siolfir

The argument here is what constitutes "decent" but I will agree with this and add that even with SOs my SS/Bio Brute little trouble with anything - you just might not be able to run in Offensive Adaptation 100% of the time against some groups. Now that the build is finished I only really have trouble with tons of psi damage.

Well, unless you want it in alphabetical order. Or in night mode. Then you'd probably want this one instead. Brute Corruptor Dominator Mastermind Stalker Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Dark Melee Dark Armor Assault Rifle Cold Domination Fire Control Energy Assault Mercenaries Dark Miasma Claws Dark Armor Electric Melee Electric Armor Dark Blast Dark Miasmas Gravity Control Fiery Assault Necromancy Force Field Dark Melee Energy Aura Energy Melee Energy Aura Energy Blast Kinetics Ice Control Icy Assault Ninjas Poison Energy Melee Ninjitsu Fiery Melee Fiery Aura Fire Blast Radiation Emission Mind Control Psionic Assault Robots Traps Martial Arts Regeneration Stone Melee Invulnerability Ice Blast Sonic Resonance Plant Control Thorny Assault Thugs Trick Arrow Ninja Blade Super Reflexes Super Strength Stone Armor Sonic Blast Thermal Radiation Spines Radiation Blast Traps But the powersets are correct for what was available in City of Villains in Issue 7; Arbiter Rein wasn't available until level 40 back then, though, so if the idea is to "catch up" at level 40 then the Patron Pools wouldn't be available until 41, which is why I brought it up before (although I edited that post to eliminate the vertical list of charts).

Your chart looks prettier, but Earth Control was added to Dominators way later than i7.

Issue 7 would let your villains get Patron pools (starting at 41) and finish leveling to 50, so it seems like a good starting point. As for the powersets... it seems like the AT entries in the wiki are far better to check since they list the issues that powersets were added. 🙂 <list of individual charts snipped to save vertical screen space, since charts are filling the thread>

Other servers may be deciding what they'll do now, but Homecoming already decided a while back and publicly posted the answer. Thus, I see this as a repetition of the same old threads which keep cropping up, presumably hoping for a different response. But that's already been talked about. In many, many, many other threads.

You are mischaracterizing the previous discussions in order to minimize them and continue to beat a dead horse long past any reasonable standard. The request that was considered difficult was splitting the aggro cap for different ATs, less so globally for everyone. Regardless of that, the point is moot: @Captain Powerhouse has stated that if it was easy to split the aggro cap for different ATs and he made changes to the aggro cap, the Tanker cap would remain where it is and everyone else's would go down. And no, I'm not looking for the post about it this time like I have several other times when this keeps coming up because people won't let it die.

Well, I mean if you want to make the set more popular you just can just replace Power Siphon with Fulcrum Shift, but that just means your teammates will create corpses before you can even start one of the long animations. You'd have better damage while solo, and you won't be wasting endurance on Concentrated Strike on teams! 😋

a) you didn't mention a resurrection power in that list (in fact, one would be counterproductive) b) the defenders/corrs had a choice on how to build their character

I came into the thread to say what @parabola already posted earlier. There is little recommending any of the mentioned sets (Martial Arts, Street Justice, or Shield Defense) for a Brute over a Scrapper unless you simply prefer Fury over Criticals. The alternate MA animations might work for your concept if you prefer it over Street Justice, but numerically I think StJ has better performance at the top end, while Martial Arts has the higher performance floor.

I agree with you, but in the Energy Melee discussion it was brought up that Total Focus (same damage/recharge/endurance cost) hit too hard to have a full damage critical. I was also pushing for a higher percentage on Total Focus, and instead critical damage was added to Energy Transfer. That's why I suggested - since it also recharges Power Siphon, and Total Focus now grants Energy Focus - that it share the critical damage percentage that Total Focus has (28% of base damage).

Trying to keep the feel of the animations similar to how they currently are is why I recommended just speeding up the existing one for Focused Burst, and removing the first "arm waving" loop of Concentrated Strike (basically just playing the end of the loop). One thing I see brought up a few times is that Stalkers don't complain about Kinetic Melee - that's not really because it's a great set for them, though, it's because it doesn't have Power Siphon (and Build Up is superior) and they actually get a fast animating heavy hitter: the Kinetic Melee fast Assassin's Strike animation time is 0.67 seconds (keep in mind, with an Assassin's Focus critical that's scale 5 damage - fast Energy Transfer is scale 4.56 in 1 second). This makes Concentrated Strike completely irrelevant*, especially since it comes 26 levels earlier - essentially as a Stalker you can have every power you're likely to use from your primary at level 8 with the slowest animation being 1.2 seconds, unless you take Burst for the 100% critical from Hide. Because Concentrated Strike's "gimmick" was added to a Stalker ATO, having high uptime on Build Up is considered standard Stalker behavior, making the set's performance relative to other Stalker primaries worse because now every set can do it while having better attacks to use. Kinetic Melee could use help on Stalkers also, which is why my list earlier had changes to Smashing Blow, Burst, and Focused Burst to increase their damage/end/recharge along with a reduced-damage critical on a faster Concentrated Strike. That's why my suggestion earlier was just to increase the to-hit bonus (which doesn't stack) for the 20 second duration, and have a baseline +damage that the stacks build on. You get something immediately, but still have to continue attacking (with a better chance of success!) and will exceed Build Up's +damage with 3 stacks instead of 4, making it easier to maintain for a 10 second duration. The alternate idea I've seen for just having it act as a mini-Fulcrum Shift by applying -damage in an AoE and providing that many stacks immediately would also work to use it as a burst damage tool. * - in a post-Stalker ATO world

Name Animation TimeHit Damage Recharge Radius Fire Sword Circle 2.67 1.2 126.3 20 10 Typhoon's Edge 2.27 0.5 117.7 12 8 Spin 2.5 1.2 113.7 9.2 8 The Lotus Drops 1.83 0.83 94.47 14 8 Burst 2.67 2.17 89.93 15 8 Whirling Hands 2.5 1.2 81.33 14 8 Whirling Mace 2.67 1.2 80.58 14 8 Eye of the Storm 2.57 0.3 76.98 17 10 You already illustrated this, but I added a column to the chart earlier that includes TimeHit, which is when the damage is applied after the animation starts and what you were probably thinking of in the highlighted part of the quote. You are correct in saying that FSC hits nearly a second earlier than Burst despite the same animation time, but were a bit off on how much recovery time each power has. Concentrated Strike's TimeHit is 2.53 seconds - that's the full animation time of the sped-up Total Focus (which now has a 1.77 second TimeHit); the old 3.3 second animation Total Focus had a TimeHit of 2.3 seconds, and the slow Energy Transfer hits 2.2 seconds into the 2.67 second animation. Kinetic Melee has a lot of late TimeHit powers relative to their animation times, because its animations use a "wind-up and fast strike/recovery" model. That's fine if the animations are short enough - you don't see people complaining about Body Blow (1.07 second animation, 1 second TimeHit) or Smashing Blow (1.2 second animation, 1.23 second TimeHit - yes, the full animation including 'recovery' plays before the damage is applied for this one) because the animation times are shorter. But for comparison, Greater Fire Sword also has a TimeHit of 1.23 seconds, and Dark Melee has one power with a TimeHit above 0.83 seconds (Soul Drain applies damage at 1.77 seconds). So even the fast Kinetic Melee powers are slow (to deal damage) compared to other sets, and it is all based on the style of the animations, not necessarily the animation times themselves.

The animations don't bother me, although I think I'd speed a couple up, but I don't like the sound effects - yes, this can be fixed client-side if I knew what they were, but they don't really sound like a melee set (hence the "Nascar melee" comments). Concentrated Strike is a garbage, "noob trap" power. It has always hit later than Total Focus, even before Total Focus was sped up, despite having a shorter animation. This leads to frequent corpse blasting, wasting both the endurance and animation time that could be used on chipping away with the lower tier attacks that are actually decent DPA (but bad for burst and procs). It does no extra damage on a critical, and the "critical" effect is either unaffected by things which alter critical rates (for Scrappers) or superfluous because an ATO provides it to every attack in every primary (for Stalkers). Even when it goes off for Scrappers, Power Siphon has its own issues. This means that the inherent is ignored for half of the ATs with the power. Power Siphon either doesn't last long enough, or has too small of an effect while it's active, to make it worth while. Especially with the wasted animation time as it takes longer to animate than other damage boost powers. So, my suggestions: (apparently controversial, as some crazy people have said they actually like them) replace the sound effects - at the very least get rid of the doppler effect windup before the impact Quick Strike/Body Blow: flip the secondary effects, moving the knockback to Body Blow (the harder hitting attack) at scale 0.67 (instead of 0.7) at 25% chance, and the 20% chance to stun to Quick Strike (the standard "brawl" punch). Smashing Blow: increase recharge from 7 to 8 seconds with corresponding endurance cost and damage increases (scale 1.48 to 1.64, end 7.696 to 8.528); provides a slight DPA increase Power Siphon: reduce animation time from 1.93 to 1.17 seconds (matches Build Up); increase +tohit from 7.5% to 20% to match Build Up; add +20% dam (+25% for Scrappers) for duration (20 seconds) in addition to whatever is built up by stacks. Burst: this power actually does slightly under what it should for the damage formula, but only slightly: it does scale 1.250000 and should be 1.254545. That said, if I were requesting a change it would be to boost the radius to 10' and recharge to 20 sec to provide a significantly larger AoE, causing the damage scale to go from 1.25 to 1.424 and endurance cost to go from 14.352 to 18.512. Repulsing Torrent: reduce knockback from scale 7.789 to scale 0.67 or change from 80% chance of KB to 100% chance so that it can be counted on to always move what it hits in order to reduce scatter. For what it is, the power isn't bad but it's not Shockwave by any stretch of the imagination and ranged cones that push enemies away aren't overly useful for a melee character. Focused Burst: reduce the animation time by speeding it up slightly, recommended reduction from 2.0 to 1.6 seconds (1.25x speed); increase recharge to 10 seconds with corresponding endurance cost and damage increases (scale 1.64 to 1.96, end 8.528 to 10.192) to differentiate it from just a ranged Smashing Blow. Concentrated Strike: since the damage happens at the end of the animation, to reduce the corpse blasting you have to reduce the animation time - remove the first arm-waving loop, I think that will knock around a second off (I haven't done frame counting on it). Add 28% critical damage for Scrappers and Stalkers to match Total Focus, correct Power Siphon recharge percentage for Scrappers to respect changes to critical rate. In that long laundry list of suggestions, the most important ones I feel are the changes to Power Siphon and Concentrated Strike; the others are just ideas to boost the relative performance further so that it's not as much of an outlier in the negative direction.

It sounds like a lot of people are deliberately mischaracterizing how things went, even when you outlined it above, so I'll say that the person - who may or may not have been a pure farmer - was likely trying to help and assumed that you were looking for the most efficient option. As such, they provided some facts (Tankers aren't needed) and pushed a common complaint you see on the forums from people seeking either increased difficulty options or nerfs, which is that damage is all that matters and so Tankers are not desired. That part (highlighted) is the opinion. As has been said just above: Damage is king isn't a universal truth; it does speed the game up if you're planning on min/maxing, and there is very little that a Tanker can do that a Brute cannot also do while also dealing (usually) higher damage, but most teams aren't trying to min/max their team constructions like that unless, as mentioned earlier in the thread, they are going for speedrun records (or are into PvP, where it's just lol melee). Some people prefer that style of play, some people would rather take their time and socialize and goof around while running missions, some people would rather socialize and goof around instead of running missions, and most people fall into all of those categories at different points based on their mood and available time. So no, Tankers are not undesirable, and you will be welcome on nearly any team through all levels as long as you don't act like a jerk. Whether or not you use that information to make a second optimized team build is up to you, but even without one you would still be just as welcome on the same teams.

Oh, my! That definitely floors any kind of defense-based strategy, doesn't it? Thanks for the confirmation and numbers. Knowing this makes it possible (meh, easier, at least) to prepare. I was sniping minions and LTs from outside of reaction range already (when solo), but the Overseers will need a different strategy. Fortunately, the complete ninja's kit has some useful tools in it. Sparring partner sentries, here I come! Look at the bright side, there's finally a use for that defense cap being at 175-225%, right? From the OP you were at 47% with Hide suppressed, slotted Kuji-in Retsu is ~72% to put you at roughly 120%, so you only need to come up with another 25% for Rularuu softcap! 😛

You're welcome to pick them, and more power to you that you like them: I have had several characters that took single target rezzes - although currently the only one is a level 50 Pain Domination Defender who jokes about letting people die so I can get the buff - but that is each person's choice to do so, and someone else shouldn't dictate that choice for you or give you crap about taking situationally useful, "flavor" powers. A team that will give you crap about not taking one is still a bad team, though.

As was mentioned earlier, each AT is going to have a range around their "average" and how heavily IO'd the build is will factor in a great deal in how much damage they can sustainably get away with; for example a Blaster with just SOs and no support isn't going to do as much sustained damage as any melee because they'll lose their hit points too quickly, but a well-built Blaster can run through multiple targets faster than anything else because they aren't getting hit. At the lowest end isn't Controllers though, it's petless Masterminds. They have lower hit points, worse buff/debuff modifiers, higher endurance costs on every power, have the same damage modifier (0.55), and don't have Containment to double it.

Late to the party, haven't been poking around the forums much over the holiday, but since the last post was yesterday it's not really a necro... I've felt that way ever since I started playing (early in Issue 7), but back then you played what was available on that side and pre-IOs and Vigilance 2.0 there was absolutely no question which did more damage (using the same sets, which they didn't all have for each) for all but the most extreme corner cases. I'm also still annoyed (mildly, but that's about as upset as I get at anything in this game) that Cold Domination was nerfed for Corruptors because it got ported over to Defenders and someone decided Heat Loss with Defender modifiers was too good. Agreed. That seems like you are just planning to fail. And yet, no matter what you plan, sometimes the bear gets you. Having rez helps get the team back on its feet faster, no waiting around while someone hoofs it back from the hospital which is somehow always thrree-fourths the way across the zone. And yet, it doesn't happen often enough to justify expecting someone else to waste their power pick because someone is too lazy/ignorant to pick up a P2W self-rez power and/or use an inspiration every once in a while. You can nitpick on whether or no that falls into the category of "requiring a resurrection power" or not since I'm saying to get one for yourself instead of expecting someone else to do it, but I'm not wasting my time on a team that expects me to pick up any single-target rez-other. Because that is a bad team that obviously expects to either a) behave stupidly and expect to be bailed out; or b) expects others to cater to them without recognizing that they could try and help themselves through even the minimalist of intelligent decisions. I probably would expect a Dark to pick up Howling Twilight, though that's more for everything else it does instead of the rez.

My Brutes don't often take Taunt either, but because of the punchvoke, for most purposes Gloom = Confront and Dark Obliteration = Taunt. I've certainly used them to draw aggro away from others at range. I realize that this was the second post in the thread to point this out, but I came into the thread to say the same thing if nobody else had. Because I thought it'd be funny to suggest Invuln as the primary for a /Dark Armor Tanker: they plug each others holes so well. Dark Armor provides a damage aura, a fast-recharging heal, a little defense, and a lot of psi resistance; Invulnerability has knockback protection, defense debuff resistance, and +to-hit to help those control auras! Sure you'll end up using all pool attacks, but you won't need Tough or Weave, so there's room to take them! Not the one you asked, but in the pre-shutdown days Shield/SS was the only Tanker I could stick with to 50: running around at the damage cap due to AAO and stacked Rage, you effectively had Fury on your Tanker. As for an earlier suggestion of Dark Armor/Stone Melee - with Oppressive Gloom and Fault you can perma a mag 4-6 stun to everything around you and have a mag 4 hold that can be applied almost immediately with Seismic Smash, but your endurance bar will be begging for all the help you can give it, and your damage won't be there relative to other sets. If you're going to pair those two sets I'd recommend a Brute, though, since IIRC the Tanker bonus to AoE only applies to Fault.

Unless they're in mayhem missions, although I don't remember when that change happened - they used to be immune there, too.

I've made the same build a couple of times, but never without realizing it, and each time was to get the build on a different server: either pre-Homecoming before transfer tokens, pre-Homecoming when I didn't want to pay/wait for a server transfer token after they were added, or builds I recreated from pre-shutdown on Homecoming.

As I said, I was kidding, and I actually just thought that you were considering it as one of those "unavoidable" things like changes in the available powersets that you couldn't really do anything about. The only reason I commented on it was because the post I quoted specifically mentioned that you saved that mission until you were close to a level, so it seemed as if you made a plan to take advantage of something that was added, as opposed to going out of your way to avoid it as most of the structure of this has been.

You mean you didn't sit through the ding-buff?! I call shenanigans! I kid, I kid.

My Psi/Bio Stalker, Worst Healer Ever, receives more blind invites than the rest of my characters put together.

And I don't know if the bug is still happening or not, but sometimes the "don't let <x> escape" missions has them try to flee immediately when you come into the map instead of when you get close. If you're expecting this, you can try to catch them on the way through the map by blocking choke points, but if you aren't expecting it they can get around you while you're occupied with other mobs.