Actually found that 8 Stacks Focus w/ 1 Stack of Enrage as Dex/Str is remarkably more efficient to use than 5 Agressor and 8 Enrage.
You can also get full stacks of Enrage with one stack of focus from the MA energy builder's advantage. Not sure if it also works with Agressor though...
The issue that I'm seeing is that the base damage (not buffed by passives, forms or toggles) of this set is just really low compared to everything else in the melee department of the game. You should NOT be pigeonholed into Dex just to see good numbers from a set... especially one that has STR based mechanics. For example:
Brimstone
A split damage type that doesn't break 1k on each hit of a full charge with a lv 40 character that's actually geared well? Not good. Increase the damage of both parts so that it actually makes sense to use. And for the love of god make it so that you plant the business end of the weapon in the ground.... not the hilt. Needs increased damage on resistant foes like normal knock powers.
Earth-splitter
Same issue as brimstone. Damage needs to be upped to warrant the tier and even if its 50ft it shouldn't matter. A knock up should still cause normal damage with its attack.. not just worrying about fall damage. It also needs to deal increased damage to knock resistant foes.
Skewer
Skewer is fine as it stands right now (except for its self root issue and simple animation compared to the flashiness of the set)
Annihilate
Annihilate needs more damage and not to be used as a cherry picked utility. Its Also a terribad crippling challenge candidate due to the kb.
Arc of Ruin
Arc of Ruin is Perfect as is (needs to made flashy like the rest of the set too though to be honest)
Skull-crusher
Skull-crusher lost its usefulness after losing its advantage, its damage is too low to care and the advantage is only a 15% boost on disoriented targets (make this 30% like other R3 replacing advantages)
Cleave
Cleave is great, but needs to give a chance for a stack of enrage on each hit of the combo (this is to help with in set enrage building)
Lunge whose name escapes me
That second lunge needs more damage as well to warrant its tier and cool-down
Guard
Is still a copy of retaliation. Give it something to make it a bit different. Like an advantage that disorients foes or something.
Eruption
Is nice but i think the advantage should do more damage than it does. Maybe 400-500 points to make it attractive. Its on a recharge too so its chance to cause clinging frames is blah. :P The explosion should also make a more explosive sound.
Brute Strike
This powers fine as is. No real change needed.
And I'm going to bring this up again. This set needs an active defense/offense and a heal to flesh out the brick set's lack of utility powers. I'm sick of this issue being passed over. If you expect someone to go 10 powers in a tree straight through to get to a tier 4, at least make it so your not gimping your build by doing so in certain trees. The sound effects also need an overhaul. I'd really like someone to read my actual post and give input instead of glazing over it.:cool:
Defense penetration would be surprisingly good in elite PvE, and it's amazingly good in PvP, which is why I selected it. No avenger passive currently has decent defense, and even WoW + reiki is pretty squishy. Getting defense penetration wouldn't be as simple as switching a role. You take a damage penalty on melee attacks, so you are guaranteed to be not using focus or WoW, which puts you squarely in the avenue of pure offense.
If you role switch to avenger in combat and get in over your head, you faceplant, period. The only avenue is depending on teammates to save you, or maybe hitting unbreakable and not attacking. The defense penetration isn't some miracle magic button. Switching to avenger, even with buffed healing, leaves you highly vulnerable and IMHO this is okay.
Adding +CC duration lets Avengers defend actively. CC duration isn't really Sentinel's thing; Sentinel is pretty polarized between healing all the time or using the extra energy for damage. Just because Sentinels have it, doesn't mean that they need it or that it's really critical to the standard Sentinel gameplay.
Avengers need a perk. Sentinels get infinite energy, protectors get improved energy from blocking, brawlers get a snare. Guardians suck too, but they can select any passive on a whim. I think defense penetration, emphasizing the glass cannon aspect of Avenger, is the right way to go.
EDIT: I am 100% in favor of adding an active offense, active defense, and utility heal to Brick. It's not an absolutely huge issue (tier 4s are garbage regardless) but every framework needs solid utilities, and the only ones lacking them are brick and mentalist. I think we're all aware of how bad mentalist needs a review, so... yeah.
So, a support role isn't suitable to support skills like crowd control effects? :rolleyes:
And you really don't think that adding defense penetration to a ROLE is the worst possible idea one can think of for balance in this game? Seriously?
You always mention pros in your arguments, but never any cons. Never looking at your own ideas from another perspective. Balance issues. Potential exploit possibilities. FotM build potentials. Those perspectives. Cognitive dissonance much?
By adding inherent defense penetration to Avenger, Tank builds in PvP would become next to useless. Also, maintain attacks would probably do more average damage in Avenger than charged attacks. Defense penetration really adds after a little while.
But hey, what do i know, right? Or anyone else playing PvP actively, right?
You're the guy that outright avoids playing PvP maps like Stronghold, ZA, BASH and UTC.
Surely, your opinion and suggestions are absolutely objective and fact based.
Dosent the martial arts form cancel out aggressor?
While you can stack Enrage with Aggressor yet not focus forms, Focus forms are still a better choice due to:
1) They rely on DEX which means you'll also have increased crits.
2) They are much easier to build and maintain, and if you increase their ranks you always have at least 3 stacks.
3) The damage of Focus stacks is fed by both DEX and STR (STR to a lesser degree though). I'm not sure, but from what I tested with AoPM it looks like you can get 15% damage per stack from DEX, and another 7.5% damage per stack from STR. I -think- that's the ceiling of Focus - 22.5% bonus damage per stack. Meanwhile if I'm not mistaken (my testing wasn't thorough enough) Enrage's bonus damage per stack is capped at 15%.
And you really don't think that adding defense penetration to a ROLE is the worst possible idea one can think of for balance in this game? Seriously?
Just like adding a snare to 100% of melee attacks and some ranged ones tagged as melee.....oh wait.
Everyone seems to have this idea that as a melee toon, you should naturally be better than a ranged toon in melee range.
In CO I think thats absolute BS to the highest form, CC is so insane here that if one player in a fight is melee even if the other guy is ranged he will spend 100% of the time fighting in melee range. However becauseof the above philosophy melee also destroys in melee range, meaning that 90% of the time brawler toons will crush avenger toons like bugs if they can lunge them.
I'm probably the only one here who thinks it, but melee either needs reduced cc or heavily reduced damage to even be remotely even with ranged. Right now we have like 4 or 5 ranged buils which work versus a porrly thought out melee one.
By adding inherent defense penetration to Avenger, Tank builds in PvP would become next to useless.
In a very similar game (COX) the offensive class (blasters) have 10% irresistible damage and it didn't make tanks useless in pvp. Besides, weren't you recently complaining about defense stacked tanks being a problem in pvp and that's why we need enrage?
Also, maintain attacks would probably do more average damage in Avenger than charged attacks. Defense penetration really adds after a little while.
I'm not saying this statement is wrong but until i see some math that proves it, i wont say its right either.
I was just looking at a thread talking about how DOT is useless in pvp (especially with things like IDF and invuln). Would it be so bad if there's powers became useful in pvp? Again, i don't remember blasters dots being overpowered in COX with 10% irresistible damage.
At the very least, irresistible damage on ranged offensive players seems worth looking in to because it worked out ok in a similar game.
If you role switch to avenger in combat and get in over your head, you faceplant, period. The only avenue is depending on teammates to save you, or maybe hitting unbreakable and not attacking. The defense penetration isn't some miracle magic button. Switching to avenger, even with buffed healing, leaves you highly vulnerable and IMHO this is okay.
I'm going to make a suggestion to you that I made to the dev's in my easy PvP fixes thread: play t4 PvP a lot. Pay attention to the builds that you see and how they are being used by the players who always seem to win. You will learn a ton about how the game actually works.
For example, my toon Lady E runs in avenger. She runs electric form passive. As you'd put it "avenger in combat and get in over your head, you faceplane, period." But she doesn't. In PvE, I actually really have to work at screwing up to get her killed, and even then, I can usually escape. Now, she is squishier, a lot squisher, than Xavori or Construct both of who are very tank-ish, but that doesn't translate into face roll. And in team based PvP, she's awesome even without crippling challenge or nailed to the ground (hence team, not BASH or duels) because she can sustain high DPS the entire length of any fight and can melt down any opponent no matter how much defense they have.
In fact, when I think about built-in defense penetration, she's my "this might not be a good idea" example (the same as Xavori was my "this might not be a good idea" example for annihilate's advantage). I agree that avenger needs tweaking since it's still weaker than brawler, but I'm not sure about defense penetration. On the other hand, not ready to completely argue against it because I honestly hadn't given that much thought and not sure what else to do either.
Just like adding a snare to 100% of melee attacks and some ranged ones tagged as melee.....oh wait.
Snare only works on single targets. Defense penetration would work on all targets in an AoE area.
If the devs wanted to limit it to your primary target, i suspect the code for every single power in the game would need to be modified for that effect. A lot of work for something like that.
And besides, Snare doesn't ammount to much if you have Acro R2/R3 + Versatility, or Teleport.
In other words, the effect of a snare can be mitigated or flat out nullified.
Defense penetration is... well, defense penetration. Tap spamming or maintaining a ranged attack would add up, real fast. I'm all for adding more minor(3% min - 7% max) damage penetration effects to more skills in the game. It would counter shield bubble + IDF + Invul/Defiance tank builds. But it would be VERY tricky to find a balance
And adding it to a role is just easy mode. Adding it as a 2 or 3 point advantage to some offensive passives? That would be be more acceptable. Or as an advantage to existing powers.
But as for the rest of your post, i see your point. Especially about Brawler needing a penalty to CC effects as stun/hold/root.
Not a reduced resistance to CC effects(since that would severely cripple the mobility of brawlers), but reduced effectiveness when using CC effects on your opponent.
As for the CC effect penalty on Avenger? Honestly, that should stay. Having 100 foot ranged attacks on a toon, along with defense penetration capability and an ability to run away fast(SS/Acro/TP) would make Avenger OP in PvP.
I'd also bring back the old health penalty to Avenger, but reduce or remove the penalty to healing.
So, the two offensive roles would look something like this:
-Brawler- -Can use only Offensive Passives
-Melee Damage increased by 20%
-Ranged Damage reduced by 30% -Hold and Root Powers decreased by 10/20%(not too much, or Avengers can get away too fast)
-Standard resistance to Hold and Root Powers
-Snare on single-target melee attacks
-Energy decays faster than normal rate
-50% standard Energy generated when Blocking
-Standard Threat generation
-Avenger- -Can use only Offensive Passives
-Ranged Damage increased by 20% -Standard Healing Powers and effects(or reduced by 5-10%, this needs extensive testing to properly gauge the impact on roles in PvP)
-Hold and Root Powers reduced by 20%
-Resistance to Hold and Root Powers reduced by 20%
-Energy decays at 50% normal rate
-50% standard Energy generated when Blocking
-Standard Threat generation
-Base health points are reduced by about 17%
-About 25% greater energy generation from energy builder attacks.
Sentinel should be the role for CC effects. Brawler should be for brawling and melee dps.
Right now, CC effects are rampantly used in Brawler because it has no penalty at all.
These changes should reduce the effectiveness of CC spamming for Brawler builds, but at the same time not giving too much of an advantage to Avenger. Yes, it becomes a wee bit harder to catch Avengers with stun/hold/root. Although, thanks to the health penalty to Avenger, killing them wouldn't be significantly harder than now. It's just that Avenger isn't doomed to be in perma-stun/root/hold from melee builds anymore. But melee also has knockdown/knockup. That's a completely different mechanic and has no built-in resistances in roles.
I would recommend modifying roles in small increments, instead of what Auspicious recommended.
It's like cooking a meal. If you under-cook it, you can always put it back on the fire and cook it a bit more after tasting a sample. If you over-cook it, it'll just taste bad and that's it.
The devs could also prepare code variations for roles in advance, and just watch for feedback from the community. If no penalty to healing on Avenger proves to be too much, they'd have the code with the modified penalty ready for next tuesdays patch.
Testing it on PTS would be very difficult, since most of the community doesn't even know about PTS.
Putting it on Live and opening a feedback thread would provide much better results in a much faster period.
Besides, weren't you recently complaining about defense stacked tanks being a problem in pvp and that's why we need enrage?
I did. I still do. But there's a difference in approach. Enrage is countering, boosting your DPS to enable you to burst through those defenses. Defense penetration is not countering, it's flat out ignoring.
Like i said, i wouldn't have anything against adding defense penetration effects to attacks or offensive passives. But defense penetration should not be a built-in mechanic, like in Dragon's Wrath. Defense penetration is a very powerful and very sensitive thing in PvP. As Enrage has a cost(STR statting), defense penetration should at least cost 2 or 3 advantage points.
anyone notice how ice is the only framewrok in the game without an innate energy return ? Shatter is supposed to do it for you but it falls flat on its face in almost all instances of use. any idea on if we can get this fixed or at least looked at?
anyone notice how ice is the only framewrok in the game without an innate energy return ?
You mean aside from Power Armor, Telekinesis, Celestial, Bestial, and Ebon, Radiant and Primal Sorceries?
Unless you're specifying Energy Unlock powers only, which Force, Arcane Sorcery, all Martial Arts frameworks and all Brick frameworks can be added to the above list if that's the case.
EDIT: I am 100% in favor of adding an active offense, active defense, and utility heal to Brick. It's not an absolutely huge issue (tier 4s are garbage regardless) but every framework needs solid utilities, and the only ones lacking them are brick and mentalist. I think we're all aware of how bad mentalist needs a review, so... yeah.
I am very much behind this as well. At the very least, an Active Defense please! We even have a fun little thread on the topic here. d('-' )
Sentinel should be the role for CC effects. Brawler should be for brawling and melee dps.
Right now, CC effects are rampantly used in Brawler because it has no penalty at all.
These changes should reduce the effectiveness of CC spamming for Brawler builds, but at the same time not giving too much of an advantage to Avenger. Yes, it becomes a wee bit harder to catch Avengers with stun/hold/root. Although, thanks to the health penalty to Avenger, killing them wouldn't be significantly harder than now. It's just that Avenger isn't doomed to be in perma-stun/root/hold from melee builds anymore. But melee also has knockdown/knockup. That's a completely different mechanic and has no built-in resistances in roles.
Like i said, i wouldn't have anything against adding defense penetration effects to attacks or offensive passives. But defense penetration should not be a built-in mechanic, like in Dragon's Wrath. Defense penetration is a very powerful and very sensitive thing in PvP. As Enrage has a cost(STR statting), defense penetration should at least cost 2 or 3 advantage points.
I can pretty much cosign most of this stuff especially the lowering of brawler CC effectiveness. Lunges alone can stack such a large amount of CC that it can feel excessive at times.
EDIT: If any irresistible damage is added I think it should go to ranged heroes. I think melee is devastating enough as is and i don't think that melee needs any more armor piercing ability than it already has.
I purposely didn't write that defense penetration should be limited to ranged attacks, so please refrain from modifying quotes in such a way. It's misleading.
When i said attacks, i meant both ranged AND melee. But not like Dragon's Wrath, which has a massive damage penetration. But something minor. So every build could have anti-tank options, but not "i kill tanks for breakfast" like Dragon's Wrath.
Adding defense penetration to only ranged attacks would screw up the melee/range balance, and push it towards ranged again. We don't want one to have a definite advantage over another. We want balance.
I purposely didn't write that defense penetration should be limited to ranged attacks, so please refrain from modifying quotes in such a way. It's misleading.
When i said attacks, i meant both ranged AND melee. But not like Dragon's Wrath, which has a massive damage penetration. But something minor. So every build could have anti-tank options, but not "i kill tanks for breakfast" like Dragon's Wrath.
Adding defense penetration to only ranged attacks would screw up the melee/range balance, and push it towards ranged again. We don't want one to have a definite advantage over another. We want balance.
Fair enough, I probably could have handled that better. I can see how it would seem like i put words in your mouth.
/e waves magic wand and returns quote to original form.
Defense penetration would be surprisingly good in elite PvE, and it's amazingly good in PvP, which is why I selected it. No avenger passive currently has decent defense You take a damage penalty on melee attacks], and even WoW + reiki is pretty squishy. Getting defense penetration wouldn't be as simple as switching a role., so you are guaranteed to be not using focus or WoW, which puts you squarely in the avenue of pure offense.
.
There is no damage penalty on melee attacks with Avenger. In fact if you want to be a melee and ranged offensive charachter, this is your only choice. The advantage to picking WoW or unstoppable for an Avenger would come with enhanced defenses, and melee dmg on par or stronger than guardian and protector, but still having a strong ranged backup, basically think specialist. Quarry is also a great avenger defense. This is all in comparison to brawler, comparing it to guardian or protector is worthless because they arent the same role really.
As it is, a brawler is only a close up fighter, the same cannot be said for avenger, You will do the exact same dmg on Avenger with unstoppable as you would on guardian with unstoppable with melee attacks. Avenger is a ranged/close up offensive fighter.
Avenger is now, pretty hax, for some themes/roles its the only way to go, and even brawlers might look to switching over. It doesnt need any innate penetration to armor, and in reality ranged attacks are generally more succeptible to not penetrating armor. (note most bulletproof vests can easily be stabbed through)
If they want to add a special attack or ability that cuts through armor thats fine, but just throwing it on Avenger is a bad idea.
Dont have time to read whole thread, but incase it hasnt been mentioned before, enrage and aggressor are only unlocking if you have 3 brick powers, and not for 5 of any non EB.
why would anyone pick brawler if avenger had armor penetration in pvp. A brawler would be giving up probably 10% of its melee dmg versus normal people and would actually be gaining dmg versus high defense types, while having access to enhanced dmg on ranged attacks.
the boost to melee is only 20%, if yall have any noticeable armor penetration you will surpass them. And the heal penalty is not a shield penalty, and i hear doesnt count the healing drones. Does this really sound balanced to you?
A thought about the Avenger / Brawler damage discrepancy.
The way the power sets are built, Avengers are supposed to get a good chunk of their damage from Active Offenses. Brick and Martial Arts don't have any. The problem is that nothing stops people already stacked with Form of the Tempest and WotW to take Immolation, electric Sheath and Shadow Shroud, and many of them in fact do so.
If the Active Offenses were locked to damage types like Lock 'n' Load - Immolation buffing elemental damage, Shadow Shroud buffing Paranormal damage, Electric Sheath buffing energy damage etc, this damage bursts would be more of an Avenger signature and bring some balance to the Avenger / Brawler discrepancy.
It could also create some interesting new options like Brawlers doing electric sheath+Laser sword or immolation+devour essence for burst damage, maybe even make Ego Blades popular again with Shadow Shroud, which might bring some diversity from everyone using DW/DC/Haymaker (though I'm sure Dragon's Wrath will still be the most popular attack).
I agree with the "give Avenger role defense penetration" thing, but I'd suggest making it only apply to ranged attacks. It'd have to be less than Dragon's Wrath. Maybe something like ignoring 20 or 25% of the resistance?
That way, Brawler still has a role in PvP (more melee damage, innate snare, no HP penalty), but Avenger (along with the current changes) is actually worth picking for a ranged character, without nerfing its effectiveness for melee/ranged hybrid builds from the current performance.
The bonuses and penalties that roles provide all seem based on very basic categories of powers or character stats. So I think we should be brainstorming along those lines. The exception being the snare for Brawler that was mostly a band-aid to allow melee heroes to actually have a chance at hitting people.
However, most of these categories are already the domain of the other roles (buffs, heals, etc.). The only ones that aren't taken and that seem like they would fit the concept (to me) are the following:
ENERGY GAINS FROM POWERS: This would mostly be from Secondary Energy Unlock powers, but could also be expanded to Energy Builders or other powers that have similar effects such as Shatter. This seems in line with the Avenger role in that it encourages you to keep attacking.
SUPER STATS: Now this idea is a little more out there, so cut me some slack. Since most of our damage and power effectiveness comes from Super Stats, maybe Avenger role could boost the bonus stat points you get from choosing your Super Stats by like 25%. Meaning that, at level 40, instead of getting +80 to each of your Super Stats, you could get +100. This could help get a little more boom in our dynamite.
SUPER STATS (ALT): An alternative to the previous idea might be to raise the soft cap on Super Stats contribution to something higher than 30%.
-Hold and Root Powers decreased by 10/20%(not too much, or Avengers can get away too fast)
-Snare on single-target melee attacks
How slow can you be if you can't catch someone who is snared by the majority of your damage source?
IMO should be more like:
Avenger:
+Extra Ranged Damage
+Extra CC Resistance
-Total Health
-Healing
Brawler:
+Ability to stack enrage without defiance
+Extra CC Resistance
-Total Health
-Healing
Notice the no melee damage buff? Thats because they already do far more damage than ranged, the brawler buff is overkill. I also made it so you couldn't stack enrage without defiance unless you were specifically running in bralwer, a big hit to those ranged toons running AoPM and enrage to do whacky crazy things.
How slow can you be if you can't catch someone who is snared by the majority of your damage source?
IMO should be more like:
Avenger:
+Extra Ranged Damage
+Extra CC Resistance
-Total Health
-Healing
Brawler:
+Ability to stack enrage without defiance
+Extra CC Resistance
-Total Health
-Healing
Notice the no melee damage buff? Thats because they already do far more damage than ranged, the brawler buff is overkill. I also made it so you couldn't stack enrage without defiance unless you were specifically running in bralwer, a big hit to those ranged toons running AoPM and enrage to do whacky crazy things.
Hates gonna hate :cool:
do you realize that ranged does as much damage roughly, your probably thinking enrage is brawler only or something
fireball and gigabolt are right next to haymaker in damage AND do AOE dmg
sniper rifle surpasses it
force cascade blows it out the water.
edit i see you want to make enrage brawler only
you would really be nerfing ranged damage heavily if you kill enrage stacking, keep in mind munitions has skills that give enraged and its primarily ranged.
also guardians cant stack enrage? what.
your also tying roles to skill sets, when they arent supposed to be.
you would really be nerfing ranged damage heavily if you kill enrage stacking, keep in mind munitions has skills that give enraged and its primarily ranged.
Munitions can't stack enrage, only gain 1 stack and maintain it as far as I know.
edit i see you want to make enrage brawler only........also guardians cant stack enrage? what.
No no no, it just means that you can't get more than 1 stack without defiance. With it you could get 8 stacks.
your also tying roles to skill sets, when they arent supposed to be.
Its fairly safe to say that avenger is tied to the glass cannon skillset, just like brawler should be. Right now brawler is normal dps rather than glasscannon dps.
sniper rifle surpasses it
force cascade blows it out the water.
1 has an interruptable 3 second charge and the other costs close to 300 energy.
Gigabolt has a debuff stopping constant charging and fireballs aoe damage is only 2/3 on the primary target, and does less damage than haymaker.
do you realize that ranged does as much damage roughly, your probably thinking enrage is brawler only or something
fireball and gigabolt are right next to haymaker in damage AND do AOE dmg
sniper rifle surpasses it
force cascade blows it out the water.
Fireball and Gigabolt are nowhere near Haymaker damage. Brawler + WotW does more damage than anything else in the game, far surpassing any ranged damage. I've been hit by Dragon's wrath for unmitigated 8k. That's 16k in 75% of the time it takes to charge one sniper rifle shot. Sniper rifle I've been hit for an unmitigated 17k, and you're conveniently forgetting you have to charge that power for 4 seconds without any interruptions to pull it off.
You also conveniently forget that Dragon's Wrath/Dragon's Claws can be spammed repeatedly with barely any energy issues while Force Cascade can do one big burst but can't be followed up with another big burst anytime soon.
I'm running a Defile build myself which forces me to run INT/END superstats due to the energy consumption, which means unlike melee I have no crit chance and I can only get Enrage up to half efficiency from my +STR primary offense.
And please do explain how a ranged build conveniently stacks Enrage up without defiance or macros that take 3 minutes to stack up.
Fireball and Gigabolt are nowhere near Haymaker damage. Brawler + WotW does more damage than anything else in the game, far surpassing any ranged damage. I've been hit by Dragon's wrath for unmitigated 8k. That's 16k in 75% of the time it takes to charge one sniper rifle shot. Sniper rifle I've been hit for an unmitigated 17k, and you're conveniently forgetting you have to charge that power for 4 seconds without any interruptions to pull it off.
You also conveniently forget that Dragon's Wrath/Dragon's Claws can be spammed repeatedly with barely any energy issues while Force Cascade can do one big burst but can't be followed up with another big burst anytime soon.
I'm running a Defile build myself which forces me to run INT/END superstats due to the energy consumption, which means unlike melee I have no crit chance and I can only get Enrage up to half efficiency from my +STR primary offense.
And please do explain how a ranged build conveniently stacks Enrage up without defiance or macros that take 3 minutes to stack up.
easiest solution is unbreakable advantage, gives like 4 to 5 stacks in its duration, so basically you can get to to 5 or 6 by using enrage then jumping into a bunch of mobs with unbreakable. Fireball does 5.1k with an enrage build with around 240 strength in the Avenger role, with the same stats. in the same build in brawler, i think haymaker was 5.4 or so k. not insane when you think fireball can hit from a distance, and also does aoe dmg to the surrounding targets
As far as spamming skills high dmg, that has more to do with what type of energy build you have going on. enrage has nothing to do with dragons wrath/claws energy returns, in fact making an enrage build makes those skills usually very ineffecient. Im not saying every class is the same, then there would be no point to having classes, but ranged attacks can get right close to melee dmg.
Int/end is the way to easy energy management, but its not the only way. the problem is people are tying the good and bad points of thier specific builds, that they have chosen, to roles, or skills. Your build, having int/end does not have top tier damage, you in superstating int/end decided that you would rather be able to spam a lot of skills and have a large cap on your total energy, to do that you sacrificed the highest spike damage. The people who build around wanting the highest spike dmg, lose other things.
The other thing to remember is AVENGER IS NOT RANGED ATTACKS ONLY. Avenger can use dragons wrath haymaker and the like just as well as any role except for one. Brawler cannot use ranged attacks well at all. What this means, is you too can use dragons wrath, haymaker or whatever you like in melee range. You can make an avenger that does a huge dmg opening shot, and can then do huge dmg up close.
edit: dragon wraths dmg with 30% crit is 1140 base, sniper shot with full rank dmg is 1663. it does about 40% more dmg, however in the time it takes to charge one can pull off two dragons wraths, this is true, but dragons wrath doesnt stun for 2.4 seconds, and you cant do it from 100 feet away. sniper rifle is a bigger dmg burst with more preparation, that has a big advantage over a long range. the difference in dmg output makes perfect sense, considering the utility of different skills.
Brawler+WotW is about 2% different than Avenger + Kinetc manipulation/fiery form/etc IE when you have the same stats on rank 2 i get 71 for KM fiery Form and 73 for WoW its hardly a big difference.
No no no, it just means that you can't get more than 1 stack without defiance. With it you could get 8 stacks.
Um, error much? Enrage can be stacked withoug Defiance.
Enrage clicky with enough CON/INT for duration/cooldown, Enrage building Might attacks like Roomsweeper or Havoc Stomp, Unbreakable + Better you than me advantage...
Also, HP penalty to a melee class? Lolwut?
Yeah, let's just force all melee characters into Protector to be effective. It'll juuuust make stacked defense melee builds more common than now. :rolleyes:
easiest solution is unbreakable advantage, gives like 4 to 5 stacks in its duration, so basically you can get to to 5 or 6 by using enrage then jumping into a bunch of mobs with unbreakable. Fireball does 5.1k with an enrage build with around 240 strength in the Avenger role, with the same stats. in the same build in brawler, i think haymaker was 5.4 or so k. not insane when you think fireball can hit from a distance, and also does aoe dmg to the surrounding targets
So to build Enrage Avenger needs to... Get hit, a lot? This doesn't help at all in PvP since an Avenger that gets hit and doesn't run away, even if he has unbreakable on, will die. This doesn't help in lairs since as an avenger you really wouldn't want to get hit. So this only helps in solo play, which is the easiest content in the game that lacks any challenge.
Comparing Fireball to Haymaker has two faults: One, it makes no sense for avengers to stack Enrage with primarily Unbreakable. Two, Fireball has 3 secs charge time while Haymaker has 2. So Fireball actually does 33% less DPS in your example.
Int/end is the way to easy energy management, but its not the only way. the problem is people are tying the good and bad points of thier specific builds, that they have chosen, to roles, or skills. Your build, having int/end does not have top tier damage, you in superstating int/end decided that you would rather be able to spam a lot of skills and have a large cap on your total energy, to do that you sacrificed the highest spike damage. The people who build around wanting the highest spike dmg, lose other things.
I'm running INT/END since I tried any other combination and I can't do persistent damage otherwise. I will always be out of energy very fast and have to spend some time on building up energy. My point was that this is not the case for Melee. They can use focus stacking energy gains and Rush buffs for all their energy needs, spamming their best attacks over and over without running out of energy and doing max damage.
This means Melee has no problem to pick up STR and DEX and EGO to boost their damage to maximum efficiency, while taking this superstats is much more problematic for ranged builds who struggle for energy.
edit: dragon wraths dmg with 30% crit is 1140 base, sniper shot with full rank dmg is 1663. it does about 40% more dmg, however in the time it takes to charge one can pull off two dragons wraths, this is true, but dragons wrath doesnt stun for 2.4 seconds, and you cant do it from 100 feet away. sniper rifle is a bigger dmg burst with more preparation, that has a big advantage over a long range. the difference in dmg output makes perfect sense, considering the utility of different skills.
Actually you can do two and two thirds Dragon's Wraths during a sniper riflesince it takes 4 seconds to use Sniper Rifle. So in your example while Sniper Rifle would do 1663, Dragon's Wrath could do 3032 damage. Dragon's Wrath also gives a rush buff and cuts resistances in half, while Sniper Rifle is interrupted by any attack whatsoever during it's long 4 seconds activate+charge time.
Brawler+WotW is about 2% different than Avenger + Kinetc manipulation/fiery form/etc IE when you have the same stats on rank 2 i get 71 for KM fiery Form and 73 for WoW its hardly a big difference.
Only if you use a strength Superstat in avenger plus stacking Enrage from Unbreakable (which requires getting hit for 15 seconds for 5 stacks), neither of which works well in avenger role, it all works rather dreadfully actually.
Um, error much? Enrage can be stacked withoug Defiance.
Enrage clicky with enough CON/INT for duration/cooldown, Enrage building Might attacks like Roomsweeper or Havoc Stomp, Unbreakable + Better you than me advantage...
Also, HP penalty to a melee class? Lolwut?
Yeah, let's just force all melee characters into Protector to be effective. It'll juuuust make stacked defense melee builds more common than now. :rolleyes:
Re read both posts before you say stuff liek that, it makes you look stupid, no offense
Comments
You can also get full stacks of Enrage with one stack of focus from the MA energy builder's advantage. Not sure if it also works with Agressor though...
A split damage type that doesn't break 1k on each hit of a full charge with a lv 40 character that's actually geared well? Not good. Increase the damage of both parts so that it actually makes sense to use. And for the love of god make it so that you plant the business end of the weapon in the ground.... not the hilt. Needs increased damage on resistant foes like normal knock powers.
Same issue as brimstone. Damage needs to be upped to warrant the tier and even if its 50ft it shouldn't matter. A knock up should still cause normal damage with its attack.. not just worrying about fall damage. It also needs to deal increased damage to knock resistant foes.
Skewer is fine as it stands right now (except for its self root issue and simple animation compared to the flashiness of the set)
Annihilate needs more damage and not to be used as a cherry picked utility. Its Also a terribad crippling challenge candidate due to the kb.
Arc of Ruin is Perfect as is (needs to made flashy like the rest of the set too though to be honest)
Skull-crusher lost its usefulness after losing its advantage, its damage is too low to care and the advantage is only a 15% boost on disoriented targets (make this 30% like other R3 replacing advantages)
Cleave is great, but needs to give a chance for a stack of enrage on each hit of the combo (this is to help with in set enrage building)
That second lunge needs more damage as well to warrant its tier and cool-down
Is still a copy of retaliation. Give it something to make it a bit different. Like an advantage that disorients foes or something.
Is nice but i think the advantage should do more damage than it does. Maybe 400-500 points to make it attractive. Its on a recharge too so its chance to cause clinging frames is blah. :P The explosion should also make a more explosive sound.
This powers fine as is. No real change needed.
And I'm going to bring this up again. This set needs an active defense/offense and a heal to flesh out the brick set's lack of utility powers. I'm sick of this issue being passed over. If you expect someone to go 10 powers in a tree straight through to get to a tier 4, at least make it so your not gimping your build by doing so in certain trees. The sound effects also need an overhaul. I'd really like someone to read my actual post and give input instead of glazing over it.:cool:
If you role switch to avenger in combat and get in over your head, you faceplant, period. The only avenue is depending on teammates to save you, or maybe hitting unbreakable and not attacking. The defense penetration isn't some miracle magic button. Switching to avenger, even with buffed healing, leaves you highly vulnerable and IMHO this is okay.
Adding +CC duration lets Avengers defend actively. CC duration isn't really Sentinel's thing; Sentinel is pretty polarized between healing all the time or using the extra energy for damage. Just because Sentinels have it, doesn't mean that they need it or that it's really critical to the standard Sentinel gameplay.
Avengers need a perk. Sentinels get infinite energy, protectors get improved energy from blocking, brawlers get a snare. Guardians suck too, but they can select any passive on a whim. I think defense penetration, emphasizing the glass cannon aspect of Avenger, is the right way to go.
EDIT: I am 100% in favor of adding an active offense, active defense, and utility heal to Brick. It's not an absolutely huge issue (tier 4s are garbage regardless) but every framework needs solid utilities, and the only ones lacking them are brick and mentalist. I think we're all aware of how bad mentalist needs a review, so... yeah.
So, a support role isn't suitable to support skills like crowd control effects? :rolleyes:
And you really don't think that adding defense penetration to a ROLE is the worst possible idea one can think of for balance in this game? Seriously?
You always mention pros in your arguments, but never any cons. Never looking at your own ideas from another perspective. Balance issues. Potential exploit possibilities. FotM build potentials. Those perspectives. Cognitive dissonance much?
By adding inherent defense penetration to Avenger, Tank builds in PvP would become next to useless. Also, maintain attacks would probably do more average damage in Avenger than charged attacks. Defense penetration really adds after a little while.
But hey, what do i know, right? Or anyone else playing PvP actively, right?
You're the guy that outright avoids playing PvP maps like Stronghold, ZA, BASH and UTC.
Surely, your opinion and suggestions are absolutely objective and fact based.
1) They rely on DEX which means you'll also have increased crits.
2) They are much easier to build and maintain, and if you increase their ranks you always have at least 3 stacks.
3) The damage of Focus stacks is fed by both DEX and STR (STR to a lesser degree though). I'm not sure, but from what I tested with AoPM it looks like you can get 15% damage per stack from DEX, and another 7.5% damage per stack from STR. I -think- that's the ceiling of Focus - 22.5% bonus damage per stack. Meanwhile if I'm not mistaken (my testing wasn't thorough enough) Enrage's bonus damage per stack is capped at 15%.
Everyone seems to have this idea that as a melee toon, you should naturally be better than a ranged toon in melee range.
In CO I think thats absolute BS to the highest form, CC is so insane here that if one player in a fight is melee even if the other guy is ranged he will spend 100% of the time fighting in melee range. However becauseof the above philosophy melee also destroys in melee range, meaning that 90% of the time brawler toons will crush avenger toons like bugs if they can lunge them.
I'm probably the only one here who thinks it, but melee either needs reduced cc or heavily reduced damage to even be remotely even with ranged. Right now we have like 4 or 5 ranged buils which work versus a porrly thought out melee one.
I was just looking at a thread talking about how DOT is useless in pvp (especially with things like IDF and invuln). Would it be so bad if there's powers became useful in pvp? Again, i don't remember blasters dots being overpowered in COX with 10% irresistible damage.
At the very least, irresistible damage on ranged offensive players seems worth looking in to because it worked out ok in a similar game.
I'm going to make a suggestion to you that I made to the dev's in my easy PvP fixes thread: play t4 PvP a lot. Pay attention to the builds that you see and how they are being used by the players who always seem to win. You will learn a ton about how the game actually works.
For example, my toon Lady E runs in avenger. She runs electric form passive. As you'd put it "avenger in combat and get in over your head, you faceplane, period." But she doesn't. In PvE, I actually really have to work at screwing up to get her killed, and even then, I can usually escape. Now, she is squishier, a lot squisher, than Xavori or Construct both of who are very tank-ish, but that doesn't translate into face roll. And in team based PvP, she's awesome even without crippling challenge or nailed to the ground (hence team, not BASH or duels) because she can sustain high DPS the entire length of any fight and can melt down any opponent no matter how much defense they have.
In fact, when I think about built-in defense penetration, she's my "this might not be a good idea" example (the same as Xavori was my "this might not be a good idea" example for annihilate's advantage). I agree that avenger needs tweaking since it's still weaker than brawler, but I'm not sure about defense penetration. On the other hand, not ready to completely argue against it because I honestly hadn't given that much thought and not sure what else to do either.
Snare only works on single targets. Defense penetration would work on all targets in an AoE area.
If the devs wanted to limit it to your primary target, i suspect the code for every single power in the game would need to be modified for that effect. A lot of work for something like that.
And besides, Snare doesn't ammount to much if you have Acro R2/R3 + Versatility, or Teleport.
In other words, the effect of a snare can be mitigated or flat out nullified.
Defense penetration is... well, defense penetration. Tap spamming or maintaining a ranged attack would add up, real fast. I'm all for adding more minor(3% min - 7% max) damage penetration effects to more skills in the game. It would counter shield bubble + IDF + Invul/Defiance tank builds. But it would be VERY tricky to find a balance
And adding it to a role is just easy mode. Adding it as a 2 or 3 point advantage to some offensive passives? That would be be more acceptable. Or as an advantage to existing powers.
But as for the rest of your post, i see your point. Especially about Brawler needing a penalty to CC effects as stun/hold/root.
Not a reduced resistance to CC effects(since that would severely cripple the mobility of brawlers), but reduced effectiveness when using CC effects on your opponent.
As for the CC effect penalty on Avenger? Honestly, that should stay. Having 100 foot ranged attacks on a toon, along with defense penetration capability and an ability to run away fast(SS/Acro/TP) would make Avenger OP in PvP.
I'd also bring back the old health penalty to Avenger, but reduce or remove the penalty to healing.
So, the two offensive roles would look something like this:
-Brawler-
-Can use only Offensive Passives
-Melee Damage increased by 20%
-Ranged Damage reduced by 30%
-Hold and Root Powers decreased by 10/20%(not too much, or Avengers can get away too fast)
-Standard resistance to Hold and Root Powers
-Snare on single-target melee attacks
-Energy decays faster than normal rate
-50% standard Energy generated when Blocking
-Standard Threat generation
-Avenger-
-Can use only Offensive Passives
-Ranged Damage increased by 20%
-Standard Healing Powers and effects(or reduced by 5-10%, this needs extensive testing to properly gauge the impact on roles in PvP)
-Hold and Root Powers reduced by 20%
-Resistance to Hold and Root Powers reduced by 20%
-Energy decays at 50% normal rate
-50% standard Energy generated when Blocking
-Standard Threat generation
-Base health points are reduced by about 17%
-About 25% greater energy generation from energy builder attacks.
Sentinel should be the role for CC effects. Brawler should be for brawling and melee dps.
Right now, CC effects are rampantly used in Brawler because it has no penalty at all.
These changes should reduce the effectiveness of CC spamming for Brawler builds, but at the same time not giving too much of an advantage to Avenger. Yes, it becomes a wee bit harder to catch Avengers with stun/hold/root. Although, thanks to the health penalty to Avenger, killing them wouldn't be significantly harder than now. It's just that Avenger isn't doomed to be in perma-stun/root/hold from melee builds anymore. But melee also has knockdown/knockup. That's a completely different mechanic and has no built-in resistances in roles.
I would recommend modifying roles in small increments, instead of what Auspicious recommended.
It's like cooking a meal. If you under-cook it, you can always put it back on the fire and cook it a bit more after tasting a sample. If you over-cook it, it'll just taste bad and that's it.
The devs could also prepare code variations for roles in advance, and just watch for feedback from the community. If no penalty to healing on Avenger proves to be too much, they'd have the code with the modified penalty ready for next tuesdays patch.
Testing it on PTS would be very difficult, since most of the community doesn't even know about PTS.
Putting it on Live and opening a feedback thread would provide much better results in a much faster period.
I did. I still do. But there's a difference in approach. Enrage is countering, boosting your DPS to enable you to burst through those defenses. Defense penetration is not countering, it's flat out ignoring.
Like i said, i wouldn't have anything against adding defense penetration effects to attacks or offensive passives. But defense penetration should not be a built-in mechanic, like in Dragon's Wrath. Defense penetration is a very powerful and very sensitive thing in PvP. As Enrage has a cost(STR statting), defense penetration should at least cost 2 or 3 advantage points.
You mean aside from Power Armor, Telekinesis, Celestial, Bestial, and Ebon, Radiant and Primal Sorceries?
Unless you're specifying Energy Unlock powers only, which Force, Arcane Sorcery, all Martial Arts frameworks and all Brick frameworks can be added to the above list if that's the case.
I am very much behind this as well. At the very least, an Active Defense please! We even have a fun little thread on the topic here. d('-' )
EDIT: If any irresistible damage is added I think it should go to ranged heroes. I think melee is devastating enough as is and i don't think that melee needs any more armor piercing ability than it already has.
When i said attacks, i meant both ranged AND melee. But not like Dragon's Wrath, which has a massive damage penetration. But something minor. So every build could have anti-tank options, but not "i kill tanks for breakfast" like Dragon's Wrath.
Adding defense penetration to only ranged attacks would screw up the melee/range balance, and push it towards ranged again. We don't want one to have a definite advantage over another. We want balance.
/e waves magic wand and returns quote to original form.
There is no damage penalty on melee attacks with Avenger. In fact if you want to be a melee and ranged offensive charachter, this is your only choice. The advantage to picking WoW or unstoppable for an Avenger would come with enhanced defenses, and melee dmg on par or stronger than guardian and protector, but still having a strong ranged backup, basically think specialist. Quarry is also a great avenger defense. This is all in comparison to brawler, comparing it to guardian or protector is worthless because they arent the same role really.
As it is, a brawler is only a close up fighter, the same cannot be said for avenger, You will do the exact same dmg on Avenger with unstoppable as you would on guardian with unstoppable with melee attacks. Avenger is a ranged/close up offensive fighter.
Avenger is now, pretty hax, for some themes/roles its the only way to go, and even brawlers might look to switching over. It doesnt need any innate penetration to armor, and in reality ranged attacks are generally more succeptible to not penetrating armor. (note most bulletproof vests can easily be stabbed through)
If they want to add a special attack or ability that cuts through armor thats fine, but just throwing it on Avenger is a bad idea.
the boost to melee is only 20%, if yall have any noticeable armor penetration you will surpass them. And the heal penalty is not a shield penalty, and i hear doesnt count the healing drones. Does this really sound balanced to you?
The way the power sets are built, Avengers are supposed to get a good chunk of their damage from Active Offenses. Brick and Martial Arts don't have any. The problem is that nothing stops people already stacked with Form of the Tempest and WotW to take Immolation, electric Sheath and Shadow Shroud, and many of them in fact do so.
If the Active Offenses were locked to damage types like Lock 'n' Load - Immolation buffing elemental damage, Shadow Shroud buffing Paranormal damage, Electric Sheath buffing energy damage etc, this damage bursts would be more of an Avenger signature and bring some balance to the Avenger / Brawler discrepancy.
It could also create some interesting new options like Brawlers doing electric sheath+Laser sword or immolation+devour essence for burst damage, maybe even make Ego Blades popular again with Shadow Shroud, which might bring some diversity from everyone using DW/DC/Haymaker (though I'm sure Dragon's Wrath will still be the most popular attack).
That way, Brawler still has a role in PvP (more melee damage, innate snare, no HP penalty), but Avenger (along with the current changes) is actually worth picking for a ranged character, without nerfing its effectiveness for melee/ranged hybrid builds from the current performance.
However, most of these categories are already the domain of the other roles (buffs, heals, etc.). The only ones that aren't taken and that seem like they would fit the concept (to me) are the following:
IMO should be more like:
Avenger:
+Extra Ranged Damage
+Extra CC Resistance
-Total Health
-Healing
Brawler:
+Ability to stack enrage without defiance
+Extra CC Resistance
-Total Health
-Healing
Notice the no melee damage buff? Thats because they already do far more damage than ranged, the brawler buff is overkill. I also made it so you couldn't stack enrage without defiance unless you were specifically running in bralwer, a big hit to those ranged toons running AoPM and enrage to do whacky crazy things.
Hates gonna hate :cool:
umm... ok... you know anyone who doesn't have a focus toggle can stack enrage without defiance right?
STR+INT with Enrage and AOPM as passive is a new FoTM build for a reason.
do you realize that ranged does as much damage roughly, your probably thinking enrage is brawler only or something
fireball and gigabolt are right next to haymaker in damage AND do AOE dmg
sniper rifle surpasses it
force cascade blows it out the water.
edit i see you want to make enrage brawler only
you would really be nerfing ranged damage heavily if you kill enrage stacking, keep in mind munitions has skills that give enraged and its primarily ranged.
also guardians cant stack enrage? what.
your also tying roles to skill sets, when they arent supposed to be.
Gigabolt has a debuff stopping constant charging and fireballs aoe damage is only 2/3 on the primary target, and does less damage than haymaker.
Fireball and Gigabolt are nowhere near Haymaker damage. Brawler + WotW does more damage than anything else in the game, far surpassing any ranged damage. I've been hit by Dragon's wrath for unmitigated 8k. That's 16k in 75% of the time it takes to charge one sniper rifle shot. Sniper rifle I've been hit for an unmitigated 17k, and you're conveniently forgetting you have to charge that power for 4 seconds without any interruptions to pull it off.
You also conveniently forget that Dragon's Wrath/Dragon's Claws can be spammed repeatedly with barely any energy issues while Force Cascade can do one big burst but can't be followed up with another big burst anytime soon.
I'm running a Defile build myself which forces me to run INT/END superstats due to the energy consumption, which means unlike melee I have no crit chance and I can only get Enrage up to half efficiency from my +STR primary offense.
And please do explain how a ranged build conveniently stacks Enrage up without defiance or macros that take 3 minutes to stack up.
1) Patch notes are awesome! Avenger love! Great way to listen to feedback.
2) The information given from Ame in this thread is PR gold and as filling as a hot meal.
What a great read.
That it all.
easiest solution is unbreakable advantage, gives like 4 to 5 stacks in its duration, so basically you can get to to 5 or 6 by using enrage then jumping into a bunch of mobs with unbreakable. Fireball does 5.1k with an enrage build with around 240 strength in the Avenger role, with the same stats. in the same build in brawler, i think haymaker was 5.4 or so k. not insane when you think fireball can hit from a distance, and also does aoe dmg to the surrounding targets
As far as spamming skills high dmg, that has more to do with what type of energy build you have going on. enrage has nothing to do with dragons wrath/claws energy returns, in fact making an enrage build makes those skills usually very ineffecient. Im not saying every class is the same, then there would be no point to having classes, but ranged attacks can get right close to melee dmg.
Int/end is the way to easy energy management, but its not the only way. the problem is people are tying the good and bad points of thier specific builds, that they have chosen, to roles, or skills. Your build, having int/end does not have top tier damage, you in superstating int/end decided that you would rather be able to spam a lot of skills and have a large cap on your total energy, to do that you sacrificed the highest spike damage. The people who build around wanting the highest spike dmg, lose other things.
The other thing to remember is AVENGER IS NOT RANGED ATTACKS ONLY. Avenger can use dragons wrath haymaker and the like just as well as any role except for one. Brawler cannot use ranged attacks well at all. What this means, is you too can use dragons wrath, haymaker or whatever you like in melee range. You can make an avenger that does a huge dmg opening shot, and can then do huge dmg up close.
edit: dragon wraths dmg with 30% crit is 1140 base, sniper shot with full rank dmg is 1663. it does about 40% more dmg, however in the time it takes to charge one can pull off two dragons wraths, this is true, but dragons wrath doesnt stun for 2.4 seconds, and you cant do it from 100 feet away. sniper rifle is a bigger dmg burst with more preparation, that has a big advantage over a long range. the difference in dmg output makes perfect sense, considering the utility of different skills.
Brawler+WotW is about 2% different than Avenger + Kinetc manipulation/fiery form/etc IE when you have the same stats on rank 2 i get 71 for KM fiery Form and 73 for WoW its hardly a big difference.
Um, error much? Enrage can be stacked withoug Defiance.
Enrage clicky with enough CON/INT for duration/cooldown, Enrage building Might attacks like Roomsweeper or Havoc Stomp, Unbreakable + Better you than me advantage...
Also, HP penalty to a melee class? Lolwut?
Yeah, let's just force all melee characters into Protector to be effective. It'll juuuust make stacked defense melee builds more common than now. :rolleyes:
Comparing Fireball to Haymaker has two faults: One, it makes no sense for avengers to stack Enrage with primarily Unbreakable. Two, Fireball has 3 secs charge time while Haymaker has 2. So Fireball actually does 33% less DPS in your example. I'm running INT/END since I tried any other combination and I can't do persistent damage otherwise. I will always be out of energy very fast and have to spend some time on building up energy. My point was that this is not the case for Melee. They can use focus stacking energy gains and Rush buffs for all their energy needs, spamming their best attacks over and over without running out of energy and doing max damage.
This means Melee has no problem to pick up STR and DEX and EGO to boost their damage to maximum efficiency, while taking this superstats is much more problematic for ranged builds who struggle for energy. Actually you can do two and two thirds Dragon's Wraths during a sniper riflesince it takes 4 seconds to use Sniper Rifle. So in your example while Sniper Rifle would do 1663, Dragon's Wrath could do 3032 damage. Dragon's Wrath also gives a rush buff and cuts resistances in half, while Sniper Rifle is interrupted by any attack whatsoever during it's long 4 seconds activate+charge time. Only if you use a strength Superstat in avenger plus stacking Enrage from Unbreakable (which requires getting hit for 15 seconds for 5 stacks), neither of which works well in avenger role, it all works rather dreadfully actually.