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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.

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.