Saikochoro

I don’t see how one can come to the conclusion that homecoming was intended to be a vanilla ish server. Even in the beginning of the resurgence homecoming was clearly known to be one of the servers furthest from a vanilla experience. I know other servers have made a lot of updates since then, but homecoming has never really been what CoH was at sundown. I’m not saying this as a bad thing. I like pretty much all of what homecoming has done. Or at least can understand it. I’m just saying from an observational standpoint, homecoming was never really vanilla given all the changes it already had when everything started up again.

I know it isn’t worth much from a stranger, but condolences for your loss. I can’t imagine how hard that must be.

While I don’t think grass is greener on the scrapper side, I don’t think they are a waste. I actually like scrappers better than stalkers, but in terms of damage stalkers are generally better (especially in single target). Savage/shield stalkers are damage machines. I honestly don’t think you will be disappointed. You have basically all the AoE of electric/shield, but a crap ton more single target damage. It also feels faster and more fun, in my opinion. War mace/bio scrapper will be quite the monster in terms of damage. However, if you are considering dark melee, then I can’t recommend dark melee enough on scrappers. In my opinion, dark melee is best on scrappers because of their damage modifiers and because of them having soul drain. I don’t do dark melee on stalkers because they get build up instead of soul drain. For a dark melee scrapper, I don’t think you can do better than dark melee/shield defense. Between soul drain and AAO you can have a ludicrous damage bonus on an almost perma basis. With these damage bonuses dark has some of the best damage available. It has crazy single target with smite, siphon life, and midnight grasp. A soul drain+AAO fueled shield bash and shadow maul will delete entire spawns. Dark melee is even getting a TAoE in beta. Dark melee and shield were made for each other as they completely cover each other weaknesses and enhance their strengths. Dark has rotational self healing and endurance recovery that shield lacks. Dark has -to hit that helps with shield’s defense based mitigation. Shield can also get very high resist values on top of softcapped positional defenses. Shield has a AoE telenuke to supplement darks AoE damage. And soul drain + AAO is just glorious. I can’t think of a more synergistic combination than dark melee/shield defense scrappers. I cannot recommend this combination enough. It is by far my favorite melee combination.

They buffed the sword attacks on ninja enough that I want to play that set now. That alone was enough to make me want to reroll.

I guess when I mean minor tweaks, I meant to playstyle and not so much slotting. I will definitely have to respec, but I will still largely play it as a hover blasting set. I have two main tac arrow blasters: -ice/TA -Archery/TA My ice/TA will be getting a respec to change up slotting, but will still play largely the same as I do now. My archery/TA will be getting retired and stripped of IOs. This isn’t because I hate what they’ve done to TA, but rather because I love what they did to ninja training. I don’t particularly want two archery blasters, and archery seemed the most thematic fit to pair with ninja training. Thus I will be retiring my archery/TA to be replaced with my archery/ninja blaster.

All feedback in this thread is based on experience and opinion. I don’t see where they said in that post that their view was more important than an alternative view. Only that it is their view and thus they are stating it opposite what some others have stated. It is no different than if @Waviclehad first stated they liked specific rotations and then someone had countered by saying they don’t enjoy that. Two view points were shared and neither claimed more importance than the other. In this regard, it is my opinion that mechanic sets don’t really limit freedom any more than non-mechanic sets. MA was an example of freedom, but using eagles claw to buff either crippling axe kick or dragons tail is actually very similar to TF buffing either ET or power crash for the same reasons. The BF + attack vitals combo for dual blades doesn’t change honestly not so much because it is a combo, but more so because it is the most efficient rotation for both single target AND aoe purposes. So there isn’t really a reason to switch to another combo. It could then be argued that dual blades other combos should be equalized in power because it restricts freedom, but honestly non-mechanic sets only have the illusion of freedom. There will always be a specific rotation that is the most optimal regardless of the set. Most of the time the single target rotation is different than the AoE rotation, but in cases like dual blades they are the same. Sometimes the optimal rotation even involves replacing primary power picks with pool powers. I just think that people are getting hung up on losing freedom, when there will always be an optimal rotation regardless of mechanics and regardless of the set in question. War mace doesn’t really have a mechanic and yet there is still an optimal rotation for it. Optimal rotations aren’t always the correct choice in every situation, but they are those that have been tested to provide the most dps. People do however, have the freedom of choosing whether or not to follow the optimal rotation for whatever reason they choose. I do understand not liking that the game is telling you part of what the optimal rotation is. I understand that complaint. I’m just pointing out that even if the game didn’t tell you part of the rotation there would still be an optimal rotation.

Those three points were on topic with feedback. Point 1: A huge portion of the feedback and discussion has been about ET being fast full time versus part time. People have stated they want it full time. The comment was a counter to that same as many others. On topic. Point 2: Discusses the new cone power crash and how to use it effectively. On topic. Point 3: A counter to the suggestion of adding new secondary effects to the powerset in question. On topic. @ScarySaimay come off as harsh at times, but they certainly aren’t the only one in this thread that have done that.

Background For all of my time on live I was in the only use SOs camp and was always pretty poor in terms of influence. Upon coming to Homecoming I started out the same way. I didn’t even start using common IOs for quite a while even on homecoming, let alone expensive set IO. Eventually, I got a taste for build making in mids and wanted all the power of a purpled out build. Then began my quest to making influence as efficiently as possible. Like many, I hate using the market in games. I abhore it. I also have always hated farming. I have nothing against either method, I just don’t enjoy them. So, I will go through the various ways I have funded my 500m influence builds. My hope is that people can look at this and find a method that works for them. I will go in chronological order of how I started using the methods. Death From Below Level: 1+ Team: Yes, 8. Where: Trials tab of LFG Barrier to Entry: none Expected Earnings: <100k/hour I would farm this mainly for xp and then sell the SOs. By the time I was level 25ish I would have maybe 120k. At the time I thought this was a lot of influence. Not a very efficient money maker. AE Ticket into Rare Salvage Level: 1+ Team: No Where: Architect Entertainment Buildings Barrier to Entry: none Expected Earnings: ~1-2m/hour I used the Fastest Farm in the West AE arc set to ticket rewards. I started this as a quest for faster xp. It just also happened to reward a decent amount of tickets. I turned the tickets to rare salvage. Made influence a LOT faster than DFB farming, but was much more boring. Summer Blockbuster Level: 15+ Team: Yes, 4. Where: Holiday Events tab of LFG. Barrier to Entry: low Expected Earnings: ~20-25m/hour I first tried this when someone sent me a tell asking if I wanted to join a double feature event that had a good reward. I said yes, and then had a lot of fun fighting AVs, ninjas, and rikti monkeys. At the end I had the choice of taking an Overwhelming Force enhancement. Note, despite the in game message, this can be repeatedly chosen as the reward on the same character with no cooldown. At the time these enhancements sold for 20m. This was by far the fastest and funnest way to earn influence. These now sell for around 10m. However, teams fill fast and the event takes 20-30 minutes. So this is still a good way to make decent money and it is very fun. I hit 100 million for the first time ever farming SBB. Twilight Son’s TF “Smoke and Mirrors” merit farming Level: 34+ (need to double check this) Team: No Where: Oroborous Barrier to Entry: low Expected Earnings: ~20-25m/hour 4 missions, no travel between missions, repeatable with no diminishing rewards, 12 merits per completion. Best done on a stalker. I got to a point where I was competing runs on a StJ/EA stalker in less than 6 minutes. So I was getting around 120 merits per hour = 360 converters = 20-22m influence per hour. This is the fastest way I have found to farm merits without having to wait to form speed TF runs. Problem is that it gets boring and repetitive fast. Converter Roulette Level: 1+ Team: No Where: type /ah and be near a worktable (rikti warzone building is a favorite) or have portable workbench. Barrier to Entry: low-moderate (just need some starting funds for yellow recipes and converters. Obtaining even just the AP exploration reward merits is enough to get started). Expected Earnings: ~up to 100m+/hour Roulette is a good word for beginners at the enhancement conversion, but as you get used to it it becomes much more focused and predictable. I started saving my converters and instead using them to convert level 31 yellow recipes to desirable rare set IOs. Lots of good guides on this. I reached 1 billion influence for the first time when I started this. I got more efficient over time as I learned what sells and what doesn’t. This does take time to craft and market, but can easily make over 100m influence per hour (not counting time it take for sales to be filled on AH). One of the most efficient ways of making influence and has the benefit of being diversified so people don’t encroach upon your niche. This is magnitudes faster than any type of farming. AE farming Level: 50+, you can start much earlier, but the real money is at 50. Team: No, but can be done in teams. Where: Architect Entertainment Buildings Barrier to Entry: moderate-high (you need specific archetype, power set combos, power picks, and set bonuses to be competitive) Expected Earnings: ~50-100m/hour (Varies greatly depending on build and drops). I finally broke down and made an alt account to power level my main account toons. As a side result, I got to start making influence via AE farming. Most of the time it was cut in half or more due to me leveling my main account. I did try a few times without having an alt to power level to see if I could make good money. It is pretty good. I could casually make about 50-60m per hour without too much fuss sometimes quite a bit more with lucky purple drops. However, this still doesn’t hold a candle to enhancement conversion. Niche Marketing Level: 1+ Team: No Where: Type /ah and maybe be near a worktable or have the portable workbench Barrier to Entry: moderate-high (requires good knowledge of the market and supply/demand) Expected Earnings: ~100-500m/hour (highly dependent on niche) With the knowledge I gained from my converter roulette marketing, reading guides, and making builds I got a good idea for what people want. I began various niche marketing, which can take all sort of forms. Because it can vary so much I won’t go into all the ones I used. Niche marketing focuses on a very specific market transaction and usually a very specific good. It can involve flipping, crafting and converting, catalyzing, etc. This runs the risk of others discovering your niche and eroding your profits. This is the most profitable money making method I have discovered. I have made 300-400m per hour using this method. Content Merit Accumulation Level: 1+ Team: No, Yes, and various sizes. Where: Everywhere Barrier to Entry: none-high (depends on the content) Expected Earnings: ~10m+/hour (estimating ~1 merit/min, + for drops) This is different from merit farming in that I don’t find the most efficient merit reward arc and repeat until bored. Instead I join whatever task force is being advertised while I am online. The weekly strike targets are always going on so that is icing on the cake. Doing this can net you 100s of merits (10s of millions of influence) per week, which is honestly more than enough to fund even the most expensive builds in a relatively quick manner. This method may not be the most efficient in terms of inf/min, but it honestly is the least repetitive method and thus is the most fun. Closing thoughts Even though enhancement conversion and niche marketing is much more efficient I don’t often do that anymore. Instead I use the last method for most of my playtime to just accumulate merits as I play and then cash them in when I need them. I also still play summer blockbuster a lot because it is just plain fun. My journey to influence affluence has been a long one and I used many methods as shown above. Being happy with earning 120k from selling SOs from 8 DFB runs is a far cry from spending 3-5 minutes doing niche marketing and raking in 40-50m in profit. I have done many types of farming and many types of marketing. Not every method will work for everyone. However, I do believe there IS a method that will work for everyone to fund what they want to fund in a reasonable timeframe. If you have any questions on any particular method, please let me know and I’d be happy to go more into detail or point to helpful guides. Also, please feel free to share any other money making methods below. I want everyone to be able to find the method that works for them.

Apologies, I have not had the time to actually test this function out. However, I would like to express my thought about it with the caveat that using it in practice may be different than in theory. I never touched IOs on live. So, SOs were my bread and butter. I was also never rich in terms of influence on live. I began my foray into IOs and influence wealth near the beginning of 2020 on homecoming. So even a good chunk of time playing on homecoming I still used only SO/DOs. I now have the ability to skip low levels entirely with a PL account and can fund 500m builds the moment my new alt dings 50. So, I have experience both as a poor SO only player and a rich uber build player. So with that background out of the way: I actually REALLY like this idea on paper. I am one of the people that hated the low levels even when I played on live. I never had much interest in story content and only wanted to level up as fast as possible with as many alts as possible. Hence, xp/min and efficiency was always my focus. However, part of the turnoff of the low levels was the fact that I can’t slot the set IOs that I want in the low levels. Also, the time it takes to slot and upgrade DO/SOs was enough for me to not want to bother even trying low levels. Giving low levels access to SOs basically from the get go helps immensely in terms of enjoyment at low levels due to having more power. Being able to update SOs with a a few clicks right from the enhancement screen removes so much hassle from the process and enables you to keep a good power level. Less whiffing. More damage. Less mundane. All good things. This feature alone more than anything has actually peaked my interest to level a few alts organically without any IOs (baring maybe the ATO procs), without double XP, only things like reveal and ninja run from the P2W vendor, and no 500m trust fund from my older alts. No auction house. No farming. Just going out there and getting after all the content I ignored because I honestly just hated dealing with the low power of low levels and the slog. I know one of the main concerns for a lot of people are: how are the new players going to afford this? This is fair given that new players are likely the ones who would get the most value out of this feature. I would counter that by advising that playing content that offers reward merits makes funding SOs easy. Perhaps not for the first 5-7 levels, but once you get into posi territory you should never have problems funding SOs again. So, a more important question is: how do we inform new players on how to get reward merits starting from level 1 and how to convert those merits into influence to fund SOs. There are many simple ways, but getting them that info is important. I may change my mind once I actually start leveling a character organically with only SOs. But honestly, I am almost as excited for this feature as I am for the new energy melee. Great job team!

To be fair this is true of pretty much all damage sets. People figure out optimal rotations that will produce the best results on every set. This is not unique to the new energy melee. That said, just because one rotation is the most optimal does not necessarily mean it will always be the correct rotation to use. Sometimes you might want the extra AoE and thus energy focus gives you the choice of improving your AoE. Sometimes you want the extra burst and energy focus gives you the choice to have fast energy transfer. We aren’t getting full time fast energy transfer. Energy focus is a good way to prevent nerfing the single target power of the set, but instead improving both single target and AoE damage. It also gives players the choice to focus on AoE or single target in any given situation.

Tankers won’t do as much damage as a scrapper or a stalker, but they aren’t as low damage as in the past. They have received significant buffs in the damage department. They are especially good at AoE damage with larger target caps, cones, and pbaoe area. Their multiplier is only slightly less than a stalker. So while they don’t do quite as much damage as the dedicated damage dealers, they aren’t really lacking in damage. They are however a lot more sturdy than either scrappers or stalkers. So they can easily tank as their name suggests AND deal meaningful damage. There is actually a whole thread in the tanker forum for high damage tank builds. My own personal high damage tank builds include shield/energy melee and rad/super strength both of which can deal some pretty ludicrous damage.

Honestly pretty much any stalker will do well. Though I’d lean toward more single target burst and away from AoE. Thus I wouldn’t do electric shield stalkers for this. You want burst primaries: My top suggestions are: Energy Melee - the changes on beta are amazing. Just keep in mind current live version is lackluster, but once beta version goes live it will probably be the best primary to use. Street Justice - my current top performer. Psionic Melee - great burst. Secondaries: you want offensive focus. If this is your main focus for the stalker you shouldn’t be worried to much about being super tanky. So I’d choose bio armor as the secondary. Though I will never discourage anyone from going energy aura. If you want it to do well in all other content you honestly can’t go wrong with energy aura. It is the best secondary in my opinion. Bio may have it best at offense, but honestly not by a ton and energy aura is just more well rounded and survivable and still gets an offensive boost through +rech. That said bio is great in other content too. My current go to stalker for this is street justice/energy aura. This is also great for all content. Once energy melee improvements go live it’ll probably be EM/Bio.

No problem. If you don’t get bored, then yes, I’d say this is your best bet. Don’t have to wait for teams. Don’t have travel time between missions. Stealth to bosses for the most part. No diminishing returns. Like I said, I can’t think of anything that is more efficient without having to form a team or league. And you are right, a good excuse to make a stalker. I actually made 3 different stalkers purely to see which one would do this farm the fastest.

Good way to farm merits is to do Twilight Son’s task force “Smoke and Mirrors” from the Oro crystal. This is repeatable without diminishing merit rewards, so it always gives you 12 merits. Also no need for a team as it is best done solo. Run it at -1/1 and it’s best done on a stalker. It is 4 missions. First two just kill the boss and possibly his immediate minions. First map and boss position never changes (boss is always on the steps of the tram). Second map changes a little, but it’s always easy to find the boss. Third kill the mobs around the people you have to rescue (all around the board walk). This map and target positions don’t change. Fourth, run to the end and kill the EB and the mobs around the two people to rescue. This map never changes so you get used to it after a run or two. There is a crystal right next to Twilight Son who is the contact. He also ports you to each of the four missions. Upon exiting the mission you are sent directly back to him. So no travel time between missions. First few times it may take you 10ish minutes. After a few runs you will memorize the layout and it gets significantly faster. Again doing it on a stalker is the best. I can consistently complete runs in just under 6 minutes. So you can get 100-120 merits per hour for as long as you can stomach it. I haven’t found a more efficient way farm merits without needing any prerequisites besides being level 35 I think. Just keep in mind it gets very boring very fast.

Honestly, I would give procs a 100% proc rate and adjust the damage done with recharge/AoE factors. A slow recharging single target power would get the full powered proc. A fast recharging AoE power would get the smallest proc damage. Slow recharging AoE powers and fast recharging single target powers would be somewhere between those two in the spectrum. So basically instead of adjusting how often the damage procs for the full value, I would instead adjust the value of the damage proc that would occur 100% of the time. Procs would still have the added benefit of damage type diversification and not being subject to damage cap. I would still make it ignore global recharge bonuses for simplicity. Then I’d adjust the proc numbers as necessary for balance. The reason I’d do it this way is because I don’t like RNG, which is odd considering I like scrappers. Instead I value consistency. Making procs consistent and simple would be a win in my book. However, I know it would cause a lot of balancing work and one people would hate the change.

Easiest and quickest way to turn merits into influence is to use merits to buy enhancement converters under the special salvage tab at the merit vendor. 1 merit = 3 converters. You can list these for 60k and they should sell relatively quickly. Or you can just list them for 1 influence and they will sell instantly for 60-70k each. In my experience the extra few k you might get from not listing for 1 influence isn’t worth the time spent on the market if you already don’t want to use the market. This method can fund pretty much any build with very minimal time spent on the auction house. Literally just minutes listing all the converters in stacks of 10 for 1 influence each and then grabbing the influence from instant sales. I think converters are the best because they are ALWAYS in high demand due to people wanting to convert IOs. So it will never be a waste to buy and sale then even if it is the absolute most efficient use of them at that given moment.

I can understand just not liking changes to an archetype. Stalkers fill the same role as scrappers, and in my opinion, they honestly do it better. It’s true that blasters do damage better than either stalkers or scrappers, but if you are just comparing melee, the stalker is better based on my experience. I understand our experiences can be different. I honestly skip placate on all stalkers and ignore slow form assassins strike. In my opinion, stalker ATOs are probably the best out of all archetypes. Just place the stalkers guile set in assassins strike and don’t worry about using the slow form. Just build up the assassins focus stacks and then you get a nice fast hard hitting crit. More often then not it will also hide you enabling an auto crit for your highest damage single target power of choice. The RNG crits that stalkers get are just the icing on top. The chance for build up recharge proc is global so you can put it anywhere and have high uptime on build up. Honestly, in terms of performance, I think scrappers only do better at AoE than stalkers, but on some of the newer sets the stalker AoE is still pretty darn good. And stalkers blow scrappers out of the water in terms of single target damage on most any set. All that said, I enjoy scrappers more. I don’t really know why I do, because I honestly do feel stalkers are better overall, but scrappers just feel better to play for me. So I totally understand wanting to go with a scrapper.

Out of your options I would go war mace/shield. Just bring a few greens with you since you’ll have to rely on your Regen alone. It will still be plenty tough and pump out great damage. However, if you are open to mixing up a couple of your choices, I would take dark melee and pair it with shield defense. It can be built very tough and will also do very good damage. They synergize very well with each other. One of the best pairings for scrappers.

I do take everything in bio armor as it is all useful. I personally don’t use shadow meld on my bio scrappers. It is nice for sure, but most of the time ablative carapace is enough to soak up the alpha strike. Plus you still have parasitic aura and dna siphon. I usually get my s/l resistance to cap, and e/n defense to softcap. I agree about ignoring the psi hole. If you are teaming there will almost always be a tanker or a brute who can tank. However, scrappers can do just fine even if they aren’t built for maximum survivability. You just need to survive the alpha and then it’s all good and honestly I can do that on a blaster for a lot of mob factions. My opinion is to skip confront. I personally think it is a worthless scrapper power that should be replaced in all sets with something else. Honestly, scrappers main focus should be doing damage. They will help the team survive by killing everything in sight.

Have you considered doing savage melee/shield defense stalker? In my opinion it is basically an upgrade of electric melee/shield defense stalker. It has very good aoe damage. It also has probably the best single target damage of all sets outside of maybe street justice and the new energy melee on beta.

War mace will probably fit your need the best. Great single target and AoE damage. You may also look into savage melee and dual blades. Both of those also have great single target and AoE damage. Bio armor and shield are the go to offensive sets, though rad armor has some nice offensive boosts too. I personally like energy aura the best though. It doesn’t have a +dam boost, but it does have +rech to help offensively. It also allows for pretty loose slotting so you can chase procs instead of set bonuses. Plus, it has built in heal and endurance management. Might want to try testing out energy melee on scrappers on beta. It has insane single target damage. The AoE damage has also been improved, but isn’t top tier.

I had actually been wondering why all the hate for barrage when it appeared to have better damage and better dpa than energy punch. Guess it makes sense now that I now the display is bugged. I assume that bugged info transferred over to mids as well.

I second a dual pistols/martial combat blaster. It is the most fun combo in my opinion. I also think you two might have more fun if you play a corruptor or defender to support your daughter. You can both play at the same range and the support can buff/debuff. That said, if you want to do tank I think just about any tank will work. My personal favorites are energy melee / shield and super strength rad. Keep in mind energy melee is getting fairly significant buffs in once the beta patch goes live.

Both big hitters crit for 28% damage (they just added the 28% crit for ET today). They both hit very hard. I have had TF crit for 1400 and ET crit for over 2300 on my EM/bio. If they gave them full double damage crits it would probably be overpowered. All other attacks in the set have normal crit mechanics. Beta scrapper EM is not lacking in damage by any means.

Well now that they added 28% crit on energy transfer I tested out my EM/bio on an even level boss in PI. Total damage was 2340. I really ought to try EM/fire to see how a fiery embrace fueled ET crit would do. I’m just being too lazy to make it.