marcussmythe

It does - but man Id hate to give up Arc of Destruction... I suppose you could run Titan Sweep and Whirling Sword instead. Its not like losing AoD makes TW a bad set.

Bioarmor seems to provide greater buffs to Scrapper, as well. That said, given the rehide ATO, I think Stalkers would be a better AT, -all other things being equal-. All other things are never equal. For me, I look at the power sets that look cool/fun to play, and then see how those power sets get treated by the different ATs.

Defense Debuff Resistance, any attack that debuffs your defense you character will take the full effect rather than a percentage of the effect. As a follow-up, DDR is important because without it certain mob types will debuff your defenses to the point that they're useless. This is usually referred to as "Cascading Defense Failure" (CDF). Basically if an enemy hits a player with a defense debuff, each hit of such a power lowers the effectiveness of any defense you have & thus each hit becomes more likely than the last. This is frequently a large concern because theres a lot more mobs than players on any mission, so 1-2 lucky hits can quickly escalate to the whole mob group wailing on you unimpeded. Thus vs certain groups with large amounts of defense debuffs it can quickly "cascade" from you being only hit 5% of the time to having such a negative defense that you end up MORE likely to be hit than if you had no defense. This seems an intentional design decision because not getting hit due to your high defense is in itself a defense against CDFs. The trouble basically comes from the fact that once the CDFs start the end result is usually a death, and the only real way to prevent them once they start is to have the aforementioned DDR. The only spec I'm aware of with high DDR is SR, though several other sets have low-to-moderate DDR. Given all of this, CDFs are a major concern for most defense based characters & as a result it's hard for most of the sets that rely on a combination of defense & resistance powers to put much faith in their defensive abilities, because IF they have any DDR at all it's not usually enough to be useful. Bio is such a set. The lack of DDR is the one fly in the Bioarmor ointment. This is okay, the set is super-duper good, it needs a few flies to avoid becoming the one set to rule them all. More broadly, CDFs are a common endgame/late designed mob feature. They are one of the reasons I prefer my scrapper to my brute/tank these days - the scrapper is (effectively) TOUGHER, as it can bring down the debuffing mobs more quickly, and the advantage the tanker holds in RES or DEF melts nearly as rapidly. I will note, to return the conversation to Bioarmor - once you are fighting Vanguard/Longbow/Arachnos/Banished/Talons/etc., monitor your DEF and RES. Keep the monitor where your eyes track it. If it starts to fall, take candy now. If it starts to fall fast, eat your whole inspiration tray while clicking survival powers and running. Nothing allows you to survive (long) at -100% RES -100% DEF 0 Regen, and those groups will take you there, quickly. Bioarmor has to be extra careful here, as you may not notice the start of the collapse, due to your healing keeping you up as your DEF fails.. but once DEF fails, Regen and RES happen in seconds, and your dead and dont even know why.

Agree with this. I have a TW/Elec brute who's hard capped against S/L/E/F/C damage and against any non-debuffing enemies that mostly deal those types, I can go AFK in the middle of a group and not die because they can't get a lucky burst to bring me down. On the flipside, heavily debuffing enemies can crush me simply by stacking stuff like -def and -regen: suddenly I'm taking double the damage (though still at a steady rate), but I'm not regenerating any. I haven't yet played my Rad/SD extensively at 50 so it's yet early for me to say whether maxed Def or Res is "better", but so far I can say that both have their merits. However, given a chance to cap one stat and have a significant amount of the other, I'd definitely take soft capped def + significant resistance rather than the other way around. Just to chime in: Both is good. If I can only have one, I err towards DEF, because at 50, damage never killed a tank. Hyperbole perhaps. Im sure I've been floored once or twice by the -damage- in a Psi or Nrg damage attack, and the debuffs didnt matter. But in every case I can recall where one of my lvl 50 melee characters went down, my DEF and RES had been gutted to somewhere between 0 and -100 before I dropped - and I cant imagine I would have dropped if I still had them. I'm confused, I'm blind, I'm terrorized, I've got so much -RCHG that my T1 attack is solid black and my self-heals are a distant memory. Sure, I'm not -held-, but I may as well be. I remember grinding fights, HPs slowly dropping, trying to finish off foes before they finish off me, staying in to keep the aggro off the team - all that good stuff at lower levels, or with older villain groups, but modern lvl 50 gameplay is rocket tag. Perhaps with the rise of IOs and Incarnates it can be nothing else - my Melees are essentially unkillable by anything short of debuff stacks (Okay, and Nosferatu. Screw that guy) - but its had an interesting side effect. My scrappers survive things my brutes and tanks cannot, simply because the scrapper kills everything before it can be killed via massive damage output - while the brute or tank has to weather the storm, and the increased resistances and HPs do not make up for the increased time under fire.

Id avoid powersets that have moves that require you to be on/close to the ground. TW’s Arc of Destruction, for example. Outside of that, tanked in Hover for years back on live on an Inv/EM. No problems other than occasionally getting head stuck on stuff

Oh god this. Maybe also -PER, because 'blind' is enough to make me avoid Arachnos missions.

Before set bonuses come in, invuln shows pretty well.

My TW/Bio definitely needs another 60% damage. Sold American.

There are discussions of savage melee aingle target rotations, scrapper and I believe stalker, over on the Pylon thread on the Scrapper Forums. May have to dig, its a long thread, but good reading.

It kind of is though. SS dominated the brute/tanker meta for a very long time, primarily because of Rage. In isolation, SS is reasonably balanced because the set only has one AoE and only one really good ST attack, so even with Rage it's not doing anything too incredible. But when you add in outside powers like a damage aura, Burn, or ancillary attacks, the fact that these all get bonuses from Rage gives a very clear advantage over other primaries. Moreover, the reasoning in the quote just doesn't hold. Everyone seems pretty comfortable saying that other sets with damage buffs, like Claws or /Shield, are better on a scrapper, because scrappers get more out of damage buffs - not only because we have higher base damage, but also because we get larger damage buffs even as a percentage. Taking these two together, any damage buff power is 62.5% more beneficial to a scrapper than to a brute in absolute terms (more than that if you count crits). If Blinding Feint is better for scrappers than brutes, Rage would be too, except to an even greater degree because it's a much larger buff. (Plus, scrappers can take snipes in their epic pools, so they'd really get to take advantage of Rage's large +tohit.) When you take a set that's already overperforming, then hand it to an AT whose modifiers make it much better, it's at least plausible that you're going to have balance issues. I don't know if this would really make Super Strength overpowered on a scrapper, at least not moreso than the sets we've already got. TW pretty clearly overperforms, and yet people still seem happy to play other sets. But SS would definitely be a stronger set on scrappers than it is on brutes, for the same reason Dual Blades is, except moreso. Frankly, with how badly the Rage crash change affects the set, I think Rage needs to be reworked a little anyway, and maybe that rework could make it more palatable for a scrapper port. I also don't know if this is the real rationale behind not porting it: Stone Melee is another classic "brute force" set that didn't get proliferated, and there's no obvious balance concern there. Stalkers didn't get War Mace, again for no clear balance reason - and after getting both Fire sets, it's hard to imagine that thematic concerns were the issue either. For the record, I feel that having damage buff effects be larger (buildup, etc) on Scrappers than say Brutes or Tanks was already a bad design choice - as the advantage of the Scrapper is already ‘baked in’ in the larger base damage mod. But if they ported SS to Scraper, and raised the rage buff, it might produce an outlier, and thats a fair point. I honestly feel that a reevaluation of SS base performance, and the impact of rage, is probably called for. Ill note that when I suggested on the rage thread that we should do so and aim to make what comes out the back end a solid, midrange set, performance wise, once everything was accounted for,, some of the afficionados of SS seemed offended.

Saw the admin post on the server. Immediately copypasted. Put in credit card info. Had to put it in again, typed wrong. Barely got in under the wire. Looks like 9Min or less. Good job.

Stance Dancing: -generally- more of a thing at lower levels. Most people who choose scrapper (over brute or tank) do so because they want to do damage. As a result, as the build matures, they tend to build in survival and recovery elsewhere, to allow them to lean on the massive damage boost that is bio armor - offensive mode. Even so, efficient mode has been helpful to me for extra healing and recovery. I do not find defensive mode provides enough extra survivial that I really notice it, though this is likely due to the nature of lvl 50 villain groups. (Health when fighting lvl 50 mobs tends to be pretty binary. Either your fine, or their debuffers/heavy exotic damage - defensive adaptation helps with neither of these) As for what powers to take? I take them all. The DOT aura as always does halcyon duty finishing off ‘hp sliver’ mobs. The three survival clickies all have role - Ablative Carapace’s extra hit points are used before every pull, Parasitic Aura once into the scrum if its up (I try to keep as large a PA buff up as often as I can), and DNA Siphon either as emergency heal if surrounded by active foes, or as a regen/rec buff if surrounded by unconcious ones. (Note its very inferior to Parasitic Aura as a regen/rec buff, but is a very powerful self heal) The rest are your usual def or res toggles - take and slot like any other, and then IO set bonus shop around the holes left over. Youll never be particularly burly against energy/neg energy/psi, and I would personally suggest adpating to those damage sources with play choices (know what to put down first), incarnate abilities, temp powers, or the like. You can in theory build up decent psi and nrgy resist if you devote your build to it, but I find it a bad investment (yes, you can softcap Enrgy/NEnrgy DEF, but we have no DDR, so thats a slender thread)

I see no problem with allowing SS (or EM, or w/e) on Scrappers. If SS is ‘too good’ on a scrapper (it isnt), then its too good elsewhere (it isnt). If crits from ET are ‘too good’ on a scrapper (lol) then they are too good elsewhere (lololololol) Ditto Stone Armor - if someone wants to be in Granite Armor, but more focused on crits/offense than Brute or Tank allows for, why the heck not?

Coming as a melee player, I just wanted to say that I really enjoy/appreciate seeing experimental results from other ATs, and also - those are some really impressive times. I imagine that MM pylon runs are going to have a high skill cap and a lot of swing in performance, based on your ability to keep pets alive and on-task, and require a lot of planning and focus to get the best results from.

Id like to see existing sets looked at in terms of their powers and utility. In many instances, I will be looking at getting a ranged attack on my characters, looking at what fits the character, and realize that while Laser Eyes or Lightning Bolts might fit the -character-, math says I'm taking Gloom. Again. Oh well, I can always recolour Gloom.

Why does SS have to be middle of the pack? Where precisely do you think it should be, and why?

Whelp, I'm feeling foolish, as my only Incarnate has gone up to Diamagnetic Total Radial (100% -Reg)... Clearly, that was a mistake. Time to climb the -HP tree. If Giant Monsters lack the debuff resistances found on AVs, it could be very useful there.

My bad, I meant Devastating Blow. For some reason I thought of Devastating Strike when I wrote the post. This was my only run so far, but I'll probably run some more when I have time to do so. I'm also still debating between the different Ageless versions: extra DDR would be nice, but I'm not yet 100% sure if the +End without +Rec is enough to sustain me indefinitely, as I had to drop Tough/Grant Cover for this run and still eat a blue insp or two. One thing I will warn of because it happened to me and I didnt notice it the first few times (and not stating that it happened here). Ive noticed that all my anomalously good times happen on the Pylons 'out in the field', in LOS of the Mothership. The thing in common out there is that there are ongoing fights between Vanguard and Rikti Mobs. I started checking - on my anomalous runs, there has always been some Vanguard near-ish, and I would expect if I checked more carefully, I would find some Longbow firing away at the Pylon from range, unnoticed by me, after beating up the nearby Rikti. On at least one other occasion I was lining up a run, had hit buildup, and then noticed the Pylon was already below 80% - someone else had been running on it, and abandoned the run for some reason or another.

Titan, Street Justice, Savage Melee, Kinetic Melee, Psionic Melee, Martial Arts, Dual Blades, Staff, and Radiation Melee (I may be forgetting something) all have some sort of 'mechanic', be it Momentum, Combo Points, Combos, Wierd Buildup, Inspiration, Contamination, Stances, etc. etc. etc. Some are more demanding than others. Dark Melee has a hint of one, in that its buildup is situation (reliant on crowds) Claws kinda has one, inasmuch as you want to keep Follow-Up in your rotation and try to keep it up a lot (this is very small) So, that leaves: Battleaxe Broadsword Electrical Melee Fire Melee Ice Melee Katana Spines War Mace Of those, the ones that draw my attention are Fire, Elec, Ice, Spines, and Mace.

If you want to see TW/Bio at its best damage wise, put it on a Scrapper. Scrapper's higher base damage and the fact that offensive adaptation gives scrapper larger bonuses both serve to make that application shine best on a Scrapper. The damage is unbeatable. If you want significantly more potential toughenss (90% Resist Cap vs 75%), the Brute still hits about 3/4 as hard as the scrapper (at least in my hands) and has much greater potential survival. This is mostly applicable to team roles - oddly, solo, they performed about the same for me - the Brute's extra HP and resist gave me more breathing room to focus on my offense, and the Scrappers higher damage output dropped foes so quickly as to moot some of the extra mitigation. Given that Bioarmor is a set without DDR, in some situations the Scrapper was 'tankier', just because it could put down foes even -faster-, something that matters when the AI is happily lowering your DEF and RES to -100%

Old Set vs New Set Barring careful research and certain exceptions, always choose new set.

And a lot turns on which enemies you want to do this with. Lots of builds can solo ~some~ +4/x8 mobs. Very few builds can walk with aplomb through a series of -all the worst- groups set +4/x8. Somewhere between Resistance, Vanguard, Arachnos, Malta, Carnival, Talons, Banished, or whatever, you'l likely meet your personal Kryptonite.

You will likely find far more joy playing the character as they are in your head, and making the powers work in game, than you will in finding the 'best powers in the game', bringing them together, and then manipulating a concept until it fits 'all the best powers in the game'. I know I do. Happy hunting.

75% S/L and 72% E/N are non-trivial, especially on a character with ‘never going to get defense crashed’ capped DEF.

The Reactive Defense IO starts immediately; you get 3 + (7 * ((100-HP%)/100)) resist from it (scaling smoothly from 3% at 100% health to 10% at dead). I don't know if/how the SR scaling resist was changed for Tankers vs Scrappers. For Scrappers, it starts at 50% and you get 0.333 per HP% lost per each of the three powers, simplifying to 1% per HP% under 50%. Since Tankers get 33% more resist than Scrappers, it should be ~1.33% per point under 50, capping at 66.5% when yous dead. At 33% health, you'd only be hitting ~27% resists, even assuming the higher scaling. You can (and probably should) push for capped S/L resist at around that level of health by abusing some set bonuses (particularly in PBAoEs). Alternatively you can go with Staff, which would (with your build) let you cap most of your resists at ~28-34% health depending on how willing to rely on the Tanker proc you are. I would strongly advise testing Tanker SR's behavior on Justin and/or with HeroStats. Can confirm that on Justin, according to combat attributes, it is 1% per percent of health under 50, reaching 49% at 1% Health. At 30% Health, you will have 20% bonus resistance. Test Methodology: Roll lvl 50 SR Tank. Take all powers. Turn on Toggles. Fly up. Turn off fly. Check Combat Attributes. Repeat.