siolfir

Yes. That's why the bullet point right above it states "All Brute and Tanker Epic pools now use ranged damage modifiers." (emphasis mine) Edit to throw in a relevant link:

Nerf repeat posts!

In an attempt to reduce the noise in the signal-to-noise ratio in the thread, a note about the power information displays: This post was specifically in response to the AoE buff not showing, but also applies to the taunt proc. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean that it isn't there. Now, I'm not saying that there couldn't be something missing that wasn't caught in the last 3 months: if you are concerned about something, copy your character over and test - the character copy only takes a couple of minutes most times, and means you can do direct comparisons between live and what's on test. But some items not being reflected in the power information is (unfortunately) a known issue.

Since the database was reset, the characters that I have copied to beta are no longer on the server, but the beta account center shows that they were copied. If I didn't catch the note in the patch notes for today and I had just looked at the account center, I would assume that the characters were still present (for example, when I was considering copying characters for a stress test on Saturday). If it's feasible, could we either reset the list or, if preferring to keep the history, add a "purged on" date to the list of completed copies when the database on Pineapple is purged? Thanks!

I can see the reasoning behind it: people were clamoring for more/different/better low-level content because they were tired of seeing the same missions on every alt, and there are far more characters in the lower levels than in the upper levels due to people making alts to try different combinations. It was a simple matter of numbers at that point.

Blade-related Assassin's Strike powers have an animation of 1.67 seconds - I was incorrect when I was thinking 1.33, but basically all of the short versions are 2 seconds shorter than the animation time listed for the long version:

Willpower in beta had a bug where the +resistance (to all) wasn't flagged to ignore external buffs. This meant that +damage effects (like, for example, Fury on a Brute) increased the resistance. The set worked much better on Brutes than Tankers.

Are they at least using /e panhandle while sitting in AE? Inquiring minds want to know.

Please show me this mythical Brute build with permanently softcapped defense and 90% resistance to all. Until then, accept that your position is far more extreme than my stating that having additional hit points (and corresponding regeneration) has a notable effect on survival.

Yeah, I mentioned that earlier in the thread when I said it wouldn't be as broken as everyone was led to believe. To be fair, it's not every Stalker, Some of the slower "fast" AS animations are 1.67 seconds instead of 1 second, and Kinetic Melee's fast AS is 0.67 seconds. The "fast" time is 2 seconds shorter than the long animation time.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hash out You're using the 3rd definition. I'm using the first. Even using your definition, that you aren't happy with the solution is irrelevant with whether or not one was hashed out.

Exactly.

Sure, you don't have to, but you said you would. In the last feedback thread.

Also, to all the people complaining about losing Bruising: there are focused feedback threads for Tanker changes, where this was all hashed out. Feel free to go poke through those.

You're always limited by animation times and base damage. I still don't see the problem. In addition to the hard limit of animation time, plus the investment cost in the total number of slots you have available, the recharge formula itself has diminishing returns as recharge increases. They won't be equivalent without much more investment in getting there for the Brute, while the Tanker can focus on other items (procs and global recharge, for example); even with the same defense and resistance the Tanker will have more hit points.

Same as Frozen Touch. If anyone wants to do the math on chains and comparisons, here's a little chart showing Energy Melee, War Mace, and (for giggles) Stone Melee. I threw in Assassin's Strike for reference: Powerset Power Scale Activation Time True Activation Recharge AoE DS/A Reference Assassin's Strike (focus critical) 5 1 1.188 15 4.209 Energy Melee Energy Transfer (old) 4.56 1 1.188 20 3.838 Reference Assassin's Strike (slow) 7 3 3.168 15 2.210 Reference Assassin's Strike (fast, no critical) 2.5 1 1.188 15 2.104 Stone Melee Seismic Smash 3.56 1.5 1.716 20 2.075 War Mace Clobber 2.92 1.23 1.452 16 2.011 Energy Melee Energy Transfer 4.56 2.67 2.904 20 1.570 Stone Melee Heavy Mallet 2.28 1.63 1.848 12 1.234 Energy Melee Total Focus 3.56 3.3 3.432 20 1.037 War Mace Jawbreaker 1.96 1.83 1.980 10 0.990 Energy Melee Bone Smasher 1.64 1.5 1.716 8 0.956 War Mace Pulverize 1.64 1.5 1.716 8 0.956 Energy Melee Energy Punch 1 0.83 1.056 4 0.947 Stone Melee Stone Fist 1 0.83 1.056 4 0.947 War Mace Shatter 2.28 2.33 2.508 12 8', 45° 0.909 Stone Melee Stone Mallet 1.64 1.61 1.848 8 0.887 Energy Melee Barrage 1.32 1.33 1.584 6 0.833 War Mace Crowd Control 1.61 2 2.244 12 8', 180° 0.717 War Mace Bash 1 1.33 1.584 4 0.631 Stone Melee Hurl Boulder 1.64 2.5 2.64 8 0.621 War Mace Whirling Mace 1.12 2.67 2.904 14 8' 0.386 Energy Melee Whirling Hands 1 2.5 2.640 14 8' 0.379 Stone Melee Tremor 1 3.3 3.432 14 15' 0.291 Energy Melee Stun 0.25 1.8 1.980 20 0.126

I love the Stalker changes and had a ton of fun with it before shutdown on a DM/Nin and Elec/Nin even without ATOs. I haven't come up with a build that I just really love since Homecoming came back up, and I try to get the build done so I can have the IOs ready to go as I level instead of doing a respec at 50. I have several ideas that I wanted to try, but none of them are just crying out "build me!" so I've been continuing to play my Fortunata - who has stealth, fast animations, heavily-procced Dominate, and an "everybody die" button. That's basically my point, too. For starters, don't give War Mace (or Titan Weapons, which has more of everything) to Stalkers, because clearly the devs hate Stalkers (just look at what they did to /Nin when they gave it to other ATs and compare it to what it started as). 😛 On a more serious note - I think the ET reversion would be enough to surpass WM in single target, although EM would still fall far behind in both AoE damage and mitigation. For me, at least, that would be enough, because I dislike almost all of the weapon sets (it's an aesthetic thing, not a numbers thing). If the Total Focus animation is also shortened, I think it might be competing with Titan Weapons for single target.

Woot, changes are up to RC! Are we there yet? (repeat every 2 seconds until live)

Completely agree, that's why I had both the Defender and Corruptor teams at the damage cap assuming at least one Kinetic was along, and commented earlier that a mixed team with a lot of Blasters would be better than a team with all of one AT. It's also why I ignored the differences between Defender and Corruptor Aim - if you're at the damage cap already due to Fulcrum Shift, it doesn't matter. Right, but it was about the effect the debuffs had for a full team of Sonic Blast characters, so I compared Sonic Blast ATs.

And of those four energy/smashing damage sets that disorient enemies, Energy Melee does it in a straight forward, very reliable manner while also hitting like a truck. It used to do it in a very quick, straight forward, and reliable manner while hitting like a truck. I liked the feel (read: speed) of the set and didn't mind the limited AoE when I was solo because when I could reliably pick off mobs by swapping to the next target, hitting ET as my character points at them and goes "You. Die." and I could switch to another target nearly seamlessly, and if I was in a group I knew that the self-damage wasn't going to waste because the damage hit nearly immediately. I rarely ever used Total Focus because I didn't need to ensure there was a stun most of the time and I could fill my chain with attacks where the longest attack animation was Bone Smasher at 1.5 seconds, using either Mu Lightning or Gloom as the extra filler, depending on which build you were talking about - since the character was EM/Elec Mu Mastery fit the concept better, Gloom was when I was trying for more DPS. That is what I want back. I understand that it's not optimal with limited AoE in the current meta. I don't care. I have a Rad Melee Brute already, I don't need another one.

Right, and if you're starting at 0 for a baseline then sixteen different 20% debuffs is -320%. I let it go past the floor because it was all theorycraft anyway and mobs could resist the debuffs, to let it sit at 16 total debuffs for the team. Any damage resistance - not anything special to AVs - is going to resist the debuff but the proportionate damage stays the same with the same number of debuffs, so I made the math easier by starting at 0. Say the mob has 50% resistance to both smashing and energy (because I don't want to play with mixed resistances), that would make the debuffs from the blasts -10%, -7.5%, and -6.5%. 16 of each would mean multiplying by 1.6 at the end instead of 3.2 for Defenders, 1.2 instead of 2.4 for Corruptors, and 1.04 instead of 2.08 for Defenders - that just cuts all of the final damage numbers in half, as you would expect from 50% resistance. At that point you can still try to hit the -resistance cap using debuffs, and then it matters what the Corruptors are using for secondaries because Cold has the same values for Defenders and Corruptors and puts out 60% (knocked down to 30%) for both ATs. The reason I said it's probably Blasters is because 16 blasts on one target is going to kill anything in a regular spawn so the mob is going to die before it all matters, and with IO sets they don't have the trouble with survival that @tafilr mentions earlier. It will still be safest with Defenders, and there's enough damage that things are going to melt anyway. Plus many Sonic Blast Defender builds can do more damage than the Corruptor equivalent builds, but the lower damage cap hurts them in this particular case.

I'm not saying that they'll never be unstunned, I'm just saying that they'll be stunned more often than not. Leading with Total Focus at the 150% number means you do an extra 1.78 scale damage (scale 5.34 total) but then you end up hitting weaker with the rest of the chain until the target is dead unless it's an AV, and even against AVs when PToD are down. I could see it working well with the old Stalker playstyle because it frontloads the damage of the attack chain but Stalker EM already can just lead with Assassin's Strike from Hide for scale 7 damage and people complained about that playstyle enough already. Given your second paragraph, I'm guessing that you were intending to reduce the animation times as well to get the first-tier single-target damage? Because at the current animation times, I see it making it easier to kill minions in one shot - which EM doesn't need help with - and about even on lieutenants and bosses, which doesn't fit with the top-tier damage. I was actually comparing the AoE stun to Lightning Clap (which has a guaranteed mag 2 stun, the 50% chance is to get mag 3) because the guaranteed KB reduces damage because you have to chase the mobs, and the guaranteed stun would reduce your damage directly.

(too rude?)

Here's my problem with the idea: if you run a normal Energy Melee damage chain, you're going to be hitting more stunned targets than not because the stun percentages are just that high (EP: 30%, BS: 60%, ET: 60%). So more often than not you'll be doing less damage than the recharge and endurance cost would account for. That's where it loses me and becomes a penalty for your secondary effect - it would make it even worse than it is now, when people rarely take it and common advice is to avoid it like the plague. That's not even accounting for team situations where you're not the only one throwing out stuns, where you wouldn't even get the higher damage hits. Speaking of wide-area guaranteed AoE stuns... they're nice but Fault doesn't make Stone Melee do less damage. Hand Clap and Lightning Clap are usually either skipped or slotted with a KB-to-KD IO so that they don't indirectly lower AoE damage by scattering mobs. I think Stun would go from the "I don't need it so I won't take it" into the "this hurts me and I don't need it so I'll never take it" territory. I have been told that I'm too cynical at times, though, so maybe people will think

To be fair, I am a PL'd newbie. The last time I didn't take advantage of the super-sidekicking was before it was introduced. Mostly because I haven't been the leader on every team I've been on since, but still... that's enough to qualify as a PL for some of the people posting here.