Obitus

Tankers are supposed to be better at the "main aggro role," after all. Funny how things change from Issue to Issue, what with all the (fairly) recent talk about how Brutes render Tankers obsolete. Then again, in at least one Trial, the devs have explicitly designed a mechanic that actively discourages any one character from holding aggro for too long. (And between the Apex blue patches o' death and the BAF Turrets, it's clear that the devs don't want us to place too much confidence in pure damage mitigation.)

Still, the defensive disparity between ideally buffed Brute and ideally buffed Scrapper is much larger than the defensive disparity between buffed Tanker and buffed Brute. The spread of buffs available on your team or in your League will vary, of course, but Destiny alone should make a pretty big difference once people start getting their slots filled out.

(Destiny's also got one of the Trial-specific level shifts attached to it, so people are likely to push for that sooner than Interface and Judgment.)

Yeah. This stuff isn't supposed to be the solo walk-over that most content is for high-end melee builds. We're all going to have to adjust our thinking a bit, but to the extent that any melee builds are left out in the cold, I think the worst off are VEATs, Stalkers, Scrappers -- with special LOL-worthy mention for people who play melee-centric Blaster/Dominator builds.

Yeah, perverse as it may sound, I actually sometimes pine for a taunt aura on my Blaster. Scatter is probably my biggest beef with Blasters at the high end; they theoretically do the most damage in the game, but in practice that damage is too situation-limited, for a whole host of reasons -- especially when one understands what Blasters give up for that presumed offensive advantage, relative to other ATs.

Anyway, Blasters aren't the subject of the thread, so apologies. More to the point of the topic, the comparison between Scrapper and Brute comes down to powerset selection. Since the Fury nerf, on-paper damage comparisons almost universally favor Scrappers -- assuming all else is equal. All else isn't always equal, though.

Given the increased emphasis on high-end, large-group content, I'd have to give the edge to the sturdier option (Brute) by default. When your task is to stand in melee range of spectacularly hard-hitting foes, that extra 15% of RES cap (and the extra HP) really can make a significant difference. Brutes are perhaps the most buffable characters in the game, so any content that skews towards massive buffage will tend to favor them.

But hey, there's room to argue both sides.

I happily acknowledge that there are people who use multiple alts to play the market. I've done it myself, off and on. Last time I was heavily invested in marketeering, I had 5-6 alts selling things.

I was almost never pleased to see a listing linger for more than two or three days, though. Occasionally I'd cut my losses, take the listings down and relist at a break-even point. Maybe I'm impatient, but that approach worked very well in the final analysis. Keep in mind, too, that in order to sell things consistently and at a reasonably fast pace, you have to list for 70-80% of the average going rate. The market rewards the person with the lowest listing. Listing in such a way that you make a tidy profit in a timely fashion is an art form, and even the best marketeers likely botch it up on occasion.

The current, anonymous system is geared towards the buyer. As for sellers, it doesn't matter whether you use one alt or 100 to marketeer: a used slot is money you aren't making. If you're dealing in extremely high-end luxury items, then sure, you might be willing, even happy, to wait more than a week for your listings to sell, but high-end items are inherently risky and not generally well-suited to multiple-alt, bulk-selling. And the extreme, high-end items usually see much more traffic than everything else (purples, etc), so there's a very good chance someone who lists ludicrously high will be undercut for ages.

The higher you list, the more money you risk.

Pocket change. Really.

Uhh, you mean, sorta like how it works now? How many mustache-twirling marketeers do you suppose are really happy about items that clog their market slots for multiple weeks? I mean, I'm sure there's someone, somewhere, who's over-joyed at the prospect, but it ain't exactly a pressing issue. I eat listing fees all the time. I'm still way ahead.

Day one of launch. Don't get me wrong; the last seven years haven't been effortless for me, but whatever difficulties I've had in that time span haven't been video-game related.

Have faith, my Pennsylvania brother! The land of Clemente will rise again.

I mean, it could happen.

Eventually. Maybe.

It's, uh, not impossible.

On the upside, PNC Park is definitely the most majestic hot dog stand in these United States.

(I feel your pain man, but them Steelers are a pretty good consolation prize. )

Yes, as I recall, the main requirements were that you could herd and that you could confuse foes. It was a novel-though-perhaps-overrated way for MagicJ to squeeze extra offense/leveling speed out of what was otherwise a very low-offense character build (Mind/FF).

By that standard, to address the subject line of the OP, the so-called WarTroller is obsolete. Nowadays, you can use IO bonuses to vastly increase survivability; you don't have to rely on Force Field to carry you. Also, many Controller builds are capable of delivering a lot of damage without a confuse power. If you happen to have a Mind/FF or (even better) a Plant/FF, then sure, go for it, but Magic's old-school definition of Wartroller is by no means worth pursuing on its own merits.

If, on the other hand, we're going with the expanded definition of the term described earlier in the thread ("control, blasts, and tanking ability"), then almost any high-end build can qualify, and in spades. That newer version of the term (as I understood it) is so vague, though, that there's scarcely any point in using it. Might as well sub in the equally instructive phrase, "decent build."

Huh. Squeamish is one way to put it. Or maybe the general movie-going public is tired of Hollywood passing off the gratuitously morbid and/or perverted as art. There are movies that make you laugh, movies that make you cry, movies that make you think -- and some rare few that do all three. Those are all good things. All of them have a place in cinema.

Movies that just make you want to vomit? Not so much.

I mean, seriously, a young girl gets imprisoned in a mental hospital, serially *****, and then lobotomized? Sounds like an absolutely scintillating Saturday night out.

I'm sure a lot film makers regard that sort of plotline as edgy and daring, but what they don't seem to understand is that a film like that has to do more, not less, to convince people of its redeeming artistic qualities. We should be past the point where edginess for its own sake is a credible production goal. It's lazy, it's childish, and perhaps most of all, it's patronizing.

It's not that we're too stupid or too prudish or too provincial to understand you, Hollywood. If anything, the problem is that we understand all too well. We see through your supercilious facade. We don't appreciate your sophomoric sermons, your ham-fisted use of exposition, your hilariously brazen hypocrisy. And when film critics -- most of whom are so bored with the everlasting geyser of dreck spewing from your studios that they're inclined to like almost anything that has the slightest tinge of novelty -- almost universally pan a film the subject of which is so obviously abhorrent as Sucker Punch's, well then we're really not gonna show up. In droves.

So by all means, continue to believe that we're all clueless hicks who just want sunshine and unicorns and rainbows erupting from pretty movie stars' shapely posteriors. We'll continue to prefer children's films and mindless action/romance candy -- not because those are the best stories ever told, but because they're at least reliably entertaining and inoffensive. Occasionally, they're even inspiring.

Oddly enough, as production budgets and schedules have expanded beyond the wildest dreams of the old studios, the quality of the product has generally and precipitously declined. Maybe that's because the old studios usually remembered to tell an interesting story, with interesting characters, in addition to fulfilling whatever ersatz-artiste fetish du jour -- whether visual or thematic.

/end general Hollywood rant (and apologies to Serva, whose quote was just a jumping off point)

Good read, this thread.

Yeah. To the extent that the so-called new soft cap has been publicized at all, I'd say the reaction has been overwrought.

Heck, even if you don't have teammate support boosting you to the new cap, 45% + 1 small Luck Inspiration puts you at 57.5%. With the Inspiration Vet Badge, that same Luck puts you up to ~58.1%. Personally, and for what it's worth, I can't remember the last time I didn't get near 60% in DEF from teammate buffs on my soft-capped characters, but I know some people don't consider those buffs to be reasonable to assume.

All things considered, there are too many offensive trade offs required to push for 59% to all relevant (to your build) positions/types right now. That may well change as Incarnate content matures -- and as more and more Incarnate slots are unlocked, potentially alleviating the required build trade offs -- but we're not there yet. (We already know of one post-Alpha Incarnate boost that will provide a decent DEF/RES boost on a permanent basis, at higher tiers.)

Incidentally, given that Incarnate content tends to encourage players to focus very heavily on one or two characters, we may see more and more people using multiple high-end builds, which may indirectly make 59% a more generally palatable build goal -- at least for a few powersets, as Arcana noted. SR's probably the poster child because it has so little going for it other than the soft cap.

Coming from the Master himself, this is high praise indeed. Thanks.

Might even beat out Super Roy -- the best pitcher in the Majors -- for sig-worthiness. Will have to mull that over.

Disagree. Acro means that any one, mag-3 hold won't hold you. The hold resistance in the power means that that first hold will wear off faster, which means that you're less likely to have more than 3 mags worth stacked on you.

Those two benefits work hand-in-hand, but the initial protection is clearly more important, because if you get held, Acro will suppress, which means that its hold resistance is canceled for the duration.

The only problem, to the extent that there is one, is that sleeps and stuns will still get you. Acro ain't gonna solve your mezz woes if you play a squishy, and the price for the power is fairly high (in terms of power picks, in terms of end cost), so it's certainly understandable if you choose not to take it -- but for what little it's worth, after playing with Acro on my Blaster, I have a very hard time getting into any squishy build that doesn't have it.

Oh, and the huge KB protection is nice too.

Well said.

Team play in this game is fast-paced and often instinctive. All I'm saying is that if there's any question in my mind that I should throw out a Taunt on a squishie-heavy team, I'm gonna do it. And if that Taunt happens to hit something that your Brute may or may not have aggroed already, then I'm okay with that. You should be too.

I realize the way I described the situation may have seemed over-dramatic. The fact is, there often isn't a clear line in the sand marking your aggro and mine.

Granted, I pursue much smaller benefits than that on my builds. That's a soloist's mindset, though. To a full team, your doing 15% less self-buffed damage (that is, failing to include any bonuses you might have from the team) isn't a big deal. Edit: Also, whether you agree or not, I feel I should remind anyone else who might be reading that I regard that number as the worst-case scenario for your build. It describes a 30-point swing in Fury generation.

Further, the presence of a Tanker helps your damage output in another, qualitative way: he may free you from having to waste valuable attack time using Taunt.

Heh, likewise, I'm sure some people could read into what I've said and conclude that I'm hating on Brutes -- telling them they should accept their lower, teamed damage and like it -- and that really isn't my intention. The rather muddled point I've been trying to make is simply that, in a largish team with both Tanker and Brute, the Brute's peak damage output is a distantly low priority for the Tanker.

And that's as it should be. Though I agree that many Tanker players spend too much time spamming Taunt -- lowering their own DPS to near-non-existence, which incidentally can represent a far larger proportional loss to the team's damage output than even a 30% loss to a Brute's Fury generation -- sometimes it's just better to be safe than sorry.

Obviously this whole discussion hinges on situation and particular team composition, but if my choice, as a Tanker, is between lowering the Brute's damage output by a generally unnoticeable (to me) amount, and potentially letting one of my squishies die, then the Brute loses every time.

I was going off an intentionally and unrealistically conservative comparison between 50% Fury and 60% Fury -- with no other damage buffs of any kind. As damage buffs rise, each gives a lesser proportional gain.

So let's use your numbers:

At 80% Fury (+160% damage), with ED-capped damage slotting (+95%) in your attacks, with Rage (+80%), with fully saturated Against All Odds (+65 damage, IIRC), you're sitting at ~500% of Brute base damage.

At 50% Fury (+100% damage) and all else being equal, you're sitting at ~440% of Brute base damage. So that 60% extra damage from Fury represents a whopping net gain of 500 / 440 = 13.6%. With one foe in range of AAO (+15.5% damage), the net difference jumps as high as 450.5 / 390.5 = 15.4%.

That's just not that big a deal in the grand scheme. Remember, against hard single targets (which are the main areas where DPS matters), the Tanker by himself is raising your damage by 20% with Bruising. The CoH gods giveth as they taketh away.

No one always gets their peak, solo performance by default in a team situation. Whether it's the Defender/Corrupter who has to spend more time casting team buffs/heals rather than attacking, or the Tanker who has to spend more time using Taunt, or even the Scrapper who has to hold back because he can't take the heat -- there are potentially any number of unseen trade offs that people make in team situations that they might not make in solo play.

Brutes' advantage is that they are potentially as good, simultaneously, as Tanker and Scrapper -- given enough support. Their disadvantage is that Fury is somewhat dependent on their environment. That seems fair to me. The specialized damage dealers that are most often frustrated by the circumstances are Blasters, and it's not even close -- and not just because Brutes have massively better survivability.

Likewise.

Not at all.

I wish I were funnier, though. Might need some spit and polish.

I apologize for contributing to a derail of this excellent thread, and I'll try to keep my response short. The rest of Deus' post really isn't worth quibbling over; it appears we agree on just about every significant point, and engaging in a lengthy debate over this-or-that particular turn of phrase is rarely productive.

As for the above-quoted portion, though:

First, like Silas, my experience with Fury under the new throttle differs significantly from yours if having aggro represents such a large swing in bonus damage on your Brute. Perhaps when you "hang back a bit," you're also attacking slower?

Second, and as above -- even if we stipulate that the presence of a Tanker can lower your consistent Fury level by 20-30%, is it not appropriate that there should be a downside to Fury? Is every single member of a full team entitled to their best-case solo performance by default, on top of whatever other benefits the team provides?

Third, and probably most important: I know your last statement in the above quote was tongue-in-cheek, but still it's worth noting that there's a significant difference between a 20% disparity in AT damage modifier, and a 20% difference in base damage buffs on a character who is already dealing at least 295% of his base damage (that's ED-compliant slotting and 50% Fury). In the latter case, an extra 20% in base damage would only represent a 315 / 295 = 6.7% net gain.

In a full team, having one guy do potentially ~7% less than his peak self-buffed damage is absolutely trivial to the team's overall performance, particularly given that you're probably going to have at least one damage-boosting buff/debuff from the team that more than makes up the difference. Teams are more than the sum of their parts, and we all occasionally have to make allowances. That's all I was saying.

Had the same problem. Tilde's always been my go-to key for not-quite-attack-chain powers. Glad you could fix it.

A more meatshield-ish version. Swapped Punch out for Taunt, added incidental amounts of recovery, ToHit, and global damage/recharge:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.93
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

LOL2: Level 50 Natural Tanker

Tee hee

Hey, I did say I wouldn't play it, didn't I? I agree about Fire/Cold DEF in particular, having spouted that same line you just did almost verbatim countless times in this very forum. The build is basically just a thought exercise. Soft-capping F/C wasn't an explicit goal; it happened almost by accident on the way to soft-capping psionic DEF.

That said, the build is surprisingly playable. The attacks are not so underslotted (with a caveat, below) that the build's offense is bad by SO-build standards. We're looking at a ToHit-capped attack chain against +3 critters, with more than the equivalent of pre-ED perma-Hasten (between the global recharge bonus and the Spiritual Alpha) on top of at least decent/middling recharge enhancement in each (except for Jab, which frankly doesn't need recharge). Damage enhancement in the high 80s% on a build with perma-Rage and +7% in global damage ain't a big deal; the net difference between 95% damage enhancement and 85% on a build with +87% in damage buffs is (1.95 + 0.87) / (1.85 + 0.87) = a whopping ~3.7%.

The loss of what I'd call good APP attacks is a significant flaw relative to the builds I prefer to play, but then again a lot of people go for Energy Mastery. Heck, a lot of the Superman-themed defensive Tanker builds I've seen around this forum don't even take Punch, so even if they have Hasten the LOL build probably tends to have marginally higher single-target DPS. There's a likelihood that endurance could become a problem in protracted fights, but I don't see anyone who might be inclined to play something like this doing a lot of soloing.

The closest thing to a deal-breaking (mechanical) flaw in the build is the lack of Taunt. That is legitimately a big deal on a build that is designed around defense. For that reason, I'd probably drop Punch to embrace the full-on theme of meatshield.

Speaking of flaws, it's worth noting that I made a rather large mistake in the slotting of Jab when I was messing around in Mids' this morning: There's supposed to be a full set of Pounding Slugfest in there, and those IOs are supposed to be at level 30, and not 25. (That explains the E/N DEF mystery I had when I was still blinking sleep out of my eyes this morning, too. ) Also, the new version of Mids' seems to have Accolades and Incarnate Boosts toggled off by default, so you'll have to turn those on to see final numbers.

In any case, I'll edit the previous post to fix Jab. I'm certainly not the best build maker on the forums, and I'm sure that any number of people in this thread could improve on the build.

That statement is probably guide-worthy too

To the extent that there's a downside to Fury, this is it. In any case, I don't imagine that a mature Brute build needs a whole lot of aggro to keep up very good levels of Fury. The extra ~20% or so base damage you might be able to get from having lots of aggro isn't even a blip on the radar of a full team, anyway.

The statement you quoted is, in fact, followed by a passage specifically aimed at aggroing and/or herding up different spawns -- that is, situations above the aggro cap for any one character. If the Tanker already has aggro on a given target (or set of targets), and there are other targets whose anuses you can kick, then you should probably direct your foot at the latter group.

You seem to be saying that Silas misspoke because you think the Tanker should have to adjust to you instead of the other way around. Either way, the message is the same: you shouldn't be competing with each other for aggro if you can help it. The Tank shouldn't be spamming Taunt like a slack-jawed ninny on targets you've already got under control, and you shouldn't go out of your way to show off your epeen by drawing aggro from him when there are other things you could be doing instead.

If you and the Tanker can't help competing for aggro -- usually because there's a shortage of targets -- then them's the breaks. If he's significantly more sturdy than you, the Tanker should try to do everything in his power to keep aggro away from you (and he ought to be able to do that, all else being equal). If he's not significantly more sturdy than you (which is a distinct possibility given teammate buffs and/or differences in powerset selection), then he should just attack normally, prioritizing DPS over aggro management.

Personally, if I'm on my Tanker on a team with a Brute on it, I usually relax a bit on the aggro soaking until and unless the Brute faceplants doing something that I feel I would comfortably survive. Obviously I don't conduct exhaustive interviews prior to teaming with other meleers, so a lot of this stuff is based on feel. You're right to the extent that some Tankers seem intent that they should have 100% aggro, 100% of the time -- which is silly in many if not most team situations -- but the AT is purpose-built for protecting teammates, and thus by default Tankers probably should try to hold the vast bulk of the available aggro.

Of course, it also should go without saying that the word "Tanker" isn't necessarily specific to the Archetype. We could just as easily be talking about a team with a Brute acting as tanker, with Scrappers/Stalkers/VEATs along for the ride. In some situations, a Brute may actually be a better so-called main tank than the Tanker present, given differences in powerset selection. Team roles aren't synonymous with AT roles.

And after all that, all I've managed to do is restate what was pretty clearly conveyed by Silas' original, singular sentence. It's interesting what a difference emphasis makes:

I'd say that the situation you describe -- wherein the difference in Fury generation a Brute gets from aggro is a significant help to the entire team -- is sufficiently rare to fall under the category of, "Not most of the time." YMMV.

You might find this thread helps with your tilde issue: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=241218

Yeah, team buffs/debuffs can totally trivialize almost any amount of IO uberness in a TF. Bleeding-edge IO builds are more about soloing -- or if you prefer, more about making sure that you can carry your team in a bad spot. That last is (ironically, given the thread topic) my favorite thing about IO builds; my stress about team composition is in inverse proportion to the time and money I've sunk into my own build.

So if the dude we're talking about here was sitting on a team of seven IOed characters, I'd say he wasn't just an elitist jerk; he was stupendously ignorant of the very game mechanics that he implicitly invoked by refusing to invite an SO build.

Sometimes, SO-only teams can actually work better in difficult content because the players in question are more likely to coordinate.