Shin Magmus

First off, I checked for reports of this and didn't find any. I'm surprised other people haven't mentioned this, but I guess between Tanker Buffs and Brute Nerfs: the watchful eyes of the skilled crowd are simply not on Brutes these days. Hard to notice bugs on an AT you don't play after all. The bug is incredibly obvious when you test it yourself. The Brute's Fury ATO specifically says it grants a fixed amount of +Fury, and it should to make it consistent with other self-buffing ATOs like the Tanker chance for +Res. In actuality, the amount of Fury increases dramatically if enemies are lower level than you. I think it may also be reduced from enemies being higher level than you, but it's difficult to quantify because the Fury generation is still quite high overall in the current state of the game. Please see the videos below. Vs Lv5s, able to hit 100 Fury in 3 attacks (the 1st attack did not proc the ATO, but the 2nd and 3rd both did). Vs Lv54s, slow performance but able to get just under 90 Fury in many many more attacks. I strongly recommend at least looking at the "flags" on this proc to make it perform better at lv50. But honestly, this proc as a whole simply isn't good enough. +Dmg from all sources, even Fury, is simply additive to the same cap; there are situations where Fury does nothing and where this ATO does nothing. Instead of just being a source of damage buff, this proc should be reworked to also deal damage, or to give Brutes a thematic buff. I recommend that the ATO be changed to be fixed (correct flags, consistent) Chance for +5 Fury & +20% Recharge for 5 seconds, sortof like a Force Feedback Proc but weaker. This would be fun because it fits the Brute aggressive theme and it would also have a higher proc chance than Force feedback, meaning that players would be able to rely on the buff more often and more consistently.

I've been affected by this bug inadvertently, where the message says that the Arachnos Flyer has spawned but it's mysteriously absent from Grandville when I get there only a few minutes later (no, it wasn't killed by someone else beforehand). I think it's only a matter of time before the Flyer gets stuck and despawns now, which is why people in-game are describing the Flyer as "time-sensitive" and rushing to quickly kill it before it evaporates. Happened to me (presumably) on Everlasting at least twice.

Please, fix the drastic underperformers (Staff, KM) and completely redundant underperformers (Badsword), with more reworks like what Battle Axe got... before adding more redundant sets. Making sure all the options available to a player are actually worth considering is more important than adding additional options while the worst sets languish. This is from the viewpoint of someone who cares about the game, and in the best interest of new players so that they have fewer comparatively terrible options available. "My Staff Flerpderp feels fine to me" - You can just skip leaving useless feedback like this.

Sunsette, the harder content is optional. Most of the playerbase doesn't even attempt it once, let alone understand it. You don't have to worry about that.

Incarnates in general were power creep, but longer base buff potential just means that the players currently using them, don't make as many stops at the base. It doesn't increase their power beyond what they currently have, therefore it literally cannot be power creep.

People are mostly right about Fault but the patch notes when Stone Melee got buffed to into more detail. First off, Fault is a CONTROL POWER in an attack set, not an attack. The fact that Fault does any damage at all, and that the control wasn't nerfed, is a huge buff. With that out of the way: 2 parts! Part 1: The CC Targeted AoE part of the power procs well on and around the target, so Explosive Strike proc is good in Fault. However, it only procs in the area of the Targeted AoE, and not in the area of the damaging cone. This is the reliable part of the power, and it's for reducing incoming damage. Part 2: The Cone damage part of the power is a child power with different stats including an artificially lower CD, explicitly to nerf proc chances. Damage set procs "malfunction" in Fault relative to its real CD, and this makes them underperform: not worth slotting. The patch notes said that the range of the cone was also variable and based on your distance to the target. I've personally never been able to hit enemies "behind" my main target with the Cone damage of Fault, implying that they got this system to work. This means you have to target the furthest enemy and then move yourself into position before using Fault, if you want to get that Cone damage.

Yes, we could make the SG Base buffs more convenient in a number of ways, but... have you considered my well-reasoned and incredibly useful response to the discussion: "Feels fine to me"

Make the game more obtuse to new players, make badges transform into enemies with stats that scale based on the number of empty slots or SO's in the build. This scaling power is disabled by having all of your slots filled with any other category of Enhancement. Send it. Top Dog has defeated Jimothy Jambles

I just think that it's important to understand that +dmg buffs, without understanding how Kinetics works and what endgame teams often end up like, are simply not as effective as -Res debuffs. If Empathy can't have -Res, then the buff needs to be absurd and do something like give everyone on the team a Fiery Embrace type dmg proc (but Psychic Dmg because of your Empathic mind) that will still matter at the damage cap. If the set remains all buffs, with no debuffs, then it's going to keep getting compared to Nature Affinity and it's going to keep losing. I suggested the powers I did so that Empathy is worth consideration, at all, on 4* Advanced Mode teams. A rework that falls short of making the powerset be good enough to be worth considering, is a failed rework.

Just increase the ToHit Debuff values of Smoke and give it a %chance to inflict Lung Cancer, causing the enemy to die slowly over the next 3 years. Done.

Khelds have hilariously undertuned individual powers, mostly attacks, and currently they require more slots (to spread across all the extra powers they get) but they don't get that resource, so they are spread thin and can't properly enhance and use all of their powers. This statement is accurate in direct comparison to other ATs. Individually, a few PB/WS powers are really good (Inner Light, Light Form, Stygian Circle, etc) but they are attached to a deeply flawed AT, that deals miserably lower damage relative to most of the competition: because of those undertuned attacks.

This forum is hilarious, no wonder we can't get serious inter-AT balance improvements made or fix all of the egregiously underperforming sets. Too many damned contrarians popping in to say "nu uh".

False Equivalence. Wanting Brutes to not be completely outclassed and not worth playing =/= wanting Brutes to solo clear faster than any other AT.

"Feels fine to me"

Everyone: evasive maneuvers. Do not get pulled into the event horizon of the Stupidity Singularity. This game doesn't need *anything* moved towards Sentinel performance.

The most interesting part about this data, to me, isn't any of the inter-AT comparison stuff. It's how slept on Ice Melee still is by the entire playerbase. The good powers in Ice Melee are horrifyingly good, and the bad powers can just be skipped and you can take cross Punch or thematic Ice Epic powers like the new Snipe for Scrappers/Stalkers or old standbys like Gloom. Ice Melee is insanely underplayed relative to its power level.

So do both. Buff Brutes a little bit AND Nerf Tankers a little bit. But not buffing Brutes at all still results in them, at baseline performance, on SO's and walking around alone, getting 50% or less proportionate benefit out of a power like Build Up or Follow Up than the other 3 Melee ATs (not just Tankers, all of them), and that is long-overdue shenanigarglefuckery that really should've been changed and buffed like 10 years ago.

Well if it makes you feel any better, you're far from the only person getting lost. It's so common that it's why I decided to make this thread.

Staggeringly common on Everlasting, as my anecdotal experience. Not every time, but surely around half for me. 25% was an underestimate.

Luminara, try to use perspective-taking and view the map from the perspective of a bad player who did not explore or learn preemptively, and just follows the red waypoint. It's not a problem *for you*, but it only has to be a problem *for 1 person on the team* to hold everyone else up... and it is, and it does.

Please, comment if you've encountered this yourself. I know there are some arrows in the map already, but they aren't everywhere: and people continue to get lost regardless. I can't make random players not get lost, but maybe additional map reworks can.

This time, for real, I speak for many more players than myself. People going into the Vanguard Base in RWZ then getting tricked by the lying Waypoint on Tin Mage Mission 3, and following it to go deeper into the base, then getting hopelessly lost and asking for help to get back out: happens all the time. For the record: I don't personally think that the base layout is too complicated... but I'm not Johny Randumb and Noob Billy. Johny and Billy are wasting several minutes of our time, 25% or more of the time, on TinPex runs. This problem would be even more pronounced if going into and out of the Vanguard Base was required more often. People are confused, people are lost, and the Waypoints now work in a completely different way from how players have been conditioned to understand the distances of waypoints and multiple floors, everywhere else in the game. This happens too frequently and the irritation and slow down are not fun for anyone involved. Just did another Tinpex and on Mission 2 we specifically dropped a Team Teleporter to try and prevent this. Johny and Billy blindly missed the TT somehow, got lost, and we waited for several minutes till someone exited the mission to ATT them to the mission entrance (helicopter) and then we finally finished. This highlights an endemic problem with the RWZ map changes as a whole and player perception. I honestly don't know if there's a solution that will please everyone, but I believe that more texture work needs to be done in the Vanguard Base to try and make obvious one-way arrows pointing towards the Exit Portal or something, because the current situation is really irritating. Is it just a "skill issue" on the part of the lost players? Yes. Does it impact everyone else on the team? Also Yes.

Okay, time to provide correct and honest feedback: Brutes are completely outclassed in the current version of the game and only exist as leftovers from CoV as a standalone game, post-Tanker-Buffs on HC. If the few sets available on Brutes but not Tankers, were proliferated to Tankers: there would be 0 reason to play Brutes. It's not my fault that the game is currently in this state. However, there are at least some low-hanging-fruit easy partial fixes to the problem. Fix 1: Buff Brute self (melee) Defense, Healing, and Resist scalars up from Scrapper values to a midpoint between Scrapper and Tanker values. There is no logical reason that Brutes are inherently as squishy as they are, and arbitrary new bizarre scalar values are an already-opened Pandora's Box if you look at the stupid bullshit going on with Sentinel numbers. Sentinels set the precedent; Brutes should benefit from it. Starting out as tankier than Scrappers and being closer to Tankers will open up a lot more build flexibility in Brutes, and is genuinely long overdue. Fix 2: Re-Tune all damage buff powers on Brutes. This is shamefully overdue and is a natural side-effect of how Fury and dmg scales work, but the proportional benefit from powers like Follow Up, Rage, Power Siphon, and ofc every Build Up, but even stuff like Against All Odds, should be tuned upward to account for the base level of dmg buff from Rage. Brutes will still have a weakness where they benefit less from outside dmg buffs (including Inspirations) going on in the team, but there is no logical or fair reason for a Brute clicking Build Up to get so much less proportional value out of the power than the 3 other Melee ATs. Both of these fixes are just numbers tweaks. Also both of these fixes are MINOR! Neither of these numbers tweaks I am suggesting will make any difference on an Advanced Mode Comp when your defenses are capped by Barrier Spam and your offenses are capped by a Kinetics user. Brutes will still be in a bad spot balance-wise, and in many situations will have all of the same problems. But these buffs are simple numbers tweaks that could be implemented tomorrow: and they would at least make Brute as an AT feel less completely outclassed and useless in 90% of situations (but not fix it at all in the other 10%).

That's how I read it too. Unfortunately, the thing that Smoke Canister does is uniformly less beneficial to the player than the thing that Cages does... which is an issue with the fundamental logic behind why they made the change be this way. It's just a small band-aid so confused Council don't rocket launcher each other out of the group instantly. ...A band-aid that wouldn't even be necessary if-

Did you check if the enemy was also recently damaged and therefore Confused? Remember, many effects in Arse Control are needlessly tied to an "If:Then" condition that may halt them from working at all. For example, Liquid Nitrogen If Knocked : Then Deal Damage, so the power loses 100% of its dmg against enemies that are resistant or immune to KB. Smoke Canister's -KB is tied to enemies being Confused. I'm not saying that it works; I'm just pointing out that it's supposed to be tied to another condition and that condition might not be met. Feel free to test more and let us know, because it would be nice if this got fixed, but post-launch they've added even more "If:Then" conditions to Arse Control so I've completely dropped it.