Frosticus

An attack chain optimizer already exists, you just fill out all of the fields hit F7 and away you go.

As far as I know it optimizes for DPA/DPS rather than EPS if that is something you are looking to add to yours.

I don't use it as the attack chains I'm usually calculating are much more complicated due to stacking -res, so drawing them out by hand is more accurate. But for something as simply as most scrapper chains I think this program works really well.

http://www.snakebytes.net-a.googlepages.com/test2.html

We may not disagree at all! If you notice Elec blast was front and center of the sets that I highlighted as needing some love.

With regard to the vigilance end discount I actually really liked it on my storm and (pre HL) cold defenders. Even when you are doing your job people will take some damage and they use a lot of endurance. I imagine I'd like it on a sonic as well. But the other sets either don't use very much endurance or have powerful heals which is where I agree with Silas that it is either unnoticeable or only effective if you ignore part of your role.

No, I won't do that. I run up an analysis send it to Castle or the appropriate dev and then I'm done with it. If they pander to unsupported vocalizations more than demonstrated data then I'm personally pretty handcuffed in the system. I've tried the whining approach a few times about changes in this game. It just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

I apologize if I'm coming off as gruff, I do have a number of defenders and am looking at a couple others to level up.

The thing is the devs took a look and gave something to Defs but was there actually a need? The need is about as compelling as me complaining that my brute fury doesn't have unreal tournament style phrases attached to different damage levels.

I'll be the first on board if specific power sets were being examined to address some of the inequalities within the AT, but a global buff really doesn't address any of the issues that defenders have other than to spackle on some fresh filler in hopes the cracks won't resurface in the near future. A global buff like this benefits the defenders that were already strong at solo'ing far more than the defenders that struggle with it. And the defenders that were already good at solo'ing (basically everything but Emp and FF and elec blast) already solo'd well lol.

A FF/elec going from 70.5 dam at lvl 50 to 81 dam with the new buff isn't magically going to make FF users satisfied with solo performance once the shinyness of the buff wears off.

But my storm/sonic will take that same buff and go from ~115.6 dam to 133.4 dam with my tier 1. The buff is about 1.7x as good for my toon which already cuts through bosses as fast as many scrappers. My total focus, which is already devastating because of all the -res I throw out will go from 414 dam to 477.8 dam.

So I'll definitely be able to see and feel the buff on that toon. It is a major increase in my orange numbers. But I really don't see a FF or emp being satisfied with it in the long run.

Basically I'm not excited about the specifics of the buff because of all the defender whining about struggling to solo it wasn't a global complaint it was always specific to certain sets. But rather than address specific problems the Uncle Benz 2 minute instant rice solution was employed.

Ya corrs aren't bad at all, they just need a little something more imo. But I was saying that long before this defender buff. This buff just makes the issue more apparent.

That said, we don't have the corr populace whining about damage like defenders did for various reasons:
- scourge, though not nearly as beneficial as most people think, is highly visual and powerful "feeling"
- corrs don't have any dog sets like FF or emp when it comes to delivering personal damage.
- a higher percentage of corrs actually play their toon offensively being the only full blast AT available redside. Whereas some defs barely attack, or skip some strong attacks altogether.

I think it is a case of the corr wheel not being nearly squeaky enough and corrs being nowhere near broken that we will see nothing for the AT until after the Cathedral of Pain is put back in. Defenders were in a similar boat in that they weren't broken at all, but their wheel squeaked so badly it was nearly a screech.

I think the dev explanation for the defender buff says it all. Pure whining got this change put into place. And while I say good for defenders (I play them too), its not how I prefer things to be prioritized.

I know what you mean. I actually stopped playing my dark corr project recently. Scourge was doing next to nothing for the toon because the damage is all long duration dots and each new attack checks for scourge at a much higher relative hp than if the damage were upfront.

I found I was often scourging things to death that gloom's slow dot would have killed anyway, meaning not just overkill damage on the scourge but an entire wasted attack. Even more prevalent in the dot aoe's.

I also agree that when these powers finally do scourge the critical should be front loaded rather than just doubling the dots, as you say like scrapper incinerate.

To be honest if I could I'd move the AT away from such a strong reliance on scourge, in some ways it reminds me of the gimmicky nature of old domination (though not so severe). I'm just unsure if the devs share that feeling or not. There are also those times where you are playing with a kin and having the ability to critical often is very nice.

Sure you can. The value you place on it is debateable, but it is always greater than 0, which by default will favor a longer duration taskforce as it will drive the value closer to the 1 merit per 3 min value if we assume the task is being completed in the dev assigned time.

As the number distances itself from 0 it benefits longer duration tasks more and more. Even if we state that vill and hero tasks are formed in the same time it automatically puts villains at a disadvantage because their tasks are on average shorter.

Shivians are optional to assist in driving your time below the dev assigned value (ideally anyway, some tasks may be skewed by their use previous to merit assignment). However, the sunk cost of team formation is not optional. It will invariably occur.

That said, if you use a shivian on a task then your total time spent on the task does increase because the shivian is expended and took time to get. Interestingly enough, if player A uses a shivian that was already in his possession and did not add to the teams formation time it would negatively impact Player A's total time spent on the task, while potentially lowering the time spent of all the other players.
The time spent to form the team that ran the mission prior to the TF would then be the task formation time. Until there is auto team assignment put in place (not saying I want it) team formation will always have a value greater than 0*

*An exception goes to planned Tasks that are organized outside of the game. Such as when they are planned on the forums. However, the value is still likely to be greater than 0 unless everyone involved logged in at the exact same moment.

The impact the sunk cost has on actual merits/min to time spent on the Task can appear pretty minor (as shown in my last post), but over time it can really add up.

No those are already accounted for in the formula because it is primarily based on median completion times.

Challenge is already accounted for. See Arcanaville's description on minimum thresholds for a greater understanding. While it may not be the most comprehensive system that could be employed it does account for challenge.
I seriously doubt the devs would implement anything like Dr Q these days. I'm sure their datamining shows that they are so infrequently played that removing them would have no statistical significance on the game. If new ones are introduced they will all be sub ~2 hr completions.

I can understand why you might have interpreted what I was saying as a request for longer duration SF's, but I actually wasn't. Quite the opposite actually. I want them to slice and dice the super long hero tasks like they are doing with Posi. Many of them need serious revision to bring them up to acceptable content standards. I'd also like to see 3-5 more SF's added in the 25+ game.

For clarification: I'm not saying that formation time should be factored into the dev formula for merit reward, just that end users should be aware of it when calculating things like earned merits/time spent.

Brawl is useful before attack chain saturation, or if you are seeking an attack that cost zero endurance. You don't need to start with it, just include it during attack gaps. I use brawl on my scrappers until I have attack chain saturation. Some damage > no damage. Seems like something an "expert" would know.

I also haven't made any claims of being an "expert" that was you and only you. I do have a lot of experience with both AT's that have shaped my opinion of them and I am quite good at numerical assessments as well.

I personally don't think scrappers are complicated enough to be boasting claims of expert status, but if your pride depends on retaining a self declared, arbitrary and made-up title about the easiest and least complicated AT in the game then be my guest.

Good thing the majority of examples have been talking about 0/x3, which even the weakest pairing can handle post SO's (see earlier explanations of why less fury is required in earlier levels). Your attempt to move the goalposts just failed.
Generally, frequent forum posters tend not to be totally useless on an AT if they are going to be arguing mechanics with experience players ad nauseum like you have. There is always an exception though, you have certainly proved that.

That said, I'm sure some people do play their brutes on 0/0, I'm also sure they are so casual about the game they don't give a rats *** about how their damage stacks up to a scrappers.

I also honestly don't care if you can exceed my personal performance. I'm pretty sure there is no actual competition involved in this discussion. However, you are the first person I've encountered that claimed to be an "expert" at the easiest AT in the game and then struggled playing the other easiest AT in the game that plays almost identically.
I did and I also said that the gap is tiny.
Honestly you haven't agreed with much and yet you've been wrong on pretty much every post you've made.

Dom's are considerably more complex than scrappers or brutes. They rely on active mitigation vs passive mitigation and are a hybrid melee/ranged blaptroller AT.

The difference in skill requirement to play a scrapper well and a brute well (which is what is and was being talked about) is probably about 10%. If that is a hurdle you are struggling with then I'd hate to see you on a dom or one of the other AT's that are greatly more complicated than the two easiest AT's in the game.

And on the 18th time having it explained light finally shone.

And on the 19th reply I was able to rest from all my works.

Kill things quickly? from the sounds if it ya, you don't. But I already revoked your expert scrapper badge, reapplication starts in May.

alright so we are talking about a lvl 8 brute then?

This is the same thing a brute does if they want cause you will be at high fury before the first spawn is dead, then run to the next one and be doing more damage than the scrapper. Of course, you'd have to be rolling your face around on the keyboard to be fighting at 0/x1 when you have ET and TF (lvl 32+) so your analysis is completely irrelevant.

I always took out the first spawn with bu+FE on my em/fire. It basically smoothed out my performance as I would have high fury by the time I was on to the next ones. Then again I leave 0/x1 solo to my emp with only 1 attack (just kidding, I don't have one of those).

I'll use a car analogy cause everyone loves car analogies. Scrappers are like AWD cars, they are crazy fast off the line because they never lose traction, they are fast through the corners and they can handle rough weather with minimal performance loss.
translation: scrappers start fast and can handle ups and downs of the game cause they always perform well.

Brutes are like RWD cars. They spin out in the beginning while searching for the rear wheels to hook up and then accelerate faster. They have higher peak performance because less power is lost in the drivetrain and they ultimately turn in better laps times.
translation: brutes start killing slower, but once they build up fury they move through spawns faster. You need a bit more skill (though not nearly as much as in the car analogy) to get peak performance out of a brute.

AWD cars are typically easier to learn to drive at the edge, but RWD cars can outperform them when driven with skill.
translation: scrappers are easier, but brutes are better race cars... and lets be honest, in CoX the difference in skill required is puny.

This is just gibberish, don't post math fu if you only have your 10th degree white belt.

This is true, the only wrench in the works is that it can and often does take a bit longer to form up a villain SF. But even pretending it take the same time.

If it takes you 10 min to form up a team and run run RSF and complete it in the 1 merit/3 min time of 75 min so the task took 85 min.
= 1 merit for 3.4 min

10 min to form up a team and run STF and complete it in the 1 merit/3 min time of 111 min so the task took 121 min.
= 1 merit for 3.27 min

It seems small, but the longer TF's usually have more corners you can cut, but team formation time is always a sunk cost. One that is often higher villain side, but not always.

The result is that the higher merit total of many hero tasks can be leveraged to earn more merits/min. Of course this disappears if your team stays together and runs multiple merit rewarding content, but that is usually the exception rather than the rule.

The difference is seemingly small, but over enough time and enough people it can really add up.

I don't think it has been changed, but

Fury generation:
Attack/Attacked for class minion/lut/boss
Fury is awarded regardless of a successful hit

4/2 so 8%/4% dam buff for 3 seconds.
-2 (4% dam buff) decay every 1 second.

Once you reach 80pts of fury it changes and you encounter diminishing returns so that exceeding 80% fury is more difficult than reaching it and/or maintaining it. Vs AV's the diminishing returns are not supposed to be present (or maybe just not as strong) so reaching max fury (95+) is more feasible.

Just using attacks fury generation is more difficult as designed. It is maximized by attacking quickly and being attacked quickly.

How quickly fury builds is dependent on your power choice use and to a lesser extent the mobs you are facing. If you have powers that decrease enemy attack rate (ie -rech, mezz, knocks) you will lower the amount of fury generation that they contribute. This is the given reason why ice melee/armor was removed from brutes as it supposedly hampered fury production. However, the devs obviously never played dark armor as it restricts enemy fury far more than ice ever could. And yet DA brutes still have little issues generating fury. I'm pretty sure we weren't given ice armor because of a specific fury exploit that would still exist involving hibernate. Anyway though.

The math isn't particularly difficulty and it is pretty easy to see how reaching 75 pts of fury is a common occurrence. Obviously it gets easier the more powerful your toon becomes due to attack chain saturation and the ability to face enemies more frequently.

That should make the early game comparatively worse for brutes then because they have less attacks and can't face as many enemies? It would. Except AT scalars don't take full effect until the late teens. This mean brutes are doing more damage with their attacks than their 0.75 scalar suggest meaning less fury requirements to match other high damage toons.

It also means that during the restrictive levels where endurance is a major concern brutes have more leeway to slot end reduction DO's than is afforded to other AT's without having a major impact on their output.

Sounds like a secret conspiracy to me. Or it didn't happen. I'm aware the forums is not representative of the entire populace, but something as major as "so many comments" would likely sneak onto the forums at some point.

"expert" scrappers know how to fly through spawns so fast blasters get jealous. It just so happens that applying that "expertise" results in Brutes flying through spawns so fast blasters get jealous.

lol there is nothing technically difficult about playing a high damage armored AT short of occasionally having to prioritize targets within the spawn. If you said something like you were an expert storm player or expert with MM macro/binds you might have had a point.

Proficiency with scrappers leads directly to faster kill times. That exact playstyle leads to high fury.

We know you think it is lower, you are the same guy that couldn't get it up right?

Why would a beginner expect "so much damage" where does it say anything on the character creation screen relating their damage to another AT? It doesn't, it just says high damage, which I can assure you during the low levels they are extreme high damage because scalars haven't kicked in yet so they are comparatively doing more damage with their attacks than they eventually will.

I've heard a lot of things around here, but never once have I heard "brutes suck", or "they need a buff" used to describe brutes. I've heard buff requests for specific powers, but never about the AT. I've heard the opposite though. /e shrug.

Lastly, any, and I mean ANY, self proclaimed scrapper "expert" would have zero issues playing a brute to full potential. That isn't a statement of declaration of whether they will necessarily like brutes, but for any such "expert" fury is so easy to build and maintain it really is a non-issue. I'm not sure who was handing out the expert badges the day you got yours, but it may have been a clerical error.

You are the one arguing with the simple numbers, that makes the burden of proof fall into your lap. Also considering a vid of you playing was requested first and you are one of the only people I've heard say that fury building is difficult.

I don't feel I have anything to prove. My brutes rip hard, generally a bit harder than my scrappers. I have no issues getting great mileage out of brutes. You are the one that is struggling to exceed 60% fury, that is your problem as we have been fairly helpful.

You are deliberately seeking ways that make a brute struggle to build fury and then citing that as some all encompassing truth, when the reality is the vast majority of the time fury is simple and easy to get very high. If you are frequently afk'ing or letting a dominator beat you to the punch then ya brutes won't exceed expectations. Maybe the is representative of how you play the game, but it sure doesn't look like what I do.

Sure, if you factor in non combat time you may well be right. But non-combat time is irrelevant. Brutes easily average 75% fury while fighting. The fact is they are usually at much higher than 75% during the fight. the 75% is derived by averaging the lower fury at the start and the higher fury near the end of each confrontation.

Non combat time is irrelevant because if I sit at the market long enough I can drive my average down to nearly 0% fury.

I'm currently running Mender Lazarus' Oro TF on my brute and averaging 15-16 minutes for 10 merits. That seems like decent merit earning to me for an almost entirely single target focused toon. If you are familiar with the TF it involves a lot of the "weak" aspects you talk about for brutes (if you are speeding it).
My bs/shield that is 4 levels higher can't finish it as quickly.

Good point, except fury is easy to build on 1/1 settings so actually not a good point.

All of which other than the aoe intangible are non-issues unless you are sitting back and playing timid. Considering I've seen an aoe intang used 3 times in the 4 yrs I've been playing...

I'll see if I have a copy of Fraps lying around somewhere, I don't have it on my pc at the moment.

Most is now synonymous with less than half?
scrapper smite at cap:
no crit = 82.6*5 = 413
vs minion = 82.6*5*1.05 = 433.65
vs luts+ = 82.6*5*1.1 = 454.3

brute smite at cap:
55.1*8.5= 468.35

The numbers aren't supporting what you are saying as 468 > what the scrapper does

It also says nothing of the super attacks like KO blow, or ET
at cap
KO blow = 148.5*8.5 = 1262.25
ET = 190.2*8.5 = 1616.7

For reference a Headsplitter critical at cap (hardest hitting attack available to scrappers with critical) = 1627, which will only occur 15% of the time and will just as likely result in massive overkill on a minion as it will be put to good use on a boss/lut


If I say yes will you accept that it might be you and not us that are wrong? Also the situations you just listed account for a tiny portion of typical play experience. You need to actively seek scenarios to gimp a brute.

Look, a lot of players can leverage the fury system very well, that is because it is very easy to do. Yes there are times it can be difficult to excel with, but the vast majority of the time it isn't. If you actively seek situations that your brute struggles with then that is your prerogative. I seek situations my brute excels in. It just so happens that is almost the entire game.