Bill Z Bubba

I took down 50 pylons in a single day for testing purposes.

Still takes threads. It's *almost* there.

Took me a second.

As Krimson mentioned, transferring threads to emps would please me. Buying threads with influence? Sure. There's already an inf cost toward building greater components from lesser components, why not have it go all the way? As it is now, I cranked up a new db/nrg scrapper, PLed her to 32, played into the 40s with basic IOs, and go her to 50 tagging along on some max diff ITFs. It took looking through just a few alts to get her 3 transcendents (150 emps) to get her started and I've easily got enough on other alts to finish her out should I desire. Total process time? Couple days? So none of this is a NEED but we didn't NEED access to capes at level 1 either. Some things are just pure QoL and being able to utilize our ill-gotten gains (that's tongue in cheek, my gains ain't ill) to hasten our ability to get T4ed sounds lovely.

Gloom has better DPA than Dark Blast. At least as per Mids.

Partially correct. Nerfing is what happens when something is initially designed incompetently and needs to be corrected for balance. I look forward to the new hard mode stuff but I don't see that it has anything to do with the OP. Being able to steamroll through DA repeatables fighting essentially +1s for +4 rewards remains silly AF. Hard mode options in various TFs won't correct that incompetently designed mechanic. Even alpha functioning everywhere was a mistake from the get go. Moving on is no reason to leave broken garbage broken.

I guess I should note that so far all pylon tests are also done with T4 Alpha Musc Core and T4 Inter Degen Core.

Couple more runs. I will be respecing the sr/claws tank. That's just horrible. Claws/SR Tank Core 5:19 5:49 5:50 5:48 5:40 Avg: 5:41 Throw out best and worst: 5:46 Claws/SR Tank Radial 6:55 6:33 5:43 6:05 5:40 Avg: 6:11 Throw out best and worst: 6:07 Fire/Bio Sent Core 3:34 3:59 3:39 3:14 3:25 Avg: 3:34 Throw out best and worst: 3:33 Fire/Bio Sent Radial 3:50 3:53 4:02 3:34 3:44 Avg: 3:49 Throw out best and worst: 3:49

Were you focusing on AoE output? I've got a staff/bio scrapper that runs both +damage forms and I found the AoE output pretty dang good. Course, bio makes all damage exceptional...

Here's the sd/nrg tank numbers. Tank Core 2:46 2:48 2:50 2:59 2:48 Avg: 2:50 Throw out best and worst: 2:48 Tank Radial 3:34 3:31 3:01 3:10 3:27 Avg: 3:21 Throw out best and worst: 3:22 Going to have to run 10 more with the claws/sr tank to see if it gets the same spread. And then a nrg melee brute. And my fire/bio sent. Probably the claws/bio scrap as well. Later. Need a break.

Not what I expected. Claws/SR Scrapper and Brute. 5 runs each with Assault Core and Radial. Core absolutely helps the scrapper but it seems a complete wash on the brute. Assault clicked with time starting. Pyronic core thrown in when up. Hasten on auto and practiced brawler clicked manually after allowing hasten to fire off. I'll do the same test with my sd/nrg tank later. Scrap Core 2:35 2:44 2:35 3:07 2:54 Avg: 2:47 Throw out best and worst: 2:44 Scrap Radial 2:46 3:03 3:39 3:21 3:07 Avg: 3:11 Throw out best and worst: 3:10 Brute Core 4:20 4:34 4:35 4:44 4:39 Avg: 4:34 Throw out best and worst: 4:36 Brute Radial 4:11 4:54 4:30 4:45 4:27 Avg: 4:33 Throw out best and worst: 4:34

I can find the hole just fine! It's my accuracy that's in question.

I just wish it was a better map. I hate the drop shafts as I miss them too often.

Unlike single target damage, it's hard to get consensus on rules for calculating aoe damage. I've been quite happy with my claws/fa brute for farming but I still place claws firmly in the not-the-best at either ST or AoE but damn good at both camp.

I go flares over fire blast so offensive it is! /blaze, flares, blazing blast, flares. Ain't the best chain but it's purty.

Can't open the build for some reason but I'll happily tell you what I do with my claws/fa brute farmer but it all boils down to the combine insps binds. Head to the P2W vendor and disable large inspiration drops. They don't drop enough to combine them often so they clutter things up. Think I also have rezzes and breakfrees disabled completely. Using the following, I always have a medium luck active which gets me to the fire defense softcap. FIre resists are capped without insps, of course. The first bind combines all Tier2 insps into lucks. The 2nd, all Tier2 insps into damage. The 3rd, all Tier1 insps into damage. As long as I have a few T2 lucks handy, I'll just hit F2 and F3 and chew them up as much as possible. The extra damage is key to clearing maps fast at +4/x8. F1 "inspcombine Dramatic_Improvement Good_Luck$$inspcombine Take_a_Breather Good_Luck$$inspcombine Keen_Insight Good_Luck$$inspcombine Rugged Good_Luck" F2 "inspcombine Dramatic_Improvement Focused_Rage$$inspcombine Take_a_Breather Focused_Rage$$inspcombine Keen_Insight Focused_Rage$$inspcombine Rugged Focused_Rage$$inspexecname Focused_Rage" F3 "inspcombine Respite Enrage$$inspcombine Catch_a_Breath Enrage$$inspcombine Insight Enrage$$inspcombine Luck Enrage$$inspcombine Sturdy Enrage$$inspexecname Enrage" Edit: My attack chain is followup, burn, spin, followup, shockwave, fireball... usually adding something after fireball (consume, fiery embrace, whatever.) And of course I'm spamming pyronic core and ageless core as I can along with Radial side Lore pet to pull in more aggro.

Based on the menu sizes, I'm guessing that's 800x600? Maybe 1024x768.

You won't learn how bad your builds are. You'll only learn where your single target damage sits. If you have amazing aoe, this test won't show it. If you have amazing mitigation, this test won't show it. HOWEVER, if you want to get a general idea for how long it will take you to fight other hard targets like AVs, GMs, etc... then it's a fantastic test.

I have one SS user and he's a joke bunny character. I don't see creating another just cuz it gets ported to scrappers. And, no, it's not just the rage crash. The whole set except for foot stomp annoys me.

That's a pretty thing, @Voltak

Throw me in the "just want to watch it all burn" group. Not so much setting the fires but definitely enjoying the smores.

My time/fire defender is pretty awesome. Solos better than most of my squishies, too.

Nuthin. Playin a db/nrg scrapper right now. It's strong, sure. Kinda fun. The animation time on Nrg Drain is a bit of a downer but Energize is freakin awesome. It also sits at 51.9% DDR. Tank's would scale up to... something, but my shield tank sits higher thanks to dbl stacked AD, so we can't blame that, either. There's a whole nuther discussion about the numerical superiority of shield over sr and adding another into the mix just means sr should get the master brawler change. Too bad the rule's already been broken with NrgMelee. Now the flood gates are open to balance however they want through single power tweaking and it's just a matter of time/priority.

Why? If they were properly balanced sets then no tweaks would be needed at all for either.

I'd have to argue that the players not interested in the mechanics of the game that allow for stupid-X tricks will not be getting themselves involved in hard mode in the first place. I hope they do, I hope hard mode is a raging success story, but I'm also a realist and a cynic.