People in General Chat are telling me that Super Strength sucks.

[ParagonKid]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

 could use a rework - yes, but it is bothersome to think what that could end up looking like.

I used to think like that. But then I decided that I can't stand to play SS in its current form anymore and no longer care to excuse how HC has handled it. There's zero downside if they ruin it further if one is already not engaging with the set at all, yes? Latest issue being really underwhelming only brought that simmering discontentment to the forefront, especially with nothing else to distract from it.

[Infinitum]

32 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

I used to think like that. But then I decided that I can't stand to play SS in its current form anymore and no longer care to excuse how HC has handled it.

I think you are overthinking it there. 

 

Nobody has made excuses - but for the strongest performing self damaging modifier it has to have a tradeoff - which said tradeoff still allows the set to be top tier. 

 

Moreover the crash is easily mitigated.

 

Without any crash the set would be absurd and would probably rival pre nerf tw - especially if SS was ported to scrappers.  Could you imagine that?  Double rage with crits on the scrapper damage scale? 

[ParagonKid]

23 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

especially if SS was ported to scrappers

Because I'm tired of that being hung over SS as some kind of threat that the powerset will suddenly stop being earth-shatteringly overpowered. Because it's not.

 

Like I said, I have no fear over then "ruining" Rage or SS because I refuse to touch them already. That boogyman holds no sway anymore; HC team saw to that. It's been how many years now they could have proliferated the set? I call the bluff. I'm double-dog daring them to port SS to Scrappers.

Edited March 9 by ParagonKid

[Infinitum]

12 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

Because I'm tired of that being hung over SS as some kind of threat that the powerset will suddenly stop being earth-shatteringly overpowered. Because it's not.

If you can't see - even in your own evidence that it would be and currently is.  There's no reasoning with you. 

 

12 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

Like I said, I have no fear over then "ruining" Rage or SS because I refuse to touch them already. That boogyman holds no sway anymore; HC team saw to that.

I don't have any fear of it either.  This is a game, I take it for what it is... A free game that's drastically better than it was on live. 

 

I don't let little things like the rage crash stop my enjoyment, because it's an easy challenge to be overcome to reliably play one of the best attack sets in the game. 

Edited March 9 by Infinitum

[Saiyajinzoningen]

I like SS 

probably my favorite melee power

it may not be meta

but its fun

I've learned to deal with the rage crash

the issue for me is DEF based sets get penalized while resist sets not as much

I don't want resist sets penalized

I just don't like the feeling of being pushed to choose resists armor sets for viability 

[Haijinx]

4 hours ago, ParagonKid said:

Because I'm tired of that being hung over SS as some kind of threat that the powerset will suddenly stop being earth-shatteringly overpowered. Because it's not.

 

Like I said, I have no fear over then "ruining" Rage or SS because I refuse to touch them already. That boogyman holds no sway anymore; HC team saw to that. It's been how many years now they could have proliferated the set? I call the bluff. I'm double-dog daring them to port SS to Scrappers.

If you don't use Rage, you haven't played the set.

[ZemX]

8 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Now I'm not saying anything against you personally, but in fairness, you can't classify an STier Trapdoor and overall average as middle of the pack.

 

Depends what people want to do with their Brute or Tanker, I suppose.  But that's also what I can't get people in this thread to admit: That just choosing a metric to look at is an opinion... not a fact.

 

If I'm a team Tanker, I would give a rat's ass about Pylon times, really.   If I had some special project to build a AV/GM killer than can survive anything?  Okay, maybe now I care.  But I've never done that and probably never will.  And I also think that's pretty rare among the playerbase.  Probably why SS is as popular as it is.  It does really well attacking groups of enemies and people have managed to deal with the crash in order to reap the benefits.  They've looked at that bargain and said, "Okay, sure!"  Not everyone has.  Obviously ParagonKid hasn't.   But that's a matter of opinion, like I've been saying all along.  Not fact.

 

But the other point is that it's one thing to note which set is where on Ston's tests for one's own information, but it's wholly another prospect altogether to say a set should be rebalanced by the devs because of it.  I've said this and have yet to hear a counter-argument.  I've just been ignored:  NO set has ever been balanced by Ston's test results.   If SS were to be balanced because of what Ston's tests say then ALL powersets should be.  So no, this ain't a simple fix.    

[Infinitum]

25 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Depends what people want to do with their Brute or Tanker, I suppose.  But that's also what I can't get people in this thread to admit: That just choosing a metric to look at is an opinion... not a fact.

I'm totally with you there, but I just truly didn't understand the contradiction that they were making using those results for SS being average when those results show the opposite. 

 

I don't have any data to prove my opinion, but I think from my experience (I have played over 100 melee combinations - and currently have 50 of what I consider the best, fully set out in my list currently) SS is a great set even with the rage crash.  Because it's a feeling.   Same feeling that tells you stalker ninjitsu isn't as good as scrapper Ninjitsu.  Or that kinetic melee on stalkers is better than the other 3 melee ATs.  I don't need a data point to tell me SS is one of the best, because I smile and giggle every time I ko or footstomp and watch the mob disintegrate swiftly. 

28 minutes ago, ZemX said:

If I'm a team Tanker, I would give a rat's ass about Pylon times, really.

I agree here - all my tankers are built to be team tankers - still with awesome damage, but I'm not proc'ing them out to make them something they aren't.  Same with Trollers - I don't lose sleep and whinge if my troller has bad damage.  The metric I look at is how good can I do it's job - locking down mobs.

 

For several reasons but mainly because I think procs will be adjested in the future. Also because I think the game gets bland if every At is played to chase damage - there is no prize at the end of the journey for kill speed.   I play for the experience and seek to make every pairing unique but true to it's role also. 

32 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

But the other point is that it's one thing to note which set is where on Ston's tests for one's own information, but it's wholly another prospect altogether to say a set should be rebalanced by the devs because of it.  I've said this and have yet to hear a counter-argument.  I've just been ignored:  NO set has ever been balanced by Ston's test results. 

Agree 100%. And honestly - truly no offense to Ston, but when these tests include moonbeam and cross punch etc - whatever they used - it really doesn't give a good metric of what the set can do at that point.  So agree 100% no balance pass should take these results into account because they aren't 100% true to the set.  I only pointed back to those results because it's what ParagonKid used but tried to paint a different picture other than what those results showed. 

[ZemX]

12 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

truly no offense to Ston, but when these tests include moonbeam and cross punch etc - whatever they used - it really doesn't give a good metric of what the set can do at that point. 

 

It's really interesting to look through all that.  Monster effort.  And those pool attacks mixed in really highlights how bad some powersets are for DPA.  Or maybe how too-good some pool attacks like Moonbeam and Crosspunch are.   It's sort of funny because I'm sure the original Live devs thought they'd struck some balance where pool powers weren't as good as primary/secondary powers but... oops... they never understood DPA originally.  Not until players explained it to them.

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

It's really interesting to look through all that.  Monster effort.  And those pool attacks mixed in really highlights how bad some powersets are for DPA.  Or maybe how too-good some pool attacks like Moonbeam and Crosspunch are.   It's sort of funny because I'm sure the original Live devs thought they'd struck some balance where pool powers weren't as good as primary/secondary powers but... oops... they never understood DPA originally.  Not until players explained it to them.

100%. I haven't agreed with 100% of every change HC has done, but I would say at least 85-90% I do.  And even the changes I haven't agreed with ended up not being as bothersome as I originally thought.  So I will always give any change a shot, and voice any issues after I have tested the change.  Both major complaints I have voiced after changes had the changes modified to address the concern - so it's not like the HC devs don't listen also.   In fact I truly think the HC devs are more effective than live devs even though they are also more limited in time and resources. 

[Azari]

Invuln/SS may be cliche but the combo makes sense since invuln has a decent amount of defense but more than enough resistence to get you through rage crash.

[Zect]

I have a hypothesis that people view the rage crash as much worse than it is because of loss aversion. Essentially, humans view losses or setbacks as much more significant than equivalent gains or successes. Rage is perma-build up, but because it comes with a drawback attached, people rate it much worse than it really is.

 

On 3/3/2024 at 3:23 AM, Cheli said:

Rage could be doublestacked with even a mediocre IO build on live and before the doublestacking bug was "fixed" (which, reminder, was not until the secret server) it had no crash when doublestacked - which was the entirety of the game's retail lifespan. Somehow without a crash SS still wasn't this god-tier machine everyone insists necessitates the crash existing.

 

SS absolutely was a god-tier machine in the days of yore. You should've seen the sheer carnage an SS/fire brute could dish out with bugged burn and bugged rage.

 

I'm half convinced the reason SS wasn't as prominent as it deserved to be is that the scrapper forums were munchkin central on Live and they didn't get SS.

Edited March 16 by Zect

[Ukase]

I recently created a character, an SS/Dark Brute. I couldn't quite decide on a name, so I sifted through pages of alts and found a name of a character I hadn't played in over 500 days, respec'd the enhancements out, and gave that name to this new character, Massive Man. Stole 250 prismatics from an alt, and made him as small as I could. I even put some stupid jokes about being short in a few macros, just for kicks and grins. Probably more kicks than grins, in hindsight. 

Prior to the creation of this character, I had heard people talk about how they hate the rage crash. I have played several SS characters; some brutes, some tanks. And I am familiar with this "crash" term, but I've never really suffered from it. I did suffer from it with Massive Man. And I mean, truly suffered. On all my other SS characters, I never even knew the Rage crash came with -end. I don't really watch stamina unless I'm out of endurance, if that makes any sense. Whereas, damage bonus is a combat attribute I monitor. 

As mentioned above, some armors just don't sync well with the crash, particularly the endurance drop. And I can tell you, Dark Armor is one of those sets that doesn't like it. The damage aura sucks endurance at .52 per second. Consistent with other damage toggles, but for whatever reason, poor slotting choices, whatever the reasons were, my character didn't like the rage crash. He has cardiac now, and has joined my list of alts that doesn't notice the rage crash anymore. 

I noticed something else, too. The -damage, yeah, that stinks, but it's only for 10 seconds. Most of the time, I could time my clearing of a group to where the crash would happen after clearing a group. But it still sucked, because I knew the end crash was coming, which meant being sure I had a 3/4 to full end bar so I don't suffer any ill-effects. But, what I noticed was that damage procs don't seem to listen to this -damage condition. So, with uppercut procced out, I could use handclap, then uppercut, and then a heal whether I needed it or not, and then another uppercut (both uppercut shots were fairly weak compared to normal - but damage is still damage) and then I could go nuts again. 

So, yes, of course, Super strength is kind of lame if you're using the armors that are fairly end heavy and slot without concerns about endurance. (although, I used more unslotters with this character than any I can think of, in search of end recovery, or max end, or endurance discount set bonuses) 
The theft of essence proc is a life-saver, but in my experience, slotting the full set of 6 in Twilight grasp limited the firing of the proc, but I digress. 

Foot Stomp is really the only thing that's super about this set. Double stacked rage is great. And if you can have enough accuracy to hit with Sands of Mu more than you miss, and you have an armor like Fire, and can use consume (from level 8 on a tank), then you can probably handle the rage crash fairly easily. Or, if you can handle the bittersweet nostalgia of regen, perhaps SS/regen could work for a brute. 

But, every set has some kind of issue. If Rage were just build up...eh, I don't know that the set would be worth playing. Maybe it's a mind-set thing. 
I think SS is just fine, you just have to be careful what you're pairing it with. I have an SS/Bio brute that's fantastic and is oblivious to any crash. 

 

[Ashford]

On 3/1/2024 at 2:41 PM, ParagonKid said:

This is Ston's Melee AT Archetype comparison. It is slightly old, but unless you have any newer numbers to present, it's the best thing to refer to.

 

 

For single target damage, Super Strength comes out about middle of the road. Trapdoor runs, which gauged AoE performance but are invalid now, bring it up a bit in the rankings on everage.

 

Either way, it is considered S Tier alongside Fiery Melee, Savage Melee, Axe, TW, Martial Arts etc.

 

It is considered comparable to them for damage output and "worth".

So what's the problem?

 

You know what those sets DON'T have that SS does? A crash. A built in drawback.

 

Why should Super Strength have a crash for the non-advantage of performing with around the same effectiveness as sets that are both better than it in some ways, but have no built in penalties themselves?

 

It really shouldn't. But it does.

 

That is why SS is "bad". Because it pays a price for mediocrity. It is taxed more for doing the same as other power sets.

 

And this is a totally fixable problem. You either raise its damage output to warrant a penalty being in place, or you remove the penalty. Relatively straight forward. Except for the fact nobody will lift a finger to fix it, but instead doubled down on it when they did have the chance to fix it and then left SS to wallow.

 

Which is why I'll always advise anyone asking to not engage with SS unless they absolutely need that specific flavor. Because the only good reason to take the set in its current state is for RPing.

I think your issue is you follow outdated statistics when in reality it's really hard to pinpoint which AT is "best" with the exceptions ("cough" kinetic) 

 

A lot of those powers on that list either got buffed or nerfed as of present date

 

Second, getting a more accurate data would be pretty hard to do because the data only fixates on the primary and not the secondary as the secondary can affect the performance of a powerset with rad, bio, and fire, being main factors for testing optimal performance, Either way it's best not to fixate on "what's best" as what's best does not directly translate to fun, Sure if a powerset makes ever mob fly like ragdolls that would probably sound like fun, but if it ultimately trivializes the content chances are there is really no reason to keep playing because as a min/maxer the problem has been solved, why play any other build? every other build does less damage than me,