Cyber_naut

Misconception. Rage's buff only brings SS's damage dealing abilities up to par with competing sets, without rage SS is a bottom feeder damage wise.

In the scrapper forums, a member put together a best attack chain for single target damage. Using just the powersets attacks, SS finished 21st out of 28 from all scrapper/brute attack sets. Only electric, and two sets that don't even exist for brutes atm, broadsword and spines, finished behind SS. So using just the powersets powers, SS is actually sub par in terms of single target damage. Having said that, SS benefits more from attacks outside its own powerset thanks to the rage buff, so adding an attack like gloom to your chain really ups your dps, and you can fire off sands of mu and a nemesis staff while rage is crashing, which is why I upgraded my assessment to 'medium to good'.

WP starts off with pretty good energy defense, and when stacked with the regen, makes wp an especially strong secondary vs the energy heavy ritki. And you can go afk because wp doesn't require any clicking, everything is automatic. Taking this one instance and using it to claim wp is definitively stronger than regen is flawed.

Having said that, regen is a bit behind any secondary that starts off with defense, because with IO"s you can stack defense to the softcap and really improve your survivability, where on a regen that starts with none, it's a lot harder to do the same thing. But leveling up, regen is a very strong set thanks to very few toggles, a great end recovery tool, and crazy health regeneration abilities along with a great heal. It only falls behind a bit late in the game and with IO useage, but really it should, considering the advantages it has while leveling up.

The biggest difference between the two sets is how they play. WP, you turn it on and thats it. With regen, you have to actively work it as you go. Which is better is a matter of preference. Some people consider WP boring while others think regen is too much of a pain to use, while others like not having to click anything to survive, while still others enjoy the ability to actively manage their secondary as they play. That is why it's ridiculous to say regen can't sit in the middle of a spawn and survive without clicks, and why it is not a fair point to use to claim wp is better than regen. When it is used properly, ie. clicking the powers in a set that requires using click powers, it can survive in the same spawns a wp can survive in, all things being equal.

Endgame with IO's, I agree that WP has an edge overall, but not by the gap you seem to infer, and the gap will be determined by the skill of the player using regen, while the skill of the wp player is almost irrelevant. Leveling up, I give the slight edge to regen with its superior end usage and heal. Overall, pretty even sets, just drastically different playstyles. But as most people prefer 'easy' and/or the 'lazy' approach, most people would probably prefer willpower.

If certain combos are going to be nerfed based on popularity and/or performance, when can we expect combos like fire/kins and ill/rads to be nerf batted?

Yeah that guy does some good work.

From what I understand, there are 2 sides of neutral, you can use the sg/vg of the side of neutral you are on.

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.

I agree, I sure hope there is more content than what there appears to be looking at it from the outside at this point. I can't believe they didn't even add a high level new zone TF to this expansion (if they did you'd think they would have mentioned it by now).

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

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.

I gain furry very easily. Luckily, I have a razor.

Fixed my typo, though I don't think it was too hard to figure out what I meant...

The post was implying that I was wrong in my reasoning for why UM was released when it was, but the reality is we are both doing nothing more than guessing as to why it was released when it was. She stated "UM was NEVER intended to be part of the paid-for GR experience, it was meant to be part of the issue that came with GR. " This certainly seems to imply that I felt UM was intended to be part of GR, which is simply not true, the post she was referring to should make that clear. Now her stating "it was meant to be part of the issue that came with GR", which is what I stated in the post she was referring to, provides solid and correct reasoning for EITHER of our guesses, that UM was released early because it was simply ready early, OR it was released on early (or on time...) because they were lagging behind with GR, and wanted to give the players something to hold them over. Having said that, I don't really think there is any valid argument to imply that GR hasn't taken longer than expected, which seems to support my contentions about UM.

If you read the promotional material, the new way to get a contact seems to imply that it links to existing content, including the new content in GR, as implied by their side switching talk. If it links to a lot of new content, then that could be a big feature (the content, not the new way to get contacts, which was the feature I was referring to), but I'm not overly optimistic after reading into their copy and seeing them unable to deliver promised features in GR.

First of all, the first level of the incarnate system was 'mentioned' in more than one place/event. Continually implying this was not really being pushed as being included in GR is nothing more than BS. There have been several posts in this thread that showed were it was being pushed, and the OP itself demonstrates that it was an expected part of GR, hence the announcement it is now not included.

Secondly, pointing to another game that did not provide a promised feature does not excuse another company from not including a promised feature, especially in a product they pre-sold to many customers. If you're ok with that type of behavior, super, I'm sure lots of companies just love customers like that. But you shouldn't be suprised or offended that some customers don't appreciate that kind of behavior, and expect to get what they paid for and what they were told they were being sold.



I did not say that UM was intended to be part of GR, I said it was originally intended to be released at the same time. Consider your strawman footstomped.


While it is obviously a matter of opinion, the new way to get missions is not a real big feature to me, and I'm fairly certain the vast majority of players would not consider it a 'big' feature, lol.

If issue 19 comes out this year I'll be shocked, pleasantly shocked, but definitely shocked. It would be a very good sign that the power reshuffling at paragon worked. Then again, I'd need to know what is in issue 19. If it ends up being just the first level of incarnates with another 'big' feature like a random contact calling you at random times, I'd be a bit less impressed, but I'm sure you'd be thrilled, so we got that going for us.



I love it when someone's argument is so weak that they resort to becoming a spell checker, lol.

Then you put the cherry on top of your fail cake by 'crying' about my 'crying'. Brilliant!

I'd prefer they get their work done correctly and on time, that's how it works in most businesses, well, businesses that stay in business. If you're not sure you can get a feature in, don't promote it while pre-selling said product. For them to talk about the first incarnate level being in GR how many months ago, they should have been very confident it was good to go, now a month before release, its suddenly too broken to put in?

And GR has already been delayed. Ultramode was supposed to be released along with GR, they released it earlier because GR was taking longer than expected. When can we look forward to the incarnate system, late 2011? I have a feeling their knack for missing deadlines, and slow movement, is why there was a recent power shuffle at paragon studios, though perhaps too late to prevent this problem. Hopefully the situation improves as they move forward.

Now to more directly answer your original question. I'd like to see more new stuff for my money, even if it isn't 'perfect'. Maybe lessen the focus on stopping the dreaded 'farmers' and nerfing things, and more focus on releasing new content. Put the GR paid expansion aside - what are players getting this year for their subscription money? Ultramode which is bascially some shadows and reflections, the COP trial which was supposed to be out several years ago, and a few new 'mirror' missions. That's pretty bad, imo. Now if you buy the paid expansion, it looks like we'll get some new zones and lvl 1-20 content, side switching missions, and four new powersets. Not bad, but nothing overwhelming considering its a paid expansion, especially now that one of the more interesting features that expanded playability for level 50 characters has been pulled indefinitely. And just look at a feature that is being reintroduced at the same time (cop trial) to see how long indefinitely can be in this game.

Now I know that the boards here are filled with unwaivering loyalists, but it's absurd to claim people don't have reason to be critical of recent situations in this game. And I do this as a fan of this game who enjoys the vast majority of what the game makers have done here. But for this game to continue to survive, and I want it to continue to survive, they need to do a better job of getting new content out in a more timely fashion.

Yes, to claim that this feature, the first level of incarnates, was not being advertised by the company selling this game, is revisionist history. We're in a thread where a dev has made the statement informing us it is being pulled from GR, which would indicate it was public knowledge that it was intended for release with GR. This wasn't some tightly guarded, little-known secret - many people who prepurchased the game were in fact enticed into doing so in part due to this feature.

If you're OK with a company selling you a product then yanking features AFTER you buy it, that's fine, but some of us are not. But there really is no argument as to whether or not this feature was advertised in multiple instances as being a part of GR, without question it was.

Lets stop the attempts at revisionist history right now. The first level of the incarnates system was pushed by the devs as being in GR before the prepurchase thing came up. Pointing at one or two things that doesn't include this information doesn't change that fact. The very fact that positron started this post saying he was pulling the system from GR, and this isn't the beta forums, clearly demonstrates that it was a known fact this system was going to be in GR.

That isn't even in GR now... at all..

This is incredibly LAME. Starting the incarnate thing was a huge selling point of GR for me. Pulling it out at this stage, after you used it to market GR, and after many players pre-purchased GR (including me), really pisses me off.