JupiterMoon

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*Which* issues actually become material issues the devs will have to address isn't obvious to me at the moment.

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The (if it ever happens, new) dominator vs. blaster issue seems pretty obvious to me, but blasters are apparently popular, so they may be able to hold on to their popularity even vs. (if it ever happens, new) dominators.

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Given the current population disparity, the skew between blasters and dominators would have to be enormous to create a serious archetypal balance problem. Also, most players play below level 40, and at lower levels (especially below 30) there is still a significant difference in capability and playstyle between dominators (even projecting the Dominator2.0 changes) and blasters.

However I do see Dominator2.0s potentially filling in a niche that has never been adequately filled in the past in my opinion: magically themed offensive controllers are a lot easier to simulate with 2.0 Dominators (with or without pets) than with Blasters or Controllers. Back in the day, one of the more interesting questions (to me) was "what would Dr. Strange be" in CoH. No answer was really satisfying then, but today I'd say without hesitation "2.0 Dominator." The powersets aren't exactly there, but the archetypal design clearly has the best fit.


I think a more problematic archetype comparison is corruptors vs defenders. The problem isn't absolute magnitude of the powers: that's something most players have only a vague sense of anyway. Its more the case that a corruptor is a much more easy to solo defender. The numbers are different, but not so different that the average player is going to notice much on the buff side, but will perceive the difference in offensive due to faster kill-speed and soloability.

I'm not sure how the Brute/Scrapper comparison will play out, because it all depends on the perception of how easy it is to generate and sustain high fury. Whether it is or is not easy is a technical balance question, but its the perception itself that is most relevant to archetype popularity. There seems to be two strong camps regarding that issue, and its unclear to me which is the more popular opinion, and by how much.

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i tell ya what i see on infinity.

red side - cap. cap is where all the ae missions start and where the main black market hub is (because it's like 10 yards from the university and a base portal). when ae's form - and they are forming constantly - everyone is invited. you dont see many people standing around in the ae building twiddling their thumbs.

play blueside in atlas - also the hub for the most part (i could be wrong here). what do i see? a building FILLED with people begging for an ae - but nobody willing to actually start one. the few i've been on blueside have been terrible - both farms and straight up story-experiencers.

i'm also apalled at the barrens-quality of broadcast speak in atlas.

there arent many redside players on infinity compared to blue. i dont know if it's necessarily people with hero complexes or people who dont realize just how ridiculously easier it is to do just about anything but find rare io's on the black market red side.

but i know this - if you have to GRIND REP through missions that are flagged villain/hero before you can change, i dont think that many people will change sides. if it's a huge grind, you may change - find it sucks - and how have to grind yet again (maybe even grind even MORE) to change back. i think these dev's have been playing too much WoW and LOTRO.

either way the only people who have to fear brutes are those that suck as scrappers or tanks. because a well played brute will obviously trump a poorly played tank who took all the attacks from their secondary, from the power pools and nothing from their primary. you know we see a lot of those. i bet that less than 10% of this games pbase even reads these boards or gives two craps above anything beyond CONCEPTS. and as we all here reading this know - concepts alone dont make a working character in this game.

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My only RSF was done without temps, on a PuG where only two folks had done it before. We didn't have any radiation corr, stone brute or mind dom. We had several people under level 50.

Claiming the RSF is some kind of uber hard challenge only IOed out teams with nukes can accomplish might work in the general discussion forum, but here, we're in the scrapper boards.

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how many times did you wipe on the freedom phalanx as you attempted to split the spawn?

i do NOT consider wiping-on-purpose to split the spawns and get numina and positron down first a valid strategy. yes it works. it's also stupid as all hell.

even though thugs does mostly lethal dmg, their cones do so much dmg and recharge so insanely fast that the bruiser and enforcers have serious end issues if you dont slot any of the pet io trio's with end reduction.

i have both a 50 thugs/traps and a bots/traps and it's no contest - especially after i put the achilles heel io into enforcers. the arsonist and bruiser's dmg is pretty high when i can lay an acid mortar. when i'm farming i generally dont bother with the long recharge powers and the achille's heel proc is a perma acid mortar for the most part.

bots can do GREAT dmg if you can keep everything clumped up for the burn patches. but the bot burn patches recharge slow and it's not infrequent to have your assault bot sit there for 10 seconds at a stretch doing nothing - because everything is recharging.

i used to think the toughest primary was bots..and then i put all 4 pet uniques into gang war.

storm? hell no

look - i'm sure storm is fun and all - but the LAST THING you want as an mm is to have a giant spawn spread the hell out all over the place - patron immob or not. the radius on electric fences is freakin tiny and the bigger immob in web envelope doesnt prevent knockback. storm is annoying and counterproductive to an MM who is farming. i'm sure it's ok when solo - but when you are on a farm team and are the only farmer, or are paired with a brute the knockback is just dumb. you prevent fury generation for the brute, and you run the risk of completely losing control of all of your pets.

whatever they changed to the bruisers code to make him close to melee more has had the added affect of making the arsonist close to melee CONSTANTLY.


thugs/traps.

1) you can soft cap defense for all of your pets with just ffg with a 4 slot gang war. you dont have to use it. just put both defense aura and both resist aura io uniques in it. voila. now your pets are soft capped with 1 defense io in enforcers, ffg and have 20% resistance to everything (and more in the case of enforcers/bruiser)

2) caltrops are a good way to keep whatver your immob missed inside the arsonists firebomb patches until you can immobilize them

3) soft capped defense means triage beacon is all you'll need 90% of the time.

4) poison trap is a godsend for huge spawns of mobs with huge tohit buffs (which all also seem to debuff defense..annoying trend there)

5) one of the more popular farming ae maps spawns two av's. thugs/traps with soft capped defense can solo both av's with little to no effort with just regular so's/io's.

6) the achille's chance to proc -resist in enforcers goes off alot. it is borderline perma and is very noticeable. it's like another acid mortar. when you have that and two acid mortars up even a tough tyrant with unstoppable going has noticeable movement in his health bar even as a +2 av


in order for this to work - especially farming - i would recommend you move around entirely with team teleport. it's important thatyou keep your pets together and within the ffg. efficient farming means you shouldnt be wasting time and endurance constantly replacing pets. some mm's dont mind replacing a pet every spawn. replacing pets drives me insane.

/ff could work and would mean less of a need for the unique io's as well as not having to constantly replace the ffg every 3 minutes or so. but having web grenade plus a patron immob helps to keep everything in place to melt from the burn patches. i couldnt imagine not having web grenade now.

absolutely they stack. i generally didnt take gang war in my builds as it wasnt needed for anything in my case, but now i 4 slot it with both resistance and both defense io's - softcapping all of my pets with ffg going with only one defense buff io in enforcers (allowing me to slot the KILLER achille's resist debuff)

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the teamed and buffed scrapper is most likely teamed with a tank. the survivability question is moot.


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This is a false assumption. I've never evaluated my scrappers performance based on the presence of a tanker. Outside of STF, I could care less if there is even a tanker on the team. I fail to see a tanker's presence as relevant to this discussion.

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outside of stf's or tf's in general this argument doesnt matter fer crap at all. like i said if all you care about is farming or soloing there is NOTHING to complain about

if you actually CARE about doing the hard TF's and are any other brute than a granite...that is when the disparity of not actually HAVING tanks redside comes out.

how many of you have actually done the lRSF without a nuke bumb-rush? i have. one time. if it wasnt for the GRANITE BRUTE who was io'd to the gills we would have failed miserably. i've tried an all mm LRSF with FIVE FORCE FIELD GENERATORS and with that much stacked defense, back alley brawler one-shot half the team with his hand-clap. we needed a tank. our only option is a brute, and for this SF the better option is only ONE brute build.

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brutes must play non stop. there is no waiting for people to res. no waiting for people to catch up. no waiting for fulcrum to recharge. no waiting for a fresh sb/fort/forge. no waiting.


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Hey this sounds familiar.....WAIT A MINUTE that's how I play my SCRAPPERS...all of them.

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yes i'm sure most scrappers play like this. especially those who have endless endurance.

however you can also not play like that and not lose ANY dmg performance.

ever played a stone melee brute or tanker? or a ss brute/tanker when both rage and hasten drop? i use more blues than anything else even on a stone melee/willpower brute with a 4.20 eps recovery rate and all attacks slotted 60% less end.

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YOU just flatly ignored that brutes have the EXACT same base mitigation values and preceded that by accepting that my analysis based on 75% fury showed equitable damage output.

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Actually, you're ignoring the fact that Brutes have 12.5% more hit points at base, which means that they're going to be more survivable in all equivalent situations. That is my primary point of contention. Brute damage scales with situational danger: more attacks coming in, more damage going out. That doesn't necessitate greater survivability. All it necessitates is for Brutes to have a greater need to be in higher risk situations in order to achieve peak damage. That's just like Blasters with old defiance. A need to be in a more dangerous situation does not equate to a need to be more survivable.

You're also ignoring that you've only generated a single set of data points for Brutes. You're ignoring the numerous other data points that have been posited as needed, including various buff states and other points that need to be shown (we got a little in to this in the DM/SD Brute v. Scrapper debate a couple weeks ago). Those showed that the Brute and Scrapper combinations in question were approximately equal. The Scrapper had advantage in the middling regions whereas the Brute had a distinct advantage in the top end and bottom end regions. And that was based exclusively off of damage.

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Where are you getting that better aggro management, in the form of taunt, will EVER lead to better utility and less damage for the taunter? That makes absolutely zero sense to me. Taunting ONLY means more damage for the taunter. What it means for teammates is irrelevant to the comparison of brutes and scrappers.

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Actually, taunting provides a great deal of in-team utility. That's the entire point of it. It's pulling damage away from squishier members of the team to oneself, who is hopefully more disposed towards damage mitigation and recovery. That's why Tankers have it as their inherent. That's why Willpower is designed specifically around having a weaker taunt effect. Aggro control is a benefit. It isn't a static, ignorable quantity that exists outside of balance considerations.

As to how it relates to Brutes and Scrappers, think on this: a Scrapper cannot serve for functional exchange for a Tanker. Scrappers cannot get nor can they maintain the same levels of aggro control that a Tanker can (which is, of course, ignoring the significant survivability disparity otherwise). A Brute, on the other hand, because all but 1 secondary has a taunt aura equivalent with the Tanker version for magnitude and duration as well as the increased aggro gaining capabilities derived from their punchvoking, is capable of attaining and maintaining near similar amounts of aggro. A generic Scrapper cannot replace a generic Tanker. A generic Brute can replace a generic Tanker. This means that Brutes have more team utility than Scrappers do thanks to their ability to more easily attain and maintain aggro on targets.

How well an AT handles aggro (if given aggro capabilities natively) is a factored value when balancing. Brutes have team utility (aggro control), similar damage in most situations (Fury makes up for low base scalar), greater top end damage (crazy high damage cap), greater baseline survivability (higher base hp), and greater top end survivability (higher caps). The only things Scrappers get are less variability in damage. That's not parity.

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the problem yo have here umbral is you are using a teamed and buffed brute vs. a teamed and buffed scrapper

the teamed and buffed scrapper is most likely teamed with a tank. the survivability question is moot.


especially when you consider what fortitude does with it's +15% defense to all - which villains dont even have access to.

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Reading this last post has me thinking of the roles of the different ATs of this discussion.

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Scrappers are the flip side to the tank. They don't have gauntlet. Their only taunt is single target. They have very low aggro management. If we left them at that, no one would ever play a scrapper. So what do they have to balance the AT? High damage.

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This perspective seems to be a bit skewed. This statement here seems to imply that scrapper's damage is a result to balance the AT, rather than to define its role. The way that I see it is that the scrapper's damage is what defines the AT and its role. When you want damage, a scrapper or a blaster is the way to go for hero side.

Once the role of the scrapper is defined, then other details are added in to balance it out with the ATs. Of course, it's not always ideal this way.

I can understand what both sides are saying in this discussion, but there seems to be a loss of perspective here that is skewing perspectives on both sides.

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A brute is ONLY as capable of handling the same conflicts as a scrapper if he PLAYS like a scrapper and gives up the fury that he needs to equal scrapper damage output.

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This got me thinking. If a brute is not playing like a scrapper, then how else can it play like? I'm sure it can also function as a tank since I've seen it before. Also, I'm unclear of what it means by "capable of handling the same conflicts." Does this mean able to survive said conflicts, or resolving said conflict in a certain amount of time?

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brutes must play non stop. there is no waiting for people to res. no waiting for people to catch up. no waiting for fulcrum to recharge. no waiting for a fresh sb/fort/forge. no waiting.

not all brute secondaries can even play like that. MOST have serious end issues especially playing in a team like this. multiple brutes in a team means one has fury, the rest do not.

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How well an AT handles aggro (if given aggro capabilities natively) is a factored value when balancing. Brutes have team utility (aggro control), similar damage in most situations (Fury makes up for low base scalar), greater top end damage (crazy high damage cap), greater baseline survivability (higher base hp), and greater top end survivability (higher caps). The only things Scrappers get are less variability in damage. That's not parity.

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NAILED IT.

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no he didnt. because of one underlying fact:

scrappers arent expected to tank the LRSF. the brute build that 90% of the time does has a big -dmg component to it.

if all anyone cares about in this thread is performance vs. a group of 16 custom lt's designed for farming then yes - heroes have a cause to complain. heroes simply dont run these farm missions at the same clip as a ss/fire brute, fire/psi dom or just villains in general.

but if we are talking about the real content - the strike forces and what not - apparantly scrappers can solo lord recluse and still have access to tankers. villains must rely heavily on generally only ONE build of brute to handle the tough strike forces, and that brute build has a dmg and recharge debuff on it - and is also awfully rare to find anymore.

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If the invulnerable scrapper can handle life with unstoppable capped at 75% why can't an invulnerable brute?



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because in the only situation where this actually matters - teaming - you still have access to tanks.

villains do not.

it takes a LOT of work to cap out any brute to 90%. in fact outside of a granite brute or invuln brute i dont think any of them can actually reach 90% smash/lethal resists even with tough without sonic or thermal buffs. and in that case you're teaming, so blueside wins as you can just grab a tank and go. that's two secondaries out of how many?

brutes can no more reach the soft cap on the defense sets with any less effort than a scrapper - with the same soft caps. and as of right now there is a heavier emphasis on not being hit at all rather than being able to soak the dmg. and again when a villain group needs a tank, they have to look to a scrapper type as they have no tanker option. it's less about brute vs scrapper parity than it is about villain vs. hero viability in a game that for nearly two years was designing hard content to require a tanker.


now...because the overwhelming MAJORITY of players in this game solo or farm ae missions now the real bottom line here is that it doesnt matter at all. because as far back as theconfessor soloing av's in issue 1 showed, scrappers are one of the best soloing at's in this game.

there is no disparity because the at's were designed with entirely different roles. brutes ARE the tanks red side. masterminds are messy and unreliable tanks and with all the current crop of mm-tards thinking that the massive amounts of knockback in storm are the bee's knee's for pve (which is entirely counter productive to properly playing a mastermind) you are lucky if you can find a single mastermind that can play worth a damned. so..brutes are the red side tanks. stalkers are the scrappers. worry about stalker vs. scrapper.

and quite frankly if brutes are dropped to 75%, then the LRSF will never be done except by the one percenters

wanted to post here saying that the achilles proc io is a FANTASTIC addition to the enforcers

they will keep it up constantly between the two of them. they not only have several attacks that will proc it, but all of their attacks recharge fast (ever notice their end problems? and it's not from running leadership powers as those cost them no endurance)

yep. prob the biggest upgrade in my overall dmg and well worth the $$

what enemy group is tyrant under? i dont see a listing for praetorians

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Ok this isnt a complaint at anyone or any group of players or anything like that, so dont take it anyway personally but...

I have been playing CoX in the EU for many a year now, moved over to the USA servers due to low populations in the EU and was really getting into the game again - a lot of fun to be had..

Then MA comes along and the farming that many knew would happen. Now, I dont care if people farm or pl or both, its up to them, but what I do care about is when its so damn hard now to get a team that firstly isnt doing AE missions, or if they are arent doing lvl 54 boss farms. Its madness. So many in Atlas just looking for great xp.

So we have heard about nerfs of certain critter types, and now... badges.. For heavens sake, no one really cares that much about loosing some badges - if no one has them you cant show off for having them so doesnt really matter, and the majority of people seem to do AE farms/missions for xp or inf/prestige.

So whats an easier way to deal with it... Come on devs... CoX was built with mobs already, they consisted of a boss or two, lts and then minions - why are the devs allowing people to create missions with mobs built solely of bosses.... Change that surely.... Yes people will pl and farm, nothing much is being done about it, and I dont care if they do, what I would love to see is people playing the game through the zones, teams that dont complain when they dont get 6-10k xp per kill and level twice or more in a mission....

and do we really need an auto sk system on created missions, low levels are playing lvl 40 missions and lvl 50 missions, on the back of a team that can actually hit. Turn it back to having to sk

Bring COX back please

Now I know someone will disagree. Cool, its all about peoples opinions, express them, maturely and for once lets not let this go into the gutter.. Thanks

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did....did you not play the game before AE or something?

people are STILL making toons to farm the liberate tv missions villain side

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Believe it, I tried fighting him first, I hit elude, charged in... And while Recluse couldn't hit me, his banes he summoned could and did... And they kept Stealth Striking me to boot. After banging my head against them for a half hour, I got me some super powered npc help.

And your right, soft capped defense doesn't have a crash. It does have a huge inf cost in expensive IOs, and having to go into the fighting pool or leadership pool for more defense. My main isn't fully IOed with sets yet. Why not? Because unlike what people think a 50 is capable of doing, I can't afford them all. I'm constantly broke getting one IO at a time. That, and those super expensive pieces of salvage.

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if you get weave it really isnt that expensive to softcap an sr scrapper or brute. coupld touch of death, couple mako's. or maybe two sets of zephyr's. or a zephyr's set and a steadfast. or if you are really rich and dont want to totally rearrange everything, a steadfast and the pvp +3% def in tough and you like --> <---- that far from the cap


expensive is building shields to cap as they have a far lower defense value in general even with weave.

bane spiders have +tohit i believe as does their stealth strike. i couldnt imagine going sr or shields as a non-dm without taking aid self

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I like SS/WP. My highest level character is my SS/WP Brute who I want to bring Hero Side (Love Brutes, hate villain side missions)

As I always say about SS - "Screw the Crash I am in it for the SMASH!" (In reference to the Rage Crash)

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they should make scrappers fight longbow nullifiers and longbow spec-ops

arachnos npc's are cake compared to longbow imo

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i've found it reasonably simple to maintain approx 50-90% fury even in the most laid back teams, although at times it's also like being a large dog on a strong leash dragging along the rest of the team with or without their consent.

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This. The whole 'you gotta work for fury' argument doesn't seem to fly, at least for me. I never 'try' for fury, I just hit my attacks and the enemies attack me and it seems to happen automatically. And the same thing happens when I play a scrapper - I hit my attacks and get attacked, but with lower survivability and no fury bonus. And like you say, on even slow moving teams, my fury is routinely at 30-40% minimum.

And the 'at times it feels like I'm dragging the team along' idea is true on scrappers as well, but with a brutes it's a hell of a lot easier with better survivability.


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as a scrapper i have different priorities than as a brute/tank. i'm not likely to be the alpha soaker or the agro holder except accidentally or incidentally depending on the circumstances.

/2inf

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Of course as a scrapper you have different priorities, because at 70-75% fury (which you yourself say is easy to maintain even on a slow team), the brute does everything better than your scrapper - it does more damage, withstands more damage and handles aggro better. So why would a team pick a scrapper over a brute all things being equal? What is a scrapper providing for a team that a brute cannot do as well or better?

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yes yes once you have the fury built it stays.

or does it?

if you are a build that has endless endurance and health - damned straight. this is why for the majority of your gaming, /wp brutes are insane.

but i think people are forgetting brutes dont get conserve power. MOST brute builds can starve for end until they are io'd out. therefore any time spent waiting for that end bar to tick is fury lost. and it's a LOT of fury.

and lets not even get started on cave missions.

no - there is variability there. before 40 and before you have yoru defense and offense sorted out AND have yoru recovery/regen sorted out the variability is pretty huge.

only people who havent actually played a brute other than /wp or dm say otherwise.

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Even at low fury, when the scrapper is out-damaging the brute, the brute retains better survivability and aggro control abilities, so it evens out. But when brutes get to high fury, they do EVERYTHING better than a scrapper. When does a scrapper do everything better than a brute? That's the disparity.

At low fury brutes and scrappers are on par, with scrappers being the better damage dealers and brutes being the better damage absorbers, but at high fury it's out of whack, because the brute does everything better.

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see, this is how i can tell you dont actually have a brute. or if you do, it's like level 5

scrappers arent expected to take the alpha. brutes are.

scrappers arent expected to wade into groups of defense and resist debuffing mobs (please go fight 4-5 longbow nullifiers and spec-ops. oooo! no regen, and 0 resistance ftw!)...brutes are.

scrappers arent expected to tank the freedom phalanx 4 at a time. brutes are.

you can have brute hp when brutes get parry and divine avalanche.

you want to talk survivability? a level 8 bs or katana/shield is soft capped to melee and lethal dmg without anything enhanced in any form. get off it.

scrappers solo av's just fine. if they want, scrappers can solo spawns of tough mobs just fine. you can have brute hp when brutes get the same values as scrappers on soul drain and against all odds.

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You're invariably ignoring other facets of both AT's.

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Just like those ignoring brute damage output variability pointing to the necessity of higher hitpoints.

It's fascinating to me that the arguments for and against some unfair brute advantage are being shown to have the same kind of overall fairness in their logical holes that I see present between the two ATs.

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At what fury% do brutes do inferior damage to scrappers to justify the survivability advantage, and how often is the average brute playing at that fury%? And even when they are there, I guess when they are resting or the player is afk, they still maintain advantages in survivability and aggro controls. Then add to that, the fact that brutes have the ability to do better damage, have better survivability and possess better aggro control abilities.

What variable am I missing? What 'facet' of the at's am I missing? Yes, in some circumstances (perhaps when the brute is in a coma or mapserving), the scrapper will outdamage a brute commensurate with the inherent survivability advantage brutes have over scrappers, but in those instances, you have parity, because one at is the superior damage dealer, while the other is better at surviving damage damage and controlling aggro. The disparity comes into play when the brute can surpass the scrapper at all of the above, while the scrapper cannot do the same.

And as I've said several times, I don't think the disparity is huge or game breaking, but it's clearly there. Unless someone can point out this 'facet' I'm missing. Do scrappers have a nicer scent or something?

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you dont actually have a brute. i can tell.

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i've found it reasonably simple to maintain approx 50-90% fury even in the most laid back teams, although at times it's also like being a large dog on a strong leash dragging along the rest of the team with or without their consent.

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This. The whole 'you gotta work for fury' argument doesn't seem to fly, at least for me. I never 'try' for fury, I just hit my attacks and the enemies attack me and it seems to happen automatically. And the same thing happens when I play a scrapper - I hit my attacks and get attacked, but with lower survivability and no fury bonus. And like you say, on even slow moving teams, my fury is routinely at 30-40% minimum.

And the 'at times it feels like I'm dragging the team along' idea is true on scrappers as well, but with a brutes it's a hell of a lot easier with better survivability.


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as a scrapper i have different priorities than as a brute/tank. i'm not likely to be the alpha soaker or the agro holder except accidentally or incidentally depending on the circumstances.

/2inf

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Of course as a scrapper you have different priorities, because at 70-75% fury (which you yourself say is easy to maintain even on a slow team), the brute does everything better than your scrapper - it does more damage, withstands more damage and handles aggro better. So why would a team pick a scrapper over a brute all things being equal? What is a scrapper providing for a team that a brute cannot do as well or better?

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yes yes once you have the fury built it stays.

or does it?

if you are a build that has endless endurance and health - damned straight. this is why for the majority of your gaming, /wp brutes are insane.

but i think people are forgetting brutes dont get conserve power. MOST brute builds can starve for end until they are io'd out. therefore any time spent waiting for that end bar to tick is fury lost. and it's a LOT of fury.

and lets not even get started on cave missions.

no - there is variability there. before 40 and before you have yoru defense and offense sorted out AND have yoru recovery/regen sorted out the variability is pretty huge.

only people who havent actually played a brute other than /wp or dm say otherwise.

was doing good ole JoJo AE on my fire/kin. had an ss/sd brute tanking. he did a great job.

he didnt need all that much healing really. he had severe end problems though (i didnt look at his build but he had a few io sets) but was rocking the footstomp something fierce. he wasnt untouchable by any means - once those dual bladers start hitting an /sd brute with those ablating strikes they continue to hit the same brute unless that brute IS already io'd the hell out - and when tyrant spawned it was touch and go. but he did ok

/sd is simply not inexpensive to cap out both it's positional defense and it's defdebuff resistance.

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ok, real fast before I get in the shower.

In the interest of conserving endurance I am taking a close look at GFS. I'm sure I must be doing something wrong but it looks like GFS DPS is less than Incinerates? For so much more endurance per attack? In fact it looks like I can remove it, move the Hecatombs to Incinerate and add Fire Breath for concept and two AoE attacks. Then I could just run Inc>Cr>FS for less end and I think even more DPS?

Is that right?

That can't be right.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Cyber Black: Level 50 Magic Brute
Primary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Fighting

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Fire Sword -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(3), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(3), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Hectmb-Dam%(7)
Level 1: Focused Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(7), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(9), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(9)
Level 2: Cremate -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(11), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(11), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Mako-Dam%(15)
Level 4: Focused Senses -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(15), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(17), RedFtn-EndRdx(17), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(19)
Level 6: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(19), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(21), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(21), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(31), GSFC-Build%(33)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 10: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 12: Agile -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Ksmt-ToHit+(27)
Level 14: Practiced Brawler -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(31), Numna-Heal(34), Mrcl-Rcvry+(34), Mrcl-Heal(37), RgnTis-Regen+(43)
Level 18: Incinerate -- Hectmb-Dmg(A), Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(31), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(39), Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(39), T'Death-Dam%(40)
Level 20: Aid Other -- Empty(A)
Level 22: Aid Self -- Mrcl-Heal(A), Mrcl-Heal/EndRdx(23), Mrcl-Heal/Rchg(23), Mrcl-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(29), IntRdx-I(29)
Level 24: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(A), P'Shift-EndMod(25), P'Shift-End%(25), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(27)
Level 26: Fire Sword Circle -- Armgdn-Dmg(A), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(36), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(42), Armgdn-Dmg/EndRdx(42)
Level 28: Dodge -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(43)
Level 30: Evasion -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(34), RedFtn-EndRdx(36), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(36), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 32: Breath of Fire -- Ragnrk-Dmg(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(33), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(37), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(39)
Level 35: Super Jump -- ULeap-Stlth(A)
Level 38: Boxing -- Amaze-Stun(A), Amaze-Stun/Rchg(40), Amaze-Acc/Stun/Rchg(40), Amaze-Acc/Rchg(50), Amaze-EndRdx/Stun(50)
Level 41: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ImpArm-ResDam(43), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(45), ImpArm-EndRdx/Rchg(45), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(46), Empty(48)
Level 44: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(A), RedFtn-Def(46), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(46), RedFtn-EndRdx(48), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 47: Quickness -- Run-I(A)
Level 49: Lucky -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury



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[/ QUOTE ]

is it?

how long does incinerate take to finish all 10 ticks vs. the 5 ticks of gfs?

what happens if you refresh incinerate before the ticks have finished ticking? second set of ticks or do they overwrite? if they overwrite, that's a net loss of dmg per end used

edit: cod says 4.6 seconds for incinerates full ticks. so long as your recharge doesnt go below that IF the dot overwrites instead of adding a second ticking dot should be good i would think. this is of course assuming you are hitting incinerate as soon as it's recharged.

fury is a love/hate relationship. solo? love it. teamed with a dom or people who love to knockback (read: plethora of storm mm's who dont realize it's the worst thing they could have given to that particular at) hate it.

red side has the best laid out zones though. far FAR less walking around than blue side.

and scrappers get stone melee when brutes get katana and broadsword with parry and divine avalanche intact imo.

post your new fiery melee build

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The best is (IIRC) GFS, Incinerate, Cremate, and you need Hasten to make it work, but GFS, Incinerate, Cremate, Fire Sword is pretty close and doesn't require Hasten.

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and gloom!!

gloom really is all that AND the bag of chips

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Why is it that when a task is presented that requires a minimum of forethought, it's declared "impossible" and too hard?

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For me forethought has nothing to do with difficulty. My first Villain was a stalker, the times I'm on a team I'm always a step ahead and have my first target of a spawn picked out just as the team is finishing off the previous one. In the case of the LRSF I think the difficulty is too high because in my experience a balanced team can't always complete it. Note:4 corrs is not a balanced team to me.

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Pentad? As in just 5 players? Or a team of 8 that features 1 of each AT and 3 additional players?

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Team of 8 that features 1 of each AT.

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Just because I'm curious, these two things don't seem to be necessarily mutually exclusive.

Brute
Stalker
Dom
MM
Corr
Corr
Corr
Corr

...would be a pentad and have 4 Corr's. Remove an MM from that, for computer reasons, and one could, in theory, have 2 Brutes, 4 Corr, 1 Dom, 1 Stalker. Sub any of those for a VEAT, and that'll help too.

Also, I would fill those extra spots with Corruptors before anything else. Similarly, if I have decent damage on an STF, I'm looking for more Defenders/Controllers before anything else. Giving everyone on a team more survivability through buffs or debuffs is an extremely valuable weapon.

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and what if that brute - the only brute willing to go - was /fire or /elec