Yomo Kimyata

I'm not sure what the dick move is here. Is it that someone else bid 10,000 for 5 or more common salvage, or is it that someone else didn't post common salvage when you wanted it at or under your price point?

10,000 is the cap. I'd be willing to bet that there common salvage offered significantly lower than that. 10,000 is just what someone paid for the last five.

Your supposition is correct. I like to play scrappers with layered mitigation. My top secondaries to play are Bio and Rad Armor for a whole lot of reasons. I rarely play a character with soft cap defenses, but I'm usually 35%+ on melee. The one I'm spending a lot of time on right now and the one I'd use for Barracuda is my Ice/Rad.

Hmm, that's a horse of a different color. I guess I can just try to solo it on a scrapper (or stalker) then, but it might just be too much for one scrapper to handle. But now this has me wondering about what I would most want from a passive support (one power on auto, toggles, a prebuff/debuff/summons) character of any AT.

I made the Passive Aggressor as a Dark/Rad tanker. The premise was a character that never used an active offensive power. There’s a write up in the tanker forum a number of pages back. I was considering making a scrapper under the same premise now that you can get damage auras at lvl 1

I’m not willing to parse attacks to figure this out statistically, but it shouldn’t be too hard. outcome 1: attack misses (proc is irrelevant) outcome 2: attack hits, proc hits, proc activates outcome 3: attack hits, proc misses (proc activation irrelevant) outcome 4: attack hits, proc activates outcome 5: attack hits, proc does not activate 2 and 3 are irrelevant if there is no hidden to hit, and you should be able to calculate the probability of everything else. I say you because I ain’t doing it!

Icicles leaps to mind.

It really makes more sense, but I was trying to think outside the (dual) box! I did indeed forget to add this in, as well as Shield Wall proc and Kismet proc. Normally they all go in Combat Jumping for me. Good catch! Again, not a power I'm used to. I was going for the set melee defense bonus rather than for any real type of damage expectations from the pet. I'll have to check it out! This is here mainly because this build would be a real stinker in terms of endurance burn, and I could see for a long fight swapping away from the scrapper to the defender to reapply things like AM and LR (and Misdirection for 15 seconds of -dam res!) and maybe needing Power Sink to recharge. The mag is only good for minions, it is true, and I seem to recall reading that when they added hidden accuracy checks to procs they only did it for damage procs. All good thoughts, thank you!

There’s another old saying I’ve used more than I care to admit: “We’re losing money on every trade, but we’re making it up in volume!”

Leadership is good for values and some status resistance, but I don't need much help on my base scrappers. I haven't figured out a way to post Mids builds nowadays, but you should get the gist from this: unseen is two slotted health (Panacea and Miracle) and two slotted stamina (Perf shifter proc + end mod). Stealth is not toggled since I haven't figured out how to get the interrupted values to represent. Considering Grant Invisibility rather than Infiltration. and the order is simply how I mashed it together this time.

Well, I have to get the defender to 50 somehow so I'd like to have the ability to play organically, but for this specific purpose, I really only anticipate using a handful of powers. Lots of mules. Elec is mainly for Voltaic Sentinel. Mu is for an endurance help in Conserve Power. maybe Power Sink, maybe Summon Adept. The build I'm currently planning has Kick 6-slotted and brawl 5-slotted! Pools are Concealment, Sorcery, Fighting. It's a fun intellectual exercise!

This was my thinking. For an AV fight, the prebuff would be more of a predebuff. Lay down RI, EN, LR (reapply when needed) and put either RA or AM on auto (or reapply AM when I reapply LR) and have VS out as a bonus. Maybe Summon Adept from Mu as well. Honestly, I think I would only need the pocket for the AV fight in this case. My scrappers are pretty tight.

Exactly. I almost always look at Health and Stamina as blue bar fillers rather than green bar fillers. I vastly prefer active heals rather than passive ones! Although I'm going to rethink some things. It seems to me that defense-based builds are more popular in general than resistance-based builds, and I see a bunch of reasons for that. It's easier to soft-cap defense, you can get away with 3-slotting defense powers but not so much for resistance powers, scrappers and stalkers bump up against the 75% cap, and resistance-based sets don't generally have defense debuff resistance baked in. But high regeneration works far better with resistance builds than defense builds, since the damage coming in is is smaller chunks and easier to passively heal. As always, it's nice to rethink some of my assumptions!

This is really some great stuff here, keep it up my froods! A specific point: Yes. It's in the name! However, I just reserved Pocket Mastermind as well. I figure I need both these special powers to succeed, so in theory either defender or mastermind will do. And so I will probably start another thread on the MM page later on, but I'll need to think on that! I'm not as well versed in MMs although I have a few of them, and I recall I really enjoyed my Beasts/Traps which I think is my only 50.

Good to know, thank you for shedding light on the process!

My autopilot varies on whether or not I made a Mids plan in advance. If not, I start with Panacea proc in Health and Perfshifter proc in Stamina as soon as possible (lvl 7 and 17 respectively, both attuned). Then add slots as I need them (Miracle proc in health, perfshifter end mod in Stamina). If I'm planning ahead, or respeccing, it depends on how endurance intensive I think/know the build will be. I try to avoid adding epic pool, like Body Mastery for scraps, unless that's really the only legit outcome. I also try to avoid depending on Ageless in the hybrid slot (although that is almost always my choice) since I don't want to have to depend on that crutch if I'm playing below 50. I'm working on the respec of a War Mace/Ninjitsu scrapper right now, and I know that to be a very endurance needy build. So I'm going to legit 6-slot health (Panacea proc, Miracle proc, Numina proc, Regen Tissue proc, 2x lvl 50+5 Heal IOs) and 3-slot Stamina (Perfshifter proc, Perfshifter end mod, Power Transfer proc.) Zeke makes a good point about Preventive Medicine proc, and the set also has nice set bonuses from the get go, but on this build I have it placed in a pre-req junk power.) When I get around to it I'll note how well it works!

well, I guess YOU are gobsmacked now!

I'm looking to build a support defender, but a specific type of support defender. I've done some work here on the forums and just read the Ultimate Support thread. I'm familiar with all the defender primaries and secondaries with few exceptions but not expert. Having just picked up the handle Pocket Defender on Excelsior, I'd like to build one, and I'd like your thoughts and advice. This is not a contest. I just don't have time for that anymore. I'm happy to give anyone inf if they send me an in game email at @Yomo (anyone gets 100mm per global account. If you want more than that either make a really cogent argument or ask me how to make the amount you are looking for.) But please make that request via ingame email. Here are my objectives: - I want an alt that I will log on with on my second account and autofollow one of my scrappers. The scrapper will be built to solo just about anything soloable, so I'm not looking for +30% defense shields or +50% resistance shields. Assume the scrapper will benefit from any buffs but I'm not going to rebuild it to only work well in partner with this defender. - Must be a defender. - Only one power on auto, so no macro stuff. - All incarnate stuff would be used passively. - I will be spending almost all my effort on the main account, but before a big AV(s) battle I would probably switch to the defender to buff/summon/whatever. I do not anticipate switching accounts during a fight, even to rebuff/debuff. But it would have to be really worth my time since my attention span is short and I'd rather play the scrapper. - I'd like it to survive in follow mode as we move towards end battle, so good survival stats would be nice. Basically, I'd like to be able to self-duo the Barracuda SF, and beating Reichman with only one active character. Scrapper/Defender team seems to make the most sense based on what I read. I've got an open mind on this. I'm thinking initially Rad/Elec/Mu. Lots of toggles, and tailor-made for Musculature Alpha. What are your thoughts, oh wise ones?

So wait, all we need to do to reverse an arbitrary generic-ed decision is to publicly post here on the forums?

I just picked up Pocket Defender on Excelsior and frankly I'm gobsmacked.

I hate to ask this 77 pages in, but there is no way I'm going through 77 pages so I am relying on your kindness: Has anyone aggregated a rough series of incremental values for various settings/powers, like Core Musculature on Scrapper adds +x DPS or is y% better than without. Or Death Shroud, or Assault Hybrid, etc. I know it would depend on the remaining powers, etc. etc. but I am wondering if certain aspects of a build are much more significant than others.

I could see a case where someone thought that the three-piece bonus from Synapse's Shock was worth it for an additional 10% slow resist, but that's a stretch.

Rest

One other niggle: I kind of wish you could convert merits INTO vanguard merits. I know that they drop like water when you are doing MSR, but I rarely do those, and when I'm doing Mender Ramiel's arc I rarely have 50 Vmerits and so get stymied by $%#%$ Vanguard Colonels and can't afford a Curse Breaker.

Fair enough on the base building part -- I just want prestige as a pure inf burning mechanism (and maybe one to keep score by...). Leave all the base stuff free. Short of deleting items or characters, there aren't a lot of real inf destroying activities. Even the /AH (which I use even instead of emailing myself stuff) only takes 10%! As to your second part, that's the developer conundrum. Even a small number of minmaxxers (and I am specifically not using the term exploit here) who know what they are doing and more importantly care about it or enjoy it have a outsized impact on the economy. And there are lots and lots of people who don't *want* to do this extraneous stuff to be able to afford the items that they do want. It's a sticky wicket to be sure. That's why I do my giveaway -- it's a lot of inf for someone who just wants to get through the game, but it's not enough inf to bring out the minmaxxers to try to bankrupt me!