Deus_Otiosus

Yes, but Brutes are not in the center of that continuum with Scrappers on one far end and Tankers on the other.

Brutes are much closer to the Scrapper end of the continuum.



They are discussing one particular power set, Claws, where the answer is not so clear - and not the entire AT as a whole.


I'm not going to step into that part of the conversation, it's already being covered and discussed.

Back in the Fight


It only takes one.

This part is true.

SS is actually a poorly designed set.

The lower tier attacks are pathetic, and only get close to being up to par with Rage going.

Rage, KO Blow and Foot Stomp are basically the entire set.

Without Gloom, SS has fairly terrible ST DPS.

Here's my opinion.

DA Can be made to have incredible survivability, most of which is tied to Dark Regeneration and the Stun or Fear toggle.

Unfortunately, unless you go Katana/BS its difficult to soft cap anything beyond SM/L and even then many builds do not softcap that.

You don't need softcap, but it will provide dramatic results.

In addition, DA's only real soft spot is Energy Damage, its difficult to build for significant ENE DEF without sacrificing high end rech. If you don't care about high end rech, its a non issue.

SD can softcap all 3 positions easily, which gives it a level of coverage better than the DEF you will get from DA.

However it has much lower resists than DA, and gets hit harder when it does get it due to lower resistances - it also has no way to recover aside from insps and rebirth (unless you choose DM).

That being said, its not too difficult to build for both significant rech for SD while also being softcapped, and SD with OWTS running has very similar resistances to a typical Invuln brute (unless they are running Unstop) and can actually get up to 2700-2800 HP in that 2 minute period (that plus rebirth will make you very hard to kill).


I think your choice should be made while also considering your choice of Primary, as well as what you think will be an overall more enjoyable playstyle or concept.

Side question: What is your budget and do you have an intent to use IOs?

On top of that, it also requires you to be totally committed to the Leaping Pool.

The Leaping pool is good overall, but its still a consideration.

It's primarily AAO, I always turn it off if I'm on the AVs on an SD Brute or Scrapper.

Its not fun to lose the damage bonus, but you will over time most likely contribute less damage from having to back off so often anyway.

I won't know until I have a full build together on live for my Fire/Time, but honestly I don't see it being any worse than a high rech Fire/Dark (which I have one of, and is actually more manageable endurance wise than my Fire/Fire/Fire Dom who has T4 Cardiac, Perma-Dom Bluebar refill AND Consume).

Alpha Cardiac is pretty much a given, and if that's not enough you can always make room in the build for conserve power (Power Mastery, Mu) or even Power Sink (Mu).

For anyone inclined, I found it easy to just plug that stuff into excel, or a google docs spreadsheet for those who don't have excel.

I can confirm that the 2nd minute of the T4 Barrier Core buff is 5% DEF and 5% Resistance.

Only?

That's more than the Steadfast & Glad Unique combined.

It's also 75% stronger than Maneuvers ED capped from 3 Enzymes, and is also a team-wide buff, that costs less endurance over time to boot.

You are posting in the Brute forums, it would be good to give advice based on epic/patron powers that are actually available to Brutes.

This game isn't free to play.

It's a hybrid model, and is subscription focused with an a la carte option.

The subscription must have a value to justify its cost & its existence.

I agree, it would be even better if we moved on from old, bad design that makes no sense in the modern game.

The only thing stopping us is a handful of players that have made a dedicated white-knuckle campaign to keeping powers as is when they should have been overhauled ages ago.

My personal experience with the set has been that Time's Juncture & Distortion Field are more than enough control for most situations.

I understand you are specifically looking to control aggro with it, however if I am first into the spawn (usual) my PBAoE toggle debuff, location TAoE slow/rech debuff and TAoE -res / -def debuff + rain of fire is more than enough to piss everything off to hell and back.

Only a melee with aggro controls (taunt, taunt aura, gauntlet, etc) will pull aggro off of me, which is fine. I don't need to be their aggro sponge.

From a performance perspective, I think going Dark Blast over Fire would be a shame.


No AV is immune to Scourge.

IIRC you are playing DP/TIme.

For a combination like Fire/Time with Rain of Fire + Reactive, you would want to leverage Distortion Field to keep enemies from running around bonkers.

It's also a nice AoE -rech debuff, which is mitigation that can be layered on top of DEF & RES.

I agree with you, but I just want to add that the only reasons EA got reworked is because:

1) It was being proliferated.

2) It was being proliferated to Scrappers.


Conclusion: Start campaigning for Gravity to be proliferated to Scrappers.

If it requires you to both work the Disintegration mechanic and to be grouped with other beam rifle users before the set seems to be good, I think that fits my personal definition of being underpowered.

All of the AoEs for that Earth dom are 25 to 30 feet. That's huge.

If they are spread out MORE than that, it probably means someone with KB knocked them all over the place.


In all seriousness, you could get them all together in a clump faster by just hiding behind geometry, because if they are really more than 30 feet away from each other, KBing them into a cute little patch will take forever.

Hold them first.

Or, cast the patches right on them or where they will be (The way my Fire/Dark Corr manages to do).


I think using KB to "move stuff into X" is a cute parlor trick at best and at worst a manufactured reason for the effect to seem valuable.

I'm sorry but if you require knockback to position enemies as an Earth Dom (one of the most powerful control sets), you need to rethink your tactics.

You can't compare it to resilience, that's from an Armor set.

The closest we have is Mind Link (Fort/NW version) with 30% base Psi Res (and only Psi) and Link Minds (Dom Epic Pool) with 1.7% Psi Resistance.

However:

1) Both of those are specifically Psionic themed, and thus get psi resistance.

2) The resistance in Link Minds is a token amount.

3) Neither of these two powers can accept rech IOs directly, which is part of what is great about Farsight.

4) Your version of the power with those resistances would put this power well beyond what Arctic Fog & Shadow Fall are capable of.

Fire/Time Corr.

When you have controls, heal, defense all in decent measure - the only thing you really want after that is a heap of damage.

Out of what you listed: Time/Sonic Defender instead of Corr would be the better choice.

I generally like your posts, and I agreed with a lot of what you said in Beta.

But I think you are now at the point of being disingenuous when you keep saying how time "beats armor sets" for actual numbers.

If you're talking defenders, who can we compare that to melee wise? A Tanker? Defender Farsight does not beat Tanker Ice, Tanker SD or Tanker SR.

If you're talking Power Boost, then we can just say that "All Scrapper Armors beat Brute Armors for Defense" on the basis that Scrappers can take Shadow Meld.


Corr Farsight slotted with no powerboost is 14% DEF. That's not beating any Defense based armor set, nor is it beating a VEAT.

Neither does time grant any Mez protection at all, a key component of armor sets.



So while I actually agree that Farsight should have gotten some resistance (like 5% or something) to prevent the current Power Boost combination from doing what it's doing, I think you should be clearer when you keep posting about it.