Please revert the Rage change.

[Sniktch]

Hand Clap is a Disorient already - has been since launch.  One of the reasons I've never really understood why 'everyone' thought it was garbage - it's not a constant spam, it's a 'breathing space' tool that takes every nearby boss out of the fight for a few seconds, and every nearby non-boss out for upwards of 15.  Yeah, it blows up herding; that's why you don't use it when you're herding, you use it when things are sliding out of control.

 

Hurl does exactly as much damage as Haymaker - which is actually more damage than Focus, by the way.  Yes, Focus is also exactly half the animation time - but Focus is half the range, not in a set that has Rage, and is in a set that explicitly threw out the power balance formula during its final rework on Live.  Part of the reason both of them do such 'low' damage for their tiers is because melee ATs use a different scalar for ranged attacks than they do for melee attacks; this is also why Stalker snipes do less damage than a Blaster snipe, even accounting for the Ancillary factor.  Another part of why their damage is 'low' is their KB/KD is a 100% proc, as is Hurl's -Fly. 

 

I do agree that in many ways Rage and Footstomp are the 'glue' holding the set together, but making everything an AoE is not the way to fix things, especially since it'd be an across-the-board reduction in damage per power to do so, per the actual mathematic balance formula.  Peek at the Munitions Mastery thread - it's directly referenced and quoted there, mostly to point out that LRM, by the formula, has either twice the recharge or half the damage it should.

 

Toggle-Rage was suggested many, many, MANY times on the Live boards - in fact, it was a 'time for the weekly X thread' joke.  Positron and Castle both laid out the reasons it wasn't one; namely, it'd either be an absolutely CRUSHING amount of EPS - as I recall, they both actually pointed to Focused Accuracy and said "worse than THAT" more than once - or about a quarter as powerful.  The crash was a downside to prevent 'just auto it', and the fix to evading the crash was intended to make it a risk/reward choice for the player - go big, crash big, or play conservative and not have to deal with it - but also not be cranking out 320%-buffed Footstomps every four seconds.  Which right there should show WHY the power currently needs a crash to not be straight off the charts broken.

 

Honestly, half the problem is with people thinking 'if I'm not quad-stacking it I'm DOING IT WRONG!!!!', rather than with the actual power design;  I get the desire to run the machine at max all the time, I do.  I just don't agree that it should be the baseline - for ANYTHING.

 

Should Rage be a toggle?  Only if you're OK with paying Telekinesis levels of EPS or it being 5% ToHit/20% damage buff.

 

Should Rage have a -mitigation component to its crash?  Yes, unless you're OK with it being far less powerful during uptime or far more harsh on the END portion of the crash.

 

Should that -mitigation component be JUST -Def?  Uh, no?  As many note, it does unfairly penalize pure-DEF sets.  But I've already once suggested splitting it between Def and Resist - which would spread the penalty across ALL sets, since even damage-agnostic Regen would feel it - and the reaction was as if I proposed we all go out and get a nice order of Kentucky Fried Baby, mixed with "just remove it entirely!"

 

Should SS get an overall pass-through, tweak, polish, look-see, whatever?  Sure, dev time permitting - just be careful what you wish for, since you might just get it.

[Xaeon]

Hand Clap is a Disorient already - has been since launch.  One of the reasons I've never really understood why 'everyone' thought it was garbage - it's not a constant spam, it's a 'breathing space' tool that takes every nearby boss out of the fight for a few seconds, and every nearby non-boss out for upwards of 15.  Yeah, it blows up herding; that's why you don't use it when you're herding, you use it when things are sliding out of control.

 

Hurl does exactly as much damage as Haymaker - which is actually more damage than Focus, by the way.  Yes, Focus is also exactly half the animation time - but Focus is also not in a set that has Rage, and also is in a set that explicitly threw out the power balance formula during its final rework on Live.  Part of the reason both of them do such 'low' damage for their tiers is because melee ATs use a different scalar for ranged attacks than they do for melee attacks; this is also why Stalker snipes do less damage than a Blaster snipe, even accounting for the Ancillary factor.

 

I do agree that in many ways Rage and Footstomp are the 'glue' holding the set together, but making everything an AoE is not the way to fix things, especially since it'd be an across-the-board reduction in damage per power to do so, per the actual mathematic balance formula.  Peek at the Munitions Mastery thread - it's directly referenced and quoted there, mostly to point out that LRM, by the formula, has either twice the recharge or half the damage it should.

 

Toggle-Rage was suggested many, many, MANY times on the Live boards - in fact, it was a 'time for the weekly X thread' joke.  Positron and Castle both laid out the reasons it wasn't one; namely, it'd either be an absolutely CRUSHING amount of EPS - as I recall, they both actually pointed to Focused Accuracy and said "worse than THAT" more than once - or about a quarter as powerful.  The crash was a downside to prevent 'just auto it', and the fix to evading the crash was intended to make it a risk/reward choice for the player - go big, crash big, or play conservative and not have to deal with it - but also not be cranking out 320%-buffed Footstomps every four seconds.  Which right there should show WHY the power currently needs a crash to not be straight off the charts broken.

 

Honestly, half the problem is with people thinking 'if I'm not quad-stacking it I'm DOING IT WRONG!!!!', rather than with the actual power design;  I get the desire to run the machine at max all the time, I do.  I just don't agree that it should be the baseline - for ANYTHING.

 

Should Rage be a toggle?  Only if you're OK with paying Telekinesis levels of EPS or it being 5% ToHit/20% damage buff.

 

Should Rage have a -mitigation component to its crash?  Yes, unless you're OK with it being far less powerful during uptime or far more harsh on the END portion of the crash.

 

Should that -mitigation component be JUST -Def?  Uh, no?  As many note, it does unfairly penalize pure-DEF sets.  But I've already once suggested splitting it between Def and Resist - which would spread the penalty across ALL sets, since even damage-agnostic Regen would feel it - and the reaction was as if I proposed we all go out and get a nice order of Kentucky Fried Baby, mixed with "just remove it entirely!"

 

Should SS get an overall pass-through, tweak, polish, look-see, whatever?  Sure, dev time permitting - just be careful what you wish for, since you might just get it.

 

If you need more breathing space with a level 50+ tanker or brute than your judgement and footstomp can give you, handclap is not going to save you.

 

Handclap is also counter-intuitive for brutes because it pushes the valuable resource of enemies away when you want to be doing more damage to them. And ultimately; 99% of people are going to be passing over attacks that don't let them kill things faster. Handclap is a hard pass for any non-tanktroller or non-soloist build and ideally sets should not have any hardpasses.

 

As for making it an AoE, its about thematics. Super Strength causes collateral damage by just existing. When the hulk punches someone with all his strength he's causing buildings to implode across half the city from the shockwaves he's making. Not just slapping this one guy.  Super strength should not be an ST damage set; as a comic book power super strength from heroes who'd be considered tankers or brutes by CoX has been *the* collateral damage inducer.

 

Leave being ST damage to dark or energy melee, let super strength be the property crushing shockwave producer it's supposed to be. And I did say that the amount of AoE damage would be relatively small; it's not like TW where every target takes full damage. The person punched in the face is taking the full force, but the punch is so hard that the shockwaves it makes still cause some hurt to the people around them. Not as much hurt, but hurt. 

 

As for Hurl, the DPA is straight trash and always has been trash. It's *always* been a hardpass power, and comparing favourably to Total Focus is not hard because Total Focus is also garbage in terms of DPA.

 

Literally every other melee set in the game is better than Energy Melee at nearly everything; it is dead last in AoE DPA and is almost last in ST DPA only surpassed by stuff like spines or meme builds like rageless SS. Being better than EM is not something to be proud of.

 

And yes, my idea is to make rage weaker but elevate the rest of the set (besides footstomp which is just fine as is) because I don't think SS should need it any more than any other melee set needs its build up. It's time to stop needing rage as a crutch power to hold up what is otherwise a set full of mediocre to outright worst in class powers.

[Sniktch]

Not Total Focus, Claws Focus.  Another ranged power in a melee set, but not considered garbage because it's faster-animating.  Also, neither Hurl nor Hand Clap have been a 'hard pass' for me -  then again, for me, DPA isn't the only metric of a power.

[Xaeon]

Not Total Focus, Claws Focus.  Another ranged power in a melee set, but not considered garbage because it's faster-animating.  Also, neither Hurl nor Hand Clap have been a 'hard pass' for me -  then again, for me, DPA isn't the only metric of a power.

As a Brute your primary job is to punch things to death, and as a tanker your primary job is to tie things down like quicksand until they die. DPA and survivability are the most important metrics for this to ensure this is done as well as possible. Hurl and Handclap look fun and are cool thematically, but for nearly every brute build and any non-tanktroller build handclap is basically useless (especially in teams) and if I wanted to kill a single target at range with a brute or a tanker; gloom from soul mastery will do the job far better. Also a big rock only hurting literally one person is goofy, it should definitely have a bit of AoE. It's like using a catapult to kill a single person.

[Sniktch]

1. Gloom assumes I want Soul Mastery.

2. Gloom assumes my character is high-enough level to have taken it, and not Mal/Exemped below 29.

3. Tied into 2, not every tank/brute is Incarnate with a Judgement at all times.

4. Even having and sometimes using Hurl and Handclap, I've found no issues punching things to death OR holding aggro.  is my build "supermaxoptimalsauce"?  Nope.  Doesn't need to be; I'm not playing CoX eSports Edition nor getting paid to juice my performance.  If I can main-tank for a TF/SF team without wipes, then the set is working as intended.  Am i opposed to a tweak-balance pass?  No, but as noted, be careful what you wish for; it isn't just Rage that'd get it in the neck if the rest of the set got balanced.  Footstomp is also a huge outlier, and making the set Spines mk2 would result in it getting the bat.

 

As to big rock only hurting one thing being goofy: you tossing that bone to Stone Melee too?  Hurl Boulder is the exact same power with a different animation; if Hurl goes AoE, so does Hurl Boulder by straight logic.  There are a LOT of animations that look goofy; this is an OLD game.  Eagle's Claw has the hover-slide-flip kick or baseball-pitch punch choice, both of which look titanically stupid.  The Matrix-jump smashes are also goofy.  Popeye Punch.  Shadow Maul.  A fair number of Assassin Strike anims - actually had an EM Stalker on Live I rolled as a pure joke; Fist Of Fiber, because that animation is painfully constipated.  Do I even need to mention Dual Pistols?  HORRIBLY goofy animations throughout.  Cool, but as implausible as a large rock only hitting one guy.

[zuel]

Is there any news on this? My SD/SS tanker has just died three times in a row due to the Rage crash -Def, I have been using Hand Clap (with KB -> KD) to help mitigate damage when it happens, but it's usually not enough to save me.

 

If there must be a crash, can we have the -Def balanced with -Res? Or just revert the crash to pre-bug fix and make the -Def resistible?

[Legree]

If you need more breathing space with a level 50+ tanker or brute than your judgement and footstomp can give you, handclap is not going to save you.

 

Powers should never be balanced around whether or not they're good in Incarnate content, seeing as 99% of the game happens before that.

 

Handclap is a hard pass for any non-tanktroller or non-soloist build and ideally sets should not have any hardpasses.

 

Anything from 3 to 6 powers in many support sets are hardpasses for soloists - all those "cannot use on yourself" powers make several entire sets a hardpass for some.  Those players who prefer to solo are dealing with a lot more restricted power choices than those who don't.  Let's not reduce the utility of those sets they can play in the name of squeezing a little more DPS out in full team endgame content.

 

 

[Sniktch]

If you need more breathing space with a level 50+ tanker or brute than your judgement and footstomp can give you, handclap is not going to save you.

 

Powers should never be balanced around whether or not they're good in Incarnate content, seeing as 99% of the game happens before that.

 

Handclap is a hard pass for any non-tanktroller or non-soloist build and ideally sets should not have any hardpasses.

 

Anything from 3 to 6 powers in many support sets are hardpasses for soloists - all those "cannot use on yourself" powers make several entire sets a hardpass for some.  Those players who prefer to solo are dealing with a lot more restricted power choices than those who don't.  Let's not reduce the utility of those sets they can play in the name of squeezing a little more DPS out in full team endgame content.

 

There's an entire AT that has in all but two primaries three powers most consider hard-passes - a non-beast, non-demons Mastermind who takes any of their attacks is often considered to be "doing it WRONG!!!!!", whether team or solo.

[Legree]

There's an entire AT that has in all but two primaries three powers most consider hard-passes - a non-beast, non-demons Mastermind who takes any of their attacks is often considered to be "doing it WRONG!!!!!", whether team or solo.

 

I usually take at least one of the personal attacks - to add some damage early on, for the secondary effect, for fun or flavor or just to have something to do while my pets are fighting.  I also usually respec out of them at some point because by then I have more options and any of those options will do more for me than a basic attack.  It's a bit like Brawl in that respect.

 

When I do so depends on the set.  An active set like /Poison will start to keep me busier much sooner than say /Force Field... though keeping a Boss out of the fight until I'm ready by pinballing them all over the map with Force Bolt seldom gets old.

 

Still, there's a difference between a power being sub-optimal (solo or team) and utterly useless (solo) and the latter is what most of e.g. /Empathy or /Thermal is to a soloist.  My point being that "this isn't optimal in a team" is not intrinsically any more reason to make a change than "this isn't optimal when not in a team."

[archgemini24]

Good thing I looked into this before I rolled out this awesome idea I had in my head for a SS/Shield Brute or Shield/SS Tank: that level of unresistable -Def would have broken the combo if I planned on playing it to be the point for top-tier content (perhaps even for any content where a +Def power was not available).

 

A few points:

 

If the -Def cannot be removed, can it be offset by adding an offsetting amount of +Def in the same bucket of Crash effects?

 

If the idea is that -Mitigation must be included as part of the crash (I believe the -Dmg and -End are enough), it should affect secondaries equally, at least on paper, so if the -Def must stay, add an equal amount of -Res (but doesn't Resistance inherently reduce the effects of Resistance debuffs?). I don't want to see -40% Res added to the Crash, though, as that would make the set unplayable for everyone...

 

I really like the combined ideas of:

- Removing the -Def portion of the Crash so that no Mitigation set is so distinctly impacted versus any other,

- Lowering the values of Rage's +ToHit/+Dmg (+10/+50) so that double stacking (+20/+100) only marginally eclipse's today's single-cast values. This means the -Dmg and -End penalty stay in place in exchange for the periods where the player effectively has Build-up, and,

- Adding a close-range "Collateral" AoE to some of SS's powers (all except Footstomp, maybe?) to make up for the loss of +40/+160 that double stacking gained. The hope being this would make the rest of the set more palatable to play, and less reliant on Rage and Footstomp.

 

Mostly, I just want to play the combo I had in mind without having to worry about if critters are going to drop the right inspirations so I'm not flirting with Death every two minutes simply because I chose a Defense set.

[Sniktch]

Howabout this - Go ahead and shitcan the -Defense portion.  But replace it with 10 seconds of floored Recovery.  Hits all mitigations equally - even Quick Recovery isn't gonna help if you've got -10000% Rec.  Fits thematically; on top of an 'adrenaline crash' - the end-of-effect -25% MaxEnd - you're sucking wind trying to stabilize for a few seconds.  Doesn't prevent you from Taunting - that's a 0 END power.  Can be partially mitigated by Inspirations - blues.  Can be done fairly easily, as multiple powers already contain a similar if longer-duration -Rec crash; copy-paste.  Keeps Rage properly 'costed' for its massive benefit.

[SwitchFade]

Hmm, perhaps:

 

-Keep -def, make it 8%

-Add -resist, 8%

-add -recharge 10-15%

-remove -damage

 

BUT, they decay, 1% per second.

 

ALSO, no stacking debuffs, so high recharge sets aren't penalized.

 

Adjust up jab and punch damage by 12%

 

Adjust rage down to 75% damage buff from 80% to compensate.

[Mantidae]

Rage doesn't need a -def.  It doesn't need another nerf in place of -def.  It needs to be fixed so that it works as it did before.

[SwitchFade]

Rage doesn't need a -def.  It doesn't need another nerf in place of -def.  It needs to be fixed so that it works as it did before.

 

No.

[MalphiteMeIRL]

Rage doesn't need a -def.  It doesn't need another nerf in place of -def.  It needs to be fixed so that it works as it did before.

 

Agreed. It's simple and it's worked on live for years. No need for complicated changes which change the set's identity.

[Impact]

Rage doesn't need a -def.  It doesn't need another nerf in place of -def.  It needs to be fixed so that it works as it did before.

 

Agreed. It's simple and it's worked on live for years. No need for complicated changes which change the set's identity.

 

And agreed again.  Rage isn't part of Rad Melee, or Titan Weapons,  or Spines, or some other high end melee set.  If it was, then calling for nerfs to its power would be justified.  But Rage is part of Super Strength, a set that's of average or less power when taken as a whole with Rage as it was.  The nerf was totally unnecessary and has wrecked some builds completely while damaging others that weren't that strong to begin with. 

 

The few players who talk repeatedly about Rage being overpowered generally cherry picked a couple SS powers for an AOE AE farming build without using the set as a whole.  Jab, Punch, Hand Clap, Haymaker, and Hurl (5 of the 7 attacks!) are all skipped by min/maxing farmers in favor of far superior Power Pool attacks, a sorry state of affairs.  Super Strength's only good abilities are Rage (stellar, the best of its kind), Foot Stomp (also great), and Knockout Blow (good but not outstanding).  The rest are easily dispensed with.  Taken as a whole and used by a non AE farmer, the set performs at a middling level.  If Rage only applied to Super Strength and not to Power Pools (an interesting thought, but probably not feasible to implement), no farmer would take the set since Rage and Foot Stomp are the only reasons they make it their "primary" powerset to begin with.

[Xaeon]

As I said before, Superstrength's problems as a set run much deeper than the issues with Rage.

 

It's that the majority of the set's powers are mediocre to outright terrible. It's a bunch of boring single target attacks that suddenly has a very nice PBAoE attached to it and doesn't really convey the feeling of having the kind of strength that crushes buildings and makes shockwaves as powerful as bomb blasts with every punch through sheer musculature.

[SwitchFade]

Rage doesn't need a -def.  It doesn't need another nerf in place of -def.  It needs to be fixed so that it works as it did before.

 

Agreed. It's simple and it's worked on live for years. No need for complicated changes which change the set's identity.

 

And agreed again.  Rage isn't part of Rad Melee, or Titan Weapons,  or Spines, or some other high end melee set.  If it was, then calling for nerfs to its power would be justified.  But Rage is part of Super Strength, a set that's of average or less power when taken as a whole with Rage as it was.  The nerf was totally unnecessary and has wrecked some builds completely while damaging others that weren't that strong to begin with. 

 

The few players who talk repeatedly about Rage being overpowered generally cherry picked a couple SS powers for an AOE AE farming build without using the set as a whole.  Jab, Punch, Hand Clap, Haymaker, and Hurl (5 of the 7 attacks!) are all skipped by min/maxing farmers in favor of far superior Power Pool attacks, a sorry state of affairs.  Super Strength's only good abilities are Rage (stellar, the best of its kind), Foot Stomp (also great), and Knockout Blow (good but not outstanding).  The rest are easily dispensed with.  Taken as a whole and used by a non AE farmer, the set performs at a middling level.  If Rage only applied to Super Strength and not to Power Pools (an interesting thought, but probably not feasible to implement), no farmer would take the set since Rage and Foot Stomp are the only reasons they make it their "primary" powerset to begin with.

 

Super. So, now let's focus on solutions.

 

Your post just highlighted the overpowered combo of Perma double rage and foot stomp. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the def crash either. So I suppose then, since you're saying that rage was fine, foot stomp is superior, and all the other powers are junk, we should... Nerf foot stomp, and put rage back the way it was.

 

Even though there was a very thorough analysis of SS attacks and how they compare to other sets, showing how jab and maybe punch are underpowered, but the rest of the set is comparable.

 

I'm not advocating the def crash, but to counter point your statement about "the few players that talk repeatedly..." The players that call for the def crash to be removed seem to just want an overpowered aoe back. *Shrug*

 

Maybe there's a middle ground?

[Xaeon]

I mean like it or not, but Titan Weapons exists and all other melee sets have to be compared to the standard it sets; and SS comes up short to TW in every metric.

[Sniktch]

EVERYTHING comes up short to Titan Weapons - it should not be any sort of balance marker EVER, unless it's "if it gets as far off-the-charts as Titan Weapons did, it's nerf time", past tense used intentionally.

 

Super Strength doesn't manage 90% uptime on a Tier 3 attack doing more DPA than most Tier 9s - does that mean it's 'too weak', or does that mean the sets that CAN hit that mark are maybe possibly might be a little too good?  On Live, the answer was always the second, and for good reasons.

 

Now, as to the actual non-"I WAAAAAAAANT!" proposal on the table:

 

Hmm, perhaps:

 

-Keep -def, make it 8%

-Add -resist, 8%

-add -recharge 10-15%

-remove -damage

 

BUT, they decay, 1% per second.

 

ALSO, no stacking debuffs, so high recharge sets aren't penalized.

 

Adjust up jab and punch damage by 12%

 

Adjust rage down to 75% damage buff from 80% to compensate.

 

Jab: No issues here - it is below the line per the base balance formula, could use something, this is simple and doesn't go cottage.

 

Punch: More damage might work - my view is take it in a different direction.  Punch is, right now, VERY comparable to the best Pool attack in the game, Air Superiority - 1 END less cost, chance of KD instead of 100% KU, no -Fly, can slot ATIOS.  Instead of throwing more damage at Punch, make it a functional sidegrade - its KD becomes 100%, making the gap between the two much narrower; ATIO capable and 1 END cheaper vs. always brings down fliers.  This makes it a much more valuable early-survivability tool, and a reliable soft-control vs. hard targets later, without just throwing more DPA at everything.  If a player wants, they can even double-up for twice the knockdown lockdown, at a DPS cost.

 

Rage itself:  I see the idea behind what you're proposing, Switch - but the reason Rage has a hard damage crash is because the original design idea was 120 up, 10 down.  Due to various ways players bent the frameworks, it morphed to "want double stack or more ALL THE TIME!" despite the devs still wanting it limited.  They had the option of making it a toggle every time they rebalanced it, and they did that almost as often as they juggled Regen - without ever taking that final step.  Partly because the flames from the MOAR DEEEERPS crowd would have been visible from orbit, partly because they still wanted it 'mostly up, a little down, notable crash but manageable.' 

 

The whole idea behind making the crash undodgable by stacking was to enforce this - one stack, you get a HUGE, long-term buff with a brief, mitigatable downside, able to be made permanent at a slight cost in build space.  More than one?  Things start to get dicey as the uptime self-regulates via those 10-second crashes, until you reach the functional outer limit of quad-stack Rage - yes, you CAN try to 5-stack, but between activation times, mis-timed attacks near the recharge of Rage, slows, all the niggly little bits that pop up in a combat, you'll never have any meaningful uptime of 5, plus losing 25% of your max END every 24 seconds will quickly drain you dry.  In essence, the power is working exactly as designed and intended - aside from the fact that -Def hits multiple mitigation sets disproportionately.  Fix that, Rage becomes fine.  Your idea of letting players punch-through the crash is interesting, but contrary to the base idea, and -Rech, just like -Def, hits a few sets a LOT harder than it hits others.  And I think we can all agree poor Regen's been beaten enough times  :P

 

So, splitting it between Def and Resist is perfectly acceptable - but trading off the -Damage would require something else to reinforce the "crash is crash" paradigm, thus my proposed -Recovery....actually...

 

-8% DEF(all), 10 seconds, unresistable - as Arcanaville noted, making it resistable just means Shield gets hit worse than all others, so not really an option.

-8% Resist(all), 10 seconds, unresistable.

-100% END Discount, 10 seconds, unresistable - your powers cost double.

-100% Recovery, 10 seconds, unresistable - if you have enough +Rec, you won't be entirely floored, and a pocket Kin can bring you back to baseline roughly, but still gonna be felt with double cost-per-power.  If this isn't enough to 'cover costs' of the power, it can be adjusted up.

 

The -Discount replaces the traditional -END crash, and the -Rec replaces the traditional -Damage crash.  You can punch through it if you can pay the bills, so to speak, but in general you'll be better served switching to taunt and letting your aura hold aggro. 

[Xaeon]

If Titan Weapons isn't going to get nerfed (and it probably never will; SCORE had six years to balance TW and never once touched it and the Live Devs also never even broached the topic of a TW nerf in its year of being on live due to the Devs under War-Witch having moved to a "balance upward" philosophy; and once Contaminate actually works properly on Rad melee it will probably be within spitting distance of TW) then every other set needs to be brought closer to its standard. There's very few people in favour of a TW nerf and the set largely works as intended; it's also a good pay off for all the waiting you need to do to finally get it to start shining once you have enough recharge and attacks to get a proper chain going. It doesn't need a nerf, other sets just need to get better. Rad-melee almost definitely will once Contaminate works as intended; so everyone else needs to get up to its par.

[Galaxy Brain]

If anything maybe give TW a slap on the wrist with like, -1 sec momentum time or something just to scootch it close to everyone else.

 

Anyways, random thought there but Rage is currently a +80% to *all* damage, yes?

 

What if Rage only effects *smashing damage*? It would no longer touch secondary attacks like most auras, and allow SS to then focus its buffs on your own physical attacks.

[zuel]

I don't see why reverting the Rage -Def crash has to mean a wholesale review of SS. Why not do both over appropriate time scales?

 

Revert the crash, effectively taking it back to how it was on Live; then seek input on other major changes to SS (possibly including revisions to Rage); then test those changes on Justin.

 

Reverting the Rage -Def crash doesn't need to go through a lengthy beta test. It can be done quickly. It won't break the game, it'll just take it back to a place where most people were already content with it. And it doesn't preclude other ideas for how to balance/improve SS.

[Widower]

Again, there's nothing to revert. The change was not targeted at Rage at all. Rather, it was a consequence of a larger rewrite of powers code to change how stacking worked to fix some other bugs, that also happened to fix this... shall we say, feature. There are no plans to un-rewrite powers code, to my knowledge.

[Myrmidon]

that because what you remember from Live is no longer the case.

 

Rage was supposed to apply a -20% defense debuff on crash, but due to a bug that Paragon never bothered to fix, cause who cares, whenever you reactivated Rage before the crash, it bypassed the -def portion.

 

But in i25 during the shadow server years, Leandro "fixed" that bug so the -def is unavoidable and it HURTS. And the more global recharge you have, the more often Rage will crash and get you killed.

 

It especially hurts defense-based defensive sets.

 

So Rage has the dubious distinction of being the only power you DON'T want to stack more recharge with, as it will actively screw you over doing so. Which runs counter to how the rest of the game works.

 

 

KKKHHHAAANNN!