Tankers at Single Target damage. Some of the melee damage powersets (notably Super Strength which isn't available on Scrappers) also perform pretty well overall on Brutes due to Tanker's Gauntlet not increasing Radius on certain AoEs (like Footstomp) and the fact that Damage Procs raise damage equally regardless of your base damage scalar (e.g. a Single-Stacked Rage can provide enough +ToHit to facilitate 6-slotting Footstomp with procs!) There are also specific defensive powersets which perform better on a Brute than you might expect... such as Fiery Aura (because Fury buffs Burn but Gauntlet does not) and Non-Granite Stone Armor (because Fury buffs Brimstone Armor's additional damage) and attaining 90% resistance to certain damage types on those sets plus Softcapped Defense is doable.

I mean, they're still a decent source of Influence? (Visit Ouroboros and talk to Luna. Buy Super Insps. Sell on AH. Different types come in and out of vogue; but Immortal Recoveries and Ultimates always seem to move quite quickly) Having thread salvage be Same-Account-Emailable would be a nice feature; but sending them in bulk would be a real chore without any conversion options.

The two are not mutually exclusive. If CoH was a person they'd be halfway through college by now. https://web.archive.org/web/20201110030926/https://www.technewsworld.com/story/47607.html

Taking a power to use as a single-slot mule for a useful Global/Unique when you're really starved for Enhancement slots? Sure, I can see that. I've done it myself in RoP and Stealth/Hover. But picking up Wolf Spider Armor just to house an "Impervious Skin Status Resist/Regen" isn't something I'd recommend - particularly if taking Combat Training: Defensive instead would (i) Softcap my Ranged defense and (ii) Give me an opportunity for an extra 7.5% Global Recharge that I could then use to properly Procbomb one of my attacks whilst keeping my pet summons perma. Strangely enough, I think a +Psi Resistance Soldier is the one Soldier build I don't currently have anywhere! (Now my Widows/Fortunas on the other hand...)

I may be misremembering; but my understanding of bind ordering was much the same - whenever two or more commands are submitted by the user to the game engine it's not a case of "left to right, only one valid command gets read and processed" but "left to right, all valid commands get read and processed". However since the server can only action one power activation command per tick; the last valid power activation to get processed (the rightmost one in the bind line) is the command that actually takes effect. I still have a few keybind files on my current PC that are timestamped 23rd April 2006 and contain multiple power activations on the same line (in order to toggle the likes of Sprint and Fly and Hover on + off upon the same joypad button being pressed) and I distinctly remember there being cases where my toon often got mezzed enough to drop all their toggles simultaneously... and in those cases the *rightmost* power activation command in the bind was always the toggle that switched on first (and that's the main reason these files were named what they are instead of having them the other way around!) e.g. [hover.txt] joy6 "powexec_name hover$$powexec_name fly$$bind_load_file c:\Games\coh\fly\fly.txt" [fly.txt] joy6 "powexec_name fly$$powexec_name hover$$bind_load_file c:\Games\coh\fly\hover.txt"

Nah. However if a Lieutenant gave you seventeen XP then it might produce a snigger or two from Snarky.

Looks like you've shuffled a few extra slots around? In any case... + You only have 38.3% Ranged and AoE Defense despite taking Weave. + None of your attacks are procbombed and the attacks that HAVE procs in them have inconsistent boosting (and as a result most are overslotted for recharge - as a rule of thumb, when 5-slotting a Purple set ignore the Dam/Rech and only +5 the Dam and Dam/End!) + Not sure why you're taking Crab Spider Armor AND Wolf Spider Armor on a Crabber that has Fortification? The additional Mez protection it grants is negligible and you're giving up a prime opportunity for a LoTG +7.5% Rech and substantial +Ranged Def in "Combat Training: Defensive". I'd suggest these tweaks: Arachnos Soldier (Crab Spider Soldier - Crabbermind v2).mbd I still think putting an Apocalypse set in Channelgun is a waste TBH - it has a low base DPA and its proc rate is poor. If you're going to lean into Channelgun and use it as a main attack then fair enough - but in that case don't +5 the Acc/Dam/Rech or Acc/Rech and throw another Lady Grey in it. However if you think you might be able to forgo spamming it, I'd definitely rip out the Apoc in favour of your Spiders Bite IOs, which would free up two enhancement slots and let you go for something like this instead: Arachnos Soldier (Crab Spider Soldier - Crabbermind v3).mbd

Can you post a Mids file? It's tricky to tell intricacies from a screenshot, especially whenever you appear to have "Rest" toggled on. At a glance I'm sure it's viable, but I can see some room for improvement. + I'm not sure why you swapped slots to Channelgun over Arm Lash? The ATO proc should go in whichever attack you do not use often, the other should be 6-slotted and proced. + The major AoE attacks (Frenzy and Dark Obliteration) are not proc bombed. You're also missing the Fury of the Gladiator -res proc in Frenzy which will affect pet damage - if you want to keep the Armageddon set (why?) move the Achilles' Heel proc into Arm Lash. + Why two Energy Manipulators in Stamina??

All of the power pools are designed that way. However the various "capstone" powers greatly differ in desirability. These days everyone wants Rune of Protection and Team Teleport; but hardly anyone wants Whirlwind and Acrobatics. Regular Primary and Secondary power pools have level-related prereqs too. IIRC that's one of the design philosophies of CoX - to intentionally gate access to "higher-tier" powers (regardless of how desirable or undesirable they might seem to a particular player!). At least HC have tweaked things a smidge with introducing more mid-tier powers and granting additional benefit to taking some other "less desirable" powers (as seen in the case of the Fighting Pool where taking Boxing and Kick influence the effects of Cross Punch, etc)

I can understand the frustration with being locked into unwanted Prereqs. But there's always a bit of wiggle room. Take my current build for example: Arachnos Crab Spider (Soul).mbd There are two spare slots in Stamina which are really just there to buff MaxHP above 2k; and the Numina Proc in health is likewise doing very little. If I wanted to take Darkest Night then I could drop either Aim or Assault (my preference would be to drop Aim and move Tactical Training: Assault to Lv16) then use 1-3 slots from Health and Stamina to fill it with either a 4-piece Dark Watcher's Despair (skip the ToHit/Rech and the Proc) or 2-3x Enzyme HOs.

You can open the pool with either Gloom or Soul Tentacles (0 powers required) then it lets you select Dark Obliteration or Darkest Night (1 power required); then it lets you select Summon Widow (2 powers required). So you'll need to take either Gloom or Soul Tentacles regardless of whatever else you pick unfortunately. Thankfully Gloom is a really good Single Target attack with high DPA and proc chances; and it IMO fills out the Crab's attack chain nicely. Nothing to stop you taking Gloom at Lv35, Dark Obliteration at 38, Darkest Night at Lv41 and Summon Widow at Lv44 if you want them all?

Arachnos Radial is fine, as long as you're aware that it grants roughly the same benefit to your pets as using a single Medium Purple Team insp once every 10 minutes. Mids is indeed lying if it's claiming that. Note the "requires ownPowerNum?(Epic) >0" line in Darkest Night's CoDv2 entry. You should only need a single other Soul Mastery power to take it. (Note that you can only pick Darkest Night at a minimum level of 41 (not level 38!) but you only need one prereq for it!) I've just tested this in an in-game /respec and seems accurate: IIRC optimal Darkest Night slotting is 4-piece Dark Watcher's Despair (skip the ToHit/Rech and the Proc) or 2-3x Enzyme HOs.

Hybrid: Support Core grants +12% Defense to your pets and 6% to you rather than Support Radial's +8% to everyone. Destiny: Barrier Core lasts for 120s rather than Barrier Radial's 90s. Lore: Talons Radial gives you an invulnerable AoE-buffing support pet rather than Talons Core's Boss and LT pet (which deal more damage but do not AoE-buff anything and are not invulnerable!). The only other Lore option worth considering is Arachnos Radial - it can essentially be thought of as a 90 second PBAoE +10% Defense buff (since as soon as you activate it the support pet casts Mind Link which due to its high recharge is only available once per summoning) plus a bit of Single-Target healing. Talons is better if you're fighting longer than 90s once every 10 minutes; and brings benefits that a Purple Team inspiration does not. Interface: Typically Degenerative (-MaxHP, better vs AVs) or Reactive (-Resist, better vs Everything Else). Radial gives more chance for the debuff, Core gives more chance for the DoT. You have lots of pets so the debuff tends to be maxed out regardless, therefore always go Core. Judgement: Pick whatever you like, however the only one that has an impact to your pets will be Void Radial since it inflicts a hefty AoE -damage debuff. Alpha: Typically Musculature Core, since that provides by far the biggest outside-ED damage boost to your pets. Intuition Radial (+Range -ToHit) or Musculature Radial (+RunSpeed, +EndMod, -ToHit) are your other options... although realistically the main thing they'll affect is Gloom and Dark Obliteration's -ToHit debuff and IMO it's not worth the tradeoff in damage output. I believe Darkest Night can still be taken in place of Dark Obliteration; it only requires one prior pick from the pool. Darkest Night inflicts -11.25% ToHit compared to Dark Obliteration's -5.625%... although your Crab's own AoE damage output will drop pretty drastically and IMO it'd be better to just slot DO for -ToHit and swap to Musculature Radial (which would raise its debuff to around -9.54% ToHit as per my "Aim+Assault+Weave" build posted earlier)

Oh, forgot the Crab themselves: As per previous post - bit shy of softcap (which for Melee and Ranged is made up by Barrier cycles and Dark Obliteration) and a decent smattering of Resistances which gets boosted by Barrier as well as the Talon Lore pet's PBAoE buff. Max HP being >2k alongside a <100s Serum recast and its inherent Regeneration plus Power Transfer and Panacea +Heal Procs seems to keep them upright just fine despite the Crab tending to draw more than their fair share of incoming fire. (Occasionally on tougher teams I'll run Melee Core Hybrid instead of Support Core in order to Hardcap their Resistances...) Mids sometimes borks at displaying the actual healing from Serum, but it's ~865 HP (unaffected by external buffs sadly, so doesn't increase if the Lore pet buff is active!). Finally - my original post touched on this briefly; but one recommendation that doesn't come up a lot is using an Overwhelming Force "Chance for Knockdown" IO in the Spiderlings. Spiderlings don't need ED-capped recharge in order to get them perma (unlike your other summons) and using a 4-piece "Call to Arms" set (including the aura IO) plus the OF Proc and a Musculature Alpha will very nearly cap their ED damage whilst leaving the 6th enhancement slot free for another Aura IO. However more importantly - that Knockdown proc is actually very useful to the Spiderlings, because whatever each of the three little scutters are attacking will get knocked prone quite often (it's 2.5 PPM chance in both of their attacks!) and since they don't have much else in the way of inherent mitigation it can really prolong their lifespan.

Also for anyone wondering what the Pets will look like in actual gameplay: [Spiderlings] [Call Reinforcements] (same Defense values and Status Protection/Resistance values as Spiderlings) [Blood Widow] - - - - - - - - - - Whilst your Talons Lore summon is active the invulnerable buffing "Siren Essence" pet will constantly cycle a PBAoE aura buff called "Soothing Song", which buffs you and all your pets - boosting Healing Received by 25% (the pet also spams a Single Target heal named "Regenerating Song" on things, so this is actually helpful!) and boosting Damage Resistance and Defense by 10% and 5% respectively. This PBAoE buff has 20s duration, 45s recharge and 2.244s cast time; so roughly a ~42% uptime for the entire 5 minute duration of the summon. Since the Summon Power itself has a 10minute recharge time this pet can be out half the time. The other Talons pet summoned alongside the buffing one is the "Diviner Essence" boss. It doesn't last as long (not invulnerable and only a 200s duration rather than 300s) but it does quite high damage with its regular ST attack and two cones... and the real kicker is its "Seasonal Shift" ability, which is a PBAoE attack with a target cap of 255 (!!) that deals reasonable damage on anything within 30ft plus a substantial -ToHit debuff on anything within 15ft (18s recharge). (same Defense values and Status Protection/Resistance values as Spiderlings) - - - - - - - - - - Whilst the Lores are NOT active your Spiderling and Disruptor Drone pets will sit at around 31% Defence to all (14% short of the regular content Softcap) and the Widow will sit at 53.5% to Melee and 46% Ranged/AoE (comfortably softcapped; albeit with no Defense Debuff Resistance!). However running Barrier on a Cycle will add a minimum of 5% defense and resistance constantly; and attacking your foes with either Gloom or Dark Obliteration (without any -ToHit enhancement slotting) also inflicts decent amounts of -ToHit (-5.63% vs +0 targets; 3.64% vs +3s). So typically in regular gameplay even your Spiderlings and Drones will end up at ~40%-45% effective defense before Lores or Support Core Hybrid. Support Core Hybrid can add another 12%; and alongside Barrier will push the pets beyond softcap at roughly ~50% uptime (120s up, 120s down) even without spamming -ToHit attacks. If you want to have all your pets permanently "softcapped" then picking up Darkest Night instead of Dark Obliteration is the way to go (lowering your AoE damage output but increasing survivability another notch with its additional -tohit -damage debuffs) but IMO going that far is typically unnecessary. And frankly I really like spamming Dark Obliteration... 😸

FWIW the Soul Mastery variant is what I've been playing myself, and yes all three of my builds primarily try to get the best performance out of the pets (in terms of both damage and survivability- the build throws out a lot of AOE buffs and debuffs). The Crab themself has slightly less performance but I managed to get them close to softcap and pretty resilient with a spammable attack chain that contains a lot of AoE. If the pets die off the damage output starts to plummet, however it's still a very nice team support toon if/when all the pets are gone. It's also actually currently one of my favourite Farmer AFK follower toons for doing AE maps alongside my Bot/Kin/Flame MM. Regarding Ancillary Summons... I tried them all, extensively. Guardian stays at range and takes less damage as a result but deals very poor damage (and a Power Transfer 'Chance to Heal Self' Proc does nothing for them unfortunately). Blaster and Coralax and Widow all melee, and the Widow deals by far the most damage... at the expense of blowing through their endurance bar extremely quickly. The Widow is probably the best option as long as you slot a fair bit of endurance reduction in them, and as a bonus they get a decent chunk of +defense (and so tend to be softcapped with Crab Manuevers and the two +Def pet aura IOs - although they do have a major case of "scrapperlock" and can start to struggle if they stray too far from the Crab). The prerequisite powers in the Soul ancillary pool also have very good DPA and inflict substantial -ToHit (Dark Obliteration can also be slotted with a 4-piece Cloud Senses + a HO + a Ragnarok as shown in the first "Aim+Assault+Weave" build linked in my original post if you want to maximise the -ToHit debuff). If you wish to go all-in on pet damage then one of the Coralax prereqs can be Arctic Breath (cone -15% res) and one of the Blaster prereqs can be Shatter Armor (single target -20% -res)... but neither are as spammable as Dark Obliteration or Mu Lightning; and Dark Obliteration at least helps your pets out a bit defensively. Also, Incarnatewise I'd almost always go Barrier Core Destiny, Support Core Hybrid, and Lore Talons Radial.

Post count is srs biznss. Having paid attention to it. I'm not impressed. It's not even over 9,000! (from The Fifth Elephant by the late great Sir Terry Pratchett)

So all-rounders. Gotcha. Fire is up there obvs. Have you tried Assault Rifle since the i27p2 changes? Ignite and Full Auto are actually pretty good DPA now. I'm kinda partial to Elec too - if you're leveraging Shock then it keeps your blue bar full and closes the ST damage gap a bit. Or just be an Archer and throw out Nukes every <20s.