Cyber_naut

I agree with you on why it's popular, I said pretty much the same exact thing a few posts up (or maybe it was in another thread, not sure, lol). But it's not popular because it's way better than anything else, it's just a top notch set and good at both single target and aoe. There are several sets that are better single target performers and there are better aoe sets as well.

That is precisely why the devs would be crazy to change SS. Because it is popular and it's not blowing the competing sets away at anything, outside of being a complete set that has balanced single target and aoe abilities. If they have a different idea for an SS set, why not just make a new SS set and offer it along side the old one? Then you make everyone happy and you offer a brand new set without having to make one up from scratch. And if any super power deserved alternate choices, it's the definitive super hero power super strength.

At this point, I'm pretty convinced that the devs are the only people familiar with this game who are OK with the present state of em, lol.

It's a great IO, but at this point I don't even consider getting another one. I got lucky early on and grabbed one for around 500 mil.

These are the answers you are looking for... (does jedi mind trick thing)

Ironically, that motto works better for brutes, lol.

The idea that fury is a difficult thing to attain and keep is just not true. Any decent player should be able to stay between 60-70% fury without any effort at all outside of attacking enemies, which means any decent player will get better performance out of a brute than a scrapper in more instances than not. It's not a massive, game breaking advantage, but it's an advantage none the less.

Only if you use the magical balancing equation that I have argued over and over again as being ridiculously flawed.

See above.



The problem is when a set is on par with many other competing sets in terms of single target ability, while falling far behind these same sets in aoe ability, then overall that set is subpar. That is where em is right now.

The fact is, single target mitigation is inferior to aoe mitigation, for 99% of the game, vs 99% of the enemies. Stacking single target mitigation is even weaker when you consider how fast things get killed in this game.



The problem arises when competing sets are as good as EM is solo, and way better on teams.


Overall it is underpowered. Overall means both aoe and single target abilities. You're saying that because em is competitive in single target abilities with competing sets, that it's not underpowered, while ignoring the other side of the coin where it clearly is underpowered.

EM is competitive in single target ability, but that's not the overall picture. In terms of aoe, em is way behind other sets that are at the same level as em in terms of single target ability. That's why em is underpowered.

If it continues to be the unquestioned basement dwellar in aoe, then any changes would need to make em the unquestioned leader in single target, rather than just one of many top competitors in said department.

Strawman, I've never argued that all sets should be the same.

Bill showed you his for the study he did on single target damage. Starsman is another poster who set up charts studying a wide array of damage situations.


I'd be fine with em being alone at the bottom in terms of aoe abilities, IF it was alone at the top of single target abilities, but that clearly is not the case now. That WAS the case before the nerf, which is why I liked the set then, even though it was feeble in terms of aoe damage and ability.

I'm not claiming the set is unplayable, only that it's clearly underperforming overall vs. other sets.

I'd return the set to what it was and allow it to be unique in that it was THE dominant single target melee set.

If that was not an option, some of the changes I'd like to see would be (some or all depending upon the specifics of the changes):

1)Make stun a pbaoe. This would dramatically increase the sets mitigation and aoe abilities.

2)Make ET either a small cone or have it jump like Chain Induction. This would justify the slow animation and make the attack more viable on teams, especially if it was made into a cone.

3)Make TF work like thunderstrike and improve the aoe of the set further while making the sets tier nine more attractive after the stun reduction.

What is good or poor design is a matter of opinion. Granted with some recent changes, it seems the devs agree with your opinion, but it's opinion none the less.

I personally think it's ok for some sets to be balanced with a bunch of good, equal strength powers on one extreme, and another to be balanced around some weak powers and a few really strong ones. It creates more diversity. If you balance all the sets the same way, I think it would get monotonous real fast, and many sets would lose their unique identity.

Poor set design/balancing, imo, is when said set is disliked by players and never gets played. They went with your opinion with em, and now the set is a subpar mess that gets little play. So imo, that was a really bad move, because they took a set that many players loved, and ruined it, angering many of their paying customers. And people can argue to the contrary if they want, but the fact is em was not dominating pve play in any way, shape or form, to justify crippling it as they did.

I wasn't necessarily arguing that the balance is intentional, but it is balanced with competing sets WITH rage right now. If you weaken rage, the damage bonus anyway, the set become subpar in relation to it's competitors.

Having said that, I think some of it was intentional when you compare most of the powers with similar sets and see that they are all underpowered damage-wise on their own. I'm not saying they had some perfected balance equation, but I think they took into account most people would take rage, and the fact it was easy to make it a permanent damage boost, so they had all the attacks do lower damage than other sets without such a power.

That's why it's not overpowered in SS, because the set is obviously designed around it.

No, you build fury by being attacked or getting attacks directed at you. So if you're playing, you'll have some kind of fury going... lol.

If you were staying between 50-65% fury then you were doing around scrapper level damage with clearly better damage mitigation abilities.

I guess we'll see what happens. Personally, I don't care much since I primarily prefer scrappers and brutes, but being fair, I feel it necessary to point out the problems I see with tankers in terms of competitiveness. At the very least, I think tankers need some kind of improvement on aggro management, maybe just up their aggro cap a bit.

I don't agree with the fury/aao comparison though. You'll build fury on just attacking, and getting attacked by whatever you're attacking. AAO has a serious taunt aura, and you're going to be pulling aggro off everything with it, and many times you can end up pulling in more aggro than you can handle. My AAO discussion was obviously in terms of being on a team and facing larger than solo groups - with fury, you have far more control on how much aggro you choose to take on.

If it wasn't in regards to pvp, then it was probably about av soloing, since those are really the only two instances where it would have been overwhelmingly useful. And nobody is claiming ET wasn't loved, it was, and it made EM a set people wanted to play. That's the point though, now that ET is neutered, the set is not very popular.

But the vast majority of posts laughing at people for not taking em was because em was the only melee set that was effective in the old pvp system.

I'd agree that aoe has gotten more popular lately, but it was big back then too. I remember when every other toon I'd see was a fire/kin looking to fill out a team.



If the set only gets single target mitigation, I think it's ok for it to be much better than competing sets, especially on a tier nine power that takes 3.3 seconds to animate. On most teams your target will be dead before you can land the stun anyway, lol. Having said that, this nerf didn't bother me nearly as much as gutting the set's only outstanding power.

super strength set b!

I could understand a nasty crash like that if rage made ss really outperform compteting sets, especially damage-wise, but it really doesn't.

That's why I said 'a bit over 1/4'. I don't remember what 20% acc converts to in 'to hit' but I know its not much. Like I said, though, overall, I liked your suggestion.

First of all, nobody has claimed the self damage didn't negatively impact survivability before the nerf. It did.

Secondly, the reason it wasn't an issue was because the self damage was in exchange for the powers unusually high damage and fast animation.

My problem with the devs magical balance equation is that it doesn't seem to take into account all of the variables, such as a sets aoe capabilities and secondary abilities. The end result is a set that has it's single target abilities nerfed down to the level of competing sets while leaving its aoe abilities still lagging behind.

That is why it is no suprise that solo players don't mind the set and don't see any problem, and team players feel the set is a joke.



I guess that's the difference between our arguments. I'm arguing for overall set balances and that em is underpowered vs. competing sets overall, and you're arguing personal preferences.

But again, my point regarding single target dps, which is the one strength the set still has, is dependent on et being in the attack chain in order to compete with other top single target sets. It requires similar amounts of recharge as other sets require.



Using the magical 'balance' equation that doesn't take into account aoe capabilities or secondary effects.






You claimed you had moved on from this debate, but clearly you have not, which is fine, since I like to debate.

Also, you seem to be playing both sides of the fence - sometimes you say you hated the nerf, then you accepted it, then you're ok with it, then you say you want buffs which would indicate you're still not ok with the overall nerf. Tough to keep track, lol.



Since you mentioned the 'crying' in my post, I don't think it was reaching too far to think you were referring to me. But if it wasn't me, who then? I've seen nothing but constructive criticism in this thread.

And I'm not sure why you need to make this a 'personal' matter. I simply think em is broken and I'd like to see it fixed.

Again, if you could point to one in this thread, maybe I'd agree, but I didn't see one. Everyone simply seems to be giving their opinions on the set.

Actually, dp is a decent comparison - I wonder how much play that set will get when the new shiny wears off. Also, didn't I see something in the new issue forums about the set getting a buff already...

I was in that argument when the devs were posting about the nerf, and I can state without question that one of the devs defended the change by saying that they kept seeing all the posters laugh at people for not taking em in the forums. Now say what you will, but that laughing was clearly in regard to em's value in pvp, where it was really the only viable set for mellee in the old pvp format - hence people getting laughed at for taking something else. Certainly nobody would laugh at someone for taking a set other than em for pve play. So without question, em's dominance in pvp skewed the devs opinion on the set, either accidentally or not.

Now I know you're not going to agree with me cloudy, and these are just my opinions, but I have to respond to this, lol...

ET's one second application of single target damage is/was severely overshadowed by a vast array of aoe attacks and abilities in this game. I think the problem lies in the fact it's harder to balance this game with an 'equation' in terms of single target ability vs. aoe ability. But in pve, I think most rational players would agree that em was not one of the top sets for the vast majority of the game, even with the one second et power in play, precisely because of the fact the set is feeble in terms of dealing with more than one enemy at a time.

In regard to TF and it's ability to stun a boss, I think it was justifiable again due to the fact the set was/is feeble in terms of aoe, including secondary effects, so to balance that weakness, it should be heads and shoulders above other sets in terms of single target secondary effects, like having the ability to one shot stun a boss.

Yeah, probably better 'fixing' the sets that are actually broken - broken in that they get very little play. People like SS and it's not overshadowing all the competing sets, so it's probably better to leave it alone. If the devs really want to change SS, make a second set of SS to represent non-hulk superstrength type characters. They could reuse all the animations, they'd just have to reset the numbers however they like. Then you'd have an all new powerset for people to play with, using one of the most popular concepts in the super hero genre, super strength.

On my fm/sd toon, I dropped purples from fireblast and six slotted thunderstrikes to make up for the range defense I was getting from botz. But I'm also using the pvp +3% def unique - I"m betting a lot of the people who are saying the nerf is no big deal are, lol. You can still soft cap without it, but obviously the sacrifices become greater.

Those tactics don't work as well when you're primarily aoe damage dealer, lol. Or on a team with people who are unaware or don't care about said tactic.

Bottom line is, once the veng starts stacking, a SD or any primarily def reliant secondary toon is dead in short order. My favorite solution for indiscriminate slaugher of nems is my SS/WP brute, the ss lets me hit through veng and wp's layered defenses handle the damage.

But in terms of shockwave, I love that power on my claws toons. Even when it's kb, if you know how to direct it, it's still gold. A very undervalued power imo.

The 'fury mechanic' is way overblown, imo. I never 'chase' fury, it just happens. People who play brutes and scrappers primarily, are usually not the type to rest for five minutes between fights. The only time I stop killing is when I'm out of endurance or dead, lol. And it's not like it takes very long to generate fury, jump into a group and it gets up there pretty fast.

In terms of the tanker survivability edge, it will still be apparent solo and maybe on small teams, but on a full size team with decent buffs, not so much. And it doesn't take much fury for a brute to obliterate a tanker in damage dealing ability, all things being equal.

Exactly. And you're winning me over on the single target argument. Sure it was overall subpar because single target isn't that big in pve, but at least it was the unquestioned king of something, and being king is nice, lol. And it had that one, wonderful power, that made all the other kids green with envy and call for unnecessary nerfs (being that the set was underpowered overall to begin with, especially in the more valuable aoe department) - now what power do you drool over in this set? Barrage? Booooring and slow, not the best descriptors for a powerset.

The power is called 'rage' not 'beserker rage' though. And the power doesn't really work like unstoppable or elude in that the set is designed around using rage - if you don't use rage, SS does subpar damage vs. competing sets, by a lot actually, where unstoppable or elude boosts the sets performance well above competing sets that are not using a teir nine like that. That's why the crash is so 'mild', though, imo, it's too harsh as is for what it does.

Your post does create an interesting idea. Maybe rage could be both an inherent and a click power. If you take rage, you get the damage boost that allows SS to compete damage wise vs other sets (70-80%), and that's it. No crash. The power simply means you've learned to fight with a controlled rage. But if you click the rage button, you go into a beserker rage with additional bonuses and a nastier, tier nine-like crash.

I probably like the OP's idea better, because anything more radical would probably require resetting the whole powerset, and lots of people are happy with it 'as is'. Of course I wouldn't complain if they came out with an alternate SS set...