tidge

I *did* suggest testing Touch of Fear. Per CoD, it looks like both the original target and the splash would be subject to the Perfect Zinger %Psi proc.

It is almost certainly a consideration of the specific enemy affecting toggles. I haven't done a deep look, but Fire was certainly always considered to be something of a no-brainer armor set.

Yes! My thoughts are somewhat biased by IOs and set bonuses, which are not hard to come by. For example, you can buy a Steadfast Protection Resistance/+3 Def (All) recipe with 20 merits, which is trivial to get from zone exploration (4 complete zones). Let's set this aside. I have recently leveled up a Radiation Scrapper that only has two "power" sources of +Defense, Melee via Katana's Divine Avalanche, and Shadow Meld at level 38 (plus set bonuses). It does just fine standing in the thick of things.

I don't think I've played Dark Melee since Live. Radiation Armor is IMO a pretty strong set. the combination should be fun, no reason to NOT try it! Opinions follow! -ToHit is IMO a sort of weird debuff, in the following ways. First: It isn't exactly reliable in the sense that not everything attacking (you) will be debuffed. For this combo, the Beta Decay (melee AoE) toggle should do most of the heavy lifting (for nearby enemies). I think that Beta Decay by itself can make a big difference in some circumstances, this is based on my Radiation Armor characters being the 'tanks' for Nemesis Wedding Event content. Second, -ToHit is one of the buff/debuffs on a lower enhancement scale, so in my personal opinion it isn't worth chasing too much (if any) enhancement of that, except mostly through Hami-Os. About the primary/secondary combo: I see a nice synergy between the PBAoE click attacks in each set... there are quite a few opportunities for %damage slotting. The drawback is that these are all generally long recharge time clicks, clustered at higher level tiers, so this is a case where Hasten should yield significant improvement (it wouldn't need to be perma IMO) in damage output. This combo feels (to me) like one that might be a bit dull to play at lower levels until you start amassing PBAoEs (and slots), after which you should be satisfied with it. I suggest taking all 9 of the Radiation Armor powers (I usually delay Proton Armor, as it isn't really needed at low levels and doesn't do that much at those levels, except maybe as a mule). T9 Meltdown is quite good, both as a power and how it fits in with the rest of the primary. I wouldn't delay taking it past level 32. From the secondary I'd probably take: Smite, Shadow Maul, Taunt, Siphon Life, Touch of Fear, Soul Drain, Dark Consumption, Midnight Grasp. If I had to delay any of those, it would probably be Dark Consumption, because of the 3 minute timer. The Powers I would look for %damage would be (levels listed when first available, I'd have to test the Dark Melee ones): Level 8: Radiation Therapy Level 20: Touch of Fear (the 8-second base recharge time is bad for %procs, so this requires the most testing IMO) Level 22: Ground Zero Level 24: Soul Drain Level 28: Dark Consumption If Touch of Fear turns out to be mediocre, level 20 might be when I slot in Hasten. Often at level 20 is when I drop in a capstone pool power, but I haven't put enough thought into this combo to offer any specific suggestion(s).

Some XP is lost, but any additional drops (e.g. recipes, salvage, fishcakes) still have teh same chance to go to whatever PC did (any) damage to the critters before defeat. This is why I try to slot %damage in about half of my characters with AoE Confuse powers. There is nothing magical about the 50%, its just that there are some builds where the AoE Confuse is better served by six pieces of Coercive Persuasion, because of the nature of the %Confuse proc... the 50% is just an empirical result.

I've been at the point where I don't take Secondary Mutation or Mystic Fortune and (when I remember) I deactivate Mystic Fortune on myself. I'm not a hater of the potential negative effects, it is more that the rando buffs/debuffs mess with my own personal assessment of what I'm trying to do with my character as part of a team. Likewise I try to avoid exploding lab equipment... its basically that the novelty has worn off for me.

The "Tankers outperforming Scrappers/Brutes" is somewhat marginal (when presented via "metrics"), and AFAIK only demonstrated in solo circumstances... that is to say, I don't recall a deep dive where two players tackled content with something like a "Blaster + _____" with the blank filled in alternating with Tankers/Scrappers/Brutes.... and the solo measures were mostly level 50 builds in level 50 content. The larger AoE for Tankers does make a difference for %damage... but those larger AoE were IMO necessary to improve Tankers in their nominal role.(*1) As noted by @Sovera, this is a build choice that is impossible to know how large a percentage of population is actually choosing to do so. It may be more than 1% but it feels more like a 1% than a 99%. There are two common quips: "The forums are only a small fraction of the player base" and "the game isn't balanced around IOs". I don't think 'nerfing' %procs or the PPM system is the way to go, because the %damage pieces smooth out the differences in clear times (and all rewards, because rewards come from defeats) for all ATs. We need somewhat extreme magnification to see most of the differences in clear times between Scrappers/Tankers/Brutes, if we put Controllers on those plots we'd need to use log-paper. This argument about "how to improve/nerf ____" is like the rich arguing over the amount of gravy on a dish of roast beef while the poor nibble on bread crusts. (*1) Also "bruising" was an opaque mechanic that really wasn't doing much of anything in terms of performing Tanker clear times, so good riddance.

On a low-level character, while monitoring ToHit bonus (this was a Katana Scrapper) I wasn't seeing any +ToHit from Combat Teleport (when I made an attack) This behavior is still there at level 50.

I'll repost what I did with Dark/Electric. I don't think it is particularly clever, but it can be very fast moving and has been fun on teams. It has at least one toggle that could be skipped, but I included them to see what it would take to make them work. (not every character is an exercise in min-max for me) The "one stupid trick" for this build that may not be immediately obvious is that it has 14 points of KB protection. A couple of simple changes (ehem, drop Cloak of Fear) and it should be possible (via Infiltration and one different slotting choice to use two more +4 point pieces) to cross the 20-point KB threshold for FREEM! without having to rely on SG base buffs to get "Council immunity".

Sometimes I'm curious how deep a user will self-brigade an idea that has been demonstrated to be poorly considered.

I saw the response about Rage crashes... obviously it is only during play that you can make some assessments. Unslotters are cheap! I only wanted to comment on the Radiation part... I have somewhat strong (personal, not "right v. wrong") opinions on how I build the offensive side of Tankers that don't align with the direction you've chosen, so I don't feel the need to yuck-in-the-yum, as it were. (*1) The only other aspect of the primary that I think might be worth taking a harder look at is Gamma Boost. It has an interesting mechanic where the Regeneration improves with damage taken, which may not be obvious from MIDS. For Tankers/Brutes (i.e. "big sacks of HP") I usually try to 2-slot Numina's Covalescence (Heal/Absorb and the +Regen/+Recovery) somewhere, Gamma Boost would be my choice. Those two-pieces can yield a strong triple-whammy of Regeneration on top of Gamma Boost giving it to you when you really want it. (*1) The closest I'll get to being critical about the offense I see here is this: The build looks like an effort to simply get as many %damage attacks as possible... and I'm not quite sure what the anticipated attack chain would be, (read this as "are there too many attacks?") and at what level content you will be trying to maximize offensive output. There are other options for similar %damage attacks available earlier than the epic pools. I single out the epic pools because often I (for personal reasons) typically don't invest many slots in powers after level 35, because the slot investment came earlier in the build.

Here I was, wondering which of my unread threads in the suggestion forum contained my weekly dose of you know what....

Re-read the post immediately above by @Zect especially about how slotting a Very Rare set vs. franken-slotting for %damage isn't always clear-cut. Minor comments about the Radiation choices. Even though Radiation is a Resistance set, I would try to get at least one 4xUnbreakable Guard bonus (+3% Melee Defense) and single-slot Beta Decay with an HO Enzyme for Endurance Reduction, -ToHit, -Defense instead of the %proc. My own choice for Radiation Therapy (with its base accuracy of 3.0!!!!) Would be Touch of the Nictus Heal/Recharge and %Negative (for more Health), 3 more %damage, and then one of the two Tanker ATO procs (because each also has a Recharge component). I'd have to take a hard look at the Secondary's timing and proc rates to decide which one makes more sense, but without looking at all, I'd lean towards the %Absorb from Superior Gauntleted Fist

Hard agree. For my squishier characters (and most "control" types), I will often play solo at -1x3 in lower levels once I have some AoE. The level shift is enough to alter the relative ToHit chances (both ways!) to make solo missions more exciting (and rewarding). This choice has the side effect (for solo play) of quicker collecting more defeats for a variety of badges/accolades in an organic way... like Arachnos Wolfs and Family. Obviously these sort of things can be street swept later, but I see this as a sort of "one stone, two birds" approach.

If you have never tried Combat Teleport on a melee character, let this be the first one that you do try it on.

In my experience, it takes a lot for Singularity to get overwhelmed. Things like multiple +3 spawns where the Singularity has most of the aggro. I have had the Singularity be quickly taken out, but it is far more common that it takes a surprising amount damage (for my Dom) until I can get around to locking whatever is attacking it down. With Power Up, even with its short duration, I wouldn't go deep into a pool just to get a second, similar power. <- This isn't me throwing shade at Adrenal Booster, it's more that the secondary includes a faster recharging power, so why burn a pool choice to chase another one?

As noted: franken-slotting with %damage costs (some, all) set bonuses but can (randomly) increase damage (and variety of damage types) for low-base-damage powers more than simply enhancing the damage aspect of those same powers (via sets or even common IOs). There is the "damage buff cap" but without an external source of such a buff, it takes some effort to get to that point. Hecatomb (as a set) is somewhat interesting to me. It has a hard-hitting and high PPM %Energy piece (obviously). It's set bonuses are the somewhat typical ones (I value the 4- and 5-piece bonuses to Accuracy and Global Recharge). The 6-piece bonus is (for me) very situational. I think it may only be on Energy Aura characters that I went out of my way for extra Toxic/Psi resistance via 6-slots. Often I use five Hecatomb on high-tier powers that no matter how much global recharge aren't going to be available multiple times in a fight... %damage is reliable in those types of powers, but +damage (via enhancements) is too! Across the whole build there is often another, lower-damage power that I prefer to put %damage in.

I'm eternally waiting to see evidence that "Brutes was nerfed (five years ago)". The only across-the-board "subtraction" from Brutes was the lowering of the damage buff cap, which was explicitly lowered from 775% to 700% because of the changes to Fury. I haven't seen any evidence that Brutes got worse in 2020, just that Tankers got better... and that for some classes of builds for some content, Tankers have "faster clear times" than Brutes post i26p4. Unspoken for many of these "But won't anyone think of the Brutes?" threads is that these (slight) differences in "performance" between melee classes are dominated by consideration of full level 50 builds (with or without Incarnates) and pretty much ignore the progression and build possible build/slotting choices as different ATs level up. Tankers and Brutes have different level choices for similar powers; Scrappers and Brutes have different combat fundamentals while leveling. As for what has "been offered"... Increasing resistances for Brutes isn't going to do anything for Brute clear times, as "being defeated" isn't much of a problem for any of the melee classes. The suggestion to increase Brute's survivability to Tanker levels because "Tankers got a damage modifier increase from 0.8 to 0.95" is simply a tit-for-tat ask that would do nothing except make the two classes even less distinct, and would probably not change relative "clear times", unless there is something like a couple of enhancement slots across some builds that could be shuffled. My personal assessment of ATOs across all the ATs is that the Brute ATO %procs (even considering Brute's Fury) don't really stand out as being the least useful... some ATO %proc are clearly great, others not so much. Utility certainly varies across levels and builds, again I feel like the focus is on level 50 builds.

I addressed this problem by keeping multiple macros in the different form "trays".(*1) Having multiple key/mouse binds would work as well, but I use a similar single choice for all my non-Kheldians and ended up just keeping the one key/mouse-bind. There is a sort of similar issue for my characters that have more than one way to teleport (e.g. Burst of Speed and Translocation). (*1) This somewhat depends on how "busy" my trays are. My typical binds and macros for something like Combat Teleport are /bind shift+lbutton "powexec_name Combat Teleport" /macro_image "StaffFighting_StaffMastery" "BAMF" "powexec_location target Combat Teleport" /macro_image "StaffFighting_AssassinsStaff" "BACK" "powexec_location Back:25 Combat Teleport" The third one is only typically used on characters with some sort of cone attack, but it could be repurposed as an escape mechanism. As a bonus, here is a macro I've been using for characters with the Sorcery pool that don't keep Mystic Flight toggled on, but want something similar to Combat Teleport. /macro_image "Archery_Aim" "BAMF" "powexec_location target Translocation$$powexecname Mystic_Flight"

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).