What I'd Do To Rage

Don't all of those other powersets have build up/soul drain/follow up, etc?

So double stacked, or triple stacked in the Bill Z 250% recharge example, Follow Up plus all of those "...damage auras, pool powers, epics, temp powers, and vet powers...: are ok?

How about with Soul Drain, is it ok then? On a set capable of some of the best top end ST attack chains, that has the best utility of any melee set - yet can add damage auras, PPP/APP TAoEs - with a 30s duration BU.


You can't say rage is borked because it affects non SS powers, since all of the other build ups do as well.



Frozen Aura is Cold damage and not Smashing, this is an important point.

Actually, now that you mention Ice Melee I'd be curious where it falls in Bill Z's ST DPS chart for brutes - using the SOs only criteria.


You also say Footstomp is too strong, yet it's the only PBAoE in the set - while there are other sets that have better ST damage as well as multiple PBAoEs.



Unless I'm mistaken you seem to be asking for an entire revamp of the set, which really is not that necessary and to be perfectly honest I lack faith the set would not end up in a situation like EM.

A reworking of SS is unnecessary. An adjustment to Rage is all that is needed, and yes, the devs should make changes to existing sets to make them less broken and more fun, as they've done and continue to do all the time (Electric Armor being a good example).

Problem is Rage has 100% uptime, sans 10 seconds. No other Buildup-like power is up that often except Followup, which has something like a 5% downtime due to missing 5% of the time, and it's numbers are only half of what Rage's numbers are. And it becomes useless in high-Defense scenarios. No other Buildup-like power can touch Rage for duration, reliability and buff potential. Rage has no equal in the game.

Keep in mind, you can double stack Follow Up and it has no crash. The two are not total equals, but that's part of their unique charm imo.

I see your point about Rage's 100% up time, but I've played several other high damaging sets and I don't think Super Strength's damage would be on par with other sets without rage.

Considering you can get rage just shy of perma with just 3 SOs, it seems to me that it was designed to be up all the time.


It's not useless in high-defense scenarios.

No other buildup-like power is in a set that relies on the buildup so heavily for damage parity with other sets.

If you have numbers that prove otherwise, I would be happy to listen however.

Of course you know its going to get sanatized when it gets ported to scrappers. We all know this seriously what rock you been sleeping under? Castles been itching to gut this power for a while now just like with all the other so called log over due changes.

For Brutes and Tanks. Blinding Feint and Follow Up have half the ToHit buff of Rage at 10%, but are given just 30% +damage. A triple stack of these skills offers just 10% more damage than a single stack of Rage, which is 80% +damage.

Rage isn't really a problem when isolated to the SS set. It is a problem with PPPs and APPs; it is a problem with Vet/Temp powers; it is a problem with damage auras and Shield Charge; and I have a feeling that it will skew abilities from the upcoming Incarnate system as well.

Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn Hazy is right

I agree that the devs should make changes to existing sets to make them less broken and more fun. I disagree that rage is a broken power that need to be change. Can rage be made better? Yes, but that could easily make SS an overpowered set. Should rage be nerfed? Maybe, but that could easily make SS an underpowered set. Without a lot of testing to make sure that rage stays good but not to good SS could become the next EM. So why risk?

This is best argument I have read. If the devs are porting SS over to scrappers then I can see a real reason for a change to rage. Have the devs said that they are finally porting SS to scrappers or is this just the usual rumor that’s been going around for years?

If Follow Up doesn't hit, there's no bonus. It breaks down very quickly against high Defense opponents. Rage doesn't.

Correction noted. I was giving Follow Up a bit too much credit.

We're not talking about nerfing Rage, but taking the annoying aspect of it, the crash, out and adjusting the power so you get the same damage output over time as the current Rage. I wouldn't call that a nerf, I'd call it an improvement.

I agree with this!

Rage is balanced as it is; it's the only damage buff that can actually get you killed:
-Def crash if you're not paying attention and don't stack Rage
-End crash will drop your toggles if you're not paying attention to the End bar

Rage makes SS a unique and fun set, therefore is fine as is.

I wish people would spend more time trying to make sets unique and fun instead of making them all the same!

This is City of Heroes/Villians not City of Bland!!

Vanila is fine as an Ice cream not as a game.

I get killed trying to use Fulcrum Shift sometimes...

And... uh...

>.>
<.<

...

I've got several characters with damage buffs that require someone else die first *evil grin*

Sorry, I meant out of the Build Up / damage buffs used by melee characters.

You are going to have a fun time convincing other players that it's an improvement and developers that it should be done.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

I think it will still be quite some time before they port over the sets with extreme DS attacks (like KO blow, seismic, ET). IIRC they even lowered the damage a bit on Greater Fire Sword during the port to scrappers.

If/when those sets finally show up for scrappers I very much expect the extreme attacks to only partially crit, similar to total focus for stalkers.

The next round of proliferation is set for after Going Rogue, so we'll see. Super Strength Scrappers are a very popular request. Will they do something with Rage before such a port? Most likely.

Follow up doesn't have a crash.

It never suddenly drops your end by 25, nor drops your Damage to Zero.

It never crashes your defense.


So I don't see a problem.






It's not just an "annoying aspect", it's a balancing point.

Suffering a loss of endurance when you're not prepared for it is not the same as choosing to use similar chunk of end at a time of your choosing.

Not being able to kill things can compromise your survivability, depending on the scenario.

And before you can get rage perma, the loss of defense compromises your survivability as well.



Interesting point.

I wouldn't say it is a 'given' that it's going to change, but I could live with something like this. Though I'd have to test it out to say for sure.

Personally, I really dislike the 10 seconds of no damage. It takes the flow out of my murderous rampages ...

Footstomp on high recharge is 76% mitigation by itself, don't think you could make an argument for that going over to scrappers as is to begin with

I'm certianly not taking up the torch trying to get SS ported unaltered to scrappers that's for sure.

I'm also not keen on the whining that would happen if they reduced it a bunch to give it to scrappers. Probably so many tears they would end up changing tank/brute SS too just cause scrappers are so special.

Nah, I'm j/k I like scrappers, but seriously the whining would be extreme if they only reduced scrapper SS.

Absolutely! Testing any change would be a given. It might turn out to be great or lousy. Sometimes there's no telling until you get in game and actually play it, no matter what it looks like on paper.

And I agree. Sitting around for 10 seconds isn't fun.

Of course not, and that's exactly the point of the crash as is.

Perhaps, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant, either.

This depends on your definition of "well" and "uber well."

There is also the problem of 'sub-par combination x/y has Z performance with IOs' while 'optimal combination a/b has Z+50 performance with IOs.'

Is nerfing always the way to go? No.
Is buffing always the way to go? No.

There is a balance between the two. I'd suggest reading Positron's blog entry on "nerfing" if you want to hear the reasons for it straight from a designer.

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I started writing a response to this last week, but I held off posting since I hadn't had time to corroborate my thoughts with personal performance comparisons, calculations, etc; I didn't want to pull numbers out of my ****. I thought I had saved what I had written, but I guess not.

At any rate, I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I think my main concerns with SS boils down to this:

1) Rage's Persistant tohit buff
2) Rage's effect on non-SS powers
3) Footstomp
4) Rage amplifying Footstomp's already broken nature

I don't care too much about Rage's damage bonus on lower tier SS powers, nor do I worry too much about KO Blow (due to it's slower than usual recharge). The above are the root of the issues.

Then I started thinking about what it would take to 'fix' them.

1) Lower the tohit buff
2) No way to make the buffs exclude these
3) Lower either the damage or radius. Alternatively, increase the recharge.
4) Can't make it exclusive (see #2), and even with a toned down Footstomp, it may be too good.

On the subject of Rage, my train of thought kept going. Suppose:

1) Tohit buff is lowered
2) The damage buff operates at a lower value for pool powers
3) The damage buff is averaged out with the crash (no crash, lower dmg buff). (This would likely result in stacking being eliminated.)

What would this accomplish? It would create a click power that provides a damage buff that is basically the same as other sets... unfortunately, it would be quite bland.

I always thought Rage would've made more sense if it was strong, but either not perma or the penalties would be enough so that you may not want to perma it. An offensive 'god mode,' if you will. In this case, it would mean tweaking the set such that the lower tiers aren't as lack luster as they are now so you didn't feel like you needed Rage to be competetive, but it would provide a lot of oomf when something needs to die.

That would make the set progress through the levels smoother and be more flavorful, imo. As always, there is a catch: it would involve changing more numbers, which has a higher chance of using a 'wrong' number, and there is a higher chance people won't like it.

The real catch here is that people already like the flavor, its not for everyone but should it be ? If you walked into a restaurant and all there was on the menu was pickled herring there would be an argument about making changes to the menu, but that isn't our case. We have fiery melee, stone melee, electrical melee etc. The menu has many choices.