ParagonKid

This is Ston's Melee AT Archetype comparison. It is slightly old, but unless you have any newer numbers to present, it's the best thing to refer to. For single target damage, Super Strength comes out about middle of the road. Trapdoor runs, which gauged AoE performance but are invalid now, bring it up a bit in the rankings on everage. Either way, it is considered S Tier alongside Fiery Melee, Savage Melee, Axe, TW, Martial Arts etc. It is considered comparable to them for damage output and "worth". So what's the problem? You know what those sets DON'T have that SS does? A crash. A built in drawback. Why should Super Strength have a crash for the non-advantage of performing with around the same effectiveness as sets that are both better than it in some ways, but have no built in penalties themselves? It really shouldn't. But it does. That is why SS is "bad". Because it pays a price for mediocrity. It is taxed more for doing the same as other power sets. And this is a totally fixable problem. You either raise its damage output to warrant a penalty being in place, or you remove the penalty. Relatively straight forward. Except for the fact nobody will lift a finger to fix it, but instead doubled down on it when they did have the chance to fix it and then left SS to wallow. Which is why I'll always advise anyone asking to not engage with SS unless they absolutely need that specific flavor. Because the only good reason to take the set in its current state is for RPing.

You can combine 3 Awaken inspirations into a Super Awaken which revives you with a Phase Shift active.

Which is only fair given how they're treating the negative feedback to this unasked for and unwanted change.

The Council didn't need "flavor" mechanics. The Council was vanilla. The Council was ordering chicken strips, which is is something that pretty much every restaurant offers as a safe choice. People overwhelmingly PREFERRED the Council for this reason. But for someone on the development team, this was untenable, I guess. And, again, nobody should have to provide proof and make an airtight case for a change to NOT go through. The default action shouldn't be the developers changing things after decades that don't need changing. There is no 'qui tacet consentire videtur' . The onus should be on the developer putting forward the change for successfully justify it. That is how good designers operate, as opposed to people just playing in a sandbox doing whatevert they want to.

Eh. That's not how it works. Almost nobody asked for the changes, the majority of players will not like these changes, but most of them will quietly eat the stink sandwich or go elsewhere. That's how it goes every update that has bad changes that they're adamant about pushing out because it suits them.

They do not have to team with 7 other players who are Incarnates. THAT is their option to control the difficulty. Why should my gameplay change to solve their problem? When someone walks into a room full of people and says "I'm cold" while everyone else is comfortable, and then turns up the heat rather than put on a sweater, that makes them the one in the wrong. If someone wants to jack up the thermostat and tell everyone else to strip if they don't like it, they're the unreasonable jerk. Everyone else aren't jerks for wanting the room to stay as it is.

Nobody is locked into teaming with Incarnates, either. If you don't like how fast your team steamrolls, find a different team. Changing mobs to correct a problem that can be solved by the choices of the player with the problem and force everyone else to change just to please THEM, is ludicrous. To paraphrase Tom Petty, "you don't need to change what don't need to change".

What you can do draw is attention to the changes after they drop and try to snowball any player discontent into something then. This is not the place to effect change; that is not the game that is played here.

We have content specifically intended for teams; Taskforces. And we have hard Taskforce modes now specially for teams where support ATs want to feel needed. So there is obviously where these mobs belong. But don't be surprised if not a ton of people engage with that content. Because as much as some people want the claim the masses are crying out for greater difficulty, the clear popularity of Council PI Radios as they exist Live currently betrays what most people actually go for.

The onus should not be on anyone to justify why an arbitrary change to existing content that most people didn't ask for, should not be made.

Very much this. If this change to Council and CoT has been made because it has become obvious most people choose to engage with content like Council radios, ya know, that should be an undeniable indicator of what most people want. Because I'm sure most people don't want to fight a boss twice because it rezzed and then have it transform into a wolf so you can fight it a third time. And do it multiple times each spawn it seems. The alternative being, they're forced to lower the difficulty settings they've always used because one day someone else arbitrarily decided to change the existing content out from under them. But that's only if one cares what most people want. Personally, I know defacto nerfs to my characters aren't what I look forward to in upcoming patches.

I feel a control set that does not stack useful debuffs, or have any unique mechanics to interest people, probably needs to be on par with Fire Control for damage output to be competitive.

Bruising is simply a component of Gauntlet that was present when the game shut down, which was now removed. The "Gauntlet" we have now isn't the same as far as I'm concerned. Arguing semantics accomplishes nothing except trying to antagonize. Increased arc/AoE sizes means little to several powersets and even for those it does not, it mostly only applies to farming. I don't care if I'm outdamaging Brutes in some edge cases more than I care that I do less damage than I used to and that my Tanker was undermined by an unwarranted nerf and unwanted change masquerading as something else. "But doing less damage than before, theres just no way." Don't try to gaslight me.

I have not touched my Tanker since they removed Gauntlet. I don't care what they said about "most cases" benefiting from the damage mod change; my tanker does less damage now. Setting that betrayal aside, Tankers are over-specialized and have no flavor or compelling identity. They are worse Brutes with excess survivability which they are punished for.

I suspect very little thought went into crafting Super Strength, just due to priorities being elsewhere. The animations for Jab, Punch and Haymaker were all recycled from the weapon sets. Even the alternative animations that were added later were swiped from elsewhere.

What exactly will Tankers have over Brutes following these changes?

It's not 20% more. The damage mod would have to be .96, not .95 Anyone can see the damage numbers are lower than live with their own eyes. Even if you bumped it up to .96, like I said before, damage output will still be lower because procs, bonus damage, Doublehit, pets, NPC allies, and countless other things that don't care about the AT damage mod will no longer benefit from the -Res.

The abject entitlement to not want something you care about changed simply because of someone else's fleeting whims. RIIIIGHT.

I'm talking about the damage numbers that appear when you attack an enemy.

Don't BS me. I can see that on the Live servers, Haymaker with Bruising applied does 13 damage at level three and on the test server, Haymaker with the .95 damage mod is doing 11 damage. Having to weave in a T1 attack every 10 seconds negatively impacts your damage less than NOT having Bruising buff all your procs, bonus damage, Lore pet damage, whatever. And even if you still think I'm wrong, I don't care. I don't want these changes. I don't want my characters impacted because someone else wants to make Tankers better farmers. Sorry if you don't like the attitude, but I feel like I'm being mugged at gunpoint by someone trying to explain how good being shot feels.

I didn't ask for better AoE and I don't care to give up anything from my Tanker for it, especially ST damage, regardless if others feel it's insignificant or not. The onus shouldn't be on me to fight to keep what I've got. I didn't ask to bargain and I don't care if others think it's a good deal; I think it's a swindle and don't remember authorizing anyone else to make that choice for me. If you think tankers are underwhelming or underperforming, buff them. If it is truly the case that they are lacking, it shouldn't be required they trade anything.

Losing Bruising for slightly better AoE is still a huge net loss for Tankers. Bruising improved not only their direct damage, but the damage of Hybrid Assault and Interface damage procs and any IO procs on their attacks. Increasing their damage mod to .95 while removing Bruising makes them demonstrably worse. Let alone the fact the people who value ST damage would be having it forced on them. I personally find this whole thing very alienating and distressing that my tanks are getting nerfed. And for what? I mean, even at the end of the day it doesn't make Tankers more attractive to everyone else. They don't BECOME better than Brutes at anything people care about with these changes (and becoming better is what it takes to actually shift anything).

My names for the powers in SS: Weak Punch Normal Human Punch First Actual Super Strong Punch Should Be An Inherent Power Should Be a Disorient Cone or -ToHit Debuff Should Do Thrice the Damage and Knock Back Should Add Bonus Damage Instead of +Damage and Not Stack or Crash Should Do Twice the Damage and Be Twice as Big Should Be Mighty Judgement 😛

Well, I mean, people are going to take whatever performs the best to farm. If there wasn't a clear AT winner running out front, there wouldn't be so many farming Brutes. And "the best AT is subjective" is an excuse IMO. We have an objective measurement of "the best" as perceived by most of the playerbase: the one everybody flocked to when the slate was wiped clean. Yes, farming isn't nessisarily the entire game, but most of the game is about killing groups of enemies. Farming is just doing so unaided and cutting out the walking. Of course,, you have to apply this line if thinking to balance intelligently: SS will probably remain a popular set regardless of how it performs for reasons on concept/roleplay alone. Heck, I feel it's popular despite it's terrible animations and uninspired design.

Also, regarding endurance use: It's beyond the scope of this specific thread, but I think that the blue bar is a bigger issue that impacts all ATs. I've been playing Classic WoW recently and looking at how they modernized their combat systems over the years. If CoH had continued I feel like they would have followed a similar trajectory: a faster tempo, less downtime (so maybe an End discount for everyone) and removal of pointless whiffing (low level CoH is bad with the hit checks, but Classic Warriors are nothing but MISS, PARRY, DODGE, MISS). Such a large revamp is something I'd like to see explored...eventually.