Sarrate

Claws/ and Spines/ are both mutually exclusive to /Shield; you cannot make those combinations in game.

[edit: Grammar and format fixing.]

As I was typing my response, that exact 'blurriness' came to mind. I'd say the effects of high Brute/Scrapper threat has a bigger impact on Tankers than a high damage Tanker has on Scrappers. When a Tanker out damages a Scrapper, it doesn't change how Scrappers operate. It doesn't effect their damage or playstyle; also, being out damaged in a team setting can be harder to see (it's not like CoX has damage meters or anything).

When a Brute/Scrapper out threats Tanks, however, it's very visible it forces them to alter their playstyle/build or settle for being a Bruising bot, invalidating their defensive focus.

[edit: Note: Having multiple Tankers can have the same effect for those not tanking... except the 'main tank' is already providing Bruising.]

Well, I see two problems going on:

1) The gap between "survivable" and "squishy" characters is gigantic. For example, an Invuln Tanker at the hp cap (ie: DP up) can soak a 20,000 damage attack and still have 42.8% of their hp left. A Blaster at the hp/res caps will go from full to 1hp on a 6,424 damage attack. Heck, a Scrapper can 'only' take 9,600. To make things even more complicated, some Tanker sets are squishier than others (like Ice, which doesn't have much inherent res). This makes trying to build encounters that are challenging to Tankers would just obliterate others, while making them dangerous to a Blaster would tickle Tankers. The auto-hit / unresistible damage is a way to make it more dangerous to everyone.

2) I'm starting to think that base values are becoming very devalued and caps are becoming more important. This is for two reasons. First, as we get stronger Incarnate Abilities (and new IO sets), out performance keeps going up. This could be damage (Musculature, Judgement, Lore) or resistance (PVP IO, Barrier, Cardiac), etc. Secondly, when CoX went from teams to leagues, they increased the availability of buffs. They increased that again with AoE buffs (which was good for QoL, don't get me wrong, I have a Kin).

I'll be honest, I keep looking at everything and can't help but think that Brutes have the best mix of damage, survivability, and utility (threat gen stronger than Tankers) of all the melee classes. Certain sets will be stronger on different ATs (like Shield on Scrappers), but in general, Brutes seem favored. This hurts because I can't divorce myself from thinking about balance, I keep seeing the writing on the wall for some of my characters. (It also gives me indecision on which characters I should play/focus on.)

Except for that nagging problem of Sting being melee and Flashing being PBAoE.

I want Titan Weapons... or at least more info about it so I know whether to keep looking forward to it or decide it's not for me. :\

I think this is a case of my frustration with CoH's threat system manifesting itself.

Thing is, I don't have a problem with a Scrapper having the ability to hold aggro over other squishier ATs. I don't even have an issue with Scrappers holding aggro over Brutes/Tankers if the Scrapper is making a special effort and the others aren't. As it is, however, it's come to the point I don't trust Tanker's inherent threat generation over Brutes/Scrappers - I consider Taunt mandatory (and if the Brute is Taunting as frequently, they'll beat the Tanker).

So, how does that play into RttC? Well, I assume Tankers who want to hold aggro are going to be using Taunt anyways, so RttC's duration gets washed out. For Brutes, again, it gets washed out by "GauntletLite" (and Taunt, if they use it). All that's left is Scrappers, whom I think should be weaker at threat generation than the other two ATs.

I wouldn't complain if its duration was increased by a few seconds just so that it wouldn't expire on itself, but because of how damn powerful Taunt effects are (1000x amplification per second), it doesn't really need to be much longer than that.


If it were me, I would have made taunt auras shorter duration than they are now, depending on ATs (to account for the threat mod and damage differential). Maybe 4-5s for a Scrapper, for example. That's long enough for a Scrapper to easily out threat squishy ATs, but short enough that they won't swamp Tanker threat.

Why not just swap them for Crushing Impact? You'd lose a hair of recharge (5%), but deal more damage and have better enhancement values with just 5 slots.

Kin Crash: 47.7% acc, 68.9% dmg, 47.7% end, 53% rech
C Impact: 68.9% acc, 97.49% dmg, 42.2% end, 68.9% rech (all but the dmg/end, with it 101.47% dmg, 68.9% end)

I was actually doing some calculations, and while double stacked Rage is amazing in short, discrete fights, it's less amazing for dps. It was coming out to be only about a 7.97% dmg buff over single Rage for a Brute.

Why? Two reasons:
1) Rage itself is a smaller boost to a Brute than it is a Tanker, so the crash is more of a penalty.
2) Rage's activation and crash are eating up a higher percentage of your active time.

Methodology:
DamagePotential = ((Enhancements + Fury + Rage) * DmgMod) * (DmgUptime) * (FreeActivationTime)

DmgUptime is basically non-debuff time. The extra second is to account for the 10% dmg period.

No Rage:
((1.95 + 1.5 + 0.0) * 0.75) = 2.5875

Single Rage:
((1.95 + 1.5 + 0.8) * 0.75) * (111 / 120) * ( (120-1.32)/120 ) = 2.916

Double Rage:
((1.95 + 1.5 + 1.6) * 0.75) * (51 / 60) * ( (60-1.32)/60 ) = 3.1485

Comparison:
3.1485 / 2.916 = 1.0797 ~= 7.97% more damage

The EA changes are removing the heal from ED (it's getting +def instead, like Ice/EA) and instead transforming CP to Energize (same as Elec Armor).

True, but keep in mind that since you slotted KB sets into Punch/Haymaker, that will make them to KB 30%/60% of the time (respectively). Fine for GMs/AVs/mobs with kb protection, but annoying as hell against anything else.

I think you're lowballing the difference between Tanker and Stalker survivability. Even ignoring the difference in defensive mods, Tankers have ~55.5% more hp than a Stalker (up to +maxhp% of 33%); when Tankers cap their hp, they have ~120% more hp than a Stalker. So a set like Ice Armor (again, with all other numbers the same) can have over double the survivability based off hp alone.

Start counting things like higher base values, the 90% resist cap (Fire, Elec, WP, Invuln, Shield), and Tankers can push even higher.

Another fun tid-bit, WP's Reconstruction heals ~600hp, so if used every 15s (>+300% rech) it amounts to 40 hp/sec. On a Tanker with +30% maxhp (just HPT) and 5 enemies in range, RttC is worth ~45.6 hp/sec. At the hp cap and saturated, it's worth ~102 hp/sec. That's on top of higher res, ability to hit 90% s/l, and higher maxhp.

Brute and Tanker Lightning Field has the standard 13.6s, while Scrapper version has none.

Keep in mind Grounded only works while on the ground and only provides knockback protection, not protection and resistance like other powers (ie: Unyielding, Practiced Brawler, etc). Protection keeps you on your feet until the mag is exceeded (rare, but possible). Knockback resistance (in all status protection powers that have it, afaik) reduces the incoming mag to 0, effectively making only unresistible knockbacks penetrate (even rarer).


[edit: Not saying this does/doesn't justify the taunt duration, just stating the facts of what Elec has.]

Nitpick: The brute damage cap is 675% over base or 775% of base.

ie:
BaseDamage * (1 + 6.75)
or
BaseDamage * 7.75

Combat Attributes shows the former, but don't forget the base 100%.

Darkest Night is fully resistible. The catch is that damage (and resistance) debuffs are resisted by the enemy's resistance, which makes them disproportionately stronger against AVs than things like tohit debuffs.


On a different note, slotting up Taunt helps a lot. I prefer 5-6 slotting it with Mocking Beratement or Perfect Zinger (depending on the set bonuses you're going for). An ED softcapped enhanced Taunt is a very powerful tool.

Nitpick:
A +4 mob resists 61% of the debuff (ie: it operates at 39% effectiveness). A +3 mob, resists 52% of the debuff (ie: it operates at 48% effectiveness).

I'm just guessing you were considering a lvl50(+1) player facing off against a lvl54 mob and accidentally mixed up 48% effectiveness with resisting 48% of the debuff.

Is that still an issue after the change to Fury? I thought Fury came far easier, these days (though it caps lower).

So, taunting is considered an attack, which is what auras like RttC does on a regular basis. Now, how are attacks calculated? In a different post, Castle writes:

The highlighted part is the key. If someone Taunts (or Confronts) an enemy, and their aura pulses on the enemy, the duration used isn't RttC's 1.25s, but Taunt/Confronts much longer one. (RttC also comes with a debuff, which is a threat multplier by itself.) This means that Brutes/Tankers have an advantage, since Taunt is AoE while Confront is single target. I'm not saying this from sheer academics, either. After adjusting my tactics, I rarely have issues holding aggro. If I do, it's likely a Shield Scrapper who got ahead of me. (AAO is silly strong, especially when combined with strong AoEs (like SC) and short fight times.)


[edit: I'm not exactly concerned that Scrappers are worse off in the taunt department with RttC. I don't think Scrappers (or Brutes) should be as strong at threat generation as Tankers.]

RIP old [code] flag.

Were you looking at his total damage number, or the itemized list? The reason I ask is the itemized listing of buffs/debuffs in power attributes is their unresisted value, while the final number accounts for resistances. For example, here are two examples of def debuffs against my WP Tanker:

Example 1
Example 2

Note the values under "Base Defense".


[edit: Ack, I didn't read your post clearly enough. Why isn't damage broken out? Good question.]

Two questions:
1) Were the costume parts organized any better?
2) Is there any better/quicker ways to select different costume parts (ie: mouse wheel support to scroll through the lists, assuming they're still lists)?

Note: Power Sink / Energy Drain return 25 end per target (base) while Energy Absorption returns 15 (base). Still a great power, but not quite as potent. Not that it's hard to saturate either as a Tanker, of course.

(One other nit pick, Power Sink has a 10ft radius while ED / EA have 12ft radii.)

On the plus side, those longer duration buffs/debuffs will keep their boosted strength for their entire duration.

Don't forget to factor in the Purple Patch. Against higher con enemies, the 1.25s duration gets reduced further.

Isn't Disintigration damaged based off your max hp? ie: The more hp you have, the harder it tics for. I've read the last tick is 99% max hp.

The damage cap caps +damage enhancement, not damage dealt. FE is (enhanceable) base damage built into all Brute/Scrapper/Tanker attacks (similar to how Gauntlet is baked into all Tanker powers) that is only applied when FE is [edit: active].

In other words, a power would be defined as:
100 damage
45 damage (if FE)

Which means with SOs:
195 damage
~88 damage (if FE)

When damage capped:
750 damage
~338 damage (if FE)

It obeys the damage cap, it's just extra base damage. After all, people don't say that Fire Melee / Spines dots avoid the damage cap. Same thing with FE damage.

Well, if they can't complete the TF, then they're not doing it fast or efficiently.

My point was that 'speed' and 'efficiency' are common goals in this (and most) game(s), not that everyone who attempts it reaches the same peaks as others.