UberGuy

[ QUOTE ]
I think you need to try it on your corruptor. You're seriously underestimating how horrible the range is. Dark and rad (who already are the top PvE sets) can maybe arrange things in solo PvE to make the power not utter crap through herding mobs with the anchor debuffs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, I haven't tried it. I'm going to /bug it relentlessly if the radius isn't at least as large as that given to Defenders in the Dark Mastery set.

No, I wasn't clear, but I mean there are Defenders that love it in CoH.

Honestly, I'm looking forward to it on my Corruptor. Not every secondary is going to make good use of it, but Dark and Rade can do so quite nicely with their debuffs and controll effects. And Kinetics is up there anyway (though it might be overkill on them, depending on whether FS can cap their damage already).

Plenty of people love Soul Drain on the hero side in PvE. I'll agree that SD is a very weak PvP power, but that's true of the Scrapper version as well.

This is the qualtiative description of the powers' damage biting the devs. And us.

Ranged attacks for Stalkers and Brutes do only 2/3 of their melee damage. That is to say if Stalkers and Brutes could somehow launch a ranged attack at you that in every other way looked like Brawl, it would do 2/3 of actual brawl damage.

Thus, a power that does "extreme" damage based on its "damage scale" isn't going to look right at all when compared to "extreme" damage melee attacks. None of the Stalker or Brute primary set powers are treated as ranged for this purpose, even if they actually are outside of melee reach.

Note that the same restrictions apply to Scrappers and Tankers. For Scrappers in particular this makes their ranged EPP attacks look fairly pathetic compared to their melee attacks, because for them the ratio is much worse. Their ranged attacks do only 44% of their melee damage.

Scrappers, Brutes and Tankers all have the same ranged damage base (50% Blaster damage). Stalkers are slightly better, at 60% Blaster base.

All that said, I do think that the Stalker snipes are extremely lame. I'm looking at the entry level blast and the hold, and probably nothing else.

Yes, they do. For an a true ranged attack, Scrappers and Brutes do the same damage with the same power. Note that powers in Scrapper and Brute primaries that happen to have range beyond melee are not treated as ranged attacks for this purpose. Why EPP/PPP powers are treated differently is unclear.

[ QUOTE ]
Ugh.

Having +25% end cost and -50% recharge just for a piddly 5% damage boost is NOTHING close to reasonable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you misunderstand.

The +5% damage is compared to Scrappers, who also pay +25% endurance and -50% recharge compared to the base Defender/Corruptor power.

It looks like that's because LBE rocks.

The Damage Scale on Dark Blast reportedly 1.0. That's the Scrapper and Stalker versions. I wish I could test that, but my MA/DA/Dark isn't high enough to have it.

Edit: Thanks to the guys over on the Justice Hamidon channel, I can see that Dark Blast is, in fact, about as damaging as LBE.

So, either I'm doing my math wrong (totally possible), the reported damage on the plaque is bogus (very, very possible), or the Brute PPP attack is mildly sucky in damage.

My recomendation is to take none of my numbers above as a reason to diss this attack yet. I don't trust my results here because they don't line up with other commonly reported numbers for either LBE or Dark Blast.

If anyone out there has actually tested Brute/Gloom (or any of these powers), I can redo this with a real number. I'd need to know your level, the level of your foe, how you had the attack slotted (number and level of SOs.. +0? +3? etc) and, of course, the number of points of damage reported in the combat log. You'll also need to attack something neutral to negative damage. A RIP would be a likely neutral choice. Level of the target is unimportant as long as you let me know what it was.

[ QUOTE ]
Based on the listed 44 damage at level 40, ranged attack damage progression for Brutes, and 3-even-level SOs, it would cause about 88 damage at level 50.

[/ QUOTE ]

Something doesn't line up here. The Damage Scale for this power is too low. Either the 44 damage at level 40 is incorrect or this power compares very poorly with Laser Beam Eyes.

LBE at level 40 would cause 68.7 points of damage.

LBE's normalized damage is 2.25. Gloom's is 1.7.

Has anyone verified the damage listed in the plaque?

Edit: I can test LBE on a level 50 Scrapper. I can't test any other melee AT EPP/PPP attacks.

Edit2: My original test listed a slightly higher DS for LBE because my target was susceptible to energy damage. Who knew that Skulls take extra energy damage?

Yeah, given that Regen has one toggle in the base powers, they're the easiest of all to detoggle.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
laser beam eyes does double what our piddly patron attack does

[/ QUOTE ]

What is the damage from a Brute using one of his patron ranged attacks at level 50 with 3 damage SOs in it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Based on the listed 44 damage at level 40, ranged attack damage progression for Brutes, and 3-even-level SOs, it would cause about 88 damage at level 50.

Was this RV PvP?

If it was in RV then the /Regen probably had Focused Accuracy.

The SS Tanker would have had Rage, which is pretty much like having FA for toHit purposes.

So, yeah, those guys would be nasty against you one-on-one.

Remember, nothing is different about how defense sets work in PvP. In fact, they've made them work in PvE like they've worked in PvP for a good while.

[ QUOTE ]
in the few characters i've looked at of mine, the FIRST ATTACK does more dmg than the first patron attack (for brutes and stalkers)....uhh what the hell? why get a worse power at lvl 41 than at lv 1?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, of course they have a feature your level one attack doesn't have - range.

Not that I disagree with you about that not being worth the difference. I'm just pointing out the likely logic behind it.

Of course, when I got Laser Beam Eyes on my Scrapper, I went and tested and, at the time (I don't know if it's still true) LBE did the same damage as the smallest broadsword attack. Because of that I respecced out of that attack and kept LBE.

Not sure why that's not consistently the case.

I wanted to toss in here that I just got around to reading issue 12, and ... it was really bad. Bear in mind that I'm pretty laid back about my entertainment. I find enjoyment in really bad movies, and I've read some pretty bad comics before and still found things to like in them.

10->11->12 was like a crescendo of bad comic writing. 10 wasn't bad, and 11 wasn't awful. But after reading 12 I felt like I'd just watched a move that started with low-quality special effects and actors, was edited badly and then poorly dubbed from another language.

I don't say any of the above to be mean. I got the idea that the story/issue was rushed or something.

It sounds like I13 is better. I'm looking forward to it.

[ QUOTE ]
you'd still need like 3 /rads to equal fa's buff

[/ QUOTE ]

RI's debuff base is around 30%. FA's buff base is around 25%.

[ QUOTE ]
Dark Embrace is no where near the endurance hog that some seem to believe. It seems comparable in endurance drain to my Shadow Fall. Note I have Shadow Fall slotted with two reduce endurance SO and Dark Embrace slotted with one damage resistance. I have no numbers, these are just what I've observed from usage.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's actually cheaper than Shadowfall.

It occured to me that it might be the dismissal power. I didn't think about it, but I'm guessing that's the exact same thing.

Hehe, I wonder what the self-destruct is.

Edit: By the way, iakona, you rock for finding this stuff, and people like Red Tomax and those helping with the other power quantifications rock for getting it out there.

The edge comes from playing a set that has one affected attack.

Having one attack do 6% more damage is a meaningless boost.

I'll look forward to a real boost of my instance of this AT. But I won't expect it for months.

Heh. I noticed this too.

My Mind/Psi Dominator, with his one mele attack, is pretty underwhelmed.

The base Brawl damage for a L40 Brute is about 13.775. So 44/13.775 is about 3.2.

That and you have to choose the power carefully. IMO you don't want to turn Defenders in to "detoggle spammers". The benefits of detoggling a melee foe can be extremely large, and probably overshadow entire defender powersets main purpose if made reliable.

[ QUOTE ]
It goes back to playing the same game that everyone else is playing. My blaster has to deal with rooting and suppression basicaly making range a joke and definately something that is lost on a regular basis when in combat. Tie that in with a Blaster being able to have a chance to get past a tankers mez protection.

Without relying on Bitter Freeze Ray + Freeze Ray + Char + Shocking Grasp. That would be Mag 12, shhhhhhh some people don't know about this still.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, I read this as "my AT and/or powers are flawed, so lets impose a flaw on everyone else's AT to make the playing field level".

I'm not sure you should be surprised at a lack of support for that perspective.

No, if you're looking for support for fixing your powers so they don't screw you as badly? (Which would, incedentally be at least a minor buff to everyone in the game.) I'm all for that.

Bear in mind that supression (a fruity mechanic in it's own right, though I really know of nothing better for it), starts when the hold starts. This means that, if you can keep someone held for around that time (or more) with a single hold application, you can, in fact, hold them forever. Assuming the hold recharges in time.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think that's an extreme or stupid way to look at it at all. I do think it's extremely stupid to invest more effort in this debate, when the great majority of responses (not just from you, but you are definitely included) boil down to "but it's SUPPOSED to be like X".

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh...

That's the point. If you reject the foundations of the AT designs, that's your perogative. What we're trying to say is that Toggle Dropping was warping the AT roles unaccountably.

It seems to me to be more important what the durations and activation times need to be. With supression, especially, there's no real chance of keeping a melee AT held, but it may be possible to hold them initially and drop their toggles.