What's the deal with Whirling Hands?

A throwaway power is a throwaway power. Doesn't really matter what the rest of the set is, when that throwaway power is a tier 9 power, even more the problem. Tremor is garbage for damage, and decent for control. Footstomp, which has a faster activation time and slightly slower recharge does a ton more damage and has the same control. Whirling hands, well, its activation is longish, not sure exactly how well it compares to Footstomp and Tremor, and I don't feel like looking. It has a reasonable recharge time, a smaller radius than Footstomp and Tremor, and similar crappy damage to tremor.

For comparison, SS has some excellent single target damage, about on par with Stone. Stone may hit a little bit harder. TF, which is supposed to be as much a mitigation tool as a damage tool is really more of a damage tool now. ET, while doing excellent damage, has a stupidly long animation time, and the damage is somewhat anemic when you take into account that animation time and it's health drain effect. What makes ET even more or a let down is that half the time if you are teamed, the mob is dead before ET's animation finishes, and you are still drained of the health. Anymore I only use it on bosses/AVs. So, you have 3 sets with lots of ST damage. The big difference between the 3, the AoEs. all 3 have an AoE crowd control attack, the only one that is considered mandatory for the set is Fault. Most people don't take handclap or stun, almost everyone takes fault. Don't get me wrong, Fault is awesome for mitigation, as are handclap and stun, but, fault keeps em all in one place instead of flinging them across the room/turning them into wandering drunken morons. Now, in the cases of EM and SM, the damage AoE power will build on the non damage AoE, with disorient stacking on disorient, and chaining knockdowns. Footstomp doesn't build on it's cc power. at least not the same way. if you really need the mitigation you Footstomp, then handclap, knock em on their tails, then knock them out of range. as oppose to repeatedly keeping them on their tails, or keeping them drunk and wandering longer. But, how many people actually take stun or hand clap? not many. so, once again you are comparing high damage ST sets, where one has an AoE with excellent damage, with decent mitigation, and the other 2 having crappy damage with the same level of mitigation.

What is worse, a lot of people that play SM take the non damage AoE and skip the damage one. Me, personally, I have them both, and really am annoyed by Tremor. When I finish IOing my brute, as I am a brute and am much more concerned with damage than I am with mitigation, I will be dropping both Fault and Tremor. On a tank, it makes more sense to have them, but not on a brute. Unfortunately, until I hit the softcap, it makes more sense to have them. Then again, if I drop them both, I will have room for SoW and Darkest Night, hmmmmm.

Best description of Whirling hands ever.

It'll change your survivability when you six-slot it with Obliterations <3

Yes, I would. Your tier 9 power is supposed to be the gem of the set. In SM, you wait all that time to get a power that is essentially a piece of crap. Footstomp as a Tier 9 is perfect. When they switched the order, they should have upped the damage on Tremor. Dropping the damage on SS would be unnecessary, as it is inline with KO blow.

Footstomp as a tier 9 is fairly out of sync with all the other AOEs available to Brutes. Tremor is fairly inline with things like Fire Sword Circle, Crowd Control and the like. It's also in line with the epics, doing about the same damage as Ball Lightning & Disrupter Blast (on a much shorter timer) and more than Dark Obliteration.

Stone Melee has advantages over SS too, Seismic Smash is quicker recharging than Knockout Blow and Fault is far superior to Handclap, so Stone Melee does have advantages over SS, which is why I don't feel that directly comparing one power to another holds up. Sure Stone Melee has worse AOE than SS, but it has much better control.

Let me turn that around for you. You get your tier 9 power at tier 7, so you don't have to wait as long for your best powers. If there's a rule that the tier 9 must be the best power in the set, then breaking that rule makes the set better. The reason I brought up SS was that it has one extremely skippable power - moving that power to the tier 9 slot would mean that SS characters have access to all their good powers earlier, making them stronger overall. So if Tremor is the worst power in the set, then moving it to tier 9 makes SM stronger.

But I don't think Tremor is the worst power in the set, nor is it nearly as bad as you make it out to be. For one thing, it offers better mitigation than every other PBAoE besides Foot Stomp. For another, it's in a set that also has Fault, which makes it the second wide-area KD power in the set. For yet another, its wide radius means that it will be hitting more targets and doing better average damage than most other AoEs. And in a set that also has a brutal ST chain including the highest DPA ST melee attack in the game at tier 7, and another area control power that's already so powerful it basically relegates your entire secondary to backup status at tier 5, that's not bad at all.

But really, you just want Tremor buffed - probably to Foot Stomp levels - and you're looking for a justification. You may continue to advance whatever arguments you like, but a simple look at the design and performance of the set is enough to assure me that this will never happen.

Iirc, it only has a chance to stun.
I find its a very useful power. I stuck a Absolute amazement chance for to hit debuff in it to go with the Armageddon set.
I put it on auto and as I work the bosses, the minions steadily decline at a rate that works nicely with RttC. Usually there are just a few minions with a few hp left standing when the bosses are downed.

I don't like Tremor, I am entitled to not like Tremor.

You are looking at this from a purely number crunching standpoint.

I am not looking for a buff in Tremor. No, what I am looking for is for the last power I get in my primary not be a major letdown.

Seriously, how hard is that to understand?

Brutes are designed as a melee damage class. I want melee damage. More control and lower damage out of my tier 9 is a major buzzkill.

Yes, I know everyone is SOOOO in love the with mitigation aspects of SM. I like the damage myself. Thats why i picked it, to hit things really hard. Knocking things on their tails over and over again is funny and entertaining, and yeah, does serve as nice way to slow incoming damage, but it doesn't get em dead any quicker.

And seriously, why would buffing Tremor to FS levels, and I mean real FS levels, not the Rage buffed FS levels, be that big of a deal? FS has a faster activation, does more damage with the same radius so it is hitting the same number of targets as Tremor does, and has a slightly longer recharge, and has the same secondary effect. FS is a true tier 9. Tremor isn't. You compare it to the PBAoEs in other sets, but they are not the sets Tier 9 power. Patron Pools really are not comparable, as they are meant to fill holes the AT has, not to be set defining.

I believe that Whirling hands deserves a buff in damage considering it's place in the power order as well. That or a boost to the chance to stun in it.

This is the whole heart of this issue. Saying that the set as a whole is balanced means squat when you get decent powers up front and crap at the end. It should be a progression. When a power becomes available it should be superior in its design to the powers that come earlier. Saying the set is stronger because the TANKER tier 9 was moved to 7 on brutes is a cop out. I see it as being weaker because you have nothing left to look forward to and 2 more power picks as you level. If I was leveling an SM brute as my first toon, and was doing it solely by running content, when I picked tremor, I would have been pissed, especially if I had also picked fault. "Yay, I have a PBAoE version of a power I already had. Oh wait, it does a little bit of damage, but nothing really to write home about. Man, look at that power that guy with Super Strength got, it's looks like the same power as mine, but man, look at that damage." Seriously. I would have been really, really pissed. And that is my point.

SS translated perfectly when it was moved from Tank to brute, SM did not. Personally, and I really don't care if anyone agrees with me or not, I am entitled to my opinion, I believe they should have adjusted the powers as well as adjusting the order, or they should have just left the order alone.

I could really care less if Tremor gets buffed or not, as far as my toon is concerned. I built it with ST damage in mind, I added some AoE damage for utility purposes(so I can farm with him til I decide if I am gonna make my upcoming claws brute my main =D).

See, I like the fact I get my "uber" powers earlier than later. Getting Seismic Smash at 18 rocks, getting Tremor at 18 wouldn't have. There's a lot to be said for playing Early Blooming sets compared to late blooming ones. My Illusion/Storm controller was a lot more fun to play in her 20s than my Grav/TA. Playing Grav/TA showed me how painful having 2 late blooming sets can be.

The opposite happens with my Stone/Fire Brute, getting things like the Heavy Mallets, Fault and Seismic so early made him very enjoyable, especially the amount of Spike Damage my chain could throw out (well once I also got to 20 and got my End sorted). And my Fiery Aura was basically complete as a set at 28. If you reshuffled the Stone powers according to how powerful they are you'd probably only get Fault at 26 and Seismic at 32. That'd be a far less enjoyable set for me to level.

That said if the powers are truely woeful it can destroy interest in the alt completely. That's what happened to my Dark/Kin corrupter. Stuck at level 25 and absolutely nothing to look forward to for 10 levels. He got shelved. But for me Tremor didn't quite fall into the same pit of apathy as that (especially since I'd also got Burn to look forward to to combine with it)

Like I said, it should be a progression, not late or early blooming. There are a lot of throwaway powers in this game. Yeah, every power has some utility, but a lot of powers leave a lot to be desired.

Sad thing is... it's not even that any longer.

Which is why so many of us want Castle to meet us in the middle with WH.

What you're asking for is either a reordering of the set or the reverse Psionic Assault treatment. Neither would go over well with current Brutes.

You can want it all you like but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. It'd essentially piss people off just to appease your mentality that tier 9 = m0Ar dmg. It's not even an issue of something being sacrificed for the state the set is in, yet you have an opinion you're entitled to ask for more? Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth...