siolfir

Well, while we're on ladies and Lionel Richie...

This is almost exactly what I was talking about when I said that most of the ideas I've seen are basically just making it Rad Melee. Replace the word Energized with Contaminated, give the AoE damage to all of the single target attacks instead of just Energy Transfer, and that's what it is. This would be better for Stalkers than Brutes and Tankers because of the nerfed stun percentages. I don't think any of the powers should do less damage than their recharge/endurance would account for, otherwise you're penalizing the set just for having a secondary effect - it would also definitely make Stun a garbage power and Total Focus is iffy at best. It's a different tack than I've seen before, though, so it's got that for it.

Hm. I knew about the enhancement level and attuned bit, knew that it didn't matter what level you placed the slots, but I thought power availability was part of it too. Learn something new every day.

You do, and that's included in the "and some of the set bonuses" part you quoted.

I think their numbers didn't factor in the damage cap. Some quick napkin math (assumptions listed): Defender: 0.65 modifier at damage cap of 400%, so 2.6 scale. Corruptor: 0.75 modifier at damage cap of 500%, so 3.75 scale. Blaster: 1.125 modifier, probably not at damage cap. To get to 3.75 scale they need +233% in damage counting slotting and all buffs. Let's be generous and assume they're all running Assault or something and have an average of +250% damage to get scale 3.9375. At the damage cap, it would be 5.625. Each attack for a Defender is -20% resistance. Each attack for a Corruptor is -15% resistance. Each attack for a Blaster is -13% resistance. Let's assume each player can permanently stack 2 debuffs on a given target. We'll ignore the -resistance cap (the Defender team will go past it). That gives you 16 stacks of the debuff per target. Defender: 2.6 * 3.2 (16 * 20%) = 8.32 Corruptor: 3.75 * 2.4 (16 * 15%) = 9 Blaster: 3.9375 * 2.08 (16 * 13%) = 8.19 Note that more resistance debuffing actually doesn't help Defenders at this point because the mob is already past the -resistance floor, they just hit it faster than with the other ATs. We're also assuming the mobs last long enough to take that many hits, which isn't likely outside of AVs and GMs; if that's the case them Corruptors can add extra debuffs to get to the resistance floor at the cost of losing a few blasts (1 Cold can provide -60% resistance with Sleet + Heat Loss). In theory, it's Corruptors. In reality, it's probably Blasters because the mobs are going to die too fast for the -resistance stacking to matter.

The AS mechanics were added in issue 22, which is when they added Super Packs and the first set of ATOs. The second set was in beta at shutdown.

I'm guessing it was an oversight since you were supposed to be running the newer low-level content.

It was meant to be a simplification for brevity's sake. Yes, the Dual Blades combo mechanic is similar to but different than the Street Justice combo mechanic because you have to do these powers in this order for one while the other gets combo points and each point boosts a subset of the powers, all of which is different than Titan Weapons' Momentum, which is different than the Contamination mechanic which is remarkably similar to the suggestions I've seen about adding AoE splash damage to Energy Melee after some named effect is triggered or built up. I'm not outright against the concept. But I certainly don't need more of it. I also used the word "if" for changing the animation for Total Focus, as a response to "people want to keep the animation" - I don't want to keep it and would rather just have the sped up (or really, not slowed down) version of Total Focus that Dominators get. Which in itself is a great example of how changing the animations for one AT doesn't mean that they have to change it for others.

I haven't crunched the numbers, but the best team is probably going to be a mix. If it was just one AT allowed, I'd lean toward Corruptors as long as at least one was a Kin just because their damage cap is higher than Defenders even though the -resistance is lower. If it's just blasting all the time I'd lean towards Blasters - they have lower -resist numbers but much higher base damage.

Color-coded for the points I'm addressing: Sets that have an "alternate" Build Up for non-Stalkers: Claws, Dark Melee, Dual Blades, Kinetic Melee, Psionic Melee, Radiation Melee, Savae Melee, Staff Fighting, Street Justice, Super Strength, and Titan Weapons. Somehow I don't find them relatively unique. Barrage already does more damage than Energy Punch (although worse DPA) and Energy Melee has several powers that stack stuns already. The other self-penalizing powers that were attacks (crashing nukes) were also changed to not have the penalty. Energy Melee doesn't currently have a combo system. I'm tired of combo systems and the "well, if this hits first then this happens" mechanics in the newer melee sets (DB Combos, StJ Combos, Insight, Contamination, Momentum, etc). If I want to play a set that does that, there are several available. Energy Transfer doesn't need a Momentum mechanic; the slowest non-Momentum attack in Titan Weapons is 0.03 seconds longer than Energy Transfer - so the same Arcanatime - and it's an AoE hitting a 120 degree cone for 57% of the damage that ET does to a single target. If they want to keep the animation in the set, give it to Total Focus. That speeds it up also and the "look at my hands" part could be construed as focusing on them (to fit the name).

This one should've been really predictable...

Well, while we're breaking stuff ...probably don't want the volume up on this one if you're at work.

Fixed that for you.

No! You play the way I tell you to and you like it! 😛

Dominator Whirling Hands also has a 15' radius instead of 8'; double damage Energy Transfer would still be 0 damage on a dead mob because it hits so slowly on top of having to wait until it's "charged", plus the "critical" mechanic for Stalkers erasing the self-damage rather than increasing damage indicates that there's a lack of desire for even doing that. Roughly a 50% damage boost, shorten recharge to 16 seconds. Energy Melee has dogshit DPA. I'm fine with long animations, but they need to break the standard damage formula to account for locking you into an attack for an eternity. People would hate a 2.67+ second animation less if it hit for more damage than 2 fast attacks chained together. It would also stop the trend to just shortening all animations. Let the big hits have long animations, but actually hit accordingly. Right now most of them just result in a loss of damage. Let's not lie about it: even with the longer animation Energy Transfer has the best DPA in the set as long as the damage goes through. Total Focus is second. The problem is that in both cases the damage lands at the end of a very long animation, you still take the self damage from ET even if the mob is already dead, and because the animations are so long any miss is a huge hit in DPS. Long animation, low damage, applies self-damage, requires a charge-up to be useful... IMO that would just make Energy Transfer another skippable power in the set. There's also no reason for applying a -recharge penalty on the user of Barrage for a damage bonus, especially given the gimmick mechanics of other sets which don't apply self-penalties for their combo mechanics, plus we're back into the "let's just nerf Build Up and add a combo gimmick to every set to 'fix' it" instead of just making a set of solid powers to start with. Some people don't want combos. It's an idea for a possible new melee set, but it wouldn't make me want to play EM.

Thought about going off of the title with this, decided to go with the content instead:

I enjoy Kinetics Corruptors and, like @Tryna_Dugid, tend to be at or near the front of the group running in. Defenders are a touch safer because of their higher AT modifiers and provide more of a buff to the team, but have a lower damage cap so top out on their personal damage much faster. Controllers are a (generally) safer option since their controls can lockdown spawns to set up the Fulcrum Shift and they get pets that also get a boost. So "best" is going to be subjective because it depends on what you're looking for: I just prefer doing the damage myself and play my Kinetics characters as if they were Brutes. Note that Masterminds also get Kinetics now if you wanted to try one, although pets don't benefit from recharge. The advantages here are that you can focus on Kinetics and six pets backed by Fulcrum Shift will do quite a bit of damage. The disadvantage here is that your modifiers are worse than every other AT that gets Kinetics and you'll also be trying to rein in pet AI that is going to try to aggro the entire map at once while rushing around on Speed Boost.

Stupid question, but have you already tried changing which monitor you want it to appear in through the graphics settings?

They've been around the world looking for that woman (girl)... here's someone else who's been around the world!

Okay, you don't get it. You've expressed that. So move on, then. Other people are allowed to enjoy different things. To correct one misconception, though: you lose your incarnate powers and level shifts when you exemp below 45, and enhancement values scale down with large level changes as well to mimic losing slots in the powers. You can slot IOs as you're leveling up if you get them attuned, but have a limited number of slots, so really what you get out of it is further into your set bonuses in the powers that you have - if the sets will go low enough for the content. So you might be better off, depending on the sets you're using, but more often what you gain is the feeling that you're not wasting your time doing the same low level missions for the umpteenth time when there are arcs and content that you either haven't done yet or prefer to run instead.

They were already using the melee damage modifiers, so for both Tankers and Brutes the APP/PPP changes are a wash.

Soon™.

You didn't have to.

To be fair, Lone Star was more of a Rogue than a Hero. He took the job for the money, he stayed for the girl.