aethereal

I have no opinion on whether the taunt in Entropic Aura "should be" the 13.6 second taunt that Invul, Bio, Rad, and Shield get, or the smaller 2.25 second one that's coded into the power. Willpower, for what it's worth, also gets a low duration taunt. But the taunt should presumably be mag 3, not mag 4.

It's based on data from Homecoming. If this is a CoD bug of some kind, obviously that's not a HC bug, but it's very likely that it's accurately reflecting a bug in HC powers data. This is all wrong. Brutes have several inherents. They have Fury (as in, the "+2% damage per point of fury bar" power). That power is not being invoked by Scrapper Entropic Aura. They also have a punch-voke power that taunts things that they hit. That is the power that is being invoked here. Assuming CoD is accurate, Entropic Aura is doing a weak-ish taunt by itself (2.25 seconds, mag 3) by itself and also invoking the Brute inherent taunt (13 seconds or so, mag 4). That would be inappropriate and pretty certainly unintended. It's possible -- I don't know how the powers coding works -- that when Scrapper Entropic Aura tries to invoke the Brute inherent punch-voke, it doesn't actually happen because there's some check that says "Scrappers should not be able to invoke this power," and nothing actually happens (ie, the superior taunt does not actually apply). If so, this is a pretty harmless bug, and it's likely just using a very small amount of server resources to keep trying to invoke the power and then aborting out of it. It should still be cleaned up, but it's not very important. If it does actually successfully execute the Brute power, then Entropic Aura gets a meaningfully greater taunt effect than any other Scrapper aura in a way that certainly looks unintended. No other scrapper taunts attempt to execute this power.

This is just coming from inspection of CoD, so it's possible it's not "real." https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=scrapper_defense.energy_aura.entropy_shield&at=scrapper If you look at the last power effect on that page, it's an execution of the Brute Inherent taunt effect. I remain a little unclear whether this actually means that scrappers do actually execute this power, or whether it's a no-op, but it shouldn't be part of the scrapper effect groups for this power at all.

It's in the middle and I probably don't remember the details exactly right, but I think it's something like "you get protection against kb once you've been kb'd," and then "you get protection against common mezzes (hold/sleep/stun?) once you've taken any common mez," and "you get protection against exotic mezzes (terrorize/confuse?) once you've taken any exotic mez." Again, that's probably not exactly right, but the point is that they've lumped mezzes into a few categories and taking any mez in that category protects you against all mezzes in that category for a while. Edit: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Player_vs_Player#Status_Effect_.26_Knockback_Suppression So the categories are "kd/kb/ku", "confuse," and "everything else, including terrorize and immobilize." The protection timers are 15 seconds for the two mezzes and 10 seconds for knocks.

Mezzing is really different in PvP vs PvE. Unlike in PvP, he won't have outright protection to holds/stuns/sleeps, so your first mez will mez him (and detoggle RttC). But it will only last like 1-2 seconds. And then you won't be able to re-mez him for a while. So, I don't know how terrorize will work, but the role of mezzing in 1v1 PvP, especially if you're not a troller/dom, is like "detoggle and set up one attack," not "lock him down."

Yeah, it looks a lot like it's copy-and-pasted from Brute Energy Aura. The Brute taunt (assuming it actually happens) is much stronger than the taunt in the actual power (13.6 second Mag 4 taunt from the Brute inherent instead of 2.25 second Mag 3 taunt from the actual power).

No, I mean the question from the original post -- when Entropic Aura redirects a Scrapper to a Brute inherent, does the power actually activate? Or do you have to "have" the power that you're redirected to, so it's a no-op?

Anyone know about the power redirect?

Blasters are very strong in sort of naive PvP, where you aren't using any complex tactics and just banging on each other. Compared to PvE, his brute will lose a ton of durability, while your blaster will gain a bunch of resistance (though maybe lose defense). Hit him with a hold to detoggle Rise to the Challenge and back away from him between attacks.

Got it, so basically even the basic non-stacking +5% recharge time of Entropic Aura will only go into effect if it hits at least one target, since it's in Standard Effects rather than Activation Effects.

Using Scrapper Energy Aura's Entropic Aura as our example case: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=scrapper_defense.energy_aura.entropy_shield&at=scrapper I noticed that this has two categories of power effect, "Activation effects" and "Standard effects." I haven't gone hunting, but I assume that other powers also have these distinctions. What's the difference here? Anyone know? This power also has a redirect to the Brute inherent Fury proc aura (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=redirects.inherents.fury_proc_aura), last power effect on the Entropic Aura page. That seems like an error, but my question is, is it a harmless error or a harmful one? When a power redirects to another power, do you have to have that power? Or does it execute regardless? Does this do nothing because Scrappers don't have the Brute inherent, or does it execute the Brute inherent anyway?

You're right. That also has a redirect to the brute inherent, seems sketchy.

As far as I'm aware, Brute taunt auras have target cap 10 as usual. Both Brute and Tanker Taunt actual power has a 5 target cap. It would be weird, admittedly, for a Confront replacement to target more than Taunt does, but hear me out: in this world, scrappers would get no taunt aura, and hypothetical 10-cap Confront would be non-perma out of the box (while Taunt is way, way, way more than perma out of the box), and it would be PBAoE rather than targeted. So in this scenario, I think that Confront would be more comparable to the (10-target) taunt auras that Brutes and Tankers get rather than the (5 target) Taunt that they get. You'd use it when enemies started running to pull them back so that you could kill them before the taunt wore off. Note also that Brute and Tankers both get punch-taunt effects. The concept I'm trying to get at is, instead of having some scrapper armors having Really Good Taunts and everyone else has no/really pathetic (Confront-only) taunts, try to normalize Scrappers to "way less taunt than Brutes and Tankers, but still something."

Scrapper armor sets with taunt auras: Bio (Evolving Armor) Invul (Invincibility) Rad (Beta Decay) Shield (Against All Odds) Willpower (Rise to the Challenge, smaller duration than the others) Pretty sure there are 5, not 6, but maybe @Bill Z Bubba can clarify what he thinks the 6th is, possible I missed somthing. I just triple-checked in CoD, but there's no way to search as far as I can tell and maybe a taunt is hiding in some power I didn't think to check. All Brute and Tanker armors have taunt auras (there remain people who don't know this. Also, Willpower's taunt isn't really weak on Tanker/Brute anymore). No stalker or sentinel armors have them. Scrapper Dark, Stone, and Ice have mez or slow auras that arguably help against runners without being taunts. I am personally not particularly invested in Scrapper armor sets having taunts, but it's obviously something that people feel strongly about in both directions. I wonder if a synthesis viewpoint might be for all Scrappers sets to get weak taunt auras like Willpower's, or for Scrapper sets to get slow/mez auras but not taunt auras, or for scrappers to get PBAoE powers that taunt but which aren't toggles (like maybe Energy Drain could have a taunt effect, but you don't get the effortless taunting that Brutes/Tanks get). Replace Confront with a not-perma-out-of-the-box ten-target PBAoE taunt?

Correct. The only effect that "Exhausted" has is that while you have it, Savage Melee powers will not grant Blood Frenzy. Here's the power description for Exhausted in CoD: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=temporary_powers.temporary_powers.savage_melee_exhausted&at=scrapper

It's ideal to not use it purely reactively, because then you do spend some time mezzed and thus more vulnerable to damage, etc. If you're using anything like a normal build, you'll have practiced brawler way more than perma just though your global recharge, and you can easily reapply it between fights such that it's very unlikely that you'll ever have a gap in your protection. If you do end up with a small gap, it's not the end of the world, though. People get freaked out that it's not a toggle and put it on auto, but that ends up applying it way too often for most play -- then they get irritated that it's messing up their dps.

I promise you that you do not need to put practiced brawler on auto or cast it on cooldown. Just train yourself to tap it while you're moving between mobs. If you do end up with a small period of vulnerability to mez, then, well, first, about 90-95% of mezzes are going to miss you, and if one does hit, you can cast practiced brawler through a mez.

If we imagine that powers are somewhat loosely interpreted, for one power probably Willpower: extreme healing seems like it would be useful for things like illness, and having a strong mind feels useful for a variety of stuff. And a rez! If we're taking the power effects more literally, such that all that the strong mindedness of willpower is actually good for is psi defense and the are no psi attacks, maybe invulnerability instead. Probably kinetics for the other power set, that's got a heal, some buffs that seem like they'd be useful in non-combat situations, and people would love getting the superjump power. Teleportation is probably the best choice for travel powers but maybe you need to take flight instead just for the coolness. Is Mystic Flight an option?

You're correct. Also, the odds of missing 100 attacks in row even with floored to hit chance are negligible (about 0.6%), so even if you let someone attack you 100 times in a row, steak breaker will almost certainly not kick in.

RDR should probably be capped at 90% or 95%.

There's no cap in terms of the multiplicative chance that a proc activates on at least one of the targets in a multi-target power. The proc chance cap is the cap of the chance to proc on a given target. If you have a Call if the Sandman in frozen aura and you hit ten targets with it, there's a roughly 99% chance it will fire.

Obviously it depends on a lot of things. But my experience is that at high difficulty settings, the heals and absorbs aren't enough to deal with incoming damage. Defense, resistance, and regeneration are the primary mitigation of Bio, and the heals and absorbs don't keep you up through their cooldowns without those mitigation layers. This may be somewhat less true on tanks -- I have brought a Bio tank to 50, but more of my experience is on brutes, stalkers, and scrappers.

It has no DDR and I think no regen debuff resistance. A large variety of high-level enemies are a real PITA due to that.

I know that this is months old, but the Super Stunner rez is autohit.

I played a Spines/Bio brute to 50. It's fun, though obviously your ST damage is less-than-amazing and Bio has a fairly large number of holes in it.