AustinSmith

I ran a GM team today on Brainstorm that was initially two Brutes, then a Brute/Crabbermind, then picked up a third and went Brute/Crabbermind/Corruptor. In terms of difficulty, the duo brutes were able to take down Kraken, although it was a hard fight, and then when we turned to Babbage, did alright for the first half of his health, but then once Coil Pulse was online we couldn't get him down more; I was on a Savage/Fiery brute, so I couldn't resist the inverse repel and was constantly getting fully drained. Once the second Brute got traded for a Crabbermind, we were able to push through and take down Babbage; he definitely felt like the nastiest of the GMs we encountered from that point. After that we picked up our third for a 3-man team and took down Jurassik, Babbage, Eochai, Jack, Council War Walker, Adamastor, Lusca, Deathsurge, Caleb, and Ghost of Scrapyard no problem (Flyer didn't seem to be up in Grandville). In terms of the reward payout, from all those defeats I got the Eochai mini recipe naturally, and enough unstable aether to craft another mini pet recipe and the 2 prismatic aether to craft each of them. All in all felt rewarding for one GM team run. My two gripes not necessarily related to the changes but the GMs in general; the Arachnos Fliers in Mercy con enemy but aren't actually engageable, which is confusing; should they con ally to the villain player instead? And then Caleb is still incredibly annoying to spawn; we had to go to the wiki, and it looks like 100 nerva daemon defeats during specific hours of the day, and then you have to wait until nightfall for him to actually spawn. Can it be changed to either 100 daemons then spawn regardless of time of day, or just consistently spawn at dusk, no street sweeping gray mobs required?

Running around in Atlas Park getting for a feel of some of the new sets + testing out sybil robes, I can say that the Tesla Knights I encountered were definitely using their Lightning Field, so that's working

Okay, yeah, hopped on Brainstorm and it looks like no redraw was changed since the last time I played with it; if I'm not in combat stance, I'll have to bring out the sword the very first time even if the power is already in melee range. This is a downgrade for sets that had straight up No Redraw before, but still an upgrade for VEATs/Spines characters over the course of the total fight that didn't have the option before. To be honest, I don't see this affecting steamroller teams, or even moderately paced teams much, since you'll basically be in combat the whole time and 1 draw at the very start is negligible, even if it is a slight downgrade. It takes a while for my character to go from in combat stance to out of combat stance (about 30s of standing around idle) before I have to do another redraw. IDK. I totally get the complaints around this implementation, but I'm still overall for it, bc the sets that were suffering with forced redraw were SUFFERING.

The design intention of this change I believe IS to make all the weapons sets like Katana. Katana worked this way on live; drawing the weapon while out of combat/out of range but instantaneous in-combat + in range

Messing around with texturing the set in the creator, it looks like Enfeebling Lullaby still has this bright white blast vfx even though I have the power textured completely red. Additionally, Melodic Binding and Aria of Stasis' swirly notes will be pretty much white no matter what color I set them to (I do notice there is a slight hue difference to them, but they still look white). Since I know these powers were reused from Talons Sirens and I'm not sure how the vfx works, is it possible to get a dark color tintable customization option, or is color tintable/light currently the only possible availability?

Can't speak for Illusions or Fortunatas, but Mind Control per the patch notes is intended to ignore positionals by the devs, so that won't have been changed for players, either.

The test was not solo; this was a sonic defender paired with a blaster in all of my test cases. Yeah, a duo is the smallest "team" size and barely is equivalent to the example of a full 8 person team, but I need more testers to be able to contribute to better data on live + Brainstorm.

@Myrmidon and I spent a couple hours on Excelsior and Brainstorm with a Beam/Energy blaster and a Kinetic/Sonic defender in a variety of content to determine how the -Res for defenders has been affected, and whether the DPA increase was enough to make up for the loss in utility. In each test case, a macro was used to mark a time in local chat and signal for us to engage, and when the map was cleared (or the pylon was destroyed), a second macro was used to mark another time in local chat (or in the case of the pylon, the time shown on death). Identical builds were used between the two environments; no incarnates were used other than alpha, so no destinies, no hybrids, no judgments. Firstly, we tested +4/x8 Council PI radio mishes just to test trash mob clearing: Live Times (Old Sonic): 4 minutes 5 seconds 4 minutes 7 seconds 7 minutes 2 seconds 11 minutes 11 seconds 9 minutes 56 seconds Average Time: 7 minutes 16 seconds Brainstorm Times (New Sonic): 6 minutes 40 seconds 9 minutes 23 seconds 7 minutes 43 seconds 7 minutes 14 seconds 7 minutes 7 seconds Average Time: 7 minutes 37 seconds Given that mish maps can vary, and that the shortest times and longest times overall belong to live, I'm going to conclude there isn't enough evidence to conclude in terms of general mish sweeping, that defender Sonic has been negatively affected by these changes. Then we tested killing pylons in RWZ to see how higher damage with lower -Res vs lower damage with higher -Res fares in a duo environment (and here's where the numbers are more interesting: Live Times (Old Sonic): 1 minute 38 seconds 2 minutes 11 seconds 1 minute 37 seconds Average Time: 1 minute 49 seconds Brainstorm Times (New Sonic): 2 minutes 18 seconds 2 minutes 2 minutes 1 second Average Time: 2 minutes 6 seconds None of the Brainstorm times were below 2 minutes (although one was right on the mark), whereas Live tended to beat the Open Beta times by around 17 seconds. I'd consider that a fairly substantial gap, it's not like radio mishes with varied maps and encounters, this is a pylon that is engaged practically the same way every time (as the blaster, I was doing my best to keep my attack chain identical between all tests). Final conclusion: the changes to Sonic (on a defender at least) make little difference in engaging general mob spawns or clearing through missions, however, the -Res has dropped noticeably enough that the DPA cannot compensate to the degree the -Res was worth before against harder targets such as a pylon, and through inference, an ArchVillain.

Actually, Incendiary Round and Liquid Nitrogen Round have always been using exclusively Fire and exclusively Cold typed defense. The only one that got changed is Explosive Tip, which went from lethal/smashing to fire only typed defense. It's also worth noting that the Malta ARs do -Defense that squishies don't have DDR to mitigate, AND Gunslinger pistol attacks all have always had 2.0x base accuracy.

Can confirm after doing some data digging the patch is still autohit and it's only the damage that's flagged to require a tohit roll.

What you're referring to is Sonic Assault, the dominator set; this thread is for Sonic Attack, the blaster/corruptor/defender set.

"Slightly" increased the damage? I don't think you get what damage scales translate to. 0.2 to 2.28 is a 1,140% damage increase. That is anything but slight. Yeah, the -Res in the set took a hit, and to be honest it may have been overnerfed. IMO, the 12% debuff is the part that should stack and the 8% debuff should be the replace effect. All in all though, this is a massive upgrade to the set, even if it doesn't play quite the same way it used to.

Original ITF isn't going away or changing, you just don't set it to a challenge mode when you talk to Imperious

Y'all are straight up ignoring the massive DPA buffs to the set, huh? Screech alone is a MASSIVE damage buff; 0.2 damage scale all the way up to 2.28s.

Has in part to do with evaluating the power level of your team. Some teams compositions are simply not capable of completing 4-star mode for instance, if they don't have all their incarnates maxed or completed builds. The lower difficulties allow characters that aren't fully built to still have access to accruing rewards even if they can't handle the higher difficulties.

I believe there will eventually be plans to port models to BR; I just know there were some animations bugs that needed to be resolved first related to BR

The only low level task forces that will even award Aether are the weekly strike targets. The only exclusive part is different hardmode difficulties within the same task force. You can do a 2 star ASF and then go right to 3 star ITF and get the full rewards from both.

The existing CoT mob costumes aren't getting changed, this is exclusively a costume reward for players. Same goes for the Rikti and Skulls.

generic defeat Council missions from Lorenzo DiCosta contact in Skyway City; villains Archon Assunta and Archon Morricone are displayed in nav bar and in-mission as the enemy as "Archon Archon Assunta" and "Archon Archon Morricone"

Saga of Lanaru (Faathim TF) Pirates of the Skies (Mantis SF) Praetorian Offensive (TinMage) Faathim is my favorite TF in the game, full of diverse enemy groups, chock full of ArchVillains, set in the zone with the prettiest skybox, decent average length of an hour long, will never turn down a Faathim Pirates of the Skies is a bit long as red tfs go, but again nice diversity of enemy groups, and every time I’ve done one of these with an RP villain group has been a standout enjoyable time TinMage bc I suppose of Tinpex it’s slightly more interesting of the two with Malta and the culmination of four AVs? Idk, I find Lady Grey less memorable, and I dislike the concept of ITF even if has a reputation for good rewards

During the mission in the skulls arc where you go undercover to infiltrate the Skulls and you are given a generic skull costume, the left asymmetrical shoulder piece will appear on your character while disguised

When testing out custom enemy group creator in Architect Entertainment, the new Dynamo power for Electrical Manipulation appears to be causing self damage to the enemy entity instead of healing them.

Being able to slot resist procs does give it some nice utility, which probably would raise it to a B Tier. The point of the tiers isn’t necessarily to classify the armors exactly, it’s more to figure out what’s underpowered and needs buffing, and which are above the curve. I will say, if you’re building for Ranged Defense, Frozen/Scorpion don’t help very much since they boost typed defenses. Can just put the procs in Tough (or a resist armor), and shoot for Ranged Def through IOs. I’ll be expanding my evaluation of the pools in additional posts, probably over the weekend when I have time. Short answer is I believe Ice can be buffed a few ways, especially with cripplingly long recharge time of Hoarfrost, and Snow Storm/Flash Freeze being underwhelming debuff/soft control compared to some other sets. Mace does get Summon Spiderlings in the T2 which is kinda unique among the epic pools.

Well, this forum post was originally gonna just be focused around suggestions for buffing Munitions Mastery, one of the more unique epic pools in concept with crap execution/power level, but while I was crunching numbers across sets for comparison, it really struck me how there are a few Blaster pools that are...major outliers in power level. So I figured why not devote the time with all my number crunching to go over how each of the sets compare, and suggestions on which ones most need looking at. Section One: Armors The purpose of an epic pool is to give archetypes access to powers and abilities usually reserved for other archetypes, to help shore up weaknesses in a given archetype. For blasters, clearly that hole is survivability. Given that most of the epic pools are evaluated for their armor variant, and EVERY blaster epic/patron has an armor variant, this is the section I'll be diving into the most. Out of the nine epic pools blasters get, 7 are resistance-based, and 2 are defense-based. Let's breakdown the Resistance-based toggles first, based on their baseline (unenhanced) values: Resistance Armors Body Armor 8.75% Smashing/Lethal auto Pickable at T1 Charged Armor (Electrical) 19.25% Smashing/Lethal 19.25% Energy 0.33 end/s Pickable at T2 Charged Armor (Mu) 19.25% Smashing/Lethal 19.25% Energy 0.33 end/s Pickable at T1 Dark Embrace 19.25% Smashing/Lethal 10.5% Negative/Toxic 0.33 end/s Pickable at T1 Fire Shield 19.25% Smashing/Lethal 14% Fire 7% Cold 0.33 end/s Pickable at T2 Shark Skin 19.25% Smashing/Lethal 19.25% Cold 0.33 end/s Pickable at T2 Temp Invulnerability 21% Smashing/Lethal 0.33 end/s Pickable at T2 All armors provide smashing/lethal protection, all except Body Armor have an endurance cost of 0.33/s, some are first pickable in the pool, some require having another power taken before being able to take the armor toggle, some provide additional protection bonuses. Here's how I'd rate them one-by-one: Body Armor - F Tier This one just plain sucks. Other than costing zero endurance, it offers nothing that other other toggles can't provide, but better. It's got less than half the resistance EVERY. OTHER. ARMOR. PROVIDES. Charged Armor (Electrical Mastery ver) - B Tier This one I feel is the baseline solid toggle all the others can be balanced around. It provides standard smashing/lethal resistance, and additional strong resistance in next most common damage type after smashing/lethal. It requires a power pick before being able to pick up, but that's the opportunity cost for taking an objectively more premium toggle. Charged Armor (Mu Mastery ver) - S Tier Hold up, you say. This is exactly the same stats wise as the Electrical Mastery version. Same resistance values, same endurance cost. Why does this deserve to be S Tier? It's strictly better for the factor of opportunity cost. Electrical requires an entire power slot investment before being able to take the armor. Mu lets you take it RIGHT OFF THE BAT. It's got all three premium damage type resistances, and zero opportunity cost. Not only is Mu Charged better than Electrical Charged, it's the single best resistance toggle of all the epic pools due to its types. For tight endgame builds that value every power pick, not being forced to take another slot in the pool before taking the best toggle is HUGE. Dark Embrace - A Tier This one is definitely an above average toggle. It includes exotic damage resistances to not one but two additional damage types, including Toxic, which is exceptional due to the fact that damage type doesn't have a typed defense. Another reason is this is another freebie first pick that doesn't require another power pick to acquire. Fire Shield - B Tier Average resistance toggle overall. Needs a power pick in order to be available. Offers additional moderate resistances to two uncommon damage types, which is almost as good as having solid resistance one more common damage type. Not great, not bad. Shark Skin - C Tier Kind of a below average toggle. Unlike all other patron armors, needs a power pick to be able to actually access it, which is a point against it. The reason I brought this down a notch is because cold is a rather uncommon damage type, so unless the PVP meta is all Ice blasters, the secondary resistance isn't going to come up very often. Temp Invulnerability - D Tier This is the other toggle that is rather badly another pile of suck. It does have an opportunity cost of a prerequisite power pick, so that makes it worse than a couple other options. The actual upside is an additional 1.75% smashing/lethal resistance against the...19.2% energy resistance of Charged, 10.5% neg/toxic of Dark...yeah that is not nearly enough of an upside to justify a lack of additional damage type. Proposed Changes: - Change Body Armor to be an equivalent of High Pain Tolerance from Willpower instead of Resist Physical Damage from Invulnerability with the following stats: 7.5% Resistance to All Damage Types 20% Maximum HP This allows Body Armor to keep its identity of the "enduranceless armor" while also allowing it to differentiate itself from the other armor types. It's probably still not the ideal armor choice for min/maxed builds, but this gives it what it needs to be a fun, thematic armor. - Buff Temp Invulnerability in any of the following three ways: Make it available at level 35 / Boost Smashing/Lethal Resistance / Replace with Mind Over Body from Willpower Suggested new buffed resistance would be 26.75% Smashing/Lethal Resistance. This is equivalent to the baseline epic resistance (19.25%) plus the value from Resist Physical Damage from Invulnerability (7.5% for Scrapper/Brutes). This would make it an exceptionally strong toggle for those two damage types, but since it needs an additional power pick before being able to be selected, and lack of any other damage type protection, I feel balances it out. The other option would be to rename the power Mind Over Body, bring back the Smashing/Lethal to the normal 19.25%, and add a new stat of 19.25% Psionic Resistance. My concern with this change is whether Mind Over Body thematically translates to "Force Mastery". - Not a proposed change, but the fact that if choosing a set solely for its armor, Electrical Mastery is completed deprecated by Mu Mastery, it's worth evaluating the rest of the set to make sure Electrical offers some things Mu does not (spoilers, it doesn't, multiple powers in Electrical are strictly worse than its Mu counterparts). And now, defensive toggles evaluation: Defense Armors Frozen Armor 10.5% Smashing/Lethal 21% Cold Res 7% Fire Res 0.33 end/s Pickable at T2 Scorpion Shield 10.5% Smashing/Lethal 7% Energy Def 12.25% Toxic Res 0.33 end/s Pickable at T1 Frozen Armor - C Tier This is pretty comparable to Shark Skin from the Resistance toggles. Baseline defense in smashing/lethal (which isn't saying much, given there's only 2 defensive toggles), and additional resistance in some uncommon damage types. Kind of a below average choice given it requires a power pick before it can be taken, and Scorpion Shield...well, exists. Scorpion Shield - S Tier If Mu Mastery Charged is the nut pick of Resistance armors, Scorpion Shield is...well it blows Frozen Armor out of the water, and is honestly one of the best defensive toggles in the game, really. There's no prerequisites to picking up this power, it's takeable from the get-go. The secondary effects are the two best I can ask for; Energy being an extremely common damage type, and Toxic resistance gives resistance protection to the one damage type that doesn't have a typed defense. This toggle might actually look overpowered if there was more to compare it to among epic pools, but since it kind of stands alone, it's just allowed to be good, I guess. No suggestions for defensive toggles, really. **Will update post with additional comparisons, perhaps with less detail**

Rats, I wish I’d known about this thread earlier to throw in my cents. Fortunately Assault Rifle, Stone Armor, and Mercs would’ve been my top 3 anyway lol