TheNavigator

I set up a new test using a small AE map filled with normal Werewolf spawns to mimic a more 'normal' mission experience. Each variation was run twice with each toon at +0x8 with no inspirations, pets, vet attacks or temp powers used.

no Reactive, no Judgement = Brute was 23.8% faster
Reactive, no Judgement = Brute was 22.2% faster
Reactive and Judgement = Brute was 21.1% faster

So with the normal sized spawns Judgement wasn't able to be used nearly as efficiently as in an ambush map, and the Brute lost a little fury travelling between spawns. The result was much more consistent though, and likely models the difference in arresting effectiveness between the two toons more accurately than the other tests did.

I'm not sure what any of this data is actually worth in terms of comparing the ATs in general, but it was a fun comparison to run to satisfy my own curiosity.

Well, I ran it at +0x8 twice with each toon and the brute was able to clear the map 12.5% faster than the tank on average. I used Judgement for all the runs, but no inspirations, Lore pets or temp powers.

I did notice that even at +0x8 I had to be quick with Dull Pain or the occasional Destiny boost to keep the brute alive. I'd say the brute's ease-of-survival on this mission at +0x8 was roughly comparable to the tank at +4x8.

That would probably explain it.

I logged the brute and an Inv scrapper to test it on both of them and I wasn't able to replicate the bug, then I logged my tank back in and now I can't recreate it with him either.

Must've been temporary insanity.

Well, I was going to try for some survival tests, but it looks like Invincibility might be bugged at the moment (or the combat attributes display isn't giving the right numbers).

Yeah Super Strength is probably not the most generic set, and it would be a better test if both toons were optimized individually based on their own strengths and weaknesses within the sets rather than sharing an identical build, but I'm a sucker for concept

If I find myself utterly bored I might try to see at what point mission difficulty begins to allow the tank to pull ahead on completion time, based on not needing to take extraordinary efforts to survive (or get back from the hospital). I'd probably need to incorporate inspirations though, and that just sounds overly complicated for now.

I have an Inv/SS tank and SS/Inv brute with identical builds, right down to the last slot, IO and Accolade, so I decided to do a little head-to-head performance comparison.

The build I'm using on both is optimized for survival first and damage a close second. Both are 50+3 with Reactive Radial Flawless Interface, Ion Core Final Judgement and Cardiac Core Paragon Alpha. Lore and Destiny were not used during the test. Inspirations, vet attacks and temp powers were also not used. The build does not include Hasten and does not stack Rage.

I put each one through ten runs of a popular 'fire-based cyborg-themed' AE mission at +0x8 (no bosses), the first five without using Judgement and the last five with it included in the attack chain whenever it came up.

In the first five runs (no Judgement) I found that the brute was able to clear the main room an average of 22.4% faster than the tank. In the second five runs (with Judgement) I found that the brute was only 6.6% faster than the tank.

Over the course of the test the brute needed to use Dull Pain an average of 1.1 times per run (not in any real danger, but the slow trickle of damage was slightly beating his regeneration). The tank's health bar didn't move during any of the testing.

I wanted to have two comparisons, one with Judgement and one without, because that power makes such a huge difference in mob-clearing that it can significantly obscure AT differences. If I were to un-slot Interface on both the completion time gap would probably widen as well, but I doubt it would be nearly as dramatic and I got bored after 20 runs on the same map.

The identically-built toons are a concept project and I was curious about the actual difference in their real world BPC (Bad-guy Processing Capacity). I'm not posting the builds because I don't want to get bogged down discussing minutia of powers and slotting. Suffice to say that they were designed to be 'general purpose heavy melee' toons.

If anyone else has done a similar comparison I'd be curious to see the results, or if anyone can think of other interesting tests I could run the twins through feel free to make suggestions.

Oh and grats Sylph_Knight and MrLiberty!

I'm sort of in the opposite camp from Slainsteel. I look at what the Incarnate powers bring to tanks and it makes me wonder why anyone would bother to bring squishies anymore.

Or you could under-slot TI and Tough, use Cardiac to hit 90% S/L, and toss those extra couple of slots somewhere else.

When I find a tank on my team without Taunt I report them to NCSoft so their account can be immediately suspended.

This is also necessary for Defenders, Controllers and Corruptors that don't have heals.

Just to pile on the Reactive bandwagon, I have the T3 75% damage Reactive on my Inv/SS tank. It's not a DPS build, his Rage is single-stack only and other than purple procs in Jab and LBE he has no +recharge or +build-up procs - also no Hasten. Global +recharge is about +40% from IOs. The attack chain consists of mashing Jab, KO Blow, Footstomp and LBE whenever any of them come up charged.

For S&G I set up an AE mission with Battle Maiden in it and tried to solo her at +0x1 (he's Alpha shifted so she was -1 to him). It took 7 minutes 11 seconds. Then I tried it again without using Rage at all and it took 12 minutes 47 seconds. This is without temps, Judgement, vet powers or inspirations.

I realize that these times are pretty glacial by scrapper standards and an effectively -1 AV is pretty anemic, but this is on a built-to-meatshield vanilla SS tank. That's how good Reactive is.

I just ran the second half of Posi to make sure it didn't require both to drop, but no joy.

If there weren't so many different mob types it might just be easier to run alts through a series of AE missions and time their survival.

I'm curious as to whether there's enough raw data available to generate a series of average debuff values based on general prevalence among all the mob types in the game. That seems to be the only significant survival element missing from Arcanaville's model and it could potentially have a drastic impact on the results.

edit: I posted before seeing Arcanaville's reply above.

Just to add another anecdote, I picked up a used 1.83GHz Core Duo Mini the other day for my son and tested COH on it. After upgrading the RAM to 2GB I loaded a fresh install of OS 10.6.4 and the Mac COH client.

With the graphics on minimal settings it was surprisingly smooth and quick, with no odd artifacts. I didn't take note of the exact frame rates, but it was enjoyably playable if somewhat drab. Load times were decent as well.

I was honestly astonished by how peppy the GMA950 chipset was on the minimum setting.

Soft-capping an Invulnerability tanker can make for a pretty sturdy build, but in my experience the absolute toughest Invulnerability builds focus on +Health, +Regen, +Def and +Res in that order. These builds can be hideously expensive, but make for a tank that's nearly immortal.

Once you've got your Health in the ~2800 range and your Defenses hovering around the mid-30s with a single foe in range, regenerating 40 or so Health per second will keep you alive through almost anything as long as you haven't neglected your Resistances. Here's the build I'm currently running on my Inv/SS as an example: