Erratic1

Spider Man was originally in the 10 ton strength class but is currently considered to be in the 25 ton strength class (as a result of Mephisto altering reality).

One more from the wayback days... The costume is really not that good, but the character is a teen so perhaps the lack of...refinement is fitting. I was definitely less in love with the costume than the character concept and how I approached the bio. I present my Electric Melee/Regen Brute, Solar Arc! I do not actually have a screenshot of the bio, but have a character xml file from back when there was hope characters might be restored at some point in the future: Q: Did you enjoy getting powers? A: No, I hated my powers at first. I was big into sports and you can't play if you have powers that give an unfair advantage. Even in non-contact sports my regenerative powers disqualified me. Q: But you came to like them? A: Dealing with villains is a sport of its own. Also flying is pretty cool. Q: Are you ever afraid when dealing with super villains? A: Of course. But they can't just be allowed to do what they want. I would rather fight and take the consequences than just let them hurt people. Q: How do you keep your costume on? A: Its mostly metal and I maintain a charge on it and an opposite charge on my chest. Attraction does the rest. Catch the rest of the interview with Solar Arc in next month's Superteen Beat!

From the live servers, my fist successful (as in I liked him) Tanker and first Tanker to level 50 (and then they shut the servers down), Pitchfire. I inverted the colors you'd expect for Dark Armor and Fire Melee, making Dark Armor orange and reddish and the Fire Melee effects shadowy. In the lower image you can see more of the Dark Armor as well as more of how the character actually looks when the illusion MAGI supplied him with falters. 😊

You would think I don't have costumes of my own that I think rock but keep coming across other costumes that are great. In this case unless you see it dynamically you miss out on what has been done. So its animated GIF time:

Two more from the Not Mine But Pretty Cool collection. Did not belong to the same supergroup either.

Its a version of number four if you consider "granted it" to be "channel it". In this case the channel is unwilling but they are still the channel.

Jawbreaker - You were going to be annoying, weren't you? Let's not have any of that.

Darn this thread...now I'm thinking about an Ice Blast/Kinetics Corruptor. And I already have an Ice/Time Corruptor, Ice/Time Controller, and Kinetics/Sonic Defender...I do not need to tread those powersets again.

Really this... ...especially if you have a rain power.

Well, there is the corner pocket case of Kinetics and Sonic Attack which works better on the Defender because the Defender most strongly debuffs the target's resistance and more strongly buffs damage.

v2.6.1.25 Energy Shield Entropic Aura for Scrappers does not show Recharge changes as the slider is used unlike with the Brute version.

Don't forget Beta Decay is screwing around with nearby (8 ft radius) opponent's ability to hit and you can set Particle Shielding as your auto power for an absorption shield which recycles every 40ish seconds or so by the build listed. There is also a bit of loss of action by your opponents by needing to stand up after you use Mass Levitate. 😀

Its not pretty, but it is pretty awesome!

Yeah, I really want to try Combat TP. Problem being I am trying desperately not to make another character (got as far as only needing a name yesterday before I stopped the process). I really want to work more of my characters in their 30s and 40s to 50 before starting something new.

Quibble: I know terms evolve and their usage and meaning shifts, but min-maxing has nothing to do with following a concept or not. The term which used to be opposed to concept/role-play was power gamer (at least 35-40ish years ago after I'd been involved with RPing for a few years). Min-maxing is a tool to achieve an end. It can further concept building just like it can further power gaming. For example, point based systems often did not give one enough points to fully represent a character. You might min-max to further your points so that you could pick up some extra skill/power to match the concept. Of course you could also do the same to try to end up with a more powerful character too. Don't even get me started on "Pay to Win" and how that term has shifted. Then I will become a true, crotchety, "Get off my lawn!" codger. 😊

Taking it seemed up in the air but the hazards of English. 🙂 I think my routine is to open up with DA and then pop it again the moment it is up. Give that a shot and see if it makes fight easier.

Heaven knows I tried and tried to find a Blaster I could love. My accounts (Homecoming and original) are/were littered with the attempts. It was not their frailty nor susceptibility to control that was an issue. I would start a blaster, really enjoy the low level play and then usually in the 20s and less often the 30s grow bored with them. It just felt too...repetitive. I tried making them more controllery and I really thought I was going to enjoy my Sonic/Ice blaster but nope, got tired of it. And then I came across Beam/Martial which kept my attention and enjoyment all the way. He is my first and only level 50 Blaster. Something about seeing DISINTEGRATION sends me to a happy place and was enough to get me over the 30s hump. I've made two more blasters since, but neither is out of their 30s yes. We'll see....

There ain't no shame in liking what you like. When I first started it was all about the Defenders. Then after a few disappointments attempting scrappers I came up with my DM/Inv scrapper. Tankers were something I had no interest in and avoided for seven years. Now I've got several. And it was only with Homecoming that I finally found a Blaster I enjoyed enough to run all the way to 50 (and I tried dozens). Play what is fun. You may never get around to some ATs but who knows. . . .you might.

You may want to reconsider skipping Divine Avalanche. The thing about the Defense bonus it gives is that the bonus stacks. Each stack lasts only 10 seconds but you're using Energy Aura, which has Entropic Aura that gives you a bonus to Recharge based on the number of opponents nearby. Its not hard to get a couple of stacks up. The upper screenshot shows you will have 0% base Melee Defense. The bottom screenshot shows Melee Defense at 35.21%--5.21% from Energy Cloak and 30% from having used Divine Avalanche again within the 10 second window of the previous usage. With a base recharge of 3s before you consider any Recharge bonus from Entropic Aura, its not hard to get to Melee Defense cap with no Recharge enhancements slotted. Being capped on Melee Defense means you really only need to worry about AoE and Ranged. The type of attacks that come from range are quite often going to be the damage types Energy Aura works on. You will have to ask someone else the distribution of AoE attacks but I suspect that is a less rosy situation.

In the following clip demonstrating SM/EA, Blood Thirst (the Build Up for the set) has just been popped to give 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy. It should be possible despite the poor resolution (only way to get the file to fit) to make out Recharge Time Bonus being at 20%. That value leaps to 42.5% after Savage Leap lands the character in the middle of the Freakshow he is facing. That is more than an Recharge SO would give but the character does not have any Recharge SOs in his attack powers. After leaping in with Savage Leap Shred gets used. Roughly 5.25s later Shred is up again. The clip ends with using Rending Flurry, which consumes the Blood Frenzy stacks dropping the Recharge to a mere 19%. If you don't like waiting for attacks to cycle, SM/EA won't keep you waiting. KRBW.mp4

EA and SR both provide a Recharge bonus via their skills. EA's depends on how many foes are around you up to 10 foes, SR's is flat (equivalent to EA having 4 opponents IIRC). SR has scaling resistance from 60% health downward--Subtract your current percent of life from 60% and that is how much you have. So at 25% life remaining you'll have 60-25=35% resistance to incoming damage (probably not Toxic or Psi). On my SR/TW Tanker (yeah, I'm that crazy) I slotted the Reactive Defenses IO that gives 3-13% scaling resist based on your life total to boost that since every bit helps. EA also offers a heal combined with 30 seconds of endurance cost reduction.

<_< *glances both ways to make sure nobody is listening* >_> Savage Melee/Energy Aura For those who don't grasp why, a brief mention of mechanics is included.

I have not used Savage Melee on a Tanker (yet), having it on a SM/EA Scrapper. You may want to refer to the following thread from earlier in the year for comments from someone who has played the combo on a Tanker: A Dark/Savage Build - Tanker - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) One thing I can say from my Scrapper experience is this... In the thread where they dig into Scrapper damage (Scrapper Melee Primary Testing: "Standard" environment - Scrapper - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) near the end you will see that Savage Melee is listed as one of the top performers once IOs are factored in and is still highly rated on just SOs. There is however a subjective feel which may be at odds with the actuality of what is truly going on. On my SM/EA scrapper it feels like I am doing more activations to defeat targets when Rending Flurry is not up than on say my WM/Shield scrapper. In fact I probably am doing more activations since when I am standing in the middle of a bunch of foes between Blood Frenzy and Entropic Aura my recharge bonus can get up there. It can be easy to focus on the greater number of activations than how long it is actually taking to bring opponents down. WM/Shield feels more like Thor whereas SM/EA feels more like Wolverine. Of course with a werewolf theme, wolverine should be right up the alley you're looking for (just a bit slower for not getting the boost from Entropic Aura). Edit: One other thing that occurred to me is that my calculation in my previous post only applies to the endurance spent on attacks. If you keep Blood Frenzy stacks up their bonus will be applied to all your toggles, at least until you use a spender (Rending Flurry).

Nicely done Virtual Green!

One thing to keep in mind about Savage Melee is the Blood Frenzy stacks also increase Recharge so you'll tend to be attacking faster. With 5 stacks you attack 20% faster while saving 23% on endurance cost. So your endurance usage is 1.2*0.77=92.4% of normal. You're saving 7.6%. That is not going to make much of a dent in your endurance usage.