Sovera

I've ran a few tanks, but I'm definitely that sort of player who disappears mid-mission to go solo the objective, or go find the clicky, or who purposefully takes a left when everyone went to the right. I can't do that on a Tanker. A Tanker is like a parent and it does not abandon the team to go wander off so ultimately a Tanker is not fully for me. But I am super happy to play on a Scrapper who has an agro aura since I get to off tank when it's needed though, but a Scrapper without an agro aura is just a Stalker but without Hide and in that case why not Stalk? I did make a DA/MA Tanker build a couple weeks back when I 'discovered' MA. There is plenty of room to improve since I just aimed for the bare 'minimums' of 45% to melee, ranged, and AoE, while having 90% to all res with three stacks of the ATO and Barrier (it still sounds nuts when saying that out loud :p). Aiming for two stacks is ultimately better. Rad Armor for the two heals (With Radiation Therapy acting like Dark Regen's little cousin, including taking the Theft of Essence proc) would have better recharge and better debuff protection.

You've already got this min maxed to the kazoo so I don't think I can offer any improvements. The only thing that jumped to my eye was the Superior Blistering Cold and maybe cut Superior Brute's Fury in half. But since you're +5ing everything the gains are minimal as all stats are already past ED levels. You're also aiming for Fire/Cold resists which further increases the difficulty in fitting everything. I've tried mangling your build a bit but I don't think I managed to make any sort of improvement. You did get a bit of defense in Avalanche and there is a free slot in Golden Dragonfly which can be turned into a damage proc, or a FF proc if such a thing even has a use when you rely on Dark Regen and the one is up just under 10 seconds anyway. No, I think your build is squeezed to the max as it is. You love your Brute and I get it, but a Tanker would net a 20% res (plus the natural boost to defensive values they get, so even more) allowing a relaxing in the x-treme slotting choices. Picking martial arts instead of katana would be another 10% defense across the board further easing slotting (but not helping all that much against cascading failures), but with all of this it would just be another generic character and not THE Alexei you love. I also suppose soloing on a Tanker would be too easy though 😛

You'd think I'd be all over that since I was all over soloing stuff back in WoW, but I never seemed to find the same interest here. I find it too plodding and a slog, but it also helps that I never settle on a character for more than 10 minutes. Kudos Werner, and that's a bitchin' beard on that dude! I'm going to say yes on Oppressive Gloom restraining the minions, though bursting them down would have had the same effect. Some times more damage equals more survival because of things like those.

Every build has a weak spot and that guy will be yours. You can't really counter a major weakness like your whole damage type versus a particular enemy. Hopkins from the Manticore TF is another that my smash or lethal characters just whittle very very slowly. Marauder is an extreme case because he pops a big defensive move. That said your build could use with some focus like Nihili mentioned, and a whole lot of help. You have your attacks not slotted for damage. Attacks are meant to kill things. Combat jumping costs 0.04 so it's safe to say you don't need endurance reduction in it. Anyway. I tried not to make it very expensive which means there is a 'better' version of this build if you'd like to sink more money into it. If you want it I can post it. If you need some tips I have a signature on my link about money making. I saw you took Fly and I suppose that it was to get over obstacles while you ninja ran, but I took Afterburner and Hover to improve on it. If you don't want either then just remove them and pick what you'd like such as Combat Jumping and Super Jump. If you do this add a 5th Luck of the Gambler: 7.5% recharge somewhere, such as Maneuvers. Afterburner and Fly are, to me, the 5% of the time I spend outside missions going from point A to B while Hover is the best, IMO, in combat movement skill. You will have outside of Hover and Afterburner three powers and 5 slots to play with. Take your Taunt if you'd like, take Conserve Power and Physical Perfection if you'd like though mind that the endurance consumption and gain has been much improved and you might not even need them. You can further improve your endurance by obtaining the accolades. There is a guide about it here with more info in the comments. You also won't need Focused Accuracy since all attacks are made to hit +3 which is where you'll be once you reach Musculature tier 3, but, if you'd like to take Tactics to fight against debuffers or romans and their defense shouts that's an option too. I would personally pick another AoE to supplement Dragon's Tail such as Fireball (shouting FIREBALL-NO-JUTSU being perfectly optional) and use the five remain slots on it (six Bombardment will give a nice array of accuracy, recharge, slash/smash and negative/energy resists which are all things you can use). In fact, I'll just post the build with Fireball and you'll know you can remove it for something else if you'd like.

Go to options, Configuration. Effects&Maths. And over Suppression check 'hit by foe', 'attacked', and probably 'damaged'. This will give the real defense values while in combat,

After some more testing I can say this is exactly what's happening. Until I use the power that I slotted the proc into the proc does not activate at all. Also, no one mentioned Ice Melee? For shame!

- You no longer get thrown out of Hide if AS misses. - Placate nowadays is rarely advised to take as a Stalker is played like a Scrapper. - DB has some combos changed to use Placate, so it's even less of good choice than usual because of this. - The Tele-attacks do not crit, but they also do not take out of Hide. The mobs will still see you after the first attack but if you're fast you can do three AoEs in a row. Most AoEs have a 50% of crit with the exception of Kinetic Melee's who is 100%. - Willpower is ok, just squishy. The go to choice is Energy Aura with heal and endurance clicky. - I personally could not play something without AoE, but moping up with crits works as well with the rest of the team opening salvo wiping much of the pack anyway. - Buy both ATO procs and place them on the build (the chance for Hide always in AS, the other where ever) as soon as you can and work your rotation so your second hardest skill (or your AoE) is always used after AS. In my case this is AS, Siphon Life (crit if the Hide proc went off in AS), Smite, Shadow punch, AS for ST. Or Fireball, AS, Shadow Maul, Smite, Shadow Punch, AS, Shadow Maul. Outside of solo I rarely indulge in AoE other than Fireball as I'm usually busy being a ninja zooming around killing whatever has more HP left. This is usually bosses or annoying entities such as Surgeons in the ITF. I find that while it is true that AoE is important we usually have a team that does this for us and its more useful to put our strong ST focus killing what is still standing. Fireball/Ball Lightning has a wide AoE and plays well with the 50% crit chance and that's my usual choice to start the fight with. A good sleeper choice people who don't know Stalkers do not think of is Ice Melee. Frost can have its range boosted via frankenslotting and achieve an omfg 16 feet range which easily encompasses a whole spawn (double the range of shadow Maul) while the poor ST damage it has in other ATs being spacked over via AS. Freezing Touch takes -two- purple damage procs and hits even harder than AS when used in Hide. It also has a second AoE at 32.

To all eh people praising KB as an amazing thing and a supah useful tool. Whoa, calm down. For every one who uses it right there are fifteen who do not. In fact, I can't claim to particularly remember one such instance (the human mind is geared to remember the bad moments more than the good ones so take it with a grain of salt) but boy do I have the (usual) tales of Stormies using Gale for... reasons? Exploding Arrow scattering every thing. Poor kheldians just wanting to blast and wheeee off everyone goes. I, personally, don't put people who use KB on ignore (such a weird power move, but you guys do you), but I certainly don't pat them on the back either. It's a little evil. What I don't get is KB users patting themselves on the back when the mechanic has been reviled since the game's start. What is it with the aggressive-aggressive move of telling people to grow up, calling them sub-standard players, or tell them to leave and go play in another server? WTF? They solved their problem by putting people on ignore and not playing with them. Your solution is A) to insult them (lol?) and B) to tell them to leave? Double wtf. This isn't Tumbler. Calm down, Karen.

Why 'a bunch'? The only KB MA/DA has is on Crane Kick, no?

Added some more bits from questions I've answered in-game.

Tweaked a (much) cheaper version of the build. Lost 3.5% recharge and maybe some Recovery but gained some miscelania (build swims in endurance anyway) and saved about 50-70 million.

Reached 44 (slow pace for me, I know). Did an ITF. Shadow Maul starts seeing a lot less use at this high level with packs of enemies being obliterated by a few nukes or Judgements. Fortunately Ball Lightning is there to help. With the current slotting Soul Drain's damage is not inconsequential either and Soul Drain followed by Ball Lightning's fast animation and then Shadow Maul while hovering over enemies is a good tempo to keep. Mostly I just stuck to ST since that's what was needed. The build remains stupidly sturdy even fighting +3 and +4 and still half unslotted. Died to the prawn ambush in the first mission but then it was a complete party wipe, brutes and tanks and all. Did some small changes to the ordering of the powers though that remains personal taste. My personal day dream is still to have Shadow Punch, Smite and Gloom as an attack chain while saving Siphon Life for when healing is needed. 1, 1.2, 1.2 attack chain would please me. I'd need to go Brute for it though, then find the extra slots SOMEWHERE and somehow find another 15% to all res, which hints I would end up not using Shadow Punch and remove the slots. Or perhaps not use Siphon Life. After all the build has two heals already, does it really need a third? Something to consider for the future.

Turning DOs into the equivalent of white gear in another game is kinda ish dunno... I mean. I get the idea. Only the most abject newbling would equip white gear from drops when they can get green gear with bonuses tailored to their need (in another game this would be +stats for their given class, such as agility for a hunter). But in the end white gear is barely half a step above grey drops (whose sole purpose is filling the inventory so a player eventually has to stop and go sell). If I have a vote on the matter I would simply cut the extra step. There is room for DOs in the convoluted half steps other games like such as the white gear I mention that is maybe useful for the first ten levels and then just turns into vendor fodder. This is an old system. There is no particular reason to follow tradition just for the sake of it. Make drops SOs. Someone NEW to the game is leveling and will notice they got something that they could use, great, take it, slot it. With the new option they can then upgrade it and avoid the mid TF wail I am used of about their enhances having gone red. Someone who is NOT new will have no need for this. At level 5 they will go to the nearest vendor and stock up. I know I probably will until 22. One accuracy (plus the accuracy boost new characters get), three damage (this in particular) or how many it will be to reach ED, then recharge, will be a lot better than to level with empty slots. Even so for someone who knows about the game they might do what I do which is slotting Kinetic Combats straight at level 17, but even so it is much nicer to level with damage and recharge (recharge in the low levels is particularly welcome since we have few attacks and large gaps waiting for them). TL;DR Cut DOs from drops since they are meant to be vendor fodder. SOs a player can be happy at seeing and slotting (and upgrading) is a better option. The costs of upgrading will also be eased by the higher sale value of SOs.

A small bug HD has is that if we +3 an HO then ALL other enhancements we place afterwards will be +3. Nothing will fix this except placing an HO down to +0 which will then remove this behavior.

Achille's Heel -res is not unique in the sense that they can be slotted in multiple powers. BUT. They are unique in the sense that if anyone in the team has one and hits something and the -res kicks in, then if ANYONE in the team has another Achille's Heel, or if the same person had multiple Achille Heel's slotted, then they will not stack. This is why they matter when doing Pylon runs but not so much when in a team since there are seven chances in eight that someone will have one of the -res procs slotted in.

I'm still as active now as I used to be but I started a second account on a lark and found that I ended up migrating there, so I'm still running a million TFs for a million alts . I have to say that CoH is such a nice place that I think I have only three persons on ignore (two of which I don't even recall why), and one of them I did today. The person isn't even a bad person, and I don't hate them, and I have no ill wish towards them, but every once in a while there I am organizing my Nth TF for my Nth alt and I will get this from them: 'What difficulty?' 'Doing it at +1' 'Oh, okay, I'd join if it was harder.' 'Yeah, but few want to fo the early TFs with under slotted characters and whittle away at mobs' 'I understand, but I don't like to play in easy mode. Call me if you decide to go higher up'. So as you can see the guy is not being offensive. ...but it tires me to have this conversation over and over.. and over... and over... and over... Today it happened again and I decided not to answer him knowing that we had this talk so many times before. Instead of taking the hint he starts sending 'lol', then 'lmao', as I keep advertising. I ask what's up and he complained he sent me a message and I didn't answer. I was about to say we had that talk before, but instead did the same 'Running it at +1' which ended up with us having the almost verbatim conversation of usual, but now punctuated with some passive-agressive sprinkles of 'some people have become bored of only playing in easy mode'. So I decided to put the guy on ignore. But other than that, CoH is so nice. I have yet to meet all those people spouting racist crap (but then I only have LFG and Everlasting's TF channel open), and while I really dislike knockback and mass immobilize uses, and I will complain about it and ask to go easy on mass immobilizes or mention Sudden Acceleration for the knockbackers, I don't kick them or make a point in not inviting them again, or put them on ignore. There are not even trolls. You'd think Pocket D would be a haunt of PvE players spouting crap or spamming powers, but it's 99.99% only RPers in there. In other games, like WoW I needed a special addon to increase my ignore list. It's racist talk on the chat or people just saying dumb stuff to get a rise from others, it's the occasional gold seller that gets past the filters, it's the large quantity of trolls that come to bother RPers because they have no life. It's the PvErs, who are not purposefully being bad persons and I have no ill wishing towards them, but who will be in the RP spots talking about RL and the game, and I don't want them intruding in my LARP with it. What's this about stars? It makes a visible icon?

... now do it with lore pets to see if you can destroy the pylon in 15 seconds.

Been leveling this through Posi 1 and 2, and then Synapse. It is absurdly sturdy. I usually quaff inspirations to solo spawns during these early leveling TFs but it's just been bouncing from spawn to spawn and Siphon Life keeping me up. Eventually as I am slowly overwhelmed and the clockwork think that they are about to win... I pop Radiation Therapy that only has four slots at the moment. This skill is pretty much Dark Regeneration's little cousin but it serves for HP, it serves for endurance, I basically have had no problem with my blue bar despite the clockwork. Fishing for the critical proc is still the best way. Smite first, then Shadow Maul for groups. While still without recharge Smite, Shadow Maul, Siphon Life, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Maul. With minimal recharge Shadow Punch can be removed.

Things die too fast for prolonged agro holding to matter terribly. A Scrapper can off tank just as well as a Brute does because outside of spreadsheet situations things die fast and the same support that would support a Brute will support a Scrapper. IF no one attacked AND the fight lasted for 30+ seconds, then yeah, death. But we go in at whatever level, team unleashes AoEs, most things are dead and that's the kind of support that does not require a support. That said you're not going to out-tank a Brute or a Tanker, but why would you? It's not a competition, and if it really matters you should roll one. The only thing you should fuss about as a Scrapper is stealing the agro from and keeping your squishies safe (this can be read as your genitals or your support team members so take it as you will since both answers are correct) because nothing says you -need- to be hitting that boss over there while two lieutenants are hitting your low damage Controller buddy while he tries to whittle them down.

You will be swamped with choice. Scrapper is great and you can't go wrong with it. Claws and Dark Melee shine for starting very early, and nowadays Dark Melee went from being ugh to be a good low level choice since Shadow Maul turned into the sort of cone other sets envy (Psi Melee is looking at you). Both are good so personal taste and the flip of a coin might help. If you are going to flashback it is important to have a set that starts early. Katana is great but one ST attack at 26 and the other at 32 does not good examplaring make (though the cone and the +defense attack are acceptable for ST damage in the low levels). I'm going to say that for a secondary Rad Armor just because of Radiation Therapy at level 16. It completely negates Endurance problems while being a good heal with a fast recharge for AoE situations. Beta Decay also helps with low level recharge when LotGs aren't active.

I struggled a lot to get all the numbers juuuuuust right while preserving certain goodies (numbers with Barrier's 5%): - Capped resists to all except Cold (38%) and Psi (30%). For those OCDing about the slight fraction of a percent lacking just remember that at 90% HP the Scaling Resist IO goes from 3% to 4%. - 45% S/L defense. - Theft Essence in Radiation Therapy turns a good heal with a minor Endurance refill into a good heal with a great Endurance refill. - One damage proc in each attack, I just hadda have it. - Pretty darn decent 132 seconds Hasten with one enemy in range of Beta Decay and that will go further down with being surrounded. - Two heals, one of them a barrier shield, plus Siphon Life, who on a Scrapper only heals an anemic 13% but it's there to top us off which is important on a resistance based character who will keep on taking damage. - Slow/Recharge debuff at 91%. - No Performance Shifters slotted in feels weird with them being a staple of any build, but I needed the slots. It was a choice between two Performance Shifters or 20% Slow/Recharge. I felt that the build swims in endurance as it is. Currently at 3.1 EPS (with accolades), Gamma Boost does not seem to work on HD but in game triple slotted it gives 1.17 EPS at full HP, so 4.18 EPS. Then Particle Shielding (which is perma) adds another 1.1, so 5.28. And finally right away at level 16 with a super fast recharge Radiation Therapy which is harder to quantify since it is not Recovery it grants but Endurance at 5 endurance per activation plus 2.5 per enemy in range. This barely pays for the cost (6.27 once all slotted in) with only one enemy, but the Theft of Essence adds 10% if it procs, so 11 points, so with one enemy in range, assuming proc goes off, 18.5 - 6.27 = 12.23 endurance. This is more of an AoE use skill though but for regular content this skill alone ensures the bar is topped. The build has a cost of 1.74 endurance per second so all in all I feel that the endurance part of the build did not warrant the Performance Shifters. Certain PvP considerations were taken since I do minor RP-PvP and these were: - Tactics. Not needed since all accuracy was purpose made to hit +3 mobs without it. - Super Speed. My one RP-PvP with a Blaster that bounced around was hilarious as I tried to follow them with Hover 🙂 - Confront. To hinder ranged characters. In conclusion anyone not interested in PvP has these three powers to remove and do what they like with though do mind the slotting. Observations. This is the first character I have played with Super Speed since Live. I love flying too much, but I needed the extra room and since I was going to take Super Speed anyway I decided to try it. I found SS satisfactory as a travel power though. It does suffer from every pebble bump making my character explode into the drifting meme complete with soundtrack while inertia carries me off into the distance. Anyone who cares can substitute Hover for Combat Jumping to partly avoid this. But. Hover makes for a decent low level travel power and is very very very good to maneuver in combat, either it be chasing fliers or moving around the multi-layered rooms we are sometimes confronted with. If we hover above mobs it also uses Shadow Maul's wide cone to turn it into a ghetto PbAoE (this works very well). But, what makes Hover work is @Bopper's simply extraordinary work that he did here. That was a complete game changer for me. Thanks to having Steam Jump/Jump Pack Hover moves at capped Fly speeds (and it only costs 100k to have both. Just toggle one up, and once it runs out toggle the other while the first recharges. This makes for a permanent effect) which is why I only have that as a travel power while under level 22. It is also a much better option to get around obstacles than trying to jump over them with Steam Jump since the slightest bump will make us lose inertia and slowly move to the ground. It is much better to turn on SS, Sprint, and then one of the jump packs, and when in need to travel over something quickly tag Hover, move at Fly capped speed, then detoggle and keep running. As I spend 5% of my time moving around between missions and the other 95% in the mission this has been an acceptable trade-off, but only thanks to Hover moving at capped speed which is also a very nice QoL while in missions. If there is a desire for it I can whip a leveling build.

Hello and thanks for the hard work o/ I wanted to point out, if it has not, that the fire proc in Bombardment has not had the damage added in.

So, not just me then.

Oh, my bad then. I'm not savvy with SR. Let me edit the OP.

I wanted to give this thing a try so I made one. - I gave myself an arbitrary 'health down to 45%' so SR's scaling resists could kick in at a nice round number (5% each). WITH health down to 45%, AND three ATO stacks, AND Barrier's 5%, the build caps S/L and N/E to 90%. - This is arbitrary since allowing the HP to lower further would further kick in the scaling resists, but the sooner capped the better, yes? Because of this arbitrary decision there is some weird slotting going on which can be shifted according to taste, like the extra slot in SS, So we cap at 43% instead of 45%. This is a very slippery slope though and I've tried to shy away from it while keeping everything slotted as high as possible, accuracy capped without Tactics, etc. Hasten is down to an okay-ish 131 seconds instead of the usual perma Super Reflexes users are used to with their freedom in slotting. - The piece of resistance is Siphon Life healing just shy of 1/4th HP every 4 seconds. It is not quite Dark Regeneration, but still. Currently it heals for 644HP and the builds has 2684 HP so 24% of the green bar. - Slow resists are at 95% as well. - 3.54 EPS not counting Performance Shifter and Panaceia. - Easily modified to run Incarnate content. Just remove Tactics, grab Weave, shift slotting on Tough for both +defense uniques and voila. - ST rotation should be something like Siphon Life, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch, Siphon Life. This will have something like a 0.2 gap while Hasten is up. - AoE rotation is just Shadow Maul, Smite (keep the stacks up), Siphon Life (heal up), Shadow Maul (HD hasn't updated SM but it is now at 11 seconds, not 8, and so it recharges in 3.2 seconds). I feel SM is pretty good right now and more so on a tanker so the build doesn't really need more AoE when Smite for stacks and Siphon Life to recoup HP already fill SM's recharge. - I would not fall under the lazyness of not hitting Siphon Life when ever possible since its the only heal the build gets. Having the HP always topped is a much better long term plan than waiting until being at half HP to start using it even if with the current slotting Siphon life -would- heal to full in two uses in that scenario (but dat 5% chance of missing does come up at the worse of times). - I would keep Barrier as a panic button instead of using on CD. Toxic, psi, etc, are still weak points after all. There might be something to be said about using Rebirth instead but Siphon Life is frankly OP as it is now. - Without all the faffing around of stacks of ATO and Barrier's 5% and HP at 85% the native resists are at 49% S/L and 49% N/E at full health.