Add more damage to Cobra Strike

That actually sounds pretty good. This gives me the ability to prioritise targets and attack the one which poses the biggest threat first. Be it a boss, a lieutenant or a particularly nasty type of minion, this might actually help a lot. For instance, one of THE worst enemies for my Claws/Regen Scrapper (below 30) were Warriors Hewers, because they dealt SO MUCH damage, they would always outpace my regeneration and healing by a wide margin. Being able to slap a couple of debuffs on them in the process would help a great deal.

Granted, a lot of things aren't in our control as it is, biggest of all accuracy. My own views on a guaranteed chance to miss aside (note: I dislike it), I'm just saying I don't want to make even MORE things random than we already have. Accuracy I can deal with, because at least you can slot for accuracy, seek to-hit buffs and apply defence debuffs. A "proc" secondary effect with a chance to occur is completely out of my hands. I can't improve the chance, and I can't rely on it.

In general, some randomness is expected. Even in games where everything is in the player's hands, circumstances always present a certain degree of unpredictable, sheer chance. But while I can deal with unpredictability in deliver, it REALLY irks me when I face unpredictability in effect. In other words, I can handle missing, but I can't handle hitting and having no effect if my attack will actually work. It's chance compounded upon chance, and it's a bad mechanic when you can't actually rely on your attacks to work even if you do everything within your power to enhance them.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

This is what I was getting at with the suggestion before. Thanks for wording it better than I could

I hate power effects that just sort of happen with no way for me to predict them. Even if they're powerful effects and they do a lot, when I'm not in control of when they happen, they aren't satisfying. Even setting aside the fact that, a lot of the time, these effects end up playing in situations where they'd be completely useless (critical hit Brawl, critical hit when the enemy has 1 hit point left, etc.), they're still just unsatisfying. Yes, some of the time, I'm awesome. All the rest of the time, I'm not, and I have no way to save my awesomness for when I actually need it.

Put it like this - if I have a weak effect that I can rely on, I know that I have that effect. When I spot a situation where I can use this effect to its fullest potential, I jump at the opportunity. When I have an effect I can't predict, I just ignore it and hope it happens, occasionally. I've no way to direct it, so I've no way to ensure I actually get any use out of it. Maybe Thunder Kick can really stun a boss in one shot. Fat load of good that does me when it only ever seems to fire on minions. Like Criticals, without control, it just doesn't do much for you.

And here's the thing even with Criticals - they're nice, but Scrappers are designed to work WITHOUT them. As such, everyone is safe to ignore Criticals even exist, because they're not propping up the AT. Yes, occasionally you do score that awesome Build Up + Head Splitter Critical that makes you feel like you almost split the world in half, but most of the time it fires on lowly minions or enemies low on health, or doesn't fire at all. It's total contribution is actually pretty negligible.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Sets aren't balanced around what secondaries are available to them. If they were, Superstrength/Shield wouldn't be allowed.

Kinda the point though, don't you think? MA, currently, doesn't *need* those effects. I just got off playing my MA/SD scrapper and I'm still blown away at how hard his attacks can hit...and they're frikken fast and stylish too! He's only 38 and doesn't have one with the shield nor much IOs slotted and he's quite satisfying.

However, that doesn't dismiss the fact that MA seems to be cheated on the possible secondary effects available to other sets.

Enemies burn more endurance than we do. We don't notice this often because they don't have as much attacks. Without recharge slotting or hasten, try running out of endurance firing only two single target attacks.

Lets take a Rikti Soldier Boss. He's got 200 points of endurance, which means he recovers 3.33 end/sec. The Greater sword attack burns 13.72 end and he can cycle it about every 9.5 seconds (9 second cycle time, 0.5 second AI make up his mind time). That's a burn rate of 1.44 eps. If he also fires his ranged attack, that burns 11.48 endurance with a cycle time of about 9.4 seconds, and a burn rate of about 1.22 eps. That's a total of 2.66 eps, which is lower than the recovery rate, which is why they don't tend to run out of endurance. However, each recovery tick (at 3 second intervals) only recovers 10 end, which is less than either attack takes. *If* you drain this boss to zero, he would need a minimum of two ticks (6 seconds) before he had enough endurance to attack. That becomes important.

Hit him with a -50% EnduranceDiscount, and things change. Now all his attacks take twice as much endurance. His net burn rate jumps to about 5.32eps which is higher than his recovery: his net loss is just about 2 eps, which means the boss would run out in about 100 seconds of fight on his own. On top of that each attack now requires at least three recovery ticks (9 seconds) before it can be fired. We can keep going and debuff lower, until we get the results we want. At -67% (three times endurance cost) his sword attack will burn 41.2 end per attack and 4.33 eps all by itself: draining to zero would then leave the boss idle for at least four recovery ticks (12 seconds) because the ranged attack would need a minimum of 34.44 endurance to fire. If anything, the problem with this effect is not that its too weak, but its too easy to make too strong. It almost certainly couldn't be made stackable or you could make a boss inert.

By the way, any guesses what the EnduranceDiscount debuff floor is? Its 0.0001. In other words, the debuff floor for EnduranceDiscount is increasing the amount of endurance your powers take by a factor of ten thousand (thank god critters haven't figured out how to do this yet). I'm pretty sure somewhere between doubling the cost of your target's attacks and multiplying the endurance costs by a hundred there will be a point where this effect is strong enough to matter. I think if this effect was put into play, that minimum would have to be increased to something saner, like maybe 0.05 or so at worst.

PS: a note on thinking about extra nasty effects for player powers. Those would have a good chance to get backported to custom critter powersets. That might make life interesting for people who run AE missions with custom critters in them.

That doesn't reflect my experience at all. I have a level 50 Martial Arts/Invulnerability Scrapper, and of ALL the Scrappers I have, she's the one who farts around with enemies the longest and the one who always seems to hit the weakest. My Katana or Broadsword Scrappers so much as sneeze and spawns dissolve, my Claws Scrapper presses home the attack and enemies melt away in mere moments and even my gosh-dang DARK Scrapper smites things into non-existence. My Martial Arts Scrappers, though... They just kick and kick and kick and kick.

Granted, I've had a Shield Scrapper, and I know how much that helps, between Shield Charge and Against All Odds, the damage is obscene, especially with a high-damage primary. But that's Shield Defence, not Martial Arts.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Is the dmg buff from Shields really that great? I know the values of AAO (as I have a shield of every AT but only 1 of each) but I didn't think it'd make the difference I was feeling. Or maybe it's his approach. He tends to focus on the hard target, being fed dmg bonuses from the weaker foes around him, then turns the easier foes last.

The only other MA character I have is a mid lvl MA/WP stalker and she can handle foes just as well although one at a time. Do you really think MA needs a dmg buff considering the DPS it's capable of (barring the secondary affects it and other sets have)?

Most of the suggestions here for MA's effect don't increase dmg or even dmg/end ratios so sort of confused at where we all stand on the subject.

(has the thread come full circle yet? I've already been on the 'leave MA alone' opposition and now I'm approaching that side)

Just because I'm willing to accept a reliable and useful set of secondary effects as a change to the set, doesn't mean I'm wavering on the issue of whether I think MA is ok.

An increase to raw damage output might make the set ok, but it would be the most boring alternative. Other solutions that don't just try to band-aid a couple powers, or markedly change the way the set functions would be ideal.

If Castle came in and said, MA is never going to be the king of damage, but I am willing to look at some ideas that would decrease the hodgepodge nature of the set, and increase the survivability of the MA user and their teammates, I'd be satisfied.

I love the set. I'd continue to love it if it never changed. However if they did look at it and revitalize it, I'm sure they couldn't possibly make it worse, and so I'm here discussing ideas, opinions and alternatives.

It's fairly easy to maintain close to a constant 50% damage buff, on top of Warrior's Challenge which offers another 100% damage buff. That, combined with the insane damage on Shield Charge, tend to make Shield Scrappers feel a lot stronger than their primary has any business being. I have a Sword/Shield Scrapper who is simply... Amazing. There simply is no comparison among all my Scrappers to that.

Does it need a damage buff? Well, not NEED, but of all the Scrapper sets out there, this is the one where I would most appreciate one. Martial Arts outgoing damage just leaves me unimpressed. It can't kill entire spawns quickly like other sets can due to only having one small AoE, it can't really bring hard targets down as fast as other sets, and its secondary effects are right mess. I guess I could handle not having as much outgoing damage if I could do something else reliably, but not only are there no useful secondary effects to be had, even the ones that ARE there don't trigger a lot of the time.

Unlike all my other Scrappers, Martial Arts "feels" off. More off than Dark Melee used to feel before the fairly recent changes.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.