GuyPerfect

I went back to my ages-old Blaster after leveling my Stalker. It hits more targets, sure, but it was mildly depressing just how much more damage per attack the Stalker was able to put out (again, fewer targets).

People pay more for crafted Enhancements. Don't know why, but do yourself a favor and exploit that. NEVER post a purple recipe; always craft it first.

Tankers and Defenders seem to be going the wayside, since their benefits over Brutes and Corruptors respectively are, in a lot of cases, negligible. RPers will still roll Defenders because they like the name better than Corruptor, but at the end of the day the old-fashioned Hero tank and support classes are excessively specialized and not well-suited compared to their old-fashioned Villain counterparts (yes, I know the Brute was designed to be the Villain Scrapper).

This isn't a problem with design; it's just how the game has matured. At launch, when there was no such thing as Brute or Corruptor, you'd pick Tanker for tanking and Defender for support. And it worked well, you could do a lot with it, everyone was happy. The Villain classes were designed to fill the same roles as the Hero classes, though in different ways. Heck, Stalker's still going through core revisions six years later, but I'm hopeful this next round will finally make them the melee equivalent to Blaster they were always intended to be.

Blaster's good. Scrapper's good. Peacebringer and Warshade are good. Brute, Corruptor, Dominator, Mastermind and the VEATs are good. Stalker needs help, and I think it's getting it. Tanker, Controller and Defender are kinda stuck; they don't need help, but there's not really any place for them to go. They have limitations by design that simply aren't present in other Archetypes.

And that brings us to Brute. Decent aggro control, good survivability (with mez protection), good damage, some wonderful AoE opportunities in the epic sets... Give 'em Spines to pair with Fiery Aura and Mu Mastery and it'll be hard to argue that anything else can perform better in the competitiveness department.

I hear people had been having a lot of success with Afterburner.

The Arachnos Lore is definitely more Toxic, but I didn't want a soldier and a spider following me around. If Toxic is the foremost issue, definitely go Arachnos.

The min/maxing bozos look at Lore and say "OMG DPS that means Cims are the best!" This is a documented logical fallacy called "Appeal to Orangenumberism." I think I'm gonna go document the Lore pets on the wiki, maybe reveal that the flimsy-sword Romans are only best in one specific scenario...

Now that you bring it up, I bet Siren's Song + Oppressive Gloom might work wonders for Darkness Manipulation...

Oh, uh, but as for the OP, you might see some troubles with all the knockback screwing up the buffs. (-:

Electrifying Fences in Mu Mastery grants knockback protection to the target. The AoE immobilizes in the other patron sets (including Web Envelope) don't, though. )-:

"Recovery" is a bit of a point of confusion because it means one thing and people use it in a sentence to refer to something else.

What It Means
Your HP and Endurance are both replenished in chunks of 5% of their maximum value. This is a fixed amount and cannot be changed. By buffing Regeneration or Recovery, you are in fact shortening the amount of time between those 5% chunks. The default interval for HP chunks is 12s (4 minutes for 100%), and Endurance is 3s (1 minute for 100%).

How People Use It
The end result of higher Regeneration or Recovery is more HP or Endurance replenished over time, usually expressed as a per-second figure. So in the case of Recovery, while it literally refers to the amount of time between 5% replenishes, people use the word to describe the "endurance per second" refill rate.

The Math
By default, you'll have 100 Endurance and a 3-second Recovery interval. This results in 100 Endurance refilled over 60s, which comes out to 1.66 endurance-per-second. Players refer to this as "base Recovery."

Say you get a 5% Recovery buff. This turns that 3s interval into 3 / (1 + 0.05) = 2.85s. At 100 Endurance, it will take 57.14s for a full refill, meaning 1.75 endurance/sec.

Now let's say that instead, you get a 5% Endurance buff, meaning 105 Endurance with a 3s interval. So over 60s, you refill 105 Endurance. This comes out to, surprise surprise, 1.75 endurance/sec.

Strictly speaking, equivalent Recovery and Endurance buffs will result in the same amount of Endurance being refilled per second. The difference is that with Recovery it fills to 100% faster, and with Endurance it lasts longer. But don't let that fool you: it's the same amount of Endurance per second, and since we get Stamina now, Endurance buffs will almost always be better than Recovery buffs in practice.


.

We may have a lead as to what's causing the issue. To those who have experienced this bug, are you able to confirm whether the entire League was inside the station building immediately prior to the final battle?

All players were instructed to be inside the building immediately prior to the trial crash. I can't say who was outside or in the hospital, but the plan was for everyone to be inside.

You've never been new to the game? Or is it just more fun to criticize?

I'm cross-posting this from another thread because it has a place here as well.
__________

* Venom Grenade is -20% Resistance to all but Toxic, which is -40%. It favors a build heavy in Toxic damage, and is a pretty nice AoE attack in its own right. It's damage-over-time, so things won't die as soon as it hits them, but it's got an interesting side-effect that you can boost its damage with other debuffs after the fact.

* Arctic Breath from Leviathan Mastery is another -15% Resistance to everything. On top of that, it's -11.25% Defense to all; -30% Speed and Recharge; periodic knockdown; and--you guessed it--a pretty nice AoE attack in its own right (Cold DoT). Its speed and attack debuffs will reduce incoming damage after the alpha volley.

* Bile Spray, also from Leviathan mastery, is a cone of the same size and shape as Arctic Breath and deals pure Toxic damage over time. Arctic Breath was going to be a replacement for Bile Spray in Issue 13, but that decision was repealed and now we get both. After the two debuff AoEs are cast, this power will be 55% more effective.

* Build Up will increase the damage from all three AoEs in addition to making them more likely to hit every target they trigger a to-hit roll on. It won't boost the debuff portions, but it lasts long enough to get all three attacks off and all the DoT ticks from the powers are boosted by it.

* All of the mace melee attacks deal a Toxic DoT (100% chance) in addition to their smashing damage. It makes for an eccentric bludgeoning weapon that really benefits from the -Resistance debuffs already applied to the enemy.

* You can peg tougher targets with Surveillance for an additional -20% Resistance to all and -15% Defense to all. It doesn't aggro, so you can butter them up before launching the AoE debuffs at them.

* Poisonous Ray is some outright silly-high DoT. It's the #1 hardest-hitting Toxic attack available to player characters (Venom Grenade's #3 and Bile Spray's #5), doing a good 105.66 damage over 2.10s. You can debuff an enemy to -75% Resistance to Toxic, which gives this power 184.90 damage per activation without even Enhancing it.

* The ranged mace attacks have some good DPS, but they're of the low-damage-fast-recharge variety. If you're going to be casting debuffs, redrawing weapons and spewing shark breath, you might want to skip them on merit of having an incompatible attack chain. Frag Grenade's still a nice attack that can be launched alongside Venom Grenade, but then you have knockback to deal with (although there is Wide Area Web Grenade for that)... Mix and match to see what works best for you.

* Alphas are a dime a dozen, but Cardiac works really well for Endurance management (freeing up slots for other stuff), and Total Core boosts range by 20% as well, which is very useful for the AoEs (the cones in particular) and Poisonous Ray, which normally has a depressingly-short range.

* The Degenerative Interface has some options for dealing Toxic DoT through all attacks. You can get up to a 75% chance that way, which works wonderfully with the AoEs. With a Radial tier-4, you'll have a 25% chance for -3.5% Max HP on top of that. Otherwise, I'd suggest Total Radial tier-3 for the 75% damage proc by itself.

* Judgement's your call, and nothing's particularly Toxicy. I went for Cryonic and made it green. (-:

* Lore's a matter of preference, but I took Robotic Drones since they're small and inhuman. Turns out they've got the D.U.S.T. plasma blasts, which are all -Regen.

* As far as Destiny is concerned, Barrier will probably be the most helpful on top of Maneuvers and Combat Training: Defensive. I can see Rebirth being preferred in some situations, but Ageless, Clarion and Incandescence don't do as much for the Toxic build.

* Venom Grenade is -20% Resistance to all but Toxic, which is -40%. It favors a build heavy in Toxic damage, and is a pretty nice AoE attack in its own right. It's damage-over-time, so things won't die as soon as it hits them, but it's got an interesting side-effect that you can boost its damage with other debuffs after the fact.

* Arctic Breath from Leviathan Mastery is another -15% Resistance to everything. On top of that, it's -11.25% Defense to all; -30% Speed and Recharge; periodic knockdown; and--you guessed it--a pretty nice AoE attack in its own right (Cold DoT). Its speed and attack debuffs will reduce incoming damage after the alpha volley.

* Bile Spray, also from Leviathan mastery, is a cone of the same size and shape as Arctic Breath and deals pure Toxic damage over time. Arctic Breath was going to be a replacement for Bile Spray in Issue 13, but that decision was repealed and now we get both. After the two debuff AoEs are cast, this power will be 55% more effective.

* Build Up will increase the damage from all three AoEs in addition to making them more likely to hit every target they trigger a to-hit roll on. It won't boost the debuff portions, but it lasts long enough to get all three attacks off and all the DoT ticks from the powers are boosted by it.

* All of the mace melee attacks deal a Toxic DoT (100% chance) in addition to their smashing damage. It makes for an eccentric bludgeoning weapon that really benefits from the -Resistance debuffs already applied to the enemy.

* You can peg tougher targets with Surveillance for an additional -20% Resistance to all and -15% Defense to all. It doesn't aggro, so you can butter them up before launching the AoE debuffs at them.

* Poisonous Ray is some outright silly-high DoT. It's the #1 hardest-hitting Toxic attack available to player characters (Venom Grenade's #3 and Bile Spray's #5), doing a good 105.66 damage over 2.10s. You can debuff an enemy to -75% Resistance to Toxic, which gives this power 184.90 damage per activation without even Enhancing it.

* The ranged mace attacks have some good DPS, but they're of the low-damage-fast-recharge variety. If you're going to be casting debuffs, redrawing weapons and spewing shark breath, you might want to skip them on merit of having an incompatible attack chain. Frag Grenade's still a nice attack that can be launched alongside Venom Grenade, but then you have knockback to deal with (although there is Wide Area Web Grenade for that)... Mix and match to see what works best for you.

* Alphas are a dime a dozen, but Cardiac works really well for Endurance management (freeing up slots for other stuff), and Total Core boosts range by 20% as well, which is very useful for the AoEs (the cones in particular) and Poisonous Ray, which normally has a depressingly-short range.

* The Degenerative Interface has some options for dealing Toxic DoT through all attacks. You can get up to a 75% chance that way, which works wonderfully with the AoEs. With a Radial tier-4, you'll have a 25% chance for -3.5% Max HP on top of that. Otherwise, I'd suggest Total Radial tier-3 for the 75% damage proc by itself.

* Judgement's your call, and nothing's particularly Toxicy. I went for Cryonic and made it green. (-:

* Lore's a matter of preference, but I took Robotic Drones since they're small and inhuman. Turns out they've got the D.U.S.T. plasma blasts, which are all -Regen.

* As far as Destiny is concerned, Barrier will probably be the most helpful on top of Maneuvers and Combat Training: Defensive. I can see Rebirth being preferred in some situations, but Ageless, Clarion and Incandescence don't do as much for the Toxic build.

To those poor souls who stumbled into this thread:

Def = Defense, mechanic
Regen = Regeneration, Power Set, not to be confused with the mechanic
MA = Martial Arts
KM = Kinetic Melee
ELM, Elec = Electric Melee
ST = Single Target
AoE = Area of Effect, aka multiple-target attacks
PBAoE = "Player based" or "point blank" AoE--the area emits from the attacker
BS = Broad Sword
DM = Dark Melee
SJ = Street Justice
WP = Willpower

Is he going to talk to us with two thematically-matched power sets in a costume consisting entirely of two colors?

When you get 2.5s activation times on powers, it doesn't make much sense to *not* just point at the screen and click. (-: