Sovera

I'm not super super fussed with the amplifier change because if we are on a full team it does not matter a lot. Solo, yeah, new players go royally shafted. I STILL don't understand WHY though. The idea seems to be that players can easily stop the timer and only resume its use when desired. But, again, it's not a command. It's a difficulty option in a TF. So how, exactly, are players going to abuse this? By starting a solo TF with that option toggled on? And then what? Never again team or do any other TF so that they don't leave that solo-started-TF which otherwise will make the amplifiers tick down? If indeed it is a command like /stoprunningamplifiers then yeah, I can see the abuse.

... Yeah, lets perhaps not go down that path, shall we?

Yikes. Yeah, that's terribad. Old Shadow Maul bad. The CC is a benefit to the build but an early AoE to tidy it up until 32 is just or more important in my book. Well, lets see how this goes.

I'm not asking for that. I haven't actually used it so you're ten steps ahead of me. I was just surprised at seeing CoD say it had 35% arc. You've used it, how does it feel? Old Shadow Maul style? Actually dependable to hit 5+ enemies?

We are meleers. We are in melee range. People are not going to jump ten feet back to use it. I think it's appropriate. It's on the line of Fire Breath.

Thanks Jojo. And holy crap, 6 second recharge? Wat? 35º cone? Wow... That's... pretty terrible? Back to the bad old days of trying to fit 5 mobs in Shadow Maul, is it?

Some minor bug fixes. Incidentally related to Fiery Embrace, but nothing huge and nothing about tweaking the raw numbers of Hemorrhage itself. 'Fixed' was the incorrect word. It's just so undertuned there is no point in taking it other than for cool factor (which is still a good point in itself).

Also, neither the dev notes nor the info on the power seems to indicate size of the cone and depth. Or perhaps I'm blind. Is it a 90% cone? More? Less? I also feel it's quite a complicate solution on all levels as opposed to a short range Shockwave clone with the CC changed around.

Roleplay is nice and all, but shouldn't be mixed in with gameplay. Two travel powers are negated with that, and we have other powers that 'need to touch the ground' and that work while we hover as low as we get. I mean, I can certainly kludge keybinds with powtoggleoff for my attacks where Fault toggles off Hover and my normal attacks toggle Hover back on with powtoggleon, but that seems kinda much dumb when powers like Footstomp can stomp the ground as long as we are hovering on the ground. Overall it's the same roleplay but it understands that a character goes beyond coding and can just, y'know, extend their feet and touch the floor even when flying. Granted, the dev silence on this matter makes me think the keybinds will have to be the solution but hope springs eternal.

Some things have changed with the patches. On the whole Fire Armor is still an offfense based armor and it is now more durable. But despite Burn having been tweaked to be (mostly) back on par with the bugged version it is (mostly) not worth using in a ST situation. This may require testing on a per case basis. I'm messing around with Brutes and dropping builds piece meal into the forums where they will get lost. Might as well make a second compilation thread. Maybe I'll call it the Branker. Yeeeeeeeahno. Anyway. Perennial Claws/Fire. Can't go wrong with it. Might be better on a Tanker? That's because Claws' Follow-up work better on a Tanker. But also because by level 20 a Tanker has Spin -and- Burn -and- Follow-up and the team is merely following the ball of scratchy flaming death. StJ/Fire. I remember getting annoyed with the piano rotation because of Crushing Impact's rotation. I've gone around this with a simpler Crushing Impact, Burn, Heavy Blow, Rib Cracker, Heavy Blow. This leaves a one second ish gap. Adding another Heavy Blow before Burn fixes it. Again a Tanker might get more out of this as Spinning Strike has an anemic radius making it act more like a cone than a fireball effect. Tankers, of course, get 50% more radius. This build is not bad at all in my opinion. The FF procs in Spinning Strike work about as well as Dragon Tail in Martial Arts and just like Dragon Tail the soft CC is invaluable. MA/Fire. It's nearly as good as the Tanker version with 45% to melee/ranged/AoE and 90% to S/L (hole in E/N though), but the first AoE comes out at 26. Cringe. Can't see myself leveling something to 26 without AoEs and always have that Damocles sword if wishing to exemplar. At least a Tanker gets Burn at 18 which fills the AoE needs. Savage/Fire. Hemmorhage still hasn't been fixed is still undertunned and not worth taking other than for the cool factor, but the animations look good and a build that boasts of -three- PbAoEs will thrive in the thick of combat. Stone/Fire. I'm not touching this until the patch hits (and then I will have to rebuild it to include Fault (assuming the devs kindly give it the same code that allows Burn/Footstomp/Tremor/etc to be used while Hover-ing near the ground)) because again, first AoE comes at 28. Bless the current devs who understand a set shouldn't level without AoEs! Tanker again gets Burn at 18 so (until the patch at least) a Tanker version will be easier to level. Rad/Fire. Amazing passive AoE that kills a group while a boss is being punched. This build uses Devastating Blow but I sing the praises of the Contaminated Strike variant over here. It will do less damage in pylon tests but achieve the same result in practical tests without 2.9 second animation locks. EM/Fire. What I'm currently playing. Blows enemies into a thin pink mist and does not lag behind in AoE. My current main because why -not-? Downsides? What are those? Ice/Fire. What I consider the best blend in offense and defense. The lower damage is offset by Brute and by Fire Armor. At 3:20 it has nearly a minute worse times in pylons than the EM's 2:30 (but EM is a beast) but one minute better times than the Tanker version. No -res procs involved. For a new player who wants to be safe but be punchy this build is my advice. Just start fights with Ice Patch. DM/Fire. To be honest Touch of Fear is kinda weak (just compare it to Shadow Maul's damage) and the contortions to reach the goals while slotting it may not be worth it in a build that already has Burn to complement Shadow Maul. But, welp, here we go.

Just made this for myself so I might as well share. It's minmaxed to make use of the scaling resist IO and Barrier to finish capping S/L defenses and resistances. ST chain is something like Crushing Impact, Burn, Heavy Blow, Rib Cracker, Heavy Blow. It's not perfect since there's about a second to start the loop, but slots being so sparse as usual I didn't feel like adding another attack. It can be circuited by changing the rotation to Crushing Impact, Heavy Blow, Burn, Heavy Blow, Rib Cracker, Heavy Blow. It's not terrible to spam Heavy Blows since it has the FF proc in there.

I'm biased so my opinion is thus biased. As someone who only buys amplifiers once (but who -always- buys them) and never again past level 1 I am obviously in the opinion that those initial 8 hours (that usually last me until I reach Manticore) are more important than them not dripping down at level 50... obviously because I don't use them at level 50. Some sort of compromise would be good since levels 50 are people too though we could always argue levels 50 make a lot of money and can afford the amplifies ticking down. But rather than diminish a level 50 annoyance at seeing their amplifiers ticking down a compromise, yes. Not sure what would be satisfactory though. But the 'worry' that someone makes a new alt, buys 8 hours, and then toggles them on and off just when doing TFs, seems a bit minor, no? It still takes someone making a new alt, leveling it for 3-5 hours, collecting accolades, slot and respec... to save buying amplifiers for 8 hours? Dunno, I can understand the point of view, but even if it happens it's going to be a once-per-character thing. Can't imagine people making an industry out of it. The more common worry seems to be that a character will make that large investment and then dole the use of the amplifiers to make them last. Can the amplifiers actually be paused via a command or does it take doing a TF with the 'no temp powers' option? If it takes being in TF/flashback mode with that challenge toggled on then that character will need to live 24/7 under a TF they started solo so that the amplifiers would not run down. They never again team for whatever group activity because they would leave TF mode and the amplifiers would once again start ticking down. I'm not going to say I can't see people doing that or having a dedicated alt for the effect, but since amplifiers don't run down while logged off a dedicated alt already achieves this by logging off. My opinion is that leaving the prices as are while keeping the new code will not impact the economy negatively.

*sad Fault-not-usable-while-flying noises*

The short answer is : - If you need a panic button OR 5% defense + resistance to complete a goal, then Barrier 120 seconds. - If you have endurance or not enough recharge, then Ageless 120 seconds. I realize this does not answer your question(s) but it's an obtuse system and I feel, IMO, after having looked and poked at it, that it's better to just ask which is best at what and then pick it without going deep into the mechanics. Long answer: - All the numbers stack. If you look at Mids or in game (you can right click the powers and then click on the Info tab) you'll see a row of 'Gives X for Y seconds'. They all stack together. But once the duration ends it removes itself. So in the case of Barrier it starts as a huge boost for the first ten seconds, then a bit less for the first 30 seconds. Then less until the first minute has passed. Then the last minute of the two minute duration it gives 5% to defense and resistances. Once the two minutes are over it can be used right away making for a permanent 5% to a build. It's usually used when you know there will be an ambush, or about to go fight an AV, or if you see your HP going down to the red and your heal was already used.

Forums have double XP going on. Already went from newbie to rookie.

I guess lowbies getting 8 hours of amps was too OP. Or something.

They would have to rework the whole Forum PvP system since I got warnings (do those count as badges?) for 'attacking' other users.

A rare case of managing that a power is not taken on all ATs 😄

To make it worse all the actual numbers are terribad. Interface only has one use and it's denting an AV's regen via Degenerative.

I feel like in a P2W game. What ever I do I get a pop up awarding me an achievement.

We know. We have 20-30 pages of why. Hot salty tears at Rage not being stacked anymore and trying to nudge the devs into keeping some fashion of 180% damage. The whole set needs a revamp from the ground kinda like Stone Melee has.

Not really. In my opinion. What Tankers have is self-sufficiency in reaching certain defensive numbers and a bigger HP pool. Brutes suffer from having no such boosts. But they have the same caps. So the number of buffers the new difficulty will attract means the Tankers will get less out of them while the Brutes will get more, but in the end both will be at 45%+ defense and 90% resists. A case can be made that with -debuffs- from enemies that the Tankers having bigger numbers will work out better for them but it's not -that- much of a difference. I can for example look between my Fire Armor Brutes and Tanker builds. The Tankers reach 90% to S/L/E/N without much fuss. And they can reach 40% to S/L more easily. By easily read that I can proc attacks instead of dedicating my attacks to chasing defense or resistance bonuses. But the Brute does nearly the same. It has a 30-ish% hole in E/N resistances that would require either a Thermal or a Sonic to fill but the same defenses. The difference is that I need to dedicate my attacks which makes me do less damage than I could... because of this my Energy Melee/Fire Armor Brute only To be honest I would have to wait and see but I think the squishy Fire Armor Brute/Tanker may have reached its end as a main tank and will only join as a off-tank or DPS. In the case of the Brute it serves pretty well for the purpose even if Scrappers do more... because poor Scrappers and their 75% resists. Especially the sets with agro auras that get the attention of the buffed enemies. That said Shield is probably going to be verrrrry popular in the future.

I'm not ASKING for anything, my dude. I don't even HAVE characters with Super Strength. Eesh, calm your (undead) tits. Of course we can't have double stacked Rage (a whooping 180% damage buff) and no downsides. We had dozens and dozens of pages the last time there was an attempt to balance Rage because of this, and, like I said last time, I have no characters with SS other than one I did while testing the combo with FA and I didn't even finish leveling it because the Rage crash became execrable. So I am just a spectator. I, for one, also rally behind the idea of a toggle. Better than a damage buff it should just add a % of damage as extra Smash or something, but %damage is fine too. Just make it a toggle.

I don't grap why there is a schism between defensive and offensive toggles. Defensive toggles suppress when CCed. Offensive toggles drop and need to be retoggled. Why? What does distinction add? What's it's purpose? What does it add to the game? Because-it-has-always-been-like-that needs to be looked at.

Who runs Rage without stacking it, Snarkums? Once stacking Rage the crash happens once a minute.