Rage crash nerd rage

Basically, the current version was a compromise reached between the developers and the playerbase over how the power should behave. Given that there was already a long, drawn-out, and frankly ugly, war between the players and developers over how the rage power should work, and how the player should be affected, it isn't likely that Castle, Sunstorm, or Synapse are going to be open towards revamping the power... yet again.

You are free to make any suggestions you like about the power, but be-aware that pretty much any suggestion you make that would successfully retain trading off the damage and to-hit boost for a player debuff has more than likely already been made, and already discussed to the point of nausea. You might also need to be made aware that suggestions have been made to implement a version of Rage without a player debuff, and that those suggestions have been flat rejected.

would you like it if they just gave you a build up like the other sets?

This, except I kinda hope it gets nerfed, so they can actually port it to scrappers.

/This.

SS is fine Dev's... Nothing to see here, keep moving.

If they add AoE, Foot Stomp gets put in line with other PBAoEs. SS may only have one AoE, but it's a mightily broken one.

I've got an entire write-up for some SS changes I'd like to see in the future, but my change to Rage really has to be the biggest one:

As I'd like to see it, Rage would be a toggle with a long recharge time (~90 secs) that provides a small +tohit buff(~7.5-10%) and activates RageModeOn for the character for a pittance of endurance (.065 end/sec cost for the toggle; the same as Combat Jumping). While RageModeOn, all Super Strength attacks the character uses would deal an additional 50% base damage and cost the character an additional 50% of the base endurance cost of the power as unresistable end drain. The end effect would be for the SS user to deal substantially more damage that is fully affected by all +dam buffs while having to pay a disproportionate cost for doing so (because the additional end cost wouldn't be reduced by end redux), which also means that Brutes would get the full effect of Rage rather than the diluted gains they currently achieve (because the comparative advantage of another 80% +dam when you're already packing ~250% isn't much compared to what you'd get if your baseline +dam were only ~100%).

For some numerical examples of how it would work, consider an arbitrary SS attack string that deals 50 DPS and costs 3 end/sec, unenhanced (16.67 DPE). With my variant of Rage toggled on, the attack string would deal 75 DPS and cost 4.5 end/sec (16.67 DPE). The dam/end ratio is perfectly preserved, though the end cost is quite a bit too high to be sustainable (even though the damage is high enough that you might kill your target before you notice you're about to run out of end). Now we assume that the player enhances it for 100% +dam and 50% end redux. With Rage toggled off, it deals 100 DPS and costs 2 end/sec (50 DPE). With Rage toggled on, it deals 150 DPS and costs 3.5 end/sec (42.86 DPE). The ratio skews downwards, meaning that, though you're dealing more damage, you're having to pay more endurance for that higher level of damage: you're getting 50% more damage, but you're paying 16.67% more endurance per point of damage spent for the privilege of doing so.

Now, the advantage is that you get to deal more damage virtually any time you want and it stacks with virtually everything. The disadvantage is that the additional damage you're getting is only as endurance efficient as it would be without any end redux in the power. The long recharge time on the toggle forces you to avoid toggle-dancing it and the higher cost causes the cost to go up as the performance you're getting goes up (meaning that it's incredibly difficult to simply build around the endurance cost as was possible with toggle-IH back in the day). It also has no crash so the only "crash" that occurs would be the endurance crash that happens normally when you run out of endurance.

When considering this, it's important to remember that, along with this change, I would also tweak the dam/rech/end on the SS attacks so that they actually have decent performance without needing to rely on Rage (just try looking at the numbers for Punch and Jab without laughing), so the set wouldn't really have the current justification for having a power that so thoroughly outclasses other powers within its same classification because the baseline powers of the set are so abysmal.

(as to the numbers, I'm not entirely set on them; the dam/rech/end ratio is relatively standard and I chose to provide an even trade off between endurance and damage in order to attempt to preserve that ratio; there might be some issue with not increasing recharge, but I see that as a viable trade off when you consider that endurance costs higher than endurance recovery capabilities are exponentially worse the higher they get above that point of equilibrium; with slotted Stamina, the amount of time that an individual would be able to fight with Rage on and off using the above arbitrary attack string would be ~50 seconds and ~193 seconds, respectively, assuming a 1.0 end/sec passive drain; the difference between those two numbers gives me some confidence that tweaking the ratio between damage and endurance costs wouldn't really be needed to account for a lack of increase to recharge costs)

No way. Foot Stomp is already one of the best AoE attacks in the game and SS already puts out some of the highest sustained AoE damage of any set out there. SS doesn't need more AoE.

This isn't a bad idea, but I have some concerns about it.

Mainly, the added endurance penalty will hit some toons harder than others. Players whose secondaries have methods of getting endurance back faster (i.e. energy aura, electric armor, fiery aura, willpower) might find the added endurance trivial, while other sets that don't have those abilities might find it crippling. Electric armor and energy aura in particular would probably find the added endurance cost trivial, since it's easy for those sets to get to a point where they can completely refill their endurance bar every 30 seconds or less.

Things like that would make it extremely hard to balance the exact numbers for a power like that.

Energy Melee. And SS gets a decent ranged attack. And Rage. Energy Melee suffers more.
/Tanker gripe

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The changes would be to just tweak the dam/rech/end on the various attacks to make them actually viable attacks, along with some possible revision of secondary effects (such as making Hand Clap deal minor smashing damage while RageModeOn). Jab and Punch would likely be increased to 4 and 6 second recharge attacks, respectively, to give them actual viable DPAs. Haymaker would probably stay where it is. KO Blow would get its recharge reduced to 15 seconds or so, the damage would get brought down to a ~2.8 damage scale (from 3.56 damage scale currently), and the mez effects on the power would likely take a hit in effectiveness (either reduce the duration or provide them with a chance to occur). Hurl would probably get a 12 second recharge. Footstomp would either get an increase to endurance and recharge to account for its larger AoE (recharge increased to ~30 seconds and endurance increased to ~27 endurance) or it would get its radius reduced to 10'.

Because recharge, endurance, and damage are directly related when excluding bonus damage, the changes I would make to the set would simply act to increase the DPAs of the various attacks in the set and the endurance costs would be the same as accomplished by most other sets. So if my SS is doing the same non-Rage DPS as a set like Broadsword (which is where it would roughly lie, if I'm not completely off), it would have roughly the same endurance costs as the set to boot. With Rage turned on, the damage goes up substantially higher, but the endurance costs get substantially higher to boot, in exactly the way I described before.

That's going to be a problem no matter what you do with the set. With my tweaks, it at least provides a substantive reason to have those largely redundant endurance effects when all players are getting Stamina as an inherent relatively soon. It also means that, even if those players have massively awesome endurance recovery, they're still going to be experiencing problems when facing end draining enemies because they'll be just barely capable of sustaining the endurance costs of a constantly on Rage.

(The actual workaround I would want for this would be for the toggle to have a limited duration that it is allowed to stay on, such as 90 seconds, to outright prevent people from building around leaving it on forever, but I know how unpopular those types of restrictions are for people so I made what I see to be a compromise by allowing it to stay on for a very long time but for the costs of leaving it on to be very high)

Because Rage is so obscenely powerful that, in order to make a set with Rage that is also even remotely close to being balanced, you need to virtually castrate the rest of the set in order to stop Rage from making everything else completely borked. Without Rage, SS would be a joke of a set (look at how the set performs before level 28). Rage is simply so strong that you can't simply drop it into a set in place of BU (or any other BU variant) and expect it to remain balanced. No other sets are going to get Rage unless it gets a very hefty rebalancing then, and, even then, it's doubtful that other sets would get something akin to Rage because Rage is, where most people are concerned, SS's schtick. Giving other sets Rage would be like asking for other melee sets to be given combos like Dual Blades.

well I wouldnt know about SS being borked without rage. KO blow is still nuts, Footstomp too, punch and haymaker aren't any worse than the other sets counter parts except for maybe smashing dmg.

And Dual Blades... And Dark Melee... And Kinetic Melee... And Fire Melee... Hmm

"Cough cough" Psi Assault "Cough hack" Shield Charge "Cough hack wheeze"

Ugh, I hate fall allergies.