Leo_G

Playing a Scrapper like a Tank is difficult but possible with the build and team make-up but playing it like anything else is pointless because he lacks the abilities to do so. You're not going to magically do more damage from acting like a fool and aggroing stuff and you can pretend all you want but just attacking from stealth isn't going to give you any burst.

Playing a Brute like a tanker is only effective if you provide mutual attention to your offense. Because a taunting brute is useless but a taunting brute that is laying on the SMASH thick for doing so is not. Playing a brute like anything but a brute is a disservice to the AT itself, like playing a dominator but never using domination.

Playing a Tanker like anything but a Tanker is similarly a disservice to the AT. With your HP, resist/def numbers and caps and the lvl you have access to your shields, it's rather unsatisfying *not* to try and take a lot of hits to see your HP move at least a little.

Playing a Stalker like a scrapper ain't hard. In fact, that's exactly how you play them if, in fact, playing like a scrapper is simply running around killing stuff. Gah, are people so egotistical about their scrappers that they think they have something *special*? Hell, even a Blaster can play like a scrapper. My dominator can play like a scrapper. Scrappers are the *least* specialized AT in the game and practically anyone can emulate one. Stalkers probably come the closest to their outright DPS with the advantage of more burst. Playing a Stalker like any other melee AT is rather pointless as they either lack the tools to do it consistently or lose effectiveness.

tl;dr ver: Playing a Tanker like anything but a tanker is pointless.
Playing a Brute like anything but a brute is pointless.
Playing a Stalker like anything but a stalker is pointless.
Playing a Scrapper entails doing anything you effing want so stfu and play!

Not seeing a Stone/EA brute being gimped either. Even the non-synergetic Energy/EA brute still works.

Now a Dual Blades/Stone brute without teleportation might be a pain...

*Assassin's Claw*

*Pries KB from SpittingTrashcan's cold dead hands*

Yay, more KB for me!

Then give me a mother&$@^%# defense set in the same vein as Ninjutsu which is focused on misdirection and no more of this Electric Armor/Willpower out-and-out tank crap! If you think a Tanker or Brute won't mind having stealth and shot-term mitigation using tricks and placates then give it to them but they can't whine about "I can't tank rite with this!!1"

So it's okay for it to ignore the inherent of another AT but not Brutes?

Despite Shield Charge being in the secondary, it's a very similar power to something in a primary melee set and if you can fix one you might as well fix the other.

The only AT that will predictably hit the dmg cap for their pseudo-pets is Brute and we don't need to be doing them any favors. Why not lower the maximum dmg fury provides so hitting that cap is a little tougher? No? Well how bout just 'fixing' those powers in a general sense.

Although, at times, it probably should.

Personally, my RP character (ones with a 'progression' of some sort rather than keeping their same power lvl/form/ethics and just facing different types of threats) tend to do normal saving/kidnapping and what not kind of as a redemption for things they have to do. Like my main hero sometimes is required 'steal' or something against his personal honor so he'll do extra 'hero duty' to make up for it even if what he did helped save lives. My main villain isn't a guy who is trying to destroy the world or anything but he doesn't like helping people but sometimes it just happens so he'll take a kidnapping job 'just because' or rip a guy's throat out to clot out any sense of good he might have felt.

Also, I enjoy the training aspect too, moreso than actually 'saving the world' because it's about progression whereas saving the world is just preserving the status quo. For once, I'd love the world to actually *be* destroyed and then I have to fix it...

That sounds poody.

Like an RP thread with only fighting. No character development except between fights and short quips during fights. You could inject some flashbacks in there too but that's almost forcing it.

Ahh, now I really starting to miss my first RP thread, Superhero101. It's a highschool but for superheroes! Yeah, they had math class but they also had 'Super Gym' class and got extra credit for saving people/the world after classes. It was fun while it lasted

Ah, the classic Vengeful Strike > Assassin's Blades technique...well, classic for a Dual Blade stalker. Just a step above the Thunderstrike > Assassin's Shock maneuver.

Well SOOOooooOOrrrRy that you quoted something that was a direct reply to someone else talking about broken powers.

You're mistaken. It's not 'melee types' that have unsuppressed stealth, it's 'specific sets' that have unsuppressed stealth. Dark armor has it, Energy Aura has it, Storm Summoning has it, Dark Miasma has it, Ice Domination has it and Illusion Control has it. All those sets are not exclusive to melee types. It's not a dev decision that they are acceptable on certain ATs, it's their decision if it's acceptable within a certain theme/set(and truthfully, this is only IMO. I have no idea how they decide what they do but who does?). If the devs decide to make Illusion manipulation and put an unsuppressed stealth passive in it, that has nothing to do with them breaking the mold and more to do with them picking a theme for a set. And I'd bet you no one would bat an eye and think "Bahwha! Unsuppressed stealth on a Blaster!? Unheard of!"

Are you sure you know what you're suggesting? You *ARE* suggesting the removal of a power within a set that aids survival. Putting it somewhere else doesn't make it okay. For example:

My Claws/EA brute has Energy Cloak along with the Fitness Pool, Fighting Pool (with weave), the Leaping pool (only for combat jumping) and Leadership (only maneuvers). This is his lvling build. Later in his 40s he'll probably respec out of some of that but up until then, his build will have capped defense to smash/lethal/energy/fire/cold.

Now we do something careless and remove Energy Cloak and give us the option to just take Stealth, now I'm just SoL because I already have 4 pools. It'd probably be worse with DA who will need to dip even further into Leaping for Acrobatics.

All I'm trying to say is what you think is giving everyone more options is only really giving *some players* more options. Those that it doesn't give more options to, apparently are just farked.

When has comparable ever meant equal. An assistant manager might make a comparable salary to a head supervisor but that doesn't mean the AM doesn't make several hundred more dollars a year. But the AM and the custodian probably do not make comparable salaries.

Analogies aside, you'd need numbers, anecdotes, experience and possibly other posters to back you to convince me that DA is so weak that it can't stand on its own as a Tank set. You'd probably need further data to convince me that the weak link is Cloak of Darkness. If anything, I'd say it's the combined endurance costs of Dark Regen, Cloak of Darkness and Cloak of Fear that is the real issue.

I don't think it would be out of the question to add a small +recovery buff per enemy on Dark Regen to counter its costs and aid in keeping it's toggles up.

PS: Have we moved on from "broken" powers onto "I just wanna buff my powers" powers?

I feel it's appropriate to explain *why* I disagree with other's opinion on a power being literally broken. If you're talking about all the nit-picking, it's good to know the actual numbers and effects of a power before labeling it broken...

Well, if you're suggesting to *add* an alternate power to EA and just change stealth like you said, I'd think the set would still need a good deal of rebalancing. EA and Elec armor are not as sturdy as other sets but I believe it's primarily for the fact they get such potent endurance management tools. They can literally nullify the need for endurance. If you take away EA's stealth, you take a tool it uses for survivability. One of EA's ways of mitigating attacks is simply taking fewer pot shots from foes at range from not being seen. You can still grab attention of ranged foes like any other set but only EA won't attract their attention off the bat.

So, if you want to add a power to the set to make it more tankey, you'd have to quantify EA's advantage and then rebalance the powers to that. And really, if you want to be tankey, why not just build it to be? Pick pool powers or just pick a different armor set. I don't want every set being copies of eachother. Again, that's why Stalkers are in such bad shape survival wise.

Okay, a WP tank outlasts a DA. Big woop. Now show me that a DA tank *can't* tank. As far as I can see, a DA tank has comparable survivability, it's just a different (and to weak players, harder) method than WP's toggle and forget style.

Those were done in two different patches for two different reasons. In Elec Armor's case, Tankers/Scrappers have Conserve power in their epic pools and Elec Armor did as well so the change in that set was directed toward Conserve Power. We're not likely to get whole new powers in sets just for the heck of it.

To be fair, the ATs didn't even have inherent abilities either. Those were added in the wake of Villain ATs, IIRC. Any issues with AT mods and inherent abilities in relation to pools is simply an oversight that was fixed.

Then explain to me why a Scrapper is more stealthy than a Blaster. There is no thematic, AT modifier or player functional need that would justify it. By your logic, the only AT that should get this stealth revision is Stalker because they are inherently better with stealth powers.

Go on to explain why a Defender or Controller wouldn't get this stealth change when they have better self buff mods than Scrappers or Brutes.

Just to nit-pick again, BaB has said after the recent issue that he never said it *couldn't* be done, just that it would be too time consuming to accomplish. The man might have lied and said he didn't but I tend to trust him.

Hey, now I will disagree with whomever has a differing opinion and won't hesitate to post about it. You realize I'm also disagreeing with Sam over there, not just you.

Also note, most of those other ideas (Stalker Repulse, Tanker stealth and Tanker sleep) I also disagreed with and commented on regardless of if they were your opinions or not. I'm an equal opportunity argue'er here.

That option's available. It's called not taking Cloak of Darkness/Energy Cloak. It gives you that extra power pick to grab your tankery power like Tough or maybe grab Acrobatics for the -kb/hold protection.

I think what you're forgetting is the devs designed not only each class to be different but each powerset to be different. Each set has a different theme and different powers to accomplish that theme. Fire armor is about damage and not defense so it has an attack and a +dmg buff as well as a self rez for when you die that does more damage.

Guess what theme Dark Armor has? Sneaky, emo fear vampire theme. It's suppose to have a sense of depression and darkness so the set has controls and debuffs. You also sap enemies to fill up your HP and revive you.

What you're asking for is a change in the sets theme to accomplish your own view of how the set should be. I don't like Stone armor because I don't like the 'huge sluggish golem' theme the set has but I'm not going to protest now for them to change Rooted and Granite Armor (although I think they will, hopefully it'll be more about controlling earth to protect you and less about being a rock-covered monster).

Except you'd have to pick up a power to shore up the lost defense (it's 5% def to all once slotted and that is significant when you're trying to soft-cap, which I might add is easier for EA because of it). What ya gonna do with EA that has 5% less defense? Stick it in the taunt aura you're suggesting? Now I have to take the taunt aura. Shove the 5% defense in the other toggles? See? Told ya you'd have to rebalance the entire set for your change.

Right now, you can choose to take Energy Cloak and get the defense or just get another defense toggle like weave which'll give the same amount of defense. Or you can get both. EA won't have issues running all those toggles.

As for set balance, that's a whole 'nother debate. Some sets just have other advantages than others. You may say WP is stronger than DA but who cares? DA is great! And when you have more than 1 DA on the team, they just make eachother GREATER, unlike WP.

EA will probably be changed but not for the reason you're saying. Currently, EA has Conserve power. If EA is proliferated to Scrappers and Tankers, they'll need to replace Conserve Power with something else just like they did with Electric Armor. IMO, I hope it's a click like Energize but rather than a heal/+regen, I hope it's +resist (specifically to Psy) and recharges decently fast.

Despite what you may believe, a Scrapper or Brute without stealth can take a few hits. So if they happen to attract the enemy while you're stealth, it's not the end of the world. Cloak of Darkness did it's job, it saved you a few hits. After that, it's your job to get the aggro and it's not hard with all those aura powers and taunt/gauntlet.

For less resilient ATs like Stalkers or Dominators, those are the 'smart' ATs. What I mean is, if they don't have awareness of their surroundings, they'll die even with a tank taunting all night for them. So if the spawn is too close, it's on *them* to assess how to approach the fight. Chances are, the Stalker will wait for Hide to come back and jump in with an AS. The Dom will just hit domination and throw an AoE control.

A tanker's job isn't to babysit the team, it's to manage aggro. Cloak of Darkness/Energy Cloak are just alternate methods available to you.

That's sort of trumped by the fact not all melee sets have Stuns yet *everyone* has fear available to them thanks to the presence pool.

As for the costs, well that's sort of the set's weakness. But it's not always necessary to run all those toggles. If the enemy only does lethal/smashing and energy (like Freaks) then you don't need everything. If you're fighting things with retarded -def debuffs that may be auto-hit (CoT quicksand) then the defense and -ToHit aren't going to help. If the enemy is resistant to stun then why run OG? It's more about toggle management, like has been said earlier.

Sorry, I've been sick lately and had to med up so I can go to work/school so I'm a tad irritable. I'm not 'real life' hostile, just 'forum' hostile.

So far, you've been misinformed about a lot of other stuff so maybe you should show your sources? Because as far as I know, for Tankers, stealth gives base 5% defense, for Scrappers and Brutes, it's like 3% and for Blasters it's 2.5%.

And for tough, I *know* it doesn't give 15% resistance for a Blaster. It's more like 11%for them and 15% for Tankers. Defenders and controllers get Tanker numbers because I'd wadger they have the same AT modifiers for self buffs too.

I don't see what you're wanting here. You do realize all the armor sets are balanced with and around the powers they currently have. If you're suggesting they change Concealment's Stealth into what DA and EA have and then replace those powers with something else, they'd have to rebalance the whole set. You want them to chop off some resists from Murky Cloud and stick them in another toggle/click?

As of now, you have the choice to pick the power or choose something else. If you rebalanced those sets, now you have to choose that power to get the numbers DA has to offer *on top of* the players that wanted DA's stealth now must waste a pool pick.