Sovera

I wouldn't go around blaming others for your decision. They have presented certain facts or opinions and you've made a decision based on them. You, not the poster. With that said I don't even know what builds you changed but all I need to see is 'defender and controller' and context to see you were probably trying to use the fancy procs such as holds, endurance drain, etc? Now that you have made the change I suggest you play the build. If you say you notice no difference before and after I will not be surprised. We have a number of people on these forums ready to swear how their sapping mobs is really really helpful and how their -ToHit incarnates really really makes a difference, but if we were to ask them to change their slotting/power picks I'm willing to wager they will not notice a difference. So please, chill, I'm pretty sure your change in gameplay/slotting won't even be noticed by anyone you're playing with.

My own tests with procs didn't show them having a huge impact on the long run. I have the tests posted in the Brunker thread in my signature. Even at the start/middle of the thread I can be found puzzling why what started as an amazeballs procmonstered Burn (incidentally a -very- good carrier for procs) did not show a particular benefit over a regular slotted Burn despite the huge disparity in damage. Later on I ended up switching to a non proc monstered Burn because the raw stats meant more uses even in the lower levels, and also because I could make use of the bonuses. And yet, and yet, it is tantalizing to see a 200+ damage increase (further increased by Burn's double interaction with procs, which -should- have pushed the proc approach further), but testing, not maths, showed there was no great difference between both. Now, -res procs do make a large difference, but mostly because pylons are the damage test and not AVs. Tested (again in the signature) and -res had negligible (against AVs) to no impact in actual gameplay (maps). Again, no math, just actual tests. Unfortunately with Pylons as the subjects of damage tests -res procs will always have such a large impact (25% ish in my amateurish testing) that the discussion will give them more weight than they deserve. As if we fought +0 enemies that don't resist -res effects on a regular basis. My last slew of tests before I went to play SWTOR for a month or two was me trying to improve the damage of a Fire Armor/Ice Melee and I won't bore people with the numbers (again, signature) but nothing I did really changed it. More procs, less procs, quadruple procs. The 5% whiffing accounted more than anything for the slight differences in numbers. This, to me, after multiple tests until 3 AM, tells me that procs don't have as much impact as people might think they do. That said I've relegated all my testing to the Tanker AT and perhaps with other ATs this changes, though I remember many many moons back testing a Rad Melee/Bio Scrapper and posting on the Pylon thread over the Scrapper forums how I kept removing procs to fit more bonuses but it didn't seem to impact my times.

Quite right, I just want people to be informed before making their decision. I don't need to say the number of people who go around with buggy or underperforming incarnates while declaring they really 'feel' the difference. But once knowing the things and still wanting to give a whirl then absolutely.

I'll be honest with in that using procs for stuns and holds has little value. Holds and stuns have durations which are shortened by level difference. They also have magnitudes. A boss' stun protection is invariably 4. Most procs (most, but not all) have a magnitude of 2. So you would need a second proc to hit in the small window in which the effect of the first was still up in order to sun a boss. Now, we can still stun minions and lieutenants... but those aren't dangerous much. Just killing them achieves the same purpose and a damage proc hastens that. Basically, yes, it's an option to use fancy procs, but the system does not reward you for doing so and you will not really notice a difference. But to answer your question Chain Induction ought to have a chance to hit multiple enemies with its procs. It's not a big chance for the chain though, it is more for the initial hit.

S'troo, but I wouldn't do that to a new arrival.

I did not try MA on a Scrapper. But on a Tanker MA's AoE damage was like watching paint dry, it will definitely enjoy a second AoE and Dragon Tail is going to act like a nitro boost with FF. If you're going to aim for incarnate for melee and splitting your ATO it opens possibilities like ditching Cobra Strike and instead taking Crane Kick with another FF and a KB>KD.

Uh, so you do. I must be becoming blind in my old age. *checks again* Yeah, everything is in place, nothing much more that can be added other than maybe considering taking the hit to damage and switch to Brute. The 10% defense from Storm Kick would alleviate a lot of your slotting choices (though not particularly helping in the EPS other than the stacks of recovery from the Brute ATO). I believe this is as good as it gets and it's pretty damn solid.

You can skip a lot of the more tedious slotting by grabbing Weave. I know it's going to increase your EPS when you're already complaining about the costs, but Serums cost near nothing at 10k a pop and can be stacked to 50 when purchased. Once at 50 you shouldn't even need them with Ageless be it yours or of other people. You could then drop some of those 6 slotted Makos, change the Performance Shifters in Physical Perfection for Synapse, full Touch of Death in Eagle Claw for Hectacomb, or move things so you can have a FF proc in Dragon's Tail (not that you have a lot of CDs to begin with, but it's a damn waste not abusing FF in Dragon Tail). This all hinges on being comfortable spamming Serums while under 50 though. *scoffs at non Consume characters*

Fire Armor/Martial Arts. Shout Hadouken at mobs while wreathed in flames. Tank 99% of the game at near Scrapper speeds (better in fact when leveling/exemplaring to low mid levels).

Academically exemplaring could be done, but in practice it would wipe nearly all bonuses. That is a lot more crippling than finding another 3% defense or haste by manipulating the IO rubik cube. Regardless you're correct that it's a choice, but not one I would advocate for.

It's not really all that complex. Complexity is being added for the sake of. What should be measured are the total gains and as someone else spoke above all the attempts at gaming the system add something like 0.1% total to a build. Worth it on a spreadsheet level but about as valuable as the 'I +5 EVERYTHING, even procs!' that sometimes are proudly presented in the forums. +5 everything (of actual value) does add something like 2, or close to 3% at the cost of never ever exemplaring and has no discernible effect in terms of increased damage.

Nope. Keep it attuned.

Just to comment on your signature and the crusade you're still on, and because it sort of tangentially rubs elbows with the thread: it was common to see 5 and 7 minute Scrappers in pylon tests. Even nowadays we still find some new arrival full of vigor and their homebrewed build with their 4-5 minutes pylon runs. Considering the lowest output Scrapper is probably some sort of Elec Melee/Invul VS a Bio/EM Tanker your signature is sort of completely ridiculous.

Because slots are at a premium. More often than not someone min maxing a build will run out of slots long before having run out of powers. It's why you see min maxed builds with 2-3 powers that have no slots. Because nothing of interest could be slotted? No, because no more slots. Like everything there is some weighting being done. Whatever you'd slot in Entropic Aura is worth it more than being slotted somewhere else? This is a personal decision each player makes. In this particular case what more could be slotted into Entropic Aura? With generic IOs only endurance (useful), recharge (useless), and taunt (little use). Of sets only the Taunt sets can be slotted in. They universally give no endurance reduction and instead give accuracy (Entropic is auto hit so it doesn't need that), taunt (not needed either) and range (can't increase the radius of the aura so useless). Which leaves the bonuses. Some of the bonuses of the Taunt sets could be useful, but the raw sets of slotting Entropic Aura would be useless as mentioned above. I encourage you to try and find different slotting though. Making builds is good fun by trying to fit everything like good old Tetris. The only think to be mindful are the goals. These usually (but not always and they depend from player to player) are: - Reaching 40 or 45% defenses. - Enough endurance recovery to be sustainable. - Having all attacks borderline on the yellow (ED) on recharge, and damage (endurance reduction usually comes with but trying to have it slotted is good), with enough accuracy to be as close to 95% to hit +3 enemies (this is easy to see by modifying Mids so ToHit is set to 48%). - A workable rotation of attacks. Neither more than would be useful nor too few that there are seconds passed waiting for one to recharge. - Usually (but not always) as much recharge as possible so that Hasten is close to permanent. - Lastly trying to work in some Slow resistances but this is usually down the list.

Exactly how it works. I often gave the example of the last boss in the ITF as well. With the auto-hit bypassing defenses my defensive cycle was Ablative, get it chewed in two auto hits, DNA Siphon, get HP to half in two hits, eat green insps until Ablative was up. If there were no heals in the group this was not sustainable. But with this doom and gloom then a /Bio Scrapper must die all the time against the last boss of the ITF!?! No. Pretty much never. There are always heals or incarnates being used so death does not happen (often).

Bit squishy, but this is mostly a problem when not following a Tanker. The faster you kill (and that's what Scrappers and Bio are good for) the less in trouble you will be. Things like the robots in Tinpex (they can be found in other missions) will be a problem since they shave defense and hit with Energy which is where Bio is weakest against.

You don't need Elude. Your defenses are already softcapped to incarnate content and SR is immune to defense debuffs. You still have too many attacks, I would ditch Storm Kick since you already have Cobre Strike and Crippling Axe Kick even if you go as low as exemplaring to do Positron part one. I've made some minor changes. Your Focus Chi has better stats (you should probably keep the slotting regardless because on top of letting you do more damage which is what a Scrapper is about it also gives 2.5% to all positionals). Your Cobra Strike is only at 88% to hit +3 mobs (which is where mobs will be once you slot your T3 Alpha) but I would personally not waste a slot on a Kismet just to cover that last 7%. Dragon Tail will give you more Focus Chi/Ball Lightning uses as well. Upped your slow resistance some. Minor resistance increases. Bit of extra EPS. You can get the Musculature that adds damage and endurance to have your cake and eat it too and don't forget to grab the accolades that increase endurance. Carry Recovery Serums with you anyway since they are dirt cheap. Overall minor changes since your build was already pretty damn solid.

The devs tried that as well, but it's night impossible to please everyone. The appeal of Rage is how it stacks to something brutal like 160% damage. To the point SS without Rage is crummy because it -can't- be good or Rage will blow the set out of the water. So their effort was met by a wall of resistance from the players who don't mind the constant crashing because they could enjoy the 160% damage boost. At the time the devs were only trying to do a pass of Rage, and there was so much resistance they gave up and with good reason. In order for Rage to be tweaked into losing its - frankly abominable - downsides will require a complete set re-design like Titan Weapons got.

There was an attempt at making it so in the test server, but it never came out of it.

One thing to add is that for a so called villain I spend too much time fighting villains. Call it what you may. If a villain I'd rather be stealing the jewelry stores, the kitchen soup beating, up on cops (the good sort, not the crooks red side has), and a number of heroes shouting one liners as they try to stop me. Instead half the time I'm wondering if the contacs aren't good guys manipulating the system into turning bad guys versus bad guys in order to making life easier for red side civilians.

SS does decent damage with one stack, great damage with double stacks, but not having AoE until 38 is a severe deal breaker. Rage is also almost a self-CC every two minutes (or one minute if we stack) where we yawn, twiddle our thumbs and go make a sammich waiting for the -damage to wear off. Assuming the -def doesn't screw you up (yes. -def debuffs hurt resistance based sets). Energy Melee does the best single target damage and has pretty decent AoE nowadays thanks to the combo of Power Crash, Whirling Hands, Power Crash. Downsides is that the big single target hitter comes very late as well as Power Crash. It also has a bit of a problem in making a rotation (IMO that eventually forces to use Barrage, but this is minor and still does the best ST damage a Tanker can get. More well rounded options would be Claws (great in ST and AoE, FF options) or Radiation Melee (great for AoE, decent ST spoiled by the slooooooooooooow animations). Or Martial arts (specifically with Fire Armor) as in my signature.

You could min max it a little bit further if you'd care for it, but it's a very well put together build. With the tanker ATO you don't need to hug the 90% resistances. You can instead aim for a bit less and account for two 6.7% to finish capping resistances. Mids accounts for one of those, so just mentally add 6.7%. Once that done you can slightly min max a bit more (just for the sake of it, the build is rock solid as is) and to things like switching the 5 slotting from Siphon Life for 5 Panaceia. Your Dark Regeneration would definitely like a Theft of Essence proc as well which will be a game changer once you try it. The panaceia proc in Health is the best per slot option for endurance, much much better than the 2.5% the second Miracle slot was giving. Another thing that helps is six slotting Gaussian in Soul Drain. Not only do you give it good stats but also 2.5% to all positionals is pretty substantial when chasing that. The +res proc in the aura is not a good place. Tested, gives bad results. Swapping the sets between Death Shroud and Midnight Grasp will serve you better. I would personally drop Cardiac. You have Dark Consumption, it's up every 1 minute and as a back up plan you can buy Recovery Serums. You're lacking accuracy to reliably hit +3 due to the lack of accuracy bonuses so Nerve Core might do you good, and as a bonus it adds a bit more defense so you can move things around. Regardless here is what I messed around a bit with. Your Energy resistance is a bit better and your Soul Drain has decent stats so it can be used. Try the new slotting of Dark Regeneration and you should notice a large difference with how it played before which may help you reconsider Cardiac (I personally found it lacking against something as simple as Recovery Serums). Also, at first glance S/L resistances are butchered, but your second ATO stack will add another 6.7%, so 83.11% + 6.7% = 89.81%.

? Devs fix things. We spitball things on the suggestion forums. It's a laudable goal but has no bearing with fixing or the Sentinel AT would be in tip top shape by now.

And that's why I use and recommend Frost over GiS. Frost does 9 damage less, animates in the same time, and hits in AoE.

SR will always suffer from endurance. Making it positive is night impossible. The solution is stocking up on Recovery Serums from the P2W vendor in Atlas which are ultra cheap, and eventually decide if it is worth it to burn an incarnate choice and drop the Serums or just continue chugging steroids. Perma Elude is also mathematically impossible, but it adds nothing at all to the build. Softcap will be 45% and you'll be blowing past that, and SR cannot be defense debuffed. At most you might want to hit 59% for incarnate content which would be overkill for anything else.