What do you plan on running once we get the update?

[Xandyr]

When the new update goes Live, I know we'll have Psi armor, Regen, and Energy Armor. Of these, the most I'm excited about, personally, is Psi Armor. 

 

 I think I'm gonna go Psi/Dual Blades, although Dark Melee seems like it will have some good synergy. What about you? What are you excited about? What do you plan on rolling/running?

 

- x

[Psyonico]

I’ve got 3 tanks planned:

 

Regen/Savage (I want to do claws, but I don’t really mesh with the set, so savage it is)

 

Enegy/Staff - turns out I have 2 MA/Ninjitsu scrappers, so I took everything off of one and am rebuilding him with this

 

Psi/Enegy - I’ve been vacillating on secondary for this guy.  Concept really calls for Psi Melee, but i find the set too stuttery for my liking, Enegy can be recolored enough to look like Psi Armor and flows a little better.

 

I don’t actually know which of those 3 I’m most excited about…. The two tanks that I *am* super excited about are:

 

 electric/electric

Dark/Katana

 

Both of which are already at 50.

 

My Electric/Electric is one of my go-to happy characters and the increase in survivability means I can push his build towards a little more damage.

 

i love the concept of my Dark/Katana, but feel Dark Armor’s weakness right now.  I’m not looking forward to the Respecs I have to do, but I am looking forward to the end product.

[Erratic1]

I definitely want to do a Regen Tanker. The problem is I am not sure what secondary I want to try with it, especially in light of not wanting to repeat ones I have done recently. Currently I am weakly leaning Dark Melee, but honestly have no great thrill with that choice.

[Neiska]

Shelving my tankers for the time being unless a friend needs one for some reason. Only one I am keeping on the roster at the moment is my Bio/EM Tanker. Looking at possibly a Spines/Bio Scrapper or a Brute. Most of the time I don't need a tankers durability, and I am not going play solo and be penalized for having such. 

[Warshades]

I'm definitely rolling an energy aura tank, but I haven't decided on a secondary for that one just yet. My regen tank will be either battle axe, SS, or MA secondary. Will maybe do a psi/ice melee for the ice patch, but not sure if I really want to make a psionic armor tank.

[Maelwys]

As it is currently the only Tanker Secondary sets that aren't taking overly harsh reductions in AoE damage are those with 15ft base radius AoEs. So realistically Super Strength, Battle Axe, Stone Melee and Spines.

 

I was already planning on rolling up another Super Strength toon, so that kind of clinches it.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

As it is currently the only Tanker Secondary sets that aren't taking overly harsh reductions in AoE damage are those with 15ft base radius AoEs. So realistically Super Strength, Battle Axe, Stone Melee and Spines.

 

I don't think this is the case.  Foot Stomp is an exception.  It has always violated the standard damage formula and, so far, they haven't nerfed it to be in line with the other Tanker PBAoEs that are now 15ft.  Axe Cyclone is relatively recent but it DOES obey the standard damage formula, it looks like.  It does a lot less damage than Foot Stomp and is only slightly faster on recharge.  I don't know of any other 15ft PBAoEs that don't already do standard damage for a 15ft radius AoE, though I can't say I've scanned the whole list.

 

It's worth noting that Foot Stomp's extra damage goes for Brutes too.  So it's been the case for some time that Brute 15ft Foot Stomp has done the same damage as other 10ft PBAoEs Brutes have access to in other sets.  It hasn't been a hot button issue because Super Strength is otherwise seen as underperforming without things like Rage and too-good Foot Stomp.  Now, double-stack Rage has always been a controversy, it seems.  For Tanks at least, this is getting a bit of a nerf with the reduction to damage buff scale.

[Thraxen]

Time Defender to help prop up all the new tanks. 

[Maelwys]

45 minutes ago, ZemX said:

I don't think this is the case.  Foot Stomp is an exception.  It has always violated the standard damage formula and, so far, they haven't nerfed it to be in line with the other Tanker PBAoEs that are now 15ft.  Axe Cyclone is relatively recent but it DOES obey the standard damage formula, it looks like.  It does a lot less damage than Foot Stomp and is only slightly faster on recharge.  I don't know of any other 15ft PBAoEs that don't already do standard damage for a 15ft radius AoE, though I can't say I've scanned the whole list.

Foot Stomp is indeed an exception, insofar as it has always had too much damage than it should (on both Tankers and Brutes) for a 15ft base radius AoE.

However it's the base radius, not the base damage that is the important thing here.
Because Foot Stomp has a 15ft base radius; its base damage is not being reduced by the Radius changes - regardless of how high its base damage currently is.

What I'm referring to in my previous post is that the radius changes to Tankers on Brainstorm are having no effect on any 15ft base radius AoEs (like Foot Stomp, Axe Cyclone, Spine Burst, Tremor and Combustion) but they ARE having a drastic negative impact on any <15ft base AoEs (like Fire Sword Circle, Whirling Hands, Atom Smasher and Dragon's Tail). All of those 15ft base radius AoEs (whether they're "exceptions" like Foot Stomp or not!) currently have the same damage listed on both Brainstorm and Live. But the smaller-radius ones have less damage listed on Brainstorm.

This means that the only nerf to Tanker 15ft AoEs on Brainstorm is coming from the "Overcap" damage reductions... but Tanker <15ft AoEs are effectively being nerfed twice.

As a result; whenever you compare overall damage dealt by a Tanker and a Brute both using the same attack when under full target saturation (e.g. surrounded by oodles of foes) ...all the 15ft base radius AoEs I mentioned above are clocking in at nearly the same damage for both the Tanker and the Brute (the Tanker will be dealing roughly -1.01% to -11.29% less overall damage than the Brute depending on Fury) but the <15ft AoEs are taking a much more drastic hit to their damage (the Tanker will be dealing about -23.85% to -31.76% less overall damage than the Brute depending on Fury). Example numbers in the link below.
 

 
As-is IMO it's shaping up to be a complete nightmare for balancing purposes; as some powersets are going to be taking major performance hits and others will be getting off very lightly. I'm still holding out for a rollback of all the radius changes (not just on the Melee Cones) but unfortunately that's looking less and less likely before it hits Live.
 

Edited Monday at 02:20 PM by Maelwys

[lemming]

Been looking at some of my past characters and will be redoing them for some of the updates.

Couple controllers, some regen chars.

 

New characters, I'll try a regen tank and something with the Psi armour.    I don't have much of a draw to the new control set and haven't come up with a concept I'd want for that.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

This means that the only nerf to Tanker 15ft AoEs on Brainstorm is coming from the "Overcap" damage reductions... but Tanker <15ft AoEs are effectively being nerfed twice.

 

I'm not disagreeing that Axe is a good choice, but that's not just because it's being nerfed less this go around.  It's also because it was top tier before the changes.  If Kinetic Melee were being nerfed less than other sets, hypothetically, that wouldn't make it a good recommendation.   It was underperforming before.  It might be underperforming still.  What matters is where the sets end up when the smoke clears.

 

Super Strength is in question.  Yes, Foot Stomp didn't get nerfed for damage.  But Rage did and since min/max testing that put SS in top tier probably relied on double-stack Rage, the nerf to damage buff scale hits SS harder than any other set.  What it does to its position in the rankings is yet to be seen.  

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

Super Strength is in question.  Yes, Foot Stomp didn't get nerfed for damage.  But Rage did and since min/max testing that put SS in top tier probably relied on double-stack Rage, the nerf to damage buff scale hits SS harder than any other set.  What it does to its position in the rankings is yet to be seen.  

 

Rage is going from +80% to 70% damage per stack, so that's a loss of 20% for the double stackers. Realistically with Musculature and ED-capped damage aspect enhancement that'll result in going from ~385% damage to ~365% damage, or a proportional drop in damage output of ~5.19%. Damage Procs and Set bonuses and Assault Hybrid and Interface Incarnate abilities etc etc will all lessen that further.

 

Given that Footstomp isn't getting its Base damage reduced by ~25%, I'd call that a solid win in comparison to most of the other top end sets.

[Maelwys]

Thankfully the Devs have just made a liar out of me.

All the Tanker AoEs should now be getting practically identical treatment; therefore Fiery Melee and Staff (for example) won't be getting nerfed any harder than Super Strength.
So it's currently looking like the only real loser this patch is going to be Procbombed Radiation Armor.
 

Edited Monday at 11:30 PM by Maelwys

[Erratic1]

I so want to run EA/KM but KM is soooo bad, I just cannot do it.

[skoryy]

Still working on my Fire/Energy's build, I'm too happy with her to try something new yet.

[StriderIV]

19 hours ago, Maelwys said:

As it is currently the only Tanker Secondary sets that aren't taking overly harsh reductions in AoE damage are those with 15ft base radius AoEs. So realistically Super Strength, Battle Axe, Stone Melee and Spines.

 

I was already planning on rolling up another Super Strength toon, so that kind of clinches it.

How do you think Elec Armor/SS is gonna fair after the changes to Elec Armor?

[StriderIV]

7 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

I so want to run EA/KM but KM is soooo bad, I just cannot do it.

It is still pretty shocking to me that KM hasn’t been updated/changed in some way (coming from someone who really DIGS KM and its style).

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, StriderIV said:

How do you think Elec Armor/SS is gonna fair after the changes to Elec Armor?

Elec's definitely getting some love; that extra sustain is going to help.
Probably won't quite be top-tier but still much more solid than it is currently.

Combined with SS? The Rage Crash won't hurt much; and Lightning Reflexes plus a FF +Rech in Foot Stomp pulls a fair bit of weight. Should be fine.

[Spaghetti Betty]

Definitely a Regen/SS! I'm probably going to be making quite a few Regen Tanks, now that I think about it, but that one is at the top of the list!

 

I'm also juggling a few different pairings I'd like to try with Psi Armor. Since everything has to be taken (except maybe Aura of Insanity), I'm leaning towards a melee that doesn't require a ton of investment to function, like maybe EM or Fire. Katana doesn't sound like a bad pick, either!

 

I'm curious on unearthing my various Elec Armor Tanks and seeing if the buff causes me to play them any more as well!

 

Oh, and as far as Energy Armor goes, I already know it'll be plenty strong, but Ice Armor is already my go-to DEF armor for Tanks. I'm sure I'll come up with something eventually, but it's not very high on my list!

Edited yesterday at 09:23 AM by Spaghetti Betty

[twozerofoxtrot]

Not totally sure yet.

 

Definitely some sort of Pyro character but dang if I'm not stuck on what kind. It's a control set that to me doesn't feel like it needs anything else.

 

A Sonic/Psi Sent as a sort of Debuff Blaster thing. -Res and -Regen while at range with armor; awesome.

 

A Regen/Claws tanker to bring to life a concept character I've wanted to play for years but didn't cause of a lack of Freakshow parts (I give up, tanker regen is here; life uh, finds a way).

 

A Regen/SS tanker because of course a Regen/SS tanker. Also I snagged the name Rhinoceress for her and have a costume made already :3

 

...and I'm probably gonna delete my Plant/Savage dom and my SS/EA brute cause they're pretty pointless now and I like to keep a tidy roster.

[tidge]

I will probably opt for a Regen Tank of some sort depending on what sort of concept I can come up with. I'd say the same for Psi Armor... I may reroll a stalled concept character using it.

 

Energy Aura is quite low on my list: The current HC version (pre-beta) is something I like on my Sentinel but I don't like the way it make me play my Scrapper. A Tanker with more HP might handle it better, but I am in no rush to find out. 

[arcane]

Have my builds ready to go for three new tanks, one new troller, one new dom, and a buttload of respecs 😄

[Borgold2]

A brute or scrapper named Notatank with no taunt/confront and no taunt aura. Outside raid tanks they no longer have a point 

[Krimson]

After checking DPS, the Tankers are going back into hibernation and the Brutes will be dusted off. Good thing I finished Incarnating most of them.

[lobster]

I've got a psionic/savage and a regen/tw tank prepped and ready to go....and 5 other new alts, I'm going to be busy for a while! 🙂  Energy Aura has never really grabbed me as a set with an interesting mechanic or visual in it, so there's no EA/ tank inspiration bouncing around in my head. Yet!