Blackjoy

No, that's not true. Let's look again what Aetheral said... A Scrapper does better much better upfront damage compared to a Brute. And when a Brute is resting "mostly due to health concerns" their Fury isn't up. That means a Brute is going to burn more endurance than a Scrapper in defeating mobs. So no, there is a substantive difference playing Brute vs Scrapper when you're having to rest for Health and can't run the whole mission with max'd Fury, and that's exactly what I had to do playing /Shield. So no, the endurance experience will not be the same. Again, I'm playing these sets with IO's and no Tough/Weave so I can see what the set can do, not what my build can do.

I'm not making any claims about /Regen on a Brute. And Brute's and scrappers play differently. I played a Street/Shield Brute and Shield was terrible 1-35. I was constantly low on health and low on endurance. Having to take a knee frequently. I don't think I've every had to take a knee on my SM/Regen scrapper and that's pushing +3. Actually, I probably have after Sappers, but I'm not 100% sure.

No, you're just flat wrong. There were several benchmarks done that showed /Regen outpeforms other sets. You're just ignorant of them. Either you are just really bad at playing /Regen, or you've never actually played it such that you can accurately compare it to other sets. Eeryhing you've posted is recycled rhetoric from other posters. I went out and actually played /Regen and compared it other sets. I never cared for it on Live, but someone made the same claims you are making now and I went and played the set and realized how much misinformation is out there. That, and the fact that they metric people wanted to consider is the 50+ game with mega million Influence builds. Either way, believe what you want.

Those toggles add up and are constant. If you aren't bankrolling, the fights take longer when you aren't max slotted for Dam+Acc. Those defensive toggles slow down recovery during fights and slow down how quickly I can move on to the next group, assuming my health is not an issue. /Regen is adding an +Recovery power AND its only using one toggle. It makes a big a different when you're not getting set bonuses and/or bankrolling. No one has said anything about what is the right way to play. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm pointing out that the circumstances determine your experience and posters aren't always comparing apples to apples. Two /Regen's can have completely different experiences with the same set if one is constantly teamed with a FF or Sonic defender and the other isn't. So yes, people need to pay attention the the circumstances under which they play when talking about their experiences and readers need to normalize what they read. Case in in point: You're talking about what happens at lvl 50. No average player is spending millions on their build at lvl 35. Not everyone wants to spend hours of their game time working the Auction and trying to grind out money. If you want to have a baseline, then you play all the sets naked. With no power pool mitigation. Then you start adding in power pools and you can see that the benefit of power pools isn't balanced. That's not the fault of the secondary, that's the fault of the underlying mitigation paradigm. I used to think that. But layered protection doesn't make something "better" it makes it more robust. Those aren't the same thing. I've realized that the way to compare Scrappers is via the "I win" equation. What is that? If (Time to defeat me) - (Time to defeat the enemies) > 0 Then "I win" To simplify, TDM - TDE >0 The best sets are the ones that have the greatest value above zero. Secondaries work the TDM value, but I believe all of them try to improve the TDE (maybe Invul doesn't? or does it get +to Hit per mob?). So while a set like WP might have many layers of protection, all that really matters is the I win equation. It doesn't really matter what your form of mitigation is, it just matters what it does to the TDM number. +Regen, +Heal, +Max Health, are all 1 to 1 improvement in TDM (when not being debuffed). -To Hit , +DEF, +RES, those are not even 100% effective when not being debuffed, so they don't contribute universally as does adding more hit points. This is why /Regen can be a one-trick pony and still be effective. This is incorrect. Shield is considered the best set because with enough money and Pool Powers, it can soft cap +DEF and I believe cap S/L +RES (and maybe other things). It's not having the layers that matters, it's capping them. Of course it also contributes to TDE while providing the same amount of +DEF as /SR in fewer powers and tacking on Fear protection as well. If I'm not mistaken, /Shield was a pay-to-win set on Live. So yeah, it was better because you had to pay for it. The hard truth about Secondaries is that the easier you can reach +DEF cap, the better people perceive the set to be at 50+. Soft capping +DEF gives you 95% mitigation to anything that is typed and not auto-hit. There is no other form of mitigation that tops this for scrappers. And going from 90% +DEF to 95% +DEF effectively doubles your TDM number. This is why /Regen gets trashed on the forums. It's really expensive and difficult to soft cap /Regen. It's extremely easy and cheap to soft cap /SR or /Shield comparatively. But none of the +DEF sets can soft cap without Power Pools + Set IOs. And if you try and take /SR or /Shield into 4x8 without PP or Set IO bonuses or Incarnates, you're going to face plant just like /Regen. +RES for scrappers is only at 75%, so it's not as effective at cap. If you combine it with a heal or high levels of +Regen, and don't give it big holes like Psi and Toxic, then it can nearly be as survivable. But like /Regen, you're vulnerable to debuffs, so even a set like Invul relies upon a lot +DEF at higher levels. When I first started playing /WP, I thought this as well. I was like, WP is what Regen was meant to be. But after going back and playing /Regen, I realized that if I was willing to do the work, /Regen was more effective naked. By the mid-30's, my SM/Regen could reliably take on +3s without Tough or Weave. This is with nothing but IOs and one set of Overwhelming Fear in Shred. I can defeat a spawn with nothing but Reconstruction. The only thing that keeps me from killing +4's is accuracy. Since I'm not running Focused Accuracy and don't have a true Build-Up, +4 just take too much time to kill. Now, +2 Nosferatu (as an EB) was unkillable solo. He would consistently floor my Accuracy with Dark Melee and heal himself with Siphon Life. Once DP and IH expired, I could not survive. So /Regen can't do it all naked. But I had similar problems with /SR when you couldn't get +DEF for AOE until 35. So every set tends to have something.

Having run /WP to 50, I'd say it's not. /WP has some sweet spots in the solo progression, but ultimately it lacks something very much needed: +heal. /WP can get unlucky and its +Regen can get overwhelmed. Without a a good +Heal power, when you're in that situation, there's no way to recover. It's not surprising it was given a +Revive power like /Regen.

This statement exposes that fallacy that many subscribe to. ALL scrappers sets get more mitigation from their Set IO bonuses and Tough and Weave than the do from their Secondary. There isn't a scrapper set that can cap +DEF or +RES without Pool Powers and Set bonuses. Go run /Shield or /SR without that extra +DEF/+RES and tell me how many 4x8 mobs you can solo.

It was true then and it still true now. The advantage that /Regen has is that it only has one toggle. And that toggle serves as both its Mez protection and extra +Heal. The other sets you mention run one or more toggles and/or have click Mez protection. I've been running /Rad and it doesn't have near the efficiency of /Regen. I've had to slot Gamma Boost with End Mod and I still run out of endurance in boss fights. /Regen wastes the least amount endurance on mitigation. Now, if you're bankrolling your alts from level 1 and running with full time temp powers buffs, then you might do better than most. But I'm assuming you're buying what you can afford from just playing from 1-20. And again, by lvl 50, everyone seems to solve their endurance issues with Set IO. For /Regen's to keep up, you have to find sets that give something else and I'm not sure there is an equivalency. /Regen would have to get that much extra +RES or +DEF instead of +Recovery and I'm not sure if it's out there.

I realize the OP may have already made up their mind, but I'll add some perspective. I've played /WP /Regen/ /SR up to 50 and am now doing /Rad at lvl 40. I've solo'd this toons with non-Set IO's and no Tough/Weave/Combat Jumping. At level 50I I've run ITF and other TFS. I can tell you, unequivocally, if you want to solo from 1-50 and you actually want to play those levels and do content, /Regen is by far your best choice. /Regen will fall off after 40 due to debuffs, but if you want to invest in Set IOs, you can compensate. If you want to do solo 4x8, then go /Shield or /Rad and be prepared to spend around 200-500m on a build. /Invul is probably really good on some mobs, but Psi and Toxic will be problematic. You can do pretty well running /SR, but Shield and /Rad have higher ceilings. The best build I've seen is /Rad. If you want to solo +4 AV's, don't go /SR. For anyone who reads scrapper threads and is looking for people giving advice on primaries or secondaries, one thing that you have to recognize is that 97% of the opinions you hear, are about what happens at lvl 50. The experience people have with the 50+ content is what dominates the popular opinions, this includes the trashing on /Regen. If you are more about the journey to 50, then most of the advice on these forums is demonstratively wrong. If you want to power level to 50 and solo 4x8 content, then the opinions on the forums are more instructive. This is probably the most accurate understanding of /Regen that I've seen on these forums. This is also accurate and it is one reason to not like /Regen. Unlike /WP or /Shield, which you can put on cruise control. /Regen has to be driven. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood for it. This is actually false until other sets solve their endurance problems. /Regen is the fastest killing set when it comes to clearing a missions because of the endurance. You can't kill things when you have no endurance. But around 40+ when sets can solve their endurance issues, other sets will give more benefit to killing.

The problem I've had with Hurricane is that Storm Defenders/Controllers run it without any concern as to whether it's actually needed. One thing I've learned playing Trick Arrow is that you don't need every debuff/buff every encounter. IME, Hurricane's repel makes the party a lot less efficient and killing things. Yes, it can be awesome at pushing mobs into a corner, but that isn't always helpful as it limits access and takes time or pushed mobs off of debuff patches that have been laid down by other defenders. Yes, against AV's or using it as a protecter for back row squishies is great. But I get aggravated when the Storm comes right into the cluster and starts pushing people away from me. In terms of total damage mitigation, it's probably the worst. But from the perspective a player, who generally notices killing speed more than they notice survival time, it's the best. Kinetic gets rated highest by players who team with with it. As a player, you don't notice how much more damage your doing because of the -res from Tar Patch. But when you get hit by Fulcrum Shift and your Damage Boost hits 400%....you notice. Kinetics was a much bigger deal back on Live before all the Set bonuses made Endurance a non-issue for melee and before Incarnates made you 53. Transference was like manna from the Gods. Now, I don't know anyone who has endurance issues in the 50's. Go run one of those TFs where your don't get Set bonuses and you'll realize how big a deal Fulcrum shift and Transference make. Back on Live, I would post "Kin...lft" and I would get instantly invited. Now, I think most players have no clue what Kin does. IME, the problem is Kineticist who won't or tell anyone that they are firing Fulcrum shift....or they don't go stand next to the blasters when they fire Siphon Power. Because of Incarnates and the rampant AoE's, everyone wants to fire off their AoE as soon as possible to get the kills. Long gone are days of blasters waiting for tanks to group up the mobs. Now, Blasters and even Controllers just walk in and nuke. They don't need the damage boost.

If you like being busy, I would recommend Staff/Regen. Through about lvl 42, /Regen has the least amount of down time of any set (on straight IOs). Through about lvl 40, it's one of the most survivable assuming running straight IOs if you can handle the overhead i.e. constant attention and timely clicking. /Regen starts to fall-off in the mid-40's when you can start fighting +3's and +4s. At that point, you're getting hit with accuracy debuffs that are strong enough to neuter you offensively, and recharge debuffs that can lower your mitigation. I would point you to Staff because it has a lot of AoE's require movement and positioning i.e. you'll be busy. Staff also has a set of configuration, like Bio that you can alter based on what debuffs/buffs you want. The downside of Staff/Regen is that Staff works better with a secondary that uses auras. This allows you to leverage Staff's AoE's. /Regen isn't so good against large groups. Bio, ime, is less busy than /Regen and has more downtime. But, it does have more flexibility and is way better if you have to tank. /Rad has better playability than both imo, and probably just as active as Bio with maybe equal uptime. My lvl 47 SM/Regen has almost zero set bonuses and does not use and power pool mitigation or inspirations. I can handle +3 with little to no trouble. But +3 EB's that debuff are sometimes nearly unkillable . For example, regardless of Inspirations and occasional use of Shadowmeld, I could not kill Nosferatu at +3 as an EB. He would hit me twice and essentially floor my accuracy. I also find SM rather underwhelming. It lacks utility and the bleed damage doesn't make up for that, ime. SM does help regen with the +recharge boost form stacks. And because SM's thing is "bleed" damage, it keeps the bad guys upright for longer meaning you take more damage, or waste endurance on extra attacks to quickly kill stuff that would eventually bleed out. As an FYI, I've been leveling up an SM/Regen (now lvl 47 or so), KM/Regen (low 40s?), and Staff/WP (50). I've also played BIo and Shield and SR and Rad.

I fought the Woodman and +0, IIRC, without any Insp or Incarnate toggles/clicks. He wasn't that bad. But it did take me a long time. I tried some 801.2 solo. I think I got through two spawns using everything at my disposal (including Elude), but Insp. I think I cleared the first spawn without a death...and then died like four or five times on the second and third spawns and then just gave up. I recall getting the spawn down to the Elite Rangers or something and they were nearly being unhittable with just Focused Accuracy.

I've been working my way through secondaries lately. I"m playing them naked, only using IOs, no pool power mitigation, no Inspirations. Running mostly solo and teaming rarely. So far I've played, /SR, /Regen, /Will, /Rad. On a brute Ive run /Shield I don't use any set bonuses except for Overwhelming Fear. Regen Of those sets, /Regen is by far the easiest to level up and the most survivable, but the least playable. This set takes the most focus to play and can die fairly quickly if you are playing up, and aren't paying attention. By the mid to late 30's, I can solo +3x0's naked. /Regen also has the most up time. The T9 works great for taking non-psi alphas and feels up a fair amount. However, /Regen falls off at the end game because the damage spikes are so high, you won't be able to use DP or IH reactively. Willpower /Willpower started out really strong. But by late 30's it starts to drop off. It has the hardest time with upping the diff because it's +regen aura is a lot less effective against +2/3 solo bosses and EB's. WP is held bak by the lack of a +Heal power. /WP can get overwhelmed, and when that happens, you don't have a way to recover. The T9 is not impressive, imo, and cannot be slotted for recharge. By level 50, with using Set IOs, I can 4x8 some mobs but not all. I also find /WP tough to slot if you don't have Mids. It's not clear whether to go +DEF or +RES. Radiation Armo This is a great set. If we factor survivability and playability, this set edges past /Regen. It has two a +heal, a +absob, and like three powers that affect +recovery. The T9 is one of the most usable and its aura is a +recharge which compliments its click mitigation. The T9 also has +DMG, so with +recharge and +DMG, the set works both sides of the "I win" equation. by 33, I was doing 3x0 with no inspiration. Of course my primary was EM, so that might have helped. Super Reflexes This is the worst experience you'll have leveling up. No +recovery, +heal/absorb, no Fear protection. Until recently, you couldn't get any meaningful +DEF until your 30's. Despite the name, you will get hit. You'll also have get comfortable fighting in the yellow and red, at least against +0's. The passive +RES does work really well against minion type damage and gives you plenty of time to run away. But Boses and EB will punch right through your scaling +RES, which doesn't work at all against Toxic or Psi. So those damage types will cut through you like butter. /SR also has THE words T9. It dramatically increases your foot speed making it hard to manuever and it no only endo crashes you out to zero, it stops recover for like 10 seconds or so. In fact, most /SR's don't take the T9 because you'll never want to use it. One area where /SR does shine is avoiding Debuffs. However, /SR gets lauded because it's so easy to cap your +DEF for the end game. And in the world of scrappers, capping +DEF is pretty close to god mode. My 300m DM/SR can pretty easily do 4x8 solo. Incarnate mobs will give you trouble if you're only soft capping at 45%. Devouring Earth with quartz crystals, can kill you quickly. Ghost Widow can Fear you. That's about it. Shield Leveling up, /Shield is almost worse than /SR. Except it gets AoE +DEF a lot earlier. By end game, Shield if just flat out better. It gives nearly the sam +DEF, adds +RES and +Health, and does it with fewer powers...while adding Fear protection. If you want a better version of /SR...go shield.

Well, that's exactly it. And that's why /SR is kind of garbage against AVs. Eventually the AV strings two or three hits together and kills you. So you need something like Rune or Barrier up at all times. Tough is only good if the damage is predominantly S/L. But even with all that +HP +Regen, you aren't going to survive when you get those double hits. And against a +4 AV, its going to be around for awhile, so it will definitely get those in. There is where Dark Melee's Siphon Life really helps. And that works for getting back to full health, but it doesn't save me when you get two-shotted. I took down a +2 Citadel, without needing Inspirations, by cycling RoP and Barrier. But it took me like two or three tries to figure out the timing. Against +4, I simply don't do enough damage. Dark Melee is not a single target set, especially since I don't use Midnight Grasp. I think I tried a Pylon and was at halfway after 11 minutes. Dark really needs a host of mobs to fuel Soul Drain. I do want to see if all that +Health changes the outcome. I would also like to see someone who has maxed +RES as well try it. But I feel like part of the problem is also my lack of ST DPS. a DM/SR do better with the same primary build, but different build on the secondary. In other words, is it my Secondary that's the issue or my Primary?

Are you on Excelsior? I would love to see the diff. I don't run Tough or Weave on my /SR. But ran against a +4 AV and despite Diamagnetic and running DM, he still had a 11.9% chance to hit. Maybe I got him down to 9% with Barrier up. I still have him on the queue, so would love to see another /SR go at him. Of course the real problem is that my DM build doesn't do enough damage against one AV.

/SR has been my main on both Live and HC. The first time I played /Regen, I didn't really care for it. But then when I tried it again when I made that post about how horrible /SR is to level, someone insisted /Regen was worse. Well, I went and tried it and found out it was an order of magnitude better....leveling up. It's not even close. If you go look at the few people who have done actual stats on the sets, /SR comes in dead last. /SR is great not because of /SR, but because it's so easy to get it to cap and that cap level mitigates 95%-92% of all the non-incarnate stuff you'll fight. Maybe +4 AVs still get 9% chance to hit or something. You just said you only played the "one" /Regen correct? /WP and /Rad are undeniably better than /SR as well. WIth /WP, I could fight +2/+3s and finish at full health and endurance. /Rad is not quite on /Regen's level, but good enough that I almost never have to take a knee. Between the +heal power and +absorb power, /Rad stays at half or more health with a little be of effort. /Rad has like three powers that take Eno Modification. /WP also has a Quick Recovery type power. But sets like /Shield and /Dark Armor are just as bad as /SR. /DA is probably worse. But shield is way better than /SR overall. Aside from the Fear protection, set can even waste a power for attack and one for helping allies. I'm talking about building one for end game content, soloing 4x8 solo. It's no trivial thing to get to even 45% defense for /Regen or 75% +RES. I'm sure the average build doesn't get any where close. I don't have mids and I was easily able to do it on my /SR.

I had a Claws/regen on Live...never enjoyed it that much. But I rolled a SM/Regen here, and I was blown away on how much better /Regen is than /SR. /SR was even worse on Live when I was playing (no passive +RES), but I guess I wasn't fully dialed into Regen on Live and I also didn't have any coin to IO it out by lvl 30. I am curious what you are frustrated by on your /Regen? Do you not like the constant clicking, or you don't feel you are durable? /SR will be a FAR worse experience leveling up than /Regen unless you are farming. If you like like taking a knee after every fight, then /SR is for you. If you like having to run for your life when you get low, then /SR is for you--the passives really do help with running away at low health. I think the problem people have with /Regen is that you must actively play it and the timing windows are variable. You really, really, have to understand what you're fighting and have a sense for the damage spikes you'll encounter. Also, Slows are really deadly for /Regen, way more so than for a set like /WP, whose mitigation is entirely unaffected by slows. If we are talking about the journey to 50, You might like /Rad or /WP more than /Regen. I found /Rad, has a lower upside, it has a more linear survival curve, on account of being +RES focused. It has click healing, three powers that generator +recovery, and one of the most usable T9's in the game. At lvl 35, my /Rad was able to solo +3x0 I could do that on my /Regen, but it took a lot more work and I was reliant on DP and IH being up, and wasn't nearly as reliable. Some of that may be that I am EM/Rad, so that worked better for small groups. /WP is like the /SR of +Regen. /WP has a more linear curve than /Regen, but lacks the "oh crap" mitigation that both /Regen and /Rad have. The upside is that outside of its T9, which is also very crash-friendly, it has no other clicks and as such have minimal overhead. And as mentioned, apply Slow has no impact on /WP's ability to mitigate damage. The down (or upside in some builds) is that both /Rad and /WP have taunt auras. So if you're teaming without a tanker, you may end up taking a lot of the aggro. I've seen that when teaming with a Stalker in the mid to late 30's fighting +3s. My /Rad did much better turning off +Recharge taunt aura and letting the Stalker deal with half the aggro. /WP felt like cheat mode through the early 30s. But by the late 30's, I found that lack of +Heal/Absorb meant the set can get overwhelmed. /WP also struggles against single hard targets on account of the +Regen aura is lacking fuel. I should point out that all my experience as of late has been testing scrapper secondaries without set bonuses (except for Overwhelming Fear in all) and without using Inspirations and without using Power Pools for extra mitigation e.g. no Tough, no Weave, no Combat Jumping. So I am testing the sets as close to naked as I can. i do use straight IOs when I get to lvl 25, but no everything is always slotted up. People laud /SR, but it's because they are always talking about the end game. /SR goes from dog meat to top dog when you start capping your +DEF. /SR is also very, very, very, easy to build. So any average player can successfully build an /SR character and feel invincible, without much effort. It's really hard to get /Regen to do that. Compared with /Regen or /WP, you build /SR to get +55% or higher +DEF, and you can solo 4x8 with little trouble. Finally, as compared with /Regen, /SR is toggle-and-forget. At level 50, when you're taking massive damage spikes on 4x8 teams trying to run 4* ITF, you often don't have the reaction time to fire off Recon or DP, if you aren't constantly watching your health. You can die mid-animation on some longer attacks. And it can get tiresome having to use MoG for every encounter. But if you can gt Barrier or other mitigation buffs from the team, /Regen will experience the biggest benefit.

Ttere's nothing to "understand." Either your numbers add up or they don't. You can't "test" perma-SD at max damage for practical reasons, but you can do the math to see what the upper bound is. It's 150% perma-damage boost....with about 2-3 seconds of down time for casting. My back of the envelope computations say that Any Build-Up based primary is geting an approximate perma 50% damage boost where you'd have enough recharge for perma-SD. That means DM, with perma-SD, would be averaging a 100% damage boost over any other set (with exceptions for things like Kinetic Melee or other primary sets that have weird boosts that I haven't looked at). You can see how he developers might feel DM has to be ess than the other sets by some average for fear it would exceed them if SD were running at max frequently. So it's not surprising if that DM might be designed to have a lower DPS than other sets to account for SD. However, in practice, we can see that Set bonuses and Incarnates are a big part of the damage boost. So if you have a higher base damage, then this can overcome the benefit of perma-SD. If we have DM with a 10 dps attack and we have EM with a 15 dps attack. Perma-SD puts DM at 25 damage where as Build Up puts EM at 22.5 damage. But if both of them are getting another 50% from other sources, then DM only goes to 30, while EM also goes to 30. If we keep adding additional damage boosts, EM pulls ahead. So we can see that if the devs made DM lower in DPS in accounting for SD, they overlooked the fact that all these external damage buffs are benefiting sets with higher base values and overcoming the advantage of SD. So that's why you might see a 150% damage boost not make much difference. If you try that same test with nothing slotted, SD is going to seem WAAAAAY better at max targets. Unfortunately nobody plays with nothing slotted, so DM's intentional under tuning was a mistake, if that's what they did.

ROFL You made clam based on popping reds and tried to assert that proves something. Your math doesn't add up. It has NOTHING to do with opinion. Nice try and excellent Internet debate tactics.

I don't have Mids, so I have no build editor. And even if I did, it's just straight IOs with the exception of overwhelming fear in Repulsing Torrent. Plus, I think the toon is only 38 or so. I can do 2x0 without too much trouble. My lvl 45 SM/Regen can do +3's without too much trouble. Neither of them use Tough, Weave, or any set bonuses outside of Overwhelming Fear. Both of these are /Regens are part of my comparing sets. So I don't use inspiration during the fights. The worst set, by far, has been /SR. I tried some +2's at lvl 27 and I was taking a knee after every fight, and had essentially no hope of beating the boss sans inpsiration. /Rad is turning out to be really good so far. Not quite as good as /Regen, but easily on par wth Willpower.

I did mention SR.

So your FM/BIO/MU is the exact same build and set bonuses used for your DM/BIO/MU build? Your sheet shows a Degen/ZAPP for DM vs a Degen/Zapp/Proc for DB. Some of these show /Moonbeam How do you optimize the recharge for all the primaries if they are the same builds? What is "Degen"? Looking at your sheet, you posted Scrapper DM/BIO/MU 89 558.7 SomeGuy 10x Soul Drain, Average Scrapper DM/BIO/MU 116 458.4 SomeGuy Average, Hybrid off, 1x Soul Drain The 10x Soul Drain DPS should be a 100% damage boost as compared to 1x Soul Drain. Why does 558 not look like a 100% boost as compared with 458? Is Soul Drain using some weird formula for modifying damage. Is the Damage boost just an add on of the base damage? If Smite does 82 points at lvl 50, with full IOs, that's about another 80 pints. Smite with 1x SD should be appox 200 points. So the max SD takes us from 160 to approx 280 . So using those ratios, your 458 DPS should have risen to 641. That would move it significantly up the list. If those numbers are wrong, then it suggests a significant portion of that DPS is already damage boosted beyond IO's .

I'm not sure what this is proving? To answer this question, you'd need to use the same secondary for all the other Pylon tests and use the exact same damage buffs and recharge boosts. Then add another 150% damage boost for perma-Soul Drain. Your spread sheet doesn't actually prove what you claim. It just shows that set combos compared to other set combos, with no clue as to what those builds were running at the time. Back of the envelope calculations...SD adds 150% damage at max...for 30 seconds. It's got 120 recharge, so let's call that perma for the sake of argument. You're essentially arguing that DM, with a perma 150% damage boost, doesn't outperform other sets at single target damage? No way that is true. Let's add in Build Up/Focus Chi...which is 100% damage boost for 10s with 90 second recharge. If we reduce that by a factor of 4 (what you'd need for perma-SD), we get 10 seconds on and 10 seconds off (actually 12.5, but let's be generous). So let's compare all the other sets with a perma 50% damage boost to a perma 150% damage boost. You're asserting that DM still falls short on ST damage with a perma 100% damage boost? Not buying it. I could imagine that on pure ST damage, a set like Energy Melee or War Mace might still be just as good, but that also seems unlikely. If that's happening, it's due to massive recharge allowing those sets to use a damage chain that is non-standard. e.g. cycling ET and TF. The Pylon test results doesn't answer that question one way or another. I'm also guessing the Pylon is resistant to all a damage types equally, so this negates DM's negative energy damage type advantage has over sets that are all lethal or smashing. While I acknowledge that I could still be proven wrong, I stand by what I said. Dark Melee with a perma-150% damage boost is going to out perform other sets (with maybe one or two exceptions) with the same secondary and same set bonuses. You can look at the base damage for DM compared to other sets and it isn't 100% lower. And if I'm wrong, then I'll take another stand that on a combo of max AoE+ST, DM wins hands down with a 100% damage boost compared to the others set (admittedly, i do not know what the average DMG boost is for sets that don't use a Build Up type of power). Shadow Mal + Touch of Fear + Dark Consumption all with 150% damage boost has got to be pretty massive.

It's important to understand that statements made about specifics sets are based on some specific context. I've found that most of the time, people talk about sets in terms of what is happening at lvl 50 and in the context of soloing 4x8. WP, leveling up, is a great set. It has low overhead and with the ample +regen, you finish fights at full health and full endurance. I believe it also has Fear resistance and Pisonic resistance. But unlike /Regen, WP is not great against damage spikes by single hard targets as it's +regen is boosted by mobs. So it's a GREAT set for team PvE. But it relies upon the increased HPs and +RES and +DEF to allow the +regen to win the day. At level 50, unlike a /Regen or /Bio, it lacks a +heal power. So if you try and solo at 4x8, you can quickly get overwhelmed. Strength of Will is some help in those situations, but it is unaffected by recharge. So you have 2 minutes on and 3 minutes off. /WP would obviously be better on a Brute because the increased hit points are leveraged by /WP's method of mitigation, but a scrapper should be faster at killing the hard targets that /WP is weak against. So a scrapper doesn't live as long, but theoretically doesn't need to live as long to win the encounter. Another reason why people probably underrate /WP at level 50 is that it's not obvious how to maximize the set with regard to set bonuses. Compare that to /SR which is straight forward. Historically, the top rated sets are those that cap +DEF or +RES, combined with other forms of mitigation. If you don't have a build that can cap either, then you're significantly underperforming compare to a build that can. I'm betting the average lvl 50 /WP build is probably not capping either.

Can you elaborate on the nature or specifics of the test?

Soul Drain last 30 seconds. 30 seconds of max boost would not put it past other sets on DPS? In addition, the majority of DM's damage is negative energy, so it's much less resisted than a set like MA or Katana. And according to CoD, the crit is all negative energy.