Siolfir

Mostly a continuation of the same thing... they handed out their retroactive punishments last week and hit some people that were just in level pacts when neither they nor their partner had ever stepped foot into a MA building. Prior to them purging the forums today there were still a few posts they hadn't edited or outright deleted talking about it; I doubt any survived today.

Yet we're supposed to believe that they're only going after "the most egregious abuse", specifically dealing with the MA, and that each case was handled seperately on its own merits (as Positron stated that they would be handled on a case by case basis). Then they're yanking most of the MA badges, because "getting those would encourage farming in the MA".

In short, they decided to hit people for little to no reason (other "exploits" that didn't specifically involve bugs were simply closed and people left alone; most of the PLing wasn't bugged behavior, it was abusing behavior that's working as intended and behaving the same way it does in the wild), then when they went about it they lied about how they were going to handle it, and now they're going a step further to hit people who were wanting badges, too.

Basically...[ QUOTE ]
-Kick Posi in the crotch...

[/ QUOTE ]sounds like a fun arc. (I actually ed when I noticed it)

[ QUOTE ]
But now everwhere I look I see friends leaving, letting subscriptions expire, regular events being canceled.

It's hard for me not to be bitter.

[/ QUOTE ]
This.

The game is boring for the most part. I'm here for the people.

Most of them are leaving, and I can't blame them. The recent direction that the devs have decided to go is simply being pissy over nothing, and they won't own up to any of their errors in this - up to and including blatant lies about how the retroactive punishments were going to be handled.

If they were truly "case by case", customer service never should have needed to get involved with people who were simply level-pacted.

I don't know if I'm leaving at the end of June yet or not. I have a time card I haven't applied due to being leery about it, but my recurring billing date was the 27th of each month (so of course the last straw causing me to cancel it would happen on the 28th - leaving me with a month after I cancel it).

I listed all of this on the exit questionaire - since most of the people I play with have left/are leaving, the content needs to get a lot more interesting or else Posi needs to pull his head out of his [censored] and taking responsibility for his failures.

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[ QUOTE ]
What you're probably remembering is AS having the chance to cause a fear effect. It does in PvE but I'm not so sure about in PVP, to be honest I cannot recall it fearing even the squishiest of my opponents, and I pvp daily.

[/ QUOTE ]

Negative.


Actually, the pre-i13 AS had a 100% chance to detoggle "1" toggle, and I believe it had like a "50%" or "20%" chance to detoggle a second toggle. That, however, was removed with later patches and nerfs to pvp.

[/ QUOTE ]
This - it used to, it doesn't anymore.

The line for one toggle drop is still in the powers that used to, but set to a 0% chance; iirc AS had a small chance to detoggle 3 toggles (something like 1%). a good chance to hit 2, and almost always hit 1 (but I didn't think it was 100%... maybe 75%?).

[ QUOTE ]
My subscription expires within a few days. I'll be leaving the game. I enjoyed all of my time with all of you. I thought Infinity had a great community and I was able to explore aspects of the game with all of you I might never have gotten to otherwise, like strike forces and PvP and raiding. I enjoyed the joke threads and the events and all of it. I'm not sure I'll miss the game, but I'll miss the people.

Take care, all, be happy.

Love,

Sins

[/ QUOTE ]


Just, .

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Thus I initiated a test roughly concurrent to your own. I found that my Defender and Scrapper both ran out of endurance frequently, supporting my original assertion, but neither seemed to suffer more than the other.

[/ QUOTE ]
And thus balance is achieved.

If the game was designed such that nobody ever needed to worry about endurance or build towards maximizing the effectiveness of the limited pool you have, then why have it in the first place?

The suggestion that nobody should ever have to worry about endurance while constantly firing powers seems to fly in the face of the whole purpose of keeping track of it. Maybe that's why people don't like the idea.

This post may sound elitist and/or self-promoting, but it's not meant to be - it's meant to say that it really doesn't matter and to offer some advice from my personal experience.

A Sonic/Rad Corruptor can (with just SOs and a good player) solo most AVs themselves. Rad/Sonic (essentially the same build as a Defender) is one of the recommended heroside builds for soloing AVs. I've done AV soloing pre-i9 with an Ice/Rad Corruptor, and Sonic deals slightly higher sustained damage to a single target due to stacking -resistance. The only real issues to worry about are being mezzed and running out of endurance. For that reason, the Brute you make is mostly irrelevant. If you enjoy what you're playing, and you're contributing damage, it'll work.

You can also make Brute builds that can solo AVs that will make the Corruptor just an add-on to make it go faster; if you each have a character that's capable of taking on an AV solo, then you really have no worries when you need to duo one.

Now, that the "meh, who cares" part is out of the way... my advice if you want to provide great single-target damage is going to change based on how much of an IO investment you're going to throw in: the sets fluctuate a lot at varying levels of recharge (here is a post I made summarizing results BillZBubba worked out for comparison).

So poke around and see where you want to go with a primary, then take a look at the secondaries. If all of them just have SOs, Electric Armor is fairly competitive but it drops off in the comparisons when you start adding IOs to everything else (defense sets just get a lot better than resistance sets because all of the set bonuses they can get, and sets that have a self-heal can focus on recharge to have it up more often - ElA has neither). The only one I'd recommend staying away from is Energy Aura, and that's because if you take it the Corruptor is going to be pulling a lot of aggro off of you due to the lack of a persistent taunt aura - you'd have to be throwing off lots of AoEs or switching targets constantly in a crowd to keep things on you, and I personally find that annoying.

Ahh. Okay, I had that reversed in my head. Thanks!

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I would drop the fighting pool in favor of Hasten (and SS for zephyr's bonuses).

I have an EM/SR brute with a similar build and I have to say I was very disapointed. There are just too many AVs redside with high smashing resists, godmodes, self heals, etc (major offenders being Ms Liberty, Silver Mantis, Valkyrie, Mynx and Positron)

I'd definitely roll FM before EM

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I haven't done a similar build, but if the DPE of EM is the reason you went with it and you can softcap your defenses, I definately agree that you'd likely rather have FM. It has better DPE, higher chain damage, better AoE, and is less resisted.

It'll probably be a pain until you get there, though. No mitigation sucks (my FM Brute was Stone Armor... yay for the worst secondary available until level 38!).

If the character is what you want and you like the pink pompoms, then go for it - you should do fine with the suggestions made already. I personally ended up making my SM/WP because my EM/Elec was killing herself with Energy Transfer and I spent more time using Aid Self than attacking... but that's a resistance set.

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Play as? Brute. My favorite Villain is my 50 DM/DA.

Play with? Brute again, for one reason: I have never seen a brute say "herding to here."

[/ QUOTE ]
I've seen it. I've also done some herding, but that was mostly on my Electric Melee Brute who was trying to gather a few spawns together for Lightning Rod. Herding is boring, but when your only attack that does decent damage has a 90 second base recharge, you have to find something to do to get the most of it.

For the most part I just do a few little shuffles to get things packed in, though. A lot of enemy groups don't realize they can walk around the mob between them and me and don't come into melee range.

And for my preferences? Brute (to play), don't care (to team with) - as long as the mobs are shooting at someone else I'm either annoyed (as a Brute) or happy (as anyone else).

[ QUOTE ]
To the OP, on the original question... I've never found a villain that was easy before SO's. They have a huge unpleasant pit from about 10 to about 21. Admittedly the only things that I"ve managed to get through that pit are two stalkers, two brutes and one corruptor... I might have missed the "easier mode" characters.

Good luck on the slog!

[/ QUOTE ]
I finally started another /Rad Corruptor, and I'm finding it ridiculously easy thus far (level 11) compared to most. I had simply forgotten how easy a time I had it playing the other two I've made through low levels, because it's been over a year since I made a new one.

Radiation Infection is better than SO-slotted defense sets and works to keep you from getting hit at that point (-25% tohit) and puts your base tohit at the cap (-25% defense applied to a base tohit of 75%). Throw in Accelerate Metabolism for better-than-Stamina recovery for 2 minutes at a time every few minutes, and I've been doing well. It's even worse with the Blackwand vet reward, since through the first 10 levels one shot from it put minions into range for Scourge to kill them.

Yes, it'll get harder in the upper teens when I start running into more mobs with mezzes, but that's something that all Corruptors have to deal with. Not all of them have +recovery +recharge +damage buffs and autohit -tohit -defense -damage -resistance debuffs at that point - all of them AoEs.

For an AT-wide suggestion, Brutes require managing Fury and endurance early on and become a balancing act, but they play well through the low levels in my experience simply because they do more damage than anything else if you can maintain any decent level of Fury. Slot accuracy to hit, endurance reduction to maintain the ability to attack, use your armor toggles sparingly if at all and rely on pure offense to get the job done - it works well for Blasters through the teens.

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Continuing the tangent...

I half-remember something where Scourge might get applied as a "lump sum" for some powers. So if Gloom hits for 10,10,10...10 (totalling 80) you might get 10, SCOURGE ! 80, 10, 10... 10 (totalling 80 + 80 scourge).

I might be misremembering, because that's how [all] Scrapper crits work, but I thought I saw this on my Dark Blast/Traps a few months back.

[/ QUOTE ]
Going through all of the primaries for Corruptors on City of Data, every single power that has a DoT does Scourge as a DoT except for the Fire Blast powers that have the chance for DoT tacked on to the main damage of the power (the DoT ticks don't Scourge at all). In one case - Ball Lightning - the power has upfront damage and a DoT and the initial damage is divided out among the DoT for Scourge instead of duplicating how the damage is applied.

Now, the numbers popping up over a mob's head aren't exactly reliable; I've had whole attacks that didn't show up in those due to either network latency or simply firing too many attacks in a short time frame. The combat log won't lie about it, though, and I have yet to see a DoT stop Scourging in the middle there.

The only way it stops is on the pseudopet powers (Ignite, Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Blizzard) and that's because those aren't really DoTs - the pet simply fires off a new attack five times per second.

[ QUOTE ]
Sio, I don't think it would be necessary to delete the current superleader character. Setting the auto demote for the lowest timeframe, and not playing said superleader toon until it gets demoted should do the trick. Then, play only the toon one wants to be the top dog. That would ensure that it's the only toon eligible for the shiny red star.... theoretically.

[/ QUOTE ]
I could be mistaken on this, but I thought that the super leader position isn't affected by autodemote.

In any case, they found a workaround that didn't involve deleting the character.

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Are you using the combat text or numbers over the mobs head?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm guessing numbers instead of combat text - which are rather unreliable.

Heh, thank BillZBubba, he did all the math on it; I just knew where to find it and quoted it.

Stone Melee has advantages over Fire Melee which aren't accounted in pure damage but in mitigation. It plugs holes in secondaries with powers like Fault (AoE knockdown/stun), but requires a lot of endurance and really shines with high recharge. If you were planning an Electric Armor Brute, I'd say roll with SM because the sets work well with each other.

Fire Melee does more initial damage, more AoE damage (Stone and Energy are both pretty much bottom of the barrel for AoE damage), but provides no mitigation whatsoever. This means you're leaning heavily on your secondary to keep you alive. Secondaries like an IO'd out softcapped SR (where everything has the minimum chance to hit you in the first place) would work well for that, because your only real option is "kill it faster than it kills you".

As for how to go about it... it's not that difficult to level a character up so long as you enjoy it and stick with it. Most characters encounter a slog through the teens, and Brutes in particular get incredible once you first pick up SO (or similar percentage bonus IO) enhancements.

You can either select sets that will work in either PvE or PvP (SS/FA is a farming build as well as a PvP build, but it goes about it differently) and use dual builds to focus them appropriately, or just make a couple and switch between them.

My personal recommendation would be to make a few and find one you like to stick with - if you're running solo pretty much any Brute combination works for PvE.

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I remember the days when everybody used to talk about how much better ELA was than EA. My the times have changed.

[/ QUOTE ]
*shrug*

The devs did something about EA... several somethings, actually, if you include the typed defense IO set bonus changes.

Brutes don't get regeneration, no. And yes, PvP would probably be SS/FA due to Rage and Fiery Embrace, but the PvP section of the forums will give you better answers.

TL;DR version: which set you want is going to depend on what you're planning on putting into it for IOs - faster animations and recharges work better for procs, and raw damage numbers fluctuate wildly based on available recharge.

Details
With all credit to BillZBubba, he made a little comparison chart for each primary available to both Scrappers and Brutes (even though not all of the ones available for one are available for the other), and posted results in two different threads in the Scrapper forum.

The first test was extreme recharge builds, and trying to find optimal chains for single target damage. In that case, against one target, Stone Melee was the winner but also used the highest endurance per second. It was edged out by Dark Melee with 10 targets for Soul Drain, but that would involve keeping at least 9 other things around you in addition to what you're trying to kill at all times.

These are all PvE numbers, the damage on attacks changes based on animation time due to the PvP rules and have to be looked at again.

Those results were:
[ QUOTE ]
If you just want the results of this single target attack chain DPS calculations, scroll to the bottom.

DISLAIMER: These attack chains may not be the best out there. There were chosen by general consensus with the help of fellow players.

Methodology:
Numbers derived from Red Tomax's City of Data

Cast times altered using Arcanaville's tick interval modification roundup((base/.132)+1)*.132 and all cast times listed in this post are showing this modified value.

All attack chains set at a total recharge value of 250%. If that level of recharge left gaps in the chain, those gaps were calculated and added to the total chain time.

All attacks were given 33% endurance reduction for EPS calculations.

250% recharge on BuildUp gives it a 37% uptime
90/3.5 = 25.714 I made the assumption that the BU buff started instantly but the recharge didn't start until after the cast time was completed. Cast for BU is 1.32 + 25.714 = 27.034 of which 10 seconds is 36.99%, round up to 37 seconds. Build for brutes is 80%. Therefore, average damage gain from BU for a brute is .37*base*.8

Soul Drain uptime follows the same logic. 2.508 cast; 34.286 recharge; .81535 uptime
Soul Drain checked for 10, 3 and 1 enemies.

Rage was tricky to get the crash value, but I figured it out the same as above. 68.571 rec + 1.32 cast and then rounded up to 70. Uptime 1.717 and a crash every 120 seconds after Rage starts. Turned out to be 30 seconds down out of 270 seconds. So I removed 11% of Superstrength's DPA from the total chain DPA.

Followup and Blinding Feint were double stacked.


The Attack Chains:

BRUTE DARK Midnight Grasp/Gloom/Smite/Siphon Life/Gloom/Smite
BRUTE FIERY Gloom/Incinerate/Greater Fire Sword
BRUTE STONE Seismic Smash/Stone Fist/Gloom/Stone Fist/Heavy Mallet
BRUTE STRENGTH KnockOut Blow/Gloom/Haymaker/Punch/Gloom/Haymaker
BRUTE ENERGY Energy Transfer/Gloom/BoneSmasher/Total Focus
BRUTE ELECTRIC Gloom/Chain Induction/Jacob's Ladder/Charged Brawl
BRUTE DUAL BLADES Blinding Feint/Ablating Strike/Sweeping Strike/Ablating Strike
BRUTE BATTLEAXE Swoop/Gash/Cleave/Chop
BRUTE WARMACE Clobber/Jawbreaker/Shatter
SCRAP DARK Midnight Grasp/Smite/Siphon Life/Smite
SCRAP FIERY Incinerate/Cremate/Greater Fire Sword
SCRAP BROADSWORD Headsplitter/Hack/Disembowel/Hack
SCRAP KATANA Golden Dragonfly/Gambler's Cut/Soaring Dragon/Gambler's Cut
SCRAP MARTIAL ARTS Storm Kick/Crane Kick/Storm Kick/Crippling Axe Kick
SCRAP CLAWS Followup/Slash/Focus/Strike
SCRAP DUAL BLADES Blinding Feint/Ablating Strike/Sweeping Strike/Ablating Strike
SCRAP SPINES Ripper/Dark Blast/Throw Spines/Dark Blast


THE RESULTS from best DPS to worst:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Brute Dark w/ 10 222.7 4.53 EPS
Scrap Dark w/ 10 222 4 EPS
Brute Stone 218 5.2 EPS
Brute Fiery 213.2 3.83 EPS
Brute Strength 212.6 4.59 EPS
Brute Energy 207.4 3.84 EPS
Brute Warmace 203.4 4.71 EPS
Brute Dark w/ 3 201.7 4.53 EPS
Brute Dark w/ 1 194.7 4.53 EPS
Scrap Fiery 190.3 3.48 EPS
Brute Battleaxe 187.2 4.34 EPS
Scrap Dark w/ 3 181 4 EPS
Scrap Dual Blades 169.7 4.42 EPS
Scrap Dark w/ 1 169.3 4 EPS
Brute Electric 169 4.69 EPS
Brute Dual Blades 168.3 4.42 EPS
Scrap Katana 168.3 4.16 EPS
Scrap Martial Arts 165.4 4.24 EPS
Scrap Broadsword 154.8 3.85 EPS
Scrap Claws 154.2 3.46 EPS
Scrap Spines 135.9 4.22 EPS
</pre><hr />

[/ QUOTE ]



With no power pool attacks - Gloom being available to Brutes and not Scrappers was mentioned as a possible skewing of the results - and just level 50 common IO slotting, here were the results:[ QUOTE ]
Others stated that such high recharge rates were unrealistic. Fair enough. Now only level 50 basic IOs are used. No hasten.

Most attacks are slotted 1acc/1end-red/1rec-red/3dam

Several high recharge are slotted 1acc/1end-red/2rec-red/2dam

Buffs (blindingfeint, followup, rage, souldrain, buildup) have 3 rec-red

I did not include DualBlade combos

I did include Quills for Spines (1end-red/3dam)

Brutes on average do 3.177% more damage than scrappers.

Scrapper SS is 11.626% better than Brute SS. This is due to rage being almost perma and granting a higher buff plus scrapper AT mod being higher.

Brute FM does 15.606% more damage than Scrap FM because the extra DoT damage is affected by fury but not affected by criticals.

Similar issue with Spines.

Here is the much cleaner spreadsheet.

And here's the new chart:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>

Powerset DPS EPS
Brute Fiery 172.6 3.1
Brute Energy 157.5 3.3
Scrap Energy 151 3.3
Scrap Claws 149.6 2.9
Brute Claws 149.5 2.9
Scrap Fiery 149.3 3.1
Brute Warmace 148 3.7
Brute Dark 143.7 3.1
Brute Martial Arts 143.7 3.6
Scrap Strength 142.1 2.9
Scrap Dark 141.6 3.1
Scrap Martial Arts 141.5 3.6
Scrap Warmace 141 3.7
Brute Stone 137.5 3.5
Scrap Dual Blades 136.3 3.5
Brute Dual Blades 134.8 3.5
Scrap Stone 131.8 3.5
Brute Katana 131.2 3.2
Brute Battleaxe 129.3 3.2
Scrap Katana 128.6 3.2
Brute Strength 127.3 2.9
Brute Broadsword 124.9 3.1
Scrap Battleaxe 123.3 3.2
Scrap Broadsword 121.7 3.1
Brute Electric 106.6 2.9
Scrap Electric 103.6 2.9
Brute Spines 93.4 1.6
Scrap Spines 80.1 1.6</pre><hr />

[/ QUOTE ]

If you want to read of the threads, the first one is here and the second one here.

...

Well, we can move zones again I suppose if nobody plans to or wants to bring a villain. The idea behind using the RWZ was to open it up to more people since the lowest level people showing up were Textilian and I (at level 35), not to limit it to 35+.

If it's a problem because both of the characters are yours and on the same account, then you'll need to get someone you trust to act as a third party while you switch.

Well, or make sure the character you want to pass it to is "leader" rank already, the last one logged in, and delete the current superleader. I believe then it goes to the most recently logged in leader - that's the criteria used when they were initially set on existing SGs. I'm assuming you don't want to delete the character, but if that's not an issue...

It's close to what I'd aim for, but I tend to want Combat Jumping earlier (immob protection on squishies is good), would highly recommend Stamina at 20 (yes Fearsome Gaze is great, but you need to be able to afford to use it), and question the need for 3 single-target holds, especially one slotted as an attack (Freeze Ray). I'd probably go with FR and PG, slot them both as holds, and pick something else over Jaws... given how frequently I remember to use it, probably push Aim back there, shunt Combat Jumping to where Aim's at, and then just for giggles pick up Recall Friend to move bodies for Howling Twilight and/or mission stealthing with Superspeed + Shadow Fall.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I was hoping for a longer commentary on the thread as a whole

[/ QUOTE ]

Only one thing comes to mind.

[/ QUOTE ]
Flatterer.

[ QUOTE ]
A SF has to be balanced?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, otherwise it just falls over and breaks and then you have little SF pieces all over the floor.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
so... I've got this funny feeling she's not going to give you the satisfaction of posting in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really shouldn't. However, just this once: here you go. Hopefully I didn't blink during that one.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was hoping for a longer commentary on the thread as a whole, but that works.

a. Energy Drain provides a self-heal, albeit relatively small until it's saturated. You even admit as much early in your post, then say that it falls behind "due to no self heal".

b. It has defense debuff resistance, just not much of it. Like Ninjitsu, it's not slottable.

c. The Psi defense is lacking, an issue that positional defense mostly ignores.

d. It is far easier to softcap SR than EA, and much cheaper - it can be done with a single Steadfast Protection +3 defense IO. I have a DM/EA build that's softcapped to all but Psi (the actual character needs more slots and is only softcapped to S/L/E currently), but if I were going from scratch on IOs it would be very expensive.

e. For a Stalker who can permanently hit the hp cap through accolades and set bonuses regardless of set, Overload is simply "moar defense".

f. The only major disappointment I have with EA is the lack of +perception.

g. For Stalkers, you get Repel. It at least has a giggle factor.

Overall, EA isn't a bad set and provides more build leeway than SR; in exchange you're giving up defense debuff resistance and most of your defense to psi attacks.

I still prefer Ninjitsu because it also is a fairly loose build, the heal doesn't require mobs around you, and if you want to take the little tricks and perks you can.

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting replies thank you but still, why am I stomping with my leg when I punch? :&lt;

Very interesting numbers, thank you!

[/ QUOTE ]
The same reason you're slamming your hands down on your opponent's shoulders when you uppercut.

I'd also say that it's likely due to some animator watching too much professional wrestling.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Between having a 1.5 second tick heal aura toggle that slotted out restores about 90+ hp every 1.5 seconds

[/ QUOTE ]


It ticks every 4 seconds not every 1.5 seconds

If it were every 1.5 seconds you would be at a regen rate of 60hp a second which is about what a well slotted regen scrapper gets bt running Dull Pain, Integration, Fast Healing and Health

[/ QUOTE ]
That's a problem?