Bloodofcaine

The concept sounds fun, but I've been on teams where people get absolutely incensed if folks use knockbacks a lot. I recall Just a couple days ago when I was running with a PUG doing PI missions and we had a warshade I believe. Team got so mad the knockback was disrupting their AOEs they kicked the guy. I personally don't mind, fun to me is more important than cold efficiency. I am usually the type to take handclap on a super strength character just cause I like how it looks.

Farming is the most straight forward. If you can pull off +4/8 difficulty you can usually get about 7ish million inf per map run in addition to any valuable recipes that might drop, sometimes purples that can net you an additional 22-23 million. You can also opt to keep the purples and use em yourself too, or convert them into something you can use. Speaking of converters, that is another way to make some inf. You can buy up certain recipes for cheap and then use enhancement converters and attempt to transform them into a more valuable commodity. For example, say you have one of the less popular damage resistance set recipes. you can try to convert it into something more valuable, like say, steadfast protection and then sell it, especially the +3 defense one. You'll need to get a feel for what is valuable and what is vendor trash. There might be better ways, but I'm not too versed in them myself. Some people have boasted good returns on buying up hero boxes and selling the contents for a profit, but I don't see how. In my experience you tend to get 1 enhancement usually in the box that isn't even worth what you pay for the box itself (usually a disparity of about 2-3 million) SOMETIMES you might get 2 enhancements in a box which makes the whole endeavor worth it, or you might find enhancement boosters to go along with the ATO enhancements, but there is obviously no guarantee of this and it doesn't happen often enough for me at least to keep opening these things.

I personally enjoy rad/fire because of it's inherent -def in its attacks. It really helps to soften the enemies when you're looking to get the character immediately into +4/8 farming.. You get two damage auras and rad's contamination mechanic helps to spread the damage throughout the surrounding mobs. You also don't need to reposition as a rad/fire really in order to maximize your attacks. You can stay in place and still hit the enemies around you. This latter reason is why I abandoned my spines/fire in favor of rad/fire as I formerly needed to either jump out of a pack to position properly for throw spines or I had to leap upward in the air and target the pack in the right way to hit my targets. Can't speak to fire melee personally, the graphics and animation never struck me really (not the best of reasons to avoid a set, but i like my aesthetics as much as the mechanics behind them)

Nice build, especially if one isn't looking to immediately break the bank once hitting 50. Is there a way to squeeze in a bit more S/L defense once a person gets access to a bit more inf?

I'm just impressed you got a PB to 50. I've tried the class several times, even back when they first went live. I know they become awesome with investment, but man just trying to level felt like a chore in itself. I could barely get into the teens as the playstyle felt sooo slow. I'm hoping I can become inspired to try again by browsing this forum cause it seems I only have high level brutes and scrappers and want to branch out.

While I love both archtypes, if I were teaming a lot I'd go with a scrapper every time just cause I don't like dealing with the fury mechanic when I am teamed up. Either the team will obliterate spawns while I'm trying to generate some fury, or since I'm usually not the tank I'll run into the same issue cause the enemy isn't focused on me. I tend to like playing my brutes as solo farmers and save my scrappers and other archtypes for team play.

Trying this myself now, but with a scrapper, I am only in the early teens so far, so I don't have any input yet. I mostly am going with regen cause I never played it when the game was live, and cause I've tried pretty much every other secondary already.

As much as I loathe what Perfect World Entertainment did to Champions online, you'd probably be able to make a better spiderman there, they even have travel powers that mimic webslinging. I think the movesets available here are just a bit too slow and clunky to do a spiderman inspired character justice.

No need to convince you really. On their own, tough and weave won't help you much unless you also invest into IO sets to supplement the defense and resists you get from them. Since you've stated you have no desire to go that route, then taking these powers is fairly pointless. I mean if the character is working fine for what you made it for, no need to add anything superfluous.

If you're /energy, the question is why wouldn't you take it? Energy's whole schtick, at least in my opinion from playing an archery/nrg blaster is it's range boosting ability. It gives your cones a huge area to hit from which makes it easier to smack spawns that are even spread out a bit. This in addition to what Natewest pointed out with the power having good damage and slotting utility. It's just a great tool to supplement your spawn killing arsenal.

I think that's my problem with a lot of sets in this game. Most of them simply aren't that good until you can toss millions at them at higher levels (and have the slots to support the sets) Why are so few powersets actually fun WHILE you're leveling?

ah I see, well parasitic aura is in roughly 2 and a half levels for me, will see how things pick up then. I usually end up in efficient mode because WM sucks so much friggin endurance even when I have all of the +endurance recovery uniques slotted. Offensive mode is awesome but I can barely get through a handful of attacks before the endurance bar turns to fumes.

I am playing a wm/bio now and I have to say it is fairly overwhelming. Nearly every power in both sets feel necessary, but I am severely starved for slots and picking up tertiary powers. I mean in war mace at level 35 currently I have bash,pulverize,jawbreaker,clobber,shatter,whirling mace, and crowd control. In bio I have everything up to genetic contamination. I know eventually with enough +recharge WM can survive fine on 3 attacks for it's rotation but obviously I am nowhere near that point with this character. I am guessing I can probably safely drop whirling mace at the least, even though I enjoy the power immensely. I feel more than a bit squishy as I was doing the Midnighter's arc in firstward/nightward and was getting hammered by the lamplighter mobs (guessing cause they heavily use NE attacks) I digress though, anyone have a wm/bio build so I can get an idea of where the bio veterans eventually take their characters? Bio doesn't seem as straight forward as other sets that follow a logic I am familiar with as far as other sets go, but it's bag of tricks seem to keep me entertained over many of the 'set it and forget it' type secondaries.. I actually have to pay attention rather than be half asleep most of the time.

War mace, it's really damn good, hits like a truck with its single target attacks while its cone and pbaoe aren't anything to scoff at either. No fancy mechanics to deal with and with enough recharge it has a pretty simple rotation of 3 attacks (some other builds can do the same with enough recharge, still worth noting though) Edited to add, not sure if it makes a difference, but the set also has a satisfying meaty sound to it. Really makes it feel like you're walloping the bad guys.

Aye, still working on my Rad/Fire brute to get it down to a 5 minute run. I always seem to waste so much time dealing with bosses. I am really trying to handle the packs more efficiently. I can do 4/8 with no issue, but it takes about 9 minutes or so. Admittedly I haven't unlocked all of my incarnates yet. I wager things will speed up slightly once I have degenerative and nifty tools like that along with assault under hybrid. Still, I haven't looked back at my old spines/fire, I just generally like not having to move in order to get the most out of my brute. Almost done with her sets, I have a superior avalanche set to acquire still for atom smasher and that should do it.

Using it currently on a scrapper, so can't speak for brute. I have her at 32 or 33 and she is already near the melee and ranged cap. I am using the two resistance uniques though. My only issue as Zumberg already touched on is that I seem to run out of endurance fairly easily with street justice. I slotted a miracle +recovery and a performance shifter but it feels like they don't help much, I'm usually winded after dealing with a moderately sized group. I wouldn't call it squishy, but it works the same as any defense based set. When things miss you then it's all peaches and cream, but if even a fraction of those hits make it through, you feel all of da pain. I can probably start to add some resistance if I decide to invest more heavily into this character, but for now just playing her mostly as is with the exception of a couple of QoL uniques

If your heart is really set on a elec/shield then I would highly suggest not going with a scrapper. While you can clean up the mooks and LTs relatively easily with shield charge and LR you will still have bosses lingering about, and with elec's terrible single target damage you will find yourself slowed down when you farm with bosses on. Stalkers are superior with this power combo since they still get the great 1-2 boom of your heavy hitting nukes but you also gain Assassin's strike which will help you obliterate the bosses that are left over as well.

You will more than likely continue to see this issue until you can soft cap your defenses (which is roughly 45%, this leaves even leveled enemies about a 5 percent chance to actually hit you) Defense is really an all or nothing affair, When it's working in your favor then enemies simply whiff their attacks on you. If things are going bad on the other hand, you can look forward to a painful hit, especially if your resists aren't up to snuff. Capping said defenses will be a good first step to minimize the pain you are feeling right now. If you've not purchased them already there are two unique enhancements that fit in a resistance power slot, Gladiator's Armor TP protection and Steadfast Protection resist/defense. These two will grant you 3 percent defense each which will go a long way to helping you cap your defenses. Unfortunately they are fairly pricey with Gladiator's going for between 7 and 12 million inf and steadfast usually hovering around 6 to 7 million. After that you will probably need to start looking at IO sets in order to help you get to the defense soft cap on your positional defenses.

I don't mind farming so much every now and then, but when faced with builds that can cost hundreds of millions (like the above tw/bio one) it is daunting. I know one doesn't always need purpled out builds to do most content, but some builds don't really shine until one really kits it out. I'd love to be one of those people that can play the market and make a ton of influence while just sitting in auction house mode, but admittedly I don't have much of a head for making that work. In fact I end up losing money when trying it lol. In any case I'd like to see what a tw/bio scrapper can do, and it's gonna cost a pretty penny. I already know from my wm/bio scrapper that bio really needs IO love to shine and to plug its many many gaps.

I think few people actually enjoy it. If I had a more reliable way to make inf I know I wouldn't do it myself.

There isn't unfortunately (or at least not enough to give you satisfactory numbers for all 3 positions), which is why most people focus on the most prevalent damage types which is smashing and lethal. Chasing positional defenses is usually a good idea for sets that already start off with positional type defenses such as /shield /sr etc As they can cap those positional defenses more easily and with fewer sets. Generally sets that provide you a bonus to typed defenses such as s/l also provide defense or resistance to other damage types coincidentally.

Unfortunately, I can safely tell you this based on a glance at the build, you're gonna have a bad time when facing most enemies that aren't tailored for fire armor's strengths. I will explain, firstly you have no soft capped defenses, even for smashing and lethal which are two of the most common damage types you will run into. Speaking of damage types, your resistances save for fire obviously are fairly low as well and well below their respective caps (once again looking at smashing and lethal which are the most common) None of this is to speak of the fact that /fire has practically no status protection on it's own. If you encounter enemies that hold/sleep/confuse, whatever, you are going to have a bad time with your current build. Certain IO sets and uniques can help with this a bit (such as the ones that provide knockback/down protection) along with incarnate choices, but until you reach that point it will be rough going outside of fire farms. I think one decision you will need to make is if you are chasing typed defenses or positional defenses. You have fairly good melee positional defense for instance though it's not quite soft capped, but low ranged and aoe defense.

Better at what precisely? In order to address the question properly it would help to know what is your aim for this combination of powers. Are you trying to build an influence/infamy farmer? Are you building someone to tank end game content? etc etc. I ask this because the answer will change probably depending on what specifically you are trying to accomplish.

This needs to be engraved on a plaque somewhere, cause at the end of the day this is the truest statement about this game. If you don't wanna play it then it doesn't matter how great it is. As a rabid altaholic myself I can certainly attest to trying dozens of combos and most of those characters end up abandoned cause they didn't feel right, even as others could swear by them.

Really the only thing nrg has going for it that I enjoy is the range booster, You rarely need to worry about mobs being spread out too far apart as you can tag them all easily with your aoe attacks. Other than that the set doesn't offer a whole lot else. I'm not a fan of "blapping" so the melee attacks are either a waste of time or only there to hold IO sets.