Concerned about Scrappers.

I feel qualified to comment on melee ATs now that I've 50'ed all of them, so here goes.

I've leveled multiple scrapper powerset combos to 50: broadsword/regen, broadsword/shield, dual blades/willpower. The DB/WP is still my main to this day.
I've leveled a brute to 50: super strength/energy aura. She was, I'll note, leveled during the days where Energy Aura was terrible, before it got either of the buffs it did. I've played brutes since the fury changes and such though, so I know how they play out.
I've leveled a tanker to 50: ice armor/ice melee. This was after the buff to Frozen Aura. and say what you will about the two powersets, but I had a blast playing it.
I've leveled a stalker to 50: street justice/willpower. This was most recent, in issue 22.

Scrappers are fine. They were fine before, and they are still fine. Stalkers outdamage them on average in single target, and they _should_. Scrappers still generally have the advantage in handling large groups, but even if they didn't, they still have better survivability and endurance management (why does no one ever bring this up?) than the stalker. Scrappers are fine.

Stalkers are also fine now. Before issue 22, I couldn't get into them at all. Now, they're fun to play. They have significant endurance issues as a result of using AS so much, but that's fine, AS is a really strong attack and it's an acceptable cost etc.

I think there is an argument to be made for looking at the cross-AT balance between Brutes and Tankers.

However, I (perhaps unpopularly) think that the proper approach there is not to increase Tanker's damage cap significantly, but to reduce Brute's resistance cap. My logic here is as follows: I am reasonably certain that Brutes were given the 90% resistance cap originally because City of Villains did not have access to the Tanker archetype, and someone needed to be able to produce that level of damage resistance as a metagame consideration. Issue 18 and Going Rogue didn't change this consideration much, since there was still a modicum of effort involved in producing a villainous Tanker.

But that's not the game we're playing anymore. Nowadays, you can create a Tanker directly in the Rogue Isles. Brutes no longer need that resistance cap - the ability to directly roll redside Tankers has changed Brute's necessary functions in the metagame.

As such, I think Brutes need to have their resistance caps lowered to 85%, the same as the Kheldian cap. I _also_ think melee ATs in general should have their damage caps adjusted around, and the logic for that is as follows:

Currently, Brutes have a 775% damage cap, Scrappers and Stalkers 500%, and Tankers 400%. When you apply this to each AT's base modifiers, you get the following damage scales with capped damage: Brute 5.8125, Scrapper 5.625, Stalker 5.000, Tanker 3.200.

Before I continue, though, let's also look at the survivability differential, first with HP scale. Stalkers have 1.125, Scrappers have 1.25, Brutes have 1.4, and Tankers have 1.75. Let's also bring Max HP scale into the discussion: there, Stalkers have 1.3 (recently raised from 1.0), Scrappers 1.5, Brutes 2.0, and Tankers 2.2.

The problem here should be obvious. The four melee ATs are all balanced around a metric of survivability vs. damage. If we look at the four ATs, it's reasonably clear where survivability falls: Tankers lead the pack by a substantial margin. Even considering that Brutes share their caps, Tankers have a 25% edge on base HP (and thus regeneration, since the two are tied to each other), and even Invuln, Regen, or Willpower Brutes need significant outside support to close the gap (either from Cold Domination, or from IOs). Brutes do, however, come in reasonably close behind Tankers with that outside support. Scrappers trail behind those two by quite a bit, and Stalkers come in last of course.

It stands to reason, then, that if the survivability metric is, at theoretical peak performance, Tanker > Brute > Scrapper > Stalker, then the damage metric at theoretical peak performance should read the precise opposite: Stalker > Scrapper > Brute > Tanker.

But it doesn't: it reads Brute > Scrapper > Stalker > Tanker. Therein lies the problem.

So my suggestion is as follows:

• Drop the Brute damage cap to 650% (from 775%).
• Scrapper stays right where it is.
• Raise the Stalker damage cap to 575% (from 500%).
• Raise the Tanker damage cap to 500% (from 400%) AND raise the Tanker base melee damage scalar to .9 (from .8).

Reiska, that was a very well written and informed post I would just like to ask a question related to it, though. It seems unfair to me to judge Brutes based on their damage cap and request it be nerfed when the AT's damage isn't static. It takes a fairly significant amount of building (and maintaining) to keep their damage comparable to a Scrapper and even more to surpass it.

I personally like the potential to do damage being higher but the damage, generally, remaining lower other than the occasional spike.

Those are just my two cents, though.

This analysis of comparing Brute damage to Scrapper damage was done to death some time back on the Scrapper forums when Fury was changed in I18. The conclusion was that Scrapper damage does indeed exceed Brute, both at the cap and general, once you include criticals. There are a lot of variables involved because the % chance of critical depends on what the Scrapper is fighting and sometimes what power they are using, but sensible weighted values had the Scrappers ahead.

The difference was not proportional to their survivability difference, if I recall correctly. There was not much campaigning for that to be the case.

The new Brute ATE proc and Scrapper ATE global likely calls for the non-capped analysis to be redone.

Step one to balancing the Melee ATs: lock out the Fighting Pool from them.

But that's not going to happen so... I guess raise everyone's caps so we all become overpowered equally?

The ATIO adds 2/4(normal) and 3/6(superior)

so the crits become 7/14 and 8/16

Great post, Reiska. I'd be interested in seeing your suggestion implemented.

All right, staying away from the math, since I'm a bit under the weather.

From a fun factor standpoint alone, stalker crits just seem not so fun for most primaries. With, of course, exceptions (Claws with the 6th Superior ATE woo woo). 5% or 10% chance to do double damage leaves the distinct flavor of vanilla in my mouth. I got more interesting crit mechanics than that out of tabletop D&D circa year 2000.

If the devs feel low probability crits are what they want for the archetype, that's fine. Just make them do something more than double damage. Controllers get double damage crits basically all the time; stalkers and corruptors quite a bit of the time. If scrappers get crits as little as 5% of the time, those crits should be correspondingly more meaningful.

I'll admit one complication: Getting multiple effects to trigger off the same random crit chance roll is tricky with the current engine. Does anyone have an example of this happening? I can think of a roundabout way to do it, using the "must hit at lower%" mechanic, but that would mean accuracy, tohit/def, and relative level would influence crit chance in new ways, a potentially awesome or a potentially awful outcome. Unfortunately, I'm in no condition to do the math right now. And I'm not sure it would work in the first place.