Maelwys

If you don't see all that QOL stuff as being sufficiently beneficial to constitute a "buff"; fair enough I guess. FWIW personally I tend to take at least one personal attack for the buff/debuff synergy; but I don't really care about their raw damage outside of a few procbombed grenades. Being able to stick a Acc/Dam plus an Aura ATO in them has freed up at least one enhancement slot from a henchmen summon on all of my Bots and Mercs and Ninjas 🥳 Beasts are definitely in a funny place. I believe @BRADICAL was parsing them about 12s/15s behind Ninjas/Thugs on a Pylon/Dummy before these changes... but they're apparently supposed to be more Tankier (I know!) than damage focused. I very much doubt the powers team are done with them just yet. Outside of Supremacy range, sure. And it's also become difficult to have them act as "point defense" turrets outside of Supremacy range because of the perception debuff. But personally I'll happily take those tradeoffs in return for MMs being able to actually stealth through a mission and pets taking less of a beating whilst "keeping up". Unfortunately the various Aggressive/Defensive/Passive pet stances really just tweak AI behaviour; so they don't (currently) allow different power effects to be triggered depending on what AI state the pets are in... such as only enabling Stealth when the pets are in Passive/Follow mode. Which to me would be the ideal. Henchmen also do each still have their own aggro caps + you can technically still attract the attention of an extra 17 mobs per pet providing they remain on the target's hate list (e.g. they're visible or have dealt damage etc). I've done the AE farming runs on CB to prove it.

Hey, they buffed Masterminds. We gots reduced Endurance Cost, more survivable pets (especially during resummoning) and the ability to have the pets keep up with you via a zero-recharge BAMF. The auras from our ATOs were mostly merged into Supremacy, and the ATOs themselves can now be slotted into our personal attacks (freeing up valuable slotting real estate). They even buffed Beast Summoning's damage output and survivability. And that's only the stuff they could squeeze into THIS patch. ...they just nerfed some *other* stuff. Mainly Whitecap, Rage, Hypnotizing Lights and the duration of the Armor T9s. And my Ninjitsu Sentinel's Shinobi-Iri. But Sentinels and Brutes and Stalkers all got sizable blanket buffs too. And did you see the buffs to Broadsword and Spines and Kinetic Melee and Psi Melee and Dual Pistols? And all the Toggle Radius increases? Heck; they even buffed BURN. 🤯

Rage is a straight +70% Damage buff on Tankers. With typical ED-capped damage aspect that's 100% (base) + 95.5% (Slotting) + 70% (Rage) = 265.5% total. Unleashed Might is only a +17.5% Damage buff on Tankers; but it also increases the base damage of most SuperStrength attacks. + Haymaker goes from 86.64 to 112.63 base damage (+30%) + KO Blow goes from 188.08 to 211.57 base damage (+12.5%) + Foot Stomp goes from 75.02 to 84.4 base damage (+12.5%) etc. etc. Even if we take the lowest common denominator there for illustration (Footstomp's +12.5%)... With typical ED-capped damage aspect that's 1.125x(100% (base) + 95.5% (slotting) + 17.5% (Unleashed Might)) = 239.625% total. So on a Tanker 1 stack of Rage versus Unleashed Might actually ends up looking like 265.5% versus 239.625% with no other +Damage or Incarnate buffs in play. That's a bit lower certainly; but it's balanced out by the fact that Unleashed Might has NO CRASH. And if we also factor in common Incarnate buffs then it can get very close indeed: 1x Rage: 100% (base) + 125.5% (Slotting + T4 Musculature) + 70% (Rage) + 10% (Assault Hybrid passive) + 90% (Assault Core Hybrid Active) = 395.5% total. UM: 1.125x(100% (base) + 125.5% (Slotting + T4 Musculature) + 17.5% (Unleashed Might) + 10% (Assault Hybrid passive) + 90% (Assault Core Hybrid Active)) = 385.875% total. That's a comparative loss in DPS of only -2.4% (on a solo Tanker regardless of their Defensive powerset, Inspiration usage and Lore Pet choices). So if you're used to double-stacking Rage? Sure; running Unleashed Might is absolutely a chonky DPS loss until you hit the damage cap. ...but it's still a fine replacement for single-stacked Rage; even on solo Tankers. And it performs better with team buffs. ...and its introduction makes Super Strength performance far easier for the devs to balance; potentially allowing it to be made available to other melee ATs like Scrappers. ...and it also causes Hand Clap to start actually dealing damage; opening up better attack chain possibilities than before. (57.58 base damage; with an Arcanatime of 1.452s.. which is better DPA than baseline Cross Punch and almost 3 times wider and it procs rather decently...) So yeah, colour me happy with the changes. Although I'd still prefer Unleashed Might to grant a scale 1.5 ToHit buff instead of scale 1.25. Meh.

Aside from the Stalker Hide interaction differences, AFAIK the main thing is a higher damage cap from proper modifier inheritance. Proc rate should be the same, so glad it's bearing out in testing...

The Devs can't just bin Rage without triggering a Nerdrage apocalypse, and neither do they seem to want to address the root problem that causes runaway performance issues with it (its buff really shouldn't stack with itself). They can however make it the less optimal choice. Unleashed Might is actually pretty well balanced. It's also currently the better choice for Brutes pretty much always; and at least competitive for Tankers assuming you're running Assault Core Hybrid (and it's always better whenever you've got a Kin). So assuming you can make up the +ToHit deficit, yeah, time to switch. Especially if you've been propping up your single target attack chain with Punch or Boxing whilst Haymaker, Cross Punch and KO Blow are recharging.

Level 1 to level 22, in fairness. Thunder Strike's been inflicting full damage Crits on the main target for a while now. You can also still make a reasonable argument for still using Chain Induction - the crit damage on the main target is AFAIK unreduced. It's just proc rate vs the main target that's been gutted. My Elec/Shield/Mu on Test has two Single Target rotations, one with Zapp and TS (alternating) after ATO'ed AS and another one without TS (JL is the filler and -res proc source) that uses CI after ATO'ed AS. They're almost identical DPS.

Tanker version was a Power Redirection rather than an Entity Creation IIRC. Which yes, procced much better. Can't remember exactly when it was changed (may have been a few minor patches previous to this one, there's been a LOT of tweaks lately) but yes they should all be the same lower proc rate now.

Looks like a flat -20% to me judging by your Negative Energy Resistance values. I suspect you normally have 103.32% Smashing Resistance (capped at 90%)

FWIW I remapped out my Elec/Shield/Mu Stalker's potential attack chains on CB only a few days ago. The short version is that it's still just about worth taking and using Chain Induction in an Elec Melee Stalker's single target rotation even after these changes (rather than using a combination of JL, TS and Epic Blasts) ...however it's indeed a noteworthy drop in DPS compared to live. The silver lining is that CI can now proc on its additional targets (even if the activation rate is rubbish) so it works out a smidge better for AoE damage... which is the exact opposite of the apparent intent behind these changes!

And Defense without extremely substantial amounts of additional Defense Debuffs Resistance is very prone to cascading failure from -Def debuffs, whereas Damage Resistance by itself inherently resists -Res debuffs. And Defense is prone to lucky/unlucky streaks (the anti-one-shot code is almost as buggy as the streakbreaker). Lots of caveats exist. Like Power Boost effects. However the fact remains that one of the factors in powers balancing is 2 Res = 1 Def.

You can see it in the way Purple and Orange inspiration effects are balanced. And a few other things like the Pet Aura IOs. In regular content outside of external buffs/debuffs, +45% Defense is the effective cap and +90% Damage Resistance is the effective cap. (The fact that only two of the five armoured ATs has a damage resistance cap of +90%, and that it's generally easier to stack three Positional Defence types to +45% than eight Damage Resistance types is definitely something to bear in mind though)

Restating my main point from CB: Changing Sentinel Shinobi-Iri from +40% Dmg to +30% CritChance is a VERY BAD DEAL for them Scrapper and Stalker crits inflict 100% damage but Sentinel crits only inflict 40% damage. This makes it a bad deal before you even consider that currently Sentinel Shinobi-Iri's best use case is to buff up their Nukes as a big opening AoE attack... Shinobi-Iri is an offensive buff which requires you to be "stealthed" and out of combat for at least 8 seconds before it'll kick in. This proposed revision is a straight nerf to Nuke damage; and even for non-nuke attacks best case you'll only have a 70% chance of a crit. Which means that quite often a /NIN Sentinel will be spending 8 seconds entering into a hidden state for absolutely bugger all gain. Currently on Live; Shinobi-Iri is granting ~88 damage to my Sentinel's Nukes. Unbuffed Sentinel Nuke (BR "Overcharge") with Shinobi-Iri on Live: 79.46 Energy 192.94 Energy 4x 8.55 Energy = 306.60 total Unbuffed Sentinel Nuke (BR "Overcharge") with Shinobi-Iri on Test: 56.75 Energy 137.81 Energy 4x 6.10 Energy = 218.96 total = 218.96 total (-87.64 damage) Even with a damage-aspect-capped-and-procced-out Nuke; ~90 additional damage is still a very non-negligible amount. The proposed replacement, +30% Crit Chance (even when it's working!) for Sentinels equates to an additional 0.3*0.4=12% damage boost on average. Which although it'll be affected by damage boosts (like enhancements), doesn't apply to Nukes. Which means that the most usage I can conceivably get out of Shinobi-Iri now is to buff a regular AoE attack... however those pale in comparison to Nukes. Taking my BR/Nin as an example: 'Refractor Beam' deals 50.0555 base damage; so even at the damage cap (+400%) that's only 250.2775 damage. 250.2775*0.12=30.0333 damage; or about a third of what I'm currently getting out of Shinobi-Iri on Live. That is very poor by comparison. And to make matters worse; it's very inconsistent. Shinobi-Iri takes 8 seconds of "stealthing" before its buff kicks in. If you only have a 30% chance of it actually doing anything; then 70% of the time you'll be spending those 8 seconds to get zero benefit. So again: PLEASE revert the Shinobi-Iri change on Sentinels or amend their Nukes so that its buff (and/or +CritChance in general) does something useful for them. Or at least make it a GUARANTEED crit, so going Stealth > Aim > AoE > Nuke (instead of Stealth > Aim > Nuke > AoE) wouldn't be quite as much of a damage loss.

I don't think ATO effect changes are on the cards, but I agree that 1PPM is too low an activation chance to be meaningful. Bump it to 4 or 5 PPM and you'd end up with a worthwhile Sentinel ATO without breaking the cottage rule...

This. Game Engine's moved in. Pseudopets can now break hide. Lightning Rod got the same treatment but at least it can partially crit.

The duration is the major hang up. A few minutes of reliable +survivability, +recovery, +mez protection and in some cases +DDR is a useful tool in situations where you're in over your head and aren't getting a steady stream of Inspirations (think AV/GM/BBEG fights). However a few of the existing powers have crashes which essentially kill you. Like Unstoppable. And a few of them have crashes which are a mere speedbump. Like One with the Shield. That's why you see more of the former powers sitting unchosen or used as set bonus mules, and more of the latter getting chosen and used very regularly. In short: we hate the more extremely punitive crashes ("lose all of your endurance and most of your health"), but love the long durations. If you tamed some of the crashes but kept the durations at 120+ seconds (perhaps lowering the magnitude of the buffs and tweaking the recharge to balance it out) you'd end up with a much happier playerbase. Anything less than a 60 second duration is going to be seen as worse than chugging an inspiration or two. Or activating Rune of Protection/Unleash Potential. That all said, there is a lot of other really positive stuff in this patch, and that's coming from someone who enjoys playing Bio Armor toons.

Blaster T1 and T2 attacks can always be used whilst mezzed. Sticking the Blaster Defiant Barrage ATO proc into one of those attacks means that that ATO can also be used when mezzed. So whenever you get mezzed you activate the T1/T2 attack; which triggers the ATO proc; which causes you to no longer be mezzed. It's not quite mez protection; but it can help tide many Blasters over until they hit 50 and get access to Clarion Destiny.

Alternate, with a Gaussian Proc in Aim.

Also worth considering drops, as enemy level does not impact drop chances. Therefore if you're farming for cash (rather than for exp) it's very likely that lower level mobs will provide more efficient inf/hour. AFK farming might see a benefit going higher... since if you're not watching the screen like a hawk and instead just throwing a fairly optimized toon into a new Asteroid map every 10mins, then the stream of enemy defeats can be more consistent as enemy mob density will drop a lot faster vs +3s than vs +4s.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Archetype_Enhancements They tend to have very powerful set bonuses; and most of the Procs/Globals are worth it. Of the ATs you mention... The Scrapper ones are excellent, but need careful consideration where to place them (see here). The Brute ones are traditionally considered to suck. Although at least one of them has a spot on AFK farming builds. The Blaster ones are decent. The Mez Protection one is generally considered worth sticking in your T1/T2 blasts so you can use them whilst mezzed. I gave a summary of my thoughts on most of them here:

Yes. You'll have to weigh the additional enhancement slot investment up against other things... but I think it's fair to say that having to cram fewer non-damage-output-related IOs (like Heal and Resistance sets) into the summoning powers is a good thing. Worst case, you can just throw your Unbreakable Guard and Preventive Medicine Globals into the base slots.

When levelling up; accuracy, damage and unsuppressed movement are normally my main priorities. Any defensive armor toggles typically get an endred in the base slot and fleshed out properly in the mid 20s.

Heather's a regular mission contact NPC. Her arcs aren't a Task Force.