Culach

I've been playing around on a few characters with Force Field, realized that the customization is lacking, and thought maybe there might be a way to improve them. Currently the forcefields have an oily film appearance, and I was wondering if there might be a way to reskin them to have different appearances such as: - Geometric shapes, similar to the hexagon shields the Praetorian Police have. Great for tech based heroes -Rune Circles floating magic circles for that really magical feel. Maybe steal the floaty runes from Rune of Protection and use some of them here. -Atomic Blobs to keep in theme with anyone running an Energy Blast secondary. I'm thinking this is workable as skins on the forcefields, giving them a new texture, and I was looking at appearances that could possibly be ported in from other powers already in game. I will admit to not being aware of all the technical difficulties involved, but I tried to address some of it by keeping to assets already available and just porting skins over. Others may have good ideas that could be added to this list of possibilities, and someone may understand the tech limitations to explain how the could be done, or why it couldn't.

First, if basing on concept, go with Scarlet Spider as a Street Justice/Super Reflexes build pretty much IS the character. It is also, in my experience, easier to cap the positional defenses in SR than Ninjutsu, though the utility in Ninjutsu offsets that to an extent. JJDrakken has also posted a build that, to my eye, fits Scarlet Spider nearly perfectly, depending on the iteration you are talking about. Second, Red Hood might be better served as a Dual Pistols/Martial Combat Blaster with the Concealment, Fighting, Jumping, and Leadership pools, but that's my opinion.

For general build advice for Scrappers: 1. Your motto is "Defeating enemies is 100% damage mitigation!" This means you want to put down enemies as fast as you can. Your defenses offer you some wiggle room, but not to the level of a brute or tanker. While you CAN slug it out with an AV, an extended fight is NOT your friend. 2. For your primary, you either want BIG orange numbers, or LOTS of bigish orange numbers. I would recommend leaning into what your primary is best at, but you can always try and make a slow, but big impact, set hit faster, or you can try and make fast, but light damage, set hit harder. All the damage IO sets have some recharge built in, but YOU have to decide if you want more, or if you are going to look for more ways to improve damage. 3. If you can swing it, more accuracy, or to hit, is a good thing. It doesn't matter how hard you can hit, or how fast you can swing, if you can't connect. An accurate, low damage, attack is better than a hard hitter that misses. 4. For your secondary, to paraphrase venetiasilver, look at what it excels at and lean into that. DO NOT try and force a resistance set to be a defense set or vice versa (while it can probably be done, the effort involved would not be worth it, in my opinion). If it has 2 things it is good at, work on finding ways to improve those. Your pool power choices and slotting should fall in line with bolstering what your secondary does best. Focus on Tough for resistance sets, or Maneuvers and Weave for defense sets. 5. Minimize end usage, and maximize recovery, when you can. If your blue bar is empty, you aren't arresting/killing, meaning you are not mitigating damage in any way. Some sets are just end hogs, and you have to figure out how to mitigate that. For your sets: A. Stone Melee has quite a few powers with knockback. Knockback is not, generally, your friend as a scrapper. If the enemy is out of range, you can't hit them to mitigate damage. That said, not all knockback powers are the same. Some don't knockback often, others have a minimal knockback. Check each power to figure out if it could use a knockback to knockdown power to be more useful. B. I, personally, would skip the Stone Fists in favor of the Mallets, but that is because I hate redraw animations. I know they aren't supposed to change the total attack time, but I find them annoying none the less. That said, I also haven't played Stone Melee high enough to know if the higher powers drop the Mallet forcing redraws, which might change what I would recommend. C. I have only one Bio-Armor character, and he is only level 10, so take my advice with a grain of salt. With that in mind, I see that it appears to be primarily a resistance/regen set at the beginning, and later develops into a regen/specials. I would lean into the resistance aspect, as well as the regen, and then just pick the specials that fit best with your playstyle. Finally: Don't discount the cookie cutter builds. I have found more than one that when I first looked, I hated it because it was a cookie cutter. What I have learned over time is that those are the builds that are the foundations for the sets, but you can tweak them to suit your needs. If you look at one and see that it has a power that doesn't fit your concept, meet your needs, or you just don't like, you can always look into swapping those powers with ones that do.

Note that I said "not as worth it anymore", not that it was unplayable. That "as" is a big qualifier. It is still playable, as you and others have pointed out, I just don't feel like it is as worth it as other sets. That said, if you want to play the set, go ahead, I will never tell someone not to. For clarification: My main on live WAS a BS/Regen that I took to 50 and into the Incarnate levels, on a couple of servers, even after the nerfs. To my knowledge, there are no unplayable sets or combinations, just ones that are more difficult to play for the individual. What I mean by that is that a set I might find fun and meets my standards, you may not feel the same way about, and vice versa. There are sets I don't play because I don't find them fun, and others I go back to because they are. There are also combos that have made sets I didn't like fun, even when I hated them with other sets. Context matters.

Thanks for the clarification. I hadn't noticed.

I thought that the Alignment missions were the morality missions, or did I miss something?

Going to chime in with Regen not being as worth it anymore. When I started in Issue 3, back in the day, Regen was a set that, if you survived the Alpha Strike, you were unbeatable. Then came a series of nerfs that neutered the powerset to its current levels. Today, when I want a regen style character, I tend to choose Willpower, as it covers almost all of the same bases, has a similar feel to what Regen was originally, and the non-regen portions can be described as getting used to pain and learning to not get hit, because it takes energy to recover. The way I see it, even Deadpool and Wolverine, the 2 primary regen icons, wear armor and try not to get hit because it sucks. They tank damage when they have to, not because they want to. But that is just my opinion.

I have a number of scrappers, but the one I always go back to, and my namesake here in the forums, is Culach a BS/WP who does fine. I'm not running out trying to have the most extreme numbers, nor am I trying to the absolute most optimum build, I just built him to be fun to play my way, as a feral scrapper.

Exactly what I was looking for, thanks you.

Would it be possible to get a Fiery Aura/War Mace/Fire Mastery tank build. I'm trying to put together a theme character who is a cross between Ghost Rider and the chefs from "The Menu", who is protected by magical cooking fires that come from wielding a magical meat tenderizer. Thank you for your time.

I tend to play Scrappers, and have a terrible case of Scrapperlock, even when I am playing as other ATs, such as defenders and controllers, so I get what you are saying. I tend to jump in and sometimes get in over my head and faceplant. That's all on me, and I accept that. However, there are far too many players that refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, and will blame everyone, other than themselves, for their failures. Heck, I even tell people that I am a Feral Scrapper (yes, that is me posting on page 7) when I ask to join a group, because I want absolutely no misconceptions about my playstyle going in. I have even told the defenders, and other supports, that if I somehow get separated from the group to focus on the others, what happens to me is on me. That said, when I am playing as a support, I do try to keep the team buffed and the enemies debuffed, throwing out heals on occasion (if my powerset has it). If the team splits into two groups, I ALWAYS stick with the group that is actually trying to play as a team, and not the rushers/run offs. They made the choice to run away from the group and they can pay the price for that. If they try to blame me, I toss it back at them saying they should know better than to separate from the group, and the consequences are on them, not me. If they persist, the 1-star note, and possibly an ignore, are good for my personal enjoyment of the game.

When you go into Mids, go to Options > Configuration > Maths & Effects > Suppression and then check "Attacked". That will show your actual in combat values.

I know what you mean, jumping back in on my main (and namesake) was pure joy. Thanks for the info about the -kb IOs, I was unaware. I made a couple of adjustments and would now like your opinion on this. I will pick the brains of anyone who will engage in order to learn more. Blaster - Rogue Phantasm (Energy Blast - Energy Manipulation) Test 2.mbd

Thanks again. I did take your advice and read your linked post. I read this one and compared a quickly knocked out version I made after reading the linked one and noted that I was, apparently, on the right track with my fast build. It may not be as slot efficient as yours, but is otherwise very similar with almost all of the same sets being accounted for. As for my background, I am a returning player, coming back after over a decade, but I was using Mids then. I had forgotten about the little yellow buttons, and that was causing some of my errors. Thanks for correcting that. The below build is what I came up with. Blaster - Rogue Phantasm (Energy Blast - Energy Manipulation) Test.mbd

Thanks for the feedback.