Erratic1

I am thinking its about 20% of that and that you get a chunk more from selling enhancements you've found along the way. But its been a while since I did the natural run up through those levels.

Likewise. I run double xp until 20ish, preferably running DFB (once), Posi 1, and Posi 2. The influence you'd gain at those levels is minimal and I gift my characters 1 million inf from an established character at that point, which is more than sufficient to get them a base of SOs upon which to rely.

So you're saying that the DoTs which Fire gets are meaningless because they never have a chance to do anything? If that suits you fine. I would perhaps turn the difficulty up and, I don't know, get more experience, a faster ride, and more challenge.

The point was that if you do not like the damage you will know that well before level 32. What I wrote was in response to, "You have to wallow through horrible attacks just to get to 32?" As for DPA, let's compare...say to Energy Blast, which I have not heard anyone complaining about. Shriek: 44.24 vs Power Bolt: 52.66 Well, 52.66 is 19% higher DPA than 44.24. Oh wait...Shriek applies a 13% resistance debuff which lasts for 8.5s. If you were only using Shriek and no other attack you would after two uses, even respecting recharge and cast time, maintain a 26% debuff meaning you would effectively be at 55.74 DPA--a tad bit higher than 52.66. Of course your other Sonic attacks apply debuffs so more practically you could use those instead of standing around with your thumb....errr..... Scream: 44.69 vs Power Blast: 55.52 55.52 is 24% greater than 44.69 but again two applications of sonic attacks with debuffs before its use negates that difference. Howl: 20.21 vs Energy Torrent: 45.5 A 125% greater DPA for Energy Torrent is not really going to be made up for by resistance debuffs. Still, it does apply a 13 resistance% debuff which lasts for 9.83 seconds. Shout: 45.67 vs Power Burst: 59.1 The powers are gained at different tiers but that is the nature of comparing different sets...you do not necessarily get comparable powers at the same levels. Power Burst is 29.4% ahead of Shout in raw terms and that is again well within the realm of being negated by the application of two previous sonic attacks which deal resistance debuffs. So Sonic does not look to me to be in that horrible a position. You might argue that needing to prime the pump with two previous attacks to come up to where other sets are at still leaves Sonic horribly behind but that ignores that primary sets are not the only means by which a blaster can do damage. In particular secondary sets deal damage and sometimes with higher DPA than powers in the primary set. So whenever one of those powers is used after the use of sonic attacks they do not keep pace with where they would have been with another primary set other than Sonic, they exceed where they would have been. Shriek->Scream->Electron Shackles: (55.25+82.58*1.13+71.95*1.26)/(1.188+1.848+1.32) = 54.92 vs Power Bolt->Power Blast->Electron Shackles: (62.56+102.6+71.95)/(1.188+1.848+1.32) = 54.43 So Shriek+Scream+Electron Shackles deals the same damage as Power Bolt+Power Blast+Electron Shackles over the same animation time when you factor in the real damage that is going to be dealt and not just raw damage listed for the powers ignoring that resistance debuffs mean something.

Echoing Bill, I played with a Bio/Staff Tanker last week and watching her take down groups was incredible.

The line I quoted in my post spoke about doing considerably more than one.

Unslotters? Respec pulls every enhancement out of your sockets for free. I do that when swapping to a set IO build and save the basic IOs for my next few characters.

Record the animation the use an editor to pull out the frame you want. 🙂

Is there a reason you are not taking Build Up? While Weave does benefit every Defense entry, shifting the Shield Wall enhancement you have in Weave to Environmental Modification gives slightly better F/C/E/N values at the admitted expense of S/L/P but F/C/E/N resistances are considerably lower than your S/L resistances so they probably warrant the better coverage. But if Shadow Meld is your emergency salvation on Defense, its all kinda window dressing. I would be concerned about not being at 75% S/L Resistance as a Bio scrapper, though if Regen/Absorption are covering you sufficiently then it comes down to a matter of playstyle. Still, I have to believe Absorption and Regen would go further with more resistance. Edit: I fooled around and made some minor shifts to get an honest perma-Hasten, less downtime on Shadow Meld, and better S/L resistances. Also leaves you with a spare slot.

I run an SS/Bio brute and yeah, I took Cross Punch and fully slotted it because it provided a second AoE attack to a powerset lacking a damaging second AoE. As goes Super Speed, while it may not fit your natural theme, one perk Experimentation's Speed of Sound has over Super Speed is Jaunt for dealing with verticality issues. Will take a look at the build in Mid's after I convert the link to a data chunk. --- Edit: If you are not shooting for double Rage (which no longer avoids the crash in any event) you might be better served by moving a slot and the Recharge Reduction in it to Hasten. That way you are only about 8 seconds short of perma-Hasten instead of the 15s you'd be short with only 2 Recharge Reductions in Hasten. Also, Invisibility does not look like its legally placed.

How did I never notice that? In any event you should also still be getting rolling resistance debuffs on your targets as well. So definitely there is self benefit.

Okay, tested it: So as long as you're continuing to attack you're repeatedly applying overlapping damage buffs to yourself ON TOP OF lowering the target's resistance to damage.

Sonic attacks both boost self damage and lower target's resistance and do so for 5-9 seconds depending on the attack. I will have to go test that in game now with the combat monitor (the damage boost).

I didn't think you could put ATOs in secondary powers.

Not sure if you're from the US, and if so, if you're familiar with the fast food franchise Long John Silver's Seafood Shoppe. Their fish dishes are usually served with a bed of crumbly batter pieces which result from disassociated batter coming loose or falling into the fryer. Urban legend is that anything can be used as the nucleus of what will become a crispy crumble. While I will not go into some of the things that are claimed to have served as a nucleus, perhaps it is best to think of Diantane's posts as the equivalent--something which might be boiled away by subsequent posts but which leaves behind a crispy, crumbly discussion which people like.

The thing that becomes grating is the repeated foghorn sounds of the set...and yet my current blaster project is Sonic/TA.

Shriek, Scream, Howl, Shockwave, and Shout are all available by level 8 and form the backbone of dealing damage with the set. You should (a) know by level 8 if those are going to be sufficient for your primary damage dealing and (b) probably not rely on the longest recharge power of the set as your primary damage tool.

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?