Captain Powerhouse

Weaken Resolve and melt armor should had been -9.75% for both brutes and tankers. Number will be a bit different to that on the next patch due other tanker changes.

Keep in mind that ranged -res is currently doing more res on tankers and brutes than intended in pineapple.

To clarify: there is no plan for increasing the level cap, just stating that more power slots are the kind of thing that would only come in such a way. I myself would expect plenty of content to come along with any hypothetical level cap increase, there is no point on increasing the cap in any game if there are no foes to fight at those levels.

I don't think we would see more power slots without a level cap increase.

That functionality was never actually implemented, for some reason, even if many powers still reference it. Maybe it was being getting pulled out at the last minute before shutdown. Those descriptions are being fixed as we see catch them.

The introduction of the origin pools really messed with traditional travel power balance. Right now, Acrobatics is very useful to many non-Melee builds, and getting Super Jump is a way to get there. That being said, traditional travel pools are being looked at to make them somehow be competitive with the origin pool ones.

So, I will be locking this thread, let everyone take a break. Run tests if you want, a new thread will be posted when there is a new patch, there should be lots of stuff to consider on that small but very significant wave of changes. My inbox is always a click away if anyone needs clarification on anything.

@Unknown Magi, poor phrasing on my part: the goal was to increase modifiers that help the tanker improve team survivability. So, ranged (epic/pool) -ToHit, -Damage, +Resistance Buffs. This is why -def mods were not increased, and -resist should had not been. Keep in mind sooner or later, there will be more epic pools, and those too will likely benefit from changes. Either way, in the next patch will tweak things further, if i get chance to finish that up it should be up maybe tomorrow.

11.25 BTW different value but the bug that made Melt Armor too strong also hit the brute version. Was doing -13% when it should had been -9.75%

I gave the AT defender modifiers to +Damage buffs for Assault, but -res modifiers were not actually changed. That was a different error in the whole melee/ranged swaps on powers, shifted melt armor to use the melee modifier (same as self-armor) instead of the ranged one. Both will be changed somewhat in the next patch, though.

Melt armor was not intended to become that much stronger. Grant cover uses personal defense buff modifiers, already is stronger for tankers than other ATs. Edit to add: Melee -def or -tohit should had not gone up either, only ranged -def and -tohit (so, stuff in the epics.)

This issue should be fixed on test right now, but might take a while to hit live.

That is not true, those were new animations made by Back Alley Brawler (if i recall correctly) with the goal that the Jab actually looked like a Jab, for instance.

I have a question about that test: did both, the tanker and the brute have similar builds? Did your brute also use Melt Armor?

Although not invalid, the data slice you showed is a bit over-simplified. It is based entirely around the 0.95 damage scale and 5.5 damage cap, this means it never can consider the use of Epic Pools to improve damage in any way. Remember: Epic Pools operate at a 0.8 modifier. Some of the best melee farming builds incorporate heavy use of these pools to maximize AoE damage output, plus do less chasing around. This is why I want to strongly encourage full build testing and analysis. I understand having differences on opinions but please, allow everyone to post their views. If you disagree, point your own views once but don't get stuck on a couple days long loop trying to counter each other. It makes it harder for everyone to catch up with the thread, me included.

There will always be edge cases where a Tanker will outperform a brute, I can easily see cases where a Titan Weapons tanker could outperform some non-TW brutes. It becomes a problem if at high end the median tanker performs better than the median brute on most situations, and I don't have plans to turn a blind eye to that. Obviously not all builds can be compared to eachother, but I'm very interested to see how close can someone bring an equivalent tanker/brute build (TW/Bio/Fire vs Bio/TW/Fire, for example.) It is worth noting that Incarnate abilities can blur the lines, since for, some reason it was decided to make them ignore AT modifiers.

I'm not concerned about a tanker's own -res happening to make a tanker at the cap do more damage than a brute at it's caps because: A brute on the same team will also take benefit of those -res doing still more damage than the tanker. A team situation will likely bring other permanent -res that might even also take foes to the -res cap (that applies to everyone equally since it's target based.) At that point, if the Tanker is considered to be doing too much damage, then so is the brute, even more so. At the moment, the tanker cap wont go below 5.5 unless the Brute cap also goes down to keep the 90% relationship, but that is not something I am currently considering (that can always change.) I do am still paying attention to the tanker's personal benefit in non-team scenarios when combining -res with leadership, among other things, but do keep in mind that the base damage increase only applies to melee attacks. Tanker Epic pool attacks are left at 0.8 modifiers. While the tanker has stronger -res from Melt Armor, their Fire Ball does as much damage as a brute's, and the brute one is empowered by fury and a higher damage cap. At the caps, epic pool damage for Tankers is 76% the epic pool damage of a Brute, and here is where things get tricky, as they stop being apples to apples, the goal is that is offset (again, not in an apples-to-apples way, so not just by bringing the damage to any specific relationship) by stronger support abilities like stronger leadership for the team or stronger debuffs. Epic pools also continue to have the same target caps for both ATs, Tankers and Brutes.

No temp bans, just clicked the wrong button on the mod settings. At this time, +Arc applies to Epic cones. Same goes for +Radius and Epic Sphere attacks. This is still all subject to change, of course.

Cone Radius/Range do not change. Only Sphere Radius change, cones have their Arc increased not their radius.

Let's stick to the topic, please.

Unlikely but not impossible on a temporary basis, that change is specifically targeting team situations.

Because a Tanker at a 550% damage cap can reach 90% the damage of a dmg capped brute in most scenarios, while a Brute that gets fully buffed up for survivability can reach 90% the survivability of a Tanker. I stated this earlier in the thread.

Not accurate, cast times are heavily tied to power set balance goals and even if such a thing was done the alternative powers would still require either the same cast time.

That is the primary set. The engine enforces T1 only at creation for every AT secondary set.

Bug, but an example of how the game just won’t let you pick the T2 at creation.