Bill Z Bubba

Only cuz the mods are watching me.

Being currently plagued with the "why play a brute" mentality, I can fully grok this. I'd still find it very interesting if the dominator earth assault set was copied to sents with no changes at all other than setting the damage modifiers to sentinel level. I know I'd play the crap out of it. Edit: I guess you'd have to replace powerup with aim.

Agreed. The AT on the whole has been buffed to OP land, just like tanks, even without considering what can be done at 50 with fully IOed/Incarnated builds. But even with that mindset in place, I do see certain powersets within the archetype need some help to get them on par with their compadres.

I agree with this statement. But, unfortunately, until the devs datamine and share information regarding the *actual* percentages of players running IO builds, IO + incarnate builds, SO only builds, etc, we're all shooting in the dark at where the balance levels should be. Which is why I've historically stuck to archetype balance discussions.

I would see all of my squishies flocking to it. Not saying that's a bad thing but it would seem to introduce a new build homogeneity.

I sit around 1:45 with mine on a good day compared to 3 mins with the claws/sr. Bio adds a ton of damage.

I love the concept. But how can I abuse bouncing between the two modes? Go defensive to take the alpha and offensive to clear the spawn? If the change means bouncing between the two modes as easily as I bounce with bio and staff, then I'm 100% for it.

That was part of the mistake. Nerfing brute damage. Right now, my brute is barely faster on pylon times AND mission clearing than my tank while both are FAR behind my scrapper. (Claws and SR for all three.) If my scrapper can take a pylon down in 3 minutes and the tank can do it in 4.5 minutes, then the brute should be taking it out in 3.75 minutes. Not 4 to 4.25 minutes.

I don't think you're alone there.

If it doesn't matter, then there should be no issue with nerfing tank mitigation to get things equitable again.

Overtuned on damage compared to how much more mitigation they have? Yea, I'm stickin to that. The difference in mitigation is far greater than the difference in damage and that's still wrong.

Agreed. I wish I could disagree but I can't.

Interesting. I find that being able to solo means I'm even more valuable to a team due to not wasting time being 100% worthless while being faceplanted. The em/sd scrapper will, of course, have a much better pylon time but won't be able to survive a hardcore TF. Truth. When it comes to teams, it doesn't matter the makeup. At all. If you absolutely fail at the task, then everyone is running below level with crap builds, bad tactics and an unwillingness to get the job done.

Let's talk this one. None of my claws and sr using BZBs can handle a hardcore ITF solo. (Where hardcore = no insps, no temps, enemies buffed, players debuffed, Master of rules run.) None of them. It's not the builds, it's the powersets. They just aren't capable of it. So I build a shield/em/soul tank and she pulls it off. Damage is king? It is in the meta team game. I see all the folks speed running at base diff in minutes entire TFs. But there's no challenge there specifically because they're all geared toward max damage at min difficulty for max merits. Granted, they sure as hell ain't getting max rewards that way beyond merits. What is the best time for a hardcore ITF run with a brute? Or even a no insps standard max diff run? What AT and powerset combo has the best time right now? I honestly have no clue. But most everyone states we can't balance around the outliers and instead they should be brought into line. ... Or at least for a long time I thought that was the prevailing opinion. My primary question is what is the line? Should my sd/em/soul tank EVER be able to take a pylon down faster than my claws/sr scrapper? I say no, but I absolutely can beat my scrapper's time with my tank if I saturate AAO. This isn't balanced to me. This isn't logical or rational because it ignores this "rule" I've put on a hill and decided to die on. And pushing an AT with mitigation that makes it a breeze to play from 1 to 50 compared to the blaster that WILL lag behind until it can perma clarion for even MORE damage output seems to go against what I always thought was the point of archetype balance. Again, however, there are currently so many ridiculous cases where the supposed rule of greater mitigation means lesser damage output that I'm forced to wonder if that ship has completely sailed and I really should just STFU and GTFO of these discussions.

Define the range. My race against a blaster showed me not far behind and we were both using fire blast. It's the same argument I'm having about tanks being overbuffed. Heightened mitigation should mean lowered damage but more and more it seems that very few agree with this concept.

Mids is right on the HP as per CoD and HC Wiki. Health pools absolutely matter but if Sents and Stalkers have the same MaxHP and Sents are getting superior versions of the armor sets AND can fight 100% from range (really, anyone stating this isn't huge for mitigation is out of their damn minds) then Sents are pretty far ahead of the game and should NOT be pulling scrapper/stalker/blaster damage numbers. At all. Ever.

It's not even remotely valid. I don't. Ice armor sucks on every AT. 🙂

Scrapper SR vs Sentinel SR: Sentinel with 3 toggles and 2 passives, slotted with SOs, Melee and Range are at 28.39% and AoE is at 31.12% defense. Scrapper with 3 toggles and 3 passives, slotted with SOs, 30.42% to MRA defense. The sentinel can take Master Brawler for +absorption and removes the clicking for mez protection and can get 10.92% Psi Def if you slot enduring for it. (I never would.) And unless Mids is wrong, the sentinel gets capped 75% damres at 0 health where the scrapper only gets 60%. How again, is sentinel armor inferior to scrapper armor?

Which is why I've said from day 1 they should have been assault/armor instead of range/armor.

Chain is Blaze, Flares, Blazing Blast, Flares, repeat. Replacing flares with Aim or Pyronic when available. That could probably be tightened up with a rebuild but it looks cool so I'm not in a hurry.

I'm honestly surprised the four blasters survived. Overwhelming offense wins the day, huh?

34 minute 4 Sents MoITF run. I'll take it. Edit: This was also our first attempt and first time together as a team. And, yes, this was at +4/x8 with no temps or insps.

3:36 pylon time. 305ish DPS. Hybrid assault core and pyronic judgement were used. This place it ahead of my claws/sr brute and sr/claws tank but behind my claws/sr scrapper.

I'd be interested in this. Just to get the time on the board. Feel free to ping me with a time some random night and I'll do my best to be around.