tidge

I definitely think that there are "worse" ATO %procs. The Brute's Fury-bonus proc is probably one of the worst performing game effects that should perform better than it does... see also the VEAT inherents. As an aside, the ATO %procs are all tied to a "pure Recharge" component, so for certain ATs I feel that looking at the 2-piece set bonuses and seeing how those can help an AT, because a Recharge piece on a long-baseline-recharge tied with a single other ATO piece from the same set often looks (to me) like a reasonable choice, if that power was going to be franken-slotted anyway. Mileage varies of course!

There are so many ways to quickly get to most contacts in these sort of FedEx talky missions, I simply don't see the need for this. Writing for myself, I will use LRT, SG base portal, Ouroboros, Tunnel, Submarines/Choppers/Ferries/Trains... In addition to using the Crystals, LFG queue when possible. It also helps to know the zone geometries.

It is not lost on me that the following is exactly the sort of argument that is used to explain why men should always be paid more than women for the same job, because historically men have been paid more than women.

Meanwhile Kheldians are in a far worse position than Brutes. It is silly IMO to keep pointing to "evidence" that some other AT now performs better than Brutes that there is some great injustice that needs to be corrected. Try comparing Kheldian solo performance against a Brutes solo performance in something like a Penny Yin TF if you want to witness a real discrepancy in times. I guarantee the difference in times won't be measured on the order of 20 seconds.

AFAIK Hasten does not require any other picks from the Speed pool.

I think were are going to disagree about this, although I go out of my way to avoid SNS league activity and I don't get worked up about it. Consider that another area of the game that offer tremendous rewards for league-level effort (Hamidon raids and IIRC ISMR) have actual player caps, presumably to make the game experience work better (i.e. play lag-free). I have seen chatter about "addressing leaching", but that would be impossible to prove. SNS is intended to set up a circumstance where much more than one full leagues worth of players (or at least, characters) are present in a zone in a way that would not be tolerated for Hamidon raids.

This threads needs a Titus Pullo reference like it needs a hole in its head!

ToT rewards are uneven. Setting aside the observable issue that it is very likely that some members of a ToT league probably don't have powers, or powers slotted, to significantly contribute to earning rewards... if the ToT league is interrupting ToT to fight Giant Monsters, the Giant Monsters may give merits, but the reward drops are otherwise terrible when compared to mass arrests(*1). Specific to ToT XP, it's the Elite Bosses that give beaucoup XP, and those are the ones least likely to be defeated if the league zips off to fight a Giant Monster. (*1) This discrepancy in XP is one of the reasons why I shake my head at players who hunt for Giant Monsters accompanied by level-less mobiles. I've seen players desperate to fight something like a Paladin but won't bother with the clocks. Defeating all those clocks is not just more XP, but that many more rolls of the rewards table.

Now, about the specific suggestion. I wouldn't change the "schedule" of Fear or Threat. Primarily, I don't see an issue with them as is. Secondarily, I don't want to think of all the downstream changes (particularly with Threat) that would have to be studied! I'm 100% in favor of either a PVP or Very Rare enhancement set for both Threat and Fear. I can imagine why PVP sets for them were never considered/made, as PVP play can get very triggering for some folks, especially when it (historically) involves Taunts and Controls. (We have nothing to Fear but) Fear itself has a complicated game history. But I digress. What I want from PVP (or Very Rare) Fear/Threat sets are pieces which can enhance multiple attributes that don't exist otherwise in the game (outside of Hami-O or D-Sync). Specifically: Threat / Accuracy, because not all threat powers are auto-hit Endurance / Threat, because there are threat powers that are toggles Fear / Accuracy, because there is only the one piece in Nightmare Fear / Recharge, because it doesn't exist at all in set form Also, I'd really like a %Proc (for Fear, but I can see the case for Threat) that acts like %Confuse in Coercive Persuasion. That %proc makes single-target Confuses worthwhile in xN content, so the same thinking should apply to single-target Fears/Threats, making them more useful in more content. If a hypothetical %proc was just %damage, I suppose that would be similarly well-received.

What I find most annoying about the Presence pool are that Of the three "first picks", two of which must be taken to unlock the final two, offer absolutely no synergy, and One of the three "first" picks isn't selectable until the same level (14) as the "final two", which practically delays the choosing of either of the "final two" (assuming a player doesn't want to try to use both Pacify and Provoke). The second point of annoyance is common to the non-travel legacy Power pools, but compare it to how the travel (and origin) pools are where the "first three" powers are each available at level 4. It makes the unlocks at 14 possible. My first suggestion: Change the allowable levels to follow the 1/1/4/14/20 path. I'd sacrifice not being able to pick either Invoke Panic or Unrelenting until level 20 just to make this transition smoother. Personally I think Unrelenting is better, but that Invoke Panic is more useful in lower level content, so I'd be happy either way. On the first point, there is no getting around that Pacify, Provoke, and Intimidate are all very different types of (single-target, or up-to-5 for Provoke) enemy-affecting powers (that each requires a ToHit check. Of the three, only Intimidate offers any reliable synergy with another pool power (Invoke Panic) choice. Even the Medicine's pool does better in terms of synergy! I can't think of a way to make it valuable (from a play standpoint) to choose to take and regularly use more than one of those first three powers without actually boosting the power of them, which is by definition "power creep". I think the least "power creep" thing to do would be to add a secondary effect (or increased duration of the existing effect) to each of those first three powers depending on which of the other (first three) powers was taken, similar to how the Fighting pool gets slight bonuses for having more than one of the attacks. My idea here is that a character (hypothetical example follows) who wants Provoke and has to take Intimidate (to unlock either Invoke Panic or Unrelenting) would now get a "improved" version of Provoke (probably just an increased duration of Taunt), plus has an "improved" version of Intimidate to play with (or not). Obviously these pool powers shouldn't become better than equivalent primary/secondary powers from other ATs.

I'd say the the heal is even less noticeable, because my characters are always spending blue, but working to avoid spending green! Mileage varies of course, for lots of complicated reasons like Scaling Damage Resistance.

The analyses I have seen have been relative AT-v-AT, not absolute (except for comparisons across primary/secondary within an AT) showing that Brute clear times have dropped since 2019(*1). (*1) Obviously the post-2019 changes to resistances/defense/attack typing was a thing, but that change wasn't targeted at player ATs.

I'd be convinced if it could be demonstrated that Brutes are measurable worse, in absolute terms, now compared to where they were in 2019. I am unconvinced that they are now worse because other ATs have surpassed them by whatever metric.

I have played Brutes, but as I noted, the Fury mechanic is something I find annoying enough that I actively dislike playing the AT. I feel the same about Dominators, even with getting them to perma-Dom. Sentinels I rarely even pay attention to the extra bar. The OP's comment on go-go-go spoke to me, sorry-not-sorry that my entire post triggered you. All the melee ATs outshine the other ATs, except for Blasters (modulo surviving), in map clear times... my experience can add MMs to the discussion on fast clear times, but I think MM times are more depending on content. I like Ston's analysis, but I'm unmoved by Brutes being "10% (or whatever) slower" on something like a full-up Trapdoor or Rikti Pylon test... because that's not the content *I* play regularly. I'm also not interested in divergence in AE farm times... not because I'm judgemental about AE, but because that is another one of those solo activities that really isn't affecting game play between two different players.

My hot take: +Endurance is more valuable than either +Absorb or +Heal, with +Absorb better than +Heal.+Absorb isn't in this particular discussion.

Every time one of my characters seems like it isn't getting XP at what I would consider to be a reasonable clip, I have attributed it to being on a team with low-DPS. This can be both because of AT, low-level characters on the team, as well as rapidly leveled characters that don't have attacks or slots. Anecdote about ToT "farming" in Peregrine Island follows. I want to note that I typically take all of a past year's worth of characters to PI to earn the defeat badges, and this roster of characters will be across the gamut of ATs. I'm quite active, because I want the tip mission and costumes. My most recent character I took to earn the defeat badges was a Controller, with low (relative) damage but with a completely slotted attack chain. I started the ToT festivites with them at level 43. I got to 46, but then hit a wall where there was almost no XP coming in. I noticed my team was all "control" plus one low-level scrapper. I dropped, did a TF and got two more levels. The XP rate changes were not affected by patrol XP or 2XP. Patrol XP is a sneaky thing to pay attention to. When that same character got to 50+, I had some time to kill so went back to the PI Hotel to finish Alpha slotting. Alpha finished quickly, but then there was another wall hit when I was moved to another team. That team leader was either AFK or not paying attention (because team leaders can send invites), and the league leader wasn't active about balancing teams either. In contrast, when I was playing my Blasters, I had what I felt was a more even progression of XP and drops.

I avoid, and have always avoided, Brutes because I have never enjoyed the Fury mechanic. I have tried several Brutes because of concept, but Fury keeps getting in the way. I don't think Brutes are in bad place at all, my own "mental model" of why it is easy to see mental anguish about the current (2024, Homecoming) state of Brutes is because for so much of the game it was trivial to argue for the supremacy of Brute over Tankers (in terms of damage, and thus clear times) and the survivability of Brutes over Stalkers/Scrappers (which can lead to a much more laissez faire play style, blah blah blah Fury). "One simply trick" for maintaining Fury was (PB)AoE, so when Tankers got improved AoE (to make them better at Tanking, which was IMO a very smart and effective change (with the effect of speeding up Tanker clear times), it wasn't possible to argue (or gloat in some cases) that Brutes are superior to Tankers. So now the simple argument that "Brute better than Tankers" has become, in the minds of many "Tankers better than Brutes"... which for some folks hurts. Of the vocal critics of "where are Brutes now" it is still (weirdly, IMO) common that an argument is made that "the way to fix Brutes is to nerf Tankers." I find this weird because Brutes were never under-performing by any metric, but Tankers were, by several metrics. As an aside: in the early days of Live (pre-CoV) it was already obvious that Scrappers could out-perform Tankers, especially when it comes to map clear speeds. The difference in survavibility between a Scrapper and a Tanker rarely manifested itself in most content. Once Brutes could be played on the more populated Hero side, it should have been a no-brainer that the popularity of Brutes would eclipse that of Scrappers, for players that wanted faster clear speeds AND fewer face-plants.

The Hallowe'en Event Giant Monsters are the 'old school' (original) versions of Jack in Irons and Eochai. This means: They don't have all the new mechanics/powers of the 2024 versions They don't have all the stats of the 2024 versions They have MaxHP based on zone They don't drop the rewards of the 2024 versions I *believe* that the spawn rates favor Eochai (in each zone) because Jack is harder (at low levels). Jack has better resistances, harder-hitting attacks, and spawns level-less critters. I think the Fir Bolg summoned by Eochai are either level-set by zone or below player level (I feel like I have seen them con blue in most zones). The seven members of the Unseelie court are IIRC always even level for the part of the zone they are in. Event Eochai does have a 'pumpkin patch' but it isn't the 2024 version. An interesting side effect of the 'old' Pumpkin Patch is that the knockback from it can 'lock' some MM henchmen into a frozen pose, locked in place and the henchmen become unresponsive to all commands. I haven't observed this with pets. The new/2024 version of Pumpkin Patch has the effect of drawing things back into it, which seems to counter-act this game engine issue.

I do not think it are the league leaders, or the folks that lead teams on the league that have a sense of entitlement. I've played with enough of them (on and off SNS) that the attitude is fun, with a slight variance around how long do we want to play in any given mission (i.e. difficulty) that shifts from time-to-time. The *only* behavior about the league(s) running the Synapse TF themselves that even borders on entitlement IMO is that while the Babbages are being gathered the zone becomes a lag-filled crawl for anyone who happens to be running missions in the zone for a non-SNS reason. 20+ minutes of filling a zone with players and Giant Monsters is somewhat excessive IMO. I feel like I see shades of entitlement from the folks who swarm the zone (with or without their own private Babbages) who I gotta believe are just there for the reward drops. I've seen enough players drop from a Hami league after a triple bloom to know it isn't the challenge plus reward that engages some folks.

I'm sorry this happened. For better or worse, it feels (to me, can't speak for anyone else) that there is an undercurrent of (different types of) entitlement when it comes to Torchbearer's SNS. It was a fun idea, and a neat player-instigated challenge to the game's mechanics to simul-spawn multiple concurrent instances of the Giant Monster. I really got a kick out of playing the event for the first few months, between "it's not a race", "Our challenge settings are WHAT?", "How about we defeat that Boomtown Babbage for the lulz?", etc. For quite some time it's felt more like "give me my merits!" with a LOT of broadcasting about (a wide spectrum of) behaviors. I got a small number of less-than-polite comments for bringing a Babbage to Synapse before the leagues formed and launched! I did this to break up the monotony. I'm sure those players had a rationale for acting upset, but I was like WTF, we're all here to face this thing right? We would occasionally get player-spawned Kronos before the event too, and I thought that was great fun. While there hasn't been a shortage of folks in the Saturday Night Skyway City zone "making mistakes", and I don't doubt that there are possible griefers, I find it easier to believe that there are some fraction of players that simply don't know how the game works on some basic levels. I know that multi-boxers, despite their own self-assessment, don't really pay attention to everything... I used to see the usual multi-box suspects standing by, occasionally with things like damage auras on, or their pets on defense (and triggering more aggro), etc. The aggro management is tricky, because even Tankers with Taunt only have an aggro cap of 5 targets. I'd want to believe that a small handful of Tankers could keep all the Babbages taunted but as a practical matter I don't know that once there are more than 12 that at least one of them isn't going to actually be taunted. My Tankers have a 6-slotted Taunt, and when one decides to break off, it hasn't been trivial in the past to get its attention.

For two, sure. This was about Nx100 bids tho.

My take: I like the only Tanker on the team to be paying enough attention to the area to be controlling the aggro and switching targets. The Tanker is going to need tools/strategy to deal with any enemies that aren't moved by Fold Space.

How did this effort turn out? If I were to use those pools, I feel like I'd probably lean into the Sorcery pool hard, making sacrifices from the primary (Mind Control). For this character, I'd definitely take Arcane Bolt (with 5xArmageddon), Mystic Flight (probably 2x or 3x Blessing of the Zephyr), and Rune of Protection (2x Resistance mules). The other two powers are useful, but I'd de-prioritize them. For the Mind Control primary, I'd want the higher tier picks (T6 thru T9) and the earlier ones to taste. The Time Manipulation Secondary is where the fun is. You definitely want Time Crawl, but it only needs a single slot with something like a H-O Endoplasm. If you want to try to leverage it for damage (since you should be using it on all your targets) 2x Pacing of the Turtle (Accuracy/Endurance, Accuracy/Slow) and 2x %Damage works for me. Temporal Mending is a good power for Healing sets (I use 6x Preventive Medicine). Time's Juncture only needs a couple of slots, look at 2x H-O Enzyme. I slotted Distortion Field with a boosted Endurance/Recharge/Slow piece and a Superior Entomb (Recharge/%Absorb). Time Stop is used (by me) as a proc-bomb, 3x Gladiator's Net (boosting Accuracy pieces) and 2 or 3 more %damage. RNG works against more than 3 %proc hitting, but this is an AoE so 4 seems reasonable to me. Slowed Response is another power that can have a couple of %proc, if so I recommend 2x (boosted) Analyze Weakness to include Accuracy slotting. I have Farsight franken-slotted: LotG Def/Recharge, 2x Hami-O Membrane, 2x Gaussian's (ToHit/Endurance, Recharge/Endurance). I have Chrono Shift slotted with boosted 50+5 pieces: 2x Panacea (Endurance/Recharge, Heal/Recharge) and a boosted Endurance/Recharge (I used Doctored Wounds). I looked at different combinations, this is what I settled on. I skipped Temporal Selection. This is a good power for allies, but I find it hard to predict which ally will really benefit from it, because of choices those players make, and how close to 'caps' they are. The AoE controls/buffs/debuffs are more reliable in my experience. I'm not a huge fan of Psionic Mastery, I would probably only take Indomitable Will and Mind Over Body. I really dislike World of Confusion, it will barely make a difference if you 6-slot the Coercive Persuasion set in the AoE Confuse, and not at all if you also take the single-target Confuse for stacking. Some folks swear by those sorts of toggles, but between the necessary ToHit checks, small AoE and need for slots I find WoC to be too costly (in terms of slots) and it requires other layers of powers to make work. Mental Blast and Psionic Tornado can be fine, but a word of caution: Those attacks will only be available at higher levels, and at high levels there are a lot of enemies that highly resist Psi damage. I'd consider them only if I wanted them for theme, or for specific set bonuses.

Circling back: I ended up slotting Gale with 2x Accuracy IO at 50+5, and two %proc pieces. I alternate between 2x %Damage or %Damage + %-Resistance, I swap into the %-Resistance for my AoE when on teams. Storm/Storm offers multiple AoE powers that can accept the %-Resistance from Annihilation and/or Achilles' Heel, so when teaming I like having those in multiple powers to extend the time of applied -Resistance as a force multiplier.