Bill Z Bubba

I like taunt auras. Scrapper BZB does kick the crap out of Brute BZB in hard target kill times, but thanks to Evasion's taunt aura on the brute, clear all times get far closer together as shown above. Runners suck. Damn cowards.

You know, end game. That's where you're gathering up all the beer bottles and pizza boxes after everyone else has left the party. To the topic, I've yet to find a situation where even exemplaring all the way down to Posi 1 isn't handled well by a fully tricked out end game build using all the standard end game sets attuned with PvP and Purples +5ed. The actual difference in gameplay is negligible. Early sets are great IF you plan to level VERY slowly. Otherwise, (ingoring all the low level uniques of course,) they're all pretty much useless.

I'm in the shield camp. I was main-lining SR like a proper junkie but the difference in absolute unkillability between it and shield is pretty drastic. And having all that +dam from AAO is freaking amazing. Sure, I have to click AD a lot for the dblstack of DDR, but that's a small price to pay. No, shield needs no buffs.

Mostly being the operative word. Still sucks a butt when your chain has both the long and slow animations. Edit: Style and flow-wise... damage output is quite nice.

But scrappers kick the shit out of both tanks and brutes on single target damage. By a WIDE margin. (Unlike the not nearly as wide margin of brutes vs tanks.)

Either one of the BZB Claws and SR variants or the Fire/Bio Sent. Edit: Or if I feel like showing off the ridiculously broken, the shield/em tank.

On one hand, no, because attacks from scrapper armors have never critted that I can recall and thus it was working as designed rather than an oversight. On the other hand, why should pool attacks crit if damage auras can't?

In my experience, no, it's not worth it to proc out claws beyond the purple proc and one extra or in followup specifically just running a full AT IO set. What you lose from set bonuses has always seemed greater than what you gain in ST damage but I'll admit that my "get off my lawn" way of playing/building characters greatly affects that opinion.

I suspect it was due to how sometimes the game will frell up the chosen difficulty setting if the team lead isn't in zone before someone hops into the mission. Although, the game drops to +0 when that happens. Some folks do like -1 for speed runs but if that wasn't also part of the deal, I don't know what the leader was thinking. For me, it seems like most problems can usually be avoided if the team lead is fully up front during recruitment. If I'm feeling up to running a PUG ITF, I'll always broadcast Max Diff ITF Kill Most lookin for more. It's when folks start whining halfway through first mission that it's too hard that I get annoyed. Max Diff means +4/x8! If ya can't handle the faceplants, ya should have brought a better build.

I'd like to leave it as is specifically because it IS on the nose. "Buy Your Cheat Codes Here!"

Because deep down, I think most issues can be resolved through disembowelments and beheadings while dodging incoming attacks. Plus, what's not to love about a cigar chompin prince of Hell magic-ing up a mortal body cuz he got tired of the bureaucracy of the Pit?

I've had far fewer bad pugs than good. Granted, that last bad one made me go play another game for a few days.

Point is, even in the 2nd mish with the tunnels, there's *always* a spot at the roof you can hover-blast from with impunity. Honestly, AVs running away are the absolute worst part of soloing the ITF for me on any character that can't lock 'em down. Granted, I have yet to make the attempt with anything except my armored characters.

That ain't no lie.

There isn't a problem to you because you don't give a damn about actual numerical balance in a game based on math.

Changed two words in your quote. You think blasters and sents are currently balanced?

You could but I've not seen that in gameplay. It's only one combo but my claws/sr brute is immortal in a standard max diff aggro cap's worth of Cimerorans while my scrapper most certainly is not. Which is why I'm currently PLing an em/sd brute and scrapper to go with my sd/em tank. One more data point.

Yet you call that situation balanced. I've defined far too close specifically by soloing content with my tank that my brutes fail and by showing actual times, both single target and clear all, the difference between damage output. If tanks are pushing 90% brute capability across the board, then brutes should be pushing 90% mitigation across the board. That would be an equitable situation. Anything short of that is crap.

1) I've given options. 2) What happens in farms is as meaningless to me as the folks pulling huge reds from email and saying we should balance around that. 3) I have no disagreement with T9s getting looked at. I haven't taken elude since IOs were introduced to the game.

You're correct that it throws teaming out the window. As it should for any proper test. Teaming introduces more variables than what folks like us can deal with. I don't give a shit that brutes outdamage tanks. They should and I'm glad that I was able to test that, see it, and admit I was wrong when I was wrong. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that tanks are far too close to brute damage in comparison to their heightened mitigation, a fact that you continually hand-wave away as meaningless.

Irrelevant. I've never stated brutes don't have a role. No AT has a useful role in my mind. We can complete every task in this game with the absence of any AT. Roles mean nothing to me. That's a dodge and not the topic here.

Not at all. If you use a wide enough brush you can easily state that all the ATs are perfectly balanced because they can all solo at +0/x1 with no bosses or AVs without issue. It's still completely false numerically. Specifically because of the numbers backing the entire combat system.

Fair doesn't play into it. I don't care what's fair. I care about what's correct. Thank you for admitting that the difference between mitigation values and damage output are numerical nonsense.

These two statements are mutually exclusive. Either I'm numerically correct and the two archetypes are not balanced or I'm wrong and they are. What people "feel" means precisely nothing.

You are wrong. If the simulation does not provide a meaningful test, it's not valid. If there's no risk of defeat, there's no meaningful test. It's nothing but a test of damage output and pylons and clear alls of anything else can provide that.