Sovera

If you feel like stepping outside of your first picks then Martial Arts is a pretty combo with Bio as per @Gobbledegook's suggestion. You get to semi easily cap S/L thanks to the extra 10% defence it brings and the built in soft CC and two good places for FF procs will speed the defensive cooldowns that Bio survives on.

*10, but yes, barring self imposed iron man challenges it's best not to fight against slotting at least the procs. Few ATs get game changing ATOs like Stalkers.

Then the Tanker is ahead. So far the argument has been that the Tanker levels faster than the Brute because the Tanker can up the difficulty and reap more XP and thus reach 50 faster. My counter point was that the Tanker is already slower than the Brute to begin with and higher difficulty will just make it more so making the Brute do more content per minute. I could be wrong. Maybe the Tanker finishes in the same time of the Brute and gets more XP on top of that. That would put the Tanker frankly ahead while leveling. It's not my experience though. Tankers clear slowly, the AoE buff is worthless, and Brutes, without the AoE buff, still finish first. Now adding more difficulty makes the Tanker clear even slower. If +2 was double the XP of +1 then I could see the point, but as it is more content per minute wins out. I don't have a horse in this race. I haven't even played Tankers in the past year having focused exclusively on Brutes, so it's not like I'm trying to protect the AT since it is my main or whatever. I just don't see this perceived OPness of Tankers since they are overbeefy for regular content and only get to shine once harder content is attempted.... which is alright in my book. That is why they exist. For the harder content.

It's still just a matter of % though. If Trapdoor is not good enough (and to be fair it is not in the particular metric of leveling) then pick a mission and run it on a Tanker at +2 and a Brute at +1 and compare times. They are not brought to solo dungeons or raids for their damage but their vampiric tanking. If they can survive they can whittle an enemy down since mobs in WoW don't have the insane regen CoH has. You've become more and more abrasive as time goes and your white knighting for Brutes to return to being the undisputed OP AT is not satisfied. What used to be a good argument has turned into... this. I'm bailing out and frankly not engaging anymore until this new cantankerous fad of yours passes.

Not sure what you're disagreeing with. I said in my experience a Tanker finishes a TF ten minutes sooner. You must be one of the few that does not need a quadrillion TFs to level from 1 to 50 though. Heck, most people I know require two thousand TFs just to reach level 50. Hyperbolic funsies aside. If you want to see a single mission then look at the Trapdoor tests. Plenty of Brutes and Tankers have tried their hand and left their results there. Double stacked Rage and procced out Rad Armor skew the numbers just like any AT comboing TW and Bio used to skew the numbers. My own best times with a Brute were 4:42 and for a Tanker six minutes. Neither were in any particular danger. My worst time on a Brute was 6:13 having traded offense for defense. Again, what was the point? +4x8 Arachnos were not difficult so the trade was not worth it since the squishier build was still safe. Anyone only doing that sort of content will naturally gravitate to the 4:42 side of things instead of the six minutes. Anyone who wants more sturdiness for harder content will trade that minute and fifteen seconds for the survival of a beefier AT which is how we return to this point in the conversation. For most easier content (especially in full teams who obliterate and invariably have buffs) the Brute is still the 'best' choice in a world where people pick CoH up and play only the best and not what they have fun with.

I'll just add that soloing difficult content has always been the realm of tanks. When some people do world firsts solos of dungeons or raids in WoW they don't take a Mage, or a Warrior, or a Shaman. They go at it with a Blood tank so that they survive the damage and heal up. The goal is not to do big damage but to survive and then whittle the enemy down. The one time it was done with a Rogue wasn't for the DPS but for the teleport so that they could teleport up a and down a ramp while the raid boss walked the distance giving time for cooldowns of potions and defensives to reset.

I do have a thousand missions under my belt and extensive Brute and Tanker soloing. This is how I see it: - Tanker always finishes around ten minutes slower the same TF despite much vaunted AoE buff. - Attempts at increasing the difficulty will increase the gap so that ten minutes will be 15 or 20. - Brute finishes 10 minutes earlier (or 15, or 20) and starts the next leg of the trip that much sooner. Educated assumption: going from +1 to +2 will not be 100% more XP so the Brute remains ahead and does more content per minute than the already plodding Tanker now plodding even more because higher difficulty = less damage dealt. It's just an assumption though. Maybe the Tanker will pull ahead. It's not my experience though. It takes tougher factions for the Brute to falter and this is under the self imposed rule of not using inspirations because the faltering is propped up.

Tankers are like Sentinels. Everyone brags about their survival and then ditches them to play something stronger and faster since the IO game makes damage and not survival the goal. In all tests Tanks are slower so it is perfectly normal that the playerbase that sticks to regular easy-ish content goes to play something else since whatever other pick can do the same. When the content is no longer easy, such as soloing some TFs at max (not even all of them) then Tankers shine once more. Tanker buff for AoE is useless despite being mentioned so often. It serves no purpose since rarely do the initial mobs survive more than a couple AoEs and only in farming there are enough enemies to keep streaming in, and sometimes be so many in number that they cannot physically get closer. And yet despite this Brutes are -still- factually faster at AoE clears. I'm not even sure why this keeps on being brought up. In a team a Brute only loses to a Tanker because of 500 HP, otherwise the first AT that throws a bubble or a shield caps a Brute's resists and/or defenses. Difference being the Tanker can do it alone, but then the buffs are semi useless to them since they can reach the cap themselves with a good build.

There's two ways to look at it. One is that Sentinels are subpar damage and bring nothing to the team. The other is that at max level no AT matters since a full team of incarnates melts content. Tank? Controller? Scrapper? Does not matter since an avalanche of AoEs and Judgements clears the floor. That's my experience with both. It -is- true the Sentinel is a subpar AT that brings nothing (special) to the team, but it is also true that at max level we can barely get a few hits in before all mobs are dead. At that point the secret sauce is 'play whatever you care because in what universe does a full team usually fail to finish a TF?'. The new difficulties do bring a new wrinkle, but because we lack DPS meter addons we don't get the full tale either. Yes, higher difficulty means more and better damage needed. But also yes, the previously scoffing Blasters and Scrappers (and, tbh, any melee in melee range) is being hit by patches of resist lowering debuffs, huge unresistable explosion damage and whatever else the sadistic devs have cooked up. In the meanwhile the Sentinel has good basic defense and resists, is (usually) hovering, and in this particular build's case is 100% ranged and not going into melee. Now, again, without DPS addons what do I know? Maybe I am wrong and at the end the Sentinels would be shown to still be doing subpar. In WoW I'd look, see my damage on trash, see my damage on the boss, and see how many deaths I had. Then I could compare and see if I (or my class) had behaved well or was really dragging my team down. Here we have feels. Or have all eight running @Carnifax's log parser and then compare. But the game is not yet at the point where super min maxed teams are needed, but if it was then yeah, just like in WoW a Hunter/Sentinel would need to fight for a place because another class/AT would be preferred. Even if the piloting mattered more than following a meta.

Been toying with the idea of a FA Scrapper/Stalker with the very idea that dropping Burn is actually a defensive since mobs will stop hitting me to scatter.

What difference would this make to you? Us players just bump accuracy which works against everything be it typed or positional. Most builds that are planned via Mids will have 95% accuracy against +3. So what gain do you think there will be if your 95% accuracy goes against S/L, E/N, or Ranged, or Melee? 95% is 95%.

I went through all of this in my initial Sentinel fad. Eventually I had to accept that the mass immobilize was not cutting it (I speak only for myself, if it's working out for you then do carry on). A few misses and some of the mobs would run to me anyway and then they would start scattering, some of the mobs would just be resistant to being immobilized because boss, and of course each click was less damage being done. Eventually it was as much the low damage as well as the runners that made me stop playing Sentinels. Even now with this build that I am satisfied with I still reserve it for teams only and don't solo with it. The game being fundamentally what it is solo is more of a melee thing, and that's for the agro control as much as anything else.

I'm not even the OP. I don't even use Assault and haven't since realizing how much of a small boost it was. I'm not even in this thread asking for a buff to Assault, lol. I was adding my two cents and said what I said that the buff is not as large as it says in the can but it does affect everyone in the team (possibly league) and that should be a consideration when asking for buffs BUT saying it gives 15% is misleading. At this point the conversation is 'but 15% is huge when multiplied by 8!' and what? I should stick to technical correctness? I would rather stick to factualness unless it is common to use unslotted skills where the 15% comes into play, but since its not then what the heck is the use of that bit of trivia? Are any of you wrong? Absolutely not. Damage is additive and the skill gives 15% of it. Does this mislead any player not deeper into the math happening under the hood? Yes, yes it does. This is the sort of logic that allowed Tic Tacs to be presented as sugar free.

So I'm wrong because I state how much it buffs an attack? That's pretty convoluted. And you're right because it 'always buffs by 15%' when it does 4%? And I'm doing it because I want to purposefully mislead others? I'll drop this before I say something I can't get back.

Science forbid the buffs have narrowed the gap while the other classes are still comfortably ahead in all Trapdoor and Pylon tests. Or are we using SS and Radiation Armor as the reason Tanks are uber damage? Nerf the whole AT because of two sets?

I dont use Brawl. Most of the time Brawl isn't even slotted. Is your test along the lines of 'Well yes, it's only 4% with a slotted skill, BUT, if you happen to use unslotted skills in your rotation then it's 15%'? Because we are back to technically correct.

Post me that build, would you? My best Tanker time has been steady 6 minutes over several Fire Armor combinations.

A Tanker. You can plod through content and kill the AVs without piano play or expensive builds. You do pay for that with lower damage but the right combo can shorten the gap. A Fire Armor/Energy Melee will mostly nullify the idea you're on a lower damage AT. Brute will be squishier but do more damage. Any advice in this thread is good though and that's because you can lower the difficulty since you're not competing against others.

That and in regular content the first AoE kills the minions and voila, we only have five or six targets left. Now we have hard modes and also 801's where 'minions' last longer (actually haven't run either in a while, but I assume so) and more sustained AoE is of import. But that is bleeding edge of content. My Elec/Bio has a pretty decent pylon time for a fully ranged Sentinel, but it's deceptive since it relies on sapping for the Shocked mechanic. In short fights or sap resistance mobs the damage goes down. That said I'm fairly sure 80% of teams don't have their damage dealers doing 3 minutes on a pylon. Heck, most my Brutes run in the three minutes pylon times. Trapdoor? Abysmal, 7:30 ish, but runners mess the testing. A Tanker in the test doing nothing more than run their toggles and healing themselves would probably decrease that time by a fair bit by balling up the enemies. My point of view remains the same as before: Sentinels are a nice and lazy class. I compare them to WoW's Hunters (Beastmasters in particular). And the comparison actually goes further than that. Because at the bleeding edge of content the top tier players abandon their Hunters and play a 'better' class. Or they at least abandon the lazy Beastmaster spec. But in practice most people are not as bleeding edge as they might think of themselves. The poo poo-ed Sentinel can (and I suspect it does) out-perform its specialized fellow ATs because it just keeps on trucking and any time the more fragile ATs spend worrying or using defensive clickies or running the Sentinel is pew pewing. Also the value of a nuke available at every spawn and not every two (again, Judgement steals value from this). This is not easily quantified though. With DPS addons I don't need to apologize for playing a Hunter when I am consistently in the top three for damage both in trash and fighting a boss. But in CoH we lack this. Same reasoning that makes players gravitate away from Brutes to Scrappers to eke more damage even knowing that they will be squishier is what makes players drop a Sentinel and roll a Blaster. That said the AT does need some loving and it has been much delayed. More than it deserves. But it also reflects the idea that the AT is not as bad as players perceive. It fits its role.

... are we doing this each time someone posts a Super Strength build? Because running around with 160% damage does not make whatever AT it is played with uber, nope nope, only Tankers.

Not sure if serious with the six slotted Hasten. It's not perma either but at 143 seconds though using Ageless may be enough to shave enough for it to almost be. Are you intending to be in granite armor 100% of the time? Gameplay wise there is no reason for that since Stone Armor doesn't need Granite (objectively makes the set weaker when used, both defense and offense). For example, no real need for shoring psi resist when without granite you can be at 45% psi defense. But if it's for theme then okay. You didn't slot your Might of the Tanker? It gives nearly 20% resists to all. Wait, no, I see you've put the proc in Fault. Why in Fault though? It has horrendous accuracy and recharges so slowly you'll never have more than one stack. You're not going to be using it against a single enemy. Seismic Smash is your best attack and you've not slotted it for damage? There is no need for -KB IOs for Stone Armor. No need to keep Tought toggled on either. I did some tweaks but did not go into it as deep as it could (should) still assuming you want to be in Granite Form 100% of the time. Keep in mind you're trading +endurance from Crystal Armor, +recharge and (at least) 45% defense to psi from Minerals, a damage boost from Brimstone, all of that for -damage, -recharge, -movement speed, but +resists and +DDR of being in Granite 100% of the time. It's a choice.

Yes, but that is what I meant about the evolution of the game. At some point those double tags ought to have been dropped. Now part of the the playerbase is ready to take up pitchforks if nerfed because 'it has always been so' (no, no it hasn't) without even stopping to consider if it's normal for a single player to solo content meant for eight. Also yes, that sounds terrible. Even now in GW2 the devs take pride in not using obvious tells like WoW does (boss shouting something when using a certain skill) and rely instead of tells like the boss raising an arm (which is completely and utterly drowned in visual effects for a bunch of players spamming their skills).

I rest my case.

Not sure why you qualify it as malicious. It's like saying I have food in my pantry but I'm not giving it away then I am malicious. Especially being an illegal thing. Oh, they were doing an illegal thing and were not spreading word about it. That's being smart, not malicious.

The problem really comes from the evolution of the game making attacks have two damage types. We have specific defenses against fire, cold, energy, negative, etc. This would not have not have grown into a problem if the old devs had stuck to making those attacks purely their element. If the players then had looked at it and said 'S/L attacks are a majority with punches, bullets, swords, kicks and etc, then working S/L defense up means we will, statistically, take less % damage at the end of a mission' that would have been fine. Not 90% of the damage averted but 20% (random numbers, don't quote me). Still statistically significant and allowing to focus on certain S/L factions for their farming or favorite enemies. But as it is electrical attacks ALSO have S/L, radiation attacks ALSO have S/L, some psi attacks ALSO have S/L. The list goes on, and protecting against S/L made S/L defense OP as heck. It's not a case of blocking just punches and swords and kicks but also protecting against fire and ice and electrical and radiation. As it is S/L defense would have statistically have an impact on a player's HP but they would still at the mercy or all the elemental and negative/energy attacks. Instead it became the OP thing allowing squishies to tank side by side with Scrappers and made Sentinels the joke they are now where their damage was alleviated because of their sturdiness, but their sturdiness is nothing special in an end game IOed build. Does this have an easy solution? Not easy, no, we can see the loudness of the con party on how their squishies no longer being able to solo at maximum difficulty would make them uninstall. But not stop to think 'is it -normal- for a squishy to solo missions meant for EIGHT players?'. No, this part does not matter because they could do it before and that's all that matters. Heck, in WoW only a select few classes (and players because piloting the build matters nearly 50%) can even solo normal dungeons, not even heroic dungeons, not mythical dungeons, and it is newsworthy and fame worthy to the point their names are known to see a single digit number of players able to solo certain raids.