Bill Z Bubba

Some numbers.

Shield/EM tank vs EM/Shield Brute 5 runs each. Average clear all time for tank 502 seconds. Average clear all time for brute 462 seconds. So the brute is what? A whopping 8% faster? While the tank has: 21% more HP 24% more melee defense 26% more range and aoe defense 20% more SL DR 14% more FC DR 16% more EN DR But hey... the brute gets an extra .5% base damage thanks to the AT IO difference. Edit: Oh yea... and a bunch less DDR when both doublestack AD. 21% more mitigation vs 8% higher kill speed for this particular combo. And this is parity? Balance? Ok with the rest of yall? Cuz I think it's crap.

We've all said this for a long time. I no longer accept it without evidence.

I'm surprised by this whole post. If tanks were dead, why were there so many of them around compared to so many other ATs when they did the big data dump here on HC? It's not a "right set" issue. It's a "yes, it matters if an AT is made superfluous" issue. At least it matters to me. I'll have some numbers soon from the shield/em vs em/shield test. I'm sure there's some combo out there, maybe stone/staff, where the brute might win on mission clearing, but I'd put good money on that it's going to be within the same margin as the difference between the shield/em test and the claws/sr test. But I absolutely refuse to test with SOs. I don't have a SO on a single level 50 in my stable. Every last one of them is full of set IOs or basics where that would apply. And since I won't even play the game with SOs past lvl 32, maybe I could be talked into a nothing but basic IOs run for some combo. It's been mentioned before and it would be nice to find out... what percentage of level 50 characters have SOs slotted? Any SOs at all. I think we need this info.

I won't say why, but this makes sense to me as well. <.< >.>

Form of the body is a damage buff. Why wouldn't you use it, or buildup, or followup or rage when testing a set?

I, of course, agree but was told by quite of few fellow beta testers that not only was my test invalid because the builds were NOT identical but that it was also invalid because I was using an "outlier-edge-case" like claws.

My spreadsheet says I have 61 but I'm planning another great purge. On the plus side, I'm just about to crack 2000 vet lvls total and that doesn't include all the incarnated 50s I've already purged over time.

But here's the question that's gonna really bug me: Which is the more valid test? Using identical builds between ATs, or leveraging what one can per AT per build? For the claws/sr test, I intentionally lowered the tank's mitigation down to the brute's lvl which freed up room for other things as mentioned above. Or am I going about it all wrong and I should be testing at +0/x1 with nothing but SOs?

But an inv brute on SOs isn't nearly as tanky as an inv tank on SOs. And a properly IOed tank will have to use less slots/bonuses to achieve the same def/dr stats as the fully IOed brute while having more HP and able to convert the excess into damage output. Example: For testing purposes, I created an em/shield brute that has the exact same build as my shield/em tank here on live. (Swapping AT IOs, of course.) Sure, damage is nice, but the tank can handle max diff and buffed Cimerorans while the brute folded in the first large room at standard max diff because it's not even softcapped to melee. The changes necessary to get that brute to at least the softcap is going to mean less damres to go with its lower HP and no clue what kind of damage hit it will take. Here's the really sad part... initial testing between the two on beta with Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Sim is showing nearly identical clear-all times at max diff. Which, I guess, is better than when I did this test with my claws/sr scrapper-brute-tank and the tank did better than the brute.

Yikes. This is gonna hurt. Going from tank to brute with identical builds (except for AT IOs) with shield and em, the brute loses 10% def across the board and about 20% damres. Don't even have melee softcapped. Edit: Oh, nevermind. These guys in your mish are pansies. 🙂

You know I'm happy to help. Point me at a target and I'll go killin. I have at least one of every AT except stalkers and masterminds. Stalkers cuz I hate not seeing my costume and stalker-claws ain't got no spin and masterminds cuz... dude, they just suck. They suck really bad for this crap I like gettin into. Gimme an AE mish to repeat ad nauseum to gather data and I'll hit it. It was never "lol why make a tank" for me. Instead, it was "i didn't have a reason to crank a tank until Werner said "try it this way" and I had to do so." And in doing so, I was forced to see just how wrong things really are on that front.

An effective solution wouldn't have involved tanks suddenly replacing brutes to the scrap pile for end game content.

While completely ignoring those poor EATs that actually need something done. I'll stick with "unwarranted and unnecessary" in regards to the tank changes that obviously occurred for no other reason than someone's personal whim and bias.

It's pretty sick and could probably be better since I don't do procmonster builds.

Shield?

I'd keep whichever character wasn't fully built/T4ed/etc. As soon as it was "done" it'd get deleted to make way for the next one. Edit: I'd also move to one of the other CoH groups because that'd be just plain awful.

So why waste time overbuffing an archetype that didn't need it rather than working on the archetypes that actually NEED help in that arena?

Fun is wonderfully subjective and can override logic at the drop of a hat. There's as many different opinions on what fun is as there are posts in any given thread. Even our own brains can find something fun one day and boring the next and then swap back. My personal struggle is that often times seeing an imbalance in the underlying structure of the game can become a detriment to my enjoyment of it and that prompts me to action.

Bettin you meant Tanks, Blasters and Defenders.... why, it's almost like someone feels that everyone should go back to holy trinity gameplay and damn anyone that disagrees... hmmmmmmm.

The cut of your jib is approved. Bring in @Lineato do an 801 overhaul of all enemy groups. The pitchforks and torches will no doubt follow but I'd love it.

I'm in this camp as well. Attack chain above all. Do I have the recharge to feed it and get any pauses covered or at least extremely minimized? Do I have the end to back it up for constant nonstop carnage from the moment I enter the fight until it's over? Does it look good while I'm doin it?

Brutes have tanker *caps.* Caps that aren't generally achieved while solo. Sure, that granite brute over there can hit 'em and fury negates the -damage from the set, so there's a case where it makes sense to ignore the extra HP the tank gets and just go brute. I suspect Invulnerable brutes can self-cap S/L damres, too. But for the majority of the time from 1 to 50, the brute has nothing above scrapper level mitigation except more HP. Back when the tank changes were in beta, I did ask for brutes' *base* mitigation values to be bumped to halfway between tank and scrapper values. It made sense. As damage output goes down, mitigation should go up. Now? Nah, I'm sick of the power creep. At this point, I just want to see the tank AoE buffs reverted. They were ridiculously unwarranted and unnecessary.

You'd think.... but I've seen the builds and seen them in action. There's a whole lotta players out there that don't consider end-sustainability as important because they mostly team and can just slow their roll to get end back. To the OP, there is only one proper way to design character builds. MY WAY! ALL OTHER WAYS ARE WRONG AND USELESS!!! Editor's Note: the above statement has no relation to reality and should be taken completely as the a joke it was intended.

But the game did get easier for everyone playing tankers.