Bill Z Bubba

Always happy to see another mage running around. My fire/bio sent's powers were recolored to purple/black and he's my chaos mage.

Wait.. what? I thought Thor was an Elec/Mace tank...

Fire/Bio is my main sentinel. Played almost as much as my main claws/sr scrapper and more than his brute and tank clones. Only downside I've seen while fighting +4 AVs is that I have no way to immobilize them so them fleeing can be a pain, especially on a solo +4/x8 MoITF run.

SR's DDR is fully baked in and caps. SHield's DDR gets into the 80% range but only if you doublestack Active Defense. Shield gets more damres across the board. Both can softcap to all positions although it's easier with SR. I'd argue that the +dam with shield is superior to the +recharge with SR.

Mine's Battle Barrier.

As I have one I dig, I'm also completely in the shield/mace tank group.

Only have rad armor on a brute that's languishing in the 30s so I've honestly no clue.

So many options but the one I REALLY want I can't have: Claws/Shield Scrapper.

Unfortunately, that's like a resistance based tank only getting 51% damres debuff resistance. It's gonna fold hard under heavy defense debuffs. That said, there's, what, ageless radial to bump the DDR up? Or is it rebirth radial? Either way, it'll certainly help end-game.

It'll be unkillable and brutal since shield charge will help out with DM's usually weak AoE output.

Claws isn't the best at ST or AoE damage... it's just the best at being wondrously balanced between the two while also dishing out the glorious soft control of KD from focus and shockwave once you give up that slot in SW for a KB->KD.

Claws is good stuff. Except for stalker claws. Even Widow claws is awesome.

F12? I'm far too lazy to have to cross that much keyboard.

Everything already stated... and the screams of defeated carnies.

If I need inf, I'll farm DA repeatables solo with my main. It's both fun AND lucrative. I use my claws/fire brute on my 2nd acct to PL alts on the 1st and there's a couple alts on the 2nd as well like the tank version of BZB.

Only CoD knows the answer but an example: claws spin is tagged as melee and lethal.

Nice. I'd have to change a lot to cover that end usage. As it stands, for my ranged characters, I'll leave on hover all the time and toggle fly on and off as needed. For the meleers, I use powexecname binds for fly, hover and afterburner (H, J and K) so I can just click them again to turn them off.

Ain't nuthin wrong with going for a challenge purely for the sake of the challenge. Sounds like you have a solid plan.

Only until you attack, buff someone, give a pet command... Only thing I find useful about evasive maneuvers is being a mule for a LotG+recharge. At least when afterburner was a toggle I could fly all around IP with it on for badge hunting. It was a bad change but whatever. Not important at all when we're all packing team teleports and the like.

I've tried Ice Armor twice with HC since my one tank back on live was an Ice/Nrg and I've determined that it just plain sucks. Defense based mitigation with horrible DDR and a penchant for HAVING to use Hibernate way too often just to keep from faceplanting. Both shield and sr kick the crap out of it on the mitigation front. That said, concept rules all and I hear the ice T9 for scrappers and stalkers might not suck as bad.

I'm trying and failing to come up with a single example of where incoming ranged damage ever comes close to incoming melee damage. Edit: Don't get me wrong, if you're ever already softcapped to melee and/or lethal then DA is a complete waste and its use DOES decrease ST damage output.

Counterpoint: WM doesn't add a huge chunk of mitigation as Katana does with Divine Avalanche. That said, I absolutely love both the ST and AoE damage output of my wm/bio scrapper. That little lady and her magic pipe wrench can #$*& some #$*& up. Long as she can survive doin it.

Ya know why I love claws so much? It's not the best at aoe or st damage but it's damn good at both and that's how I build all my characters. Pylon tests tell me one thing and one thing only and they're a perfect test for this one bit of information: how will I do solo against AVs and GMs? And since I build my characters and judge them based on how well they solo, this is an important piece of info. This test specifically describes exactly what my st dps will be and allows me to judge from that where I should work on the character. If I know the st damage is going to be crap regardless of what I do, it allows me to instead focus on aoe or control or some other aspect of the character. It's just one tool in the handbag but it's a very good tool for a solid bit of info.

Only reason I don't log on is because my desk is still somewhere between TX and MA in a pod and trying to game while sitting on the floor sucks ass. Why, yes, I AM tempted to drill a hole for a network cable through a wall from the kitchen to the living room so that I could take over the kitchen island thing and just stand while playing....

There's also the cheaty way to change alignment. Head to Pocket D and talk to Null the Gull. He perches on the truck parked at the entrance to red side. He'll change your alignment at a whim. You can also have him disable group movement powers and disable extra tray popups from movement powers and being a kheldian among a few other things.