Sovera

This is me and Fire Melee. Specifically for Tankers. Now we can argue the new numbers made it much stronger and ah ah you're gravitating to the FOTM, but, it's actually one big thing: - Two PbAoEs. Only Radiation Melee (Irradiated Ground as pseudo PbAoE), Savage Melee (but the pounce has a big recharge) and Axe (Pendulum is a pseudo PbAoE) can mimic this but have their own problems. But Fiery Melee (for Tankers) throws two big PbAoEs which completely change the pleasure of being neck deep in enemies.

I would go as far as to say to pick three ST attacks if possible. T1, T2, and whatever is available. T1, T2, small gap, T1, whateverisavailable, usually allow a relatively gap free rotation, but the prestige attacks are very slow to animate and the origin power we start with is only good for the first 10 levels even with the recent changes made. By level 15-ish or so it hits for 5 damage at which point it might as well be removed from the tray. Two of the prestige enhancements in the T1 and three in the T2 cover the bases until level 10 when ATOs open, but despite prestige enhancements being better (those procs do a lot of early damage) I will still swap to the ATOs at 10. If you can afford the ATOs then my go to is splitting them. Three slots for each attack will do most of the work early on while avoiding the usual problem of having nothing interesting of low level to slot. I will usually place a 4th slot for one of the PvP quadruples since they can be taken at level 10 as well. It also frees slots to put in armor toggles though using inspirations and replenishing them from a vendor in a base via teleporter is the smarter going to consolidated low level squish. I'm soloing Posi 1 and 2 at 0x6 by level 8 using this strategy. I used to not slot Hasten until 22 but now with SOs I triple slot it as soon as I can as even a level 15 SO is worth 30%. Only after Synapse (even if I have outleveled thanks to double XP) do I usually use one of my free respecs and take the T1 or the T2 out depending on my end build. Yin is when we have access to most of the goodies and are not as constrained. As a Scrapper I will turn bosses on and go x2 since there is barely a difference and it's more XP. If I have early AoE (Frost, Spin, whatever) in whatever form I go x4 instead. I do the Hashbury (spelling?) arc(s). He's in the open behind and slightly to the left of Miss Liberty in front of the Atlas Hall. Finishing their arc gives another contact. Finishing that contact gives a third contact. Usually it's about 20-30 minutes to do all three and I'll be level 8-9 with 9 merits. 8-9 is great to start Posi 1 which will usually have me end at level 15-16. Doing Posi 2 (only solo this if capable of handling the AV) leaves me at level 22-ish.

Options, keybinding, 'move with camera'. Mess with all of those to find what you like.

It can be a weak agro aura that any Brute or Tanker can rip apart by breathing on it. But if we can't have a fix on the flee code then being able to keep agro would be great. Constant complaint from soloers is how mobs run away all the time. Yes, yes, there will be roleplay explanations. Don't care. The roleplay explanations fall apart when mobs will roll around in a field of napalm just because we used a Taunt skill. The best way would still remove the flee code altogether. Mobs shoot, mobs CAN run away from fields of napalm but only as far as to step out of and then continue shooting, but mobs will be in the fight until the end. Agro auras and skills have a motive to exist as tools to redirect the agro to the Brute/Tanker who is a lot sturdier and can take it. Yesterday I was soloing Yin and had a couple Freaks who jumped into the water, then ran up the dock, then jumped into a building and kept going. Normally I'd say screw 'em, but it was a kill all. This repeats itself ad nauseum for soloing

Without making a big fuss (you have some good points in there) but as we don't pay them we are not customers, we are guests in their house. We can come in, we can appreciate their decoration and furniture, we can appreciate their garden and choice in flowers and trees. But it's their house and their garden and we are guests admiring it. Paying game or what we have here we can/should still make suggestions because sometimes things that the devs are not aware of are discovered in such.

Hmm, after leveling the Axe/Energy to 32 I have to say... that the AoE is surprisingly... mediocre? I was expecting more from Axe. It's making me think about trying the Rad Armor variant and see how it survives The Energy Armor was at something like 35-36% (with amplifiers) by level 20-ish and soloed Posi 1 and 2 reasonably while eating purples. I'm honestly not seeing Rad Armor manage this when all cooldowns are big in the low levels and resistance armors suck compared to defense. I was surprised at how Axe managed to deplete the blue bar even with Recovery Serums.

I've started the Axe/Energy Aura. I'll post a leveling build for those newer to the game. But dang, level 7 and I have yet to see a single crit. It was so curious I posted about it.

Welp, that reduces it to two 😄 Pretty tempted by the rad, but Energy Aura seems smarter. I do like early starts and defense sets is where the early start at.

MA does decent ST and mediocre AoE, Staff does mediocre ST and mediocre AoE, so, MA. I've got an infamous Fire/MA called the Turtle in my signature, 45% to Melee/Ranged/AoE and 90% resists, but you can achieve the same with Rad Armor and Dark Armor just less damage.

Guarded Spin gives 15% to Slash and Melee though I think (don't quote me) that's it's the only such power that stacks three times. If you just want to pick a resistance armor then it can make you nearly immune to melee very early on with no investment. That's a fat amount of damage not being taken. Picking a positional defense armor (Melee/Ranged/AoE) would be dubious since they already have melee toggles. You could at least ditch the one toggle that gives melee defense? Picking a typed defense armor (Smash, Slash, Energy, Negative, etc) would leave you gross overcapped for Slash while still having to slot your S/L toggle to get Lethal up since the toggles are always paired (S/L, E/N, F/C, etc). Picking Storm Kick would give you 10% to all. For resistance armors it allows to exploit the IOs and incarnates and get 45% to melee/ranged/AoE. For positional and typed defense armors the 10% allows to ease up on your slotting since 10% are accounted for. You can ditch Weave for example, or aim for incarnate level defenses and reach 59%.

To top it the thread is not even looking at Concentrated Strike from the viewpoint of the non-crit ATs. Sure, for Stalkers and Scrappers you use CS, maybe get your crit, get your BU reset, etc. But what of Brute and Tanker? No crits, and no changes to CS either. It gets all the downsides of CS but no reset to the BU meaning what point is there to use it? I've tried it several times and have a KM of each AT at 50 leveled the old fashioned way and though it begins fun while facing mobs under level 20 with the chainsaw attacks it quickly falls off. Burst can do similar things to Dragontail to speed a build up but the ST fails to catch up. That said there is no need to make a big seven headed hydra out of this. It has not been tuned up because it just hasn't passed by the dev's hands due to several other things having been done instead. Once it does it will be good. They have a good track record of tuning lagging sets into becoming actually desirable.

Now that you mention it I'm not even sure that Ninjutsu has it. That would narrow it down to just two.

Nay, Stone has no agro aura for Scrappers. I Mids-d up one for Tankers but felt it would just be more of the same. Thanks for the kind offer though o/

Been messing with Axe in Mids since I've been wanting to play a Scrapper and be damaging. My problem is that I like being tanky, and I like being tanky early which is why I stick to Tankers with whom I solo at +1x8 from level 15+ onwards. Scrappers have never quite been there for me in that aspect. So I have this Axe/Rad. S/L/E resistances get capped with Barrier's 5%, there is a nominal 33%-ish defense to S/L/M so that a small purple puts those three at softcap for a bit of extra survival (no big tradeoffs for it). In the past I have found resistance based Scrappers pretty terrible as they are squishy, but Radiation Armor has tools for survival. Radiation Therapy heals, makes endurance problems a joke, AND hurts the enemies, Ground Zero does the same. Particle Barrier is a substantial alpha eater tool too. I like the premise of wandering into a group of enemies and unloading four PbAoEs (Pendulum is pseudo PbAoE). Axe Cyclone takes very well to procs (70%) so it's triple procced. Everything smells like it would make any spawn have a bad day the moment it walks in. Scrapper (Battle Axe - Rad Armor).mbd Axe/Ninja is a staple. Softcapped defenses without Weave, crit from stealth with Shinobi-Iri (maybe worth investing a stealth IO to be completely invisible for setting up the initial crit), mediocre resistances, good endurance and heal clickies. To be honest it is petty but the clickie CC resistance is what is holding me back since it's always a nuisance to remember. Terrible DDR but kill-before-being-killed suits Scrappers. Three free powers to do whatever with. Scrapper (Battle Axe - Ninja).mbd Axe/Energy Armor is as basic as it gets. Also softcapped without Weave (including negative), same mediocre resistances, toggle CC instead of a clicky. Slow recharging heal because of the end discount that, honestly, is not needed in a set that has such a fast recharging Energy Drain. The extra defense from ED is just fluff as even catching 10 people in it will only give 3%. Mediocre DDR that won't stop cascading, but same as above. Two free powers to do whatever with. Scrapper (Battle Axe - Energy Armor).mbd

I only played Blasters a few times, and the best ways I remember were going into a group, NOT use Aim and Build up and just use the nuke and all AoEs. Nukes are so ridiculous that they don't need the help. Then the next group while the nuke is still recharging, DO use Build-up + Aim and unload the AoEs. Backed by both Aim and BU and Gaussian the nuke is not needed to wipe the group.

I just built one as a Scrapper since I wanted to go ham on damage. On a Tanker there is nothing bad to point out. Axe is an endurance guzzler but Rad handily takes care of that. A procced out Radiation Therapy heals and hurts the enemy, ditto on Ground Zero, and then Axe's two PbaoEs means we can start a fight unloading four PbAoEs two of which heal.

A bit unrelated but Axe having so many powers that are good is a 'problem'. Well, the real problem is Cleave. Cleave's awkward recharge forces a 4th attack to not have gaps. I'm sorely tempted to ditch Cleave, blasphemous as it might, to free a power and make the attack chain more relaxed. Otherwise I only have Fly at level 30 since there are too many good picks.

Feed me a taunt aura! And no, 50% uptime incarnate is not it 😛

Again, signature, Turtle, leveling (and final) build 🙂

Yeah, it can do about the same as above with Fire Armor while also being tankier. Firey Embrace and Burn are replaced by procced out Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero, both of which the FF procs from MA help with the recharge times and both roll offense and defense into a single click. I tried this combo in the past but it was drab to level to 38 to get Ground Zero. Having it now at 26 helps a lot for leveling and pacing.

You can check my Fire Armor signature. The build you're after is the Turtle. It has a leveling build if I'm not mistaken but boop me if you need further help.

There is a lot of variables and most have been brought up already. Just to make a few things clear(er): - The -res procs don't stack. If someone else has them slotted then your own are doing nothing other than maybe adding in the uptime. - The lower the level of the enemies the better the -res procs are. The higher the level the less useful. This is why they are so overblown in this community since the usual target for tests is a +0 pylon. At +0 having two -res procs in your build adds rough 25% more damage. At +3 this goes down to 4-5% (tested against AVs using damage procs and then swapping them for -res procs). - The 'huge' gains of 25% don't mean you'll do 25% more damage in short fights. Normal mobs have very little HP and first you need to hit them, get the -res to proc, then keep hitting while doing extra damage per hit. Between chance for the proc to hit and actually hitting the enemy there is a good chance it is already dead. A damage proc would just do the damage upfront instead. - If you're solo you're killing more slowly, so you might appreciate the -res. On the other hand you might prefer the upfront damage to help burst mobs faster. I can't answer this for you so it's your decision. - If you're in a team (and no one else has the -res procs slotted) you might help with everyone doing 4-5% more damage which multiplied by 8 is still decent. If you find AVs to be more than a speedbump it's something that you can do.

Man, you show interest and passion so I don't want to be negative. But the previous posters were right that no one will watch an hour long video of prep and random flying around. But you got the good building block to edit into an easier to swallow 3-5 minute video, maybe even including your explanation blurb into it for context?

The (near) immortal build in my signature gets you an early start. It soloed all the AVs as I did my leveling at +1x8 once getting and that was on the exemplaring/leveling build using Scorch. Switching Scorch for Incinerate will be a damage boost making whittling the AVs faster. Most of the advice in this thread is perfectly on point, but I will add my own opinion that it is better to sin by oversurvival than overdamage. Overdamage is fine for a good chunk of the game until we hit the really tough situations and then we are dependant on inspirations of which we only have so much room for (we can mail them and take them from the mail mid-fight though). Oversurvival means surviving at all times and for most things the damage is enough. When we hit a super hard enemy, well, we can whittle it down stubbornly (the way I did as leveling but between being a Tanker and still using Scorch it made things like the AV at the end of Numina's TF a 15 minute fight but I was perfectly safe during that time) or using Envenomed Daggers (which would have taken a large chunk out of those 15 minutes and which we can carry 300 (if I recall correctly) of). You can also have both (in a manner of speaking) by doing things like a Fire/Fire Tanker which will muller large spawns of enemies with triple PbAoEs (another thing it takes playing for a while to appreciate when we can skip cone AoEs and take PbAoE instead and how much better the second one is) and is still high up in the stratosphere in terms of survival compared to most other ATs (I soloed the ITF at +4x8 with enemies buffed and inspirations disabled with no deaths allowed and only died at the last boss when it stunned me and made me drop my toggles, so 'Fire Armor is squishy' is relative). ... now I feel like leveling another Fire/Fire, it was good fun the first time around. But the Stone/Fire Melee was definitely easy mode compared. Reiterating what I earlier said the agro aura is also lovely to have but it will take solo with and without to give it the proper appreciation, but it's not a huge deal until getting jaded and cranky *cough*.

Check the prices before buying stuff with merits. A normal ATO + a catalyst can run you to 10 million in the Auction House where 100 merits used in the ATM can be worth around 15-16 million. Check my newbie guide in the my signature. Don't feel bad about not having much to do, it's common in the end game with mobs being squishy and players having so much damage. Just keep hitting the bosses and let the lieutenants and minions die from the AoE. Running out endurance tells me you're not slotting DNA Siphon properly. Try having a Theft of Essence proc in it and possibly 5 Synapse Shock, or the Theft of Essence and two recharge and two endurance modifications (though Synapses are cheap so I'd just go for them).