What would Super Stength be like if...

Yeah I should have worded better. The idea I was meaning to convey was: the combination of radius and recharge time make FS awesome. Compare to say, Lightning Rod, which is awesome too, but has a much longer recharge.

I'll add another reason FS NEEDS to be better than some formula that is supposedly applied consistently to all powersets. It is the only real aoe ability SS has, in both damage and mitigation, and it gets it as late in the game as you can get it. If FS ever gets weakened, you'd have to rework the entire set - handclap would have to be made into a viable power and/or a cone or two would need to be added to early level powers.

In terms of how the power works, your claim of "massive permanent +dam provides increases to end efficiency" doesn't make any sense when you consider the fact the 'massive plus damage' provided by rage only allows SS to do damage on par with several competing sets. Using mids, and assuming each power is 3 slotted for damage, SS using rage and claws using one followup, claws spin outdamages footstomp, recharges faster, and costs less end, PLUS its available at LEVEL SIX. So I would hope that FS would have some advantage, like a larger radius and damage mitigation. And claws offers similar mitigation at the same level as FS with shockwave. Oh, and it's got a nice cone with a heavy hitter in eviscerate.

And about endurance use in general, when I see you address SS, I have to wonder if you have ever actually played the set - have you? If you're using rage with SS (and if you're not, then SS is indisputably an underpar powerset), then you are going to have endurance issues, moreso than any competing set. First of all, the crash cannot be mitigated - you're losing 25% of your endurance every 2 minutes, or more if you stack rage at all. Others sets have a much easier time mitigating endurance usage with enhancements and IO's. Secondly, the end loss comes immediately and in one lump sum. This means less time for your recovery to deal with the loss, and can put you in really bad situations, really quickly. SS is not an endurance friendly set - if you're coming to that conclusion just using math, then you're missing a variable somewhere.

True, but then Electric has Jacobs Ladder, Thunderstrike and Chain Induction vs. Handclap.

If only having a single AoE power is what mattered, then sets like MA and Energy would get the same treatment (which they don't). As I said before, what level you get a power doesn't affect it's end effectiveness. We have this as dev fiat: what tier you get a power doesn't affect how it handles the formulas in question.

For ST damage, and only because it has subpar ST attacks to work with. For AoE damage, Rage + Footstomp actually allows SS to deal more damage with lower animation time consumption than Claws. I can link you to the math if you want me to (and, comically enough, it's coming from a guy that will scream the awesomeness of Claws/* at the top of his lungs whenever he gets the chance).

For the endurance efficiency argument, consider Whirling Mace, which consumes 13 endurance to deal scale 1.12 damage. With 95% +dam slotting, WM deals scale 2.184 damage for 13 end, or .168 scale for each point of endurance spent (and has a smaller area than FS has now or should have if it got reduced). FS consumes 18.512 end to deal scale 1.42 damage. With 95% +dam slotting and 80% +dam from Rage, FS deals scale 3.905 damage for 18.512 end, or .211 damage per point of endurance spent. FS with Rage is 25% more endurance efficient than WM (completely ignoring the fact that FS is also going to hit more targets more easily thanks to the substantially larger area). Care to argue that point as well now that the math supports what should have been obvious?

1. Claws' "secondary effect" is a recharge and endurance cost reduction so it should recharge faster and cost less end. You'll also notice that it doesn't have the mitigation secondary effect, which is another plus in FS favor.

2. At the "proper" radius, FS would have a 10' radius. Compared to Spin, it would have a 56.25% larger area of effect. You can't assume that Spin would be directly compared to FS since the area that a power fills is a function in the AoE cost formula as well (larger areas cost more rech and end than smaller areas).

As I've stated before and the devs have stated before, what level a power is accessed doesn't affect the potency of the power. The only "guide" on tier is that lower tier powers should be more "basic" powers and higher tier powers should be more "complex" power.

If you stop attacking for the 10 seconds every 120 seconds that you do virtually no damage (because, at that point, you're operating with the outright worst DPE you could ever hope to have) and you have Stamina, you won't have the same problems. Slotted Stamina increases your base recovery up to 2.48 end/sec. Factor in some end drain thanks to toggles, and you'll get around 15-20 end if you don't attack for those 10 seconds, which means that it only costs you about 5-10 end unless you insist on attacking for no real effect.

Now, if you want to get even more involved when talking about endurance issues, you have to realize that, while SS has lower DPS capabilities than other sets, it also has lower endurance consumption from those exact same attacks (because end costs are based off of base damage). Assuming 95% +dam enhancement, Rage would provide ~41% endurance "reduction". This means that if another set is spending 3 end/sec on its attack string, SS is spending only 2.13 end.sec to do the exact same damage. Factoring in that difference over the 110 seconds that you're allowed to attack with Rage, you'll "save" ~96 end compared to the other set (which more than makes up for that 25 end "loss"). If you want some other support for this, just look at Billz's thread about Brute and Scrapper DPS and end costs: you'll notice that Brute SS manages to spend only 2.9 end/sec where other sets are spending ~3.2 end.sec (and that's for Brutes which get less benefit than Tankers or Scrappers do from +dam).

If you want to get even more involved, you can always bring up the whole "perma 20% +tohit" thing as well which allows you to maintain a 90.44% chance to hit against +3 enemies with a single acc enhancement in your attacks (assuming you didn't enhance Rage for tohit enhancement at all; a single enhancement would let you maintain a 95% chance to hit against +3s and 83.79% against +4s; 3 enhancements would allow you to maintain a 95% same chance to hit against those +4s). Other sets have to devote 2 acc slots in all of their attacks to maintain a 95% chance to hit against +1s, 2 slots in all of their attacks to be just shy of a 95% chance to hit against +2s, and 3 slots in all of their attacks to be just shy of a 95% chance to hit against +3s. If you devote that "saved" slot to a single end redux, you'll be even more efficient than that as well.

Oh wait... SS has end issues right? And it's not just because you don't know how to leverage what SS brings, right?

Unless the Damage bases on every attack was modified to warrant making Rage a BU, it would be horrifying beyond belief for Tankers, and make Claws and every other melee set better for Brutes.

In short, im glad they havnt, because im confident that th Dev's will **** it up horribly.

Many player's will continue to leverage Footstomp's mitigation during the rage crash (it's exceptionally valuable on the ITF for example)

I also use my attacks to maintain threat during that period.

Tankers are a bit luckier as they can use their low tier attacks for gauntlet in this case, but any Brute trying to maintain aggro that doesn't have taunt will continue to attack for both fury and threat.


You can get as complicated as you like with the math, if you think Rage crashes don't cause END issues I'm forced to assume you've never played the set.

Throw hasten in there and it get's worse.

You don't always suffer a rage crash when you're at 100% endurance, it can (and will) often come at extremely inopportune times.

MA and EM? You mean the two sets people consistently lists as 'underpowered' and two sets that players consistently beg to get buffed?

And the fact so many sets don't seem to match up, and the very unique way SS is set up, seems to show that this magical formula you keep talking about did not exist at the games creation and has not been applied consistently throughout sets.



First of all, we are comparing the overall aoe ability of the two sets - it is unfair to only compare one power vs. another because SS gets all of its aoe abilities in one power, while claws get it's aoe in 3.

Spin does more straight up damage than footstomp. If you want to go into damage per activation, thats fine, but it demonstrates that the two powers are very comparable to eachother in terms of damage. And again, the advantages FS gets in terms of mitigation is matched with shockwave in claws. The big difference between the sets is that claws is doing aoe damage at level six, while SS does literally none until lvl 32. You can claim that is meaningless, to you or the devs, but I assure you it's not meaningless to a players playing a toon from lvl 6-32. Footstomp is easier to use and has a larger radius, but that is a fair compensation imo for the fact a set like claws gets its aoe much earlier in the game and has it spread through several powers.

And lets not ignore the fact that claws can drop a spin, eviscerate and shockwave combo which vastly improves its aoe abilities, offering even better damage and similar mitigation by putting a large group of enemies on their butts. I guess SS could do a FS and handclap combo, but that would hardly improve SS's performance, in fact it would lessen it.

If you made FS on par with spin, then obviously claws would be ridiculously better than SS. That is why the idea the game should have some set forumla for aoe powers when different sets have aoe powers distributed differently is a really bad idea.


I play coh, not the calculator. I asked you if you played SS to 50, and you seem to have dodged that question. It's starting to look like a 'no'. So let me suggest to you to put down the calculator and actually play the set to 50, and I think you'll see that when I say SS with rage creates far more end issues than any other competing set, you will agree with me (assuming you played other competing sets in the game rather than on your calculator). If your math is telling you that SS is better on end than other sets, then you're equation is broken or the game is not working the way you think it does.

Then again, looking at your post, you seem to be playing with words and numbers to cloud the argument. You're tying to look at FS and another sets single aoe power and claiming that FS, not SS overall, does more damage vs end use than the competition's single aoe attack. And again, its unfair to compare SS's one aoe attack to another sets single aoe attack, when the competing set gets its aoe in several powers. I agree that FS on its own is one of the best aoe powers in the game, but again, it SHOULD be due to the fact its the only aoe power that SS gets. When you factor in the competitions other aoe powers, you have parity.

And again, my argument is that overall, when playing the set in game, and using the sets other powers in conjunction with FS (not just spamming only FS on a calculator), SS creates FAR more end issues than any other melee set in this game.


I keep hearing that claws 'secondary effect' is recharge and end cost reductions. Yet the set still gets a reliable st kd in focus, a minus def in slash (that also allows the valuable achilles heel IO to be slotted), and a large radius kd in shockwave. Seems like claws is chock-full of 'secondary effect' bonuses to me.

And again, claws does get an aoe 'mitigation effect' in shockwave, and it's one of the best in the game, if you haven't played claws either.

The problem here seems to be that you want to compare one power to another sets one power while ignoring the overall aoe ability between sets, and then want to claim one power is overpowered. If that's how your 'formula' works, then thow it out because it sucks. FS is better overall than spin. If those were the only powers the two sets had, then clearly SS would be superior to claws in aoe ability and adjustments would need to be made to create parity (of course then we are ignoring single target set capabilities...). But then you'd be ignoring the other powers in claws that contribute to its overall aoe ability, which when used in conjunction with eachother, in game, put it on par with SS. That is why it is foolish to only compare one power with another in a different set, and/or try to shoehorn a 'formula' to set power strengths, when different sets distribute their aoe abilities differently.



Regardless, getting aoe ability at level 6 vs level 32 is an advantage for one set, from level 6-32, and becomes a larger advantage the bigger the team you are on. That is simply a fact.

Having said that, you could disregard this advantage and I would still contend that claws aoe abilities, overall and distributed through 3 powers, is on par with SS's aoe ability. Even if SS got FS at level 10, it would still need to be more powerful than any of claws 3 aoe abilities to be on par with claws - if it were equal to any of claws 3 aoe abilities, claws would clearly have superior aoe capability. If we used your formula to make FS a clone of spin, then obviously claws would be better than SS by far, with it's extra cones in eviscerate and shockwave, which again, is why a set formula for powersets that are set up in different ways, is a really bad idea.



Not being able to do anything for ten seconds every 2 minutes was a ridiculously overbearing penalty on rage, which is why it was removed. Now SS characters can do things 'with real effect' during the ten second crash that protect the SS character and his team as well. Telling a tank or brute to not do anything for ten seconds every two minutes is insanity. But again, that is why the 'can't affect anything' attribute was removed some time ago - the penalty was too severe for what the power did.

Again, put down the calculator and play the set for 50 levels and come back here and honestly tell me that SS is better on end than competing sets. Of course if you actually did that, and still honestly felt SS is better on end than competing sets, I would have to conclude that you were insane, lol.

What sets are you comparing? The only sets with better than standard accuracy (a 1.0 accmod, which SS has) are War Mace and Battle Axe (which have a 1.05 accmod to account for their redraw). SS has exactly the same accuracy as almost every other set out there. The only attack in SS that has substandard accuracy is Hand Clap (.8 accmod) and that's because it's a guaranteed AoE hard mez and all non-chance AoE hard mezzes have lower accmods (even the controller ones).

I'm curious how you "checked the sets" if you didn't see that.

Actually, the formula has existed since the beginning of the game: the Cryptic devs created it in order to allow them to adjudicate "balanced" attributes for attack powers. Secondly, it has been applied very consistently throughout sets: the number of exceptions to the formula is remarkably small (and, even then, they only get an exception on a single attribute at most). Third, I'm curious what you mean by "unique way SS is set up". Do you mean "completely horrible without a single late game power buoying it" or do you mean "massive early ST focus with a single late AoE power"? If you actually knew what you were talking about, you'd know that both of these are due to the fact that the formula does exist.

Which is what I'm talking about. All of Claws v. all of SS. If you want to get into something really funny, it's actually better to have all of your AoE capabilities in one power rather than 3 because it allows you to save on slots and animation time. Want to see the math (from the Claws' fanatic's mouth)? I gets even funnier when you ask yourself the simply question of whether a set that only has a single AoE should be able to compete with one that has 2 and a half.

Is it just me or are you simply ignoring the fact that I've said, over and over again, that DPA doesn't matter where AoEs are concerned?

And SS gets one of the best single target attacks in the game at level 12 (you know, one on par with Total Focus, Seismic Smash, and Greater Fire Sword) or did you forget about that?

Unless you didn't get this the first time, it's better to have all of your AoE concentrated in a single power. There is a reason people love Shield Charge so much.

Using up 100% of its animation time and doing barely more damage than SS, which will use up roughly half of that time to do the exact same thing. Seriously, I know I've gone over this before and I know that you were there for it. Are you just oblivious to intelligence?

Except that I know the equation is working exactly the way I think it does and the game is working exactly the way I think it does. It's not my problem if you're simply incapable of actually playing in a way that allows you to avoid the endurance issues of SS because you insist on punching things at all time and completely ignore the ability to increase your endurance efficiency rather than your damage throughput.

Except that you're the one misreading my argument. Good job on that. It makes you look both intelligent and well informed.

So is every set. The sword sets' secondary effect is -def, though they get +def, KU, and KD. DM's is -tohit but it also gets an immob and a self heal. Dual Blades' is the combos but it gets a -def attack and KD. Elec Melee's is -end and a chance for +end but it also gets KD, and Sleep. Should I go on or have I sufficiently demonstrated that just because a set has a cohesive secondary effect that the individual powers within the set are not allowed to have others?

The formula "works" by taking an area, converting it into a number of target equivalents and then multiplying the damage dealt by that quantity (in a way that very heavily favors larger areas by using completely unrealistic assumptions of how spread out targets are) in order to arrive at a value that is then converted into the standard dam/rech/end formula. Oh wait, I forgot, math doesn't exist! Yeah! The formula is simply randomly applying numbers! Joy!

And it's good enough to actually make spin look like a joke. It's "better overall" to such an extent that it can perform favorably against 2 other AoEs being used against it. But, I keep forgetting, you have to wait til tier 9 to get it so it's allowed to perform better, right? That doesn't really stop Storm Kick from being the best attack in MA, does it? Or cause any meaningful difference between Hand Clap and Lightning Clap?

Answer mel me this, please. I'm very curious. Why should a set that only has a single AoE be even remotely similar to the AoE performance of a set with only 1 (especially when you consider how SS can leverage outside AoEs while Claws is virtually incapable of it)?

And getting massive ST ability at level 12 is an advantage and becomes a larger advantage when you're fighting hard targets (cuz, you know, AVs never show up, right? And AoEs are the absolute shiz against them when they do?).

Are you simply incapable of proper reading comprehension? I've never said that FS should be a clone of Spin. Hell, I'm simply saying that FS should follow the AoE formula rather than being allowed to break it, which means that it should have its radius reduced to 10' and that's it. How am I talking about making it a clone of Spin?

Oh, wait, I get it, you're completely misreading everything I'm saying.

You wouldn't be the first person to conclude that (though the lawyers assure me that I am capable of defending myself in the court of law). Of course, I also didn't think that DA had terrible endurance problems when I played it because I played it intelligently rather than spamming everything as often as possible. Because, you know, sometimes a set should be played differently. Just because you can punch something doesn't mean that you should (not to mention that you completely ignore the fact that, no matter how you cut it, SS gets massive functional endurance efficiency increases, though that's just the math speaking; it's not like this game is governed by that at all).

Probably in reference to the huge tohit buff of rage allowing a person to skimp on acc. Which seemed pretty clear that New Dawn was talking about to me. This is really true if you start adding in some set bonuses that provide acc. It allows you to go proc crazy or end red crazy compared to most other sets.

KO blow also has a 1.2x acc modifier.