Uncle Shags

You can make a claws/stone armor brute and tank. You can't do claws/ninjitsu though (but can on stalker). I think the only fully exclusive melee combo is SS/Regen brute? I might be wrong though. Perhaps part of the answer could come from the scrapper crit ATO? When set could best leverage it? I know it works really well on titan weapon.

I'm running a AR/TA right now and am finding the range only play pretty dang fun. I'm also planning on chasing the range def so I feel you there.... I'll link my build in case it gives you any ideas. It's not perfect, but I've done a fair bit of successful tinkering I think. One thing I saw that might help you, that connects something you and Uun both said is the slotting for flash arrow and eagle eye. I too was tempted by the Cloud Senses bonuses, but I didn't like the proc causing aggro. For that extra bit of ranged def I 6 slotted eagle eye instead with numina's and 4 sloted flash arrow with dark watcher. Another idea I saw was to swap your ATO sets. If you have the defiant barrage proc in gloom you can activate it while mezzed to get a chance to clear the hold faster. Just a couple ideas. Blaster (Assault Rifle - Trick Arrow).mbd

If you have a hankering for the spines, go for it. The double damage aura and nostalgia factor are tempting. I haven't messed with it so I can't say much. Although I think Lunge or Ripper might both be better than Impale for single target damage, unless you're sold on the range idea. But I love me some dark armor! It's awesome. And I have found it benefits greatly from defense in addition to resistance (especially in conjunction with oppressive gloom and the much maligned cloak of fear (gasp!)). I disagree with the "it doesn't have ddr so don't bother" concept. If ddr mattered that much the only people that should go for defense at all would be SR or Shield toons. Just because a head on collision with a mack truck would likely kill me doesn't mean I shouldn't still wear my seat belt every day. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Etc, etc... Also, you can always get ageless radial if you're planning on tanking -def enemies.

There have been times when I felt my toon was too much. I was an invincible god of destruction and it felt like I was soloing the 4x8 while everyone else was just trying to keep up. After building an empath in mids yesterday and looking at the buffs I wonder how many of those times the team had an empath, I was the Adrenaline Boost target, and just didn't know it.

Aha! So that's resistance at 25% health. Thanks.

But they somehow do include an extra 30% resistance to all but tox and psi. It's coming from your Combat Training Defensive which is supposed to just be defense. I don't know what that's about.

That isn't how this topic reads to me, I don't see anyone clamoring for this new AT so they can make more powerful characters. The split is between "you could make some cool character concepts with this" and "that's extremely unbalanced." Sure. You're right. Character concept is a driving force. Maybe it's an attempt to match an already created character, or maybe a completely unique creation. That's great. But for some a major part of the character concept is min/maxed efficiency and effectiveness. That's great too.

Sorry, this got long... I think there's a schism within and among us. We want and appreciate a challenge, but also want and appreciate success and excellence. In this game, unfortunately, those two ideals can be in direct opposition. Hard equals slow, but good equals fast. Here's an example. 0-50 can include lots of challenge, especially in a pug. Deaths, wipes, pulling around corners, etc. But shortly after 50 all that changes when your build comes together. Steamroll hits and it becomes more about how many groups can we pull at once. That was my expectation as I rolled into a pug Vanguard Shield RWZ mission - thinking my twinked out tank was invincible. Long story short, for those who know this enemy, those expectations were dashed quickly with death and wipes. After discovering this new "hard mode" I resolved I was going to tackle it. No one else did these missions in LFG, so I would! Well, that didn't happen. People like success, and success is fast. Fast arrest -> fast xp -> you're awesome -> next mission please! Do we want hard? Yes. I think? But definitely not at the expense of success, which I think we've been conditioned to equate with speed and steamroll. As it relates to this topic, we're torn between "Wow that build would allow the ultimate steamroll!" and "Yeah but then there's no challenge". So maybe this debate is at least partially a result of game design issues. Is there enough slow and hard content? Is it fun? Can we make slow and hard more rewarding and feel like success? From my example, is it as simple as making those Vanguard Shield missions give more xp? And/or, is it about overcoming the AE farm stigma in order to tap into our already bubbling creativity to make AE "hard yet rewarding and fun" content more prominent for the average pug? I personally would like to make a poison/kin/wormhole/SS tank. But would that work out in the long run with the current content?

Eh, not sure what that would mean. Pretty sure there's just a hard cap at 75% for blasters. 45% is for defense and is usually referred to as a soft cap.

I get your point about wanting the unique early. Makes sense. But the other part I think might be a misunderstanding. The resistance cap for blasters is 75%.

I think they should include psi and toxic in the damage reduction effect.

Could you move the reactive unique from hover to weave? You could either leave it at 3, lose a little defense, and gain a slot. Or just put it there and get the 4th slot bonus.

I just want to clarify, because there's been a few references here to "double rage crash". People are just referring to crash twice as often, not double the penalties, correct? Because the way I understand it double stacked rage just gives the 10 second crash every 60 seconds instead of 120. There is no doubled up -40% defense crash. Maybe no one has suggested that, but that's the way it read to me.

Try it out on the test server before you commit.

It's a good question. The answer is: it depends. Some things would transfer exactly: Always take this power and always slot it this way. Other times it's more like: Always take this power but you'd slot it differently depending on a number of factors such as how it synergizes with aspects of the secondary or how your enhancement sets and bonuses change due to different secondaries. For instance, you'd get a lot of defensive set bonuses from SR that are different from the healing set bonuses you'd get from willpower, so you may have to change your claws enhancement sets to reach your build goals. Other times you may or may not take a power at all based on the synergy with the secondary. You may also find one secondary has more or less wiggle room when I comes to total powers needed that could influence how you pick powers from your primary. Sorry this may seem vague, but "it depends" answers usually are. =P