Deus_Otiosus

This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic.


Well done.

I was thinking more on teams.

It was easy to notice when a couple of SD Scrappers were annihilating whole rooms.

But a Scrapper being survivable (something that's fairly normal anyway), has less of a dramatic impact.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's an incredibly strong power. I'll be making either a DA or ELA Scrapper to take advantage of it while it lasts come Monday.

Did you take my post personal or something?

I play a variety of sets. I play them on Brutes, so maybe AAO gets lost enough that it doesn't seem like a problem.

I play WP, Invuln, Ela & SD all at L50 and fully IOd.

Now that FA is getting some much needed attention, I'll probably invest in a serious build beyond just farming.

So performance changes on one of my characters has no effects on the others, and leaves my e-peen fully intact.


Nice try though.

This entire thread is min/maxers (myself included) debating min/max situations, where SD surrounded by enemies is better than SR - Joe average player doesn't care about this, never has and probably never will. I doubt joe average player even considered the idea.

I don't think the devs planned on DEF being supremely powerful either, and totally above all other forms of mitigation.

Resistance + Healing unfortunately just do not provide the same amount of survivability as DEF does.

This is a disparity in the game's inherent mechanics, I wish it wasn't this way and that there were other viable options for high end play - but there aren't.

For high end play in the majority of cases (not all) you either build for +DEF or go home.


That's true.

If the DDR SD gets was nerfed, I'd probably not play SD again.

-DEF is everywhere in this game, and even with gallons of recharge and HOs in Active D I still get debuffed frequently ( I can count on at least 2 to 3 full crashes per ITF)


It's a conundrum. With softcapped defenses, layered resistance and +HP - SD is better than SR. Once those defenses crash, the resistances and +HP are like a tissue paper before a storm.

So yes, cutting down the ability to enhance the DDR would neuter SD vs. -DEF enemies. I'm not sure that's a very good place for the set to be, because while it kills faster - it doesn't kill THAT much faster as to make massive -DEF irrelevant.




The min/maxers paying close attention are the ones posting in this thread, joe average already doesn't care about any of this.

The min/maxers who love SD want SD to stay as is, and the min/maxers who love some other set want SD to be nerfed.

That's primarily what this entire thread is about, any pretense of altruism or game balance is a falsehood.


I chose your post, because it's one of the most reasonable in the thread.

It could go even longer, unlike Shield Charge which even a cantaloupe propped up at a keyboard could see was overpowered, in the age of IOs I think it will be a lot harder for most players to recognize any impact Shadow Meld is making. (It makes an impact of course, just hard to notice).

Time will tell.

Yeah the idea has me already planning to sacrifice my current softcapped Fire/Fire/Mace dom for all that extra AoE.

It's not unbalanced at all, as you said, due to the Fort damage scale.

It does less damage than Scrapper (post nerf) Shield Charge and is up less often.

Fury is variable, team composition which has an effect on Fury is situational.


How much Fury?

All calculations of Brute vs. Scrapper are always done at max Fury as if that's always a given on a team.



Well at least you've come down from 'could rival Tankers'.

Not that I'd mind if more people suddenly started playing Cold, Therm and Sonic in the same numbers that Rad, Kin and Dark get played.


I agree. I'm looking forward to any stalker improvements that put them at the top of the heap of melee damage output.

I've had several PvE Stalker builds I've wanted to go through with, and then compared them to a Scrapper and saw how far short they came up every time.

I know lot of players take it as a given that every brute everywhere has been running around with perma-90% fury and perma-resistance cap from buffs while sitting at the HP cap regardless of their secondary - but just because people tout it as so, doesn't make it true.


Seeing as little to no real testing was done on Fury in group situations, I'll wait til I can get some regular teaming in before my final judgment on the whole of the changes made to Fury.

Solo it's not a very large nerf and nothing people should go crazy about, and I agree that the improvements made to degradation will help the average player while solo.


I wouldn't be so sure.

There was a lot of testing done in Jury rigged AE situations using custom mobs, some spreadsheet calculations and some simulations.

I saw very little in the way of "testimonials" from people testing fury in a team situation, it might be fine but I don't think there has been really much testing on that particular aspect.

Interesting, thanks for the numbers guys.

Does anyone have numbers for Tankers? I'm curious to see where the 3 different shield charges stand now.

On test I was getting, I think, 260~280 or so per shield charge on my Brute with about 75% Fury, AAO & Rage vs. even con Cims on the wall.

Yes it matters.

400% is not too great a +damage bonus and on teams that can happen fairly frequently.

It's irrelevant that it's in an armor set, because we are discussing damage.


And an increase in the base damage for the Brute version of SC and LR would solve the disparity issue with Tanker LR & SC.

Something I feel is completely fair, considering the Tanker's massive advantages in +def numbers (easier to softcap) from powers, higher base HP, higher HP cap and higher native resistances.

The answer to this is...



This.



Your statement here completely ignores several very important factors.

I'd go over them, but I'm pretty sure that you're aware of them and will probably continue to ignore them anyway.

I still have a few problems with this.

1) Brutes get penalized on damage using it as an alpha strike/spawn breaker when they have no Fury vs a Tanker.

2) Shield Charge uses the pseudopet damage cap, which is 400% - so once both a Brute and Tanker are at 400% the Tanker version is doing more damage (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Out of curiosity, solo + self buffing (any) what kind of damage does SC do vs. a typical spawn now?

In addition, as a Brute you can expect fluctuating performance with a high risk/high reward playstyle.

I think there are several secondaries you can go with for this.

Invuln and Stone for sure.

I do all of that, on my Willpower Brute with the following caveats:

• You will most likely want darkest night for the ITF (if you want to pretty much never die)
• You will need a fortune in IOs for multiple Numina sets, Kinetic Combats and LoTG 7.5s.
• Build for at least 30% SM/L/Ene/Neg DEF

I recognize the name from global chat.

He solos nearly exclusively, and therefore plays at his own pace.

Which is fine, but it means he doesn't have a frame of reference of the actual endurance management needs of players who play at any pace faster than he plays or against larger amounts of foes, on teams, etc.

Well, if you're willing to spend the money you can acquire and slot the miracle unique now, believe perf shifter goes as low as L20 as well.

And at L27, you can slot the Numi unique.

Until you're capable of getting the accolades, that should alleviate some of your issues. Be sure to heavily slot for End Rdx, especialy footstomp & KO Blow.

I think raising both the damage modifier AND the damage cap might be a bit too much.

Otherwise, I like the other 4 suggestions very much (the bullet points)

You'll also want the accolades.

Even then, you will have issues unless you simply hold back.

But on a Softcapped, 50-60% global recharge build - you will still have issues.

That's the monster that is SS, regardless of what some people might think.


Luckily, once you are softcapped you will have little need for anything but blues and greens. Keep your tray full of these.

I also usually keep 1 crafted recovery serum (5 uses) for long, drawn out fights (the ITF for example has a couple of these).

And melee ATs have better defenses, resistances, Hit Points, Mez Protection.

You're not really making a point here, because no one ever suggests to not take Melees onto a team on any regular basis.





They would still be less survivable, hold no aggro and overall be a relatively niche use AT.

In my opinion, it's not just Brutes and Scrappers that cause problems for Stalkers but VEATs like Night Widows and Bane's as well.



The entire issue neatly summarized.

It has less to do with blinders and more to do with the AoE centric nature of this game.

I've personally never experience a stalker's contribution to ST damage having tipped the balance so decidedly as to make me want a Stalker over another AT.

I have however experienced, many many times, how buffs or debuffs, or massive AoE damage have made a grand impact on a teams overall performance.

It's not just the lack of AoE (barring spines and Elm of course) that hurts them, its basically the lack of anything else.


Blinders is for the players who confuse what they feel is more fun as being the same thing as more effective.

It's beyond CoH and is basically an MMO wide (and a pretty natural Human motivation) to gravitate towards that which is most effective.


In this entire thread, people who are saying that Stalkers are fine have yet to do anything to prove it. Which is important if you actually want to change other people's perceptions.

You want Cobat Jumping for Mobility.

I highly suggest Hasten to improve your attack chain, attacking faster is important for fury.

You want the Fighting Pool, no questions.

If you want to hold aggro, with Taunt in your build, Whirling Mace and Crowd Control - you will have more than enough aggro. I like Superspeed because it means I get to the fight first.




That's fine, but as a Brute neither the leadership pool nor the presence pool are priorities. Staying alive, and dealing damage are priorities.

Many player's will continue to leverage Footstomp's mitigation during the rage crash (it's exceptionally valuable on the ITF for example)

I also use my attacks to maintain threat during that period.

Tankers are a bit luckier as they can use their low tier attacks for gauntlet in this case, but any Brute trying to maintain aggro that doesn't have taunt will continue to attack for both fury and threat.


You can get as complicated as you like with the math, if you think Rage crashes don't cause END issues I'm forced to assume you've never played the set.

Throw hasten in there and it get's worse.

You don't always suffer a rage crash when you're at 100% endurance, it can (and will) often come at extremely inopportune times.