Daemodand

People will play it for 50 levels and still call it Fire Armor.

Energy Aura has come a long way since the old days, but the set is still under-performing. The reason is actually pretty simple: it's nearly as dependent as Super Reflexes is on Defense for its survival, but lacks the strong Defense Debuff Resistance to keep its protection up to necessary levels.

Now, Super Reflexes gets 95% DDR on Scrappers and Brutes. Unlike EA, SR has no heal, so giving EA 95% DDR would be too much. So what if we add 33.1% DDR to Energy Drain? You would get 3.31% DDR per mob hit, for 30 seconds. This DDR would not stack from same caster, so with 10 mobs hit you would get your DDR up to 85% when combined with the set's native 51.9% DDR, and would leave you with less DDR when fewer mobs were hit by the power. Given the Heal the set has, I would say this seems balanced and would make Energy Aura a much more playable set, and nicely balanced with other Defense sets.

I can see an argument for taking the DDR to as low as 75% max, depending how much value you place on the heal, but below that it fails to serve much purpose, and I don't think the 85% figure, especially since it's mob-count dependent and fades after 30 seconds (requiring another use of Energy Drain to renew) is overpowered given the set's heal.

One other issue is Overload would get you to 95% DDR, but I don't consider that imbalanced as it is a tier 9 defensive power, has an Endurance crash, and cannot have 100% uptime (SR lives in 95% DDR by comparison). If this was considered too much DDR for the set, the DDR in Overload could simply be removed, or reduced to something very minor, like 5%.

Two optional additional modifications for the set:
1. Increase the Energy Defense of the set to 45% enhanced and increase the Energy Resist to 17.66% enhanced (an auto, energy-oriented version of Tough). This is the set's theme, it should be strong against Energy attacks.

2. Purely cosmetic: allow a no-fade option for Energy Cloak. It'd be nice to see my costume once in a while. Even an EA Stalker sees their costume every now and then.

P.S. The Stalker version would cap out at 75% instead of 85%. Stalkers are thematically more squishy than Brutes or Scrappers, and Stalker SR gives around 85% DDR IIRC.

TL;DR: Let Energy Drain give 3.31% DDR per mob hit (33.1%@10 targets hit) for 30 seconds, not stacking from same caster.

Natalie Portman seems out of place in this movie. Head-scratching casting, and even more head-scratching she agreed to do it.

Not the biggest fan of Focused Accuracy, but if you're Claws, Kinetic or Dual Blades (and maybe Dark) you're going to want to take it.

Also, it doesn't just bring 20% Accuracy, it also brings 5% ToHit on top of that and ToHit Debuff resistance and Perception.

Back when it had 30% ToHit, I was one of those who nerfherded it because it was a ridiculously overpowered power. During one of the betas I found that the nerfbat did indeed fall on it, and I felt it was a much better power as 5% ToHit, enhanceable and 20% Accuracy, enhanceable. But then the nerfbat fell again and you could no longer enhance the 20% Accuracy. That, I felt, was a step too far. If the Accuracy isn't enhanceable, the power is too much on the weak side.

Power is still worth taking under certain conditions, but not under others. Much better than the silly power it used to be, but I do wish the Accuracy was allowed enhanceability again.

I compare my Claws Brute to my Claws Stalker. The Stalker has to click way more attacks to kill anything, nevermind whole groups (or at the very least it feels like it). I keep rolling and deleting Claws Scrappers because of the "clicky" feeling (though it's not as bad as the Stalker). The Brute? Oh, it's clickier than, say, my Super Strength Brute, but nowhere near as bad as the Stalker and definitely better than the Scrappers.

Keep in mind this feeling of clickiness is subjective, and possibly pure perception rather than mathematical reality, so YMMV.

Do they even make a Brute that can't solo Trapdoor?

And PraetoriaWoman, don't listen to those numbskulls. Keep on going and you're bound to get better teaming experiences.

Went with Claws/WP myself, though Claws/SR is a darn fine choice. SR is my favorite melee armor set, and you just have to love the 1 inspiration godmode the set brings (heck, with just fully-slotted SR and Combat Jumping, 1 small Defense inspiration puts you at 44% defense!) No other set in the game can quite pull that off. And where SR really shines for Brutes is it neatly avoids Recharge Slows for the most part. Combine the recharge discount of Claws with Quick Reflexes...yeah, Claws/SR is awesome.

The thing they did with Brutes Claws that I like is made it slower and heavier hitting (slower recharge means more damage as you know). It's still fast, but not so fast that it feels too "clicky" (my one complaint about Stalker and Scrapper Claws).

I always thought the Dark Melee Confront should have consisted of a tentacle shooting out of your mouth and tickling your target on the bum. Yes. That would be good.

What about PvPIOs?

My only problem with Brute Claws is it seems to live or die on the uberness that is Spin. A power which, somehow, escaped the Brute Claws adjustment that happened just after the set went live. I've always had a sinking feeling that that oversight was just that, an oversight, and the sword of Damocles hangs over it (and if that wasn't an oversight, I'd love to know the rationale for lowering the damage in every single power in the set except for that one).

Reminds me very much of the situation Dominator Psionic Assault had before it was adjusted. The set was considered good, but only for the strength of a single power in it.

Don't get me wrong, I love Brute Claws. I think Brute Claws is the ultimate incarnation of the set. I might not mind Spin being brought down if every other power in the set was brought up to make up for it, much as happened with Psi Assault (Psi Assault is a much better set now than it was then). The current situation just feels inelegant and poorly balanced from a design perspective, but I don't think anything needs to be done about it, Brute Claws is the best Claws in the game. It just tweaks my sense of design a bit.

I knew everything I needed to know about [Competition] when I saw they didn't even have invulnerability in the game. Really? No invulnerability in a superhero game? That Superman features prominently in? Who has invulnerability?

Fail.

I will say this though: their graphics look good and perform really well. That's what a really good engine can do for you.

The entire point of rMerits and aMerits, in my opinion, is to get you something without having to depend on the market for it. That is, really, the entire point.

If you want to do the market proper, take 30 rolls and put the stuff up on the market instead. Also, it'd be really interesting to post here what you got on those 30 rolls, and how much it all sold for. Please?

P.S. Doesn't the 3% Def PvP IO cost 35 aMerits?

I'd get a new SG if I were you. Leader sounds like a micromanaging doosh.

The game keeps finding a new lowest-revenue ever. That's not what I want to see.

Looks like people came for GR, but once their free month was up didn't stick around (revenue for the quarter after GR is lower than the one preceding it). Yeah, only 20 levels of content will do that. If GR was 1-50, like it should have been, those people would probably still be around. I guess the 1-20 thing was a simple lack of development funds.

And yes, CoV did bring in a lot of people. I'm one of them, I started in Issue 6. At the time I had never heard of ED.

Certain other games have tripled their revenue by going F2P. It's time for CoH to do some serious thinking about moving in that direction.

The server loads looks like can be explained by the hardware being reduced at the time they were moved to, IIRC, Texas. Or at some other point. The only other explanation is increased concurrency, and given the current revenue I have a hard time believing that, but I suppose it's possible.

I fully expect this game to be around another 7 years, though. Ultima Online is still running. Everquest is still running. Ahseron's Call is still running. Of course, those games don't have the trigger-happy NCSoft in possession of their kill-switch.

At the very least, this option does allow you to avoid TFs. If one is not completely opposed to non-TF teaming, the Shards can be gained at a faster rate while still avoiding TFs.

Ah yes, I forgot about the Spiderlings. The one and only Stalker pet worth taking, even though I respecced out of them and don't especially miss them. Of course, I play on a difficulty of +0x5 on my Clawls/SR Stalker, and under those conditions, even the Spiderlings struggle to survive (though I may put a Patron build together at some point, but with the difficulties I play at, they'd be more thematic fun than practical).

Definitely the best-case scenario if you must have a pet on your Stalker though, and Achilles Heel proc goes off very, very often since you've got 3 of them rolling for chances of it going off.