Call Me Awesome

Yay, I have one of only two level 50 Fire/Regen Stalkers. I have to say it's really a good combination when you soft cap it to S/L. It was the second character I got to 50 here on HC... I had no idea it was such a rare beast. I must play her more often since she's such a unicorn. My level 50's here are: Fire/Energy Blaster - One of 642 Archery/TA Blaster - One of 569 BS/Shield Scrapper - One of 155 Elec/Shield Stalker - Gaaa, I swear I wasn't following the trend, most common at one of 307 Inv/Stone Tanker - One of 25 And the aforementioned Fire/Regen Stalker of which there are only 2 for some odd reason.

But for 90% of the players with the power it's utterly counterproductive. Spawn down, on to the next... DimwitShift! And we all waste end on unhittable mobs then sit around with thumbs up our butts waiting for it to end. Then kill the spawn in a few seconds, move on to the next... DimwitShift! Waste attacks, then discuss idiot Controller's parentage and general mental acuity... DimwitShift ends and we kill the spawn in seconds, move on to the next... you guessed it, DimwitShift! On rare occasions the team gets through to the idiot controller and things smooth out. More frequently the idiot gets kicked or players abandon the team. It's one of the worst powers in the game in my opinion and I've NEVER seen it used productively. I've seen lots of bad usage of powers in my time, Storm characters who insist on standing next to the tank with Hurricane running and other poor choices but I've also seen very effective Stormies use it to bunch up mobs for the tank to hold and the team to kill. I've yet to team with anyone who can use DimwitShift as anything but a team griefing tool.

If you're building for Regen then your priorities may be different. I usually build most melee characters for defense/resistance/endurance sustainability/recharge and then look to other things afterwards. For example, my Fire/EM blaster is built for endurance and recharge, followed by Ranged defense and finishing up with +to hit... I'm still running the same build I had when fast snipe needed massive tohit bonuses. My Elec/Shield Stalker is built for Defense, endurance and recharge sprinkling in some to hit and a dash of regeneration. My Illusion/Radiation controller on Live I built for recharge, recharge, endurance and a bit of recharge... I was looking for 205% in global recharge bonuses to get perma PA. My Inv/Stone tanker is built for defense, resistance, endurance, recharge and regeneration as a byproduct more than anything else, with my current build there's very little in the game that's dangerous enough to require me to hit Dull Pain and I've yet to get in a situation where I was in serious danger of faceplanting. For many characters regeneration isn't a major focus but some burn a LOT of endurance so I need to cover that requirement.

I had a similar experience, my first Scrapper was my third character rolled up and was also a BS/Regen. That was in issue 3 before all the Regen nerfs pretty well gutted the set; although even after all the nerfs the defense of Parry makes Regen MUCH more survivable. Even without any assistance from the primary it's still adequate although you do need to pay attention to your health and be ready with Reconstruction and Dull Pain. It's not a set you can ignore like SR or Willpower, it demands much more attention to survive. On the issue of a Tanker vs a Scrapper or Brute I'd say it depends on if you'll be teaming all the time or spending a good amount of time solo. A tanker is certainly more survivable but they solo considerably slower than the other melee AT's. Also there's more expectation on your teammates part of your role as a tanker; you'll be expected to take the alpha strike and manage aggro as well as lead the team through the mission. The Tanker is the first into combat and his job is to keep the mob's attention on him instead of the squishier members of the team... it's a lot of fun but it is a good bit more complicated than a simple "BAD GUY!!! KILL HIM NOW!!!" playstyle that a Scrapper lends itself to.

How about the long term forum favorite, the Big Red Ball!

Well, I'm not that familiar with Bio but Invuln can be built to the point that only Stone can exceed it's durability. Soft cap your defenses, 90% S/L resistance, over 50% to all other types, and you have Dull Pain as a HP boost/emergency heal on tap. There's very little in the game that can threaten a well built Invuln tanker, and it's good from the early game getting it's core abilities by 18. Another good option is Shield... it can get really good as well and it has Shield Charge and a damage boosting power in Against All Odds.

Well, looking at the list of power sets at level 50 how about Battle Axe/Ice Armor? They're the two rarest sets although it does seem like they may work adequately. I have to admit to a lack of experience with them, I've never played Battle Axe and the only Ice Armor I played was a Tanker.

At a guess based on the Scrappers I've taken to 50 I'd put the durability prize on Shield. Due to the HP limitations of a Scrapper vs a Tanker Defense gives more bang than Resistance. Invuln is certainly a capable set for Scrappers but it's not as good relatively as it is for a Tanker. SR would also be decent but not up with Shield since it's pretty much a one trick pony and once you soft cap both the advantage goes to Shield. Unless paired with a set like Broadsword I'd expect Regen to bring up the rear. It's great if you can build significant defense however. My guess, assuming a good IO build, would be something like this: Shield SR, Ice, Invuln Dark, Elec Fire Regen

Ummm, yeah. Solo a monster, doable but it'll take forever. Solo Hami? Not so much.

I tried one... and deleted it after a couple of DFB runs. That slow then a few fast then back to slow drove me up a wall.

I didn't start until late 2004, I think it was early issue 3. I do recall the beta of CoV but I wasn't in it... too invested in blue side. In any case, Welcome Home! The geriatric department is to your left.😉 Hmm, I'm not sure I've much room to talk... I hit level cap a few years ago.

As I recall I didn't start face planting constantly until after around level 5 or so... this was back in 2004 so it's been awhile. I do know I deleted the character sometime before 20... I remember getting Fly which puts it after level 14. Back then debt was a major deal and frankly at the time I kind of sucked as a player, at least with a blaster. I do recall that my Tank made it to 50 with only one or two deaths, and I learned a lot along the way. Remembering the aggravation of constantly face planting on my blaster I made damn sure as a tank that I held the aggro away from the squishies. I found that tanking appealed to me and I spent most of the next few years playing tankers. At some point I branched out and by now I've played most AT's to 50 at least once... the only one I've never been able to click with is a Mastermind. I've tried several times with several different combinations but Masterminds just don't seem to be my thing. It's kind of ironic but since Homecoming my main character has been... a Fire/Energy blaster. It works a lot better in more skilled hands, and it doesn't hurt that the character is soft capped defensively to Ranged damage and built to the massive levels of +to hit that the original fast snipe required. I do still enjoy melee characters though; over the years I've had 6 level 50 scrappers, 3 level 50 stalkers, 1 brute and 5 tankers. My current list of 50's here includes two scrappers, two stalkers, one tanker and one blaster. There's two more tankers, 3 defenders, 1 blaster, 1 peacebringer and 1 controller in the 30-45 range who'll get there sometime.

Not a bad choice at all for a new player, my advice always used to be to roll a Scrapper since they combine good damage with enough durability to be forgiving while a newbie learns the ropes. Claws is a good choice for primary since it gives you fast recharging powers to minimize the "stand around and wait for an attack to recharge" that many sets have in the early levels... while I'm not a big fan personally of Willpower it is effective and it's a "set and forget it" set. Playing that combination will be a no brainer so a new player can instead learn the game without having to manage their powersets. My first character back in 2004 was a Fire/Energy Blaster... it worked fairly well in my noobish hands up to around level 5, then I started faceplanting. A lot. Everything killed me with ease and I got frustrated, deleted the character and rolled an Invulnerability/Stone Melee Tanker, who became my namesake and first level 50. About 7 years later I rolled up another Fire/Energy Blaster and by that time I was a much better player and had loads of fun with him. In any event it's hard to beat a Scrapper for a brand new player. You get really good damage, albeit in melee, and you get enough durability to live through your mistakes while you're learning. Later on once you get experience and levels you'll find that Scrappers are capable of some really stupid levels of badassness. Solo game content meant for a full team of 8? No problem for a mature Scrapper with a decent build. Boost the mobs to +4 levels above you? Now it's starting to get interesting and you'll need to pay attention to what you're doing. Still well within the capabilities of a mature Scrapper build however.

My main gripe with the concept of end draining powers is that until the mob's end hits zero the effect is useless, and in the same time it takes an Elec to drain a mob any other blast set would have killed it.

My characters are usually concerned with endurance so Miracle/Numina are a given. Regeneration isn't nearly as high on my list for most characters so it's a "use if I have an extra slot without a better home" thing. Regen is useful on a high HP melee character so I try to fit it in there if I can without sacrificing other elements of the build. All my characters are a balancing act and slotting this frequently means doing away with that... everything's a tradeoff. More regeneration or more defense or more resistance? It all depends on the character and what's the most useful.

Respeccing a level 50 can be a huge PITA with all the Set IO's, tray configuration and whatnot. I do always have the build finalized in Mid's before I start so I'm not deciding which way to go while I'm doing it. The only problem is the new change to slot levels so you can now 6 slot your level 49 power... something Mid's still doesn't allow you to do. After I have my build all mapped out it'll still take a good 20 minutes to do, and then I'll spend more time getting some new IO's. This is why my characters don't tend to change their builds very often.

This is really a pointless addition... those who want to play that way are perfectly capable of doing so without any changes to the game and the VAST majority who don't aren't affected by it. As Sailboat mentioned there's nothing stopping you from playing that way if you like, and it doesn't take Dev time away from things that everyone else wants.

If you can fit them in they're certainly useful. Every character I have gets a Miracle by level 20 and a Numina by level 30... this works wonders for my endurance. The Panacea is nice but I frequently can't fit it in without sacrificing something I need more than the additional regeneration.

It would be nice, but I don't believe the game's current engine can handle it... and changing the engine would be a MAJOR undertaking I imagine.

Rock on Ted!

I completely agree that as a mechanic end drain needs some attention because it's mostly ineffective against mobs as a mitigation. It's utterly worthless until the mob bottoms out on end... which typically takes as long or longer than simply killing it with decent damage attacks. One tic of recovery and the mob's smacking you again. Even when you get the mob to zero and eliminate it's recovery you still have to kill the thing. For some reason the Dev's originally decided that end drain was such a useful effect that any set that had it needed to have bottom tier damage to compensate. When I read the description of the new Defender set my first thought was that it was going to be another underpowered and overly complex set. Of course that description didn't include any numbers so I'm guessing but I've yet to see a useful set built around end drain. They're all way at the bottom of the useful sets.

Absolutely. Tac Arrow is miles better than Trick Arrow and much better suited for the game. Trick Arrow may look good on paper but in the length of time it takes to toss out it's goodies most teams will have the spawn dead or nearly so. Tac Arrow on the other hand works MUCH better in a fast moving group. I've played an Archery/TA blaster here to 50 and it's a lot of fun. I've attempted a Trick Arrow defender a couple of times back on Live and never made it to 20.

Bonfire is a fantastic power once it gets a KB-KD proc slotted. Toss Bonfire on a spawn, then rush in with Hot Feet/Choking Cloud (with the Lockdown proc) and the murder monkeys. Occasionally toss Fire Cages and then on to the next.

And that more than anything else is why I didn't stay with SWTOR long term. It's a solo game with some MMO elements grafted haphazardly onto it.

I've had 3 level 50 Blasters, Fire/Energy (Boost Range!), Archery/Energy and Archery/TA. Of them my favorite is the Fire/Energy; I'm soft capped to Ranged damage and always flying so there's a lot of survivability. I built him for almost pure ranged attack... I have the required T1 "Get out of my face" power and I picked up Bone Smasher for when a mob got close (Bone/Thrust/Blast). He's a bit endurance heavy running 3 leadership toggles, epic armor, Tough/Weave along with Fly but manageable. I built him originally for the old fast snipe +tohit requirements and I'm always at max chance to hit. The Archers were both a lot of fun; out of the box they have great range and they're extremely low endurance. On the other hand Lethal damage is pretty commonly resisted and the damage output isn't even close to Fire. If you've had fun with your Fire/Fire blaster then you may enjoy running a melee character like a Scrapper or Stalker... you'll get a ton of in your face damage along with great durability. Or maybe go another direction with a Defender or Controller and focus on the team instead of purely on damage output.