I want to like Super Strength...

[Psyonico]

So, I love the crunchy feel of SS, but I hate the Rage crash, so on my invul/SS I skipped rage.

 

I like the way he feels, but his damage is really low (he's 50 and mostly T4'd.)

 

So I'm thinking of trying SS again with maybe Shield, since AAO has the +damage portion.  Anyone have experience with a rage-less Shield/SS?  Does this combo work or am I going to have the same damage problems?

[Zect]

Lol.

 

Rage is +80% dmg. Double stacked rage, as most endgame SS tanks should have = 160%. Also, the massive tohit buff completely demolishes any and all defense buffs short of Crey MoG. Romans cower in fear.

 

I forget what the cap on AAO is but it's 10% + 5.5% per mob. Assuming the cap is 10 like damage auras, it would max out at 65%. If the cap were 16, which you are not realistically going to get even in an aggro saturated situation, it would max out at 98%.

[nihilii]

SS does standard damage, so in theory there's nothing wrong with it... but comparatively, "standard" just doesn't cut it. Every set has an edge, and by giving up Rage you're giving up most of SS' edge.

I think Bio/SS would go further than Shield/SS for a Rageless Tanker, what with the damage boost of Offensive Adaptation, the damage aura, and the -RES aura; which all work with just one mob, as opposed to AAO which is great only in crowds.

Alternatively, you could build to negate the Rage crash. A SS/SR Tanker for example, could shoot for 65% defenses to stay softcapped during the crash, tons of +recovery and Conserve Power or Ageless for the end part.

[Spaghetti Betty]

In my experience, the trick to Rage crash is to pick an armor that 1. Doesn't care about losing 20% DEF for a few seconds and 2. Can mitigate end drain well. (Or understand that you will have to pick Ageless)

 

The third part of the crash, the -10000% DMG, can be worked around by putting DMG procs in your BnB attacks, but that's more committal, as you'd have to give up set bonuses for that.

 

Playing without Rage is perfectly acceptable, since your primary job on a team as a Tanker is to Tank, but opting out of Rage is way more of a DMG loss than just dealing with the crash. You can just not click it if your concern is surviving a tough encounter.

[Psyonico]

My Inv/SS had rage at one point, but I hated the -dam and the -def so much that I ended up just not using it most of the time.  Bio/SS does look better than Shield/SS on paper, but I suspect I'm just going to have to accept the fact that unless the rage crash is changed (which doesn't seem likely) I won't like SS.

[Erratic1]

30 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

My Inv/SS had rage at one point, but I hated the -dam and the -def so much that I ended up just not using it most of the time.  Bio/SS does look better than Shield/SS on paper, but I suspect I'm just going to have to accept the fact that unless the rage crash is changed (which doesn't seem likely) I won't like SS.

 

Rage Crash is the only bad part to my SS/Bio Brute, but I do love playing him.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Let me get this straight.

 

You're skipping Rage because for ten seconds after two minutes of being literally unstoppable, you're no longer unstoppable?

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

I suspect I'm just going to have to accept the fact that unless the rage crash is changed (which doesn't seem likely) I won't like SS.

 

This is an okay perspective to have. We have so many options, not every set or AT is going to work for everyone.

 

 

[nihilii]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

This is an okay perspective to have. We have so many options, not every set or AT is going to work for everyone

It's funny isn't it. I can relate to Psyonico's grievances with my own nitpicks.

Even though I've got thousands of other combos to play, NOOOO!!! I must have all the alts. Why isn't everything in the game designed to accomodate me always. 😄

[Psyonico]

11 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

This is an okay perspective to have. We have so many options, not every set or AT is going to work for everyone.

 

 

This is true, I know Stone Melee is pretty crunchy too, so maybe I'll just have to play that more.

[Snarky]

yeah, you're screwed.  i love/hate my SS/invul Brute.  I havent played it in two years.  But i played SS for years on live and my first six months back.

 

I use Dark Melee a lot.  Energy is a possible vegan sub for SS meat.  

 

They wont fix the rage crash.  They brought it up and ten PvPers rage spammed them for months until they dropped the idea.

[Biff Pow]

I mean, you CAN get to +80% Damage with Shield if you build specifically for it. Assault Hybrid, Assault from Leadership, split up Might of the Tanker into three pairs, gather five 3% bonuses, the 2.5% from five Shield Walls, etc etc. But you're giving up a lot to do that, and you'd still be lacking Rage's +ToHit bonus, which is arguably as good as the +Dam.

 

I would just take Rage. Yeah, the crash is awkward but it's just ten seconds every two minutes (I don't double stack) and you still Taunt, Handclap, use your Incarnate Judgement power, move around, whatever. 

[Snarky]

4 minutes ago, Supertanker said:

I mean, you CAN get to +80% Damage with Shield if you build specifically for it. Assault Hybrid, Assault from Leadership, split up Might of the Tanker into three pairs, gather five 3% bonuses, the 2.5% from five Shield Walls, etc etc. But you're giving up a lot to do that, and you'd still be lacking Rage's +ToHit bonus, which is arguably as good as the +Dam.

 

I would just take Rage. Yeah, the crash is awkward but it's just ten seconds every two minutes (I don't double stack) and you still Taunt, Handclap, use your Incarnate Judgement power, move around, whatever. 

sound advice.  i just got tired of it.  the kicker is every character has to have a rage backstory.  so tired of being angry.  

[Erratic1]

47 minutes ago, Snarky said:

sound advice.  i just got tired of it.  the kicker is every character has to have a rage backstory.  so tired of being angry.  

 

You have to have a backstory to lose your temper?

 

I never needed one for all those real-life trips to the principal's office.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Most people get around the Rage crash by loading up on procs so it's no longer hampering your damage.

 

You can do similar with INV/SS, though it's not as effective as Bio or Rad. But still perfectly viable.

[Snarky]

2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

You have to have a backstory to lose your temper?

 

I never needed one for all those real-life trips to the principal's office.

My favorite SS backstory was a guy who started lifting weights.  To get healthy.  Because he tended to like drugs.  Then he started doing steroids.  And hard drugs to lift more.  Then he found Superdine.  Which he turned to Crey to fix and they got him into an advanced Excelsior course of treatment.  Needless to say he is now a mutant.  With a crap ton of Rage issues.  But man can he lift weights! 

[Sir Myshkin]

Thing about Super Strength is that it is one of the worst choices as a set (when you exclude Rage), and with Rage, it is still predominately a bad set that is aggressively covered up by the fact that Rage makes up for a lot of the damage by hiding it beneath an oppressive amount of benefit. The truth of the matter is that the real Super Strength set is actually Boxing, Kick, Cross Punch, Rage, Knock Out Blow, and Foot Stomp, and the rest of the powers exist just to, well, exist I guess, because once you select all of the powers out of the Fitness pool they become better choices than pretty much all the base tier choices in SS due to the bonus stacking they earn.

 

Given this, the first question I'd have to ask of why anyone would play SS without Rage is: Why?!

If you're not going to use Rage, just skip the set altogether. You can get the same animations (for the most part) in Street Fighting by mixing in Boxing and Cross Punch and call it a night. Foot Stomp isn't THAT good to drag someone into the fray!

 

If you're worried about the crash component, play a Resistance set and cap it out, then you can literally just not care about the crash at all and move about your life. Mix some procs in the attacks and you'll keep ticking damage no matter what. Even with the Rage crash, Rage single-handedly makes itself the second strongest melee class in the game behind Energy Melee, and I say that pointing out the fact that it's a slim margin and it tests using power pools as the bulk of the attacks.

 

If you're still here after all of that, then I entertain your madness with a build theory and welcome you to the madness of my kingdom! What you seek is doable and fanciful in the form of a Mad King build by abusively taking advantage of Adrenal Booster to be our backdoor Rage mechanic and become a Crash-Less build that simply has down time during its functional waves of annihilation. Structural use of the Force Feedback +Rech proc in three key powers means it will be possible to get Adrenal down to a sub 180/s range without Hasten and very little extra outside help, so stacking in as much little bits of +Rech as you can will make it even better. Ideally 120/s will be best for 50% up time (60 up, 60 down), but you may find without Hasten landing around 140/s.

 

This is the skeleton, I left it relatively unslotted but it shows the idea, with just 5 things in AAO and AB up you'll carry a 95% Boost which is nothing to sneeze at since AB is a 60/s long layover, and that can grow to 123.25% at full saturation.

Spoiler

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build |
		|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
		|MxDz;995;419;838;HEX;|
		|78DA7592ED4AC25018C7CF7422BE2136C5C24410844A5A0A5D40905AD614C1BECBC|
		|8931BAD29DB04BD80BE75697529BDDCC1FABBD3DC13E88173789EDFFF793B873358|
		|75B21FEFDA1593B2D796EEBA9307DD7EE64E72A87B4B47B7D86625B1AB824F3AFC8|
		|9DB2E57C786C9AD69E856FED401B738B4E502F6D873B83DF38C42DF36384C4F0D8D|
		|FC683EB7548DEB53EEB886B9C8057ECF9C199E69CF8A81D75DA186F98268DD33E77|
		|63A80E305E753A5BB301FD5AECD9DD97A32D05D8F3BEB434C58C3EEE470482C5CFE|
		|6663B1F334A36BCBBB889768BC24F801AE1CA73C2EB8049EA0751282DFA24E52DA4|
		|A3E9E2CE017E89BA2F129C163A893A13C23F85B83B11CE539F61A63AC2DB3D11963|
		|79AAE445C610BC407941F031B842784C614D16542A464610D9C68C257AD752D8B38|
		|751CA54298B8C1BF0A3E89D7D3801EF8357687C45F04B74A846CFECB36AD8E10E19|
		|359A510B4681720FA54EEF5517B534F006E50DC115BCE809E5278217C09BB44333E|
		|C1087A25245151932788BF296E0C7F2EE3F742AFFFF73BEB6277024D3B8E8B37DA6|
		|777FDAEF3DFC6B0FFFD9C37F0128ABE16B|
		|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Sir Myshkin

[Frosticus]

Truthfully I hate the rage crash too. I still play the set, but I really dislike the "time out" of the crash.

Stone melee is a nice alternative with a lot of screen shake, but it falls a bit short in performance for me.

TW is another option. Arc of destruction is a very satisfying attack.

[ironjoe]

Not all power sets are for everyone. I would love if they removed the Rage crash but that's not happening.

 

Currently I play Shield Defense/Super Strength as my main Iron Joe and love it but I do use Rage with it doubled up. Nothing like the feeling of hitting Fold Space to bring in a large crowd and tossing down some Foot Stomps, Shield Charge, and/or a Mighty Radial at a juicy 245%+ damage bonus.

[SeraphimKensai]

As an alternative you could roll Street Justice as it still has some crunchy powers. Rage is just replaced with a combo mechanic.

[smnolimits43]

I think my main goal, as a tank, is being able to take a ton of punishment, damage is secondary to me.

[Hyperstrike]

On 12/4/2022 at 1:24 PM, Psyonico said:

So, I love the crunchy feel of SS, but I hate the Rage crash, so on my invul/SS I skipped rage.

 

I like the way he feels, but his damage is really low (he's 50 and mostly T4'd.)

 

So I'm thinking of trying SS again with maybe Shield, since AAO has the +damage portion.  Anyone have experience with a rage-less Shield/SS?  Does this combo work or am I going to have the same damage problems?

Forgive me if this sounds rude.
But if you've skipped Rage, why did you take SS?

Rage-less SS is "meh" at best.

If you want something with the feel of SS, but you don't want to deal with the Rage mechanics, go Street Justice.

Also, there are other things you can do for that 10 seconds.

Taunt, Heal, and you know Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, Ghost Slaying Axe and Sands of Mu all still work without the -DMG.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Hyperstrike

[Psyonico]

I never got a SS very far until this guy.  He originally had Rage in his build.  I ended up not using it like ever because it turned out I didn't like the mechanic, I later Respec'd out of it.

 

I've got several Street Justice toons, I like the set but it doesn't quite have the same crunch as SS.  EM seems to be the only set that has comparable crunch to SS, at least for me.

[PLVRIZR]

2 hours ago, Psyonico said:

I never got a SS very far until this guy.  He originally had Rage in his build.  I ended up not using it like ever because it turned out I didn't like the mechanic, I later Respec'd out of it.

 

I've got several Street Justice toons, I like the set but it doesn't quite have the same crunch as SS.  EM seems to be the only set that has comparable crunch to SS, at least for me.

 

And I don't like the glowing pom-poms...(and infinitely less satisfying AOE than Foot Stomp).

 

Put Rage back in your build.   JUST DO EEET!!!  Like @Hyperstrike said, there are other things to do, during the crash.  Even the psi damage taunt proc in Perfect Zinger works...  A properly built Inv tank can lose the Def, and not blink (save tanking LR or other extreme content where you are not expected to be the damage dealer).  Procs still work, as well.  I've got FS with the full Hecatomb set, because of the outstanding bonuses and the proc for damage...during the Rage crash.

 

[Gobbledigook]

The new BA hits hard. I have never done a comparison but i bet it will give SS a run for it's money.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Gobbledegook