[Disparity in proc rate between Scourging Blast / Defender's Bastion]

[Why a Brute?]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

I am not sure how one can claim the suckiness of the Brute procs is made up for by getting 9 more hp at level 50 than a Stalker, or at least do so seriously.

 

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.

[Thoughts on Earth Control's Volcanic Gasses?]

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.

[Why a Brute?]

It's ok to not reply to every one of my posts, within minutes, especially if you are going to keep moving goalposts.

 

5 minutes ago, tidge said:

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

 

1 minute ago, Erratic1 said:

You're saying Brutes are fine because they don't suck in 100% of the game, just 85% of it and being pedantic as goes what Maelwys wrote?

 

So long as Brutes do better than a Tanker or a Scrapper on even one powerset, apparently they are fine as you judge things.

 

I thought you were the one asking for Brutes to be "better at surviving"?

 

On 10/15/2024 at 7:38 AM, Erratic1 said:

 

If the average player is not using IOs then Brutes are even worse off because they do not have anywhere near the survivability of Tankers, so the Tankers not only deal more area damage, but they are also staying in combat longer and generating xp faster.

 

20 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

Have Fury buff Brute defense/resistance variably as it does damage with a max target matching...say 40% of the difference between the current gulf between Brute and Tanker base values. Brutes would deal no more damage but would be a bit better at surviving and hence able to actually engage in, "Go, go, go!" play.

 

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.

[Why a Brute?]

1 minute ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Brute's Fury gives the exact same bonus at 2 and 3 pieces slotted as Scrapper's Strike. Stalker's Guile differs on 2pc by giving Accuracy instead of health. Not seeing how Brutes are ahead.

 

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

[Why a Brute?]

18 minutes ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

Compared to the ATOs procs for Scrappers (+criticals), Stalkers (hide for more crits and BU recharge), and Tanks (stacking +res and +absorb), the Brute ones just don't stack up.*

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Archetype_Enhancements

 

* In my opinion, not an official HC statement.

 

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.

[Disparity in proc rate between Scourging Blast / Defender's Bastion]

2 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

If we ignore the Brute Fury proc, which is still bugged, the Defender heal proc is probably the worst ATO proc in the game. So that honestly seems reasonable. Getting to proc an end refund on a big power is nice.

 

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!

[P2W new power - Transport to Contact]

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.

[Why a Brute?]

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.

 

 

4 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

This is a lot like saying, "Everyone else is getting paid more but your salary stayed the same, so you're okay." You and Tidge both ignore the reality and objectivity of actual, documented performance. Again, there it this (and more but not in the mood to link every indicator):

 

[Why a Brute?]

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.

[In-game stock market]

[Power-Pool Presence, let's make it more powerful.]

38 minutes ago, Owl Girl said:

the initial powers are of course terrible outside of theme, but so is Flurry. if the prevailing wisdom is that Flurry is a tax for Hasten, then the same holds for Unrelenting imo. it's so good that I would burn two powers to get it, like Hasten.

 

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

[Question for the HC folk - Do Giant Monsters cause lag?]

1 hour ago, Excraft said:

I don't think it's a problem to have others show up just for the Babbage fights.  The SNS is broadcast in LFG and other global channels when its forming and when the Babbages will start getting rounded up, so other people are always welcome to join in on the fun.  If the league leaders didn't want others to join in on the fun, they wouldn't be broadcasting it.

 

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.

[Why a Brute?]

30 minutes ago, Octogoat said:

Gonna make an HBO Rome reference here so forgive me the dated reference. You play a brute if you want to be Titus Pullo, a tanker if you want to be Lucius Vorenus.

 

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

[Power farming for XP vs Influence]

1 hour ago, Crysis said:

I was on a ToT league last week and everyone was earning a bunch of XP obviously but I didn’t really find it any faster than AE methods minus use of Experienced tokens.  Honestly the Lab seems like it’s likely that sweet spot but as pointed out it takes a bit to organize a group (and not many takers it seems). 

 

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.

[Power-Pool Presence, let's make it more powerful.]

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.

 

 

[Power-Pool Presence, let's make it more powerful.]

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.

 

 

 

[Disparity in proc rate between Scourging Blast / Defender's Bastion]

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.

[Why a Brute?]

Just now, Erratic1 said:

Ston has done that across three different threads with plenty of statistics. You hand-waved the results away.

 

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.

 

[Why a Brute?]

11 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

The question is what would convince you? Given you only show us in the Brute section to naysay Brute problems, I'm genuinely curious.

 

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.

[Why a Brute?]

12 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

You don't play Brutes by your own admission, so how would you know? Oh....

 

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.

[Disparity in proc rate between Scourging Blast / Defender's Bastion]

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

[ToT elite bosses awarding 70% more incarnate experience than they should be (newerish title)]

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.

[Why a Brute?]

I avoid, and have always avoided, Brutes because I have never enjoyed the Fury mechanic.

 

19 hours ago, Story Archer said:

• I feel like a Brute is best served by being able to go-go-go in order to maintain Fury, so when looking at power sets, I'd like something that will offer me some +Rech and something that will help me manage my Endurance issues, without which the first 30 levels or so seem like a frustrating slog at times. It also seems like you don't necessarily want to prevent foes from attacking you so much as you want to mitigate those attacks when they come.

 

 

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.

 

[Halloween GMs Question]

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.