Maelwys

It very much is not. Anyways; since Tidge mentioned Venn diagrams; I thought I'd try making the point via pictures this time. This is what most people seem to envisage: (with Stalkers roughly equal to or a bit ahead of Scrappers when it comes to ST; and behind them in terms of AoE) And IMO that's more or less accurate... until ATOs are involved, at which point it becomes:

Because that particular tree is quite clearly ON FIRE. And whilst it's causing the rest of the forest to fill with smoke and get uncomfortably toasty... some people seem to be utterly ignoring it, others appear to be looking at an old thermometer reading and claiming that it's barely lukewarm, and yet others are demanding that we burn down all the neighbouring forests so that they'll match. 🚒

Short version: yes. Ranged pets will tend to stay at range now and not randomly charge into melee range to Brawl things. And pets have a "leash range" beyond which they won't chase after runners. They still get stuck on geometry, but they're not as bad at blocking corridors since you can usually push them out of the way. Most of the beneficial AI changes took place in i26p4. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_26_Page_4#Pets_&_Henchmen_Updates

I use two rotating keybind files that make me FACE the target and THEN activate the heal whenever I hammer the Numpad0 key. [c:\Games\coh\binds\hc\marine_face.txt] NUMPAD0 "face$$bind_load_file_silent c:\Games\coh\binds\hc\marine_heal.txt" [c:\Games\coh\binds\hc\marine_heal.txt] NUMPAD0 "powexec_name soothing wave$$bind_load_file_silent c:\Games\coh\binds\hc\marine_face.txt" (Tapping my travel power key also resets the bind to the "face" one so that doesn't get too out of synch)

you are looking for ways to push (effective) brute damage higher through party amplification -- the more fundamental problem here is that scrapper resilience levels are already sufficient when team buffs are applied. 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). you can say you did not push 'force multiplier' but you literally did. and i chose the exact phrase you used like 10 times -- 'force multiplier'. your post is still there, you can re-read it if you forgot what you typed. are we just trying to argue in bad faith here? i feel like i agree with you in a lot of ways other than you adamantly wanting to be disagreeable. i am fine with you not liking my hot take to make tanker/brute resilience more relatively meaningful but you follow-up by agreeing with me that tanker/brute resilience levels ultimately dont matter.... you just appear to believe that is a good thing! Expand the quotes above, then read it from start to finish; taking particular note of the yellow highlighted bits. I am not advocating for Brutes to arbitrarily simply deal more damage. In fact I have said multiple times in this thread that IMO Brute damage is currently perfectly fine and balanced whenever ATOs are not being factored in. However when ATOs are being factored in, Scrappers and Stalkers rocket ahead. They are no longer in the same ballpark as Brutes in terms of ST damage (as can be seen very clearly in the various Pylon Time leadership board threads) and my own attempts to put a number on just how much slower Brutes are at completing more common content - an "average regular mission" (GalaxyBrain's AE Mission Simulator at +4x8; which the Devs have recently been using as a performance yardstick to measure comparable Tanker performance) shows an IO'ed+ATO'ed Scrapper being a good 30% faster than an equivalent Brute. As far as I can tell the performance disparity here is 100% due to ATO balance; not pre-ATO damage damage output nor Brute resilience/survivability. I am therefore advocating not for boosting Brute damage itself; but for changing the effect of their ATOs. Both in order to make the ATOs give Brutes an increase in damage that is equivalently proportional to the boost that Scrapper and Stalker ATOs give those ATs; and also to give Brutes something new and unique to help them bring value to a team. If you read through some of my later exchanges with Tidge; you can see me restating this position time and time again: You'll notice that I only actually used the phrase "force multiplier" twice - once in relation to Defenders and another in relation to melee ATs (of which currently only VEATs qualify). The reference to Defenders was carefully chosen because it sets up my intent: Defenders are attractive to teams because they provide buffs and debuffs - which increase the effectiveness of their teammates. I do not wish to make Brutes individually more powerful. Instead I wish that Scrappers, Brutes, Stalkers and Tankers would each be considered attractive and useful to a team - and since IMO there is a gap in the market for a melee buff AT; at least one of those four ATs (likely Brutes and/or Tankers) could become more attractive via applying useful (but limited) allied buffs or enemy debuffs. And because the Brute ATOs are utter goatdung; I think there's an opportunity there to kill two birds with one stone. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Now that I've (quite literally!) drawn a line underneath all that... I'll try to briefly address your other two points. Firstup - Brute "Active farming": I have Brutes that I farm on. They are currently the most efficient AT for "passive" AFK farming because just like Tankers Brutes can meet the survivability requirements (90% Resist, 45% Defense, 35+ HP/Sec passive regeneration) however Tanker AoE damage output has been nerfed to the point where Brutes hitting 10 targets with an attack now deals more overall damage than Tankers hitting 16 targets with that same attack. However for Active Farming all you need is to deal high AoE damage. That's it. There are no hard survivability requirements for active farming because it's perfectly possible to survive merely via chugging inspirations like candy (one of the more common setups is to consume purples and greens, and combine the rest into reds) especially given that custom AE maps with custom enemy groups are easy to make - you can choose exactly how densely packed the spawns are, you don't need to have any kind of mez effect inflicted on you; and you can give yourself multiple friendly Archvillain level NPC buffbots (and their power selection is not even limited to the default powersets in the mission creator - you can customise each NPC's power list individually). Therefore Blasters and Dominators can be magnificent at it (Plant Dom was recently nerfed; but there are runners up) and Corruptors (especially those with significant AoE -movement speed and rain powers) are decent too. Scrappers that have a Taunt aura will obviously be slightly better off than those without it; but any Scrapper can still simply leap into the middle of 20-30 densely packed foes on an Asteroid map. Many VEAT builds are good there (essentially anything except a Crabbermind; although they can be made to work too with a little extra effort). There are some Kheldian builds that are very good at AoE spam; but I personally detest the Changeling exploit. Brutes are still decent... but IMO they're a bit bland and "pedestrian" by comparison to the other higher-risk, higher-reward AT builds and they're certainly not the quickest to clear an AE map solo; which is what AE active farming is all about - Homecoming allows each player to pilot three simultaneous accounts as long as the shard isn't under heavy load; so take two AFK farmers (both Brutes nowadays - and Rad/Stone is by far the most efficient) and one active farmer (as mentioned, lots of ATs work!) and rake in the drops + inf (see here for some discussion about average ballpark inf/hour). Disclaimer: I've "active farmed" on every AT except for Defenders (not because it's impossible; but because it's never been efficient enough to be viable). I'm also a min/maxer who models and measures and repeatedly tweaks each build I make to ensure that it's as efficient as possible for its intended purpose(s). As as result; I've been an active participant in the farming megathread (and chances are if you open up any thread over the last 2-3 years asking about "Farming" you'll see at least one comment from me there!) and most weeks I'll get multiple unsolicited requests for farming builds in my forum inbox. Secondly - Stalker "Hide": You're correct that Hide only provides 1.875% Defense during combat. However that's exactly the same value as Stealth, Combat Jumping and Hover; so it's hardly an unusually low value. And that's only its base (unslotted) effect... so more commonly it'll be providing a hair under 3% - that's about the same as the Steadfast protection and Gladiator Armor Uniques; which IMO are definitely "non negligible" . As an example: with just a single additional enhancement slot (e.g. 2x 50+5 Def IOs) Hide will give +2.94% Def before Alpha Slots; and it also provides a very efficient spot for a LotG +7.5 Rech IO - potentially freeing up another power selection. Whenever they're up against large packs of enemies and the Stalker can't hit and run; Scrappers will undoubtedly have an edge in terms of survivability (due to their larger base and maximum HP values). But one-on-one (or even one-on-five!) Placate works just fine. That said, I wholeheartedly agree with you that Stalkers and Scrappers are both in a pretty good place right now. Both are high damage melee ATs... but Stalkers are Stealthy Single Target experts with additional survivability options; whereas Scrappers are equally good at ST and AoE with a bit of aggro control via Confront + Taunt Auras. IMO Tankers are almost well balanced too... however the devs have stated a desire to make Tankers the "AoE specialist" melee AT; and at present compared to Brutes they are not dealing as much AoE damage to foes nor do they have notably better aggro control. Unfortunately Brutes seem to lack a real niche (whilst at present they're better at AoE "tanking" than Tankers; prior to the last patch Brutes had almost no mechanical attractiveness to a team at all and the Devs could easily "rebalance" Tanks again. So IMO Brutes need their own niche; instead of always fighting over the same one as a Tanker!) and whenever ATOs are considered they demonstrably underperform. So I'd really like to see those deficiencies addressed.

It has "adaptive recharge", meaning (i) the more foes you hit with it the longer it takes to recharge, up to a maximum of 60s (ii) Proc activation rate in it is complete rubbish since the "base" recharge for PPM calculations is treated as being only 5 seconds. But recharge reduction enhancement and global recharge will still reduce the recharge time. So that 60s maximum can become 30s or less pretty easily. And the Tanker/Brute Consume Psyche is indeed a 20ft radius AoE. The 90ft Cone is Devour Psyche which is the Scrapper/Stalker/Sentinel version.

It shows up in the detailed power effects window. 5.2/1.414 = 3.6775

Protector Bots have always guzzled endurance like it was going out of fashion if you didn't slot them for EndRed, but after the set revamp the AssBot became almost as bad, even with the benefit of Conserve Power. I typically try to cram North of 60% EndRed in each of them, with the PBs usually getting 80% ISH unless I have an allied recovery buff. The drones can go all day even with only ~20%.

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. ⚖️