SomeGuy

Yeah, the stalker verion of Staff was my introduction to playing the set. I had a really fun ride to 50 with it, but I do know the group of people I played with did the lion's share of DPS work on the way. I played the set by myself at 50 and when I had it fully kitted out and...wow. Kept the costume. Gutted the set.

Out of the scrapper primaries, I can legit say DM was never tedious to kill anything with. I do know it wasn't as fast as other stuff. Tedious though? Nah. Not at all. I have almost gotten there with KM a few times, but I worked a LOT to get as much as I could out of the set. Staff? Oh god. It's just noticeably bad when by myself. I wish it performed as well as it looks, cause to me, it's legit one of the best looking melee sets.

Not exactly a high bar to clear. But you do bring up good points. DM is a fun set. I know I was able to solo every TF/SF in the game (except for the villain reichsman one) with a DM/BIO a few years back.

Primaries? Dual Blades Katana Fiery Melee Stone Melee Titan Weapons Martial Arts Energy Melee Claws Battle Axe War Mace All those primaries will drop hard targets consistently. Energy Melee having the weakest AOE out of them all. Secondaries? Energy Aura Radiation Armor Bio Armor Shield Defense Invincibility I personally am a big fan of secondaries with a taunt aura, and yes I know I left Willpower out of this...its a solid set just really boring to me. Each their own... The first three secondaries I listed are my personal three favorites. EA being number 1 for me. It gives the least amount of offensive help compared to Rad/Bio but it's super easy to build for and has really really good survivability. All those primaries will definitely take down hard targets. You can not go wrong playing any of those. Fun matters.

Auroxis is actually the person who got me looking at TW/ELE over a decade ago. I do averages without outside buffs. Build only. Always have. I will do fun runs, but if I share them, I will specifically say what I used, or just say it's a LOL run cause really...I don't care what temps I used, or lore, if hybrid was on. If it isn't perma I don't list it. I've gotten times in the high 40s with scrappers. That's why I do averages. Hell, I used to AVERAGE in the low 50s with TW/BIO before TW (rightfully) got the nerf bat. Hoo boy that set was OP.... If I just listed my best? There is zero way it would be believable. @aethereal brings up a very interesting point about stalkers. Their playstyle is VERY different when compared to scraps/brutes. I do wonder if Brutes had a very different playstyle if their measurable sub-par performance would be as much an issue.

What? I'll just ask again. Has anyone else noticed more runners?

A picture is worth a thousand words... Anyone else noticing more runners lately? *It's something I've noticed in the last two major patches and it seems to be really noticeable this one. This goes with the melee hate the devs for HC have made themselves known for.

OMG that's gold.

I personally have toyed with this before and completely forgot it's a viable option. I forget why I didn't do it, probably something to do with set bonuses. Either way, I know I am going to look at this again for my DM/SD for sure. *yeah. I'm editing it. Before, I had the full ATO2 set in it. Doing this: I only lose 10% recharge and 4% DMG. Thanks for the idea.

There haven't been any significant changes that would not make the synergy of these two sets bad. Shadow Maul is bad. Real bad. Some people argue that it isn't. They're entitled to their opinion, no matter how wrong it is. Dark Consumption...skippable but still good. I know any time I have personally taken it I've slotted it for an extra AOE attack. Touch of Fear? It used to be skippable but now it's pretty much mandatory. Proc bomb it out and it's REALLY good for AOE damage. Siphon Life...I've seen it slotted for healing. I personally don't agree with this since the base damage is so high on the attack. Each their own. I normally put the ATO2 here. SR? You want everything except maybe the T9. Elude is good, but not necessary if you are soft capped. It's fun. Bout it once you are capped. The two resistance uniques really are good for SR to have. @Uncle Shags "Also, much of DMs damage reputation is based on testing with Soul Drain hitting one target. When it's saturated and perma it's awesome." I've actually tested this. Fully saturated soul drain? No. It does not make the set awesome. Makes it, at best, on par with other mediocre sets in terms of performance. Soul Drain needs a serious look at.

This. SR is a good set. Really good set. Dark Melee? In terms of performance? Not so much. Not to say it isn't a lot of fun (easily one of my favs), but if you can't ignore performance, it does not have it.

As someone that actually really likes to drop pylons, I agree with this big time. Granted, it IS an indicator of what to expect when doing other stuff. I have zero builds made just for dropping pylons, so if I drop a pylon and the AT/combo doesn't do that well in regular missions...I want my time back.

I have a WM/SD and very much like it. I put the ATO2 in Clobber. Yes, Clobber is dumb awesome but the proc has the highest chance (I think I'm remembering right?) to go off in that attack so that was my logic with it. Build Up. Clobber. Crowd. Whirling. Ball Lightning. Shield Charge. Mob dead. Bosses low. I've got a Space Marine (Ultra) and steampunk Captain America costume for mine.

I'd like this too, but that is a massive undertaking. I did it with Scrappers only for ST times and that was...a lot. Doing all three ATOs and then doing a full map clear which could range from 3-5 minutes? Yikes. I do not volunteer.

Katana is fast fast fast CHONK BS is CHONK CHONK CHONK CHONK Both look awesome. Play to flavor.

It is, but new Trapdoor times aren't viable any more, and I collected times on my scrappers before the changes. I made the brute after. And anecdotally, I can definitely say my scrappers are doing way faster AOE times then my brutes. And that brute I have as an example? A Fire Armor brute. It just can not out pace my scrappers in any damage scenario. Both brute ATOs are pretty crap, with the ATO2 standing out as WTF levels of bad. ATO1? Whats the point? ATO2....really? Were they even trying when they came up with it?

I already had issues with ATO1 for brutes. I didn't need a reminder why it's bad too. 😄

I am crap at articulating what I want to say. With that said, no. I have way to much collected data and more then two decades of play time to agree with this (yes, this includes when the live servers were down). Scrappers do way more than just 30% compared to brutes when both are fully kitted out. Lets's use my fastest recorded average for scrapper and then brute for example. 61s vs 122s. You don't even need to do the numbers to already know that'smore then a 30% difference. But for fun's sake...going to anyways. I'll just keep it really simple and do 61 / 122 = 0.5 That's 50%. No, a Brute will NOT do the same, or edge scrappers out in terms of DPS in long fights, without ATOs. This used to be the case. Hasn't been that way for a long long time.

I don't like the combine brute/tanker idea, but that's just an opinion. Now...give Brutes the VEAT treatment...I feel like this is going somewhere. The HEAT/VEAT treatment minus the BS voids. Like how defenders do more DMG solo then when teamed. Maybe more/less resistant and more/less damage as there are more members of the team? For each member boost their max HP AND give them full max HP? Whereas solo they have the current max HP and their HP hasn't moved past accolades/bonus etc.? And a noticeable DMG % difference when solo and it slides to less and less via each member on the team? I like where your idea is at and I'm thinking it could go places. Or make the ATO2 not hot garbage and make it do that or something similar. My other idea for ATO2 to not be hot garbage is for it to have a chance to proc a shield that reflects all damage back for X amount of time. It would boost survivability AND damage. Obviously, this could very much favor resistance based sets, but when it procs on a defense based brute it would be god mode.

Broad Sword is a cool primary. Fire is a cool secondary. I imagine the two have good synergy for deleting things.

I haven't used it as a revive yet, just as a massive heal so far.

After playing around with it more, I totally have to agree on this now. It's almost as mandatory as Meltdown in Rad Armor to me.

No, it is not a good power. Does it have the most burst/frontloaded in the set? Yes. Does it have a higher then normal crit chance? Also yes. Does this make it good? No. It has a really long animation time for the DPS. So, I don't think it is. The animation looks cool, but so many attacks in Claws are fast charging that the ones you really want are more then likely going to be recharged during the animation and waiting.

That's actually a great, almost perfect example of what I am trying to talk about. And I've seen that with this game a LOT. I don't think I've ever kept engaging with someone when they say that one. I don't get it, but when someone says "for my concept" with stuff like auras I can accept that logic. Like it? Nah. That's me. But still, not my meadow and not my unicorn. That one though? Umm...OK. I only have experience with Psi Armor on a Brute. The armor does feel very versatile, that's for sure. I can, and have, definitely been in some situations where I was sweating something came off recharge in time. The set feels like it makes use of multi layered surival methods quite a bit. Aura of Insanity. You take this. It definitely doesn't drain your HP in any way enough that I've noticed. In fact, I don't think there is anything in the set you can skip except for the T9. Which is still good.

I stopped, years ago, trying to reason with people. I've been doing the fitness thing since middle school (elder millenial now...). It's one of the things I've been doing longer then playing this game. I've held world records and helped multiple people achieve world records. I still get people wanting to argue with me that a low protein diet is super optimal for muscle gain and physical performance even after they know what I have achieved. So when someone says they skipped a cornerstone of a set and give reasons as to why, I just shrug my shoulders and move on.