Zahnee

Firstly, I'm talking about Tankers. Secondly, if you're referring to the Brute Pylon/Trapdoor Averages chart from 2023, we can't even run trapdoor tests anymore to challenge those numbers in the modern era. And the kicker is that Ston ran pylon tests recently on Brute, including SS v2, which is sitting at a winning #14 on the list. But I'm still not here to talk about Brute's Super Strength, which is vastly different due to the interaction between Fury and Unleashed Might.

Here's my main build. Got the UM version to very identical numbers, dropped Fighting, picked up and proc'd out Haymaker and Hand Clap. Switched slots in Gloom for accuracy. Everything else is nearly identical. Just ran pylon tests and my Rage build is a full minute faster than Unleashed Might. Ran Arc 23935 for clear speed and Rage build was 2 mins faster than UM build. This was quick and only a couple runs of each, but its all I had time for tonight. Not sure how much more I can bash my head against a wall trying to see how this change does anything except nerf Tanker SS damage without Rage or punish both Defense and Resistance based sets for using it. I invite anyone else to give it a go. I'd love to see how Unleashed Might can beat out Rage. I'd actually love to see both Rage and Unleashed Might do better. If the goal of this was to make SS not crutch on double Rage, it didn't work. It just made this set even worse on Tankers.

I meant the current version of Homecoming, not actually live service. Sorry for the confusion. I’ll give a proper reply in a bit as well as post my build.

Ran my main Tanker, Elec/SS/Soul, through some solo +4*8 PI Radio missions (my bread and butter on live). I found the experience completely unfun. Rage crash destroys my Tanker. 90% S/L/E/F/C Res to 70% is insane. It brings my resistances lower than the Scrapper resistance cap, and not only do I not have Scrapper damage to eliminate packs quickly to save myself, I do zero damage outside of procs for the crashes duration. Power Sink is now used on cooldown to maintain my regen, where before it was used situationally. I'm spending significantly more time trying to survive by popping cooldowns and inspirations than dealing damage, which is massively unfun. Also gave Unleashed Might a chance, seeing as that's the direction we're being funneled to. While the Unleashed Might version of Hand Clap is great, I found the toggle completely underwhelming otherwise. Clear times are slower than the double Rage iteration, probably due to a big loss of damage to Foot Stomp and Dark Obliteration. I altered slotting in attacks to add in more +Acc due to the reduction in +ToHit from UM compared to Rage, which may have factored into some damage loss as well. I figured no crash would help my survivability, but UM was a hit to clear speed for me, which was a hit to survivability. I live by the fact that "dead enemies deal no damage." As of now, I recommend not just rolling back the Rage changes, but getting rid of the -Def during the crash altogether. If you want Defense sets to play, let them play. If you want a version of Super Strength without Rage, don't force our hand, give us options. Or just remove Rage, which is what this change appears to intend to do. My second suggestion would be to give Rage users the same version of Hand Clap as Unleashed Might (scaled down, obviously). This was a general impression, and I'll consider running some clear speed tests to compare the two versions objectively if I have the time. Or I'll just reroll as a Brute which seems to benefit more from UM than Tanker without having to sacrifice my theme.

Two can play this game. I lose IQ every time I read people say they only single stack Rage. You’re missing out on the full potential of an already mildly performing set. The argument that Unleashed Potential is fine because it’s comparable to single stack Rage is a net nerf to anyone who gave a damn about optimization.

Yeah I’m not sure what facts led us to this point. I now have to alter how I play because “reasons” It’s honestly just easier to abandon SS altogether and play another set than it is to squeeze blood from a stone. Once they make up their minds it’s over.

Even with double stacked Rage Super Strength has not been top of the leaderboards, so all this does is funnel the damage of Super Strength to mediocre levels of single stack Rage. Super Strength v2 is still very middle of the road, so these changes accomplished exactly nothing except phasing out Rage, which deserves a reasonable explanation beyond “just because the devs.” I say this is a lazy way to revamp a powerset but maybe a better way to describe it is a passive aggressive approach to countering the way some of us decide to play the game through the massive resistance debuff on Rage crash and tying the full functionality of Hand Clap to Unleashed Potential.

Unleashed Might looks like it only exists to spit in the face of people who liked Rage as it was. A toggle that alters the power of everything else in the set just sounds like it should be passively inserted into the set. Just rework Super Strength from the ground up. This looks like a lazy “I hate Rage” fix. I mainly solo, maybe some PUGs here and there due to life, so I couldn’t care less about a Kin and what it does. Ston’s tests on Brutes look good with SS v2 but that’s on Brutes with Fury. Super Strength was the single secondary on Tankers that could justify things other than Assault and Musculature and now here comes Homecoming homogenization to bring SS back in line with its incarnate choices.

Spreadsheet values of X% Def = X% Res are garbage, and most of us understand the significant value difference between the two stats. Defense may cascade against -Def, but Resistance can cascade against literally everything else (-recov, -regen, -tohit, -end, -rech, slows). In actual gameplay those debuffs are significant. What’s the actual issue with Rage in its current state to begin with? It has a massive debuff, which no other melee set has, and it’s still not top of the leaderboards. To make Rage palatable we as players have found solutions around it, such as using resistance based sets to avoid the -defense and placing procs in attacks to get around the -damage. EVEN WITH cheesing these 2 negative functions, Super Strength doesn’t become god-tier, but it becomes palatable. If any lessons are to be learned from how this set has been built to overcome Rage crash, it’s that the crash does not matter, so why not just remove it altogether? That would allow Defense based armors to not feel left out and also give alternatives to full blown proc builds. Even with Rage crash dropped I would put money that it still doesn’t become the #1 performing set. These changes simply funnel people into using Unleashed Might, otherwise you get a more significant crash from the new Rage as well as being locked out from using the new functionality of Hand Clap. If you want to eliminate Rage, then do it, but hiding behind these changes to disincentivize the power is counter productive.

Resistance is getting slammed by every single debuff that gets thrown at it since it’s not avoiding attacks. I don’t see 1% defense = 2% resistance as equal in real time. This is an instance where spreadsheet game balancing doesn’t exactly line up with actual gameplay.

Is there a reference for this game math? On first glance this seems like a massive attack against resistance sets on a power that no one asked for a change to. I can’t test this anytime soon, but I’m curious how this pans out on Tankers specifically, seeing as they don’t have Fury to carry their damage.