Aside from concept, why pick anything over EM?
By
Behold_Gravitas,
Posted on: 2005-12-10 17:03 in Brutes
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Yes he has 100% resistance
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You are referring to the EoB event, yeah, pretty much. The final version won't.
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I know the pratorian version of this guy has 100% resist to all but psi when he hits unstoppable.
You activate the eagles claw power
You eagles claw back alley brawlerleader for 0 smashing damage
You critical back alley brawlerleader with your eagles claw for an additial 0 lethal damage
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No he has only 100% to smashing/lethal. I know because my Illusion/Radiation controller soloed him pre-issue 5.
My energy attacks (Energy EPP) dealt energy damage (albeit very small when he had it going) and the smashing was nullified.
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He actually has the click version of temp invulnerability from way back when, which gives him 100% smashing/lethal resistance. His unstoppable gives him high resistance, but it does not cap him at 100% for anything. I know this from soloing him with my DM/regen scrapper . I would suddenly stop doing any smashing damage with my DM attacks, and be ever so thankful that I wasn't any other primary.
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the only non-concept reason for me would be the knockdown. i've used other sets that have it and am a big fan of its reliability.
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Knock is great
<_<
>_>
(realises there is a redname post in here)
*gulp*
kncokdown SuX, (please please please leave my knockdown alone)
Throws a Shiney into the other AT threads. There nice Dev see the shiney, go there.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
I think all the sets have some different advantages. Focusing on DPS just ignores some advantages.
Consider that Stone Melee has Fault, and SS has Handclap... obviously these powers do not help in DPS, but they add something to the set.
Now, about SM vs EM:
- Fault is AoE knockdown. No damage, 100% status.
- Tremor has AoE knockdown, and 15' radius. While Whirling Hands has AoE disorient, and 8' radius. Tremor > WH, even with a slower activation time.
- The hammers both cause knockdown/knockup, which helps greatly when fighting a boss. And Seismic Smash is not guaranteed status like TF, but when it activates it will Hold a boss. Combined, SM has great anti-boss tools in the single-target attacks, and anti-minion tools in the AoE attacks. By that, I mean, tools to prevent them from hitting you back, not tools to kill.
- SM has a ranged -Fly/Knockback attack with good damage (though slow activation).
All in all, I think that SM has vastly superior control abilities, able to do decent control against both groups and bosses. It has a ranged attack. And it gets high damage attacks very early. All of those are advantages over EM.
Don't know if they're good enough to convince you. Not all advantages are equal. But they're certainly there as reasons to take SM without looking at concept or animations.
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Yes he has 100% resistance
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You are referring to the EoB event, yeah, pretty much. The final version won't.
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I know the pratorian version of this guy has 100% resist to all but psi when he hits unstoppable.
You activate the eagles claw power
You eagles claw back alley brawlerleader for 0 smashing damage
You critical back alley brawlerleader with your eagles claw for an additial 0 lethal damage
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I can confirm that he has 100% RES to smashing but LBE and Energy Torrent did some damage to him.
Currently roleplaying, badgehunting, and laughing at the PvPers of CoX. lol, PvP.
Truedusk - Human Rogue
My take is that, with Rage, SS and EM are roughly equal. Rage is a huge deal, allows very different slotting and can help save on taking entire power pools, if the user is so inclined. It also helps make up for the smashing damage.
Stone, I feel, could use some lovin. That AOE at the end REALLY isn't helping much for most of the game (well, tanks anyway), and it has very high end and act times to counteract it's decent damage.
Now...if some of Stones KB or w/e was higher MAG, allowing it to overide some peoples tiny kb res, THAT would help balance it quite a bit. As things stand now, it's just not a worthy set, IMO.
PS- Another fix that might be usefull? Do something with hurl. It's WAY to situational to be worth a darn...crappy damage, crappy range, have to be on the ground, still have to slot for acc, lots of things resistant to it's kb, etc. Heck, give IT a higher mag KB, that's a start! 
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1) SS/SM both deal smashing damage compared to Energy Melee's Energy/Smashing Damage. Smashing/Lethal damage becomes VERY resisted in the end game. Thus, SS/SM will lose out on DPS as levels progress.
2) Stone Melee/Super Strength both have knockback and Energy has disorient. All the level 8 (Knockoutblow) and 18 (Total Focus/Seismac Smash) have holds. I'd say this evens out. (Although Disorient is sometimes considered "weaker" since enemies behave oddly at times)
3) The Brawl Indexes are almost identical:
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Energy Melee-
Barrage - 0.6944 Smashing * 2 + 0.2500 Energy * 2
Energy Punch - 1.9444 Smashing + 0.8333 Energy
Bone Smasher - 2.7778 Smashing + 1.7778 Energy
Whirling Hands - 1.6667 Smashing + 1.1111 Energy
Stun - 0.4167 Smashing + 0.2778 Energy
Energy Transfer - 4.3333 Smashing + 8.3333 Energy
Total Focus - 2.7778 Smashing + 7.1111 Energy
Stone Melee
Stone Fist - 2.7778 Smashing
Stone Mallet - 4.5556 Smashing
Heavy Mallet - 6.3333 Smashing
Hurl Boulder - 4.5556 Smashing
Tremor - 2.7778 Smashing
Seismic Smash - 9.8889
-Super Strength-
Jab - 1.8889 Smashing
Punch - 2.7778 Smashing
Haymaker - 4.5556 Smashing
Knockout Blow - 9.8889 Smashing
Hurl - 4.5556
Foot Stomp - 3.9444 Smashing
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5) Here are the activation times for each set:
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Barrage 1.3 seconds
Energy Punch .6
Bone Smasher 1.5
Whirling Hands 1.7
Stun 1.8
Energy Transfer 1
Total Focus 3.3
Stone Fist .6
Stone Mallet 1.5
Heavy Stone Mallet 1.5
Fault 2.1
Hurl Boulder 3.8
Tremor 3.3
Seismac Smash 1.5 (Equal to Total Focus in brawl index)
Jab 1.1
Punch 1.2
Haymaker 1.5
Hand Clap 1.2
Knockout Blow 2.2
Hurl 3.8
Foot Stomp 2.1
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Stone Fists is (recharge 4)
Stone Mallet is (recharge 8)
Heavy Mallet is (recharge 12)
Fault is (recharge 20)
Seismic Smash is (recharge 20)
Hurl Bolder is (recharge 8)
Tremor is (recharge 14)
EM
Barrage - 2
Energy Punch - 4
Bone Smasher - 8
Whirling Hands - 14
Total Focus - 20
Stun - 20
Energy Transfer - 20
SS
Jab - 2
Punch - 4
Haymaker - 8
Hand Clap - 30
KO Blow - 25
Hurl - 8
Foot Stomp - 20
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Finally, the endurance costs are the same across the board assuming the brawl index is equal. That means if a power has a brawl index of say 5, the endurance cost is the same as the power with a brawl index of 5 in another set. (NOTE: Only applies to these sets with a few minor exceptions)
Ultimately, I am wanting to know why would anyone choose Super Strength or Stone Melee over Energy Melee? (Concept builds NOT included)
I know SS gets Rage which is a nice power but is it really worth it to sacrifice everything energy gets?
I am really hoping for a response because I cannot see why would anyone choose these two sets.
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If I could award you the Rainman Badge I would. 
This is another thread in the "Everyone should play the way I do" vein.
I like SM because it has a nice SMASH effect. I don't like the glowing pom poms of death. Simple as that.
Ferrium - Inv/SS Tanker
Hyperforce - SS/Regen Brute
Member of V for Vengance (Exalted)
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If I could award you the Rainman Badge I would.
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lol
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The OP is quite true and points out the fact that Melee sets are unbalanced in PvP. Why would you give defense weak sets a smash/lethal shield, but not an elemental/energy shield? Blasters can cap their resistance to Smash/Lethal is slotted right with the correct powers making most of the Melee sets useless in PvP accept for Energy Melee.
This is absolutely ridiculous Devs, and is a gross oversight on your part. Tankers and scrappers have to above and beyond to beat a level 50 blaster, but an EM tanker can do it easily.
Bravo.
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No blaster can cap their Smashing/Lethal resistance by themselves that I am aware of.
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Let's take a look at the numbers:
T.I. 3 slotted with even level SO's: 36.5%
Force of Nature 3 slotted with even level SO's: 56%
that right there takes you over the cap for Blasters for a two minute duration. And in two minutes, that blaster can take you out many times if played correctly. Now if a blaster takes tough and I'm going to use the scrapper base of 11.25% for Tough:
Tough 3 slotted with SO's: 18%
Lol, that's 110.5%. That's way more than a Tanker can get...lol Without Tough it's 92.5% for two minutes which is more than a tanker can get.
Now without Force of Nature a Blaster can get 54.4% Smash/Lethal Reists consistently using Tough and T.I., and if they decide to through in PFF once in a while to save their [censored], then it brings it up to 82.5% even though they won't be able to attack.
So yes a blaster can reach their Smash/Lethal cap without the assistance of others, pretty much negating our Smash/Lethal power sets in PvP.
Ultimus you are leaving out one very important aspect of your formulas. You are assuming that the KB and the Disorient work at the same frequency. They don't as far as I can tell. KB is much more likely to occur over EM's Disorient. I think this is the balancing factor between the 3 sets. Energy Better DPS + Rarer Control= SS Little lower DPS + but a little greater control.
From a Pure DPS standpoint (considering resistances) your conclusions are correct, but when you factor in the probability of KB and Disorient I think these sets would be very close in DPS + Utility + Risk Reduction/Control.
@ Maldini: Non-tanks cap resistance at 75%. So regardless of what-ever powers a blaster gets w/o an external buffer the best they will do is 75%. Since they can be toggle dropped not a big deal.
@Shadow_Stone: I agree some, but since EM's diso's stack and TF has a high enough mag that ive gotten AV's to be diso'd with it and the stack I dont entirely agree. Also EM gets stun which is a mag 3 diso that can get bosses about 75% of the time. The %'s on haymaker/heavy mallet maybe better for a kb vs bonesmasher's chance to diso, but stun + TF and even ET have same odds to diso as KoB, heavy mallet++ rest of upper stone powers to KB. So at lower lvls stone/SS are better control sets but once TF +stun is there that changes. YMMV.
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@ Maldini: Non-tanks cap resistance at 75%. So regardless of what-ever powers a blaster gets w/o an external buffer the best they will do is 75%. Since they can be toggle dropped not a big deal.
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Yes I realize this, which makes it even better because a /rad will have a tough time getting the resistance of a blaster slotted heavy for resistance down. My point was to show that Blasters can cap their Smash/Lethal resistance solo, blocking 75% of the damage from Smash/Lethal Tanks and Scrappers.
Toggle Dropping? You got to be kidding me... Most PvP blasters have many toggles up. Just try and Brawl a toggle off of a PvP Blaster and live to tell about it. They can drop two to four of your toggles while you're trying to take out one of theirs. Heh, toggle dropping........
My point is mainly that they instituted the I5 and ED nerfs without taking into account Epic Power Pools. Epic Powers are a joke and make the game so out of balanced as far as PvP is concerned that it's not even funny.
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@ Maldini: Non-tanks cap resistance at 75%. So regardless of what-ever powers a blaster gets w/o an external buffer the best they will do is 75%. Since they can be toggle dropped not a big deal.
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Yes I realize this, which makes it even better because a /rad will have a tough time getting the resistance of a blaster slotted heavy for resistance down. My point was to show that Blasters can cap their Smash/Lethal resistance solo, blocking 75% of the damage from Smash/Lethal Tanks and Scrappers.
Epic Powers are a joke and make the game so out of balanced as far as PvP is concerned that it's not even funny.
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Yes, epic pool powers are unbalanced. But in your comparison you forgot to include Unstoppable for that Inv tank. Its not fair to compare a lvl 1 s/l toggle to a lvl 44 epic power.
In concept, I think the best reason to take SS over EM is the "to-hit" buff you receive with Rage.
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@ Maldini: Non-tanks cap resistance at 75%. So regardless of what-ever powers a blaster gets w/o an external buffer the best they will do is 75%. Since they can be toggle dropped not a big deal.
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Yes I realize this, which makes it even better because a /rad will have a tough time getting the resistance of a blaster slotted heavy for resistance down. My point was to show that Blasters can cap their Smash/Lethal resistance solo, blocking 75% of the damage from Smash/Lethal Tanks and Scrappers.
Epic Powers are a joke and make the game so out of balanced as far as PvP is concerned that it's not even funny.
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Yes, epic pool powers are unbalanced. But in your comparison you forgot to include Unstoppable for that Inv tank. Its not fair to compare a lvl 1 s/l toggle to a lvl 44 epic power.
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I showed the comparison that can be achieve with and without Force of Nature for a reason. Force of Nature is an epic Click power that can last for 2 minutes, then has a long down time. Unstoppable is a Level 32 Click Power for Tanks that lasts for 3 minutes, then has a long down time.
If played smart both the Tank and Blaster will save these powers for the last 3 min/2 min respectively of the match and then just go all out to get some last minute kills. But even without Force of Nature, the Blaster can cap his resists with the PFF, and even though he won't be able to attack, he will probably laugh at your attacks before dropping PFF, detoggling you and blasting you away.
Like I said earlier, the Epic Powers need to be adjusted for PvP because it makes one or two melee power sets stand out above all others, and that's just not fair to those who don't build PvP specific builds.
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I am really hoping for a response because I cannot see why would anyone choose these two sets.
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Because the game is about a lot more than dps to most people. The degree of tunnel vision it takes to see the game as nothing but stats is frightening.
--
My AE Story Arcs:
Family Matters - 82136
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Yes he has 100% resistance
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You are referring to the EoB event, yeah, pretty much. The final version won't.
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I know the pratorian version of this guy has 100% resist to all but psi when he hits unstoppable.
You activate the eagles claw power
You eagles claw back alley brawlerleader for 0 smashing damage
You critical back alley brawlerleader with your eagles claw for an additial 0 lethal damage
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No he has only 100% to smashing/lethal. I know because my Illusion/Radiation controller soloed him pre-issue 5.
My energy attacks (Energy EPP) dealt energy damage (albeit very small when he had it going) and the smashing was nullified.
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He actually has the click version of temp invulnerability from way back when, which gives him 100% smashing/lethal resistance. His unstoppable gives him high resistance, but it does not cap him at 100% for anything. I know this from soloing him with my DM/regen scrapper . I would suddenly stop doing any smashing damage with my DM attacks, and be ever so thankful that I wasn't any other primary.
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It is Back Alley Brawler as well as Maurader. My Dark/Dark Brute has fought him twice and both times, toward the end of the fight, he did something that gave him high resistance to the negative energy part of my attacks and 100% resistance to the smash/lethal part.
EveryNighters:
Tar Heel Lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank
Knight of Purgatory Lvl 50 Fire/Ax Tank
Kilmainham Wall Lvl 50 Stone/Stone Tank
Re-Fridgerator Lvl 50 Ice/Ice Tank
Yankee Doodle Dandy Lvl 50 Will/Eng Tank
Teen Tar Heel Lvl 50 MA/SR Scrapper
EvilNighters:
Tar Heel Dead Lvl 50 DD Brute
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The degree of tunnel vision it takes to see the game as nothing but stats is frightening.
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...and the degree of tunnel vision it takes to miss the "Aside from concept," phrase in the original subject is baffling.
To the OP - thank you for this thread; you asked a great question and got answers that really helped me understand the individual strengths of super-strength.
To those of you who have concept builds: what's wrong with people discussing math? Nobody said it was the be-all, end-all; nobody said concept wasn't important. The entire premise of the thread is "take away concept, now, with the math..."
Why is that so threatening?
-Jeff
Everyone always goes nuts over my DPS with my SS Tanker, they damage extremely well and AoE etc.. why not go with it? I see what your saying but put a couple slot in Rage and Put Time reducers in there, and Voila Rage 24/7 you can't wait for 5 seconds every like 4 minutes but then you have the dps of ascrapepr prety much with your Tanker DEF. With stamina JAcked nad HAste as well, your a machine of destruction. SS is a great set and I've had eneergy it's great but completley different.
I believe the concensus is that SS is pretty much just as good as EM. Having a killer complete attack chain by 10, nearly perma Rage, lots of Knockdown for mitigation, a Ranged -Fly, and largish PAoE are all great things.
Stone Melee on the other hand... well it certainly has the visual oomph, but with the recharges and end costs, it doesnt seem very Fury friendly to me.
Sgt Liberty - 50 Martial Arts / Super Reflexes
Verdigris Eagle - 50 Archery / Energy Manipulation
Stormeye - 50 Storm Summoning / Electric Blast
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Everyone always goes nuts over my DPS with my SS Tanker, they damage extremely well and AoE etc.. why not go with it? I see what your saying but put a couple slot in Rage and Put Time reducers in there, and Voila Rage 24/7 you can't wait for 5 seconds every like 4 minutes but then you have the dps of ascrapepr prety much with your Tanker DEF. With stamina JAcked nad HAste as well, your a machine of destruction. SS is a great set and I've had eneergy it's great but completley different.
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Yeah SS is good < Level 41. Once the cap is raised and you start fighting level 50 blasters with more smash/lethal resistance than you, well then you know you should have went with EM or DM.
I'm not threatened by the math talk, though I definitely don't look at the stats first to pick powers. Still, there're more reasons than math to look at this...looking at useful powers, for instance. Or personal preference, wanting the special abilities SS or Stone have over what EM has (I love Handclap and Footstomp, for instance, as well as the number of powers SS has that literally floor my opponents--okay, I like knockback a little too much, sue me, grovel at my feet, you Council fools...).
So...the math isn't threatening to me, though I'm not sure I agree with the whole premise of the thread relating to the math as opposed to concept. I don't think they're mutually exclusive anyway...I love my concept characters, but would I drop SS in a heartbeat if I couldn't do my job as a Brute and go with some powerset that had better value? With regrets I would, but yep, I would, I admit it. Statistics do matter.
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Everyone always goes nuts over my DPS with my SS Tanker, they damage extremely well and AoE etc.. why not go with it? I see what your saying but put a couple slot in Rage and Put Time reducers in there, and Voila Rage 24/7 you can't wait for 5 seconds every like 4 minutes but then you have the dps of ascrapepr prety much with your Tanker DEF. With stamina JAcked nad HAste as well, your a machine of destruction. SS is a great set and I've had eneergy it's great but completley different.
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Yeah SS is good < Level 41. Once the cap is raised and you start fighting level 50 blasters with more smash/lethal resistance than you, well then you know you should have went with EM or DM.
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It will be funny to see these same people come back onto the boards post cap raise complaining how their smash/lethal Primary doesn't do #*#&%*#%&# in PvP. 
(assuming of course they will do some PvP to experience it firsthand)
Been there, done that with my axe when the arenas came out and Epics were taken. I still don't know how the Devs could even begin to balance these attacks to make things fair, but I guess that makes the ol' truism stand that PvP will never be balanced.
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The degree of tunnel vision it takes to see the game as nothing but stats is frightening.
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...and the degree of tunnel vision it takes to miss the "Aside from concept," phrase in the original subject is baffling.
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...NO!...the degree of tunnel vision it takes to miss that there is a world of detail and nuance to gameplay that has nothing to do with dps or concept is ... fri...er....baff....er...something!
Why I choosed super strength for my first main ?
Because I WANTED to.
Because I don't care about numbers and I play for FUN.
Because super strength represents comic books icons and a SS tanker never made me feel super because of lack of damage.
Because Haymaker, KO Blow, Rage...
I have also an energy melee tanker, but I enjoy him less, I "feel" SS does better than EM and what I feel is more important when it comes to fun.