Katerinae

A full bar of Fury does result in a 200% damage buff. However, because of the way fury is generated with diminishing returns, it is very difficult to push Fury above 80 (160%dmg buff).

If a brute can maintain their Fury at 75+, then assuming both players are unbuffed by others, brutes can overall out-dps a scrapper. A scrapper's crits do hit hard, but a brute with high fury can dish dps out faster with noticeably more damage on all of their attacks (instead of infrequent crits). Running into low endurance or low health is the main thing causing a brute to let their Fury bar drop. Heavy use of inspirations prolongs these 'high fury' periods. But frankly, running into low health or endurance makes a scrapper stop too.

When in a group though... IF the brute is not the primary tank, a scrapper can surpass the brute's dps, as the brute lacks the mob aggro to generate high fury. If the group has fulcrum shift though, and both the brute and scrapper are buffed to their damage cap... then the brute will stand out as the higher dps character again, until level 50 when the scrapper's damage cap catches up.

At level 50, the 775% damage cap of brutes (with lower base damage on their attacks) and the 500% damage cap of scrappers (with somewhat higher base damage), is almost identical. For example Lightning Rod in electrical melee, at the damage cap for scrappers and brutes respectively, is within a couple damage points. I don't see reaching either of those caps without a Kin on your team though.

In most cases, brutes are noticeably more durable than scrappers. This depends greatly on the build though. Brutes can generally "tank" effectively, having gauntlet (built in taunt effects) in all of their attacks, and having an aggro aura in every secondary set. Some scrapper power sets do have an aggro aura though. And some aggro aura's seem stronger than others. For example Entropic Aura (energy aura set), has a very potent aggro effect, possibly due to the recharge debuff that is also in the power. Scrappers in general will have to work much harder to gain and hold aggro if they choose to attempt to tank though, and will (in most builds) find themselves less durable than a brute.

Honestly I think brutes are hard to beat. They're stronger in solo play, more durable, able to tank, and have more tools to pull mobs into melee range and keep them there to dish out dps. With a build that has plenty of endurance and a way of healing oneself, or heavy use of inspirations with very high damage output (keeps inspirations from kills coming faster), a brute can generally do more damage. 160% dmg buff from 80 Fury is going to provide noticeably more dps over time than a fairly infrequent chance to crit for double damage. You'd have to crit more than half the time to keep up.

example: 133 base damage, at 80 fury (+160%) = 345 dmg, vs. a scrapper's higher 200 base damage, which can crit to 400 base damage. Assuming a brute could maintain 80 fury, a scrapper would have to crit like 3/4ths of the time to keep up in dps.

After leveling 2 scrappers to 50 as a duo with my boyfriend who leveled the same power sets to 50, but his characters were brute versions... I observed that my overall dps was a little weaker, and I was definitely more squishy than my boyfriend's brute versions. And on teams, he could tank, while I was pretty much restricted to only melee dps, for lack of aggro holding capability. In incarnate content, our dps evened out as his brutes lost some fury to big teams, my scrappers reached their level-slanted dmg cap, and we both got damage buffed by a large number of support characters. But his brutes were still more durable.

I could see taking a scrapper for something that has a hard hitting first strike, like electrical melee/shield def. Or for a high recharge build where taking Shadow Meld in the soul mastery ancillary set would make you nigh invincible for 15s every 25s or so. And unless the brute is tanking, on an incarnate trial brute & scrapper dps evens out.

I'd say Brute looks better "in general". They're more durable in solo play, they can tank for a team, they can reach their damage cap of 775% while leveling up (scrappers are level limited in dmg cap and don't hit 500% until lvl50), and they seem to put out more damage than a scrapper once they are slotted to be durable enough to really fill up their Fury bar. Final DPS also depends on being tough enough to keep up an attack chain without fear of death, this favors brutes. In end-game incarnate content, they're a wash dps-wise, but brutes still have more base health and a 'much' higher health cap, and a higher resistance cap. But you really need to look at the detailed specifics of the exact power sets you're taking, and your playstyle preference. I don't think brutes are better "in every case"
...just in most cases.

I say this not as a brute fangirl, but more as someone who's realized that some of her many scrappers probably should have been brutes.

I think the game devs themselves must play Brutes and VEATs primarily, and never ever play Keldians.

Tanking with a MM is... "problematic" without status protection. With enough defense, and picking up pool powers like acrobatics, you can make it serviceable. But the lack of full spectrum status protection will be an issue against many mob types if you're trying to tank. I think that's the main reason you don't see it happen often. If you pick your content carefully, you can make it a non issue I suppose, but I prefer being able to play a role across all content if possible. Blaster-tanks would have the same drawback as MM's. Controllers can attempt to perma-Indomitable Will, or just depend on overwhelming CC for all but EB/AV's. Or illusion control can perma phantom army and get them to tank. But this is getting away from any useful reason to take Provoke.


Aside from scrappers (some of whom can tank rather effectively), there's one AT where Provoke really shines: VEATs, especially Crab-Tanks.

A properly built Crab-Tank can be "extremely" viable as a tank, in all possible tanking situations. You can build to tank level durability, and you have full status protection with a -KB IO. The difference in aggro management, is mainly that you lack gauntlet and a taunt aura. You can somewhat make up for this with large area high aoe-dps, you'll have weaker 'pull' but across a larger area than most tanks/brutes can muster. Best to go in early, and get your team to hold off for a few seconds (built correctly, you're indestructible anyway). Or if there's decent control in your group, you can leave for the next spawn while your team finishes off the current spawn, giving you ample time to set up aggro or corner pull. But you really need provoke in your tool set to 'help' manage team aggro as a crab-tank, and to spam in order to keep aggro when you're being out-dps'd in longer fights (ex: AV fights).

Frankly, the lack of range-debuff in provoke (same in brute's taunt) is not a bad thing for a crab, as the crab's ST and AoE are both just as strong at range. Mobs can sit at any distance they want, or up close all around me, as long as they're halfway clustered together, and aggro'd on me.

But then, as far as tanking goes, incarnate leagues (unless they are familiar with your tanking ability) will usually go with a tank archetype for the arch villains, just based on preconceived notions that they're more durable than my crab (often not the case). And in 8-person groups, a fairly wide variety of character types can pull off tanking vs. all but AV's. I have two controllers who can "tank" 8-man purple spawns just fine, a couple scrappers who can do it with strong heal support, and one controller who can go up against an AV solo (but maybe not hold aggro vs an AV in a group). So crab-tank is sadly only a part-time build, pulled out whenever a group needs a punching bag, or to do some farming on par with any X/fire brute. The rest of the time i play it as a mage-tank-spider-mastermind

It's not *that* hard to get to 59% def. with something like SR.

I mean, I have some (admittedly expensive looking) builds in ninjitsu or shield defense, which get to 59% defense in both ranged and melee.


The biggest problem I see in the incarnate content, is the auto-damage, that ignores defense, and ignores resistance. It's doubly frustrating on my stone-fire tank. I'll be tanking the final boss of some trial, and then *Boom*, me and everyone else in like 30ft has 1 (one) hit point left. The squishies, the toughies... all have 1hp... so if i am standing there in granite with a 3-4billion influence build, 45% defense, and 90% resistance... I take 3500 damage down to 1hp, while a troller on his first time in incarnates next to me, with SO's that have gone red, takes 1000 dmg to go down to 1hp... I don't get the scaling of it. It's just bloody annoying. And if your healer isn't quick on the draw, you can step on a thumbtack and then the main tank is dead.

I'm not saying it's not manageable, or doable, it's perfectly doable. it's just annoying.

/rant

but yeah, 59% isn't that hard to get to. well, it's expensive, and it will dictate your pool powers pretty strictly, but perfectly doable.

umm... So there are no level and rank accuracy modifiers anymore?

Example 1: a same level boss in paragon has a 50% chance To Hit, but a 1.30 accuracy modifier for being a boss.. which should give said boss a 65% final chance to hit (50 x 1.30acc).

Example 2: a +1 level minion, has a 50% chance To Hit, no rank accuracy modifier, but a 1.10 level accuracy modifier, and so should have an accuracy modified To Hit of 55% (50 x 1.10)

Example 3: a +2 level Lt. has a 50% chance To Hit, a 1.15 rank accuracy modifier, and a 1.2 level accuracy modifier, and so should have an accuracy modified To Hit of 67.5% (50 x 1.35) (combined 1.2 & 1.15)

for reference:
minions 1.0 acc
Lt's 1.15 acc
bosses 1.30 acc
AV/Hero 1.5 acc

+1level 1.1 acc
+2level 1.2 acc
+3level 1.3 acc
etc.

Is that no longer the case? Did they take out the level & rank accuracy modifiers which affect the final To Hit chance?

I haven't looked at the mechanics of acc & tohit for mobs in several years, but I used to examine it pretty closely. Did they get rid of the acc modifiers? or change how the acc modifiers apply? (as in, after defense is applied, etc?)

ok, mutliple emails were of no help. I'm sure it depends on exactly who gets your emails, but whoever got mine didn't actually READ them very much, it was like having an in depth conversation with a broken record.

however, i did get everything fixed with one phone call.
I forget the name of the guy who helped me, but he was *really* good at customer service, better than 99% of customer service calls I have made to various companies in my lifetime.

the phone's auto-sorter said they didn't help with security issues, but i ignored that and pressed 1 for account related stuff. Ended up talking to a god amongst customer service employees, and everything's fixed in like 20min.

he even had a really cute voice. you know, manly-cute, not kitten-cute.

wow,

this ridiculous security implementation is still in place?
I honestly thought they'd fix this on their end by now, AND apologize to the customers for such a rotten customer experience...

I will go ahead and contact customer support I guess.

If I do get back in (I'm really not sure I will with all of the possible information answers I have and the me+spouse joint use of the account), then the first thing I am going to do, is change all of my user information to fake info, and write it all down to put in a safe place so I can use it next time my IP changes.

My rationale is that I really don't want the people who designed *this* security patch to have any more of my "real" personal info than is absolutely necessary, since they *really* don't have the foggiest idea how internet security works.

Wish me luck. I do hope that customer support is more realistic about fixing this than the sticky on the support page suggests. I'd like to stick around, and technically I could play right now since I've got auto-recurring payment. But if they don't fix my account access, I will have to get my credit card stop payment to ncsoft. Honestly that would really sadden me. But I can't rationalize allowing a company to keep pulling money out of my credit card without my control. That's not a workable business-customer relationship.


edit: if I do have to get my credit card to stop payments to ncsoft, will ncsoft's bouncing purchase requests create negative feedback on my credit rating? I never thought doing business with ncsoft might damage my credit, and through no fault of my own.

Well, it's been a while since I last checked.

I assume NC still has it's head up it's own 'secure' @$$ ?

or have they fixed this rubbish yet ?

And no, I haven't contacted customer support yet. I still can't think of a way to broach the subject with them without using the word "idiotic", probably many times. And I really don't want to give someone an ear-full over something which isn't their fault.

Also, call me some kind of dinosaur, but I'm at an age where I don't honestly remember what it's like to be asked for my hall pass, or to be expected to obediently submit to the every absurd whim of authority figures. I actually do kinda expect NCsoft to fix this on their end, without my jumping through hoops.

I'm not holding my breath though. When I eventually do feel like I can talk to customer support without telling them in detail that this whole thing is the stupidest thing I have ever had to put up with from any game company... I hope that they make fixing things a breeze. Because I know the credit card company has great customer service and is very easy to deal with for things like stop payments.

I guess my issue goes deeper than just the legally 'BS' situation of having my payment held hostage. It has something to do with simple respect for the customer. I'm not getting any sense of that in this mess. none.

Add to that the issue that this so called "security fix" is anything but secure. I mean, I (me, the suspected account thief) can log into my city of heroes account and sell everything right now if I wanted to... how the heck does that even make sense? And the (soon to be forced) move to a new patcher, which isn't working for some people. And the fact that I 'KNOW' I answered the security question correctly and that the problem is on NCsoft's end. I mean, after all these years, my IP is banned, because NCsoft screwed up. It's simply degraded my sense of confidence in NCsoft as a company. We're having this problem now, what other problems are in store for us? What about the guy on the previous page who's had to contact customer support 6 times now because he has a dynamic IP? How does any of these changes make even the slightest amount of sense? What kind of people can possibly approve business decisions like this? And if they're still running the asylum, do I even *want* to invest my time in games which they hold dominion over? If this is their idea of how internet security works, then do I want them to have on file a valid CC number with my name on it??

For sitting at the computer, frantically trying to think of what's entered incorrectly, while fighting with CAPTCHA at the same time... all so that I can just access my master account to BUY something... And getting my IP banned without warning. And being told on the support page that I need a ridiculous amount of information to fix it... Just the stress alone over this, p*sses me the F' off. And NCsoft should, at bear minimum, apologize for this garbage.

When you were little, and you had a toy. You might have let an older child play with it. But when you wanted to hold *your* toy again, imagine they refused, holding the toy over your head out of your reach, and saying that they didn't think it really was your toy, telling you to prove that it's yours. That's a frustrating experience. And it bears a lot in common with this so called security implementation. And once you did regain control over your toy, chances are, you wouldn't ever let that toy get within reach of that big kid again, right? That's the visceral emotional level sensation of this mess. I can't imagine a company creating a worse consumer experience if they tried.

This is not directed at the messenger, but dear messenger, please do pass this sentiment along to those to whom it pertains:

Today I logged into city of heroes, and in the launcher I saw that there was a new costume pack (I'm a sucker for these item mall things). So I go to my account to take a look at it, and in all likelihood buy it.

I log in like normal, and then... ok, there's a new security screen. God I hate these things, but whatever, it all looks like information that I know. So, I enter in the correct information. And then I eye the CAPTCHA icon with disgust... perhaps I'm an oddball, but I find that thing to be nearly unintelligible (and the audio version is actually worse). So, realizing there may be a lockout, I take my time and make very certain that I have my captcha letters entered correctly. I submit...

Wait, wrong information? Ok, I'll try this captcha thing again here... re-enter all my information, be super careful with the captcha letters... submit

And ...wrong again? So I try yet a 3rd time to get this stupid captcha thing right, on my 3rd try I am absolutely certain I got it right... so I submit...

Wrong again. What? How? Ok, maybe there's something wrong with my secret question info? I look carefully at the question... It's not asking for a mother's maiden name or a pet's name, it's a custom question which I recognize as one of my own. I know what the question is, and what it is asking for, and it's deliberately cryptic, yet surprisingly simple. I *KNOW* the answer, but... it's not working. Is there an extra space in there? A capital letter I'm getting wrong? I don't know. So I try a slight variation on my answer... and fight with the captcha thing again.

Yes, it fails. So, I try another slight variation, fight with the captcha thing...

failed again. and now I'm locked out of my NCsoft master account.

Mind you, I am IN CITY OF HEROES, STANDING AT WENTWORTH's, but I am apparently not me, and cannot access my master account. I know what my secret question is asking for, and I have no idea why it's refusing my answer.

OK, fine... I'll go through the customer support nightmare...

Not being the dullest crayon in the box, I check the stickies and such at the support page before trying to contact support. And I find this:
__
Subject:
I know my NCsoft master account password but cannot answer hint questions in order to authorize my location.

Question:
Here is my account information:
NCsoft master account name: ENTER ACCOUNT NAME HERE
First and last name: ENTER FIRST AND LAST NAME HERE
Physical Address: ENTER POSTAL MAILING ADDRESS (not e-mail address) HERE
Date of birth: ENTER DATE OF BIRTH HERE
Serial codes/access keys: ENTER CODES/KEYS HERE
Unique Account ID(s): ENTER UNIQUE ACCOUNT ID(s) HERE
__

I read it.
Then I read it again.
Then I took a deep breath, went and got myself a glass of water, and read it a third time.

- master account name: no problem

- first and last name: not sure actually, whether it was myself or my spouse who set it up originally, i mean this was like 6 years ago... but hey, i can put both names, right?

- physical address: what on earth? I didn't think that NCsoft even had that on file... well I guess they do in their credit card validating information, but if I never selected the option for NCsoft to save that information, then how would they have it? Again, I have two possible answers, an actual address or a PO box, no idea which, maybe I can just list both?

- date of birth: I'm pretty sure I know this one... however, your date of birth is actually a huge security risk, it can be used with other information to generate your social security number, and it is strongly advised that you do not put that information on the internet. So it's possible that I put in a fictitious date of birth... or maybe not... I did mention this was 6 years ago right? I typically only use one fake date of birth though... so again, can I list 2 answers?

- security codes/access keys: I used to be one of those people who saved all of their boxes, receipts, etc. But I've gotten hip to this whole digital age, and I don't actually have my original box with my 25 digit CD Key... for city of heroes, or aion (got that on steam?), or guild wars (haven't played that in years, don't care), and all of the expansions, content packs, etc? That's a list of codes as long as my arm, many of which I never saw the actual code for (online purchased packs don't show them)... But it's no big deal, I can download the patcher/client from nc soft if I build myself a new computer, and I know the account name & password for both the game and the master account, and all my codes are stored happily in there... right? That's how I've been using NCsoft games for YEARS NOW. So frankly, on the issue of access keys, I have no F'ing idea.


ADD to this experience, the fact that I have a dynamic IP address. And NCsoft has gotten some kind of idiotic notion that an IP address is a real place that never changes. So if this security system stays in place, I will likely have to go through this process over, and over, and over, and over, and over, every time my ISP feels like rolling my IP addy to a new one.

*Deep breath*

I have not called customer support yet, because I don't trust myself to avoid biting the head off of whoever answers the phone right now.

I have played city of heroes for a long time. I love the game, I truly do. I have the 57 month badge, I'm not sure how long exactly I've been playing, but somewhere between 57 and 60 months. I "frequently" brag about the design & interface ideas that went into city of heroes, on other sites, even other game sites, and frequently encourage old CoX players to come back and check the game out again, as it's changed a lot over the years. city of heroes is my favorite mmo, ever. And even when I don't play it regularly, I keep the account open, and funnel $30/month into NCsoft coffers.

I am not speaking as a disgruntled kid who is mad because their character class got nerfed or something. I'm speaking as a very loyal paying customer who feels as though they've had their account hijacked BY NCsoft.

I'm playing the game, right now. I am looking at the automated emails from ncsoft about how I'm not really me, in my email inbox, right now. I know the full 16 digits of that credit card which they only show the last 4 digits of, and the security code on the back. But I can't access my master account because: my secret question is messed up somehow, and my IP address is now banned.

And, all I wanted to do, was purchase the the new beast pack.

ARE YOU F'ING KIDDING ME?

I don't have all of the information they're asking for. Sure I can play the game, but if I can't access my own account, then we're not actually having commerce, they're taking my automated payments, and I have no method of adjusting that, except to call my credit card company and tell them to block payment to NCsoft because they are charging my account fraudulently.

And ultimately, what kind of security are we getting for all of this? A second password, really? That and an exercise in frustration with that stupid CAPTCHA thing, and possibly more calls to customer support, every time my IP changes?

This isn't a 'difficult implementation'.
This isn't a 'rough patch'
This isn't a 'need to iron out some bugs'
This isn't a 'hiccup'

This is completely and totally f'd up from concept to implementation. This security implementation is absolute hogwash. My grandmother could implement a security fix better than this, and she's been dead for 15 years.

At my place of work, a screw-up of this magnitude would result in someone being fired. That's not an exaggeration simply because I'm upset, it's the truth. NCsoft as a corporation has 2 (TWO) simple ultimate goals as a company. To retain customers, and entice new ones, to make money. This security implementation does more to harm those basic goals than if someone deliberately set fire to the ncsoft offices. There will be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of legitimate players, who will be locked out and not have the information they need to get back in. This is a mistake which will deeply affect NCsoft as a viable game company, affecting profits in the short term as people's only means of adjusting accounts is now to blacklist ncsoft at their bank. And affecting long term customer loyalty in the most horrid ways. As corporate mistakes go, this is not an "Oh, did we make an oopsie?". This is a "dear god, what were you thinking!?? clean out your desk! Now!"

god, do you people (ncsoft) even realize that if enough people have to stop payment through their credit card or bank instead of their game account, that financial institutions will start blacklisting NCsoft as a fraudulent corporation?

So yeah, another line of thought... NCsoft makes it difficult to get into your account management on the exact same day that Rift launches... I want to think that's a coincidence. I really do. I sincerely hope that this isn't what they were thinking when they created this mess. Because trying to handcuff people to their game subscriptions will cause people to call their financial institution and stop payment, and never 'ever' buy from ncsoft again. I'd really like to think that this is JUST the stupidest security implementation I have seen in 25 years of computing, and not something more deliberately calculating..

In theory, the customer support line is open right now. But I'm not going to call for two reasons. One, I simply do not have all of the information they apparently will want to have. And two, even though I'm known for having a calm demeanor and a cool head, I don't think I could speak with customer support right now and remain civil.

Honestly I don't know if I will ever call customer support. This security debacle is a such a complete mess, I am really truly tempted to just bail out on NCsoft entirely. This isn't a "omg i got killed in the pvp zone too much, i are nerf, make me better or i quitz!". This is a loyal, long term, calm, adult, ncsoft-friendly consumer, who has been a practical recruiter for ncsoft games, especially city of heroes. And I'm really really unhappy.

I'm going to go away now, and check back in a few days, or weeks. I have way too much stress in my actual life right now to be dealing with this kind of BS in what is supposed to be my escape from the stresses of real life.

NCsoft you need to fix this. "you"
Or I need to stop paying $30 a month for games, since I'm not me after all..

you can slot up to 6, if your power can find that many procs to slot.

on any power which toggles on, or has a lingering damage over time effect, the IO's have a chance to proc once every 10.5 seconds.

The procs *can* be useful, particularly if your power covers a relatively large area of effect (large number of mobs). For example, on two of my controllers, I have freezing rain 5 slotted with a positron's blast set (including the dmg proc, and skipping the pure dmg IO) for the 6.25% hasten bonus, and 1 slotted with either the slow set or the defdebuff set dmg proc. So that's 2(procs)x20% chance to proc 72 dmg to all mobs in the area of effect, every 10.5 seconds. which amounts to 3 chances to proc before the freezing rain patch goes away. Which is 3(procs over time)x2(io procs)x20%(chance each) 3x2x.20 = 1.20 or a 120% chance of doing 71.75 damage. If we calculate that a la mid's style, that's an average of 86.1 dmg per mob in the area (assuming all mobs survive that long). Nothing to write home about, but it's "free" damage, since I'm casting FR primarily for the defense & resistance debuffs, and secondarily for the knock-up effect, the extra damage is just icing on a character which is otherwise a bit lacking in the dmg department.

My boyfriend has a spines scrapper which does an amazing amount of IO proc damage, I think he has 3 procs in two different aoe toggles, for a total of 6 IO dmg procs trying to hit every mob around him every ten seconds. It can add up.

Usually though, as a rule of thumb, damage procs only perform well on large area of effect powers which can be used frequently. An example of a power which could reap a very high return for the dmg proc slot would be Fire Cages from the fire control set. with high recharge you can spam that every 3 seconds or so, and it has a 30ft radius. Giving you a lot of dmg proc chances. In all likelihood, each fire cages attack will proc on 1-2 mobs for a 72-144 dps bonus per cast. Also, fire cages base damage is only 10 per mob, so slotting it with damage enhancements results in far less total dps than slotting it with dmg procs. Ergo, i slot fire cages for assorted acc,rech,&end and 2 dmg procs, and have a 'spam-able' large area aoe that imobilizes & does about 40dmg on average per mob. It's a quick 1 second cast that I spam in-between almost all my other attacks, keeping mobs 'very' imobilized, doing an extra 40 dmg each (average over time), and holding them firmly on my bonfire (which also has 2 dmg procs in it, which can go off up to 4 times per mob before the bonfire times out).

In single target attacks dmg procs are "nearly" useless.
They are only attractive if you're trying to build up to a set bonus. For example, with Hetacomb (single target melee purple set), the set has "too much" damage in it, and actually performs best by skipping the pure dmg IO, slotting all 4 of the mixed IO's (like dmg/rech, dmg/end, acc/dmg, etc.) and slotting the chance of dmg proc to get the 5slot hasten bonus. Note that the purple dmg proc gives an average of 35.3397dmg per attack (107.09dmgx33%chance), which is more than the 53% dmg bonus which the pure dmg IO gives because it is going deep into diminishing returns.
example: lvl 50 incinerate in fire melee on a scrapper is 347.29dmg 5slotted with the dmg IO and the 4 mixed IO's, and it 'averages' 362.09dmg with the dmg proc IO and the 4 mixed IO's. 6 slotted with all of them you could get it to 382.63dmg, but I generally do not value the 6 slot set bonus on most purple sets. You'd get the same total damage over time by slotting 5 hetacombs (skipping the pure dmg one) and 1slotting a dmg/recharge IO from another set (which wouldn't struggle so deep into diminishing returns), and you'd save a smooth 100million influence, and lose only the 5% resistance to toxic bonus.

In many cone powers, extra range will net you more benefit than a dmg proc. and in any powers which have substantial damage of their own, more recharge will net you more benefit than a proc.

also, they do the same damage regardless of level, so on a 'lowbie' a dmg proc can seem a lot more impressive. At 50, they're sometimes useful to slot, and sometimes useless to slot, but never 'impressive'.

hmmm, well, I doubt it will happen, but if we're dreaming, I say dream BIG!

so what I dream of for issue 20, is to be able to recolor and/or eliminate the flaming yellow pom-poms from the (all builds mandatory) power Hasten.

Then people could use the fist auras ...and SEE THEM! *gasp*

/sarcasm

mass hypnosis is your solo opener. it sets up containment for terrify, and sleeping a spawn reduces your exposure to retaliation when you use your total domination or mass confusion. anytime you use mass confusion to debuff a spawn, you should hit them with mass hypnosis to get containment and reduce the amount of damage the mobs do to each other, and then terrify to hurt them bad.

terrify is your number 1 dps power, it deserves 6 slots.

when you hit 32, get mass confusion. with hasten and some recharge bonus going, you can alternate using total domination and mass confusion on every other spawn. I have my purpled out controller down to 70s recharge on both of those, so every 35s i can make a whole mob spawn impotent. even without set bonuses though, you can get that under a minute.

for now, i'm afraid that you might have to level up using a lot of single target work. Terrify is wonderful, but it doesn't quite finish the mobs off by itself, and it has a cooldown timer...
for solo or small group play, when you get to your epic pools, make SURE you get a solid aoe dps attack. i use ice storm currently, since with my recharge i can have it up every battle. But any of the aoe dps attacks will do. Once you have this, then you can go to town with solo aoe work, bundling terrify with another aoe dps, and then using single target work to mop up the survivors.

note: bosses have mag 3 status protection, so you'll need 2 holds or 2 confuses stacked on them to hold them/confuse them. Usually I just worry about murdering the main bulk of the spawn first, then hold down the bosses. I realize that's backwards from how some play it. You can confuse a boss and then use mass confusion on the spawn, and then mass hypnosis, and then terrify... and not draw their notice until you terrify. with total domination, you can use dominate 'after' it reasonably safely, but i like to start dps'ing right away after the hold, and dominate the boss after i get those 2 aoe dps attacks off. also, rikti are kinda psi resistant, not your best mob choice. and Nemesis seem to have recently gained a tremendous resistance to confuse effects, so avoid them too.

you can also try stealthing really hard missions for xp, and with confuse & mass confusion there's very little you can't solo if you take your time and avoid direct confrontation until you've softened up your targets thoroughly. i solo'd the baby new year mission on invincible over & over with my mind/storm with no risk to speak of. though I did use a lot of storm's knockback on the elite boss, for extra dps, and just in case my levitate spam missed a shot. I didn't do it 'fast', but it wasn't dangerous if I took my time. Oh, be aware of levitate's knock up effect, it can be spammed to keep a boss permanently disabled, but you have to watch the timing of it. Don't hit it again until they're fully on their feet again, or they'll lift up & down without 'falling', thus being able to return fire.

my boyfriend has a stone brute, he uses taunt constantly. he really goes all out as a tank-type brute, building rage mainly from aggro and aoe attacks. He's built right up to the resistance cap, like a granite tanker, and he's got ridiculous run speed and TP so he's not kinetics dependent. It's a tremendous help to a team facing really tough foes. really amazing toon.

but you won't be "expected" to play that way. (well if they see you in granite form, they might kinda expect it...) but generally if you build as a 'durable DPSer' no one will whine.

As others have said, none of the villain types are 'glass'. I think villains tend to be more 'self sufficient' in terms of their team roles. Which conceptually makes sense to me. My crab spider is a flying "ranged tank", staying out of melee reach and using ranged defense as a main stat. Heck even my Dark/Dark corruptor can tank well, with aoe tohit debuffs around 75% (58% before taking any alpha), and defense near the softcap. my fire/kin corruptor is a bit glass-like though, now that I think about it... Really though, my mind controller can tank for an 8man team just fine hero-side too. And any team will steamroll mobs with enough fulcrum shift/SB. I think on both sides of the fence, you really only feel the 'need' for a tank-type character when you face a really tough mob (archvillain/etc). Heroside, if you're a tanker, you are that guy and you have taunt (or you're doin it wrong). villainside, if you're a brute, you might be that guy, or you might not, as a matter of build choice/powerset.
they'll probably ask you to run in & take alpha damage either way though

I'd point out though, that if you like scrappers, there's several AT's to look at villainside. Brute's like you mention can be scrapper-like. But so can some stalkers, some dominators, and some VEATs. there's a lot of ways to run up & get melee-tastic with mobs villainside.

I'm not sure if this is "news" or not, but today when i logged out the patcher started downloading an 884mb patch.

that's "rather large". about 1/3 the size of the game itself.

again, I don't know if that's new information or not, or when they'll drop i17, but I feel pretty darn sure that this patch is a preload of i17. likely there will be at least one additional small patch which will tweak this 'bulk serving' of i17 goodness, perhaps more than one, and then they'll restart servers and launch it.

Which could be tomorrow, or a couple weeks from now. but i'm really excited to see it downloading


(( also... the HEAT's really lack slotting, it greatly limits them. I'd totally support giving HEATs like 5 extra slots or so to play with. Like maybe just start giving them 3 slots instead of 2 at a lower level than everybody else. I mean they come with randomly spawning racial enemies that effectively nerf them as tanks, and their group based buffs tend to make them more able to provide more of what the team 'least' needs. Plus many a PB will slowly drive an AoE focused team stark raving mad with poorly timed knockbacks. So the hero epic AT's really could use a little improvement IMO. I am a 4 year veteran, I've made a PB and a WS (and almost every other AT there is) and I have always been a little underwhelmed with the hero epics. I'm not saying they can't be played well, skill is a great equalizer of all things. But while they do have shapeshifting coolness, they just are not that impressive as AT's. They've been tweaked some, and the set bonuses for IO's helps them out some too, but in my opinion that just pulls them out of a bad state of affairs into a mediocre state of affairs.

VEAT's on the other hand... are drop dead sexy (in terms of their team effectiveness), some of them are perhaps even kinda overpowered in the group defense buff department. They almost make 'resistance' a poor mitigation choice for a team play villain.

Honestly though, I kinda prefer the traditional non epic AT's myself. I like to conceptualize from the ground up, on my own terms, in my own story-line. VEAT's make me feel a little guilty about the effectiveness i might be missing out on, by playing my own concept character instead of a VEAT i mean. HEAT's don't make me feel guilty.

Which isn't meant to troll PB's/WS's. I'm saying I really think you guys should get some more potency. Probably in the form of extra slots. I mean if you're going to be a jack of all trades, master of none, you should get enough slots to actually be a jack of all trades ...right? ))

Mind isn't underpowered. Not solo, not in groups. It's a wonderful control set, right up there with earth & plant. It's THE ideal control set for a team which is running without a tank or without a healer. It's also, in my opinion, one of the best control sets for helping a team survive when they get in way over their head. Mind's number 1 advantage is that you can control mobs without taking alpha damage, something none of the other control sets can claim. And anyone who doesn't like confuse on their team hasn't done the math in recent years. As for comparisons, my mind/storm can tackle a mixed 16 mob spawn of +2con (like an 8-man team spawn), solo, unless the mob type has some particularly annoying powers. Granted it does take a while, my damage output is lackluster, but I can do it safely. And except for fighting AV's (real av's, not the newer wimpy sort), she makes a tank entirely unneeded on a team. Although some skilled tank herding is always nice... but how often do you see skilled tank herding? not in a PUG anyway.

Terrify does as much damage as mesmerize or dominate, but it does it to up to 16 targets in a good sized cone. And unlike ancillary or secondary set powers, Terrify gets double damage from Containment. Slotted up with a posi-set and 1 recharge, it becomes a really nice attack power. It does have a fear effect, and granted, when on a team (or for that matter even if you yourself have something like freezing rain), the fear component doesn't actually *do* anything for you. I would be in favor of *replacing* the fear effect with a moderate -tohit debuff, since then it would offer consistent mitigation benefit on teams, or paired with AoE-DoT secondary powers. However, I don't feel it's broken at all. None of the other fear powers which include -tohit do any appreciable damage. Terrify actually hits pretty hard, and I kinda like it that way.

There are only 2 things which are really broken in the mind control set:
1) Telekinesis has been repeatedly nerfed due to its being overpowered in pvp, and sometimes just because of game mechanic changes, but now that it's pvp behavior has changed, all that is left is a fairly lackluster pve power. It's hitbox (the sticky bit that holds extra mobs) is a bit small, the endurance cost is way high, the repel effect used to work in a column, but now repels each mob radially from the caster, this causes excessive scattering (exasperated by the small sticky-hitbox), and it is limited to hit only 5 mobs, which is a huge weakness in anything but solo play... and in solo play you can't use it because the end cost makes you unable to do anything but run telekinesis really. Add to this the fact that numerous boss types will break out of this power (freakshow tanks seem especially good at this) which puts the power on it's overly-long cooldown, and releases the whole set of mobs you had so carefully cornered and spent a bazillion endurance on trying to hold. And of course if you don't target the bosses, then aoe damage will kill your anchor and ruin the hold anyway. It's a power which was once quite good, in skilled hands, but it's been nickle & dimed down to a pretty unimpressive power. I used to love it back when it worked better. It's just not all that impressive anymore, and I can't find any compelling reason to take it. Which is a pity, because it's one of the truly unique powers in the game. Unfortunately skill isn't enough to make the power good anymore. it needs a little Dev lovin. Especially since many of the limitations of the power were put in place to curb it's overpowered status in pvp... but now in pvp it's just a standard 4 second hold, and the pve version shouldn't need to keep suffering in my opinion. The two main aoe holds in the set are on a 240s cooldown (compare that to the 60 second cooldown on plant's confuse cone), so making telekinesis a bit of a better spot hold would not overbalance the set at all.

2) mass confusion & mass hypnosis have a bug where one can end up canceling the other. It's clearly a bug, these two powers don't work together correctly, and it makes using mass hypnosis to set up containment on confused mobs unnecessarily tricky. Considering confuse does not grant containment, and mind control has no imob, that's a pretty significant issue.

you guys whine too much. its a major issue with a lot of stuff to get sorted out right. I'm sure the dev's have had a long day. I say give them a big thank you for all their hard work today.

gonna go shoot things in a FPS while waiting for the floodgates to open and the MA building to turn into a lag festival

step 1: cast power boost

step 2: cast Mass Confusion, or Seeds of Confusion

then spam the MM with damaging holds or KB attacks.

it doesn't really seem fair does it?

if you liked this guide magic, i have a more up to date and somewhat longer one specifically on mind/storm.
Katerinae's Guide to Mind/Storm Control

I'm leveling a wolf up right now. i've tinkered with it extensively in mids, and I have several thoughts on variations on a theme, and you covered them all pretty much

I am leveling up with 2 other people, both of them dominators. So that's affecting my playstyle/powerchoices slightly.

I am currently thinking about a build with all of the toggles + pool maneuvers, recharge-mad slotting, a 6-pack of spider pets all heavily slotted (especially that +5% def. one ), and a venom/suppression/disruptorblast aoe chain. It looks like a lot of fun, perhaps kinda overpowered though, heh. If i go with combat jumping I'll end up with one open power but no spare slots for it, probably put frenzy or OM in there to play with those. Or if i go with hover to force the use of ranged attacks on me, I'll need the spot for fly. conceptually though, a jumping spider makes more sense than a flying one

and then I am thinking that I'll put a true hard core tanking build into my second spec, with tough & weave, perma-serum, and provoke. This build dropping a couple ranged attacks in favor of mele ones, sacrificing all toggles except TT:maneuvers, but retaining a full arsenal of pets. This to be used whenever facing an AV with my two dominator friends. I'll need a lot of green pills though, since neither of them have heals, unless you count the healing tree, which would help a bit.

have you taken a hard core tanking build up against an AV? on paper they look just as durable as most brutes (not granite, but most other types). Just wondering how they hold up against an AV in actual practice. also, have you or anyone else tried 'ranged tanking' an AV?

I didn't realize that the venom grenade gave 40% to toxic. since I tend towards recharge crazy builds, that'd end up being a sustained 80% -resist to toxic with stacking. 'wow', i guess bile spray really would be pretty uber on this. doesn't fit my character concept, but still, wow.

great guide by the way

PS- i'm assuming you favor Longfang over Burst because of a redraw? since burst has a quicker cast time in mids, and everything else seems equal. but that extra second could get eaten up by a redraw, and then again you'd have to redraw back out of the gun. I'm just speculating as to why you lean towards longfang over burst.
also, longfang is listed in mids as lethal damage, is this correct? I would have thought it should be energy.

It seems my dream of a mercs MM with a catgirl army, or a necro MM with barfing clown minions, will remain only a dream...

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That's a pretty good synopsis of what Storm brings to the mastermind table, and as you said, it's an awful lot!


I do disagree, of course, on your feelings on Gale. For a controller, particularly one with immobs, it is certainly less useful. But for everyone else, it comes in really handy as a compliment to Hurricane since the repel nerf several issues ago. Gale is great for knocking them over and sweeping them up with Hurricane. It is also a lot quicker for bunching people already near a wall together. It's also great in those times you need to help someone from far away. Not an every spawn power, but you have to take it anyway, and it's far more useful than most people give it credit for. The only real downside is its shoddy accuracy out of the box.



Ditto with Tornado. It's a power that is sorely underutilized in part because, without immobs, it doesn't fit into the "neat and tidy" way most people play. But it can come in awfully handy when you need it, and it does it with almost no cost of slots. I highly recommend it to any storm user. The uses of it are as big as your imagination. It makes a great corner puller for a tough boss, because you can drop it without line of sight. Sit back with your henchmen, a LS, freezing rain, and unleash tornado around the corner.


And tornado's damage is greatly underestimated. If you only use it on AV's, EB's, and those immune to knockback, it's still worth its power slot for the damage it can inflict. Great power!


That's kinda storm in a nutshell though, isn't it? Almost none of them need slots, although all of them benefit from them. All of the powers are useful, although you certainly don't need all of them. It's a fantastic set, and one I am happy to finally have for masterminds.

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gale is more useful than I let on. I often see people using it poorly though. my first 50 and most heavily played character is a mind/storm which has no imob. So I've had time to mess around with its uses as a knockback cone. Its a power people should approach minimalisticly though, adding it in as they figure out decent spot uses for it, not spamming it the best use of it IMO is to hover overhead, and gale straight down onto mobs, it knocks them flat without scattering them.

and yes, i do use it to help position mobs with hurricane. One correction though, I find that when mobs are knocked down, they become momentarily immune to the repel effect in hurricane, this apparent bug seriously hurts hurricane's ability to herd mobs up. Gale is still useful to help shove errant mobs into a dead end or corner or wall though.

I'm really quite unhappy with the hurricane nerf, its nigh impossible to use hurricane alone to push anything where you want to now. mobs run past your hurricane without much impediment, and then get randomly knocked back by it in directions you didn't want. although it works pretty decently if used with snowstorm to slow mobs down. at any rate, whether you move them much or not, its great to use as a debuff. the -tohit lasts for like 10 seconds so occassional nudging with the hurricane is enough to get the effect you want

tornado is great, didn't mean to imply otherwise its just something to be used carefully, and its not quite as great as i've seen some people suggest. I like it for av's eb's anything that's imobed, anything in tight quarters (like those zig-zag rooms in sewers or the office building rooms, anything with a door on it really). and ya it doesn't take much slotting, and its godly in pvp. just don't shoot yourself (or especially your team) in the foot with it. tornado does a LOT of damage on anything that isn't going to bounce around, because it spends all its time ticking off dmg in a steady stream instead of spending much of its time traveling to do 1 tick of damage on a mob that gets tossed.

also, not sure about the non-slotting potency. i always 6slot freezing rain, steamy mist, and lightning storm

oh, and a last thought on lightning storm, slot it up with tons of recharge in set-based IO's. it'll make happiness

"clicky clacks" made my whole week.
thanks for the thread
Kate