Erratic1

The Blaster's job though isn't to (de)buff, so what it gets is bonus to its primary function, dealing damage, which it will do better than the Defender...and that before you consider the Defender will likely be taking some time out of their damage dealing schedule to do little things like buff and heal.

Believe Bio still does less damage, though of course they have built in status protection and better defense/resistance.

No. They both increase your chance to hit but do so differently. Per the wiki: HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) ) Clamp means the value inside the parenthesis is limited to a range of 5% to 95% Accuracy is multiplied against the sum of your Base Hit Chance and To-Hit less the target's Defense.

While you may often, or even exclusively, team the makeup of teams is variable and the safest course is to aim to be self-sufficient as much as possible as defeated heroes do nothing useful. That means you will want to have sufficient endurance to continue to function appropriately and sufficient survivability to simply continue functioning. The endurance part of it is usually the easiest part to cover since you can stick the appropriate number of slots and IOs into Health and Stamina to reach a workable level of recovery. You could also choose Body Mastery for more endurance options (though I personally feel that is usually a poor choice). As goes survivability on a scrapper, you are looking at Defense, Resistance, Regen, and Absorption. On the Defense front, even level opponents have a 50% chance to hit you. Upping your Defense drops this but as they always have a 5% to hit you, your basic target is 45% Defense. Note, there are two ways Defense works--by damage type (Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative, and Psionic) or by "position" or how the damage is delivered (Melee, Ranged, Area Attack). Toxic cheats. With higher level foes gaining bonuses, going above 45% can be beneficial. Keep in mind that some very few foes auto-hit, so you're not avoiding their attacks. Also some foes attacks lower your defense (Defense Debuff) to which the only protection is having Defense Debuff Resistance. Willpower has a tiny amount of that because Willpower is kinda a hybrid set and you have other tools to deal with incoming damage. As goes Resistance, on a scrapper (or anyone not a Tanker, Brute, or Kheldian) the cap is 75%. As Smashing/Lethal are such common damage types, you will want to be sure to reach the cap on those. This is not to say the other damage types are unimportant, just Smashing/Lethal are omnipresent. Regen is something you really cannot ever have too much of. But don't forget, you're surviving for a reason--don't shortchange your damage output in the pursuit of unbounded Regen. Absorption is not in your arsenal (short of IOs) so I would not worry about it. After that I would probably focus on getting enough To-Hit to to lower whiffing to a tolerable level (Accuracy tends to be pushed upwards by IO sets anyway) and then, as a scrapper, damage, Damage, DAMAGE.

I have NEVER played Willpower so I may be missing something obvious. I have a thing against building with purple sets. Shadow Meld will be your friend. Strength of Will is a mule. Do NOT use it. Don't even slot it on your bar. I did not agonize over pushing F/C/E/N defenses to 45% as it seemed Willpower is more hybrid than pure and does not have tons of DDR, preferring higher Regen. If nothing else, maybe there are some useful ideas what follows.

A "best practice" I have found to avoid "Sudden Death From Nowhere" is to pop Parasitic Aura in any large crowd, where "large" is in the 10+ range. Checking the numbers, Defensive applies a -25% Damage Bonus and Rage a +80%. So there is a cost but you're still up in the damage department though I am not wowed by it to the extent that I would consider just running in Defensive and relying on the Rage offset. But being able to contemplate that is an outgrowth of SS/Bio that would not be there for most other primary sets other than Claws, where you're mostly just negating the negative bonus, not pulling ahead.

If you live in Offensive stance, with its hit to Resistances, I could see saying its squishy. 😛 Edit: I run my SS/Bio in Efficient. Offensive may do more immediate damage but not ever running out of endurance means no pauses in damage delivery. Though now that you mention Defensive...never considered using Rage to offset its Damage hit. May have to give that some thought.

No love for Bio?

Corruptors damage dealing is packaged with the need to do other things (buff/debuff/heal). As they neither come with status protection nor enough sturdiness/damage output to make the lack of status protection meaningless. So granting the above may be true in the realm of infinite planes and spherical cows I am not sure it holds in practical terms.

Was in a group with a Bio/Staff Tanker this past weekend and she seemed to be having a lot of fast, furious, fun.

In the first scenario you have five guys and in the second you have ten. Moreover in the second scenario, even without additional defenses, mobs have an inherent chance to miss so it is unlikely all 10 hit to begin with. Doesn't seem apples to apples...more apples to squids.

My dream of an Energy Aura Tanker goes unfulfilled. And let's not even think about a Ninjitsu Tanker--"Surprise! What are you going to do? Hit me?"

Pretty sure that last word should be immorality. 😁

Boggle being available 4.5 times as often as Concentration might argue for it over Concentration if one were considering single target only (which is what I am guessing is the the focus given Psi Blade Sweep was also not taken) given its 50% damage increase for Greater Psi Sword, but you'd still want to take it well before your last power slot, and its not like one could not have both (and Blinding Powder as you suggested). Taking Concentration would make it a natural choice for six-slotting Gaussian in, which on top of the set proc firing more reliable in than Tactics would also grant 2.5% Defense to all positional defenses. Not sure I'd use Kuji-In Retsu as anything other than a mule, in which case I would not dedicate slots to it. Notably, Gift of the Ancients: Run Speed has been taken 6 times, in violation of the Rule of Five, so one of them is not doing any good anyway and the benefits of three-slotting Luck of the Gambler is minor and likely recovered by spending the slots elsewhere. As you Recovery is dangerously low, even with Seishinteki Kyoyo and presuming Tactics is only activated when facing hard to hit targets. At a minimum I'd swap out the Panacea in Health in favor of Miracle: +Recovery.

Since English apparently is not your first language (or second, or third...or fifty-seventh), let me explain to you the basics of reading for comprhension--something people who learn English as a first language are typically taught in grade school.... Your post: My response: You draw a conclusion at the end of your post. My post rebuts that conclusion. It does not at any point refer to your experience. Indeed, the entire portion of my post spent doing calculations about how influence is gained and how long it would take to reach the cap clearly indicates that I was referring to your conclusion--a conclusion which is speculative on your part and not part of your experience (beyond perhaps not playing the game sufficiently). And with that, Basic Reading Comprension 101 is over. Welcome to ignore.

Not what I said. But if your habit is to twist people's words with snarky one-liners, please feel free to put me on ignore and neve respond to anything I post ever again.

Not sure this is true. I have only two characters who have ever pushed past 50 million (one of which I do not play any longer). One is at 190 million now, but that is after having shipped 70 million off to another character. I mostly play the character when I need a break from levelling up new characters or want to payback a group which has carried one of my lower level characters by bringing in someone who can carry his weight. A such, I do not play the character a lot and even so running a single ITF clear most was worth 20 million or so influence or so. Now imagine he were my "main" that I played daily and did a lot of TFs and missions on. 40 million per day would not require a ton of time to hit the cap. Of course that depends on what one defines a farming but doing TFs and playing on mission teams is not what is usually meant.

Was fooling around with a new costume for a character and came across a costume option I had never really felt a need to use, the Resistance Armor under Chest Detail. Decided the armor was not right for the character, so made a new controller and recycled the name of my go at a Fire/Dark blaster who did not turn out as I had hoped. So this is the all new Ebonblaze:

Was in a group with a pretty impressive Bio/Staff tanker earlier today. Quite impressive really.

Pretty sure in the Tanker forum the question relates to Tankers.

I am not sure its a good idea, but its perhaps something to inspire (further or avoidance I don't know): I did try to stay within the theme of Earth.

Occasionally I like to grab a screenshot of a posed character and so had on my most recent go at a stalker. I only wanted to grab him looking down from a building but as luck would have it day was fading and the night sky behind him was awesome. Then as I was review the various shots I took of him I noticed I had one of another character, oppositely dressed, taken during the day. I would not put them on par with Batman and Superman, or Midnighter and Apollo but with no planning aforehand I have ended up with Super Chilled and Unconquerable: Maybe I should consider them a crime fighting team?

Clearly I was bored since I decided to try to fix it: |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1516;713;1426;HEX;| |78DA6594CB4F135114C6EF74A6D69696D2176D05843E7815282D9098A8488C58A3A| |10989C66D53612C139B423A686C5CB9D39DF2908DCF251B573E5742A2F807B8F1B1| |D785415DB8D1A8F5CC7C0746D349DBDF9DEFDE73CF77CECC6DFEF2A4FBE189AB134| |2721F2B1775BD70A658B9A056EDF962499B11C6E5A06F146A61523DAF5674359DD3| |D46AAD70F462B518E199BC5A567774732C5CD3F3F3E5F4E905559DF598C39C569A5| |BD42A25AF7937A51667D5AA3EA72DF8CCFB93954B9AAE9DD3CADA62CD777C419B49| |4FD7AA6A215FD41769CF089948D377C3493F9261AB6E17759B105945D8C6990741E| |51053C826F7FCC1BDCF25F8A2D81B0AE66E827B9798CBA06B054CAD829B9457425E| |451A93B06614748FEC10F906C374DFA18838754E468C240F0873AE9919202F76F66| |29F405CF311B0E530731CF4EBF0EFBF82589B030F856285A34E977849EE9C665BEA| |92730DAB832BE02B9A6B820BB9E907760C7205AD5CC1105720D3B61EAED293E1355| |95413E135919D18DE43A1182FDCC8DE10B47D01A61F6CF7815BE4C5C755FB6EA3B3| |FBEF30EF32EF815DF7990FC010752CC0B1814FA8A3EB23183B805A63634C9BDD644| |2025B2936C41D0BADF3DB40BEC35C6B987D27D877827D277F09B3F6E46FD04F3151| |DE271AC3D3F090D6867D441BEF13A67C1DECB5E33AFC27AF813D1FE0B9E73DF31DD| |8FB167C4D3DEAE41C9D9C234839E2ACC539473369DDAC75B3E625AD8FB53ED68C6D| |07581B30DF96EF6E9C25E389A55F503702F4CE6E80C39BCC37E8926132C395641EA| |182EC63E61370F82938F28CF91C6C5776CF1B7D8CCCFDCAEEE9ADA71A66330D4AB6| |41196D50C61A94292B0B1D0BD431ADB0449A64AE72B608E3FFC1F4B2EDDA3DDD421| |A42CFBF5A9A2C6DF3338A31CFA2B7A953C45E457CF937BE0FF1DF2CCD2E2DC145FF| |3293CF66FF2A98BA050EF2D9ADFF7FFD6C2595DB160D5AE35CD81A7F4E5AE3B5803| |55E8F5BE3BFD9B1FAB2| |-------------------------------------------------------------------| Though the placement of the final slots makes me wonder if I succeeded.

What I really wanted was a jet black costume with the white circle and spray of light at one point suggesting a solar eclipse. Instead, I went back to previous costume designs and pilfered. Still, I don't think it looks half shabby. My new stalker, Super Chilled: But I am really going to have to swear off using black and blue in future designs. Becoming too repetitive.

Beta came before retail release. I had a Dark Defender then.