Bill Z Bubba

No, I don't agree. It'd be an interesting experiment, though. Get fully T4ed, then crank up a second build with nothing but basic IOs. I suspect that there would a drastic change in performance for the worse. With around a 99.99% certainty.

They only demonstrate the brute's single target damage superiority. When they're available to use, sure. But with something like shield charge, you're lucky to have enough recharge in it to use once per spawn. And this is the crux of it all and why I think utilizing a repeatable mission with 2 bosses per spawn is the way to go. And testing it at +4/x8 (or whatever diff is survivable) with basic IOs not only gives us those bosses but makes it far less likely that we're just slaughtering all the minions with a single AoE.

There are no AVs and GMs in this test. If we want to test out single target DPS, that's what pylons are for. What I'm attempting to determine is whether tanks on the whole were overbuffed for whatever is "normal" gameplay. And while I seek out AVs and soloing TFs, I've been repeatedly told that ain't "normal" and I'm an "edge case." So what would your test be to determine the above?

"What is already known" is the problem we're facing. I already know that tanks were overbuffed. The problem is all those demanding proof (as they should) of my claims. Using a static, repeatable mission, coupled with a difficulty that can lead to failure, properly timed and averaged out amongst various combinations, will provide us with a decent chunk of information, one way or the other.

Wow. I would have quit that team after the first pull.

Which is why I was using Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator on the beta server. Then I just went spawn to spawn as we do normally. Only grabbing a second group's aggro if they were close enough. Granted, his critters don't dish out a normal amount of damage, another reason I was thinking basic IOs, but we could just as easily choose some standard enemy group and perhaps should. This way, a chosen difficulty might have relevance rather than both the brute and the tank being immortal.

That's kind of why I'm leaning toward basic IO builds. We all have different build philosophies. If I gear builds specifically for the test at hand, lower survivability for the tank while cranking proc damage as an example, I think the results will be skewed, especially if using the identical build for the brute. Built like that, the brute may not even survive the test. If we go with basic IOs, it will drastically reduce the disparities that we can tweak into the builds.

But what test that we can all agree upon? SOs? Basic IOs? Fully IOed but no incarnates? Edit: And of course by "we all" I mean those of us capable of having our opinions changed when presented with factual data.

I suspect that as a set's AoE capabilities go up, tanks will surpass brutes. With the EM/Shield, there was only whirling hands and the long recharge shield charge. This would explain why my claws/sr test had the tank win, as there my aoe chain is followup, focus, spin, shockwave, repeat.

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1466;698;1396;HEX;| |78DA4D93C952135114866FA7BB09191893101933202421A143DC290E55885002D14| |0D085551676C205A25D902250C2D257D0855BDD58AE7C07B78E2FA056B973C3E058| |BA8A277D7E487755D777EE7FCF708773F37BD3FE57B38FAE08A5FDAA65D66A2BC5F| |2B659ADCA6D3D6FAE57CA823EFF54C5B2A277A253BBA592E9262178E2B392979694| |06053EAC454EC569B926376BD228EE36464B72CD927BB2267C85AD2DCB98B12AEB1| |B3B5EDB2E56A55C6D63B9A15636D7FDF668419A551A745DAB56CAC6D4D6EAFE4ADE| |ACEDC8EDFD5EAA9EA27FA3B10CFBAB0BF1511522A7897C43536C4D159D8AADB9026| |090A98598F7DD7015755D197591E6115A92D99202C798AD69971DD3FA9A18D0C40D| |8A555147459D6ED4E9469D20EAF8C857C73AF56161E7B34873DBD5EBBAFB9EC6FE2| |6B3A7049699675641C98C53AC87F3299E34E7EB030B34E7432D5F8CB507A4B5619F| |6DE7793F7D17980393E045E6D025DEE7D073AEB548B11DBC4F57C7219FF1D01133F| |A9DB9493E5DC8DF95E13C5103CC326313608EF3C7321CBB44B101CE2F02E3BCDE9B| |A485503334A3DADAF02C38C774914F986BBAC29F38D7F067E6D92F4C957C7A398FD| |EFB0B73BFC1BFCCD17FE039304C0183D42314DB8FFBEDC7FD2670BF09DC6F02F75B| |24DF41AC77106794C219A5704655F289E08C226F30F79639F60E7C0F7E6066BE329| |729368E7DC4913F83FC9963E638EA8CFF007F327B287604BD328275674FD64D2E49| |F44A12FDF3821A258D5AE918E7C85EE633C9CE11139AC81DB09EBB8EF1371E7BA89| |6817CC63C6BA24788096813A83BA039DE6D9D3E11D14E5F6D7DC1393B4968514541| |3B7DA942B1230EBCA4A06F14F4CD5153D39545AEE55D028B4CFF32788BD97E9B79E| |8CC97E47CC74D4D551E73DFB63F6176FEE1F7D1F994C705F2CD6107771DB6E9B04B| |0E7B3ED0B4E3C1A63D136EDADE50D37EE6F07F196FDAFF019136D3A4| |-------------------------------------------------------------------| Here's my current BZB Scrap build for reference.

CJ, Hasten, Tough, Weave, Fly, Musculature, Degen, Assault here.

Heretic!

1: It takes very little time and gets my farmer more vet lvls to PL an alt to 50. 2: If I'm not going to play a character I see no reason for their continued existence. 3: It's an easy way to refill base bins with good stuff. 4: I'm not a fan of clutter. I'm down to 52 characters but I plan to get that back below 50 soon. Too many tanks and brutes in my collection. 10 and 7 currently.

You don't. I've got plenty of them.

As per https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=epic.blaze_mastery.fire_blast&at=scrapper It appears the answer is yes.

Wish I did.

You're not wrong. Necessary? Not even a little bit. Useful for pulling off ridiculous shit that we shouldn't be allowed to do? Yea.

I don't get the shadow meld usage. Does the effect hit instantly or after the 3+sec activation? And is the up worth the downtime?

Try 'em all. Grab a 2nd acct, build a burn farmer, PL diff combos to your heart's content. It's amazing/ridiculously easy to max out new alts these days. The absolutely slowest part is gettin those passive accolades.

I probably posted this already but my memory sucks. 2 mins with a mace/bio scrapper. Assault Core Hybrid was toggled on. Pyronic was used twice. Chain is Clobber, Jawbreaker, Shatter, repeat. Going through a big character purge. This one I'll keep. Cuz... cute redhead mechanic with a magic wrench. What's not to love?

Does it matter? If a dev responds, they'll rightly do so in a way that is ambiguous as possible and if any of the rest of us answer it won't matter because we have zero input into potential changes.

Even a fighting pool using defender that completely ignores its secondary isn't useless in this game. Superfluous, sure. But at this point, having a character that can solo a max diff, no insps, no temps, enemies buffed, player debuffed MoITF makes everything else superfluous. But that's a different topic. In the end, those that have stated archetype balance doesn't matter are correct. These devs have made the direction they're taking things very clear. There will be no rollback of the buffs and we can all continue cruising along with godmode enabled for max rewards and zero risks cuz that's what the people want. If you don't want godmode, play something squishie and self-gimp to your heart's content.

I won't deny that all the time I have to waste chasing down runners with my main is a constant annoyance. And he's even got focus and shockwave to make it easier.

It's even more silly how so many on the other side completely ignore how much greater the difference is between the mitigation values than the damage values.

To be fair, that's how every single endgame build is designed regardless of AT.