Sovera

While in the PTS and all incarnated and slotted I might as well do the pylon test... and it was a bit ghastly. 4 minutes. Ow. 3:25 4:37. Double ow. The safety of Stone Armor had to be paid.

Went to the PTS to test this. Using the normal version. - Placing it in Contaminated Strikes indeed is not good as it does not stay up using the high recharge rotation. - Placing it in the aura against a single enemy (pylon) it gave me two stacks semi reliably, rarely three, rarely just one. - Placing it in the aura and surrounding myself with enemies -seemed- to make it go off more reliably. Switching to the superior version made the proc go from 4.75% to 6.25%. - In the aura and surrounded by enemies I reliably obtained three stacks (15%) from the proc. - In the aura and against a single enemy it was difficult to get an average since it was all over the place. Sometimes 6%, sometimes 21%, sometimes in-between. I'm going to roughly say 11 to 16% though there were plenty of times with 6%. - In Contaminated Strikes there might be periods where it simply did not get a stack, then it would stick to one stack, perhaps two. Using the low recharge rotation with one more Contaminated Strike gave more stacks but not more reliably since it could drop to zero stacks. - Radioactive Smash's testing with Unrelenting Fury gave -very- good results averaging 21% reliably, sometimes 25% (four stacks). Considering this: - Radiation Siphon is the heavy hitter of the set. Placing Unrelenting Fury there reduces the damage from 495 to 411. - Radioactive Smash losing a damage proc is not a big thing since it just goes from 336 to 310. But is the only place to place the FF proc. The FF proc might not be -completely- necessary since Earth's Embrace is easily permanent, but it does push Fusion (Build-up), Hasten, Atom Smasher, and even Recovery Serums. - A damage proc brings low dividends in Contaminated Strike (176 to 187) so it's still a good place to six slot something. It was a quick and dirty test but it does look like placing the endurance reduction back in the aura is the best place. It's a pity we can't place it in Irradiated Ground, eh? I'm not 100% sold on the aura since it has that awkward 10 second cycle which makes it slow to start and then if a miss happens, welp, gotta wait ten seconds. But since I'm over the PTS I might as well test if it's necessary to really putz around with this. I'm going to incarnate, get the final slotting, and then place Unrelenting in the aura. Alright, testing done. Had to tweak the build since Mids shows incorrect values for Minerals. Builds shows 44.8% psi defense but in-game it was 39.1%. Now the build shows 51.3% but in-game it's Two tests with everything toggled on including Focused Accuracy. Both reached the three minutes mark on non stop hitting. With normal gameplay there would be pauses and the endurance ought to last longer.

I have but one thanks to give. Someone hire you for SFX duties, Solar. I'm not sure who thought it would be a grand idea to have a perpetual crystalline humming and rumbling and burping. I'm okay with the toggles having an activation noise, but not 24/7. I'll test and let you know how it feels.

You are a man among men, Solarverse.

Finally reached Manticore and soloed it again to pit myself against the tanky AVs at the end. I got to say I'm impressed with the healing output of the new rotation. Siphon has always been a bit eh because of the need of the Contaminated mechanic (not to be mistaken with the skill) but now that it's being spammed in half the time of the usual rotation the heals come in hot. Which was good because amplifiers ran out and then the AVs did not stay separated and I had to take both at the same time. Without amplifiers the endurance drain (and I didn't even have Focused Accuracy on) forced me to use Recovery Serums for the AVs. But careful monitoring of Earth's Embrace to keep the HP buff and the occasional green saw me through the amplifiers-ran-out-so-psi-is-at-36%-and-E/N-at-38%. No purples used. Now in the 'end game' rotation I notice the stacks of Unrelenting Fury are not building up (Brute ATOs useless? Say it isn't so!). I'll test in the aura again but where two Contaminated Strikes per rotation helped building stacks a single one with the low chance is not making it useful. It's still the normal Unrelenting Fury with 6 PPM though, the superior goes to 7 PPM.

I came sniffing around for the same in regards to Stone Armor.

My signature has a guide with some information. The game has no dailies so you do whatever the heck you want to do. If there is a 'to do' thing I would say it is a Tinpex (check signature) because it's 80 merits (signature) and you get the materials to craft incarnates. This is a half hour thing so worth it, but even then it's not a thing you absolutely must do because just playing will also get you incarnate crafting materials.

It's good, but, 30% of the damage of all moves were placed on the T9. So we hit with wet noddles until we can spend it. Also, MA has the 10% defense if playing Brute or Tanker.

So I decided to try the new Contaminated Strike rotation. And obviously this mean deleting the level 50 Rad/Fire Brute and start again. ...what do you mean I could have just resppeced? ...or used the test server? Nonsense. Anyway. Obviously having Contaminated Strike makes for a much nicer leveling experience since it's available so soon after having been used. There is a lot less slow feeling with something to press all the time. Soloed (easily) Posi 1 and 2 at 0x8 with a couple of deaths along the way but interestingly not from the usual CoT BS. Rather a couple Luminous Vhaz in the same spawn and getting a few lucky hits that debuffed me hard and human stupidity such as trying to save 50 inf insps while tanking three Earthquakes. Play stupid games, etc. By the time I had reach Yin I was level 37 and the final rotation was juuuuuuuust there, almost with a small gap, and I still had a LotG and Earth's Embrace to slot. I do have amplifiers running though, but at 50 that is replaced by the purple sets. I started using it despite the small gap... and it feels good. Spamming Radiation Siphon on cooldown makes for heftier healing than the usual rotation (Siphon every 6.3 seconds with Devastating VS Siphon every 3 seconds with Contaminated). Yin was done in 45 minutes, it did not feel slow and Clamor with ambush, and ambush after she flees, being tanked in the middle of the room. Endurance so far has been ok despite Rad Melee and Stone Armor being heavy. I only used Recovery Serums at Yin because dem Super Stunners. I did not look at it but I would not be surprised if the endurance protection also scaled with level. I am monitoring endurance reduction to see Unrelenting Fury's endurance discount and.. it's.. doing something. A stack of the normal proc gives 4.75% if not mistaken and I'm usually hovering at 10-15% which is obviously helping considering the lack of Recovery Serum guzzling. I'm not sure if this state of grace will hold on with more and more toggles added in, soon to be Brimstone, tough and Weave. Another slightly different approach was slotting an accuracy/endurance IO in Irradiated Ground. It -felt- better (especially in Posi), but, feelings. Looking at City of Data Irradiated Ground itself has 1.0 accuracy (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=brute_melee.radiation_melee.irradiated_ground&at=brute) and spawns a pseudo-pet who also has a 1.0 accuracy (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pets.radiation_melee.irradiated_ground&at=minion_pets). That 1.0 is what other powers have so it should translate to a 48% chance to hit +3. Mids does not show IG's hit chance but looking at a random power and removing all slots, then looking at it's accuracy chance with Mids factoring in set bonuses and focused Accuracy it has a 73% chance of hitting. Slotting the +5 boosted ACC/END pushes it to 91%. Whether the 18% accuracy boost is worth one less damage proc is for mathmagicians like Bopper to answer, but the 33% endurance discount is welcomed as well.

Mids has a tool for that,

Mids shows this information.

You already have a build that was posted. Just check the numbers in resists/defenses from one to the other and if your changes are improvements.

You already got a build to follow, so changes made are to suit your playstyle. We can't interject on what is your playstyle and decisions.

Only half Scrappers get agro auras, which puts me back on the Brute camp myself.

Imagine getting an IO that instead of 100% regen and 10% endurance discount (once at full stacks!) it did 0.5% extra damage per point of Fury. Or whatever, I am not a balance dev.

Does it? Mids seems to agree in that the 35' is only suppressed when clicking on a glowie and makes no mention of fighting. I live and learn.

Re-doing the math with a different rotation: - Devastating Blow (2.9 and 781 damage), Radioactive Smash (1.7 and 332 damage), Radiation Siphon (2.4 and 476 damage), Radioactive Smash (1.7 and 332 damage) =8.7 seconds and 1885 damage. - Radiation Siphon (2.4 seconds and 494 damage), Radioactive Smash (1.7 and 330 damage), Contaminated Strike (1.05 and 175 damage). This leaves a 0.08 second gap before Radiation Siphon is up again. So the rotation takes 5.15 seconds to do for 999 damage. This leaves enough time to add another Siphon (5.15 + 2.4 = 7.55) and another Radioactive Smash (7.55 + 1.7 = 9.25). This is cheating because it passes the rotation of Devastating Blow by half a second so it can be quibbled but it's a simple rotation. Which means Radiation Siphon, Radioactive Smash, Contaminated Strike, Radiation Siphon, Radioactive Smash, is half a second longer than the time it would take to do a Devastating Blow rotation. Which amounts to 1824 damage... which makes a 3% damage loss and no 2.9 animation times in the rotation. It makes for friendlier leveling and exemplaring as well. Caveats: - The damage will be slightly different from build to build since a proc more or less will slightly alter the numbers. I'm comparing two builds instead of just swapping the slotting since Unrelenting Fury will go well in Contaminated Strike. - Enough recharge is needed to eschew a second Contaminated Strike which would bring the damage down. This is the 'disgusting' Rad/Stone build I'm messing with. For leveling this means Siphon, Strike, Smash, Strike.

Stealth gets toggled off when in combat so that's not going to be the reason the other group ignores you. They do because you've reached the agro limit of 17 mobs. What I sometimes do when solo is go through 2 or 3 groups and break LoS. As the 17 mobs come and start being killed the others will join until eventually all three groups are dead. My own hold back against the concept is the usefulness of it. A tank/brute survives 17 mobs, and they are not going to move away because of agro, so the CC does not appear to have a practical use. Perhaps if it was available sooner than 35...

I feel the reverse. I'm at a point where I look at my Tankers and go hmmmmmmmmmm. I'm a big proponent of 'it only needs enough survival to survive, anything more is useless' and Brutes fill that role. Killing faster is a form of survival as well. While I still hear about how a Brute only has a 10% damage damage advantage on a Tanker this is not how it feels when playing the game. I do insist in 'feels' because gameplay is a bit different from hitting a pylon for X minutes. Bursting enemies down before they retaliate is not something a pylon test will show. Eating the occasional inspiration to survive a slump or using Barrier as a panic button works for both ATs. Then I have my Stone/Martial Arts who is night unkillable with 60%+ defenses and 76%+ resists across the board, -and- 3.4k HP instead of 2.5k, but I'm just whittling enemies down even with Brimstone's help.

Why not energy melee if it's the goal? You can already reliably stun bosses (and AVs) with TF and EF. Even WH has a stun component.

I tried, but the gains were insignificant. You got it perfectly balanced. In the end I would only trade 25%-ish psi resist for 5-7% E/N resistance.

I went looking if I could improve anything but nothing I could see. Build's chef's kiss even if I wouldn't dedicate so many slots to psi resist. But it's not a wrong approach, simply a different one than mine. For your late question keep it in Soul Drain IMO. Better have that boost when you are ready to unleash hell in a few seconds like the initial two AoEs after having Soul Drained.

Ice Melee has no damage toggle in primary. Rad Melee and Spines, dat it. I also vaguely recall just being swung at being enough to increase Fury, not actually be hit.

Lemme know how it goes. Different persons, different perspectives.

Not really, or kinda. Depends on how you view it. On a suppert/Tanker it says it's 15% but actual testing shows to be 4-5%. This is the not really part. But a team has 8 people. So as long as they are close enough it's 5% x8. This is the kinda part.