Blackjoy

The other day, I fired up m lvl 40 Kin/Regen and took on a +2 Devouring Earth EB...Terra. I was able to defeat her with no inspirations, no power pool powers, no IO set bonuses except for Overwhelming Fear in Repulsing Torrent. Actually it was a simultaneous KO....first time I've ever had that happen on an EB. The set seems pretty decent on damage. But I wouldn't play it with /SR.

Thanks for the post, but I think my main point is that at Launch and not for several issues CoH did not make these numbers available, so nobody was doing the math and figuring out how great Weave would be on top of /SR. More to the point, there was no suggestion or push from the developers or in-game information that the FIghting Pool was intended as a scrapper staple as people would eventually flock to it. That doesn't actually mean that intended for all, or even a majority, of scrappers and tankers to take it when it was created. It's also not accurate as sets like /Invulnerability and / Dark Amor already had multi-layered mitigation, even /Regen had some +RES. Only /SR, at Launch, was pure +DEF. In fact, in teams, I think /Invul was getting more mitigation from +DEF than +RES. And ultimately that statement would be true for anyone who took Tough and Weave, not just scrappers and tanks. Again, my point is that the Fighting Pool was not created as an intended path for Scrappers or Tankers or intended that it be more important to those sets than any other sets. Sure, they expected some to take it, certainly /Regen which had the +Recovery to support a couple of additional toggles. But sets like /SR and /DA were starved for endurance and not until the Fitness Pool became inherent did it become viable. The ultimate points it the game was not/is not balanced around scrappers having to take the Fighting Pool. I don't use it on any of my scrappers and my /SR, built without Mids can comfortably do 4x8. And my /Willpower, also built without Mids can do some 4x8 (because I have no idea how to build a /WP scrapper).

Not really. There are a lot of things that seem obvious in hindsight but apparently were not considered during development. Things like six slotting attacks with Damage, everyone taking Health and Stamina, and people learning the value of stacking +DEF on top of more +DEF. It may have been something I read at some point back during Live, but I got the sense the Fighting Pool was for Defender/Controllers/Blasters to add some survivability and melee attacks. In addition, there are a number of reasons scrappers weren't taking the FP as they are now: 1. It's not hard to imagine the devs not expecting an /SR to invest a bunch of extra feats to get a 3.75% +DEF boost that is a toggle. 2. Remember, you had to buy Health and Stamina as well, so there were fewer open choices if you wanted all your primary/secondary. 3. There were no Set bonuses to push /SR to the cap and really utilize that last bit of +DEF. 4. As I recall, nobody knew the numbers at launch. Crytpic didn't add numbers to the Combat Logs until after several issues. So there was no one doing the math to clearly identify the benefits. 4. I'll also point out that benefits of the Fighting Pool were communicated on the forums....not so much in game. 5. There was no difficulty slider at launch. That is another reason why scrappers weren't looking into the Fighting Pool. No one was trying to make a build that could survive 4x8 because you couldn't do that solo. So no, I don't think the devs added the Fighting Pool expecting it to become a thing for scrappers as it became.

During my /Regen testing, I leveled up a Kin/Regen. Kin took some getting used to, but I found it was decent damage and added a ton of survivability for /Regen on account of all the knockdown (plus I slotted the ranged cone attack with Overwhelming Fear). In truth, I don't think all the Knockdown is all that helpful for /SR. /SR wants to end a fight as quickly as possible. /Regen wants to string it out. If you can get past the animation and the sounds effects, Kin is an interesting set to play. However, I think MA looks way cooler.

Except I'm not trying to "flex", so your comment says more about you than me. I have no love for /Regen. I had a Claws/Regen on live and I never got it past 30. I didn't have any /Regens on HC until someones (some of which are in this thread) started spouting off about how /Regen sucks worse than /SR. So I went and actually....you know....tested them. I had no a priori expectations for /Regen. Contrast that with many people here who are griping about /Regen back on Live before the nerfs. Of course, if that's your standard, then every scrapper secondary sucks, not just /Regen. What I am trying to do is counter the misinformation about /Regen that comes up in every one of these discussions, namely that /Regen sucks because people can't solo 4x8 with the same investment that they put into /SR or /Shield or /Invul. Except I never said that in this thread. So now you're putting words in my mouth because you have an agenda and you're trying to spin it. But I am skeptical the devs designed the Fighting Pool expecting Scrappers to take it. I could be wrong. Either way, it's irrelevant. Exactly. For those of you following the thread...this is where the /Regen sucks people all camp out at. Let me clue you into something. The game isn't ever going to be balanced around anyone being able to solo 4x8. Nor should it. The developers are never going to modify a set because a BUILD (not a secondary) can solo 4x8 for 300m and another one takes 500m....and they both require Mids to figure it out. It sounds ridiculous when you're wholly ignorant of how the math works in this game. Secondaries, largely don't matter. Builds matter. There are any number of Defender, Controller, Tanker, Mastermind, Blaster builds that can solo 4x8. Some do it faster than others, but many can do it. /Regen can do it, it just takes a lot of more effort and money than most. Far beyond what the average player is going to invest. And that's true for all the 4x8 builds...unless you're using someone else's build and your farming to get your csh. Neither of these things are what the game is ever going to be balanced around. Again, this statement is born from ignorance on how the game is designed. +DEF is the THE most effective method of mitigation until you start getting into 4* TFs and running 802 missions. But this is only true because there is so much off-set +DEF you can grab. Without power pools and Set IOs offering +DEF, nobody would be talking about how great /SR and shield are. +RES works great as well....but you'll kindly note there are NO pure +RES sets. Any +RES set also tacks on other forms of mitigation in the form of +Heal +Hit Points +DEF +Regen, etc. +DEF is so effective that for years, /SR only had +DEF. It wasn't until many of us complained about /SR having no other form of mitigation that they added the scalling +RES...which you can't boost and is largely useless against +4 AVs/EBs...and still doesn't work against Psi or Toxic. I will say that in teams with lots mitigation, like Bubbles or Ice Armor, etc. /Regen is dominant because no other set can get comparable amounts of +Heal +Regen. So in a team seting, /Regen has a much higher ceiling than /SR or /Ninjitsu. But now, with Set IO's and Incarnates, you don't need support unless you're running 4* TFs. That's right. IH as a toggle was essentially "God Mod." I was there, I saw it in action. So of course people are going to complain about that being taken away and bemoan the fact that it's never coming back. That doesn't mean the complaints are valid in the context of what CoH is about. What's ridiculous is people are refusing to accept how problematic that was for the game. It's not. The amount of people who complained and are still complaining about /Regen sucking are probably 1% of the total player population. But they come out in force whenever someone asks about /Regen. /Regen doesn't even remotely suck for doing what scrappers are designed to do. But it does require a specific playstyle that not everyone either enjoys or is good at. There are a lot of AT's and sets I don't like and am not effective with. For me, I feel they suck. But that is a subjective opinion, not an empirical one. /Regen isn't ideal for soloing 4x8. But the set is never going to be balanced around doing that content.

Sounds like /Regen is not the set for you.

/Regen not thaving debuff protection isn't a "failing" of /Regen. It's an intended consequence of the design. A developers wants each set to have specific weaknesses that make other sets look attractive. /Regen has minimal debuff resistance, but it treats all damage types the same. /SR is totally ravaged by Psi/Toxic, but it avoids lots of debuffs that have to hit. /SR also doesn't have any endurance management and is very susceptible to big hits from +1/2/3/4 AVs who plow past the passive +RES. Every set has to have an Achilles' heal.

So yeah, that equation is conflating concepts...which leads to confusion 100-90=10% Incoming damage 100-95=5% Incoming damage. So you can see that if you get the terminology wrong, it interferes with conceptualization. There's been years of people looking at how to quantify the different sets. A popular one is called "effective health." I use the "I win" equation. In my method you eventually have to divide your health by the incoming damage per second to determine how long you'll survive. So as the damage goes to zero, your survival time goes to infinity. "I win" if the time it takes the mobs to defeat me is longer than the time it takes me to defeat them. Let's look at a simple example: If my health is 100 hps, and the raw DPS is 10 health/sec. 90% defense means I'm taking 1 point per second and I live 100 seconds....on average. So if I add Weave and now have 95% mitigation, then I'm losing .5 /second and I live 200 seconds....on average. So you can see that adding +5% DEF doubles my TOTAL survival time if I'm already at 90% Now let's look at that on a set with no +DEF powers. 100 health. Losing 10/second. Base 50% +DEF means I'm lasting 20 seconds...on average. Add 5% Weave....I'm getting 55% DEF which means I'm taking 4.5/second. I live 22 seconds....on average. So now you see adding that 5% +DEF to someone near the DEF cap adds as much survival time as all the +DEF before that. The math is simple, but conceptually it can be a little slippery if you conflate terms.

No, it doubles your total survival time. That's what happens when you cut the total incoming damage in half: you survive twice as long. When /SR, at 2% incoming below the cap...can ad another 1% +DEF from a Set IO bonus....you're dramatically increasing its survival time where that same 1% bonus for /Regen is unnoticeable. Go get a spread sheet and set up the calcs. I've done it. It's very illuminating and educational on how OP stacking +DEF is. +RES is almost as good, except the cap for scrappers is a lot lower. I've also seen this in action. About a year ago, recruited people to try out some specific encounters. I recall a Katana/SR that survived one such encounter. I had her turn off Tough....no change in outcome. Then I had her put Tough back on and turn off Weave. She died in like 15 seconds.

That's not how the mitigation calculations work. IIRC, your actual +DEF calc is 100 - (50%+ (your +DEF)). The number is capped at 95% so that's why getting 45% +DEF is the "soft cap." So think of it like this. If you have 40% +DEF. 10% of the damage is getting through. When you add 5% more +DEF, you've reduced the incoming damage to by half. This doubles your survival time. In other words, stacking +DEF is what matters. Adding the same 5% of +DEF to a set at 0% +DEF and a set that has 40% +DEF has dramatically different impact on survivability, despite its the same flat 5%. I'm not ignoring that at all. But the statement is fundamentally flawed. "Dumping" stuff into /Regen is not a reflection of /Regen, it's a reflection of the unbalanced benefits of stacking +DEF/+RES. It's also a statement that essentially requires that you're at level 50 and have infinite funds to dump into. The game was NOT designed at level 50. It was designed from level 1-50. The sets weren't designed to solo 4x8. They were designed to do +0x1....and probably expecting it to go to +2x1 by level 50. /Regen crushes those requirements. /Regen is better than "fine" leveling. It's excellent. What /Regen cannot do is consistently solo 4x8 for the same effort investment that a +DEF/+RES set can. That is not a failing of /Regen, it's failing of the developers for putting so much +DEF and +RES in the pools. That doesn't mean /Regen isn't balanced or that its trash. The standard for scrappers is not, "can you solo 4x8". I've run ITF at 50 with my non-Set IO, non-Power pools, non Incarnate Savage/Regen scrapper and he had no trouble surviving on a team. I didn't have a single death during ITF. But then I'm not trying to run-off and solo spawns....which I can do on my /SR.

lol. So let me get this straight. You want me to ask random people what they think of /Regen and replace my experience with my own in-game A/B testing of it against other sets with their opinions? Sure. I'll get right on that. And FYI, when I do see people playing /Regen, I do ask them what they think and they think its fine. But then they are already playing the set in into the 30s, so obviously they don't think its trash. I've run all the secondaries I listed above to the breaking point. /Regen can easily handle +3x1 by mid 30's. I could do +4's at 40+ if I took Focused Accuracy, but these runs are entirely devoid of Power Pool mitigation, Set IO bonuses (except everyone gets at least 5 Overwhelming Fear), and Incarnates. Though I did use Hasten if I used DP or IH between fights to shorten down time. This is why I put /Nin above /Regen. /Rad can handle +3s as well. /SR is horrible for down time. I have to take a knee after every fight or every other fight. Even using blues and greens after the fight to recover, it is the worst leveling speed by a country mile. The only thing /SR is really good at is running away and surviving. The passive resistances are the best at giving you time to flee, provided you're not fighting toxic or psi. /SR also gets way better now that they made Elude available earlier. This allows the set to take on some of the EBs at +2 with non-set IOs and no Insp. Leveling up, it's way better than the +DEF sets except for /Nin. By the 40's, the vulnerability to debuffing, because I'm running vs +3/4s, and the increased damage output of bosses brings it back down to earth. In order to defeat Nosferatu in the 30s, I had to put it back to +0 and use a bunch of purples. His -To HIt, floored my accuracy and made him almost unkillable for my /Regen. I also failed to fight him with Riptide still alive. Before /Regen's first nerf, the stories are true. Once you got Instant Healing at like 28, which was a toggle, /Regen was essentially unkillable after the alpha. As people posted, you get IH and then you respec. Before that point, /Regen was really bad if not terrible. I specifically remember the developers trying to justify it by saying some sets are good early and bad late and some are the opposite. But Issue 1 /Regen was broken and they knew it...which is why they fixed it. This. /Regen requires active management. A lot of players think its suppose to survive on just +Regen and it doesn't. The correct timing of using Recon and DP are crucial to winning with the set. That's definitely true once you start getting to +2's and higher. /Regen requires a lot more driving than other sets, but the reward is dramatically better up time. But if you're bankrolling a toon and running Set IOs, particularly ones that solve endurance issues, then /Regen starts to get passed by the +DEF/+RES sets. That's because you're not understanding how the stacking math works. When you're at 44% +DEF, that last 1% +DEF you might get from Stealth or Combat Jumping, is doubling your survival time. That's right, doubling the time it takes for you to be defeated. Every additional point of +DEF or +RES is more beneficial than the last. Now, it's not quite that good when you're fighting +Xs becuase their accuracy floor is above 5%. I think +4 AVs hit me at like 10-11%. But /SR going from the 30% +DEF to 45% +DEF from Pools and Set IO bonuses is giving you more survivability than all your secondary powers combined. Granted, its bcause you're starting at 30%. So this is only true from +DEF/+RES sets that are high enough that they can get to the cap. Perfect. Turn off your pool powers, incarnates, and run a mission where you disable your Set IO bonuses and don't use any inspirations. Tell us how you do. Then you'll see how critical that off-set mitigation is.

So I know you already decided /Regen wasn't for you. But I essentially did this on my own over the last six months. Except I used Savage Melee and paired it with /Regen, /SR, /Ninjitsu, /Shield. I also tried Staff/Willpower and En/Rad. I got all of these toons in 40-50 (several to 50). However, before I share the results, let's clarify some things. 1. The problem with a discussion on Scrapper secondaries is that you are asking the wrong question. Or rather, the answer is highly dependent on what assumptions each person is making. Let me show you: a) /Regen doesn't suck. Not even remotely. In fact, it's one of the top performing sets for how scrappers were designed to function. b) /Regen sucks because a small vocal minority of players are evaluating the set based on its ability to solo lvl 50 4x8 content, and acting as if that is the only standard by which to compare the secondaries. 2. Scrapper secondaries who are soloing 4x8 are get 95% of their mitigation from outside of their secondaries. So the irony of the secondary comparisons is not about the set itself, but how well the set can leverage the unbalanced impact of Pool Powers, Set IOs, and Incarnates. 3. NOBODY is consistently soloing 4x8 without heavily investing in a build. Those builds involves either capping +DEF or +RES, or heavily relying on things like cycling Barrier and Shadow Meld. 4. /Regen gets a bad rap because at level 50, it is the hardest set to cap +DEF or +RES and capping +DEF is THE most effective method of mitigation. It's the reason why /SR is considered one of the better sets, even though naked, it is the one of the worst. What is my basis for saying this? Awhile back, I was lobbying to get some quality of life improvements for /SR as a scrapper, as it is one of the worst sets leveling up. Naturally some people insisted /SR is one of the best sets and it wasn't as bad as /Regen (said by the some of same people claiming /Regen sucks in this thread). So I went and tested it for myself. I was never a fan of /Regen on Live. Never liked it. But after soloing on straight IOs to 50, and then doing it again to 40 with another /Regen, I have found /Regen to be just a smidge behind /Ninjitsu for the best experience in leveling up. By level 40 I was easily soloing +3s without using ANY inspiration or ANY power pools for mitigation. I wasn't even using Hasten during combat. This without Tough or Weave or Shadow Meld or Rune of Protection, etc. /Regen far outperforms other sets in nominal game play. But there are some caveats: 1. /Regen requires a high degree of system mastery. You have to know what you're fighting. What status effects they use, how they fight, and how much damage things are likely to do. 2. /Regen puts a lot more load on the player. As you indicated, you don't have the "finesse" to play /Regen. You have to be paying attention to your health bar at ALL times. When you hear that sound of your Toon taking damage several hits in a row, you'd better be keeping one eyeball on your health and knowing when you have to time Reconstruction or use Dull Pain. You have to anticipate the use/need for Instant Healing, because it ain't instant. Contrast this with /SR which is fire and forget. You can put Practiced Brawler on autocast and that's all the attention you have to pay to the set, especially if you're above softcap and you haven't taken Elude. 3. /Regen is highly susceptible to debuffs, as many have opined. This means you have to be very cognizant of who can/is debuffing you and how to stop it or mitigate it. This is especially true when you firght +3/4 and you're getting hit all the time. a +3/4 Sappers will own you. Again, this adds to #2. You have to really understand/know the game. Are you wrong for not liking /Regen? Not at all. /SR at softcap is so much easier to play. You just roll into almost anything you want and start punching. But leveling up an /SR is one of the worst experiences, imo. The real problem with /Regen on the forums is you can't his the +DEF cap...and least not when Shadow Meld is down. So this makes it much harder to solo 4x8 and as a result, you have people who trash the set. And let me point out, that I played the these sets without bank rolling them. So if you're pumping Set IO's into /SR or /Shield from Day 1, then those sets are going to be a lot better than if you're only adding IOs when you can afford them on your own. The best set I've played leveling up is /Ninjitsu. I was soloing at +3 by the 30....WITHOUT Inspiration (though have used the to fight EBs) and without Set IOs (except for Overwhelming Fear which I put in all the other toons, so it's the same for everyone. I also have not used any Tough or Weave on any of these builds. /Nin is the hybrid of /SR and /Regen. It provides enough +DEF that you aren't ravaged by debuffs and it has a click heal and click endurance which means my uptime is a smidge better than /Regen. After /Regen, I'd probably vote /Rad as the third best leveling up. It doesn't have quite the uptime of the top two. /Willpower is not that great unless you really pour money into a build. It lacks a +Heal and that makes it very susceptible to being rushed-down after an Alpha. Plus, it's T9 sucks.

Debuffs don't really come on until the 40's. And that's if you're running +3s. The reason people talk about debuffs a lot is due to a few specific circumstance's: 1. Sappers. Anyone who runs a non +DEF scrapper quickly learns about Sappers when they get to Peregrin Island and you generally won't you start fighting the Malta until Peregrine Island, so they have a minor impact overall. But even +0 level Sappers can cause problems. 1.b Carnival. These guys die and drain endo. A few of them seem to have some serious endo drain powers. 2. Cimerora (ITF) - The popularity of the ITF in Cimerora running at 4x8 has exposed the player base to the wonders of defense debuffing. It's a rude awakening for many a /WP and /Regen scrapper/Brute/Tank who thinks their capped +RES and non-set +DEF is all that. You can tack on all the CJ+Weave you want, and those +4 Bosses will eventually hit you and then the minions get on you like piranhas and you're faceplanting in like 10 seconds. This is why people talk about Defense Debuff Resistance like it's some holy trinity of /SR. It's not. Outside of Cimerora, there isn't that much defense debuffing. Yes, IDF troops can do it, but Cimerora is on a whole other level of DD. In fact, even /SR can be totally debuffed. Take your /SR at soft cap and turn on all your /SR powers and sit in a group of 4x8 with multiple bosses. If you just stand there and take it, they'll bring you down in about 30 seconds and they will have debuffed your defenses tremendously. Yes, /SR's DDR helps, but it's overblown on account of that single ITF. 3. Slows. Slows are the bane of click sets like /Regen. Slows come on much earlier than other debuffs and they are more impactful because they are hurting a /Regen on both offense and defense. Fortunately /Regen has Instant Healing and MoG which can bail you out of a bad situation. 4. Negative To Hit. You feels this more from specific bosses and elite bosses, and things like CoT Death Mages and Spectral Knights.

The drawback, IMO, is that it takes longer to get through missions. Sure, you have more survivability, but it comes at the cost of killing speed. The point is that many of "other sets" have endurance granting abilities, /SR, /Shield, /Dark, /Invul/ don't have +recover/Endurance. All the other ten secondaries have some sort of +Recovery, +Endo, or Endo Discount. You're talking about lvl 50 and I guarantee you're not running a straight IO build. With procs and set bonuses, nobody should be having endurance issues. None of of my scrappers have endurance issues by lvl 40 if I buy recovery procs and get set bonuses. The OP is talking about a leveling up....not the end game. /SR will have health and endurance issues running IOs "leveling up". Be prepared to take a knee....often.

As it turns out, DM/SR has been my main on both Live and Homecoming. And while I love the set, it would not be my top recommendation. You haven't stated what difficulty level you want to run at, but assuming you're mainly interested in nothing higher than +2 by level 40, given these stated goals, I will tell you that you should absolutely run Anything/Regen. For the last six months, I have been testing out the various secondaries with the same primary--savage melee. I have been running nothing but IOs, with the sole exception of fully slotting Overwhelming Fear in Shred on all toons. If you don't like /Regen, then I would recommend Radiation Armor. Bio is also probably a good option too, though I have only tried it on a Tank. I've tried /Regen on a few different primaries and it is, by far, the best solo experience I've had. /Rad is good as well. It doesn't have the big hit recovery like /Regen, but it does work well. At the bottom of the list is /SR and /Shield. I used to think /Shield was superior to /SR, but when it comes to leveling, /SR is actually better. 1) The scaling passive +RES are far better at giving you time to run away compared to /Shield fixed +RES. And you will be running away a lot as an /SR on IOS. 2) With the recent change to allow Elude to be taken earlier, /SR has the Oh Crap power that is like an "I win" button in those mid-30s. Far more effective than /Shied's Tier 9. The one major caveat with /Regen, however, is that you HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION. This cannot be stated enough. /Regen requires a LOT more user input to maximize and if you're not good at taking in peripheral information--like your health bar in the middle of a fight--then you might hate /Regen. /Regen is very click-intensive. You have to anticipate incoming damage and know when to hit Recon, Dull Pain, Instant Healing, Moment of Glory. One of /Regen's powers is a Rez and you will use it if you start fighting +2 or higher, early on. There are a lot of issues with DM/SR...and they mostly come from /SR. That main problem damage mitigation. /SR is only getting about 28% +DEF from its active and possive positional defenses. But you won't fully get that for all position groups until your 30's. Which is to say that in the early levels you're going to get hit. You'll get hit more by Bosses and EBs and those bosses will have the double whammy of blowing past passive resistances. AV's will have you for lunch on IOs. Sure, by level 49, /SR, on IOs..you could soft cap with Stealth+CJ+Maneuvers+Tough, but you'll be passing out due to the lack of endurance and Dark Consumption is not going to stop that given how many slots you'll be putting into those other abilities. Having leveled all these other secondaries, /Regen, by a country mile, has the most uptime. On an IO build, by level 40, I could solo 3x1 with Reconstruction and Fast Healing. Mez effects are not an issue for scrappers, except for Knockback on some secondaries. The real issue for a set like /Regen once you get past 40, are debuffs. -To Hit from bosses (I'm looking at you Nosferatu) can be crippling for /Regen. But that's true for other sets as well. The reality is that even as an /SR, those EB's are going to hit you and debuff you. The biggest scare for /Regen are Malta Sappers. But you can tactics your way through that. And it's not like /SR doesn't have it's own kryptonite in the form of non-positional psi, toxic, and Quartz crystals dropped by Devouring Earth. I never take the Fighting pool on any of my scrappers--EDIT: I've taken Tough on my SM/Regen, but never slotted it and never turn it on. But most people do. I would say it's absolutely not necessary unless you want to solo 4x8 and solo AVs. I've done both of those things on my DM/SR without any Fighting Pool, but I can imagine there are other DM/SR builds that can do more than what I've done using the Fighting Pool. But I'm not doing those things on IO builds. I use ToF primarily as a control and debuff (though at high levels, it probably does very little debuff against 4x8). It's actually really good with crowd control and I put a KD proc in it. I can imagine if you proc it out, it can do decent damage, but you said you're not going to go deep into a build. So yes, ToF is a great method to mitigate damage. It is probably better on DM/Regen build than a DM/SR because /Regen is all about slowing down the rate of damage...where /SR doesn't want to extend the fight. My issue with Brutes is that you are forced into a go-go-go style of soloing. On an /SR, you'll be taking damage and need to take a knee from time to time, and that will hurt your Fury bar. In teaming, your punch-voke means you'll be taking the aggro if there's no Tank, and that's not always a good thing if you're running an IO build. I also think Scrapper crits are more dynamic and fun. Some builds are definitely going to be more survivable on a Brute e.g. /Regen. But whether the Scrappers higher damage base means they are equally as effective, has yet to be disproven. So if I'm going Brute, I would definitely go /Regen for solo work. I played a Staff/Willpower to 50. Staff also have a Divine Avalanche type of attack. At first, I thought /WP was what /Regen wanted to be when it grew up. But it's not. IMO, for what you want to do, /Willpower is not a good choice. /WP's main issue is that it lacks a +Heal power. While it does have some layered defenses and a fair amount of +regen, you can get overwhelmed by single hard targets. /WP needs enemies to fuel its +REGEN and if you end up fighting Bosss and EB's solo, you can't out heal them. Tough and Weave are probably very helpful to /WP. At 50, /WP probably has a higher ceiling than /Regen. But with /WP you really need to spend time getting deep into a build. Just pumping money into it, is not enough. I'm doing my SM/Ninjitsu run through right now. It's similar to /SR but with a couple of major differences: 1. It's got its own +heal and +Endo clicks. This dramatically improves the up time over /SR. 2 It has a built in Stealth-like power that improves crit attacks and gives you some ability sneak around. 3. It lacks scaling +RES, so not quit as reliably to run away. 4. It lacks KB resistance early on, so this is a little annoying 5. It requires more driving. /SR is fire and forget. /Nin has its click heal/endo, so you're having to devote a little more energy into maximizing the build. If you want fire and forget then you're looking at /WP, /SR, /Shield, and I'll put /Invul closer to FaF than. If you like driving, then /Regen, /Ninjitsu, /Rad, /Bio, /Dark Armor IME, /Rad is a good compromise. I have not tried El Armor, En Armor, Dark Armor, Fire, Ice, Stone. I have very limited experience with /Invul. Haven't played it since Live.