Siolfir

I agree with most of this, especially in the last paragraph - those longer-duration +damage buffs really make a difference in damage over time and that's where most of my issues occur regarding single-target damage.

Yes, Assassination helps you from hidden status - which on single targets should be AS, since it's the highest DPA available with the guaranteed critical - but after that it varies by set and situation: the Assassin's Strike powers are interruptible and often the only attack that increases enough in DPA to make the animation for Placate not a net loss in damage. But it can make the damage comparable for most single-target fights, if you assume that you'll always have the time to rehide between spawns.

But even then, you're quibbling about possibly doing roughly similar single-target damage over time as an AT that has more base hit points and a higher cap - let alone the comparison with Brutes, who also tend to do more damage over time than Stalkers.

Not counting criticals, yes. But Scrappers get criticals.

I actually keep forgetting that the cap was lowered to 775% (ie, +675%) instead of 675% with the Fury changes - in large part because I haven't played much and rarely play at the damage cap on Brutes. I thought that they were nerfed more than they were, and it's caused me to mess up in a few posts about it*.

What that means is that at their respective damage caps, a Brute will actually outdamage a Blaster using the same attack (not that they're often going to be using the same attack). A Scrapper will end up doing more damage over time due to criticals.

Math is pretty simple for it if you assume the same attacks are used - you just multiply the AT damage scale by their respective cap to normalize it, and account for criticals or extra damage:
Brute (old cap): 0.75 modifier * 8.50 capped damage = 6.375 "normalized" scale damage
Brute (current cap): 0.75 modifier * 7.75 capped damage = 5.8125 "normalized" scale damage
Blaster (ranged): 1.125 modifier * 5 capped damage = 5.625
Blaster (melee): 1.0 modifier, 5 capped damage... *thinks really hard*...
Scrapper (5% critical rate): 1.125 modifier * 5 capped damage * 1.05 critical rate = 5.90625
Scrapper (10% critical rate): 6.1875 (same as above with 1.1 instead of 1.05)

Note that even at the lower 5% critical rate, Scrappers still exceed the Brute's normalized damage over time. Since this is due to criticals, however, on any given attack the Brute may do more damage while both are capped. Because Blasters don't have a critical to exceed their damage cap, they don't hit as hard with the same attack as a Brute when both ATs are capped - even on ranged attacks where their damage scale is higher.

It has been suggested before about raising the Blaster damage cap...






* - specifically, I thought Brutes were lowered to 675% total because that would put them below more than just Scrappers, instead of currently where their capped damage is in second place barring extenuating circumstances with Stalkers and whether or not their team is large enough and their teammates are within 30' of them.

And single target, unless you're talking about short time window burst.

They're a lot closer there than with the AoE numbers for most sets, though.

The rating system is accurate for Khelds, though - everything is "?" which indicates that they have no idea what they're supposed to do.

Fair enough.

So a Brute at the damage cap can outdamage a Blaster at the damage cap when using the same attack. They still do less damage than Scrappers at the damage cap, and there is far more that is incorrect in your original post than comparing completely capped performance across all ATs.

<edit to remove what I really think>

It's really, really basic math. For the same attack:
1.125 * 5 (damage cap for Blaster/Scrapper) = 5.625
0.75 * 6.75 (damage cap for Brute) = 5.0625

5.625 > 5.0625

Note that even when ignoring criticals, a damage capped Brute does less damage than a damage capped Scrapper or Blaster.

Admittedly, my PB is running on only SOs - but she has endurance issues and Conserve Power doesn't cycle enough to stop all of them. The WS, who has moderate but not heavy IO investment, doesn't have endurance problems as long as I can keep a few corpses handy.

Sure, "just turn off the toggles" works. But that's what they already do right now, and then I'm stuck turning them back on again - with the corresponding animation time nuisance - when I swap back. I'd actually prefer that they turn themselves off if I'm going to have to turn them off, because then I don't have to swap trays and there's not enough characters left to do it in the bind.

That's why I mentioned it.

While it is true that -Resistance is resisted, it is not specially resisted by AVs like many other debuffs are. Because it's resisted by the mob's damage resistance to those specific types, it works out to a simple multiplier on damage: a 30% resistance debuff means you take the damage you'd have done before, and multiply by 1.3.

VEATs, taking a typical build and not cherry-picking a good Tanker and a gimped VEAT, do more damage than Tankers. Even when Bruising is accounted for. They also are typically going to do more damage than a Kheld at high level, although order of powers gives the Kheld an early advantage.

A Kinetic causes a Scrapper or Blaster to pull far away from a Brute and never look back. It's only close when solo for Scrappers without persistent damage buffs because Fury is fairly easy to maintain, and damage buffs favor the other ATs far more than they do Brutes.

The secondary on a Defender should be oriented towards blasting the [censored] out of the mobs rather than acting like a [censored]. You have a blast set, use it.

Stalkers aren't even the ultimate melee damage AT, and are generally far too single-target focused for the AoE damage nature of much of the game's content. Even against hard targets, other ATs outshine them and their ability to one-shot minions and non-resistant lieutenants is completely wasted because the control ATs can just as easily remove them from the fight while AoE damage drops them.

One misconception is that Corruptors do significantly more damage than Defenders, though. Assume 95% damage slotting and firing an identical attack chain, the numbers work out like so:
Defender: 0.65 * (1.0 base damage + 0.95 slotting + 0.30 solo vigilance buff) = 1.4625
Corruptor: 0.75 * (1.0 base damage + 0.95 slotting) = 1.4625

Scourge adds some damage as well, but the amount is less than the 17% you're giving it credit for - there was a thread about quantifying it, and based on what you're facing it was usually between 5-11% extra with extra benefit against AVs and the like due to the huge hp pool. In any case, you have to reduce the mob below 50% of their hit points before Scourge does anything, so if a Defender wouldn't be able to kill it eventually, neither would a Corruptor - the Corruptor would just get to the finish line first.

Base hp, not max. The "survivability" of 75% resistance and 1605.5 maxhp is shared across Blasters, Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders, Dominators, Masterminds, and Stalkers - defense softcap is far more relevant than hard cap, so I don't remember the defense hardcaps and the defense softcap is the same for all ATs because it's based on the mobs you're fighting. Out of those ATs, the most survivable at those caps would be the MM due to bodyguard mode.

Okay, I laughed. But really, they can't be emo: they're wearing too much white!

Toggle suppression instead of detoggling would be very nice, but one of the issues with that solution that has been brought up before is the endurance cost of the toggles. Perhaps increasing the +recovery in the forms - not enough to completely cover the cost, but enough to offset it some with common slotting - and then having non-offensive toggles suppress would be a way compromise and make this happen?

The higher base damage means that the +damage is nicer, but to maximize Fulcrum Shift for both parties and to use Transference and Transfusion, the Kin is up close to melee also. While they're going to do less damage, Brutes hold aggro better than Scrappers - making it safer for the squishy little Kin to help them both melt faces.

This.

/Fire over /Regen Brute due to the loads of extra damage.

No offense, but my Rad/Kin Corruptor stood side-by-side with a FM/FA Brute, finishing the fire ambush mission in about 2 minutes (with only 4 insps used).

The reason people frown on /ElA for Stalkers is because Hide works best when you're not being hit at all, as opposed to being hit for less when you're hit; of the other sets only Regen provides as little defense as Electric Armor until MoG.

Can it be built to be very survivable? Eh... somewhat. It's a lot easier to do with any other set, though.

Actually, no - Total Focus is.

Stalkers get those two powers in the order that Tankers do, so Energy Transfer is the tier 8 and Total Focus is the tier 9. The only AT Energy Transfer is the tier 9 on is Brutes.

Preaching to the choir.

I just am willing to concede that intelligently-used KB can be beneficial, despite the large majority of cases where I'd rather the person doorsit because it would waste less of the team's time than their insistence on using high KB powers that knock mobs in key groups or on defeat all missions out of the walls and prevent you from attacking them for long periods of time if someone doesn't happen to have Teleport Foe (or Starless Step, since this is a Kheld thread).

Edit: Also, the bolded, huge text in your quote about PBs having more AoE damage potential than Super Strength characters is true in the same manner that Stalkers do more damage than Brutes and Scrappers: if you cherry-pick the scenario and ignore all other possibilities. I can come up with a very poor Super Strength Tanker that only has Footstomp for AoE that will do less AoE damage than an average Nova form. >.>

There. This is quoting out of context.

KB can be good or bad. In most of my experience, when something requires forethought and attention to be good, but requires no thought and button mashing to be bad, you assume it's bad.

I've had too many mobs knocked into walls - and thus unattackable, occasionally requiring a petition to finish missions - to be shown otherwise. If you assume other people you team with are idiots, you don't want them to have KB and you can be happy to be proven wrong.

Which was part of why I suggested another single target attack a while back for Dwarf form. Sure, it's a band-aid, but increasing Dwarf single-target damage can't possibly hurt and gives a reason to take the form - a PBAoE that's only KD instead of KB without compromising all of your damage.

I'm guessing more, just because I figure that the first two weeks will be stability and unfinished bug fixes prior to releasing more things, whether they've already been tested or not.

I don't think it'll be much more, though. If I were putting a time frame on it, I'd say 4-6 weeks.

In any case, it's still delayed gratification - which doesn't work for a lot of people.

Which, given the much shorter durations (2-4 sec base with resistances shortening this) is functionally the same as removing out-of-hide criticals.

I think you answered your own question.

I highly recommend reading what I was quoting - it was talking about the Well, not Hamidon.