Werner

When you're talking about buffing an entire AT, it's almost impossible to do so in a vacuum, without referencing other ATs. Once you compare to another AT, and assuming one is superior to the other, and a bit oversimplistically, your two options if you want to fix it are buff one or nerf the other. So you're rather unlikely to see a thread that doesn't include the nerf option.

I'm not convinced of the basic assumption that the ATs are out of balance, though.

Well, that was a few hours of reading. I guess you think the thread's consensus was "Brutes are OP and should have their resistance cap reduced to 85%"? Or at least that seems to be what you argue against the most. The thread itself is much more wide ranging, and there seems to be little consensus, even if some ideas find more favor than others.

As I understand it, you think that 85% would unfairly penalize Fire and Electric Armor, while having little other practical effect. That if Brutes are OP, this does very little, and that if they aren't OP, it isn't necessary.

Like you, I don't think Brutes are OP, but I also don't think lowering their resistance cap to 85% would be much of a nerf, even for Fire and Electric outside of very specific situations.

I also don't think Tankers are underperformers that need more damage. But like lowering the resistance cap on Brutes, I also don't think raising the damage cap on Tankers would have much effect outside of very specific situations. It all sounds like much ado about nothing to me.

But then, I avoid iTrials to the extent possible, and while I have a number of Tankers, none have top end builds, and none are designed to play the Tanker role. I may play Tankers, but I'm not a Tank. I don't think I've ever been on a PUG with one of my Tankers, so I'm not subjecting any unsuspecting innocents to my complete lack of tanking.

And since it was referenced in the thread, honestly, the biggest reason I rerolled my main Scrapper as a Brute was because I was sick of runners. (Well, OK, I did kind of ragequit after getting spanked by Banished Pantheon, but I'm still leveling the Brute primarily because I hate runners.) But whether aggro control (and stopping runners) helps Brutes themselves in general is debatable. I personally like it, and I expect to leverage it into a faster kill rate than I had on my Scrapper (outside of hard targets). But I'll probably be taking more incoming damage as a result, and a lot of people don't want aggro auras on their Scrappers for this reason. The Brute has better survivability to cope with it. But then I don't have access to, say, Water Spout or Hibernate. I have less burst damage potential, so it's harder to eliminate troublesome enemies quickly, particularly after a pause in the action. In general, I like powers like Superior Conditioning more than powers like Conserve Power, but Conserve Power is the better response for endurance drains. But then, I'm planning to go with Ageless. But with Ageless instead of Barrier, I won't be hitting the higher resistance caps very often, mostly eliminating that advantage. It's all a rather complicated picture. In my mind, neither AT, even specifically for a top end Katana/Dark in solo incarnate content, is clearly superior. I suspect the Brute will be a little more survivable. But mostly, I'm just sick of runners.

I think it looks great and is plenty effective. The combo system is painless if you're used to attack chains instead of just pounding whatever has recharged. You'll hate having lethal damage when you're fighting robots, but other than that it's not too bad.

For a Tanker, it may be more about spamming AoEs than worrying about combos, or you may be switching back and forth between Sweep and Attack Vitals, with Blinding Feint thrown in to improve damage. I'd definitely get at least Sweep up and running.

To confirm, you're comparing level 10 characters?

Your observation then seems spot on. Brute is a pretty clear winner at level 10.

At level 10, your attacks aren't properly slotted. On both Scrapper and Brute, what few slots you do have would go accuracy and endurance reduction. So both are doing base damage.

The damage scale for Scrappers is 1.125 and for Brutes is .75, but let's add a 10% average chance of critical to the Scrapper and call it 1.24. By the time your Brute hits +65% damage from Fury, which is trivial, you've caught up to the Scrapper. In fact, you might well bump up on +150% damage from Fury, at which point you're doing 1.875, or about 50% more damage than the Scrapper. Or as you say, "In some cases the Brute is easily doing 40% more damage." Yep. Scrappers aren't even close at level 10.

But maybe sometime in the 20s, you'll have damage SOs slotted in your attacks. Let's call that +90% damage. You'll also have Against All Odds. It varies, but let's call that +40% damage. Now the Scrapper is doing 2.85 and the Brute is only doing 2.21 at the previous draw-even point of +65%. The Brute now has to max out at +150% to draw even. So by then, in practice, the Scrapper is ahead.

Other damage buffs continue to push the Scrapper further ahead, because they're buffing a higher base. So when you hit Build Up, the Scrapper is getting more out of it. If you add Musculature, the Scrapper is getting more out of it. (Edit: If you surround yourself with more enemies, which might be typical at higher levels, Against All Odds will give you much better than +40% damage, and the Scrapper will get more out of the additional bonus.)

On the other hand, my understanding is that the Brute ATO set is drastically superior to the Scrapper one for adding damage. And I think (I could be wrong) that the Lore pets are a straight add unaffected by archetype, so would bring the two closer together regardless of which is ahead. For that matter, many procs are straight adds, so again would bring the two closer together regardless of which is ahead.

So it can be a complex picture. Heck, I've probably made some error above. But yes, I believe the general consensus is that a Shield Scrapper will put out more damage than a Shield Brute.

Except at level 10, of course, where the Brute wipes the floor with the Scrapper.

And be prepared for the terrible teens. The teens are just evil for my Scrappers, where my Brutes coast right through them. Price of admittance for later awesome.

I think the difficulty level should be based on your effective level. So if I set it at +4x8 and I'm currently 51 with my Alpha level shift but not going against incarnate content, then the enemies should be level 55. If it's incarnate content and I'm level 50+3, the enemies should be level 57. You know, +4, like I asked for. That said, there's no way I could turn up the difficulty to a REAL +4x8 in incarnate content. But then, that's the intent - a difficulty level I just can't handle.

I also like the idea of having -2 or -3, again based on effective level. You can already use -1x1 to trivialize content on a decent build, so I don't think there would be a good argument about "but then it's too easy to get mission completion rewards". It's something the devs would need to take a look at, though. In any case, I think it would be nice if anyone with any build were able to solo effectively on SOME setting.

DarkSideLeague, I can farm +4x8 Knives of Vengeance just fine on my Katana/Dark Scrapper, I think as easily as I used to farm +3x8 Council on the same character before the incarnate powers and level shifts. But I can't back to back compare, and perhaps memory is faulty. (Edit: and granted, you said +0x8 - no, it's not THAT easy) Talons of Vengeance are a bigger challenge, and Banished Pantheon are downright nasty.

Here's me soloing the final mission of Dark Astoria arc 5 on +4x8 no temps, no insps, no deaths. I got through the first five arcs that way. The sixth beat me, and doesn't look possible on my current build, though the community gave me some great suggestions for improvements. By the way, the video is boring and long and includes pauses waiting for powers to recharge. I don't expect anyone to watch it. Just showing that even +4x8 incarnate content is arguably too easy for some builds. (I did die once on arc 4 and had to redo it. Arcs 1, 2, 3 and 5 all went down on the first try, no deaths.)

http://youtu.be/ZLfLYGwysl4

And here are some Banished Pantheon killing me under the same conditions and constraints. So I can still find stuff to kill me in this game if I go searching for it. I'm not personally complaining about difficulty level, just acknowledging that there could at some point be an issue for a few people if power levels keep going up.

http://youtu.be/VATfajOsMJU

Both would be just fine, as both are secondaries that don't really need anything from the primary. I didn't IO it out, but I leveled a Dual Blades/Willpower to 50 and really enjoyed it. I think Invulnerability does best with a heal, which might push you towards Aid Self for leveling, which a lot of people (myself included) don't like. It's also nice to not have to worry much about endurance. So I guess I'm recommending Willpower as being more fun?

Mids' links don't work for me, unfortunately.

I'm not sure I'd have said, "plow". Depends on the enemy, I suppose.

Here's the info I had:

Ageless Radial Epiphany: +100% end, +70% rech first 10s, 40% next 20s, 20% next 30s, 10% last 60s (120s total), +85% debuff RES first 22.5s, 42.5% next 22.5s, 21.25% last 45s (90s total), 60ft radius

Barrier Core Epiphany: +90% RES/DEF first 10s, 32.5% next 20s, 7.5% next 30s, 5% last 60s (120s total), 60ft radius

I'm comparing Ageless Radial to Barrier Core, and I have Radial with a 90s duration on the debuff resistance. But you're right. Looking in game, it looks like 2 full minutes. Even better!