Sovera

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.

Rad/Fire, yes, and check the Farm Fresh thread over the Guides section for all the details.

Almost tempted to run this. The whole build revolves around being a Burn support. -res in Mercurial, -res in Guarded, -res from Eye of the Storm with three stacks, then FF procs in Serpent and Eye to churn more Burns. The ST outside of Burn though, oof, 145 damage, 200, 364. Ow.

Testing is where it is at, but testing only tests the fighting prowess. Usefulness is not as easily tested since it's relative, subjective, and perhaps only occasional. Being able to recoup endurance and have a small heal is not something that we can neatly put in an equation. But the fighting can be tested and if you want to you can try the Trapdoor testing that's over the Scrapper section (it's open to all ATs). or the pylon testing also in the Scrapper section. A lot of what we do until we pick a watch is subjective. I have a very fond and fun playstyle with Fire Armor/Martial Arts Tanker until testing in a Yin and seeing it's not actually spectacular as it felt, but that build has other perks not easily slid into an equation. The 10% defense and the constant FF procs speeding up all clickies are perks though. But in fighting prowess? With two AoEs where one is Burn and two Build-ups it squeaked a barely faster time than my Savage Melee Brute with one AoE and one Build-up. The same test with a DM was a dozen minutes slower.

You're right.

Super Strength is the poster child of devs smoking pot when designing sets. Who thought that a set in a game that routinely throws 10-12 mobs at a person needed no AoE until 32?

Please replace Crippling Axe Kick at 18 for Dragon Tail, and place Crippling Axe Kick at 26. No set needs four single target attacks and zero AoE until 26.

As long as you're having fun. But if you're not using ET and TF then why even bother with EM? Go Rad Melee and use the Contaminated Strike rotation and you get FF procs from Radioactive Smash, a heal, and the passive damage (with team wide buffing from -res procs) from IG.

On a Brute the Staff can bring the precious resistances it is lacking from not having the Tanker's ATO, and for no investment whatsoever. 15% would pretty much allow a Fire Armor Brute to be capped at S/L/E/N instead of having the E/N hole. The defense from Guarded Spin would not go amiss either since I believe it stacks for Brutes (ergo 45% to melee by itself). The only problem lays in the damage which is just not so good. As someone who really likes old kung fu movies and the staff I really like the set, but then what? Spin spin spin, fragile minions die, then there's just a boss and spin spin spins spin spin spin spin, finally dead. That said we can multiply the team's damage. -res proc in Mercurial Blow, -res proc in Guarded Spin, use Eye of Storm as a spender for another 7.5% -res, then go Bio for another -7.5%

Also was looking at Rad Melee and after some mathing switching Devastating Blow for Contaminated is a 15% damage loss (originally 9%, but had to check actual slotting since DB's slow animation makes it carry procs well). 15% is 15%. In actual gameplay perhaps a case can be made of not corpse blasting with the devastatingly slow animation and how misses eat 3 seconds, but 15% is still 15% on a set that does not shine for its ST. Could be worse though, so I'll go out on a limb and call the switch viable since the animation of DB is one of the downsides and reasons not to pick Rad Melee. Upsides: six slotting Unrelenting Fury in Contaminated Strike to ease endurance demands, E/N up to a reasonable near 63% (68% with Barrier). Considerations: ditching a damage proc from Burn to an Overwhelming Force proc to force KDs since it does not create KBs. Between Avalanche in Atom Smasher and Burn part of a spawn can be kept bouncing for precious seconds. Not sure I can recommend it since damage procs in Burn are worth their weight in gold, but...

You want to check the Guides section and the Farm Fresh thread.

Something interesting that I tested today is that Overwhelming Force in Burn does not turn KD into KB like Avalanche does. Considering how well Burn takes to procs this has value for defense.

I tried that doubling down on quadruple procs to avoid ET and TF but yeah, no go. We talked about this though, use EP and BS more instead of TF unless it's a target at full life or a boss. We're not in the Tanker forums 😜 n

Re-read. It is Siphon, Strike, Smash, Strike. When the loop starts again it goes Siphon which is the second Siphon I speak of. The thing is that we all loathe Devastating's animation so a 9-10% price can be paid to avoid it. Not on a Srapper I would say. A crit with Devastating would mess the gain loss ratio.

And we can't underline enough how pylon tests are not a good metric when so many enemies resist S/L so much.