Deus_Otiosus

I would wait.

Your first priority should be to slot Footstomp for performance before worrying about the proc.

If you can get 5 multistrikes or 5 Scirocco's pieces into Footstomp, then you can stick the proc in there.




Farming is really something you want to do at L50, with a solid build.

For one thing, most recipies will sell higher, and faster at 50 - with a few special exceptions.

Another is that the amount of infamy you get per kill at L32 is quite low. At L50 the amount you get is much, much higher.



Otherwise, just set your missions for as many virtual players as you can survive - any mission with melee based mobs, or mobs that do SM/L damage should suffice.

Council are good (lots of SM/L), just make sure to use corners and blind spots to bunch them up tightly to make full use of Rise to the Challenge.

Don't make your choice just to be odd or different.

SR & WP are both "Set it and forget it" sets.

Which is great for Axe, Warmace - as their redraw is particularly cumbersome.


I'd rather see you choose based on what you want to do with the character, or to make sure you are getting the play.


SR

• Once softcapped, won't get hit often and will often feel unkillable. When you do get hit - it will hurt and you'll be slow to recover.
• Will help your attack chain with Quickness.
• End management will be a persistent concern and priority.

WP

• Will get hit much more often, but will deal relatively well with most of those hits and you'll recover much faster being ready for the next fight almost instantly.
• Will help you maintain a constant offense through Quick Recovery.
• Sudden spike damage will be a concern, as it can sometimes overwhelm your regen capabilities. Cimerorans are the worst offenders.

Hope that helps.

It's true.

VEATs who take even just a couple choice Tactical Training powers make their groups so much better.

Honestly, the game will only improve with more of them around, which is what I hope this change encourages.

I'm glad your issue is being resolved.

Also, if I might make a suggestion.

When you are sending items you really care about, send them directly to your own global instead of sending them to a character name.

This way you can actually confirm the item has been received instantly, on the character you just sent it from.

Honestly, I just wanted to see it all broken down.

Thanks for putting in the effort, much appreciated.

No I got it, I just went off on a tangent.


You might be right for FM/SD, but not Elm/SD.

Elm/SD for Scrappers is leaps and bounds beyond what it is for Brutes.

It is highly noticeable. So much so that I couldn't bring myself to make an Elm/SD Brute and will instead wait to bring an Elm/SD Scrapper redside.


I agree though, you won't really notice a huge difference.

Still, a lot of what happens on teams goes unnoticed.

We could say very similar things about Corrs and Defenders, on a full TF on a decent team you really won't notice the differences between the two of them and for the most part they can be added interchangeably.

That doesn't mean the differences aren't there, it's just hard to notice them in an 8 person team moving at a good pace.

That's true to a point, at the same time as Bill Z said, all villains come packing damage.


I agree.

It's actually why I play Redside, I found blueside incredibly boring.

I've never really hit my head against a wall on any redside team, in general they either thrive and steamroll or quickly fold up and die due to some AT mismatch or unworkable playstyle dynamic.

It's generally all decided within the first 2 paper mishes.

Charles Darwin would be proud.


It's probably because in all or most of those instances (I have no experience with DAoC) you're playing a Hybrid amongst Specialists/Non-Hybrids. Usually this means flexibility at the sacrifice of a specialty.

Where in CoV, wearing blue-lenses, you're playing a Hybrid amongst other Hybrids.

So trying to define your role on a team can be a bit more nebulous when you approach it from a traditional MMO grouping mentality.

It's actually quite clear what the role is for Villain Side ATs - Kill them, before they kill you.

If you approach a Villain team as an all out assault unit, with some adjustments for the types of powersets you have available, you might find it works a bit better.



(I played a Conqueror in AoC from launch myself. I only played for the first 3 months though.)

Exactly.

I see what you're getting at in the post, but there have been teams where an Elm/SD or FM/SD Scrapper has made a significant impact on mob clearing.

But /SD is a special monster, and those two pairings in particular are (IMO) the best two pairings in terms of what they bring to teams.


DM/SD is my least favorite /SD combo when it shows up on a team.

That's true, but what I meant was leveraging actual "DPS" is meaningless vs. minions, lieutenants and sometimes even bosses (on teams).

They simply die too fast for "DPS" to matter. Many high DPA attacks can outright kill even level minions.

When was the last time you were able to go through a full top tier attack chain on a lieutenant?

Critical Hits are burst damage and when they go off effectively double the DPA of that attack, and speed up the demise of lesser enemies in a way that DPS simply doesn't.

Now you can average out criticals over time, and calculate that into DPS, but Fury doesn't have the same burst damage that Critical Hits does.

Which is also, incidentally, part of the appeal of Shield Charge vs. Damage Auras - only on a massive (and probably unbalanced) scale.




Here's a couple of interesting quotes that are similar to how I feel about Fury vs. Criticals.



It's a very interesting idea.

Would you be able to adjust that for SC + AAO vs. FE + Burn + Blazing Aura?


I think since both Burn and Blazing Aura are part of the set, they should be combined as opposed to being compared singly vs. SC.

I hadn't considered that, thanks for the correction.


I'm kind of surprised, I'd assumed DC would be enough.

I guess it really depends on the build, but I was thinking of
Midnight Grasp/Gloom/Smite/Siphon Life/Gloom/Smite @4.53 EPS

How much how much recovery would you need to sustain that if you were also using DC?

It also doesn't take into account that very few situations are long, drawn out fights - and that critical hits are burst damage which can end fights more quickly.

Ah, well in that case, it's still a good combo.

Some thoughts:

DM is little too ST focused for my tastes for Brutes, and for what you're using it for (Bruting for teams, Brutes don't tank ). While it grants you excellent survivability through Siphon Life and a powerful End recovery tool - you really do want some solid AoE damage by L30 or so.

As you know, Brutes lack Tanker levels of Hit Points, Base Resistances, and Defense Numbers from powers. So, for a Brute, the best Defense really is a good offense.

Luckily Invuln being what it is, after a certain point, you will be "tough enough" for the most part.

That being said, I absolutely hate the progression of powers for Invuln, specifically as it pertains to Brutes (Yes, it's the same progression for Scrappers, but generally no one expects scrappers to take alpha strikes and maintain at least some level of aggro control).

Unyielding should be at L10, and Invincibility should be at L16. With resist elements and energies coming after 20.

If you can put up with that frustration to L28, you'll be golden from there.


If this character remains a general play build, I'd say you should avoid the big juicy temptation that Gloom is and go for E-fences and Ball Lightning to round out the build overall.

If you do end up wanting an extreme AV soloing build, obviously Gloom and Darkest Night will be key.


You probably know most of this, but I thought I'd share anyway.

I wouldn't say it sucks at all.

You can mostly avoid enemies that exploit your weaknesses (I almost said "holes" and then thought better of it...)

I'm assuming you're designing a character to solo AVs with, and since you can pick and choose your enemies, along with your knowledge of game mechanics & character building - I'm sure you'll end up with what you expect from the character.

No not really.


I'm sorry, but no.

I've played a lot of MMOs, RPGs, FPSs and PC games of all stripes.

I enjoy CoH/V thoroughly. It's a very fun romp, and I love the genre, the costume options, the game background.

All that being said, this game is easy.

Seriously, getting to 50 is not hard - you don't have to "earn" 50.

Get into a group and you can practically /faceroll your way to 50.


This might reflect more on you, your style of play, or your available gaming time.

I got my first 50 in about a month and a half blueside. Approx 50% of the time I was solo, the other 50% was radio mishes/story arcs. No AE.

My second character, redside, took about a month to 50.

Combination of solo, paper mishes and AE mishes (starting around L40) - all in roughly equal measure.


So I really don't think getting to 50 is any chore unless your AT/Build is difficult to solo with and your time constraints prevent you from frequent grouping.



Probably part of it.



I think Going Rogue may have something to do with it.

Starting in Praetoria, IIRC, L20 is when you need to make your future faction choice as it pertains to traveling throughout Paragon City & the Rogue Isles.

That L20 character, upon choosing one faction or another, may actually unlock the faction specific EAT for the side you choose. This would allow players who dislike one faction or the other to level in Praetoria, choose a faction at 20 and unlock the faction specific EAT - while avoiding the time spent to 50 playing for a faction they dislike when their only goal is to actually play a different AT.

Also, neither VEATs nor HEATs can start in Praetoria, so this may be some sort of AT population balance incentive.


So basically something for players who want to play EATs, but don't like the faction in which they originate.




Or maybe they just flipped a coin when the idea came up.

Warmace is a great set.

I think it lacks the popularity of SS or SM because using Crowd Control and Shatter requires a bit of maneuvering (a tiny bit for Crowd Control, quite a bit more for Shatter) as opposed to those two sets as they require no positioning to use their PBAoEs.

There's also the aspect of redraw, the redraw on WM is pretty bad.


Other than that, WM has great ST attacks and with even a small bit of global recharge + hasten against large groups you can just chain all of your PBAoEs together.



Personally, I don't think it's worth it to go for /dark if your goal is only to stack stuns.

WM and Dark Armor will be intensely endurance heavy, and WM provides a solid amount of mitigation through stuns and KD/KU on it's own.

If you want to play Dark Armor because you like Dark Armor, that's one thing but don't choose the combo if your only goal is stacking stuns.

Another reason to avoid stacking stuns, is because as a Brute you don't want your enemies stunned all of the time. It's counter productive for fury.

So if you do go that route, prepare to use either the stun, or the fear aura's as "active toggles" that you will activate or deactivate as needed - rather than an "all the time" toggle.

That's my opinion.


I would personally recommend WP, Invuln, Shield or SR.

They're all, for the most part, set it and forget it secondaries that will cutdown or totally eliminate redraw - and they should all work quite well with WM.



Last piece of advice would be to build with the idea that you will not be taking attacks from any Patron.

Yeah I enjoy running with a well played Tanker when I'm on one of my Brutes.

The two together can lockdown a huge amount of mobs, and I'll often see well played tankers with great situational awareness, often dropping out of the main fight to peel off any mob overflow assist the support section.

They don't have to follow the Brute, but Brute's will most certainly add impetus to most groups to move faster.


I think Tanker ego will be the biggest issue here.

On co-op teams I find some Tankers understand their role very well, which is to leverage their survivability to allow the support characters to survive.

Other tankers misunderstand the role, and get into some sort of bizarre ego contest where they continually try to taunt mobs off of Brutes who are clearly designed to break and survive large spawns.

Usually this is at the expense of the squishies, who are left to their own defenses in the back field as the Brute and Tanker jockey for aggro against each other. Which is just counterproductive for everyone.

An interesting read.

Thanks for the links.




It is worse for Tankers, I tried it out and it was a long arduous road that I will not repeat.

But I really don't enjoy Tankers to begin with, I've disliked that Type of AT/Class/Role in almost every MMO I've played, and I've played a few.

It's not so bad on a Brute, but there is a very distinct and dramatic difference between life before, and life after footstomp.

You can have Rage by 18 and Footstomp at 32, and the Brute will kill stuff faster than the tanker to alleviate the lack of AoE.

At 32 your play changes quite a bit once you've acquire Footstomp and just improves from there.




It's certainly no Claws set though when it comes to leveling, that's for sure.

Slash, Strike, Spin and Follow Up - all by L8.

Claws is cruise control for murder.

You've kind of missed the point though.


What Bill Z's numbers show is that Double Stacked Follow Up does more for Spin than Double Stacked Rage does for Footstomp.

Also:

1) Double stacked Follow Up is easier to deal with than double stacked rage.

2) Double stacked rage is a huge hindrance to most builds, without MASSIVE recovery tools. (It also, requires a pretty huge amount of recharge, I mocked up a build and at total of 266% recharge, rage was still not perma double stacked - off by about 5s. I'm not completely sure how much rech is required for permanent double stacked followup, so it may be equally as challenging.)



To illustrate.

I have an SS/WP Brute with 4.5 e/s recovery before adding in 2 perf shifter procs (which probably averages out to a total of something like 4.9 e/s, but the perf shifter procs function differently than that).

Even with all of that recovery, I still refuse to double stack rage.

Because it's a freaking hassle.

Because doing zero damage every 60 seconds would be more of a hindrance in actual play than any benefit from an added +80% damage.



Rage and Follow up are not powersets, you can't compare them without looking at the entire set they belong to.


It's also not hard to hit with Follow Up.

Really.


If it's difficult to hit with follow up, then how is every other set that does not have a persistent +To Hit bonus surviving?

Considering I've never had a problem hitting using FM, SM or WM - none of which have Follow Up or Rage - I think we can safely say this is a non-issue.

I don't agree.

How about Soul Drain and Follow Up effects on non-SS powers?

I really don't think Footstomp is broken, it's the crown of the set.

For Brutes on SOs, SS is at the bottom of ST damage, just slightly above Electric Melee.



You can't do this with out SERIOUSLY improving the rest of the set.

Reducing Footstomp's damage would necessitate a major damage increase for the lower tier attacks.

Fantastic, now we have Stone Melee without the superior mitigation of Stone Melee.




I also think you'd need to add another PBAoE or two to the set. Footstomp is the workhorse of SS.

Where other sets can have 2 to 3 good to great PBAoEs, Super Strength gets just one excellent one.


Here's some fun numbers from Bill Z.

Thread HERE.


So there you have it, Spin with double stacked Follow Up (easy) beats Footstomp with double stacked rage (a nearly atrocious situation for any set without massive endurance recovery - that's not even taking into account the hinderance of the zero damage period every 60 seconds).

Footstomp's advantage is a massive Radius & KD vs. Spin having a 14s recharge vs. Footstomp's 20s - On top of that Claws also gets Eviscerate AND Shockwave.

Really, I'm not seeing a problem.


You're asking for an entire revamp of SS to the point that it would basically be a really gimped version of stone melee. No thanks.


Will you suggest this for other build up powers as well?

Or is it really ok for double stacked focus to affect damage auras and epic pool powers, but not rage?

That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it.


I put Follow Up before Focus, personally. it makes all your other attacks stronger. Most importantly, Spin.

It's a moot point anyway.

I leveled my Claws/Invuln to 50 in a much different fashion than the OP has laid out.

I took Strike, Slash, Spin, Follow Up and Focus all as soon as they were available.

So technically, I agree with you and wouldn't put Focus off if it were my own build.

Of course not, and that's exactly the point of the crash as is.