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The best reason IMO for slotting Coercive Confusion in an AoE control was, IMO that with a reliable %proc chance, it became practically unobservable to 'miss' hitting every critter in the spawn because of 5% RNG... the followup rolls of the proc always (per my observation) hit the enemies. I think I did see times when teh magnitude of a Confuse wasn't enough for Bosses, etc. but otherwise every critter in a spawn would get the Confuse effect, even if some of them only had the short duration version. Having written that, %damage in a Confuse AoE wasn't a bad thing, as any %damage got you on the list for potential reward drops, even if the critters defeat each other.

Thanks! This is basically what I did (years ago) to try to understand 'nerfs to Brutes'. The biggest one I see is the top value for Damage Buff... I'll leave it for others who routinely and consistently crossed from 700% towards 775% to say how they were affected. I remember many people being upset about 'massive nerfs', and maybe those players favored Brutes? The items in that category are (from memory): 1) Defense (& attack) typing changes which meant players chasing single resistances (for example S/L or F/C) became vulnerable to content that they had not been vulnerable to previously. 2) Fire melee set changes (that came to include Defense Debuffs), which was most noticeable for fire farmers 3) Changes to the in-game rewards, like scaling rewards of Empyrians, lvl 49 XP->Inf going away, conversion rates of Vanguard merits, etc... many of these were targeted at AE (and some non-AE) farm-ish activities for the economy of the game and nothing to do with performance. It's not a secret that in the early days of Homecoming, 'Farming with Brutes' was typically the default advice (for those who wanted to farm). I'm wondering the 'nerfs to farming' have gotten confused with 'nerfs to Brutes'. None of the three changes I listed were targeted at Brutes, although #1 had a larger impact (from my memory) on ATs that were capable of exceeding a very high resistance cap.

Just some personal comments, based on a few recent posts: I used to feel the same, and how I mitigated this feeling of drudgery (on solo) was: At low levels, I use START attacks. They still have terrible damage scales, but they are damage. At medium+ levels, I add %damage. The damage procs are pretty much the only thing that keeps Controllers having solo times within an order of magnitude as other ATs. For teams... usually it is the case that a couple of powers offer the same type of control (e.g. Holds) as a ST and AOE. I usually try to make sure I can stack those (on single targets) I try to stay with the players that aren't rushing off... and if everyone else is, I tend to stay with the 'slowest'. Controllers have to be careful, because in my experience they can accidentally grab 'too much' aggro and are far more subject to controls and damage than something like a Blaster.

I want to toss this out here as a potential Live v. Beta test: The Penny Yin TF is one I use (Live only) to test performance differences for different ATs (to speed it). Tankers, Scrappers and Stalkers do best, with times typically just over 10 minutes. The times can vary because of the many different enemies that can self-rez, but I find it to be a good measure of a full-kit performance.

I don't think the current beta Tanker rollbacks are unwarranted, or even qualify as nerfs... so no panic on my part. As I've often written, I like the game best when there isn't an order of magnitude difference in mission completion times for different ATs run by the same solo player. I'm thinking about mid-levels 30-45 content when we start getting a lot of 'defeat all' missions with enemies that have a significant number of extra tricks. Historically (old history), one of the ways I found for solo Tankers to speed this up has been to pull as many enemies along as possible. For small spawn sizes these changes shouldn't really affect Tanker times.

Congratulations, you've discovered the weaknesses in the attempt to leverage this sort of strategy. It isn't even just the two things you've identified! Fold Space requires an investment in two other powers from the Teleport pool. Combat Teleport is awesome, everything else is a lemon hoping you'll invest in a lemonade stand. 'Recharge Intensive pets' are things I rarely dedicate more than 4 slots of Expedient reinforcement for. They do need accuracy slotting. They tend not to have enough attacks to leverage %Buildup or other damaging %procs. The control-oriented pets can benefit from some other slotting tricks, but they are a mixed bag. Long recharge powers require recharge clotting, and a power like Fold Space requires Accuracy. This is a LOT of slots for "one stupid trick." I don't know what would be a better use of slots and powers would be for your build, but I'm sure I could pick an Epic I like more (like Fire Mastery) where I can build towards the debuff and self-rez.

I gotcha, but remember the Blaster panic when Rune of Protection was made to not be affected by Global recharge? As things stand now, it isn't particularly difficult to craft a Blaster with at least one 'Break Free' powers, high global defenses and a self-rez. From memory, the typical issue characters have with Trapdoor is the -Perception from Arachnos.

I agree with Senator @Neiska response above, with slight additions: Blasters "two sets" of attacks is allowing for ~2x higher tier attacks that can be chained because of high Global recharge, One of the largest advantages of Blasters having attacks in both primaries and secondaries is the greater variety in slotting opportunities for (IMO, the better) set bonuses. In the case of #1, I think we can make a strong case that Blaster DPS is as large as it is because of Global recharge... and if there was a 'diminishing returns' on Global Recharge only affecting Blasters... I think we can reliable predict what the reactions would be. If "Tankers kill too fast because targets" is a problem, I think there is an argument to be made that maybe Blasters are achieving too high of a DPS because of global recharge (and crashless nukes, etc.) This is NOT an argument I would make, because the game was a lot duller when it was a grind. In the case of #2... "the game isn't balanced around IOs"... yet... It does usually sit uncomfortably with me that all flavors of blasters can slot their ATOs in either Primary or Secondary powers, which gives them even more opportunities to slot the offensive Winter, Very Rare, and PVP sets too. This isn't a freedom of slotting choice that most other ATs have.

Issue 1: The level cap for Tankers is increased to 50; the level cap for Brutes remains unchanged.

This makes me wonder about the Tanker-targeted scale changes to self-buffs (and debuffs). I'm not thinking these changes are the end-of-the-world but they have the stink of "everything and the kitchen sink" being thrown into the mix (to scale back Tanker performance). My opinion: the majority of the inspirations do what Tankers do via having to pick powers... and not all Tanker primaries are created equal... so if enemy is dead before needing most of a Tanker can bring, it's not like most content requires a Tanker. Not needing an AT doesn't bother me, I'm more interested in seeing regular mode content be able to be completed in roughly the same amount of time across ATs. I don't farm, and the stuff I solo that might look like farming isn't at +4, so I won't notice as much of the effects of those as others might... but on +4 team content I can't say that my Tankers have been providing that much of the teams damage... although I have been applying debuffs when possible (and when they would make a difference).

By many accounts, the only reason Scrappers pull ahead of Brutes (to the limited extent Scrappers pull ahead) is because of the Scrapper ATOs (increasing critical chances, *1), so I really want to know what it was that "kneecapped" Brutes. I think everyone can agree that Tankers pull ahead (again, to the limited extent shown in Ston's tests) were because of %damage chances improved by the +AoE +Cone changes to Tankers (which are going to be addressed in i28p2, scaling those back). (*1) I think Brute ATO procs are mediocre, but I'm not sure they are the worst. I don't think that ATOs should be what the ATs are balanced around.

No real recommendations, but I can share the following: CoX plays great on my couple-of-years-old Lenovo Legion "Gaming Laptop". This machine travels, but it was slightly bulkier than I prefer, especially if I have to travel with multiple laptops for business. It is the extra 230W power supply more than anything else, although my laptop carry-on get cramped. To support my business travel, I recently bought a slightly older refurbished Dell Latitude. It can play CoX, but without a dedicated GPU it is a somewhat miserable experience. I somewhat expected this. The biggest drawback for me of a 'small laptop' when playing CoX (after GFX) would be the size of the keyboard.

I was disappointed that this was only one of two "Reaver" GIFs I could find pre-made. Somebody ought to throw the Book at them.

IIRC, the article casually mentions "Kallisti Wharf" in the context of "missions"... but that is it (aside from them "OMZG, Controller Nerfs incoming!"), but *shrug*.

Long ago I started to use the %Psi piece in Taunt, but I found that it wasn't a great use of a slot: The %damage piece still requires a ToHit roll, even if the Taunt effect does not. Threat pieces have minimal choices for Accuracy. This lack of Accuracy choices is probably an oversight, as there are powers that don't have auto-hit components for Threat. Generally I prefer the set bonuses from Mocking Beratement Psi damage ends up being resisted hard by many enemies. I do often drop the %Psi piece into other Tanker attacks, when I want the extra proc (or off-type damage).

I'm not on Discord, and so I can't comment on whatever might happen there, but... I've read the articles (not the attached comments section) and I don't think the article is particularly well constructed. (-1) The initial diversion into "why speed, bro?" struck me as a little too antagonistic... at least for what followed. (+1) Controllers can be slow at doing damage, especially when compared to other ATs... but there is a more fundamental issue that I don't think the author understood 'why speed?' matters (to all ATs) (-½) 99%+ of the games rewards are for defeats. <- This is the #1 reason IMO to try to 'balance' ATs such that they can solo complete standard content taking amounts of time that are roughly the same order of magnitude. Controllers can be there, but they need to make certain build choices and/or leverage damaging attacks from START vendors (the latter, especially for low level content). Let's face it: There is no other reward schema that makes sense for CoX; changing this would fundamentally change the game. (-½) I think the article misrepresented what the i28p2 changes are doing to Controllers. I'd dock more here, but the (not mentioned in the article) +Regen critter changes will slow down Controller clear times (for bosses) (-1) The doubling-down on "Controllers being nerfed" by calling out Seeds of Confusion... especially on an opinion piece about "game balance". We all know that Seeds is a level 8 pick that is better than the level 26 Mass Confusion ('better' because of base accuracy, if nothing else). If nothing else, we knew that eventually this T5 power was going to be readjusted for 'balance'... it would be pretty difficult to make new Control sets that could compete with Plant Control. The closing with "I don’t generally play Controllers" is somewhat telling IMO. I'm neutral (leaning negative) on the ignoring of %damage from procs while mentioning +4/x8 content (and Hamidon raids). %damage helps Controllers (and other ATs) so I just can't tell if the author is ignoring them or doesn't know about them. The mention of the "purple triangles" is IMO a weird editor's choice... was the editorial team expecting controllers to all of a sudden lock down AVs without trying, or was it throwing shade that they think controllers aren't needed for some content? (hint: no AT is needed.)

I also remember the max damage cap change, and I also don't remember anything else that would qualify as a 'giant nerf to Brutes'... which is why I want to know what @Snarky is referring to.

You often write this, but what is the 'giant nerf to Brutes' you are referring to?

I hear what you are saying, but consider this: Once most of the enemy critters in the game have a floored 5% chance to hit, somewhat skews perceptions of what 'less survival' means. Blasters have it pretty good on Homecoming... I'd never advocate going back to the nukes w/ crash, or the era before 'sustains' but if you are talking going back to "old school"...

I don't think i28p2 is a massive nerf to Tankers. I do remember Live, and Tankers were more-or-less made irrelevant by Scrappers, especially when levels 41-50 (and all the extra slots) became available. The one thing I remember Takers could do what Scrappers couldn't do was herd entire maps at once.

This is still an issue as of 01 June 2025

These show different 'times' on the order of a minute or less between Scrappers, Tankers, and Brutes. And IIRC (without reopening the builds) the various builds don't rely on what I'd consider typical for those AT... from memory, and I could be wrong because I don't use MIDS, but I think the Fighting Pool's Cross Punch was leveraged. Ston's work was interesting, and necessarily somewhat niche, but it is IMO showing neither a big difference (even if measurable) nor one completely applicable across all content and player builds.

The MOAR REGEN for critters is a head-scratcher for me. I can think of only a handful of circumstances where this can be an issue: low-level characters that have low-tier Damage-over-Time powers... the DoT is going to make less of an effect (AFK) Farming characters that rely on DoT... this is going to slow them down solo-ish characters that get defeated (by a boss) and have to trudge back to the mission from a hospital... to find the baddies completely healed up. If the reasoning was offered, I missed it. Maybe it's because new sets are getting -Regen components?

I almost never take Hasten, the economy of Homecoming makes it relatively easy to achieve high levels of global Recharge (plus other good stuff) from IOs, on every AT. I also tend to find the Speed pool mediocre, so picking Hasten often restricts other alternate build choices(*1). Many people choose to try to make Hasten "perma", but in practice this isn't really necessary. I can imagine circumstance when perma-Hasten would be preferred, but those are all niche content or for builds that are exclusively running attack chains exclusively relying on inherently long recharge attacks. When I do take Hasten, it is: Dominators, who won't otherwise have perma-Dom, especially a leveling-up Dominator, or "Tankers" that rely on longer recharging powers to survive the hardest content. (*1) There are a number of pools that have 4 (of 5) excellent powers; picking Hasten delays how soon I can get that 4th or 5th power *and* is getting in the way of a pick of a prerequisite power from those pools.

Canasta... the card game with the most grind. IMO, YMMV.