Deus_Otiosus

I think the point of the incarnate system was to guarantee that a league of incarnates at +N Level shift would have just enough of X, Y & Z powers to help the entire league to complete the objectives/trial without having a specific league composition in terms of ATs present.

This frees leagues from needing specific compositions for the most part, and is more inclusive.

It's also a bit homogenizing and your individual AT can feel "washed out" at time - but I still think there are places for certain types of broad roles to be filled ("damage", "aggro control", "support", "crowd control").


I think it's been a success overall.

I run PUG trials on Freedom and Virtue, I run probably 2-4 per night. The only thing specific I've ever seen asked for with any regularity are "Clarion" for the UGT and "Rebirth" for Keyes before the changes.

I've never seen any league request specifc ATs, although some leagues will be looking for "support", "damage", aggro" etc. This is a good thing.

UberGuy pretty much posted my entire feeling on the topic.


I suspect also that the OP is not someone who optimizes all of their builds, there are several builds that work out in favor of Scrappers or Brutes depending on powersets and that's usually how I choose which one I'm going to build.

Why do you crush my dreams with your math?

Good point, actually afterwards I realize that you can actually cast another ageless in there.


2x ageless might actually be enough to help bring Burnout's rech down under 6 mins.




...+recharge orgy

No, they really don't.

Brutes don't function the same as a Tanker, they never have.

Tanker's have a baseline performance mitigation level that is completely unrivaled.

Brutes do not come close, they don't even get there with IOs.

They have to have that level of mitigation to perform their function as Tankers - it's intrinsic to what they are as an AT. It allows nearly any player, to pick up a Tanker and ... TANK for teams. Yes, this means even on SOs

Brutes don't function like that, they don't have tanker mitigation, they don't have tanker base DEF, RES and HP to build off of.


My point is that if JB is convinced that the Tanker's extra mitigation is meaningless, if the mitigation isn't needed How much are you willing to give up to do more damage?

This is the question that keeps being dodged, because as Claws already stated the answer, if a certain poster would ever be honest enough to actually give it would be:

NONE, I want to keep ALL of my mitigation AND get a boost to my offense.

You actually answered the question at least, you're happy playing Brutes and giving up the base DEF, base RES and base HP advantage that Tankers have.I know players in game who don't actually feel that way, they love their Tankers and they love the mitigation - they love feeling indestructible - I've even had one friend describe his Brutes as "a diversion at best" in comparison to his Tankers.



There is no way to get 'Tank-level' survivability.

Nothing makes up for the base numbers the Tanker gets.

You can be soft-capped, and build for survivability but ultimately you're still not as survivable as a Tanker.



I'll wait for you to post two builds using the same powersets displaying a Scrapper or Brute that has Tanker level survivability.

The mitigation numbers are not the same. You can pretend they aren't if you like.






If it makes you feel any better, I can pull Nightstar using most of my Corrs. All it really takes is superspeed, a ranged attack and a self heal.






QFT.






If you believe all of the things you seem to profess, why are you wasting your time with EA?


If Tanker-level survivability is available to everyone "at the endgame" freely and easily, then why are you not playing FA?

Otherwise you are simply playing EA "just cause", to use your own words.


If Tanker mitigation is so easy, free and cheap to come by and is basically the standard for any and all content - the clear choice is always FA and every other set is a complete waste of time. Except on Scrappers, they can play SD. (Arcana already covered this, but it made sense to say it again).

Well, yeah eventually you have to eat the crash.

Some ideas though, I'm thinking more for Powersurge:

1) Pop powersurge
2) Pop Burnout immediately after powersurge, this sets the rech timer and allows powersurge's recovery bonus to eat the end cost of Burnout.
3) Pop ageless for the massive +rech
4) Load primary with +FF Procs and AoEs (Hi Titan Weapons!)


You have to eat the crash eventually, but I wonder how long it might be possible to keep this going.

I wonder if Claws will get an answer to this.

I've asked a few times as well, it's very curious that JB has not answered us.


Maybe he just missed it, with all the excitement this thread has generated.





So your tankers are so tough, they don't even need Tough and Weave, they don't even need Barrier and Rebirth.

Gotcha.




The new softcap is 59%, in case you haven't been paying attention.

We're also back to your AT THE CAPS scenario, without acknowledging that only 3 sets (including your pet set of course, which is the main reason why this makes you upset) can even get to the Brute HP cap on their own (Invuln, Stone, Regen).


So you don't need tough and weave, you don't need barrier or Rebirth.

Without those, you are not dying compared to Brutes & Scrappers who do need tough & weave and do need rebirth or barrier. (lol?)

Because you are a competent player, and don't need any more meaningless mitigation (your words)

Ok, I'm with you so far.



So in order to get this higher damage boost that you feel tankers (really, just your tankers, your SS tankers, the ones that take musculature) need...




How much of your meaningless mitigation, that allows you to survive on Incarnate Trials without Tough, Weave, Barrier or Rebirth, are you willing to give up in order to get a nice damage boost?


We have to ask this, because those options are not barred from you - you can always take them - but no Brute or Scrapper will suddenly get an extra 25% Base DEF, RES and HP to build off of.`




I hope you didn't miss it that time, I'd hate to think Claws and I are simply wasting our breath...




Hah! You've had some really great one-liners in this thread, but this one stands out.



Taking aggro away from a Brute neutralizes fury. I'm sure a lot of posters would actually love exactly that.

On a good team, you don't want to fight with the Brute for aggro - you want to round up enough enemies so both of you are saturated with enemies.


This won't help JB either, because he doesn't want to protect the team and especially not those nasty Bruteses and Scrappers - they get protection from the precious and get to deal damage while they are safe. We hates them!! WE HATES THEM PRECIOUS!!!!!

No, it doesn't mean you can just make a list of slotted damage in attacks and call it a day.


There is nothing to sustain, you cast BU everytime it's cycled.


1) Yes you can double stack rage.

2) You're making the mistake of simply thinking that having a damage bonus running will put SS ahead of everything else. It doesn't really work that way, as for one thing you need to have an attack chain and compare it to other attack chains and second SS is somewhat balanced around actually having Rage in the first place, so the bonus doesn't have as much impact as you might thing (it has a very big impact on damage powers in your secondary and epics)

3) There are a number of ways to get what a set would potentially look like on an AT that doesn't have it - that's what he did and he did it for a sense of completion.



I'm not saying rage is not a big deal.

I'm saying that without Gloom you will be hard pressed to even find a remotely decent ST attack chain.


Go ahead, you can make any build you like with IOs for your calculation purposes, permahasten, double stacked rage, the works.

Just leave out Gloom & leave out FA and see what happens. Bill never actually tested for IO set level DPS chains without Gloom - so the answer might surprise both of us.



Be sure to post the attack chain, and make sure you use Arcanatime for the DPAs.


At a guess off the top of my head, the attack chain might be something like:


KO Blow > Punch > Haymaker > Punch > Jab > Haymaker > Repeat

The ENH boosters in hasten is something I'm definitely eying as well.

While you will lose a little bit of Ranged/AoE defense, I don't really see this as a major loss.

For one thing, you'll now have a taunt in your damage aura - which can sometimes help control ranged enemies (although 9CUs and their kind are pretty stubborn). Have you considered the actual taunt power? It has some unique slotting options, or you can leave it one slotted, but this definitely can help bring ranged enemies in closer to you where they often switch to melee.


Will you only be soloing with this build? The lack of CJ would be frustrating for me on teams, I simply can't live without it's added mobility.

Obviously you already know if you're ok without this in your playstyle.

You could have both Hasten & CJ if you dropped fly, and then you only lose the DEF from the BoTZ pieces.



I would definitely compare the two before going through with a change like this, it seems worth it after all of the other effort you've already put in.

I wonder, theoretically speaking, if Tankers had access to Katana how much could you skimp on your defensive slotting strategy to add enough recovery & recharge to support a higher ST DPS chain and what that chain might be capable of considering Bruising + reactive?




I think 70% Fury is a good number to shoot for on teams/leagues, but solo against large groups of enemies and a fast attack chain you can hit 80% reliably.


I use 20-30 DPS as a rough guideline though for added DPS from Reactive.

I don't know if Arcana, or anyone else, has a definitive post on the forums yet considering the added input that came from Synapse (I think it was Synapse)



You don't have much burst damage to speak of, so I don't think BU is really a huge loss.

Do you really need Focused Accuracy?

Good catch, I didn't even bother to check what kind of numbers Retched was using.


@Retched:

1) Turn on arcanatime.
2) View "Show Damage Per Activation"
3) Work out attack chains

WAI to my knowledge, Cardiac reduces their Endurance costs and I believe they can benefit from Nerve's accuracy.

They just don't benefit from Spiritual (or any other alpha's) Rech reduction benefit.



Then if you know that Scrapper LR is clearly superior in literally every way to the Brute version, why would still constantly stop by into threads like this to proclaim your standard "Brutes are better" line?

Clearly, the Brute is not better in this case.

I don't get it, are you just nerfherding in disguise or do you really believe it helps people like the OP by giving them bad advice?


They don't run from my WP Scrapper, I see no reason they should be running from an EA Scrapper.

That's just a bunch of attacks in a list though.


I'll leave it to you to work out some attack chains.

You might also want to add Fury.


Here are Bill Z's calculations on SOs:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...hlight=results

Well, Elec melee is elec melee.

You're not going to be any less well rounded going SD vs. SR. You'll get a bigger boost to your big hitters through AAO (since when you use AoEs you're generally surrounded anyway) and you'll also get a nice HP bonus and some resistances to take the edge off of hits.

OWTS is also a much more user friendly T9.

The main difference is that SR is much, much, easier to softcap as well as having capped DDR with just basic slotting - SD needs to squeeze a bit more for that stuff.



It's great fun too, I'm loving tossing T4 Musculature Core Fueled Pyronic Judgements on my StJ/SD Scrapper.

Why ever roll any of the three if you can play a Corrupter, have excellent damage and be a team/league multiplier and trivialize content with buffs/debuffs and also not die in Johnny_Butane's Fantasy (nightmare?) land of everyone perma buffed to THE CAPS and not dying.


You mean aside from all of the times that they are!



That's a useless assessment. By what metric? By a Tanker's standards?

They're not even close to a Tanker's standards.




So answer the question you keep dodging.



You keep saying, in not so many words, that Tanker mitigation is basically useless.

So how much of a reduction do you propose to get more damage?


If you're not willing to give up anything, why should you have a higher offense potential?

You forgot about the part where Scrapper Lightning Rod does something like 40 or 50% more damage than the Brute version.


It's similar to Shield Charge, except Lightning Rod is an even more powerful attack.


It's not even remotely close. Those two Scrapper attacks are in another league compared to the Brute versions.




This is your best option out of what you listed.

EA is a very solid set now, with good utility and nearly unlimited endurance.


You can go musculature alpha for sure, and this will give a nice boost to LR as well as a massive damage increase on Judgement's Damage.


If you can work Shield Defense (maybe using the electric or energy elemental shield costume parts) into the concept, Elm/SD is an exceptional AoE burst powerhouse.

I think the last time this was hashed out that particular chain worked out better for the scrapper due to FUs higher damage bonus for the scrapper version (+37.5% per stack vs. Brute's +30% per stack) combined with the Scrapper's higher melee scalar which means they benefit more from +damage bonuses than Brutes do (who, due to fury, are swimming in +damage bonus saturation diluting the overall benefit).

I'm not seeing a problem with it, considering the AT its going to.


Some things to keep in mind (feel free to correct me if I make a mistake here):

• Most Stalker builds will still be short on AoE output compared to Scrappers, Brutes & Tankers.
• Unlike those three ATs, Stalkers do not have damage auras to help boost their damage output (both ST & AoE).
• Stalkers have BU, which is good for burst damage but generally not as good as persistent damage buffs for ST DPS.

Scrappers in particular with their high Melee Scalar have excellent DPS potential when combined with persistent Damage buffs.




I think that's entirely the point of the change.


Stalkers being awesome at ST burst and ST DPS, I think this is perfect.

No.

SS/FA/Soul, as a combination, with Gloom & Burn has potentially the best ST DPS available to Brutes.

SS on its own, without gloom and without FA has some of the worst ST DPS available to Brutes.

On it's own, SS is only slightly better than Electric Melee (which is pretty terrible for ST).



So if you're not planning on FA, and you're not planning on Soul Mastery - SS is not the best choice if you want ST DPS.

They also gave Brutes lower Base DEF, and lower base RES, and lower base HP.

Let me know if the Tanker contingent is ready to eat the nerfs it would require to give them fury.

Let me know if for you to have fury you would accept Scrapper Base numbers for mitigation.


Maybe the reason they didn't give Fury to Tankers is because they didn't want to also give them the nerfs it would require for that to be even remotely balanced.

The point is that you should post your own build, and then ask for help.

Contrary to this posters constant fear mongering for some sudden extinction of tankers, I see no shortage of Tankers on both Freedom and Virtue server where I run 2-4 Incarnate Trials per night.

I easily see as many Tankers as I do Scrappers and Brutes.

Yes we're back to you wanting holy trinity gaming where your primadonnna Tankers gets to have the spotlight and be the only one who can ever hold aggro.

Aside from the fact that the Brute inherent simply functions better when they have enemies attacking them, your idea is to give them the tiniest slice of nothing for a role.

Which is basically what dedicated Tanker players always want in this kinds of threads.



I'm not trying to change your opinion, I wanted you to state exactly what you stated so other posters could see quite clearly what it is you're after.

You've done that, and they've responded.



The way that threat works in this game, giving tankers a higher magnitude threat component will basically be auto-win.

Taunt, for both of these ATs, is probably already too strong to begin with.





Ah now we get to the crux of it "The undisputed leaders at tanking".

Tankers are the undisputed mitigation specialists. I think you'll just have to live with that, and the idea that you will sometimes have to share the limelight with other ATs and even with other Tankers.



No, it isn't because "Peacebringing" isn't a role, and it's also very much not a Holy Trinity Role. You want a Holy Trinity role for your Tanker.

Tanker, Healer, DPS.

That's what you are asking for, although what you are really asking for is a clarity of roles that looks more like this:

Tanker, Who cares what else the rest of you do.


This is the sentiment, the one where Tankers are to be the only ones solely guaranteed their role - first above all other ATs (since no other AT really gets this).


Do you think the Tanker is the defacto leader of the team, and that when a Tanker joins the team everyone else should follow the tanker and listen to their instructions?


Tankers are already the undisputed "leaders" at something.

Why should they get something else to be the undisputed leaders at?