Aett_Thorn

They don't come with enough pie.

Yeah, left out Defiance and Scourge, because honestly, I don't have the time to do that kind of math right now. Defiance should help out going from spawn to spawn more, while Scourge would help out more against bigger targets, I would think, but I honestly am not good enough with math to do all of that.

The attack chain should increase the lead for the Blaster. Aim and Build Up only take 1.17 seconds to cast, while Sleet and Heat Loss are both over two seconds. In the time a Blaster can cast Build up and Aim (about 2.3 seconds), the Corruptor will have just gotten Heat Loss cast. The Blaster can start blasting, but the Corruptor still has to lay Sleet down and cast Aim.

Blaster wins by more.

And yet you're not taking into consideration all of the variables in that claim. Things like recharge, ease of use, endurance, total availability. Things like that. You're just taking a single value of a power, and making a claim against that. And that's not even going into the whole "but what about other powersets" issue.

So let's take a look, shall we?

The two powers you're talking about are Sleet and Heat Loss. Sleet can be made permanent with three recharge enhancements or so. So yeah, it can be up permanently, but it needs to be placed. And it costs 18.2 endurance every 30 seconds that way. Heat Loss, however, lasts for 90 seconds, but recharges in 360. You'd need an additional 300% recharge to make that permanent. So, a decent amount of slotting, Hasten, and set bonuses to get there. For this test, let's not go into set bonuses or Hasten, because Blasters can get those too. So we'll say that it, like Sleet, has +100% recharge from slotting. That's 50% uptime.

So, averaging out the -resistance on the enemy, we get about a 45% increase in damage. To add to that, most Corruptor primary sets get aim. Hurray! That's an additional 42.5% damage every 45 seconds (similar slotting) for 10 seconds. So, total damage increase is roughly 54.444% damage increase averaged out.

Now, let's see what the Blaster can do. The Blaster doesn't have many -resistance debuffs available to him in his primary or secondary. Yes, he can use Melt Armor, but that ain't so great, so we'll skip them. So what does he have? Well, he's got both Aim and Build Up, most likely. 45 second recharge for both, with Aim being a 62.5% damage buff, and Build up at 100%. Alternating them, or using them at the same time, gives us an averaged-out damage increase of about 36%.

To summarize:

Corruptor: 54.444% damage increase from -Resistance and +Damage
Blaster: 36% damage increase from +Damage


So, let's take a look at a shared powerset. Let's say Ice Blast, since it doesn't have those annoying DoT add ons that make for complex math like Fire Blast does.

Blaster Ice Blast base damage: 102.6
Corruptor base damage: 68.4

Blaster slotted Ice Blast (1.96% value): 201
Corruptor slotted Ice Blast: 134

Blaster with total averaged buffage: (1 + 0.96 + .36) = 238
Corruptor with total averaged buffage: 171

Blaster/Corruptor value: 1.39

The Blaster is still doing about 40% more damage than the Corruptor with a similarly slotted blast.

To top that off, a lot of the time, the Corruptor debuffs are going to be wasted. How many times is a single spawn going to get the full 90 seconds of debuff from Heat Loss? Most spawns will be dead long before that, which tilts the balance even more in favor of the Blaster, who's buffs can be used more strategically. Yes, the Corruptor's debuffs can help everyone on the team, but the Blaster does more damage, hands down.

Stalkers =/= Scrappers.

I don't think it's out of line to call an AT that has a primary that is damage, and an inherent that deals even more damage a "primary damage dealer." Yes, it can buff/debuff, but it is primarily a damage dealer. Most of it's time should not be spent buffing/debuffing, but killing the enemy. Sure, you can play it the other way around, but that was not its design.

So you do exclude, just not overtly.

Ha! Definitely a typo, but glad that it works as a pun as well. Just consider it another 2-for-1.

Glad I could help same you some time, Dechs!

Not a problem! Also, have you looked up Mid's Hero Builder? It allows you to see the individual power benefits, as well as being able to plan out whole characters. That's actually where I got your answer from. It's a very helpful tool.

You know you love me.


Thanks for the clarification on the suppression matter. I didn't see it in Mid's, but wasn't sure.

WHAT?!?!?!! I was planning to pay with all the love in my heart! Isn't that worth something? I mean, come on, Posi, look how cute I am!

They were responding to your post, therefore it is germane. Being an Incarnate in this game has a specific definition: you have gained the powers of a demi-god through the Well of the Furies. Batman would in no way, shape, or form be an Incarnate in this universe. He's very fit, but not an Incarnate.

The Devs have set up the Incarnate powers to at least be semi-balanced with each other. Allowing for people to gain four alpha slots basically, instead of the other options, would be a headache for them.

Like the others, I see no reason for this. If you don't want your character to have demi-god like abilities, don't chase them. But there's no reason to give you all four alpha abilities just because you don't like the others for your character with a very narrow concept. You don't need to get them at all, and doing so would break your concept, so just don't get them.

Are you sure about that, Claws? That's not how other debuffs work.

It should be additive, with a -DMG cap, meaning that (barring level differences), two -50% damage effects on a 100 damage attack will lower it to 10 damage, thanks to the -90% cap. It shouldn't lower it to 25 damage (100/2 = 50, 50/2 = 25).

+DMG and -DMG should work in exactly the same way.

None are needed, if they just gave us the Brute version.

Threw the cottage rule out there a few times, didn't they?

SR/ will definitely be good on Tankers (maybe too good), but it's a welcome addition.

I think he's supposed to be one of Apocalypse's Horsemen. But I'm not sure which.