Yomo Kimyata

Extra digits.

Three Kinetic Melee/Regeneration scrappers!

This is a sticky wicket, because I can see two sides here. The question is: is OP's experience and preferred gameplay more important than the hoverer's experience and preferred gameplay? I didn't really read the encounter as trolling. So, I say no, this is a case of two individuals with equal rights who are in opposition. OP asked; hoverer declined. In my experience, unless you are able and willing to force someone else against their will into conforming to you, that's pretty much all you can do. I used to get uptight at having to go to Null the Gull to make sure that people on my team couldn't boost me in ways I didn't want when all I should have to do is ask them once to not give me a boost and then they would never do so again! And yeah, I realized pretty quickly that was foolish. So in my opinion no one's a jerk here, but I would probably have either left the team or turned my graphics down, because getting someone else to do something that they don't want to do generally doesn't work out so well. Unless it's getting more pussycat pictures.

I enjoyed reading this entire polemic! Some of it I agreed with strongly; and some I disagreed with vehemently. But this is your manifesto, and so I will keep my comments limited. You may be Buff Miser, and although I'm not exactly Nerf Miser I do consider myself Meisterbalance Balancemeister. I also realize that in a not-for-pay model, there is less incentive for the powers-that-be to emphasize balance and plenty of incentive for them to buff the hell out of whatever they themselves like playing. I very much enjoyed your description of the "new" Night Widow, and I think your write-up was great. It sounds like you like tweaks and corrections, as opposed to the dolts who daily lament, "YOUR BLASTER DOES MORE DAMAGE THAN MY CONTROLLER!!! I WANT STRONGER PETS AND MORE DPS!" So that's a pleasant change! I don't particularly agree with this sentiment, but the analogy is a good one. The problem with inflation, whether it be monetary or power creep, is that it does hurt specific groups that do not benefit from earning power from the inflation. Buff tanks and high end CoT for example, but then scrappers suffer against the new enemy groups, and the old enemy groups suffer against the newly buffed tanks. And in an environment where everyone feels their opinion (and their playstyle) is the most important one, then powers-that-be seem to have some incentive to buff everyone, if only to shut up the whiners. And then you get real haves and have nots and you bump up against the math of the system. That is, in my most important opinion.

something I JUST learned is that going to the PvP zone Recluse’s Victory from atlas also gives the badge

I'm curious because this makes no sense to me. Are you hoping to flip them, or are you looking forward to level 50? If the former I doubt you will make a decent profit and if the latter I'd buy the non-proc as a level 50 so you could boost it.

You all keep talking about horses, but I'm not seeing any horses.

I also hate to bring this up, but with no inherent recharge, a Call of the Sandman proc has a 45% chance to give you a 15% heal. That's no joke.

To this point, I guess you need to role play a little in your head. Would Luke Cage be a part of stopping Rikti invasions? Heck yeah! On the other hand, there really isn't a ton of level 50 content that isn't specifically incarnate related. Looking at story arcs, you've got Vanguard and the RWZ, which is good stuff. But blue side you've only got five contacts who will give you story arcs at 50. Red side has a lot more, and patron missions as well, but most of those will come through Quro. I get it that passing on incarnate powers is an individual choice, and it is hard to imagine a significant portion of the 50s out there to do so willingly. I've always thought that it would be great to limit each account to a certain number of incarnates, and that is partly due to the fact that it's exhausting seeing all-powerful god-like heroes named Captain Fartknocker and the like.

My style of playing scrappers is mainly through non-defense based secondaries, and by surviving in part through non-standard mitigation. Someday I might write a guide, but this post is going to be my love letter to Radiation Armor, from worst to best. Alpha Barrier; Proton Armor -- these are the two worst powers in the set, because all they do is what's on the label: provide resistance. Particle Shielding -- the third worst power. Provides absorb, regeneration, and unenhanceable recovery. Boo hoo. Fallout Shelter -- mez protection, damage resistance, YAWN. Oh wait, slow resistance!!! Ground Zero -- Understandable to skip if you have enough AoE attacks, MAYBE! 90 second recharge means you can expect to have it up every 30 seconds or so. Slot it with Achilles Heel for softening up the crowd before your next AoE. Slot it with Glad Armor proc for the same purpose. Slot it with Overwhelming Force proc to put them on their asses while you are doing it. Your proc chances will be very favorable, if not maxed. As you can see, I generally use this as a debuff power rather than an attack. What? It heals your friends? Boo! Who cares about them?!? Gamma Boost -- Regeneration AND recovery, and more of whatever you have least of? Debuff resistance?!? Beta Decay -- Are you kidding me? Auto-hit defense and to hit debuff on your enemies. Periodic resistance debuff from the Achilles Heel you put in there. Scalable recharge for you AND a taunt aura? Why don't they just throw in some unresistable damage as well? Meltdown -- Not only does this do a lot of great things, but on a scrapper you will be resistance capped to most things with just the base slot (although I just slot it with 2x 50+5 recharge IOs). Its "crash" is minor. Radiation Therapy -- I don't know where to start with this, or where to stop. There are so many ways to slot this that I wish I could ten slot it. Just don't bother with accuracy, because it has an inherent 300% accuracy!!! You can put your Crit Strikes proc here for activation every 15-20 seconds. And the Avalanche proc for more knockdown. And regeneration for 60 seconds that is enhanceable but, oh no, does not stack three times. Crap! This set is a power user's wet dream, and the only two downsides are the graphics, and that there are so many good powers that you may neglect your primary.

I went with Kilgore Trout.

More or less. It's not a double-your-money kind of play, but it's useful.

I think Cloak of Fear is way underslotted. The inherent accuracy is wicked low and the inherent endurance cost is wicked high, and if I'm going to bother with Cloak of Fear, I'm going to invest in it. Oppressive Gloom is well worth having in conjunction with Cloak of Fear, and you can get away with scarce slotting if need be. Going back to Cloak of Fear, pop an Unspeakable Terror proc in there as well, and you will periodically lay down mag 4 stuns. It's good stuff. I'd also try to invest more in Invoke Panic. It's well worth to get that thing recharging as quickly as possible!

You don't have to be an advanced user to work with superpacks, but it helps. It is generally not a good idea to buy a few packs, then convert the ATOs you get into the ones that you want for your character -- you can certainly do it, but it's significantly more cost efficient to sell what you have and buy what you want. I will generally buy superpacks on new characters, and convert the ATOs I don't need or aren't good selling items (like Kheldian) into something that will move quickly and at a good price. The real value of superpacks is that they put the goodies in your Character Items menu, which is accessible by every character on your account, at all times, even in missions or your base. You'll never need to buy one-off unslotters or catalysts again, and being able to access inspirations is a leeeeetle cheaty!

I heard on good authority that they are replacing the T9 for Empathy with Emote Bomb. 💣💣💣💣💣

It is indeed a hungry hungry hippo. Most of my axe scrappers were started before they made axe into a top set, so my attitude is a little different! I've leaned into the knockdown as a form of mitigation, and don't think I've even softcapped all my defenses. I will put a FF +recharge into Axe Cylcone and Pendulum and I don't bother with Hasten, but it's a set where I will need generally to add some slotting to Health and Stamina. For my Energy Aura, I don't have any problem with my blue bar, but I use Energy Drain often (and have a stun proc in it to further neuter the low level drone of sector 7G).

There is *always* a cheapest way to create something. That said, in the grand scheme of things it's not particularly relevant if one way saves you a little inf or effort over another UNLESS: 1. you are doing this in bulk, or 2. it is important to you. An extra million inf which can be made up in a few minutes playing the game isn't make or break, so no hand wringing is necessary! In my mind, this goes for those who get snippy when someone uses merits to buy something that would have been cheaper to acquire some other way. It's ok if you don't follow the absolute minimum cost path. This is so true for me as well! Nods.

In scrapper-land, I don't actually have a battle axe/radiation armor which I actually find sort of surprising. It should be amazing, and you should hardly need to worry about defenses with all that knockdown. I have two different axe/ninjas due to scheduling error. I'm making one into a thematic hover blaster which is unfairly effective, but yeah, the hide aura is annoying. I want to see my outfit! I don't think I have mastered the art of ninjitsu at high levels of performance yet -- I would appreciate a little more spot healing. I have a lvl 50 axe/energy who is a Carnival nemesis. It's an incredibly strong build. Also for your consideration, how about Axe/Ice? They come for the Axe Cyclone; they stay for the Chilling Embrace!

In my experience, 1-15 goes very quickly. It goes even more quickly when you have three or more attacks. If you can afford SOs, then I will generally slot: accuracy, damage, recharge, damage or endurance. If you need more than four slots to absolutely destroy content that was designed against characters that are either unslotted or have training enhancements in them, well then you may be playing a different game of checkers than I am.

And that, my friends, is a stone cold drag.

This is an incredibly valid point. I also *believe* (i.e., haven't wasted enough time getting data) that the Critical Strikes ATO does not affect Concentrated Strike crit chances (and therefore resetting Power Siphon). I will be happy to be proven wrong, but anecdotally I get about 20% when the CS proc is active as opposed to 70%.

I find it interesting that 80% of your points are literally about power creep of other sets, not about the mechanics or playability of Kinetic Melee itself.

Yobo? YOBO?!? My answer is generally always going to be scrappers, because that’s how I roll. But in general I’d say play something you like and figure out how to make it work. Soloing an AV becomes easier if you throw the kitchen sink of the P2W vendor at them!