Bill Z Bubba

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.

I notice the same on practically every TF and even some door missions. Would LOVE to see that fixed.

No judgement from me. Been there multiple times already.

Concept: Dark Ring Mistresses have nice butts.

Having a steady supply of group teleport can do absolute wonders for the overall speed of many TFs. I still make the majority of my picks based on what the character needs. Examples: Alpha musculature ALMOST always wins but my dark/stone tank had to go with the one that reduces end cost. I normally stick with Destiny Barrier because as an SR main, mitigation is more important than healing. Course, my SR and Shield Tanks don't need more mitigation so they get the Rebirth +MaxHP heal. All my meleers go with Hybrid Assault, as do the majority of my characters, but some, a defender and a mastermind come to mind, go the Support route. For Lore, it's always carnies radial now. Cuz... yummy Dark Ring Mistress. Ok, maybe I'm not needs based as much as I am "use what works best and that's usually these picks...."

Were you running at +0/x1? 🙂 No, seriously, I ask because I've become horrible about pushing diff too high on new characters and then getting frustrated with them.

What video card did you end up with? I ask because I'm still on an old 1080 and can dual box without the maxinactivefps flag.

Added to the list of all the things I've forgotten over the years. Thanks!

I'd say it depends on which "feel" you want to get. Lot of folks are/have-been moving over to Street Justice to get away from the Rage crash while still maintaining a naturally strong feel to their character and it's in no way a bad set. Energy Melee does indeed hit hard but if you team a lot you're going to find yourself corpse blasting often due to the excessively long animation times for total focus and energy transfer, when ET isn't shortened by the Energy Focus that comes from using TF. I've got combos of both across a few ATs. Think my StJ/Inv is a brute, but I've got tanks using both shield/nrg and bio/nrg. You're correct that the bio/nrg is the single target damage master (my nrg/bio scrapper sits around 1:30 to take down a pylon and even that could be better) but bio is susceptible to slows and with no defense debuff resistance it can get itself into trouble fast at the highest difficulty levels. I can't really speak much on willpower as I've never had one fully tricked out. Every time I've built one it's been deleted which is kind of a bummer because my original "me" character was supposed to be a StJ/WP brute. He ended up being my fire/bio sentinel. Here's hoping someone with more info shows up but I suspect going WP/StJ will fit well what you're looking for.