Bill Z Bubba

I'm kinda diggin my rad/regen sentinel.

I don't think you're misunderstanding anything. Even though I had quit again, I was back for the shutdown as soon as I was informed of it and got in as much playtime as I could. I really farkin missed this game while it was gone and, yes, I hold some resentment for those that kept it running in private when they could have shared the joy with so many instead of being selfish bastards.

I soloed 95% of the time back before the snap and started playing in Issue 1. I actually team far more now than I ever did back then. So "some" or maybe even "most" always teamed but not all. Some of us actually quit playing when the incarnate stuff was all locked behind teaming. Being able to solo it 100% now has been glorious. Edit: As I always put it back then, MMO doesn't mean you have to team, it only means that you can.

I had 1 tank back before the snap. Ice/EM. Can't even remember her name. Tanker low damage was always just too dang much for me to deal with since I always mained a scrapper. However, since the latest buff to tank base damage, I now can't seem to rationalize building brutes. They say they were going for tanks doing 90% of brute damage while brutes get 90% of the mitigation of tanks. Seems like they hit the mark on the damage side but didn't bother to realize the mitigation side isn't there. So why be weaker on the mitigation front when you can dish out damn near the same damage and be leaps ahead on toughness? I've got a rad/em tank I just dinged 50 with. Rad's extra AoE is very nice. Rad's mitigation is very nice. But if you go rad/claws? Wow. That'd be crazy on the "let's slaughter everything and be just fine doing it" front.

It gets even better. My only attacks are shadow maul, flurry, midnight grasp and ... WHIRLWIND!

My farmer is a claws/fire brute. Such a beautiful combo, so full of goodies and possibilities. To the topic... oh, c'mon, a little pain can be a good thing. Seriously... sometimes I get a big damn grin on my face when I get my ass kicked into the dirt.

Makes sense. BZB Tank sits idle just above the incarnate softcap to all positions. I've no doubt that's what has allowed me to get through what I have with him. Especially after seeing my sentinel fold like wet tissue in there. Doesn't bode well for BZB Scrap or Brute, though, as they are just over the regular softcap.

I really like this enemy group,@Linea. You did a great job. 801.2 Two sloppy faceplants and 1.5 hours. Same rules as my run on 801.1, max diff, insps used. Think it was the boss beam rifle ranger that could be suddenly problematic. Edit: 801.3-K ... 3rd spawn just tore me apart. Edit 2: My fire/bio sent doesn't stand a chance in 801.2. Barrier can only do so much.

Verified in combat log. Flurry does indeed crit. Well frell. May have to rebuild my speedster.

Will retest. Don't trust my brain at the moment.

And yet I never saw it when I was testing. Makes one question if the numbers shown in game can be trusted at all. Are they text or actually pulling from the real backend tables? Edit: And thinking about it... they should ALL be fixed. Every attack that a scrapper uses should follow the same crit formula.

I find myself confused. I just saw exploding shuriken crit ... I thought ONLY scrapper primary powers criticaled. If that's not the case, why doesn't EVERYTHING a scrapper can use crit? I know SS-Flurry doesn't. Is it the beer and pot? Am I just confused and hallucinating? WTH is going on? What *should* be going on?

I'm still enjoying my staff/bio specifically for the very constant feel of it versus the up and down of other sets. It's even more constant than claws since with that I have to at least work at keeping followup stacked.

Took BZB Tank into 801.1. No deaths, 33 minutes. Max diff. Insps that I showed up with were used. Combined what felt like too many for yellows cuz I hate missing. SR/Claws Tank. Fully T4ed. Musc, Degen, Assault, Pyronic Core. Carnies, Rebirth Radial. Started with Ageless instead of Rebirth but rapidly saw that the +heal would be helpful. Edit: Don't want to come across like it was a cakewalk. It wasn't. Especially when double-spawns got aggroed. There were certainly some oh crap moments including one where I was down to like 2% health, terrorized and was spam clicking Rebirth. Luckily, it went off.

Well now I'm really confused. Yup, I got nothing. Didn't even realize claws was the ONLY powerset you can't pair with stone armor now. My bad.

Granite and dual wielding specifically. TW, Axe, Mace work just fine. I don't get it either.

Yes. I now have a whip/rad MM at 38. Cuz masterminds suck but I need at least 1 of every AT fully T4ed/Enhanced.

I sure don't. Max diff is for max builds. (And usually only melee.) Anything less than that and it goes everywhere between +0/x1 and max completely depending on a massive array of variables.

I was pondering last night why they didn't go with assault/armor instead of range/armor for the Sentinel. I would have enjoyed that.

Absolutely true. I haven't even considered taking Elude or Unstoppable since ... well, hell, not since IOs were added to the game.

That's really all it comes down to, isn't it? Why run at max diff? Cuz I can. If I can't, I don't.

I'm finding that everything in Rad Armor is useful. Granted, I don't really *need* the +damage from the T9... Same goes for Bio Armor. Don't really *need* the T9.

ugh. Screw that.

Side question: Build Philosophy: Is parking in a PvP zone for the day job +recharge reduction buff a valid build choice for our testing purposes? Meaning, if I'm always going to have that buff, does it count? If that counts, does constantly staying buffed with base temp powers count? My gut says no. But then, I DO toggle on assault hybrid for my pylon runs because that's a power always in my tray and always fired off when available. Where should we draw the line?

This. I was feeling all high and mighty and immortal on my SR tank until I willfully aggroed two full spawns of Rularuu including a ton of Overseers and they chomped my ass into the dirt. Course.... I didn't pop any insps or fight back either. 🙂