Erratic1

I cannot help but remember, but go figure. :) Things are greatly changed from release. Enhancement Diversification broke how Rad/Elec achieved perma-Hasten, and perma-Hasten can now be achieved more broadly across powerset combinations which never would have been able to do so at release due to IOs and Incarnate abilities. My gut says the glory days of the combo are gone, but I would have to think on it to see if any saving graces might be had. I am happy to hear it worked for you way back when.

A lot depends on what you are trying to achieve with the costume and how much you plan around the effects beforehand. Having two Radiation Armor characters I have gone opposite directions with them--one has the Radiation Armor effects colored to blend into the background of the costume costume and the other's costume serves as a contrast for the Radiation Armor effects (in fact, his costume is horribly plain without the effects up and going). I have received multiple compliments on my Rad/Psi Tanker's costume design.

If Siphon Life, an attack with an built in healing component, is what it took to be survivable, then the issue here was not with Savage Melee since no other primary has a power like Siphon Life and so survivability would presumably have been an issue with every other primary. Glad DM is working for you. I am a fan of it, having both DM/Elec and DM/Rad brutes. With the right armor set, you're an unstoppable force. Edit: I was in a group being run and tanked by a 40-something SM/Bio brute this past weekend. He certainly seemed sturdy enough. I recall because I remember commenting to him how his performance made me almost wish I'd made my SM/Bio as a Brute instead of a scrapper.

With 2 Tankers, 3 Brutes, and 3 Scrappers (along with a dozen other characters), while I will grumble to myself about reckless and annoying use of knockback, I echo the final line above. Slotting KB->KD in all your powers will require a lot of investment in time and influence which would be better spent improving your character in other ways. If you want to spend the time and money, that is one thing, but you do not owe anyone else that effort. If a mob is standing next to a wall, knockback isn't sending it anywhere. If you are above the target (say by using Hover) the target gets knocked down but again isnt going anywhere. And if you are landing the killing blow, who cares where the corpse is going?

Stalkers get it too ;) Since when??? Since i25. Welcome to the absolutely disgusting world of elec/shield stalkers. I thought electric/shield was retarded on Scrappers. It's probably ridiculously OP on stalkers. I thought you were all in favor of giving players choices and complete power proliferation. Personally I'm waiting for Stalkers to get Titan Weapons.

Enjoy playing Sonic/Bio. Bio's Offensive Stance buffs damage, Sonic debuffs resistance, further buffing damage, and the AT mechanic further debuffs resistance for yet more damage.

(1) I have never experienced people asking, "Are you an Energy Blaster?" to determine if someone gets into a group. I've seen a lot of other, silly criteria, but not that one. (2) As someone who plays melee quite frequently let me say that it's all in how you choose to use the knockback, not merely that it occurs. Frankly, I get infinitely more angry on my Kinetics Defender when the anchor for Trnasfusion or Fulcrum Shift gets knocked light-years away just before the power goes off but what I just wrote still it's how you use it, not that you do it.

It also does not hurt at lower levels to have a primary which buffs melee defense. While scrappers get lower defense values than Tankers, my SR/TW Tanker soloed Protean on the strength of his defenses.

Someone may need to explain to you what argument by assertion is and why it is not considered valid. Edit: Let's try it this way.... There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why Blasters shouldn't have controllable pets. NO REASON!!! lol if you think otherwise. !!BOO YAH!! *shrug* If you think that is well-grounded argumentation, I cannot help you. Either way, I have said my piece here and am content to let it stand as it is.

Yeah, a wealth of posts out there asking if one should Dark Blast as a Blaster or Defender, or pet class as a controller or mastermind... :o I will not lose sleep if Super Strength gets ported, but your sides statements about logic are rather ungrounded and ignore there are indeed arguments against doing so.

Compared to a Blaster (Controller, Defender, Dominator, Mastermind, Corruptor...well, nearly every other AT in the game) a Brute plays very much like a Scrapper (lower damage, better defenses, but there is that whole run up and hit things in melee bit they both share). Is this where I should insert the stupid picture like I'm scoring points? (Refuse to call it a meme just like I refuse to refer to "rolling a character" when nothing is rolling and the results aren't random...kids these days.) Edit: In fact, if the two ATs were so utterly different there would not he regular posts asking, "Should I [shudder] roll X/Y as a Brute or Scrapper."

Yes because history has shown the Live developers were in the process of porting all applicable powersets to other ATs until they ran into an issue and was usually fixed and then ported. You do realize what "a priori" means?

Your opening sentence uses the phrase, "In general", so it is implicit that giving players more choice is not always a good thing. As for there being no "good" argument, you should perhaps differentiate between "good" and "what I like". In particular the value of there being separate ATs (and this has been indirectly stated previously in the thread) diminishes when you have multiple which overlap significantly in capabilities, particularly in the case of melee ATs (four of them) where the end goal for a significant portion of players is the solo, melee god. But how exactly is that a bad thing for players that want that? And how is it bad for the players that don't since they can just ignore the options they don't like? Genericizing ATs too much removes any reason to play other ATs, leading to burnout happening sooner and giving no incentive to play other ATs which a player may find they enjoy. I have come to play and enjoy ATs I otherwise would not have because of powerset restrictions and the desire to play the powerset I could not get elsewhere. And as a result the character building opportunities have mushroomed far beyond what I would have had staying with the ATs I knew I enjoyed. I am not sure how you conclude I do not want to play a SS scrapper. More accurately I do not see a horrible loss in there not being a SS option for scrappers. Want to deal out big damage with SS? Well, Brute exists and has SS as an option. What are you losing with Brute as opposed to Scrapper? Critical hits and lower resistance caps? How horrible!

Your opening sentence uses the phrase, "In general", so it is implicit that giving players more choice is not always a good thing. As for there being no "good" argument, you should perhaps differentiate between "good" and "what I like". In particular the value of there being separate ATs (and this has been indirectly stated previously in the thread) diminishes when you have multiple which overlap significantly in capabilities, particularly in the case of melee ATs (four of them) where the end goal for a significant portion of players is the solo, melee god. You know everybody can see you edited your post? Personally, I cannot see how your life is made incomplete and CoH loses all value because you cannot currently have a scrapper with Super Strength. By all that is holy, how can the Sun rise tomorrow when life is so empty without the Super Strength scrapper?!?!? Oh...was that overdramatic? Well so was what it was in response to.

Based solely on the game there is no argument for why scrappers should have SS either. It is a wholly arbitrary decision. Should the melee classes all get the same powersets?--Nothing a priori favors answering that question yes or no.

I cannot look at the builds as I am at work, but having a Rad/Psi Tanker I can tell you Mass Levitation is endless fun (and a not too shabby way to proc Insight). While you are somewhat subject to Insight showing up when it deigns to, you can milk its procs for extra damage before spending it as it is about to expire. Having decided to give Kinetic Melee another go post-shutdown, with knockback to knockdown conversion via Overwhelming Force, you pick up a nice, extra, area attack to complement Burst. But the tier 9 power.... I'd probably lean towards Psi.

I beliieve I wrote about my preference and what I like, not about controlling other people.

Theme is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, and no doubt someone can find a comic created at some point in the last century where the hero is able to bench press planets but leaps into hand to hand regularly. I entered here to object to the notion that because Spiderman once punched the Hulk that serves as an example of a super strength scrapper. In theory Jarvis could punch Hulk too (its not like we see the next panel after Spiderman punches Hulk, though with his agility he no doubt fares better than Jarvis). To the extent I have a preference, I like not all powers being open to every AT. Somewhat contradictory, I am also fine with a few ATs having access to all sets in a category. I would be fine with Blasters and Tankers having every ranged and Armor set, as that is their thing. Beyond them though, I like not every AT having every option that exists for its sets (well...Mastermind pets only existing for them, obviously they would get all).

Well hey, why don't we just do away with ATs all together and give everyone every powerset both as primary and secondary? Much better option than control freaks dictating to other people how to play, build characters, and forcing their ideas on others. I did not pass value judgment on people due to their positions, otherwise I might respond, "Because satisfying whiney cry-babies always makes a game better." But I'm above that.

Checking City of Data, it looks like what you said. Darn description of power threw me off. Well, will keep the Kinetic/Bio I just made as it could still be interesting.

Well hey, why don't we just do away with ATs all together and give everyone every powerset both as primary and secondary?

I'm not entirely sure what point you're making, though I suppose my point wasn't entirely clear either: Spider-Man is an example of a Super-Strength scrapper. I was offering a counterpoint to the poster that argued that thematically, "scrapper types" don't have super-strength. The point is that while he is super-strong compared to an ordinary man, he is not superhero, super-strong. Plenty of people completely outclass him. Just like you can leap taller than an ordinary person in game, a character with any other primary powerset can be said to be stronger than ordinary. There you go. But Super Strength is supposed to represent those working on another level all together and those people are not leap in the mix fighters.

I have no data to back this up, but it definitely feels like 55% when I see it go off on my Elec/SD. Crits all over the place. If this is true, I may have to reconsider remaking my pre-shutdown Kinetic/Shield scrapper. Power Siphon gets reset when Consecrated Strike would otherwise crit.

Spider Man is class 25 whereas Hulk is class 100 (well. . .he has no upper bound but starts at 100).

I took my Ice/Time the other way, dropping Arctic Air and Time's Juncture, and using the endurance to run the Leadership toggles (especially Manuevers so that it can stack on with Farsight). I have slotted Temporal Selection so it can be cast once per minute and try to keep it on two party members at all time for the healing/damage buff it grants. For area "control" I use Ice Slick, Distortion Field, and Shiver, and it is nice having two single target Holds you can stack to lock up bosses or divide up for easier targets. Still have half a level to go for Chrono Shift. Honestly I feel at times much more like a Time Controller than an Ice Controller.