Captain Fabulous

The +defense and +resistances in Steamy Mist definitely stack. Not sure about the stealth tho. Hurricane will also stack with other Hurricanes.

If the debuff isn't persistent on PvE critters standing in the puddle then yeah, there's something wrong.

Steamy Mist gives buffs while Hurricane is debuffs, so yeah, you can use them together.

Also check to see if the damage is ticking away. It should work like the defense debuff; they will continue to take damage as long as they're in the puddle but not once they leave. I do know the puddle is a pseudo-pet, not sure if that has anything to do with it.

I don't know enough about how debuffs work in PvP to give you a good answer. Isn't there some kind of suppression mechanism at work for multiple applications of the same buff and debuff? That each application within a set amount of time triggers a % resistance that fairly quickly makes you immune to it for awhile?

I wondering if this has something to do with how some Spider parts aren't visible till after you respec at level 24.

My understanding is that the -defense portion of this power is very short, about 1 second, and is only continually refreshed if the target stays in the puddle. Once they leave the puddle it expires. Since the combat monitor is pretty wonky my guess is that by the time you actually see it pop up it's already over, assuming your live target is moving and not standing in it.

Ho boy... 😬

I use AutoHotkey and bind my scripts to the numpad buttons.

:Stares at you in Dark/Dark Blaster:

I think I remember this. IIRC critter AI was changed to make them run away if they were taking damage but weren't able to hurt you. I think this was around the same time they added a fear component to Burn and Caltrops with Floyd saying something like "if you were standing in a patch of fire you would try to run out of it too" and "if you're taking a lot of damage and can't hit your target you too would run away to prevent being defeated".

It can be very helpful if you're on a PUG with a Brute or Tank who is having trouble keeping everything on him. But yeah, it's very situational, not something you're going to use all the time or even with every mob, as it's not often necessary.

There are plenty of opportunities to use Hurricane on indoor maps by pushing critters into corners and keeping them there. If anything, melee toons love this because everything is bunched up for them. But it takes a fair amount of practice and skill to learn how to do this effectively. This is much more difficult to do on a wide open outdoor map because everything just scatters.

Hurricane is awesome, but it's highly situational. Ideally you use it to push critters into a corner and lock them down. With a base -tohit of 30% (~46% fully slotted) it pretty much neuters anything it touches. The -60% range also forces critters to only use their ranged attacks unless you're literally right on top of them. Also great for boss+ fights. You can't always corral them if they have KB and/or repel protection, but you can absolutely debuff them. Another good use is to protect the back line from any critters that get peeled off the tank and coming bearing down on the squishies. The one thing you DO NOT want to do is turn it on and leave it on. I was recently on a PUG where the lead did this, and between him and a PB they were knocking critters all over the place, making my Scrapper's life pretty miserable.

I honestly don't think any one set is "best", or pairs better with Empathy than another. It's all just flavor and what kind of secondary effects you want.

I believe this is one of the rare cases where CoD doesn't correctly parse server data. This was explained in a recent post

Honestly I don't care one way or the other, but how difficult is it to sell off excess salvage and recipes when you're selling enhancement drops?

But this is exactly my point. Against trash critters defense is fine. Against tough critters, EBs, and AVs not so much. And Tough is only S/L resistance. If you're getting hit with something else it's not helping. While SR has nice DDR, a room full of +4/x8 Cimerorans are gonna slice right thru you. Numbers on paper are great, but they don't tell the entire story. There's a reason why Shield, Rad, Bio, and Invul are at the top of the list and SR isn't. I mean, you can test all this yourself. Hop on the test server and make a bunch of Scrappers with the same primary but different secondaries. Boost them to 50, kit yourself out with even-level SOs, set the slider to +4/x8 w/AV and take on different types of critters, AVs, and GMs and see who lasts the longest on average.

I seem to remember a time when you could stack both sets, but that's no longer the case. Now it's one or the other.

This is also good because if the detective doesn't introduce you to a new contact after the safeguard missions it means you've done everything. Aaron is given by either Sondra Costel or Officer Fields, who are given by Matthew Habashy. They have very different story arcs and you can only choose one of them. A good example of newer contacts/missions where you're not able to do both.

What I mean is, while it's possible to get every story arc or mission you can't get every contact because there is more than one contact that will give the same set of missions? So I shouldn't lose my mind if there are contacts I don't have because others in that same level range have already given me all the available missions? Amazing to me that after 20 years I'm still learning new things about this game.

That any set or AT can be godly with IO sets and globals and that they aren't a measure of how good a set is on its own. The game is balanced around even-level SOs. If you want to know how effective a particular set is or isn't that's what you slot. With enough INF you can make a Defender or Controller godly. It's irrelevant. It's not something most people are ever going to want or be able to do. Pretty much what I said but was then told I was delusional. 🤷‍♂️ Ah, but here's the thing, DEF is very dependent upon what you're fighting. As you pointed out, higher ranking and level critters will be able to bypass more of your defense, not only hitting you more often but doing more damage with each hit. Resistance is the same regardless. The benefit of layered defense and resistance is that the damage is spread out over time, greatly reducing the chance of being 2-shot, and allowing regeneration to do its thing. It also benefits you when you're hit by debuffs, as critters typically will only debuff one layer of protection at a time. On paper it looks better to have a large amount of one thing but in actual gameplay it's not, for a variety of reasons.

So the takeaway is that it's not possible to get every contact in every zone? Or am I missing something?

At most +2/x8, at worst -1/x0, depending upon the character and what I'm doing. Anything higher than +2 I find too difficult to hit consistently and takes too long to kill for my tastes. More often than not if I'm soloing I'm paying attention to the story so I choose to run thru the missions as quickly as possible in order to advance it.

Can confirm. Did a TF with him last night and all he did was try and drain the blood from already-dead critters. 😜