Werner

I never take it. If anyone could benefit, it's SR, but for the reasons you state, it doesn't seem worth it. SR does need healing, but I'd get it from passive regeneration and procs (Panacea, Power Transfer), and take Rebirth for emergencies. That's my plan with my StJ/SR, anyway, but she's not 50 yet. We'll see how it goes. (edit: oops, didn't see there was a page 2, thought the end of page 1 was the most recent post)

Switching to T4 Degenerate Radial took me from 178 DPS to 194 DPS in a Pylon test. This gives up nothing. Switching to T4 Assault Core took me from 194 DPS to 222 DPS. That's slightly exaggerated due to over 50% uptime on Assault. I only rarely used T4 Melee Core. I'd have died in my Mot run without it, but I've made other tweaks to the build based on that run, and DPS is a survivability tool. Probably still doable. Achilles' Heel in Golden Dragonfly took me from 222 DPS to 249 DPS (Edit: 232 DPS). That's slightly exaggerated due to over 50% uptime on Assault. It's probably worth fiddling with my build to give up some survivability to put these in every attack other than Divine Avalanche. Again, with DPS being a survivability tool, that seems an easy enough trade. And he'll be more fun to play with more DPS. (Edit: I think I got the time or calculation wrong on the first Achilles' Heel run. I changed to Achilles' in Soaring Dragon, Fury of the Gladiator in Golden Dragonfly, and got runs for 247 and 256 DPS. Took the Achilles' Heel out of Soaring Dragon and got runs for 235 and 229 DPS. Looks like 250ish DPS is good enough for level 54 AVs in combination with T4 Longbow. Took down Mother Mayhem before they disappeared.) (Edit: Editing because I don't want to push this to the top, but wanted to record a little more information here. New build. Higher recharge to be able to run Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut with a two-tick gap. Purple and resistance debuff procs in Golden Dragonfly and Soaring Dragon. Average time of five pylon runs = 4:13 for 279 DPS. Can solo level 54 AVs without Lore.)

Thank you. I probably have enough for a couple more tier 4s, and if not, it's easy to grind it out.

I grabbed some tier 4 Longbow and headed into AE to beat on a level 54 Chimera to check my damage output. No luck. I got him down to a little over half his hit points before the Longbow disappeared, then he slowly healed back to full before they'd recharged. I'm not surprised. I definitely didn't build for DPS. I'll probably make an alternate L54 AV-soloing build with more DPS and less but hopefully sufficient survivability. Or maybe as a quick fix, some enhancement unslotters to swap in some key DPS ingredients like Achilles' Heel, and swap in alternate Incarnate powers like Musculature and Assault. Is Degenerative the best for big game hunting these days? I grabbed Reactive instead while they were tweaking Degenerative due to Hami raid issues, but I think they're done with their tweaks. Core vs. Radial? I'd usually think Core, but don't level 54 AVs have 87% debuff resistance or something? Maybe some raw damage would be better? (Edit: Wait, damage resistance debuffs are resisted by damage resistance, not by debuff resistance, so maybe Reactive Core is the best I can do against level 54 AVs, as Degenerative's HP debuff would be highly resisted?)

Heh, I'm on my 38th Mids build and I think my 7th real build Katana/Dark, including a Katana/Dark Scrapper on live, then a Katana/Dark Brute on live, and now a Katana/Dark Brute on Homecoming. But I've always min/maxed them to hell and back for Scrapper Challenge Rules (no temps, no insps, no disengaging, no deaths), thus my poor, suffering damage output. But I was just thinking last night how I should get myself a second, more DPS-oriented build for my Brute. My focus would be sufficient DPS and survivability for soloing level 54 AVs no temps no insps, though with Lore pets. Switch builds back and forth as the situation dictates. Not sure what the cooldown on build swaps is. But I was impressed with what you squeezed out of that Tanker in terms of damage while still maintaining good survivability. I may have to explore some Tanker damage builds instead of just Scrapper and Brute survivability builds. But I've decided my next 50 will be a Fire/Rad Sentinel after seeing what @nihilii did with his. I've never played a Sentinel, but I've played Scrappers and Blasters, so halfway in between? Sounds fun.

<flips table> Oh, come on! <looks at his survival-built Katana/Dark Brute doing only 178 DPS and little AoE> Worthless piece of... ugh!

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the listed PPM is as stated when used in a toggle, and it's only in click powers and attacks that things get complex? Panacea is 3PPM 7.5% endurance. I believe that's of base endurance, so 7.5 endurance 3 times per minute = 0.375 EPS recovery on average if my assumptions are correct.

Always active

It's not gimping the build. You have 3.12 EPS recovery shown. However, the Performance shifter in Physical perfection is worth another 0.25 EPS, so 3.37 EPS. After the swap, it shows 2.89 EPS recovery. But now you have two performance shifters for 0.5 EPS (3.39 EPS) plus... I forget how much Panacea contributes, but in any case, the build has more endurance recovery on average, and now also a small random heal now and then. It's not a major change, but it's not worse in any way, unless you consider random recovery worse than guaranteed recovery. I suppose in a way it is, so you could argue on those grounds, but I don't think that's what you were arguing.

That's my understanding, yes, that based on actual enemies and their actual attacks, any knockback attack that blows through 4 is going to blow through 8 as well. I've not tried to figure it out for myself, just trusted what I've heard. So for casual play, and only if I had Hover, I'd consider settling for 4, as that still handles most knockback, and you only spin in the air briefly when things get through. 12 covers almost everything, so is preferred for a tankier build. I don't think I've ever taken Acrobatics, but I'd consider it (and an IO) if I was shorter on slots than power picks, and I had a little endurance to spare.

Only to themselves. My thought was that if I was severely recharge debuffed, it might be at least slightly useful if I had a chance to do knockdown, or at least that it would be better than damage. I'm not sure I've ever used them.

You build looks pretty good to me at first glance. The main thing my general-purpose SS/Fire build appears to have over yours is higher defense. Our resists are very similar. I guess my trade off is that my recharge is lower, but it's not low. He can farm just fine, within about 10% of the best of them, despite the lack of Rage. But he was meant for enjoying the game as a whole, solo or teamed, not just as a farmer. And to me "enjoying" includes "not Rage crashing." Rage is numerically superior for damage if it doesn't bother you, though, just less so than it may at first appear.

Thank you! I was just reading/skimming your Silly Sentinel Tricks thread. Awesome stuff. I've not done Sentinels and have no idea how they play, but a friend likes them, and I've been trying to think about what might be fun to level up, because my friends all want to start leveling their new lowbies, and I'm the only one without a lowbie to level. Maybe I'll level myself a Fire/Rad Sentinel to get a feel for it, and if I love it, I have your build to tweak to my liking. OK, back on Katana/Dark, maybe I'll get those four Lore choices and see which I like best, maybe swap them out a little depending on what I'm doing. I took right side Banished Pantheon on my SS/Fire Brute for the farming. The big guy gets obliterated in seconds, so I don't have much hope for melee pets in +4x8, but we'll see. Since I didn't know what to do on my Katana/Dark I took Banished on him as well to get me the to the level shift then stopped.

Maybe aim for a +4x8 no-inspiration MoITF using lore pets for the extra damage I need to take down uplevel AVs? I've never used lore pets as part of any solo challenges, but they aren't temporary powers, so I guess it's no different than leaning on Barrier and Melee, even to the point of building around their use. It just never felt "solo" to have pets and NPCs on a Scrapper or Brute, even if it is. I usually try to get my NPC "helpers" killed because they're mostly in the way. I remember seeing a spreadsheet (?) of lore pet stats. If anyone knows where all that information is, I'd be much obliged. LMGTFY? OK, I'll search for it myself too. Or just "everyone knows that storms are the best for AVs" or something. 🙂 Starting to feel strange about having posted in the Scrapper forum if I'm going to keep chatting about things that no longer have anything to do with my old Scrapper.

After grabbing Task Force Commander, I soloed the ITF without inspirations. I started on +4x8 kill all, and had my one death when I at first refused to run kite during the ambush at the oracle. Then it was pretty smooth sailing through to the AVs in mission 3, at which point my friends were bugging me to join them doing other things, so I bailed on it. Figuring there was no way I had the damage output for level 54 AVs anyway, and not wanting the slow slog up the hill again, I set it to minimum difficulty when I restarted that mission and stayed on minimum the rest of the time, only killing what I had to. Turns out that having huge melee defense and 90% resistance to negative energy makes the final Romulus fight a breeze, at least with the AVs at level 51. I didn't touch Barrier Core or Melee Core, and only used Dark Regeneration once. I probably would have been fine without it, but I didn't want to take chances. I'm going to do a minor respec, just some fiddling based on what I've seen so far, mostly to pick up Focused Accuracy to help against defense buffs and to-hit debuffs. I need to throw myself at +4x8 Arachnos and Carnies. I remember them being difficult on my old Scrapper. And do other things mentioned in the thread. I'll get to it, but I'm a "casual" player now. 😉 (Edit: Hmmm, I guess before I do a respec I should learn all the new sets being added and see how they might be useful. Or just respec again I guess.)

Defense? Maneuvers, Weave, Combat Jumping, Hover, Scirocco's Dervish, Devastation, Impervium Armor, Miracle, Rope A Dope, Apocalypse Resistance? Aegis unique, Impervium Armor not-unique Just a matter of what you're willing to trade to get it.

I have a flexible chain depending upon my defensive needs and my current state of recharge buffs or debuffs. Default: Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut Defensive or recharge debuffed: Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut Very defensive: Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut Recharge buffed, feeling safe: Gambler's Cut -> Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon Gambler's Cut does better DPS than Sting of the Wasp, and the faster animation should allow for better stacking of -defense. I usually skip Sting of the Wasp in an endgame build. I like taking both it and Gambler's Cut for the lower levels, though. And if you have the recharge for your chain to be gapless, and don't need extra defense (or refuse it due to the animation), I think you have a good chain already, and you can insert an extra Sting of the Wasp when recharge debuffed. I'm not a proc expert and I've misplaced the formula, but my memory is that the chance of triggering the proc depends on the unenhanced recharge time of the power, so for the maximum chance of critical hits in your chain, as well as maximum damage from them, you'd probably be best off with it in Golden Dragonfly. A proc expert will hopefully confirm.

I may know what you're talking about, then. Endless clouds of poison? I ran it through Ouroboros. I think I started farming on +4x8. Dark Regen and some minor resistance was enough to keep me alive in the middle of the poison. I'm mostly single target, so I could save the lieutenants for last. Then I'd try to kill them all at about the same time to avoid waiting vengeance out. But it was a slow, obnoxious slog, so I turned it down to +1x8. Still a slow, obnoxious slog. I eventually just went back to Peregrine to hunt them there. I guess the secret is -1x8. I'll keep that in mind next time, thanks.

Yep. All mine have Combat Jumping or Hover. On my main, I have Kismet, Luck of the Gambler, and some Shield Walls in Combat Jumping.

I'll take a look! I've been eyeing /Elec. I've always preached and lived the gospel of defense. But cascading defense failure sucks. Super Reflexes is one answer. Going "all" resistance is another. So I'm curious.

I was just thinking about Soul Transfer, and how good a rez it's supposed to be, and how I wonder what it looks like, because... because... Holy S#&%, I haven't died since the respec! I'll have to do something about that! 😄 To be fair, that can't have been more than a couple weeks ago, and I've been speedrunning the first Mot arc on low difficulty for the incarnate salvage with occasional +4x8 play with friends, one of whom mostly plays his Tanker and takes his job seriously even when he's running around with two very hard to kill Brutes. We have to split up and run away from him if either of us is to have a challenge. 😉

Thank you. And thank you everyone else as well.

I will have to check that out. And @Sir Myshkinsuggested that I try the "801" AE arcs, starting at the easiest, 801.1. I gather they were specifically designed to kill you very dead to test builds.

Good point. And particularly in the context of this thread of "what do I do if I'm suffering cascading defense failure", movement can definitely be a good answer.

The most efficient way for a melee AT to dispatch a group is typically from the middle of that group. Yes, if you can't take the aggro and are going to die, by all means do something. Take some inspirations. Take a temporary tactical retreat. Kite. Joust. Do something. But finding a way to stand in the middle and destroy all that's around you without dying is efficient, is tactical. Build for that situation, and go to town. Am I going to look like a statue? Like I'm no smarter than the AI? Until I start running around to kill the ranged attackers, yeah. And yes, I'll die occasionally. If you aren't dying now and then, crank up the difficulty. The things that kill me often kill me quite fast, and it takes reaction time to deal with them. But if I can't hit Barrier in time to survive, jumping out of combat probably wouldn't have saved me either. I'd have been just as dead. Very different logic for ranged ATs. I moved all over the place on my old Blaster, because I could move while still attacking at full speed. I don't have that luxury on a melee character. Moving costs me DPS, so I'm not moving until I'm forced to move.