GavinRuneblade

Well, keep in mind the folllowing: When souldbound goes off it benefits only the one pet who triggered it (you have two enforcers, it checks on every attack from each of them but only buffs the one that succeeds).

also, soulbound will check on you when you summon the pet, and on the pet with every attack.

That's not what he's saying. He's not saying it should be, he is saying it is. He doesn't care if there is a rule that brutes are better. His argument is this:

1. Brutes have more HP and higher Resist caps that scrappers
2. Brutes do equal or more damage than scrappers at the top levels of performance
3. Damage and survivability are the only "jobs" of brutes and scrappers
Therefore: if 1, 2, and 3 are true the conclusion is that brutes are better than scrappers at "everything" and scrappers have no reason to exist.
Apparent Unstated premise #4: All ATs must have advantages and/or disadvantages that balance out in order to have a reason to exist.

Conclusions/Opinons drawn from the above (not to be confused with his arguments even though he voices them in the same sentence): If the devs don't balance the ATs it is because they want people to be able to make gimpy choices. Brutes need to be nerfed.

Note: This is not my position, but I am also not opposed to it. It just seems you're not understanding Sailboat's (and to a lesser extent everyone on that side of the fence). So I figured I'd try to clarify.

My position is that I haven't seen nearly as many psychotic AV soloing brutes as I have scrappers, so it seems scrappers are "close enough for government work". And I don't know the math well enough to understand the differences, so I'm waiting for a definitive statement from Arcannaville and/or Nihili and will trust them 'cause I know they know what they are talking about.

Then you sort of have your build choices at odds with your desired play style.

You have a bit more HP than a scrapper, but if you're not building with tough, etc, you're not taking advantage of the brute's higher resist caps, so the difference is going to be minimal. We're talking the difference between having accolades and not having accolades minimal. And if you're not building with Weave, maneuvers, etc for Def, then you're definitely not optimized for +4/x8. I bet you'd be fine soloing at +2x5 though. Which is substantially harder than the old "invincible" setting.

So if you really want to play at +4/x8, and you're on a willpower, you need to be running in the 30s on s/l defense at a minimum (possibly e/ne as well). And you will need something like tactics or focused accuracy or a lot of acc slotted to handle the 5 level difference. Do you have the kismet +acc yet? It never goes above level 30 so might as well slot it now, it's not like you'll get a 50th level version of it later. =)

Still are effective. I bet that if you swap them out with 50s you'll find the difference is less than 1 extra set bonus.

My fire/shield brute is mostly decked out with level 20-36 serendipity and one set of mid-30s luck of the gambler. She can run most stuff at +4/x8 but I don't normally bother because I don't consider it fun, that just adds grind by making things take longer to defeat, they still act the same. I could replace her IOs with better ones, but all she really needs is more recharge. So I haven't bothered.

My elec/elec brute went with capped melee as an experiment and she's runnning mid-30s titanuim armors. Her touch of death attack sets are level 40, and so are her oblits. If I moved up to level 50 resist sets, her defense would be the same, and her resists would move a smidge. Not enough for me to bother with it since she also runs standard at +2x8.

Check in Mids, you might not "need" to upgrade when you hit 50. Then again, it might make a huge difference on your build, I dunno. But it's worth checking.

Rather than take the alpha, hit the fringes. Especially on Arachnos. Get those Mu Guardians and Adepts, the Tarantula Mistresses, and the fortunatas. Especially if you want to play like a scrapper rather than a tank. Hunting down these guys will make hte spawns easier to defeat, plus they hang back while the rest charge in. So while you're fighting them you're not being overwhelmed by all the riff-raff.

Veto

Well for starters, if you do that you will find that you have missed 90% of the content. City is not like other MMOs where the goal is to get to the end game. The game is about having multiple alts and playing through over and over to see things from different sides. And much of the system is built to support that.

The devs only recently started adding end-game content and they still add as much or more mid-game content as end. (First ward caps at level 29, the two signature story arcs are level 20 and 30, etc).

that said, everyone enjoys playing their own way so if that's your thing, the recommendation of going to cimerora is solid. But I found that it is also worthwhile to try and run all the main task forces. If you're hero side, you want to get the posi, citadel, synapse, manticore, sister psyche and numina's done. This gets you a permanent free boost of 5% to your hp. So it is very worthwhile on any character. It also gives you a TON of experience and merits. Merits will help you afford your optimized build. Villain side it is a bit more complicated to get that power.

The sewer trial is intended for characters leveled 1-10. After that, while you CAN do it, it's not a good idea. Part of the reason you have so little money is that most of those enemies don't drop any loot at all. If you were playing the main parts of the game you'd have a lot more drops and those translate into money.

Other fast ways to level are look for the Weekly Strike Target and be sure to run it once. This gives double exp rewards (typically a half level or more) and double merits, AND it is fast and easy to find teams because lots of people want to do it. The target changes on Tuesday, but I never have trouble on the weekend finding a team.

Also the signature story arcs are great if you are a VIP.

Last, it's not farming, but it's fun and fast exp, and that is the "AV Mission teams" running in peregrine island. They are doing story arcs by Maria Jenkins and Tina McIntyre against the Praetorians. There's one or two AVs in each mission and people run them at levels 45+, mostly at 50. You can sidekick up and join in, it's extremely rare that anyone would mind a 30s joining. Hell, I've gone there at 12 and been welcomed.

But the ITF is a fast task force, everyone loves it, it is cross faction so both heros and villains do it together. Lots of Elite Bosses and bosses for good drops. You can do it from level 35 to 50. I typically gain a level or two each run.

My most recent character leveled purely on taskforces and trials and is swimming in money thanks to the merits. So really, if you're new and don't have anyone to bankroll you, I strongly recommend stop using the sewer after level 5, start using real task forces at level 10 (Positron #1 in steel canyon). And use tips and signature story arcs once you're 20+ to get alignment merits. It's fast, a lot less boring than the sewers, and you'll have way more money.

Two quick questions:
Are you a hero of villain? And what server are you on?

I think we have better Electric Melee than brutes thanks to the crit mechanics.

And While I'll agree that dark melee is better on brutes and scrappers, the difference is not great, and it does fit well into the stalker play style. I don't think dark is a bad choice on any archtype.

Yub yub. Hence the wanna buy a bridge line.

But it was an interesting change of pace from the usual "oh no they nerfed accuracy with this patch" post.

I would be against using anything from an upcoming set, and against anything complicated (both will reduce the liklihood of having the change happen).

On Geko's options, I'm thinking those are pretty decent ideas. Wouldn't mind something buffed even a little on the single-target side of things, but making BS more AoE-focused is not a bad way to differentiate the two sets.

Shield is an immediate loser in this specific contest because it is #1 AOE and #2 a buff set and he already said that all buffs are applied (assume at the damage cap without any use of your own abiilties). So with no bonus from AAO and shield charge being a mediocre single-target attack, shield falls behind other options.

Well, I tend to defend the fear aura as handy, but I'll never do anythign that might keep it from getting looked at for a buff, because it does need it.

My take on it, is that it has two components, the fear and the -tohit. the fear is great for minions, the -tohit works on everything to varying degrees. The stun aura is binary. Having nothing to stack with it means if you are ganking the minions fast, the stun aura is a wasted powerpick. Also, it makes minions stagger AWAY from you. Fear means they STAY IN ONE PLACE. This, for me, is enough to justify the endurance. If t kept bosses from running it would be a moral obligation for all /dark players to take the power.

They can't be overlords because #1 people who make knockoffs are inherently followers who lack creativity, and #2 Sephiroth is the loser in both his appearances.

Basically, people have always been confused on Gambler because it does two dings of damage. It has always been true that both parts crit. It is a spectacular power all around.

I was only speaking in comparison to using a defense set as you asked. Rather than a defense set just 1 slot for defense and 5 for damage would work better. But if you don't need it then yes Mako is a great choice.

nothing wrong with that =)

It is awesomely effective. They chance to proc off of the initial cast, then they run slowly away instead of attacking you. Then they fall down inside the caltrops and get procc'd again. Then when they stand up, they don't always try to run the short way out so sometimes fall again. It really is awesome.

Here's to say it a bit clearer/ Optimal Stamina/Pysical perfection/quick recovery slotting:
1 slot: Perf shifter Proc
2 slots: Perf Proc/ perf endmod
3 slots: Perf Proc/ perf endmod/common endmod
4 slots: Perf Proc/ perf endmod/ perf endmod/acc/ perf endmod/rech

Yup, the only difference is what will benefit you most. Miracle gives a bit more endurance but numina heals. so sometimes there is a reason to use one over the other. The difference isn't very big though.

I think it can take the lady grey proc right? If not the only good one is the PvP or the purple and those are both goofy expensive.

It looks expensive, but what you're missing is how easy it is to make money. Several players have done all kinds of experiments. Project mope was my favorite. Nethergoat started a stalker ran only solo and only on 0/0 settings. He put all of his drops on the market for 1 inf. By level 30 he had almost 40 million. Also lots of the reasonably decent IOs you can get for less than vendor price. For instance, sure the crafted Crushing Impact Damage/Recharge is 4m, but the recipe is only 50k to 200k.

But anyway, here's my suggestion:

1. sell all your DO and SO drops to the vendor of your choice
2. sell all common recipe drops to the vendor of your choice
3. sell all orange/yellow recipe drops that are not defense, resist, heal, or attack to the vendor of your choice
4. craft all yellow/orange recipes that ARE defense, resist, heal or attacks*
5. put the crafted IO on the market for a price of 400-800kinf (if no rare salvage needed) or 1.8m inf (if it needed a rare salvage)
6. sell all remaining salvage drops on the market for 1 inf
7. sell all tier 3 (aka large) inspirations on the market for 1 inf

Unless you power level you should be swimming in inf very shortly after following these steps. For crafting, don't spend more than 8k per common salvage, 30k per uncommon (possible exception being living tatoo and carnival mask run 100k from time to time), and never bid more than 1.3m for rare salvage.

* don't craft air burst or detonation. they are vendor trash.

This is basically what I do. The only difference is I craft some of my common recipe drops for badging purposes so if you follow these instructions you'll have more money than me. Anything with a last 5 going for more than 20 million, it's safe to put a decently high sell price rather than 1.8m if you want to avoid the lowball bids. I don't really care unless it's really valuable so I tend to just use the 1.8m guideline.

I have my elec/stone dom about to leave praetoria, only level 19 and he has more than 21 IOs slotted, half of those he bought. And he has 17m inf. Granted, I got a few lucky drops with him, and I did level lock him twice to finish out story arcs. But still. All I did was follow those 7 rules. The game literally throws money at you if you let it.

Ask for help in the Marketing forum, those guys are spectacular, very helpful, and they know a lot more than me.

that is blasphemy.

+4/x8 is not normal end game play unless you have a full team of 8.

Also I'm curious about what you plan to get with your remaining 18 levels if it's not including ANY defenses. As pointed out you're lacking moment of glory, but you may or may not have tough, weave and maneuvers already. You definitely don't have any patron/APP picks yet and several of those are very powerful defensive tools. For example, one of my brutes has darkest night from Soul Mastery, and several other options include debuffs or other support (sleep and knock in earth, immobilizes and holds in several sets, physical perfection gives some +regen). All the dark attacks have -tohit.

So you may very well get significantly tougher before you hit 50 and the incarnate/IO stuff.

It was a stealth nerf not listed in the patch notes.

Apparently the devs want to move scrappers closer to stalker performance in response to Arcannaville doing math to show the difference between brutes and scrappers in damage output was not favoring the brute enough.

In other news, wanna buy a bridge?

Hmm, then the only thing I can think of is that the 1 month free must not be counting for tokens. But that's weird because it counted for vet awards in the past. I'd send in a petition and ask a GM to check if there is a problem because I'm pretty sure you are due 1 more token.

This would be cool. And there sort of is precedent for it as already we have options for the 10 minute or 15 minute cooldown.

Not necessarily. Some top-end builders consider it an advantage to have access to more than 2 purple sets in an attack chain as not all primaries do. By giving access to Ragnarok there's another category. Just a shame it's proc is knock not damage though.

Edit: but 99.999% of the time you'd be right. Just pointing there is a possible exception.

Activity levels on Exalted suggest there's quite a lot of VIPs. Because I know a LOT of VIPs who haven't bothered to transfer over or make new characters there due to loving their home servers. So the fact that Exalted is hitting loads comparable to Freedom and virtue says to me that we got a lot of VIPs.

I think you just answered your own question.