Maelwys

Large hordes of mobs (ITF etc) would have been more difficult to hold the attention of before; and there are some Arcs with multiple EBs/AVs that could in theory one-shot a squishy; so I can sort of see the benefit of it. That said, I agree that none of my Tankers over the years have ever had issues keeping ~10 Foes taunted at a time. Even the OG Energy Melee one that dropped Whirling Hands.

I suspect that actually applying "Pets be the same level as the MM" is very straightforward; but rebalancing the T1/T2 pet's damage output (and survivability!) would be non-trivial. To keep things "level" they'd need to at a minimum go into every ability those pets get and adjust their "damage scale" downwards... they obviously didn't feel the need to do a rebalance for Incarnate Content, but aside from Dark Astoria that's mostly (supposedly) extreme endgame content on a team of veteran players.

Mmm. Likewise though I believe the damage scalar buff was designed to make Tankers better at soloing and/or leveling up. Perhaps a rework of Gauntlet to operate like Vigilance (damage buff when <X teammates, arc/radius buff when >X teammates) might work...? However any adjustment presupposes that the devs actually consider Tankers to be overperforming currently.

Disagreeing with someone is not bullying... And to be fair, there is a [Citation Needed] on some of those earlier claims. Has anybody asked for such? Actually they have. I mean, we get some nutjobs on the forums (myself included!) and I'm sure at some point just about everything has been asked for... but at present I'm not aware of a big movement of players demanding the devs repeal the Tanker changes. And as has been pointed out before, Brutes still deal more raw damage than Tankers in terms of Single Target and AoE. Tanker's get the arc/radius boost, which definitely makes them more valuable versus groups of foes (and by extension, more attractive to most teams) but there are plenty of cases where Brutes have the damage output edge. Such as Levelling up, Soloing; and AV/GM fights. Personally I'm firmly in the "Buff Brutes" camp... but if the Devs did decide to lower the Tanker Arc/Radius buff but leave the higher damage modifier as-is I'd not lose any sleep over it.

There's a line in the Proc effects itself (linked above) that reads: "-1000% Knockup, Knockback Strength (self only) for 10.25s" That should reduce any stacking KB to KD again.

It is *difficult*, but not impossible, to make a Thugs/Kin shine. Between your own Maneuvers, the Enforcers' Maneuvers and the +Def Aura Pet IOs you should be just about able to softcap your pets defence. And Speed Boost (+Recovery and Travel Speed. Henchmen don't benefit from Recharge buffs) plus Increase Density (Smashing/Energy resistance) are nice buffs to have - the Bruiser in particular will end up hitting some very nice numbers given their own inherent resistances plus another 35% from the Aura IOs. But lining up a perfect Fulcrum Shift is going to take more work on Thugs/ given the Bruiser's tendency to Melee and the others to stay Ranged. Likewise, Transference/Transfusion positioning may be tricky. Get a good set of keybinds and be prepared to use "Defensive Goto" a lot.

Yeah, that was fixed in Issue 27 page 2. "Enhancements > Overwhelming Force > Knockback to Knockdown: Fixed this proc not always converting to knockdown when stacked with other knockback effects" It's also worth noting that unless anything's changed recently (I know it says "2.5PPM" currently in CoDv2 but I can't see anything obvious in the patch notes...) Overwhelming Force is one of the very few enhancements that has a "chance for" something which does NOT operate based on PPM - it gives a 20% chance to inflict additional KD upon power activation regardless of the recharge enhancement slotting in the power.

Might have been true back on live, but i27 Page 5's T8/T9 power level requirement reshuffle smoothed the attack level progression out a LOT. Between getting to choose your first secondary-powerset ability at level 1 and gaining access to all the rest by level 30; I don't think Tankers are particularly attack-starved these days.

Ehh, more like (<3 my Bio/Staff Tanker...)

Check out this thread for inexpensive farming builds. The short version is: make a Tanker with decent AoEs and Damage Mitigation (45% defence, plus 90% damage resistance to at least one damage type), then max out your difficulty settings and plonk yourself in an Architect Entertainment farming map with custom enemies that deal damage you're strong against. An alternative is to just level up and enjoy the game whilst completing as many story arcs as possible, then convert the merit rewards to influence (by exchanging them for enhancement converters/boosters and selling them at the Auction House). You can replay arcs for additional rewards via the Ouroboros Flashback system.

Yes, Brutes are already "Tougher than Scrappers". And Brutes are also already "not as tough as Tankers" and (attack for attack, on Single-Targets) "more damaging than Tankers, not as damaging as Scrappers". The "problem" is indeed to do with Tankers. But it's not their raw damage. It's the radius buff - Tankers do wider AoE and hit more things with most Cones and AoEs (outside of Pool attacks like Cross Punch and outliers like Footstomp); which drastically inflates their damage vs multiple targets. Certain powersets (Staff, BA, TW, etc) benefit more than others (SS) here; but by and large Tankers will deal substantially better damage vs multiple Foes than a Brute. And on teams you get more mobs around you, which results in Tankers performing better. So actually you do NOT need to buff Brute damage or reduce Tank damage unless you're only worried about their performance when soloing at +X/8 (and I think we can all agree that "Farming" is not a great metric for balance anyway)... instead, you just need to make it more attractive for a Brute to be on a team. Hence my suggestion of using the Brute ATOs to give some additional mechanical benefit to having them on a team. Also, for chasing ST damage output on teams it's often not the Scrappers I'd worry about, but the Stalkers... the crit rate of those guys on big teams can gets quite silly, and is why there's a valid argument for Scrappers needing their ATOs to remain competitive. Brutes aren't even on the radar.

Unfortunately your finding Scrappers and Tankers "dull" does not constitute a mechanical advantage for Brutes. The only real advantage Brutes have is when soloing in the very early game before your attacks can be properly slotted up with SO enhancements (e.g. if there is zero damage enhancement slotted in an attack, then a Brute will deal more damage than a non-crit from a Scrapper if they have >25 Fury). Combine that with their high base HP and they're probably the easiest melee AT to play at very low levels; which is why a lot of newer players get hooked on them. However at level ~22 that lead starts to evaporate; and on team content at endgame Brutes are left trailing well behind the pack.

Guessing they're getting this from the old Homecoming Stats page from four years ago (when FA Brute farmers almost outnumbered everyone else put together) Which yeah, is (i) rather dated and (ii) not a great indication of how Brutes are mechanically performing at levl 50 vs Tanks/Scrappers/Stalkers. IMO Brutes are indeed fine when compared to other melee ATs before a tricked out IO build is taken into consideration; particularly when soloing. But they bring very little to teams - Tankers have better AoE damage and sustainability (even if both are at the res caps, Tanks still have a bigger HP + Absorb pool); Stalkers and Scrappers have better Single Target and Spike damage. If you were feeling charitable you might say Brutes end up as the "jack of all trades and master of none" here... but honestly if everyone is well beyond the Defence softcap then the fact they can hit 90% Damage Resistance rather than a Scrapper/Stalker's 75% is usually redundant. So damage output tends to matter more than anything else. Put simply, Brutes' performance floor might be a bit higher, but they have a lot lower peak performance in endgame team content (even in smaller teams with a decent Kin). The Scrapper and Stalker ATOs increase the peak damage output of those ATs considerably, and the same is true for the the Tanker ATOs in terms of survivability... but Brute ATOs are not in the same ballpark performance-wise. They could honestly do with a tweak to at least get them within sight of the stadium. So yes, I'd like to see the Brute ATOs buffed; particularly the superior version of the uniques, since those factor in much more at endgame. Brute's Fury is at best ~14% (+7 Fury) Damage on a character that's already sitting at ~370% damage just from Regular slotting and Fury. Unrelenting Fury is pathetic, typically giving much lower performance than a Panacea Unique. All that said, I'm not claiming that Brutes aren't enjoyable; or even that they're never useful on a team... but I am claiming that on most high-end team content you can usually swap a Brute out with a Tanker/Scapper/Stalker and the team will perform better. EDIT: To be fair... the -res from Tar Patch (new Dark Mastery Epic Pool) actually goes quite some way to levelling the playing field. However Tanks get access to it as well; taking it means dropping Gloom; and it's not an every-spawn thing... particularly if your team is in "maximum woodchipper" mode.

There's nothing to stop an ATO having multiple effects, and in fact that's how most are coded (since they add stuff like +Recharge% too) Take the current "Unrelenting Fury" ATO for example. Leave its existing buffs as is, but give it an additional set bonus which in turn grants a constantly-refreshing, short duration damage buff to any allies within a certain radius (like power pool Assault) where the "+damage strength" buff value varies based on the Brute's current "Rage" value (AKA their Fury bar). OR replace the ATO's current effects completely and just give BOTH the Brute and their teammates damage buffs... the teammates get a buff based on the Brute's current fury, and the Brute gets a buff based on the number of total allies (including themselves) within X feet. The buff recieved by the Brute could be some mixture of Damage and/or EndRed/Recovery/Regen/Resistance/whatever if the design goal of that particular ATO is to increase their sustainability. (I'm not sure if the Cottage Rule applies to enhancements...) 🙄 🏡

Personally I'd still like to see one of the Brute ATOs altered to grant an AoE teamwide damage buff based on their current Fury level. That way bringing a Brute along would actually benefit the rest of the team a little bit more than bringing a Scrapper/Stalker; and it'd serve a slightly different role to a tanker. There aren't many melee toons (certain VEATs with double-assault I guess?) that buff allied damage%; and even in a team with a Kin it'd still get some milage versus tough single targets. Plus, "Contagious Fury" has a certain ring to it...

Looks like most of the shards are up now, but Reunion is still complaining about no maps being available. (e.g. All my characters in the login list say "unknown" next to their zone on the Reunion server, but the ones on Torchbearer or Indomitable are fine)

You can sort of do that with keybinds. Just not with a SINGLE keybind. What you're asking for could be done however via a series of keybind text files that "load" each other in sequence each time you press the key. Example: [textfile1.txt] KEY "bindloadfilesilent c:\coh\binds\textfile2.txt$$petselect_name PET1" [textfile2.txt] KEY "bindloadfilesilent c:\coh\binds\textfile3.txt$$petselect_name PET2" [textfile3.txt] KEY "bindloadfilesilent c:\coh\binds\textfile4.txt$$petselect_name PET3" [textfile4.txt] KEY "bindloadfilesilent c:\coh\binds\textfile5.txt$$petselect_name PET4" [textfile5.txt] KEY "bindloadfilesilent c:\coh\binds\textfile6.txt$$petselect_name PET5" [textfile6.txt] KEY "bindloadfilesilent c:\coh\binds\textfile1.txt$$petselect_name PET6" You could also go a step further and within those files set up additional bind commands so that you have some fine control over the currently selected pet, like: [textfile1.txt] KEY1 "bindloadfilesilent c:\coh\binds\textfile2.txt$$petselect_name PET1" KEY2 petcom_name "PET1" Attack KEY3 petcom_name "PET1" Follow KEY4 petcom_name "PET1" Goto KEY5 petcom_name "PET1" Stay

Demons hasn't changed much over the years, whereas Necro has been revamped recently and is currently one of the top (if not the top) performing powersets. That's not to say Demons are weak... but they used to be the outlying strongest set; and now they're merely one good-performing set amongst many others. + Necro inflicts a lot of -Tohit debuffs (the Lich can stack them pretty high by itself, plus your personal attacks and Soul Extraction) + Dark inflicts a lot of -ToHit debuffs. (Darkest Night, Fearsome Stare, Fluffy) Together, those powersets will effectively be defence-softcapping you and your pets vs most foes that rate up-to-and-including "+5" to your T1 pets (e.g.+3 to you). Demons do not inflict -ToHit debuffs. Instead they buff each other's Damage Resistance; inflict a bit of +Slow/-recharge debuffs and have a bit of AoE healing. That's not a bad spread of damage mitigation, but it means that you and your pets are not likely to be hitting the Defence softcap unless you work for it. Are you using Maneuvers and Shadow Fall (both ED-capped for +Defence) plus the Edict of the Master and Call to Arms +Defence Aura IOs? That should raise your pets' total Defence by around 20%; which leaves them 25% from the "regular" (non incarnate/hardmode) Defence softcap. Dark's "Darkest Night" and "Fearsome Stare" both inflict about a 17.6% ToHit Debuff when slotted up; so even against +3s that's still inflicting 0.65*17.6= of the original, for 11.44% -ToHit each; or ~22.88% total. That puts them at a hair over 2% shy of the softcap. Fluffy (Chill of the Night is -30% ToHit by itself!) or even a simple Twilight Grasp will close that gap. So your henchmen should end up effectively softcapped versus most things as long as you don't neglect your +Def and -ToHit slotting. *YOU* might still need a little bit of extra help to hit the softcap, but that's doable via other Toggles, Set Bonuses and the Steadfast Protection/Gladiator's Armor uniques. Shadow Fall should also help your pets versus Energy/Negative/Psi damage - and they already get decent Cold/Fire/Smashing/Lethal Resistance from the Ember Demon shields plus their inherent resistances. Throw in the Expedient Reinforcement, Sovereign Right and (Superior) Mark of Supremacy +Resistance Aura IOs for another +35% Resist to all and they get pretty tanky. Unfortunately there's not much you can do about pet mez protection other than Shadow Fall (Terrorized) and Tactics (Confusion) until you hit 50 and get access to the Clarion Destiny Incarnate abilities and a few choice supportive Lore pets. (OK, you could take Medicine Pool's "injection"... but the cast time is long and the duration is short so you'd be forever rebubbling your henchmen. Just don't! 😉)

Generally on MMs you'll want to split "Superior Mark of Supremacy" into three (2x in each pet, plus 1-2 other Frankenslotted IOs/HOs to ED-cap their damage and raise their Accuracy/Endurance). That leaves roughly 2-3 slots free in each of your pets for procs and Aura IOs. The "Superior Command of the Mastermind" set can also be useful to 4-slot somewhere if you've room (it would fit nicely in Hell on Earth; plus 2 Aura IOs). On Demons, IIRC the T3 Prince can make good use of the Impeded Swiftness and Ice Mistral's Torment damage procs; and the T2s need a fair bit of +res slotting... so personally I'd probably stick the the remaining two aura IOs into the T1 Demonlings if possible; along with the Soulbound Aallegiance Proc. Other considerations? Above all else... be sure to get yourself a solid set of keybinds. Powerswise; the Leadership pool never goes amiss on MMs and /Thermal really likes Hasten. For Incarnates? Musculature Core Alpha; Barrier Core or Clarion Core Destiny; Support Core or Melee Core Hybrid; Degenerative or Reactive Interface; Void Radial Judgement. Realistically any Lore Pets will be fine with a Demon/Thermal as you don't really need additional healing or -regen, and mez protection can be handled via Clarion Destiny or Melee Hybrid... but the support pets from Knives of Vengance (Offense) or Talons of Vengance (Defence) will provide the best wide-area buffs.

Also, just for fairness sake - respecced to Soul Mastery and tested with Power Boost. (Identical behaviour!)

I'm going to hazard a guess that the reason you're seeing defence spiking/dropping is because of powers other than Farsight (Autos/Toggles/etc) contributing to your Defence. Try expanding the Combat Attributes screen so that you're not just looking at the tooltip + you can see each of the values contributing to your current Defence - check Farsight's buff at the 1 second and 119 second mark; it should be identical. I just hopped on Brainstorm and did a quick test using the exact same powerset combo - a fresh unenhanced Lv50 Time/DualPistols/EnergyMastery Defender. BEFORE DOING ANYTHING WHILST PBU IS RUNNING LONG AFTER PBU EXPIRES, RIGHT BEFORE FARSIGHT DOES Farsight as currently coded literally cannot alter the defence buff value it's granting midway through its 120s duration. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=defender_buff.time_manipulation.farsight&at=defender Note that no child effects are applied here and there is no"Activate Period" listed. It simply applies one single long-duration buff (Ranged_Buff_Def * 1.25 Defence) for 120 seconds. Since the system applies this buff precisely once (1.667 seconds into the casting of the power - "Animation Time Before Effect") only one single check is ever performed to see if anything is boosting the value (Enhancements/Power Boosting/Whatever). Compare this with a different power like Maneuvers/Combat Jumping/Stealth/Hover and you'll notice the duration of those buffs is measured in at most a few seconds but they have "activate periods" which are very slightly shorter than the duration... so they continually refresh and continually adjust their buff values over time. If you're just going off the numbers in Mids then you'll need to manually account for the effect that Power Boost's expiry has on your toggles. First ensure the green checkmark in Mids next to Farsight and Power Boost/Build Up is OFF and record your regular non-boosted total defence. Then check Farsight and Power Boost/Build Up back ON again and record the defence value listed ONLY in the "effects" tab of the Farsight power itself (not your totals!). Finally add those two numbers together and that's what you can expect to actually get in-game.

The idea is pretty straightforward once you break it down. When you hit Power Boost (and/or Clarion Radial) you get a short-duration buff that boosts the secondary effects of your powers. Any power that you activate before that buff which has those secondary effects (ToHit, Defence, etc) expires gets its values massively boosted. "Toggles" and most passive "Auto" powers refresh every few seconds and do a fresh check each time they cycle. So shortly after the Powerboost buff expires... their values will return to normal. However most "Clicky" buffs (perhaps most notably long-duration +Defence-granting abilities like Fortitude, Forcefield Bubbles, Farsight, etc!) only check to see if they're boosted ONCE whenever you first activate them. So if they're boosted when you cast them, then they'll maintain that boost for their entire duration. Which means if you can get Power Boost to recharge again before that power expires, the boost can be effectively "permanent". There are a few exceptions - Cold Domination's Bubbles and Darkness Affinity's Fade are coded with a flag to "ignore external strength boosts" (this is because those powers buff 'damage resistance' as well as 'defence'; and there's a convoluted coding thing in CoH where if you boosted the strength of a character's Damage Resistance then you'd also boost their damage output - so the short version is that Power Boost effects don't work in any powers that grant Damage Resistance)

I posted this yesterday in the Bots/Time thread; but the biggest contribution to pet survivablity on a /Time MM will be combining Farsight with both Power Boost + a Radial Clarion Destiny. With ED-capped +Defense slotting, Farsight grants about ~14.7% Defence to all.Power Boost raises that to ~20.9%Power Boost AND Clarion Radial Epiphany (or Clarion Total Radial Invocation) brings that total up to ~28.4% Throw in another ~4.13% from Maneuvers and +10% from the two +Def IOs and your pets will be just a few percent shy of the regular 45% Def Softcap. If you desperately want to reach the Softcap without other buffs (Support Destiny, Diamagnetic Interface, Lore pet with +Def bubble, etc) you can technically do so via a +Def Alpha like Agility Core Paragon and a little overslotting in Farsight. (Not bad for tapping three buttons every 120 seconds...)

Might be worth pointing out the benefits of Radial Clarion Destiny slot here too. With ED-capped +Defense slotting, Farsight grants about ~14.68% Defence to all. Power Boost raises that to ~20.82% Power Boost AND Clarion Radial Epiphany (or Clarion Total Radial Invocation) brings that total up to ~28.32% Throw in another ~4.13% from Maneuvers and +10% from the two +Def IOs and your pets will be just shy of the regular 45% Def Softcap. Add Protector Bot bubbles (even with just a single LOTG) and you're well into Incarnate Softcap territory; just need to remember to click three buttons every 120s.

Definitely; and that's why I had that "other than specific boss fights" caveat in the parent post. An /Elec MM that is constantly on the move also at least still has healing and other buffs such as Empowering Circuit to fall back on. However it doesn't change the fact that /Elec's performance still suffers a lot whenever a team is highly mobile; which is (for better or worse) the current meta. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, other powersets like /Thermal can provide a very similar benefit to /Elec regardless of how quickly the team is moving. It's a rather powerful powerset; but it unfortunately comes with some annoying limitiations - reduced mobility on teams; and an inability to leverage its capstone (Amp Up) when solo. Still perfectly playable though even if it's not exactly mechanically optimal + a small price to pay if you're in love with the theme/flavour!