Lhanis

This clip really highlights the worst part of Changeling tbh. I didn't have my headphones on, but I can still hear it. I wish Lauci had left screenshake on just to showcase what it's like for any poor new player who happens to be nearby. 🤣 Jokes aside, I've always loved Khelds as an idea but never been able to get into them in practice - largely for... well, many of the reasons people have pointed out already. I'm no Kheldian vet like some of the folks here, so obviously take my 2c with a hefty spoonful of salt. But Khelds really could use some better... flow to their playstyle. One idea I had a while back would be that forms should maybe be handled in a similar way to how many powersets have an 'afterglow', for lack of a better word. Using a Fire ability leaves fire glowing in your hands for a bit, for example. What if the form powers were always available, and clicking them gave you the visual form-shift as part of the attack - maybe also providing the passive benefits of that form for the duration, until you hit something to cause another shift? That alone would remove so much of the 'clunk' that comes with shapeshifting, and could even spread into letting more of the powers be usable in more forms. Regardless of what we actually get in a revamp of the AT, it desperately needs to at least try and tone down the visual and audio backlash the shapeshifts include though. Dear god, my poor eardrums.

I live on Excelsior now, but during my time on Everlasting I had a Bots MM whose only purpose was petsay macro chains to advertise events/bases in Pocket D. Just remembering it is making me all nostalgic, I'll have to see if I can dig up my master-list of macros. I also have a second account with a single character on it - a stalker who exists purely for Teleport Target/Base Portal/TT that I made to help a... 'directionally challenged' friend navigate when they first started HC. Sees little use nowadays though, now that they've been here long enough to become a bit of a vet themselves.

I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it.

The thread devolved into build talk a bit, but this I can definitely answer. For Crab Spider specifically you will generally be playing some sort of Crabbermind. It doesn't have nearly as much flexibility, it's what you take Crab for. However, if you were to instead respec to Bane, you can create something the community refers to as a 'Huntsman' or 'Huntsbane' which mostly skips the melee aspect entirely in favor of ranged attacks, AoEs, and some very nasty debuffs. I bring this up because Huntsman fits the bill of what you're looking for to a T. It's light on clickiness, durable, and very straightforward to play. It is essentially a Sentinel that uses leadership toggles for it's armorset. It's also a blast to play (literally! You can have an entire attack chain that consists of grenades!) and I will always recommend it for folks looking for simple-but-effective ranged characters.

I have and regularly play both and, in fact, they're 2 of the only 4 character's that have stayed in my regular 'roster' and never been retired since I started on HC. Dark Miasma has always been my favorite powerset, even as far back as the good ol' days of Live. That said, I do absolutely have a favorite here... and it isn't the Defender. For all of my love for Dark Miasma, Dark Blast is a janky and uncomfortable set to play with most of the time (at least in my opinion). It procs wonderfully (which is important because the actual damage output is anemic at best) and it has more AoE than most blasts can get... but that AoE is the problem; You are saddled with 3 very narrow cones with differing arcs and ranges to work with. It almost requires Hover to get good use of them, and generally means you want to be as far back as Tenebrous will allow you to be and still hit the group - which conflicts with your desire to be close when dropping Blackstar or using Twilight Grasp. You eventually learn to deal with it, but that doesn't mean it isn't exhausting to constantly be managing your range and targeting on top of everything else going on in a speedy group. On the other hand, we have Dark Affinity, which is just better Dark Miasma - especially on a D3, where you aren't actually losing Fearsome Stare in exchange for it's goodies. Fade and Soul Absorption are game changers, the former being relatively simple to get close to perma (14% +DefAll and some free DDR to boot!), and the latter letting even the most thirsty power combos ignore endurance altogether when saturated (+50% recovery, and an additional 10% per corpse). Dark Control is also just as proc'able as the Blast, with Heart of Darkness being a standout AoE mini-nuke and fantastic opener. Umbra and it's backup dancers help keep damage rolling while you're throwing controls and support around, making for a much more comfortable and durable experience. Even defender's scalers don't give it much of a leg up here, since the -tohit from controller is already more than enough, especially when FS gets involved - and Howling Twilight isn't effected by it either way. Even before 'trollers got a free bump in damage with fear being a valid source of containment and pets being able to trigger it, I'm hard pressed to think of a scenario I'd rather have the 'fender. Dark Blast just doesn't bring anything to the table that Dark Control doesn't outshine - the 'fender might have a ST damage advantage vs AVs... but even there, a procced out Dark Control isn't far enough behind to be noticeable, especially when supplemented with Arcane Bolt from sorcery. Umbra does good work when you can get him to sit still and focus (which 'troller can actually do now thanks to the most recent update) and that closes the margin further than you'd think, especially in the odd occasion when an AV lets you have containment. All of that is to say... while D3 'fender was my first character on live and will always have a special place in my heart, I will always pick D3 'troller over it in a side by side comparison. You gain so much and lose so little. Whether that's telling of the awkward state Dark Blast is in, or just how strong Dark Control is, I could not tell you. Maybe a little bit of both.

So, I started messing around with things on Brainstorm and think I've got an outline for what I'm hoping to accomplish, and some actual answerable questions for the folks who know slotting better. Outline attached below. Original concept was going to lean into Cloak of Darkness completely hiding your character and taking a weapon set with hover to float around as a haunted, cursed weapon. Thought it would be fun. But while testing I accidentally fell in love with Spinning Strike in StJ. Sweeping Cross being skippable also lines up with my original goal of a 6 power primary. Where I'm having trouble is figuring out how I should be slotting these powers. Scrapper's high base damage makes me feel like I should be taking advantage of it more than cramming procs in to do the work, but StJ also looks like a set that gets a lot of use out of FF procs and I'm not sure where to draw the line. With what I have, the crit-proc ATO looks like it would work best in either Rib Cracker or Shin Breaker (unless I put it in Dark Regen for giggles, but on paper that looks very expensive on End). Crit window looks about the same, but I'm unsure if it'd be better in one over the other - better chance in Shin Breaker, but SB also looks like it'll want Achilles in it where RC can't take anything interesting that'd compete for space. I chose Soul for patron on account of Shadow Meld looking like a dream come true for bolstering during alpha strikes, but with StJ already being very ST focused and wanting you to stack combo I'm not sure how important I should treat Moonbeam. It's hard to find advice/examples of the revamped Dark Armor, and I can't tell if Obscure Sustenance might actually be a better pick. The revamp turned it into a clicky with no target requirement and a 25% heal on top of it's already very nice +Regen/+Recovery (though Mids doesn't actually reflect this yet) as opposed to Dark Regeneration's expensive target-based heal. OS also can have a majority of it's buff made permanant quite easily, but it has very little options for slotting compared to DR. Soul Transfer has the same issue as above, and it does so many things now that I'm not sure what I should be focusing on with it. If I take OS over DR, it'd make a good spot for Panacea/PM sets, but I don't know if that's worth losing other things that can go there. Lastly, I'm curious if Hasten is even needed with a setup like this. With StJ getting 3 decent spots for FF procs, I'm wondering if I might be better served dropping it for another power/pool entirely. The attached build was put together with non-superior sets mostly just because I wanted to see what things would look like leveling. I'm not above using purple sets (I've got more than enough inf set aside to make a fairly expensive build) but I'd like it exemplar as well as possible since I spend far more time below cap than at it. The only thing here that's really set in stone is that I very much want Fold Space which pushes me into Teleport for travel, and that I want Hover for both concept and to make Teleport more palatable. Scrapper - StJ Dark wip.mbd

So I was left to my own devices for more than 5 minutes, and the intrusive thoughts won. So now I have half a dozen half-built variants in mids that I've been putting together while I am supposed to be working try to decide which one I want to pull the trigger on and actually roll... and I'm very quickly coming to realize I really don't have a clue what I should be building for on a melee character. For reference, a vast majority of my characters fall into the Defender/Controller/MM variety, where you slap in rDef sets between your procs and just keep out of reach. Something tells me Scrapper needs a bit more than that though. Dark Armor is a Res set with minor defenses and some -tohit and fear. Do I want to try and chase positionals for extra padding despite the lack of DDR? Should I be trying to ResCap instead despite the scalar and max 75%? Do I actually want Tough and Weave? If I do want Tough and Weave, which I assume I do even if Tough just mules sets for me, that leaves me in an awkward spot for power picks. To get everything I want into the build, I need a primary I can cut 3 powers from. That's easy for some, since I don't want Confront and you don't usually take both T1 and T2. Psi Melee drops boggle, Savage can skip Shred, etc. But I have no idea what others like Titan Wep, Katana and War Mace can live without. And after all that is considered, I look at my endurance and weep for what Dark Armor has done to me, and start asking myself if I really need Death Shroud all that badly. I realize I'm mostly just shouting into the void, and that none of this is really specific enough to get any actual answers more than "it depends", but I just thought I'd share. I really did not walk into this expecting to have to relearn my mids-fu.

I don't care if Staff's damage isn't great, Innocuous Strikes is just such a fun animation 🤣 Trouble's post about the ATO procs' placement the other day is actually what started this whole thing for me... it was interesting to see how much of an impact they have on the AT overall, and reminded me Scrapper was something I'd never really given a shot. I'll be honest though... it never even occurred to me that you could slot it in Dark Regen since it deals damage. That's a wild thought. Cheers for that!

That's fair, the way I wrote it is a little vague but it's also not an easy thing to put into words. By mechanically, I mean how it feels to play/tools it has available that I would want. Not necessarily whether or not it has an in-built mechanic like Momentum or Combos. Some examples: Savage Melee. I adore this set aesthetically, but my experience with it was frustrating. Back when Tanker gauntlet first got buffed, I rolled one with Savage - the End reduction was nice, and Leap is a wonderful tool, but the constant need to play around or against the bloodlust mechanic to keep yourself from getting locked out was not particularly enjoyable. Dark Melee. A generally pretty great set all around (especially on Scrapper, or so I'm told), but a lot of small issues that make it unenjoyable for me to play. Shadow Maul feels like it takes far to long, needing to proc bomb Touch of Fear to have a decent early AoE, and to be completely honost I would rather just have a normal Build Up over having to worry about saturation for Soul Drain. It's hard to give an example of an armor set here though. Mostly I'm looking at it from a tool perspective, does it have good mez prot, does it have a taunt aura (something I'm sad most Scrappers lack, but oh well), is it to clicky to maintain mid-combat, etc. It's why I clicked so well with Electric Armor initially, it just does everything I wanted it to without having to jump through hoops to get it, while also having some neat extras in speed and +End. The old iteration of Dark Armor would fall into that "dislike mechanically" catagory, which is why I'm asking about it. Hogs endurance, has to bring it's own KB prot, leans to heavily on Oppressive Gloom... all things that at least on a first glance may have changed. Cloak of Fear looks like it might be a much better pick now and potentially replace OG, Obscure Sustenance could be a huge help with endurance, now has KB prot in Cloak, etc.

I don't generally play melee. I've been here on Homecoming for some 6 years now and can count my melee characters that have made it to cap on one hand. A big part of that, I think, is that most of the melee and armor sets I like aesthetically are ones I don't enjoy mechanically. After a recent break and return to find the i28 page 2 changes though, I'm wondering if I shouldn't give it another try. I actually got rather attached to Elec armor on an E3 Sent a while back, and I've always wanted to do something with Dark Armor too... so I'm wondering how people have enjoyed the changes to them. I know resist sets aren't generally the domain of Scrapper, but it's also the only AT I've never really touched before and I feel like this is a good opportunity to fix that if I'm considering melee again. Long-winded preamble aside, I'm looking for: Thoughts on the Dark Armor changes? What to expect performance wise for a resist set on Scrapper? Primary sets that might be fun/pair well? Advice for a long time player but first time building Scrapper? That third point is definitely the biggest one on my mind. In a perfect world where Kinetic Melee didn't feel absolutely awful to play it'd be my first choice, but I've been down that road before. Any and all advice is welcome.

This table helps a ton... I've always leaned into just taking Brute instead because I never know how to properly make use of Scrapper's ATOs to capitalize on the fun factor of Big Number. Cheers, Trouble! Now you've doomed me to spiral back into crippling altitus.

My main hero vs my main villain? ... Being a bit of a trickster spirit, what side of the line my smol gremlin creature Lhanis is on depends largely on it's current mood and who summoned it. If Posi part 2 is anything to go by though, Lhanis beats Lhanis every time, no contest.

My first glance also missed the fact that most things can be set to come from the mace now, which is honestly kind of great too. I think even if I do decide to polish up the Huntsman, it's probably time to give an actual mace Bane a swing as well after all. I'll have to go poke around your updated page 7 builds for ideas while I work something out. Cheers, @KaizenSoze!

I'm a bit out of date, took a break just before Page7 hit live but have a huntsman build I was rather fond of and was considering dusting off. Did anything major change that would necessitate a build revamp? A quick browse told me that Heavy Burst is faster now and Wide Area Web looks like a solid upgrade to what it was, but aside from that I couldn't find anything significant to a Bane with no mace attacks. Probably another important question as well, though... now that it looks like the Bane mace attacks have largely been improved, has the gap between Heavy Burst/Grenade spam and an actual Melee Bane widened enough that Huntsman is no longer worthwhile?

I had time, so I did another. Still not min-max'd, but a much more thought out build than the ranged fortunata meme. Global: @farsinger AT: Widow Powers: Night Widow Pylon Time: 199 Seconds 0x8 Time: 347 Seconds 4x8 Time: 480 Seconds Character Name: Lhanis (Optional) Comment: This one had a significantly easier time with the pylon, as expected. Clear wasn't bad either, but I noticed that I had a lot of trouble dealing with runners on Ston's map which dragged the time out. I honestly expected the clear and survival to be better than my fortunata with how reliable Spin and Eviscerate usually are, but I guess Psychic Wail is just that good. There was going to be a third build, my fort!hybrid, but during pylon testing I was noticing an odd gap in my attack chain and, lo and behold, a handful of my skills straight up didn't have any enhancements. Woops. I play it so infrequently I didn't even remember it wasn't finished. The rest of my roster also leans towards heavy support and various controllers, who likely would have a DNF in at least one category, so that's probably it from me unless I decide to dust off my Dark/Dark Offender. Thanks for putting this together, I definitely learned a thing or two about my builds here!