Parabola

My current build is something like this.

Dark melee is a set that can get to the point where it has soul drain up almost permanently. As higher damage scalar AT's get relatively more out of +dam buffs this leans towards tanks and scrappers getting the better deal than brutes. Tanks also score highly with dark melee because the aoe comes early and they get the big area buffs on both of them. I have run many DM tanks and they don't need any additional aoe when they can spam shadow maul and a procced out touch of fear (particularly backed by soul drain). I have no experience with inv (not a set I get on with) but have incarnated both shield/dm and bio/dm. Bio is a great set but dm in my opinion isn't the best pairing for it. Ideally it needs soft control and recharge, neither of which dm can supply. Shield however is a fantastic pairing. In almost every respect shield and dm complement each other creating a very tough and highly damaging toon. I have tried the scrapper equivalent too but at the end of the day I prefer the tank by far.

Is there any chance of having customisation options for the colour of the fx on axe cyclone, pendulum and cleave? They are quite intrusive as it stands unless you happen to have a yellow theme (and even then axe cyclone is different from the other two).

But surely the inexperienced player is going to think 'waiting for my one attack to recharge is boring and there's another attack right there that I skipped so I'll take that next level'? Making terrible build decisions like not taking enough attacks and then getting bored with the game is just as much of a risk now I think.

Copied over my Rad/Rad tank and played a couple of missions. I don't have hard numbers but agree with many of the things said above. IG currently plays a huge role in smoothing out what is a slightly clunky set and although it it clearly not working as intended (and a set shouldn't be balanced around a bug) that is where we are. So, if IG is to be adjusted could we please have a look at what could be done elsewhere in the set to compensate? IG in its current form obviously supplies a lot of aoe damage but it also supplements the underwhelming single target of the set as a whole, in large part through the application of -res procs. In aoe terms I think the set can more or less live without the overperforming IG if it can apply contaminated reliably enough (I like the idea of boosting the ability of the IG to apply contaminated), but it doesn't feel good enough at single target. Shaving animation times could help, it is a fairly ponderous set overall. Another thought is that I've always been somewhat disappointed that contaminated does nothing for you if you are fighting a single foe. It feels like contaminated should make an enemy more vulnerable, perhaps by applying a -res effect or by removing the restriction that the primary target can't be affected by the splash damage.

Even the part about having situations where a toggle is draining end but providing no benefit? I kind of assumed that stealth type powers provide a reduced amount of defence while suppressed to avoid that happening? Would it be possible to suppress the end cost if this situation arises?

Of all the changes in the page this is the one I'm having the hardest time wrapping my head around. I'm just not sure what is being achieved by doing it like this. Making it so that one stealth power doesn't detoggle another is fine but why can't they stack? The stealth powers such as Stealth and Steamy Mist are useful sources of defence, why is stacking that defence more of an issue than stacking something like Combat Jumping with Steamy Mist? This also creates the problem that you can be running a toggle that is providing you with no benefit but is still draining end. If you run Stealth at the same time as Steamy Mist and engage in combat, Stealth is providing absolutely no benefit for its continued end drain (while Stealth is combat suppressed). Just to clarify a couple of things I wasn't sure about I've done a little bit of testing around this. Toggles like Steamy Mist do stack from separate sources (if two characters run SM they both get the stealth and defence stacking). Also if you have a power like Stealth that suppresses and are running a different toggle behind it the transition from one to the other seems to be seamless. For example you are running Stealth and Steamy Mist, while out of combat you have 9% defence from Stealth, when you attack you transition seemingly instantly to having 3.75% defence from Steamy Mist. Ally buff powers seem to also stack without problem. Character A running Steamy Mist casts Group Invisibility and Grant Invisibility on character B, character B is running Steamy Mist. A gets the benefit of 2 Steamy Mists and Group Invisibility, B gets the benefit of 2 Steamy Mists, Group Invisibility and Grant Invisibility. So it is only your own toggle powers that do not stack. This all seems to work but I don't understand why it needs to work like this...

This is huge. Apart from anything else this might be the change that finally makes dominators a viable proposition for me. And so many other builds. Put this live now!

This seems to happen for me most often if I'm breaking line of sight at the same time as activating the toggle. Like activating mid jump behind cover. All enemies around the anchor aggro as normal but the anchor sometimes won't until I approach them in plain sight. This definitely seems like new behaviour, I don't remember it happening in the past.

Try this:

If claws/nrg isn't taken swap me over to that. It's the strongest 'whole game' scrapper I've played by a distance. Edit: Here's my current build for this combo: It's designed to take on pretty much anything with as much resistance as I could cram in. And this is a secondary build with the intention of turning it into a kind of off sentinel. I got frustrated with those moments that the game really doesn't want you to be in melee and this was the result:

Just coming here to say the same. Mine is showing a fixed proc rate of 58% for a 3.5ppm (75% for a 4.5ppm) regardless of base power cooldown, slotted recharge or cast time.

Super reflexes gets very tanky with almost zero interaction required. It probably pairs best with an attack set that provides some healing so that would be radiation melee or dark melee. Both are fairly straightforward to use but as mentioned above the nod might go to rad for the passive damage aura. Then again I find myself changing targets a lot on rad melee hunting down the contaminated enemies. Dark melee has a weaker heal but you can hit anyone to activate it.

Scourge in mids; world beating. Scourge in game; largely disappointing.

Ah, interesting. Yeah I get this. It never occurred to me it might be affecting other people too. I've found a quick alt-tab out and then back into the game window seems to fix it more often than not. My usual reaction however is one of confusion, panic and then rage as I'm hammering my power keys and nothing is happening...

It was probably debuffs that were the problem. Resistance sets will get hit far more often and therefore eat more debuffs. I play a lot of rad on tanks and brutes and I wouldn't build one without focused accuracy and enough winter 2 pieces to cap recharge/slow resist. Also consider taking ageless radial even if the endurance and recharge are superfluous. You could also try slotting some heal in radiation therapy, scrappers only have 4 damage procs to put in it so if you can find the slots you can slot it for its actual purpose too!

I would never not take Shockwave. It is a 100% knockback power barring misses which makes it very reliable. Slot it with a kb->kd, ff+rech and a couple of other procs and you have a power that gives soft control and accelerates the rest of your build. You are going to be blasting away with cones most of the time anyway so you may as well rotate all three.

My default slotting that I try to get into Dark Regeneration as quickly as possible is: Fury of the Gladiator (Acc/Dam, Acc/End/Rech, Acc/Dam/End/Rech), Preventative Medicine (Heal/End, Heal/Rech/End), Theft of Essence (+Endurance proc). The power needs enhancing for Accuracy, Recharge and End Reduction primarily, and the +Endurance proc is basically mandatory. The extra Heal enhancement is nice if you ever need to use Dark Regen against a single target and you get a couple of useful bonuses too.

I think there is a balance to be struck. Some powers became obnoxiously loud when they stacked, things like howling twilight and stone cages spring to mind. But others like dna siphon and radiation therapy were never all that loud and now are way quieter than other powers. I get why we'd want to reign in some of the worst offenders but I think some powers have been affected that really didn't need to be.

Of the listed combinations I would think mace/nrg would be my favourite. That said after trying a lot of combinations the winner of the 'scrappiest scrapper who ever scrapped' contest for me was claws/nrg. It just works so well with scrapper mechanics, having the perfect home for the +50% crits ato in follow up makes a huge difference. If I'm being totally honest though (and cheating a bit) my favourite scrapper isn't a scrapper anymore at all. My bio/stone tank is just far too good at everything and it has eclipsed every other melee character I've ever played. I could go on and on about synergies and the playstyle, and in fact I've been very tempted to write an old fashioned guide for it. It has crossed my mind to try the combo as a scrapper but sadly I don't think it would be as good. Global = forum handle 🙂.

Personally I'd put shield defence in the s tier and drop both stone armour and radiation armour to a. D is a bit harsh on staff, a is a touch generous to martial arts and I think dark melee could nudge up into a. I might also be tempted to push fiery melee down a tier, it just doesn't offer enough.

My personal gripe is with the sound fx changes on aoe powers. Powers like radiation therapy and dna siphon are so much less satisfying to use now, they are barely audible. If there was one thing I'd revert from this update it would be that.

Park your characters in a safe zone like pocket d.

Dark regeneration is often a culprit for end problems that get blamed on the toggles. Unenhanced it costs a third of your endurance bar to fire. But, it is also arguably the most important power in dark armour so you want it, and want to use it. Therefore it needs heavy investment. You will want lots of end reduction enhancement and the theft of essence +end proc. Hit enough enemies and it becomes end positive to use. Other advice is to look at cloak of fear as a fantastic opportunity to take a different power. It has rubbish accuracy and offers little return for the end you burn running it. In early levels you don't need to run cloak of darkness either as you won't have much else to stack the defence with so concentrate on the resist toggles. Also try to always run death shroud. Yes, it has a high end cost but if you get into the habit of letting it whittle down the last sliver of health on enemies rather than using an extra attack you will save end in the long run. On the subject of attacks. Always slot your attacks for end reduction if you are struggling for end. Your attack chain will likely burn far more end than your toggles will. As you are running solo you can set the difficulty to have large numbers of easier enemies. That will give you lots of inspirations that you can convert into reds to fuel your damage which will make up for having less damage slotted.

This. Stone is another fabulous partner for bio and my bio/stone is now my favourite character. No less than 4 ff+rech procs, 2 in almost guaranteed to fire aoes. Bio feeds stone with end management and supplies a supplemental aoe in the form of DNA siphon procced out. Stone feeds bio with recharge and boat loads of control. Most of your mitigation is active which makes for really engaging gameplay.