Yomo Kimyata

I'm finding this significantly easier now that this type of project is no longer my first rodeo, and some of that is the difference between tankers and scrappers. Thanks for Yomosplaining, Captain Obvious! The balance has been to stay alive for long enough for your passive damage to take down your enemies, and even with all the crazy buffs tanks have received in HC, the additional damage from scrappers is meaningful. But what is interesting to me is that getting additional proc damage is not nearly as important as getting mitigation in the form of knock* and other mez, and that really fits in well with my scrapper playstyle. At 20, I left Praetoria and went redside -- tougher enemies but easier (eventual) path for various accolades since I'm not going to be able to take down AVs with a double damage aura alone. Currently running at 26. The Medicine and Presence pools are key to hanging in there, and I continue to eschew things like armor until I'll have slots to put to work. That goes for Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom as well, although those will both be game changers in the near future.

Next update: I decided I needed to burn a respec in order to get more active actions on line. Specifically, I pushed off some of my defensive choices and front loaded the Presence Pool. Everything is going to be hunky dorey once I hit 18 and get Quills, but at 14 I've changed my power order to: Barb Swipe (slotted with Scrappers Strike proc); Death Shroud (currently with 1x Acc, 3x dam SOs, Eradication proc, and Glad Strike proc); Dark Embrace; Injection (acc SO, cloud senses proc, impeded swiftness proc); Build Up; Combat Jumping; Provoke; Obsidian Shield; Intimidate. I'll hit 18 later today and hoo boy!

Unlikely, that seems overly aggressive.

Wo ist das flughafen?

You know, I hear you all. "Happy Thanksgiving, Yomo! How are you? What's going on with the Passive Aggressor?" Well, it's really nice to hear from you and I am thankful for almost each and every one of you! The Passive Aggressor? Well, recently I've had a little bit of time to realize that hey, I could make a scrapper now thanks to the softening of rules which allow for damage auras at level 1. And so it goes. I started the Passive Aggressor on Excelsior as a Spines/Dark Armor scrapper. As a gentle reminder, the point of this character is to never use an offensive power that causes damage, and to organically level from 1-50 (and BEYOND!) at regular xp without ever lifting my fists in anger. This time around I went with Spines rather than Radiation Melee since they fixed the overpoweredness of Irradiated Ground. I just dinged 10 as a Praetorian and will give periodic updates as I see fit. So far, at level 10, my power selection has been Barb Swipe, Death Shroud, Dark Embrace, Injection, Build Up, Combat Jumping, Obsidian Shield. I am looking forward to leaning into proc usage. Enjoy your day!

What's wrong with a xxx/Ninjitsu scrapper or a xxx/Ninja Training blaster?

I believe the reason that people hate on KM is not because it's a bad powerset. It's great. But it has two things working against it: the safety it provides via -damage to foes is disregarded because who gives a flying fuck about protection in this meta?; and it tends to have an uncharacteristically long lag when you look at animation time before effect. You want to click a button and kill everyone instantly. Shoot, Smashing Blow has a longer animation time before effect than animation time!!! If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding?

No doubt that we could use more staff skins. Full support on that. As far as improving the set, I'm still against it. Guarded Spin is an absolute monster for survival, and you can focus on things like Experimentation for additional damage. Will other sets give you more damage? Sure, but staff is amazing for survivability. Staff and Titan weapons are the only two scrapper sets that enable an AoE +defense buff, and I'll still take staff over the on again off again nature of titan weapons. For brute and especially tankers, whose survivability is rarely if ever in question, yeah I see how you would not want to play staff. So I guess I'm continuing to call for a tanker nerf.

I'd absolutely frankenslot with Sentinel ATOs then -- your range increase will be muy bueno.

Offense: hmm, Battle Axe/Radiation scrapper Defense: Dark Melee/Ice Armor scrapper Support: Kinetic Melee/Bio Armor scrapper

Great question! I have a pattern that works well for me and my play style (usually solo, play organically as I level, not fearing the respec, having inf to burn): For a single target ranged attack: Step 1: SOs early and often, usually starting around level 5. I will start with accuracy, damage, then recharge or damage or endurance as most needed. I will usually end up with four or five slots in on a power I use frequently pretty early on. And I keep them all in the green as often as I can, which is not cheap for a new character. Step 2: Adding IO procs, specifically one-off things like Steadfast Protection +def or Panacea proc. Step 3: At lvl 17 I'll move into sets with good bonuses, like Unbreakable Guard. I don't have any sets I really like for ranged damage this early since I feel I am better off with SOs still at this point. Step 4: I will start removing SOs and moving into sets piecemeal in my 20s. ATOs, WOs primarily, and I'll split them for 2-3 piece set bonuses. Maybe I'll move into attuned Decimation at this point. Step 5: I'll start to fill in empty slots with things like attuned Thunderstrike to get myself into ED levels on damage or accuracy or recharge. After that, I'll clean things up but usually keep this frankenslot going until 50 before respec.

It’s not like I named it Superfluous Redundancy. Oh, wait, brb

Even after the name give-up, I am flabbergasted to get Superfluous on Excelsior.

I only pay for services rendered. RENDERED. But I do give you massive credit for helping teach me how to build!

A little Thermal Radiation would lube that ice shield up nicely.

Yes, but people will give you lip if they don't like your costume or are standing too close to a portal. I mostly solo, but when I do team I don't even know or care what the powers or ATs are of my teammates. Now, I'm not running 4star content, so I can see how that may be important in those cases. but for anything else, if someone whinges about how I'm not giving them +20 defense to all, I'm clapping back by saying why the hell didn't you build a better character if you need that from me?

It is but I don't recall the location of the listing. Common salvage is 10k, uncommon 100k, rare 1mm, brainstorm ideas 50k, hero/vigilante packs 10mm, winter packs 25mm. There are some more legacy items but I think those are the main ones.

If you don't try every power, how are you gonna know how it performs? This is the way. And then when a power no longer meets your needs, you've learned enough to choose to remove it.

Is this like Galaga? If so, I'm leaving ASS as the high scorer.

S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y NIGHT!

I think the issue here is that every single power would have to have an alternate animation. Each animation needs dozens if not hundreds of frames. That’s a shit ton of work, thousands of hours for dozens of people. For a suggestion? No, I don’t think so.

This reminds me, why the hell haven’t I gotten a fax of Diantane’s newsletter in the past twenty years? Damned lazy millennials…