tinytim1183

Is it possible to get a ring around Storm Kick in MA similar to Storm Cell and Piercing Shot, to show when the Storm Kick buff is missing.

That feels much better!! I think it will at least hint at the secondary effects, if not show their value. Definitely feels more "real world". btw, i snicker every time i write "real world", because its still game testing. Next question, do you only want "quality" runs recorded, or runs with deaths as well, and just notate the death. I can see doing this two ways, playing it relatively safe and death never enters the equation, or riding the edge and pushing the limit just to see what these sets can do, which leads to bad things happening, but loads of fun. For me personally, herding in a run on this map was just always fighting the groups two at a time. Levering as much damage as I can from the AoEs.

First off, I want to say as I should have the first time, that I think this is a great idea and I'm going to test and help as I can. I just want to poke as many holes into the testing method as I can, because it will help get the most useful data we can. If we test, and endurance and damage taken are a non issue, then it isn't a "real world non-IO" test. In the current testing environment, as an example Ice Patch or Dark Consumption, would be useless, but nobody using these sets in the real would would say they are useless while playing in a non IO world. If you then set up the test to need a secondary to survive, then you might get into a realm of synergizing a primary to a secondary. Take willpower as given in this test, put spines with it, and quills end cost becomes irrelevant, and you just added an ability in to the mix that comes with no downside, so it will push its clear to the top, but in the real world quills is fraking expensive and you have to "pre-io" build around being able to move forward and not suck air. I did a run just to see if this "felt" the same as I thought it would. First run on claws, my very first attempt, I didn't run the map effectively and had to run back to the ramp to kill two guys at the top i missed, 6:24. Second Run, no problems 5:04. Switched to Kin, the run took 6:44, longer than a lost claws. Partly, claws is flat out better, but secondly how i run and herd to maximize. Third, claws just optimizes i think the best of all sets on its own. You can make a full attack chain without the softer attacks. It kind of plays out like this if damage doesn't matter, run through the first group to the second group, 10 mobs around you, funnel all attacks though the toughest target. Spin twice kills all the minions, but two Bursts leaves a sliver of health. Burst also has a longer recharge. In this test, burst is useless. In the real world, knocking half the mobs down matters to being alive, cuz dead deeps do no deeps. There are primaries that can kill minions without ever targeting them or slowing down, will always be faster, unless they have to slow down for other "real world" reasons ie end or hp. I also don't see how to pick any secondary that wouldn't give at least a few primaries and inherent advantage.

Would it be better to take the secondary out of it completely? Something like use Super Reflexes, only take the toggles, but don't use them. Fill in with power pools that you again won't use. It would also let the end cost part of any balancing still count in the tests, as well as secondary effects. Pick a difficulty where you can survive the EB, and then test from there?

I have only just started trying to gather some data for this, but I think you will have a problem with the incoming damage being trivial. Many of the sets secondary abilities, and balancing points, revolve around their secondary effect. The other problem with trivial incoming damage is it then lends itself to herd and burn. If you are never worried about death, then more enemies around you only becomes a detriment to ST focused sets.

I would really like to apologize if someone has already said something along this lines, but this is a really long post. I was curious if we couldn't solve two problems at once. I really like the idea @Captain Powerhouse has that tanks just keep going. I would dub this "I can do this all day". I have no idea how this would play out with the other changes, or even the exact numbers. That isn't my wheelhouse, so please follow along in theory and not in specifics. Almost everyone would agree that the 1tier attack is full of boo. My suggestion is to make it endurance neutral. If it costs 5, then it returns 5. Then we turn to a new passive. I vision it as a bar that fills up based on how much aggro you have. Here is the fun part. The bar, or number of aggro'd targets, increases the amount of endurance returned by the tier 1 ability. Full aggro, it now returns 10. The kicker is that this return is shared with the team, basically turning tanks into endurance batteries. The tank isn't the guy that out damages everyone. The tank is the guy that keeps fighting and doesn't give up. Brutes want to fight more and harder to rip everything up. Tanks want to fight to protect people around them, to stand up against the forces that oppose them, and not give up until the job is done. Kins already exist, so reducing the endurance burden wouldn't be unique. You are all smarter than me with numbers and how everything gets balanced, but it seems like it would give a defining characteristic that would draw a strong line between brutes and tanks. It wouldn't change anyone rotation as far as pure dps numbers, it would just make an active choice, do i want to hurt something, or do i want to help out the team. Every tank has to take the ability anyway, so it wouldn't require respecs to let every tank have the option to use it and then the button still matter at endgame. Just a thought. Thanks for taking the time for reading and any feedback.