InvaderStych

Had a chuckle at this a while back ... ... "subtle" ... 😄

This. This right here is how one wins a thread.

I seriously had to read through this exchange several times before I figured out that two different people were posting. 😄

Welcome Back! Savage is an awesome set. Leap is the hallmark of the set and an absolute game-changer once you get it. Before Rending Flurry and Savage Leap though, the set can feel a but underwhelming. Regen also blooms with investment. Should be a fun payoff though! 🙂 Both Savage and Regen want hefty amounts of +recharge, which works to your favor. Grab Hasten at some point. Not everyone is a fan, but Leap is just too good as a Proc-Bomb so you want all the global recharge you can get so as not to reduce the firing chance. Several excellent threads about this sort of thing in the Guides and Tanker sections. You are eventually going to want to drop Shred - you'll be better off using Rending Flurry in it's place later in levels and with some recharge in the build. Fortunately HC figuratively bathes you in free respecs, so there's plenty of opportunities to tweak things. Also, don't bother with Hemorrhage - you'll get more mileage from SS, MS, and VS on rotation. Shred and Hemm are just going to slow you down. Adding to the already excellent IOs suggested by @Krazie Ivan grab yourself a "Force Feedback: Chance for +Recharge" and slot it into Vicious Slash. You'll want one in a finished build, and they're excellent bang/buck for your powersets.

@Sovera - that's actually hilarious - I was so busy looking at all of the other ways your setup is different (aka better) than where I went with Kat/Rad that I didn't even notice the missing ToE. I was literally collecting this .... ... with some pithy wording about coming to that conclusion as you were making that edit.

In the interest of the pursuit of the OP Scrapper ... This is basically why I went Kat/Rad. One -Res in GD, the other in BetaD. Stacking Meltdown (+41.25%) against T4 Assault Core (+85% fully stacked, if I have it right) and double BU makes for very satisfying Crits all around. That said, I've been also reading your Mace/Bio thread, and it has me wondering what going with WM/Rad would look like. Last time I played Mace was a /SD brute back in the long, long ago - so when I went to try it out in mids I had no idea how to focus the primary picks. Full disclosure: I'm not working with what should be considered a finished build. It's also kind of a mess. I still need to drop FS, but that gives me slotting problems because 6-sloting ATOs works well for the way I wound up setting him up. But 6-slotting SD or GD is a no go because of Force Feedback and FotG -Res, respectively. The good news is that I am sitting on a stack of respecs, heh. Bear in mind, I'm using T4 Pyro Core, Musc Core, Degen Core, and Assault Core - but I haven't even started Destiny for Lore yet. I'm tempted by Clarion because I hate mez .... a lot. Though I know (having decided Barrier seemed like putting a hat on a hat - especially on teams) that Rebirth Radial would be the smarter choice. You're definitely rolling with higher base def, assuming those numbers are before Meld. I went for M/R/AoE since I had DA to work with. 27.92%, 20.42%, and 19.17%, respectively. Ranged and AoE are just off cap inside meld, and melee is 51.4% for those 15s. Single Shot of DA in that window and melee is 71.18% - which is academically interesting, but rarely happens in practice. Definitely rocking higher resistance too - which is more in line with what I thought might be possible. I have S/L at 72% before the Reactive piece kicks in, but E is only at 64% to start, and F lower. Have you been able to get more than 800 out of PS? I seem to be capped at 796, but I can't remember what I changed where I expected it to go higher. Also, I have no doubt TW/Rad pushes some big damage. Somewhere mid-30s while leveling I ran with a tw/rad on a full team. Very similar costumes too, it was hilarious, we looked like siblings. Almost wish I could get past my issues with TW and with Bio, but meh, there's enough to do in this game already. 😄 Other sort of miscellaneous rambling - I'm considering ditching the 90% proc rate on RT and giving it more recharge - and another slot. My live build has PS over-slotted but I don't want to give up the numbers Ditto for Gamma Boost. Which I almost wish I could ditch, but every time I consider doing so I remember that it's a source of -End/-Rec resistance. Some info in case anyone wants a feel for my frame of reference: 🙂 As a test, I did a +4x8 DA mission run (redside arcs, the portion where you're sent to Cim), which was actually easier than I'd expected, but Talons aren't that difficult unless you let them live too long. Though the Cyclops/Minotaur only groups were rough and I would have face-planted against those without insps. Prior to the thread I'd dabbled at max diff a few times but the slog before extra dmg from Incarnates was too boring. This was a build-as-you-level project, and somewhere in the late 40s I started soloing x8, up to +2 on easy groups. If anyone was wondering, x8 Arachnoids do not constitute an "easy group," but they were one of my early +4 soloing tests when I got to 50. Doable, but not what I would call fun. Any and All AV/Hero soloing has been even-level. Though I had to spend several million on anti-mez candies to beat Ghost Widow the first time, and the second time was a cave where I could kite when she fired up that cheat-button 100mag hold. What-ever-in-the-name-of-all-that-is-sacred-and-sane Penelope Mayhem (Mr. G's Primal arc) is I just <bleeping> skipped. She broke my brain and I auto-completed past that madness. Long story still long, my build is far from the benchmark, but /Rad is a good place to look if someone is trying to build an OP, or even just OP feeling scrapper.

The [lack of] DDR is an issue to be certain. It helps to open with SM and ride the first few misses if I'm expecting incoming def debuffs. Helps negate the long activation/root time on GZ. Prolonged fights with heavy [Defense Debuff] can definitely be problematic, especially if also recharge debuffed such that RT and PS aren't coming back up. I'd have to check in game to be accurate, and his recharge varies, (Hasten is just off-perma, and +rech from FF and BD comes in waves) but iirc I'd say 32-36s on average, unslotted (just the LoTG +def/7.5% global in there). Better slotting, and finding a 5th LoTG should bring that down in theory. FWIW, Mids has it on 37.89 (edit: for +23.48% def if anyone was interested) with 1 mob in range for BD and Hasten up. I don't think I've made any significant changes since creating that build to match what I ended up with on live. To be fair, my build (Kat/Rad) is a bit of a mess by comparison to what you're likely used to running, but he certainly feels OP in those moments when I can get the timing down correctly. Ki... er I mean "arrest" too many with GZ and there might not be enough left for a significant heal from RT. SM too late and it might not make a difference. All that said, when there's mild-mid [debuffs], falling back on DA is usually plenty to fill the heal/SM gaps. SM certainly isn't useful for everything, but I like it against the high resists and reliable heal/absorb that /Rad offers.

Radiation Armor. If you want to feel OP, Radiation Armor. What do you call a scrapper with (perm-able) extra 800hp, 1.5 Click-Heals, the ability to refill the blue bar, a Mini-Nuke every 45s or so, capped resists to S/L (near-as-makes-no-difference) and Toxic (well over cap), and the ability to cap defense with a click (requires Shadow Meld)? Awesome. That's what. 🙂 Except for that Confuse/Fear hole once you're in Dark Astoria. <_< But that's a different story, lol. FWIW: Scrapper Savage is bugged on Hemorrhage, which can be skipped anyway, imo. It's a strange set anyway, but extremely fun to play and more effective (on my brute) than it is often credited for being.

Hemorrhage is the one that doesn't crit. Skip it. It's actually bad on everything but Stalkers anyway. No reason for SM/anything to be rooted for that long. Shred is mostly bad. You're better off skipping it and using Rending instead (at decent recharge). Possibly useful on a tank with AoE changes; everywhere else you're better off using something else. Vicious really wants the FF +rech piece, so probably not there as there are desirable bonuses that you might need the other 5 slots to get. I'd put it in Maiming. That's where my Brute has the +Fury piece. SS, MS, and VS are his ST chain. YMMV on a Scrapper.

Meltdown from Rad Armor might be a decent example of a T9 that's in a good place. On a scrapper, for example, it's worth the extra 41.5% dmg; the extra +Res is okay for filling gaps, but the +dmg makes it for that AT. A tank can usually skip it unless they're really trying to max out damage (despite the lower buff). Making it either optional, skip-able, or something to take to allow slotting flex. Brutes/Stalkers, ymmv, I haven't rolled either with /Rad, but if the +dmg numbers match scrap/tank I'd probably think of them the same way. The "crash" (mild -End, 0% Recovery for a bit) is there but easy to overcome with /Rad's other tools; and the cool-down is decent as well. It's not a Gawd-Mode, so there's no reason to penalize it as one. Some of the T9s that are auto-skips could perhaps benefit from a similar design idea. Add a little gap filler and something else the set doesn't have for a lower cost. Not all of them, clearly, variety in the way armors build and play is also key.

Where did you two end up starting? Will be interesting to hear updates. 🙂

She was speaking metaphorically, which I guess if you want to have a semantic argument about truth sure, whatever. You still break them in half along the middle. Which was the point. Making the description more ... disturbing .. was part of the (her) point in the first place. Thus, metaphor.

What it says on the tin: "Legitimately True" and "Very Creepy" simultaneously. Like a former lady-friend's description of preparing and cooking crab, which I wish I could remember word for word; basically along the lines of boiled alive, legs ripped off, spine cracked length-ways, and summarily gutted. All true. All rather creepy if you think about it too hard. She said it better. It was the most metal description of cooking I had ever heard.

Proc-Bomb Ground Zero. Tried this on my scrapper after a short thread here. Haven't looked back since. 90% fire rate even if you manage to enhance the ba-jeebus out of it's recharge. (It doesn't taper off until after ~105% enhanced recharge, iirc).

Now there's a thread topic if ever there was one ....

WP = Fire and Forget. No Real "Holes;" it protects moderately against most everything, but excels at none of them. It's easy mode up to a point, then it can easily get in over its head. The only mez you need to worry about is Taunt/Placate. Which mostly irrelevant in PvE. Most will skip the Rez, some will skip the T9 and the Rez - so more flexibility in build choices. Rad = Good Resists, 2 Click Heals, 1 Nuke (Definitely Proc the Nuke, Mix Proc/Heal the heal to taste), You're clicking more from your secondary here, but you're getting excellent tools. Nothing to skip here though, so power selection can get tight depending on your primary/pool preferences. A Brute might be able to skip the T9 since the dmg buff is lower (33% for Brute, 41.5% for scrapper), but that's really up personal taste, and my scrapper definitely kept it. Most annoying holes are complete lack of Fear/Terrorize or Confuse protection. Confuse doesn't come up much in normal play, but I've run into it a few times soloing redside. Could be really bad to get confused on a team and hit Ground Zero before you noticed. Fear/Terrorize is more common: big mobs with multiple bosses that can apply it (Longbow bosses and their Spectral Terrors, for example) can be an annoyance. You will almost never notice the cold dmg hole. You also get to laugh at Toxic dmg, which is actually more useful than it sounds. In fairness, my /WP is a Brute, and my /Rad is a scrapper. The scrapper - naturally - lives more on the bleeding edge but with PS and RT can recover from it much more easily than the Brute. My /WP Brute is unstoppable right up until the point where he isn't. Heh. Both are solid, fun choices tho. As an aside; I don't get the "Rad Armor is Ugly" thing, but I respect that it won't feel the same to everyone. That said, in the interest of balance, I think it looks great in certain colors. My Rad/Rad tank uses a purple/aqua scheme that imo works well. My scrapper is more in the deep blue ranges, using the lower saturation options. Still tweaking the color scheme, but I like it. My only complaint is that the Mez armor effect looses all saturation no matter what color you pick, but that might be a side effect of my gfx settings being quite low.

I have a feeling this may be appreciated here: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/like-and-literally-make-a-deal

This. In the context of "why play a scrapper," which is really the question in a figurative sense. That's the number one answer, for me. To answer the literal reading of the question; a scapper has two "places." Either in the face of the "hardest" target available, or charging to the next "hardest" one in line.

@Boulis Was mids showing you the non-combat defense of Stealth, or the suppressed value? There's a setting that governs which value it shows, you might already know though, but ... Options -> Configuration -> Effects & Maths -> Check the "Attacked" box under "Suppression" on the far right of that config page. That should give Stealth the 1.88% base +def that it gives during combat.

I suspect that it is rather strange that I really want that power-set. ".... because there is no patch for Hellion Stupidity."

Scrapper Problems: "Why does it seem like I get Criticals most often on mobs with a sliver of health?" Last Mob of the mission, Last minion from that mob, Last Swing on said minion: "CRITICAL STRIKES"

You might be right, and that might be where I got the idea. In Mids the power text descriptions mention DDR in Glacial and Wet, but only Frozen shows a % amount in the "Effects" window. If I had to guess I'd bet the text is right, the effects numbers are missing in Mids, and the wiki is probably still valid. The entry is likely odd since paragonwiki isn't being updated. There's an HC specific version here: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Main_Page Apologies in advance if that's the link you were using.

Apparently not much. I thought there was a little in each shield, but it's just in one if I'm reading mids right. Must have been thinking of something else. Still kinda funny tho.

Wait, Ice's in-built DDR needs more DDR? There's a meme in there, but I've not yet had enough coffee to generate it.