tidge

Good point about Fusionette and Jim Tremblor. I have always felt that the villain-side arcs involving the Vindicators makes them feel a little more engaged, at least to me.

As with @Riverdusk, it's been years since I ran my own tests against AVs and GMs with both Diamagnetic and Degenerative. For solo: I found that Degenerative was the better choice, mostly because dropping the MaxHP also affects regeneration, and so stacking other sources of regeneration becomes easier (e.g. Envenomed Daggers) from other (non-Incarnate) sources than trying to add a non-incarnate way to stack -MaxHP. Scrappers are likely to pop out Lores for AV/GM solo fights, and -MaxHP is (in my experience) better for all fights leveraging pets/henchmen/summons. Core Flawless is probably the way to go for scrappers. Specific to Masterminds, I usually always go Radial Flawless. The multiple henchmen (and the MM) can usually keep up the lower %proc chance on an AV or GM, and the higher %Damage-over-Time is for the scrubs at x8.

Lots of good stuff, but especially: From a Lore PoV, it absolutely should be Blue Steel giving the (current Synapse) Clockwork King TF, even with the "what is this weird science?" aspect to it. IIRC the only time we get a feel for Blue Steel is in a single Dark Astoria mission.

I want to offer mega-kudos for both the initial idea, the execution of the proof-of-concept, and the patience to have kept up SNS as a thing for so long. I love playing on fun leagues, I've loved the SNS. The memories of Don Knotts will always be with us! I do want to write this: The event stopped being fun for me once it became an effort to coordinate more than a league's worth of Babbage spawns. To be clear: players form the same league dropping out to get "private Babbages" never really impacted my fun, because those folks are all pretty much on the same "same clock", and getting something like as many as an extra six didn't turn the event into a slog (at least for me, MMV). Writing only for myself, the event isn't any less fun with "only six" simultaneous Babbages. Now that we've continually demonstrated that we players can spawn enormous numbers of Babbages, and we all have lots of screenshots, I don't understand why we have to make a coordinated effort among multiple leagues, unless the point is literally to flood the zone with Giant Monster and players, which we know causes lag and invites hard feelings.

Adamastor can BEGONE! Acid Mortars, which have a 100 point KB protection, IIRC.

RIP Lord British.

There are no hard-and-fast rules about multi-boxing in the open world, except for the usual rules based on server load. I do think that if any of the powers-that-be were to look at the rationale(s) for restricting multiboxing for reasons other than server load, they'd realize that multi-boxing Giant Monster murder is not very far down a slippery slope. Personally I fear that TPTB are going to end up restricting Giant Monster rewards on a timer, which would probably drive more players to multi-box giant monsters, because of the 2x or 3x the (hypothetically) time-limited rewards.

I suspect that the confusion about "only on cast" might have come about from powers that end up targeting immediately (such as Caltrops) and also have a 'tick' (which has poor %proc chances because of the extremely short recharge times of the "ticks".) In other words: It can be really obvious for those sorts of powers on cast to see a %proc but it would be relatively unlikely to find the %proc for any of the subsequent tics.

I could try to do some testing. I had slotted it because of the Recharge component even if the proc didn't fire. EDIT: After testing, it fires with the Volcanic Geyser component (as did the other Hold %pieces)

A friendly reminder: Villains can face the Freedom Phalanx at the end of "Who Will Die?" SSA mission #1, provided that you stick around for them to come and check on Synapse.

Disclaimer: I was not present for the Torchbearer SNS in question. Perhaps some (uninformed?) players may have been under the impression that something about the Kronos Titan was causing an issue, maybe because of the specific attacks? There are (precious few) enemy mobiles that can attack and damage each other. AFAIK Babbages/Clockwork and Kronos/Malta are not among them. Other players may be working from a different premise, thinking the Kronos was kill-stealing/scaring the Babbages? There could have been an undercurrent of "Stop (whatever) and listen to Kali!" that got translated (internally, to some players) that "Anybody being public with [Broadcast] advice that runs counter to what the league wants is wrong, and deserves shunning"... there are some folks that aren't real good about filtering, and it is possible that some folks turned their own (inward-directed?) annoyance and waiting around for the "Go Go Go" signal that they turned those bad feelings outward. If I hang out in Skyway before 8pm Eastern, it isn't uncommon to see folks being a little snippy before the leagues are even forming. I want to believe this is all in fun, but it is IMO silly to ask "Has SNS started?" when it is (a) 7:30pm Eastern and (b) it is trivial to see that the Hive is still full because of an ongoing Hamidon raid. It doesn't take much to get some folks to brigade. Hopefully the folks who took the sour approach will self-select themselves away from fun times.

I want to say that each of the %damage powers, when they trigger, trigger on one of the "hold" cycles. As near as I can tell, they work similarly to Poison Trap: The %+Absorb may fire upon cast, but the %damage require a target. Since there are no targets upon immediate cast of these powers, the ToHit check (and %proc check) happen upon trigger, and AFAIK it also requires the pseudopet to not vanish to work; Seeker Drones are one of those pseudo pets that appear to never do %damage. I can't swear that I saw the %Psi, but I know I saw the other %damage when the Hold power activated, per the logs.

As far as I have observed, with regards to both event spawns and standard zone spawns, that there are some identified spawn points that are more likely to have a spawn than others, but there are no spawns points for which I have never seen a Giant Monster spawn. There are some spawn points where I can a couple of months pass between observations of a giant monster thereat. I can't attest that I've been to every identified spawn spot in every zone, but I have covered almost all of the zones hero side, most of the zones villain side, and multiple runs in gold zones. I've done this for regular zone giant monsters (so mostly blue) and holiday events in the red and gold zones.

The complete absurdity of being upset that "someone brought a Kronos Titan", as far as I am concerned, is that had that player/team brought another Babbage the complainers likely would have squealed with delight.

I did some set-swapping to boost the hold values, at the cost of some recharge. I am missing the +Absorb (may add it back, may not) but I more appreciate seeing the critters be held for the duration than the 70 - 100 points of random %proc damage.

Don't forget the certain pets which inherent any boosts the player has while summoning them! So much variety! I have both Masterminds and a Crabbermind. I prefer Masterminds. This is not to say that Crabberminds perform poorly, its more that I don't think the pets (and I went for the Patron Spider pet) are as reliable for the Crabbermind... obviously the lack of direct controls plays into this, but for the most part I never feel like I'm getting that much performance from the Spiders. It is a nice variation to have a Crabbermind be the big bad, whereas my MMs the henchmen end up being the big bad.

I think it is demonstrated (by the later dive into Scrappers, immediately above) that there is a bit of cursory post hoc rationalization possible, for whatever point a person chooses to make on this relative comparison... and I write this not to make specific accusation about rationalizations, but to point out that the Brute/Scrapper/Tanker times are so close and so short which leads to both peculiar variations AND a situation where "small denominators" won't yield particularly informative results. Ston deserves a lot of credit for the efforts to transparently benchmark something(s). I don't think there is (or was) much value in nit-picking it. I feel that way because those times all look to be so short that the differences are (to my POV) essentially trivial. Also: I don't think this guy (points to self) would reliably be able to maintain the sort of attention necessary to keyboard-punch to sustain that sort of effort, even for a single Trapdoor type mission, or back-to-back Pylons... with-or-without travel times, chatter with friends, whatever. This need for a more-constant sort of engagement with the game via Fury is what I was referring to in my first post in this thread, before I was told using slightly different words to STFU and get out of the forum. IIRC, Ston was trying to come up with a new benchmark to replace Trapdoor, primarily because of the 2024 changes to the Council. (This came up in my search-fu trying to find the source of the histograms shown earlier in the thread). I vaguely recall that the original effort was for Ston to achieve the fastest times while trying to balance the different ATs. I'm not going to deep dive into the results or methodology, but I will look at the data when folks point to it as "proof" of something. Ultimately I think it proves that for certain 2023 content, Scrappers, Brutes and Tankers can yield nearly identical completion times.

I smell what your cooking, but that's more a prima facie argument about a the relative performance of specific set, and less about comparing the different ATs. The reported Pylon times for Fiery Melee for a Brute is 1m 40sec, for a Tanker 2m 8 sec. That is a difference of 28 seconds or 28% longer for a Tanker. (Done without a calculator!)

I'm not a hater, but I love fighting the Freedom Phalanx. The parts of the Freedom Phalanx lore that sat wrong with me: Statesman: As originally described, at launch, this was an Invulnerability Tanker. One that could move (without being rooted) and had ranged attacks! Unfair dude! Positron: I think he's had at least two costume changes since launch. The original over-pattern looked a little goofy, but it looked goof on players too! I was more peeved by the lore change that allowed him to remove his helmet... ultimately no big deal, but helmed players can't do that, and it felt more ego-stroking. In canon, Positron's role (or not) with the Well of the Furies seems weird at least to me. Manticore: The guy's role in the Shining Stars arc always seems off. It feels something like a mix of an absentee father as well as not really being present when things go pear-shaped, especially considering the alignment missions. I'm not a great fan of Longbow (in lore), so whatever he's doing with Longbow/Wyvern gets him tainted by association. I kinda feel like the whole Sister Psyche drama was role-playing something I didn't really want to watch. Who Will Die (minor spoilers): It's not like these guys show up to help. The Task Forces that many of them issue can also make me feel like I'm being their lackey. On Red Side, some of them seem much more human (Synapse, anyway).

I am not sure how one can claim the suckiness of Brutes is demonstrated by taking on average 7 seconds longer than Scrappers' or Tankers' (average 5 min 10 sec, for similar attack sets) time to complete (a 2023 version of) Trapdoor, pre nuCouncil.

I have an Earth/Cold build I'm pretty happy with: It's a great teammate, not too flimsy (without trying to be non-flimsy), and while DPS is so-so, it isn't my worst character to solo. I'm completely fine with the placed-AoE powers, although some maps mess with my macros. The one power I have, that seems like a bit of a head-scratcher is Volcanic Gasses. On most characters, I really like the AoE Holds, and I expected this to be somewhat similar. After making decisions on power choices and enhancement sets elsewhere, I landed on this slotting: Gladiator's Net Accuracy/Hold (50+5) Gladiator's Net Accuracy/Recharge (50+5) Gladiator's Net %Damage (Lethal) Superior Will of the Controller Recharge/%Damage (Psi) Superior Entomb Recharge/%+Absorb Unbreakable Constraint %Damage (Smashing) Which is a sort of typical long-Recharge AoE %proc-bomb, albeit with Recharge values deeper in the ED territory than is typical for me. On other AoE Holds, slotting like this adds reliable AoE damage and a good bit of control. It procs just fine, even with a pseudo-pet. The +Absorb is only on cast (this is my expectation, but it's hard to witness this if it also happens later), and the combat log shows the %damage hitting, but somewhat less than if there were no pseudo-pet effects (as expected), but not as poorly as what I've seen from other pseudo-pets. Where the head-scratching comes in: The chaining of consecutive, short-duration holds seems to make this a pretty bad Hold, even with the inherent (1.4) Accuracy of the pseudo-pet. Ultimately the AoE for the potential %damage is not great, and IIRC the target cap is also small (I think 5?)... So.... was my initial thinking to try to leverage %damage wrong on this power? I'm starting to wonder if I should be thinking of this more as a single-target hold that sometimes can catch more than one critter, provided I lean harder into the hold than just the 33% I currently have slotted.

It's ok to not reply to every one of my posts, within minutes, especially if you are going to keep moving goalposts. I thought you were the one asking for Brutes to be "better at surviving"? The Brute ATO set enhancement bonuses for 2-or-3 slotting are directly tied to improving Brute's having more HP, keeping them, recovering them, and damage. Accuracy from set bonuses is nice, but half of all enhancements in the ATO sets already boost Accuracy (one by 33%, two by 26%). The same of course can be written about Damage, but getting close to the damage caps and staying there is kinda the whole point of a Brute's offense.

Brutes have a higher base and max Health than Scrappers, something like 12% at base and 33% more at cap.

I don't disagree about how the %proc effects fall into tiers, but don't undersell the set bonuses that come from 2-slotting or 3-slotting ATOs. Brutes can get multiple Damage/Health Boosts for 2-slotting, and (some) Defenses or Regeneration from 3-slotting. Those line up pretty directly with what many players want Brutes to do. The Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker ATO bonuses for 2-or-3 slotting are much more indirectly tied to improving performance IMO, YMMV.