Sovera

Does it matter though? If the mobs are being killed within the 5 (?) seconds it takes for the DoT to run its course aren't they dead anyway? Be it from DC or from whatever other nuke landed on them. That said I don't like DoTs either. We don't do the game against few but tough enemies a la WoW dungeon trash. So after leveling characters who had DoT effects it was super common to just apply the DoT, and then continue the rotation on the same mob making the animation and endurance used on the DoT skill a waste. Otherwise it is 'lets play a game and try to guess that the mob will die and not instead survive with a splinter of HP making me have to go chase it down'. DoTs in this game need to be ultra short. We are talking 2.5 seconds and it's probably too much already.

This is a scrapper, but almostsame thing, just copy the slotting. Take off Focussed Accuracy for something else. Maybe Parasitic Aura and just give it a four slot Unbreakable guard to get back the S/L defense lost from FA.

I really think the last thing we need is -more- damage increasing incarnates. We already have everything we need. More recharge and endurance options, more damage, more defense. I'm going to derail a bit because this is an example of things that are useful without increasing the power creep at max level. If there is one really big thing that would completely change the face of CoH (but I don't think it is Incarnate business) would be something much more interesting and that is exemplaring. That would completely change the game: Not losing powers when we examplar down. Other games manage it, there is no reason it cannot be managed here (other than the usual regarding the cost of man hours to code such a thing). Suddenly it is no more 'well, I would level Super-Strength/Psi Melee, but god, the moment I exemplar down for anything 27 and under I lose all my AoE' Or 'Well, my attack chain is crap without Gloom serving as a filler at 35, but if I examplar down I lose it and now have gaps'. All of this makes examplaring crap and a chore. Of course it would need to be nerfed in usefulness but this can be done with testing.

Yes. Both do.

*bites tongue* *flees*

Alright, the /Bio side is somewhat solid with defense to 40% and Barrier providing the last 5%. For content lower than level 45 it does not really matter since things are usually ran at +0. You get extra AoEs to help and I tried to maximize endurance recovery but it might still be a bit short if you solo since Stone Melee is hungry. In groups it hardly matters since Ageless is so common someone is going to pop it and you'll get its benefit. Just try to put the same slotting in the stone powers to keep the 40% defense. And then perhaps google a bit what are the good powers of Stone Melee you want.

I am not familiar with Stone Melee but I do have a few /Bio builds you could try to use as a template (try to reach 40% defense, use Barrier for the last 5%). Simply pick what stone powers you want and replace the slotting.

As others mentioned. Panaceia and Miracle uniques work best on powers that are autos. They will have the same effect anywhere then. But no one really slots Health for anything, while /Regen powers usually are slotted with sets. Putting the uniques there steals room that could be used for those sets.

Just because you want it to be a 'real power' does not make it so. But you have other options. You could go Street Justice and skip the kicks though that will lose you Shadow Maul. That will let you be a boxer without having a dark aura surrounding your fists. The last attack hits pretty hard and is a punch, sort of. You can get Punch and Cross Punch from the Fighting Pool, but these only sort of qualify as 'real powers' since they are weak. You'll get there, especially in a team, but not too fast. I suggest you stick with Dark Melee though, since you can make an attack chain of the three first attacks (Shadow maul, as mentioned, is going to get a big upgrade and the recharge is fast enough to work it into a rotation) without having to include weak things like Flurry or Sands of Mu. This will work out much better both for the numbers as well as your theme. I'm going to say even now you should pick Shadow Punch instead of ignoring it. For your theme it will work better and give you better numbers (you do care about those since Flurry and Sands of Mu were bothering you). If you can stand having Siphon Life in the chain (not really a punch, but you're already running with a dark aura overlayed over your fists so I'm going to say embrace it. Magic/cursed boxing gloves?) you can do Shadow Maul, Smite, Shadow Punch, Siphon Life, and then start over. If you really want to include Flurry you can do Shadow Maul, Flurry, Smite once you get enough recharge and never have to include Sands of Mu or Siphon Life.

Because D comes before E in the alphabet.

Man, people keep going about DM/Shield and I'm just DM/Bio with three endurance recovery tools (Inexhaustible, Dark Consumption, DNA Siphon) and four heals (heal proc in Dark Consumption, Siphon Life, Ablative Shield, DNA Siphon), ON TOP of the absorb, regen, ON TOP of the -ToHit. Can we say unkillable hardcore soloer? Man, I totally don't want to continue leveling my second Claws/Bio I was doing Ironman challenge (no AH marketing, no inf transfers, no IO transfers, no farm maps, just earn Merits and inf playing the game) just for kicks since I WANT this combo. Arrrrrgh. And now to wait N weeks before it comes out. Ugh.

The +3% defense uniques, @Obus, the Steadfast and Gladiator. Edit: Went to look at it and no, it was just 33% ish defense by level 24-25 which is still decent with a purple insps. Though it was meant for another thread and a different topic.

Heck, I don't have a DM since Live and I want it too.

The best thing to do will be to follow a guide and not overthink it. 'Best' can be pretty subjective because there are different factors. The 'best' farmer is either a Spines/Fire or a Rad/Fire with others quite close behind. The 'best' at farming is not exactly the best at just playing the game though. Then if we go at the 'best' at killing tough stuff we once more find a completely different beast. You did nothing wrong in picking SS/WP as it is a pretty solid pick and it will work just fine. If you want the 'best', for me, it would be a Claws/Bio. They move fast, they activate fast, they don't need extra AoEs from epic pools and they are pretty darn durable and are a good middle ground between top ST and top AoE while also simple to use (the very very very best would a Titan Weapons/Bio, but I would never ever advise you to try running that without more cash and a better understanding of the game). Regarding your endurance woes things will get better once you are better slotted. A single end mod in each attack is ok, but not amazing. You still need to generate end. My advice will be: -One Performance Shifter proc in both Stamina and your WP stamina power, then add a normal endurance modification in each on top of that. If you feel it's still going badly then try to find a second endurance modification into each. - A Panaceia and Miracle proc on Health. - Replace all your ST attacks por something like a full set of Focused Smite. Since the bonuses of Focus Smite aren't very good they are pretty cheap on the AH and you will get much better raw stats out of that than you will from generic slots. Generic slotting might be 66% accuracy, 95% damage, 33% endurance reduction, while a full set of Focused Smite will be 62% accuracy, 89% damage, 43% endurance and 66% recharge. The Crushing Impact IO set has better bonuses so is more expensive, but with a full set you'd get 68% to accuracy, recharge and endurance, and also 95% to damage. Check how many Merits you have. You might have some decent cash on you and not know. Check the guide in my signature.

As someone who played Sentinels extensively and expected to play a ranged Scrapper I'm very much agreeing with you. The quick nuke is nice and it does clear a nice swathe into minions, but my Scrapper does the same with Follow-up + Spin + Shockwave, no need to wait 25 seconds. The AT is stupidly survivable because it can stay at range and pew pew whatever survived. But does it matter? Only in a vacuum. When I see people advocating how impressive their Sentinel is I kinda grimace a bit because I see myself many months back raving about them until I picked a Scrapper for the first time and went from 4 minutes pylon time to 1:45. Now, people love the AT and love being tanky and ranged and we can't argue with that nor do I even want to. Being tanky and doing solid damage is a bit of a Hunter thing in WoW (my main for several expansions so I know what I'm talking about). The 'easy' tax is paid, but depending on content that tax pays for itself. The no-casting-times Hunter spec will do a bit worse damage to pay for the fact it can cast and move, but in difficult content the fact that they can cast and move pays for itself twice over allowing them to top the meters. At least until everyone knows the mechanics and how to move as minimally as possible. But since CoH doesn't really have difficult content except the 2% there is no point in it. There is an 'easy' tax the AT pays for no particular reason. But I still find it acceptable. Do you want to play something that does not need to chase enemies and can do reasonable damage and be ranged? This is it, and I find it acceptable. I may not be interested, but it's good that it is there for those who are. The AT is good at what it does, and if there is an AT I would suggest for a new player it would be a Sentinel.

I'm satisfied actual testing was done, yes. I went to check on Fire and with Fireblast (including toxic tic) I had a 26% damage increase so whatever was going on during the multiple tests all those months back seems to have corrected itself. Now to hear something funny? I grabbed a character I had stripped out of IOs a Water/Bio Sent since it had no DoTs to muddle things, and went to test. It was a 45% damage increase to turn on Offensive Adaptation on both the T1 and T2 blast (didn't test the rest) 😄

You can get your softcap without even Weave if I recall correctly, but not on generic IOs. I think someone asked this over the Scrapper forums and I threw a level 28 build that was softcapped with just the two +3% defense uniques and the rest generic IOs.

*curls up* Just as I was 'welp, I've done all the concepts I'd care to, there really isn't much else to r-...' you guys hit me with this. Hopefully it will not take half the time the Tanker changes did because I've only just rolled a character that would fit perfectly as DM.

His weaknesses tend to be pretty subjective. He has resisted and plain outfought a grand majority of psychics trying to take him on and even the Maxwell Lord event was played as literally years of pushing until having formed a chink. The same for magic. Oh yes, hear him loudly claim how magic is his weakness. Then watch him disregard magic. A normal person hit by lightning doesn't get a 'bit' stunned. But he takes several of those in a row and just gets a bit woozy before winning the fight. Like most things in comics writers don't care about power levels and just telling a story. So in one he'll be weak to magic and in another he'll tank magical lightning. In one story he'll break chains 'used to tow stars from one galaxy to another' and in another be in a fist fight and be unable to down someone.

Depends on the AT. As much as Stalkers are praised for their damage I prefer to stick to my Scrapper(s) for the fact enemies don't run away thanks to the agro aura.

I've noticed the slows, yeah, not to the point they were more than an annoyance (except with the war riders), but definitely not a thing any of my /Bios was ever aware of 😄 The tanker is definitely the superior version because of Burn not making mobs flee. That said I miss Scrapper crits once I'm done slapping AoEs errywhere.

Unless I misread you tested only the toxic tick and not the combined damage because you trusted the damage monitor. If you'd like to then please do what I said instead. My own tests never gave me 25% damage. And this is -with- the toxic damage. If we were to trust the damage monitor we would have had 25% and then with the toxic damage it would climb to about ish 30%. Instead the highest I got was a 18%-21% damage boost and as low as 4% -total- damage boost.

It's grim, it's dirty, I don't like condescending NPCs talking to me like I am trash, I don't like being the bad guy, I don't like doing bad things, I don't like that a villain spends most of their time attacking other villains instead of good guys. It is also an empty zone. All of these apply, but mainly I'm happier playing a super HERO. There is enough crap going in RL without feeling the need to roleplay being the cause of it.