Bill Z Bubba

This. Here's how I do it. Generally speaking, I want a chain of no more than 4 attacks. Ever. This isn't always possible with freak powers like seismic smash and the like. But for claws, I want an attack chain of followup, focus, slash, repeat with no pauses. Followup's base recharge is 12 seconds. It has a given cast time of .83 seconds and an arcanatime of 1.056. Focus has base recharge of 6.4 seconds, cast 1.17 and arcanatime of 1.32. Slash has base recharge of 4.8 seconds, cast 1.33 and arcanatime of 1.584. Recharge equation: Time = BaseRecharge / (1+X) where X is the amount of recharge needed Tweaked around for my purposes, X = (BaseRecharge - Time) / Time The Time we're dealing with is the period between activations of followup which is the sum of the cast times for focus and slash. If we ignore arcanatime, then followup has to recharge within 2.5 seconds. (12-2.5) / 2.5 = 3.8 or 380% total recharge in followup to pull it off. But that's not the reality of the situation. With arcanatime, it works out instead to (12-2.904) / 2.904 = 3.13 or 313% total recharge in followup. Using pylons as the primary test bed, I know that my chain becomes pauseless at 313% and not 380%. To get the other recharge values needed, you do the exact same but Time will change. To calculate focus: (6.4-2.64) / 2.64 = 1.42 To calculate slash: (4.8-2.376) / 2.376 = 1.02 Total side note: because claws' secondary effect is that all attacks cost 20% less endurance and recharge 20% faster, Followup's recharge should be 9.6 instead of 12 seconds. I've no clue why this was never corrected. Let's look at Dual Blades instead. There, I want the chain to be Blinding Feint, Ablating Strike, Sweeping Strike, Ablating Strike, repeat. BF 12 sec recharge, again, and a 1.452 arcanatime-cast. 1.188+1.452+1.188 = 3.828 seconds between activations. AS 6 recharge and a 1.188 a-cast. But for the requested chain, the time between activations would be 1.452! So we'd better see if that's possible first. SS 11 recharge and 1.452 a-cast. Also 3.828 between activations. (6-1.452) / 1.452 = 3.13 ...... well, ain't that weird? 313% recharge again. Spooky. BF only needs (12-3.828) / 3.828 = 2.13 or 213% total recharge. Edit: I know I've posted this before. I should save it this time so I don't have to do it again.

Due to the nature of fury, claws followup doesn't benefit brutes nearly as much as it does scrapper/tanks. Due to the lack of claws spin, stalker claws are complete and total crap.

I guess I'm lucky. My wife accepted her "gamer widow" status very early in our relationship.

My main Sent is a fire/bio so I fully grok what you state on that front. For that last bit, all the combos work when you just want to sit back and hover-blast away with no fear of ever being mezzed or faceplanted. It's a very laid back AT.

My archer blaster is the safest and honestly most fun blaster I have. No buffs needed that I see.

Aye, purps and pvps are all +5 in game. I never do it in Mids for some damn reason.

Just to add more clarity, the incarnate softcap comes specifically and only with incarnate enemies. It's a 13.something tohit buff for all incarnate enemies so the effective soft cap then becomes 58.something, round up to 59% but ONLY for incarnate enemies. So if you're generally running around with 59% defense to all types or positions, it's going to feel exactly like running at 45% defense against normal foes. My scrapper and brute aren't there, they sit around 54% to m/r/a def but because of the level shifts, even being below the incarnate soft cap, and three of 'em, those +4s become +1s, and it seems I end up spending less effort for better rewards over time.

Generally speaking, I find dealing with other people far more a "punishment" than soloing incarnate content. Especially when I'm getting xp/inf for +4s and only fighting +1s.

No clue.

That's completely fair. And perhaps you can find like-minded folks with enough interest to monitor an ASF channel on discord where they'll come runnin should someone post that one is going to crank up. I find it highly unlikely but knock yourself out! Edit: For the record, I turn 50 at the end of next month and I generally have discord running 24/7 on my workstation, not my gaming rig. I would have no interest utilizing discord for more than the 4 channels to which I already belong.

60% defense means nothing. Could be 225%. At 45% defense, a +4 AV has the exact same chance to hit you as it will with you at 60% defense or at 225% defense. The rest I completely agree with. Every time I've played a resist based character, I've lamented the horror of being hit with all those debuffs. This is precisely why so many people chase defense even when they don't have DDR to back it up. The longer you continue to NOT get hit at all means the longer you survive.

I'm glad you enjoy it. Seriously. Others don't. That you can't get one going through regular channels points to you being in the minority.

I'd argue that it has far more to do with the content itself (the ASF) than it does with how you're attempting to form a group. SG I run with got all the badges and haven't touched it since. I suspect that this is the norm out there.

Always in pairs, sorry. Pets should even con to the player. Masterminds shouldn't have the endurance penalty.

I love hearing carnies scream. I hate the cystal titan's cheaty autohits.

Right on. I don't do it, but if you've found a niche, party on.

But apart from that, how does it feel in normal gameplay? Does the extra mitigation from SM benefit /Bio enough to keep you going through whatever you throw at it?

Elec Armor is absolutely a resistance based set. Higher resistance caps benefit it. War Mace is a damn fine crunchy set regardless of AT. My mace/bio scrapper is a freaking joy to play and I went max recharge because both sets greatly benefit from it. My ma/elec brute went brute because of the higher resist caps and also because Storm Kick's +defense helps shore up said resistance. Based on those two characters, if I really wanted to play with mace and elec armor, damn straight I'd choose tank.

Even I can't go there. I can see swapping out the fighting pool for rune of protection functioning quite well in most circumstances. I ain't gonna do it, of course, partly because I hate the origin pools, but mostly because I specifically put myself in situations where having that much less SL damres 2/3 of the time would fuck me.

Closer to half that at 6.7*3=20.1. @BillyMailman proved that redraw does not effect DPS. At least on the sets he tested with. The rest of what your post points to is dead on. SR on a tanker, regardless of how you go about building it, is freaking incredible. The mitigation differences are as stark between a tank and a brute as they are on the offense side between a brute and a scrapper.

You have my admiration for doing something I would not even attempt.

If only humans could treat humans as well. Good on ya, Lumi.

Got 1 SSer and haven't trained up rage yet. Cuz I don't play him.

... Did I forget that was a thing?

Since I hover blast near the ceiling of any given map, first person actually works better for the field of vision when forced... but I'd always go back to third person given the chance. Good luck with this one but it sounds horrible.