Brutal Justice

When it came out there were not very many sets with +end capabilities and none that you could have from your primary. You were almost forced into dark/dark because dark melee could help with thirsty dark armor. The sets intention was clearly as a utility and survivability boost. Just look at the powers available and you can see it’s intention was never aoe. The original devs valued diversity and roles. Current dark melee is the best at its role. The most recent sets like bio and Titan weapons are overturned because they were new and behind pay walls. That’s good business to make your fresh item more powerful, but I am sure they would have been reigned in once their sales started to come down. As they did with pretty much every new thing they released.

Rather than highlighted I think you could say the tanker changes exacerbated or created more of the issues. Another reason the aoe buffs to tanks was the wrong direction to take them. The buffs are fun, but a buff that requires a buff that requires another buff is not good. It accelerates inflation. City of More Damage.

Have people really asked for more aoe in energy melee to fix its issues? I dont read all of the posts but the last time I looked at one of those threads the majority would be happy with energy transfer just going back to its original animation and values.

The thing with dark melee is, it’s already a great set. It may not be the best single target damage, and it may be towards the bottom in aoe. However, it is the best at what it does. It takes relatively little investment and is quite often the most suggested set to take to compliment a lot of builds. Powerset diversity needs to be embraced. Not make everything the same. Do people want energy melee fixed by giving it tons of aoe? Most people want it back to single target king. Is stone melee going to turn fault into foot stomp because aoe is all these devs and players care about? There is nothing wrong with current dark melee as a whole. A case could be made for shadow maul and that’s probably it. A rising tide raises all ships. Bringing dark melee up to such a level will require other sets to rise as well.

I share the same concerns. Dark melee had lower aoe potential because of all the utility from the set. With these changes it will become the do everything set. People will absolutely be using dark consumption at full end, well, minus the end used for soul drain. Not only will the set be able to nuke mobs, it will be able to heal itself with one of its best attacks, apply -to hit with each attack, restore its end if low, apply fear and a large -to hit, and majorly boost its damage. The change to shadow maul is probably fine on its own. The change to dark consumption is gross power creep. @Auroxis brought up electric melee. What will electric melee do that dark doesn’t do better? Dark melee was the best at what it already does. Now it’s just the best overall pick. Dark blast has lower damage than the other blast sets because of its utility. Is it going to have moonbeam turned into moonboom an aoe snipe? Honestly, shadow maul should just be increased to a 60degree cone and maintain its current damage scale. As of now it’s a solid attack if you hit at least 2. Increase its radius slightly to reliably hit 3 and it becomes a great attack. This leaves dark melee with great single target and slightly increased aoe potential, without sacrificing much in your single target rotation. The dark consumption change is just messed up.

The availability of the top tier IOs is much different. There were Uber builds on live that would be the same build today. The difference is how available they are now. I never once saw an ATO or PVP IO on live. Same with the winter IOs and attuned builds. Overwhelming force as well. You’re correct we are not much different than we were on live, or what was planned. It’s the other things homecoming has changed or allowed that has changed the game. I prefer the availability but if it’s going to stay like this then something needs to be done to help the game. I propose a scaling hp pool for mobs that scales with team size. Allowing the mobs to be more durable makes them inherently more difficult because they actually get to fight back. It wouldn’t make them cheese like irresistible damage or mass debuffs.

Damage is out of control. It’s not just toggle debuffs that suffer from diminished value. I was on a LGTF with my trick arrow the other night and I could barely keep up with the damage dealers. Often times they would blow up a mob and move on, leaving a couple survivors, but since cleanup takes precious time, they just left them to jump into the next large mob. By the time I could get a disruption arrow down, I may have been debuffing 1/4hp mobs for a second or two. Crowd control, aggro management, debuffs, all of these have very little value after an IO build enters the team. Which these days, with the availability of attuned builds, can happen in the teens. Enter incarnates and rolling judgments and you don’t even need your primary or secondary. I would consider myself a casual veteran. All I play in are PuGs and below lvl 40 for the majority. Once incarnates are in play, it may be fun for a bit, but it’s not rewarding for me. When I view the game through the lense of a newer player, I don’t see a sustainable model. When the gameplay is not rewarding and I feel like I am bringing nothing to my team, why would I stick around? It’s not that controllers or defenders are incapable, it’s that the power gap makes them superfluous. Something needs to be done to bring value back to the lower dps archetypes. I like Dynasty Warriors games, but I don’t play them for very long, especially not the same one for 7 years. Right now City of Heroes is a musou game. Those games are successful because they release a new one every 6 months. In my opinion, the current state and direction of the game is not a sustainable model.

The slow from the glue is autohit but the damage portion is not. If you watch your combat logs it misses and does no damage if the target is high enough. You need accuracy for the damage

How do you slot glue arrow? I was hoping it was auto hit but it looks like the damage portion requires accuracy. I was also hoping they would take damage as long as they were covered in glue but it looks like it just creates a patch on the ground like caltrops so if they run out of the patch, even if still glued, they no longer take damage.

I was curious if anybody has used procs in the blaster version of glue arrow. It appears the damage portion of the glue creates a patch on the ground like caltrops and they are able to move out of the damage. How often would the damage portion trigger a proc? Would it behave just like caltrops? With the new proc mechanic is it worth procs?

@Heraclea Regen should be more or less immune to debuffs like slow, end drain, and -regen. It’s themetic and would help the set a ton. I am confused a bit by your response. I am not advocating for soft capping defense. Actually the opposite. If I remember correctly, without set bonuses, electric armor can hit 60 something s/l res with tough. If you took your regen build and applied its bonuses to electric armor, it would fold just as quickly. Your brute with 85% res is more durable against Cims than one with 60% s/l res and 30% defense. I don’t farm and I don’t like to marketeer. I will craft, convert, and sell the drops I get. My build has purples planned but none slotted because I can’t afford them. I have the brute ATOs and a panacea set. Those are my most expensive IOs. 85% s/l res may be out of reach for regen but you have other tools to help with that. Regen is an active mitigation set. Most melee sets out of the box get wiped out by Cims. They deal that much raw damage. Galaxy brain has shown regen to be right up there with willpower, outside of strength of will. You’re regen with 30% defense, against Cims, is more or less using SOs. Here is the list of armors on a brute using only SOs that I think would have trouble with Cims. Rad, elec, bio, fire, ice, regen, energy, ninj, dark, will, basically anything with low s/l res and low DDR. ITF is popular because it’s great xp available at lvl 35 and up to 50, Cims like to clump for blowing up, and s/l defense is easy to build for. It can actually be a brutal TF outside of IOs and incarnates.

@Heraclea You’re fighting the most damage spiking group, which is the Achilles heal of regen. Also if you’re not soft capped, or planning to soft cap, I am sure you know how those romans feel about that. Especially with zero DDR. You probably faired about as well as an ice armor toon with no set bonuses. Guarded strike won’t help you at all against those guys. If you’re wanting to be viable against Cims I would suggest res over def. My brute is far from softcapped. The only defense he has is just incidental from powers and set bonuses. I focus recharge and resists. I think my brute sits around 58% s/l res. Honestly, if I’m going to play regen, I want to play it the way it plays. If I want to play it the way willpower plays, then I’ll just play willpower. That’s why I don’t softcap. I focus on recharge to bring those clicks up as quickly as possible. I saw this post yesterday and ran over to the wall with my sj/reg brute to see what it was like. I stood in a +1 boss spawn with adds from a lower lvl group for probably 10 minutes just cycling through my clicks. There were times my health was within a sliver but it always came back up. I was also not helping out IH when it was active to watch my 220 hp/s regen work. To see if it was capable of bringing me back from the brink to full health on its own. It generally all depended on how many crits the boss would land. They ran themselves out of endurance and the only time I dodged anything was when MoG was active. Once I decided to clear the mob and move on it quickly became a no contest. If you’re fighting Cims on a regen with defense lvls that require guarded strike and that’s basically it, then you might as well compare your survival to a no set bonus brute build. How well do you think an elec armor brute on SOs would stand in there? Less spike prone, but probably still dead, or clinging onto the recharge of energize for dear life. I feel you’re judging your toon unfairly against an enemy group you are not built to handle. It’s like taking your s/l res capped invul up against a group of seers.

That’s some solid work. Hopefully the devs are watching this thread... I figure they watch most things @Galaxy Brain does. Time for that straight port of the brute version.

Bio wouldn’t be as OP if it didn’t have the MinFx option. It’s the only possible explanation for the set’s level of performance. High performance offset by a FX tax. The tax should be reimplemented to bring the set back in line.

The knockback IOs could also have their damage enhancement values increased substantially. That’s probably an easier way to apply more damage to knockbacks than coding a proc or separate mechanic. Say you six slot a knockback set and you end up with 110% enhancement instead of the typical ~96%. Or some solid +dam bonuses in the knockback sets. Upon further thought, the increased damage would have to be tied to the 6th slot. Otherwise the kB-kd IO would be used as a loophole in the 6th slot. A knockback IO set with +10 dam in the 6th slot.

Thanks for the info @Nemu what are your thoughts on lightning field? I currently have it on my rad/elec but I don’t know how much mileage I am actually getting from it. I am in melee, but am I in melee enough for it to be worth the end drain? As I lvl higher will I just be killing things so quickly with my other attacks that it’s a waste of end?

I am always about value and variety. I want all archetypes to be able to feel valuable in game play. It’s really lame when one archetype or power can totally dominate the game. IE rolling judgements or Titan weapon users. I understand it’s fun for some but the game was successful as city of heroes, not city of brutes. It’s not healthy for the game since the true end game is alting. You max out your brute, roll an alt, feel useless, play your brute a bit more, get bored, leave. Combinations and variety are the heart of the game. But you have to feel valuable on those other combos to keep the blood flowing. In regards to variety, I like that sentinel’s have some unique powerset functionality. They are a jack of all, master of none. Their unique sets give them value. I don’t want them to lose that flavor. I also don’t want scrapper regen to lose its flavor and just become passive. It plays differently. I like that. Variety and value. This is is not a “nerf brute” post. Please don’t turn it into that. It’s really a post about not making all sets play the same, primarily focused on /regen.

Awesome stuff here @Galaxy Brain i just want to double check some of your numbers here. Under the Sentinel peak performance absorb stats I see some inconsistencies. You state that the absorb stacks up to 5 times. I asked around real quick because I didn’t see that anywhere in the description and everybody said it just refreshes the 96 absorb points, it doesn’t stack. So instead of 32dps for 15 seconds it’s only 32dps for 3 seconds to overcome the absorb. It would also only be an effective max hp of 2184, not 2567. The other inconsistency is between your sentinel’s peak regen and average regen. For some reason your average regen is 138.18. Higher than your peak of 121.26. I would think the peak would be higher than the average. I am am not trying to pick on the sentinel version, and I also don’t know all the exact numbers you’re using for your calculations, those are just the two things that stuck out. I never have the game in front of me when posting and I play on a Mac so I don’t have a hero planner to verify numbers. Just scribbles on a napkin. I think you’re really showing the durability of regen as opposed to just shouting “regen sucks”. Also with their base durability being so close you’ve shown that sentinel regen is awesome because being at range cuts incoming dps probably in half, rather than instant regeneration being so much better than instant healing.

Integration has, or at least had, a taunt component. I honestly haven’t played my regen brute since the aggro changes went live. I feel like the descriptions have been removed from taunt auras since the changes, making it difficult to know if you have one or not. I am away from the game and can’t confirm if it states in the detailed info whether or not integration taunts. It used to at the least.

I have pretty minimal experience with blasters and am looking for any insight from the experts. I have several planned and only one that I am happy with. I want to play a rad/ and was thinking /elec. Any insight on how well that will mesh? Or maybe /dark. I am not sure how I feel about having the sustain on a click instead of a toggle. I would also like to roll a dark/. Right now I have it paired with /plant. I am not sure how I feel about the pairing. It’s only lvl 13. I might change to dark/energy. I do like /plant. Are there any particularly good pairings with /plant? For pairings with the primaries I already have a /tac, /time, /dev planned and I don’t like to repeat sets. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

I actually don’t like that this thread was moved to suggestions just because I wanted to have a tanker discussion on the topic. I looked at the other thread and aside from Galaxy Brain’s post it looked like a dumpster fire. The scrapper vs sent post was interesting. It shows that sentinels have better mitigation against smaller amounts of incoming damage, but with instant healing and dull pain scrappers have higher peaks of sustain. That’s consistent with how I view regen, peaks and valleys, not a steady line traveling on a graph. I understand why you reduced the scrapper regen in the manner you did for sustain reasons but it gives a poor representation of reality for the scrapper. This is because the sentinel version is much more passive. For instance, the scrapper reduces the 100dps to 51.17 dps and survives for 29.62s. The sentinel reduces it to 37.35 dps and survives for 40s. Looks good for the sentinel. These are the without MoG numbers. However, in reality, when the scrapper clicks IH, according to your numbers, their regen shoots to 65hps for 90s. 100dps - res - 65hps = 25.6 dps. With 1 click the scrapper lives for an actual 52.3 seconds. Longer than the sentinel’s 40s. In reality the scrapper is much more durable since the sentinel is dead before the scrapper’s IH wears off. The toggle is good at making you look more durable without actually making you so. Similarly, with dull pain and IH running, the scrapper is immune to the 100dps for the duration. The vacuum is showing infinite time but if the sentinel only survives for 40s then that should be the actual bench mark to compare the two. Normal regen passes the practical durability test, sentinel regen passes the eye durability test. All of this just to say, give me current regen on my tank! If you’re curious, a base regen tank would survive for 100dps - 12.5 res - 28.5hps = 59dps. 1874hp/59dps = 31.76s. Just standing there doing nothing.

Can you link that thread? I missed it and would like to read it. How quickly does that absorb refresh?

The only durability advantage tanks have on brutes is their larger hp base and cap. Brutes have a pretty high hp cap as well so sets with dull pain help brutes quite a bit. Less so with scrappers and stalkers because they cap out pretty quickly and lose some of that dull pain hp. High regen sets like willpower and bio should see the largest durability jump from brutes to tanks, out of all of the sets, do to the higher base hp of tanks. With higher base and cap, higher heals, and higher resists regen tanks would be pretty stout. You will have active management and some loss of dps but it’s really not as much as it would seem. If you have to click one defensive power per fight it’s only 1 attack you missed. No different from any other set with a fast recharge heal or other utility power. The more passive sets are invulnerability, stone, shield, willpower, and super reflexes. All the others have at least one power to click per fight, fire, dark, elec, ice, bio, rad. This is all based on SOs since IOs can do for regen what it can do for any other set. People like the sentinel regen because it has an absorb to help with alphas. I don’t know the numbers on that absorb but does it give a sentinel higher faux hp than a tanker has base? If it doesn’t then tanks don’t need a changed regen, their base hp adds more survivability than that loved absorb shield.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/2065-a-guide-to-health-amp-regeneration-and-how-they-work/ if you read this guide you’ll see that at a certain point adding +hp has a much greater effect than adding more regen. The tanks base hp pool will help immensely. My brute doesn’t have an issue taking an alpha with just his base hp. It’s really not much different from willpower in how it takes an alpha. It is different in how it handles after the alpha. You absorb the alpha and pop reconstruction. Recovering from the alpha. Often times your base regen will sustain you through the rest of that fight. Reconstruction is probably recharged by the time you get to the next mob. If it’s not, regen has a lot more tools. You can hit dull pain after the next alpha, which will carry you for a long time with the extra 1k hp. You can MoG and have no alpha. You can hit IH and just roll through the alpha. It’s about timing rather than set and forget. Stalkers and scrappers have much lower hp pools so they are much less capable of that alpha. Tanks are a different beast. I farmed the sig arc at lvl 40 for fake nems with my regen brute, at x8 he did just fine with zero IOs. My regen stalker is much more susceptible to spike damage because of the low hp. Regen is active and capable. Give it to me on a tank and stand back.

All I want is a regen tank. Give it to me just like the brutes have just with tanker numbers.