Frozen Burn

Yes, vidiot maps DOES solve the problem of providing neighborhoods where enemies spawn so that people can complete those "Defeat X # of villains" missions. It is exhaustive enough for that purpose. If you want anything more detailed and more complete, well... clearly since the thread remains dead for years other than from the few necromancers like yourself raising it back, there is no other solution besides what vidiot maps provides. So, if you want more, then perhaps you can scour the internet and ebay selling a copy of old original binders. Or yet, be the hero to the couple people wanting this and make your own chart! Use vidiot maps, the google sheet posted above, and the wiki as a start. Then make your own chart with the neighborhoods, if you want something more complete or in a different format than what is already provided from the vidiot maps mod. Good luck.

Ah, yeah. Agreed. We do not have anything super AI / cybernetic other than what we make ourselves in the costume creator and our own back stories. Something from Praetoria could be easily made into that since they have the tech and know-how - they just need to blend clockwork with humans! 😄

Aren't the Vanguard Wizards, Sorcerers, and Magicians all techno-magic? They may not be to the degree you are thinking of, but aren't they in the techno-magic arena?

I see the Lost World types as: Black Knights and Spirit Stalkers in Night Ward. They are primitive weaponry and are just out there in nature hunting and doing what they do. Also to a lesser degree, the entirety of First Ward (minus the DUST). While there is some tech, it's not as advanced as the rest of Praetoria as they are just trying to survive in the Hamidon / DE riddled zone. I think the Talons of Vengeance and Knives of Vengeance also may fall into this category.

The "Just cause" groups are: The Malta - they are fanatics who believe they are superior to all supers and want to control all super-powered individuals. As mentioned by @JKCarrier, Scrapyarders and Dockworkers to some degree, but they are more like the "working man / unioners" fighting for their own rights. 5th Column, Council, Axis America - they are fighting for their own fanatical cause which they think is "just." "Downtrodden" can be Lost as mentioned above but also Ghouls, Failed Experiments, and Forlorn. "Dark Magic" also should include Banished Pantheon. Other groups not mentioned: Organized Crime - Family, Mooks, Arachnos, Tsoo, Gold Brickers (although many groups also fall into this category to some degree) Aliens - Rikti, Shivans, Nictus, Peacebringers, Hydra Nature itself - Devouring Earth and the Hamidon, Igneous, Slag Golems Supernatural - ghosts, spectres, spirits, apparitions, drudges, animus arcana, nightmares Evil Mastermind with plans within plans - Nemesis The Crazies - Carnival of Shadows/Vegenace/War, Crazed, The Awakened (to some degree) Celestial Super Beings - Lanaruu and Rularuu Technological - Clockwork, Nemesis Corporate - Crey, Cage Consortium, Syndicate

Whether you hate it or not, it's similar in function and frivolity, so justification is sound. Perhaps. And so what if it does? You can get the badge if you do an MSR or not by just running into the shield. It's simple, it's fun, it's a badge, it's frivolous, it's open to everyone to get, and it's just one of those small things in life that can make some people smile. Just something small to stop and smell the roses, or lick the shield. 😄

Totally onboard for this! Yeah! Because going up and touching / licking the shield around the mothership ports you to the fort by the western wall. It's fun, nifty, and... why not? 🙂 There's a similar badge for trying to run through the sonic fence in First Ward... don't see why we shouldn't have a fun badge for first time running into the Mothership shield. 🙂

I prefer to toss in 3 perf shifters: E, EA, ER - and then put a single Perf Shifter +end proc in Stamina. That and any superfluous +end set bonuses you get are generally all you'll ever need. The heal procs can go in it and/or Health as you see fit.

In addition to what @lemming stated, the Cavern of Transcendence Trial also has them - get a full team or set yourself to x8 to get lots of them.

This is my War Mace/Invuln Scrapper which I absoluetely adore and love playing. There may be better epic power choices to be had, but I leaned into the mace and love the ranged blasts - it's just fun. And I didn't feel I needed anything else from the epics for survivability - so fun choices were made. 😄 Clearly, with invulnerability, the more foes around you the more defense you get. There may be better invuln builds out there, but this one doe right well and I've had no issues. And again, it's really fun to play. Joy of Clubbing - Scrapper (War Mace).mbd

While the game is solo-friendly, it's not the case for all content. Not all ATs or powersets can solo AVs, and some even with EBs. If you are one of those, that's the "get a tank / meat-shield" response because this is in fact, an MMO where you you're meant to team. If you're struggling with soloing just even con bosses, then that is a strategy and playstyle problem that you need to learn - and that IS the game. Walking through the park and just mowing everything is not a "game" - there is no risk - it's just something to do to eat up your time. To solo better, there are temp powers you can get, there are inspires to use to max your defense and resistance and heal you... it seems you are not leveraging these things that are there to help you in gameplay and your survivability. Wishing good luck! 🙂

As others stated, You aren't taking into account other variables: a player's defenses and resistances, and debuffs to the foes. Additionally, your testing is flawed as I am sure you didn't have your minions out, or were in bodyguard mode where you get more HPs from your minions, and I'm sure you weren't doing anything to buff yourself or debuff the foes. Raw damage numbers will look inflated to account for all those variables. If you walk up to enemies as if you were a random citizen, you'd get pummeled as expected. You also only tested using a single high-power melee attack that is rarely seen by most players from foes. It's a specialized attack that is supposed to be that high. Testing a more common high-power attack would be more prudent - but then you also have to test the lower end with the weakest attack.... which you didn't. Also, as others have stated, Squishies will get squished and are supposed to squish when doing something so stupid as to get close enough to damage without support from being squished (drink your shots!). That is why there are armored ATs and aggro-managing ATs that you are supposed to team with - or you have to embrace the challenge and rush of not dying while being ready to suffer the consequences. As you know, people are already screaming the game is too easy - how does scaling back enemy damage help that? It doesn't. It makes the game way TOO easy and we'd lose even more players seeking their challenges elsewhere.

As Lemming said. Additionally, it would be too easy to get for new players as well... while maybe you might like the challenge of grinding through content unscathed (like many of us), that lazy person next to you is door-sitting on a 2-3 hour farm and getting the badge while AFK. 😕

I hear ya, and I didn't say it was fun... but that it was solid. 🙂 Yes, Unyielding Stance sucked - and not just for Scrappers, but for Tankers too.

I completely disagree. @aethereal explains it really well. Invuln is great on any AT. Some nay-sayers may think otherwise since Scrappers have lower resist caps, but Invuln being a hybrid resist/def set - you can lean more into the defense component for great survivability. All armor sets are better on a Tank - the game is designed that way. But that doesn't mean they are crap for Scrappers. It's been a solid set for Scrappers since day 1 and even through all the changes over the years to its current form.

When I run solo on my scraper... it's usually my Katana/Dark or War Mace/Invuln. ...Both SO good. 🙂

For clarification, because you state it a couple times, I'm not saying to do Fire primary... but Ice primary instead. Regarding Bonfire and the /Fire secondary... I do not know the %proc rate of KD compared to ice slick. I do know the the radius is larger, so more can be affected. And yes, some foes can run fast into / through it between proc pulses or get a lucky proc roll and not fall down, BUT.... Your Hot Feet will also slow them down to keep them in the Bonfire longer and thusly increase the chance for being KD'd. Plus, you have your holds from Ice primary, Ring of Fire from Fire secondary, and/or Char from Fire epic to help keep them in the Bonfire. My build is below. Slotted Bonfire for damage and decent recharge. The power lasts 45 secs and I have it down to 37s recharge (more could be had, down to 24s max, if you wanted). Hot Feet slotted with Sup Avalanche to get max Acc and Damage and really good End redux + a -Res proc Consume slotted for Damage, not Endmod since Cauterizing Aura gives more end than needed. Again, stand in Bonfire with Hot Feet (and -Res proc), Burn, Fire Sword Circle, and Consume - such melty goodness. ST attacks rotated in as well, of course, and their inherent slow also stacks with Hot Feet to keep them in the melting zone longer too. I even use Frost breath - I know many people hate it for the animation, but it's AOE damage and it slows as well. And yes, I'll use a cone in melee to capture a certain slice of the pie I'm in as needed. Then with Ice Primary, again, Blizzard can KD and nuke a second mob, or if you find you're still waiting for Bonfire to recharge, you can stand in the middle of Blizzard and do your PBAOE rotation to quickly dispense the group. By then, Bonfire is recharged and you can open with that again. Ice Storm with the KD proc can usually get a couple foes upon casting and couple more 10s later - I'll use this to aggro a 2nd / 3rd group or to drop it on top of me and my Bonfire melting zone. Frozen Burn - Blaster (Ice Blast - Fire Manipulation).mbd

Understood. You do have to slot for hold duration and the holds are ranged attacks so you can keep bosses / EBs at bay, if needed. And sometimes, even if they are Knocked down, they can still get a hit or two in on you. EBs are less likely to be susceptible to KD. Holds are also useful for negating pesky ranged LTs or Mins that aren't in the immediate PBAOEs to die quickly - yes, they can die in 2-3 hits, but that's also 1-2 hits less on even higher priority targets. 1 hit to hold to them, while you deal with larger immediate threats - like burning down that boss / EB, or the entire mob surrounding you. It's just target selection and putting them on "pause" until you're ready to deal with them. Also, if you're mostly fighting a lot of Romans, yeah, holds are less useful because of their battle cry mez protection, but that's why Ice/Fire/Fire still has an advantage over triple-fire... You can rotate Blizzard and Bonfire every other mob so you're always knocking them down. With triple-fire... you generally have to wait and deal with a mob without Bonfire. Additionally, Ice Patch is a /Ice (secondary) power and it's not as large of a radius as Bonfire. And you also don't get Hot Feet and Burn to go with it. Personally, /Ice is one of the worst blaster secondaries, imo. Ice Patch being the only star, but also does no damage. With Bonfire, you can get your recharge down enough for it overlap (so, multiple ones out at once). You aren't the only one that is biased towards triple-fire builds. People swear by them, and they are good. But having played Ice/Fire/Fire since 2004 and Fire/Fire/Fire.... I still think Ice/Fire/Fire superior overall for survivability and AOE coverage of damage. ....just some more thoughts and I hope you do give it a try sometime. 🙂

Hey! I love Repulsing Torrent more than Burst. First of all, for me... Burst hardly hits anyone around me. I'll be in the middle of a mob, use it, and I'll 2 numbers go off... no misses or anything... it's like the range of the of the power is too short, although it's technically the same as other PBAOEs from other Scrapper sets. It's just frustrating to me. Additionally, the wind up is so long that I feel like the damage output should be much more than it is. So, with the not hitting as many as I would hope on top of this... I generally do not like the power - I want to... but these things make it difficult for me. Repulsing Torrent - I love the KB. I embrace KB. Yes, even on my melee toons. My "W" key works if i need to follow. The KB is also handy when those pesky -def hits start stacking and getting through my SR defenses... knock them back, give my shields a chance to "breathe" and shed off some of the debuff, while I whittle away at the other mobs around around me. It's also useful for getting foes off of squishy defenders, trollers, and such. I do find the damage to be good and it contributes a lot to my damage output. I will always take an AOE, if given the choice (hence me keeping Burst in my build despite my issues with it). 😄 LotG and other Defensive IOs.... I hate the LotG set bonuses - I only use the Def/+Global Rech special from the set. Reactive Defenses gives more HPs than LotG + resists, which I'd rather have than the bit o' regen and acc from LotG. Shield Wall gives even more HPs still. Many don't care about increasing +HPs, but when I can take 1 or 2 more hits and remain standing vs. others lying on the floor vs. giving more time for buffs, heals, absorb/heal proc to fire, powers to recharge, etc... It's worth it, imo. And unless you have powers that enhance +regen (other than Health), like Willpower, Regen, Bio, etc.... slotting for +regen is not really worth it, whereas you get more mileage from +HPs. There are many ways to build and play - which is what makes the game so great. Post your build when you get it done so we can all see what you ended up with. 🙂

I've played triple-fire.... but I still prefer my Ice/Fire/Fire.... You get bonfire (converted to KD), stand in the middle so Hot Feet gets them too, Fire Sword Circle, Burn, Ice Storm - I even slot Consume for Damage as an extra PBAOE... and then you have Blizzard to KD and Nuke an entirely different group AWAY from you + you have 3 holds that you can chain hold 2 bosses or an EB between all your attacks. Survivability is much higher and Damage can be more widespread - or highly focused, if wanted. ....some thoughts to consider. 🙂

Stalkers get this because they are Stalkers - it's their schtick and they are "experts" at assassinations. I do not think the ability to be able to attack and assassinate (even without the increased damage buffs for the initial strike like Stalkers get - should be ported to anyone who has a certain level of invisibility. And the majority of my toons have invis level stealth and I rarely play Stalkers. Just like the Op is okay with stealth breaking when clicking a glowie... which that happens because you're "doing something," the same can be said for us "non-assassins / stalkers" in that you're winding up your punch, slash, stab, blast, shot, whatever - and that movement does alert foes. Also, having pretty much all my characters with invis level stealth and across all ATs, and doing exactly as the Op says in trying to "assassinate" a critical foe first... it is a split second of animation before the hit lands, damage is done, and you generally succeed killing / mezzing / eliminating the target anyway. So, again, I don't see this request as needed, and it takes a bit away from what makes Stalkers so great. It also takes a bit away from the /Ninja sets (blasters, scrappers, and sentinels) that get critical hit damage when striking from stealth. Pool power Stealth, or stealth garnered from means of stacking non-stalker / Ninjitsu powers and Stealth IOs, and through other means - should not have access to buffed "assassination" attempts - imo (even if it's just buffing the timing of the hit with the stealth break - again splitting hairs over a split second of animation). That ability should stay with Stalkers and /Ninjas. ...That being said... I wouldn't argue or cry if it was implemented anyway. 😄

@Epistasis Sorry I missed your ask for builds earlier - just now saw this thread. Here's my build, for what it's worth.... Cobalt Fox - Scrapper (Kinetic Melee).mbd

Sorry, I meant //Mace. There is no Psy epic for blasters, unfortunately. But there should be!! Here is my build.... Librarian Archivist - Blaster (Psychic Blast - Temporal Manipulation).mbd

Additional blasters, which I didn't mention earlier as i was rushing to a work meeting 😄 ..... Energy / Martial / Mace DP / Mental / Mace DP / Ninja / Mace Psy / Temporal / Mace Archery / Tactical Arrow / Force Rad / Atomic / Mace All of these I will solo +4x8, and have a BLAST doing it. 🤣

I've solo'd for decades and farm with my Ice/Fire/Fire Blaster. I'm not even defense capped. But do use inspires, like all good blasters should. Target selection, kiting, 3 holds, heavy AOEs, all make it very survivable.