Aracknight

That's some good Insane Troll Logic right there.

Perhaps "expertly" would be a better word than "properly."

When I found Homecoming, I admit to using farms, MSRs and any other means necessary to rebuild my main, a scrapper from live. I felt ok with that because while I dont claim to be a master of all scrappers, i knew this one inside and out. When i decided to try to build a tanker version of my ma/sr scrapper, I did the same thing, figuring it wasn't that big a deal. I was wrong. I had never played a tank, let alone this tank, and although my mids-fu is strong, i didn't know how to be a tank. The 1-50 grind is what teaches us how to play a character properly. My tank was a bAEby, and it shows. He's survivable as hell but as a Scrapper all i knew about protecting a teammate was to annihilate the bad guys before realizing "oh yeah, im on a team." The bAEby phenomena is real. A 50 incarnate tank, piloted by a veteran player should know what they are doing. You cant convince me the bAEby phenomena isnt real when 3 members of an ITF who are t3+ incarnated 50s and running shiny forum builds can't find their pancaking way to Cimerora.

Rune of warding would be a fantastic alternate animation for arcane bolt. And so would immobilizing dart from ninja training as an alternate for toxic dart from experimentation.

I'd finish the other "Origin power pools," and make them free like the Fitness pool is to the applicable origin you've chosen for your character. This would be especially helpful for melee types who could use a (arguably mediocre) ranged attack, as well as give folks a free travel power that isnt temporary for those with tight builds. You could also create....for lack of a better term..."Origin Invention Origin" enhancement sets that can only be slotted by the applicable origin, sort of like ATOs. Catalyze them and all for more goodness. You could create a long recharge clicky power that is Origin based like the alignment like Call to Justice or Duplicity. You could create mini-zones that only allow in your origin type. There could be training mini-games that are travel based keyed to your origin travel power with badges like the slopes in Pocket D. This could be a place to buy the OIOs i mentioned above. There could also be Empowerment stations flavored to your origin if for some reason you aren't in an sg or vg with a base. There could even be teleport stations for the same reason. And, though i do not know if this is even possible, you could have Origin Tip Missions that if you do enough of them, allow you to change your Origin, similar to how it was done for alignment before Null the Gull spoiled us. That's the immediate stuff that came to mind.

I dig it. Would use.

Pitchfork melee, pitchfork ranged, and angry mob MM pets confirmed.

Is...is this what acceptance feels like? Damn, you guys. Thank you Scrappers.

I dunno. Stealth makes a lot of missions pretty easy and they handed that out. Is only tankers getting taunt auras that different from only stalkers should be able to stealth missions?

Since we've migrated over here: Is there a way to split the difference by creating an IO enhancement that has an aoe taunt component while the power it is slotted in is active? Like stealth IOs in sprint. This way: -No powersets get altered. Devs win. -People who don't have a taunt aura and don't want one don't have it forced on them. Nays win. -People who want this can now have it. Yays win. -People don't have to invest in another power pool and 1-3 powers to get it. Everyone wins. It worked with kb to kd. Why not here?

If they added it to a pool, it could end up gated behind 1-3 powers like the aforementioned Acrobatics. No deal.

Is there a way to split the difference by creating an IO enhancement that has an aoe taunt component while the power it is slotted in is active? Like stealth IOs in sprint. This way: -No powersets get altered. Devs win. -People who don't have a taunt aura and don't want one don't have it forced on them. Nays win. -People who want this can now have it. Yays win. It worked with kb to kd. Why not here?

With absolute truth, and no snark, this is the highest praise I have ever received in this game. Thank you.

A Longbow Chaser flying travel power, like the rocket board, however, could be cool.

The Belgariad. Discovered it in the 90's during high school. Re-read it once a year. It's a sword and sorcery (Sworcery?) series by David Eddings. Can't recommend it enough, but it'd probably be butchered on the screen.

So you may be asking yourself, "What is Martial Arts good for?" Well, a few facts are in order to answer this question... 1. MA Scrappers are mammals. 2. MA Scrappers fight ALL the time. 3. The purpose of the MA Scrapper is to flip out and kill people. Fungah, 1/18/2006 Before I even bought the game, back when I was researching it, this excerpt from a post was what stole my heart. I could read what powersets did and how well it did or didn't do it. I suspected Super Reflexes was right for my unborn Scrapper because I am a lifelong Spider-Man fan. But the post the excerpt the above is from is what convinced me, unbought and unplayed, that Martial Arts on a Scrapper was special. Sure, at the time, one attack was ugly (Crippling Axe Kick), one did no damage (Cobra Strike), and one felt like it looked awesome, took a year to go off and would always, at the dramatically appropriate moment...miss (Eagle's Claw). But that guide taught me about soft controls, about how to layer in Air Superiority, and for the first six months my attack chain was Storm Kick-Air Superiority-Jump Kick (!!!!!!!)-Dragon's Tail-Eagle's Claw (After Cobra Kai, My mind refuses to not call this power Eagle Fang). And it was awesome. The animations seemed to flow one into the other, I had a lot of soft controls that covered up the fact that I had no idea how to play a Super Reflexes powerset. I probably did crap damage but the unbridled joy I felt jumping around, flipping around, and knocking trolls around is probably the single greatest time I have ever had playing an mmorpg. I didn't know about Mids, and when Inventions first came out, I just threw extra stun and knockback into my Scraptroller powers and let it rip. And then when I did learn about Mids, and I learned about mitigation from many posts by Arcanaville, and that if I build SR correctly, I didn't necessarily need those soft controls and I could just slot for damage and wreck shit. So with my scrapper built, I created five macros, one for each power in my attack chain, and each one of them began with Target_enemy_near. I would dial up...what is now known as +1/x8, scroll out the camera, dive into a map full of Council, and watch them FLY. The camera rotated every time I hit a button, and my Scrapper would kick or punch someone into the air and in the words of the Foo Fighters, he was done, done, and I'm on to the next one. These days I know a little more, and the powers that be saw fit to tweak things, sometimes, that felt specifically for me. Cobra Strike got damage, but it didn't look awesome. AND THEN THEY GAVE ME AN UPPERCUT ANIMATION. Crippling Axe Kick was allegedly part of the best mathematical attack chain, but it's "Smell my foot! Now Smell it again!" animation was lame to me. AND THEN THEY GAVE ME A RIGHT HOOK ANIMATION. Right? So I have enough recharge to run Storm Kick-Crippling Axe Kick-Storm Kick-Cobra Strike and the obligatory single AOE Dragon's Tail for large groups. I have Crane Kick so I can run SK-CS-SK-CK at lower levels with no real drop off. I also keep Crane Kick as my finsher, because no matter how smart I get, I will never not love watching a bad guy ragdoll off into the distance, especially if they get stuck on a chain link fence. He's smooth, cuts through minions in one-two shots max, Lieutenants in two, and I probably aren't even doing it at peak efficiency because I like Tactics better than Focus Chi. My Scrapper is a monster these days. I would read on the boards how Scrappers were usually run by min-maxer insane geniuses who wanted to do things no one else could do, like solo AVs, GMs, and Pylons. Some of you might not realize, but there was in fact a time when these things, while plausible, weren't necessarily possible. And I would try these things. I don't pull the insane times some of the legends of Homecoming pull, but I can do them. (Most recently someone yelled at me on Everlasting for fighting both GMs in the Croatoa War zone event by myself without inviting anyone. It took a while, but I took them both out.) Then I would go do them on a Stalker, before Going Rogue, and people redside would trip out and watch my Stalker, well, flip out and kill people. By the roomful. MA/SR is special because it taught me how to play. It brings me joy no matter what. I even built a Tank and a Brute version after being inspired by BillZ, though to be honest, I haven't even levelled the Brute and I'm still not very good at the tank playstyle yet. But when I get there, I have a feeling that's gonna be special too. Peace.

How about tying incarnate slotting to builds? Build 1 has these slotted, 2 could be different, etc.

Hmm. Defeat or gladiator badges could earn you summonable pets outside the arena. Exploration badges could give speed bonuses. Healing badges a bonus to healing, damage badges a bonus do damage, damage taken a bonus to resistance, time mezzed a bonus to mez resistance. These could all be very small bonuses that could ignore ED like the Alpha slot does. Might be something to this.

Hang in there Variant. It took over a year, but I eventually got my main's name back on Everlasting. Keep the faith!

Taunt auras on Scrappers. Hmm. I like the idea; I've asked for it in the past. I believe someone quoted one of the devs as giving it a hard "no," which no one wants to hear. In the meantime, I'm happy to shoot a runner in the back with an APP/PPP power. They're free to die tired. If it changes, I'll adapt. I will say this: when I broke out the Melee Hybrid Incarnate slot on an ITF, with its Taunt aura, I suddenly, for whatever reason, and no other changes to my build, starting taking a lot more damage than I did without it. For SR and other defense sets that don't "rely on it for mitigation"...I wonder if this might be a case of "Be careful what you wish for." The more heat you generate, the more opportunity for RNGesus to forsake you.

So the answer is Nerf Regen? Groovy.

When I first came to Paragon, I primarily soloed because I was on dial-up internet, so my slow zone loading screen was a hindrance to people who tried to team with me. I wasn't aware of builders, and IOs hadn't dropped yet. I got into the 40s before I got high speed internet, and joined a team in PI who were absolutely flabbergasted how I had survived without mez/kb protection. It's funny how not knowing how bad a thing might be makes it pretty goddamn fun. I learned how to use my MA stuns and knockbacks to protect myself from being attacked/mezzed/knocked back MORE than relying on my secondary skills. Back then Stamina wasn't free, so I made the active decision to not even run (or take!) my toggles because they were making it so I couldn't kick trolls. Cobra strike didn't even do damage back then either, and it was my number one defensive power because of the stun. Even today I rock Diamagnetic interface because of it's -ToHit functionality, which works great coupled with my defense. And maybe that's the real lesson. You get two powersets. Both matter, as does how you use them. And your choices, whether in a pre- or post- IO world should synergize to make the whole better. I understood why Health and Stamina were "mandatory." I guess the devs did too because they made a change to give them out for free. But to me other things, like Hasten, aren't, unless you're chasing bleeding edge attack chains. And while I hate to fall back on it..."Git gud" is a valid critique of almost anything suggested to need a "fix." I think the reason I'm good at SR is because of my journey how I played through it and adapted to it. I thought "Crap, I'm getting hit. Quick, stun that fool!" instead of "Bleh, SR sucks." IOs just made the game Easy Mode for me. Most of the people here saying SR doesn't need much more than a tweak here and there, instead of an overhaul, know with great experience how it works. They know it isn't the one trick pony people less informed or expierenced think it is. Would all of this work as well on say, Regen? Maybe. Maybe Regen got nerfed, not because it was overpowered, but because adaptive players figured out how to make it overpowered with their playstyle. Chickens and eggs, and all that. It's easy to look at a spreadsheet and say it sucks. Sports teams do it all the time when considering their recruits. But tape don't lie. Your spreadsheet can say whatever it wants to about my ability to survive and take down a Rikti Pylon, AV, or Giant Monster solo both as an SR secondary and an MA primary on my Scrapper. But I can do that shit. I can't do it on my Tanker version though. Not yet, anyway. But either way, as a much wiser person pointed out earlier, no powerset exists in a vacuum.

I don't think I have a favorite, although punching and kicking Council and Fifth Column nazis is fun. Oh, the Family is fun too, with their mobster suits and dialogue. I dislike the Circle of Thorns mostly because of their maps. Whether in caves or Oranbega, they're a pain.

How else are we gonna Fix SR?

Or replace it with a version of Master Brawler that doesn't preclude Practiced Brawler. Toggle mez protection and an absorb shield, with the PB breakfree action? Yeah, that oughta do it.