Deus_Otiosus

You're idea circumvents the entire theme of the patron pools though.

The "undercover" idea doesn't justify summoning Night Widows, Mu Strikers or tapping into the power of the Leviathan.

If you want to argue for Heroic Patron Pools that have to be unlocked by being a Hero/Vig, I'd be all for it because I'd love more options - even though it would mean my Villains would need to switch sides if they wanted them.



I said, "taken to the absurd".

High five?

No it sounds like they were ok with a blueside character taking the time to do the morality arcs, switch sides to red, do the patron arc and unlock the pool and then take the time to do all of the morality arcs again to go back to blueside if they really really wanted to.


So yeah, they're OK with you putting in the effort to acquire Villain Patron Power Pools for your Hero.


You're reasoning, taken to the absurd, can be read like this:

The devs are ok with people being L50, so why not just let them press a button at character gen to be auto-50?

No, they didn't.

They didn't give "Blue people" the go ahead to have those pools.

Only redside faction characters can unlock the arcs, only redside faction characters can unlock the Patron Pools.

You can switch sides back to blue if you like after that, but that's up to you.

I don't really see the problem with Brutes having a higher overall threat generation, Tankers are better at gathering AoE aggro and Brutes are better at generating higher overall threat per target.

There has to be space for each of them coexist in this dynamic, for the simple fact of how intrinsic aggro is to Fury.


I also do not see Brutes taunt-spamming, and while they might generate more threat on a single target in an extended fight, like an AV for example, I've had no problem playing hot potato with the AVs on BAF with Tanker & Brute leaguemates.

Does the Tanker have to use Taunt in that situation? Yes most likely.

Do I think all Tankers should always have Taunt? I think you can live without it, but its an exceptionally useful and powerful tool, that I would never skip.

However if someone really wants to be great at aggro control, and they refuse to take taunt, they'll have a hard time getting sympathy from me.



You mean in a perfect situation.

I'm not seeing this perfect situation at all in game.

Res buffers are fairly rare overall, I certainly don't see enough of them to keep my Brutes resistance capped all of the time.


Are people really playing on leagues filled with resistance buffers?

I mean what are there? 2 dedicated resistance buffing sets in the game?

Sonic & Thermal, and these are easily some of the lesser played sets.

Then you have two other sets that are also resistance buffers but to a much lesser extent overall; Dark (Shadowfall) & Kin (but only with ID).


Unless people are not playing on PUG leagues, and they are on these amazingly coordinated SG based leagues where everyone is on Vent/Teamspeak and they are counting down every 30s to stack Destiny buffs?

I'm not playing on those leagues.

My characters are playing on PUG leagues, leagues where I am often separated from the rest of my team because half of them decided to run off in different directions.

I'm playing on leagues where on any given Keyes trial, we are at most running around in small groups of 3 or 4 players, clearing terminals and bunkers.



What I have seen is leagues with plenty of Tankers, Brutes & Scrappers in fairly equal measure.

I'm seeing leagues where half or more of the league is usually melee ATs.

I'm seeing leagues with upwards of 8 Tankers finishing a BAF, Lambda or Keyes in basically the same time frame as leagues with Brutes/Scrappers - and no one really caring that we have so many Tankers.

All of the patron pools have pets, which all summon villain NPCs. So they are in effect linked specifically to specific patrons.

I'm not sure if something could be any more linked to being a villain than a patron pool called "Mu Mastery" or "Leviathan mastery".

It makes no sense thematically for Heroes to have automatic access to this.


It's also one of the very few decent perks for being a Villain in the first place (who still have to do the arc to unlock them).

Hoping? Sometimes I wish I could kill them myself.

I wasn't going to buy the packs anyway.

The consumables at their current price point are ridiculous, I have no need of them at all to begin with. So suddenly bundling them for "cheaper" doesn't make them any more attractive to me.

Encouraging news at least.







This is great news, very happy about this.







More good news!





Many thanks to the team.

Edited your post to focus on the main points.

I think WP & EA are your best options thematically and mechanically.

I think in particular your desired concept of:

• Enhanced regeneration
• Enhanced Agility
• Stamina
• Time manipulation

Is easy to represent with these two powersets.


In particular EA gives you some nice options.

You can have enhanced regen & stamina through Energize, Enhanced Agility (defense toggles), Time Manipulation through other EA abilities (toggles to reflect "seeing a few seconds into the future", or "blinking" intermittently back and forth through the immediate present and a few moments into the future", you could be warping spacial/time fields around yourself with Energy Absorption or warping time in a localized fashion to provide stealth).

It even has a personal +recharge ability which matches up nicely with Chronoshift.

I'm sorry but I disagree.

They have way too much direct personal mitigation to really ever function as a true force multiplier.




Defenders already get better numbers from all of the resistance and defense toggles/powers they can take.

Defender Farsight + PB is positively ludicrous for example.


How easy is it to softcap a Traps Defender vs. a Corr or MM for example?

You give them this and the vigilance damage boost needs to go away, otherwise solo they totally and completely outclass Corrs (as the damage boost brings them very close to Corrs damage wise while solo).


1) First you're saying that support characters would get better numbers, but then you are saying that specific ATs would get better numbers within that role of support.

Those two contradict each other, and get back to the idea that if one AT is the best at X incarnate ability, then that will be the AT sought after for Y trial/conent.

I could almost support the idea that "support" ATs might get better numbers at something - if it was equal across all of the ATs labeled as "support"

But that's a stick proposition. Corrs are labeled as both Ranged damage and Support - do they get better numbers at both of those things?



Honestly I really don't think its needed. Incarnate powers are not a substitute for entire ATs or roles, what they really do is smooth out the edges where leagues might normally be lacking X to give all leagues an overall better chance of success in general, IMO anyay.


One of the side benefits of this approach is that ATs like Stalkers which are generally underrepresented and unpopular are capable of walking into a zone and broadcasting "LF UGT, have Clarion T4" or "LF MoKeyes, Have Rebirth T4" - suddenly that normally unpopular AT has a better chance of making it on a league as they add something of equal value in incarnate powers as any other AT.

Wouldn't it actually be longer than 135s, since hasten is no longer helping to recharge itself?

Well I believe this is how the ATs have been reorganized in the character creator, the ATs are grouped into a broader role and each AT within the role is where you find the AT specifics/differences.

So you don't need a specific AT, but you do want to cover broad roles (which is what I mentioned in my earlier post).

This is a more inclusive approach.


Right but at that point you are looking for "Support", and that's pretty broad. As opposed to people looking for "Defenders and Corrs"

Defenders, Corrs, Controllers, MMs & even VEATs can fill in here.



On the contrary I think this would be less inclusive.

The Incarnate powers fill broad gaps, but they don't substitute or replace any AT/Role completely.

If you make X the strongest at a particularly ability, and that ability is the most sought after - you now have a reason for one AT to be sought above others and for others to be excluded if their specialty is not seen as valuable.



QFT.

Considering most squishies don't even have resistance to anything, typed or untyped is basically irrelevant to them.


Untyped damage allows a few things:

1) It allows the Tanker's larger base HP & larger HP cap to come into play vs. other ATs.
2) It allows the developers to treat most sets more fairly (sets without heals get penalized here, but then there is Rebirth as the effective counter)
3) It allows the developers to actually threaten Tankers, and some Brutes/Scrappers/WS/PB/Crabs in the first place.


You'll notice its generally used sparingly, and is often used as an area denial tactic and can be avoided. They want us to move when we play, probably due to player complaints of nothing but tank and spank.

We still have tank and spank, but now we also have some compelling reasons to move from time to time as well.

That supports my earlier argument, not yours.

Based on primary alone, SS is not the best set for ST DPS.

What you're not understanding is that without adding in things like FA and Patron attacks, those sets do not do more ST damage than FM.

The devs cant, and really shouldnt, balance based on every single combination that there is.

FWIW, I built top end SS/SD/Soul and FM/SD/Soul Brutes at one point just to compare them.

FM/SD/Soul came out ahead, by about 15 DPS IIRC.


I'd love to test an FM/FA/Soul at some point, but I have a lot of projects going at the moment.

That's crazy talk, how will we lobby for Tanker buffs and Brute nerfs simultaneously if we don't summon a whirlwind of conjecture and hyperbole???

That would only be relevant if actually playing at the resistances cap all of the time were a reality.

It's not a reality for most brute sets.

I'm of the opinion that this is the responsibility of the team, and not the sole responsibility of the Tanker to keep the "poor blaster" alive.

I'm also of the opinion that letting tankers aggro more enemies or basically anything that allows Tankers to mitigate even more risk to teams then they already do (which is pretty considerable), just encourages bad, boring play.

While you would lose Super Conditioning & Phys Perf, you would also no longer be running CoF nor Focused Accuracy (0.79 EPS vs. 0.31 EPS for Darkest Night).

It might be workable.

1) Those numbers are old, and do not reflect the post-fury nerf numbers.

2) Those numbers were based on 5% Criticals and not 10%.

3) Those numbers were a comparison of primaries in their purest form, adding things like +damage bonuses from IOs or musculature will change the results to better favor the Scrapper in many cases.



The current highest DPS Brute build is most likely SS/FA/Soul.

FM/SD Does not do as much DPS and its also quite possible that FM/FA would also be better DPS than FM/SD.



To answer the OP, with the possible exception of FM almost all Primaries are better on Scrappers - if better means doing more damage.

Some like Claws might be dead even, some like Katana will see the Scrapper a tiny bit ahead, tiny enough that going Brute for the added mitigation could be a large advantage in comparison.

Generally any set with persistent +damage buffs will heavily favor the Scrapper (except Claws, which is a special case) so; Dual Blades, Kinetic Melee & Dark Melee.

If you can (and you should if you can) build for +damage bonuses or Musculature on a Scrapper - you will get a fairly large advantage over a Brute with the same primary.

Not sure where StJ falls into the picture, but the numbers on Spinning Strike & Crushing Uppercut for a Shield Scrapper with Musculature were so huge that I couldn't imagine going anything but Scrapper (which is what I did).

Unless the Scrapper goes shield, then even Gloom can't make up the difference between Brute Fire and Scrapper Fire.

I'm not even sure if Brute FM is actually outdamaging Scrapper FM post Fury changes.

Bill's old numbers were based on 5% Scrapper Criticals and 90% Brute Fury, they also didn't include +Damage bonuses or Musculature which will definitely benefit the Scrapper more than the Brute.

Tanker level mitigation is more than Softcapped defenses.

Let's use Ela as an example:

On a solid build you could be looking at an extra 400-600 HP on something like an Ela build, as well as the difference between 60-65% SM/L Res and 80-90% SM/L Res.

You can't just hand-wave that away as much as you'd like to.


Buffs that usually "flow like candy" are generally +DEF, +Rech, +To Hit, +Recovery & +Damage.

Buffs that usually don't flow like candy are +Res and +HP.



Don't bother.

According to you, its a waste of time. According to you, the buffs flow like candy. You can just play FA and call it a day.


Or maybe there are players who play things like EA because its fun, maybe they play other blast sets than Fire Blast.

Maybe they play Tankers because they like having ludicrous levels of mitigation, whether its always literally applicable in every single situation or not.

Maybe their concept just isn't fulfilled by the relatively squishier but more damaging Scrappers & Brutes.