Sovera

At the risk of sounding like a Twitterina it's privilege. We do things we don't think are difficult for us and don't understand how it is not the same for others. We conveniently forget (or time softened the edges) of how long it took to become good. And that we had to be interested in it to begin with. And the hours we struggled until we became decent. Yes, anyone can learn how to put a build together. But, does everyone want to put all the hours needed into it? Anyone can do anything. Learn martial arts? Learn how to fix their car? Learn to knit. But to begin with are they even interested? I have the time to learn knitting if I wanted. I have no interest in learning knitting. It does not mean I don't like some cozy mittens for winter. Maybe I should learn how to knit then? No, still not interested, I'll just buy them. Conveniently it is forgotten or downplayed, what an incredible number of IO sets are in game, how each set has six bonuses EACH, how some powers take some sets but not others. It takes a long time to get into this. At least a month and I say it as someone puttering with builds, looking up, and seeing that it ate 8 RL hours of my time. What privilege assuming everyone has interest in spending hours playing Tetris with bonuses. And that magically doing it will improve their enjoyment of the game? Or ability to play it. This whole argument is so disconnected with reality. People liking good food and going to the restaurant meeting that lone person waving a protest sign outside: LEARN HOW TO COOK! YOU WILL APPRECIATE FOOD MORE!

You guys keep on doing your thing where you imagine scenarios and project onto others. The reason why has been repeated ad nauseum at this point and yet we return to the petty 'they are doing this like those guys revving up bikes to wake up the neighborhood!'. Eesh, calm down, there is no nefarious plot and there is childish vroom vroom. - Any content that a single person can solo is not content hard enough that requires 8 people all clumped up together hitting the same targets. - It's mathematical that if the team takes the left fork and the soloer takes the right fork, that the mission will end sooner. - The reason why some people will take the right fork is that they know their build can take it, the know 7 people can take the left fork, they know the content they are doing is not hard enough that there is danger, they know they can shave several minutes off the objective, they know there will be no such gains if they stick with the team. - The reason why someone who takes the right fork joins is not because they think the rest of the team is watching in awe and admiration (you can't see it, but I'm smiling in RL as I write this just because it's so adorable how many times it has been mentioned in this thread) but because soloing a TF takes much longer than doing it with a team. And because sometimes there is chatter. From kill all to kill the AVs a team will do it faster than a solo person. Alright, it has been explained again. I'm (im)patiently waiting to see again in a few pages how the argument returns to the right forkers doing it for the acclaim and awe of the team. o/

This is how I feel now. I like my Scrappers, but after a long absence trying to level news ones just didn't work out. When they crit it's joy. When they don't crit it's bland. I would rather take the Brute. But, that said and as I mention in the Ice/Fire Armor post I made a couple posts under, I still prefer the Tanker to level. Level 18 Burn beats Fury.

I just tested stuff and it's the results I got. Overall I decided that if the actual-tested-numbers were going to be so close together then I might as well use Frost and save the slots rather than slot another attack. That's six slots I can spread. I did get -one- 3:25 result with Frozen Fists, but then the other tests went back to 4 minutes (without -res proc shenanigans), It wasn't FF oriented, but FF was tested along the way.

I'm not someone who deals with math. Partly because I'm not math-y, partly because too often math VS real life something comes undone along the way. I can only say I tested FT, Ice Sword, Frost, Ice Sword and then combinations of Frozen Fist replacing either and the times at best didn't get worse, but, I only did so on a Tanker and this is the Scrapper forums. Perhaps faster attacks work better with Scrapper crits. This isn't so much me defending Froost as saying Frozen Fists/Greater Ice Sword are worse.

Delete it? Ow, no, please.

You big baby you.

It's more the reverse. Pylons are where Scrappers work best. Probably farms too. There is no pause in the damage ergo it's sustained damage. I know my Claws/Bio can do it for infinity at +4x8 other than occasionally healing and the constant AoE crits are a darn pleasure to watch. It works because Claws' Shockwave is so quick to recharge the mobs barely have time to get up before being bounced back down again. Math wise Claws doesn't work so well for Brutes. In practical terms Claws is so good it works with everything, but math doesn't back me up in this. Energy Aura is definitely what works best for a Brute. I've had good results with Fire Armor that left it at near Tanker levels but the progression isn't as good as on a Tanker (Burn at level 18 pls). But your question was made in the past, you'll probably find it page 2 or 3.

I find peculiar that last week you seemed to have no clue on how to play the game, and this week you're doling out pearls of wisdom and saying how it is. There is too much wrong with everything you have said to address it and others have already done it. I suggest to keep on playing and learning because you are not yet at the point of teaching.

Yes, Crabminders are great but can't direct pets to hit the target they want, can't make them follow, or go to, and the cooldowns are huge. A Mastermind just throws out more minions if theirs dies but a Crabmind will play without the pets until they recharge... and might just die again once cast. And just like with a Mastermind pets fold, fast, against +4.

I feel that I can speak based on my recent experience leveling a Brute. - You level a Brute because you want to do more damage than a Tanker. Not all builds are equal, but the last build I did broke a pylon one minute faster than the same build as a Tanker. And it also has much better burst because of that. - You level a Brute because all secondaries have agro grabbing auras which is not the case for a Scrapper. This may seem like a minor thing until we get mobs running away constantly (if solo). It also may be a minor thing if only playing the secondaries that have agro auras (Rad, Bio, etc), but there is a reason so few Scrappers go for Fire Armor. - You level a Brute because you want to do steady higher damage instead of relying on crits. Scrapper damage is great. When it crits. When it does it's not that amazing. Now crits happen when they care to happen. A crit out of the bat after a BU and it happens for an AoE? Serotonin to the brain baby! But that's not something that happens all the time. And sometimes it happens when we don't care for it such as the mob going to die anyway and a crit is overdamage. Why is a Scrapper so much better damage then? Because our tests are of Damage Per Second instead of Burst Damage. And because of that the Scrapper evens out. In regular gameplay we don't deal with DPS. Instead we deal with Burst. We go in, we explode a spawn, then mop the remains, then repeat. Scrappers are still great damage and still worth to look at in terms of pure damage dealers because their ATOs are amazing. Brutes... welp... Their ATOs stupendously suck. I would personally like one of the to be half strength of the Tanker ATO and the other half strength of the Scrapper (not in crits of course, but something like 'each point of Fury instead of giving 1% damage gives 1.10% damage'. Or whatever. I'm not a balance dev but you get the idea. Having an ATO that gives Fury and an ATO that gives regen and recovery is pretty close to useless. In terms of defense yep, Tanker has much better numbers. But that's normal. A Scrapper does more damage but is squishy, a Tanker is sturdier but does less damage. The Brute is the middle version of both. We know this. Nothing has changed. Edit: You also overstate how long it takes to reach full Fury. In my pylon test I got too full Fury in 10-15 seconds. This is not a good example because the pylon only hits every 5-6 seconds. We get Fury when we are swung at so in normal gameplay the first 10 seconds of a fight the Brute will be at full. Then it will degenerate between spawns, but the same patch that buffed Tankers also buffed both Fury generation and minimized Fury degeneration.

Probably more than you intended, but it's all good o/

What is it that you call 'inferior resists'? It's at 90%. You can't go higher than 90%. You -can- slot to go higher than 90% but it's wasted since 90% is the max. Are you ignoring the math because you're seeing 77-78% to S/L/E/N and think that's it? A second ATO stack puts it at 85%, Barrier puts it to 90%. You can ignore Barrier and ATO stacks and just put it natively to 90%, sure, then you get ATO stacks and it goes to... 90%, and another stack and it goes to... 90%. Then if Barrier is needed is goes to... 90%. I have yet to touch a single resist armor set that did not easily cap 90% to S/L/E/N. Seriously, I just slapdash throw some resist on toggles and poof, done. Only things like Fire/Cold or Toxic/Psi remain often uncapped if they don't have a toggle for it. My Rad Armor builds have toxic/psi at 90% because they have a toggle for it. And we must be having different experiences because 90% resists on -45% defense is death. I mean, yes, I would love for a resist set to go hahahahahahahahahahahitmeagainIalmostfelthat because resist sets -should- be like that. In practice defense sets mostly ignore -def because they have DDR, and ignore -res because they either don't have res or don't care since the hits need to get past defense first. I have my resists monitored. 90% is not enough. Resists don't protect against enemies who do -defense. Resist sets are screwed. Anyone who plays resist sets knows this. It's kinda ok up to -10% or -20%, then iffy at -30% and at -45% you'd better be kitting your behind off because standing your ground is suicide. You are way too experienced for me to understand how you can say that 90% means -def is negligible so I don't understand why you've using that argument. Is it because you're used to only playing Invuln? Invuln does mock -def because it has a toggle that increases defense the more mobs there are around, plus high resists, plus DDR. But why ignore defense? Or at least not aim for good numbers? The second thing that screws resist sets is that they eat every single debuff in the game. -rech, -end, -rec, -acc and more. Any faction that does debuffs but does not do -def specifically meets the defense wall and saves the tanker from having to take the slathering of debuffs. The only thing I can think of is that you don't want to depend on ATO stacks nor in having to using Barrier. Which is perfectly valid. I said my view point on the matter. 95% of the game? No reason to maximize things. A Lady Grey TF? A Qhan (or whatever it is spelled)? Even a Lord Recluse TF? No need, just play the game, 40% defense and 85% is enough, we don't need more defenses for those, we need more damage. Then there's the 5% which wants care and all buffs on and that's when Barrier comes. Even in the ITF I don't throw Barrier on CD and just use it when my HP is dipping like mad despite being at 90% and my heal already on CD.

Yes. But resistances are too easy to raise for resist sets. Is there are Tanker resist set that doesn't easily cap resistances? The fun challenge comes in getting them up, getting good recharge, good EPS, defenses up as an extra layer, then maximize damage as well.

It takes doing the ITF on a leveling build with 0% of it to really appreciate it. But even at 45% I got slowed enough to be killed by the ambush. Though they are a bit much to handle thanks to the -def and being so many enemies. 85% should be enough.

Some more optimizing. Sacrificed some EPS (not visible in Mids since it does not show Performance Shifter's endurance proc and I have removed two from the build) for more -slow resist. I've been tinkering the endurance costs more and more so I feel it's fine since we have blue insps, we have recovery serum, but -recharge comes from us or incarnates, and when we get slowed we die. So while the very first original build had 45% -slow this third iteration now has reached a quite beefy 85% recharge debuff resistance. Should be enough to tank the ocean of khelds at the end of the ITF's first mission. EPS is at 3.75 (without Consume clicked in Mids since that buff only lasts 15 seconds) and down to 1.59 EPS consumption. Usual 40% S/L defense and 77-78% resistances so that two ATO stacks = 85% + Barrier puts them at 90%. Anything not difficult enough to warrant Barrier isn't content that needs 45% defense and 90% resistances.

If you slot one -KB IO your woes are solved. Two if you want to be extreme. I play with just one. They cost 1-2 mill. I don't use temp powers either, but yeah.

! *general forum population holding me back by the arms* No no, don't! 😄

Do it if you want to, but other than orange salvage there is no point in keeping any other salvage. You get more than you could ever use and more keeps on dropping. It's stuff worth 100 to 5000 inf.

Same please.

Saying it is about your feelings and you do not like seeing people haring off and soloing is not an insult... Facepalms and etc. Anyway, I said I would not argue and here I am. My proposal stands. Random people joining in the TF ensures it will not be biased either way since we will be just two out of eight. Accept it, or not, I said what I had to say.

You obviously do not know me if you think I do internet insults. My posting history for the past two years is available for perusal. I can do better than that though. If you play on Everlasting we can pick a random TF (Synapse takes too long but it's the best showcase because of the kill alls that can't be rushed through). If you don't then I can transfer to your server and we can run two of the same TF back to back and in one of them I will 'solo' the appropriate parts. Notice I don't say speedrun. Speedrunning is not my thing and not what is in question here.

For the future remember you can get that badge in about 15-20 minutes by using the Steel Canyon Pandora arc TF (red book icon on the map). Put it to -1x8 with no bosses and Fakes will spawn as -1 lieutenants which can be two shot. It avoids the bubbling they do. After killing all the Fakes just relog. Each map has an average of 25 of them. Unfortunately if a second person joins they turn into -1 bosses which gives them enough HP to bubble on.

It doesn't hurry things up, but I'm not going to argue with you further. This is another one of those arguments where I can show up with mathematical proof and it will be dismissed because 'MY FEELINGS MATTER!'. This is not about the team being faster with one person going left instead of right because the team obliterates a spawn leaving people animating skills that hit corpses, this is about you not liking them doing that. It's based on emotions, not facts. You don't like them to do that. Stop coating the argument with altruistic tones that the team is missing out by having that Scrapper or Brute haring off. There is hardly any objective that the team splitting up will not achieve it faster. Be it kill all, find a random clicky or find a boss. I've played this game long enough and have been the one haring off. I have also played this game for a long time as a Tanker so I do not hare off leaving my squishies undefended. In either case as a TF-leveler there is a distinct improvement in times when someone does part of the content solo. Suddenly watch Synapse not taking 1:30 (or in one infamous case for me, two hours) but rather taking 1:10. If I'm playing with my usual friend who also splits from the team watch Synapse go down to one hour. Now with all of this said it remains a game, a hobby we do in our spare time. If it bothers you that people do some of these things (which is perfectly acceptable. My own pet peeve is Controllers spamming mass immobilizes/AoE fears/AoE stuns, or players spamming knockbacks because 'it helps' *narrator: none of it, in fact does help*) then make a team where you state it: steam rolling team doing X. Don't join if you're going to go ahead soloing stuff. Warning, you WILL be kicked off the team. Voila, your problem has now been solved. To be fair I could do with my teams and state I do not accept Controllers or that people who knockback will get one warning to stop and then they will be kicked, but I don't. It's a pet peeve not a phobia, I can live with the small annoyance of mass immobilizes/fears/stuns.

Bill does have a point though. It's the old game designer adage of difficulty = more HP instead of game mechanics. WoW had this a couple years back when they changed leveling (not the most recent where they made timewalking leveling which was well received) where players were 'leveling too fast' and thus things were tweaked. Turns out the tweaks were giving more HP to mobs. Not more mechanis, not hitting harder, just more HP, and the players argued (with good reason) that there was no extra challenge, all it did was slow people down. So in that sense yes, there is no extra challenge. But in a full team the extra defense does not matter since the enemies have such low HP compared to the overwhelming tsunami that is incarnated IOed players going ham. All it takes is a couple of hits for things to die and with 8 AoEs everything dies. It will only slow soloists because the damage output is reduced to x1. But on the other hand I'm not on Bill's side that TFs ought to cater even more to soloists. They already do that. That's what the difficulty slider is for and what allows pretty much any AT to solo a TF with a minimum of a build. +4x8 with or without any other attributes is for the bragging rights and the harder it is the more bragging rights.