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To answer the title question of the thread: I think Savage Melee is best on Brutes, but I will disclose that I am not relying on an assessment of comparison that relies on using Cross Punch or Pylons. Savage Melee certainly feels suboptimal on Scrappers. It isn't miserable, just that it feels like getting Fury bonuses on the DoT would be better for this primary. This thread was resting in peace, and after a straightforward question about the change to the Brute Damage Cap (from January 2020) we immediately get a rehearsed monologue of "Brutes were nerfed" that several other users felt obligated to explain the circumstances around why (a) there was no "Brute nerf" and (b) bringing Tankers up so that they don't take an order of magnitude longer to clear maps than any other melee is a good thing. Luckily we didn't get re-burdened with the famous "testing" that shows one player's clear times are all roughly equivalent for content that ignores other ATs ... because that "analysis" is about seconds of difference which is treated like it is the end of the world... and all signs point to the "Brute nerf" being the consensus loss of "herp derp, Brutes great, Tankers bad" claims. If certain players hadn't been so eternally willing to default to being so public about "Brutes >> Tankers" I don't think we'd see so much hair-pulling. Tankers were somewhat irrelevant on Live before CoV because Scrappers could pretty much do what Tankers could do, especially once the levels above 40 opened up. As noted recently in this thread: There isn't a LOT of design space for distinguishing among melee classes, especially once they share 90%+ of primary/secondary choices. My personal suggestion (that I wouldn't really want to see implemented, out of respect for existing Brutes) for the Brute AT would be to take a page out of the Sentinel playbook... and somehow make the Fury mechanic work like an enemy debuff (in melee)... because melee has basically run out of design space for the "make this AT hit HARDER" and/or "make this AT resist BETTER". If Brutes could reliably debuff enemies that ought to both "improve solo Brute clear times" (even though I think this is already a marginal concern) and "why team up with a Brute?" (even though I see no shortage of Brutes in team play).

I think @Nemu hit the most salient point: Mental Manipulation's lack of a toggle sustain makes it harder (but not impossible) than other secondary choices to build a higher-performing Blaster. The Storm primary can be a little tricky to leverage, but since solo play was emphasized I don't think the common complaints about Storm will turn out to be that big of a deal. My personal advice in this circumstance (new to Blasters) if you aren't trying for a specific concept would be to pick a secondary (with a level 20 toggle sustain) that either: Let's you stay at range, when you prefer, and/or Has powers that you could either skip or play with different choices as you level up Plant Manipulation is IMO a good secondary that allows for skipping powers. I'd suggest skipping Skewer, Ripper, and Thorn Burst. The remaining enemy-affecting powers are mostly controls/debuffs. Tactical Arrow is an "all range" secondary that you don't need to take all of the "attacks", but are worth experimenting with.

I can explain some of my reasoning. Low level attacks already have pretty quick recharge times, which pretty much only get better with common slotting choices. At low levels "gaps in attack chains" can be trivially filled with S.T.A.R.T. vendor attacks, including up to three free "prestige" attacks. Below level 10, there is no "perma-Hasten" so it isn't as if the extra recharge is a constant feature of the character. Below level 10, powers are very unlikely to have enough slots in them to handle the endurance burn from using them, in addition to the Hasten drop Endurance cost. As I've written before: If a player is focused 100% on only level 45+ play, I can understand why Hasten could be taken at any time in that build. For (much) lower level content it is a pick that IMO "costs too much" for a LOT of content without giving that much in return. If I >squint< can almost see a possible exception for a character that wants to have something like Howling Twilight (base recharge time of 3 minutes, available at level 6) to recharge faster, but that would still essentially require delaying the use of a sub-level 10 Hasten until only after casting Howling Twilight.

It is common in *my* builds that the final three (or four, or five) power picks are chosen to "mule" certain Enhancement pieces. I like to get both the flavor and the power of the character mostly built by level 30 power picks. I have exceptions, but that is my general approach. Stealth and Infiltration are mules for LotG Def/+Recharge (and/or 20% Slow Resistance from Winter's Gift when I was experimenting) . The Concealment pool is a very convenient pick for Defense mules (plus the travel power). I happen to find that these two picks are superior (in utility) to Grant Invisibility for most of my characters. Aid Other was chosen as a mule for the %Absorb piece. As noted above, Combat Jumping may be the lowest Endurance cost toggle in the game. When not using it for LotG, it is a convenient early level pick for the Kismet +ToHit piece (which helps improve the damage of Fast Snipes)... IIRC the Targeting Drone slotting gets me just under 22% +ToHit, and the Sniper attack is somewhat late in this build so I passed on the Kismet piece. If I was trying to put Fly into the build above, I guess Wall of Force is the power to drop, and replace either the Leaping or Concealment pools with the flight pool. I've delayed Unleash Potential, but having it as early as possible is something I find to be a big help on lower level content. You should be able to rejigger the mules, have Flight early (for concept) and repurpose some slots. <- This kind of decision point (wanting powers for concept, wanting powers like from the Force of Will pool for utility, running out of pool choices) kinda gives the game away why *I* don't blindly add Hasten to Dominators, but instead chase the set bonuses to get the global recharge necessary for perma-dom (down to 22). I know the reasons why folks (especially Dominators) take Hasten below level 20, but I feel like I get so much out my enemy-affecting power picks before level 20 I'd rather not sacrifice/delay any of them just to have Hasten.

I've never been a fan of Trip Mine (or its variants). Part of it comes down to its a lot of effort to pull off the sorts of tricks that come to mind, and I'm not sure it isn't faster just to eradicate enemies with direct attacks. Eventually, I'd want to place Trip Mines while in the middle of enemies and I don't know how that would go over in regular play. Also: I got a LOT of teleporting unwilling enemies around out of my system on Live. I've come to see Wormhole as more of a reliable mass Stun that has a side effect of lining up those teleported.

My Grav/Arsenal Dom went with Unleash Potential, see snapshot below :

I am always spending the Blue Bar, so I prioritize +MaxEnd and +Recovery. I will eventually spend some of the Green bar, so +HP is welcome (it also synergizes well with Scaling Damage Resistance) +Regeneration is a lower priority, except on Tankers/Brutes (big sacks of HP) and resistance-based Scrappers/Stalkers/Sentinels.

Technically true, but also IMO a waste of slots for a Mastermind. /Cold MMs should take the Ice Shield, and primarily only consider Infrigidate for debuffing hard targets. %Damage away on a different AT that needs the single-target DPS boost, MMs will have their henchmen. I agree that Marine *is* an 'overperforming' set, but after thinking about it... it really only becomes this way (offensively) on teams, so solo ATs with lots of henchmen, pets, pseudopets are where it sees the largest performance jump. I'm not sure TPTB actually see this as an issue... it seems like this is exactly how it was intended to perform (sort of like Plant Control is OP compared to most other control sets).

The base Accuracy of Rise to the Challenge is "only" 1.0, so in addition to the toggle giving it a poor chance, the ToHit chance won't be particularly good (against higher con enemies). For Tankers, I typically only opt to include the Perfect Zinger %Psi piece in attacks. Some Tanker primaries have good candidates, but not IMO Willpower. I don't even use %Psi in Taunts, because I like the set bonuses from Mocking Beratement better, and the max number of targets for a Taunt is only 5.

In the Homecoming era, IMO there isn't much solo-experience different between the melee classes. Tankers are a fine choice, as they will get generous amounts of HP and the larger range of melee powers is very nice, even without trying to fine-tune a build with enhancements.

Regarding Accuracy and ToHit, when considering %damage, here is what I typically do for my characters: 1) Any power with multiple %damage (or other %procs, like %-Res) pieces will also include Accuracy enhancement(s). A power that misses won't apply *any* damage. Typically this is via Accuracy/Endurance Reduction (and/or Accuracy/Damage/Endurance) franken-slotting, boosted if possible... or when I don't care about whatever the set bonus might be. In long recharge powers, this can be Accuracy/Recharge instead. Some powers simply get an Accuracy IO. There are some subtleties depending on the specific power: Some candidate %damage powers have a really good base accuracy, so adding accuracy isn't strictly necessary Some good %damage candidate powers don't take Accuracy pieces, but can get Accuracy boosts from Enhancement Sets (*but not HO/DSyncs) Neither henchmen, pets, nor pseudo-pet attacks benefit from any +Accuracy or +ToHit set bonuses that apply to player, unless the source is an aura that affects all friendlies. These almost always need to have accuracy slotting (especially if level shifts for henchmen are in play). 2) Players can benefit from enhancement bonuses +ToHit (e.g. Kismet) and global +Accuracy (e.g. most purple sets) bonuses such that they might be able to skimp on accuracy slotting in some powers for some content. Mileage varies of course, especially if a player is being debuffed or facing +N enemies. A tool like MIDS can help assess, but scaling across levels of content and difficulty settings can make this a little complicated. The second point occasionally rears its head when a player leaning hard into %damage plays content and they can't land many attacks... so like a +3 Synapse or Yin TF.

I used to feel the same until: I saw the umpteenth request to ask for MM level controls on "all pets" I saw the umpteenth discussion on "combat levels" (but I can't recall if that discussion was about Incarnate content or not) I played enough content to understand the difference between the different types of pets, and how the powers work and how they behave. On the second point, there are Lore pets, Crabber pets, Controller pets, Epic pets, and "pseudo pets". Of those, the only two that are remotely similar IMO are the Crab (spider) summons and the Epic pets, and even that is a stretch because of the intense amount of effort it takes to be able to resummon an Epic pet when the first summons would expire (of not defeated).. and there is only one of those, so it isn't like a player familiar only with Controllers would know the subtleties of the 3-or-2-at-a-time Spiders, especially if recharge was lagging.

As was (indirectly) mentioned by multiple folks in this thread, Hasten is in a different power pool than Vengeance... so folks may not want to give up the Leadership pool for a single choice from the Speed pool. I suppose this is obvious, but here goes: Vengeance is a perfectly adequate mule for LotG (or Shield Wall, or Karma, or Preventive Maintenance, etc.) This choice shouldn't be that mind-boggling. The "70% sooner" isn't quite right, given the diminishing returns of (not ED, but) how much time gets shaved off of certain powers, especially if the build is going to have Global +Recharge bonuses from enhancements. I'm not saying it would be nothing, more that for many powers the difference in recharge times (at least for my builds) is on the order of the animation time (or shorter).

Don't get discouraged by Tanker early level Tanker play. The early level content is highly tilted towards defeat enemies (quickly) rather than 'surviving' them, so there isn't as much need to focus on the Tanker primary powers... also, early toggles and auto powers don't do that much (generally speaking) at low levels. There are some relatively inexpensive temporary attacks available at the S.T.A.R.T. vendor to help with solo play (especially at low levels). Also: running toggles (especially Resistance) at low levels is not that necessary, and even if teamed it is guaranteed that a toggle (again, especially Resistance) is helping to survive whatever damage (type) being thrown at you. The philosophy of 'defeat quickly' never really changes across level ranges, but once your tanker gets an AoE attack, enemy defeats will start to happen quicker, even at 0x1.

Having played both Street Justice and Dual Blades, I think Street Justice will channel the feels better. I like each of Ninjitsu, Willpower and Super Reflexes on Scrappers.... in that order. Ninjitsu edges out Willpower for me because it is less 'set-and-forget' (in a good way). I actually don't like Energy Aura on Scrappers. It isn't terrible, but I find that (my EA Scrappers) can too easily end up in over their head. For my play style(s) and build choice(s) I find Energy Aura works better for Tankers/Brutes (more HP) and Sentinels (who start combat from range and then close the gap to enemies).

It depends on the timeline, natch.

This is a big reason why I consider Hasten (on top of +Recharge from set bonuses) to be something of a (wishy) wash. In my experience, not character is that worse off with less Global Recharge, except Dominators in the perma-Domination regime. I realize that not every player goes out of their way to kit all their characters with Purple sets, but it really doesn't take that much effort. See also @Jacke point about how minimal (Recharge) slotting of Hasten can work against a player exemplaring down because of Enhancement scaling. The game does have a peculiar number of "capstone" powers with weirdly long recharge times.... especially considering the timers on Incarnate powers... so I grok why folks with an eye on certain ATs higher tier powers or Epic pools would crave more global recharge.

You misunderstand my first post. The game takes some time (both inherently, and because of server-client) to establish that the henchmen (not pets) are within range to 'qualify' for the sorts of things I mentioned.... even if they are otherwise 'in range'. I mention this because even if certain things about 'leashing' were changed, there would still be subtle annoyances such that I wouldn't notice a change in 'quality of life' for MMs. If you don't notice these things now, you certainly would begin to notice them under a different 'leashing' routine. Follow mode also has some subtle defects. It is not at all uncommon, when traveling distances to get the henchmen 'stuck' (often a hench will simply stand in place, this is not a geometry problem like a CoT tiki torch) and one of teh few ways to get them unstuck is to teleport them (to the MM).

There appears to be quite a lot going on "under the hood" with masterminds and (distance from) their henchmen, including how long before the henchmen will benefit from (whatever) auras come from the MM (including those from enhancement pieces) and when henchmen in bodyguard mode will "share" damage meant for the MM. I often surprised that the henchmen work as well as they do.

Some pieces that are (sometimes) called "procs" are better considered to be "one-piece set bonuses" because there isn't anything random about the bonus they yield Some examples include Luck of the Gambler, Panacea +HP/+Endurance. There are others. These provide the 'set bonus' down to whatever level the enhancement set would provide the bonus. This is reason enhancements are typically attuned... some pieces are the same at their lowest level, others have some element that improves with level. Some pieces need to be in a power that is always on (i.e. 'auto') or have long durations (e.g. 2 minutes on the Kismet +6% ToHit)... so the power has to be used to start the duration. These types of pieces (including the Power Transfer %Heal) won't provide the proc benefit id the power they are in is not used. Preventive Maintenance is a special case; it *is* random to trigger once the HP threshold is met, but it doesn't need to be in a power that has been used (or available, if exemplaring down.) Before I answer the question(s) I quoted, be aware of what people mean by 'franken-slotting". I use the term to indicate that I am mixing enhancement pieces from different sets (or no set, like a classic IO or HO) and sacrificing some possible set bonuses (by not using same-set enhancements). I typically only add procs to attacks; I focus on procs that can add damage ("%damage" procs) because my general attitude is that more damage, even applied at random, is "gravy", whereas other non-damage effects are something I would otherwise build for... because "when I want ____, I want ____." When not chasing set bonuses, I almost always decide to franken-slot lower-damage AoE attacks, provided they have a base recharge time of 15+ seconds. High damage ones may get a %damage piece as part of a set, but generally those powers will do more damage by simply enhancing damage... and the damage won't be random. I prefer AoEs over single target attacks because ultimately I am facing large spawns, and the random %damage against multiple enemies will, over time and on average, reduce the total number of attacks I have to make to clear an entire spawn. The only exceptions I sometimes make for single-target attacks to get an extra %damage piece (or more): Epic Snipes, their base attributes are %damage-friendly. T1/T2 attacks from low-DPS ATs, because they need help to clear spawns solo. For example: Infrigidate is a good power to %damage *if* the character won't also have other damaging attacks to use. The most popular non-%damage proc in my builds is probably %BuildUp from the Gaussian's set. I almost exclusively use it in "Aim" or "Build Up" powers. It works well in a leadership toggle if a character is surrounded by teammates/pets/henchmen, but across ATs the only ones that I think are a good candidate for this use are Crabberminds (and possibly other VEATs). My reasoning is this: getting rando %BuildUps on ATs with inherently low damage (like Masterminds) is like earning interest on a very small principal amount. I recommend consulting City of Data v2.0 for the base damage and recharge times to help decide which powers, if any, might benefit from some random extra damage versus which ones should simply be enhanced (and be used to possibly claim some set bonuses).

Years ago (in the HC era) I came to view Hasten (and the inevitable pursuit of perma-Hasten) as a character design trap. I know not everyone sees it this way, but initially (on HC), I saw that it was possible (yay easy to acquire enhancement set pieces!) and straightforward... I remembered the long recharge times of some attacks (and other powers) on Live, so: Why wouldn't everybody go for perma-Hasten? Here are some things that contributed to me changing my mind, such that I now very rarely ever take Hasten. I find the Speed pool to be underwhelming. Super Speed is my second-to-least favorite travel power. I don't need/want anything else the set offers... so taking Hasten was minimally burning one of four pool choices and possibly forcing me into a travel power that I can make work but don't like. I can get respectable global recharge from slotting set enhancements (including the LotG pieces) that are easy to acquire and make the powers they are slotted in better (i.e. Purple Very Rares) I have taken (accurate!) criticism that I "chase Global Recharge, why not just take Hasten", but then the criticism is followed with "How to get perma-Hasten"... so irony-poisoning sets it. I often have another power that I want on auto (more than Hasten). I know how to juggle auto powers, but I find it to be clumsy. I don't like relying on a proc for "perma" anything; sorry Force Feedback %+Recharge. I certainly can build for perma-Hasten without it, but with some of the positive press this piece gets, you might come to believe it single-handedly is granting auto-wins on all content. This is a precious slot that could almost certainly be better used (in whatever power it is placed in, or elsewhere) Finally, I'll be somewhat judgemental. I think it is crazy to take Hasten at level 4, and it is probably a bad idea to take it before level 18. I recognize that there are some ATs with primary/secondaries that might have four powers from both the T1 and T2 choices where only two are needed... but the way I see it, taking Hasten as the third power pick pretty much tells me that they player is not really focused on low (for arbitrary values of "low") level content, and might be the kind of player teammates will be waiting for as they magic carpet around the zone. Who knows what other oddball compromises will be in that build? This is not a criticism of builds that explicitly are only going to play level 45+ content... but I can't recall ever seeing a build with Hasten at level 4 that was advertised as such.