StratoNexus

Really. I'd love to see you doing it.

When discussing mitigation the convention is the "base" is what is doing most of the work. SinisterDirge's build's base is Defense. When that is bypassed, he has resists and a heal to back it up. The fact that the powerset he is using is not Defense based is irrelevant to what his final build is.

I may be incorrect about the healing in Fiery being more potent than the resistance. I don't think I am, but I am not positive.

You cannot generate 8-12 small red/minute in game. I'd love to see you doing it. Assuming you wipe full 8 man spawns in 15 seconds (including travel between spawns), that is about 70 enemies a minute. Even if we get ridiculous and say you do the spawn wipe + travel in 10 seconds, that is still only ~100 enemies per minute.

Inspiration rush is a tactic I employ on my blasters regularly (they need it more than brutes and tankers usually). You are reaching just to try to be right. Tankers and brutes do not and cannot regularly reach their damage caps solo and in those rare times they do, it is not easy to reach but requires spending more resources than they will recover (without stopping fighting and going to a store, the influence you earn will easily cover the cost of using the inspires).

I did spend about 25 minutes one time running around Talos fighting whatever I came across with a level 23 blaster chewing down inspires and quickly refilling them as needed. That bug where a contact store stayed open after you walked away was humorous.

Mitigation-wise, it is more heal based, in and of itself. On top of that, when you build it to 34% defense and then keep one purple up to perma soft-cap Defense, then it is Defense based.

There are all types of conflicts possible with teammates, true. Part of the fun, for me, is figuring out how to gel best with teammates whose powers are less than complementary. I certainly would not want to run in teams like that too frequently, but it is interesting from time to time.

There are several ways for brutes and tankers to work well on the same team, IME. It seems like one of the least egregious conflicts.

It has been 12 issues (is it almost 5 years now, or just 4?) since Brutes were released. Stop picking at the scab and the wound might heal better.

I totally understand where you are coming from on that line though. After VEATs came out I was aghast. I probably made some less than dignified posts about how ridiculous it was to release VEATs, but allow blasters to wallow in a nigh defenseless / nigh enemy debuffless / team buffless state. It felt to me like the whole point of Castle's thread on blasters and defiance was just to get an idea of what people would like to see for VEATs, rather than to actually do anything to the blaster AT (OK, it still feels that way, but I should stop picking at the scab too).

When you said resistance based, I thought you meant resistance based.

Are you saying you don't like Brutes either? Brutes seem perfectly matched to your desires. Plenty of survivability, plenty of damage. I think you ought to enjoy them and just be content that tankers are designed to have modest damage.

I understand where you are coming from. The specialist ATs, defenders, blasters, and tankers, do stand out in the current game. However, I think the game has room for those types of ATs and it seems people still play them (that may change over time, as this thread is discussing).

It is my honest opinion that when you are given the option to have what you want or at least something that is much closer to what you want, you should embrace it and enjoy. I guess you can still gripe a bit about the specialists, but they seem to be an interesting piece of the game, for variety's sake.

Of course, you have hours invested into older characters, so I get where just make a Brute is a bit casually flippant. But you mention you farm, so you could probably get one PLd by in game associates, if you prefer that.

Most scrappers will die to things most tankers can survive. Shouldn't you be happy now? You can play Hero Brutes, isn't that what you always wanted?

This was the first thing I tried the first time I got into the cathedral itself. When I open the mini-map it only shows the outside. You cannot make the cubes a waypoint, otherwise I would suggest that, rather than making a tanker a waypoint. If I am mistaken, please tell me how to make the cubes a waypoint.

Until the raid becomes well known and smoother with PUGs, it is simply better to do the easy thing. Once people get to have more experience, I would expect those tankers to run out and help with the AV for 30 seconds, and then make sure they get back into position for the respawn. We could probably even do that right away, but it needs to be stressed that you cannot wait for the shield to go back up. It seems easier and safer for the raid group to just wait at the cube.

Also, that job is hugely important. If you wait to run back to the spawn until after the shield goes back up, the Rularuu WILL spread out and it WILL take longer to kill them. Tanking and positioning a large spawn of level 52 Rularuu is a potent and non-trivial task. You should be proud if someone asks you to do it.

To me, a Defender just means a Defender who takes and slots their attacks. If you've got a reasonably continuous attack chain with some AoE, and its all 3 slotted for damage, and you use it, you're a Defender.

So double stacked raged and then 45% more global damage is little trouble to get. Neat. What if your tanker is not SS?

How many red inspires do you think Brutes can maintain? Brutes don't have a prayer to hit their damage cap regularly solo, it is impossible without taking a lot of red inspires.

I thought you wanted to be THE hero, not the distraction?

Buh!? Share build and strat please.

That is non-sense. Fully IOd tankers may be able to say that. Most tankers can find challenge on lower settings just fine. It is even possible to use IOs to pump up your damage and ignore adding even more mitigation. It is funny that people complain about scrappers having enough survivability, but then instead of adding damage to their tankers they add more mitigation instead.

Yeah, you are right, 10 Pm EST. Oh then I should almost definitely be there.

That seems true. I am very cognizant when playing my MM that I have to be quick to tell the pets to charge ahead. Just like a tanker who leaves a spawn before its all dead in order to keep the team moving. It is much more challenging on a MM than it is on a tanker (or any other character performing the tank role).

Blasters can indeed be limited by the rest of the team. They can also be liberated by the team.

I guess I just don't care about any disparity since it is easily glossed over on teams and I find my blasters solo well enough to keep me happy. There was a time when I kind of wanted blasters to be what the VEATs are (although I never imagined quite as much mitigation). I like the VEATs, but I'd prefer a more varied bunch of effects, especially elemental type effects (fire, ice, electric, earth).

I have been on a few heavy MM teams. I was quite surprised that while most excellent, they really were not faster than other types of steamrollers. Blasters seem to work fine on steamrolling teams, IME. I have a preference for blasters over scrappers and brutes, but the preference is not strong, so I love having scrappers and brutes as well as blasters.

MMs. Well, they get in the way a lot...

More defense is not better vs. higher ranks/levels (unless you start fighting +6s). Higher rank and level foes get an accuracy buff, which is different than a to-hit buff.

It seems obvious that people who really wanted to play some villain ATs but who did not want to play that game, would get the opportunity they had been longing for once I18 came out.

I agree it would be interesting to see the long-term trend, but I don't know if the devs will ever release that info. It would be kind of a cool thing to have them tell us the population state of the ATs around February.

While I love me my buff/debuff and I always credit the buffs and debuffs, I give equal credit to the persons pushing attack powers. Sure, the debuff(s) increased the output of Fire Sword Circle, but the person activating FSC is just as responsible for making dead things.

Buff/Debuff is a busy job done well. You have to attack, buff, debuff, and switch targets from friend to foe on many sets. Even with very good players, I find a lot of buff/debuff teams have lower damage output than I would anticipate, because too few attacks come out fast enough. Human beings sometimes have trouble switching between attacks and buffs. It is less of an issue with debuffs, but even there it is an issue. Unless you play on teams like that regularly, it is more a habit to toss out a debuff and then scan the battlefield for where you might be needed or trying to anticipate which tool you are going to want to use next, while letting the others kill stuff.

Of course, MMs have that issue least of all, because they are blithely attacking the enemy at the same time as they lay down debuffs and scan the battlefield. I wish every time I speed boosted an ally a Lightning Bolt would fly at a random enemy.

The scrapper secondaries are there to supplement a scrapper. And by supplement I mean use all the time. I feel the same way about blaster secondaries. IMO, blasters should generally be relatively close to the action, making sure the opportunity to use their secondary occurs all the time.

Abyssal. 6 pets attacking are an AoE even if they all only use single target attacks.

There are a few blaster builds whose AoE is not very good either. I would never point at those exceptions to label the entire AT. All MM combos will deal decent AoE output, most will do good to great AoE damage. And that is just damage. MMs have great AoE effects just from drawing aggro of a whole spawn and from a whole slew of powers you failed to list that exist in their secondaries (which should also be used all the time, IMO). I think the damage output is likely lower than blasters, but it is not difficult to bring good amounts of damage on a MM.

The tier two and three pets generally do fine and the tier 1 pets recharge fast enough that you should expect to be able to resummon them as needed. You underestimate the ability to keep the pets alive. They are not as fragile as you suggest and even when they die, it is intended that you will have to re-summon them from time to time. Re-summoning them is normally easily accomplished while the rest of your pets (and team) mop up. When a pet dies, that is normally a whole bunch of damage that was not directed at an actual player.

Devices has two powers with a range of 25 feet or less. Toe bombing is an important part of my Nrg/Dev play (it may be inefficient, but it makes me cackle with glee, I wish you could slot them for interrupt reduction). It also has two powers designed to allow you to get closer to a spawn without being seen. Sure, Devices is a good choice for a ranger build, but I still think its true strength lies closer to the fight, although I do admit its not true melee range.

First, I expect to have to re-summon somewhat; personally, I like it when I can use the powers I choose, as opposed to clicking it once and then not having to click them again. Second, MMs can easily operate well past the base difficulty without losing pets anything like every fight.

More of me is dying.

Range is often underrated, however it is also often overrated. Every AT has to run through the whole mission. The fact that you can kill a spawn from 40 feet away, but the scrapper has to run to it first becomes less important, since after the fight you will have to cover that distance anyway. It is also likely that you will spend time moving around anyway, kiting has been recommended as a blaster tactic in this very thread.

I am not a good farmer, but I do like to engage in some farm-like activities. Your opinion of MMs potential is vastly under what they can achieve. Gaping. Abyssal.

Blasters really pay a high price for being able to deliver damage at range and for their larger AoEs, it is kind of odd that MMs do not pay the same price, but MMs need their survivability to perform their role and the debuffs are a big part of that role as well. They probably do more damage than they "should". It is probable that MMs are actually quite a bit harder to figure out how to play well than we think.

One thing your rating system does not include is making your teammates feel needed. Blasters score an 11 on that whereas MMs score a 0 or 1. That is not a joke (OK. I am laughing too, but I do mean it seriously as well).

Solo I don't have much trouble on my MMs, surely much less than I do on my blasters, once I start upping the difficulty. My mercs/poison has always felt strong, and from what I understand it is a weak MM combo. My Demon/Storm is simply amazing and can easily take on things that would kill any but the most IOd blaster, and he is only level 40. Killing is pretty fast, but I can outdo it with my scrappers, brutes, and blasters.

If teamed and protected, I don't see MMs out-damaging blasters on big spawns. SC + BL on a buffed Elec/Dev is plenty impressive and damaging to outdo MMs. That said, I have not been unimpressed by the damage output of my MM, but I believe FR is a huge boon there. FR will, of course, also increase the blaster's damage level. I think the debuffs are skewing the perception and debuffs affect the whole team.

Teaming with my friends Bot/Traps and either of my MMs is pretty efficient, but still not as impressive as what a blaster without The Fear can do vs. giant spawns, sans AVs.

I am not sure MMs are really out-damaging blasters as you seem to imply. Are you just talking about vs. hard targets like AVs?