Rockfall

Rad/Fire is a fine farm build. I've got one of those and a spines/fire. Spines might be faster overall, but rad isn't bad.

With how fast pods of mobs go down, there's not much point to dropping a debuff on them, unless you can anchor the debuff on a mob like rad defenders do. I don't think that's an option in any of the brute patron pools.

Slotting priority is acc > end > rech > damage. Once you have SO-level slotting (via SO or IOs at 25) you can start to back off on the acc and end (no point in over-accing, nor over-ending. Note this can happen earlier than 25, depending on circumstances. Do you always duo with a support type who buffs your $stat?). Once you can maintain a 90% full fury bar, you can back off on the rech. Rationale: fury when full is +200% damage. Slotting damage EDs out at +100% damage. Missed attacks don't build fury, so slot acc. Taking a knee saps fury, so slot end redux. More attacks builds fury, so slot rech (also, take that fast-cycling first attack until you have a full attack chain, then respect out of it!). Once all those finish, then you slot damage to get +300% against your base damage.

I had a SM/ElA on live. You need power sink, and your life will kinda suck until then. Energize will help, so grab it when it comes up. Miracle and Numina's (and Panacea) uniques all help as well. Put the slots in health and drop those in there. Spare extra slots and drop their mated pair heals and you can score a touch more end/sec recovery.

I saw the "powerleveling for inf" spam on lfg tonight (correctly predicted by a number of folks). I was mostly ignoring lfg, so I can't say how prevalent it was.

You act like this would be different if they PI door piked to 50. It wouldn't. But that's somehow okay, I guess, because reasons? Where's the calls to nerf that?

Yes, I do think that's fine. That's exactly how RSK has worked since the day it was introduced. And its one of the best features of CoX, because I can play with friends or they can play with me -- either way. You're right, though that they shouldn't be gaining the same XP. And they aren't. They're both gaining xp as if it conned whatever it does to the rsk-to-6 as their native 6/20+ character level. Which is the way it should be. If the 20+ is gaining xp at the rate of a 6, you may as well not give the 20+ xp at all, which would completely destroy the point of RSK'in.

You have rose colored glasses for 2004 era content. That MASSIVE amount of content has a lot of "yep, I know you're level-appropriate in founders falls but your mission door is in .... drum roll please ... perez park! have fun spending more time running there than doing the mission!" Note that was yesterday, before they'd nerfed or announced a nerf of DFB, because I wanted some merits, so I foolishly went and did one of those old MASSIVE CONTENT arcs. It was hot garbage. Flashing back to Striga was better, but then that's much newer content... bites sized... kinda like DFB, if you see what I mean.

I don't think their graph they made up of the exp gain changes is accurate at all. I just did 3 full DFB runs with a double exp booster and I got BARELY over 3 levels (and by barely I mean like 1 bubble more) from 10-13. That's not a 2-8% nerf like the graph says. That's like a 60%+ nerf. Not saying I'm for or against the changes; I'm still relatively new. But I will say that the graph that was posted explaining the change in the exp gain curve is wrong. And very wrong. I agree 100%...I have now run DFB twice and am not even at 10th level with double XP booster...the nerf/update/fix ect has hurt the XP output more than the published graph for sure. If the devs want to review a character's information the toon's name is Atoms Heart...you can see the double XP was purchased and the run rewards are at 2 and he currently sits about 2.25 bubs from 10 after those two runs...I am OK with the change but this change is far from what is being portrayed or is published for sure. In an 8-man team, DFB *was* 1 to 10 in 1 mission with the +100% xp boost and no rested. It was then 10 to 14 in 1 mission, same conditions. Given the developer response, *in theory* that should still be true, no? It was less if you weren't in a full team -- so take that into consideration. If it isn't now, then the devs are either 1) lying or 2) made a bug. I'm inclined to bet on 2, but that by itself is also dangerous. I get that we're all human -- trust me, I'm also a developer! -- but that says either not being careful enough with the code, or that the code is such garbage it can't safely be touched. Mostly I'm disappointed that bite-sized content I could do was nerfed, rather than MAKING MORE BITE SIZED CONTENT I CAN PLAY. I'm sorry that I chose to have a family, I clearly shouldn't have so I can easily have bigger play sessions.

The DFB nerf is foolish at best and highly counterproductive at worst. Now it'll just be level 1s looking to get PL'd in PI/Grandville farms, in exchange for giving the mission owner any good drops (recpie/salvage). The XP rates available from that (remember double xp weekends on live servers where people would PL from 1 to 50? I do. So that's just your P2W +100% xp buff "anytime") are similar to way over DFB's depending on the relative "efficiency" of the two teams. The advantages of DFB are huge and being overlooked compared to the other content: * A group of low levels can do it, without begging/selling their soulsdrops. * It actively encourages actual participation as opposed to piking at the door -- you help, the run is faster, your xp/min goes up. * All ATs meaningfully contribute (mostly because when you're limited to level 10, everybody sucks equally). * It teaches people to use some of the tools (building a team, queueing to lfg, etc) of the game. * It lowers the cost of experimentation ("would I like this powerset/at combo? Let's get it to 22, do it up with SOs, and see!") and so players will be more willing to experiment. ** * Its relatively short content so you can drop in and drop out when you have 15 minutes as opposed to, "oh yep another 1.5 hour task force. That's excellent, but I have a family these days so I guess I'll just go play... something else." * When high levels drop in because they only have 15, newbies can ask questions and learn something. The other thing these patch notes say is the old Asheron's Call player motto: "exploit early, exploit often." Highly unhealthy, IMO. **: This wouldn't be a big deal if we had powerset-choice-respecs. If I could turn a dark/inv scrapper into a rad/bio scrapper just by running a (reasonable) difficulty trial (preferably spaced like the terra volta ones are -- I'm not talking "grid to 50 and...") that would be a vast improvement to the game.

Imagitech Design's Tempest 2000 soundtrack.

2 words: Winter Babies. TBH, I'd missed DFB's existence when I first came back. I did my first ~9 levels on a corrupter and 6ish on a brute the "honest" way. By which I mean did the first 5-10 missions (double xp buffs on the new servers). Later I spotted DFB on a different alt (yes, I have that problem too) and realized I could easily fix up the power sets on the corr and brute a bit since I wasn't super happy with them and wasn't looking forward to some of the initial missions again. If the current devs want to see less DFB, they should look at putting in "respec your primary/secondary within your AT" and "re-select your AT" akin to the reactor. Lacking that, its always going to be a game of grind. "Oh look at that new shiny over there! I want to play with it... at my main's level... guess I'll go PL an alt and then work on the gear for it."

The question is, will this thread be the new jerk hacking?

I never thought of ElA as squishy on a brute, but my ElA brute was pre-going-rogue, pre-incarnate. Hop in a spawn, throw power sink. You know what nobody is squishy vs? Brawl. You know what they had the end left to use? Maybe one real power, and then... Brawl. -81 end between the first tick of lightning field and power sink, and their blue refill is suppressed.

The build I had was focused around heavy IO and hammieo use to get (near?) perma hasten. Differences I see -- I took leadership and didn't have an epic pool. My reported end burn rate is way higher, but so is my recovery for a similar net ~1.6eps gain. A previous version of it had better def numbers -- melee 50%, range/aoe 45% (without parry!) but it was a non-fitness-inherit pool build. The recharge on that build was *much* *much* lower (35% global vs 122.5% global). Both were, in my memory, great builds. Lots of fun to play, shield charge in, drop whirling sword, and then start those mega single target attacks on anything dangerous. I'd say flip boxing for kick, because you can lose the redraw, but maybe that doesn't matter anymore either.