The Power of Arithmetic

I participated in the Brutal Speed kickoff this weekend. The idea is to make one of a small set of characters that will all work well together, so that team-formation is as easy as “3-5 from pool A, 3-5 from pool B, go.” Pool A is Brutes with area effect damage. Pool B is Corruptors with Kinetics.

It works very nicely, and I took a new character to level 18. People who spent more time playing probably hit 30; I saw 28s as I logged off Sunday. We are expecting some to hit the level cap in about two weeks of hardcore play. This is just normal play, not getting powerleveled by your friends or twinking with outside resources.

One detail is that everyone must take Assault and Tactics, two buff auras from the Leadership pool. Assault increases damage, stacking to +97.5% in the standard team of five Brutes and three Corruptors. Tactics is a to-hit buff, stacking to +65% out of the box and +101.3% once fully slotted. Everyone will do double damage and never miss.

And sweet mother of pearl, it is all starting to come together. As we hit 20, the Corruptors all get Speed Boost, so everyone will be able to attack constantly with no worries about endurance. Because every team will have multiple Speed Boosters, people can skip the Fitness pool and instead take three powers that add More Smash. This could be fun.

: Zubon