Lockpick

You are da man! Thanks for putting forth all the effort!

The Concept: The Build Goals: 45%+ defense to Range and S/L Good damage and accuracy Good recharge for HoB, Trip Mine, and Gun Drone The Build: Commentary: I'm keeping the commentary light on this one. I have done pick by pick analysis before in other threads, so many of those points are still applicable. I was building for S/L/R defense, so many of the choices are based on building towards that goal. I wanted to try out Gun Drone this time around and the jury is still out for me on it. It seems like it can help with DPS when I am on teams and it isn't taking the aggro and getting destroyed. I love Trip Mine. I like to stealth into a group, place a Trip Mine, then hit HoB. Absolute carnage. I wanted to try out Victory Rush to see what all the hoopla was about, but it came so late in the build I am not sure it is worth it. I am likely going Ageless, so VR won't provide much impact. Maybe I will replace it with a one slots Caltrops. Speaking of slots this build seems slot starved. I would have liked a few extra slots to place in other powers. I really like Devices, but as I was doing this play through I was often thinking it would be really cool if he had more Grenade powers. Any thoughts on improvements (keeping in mind build goals)?

And what, pray tell, is the mission of which you speak?

Make it a clone of Scorpion Shield and call it a day. Or add a Scorpion Shield clone into this set. I would definitely take MM more if Body Armor was better, but I end up taking Scorpion Shield most of the time for S/L soft-cap.

Great points, I did check my email to see if I had and Winter IOs still there, but I didn't. I didn't think to use the merits I have in email.

So, what do you do with your merits? You can't take 'em with you...

I just bought 4 Blistering Cold enhancements for 400 merits and I bought the 5th one for $20M. I only had about $25M inf total, so bought the cheapest one I could get. The other Blistering Cold enhancements looked like they would average ~$22M. I haven't used merits to buy enhancements before because I usually play converter roulette, make inf, and buy what I need. I consider myself an average market player. I put in bids on recipes, play the game, when the bids fill, I craft/convert, and put on the market. I usually do market stuff while waiting for a TF to start or right before I logoff. However, since the nerf the prices seem lower and it seems to take longer for me to make inf. I like that prices are lower, but don't like the time it takes to make inf, but trade offs are part of the game and all in all it seems like the nerf was good. For me though I am starting to get to the point of is it just easier to use merits to buy the top end enhancements (purples and winter). I'm not sure if we are there yet, but we are close enough that I made the decision to just buy the enhancements with merits. I am now basically thinking I can get 100 merits per hour and an hour of time for a high end enhancement seems reasonable to me. Anyway, all of this marketing made me think to ask what do the key market players think is the value of 100 merits since the nerf. Any thoughts?

Moonbeam is first, Shadow Meld is next, Defeat is the end

All builds are personal and your build is fine. Some thoughts: A few of your attacks are not slotted fully. I would suggest additional slotting for Single Shot, Toxic Web Grenade, and Charged Shot. These powers are lower damage, but they also work well in attack chains especially if you get mezzed. You can use all of these powers while mezzed, so can still be defeating enemies. You can be defeated easily while mezzed, so the ability to fight back can be critical. One thing to consider is that your true defense is not soft-capped. It is soft-capped when you are out of combat, but when you enter combat your Field Operative defense will drop from 5.95% to 2.97%, so you lose almost 3% while in combat. Hasten: I would 2 slot it with +5 IOs to get the recharge down Penetrating Ray: I like the full Thunderstike set as opposed to the 2 sets of 3. You get 5 set bonuses as opposed to 4, but you have to decide if the regeneration is more important to you than the speed and accuracy. The ranged defense will be the same with either slotting. Blasters have lower HPs, so regeneration is not as important to me. Your accuracy is pretty good, so this a YMMWV.

I hate to be that guy that touts his own build, but here is my build:

All this time I just thought DP was weak. Never thought it was a bug. Hope it gets fixed soon as almost all my Blasters are DP. As a matter of fact, I have so many DP characters my wife is getting suspicious... My non-DP blasters are Archery/TA and Beam/Devices (strong).

My Beam/Devices is completely ranged. He is my first ever Hover blaster (although he doesn't have to Hover). I took everything in the primary except Cutting Beam and Piercing Beam. In Devices I took: Toxic Web Grenade Targeting Drone Smoke Grenade Field Operative Trip Mine - I don't use this when Hovering Perfectly viable to play at range.

Using the temp flight packs make capes look weird. It would be nice to get a temp flight belt that could be used, so the capes would look better.

Oldskool already answered, but thought I would throw in some comments. Judgment - For DP I usually take Void since it is a PBAoE and synergizes well with HoB. I jump into a crowd and HoB and then Void and it's a wrap. Interface - I usually take Degenerative. Destiny - I would go Barrier for DP/MC, since MC it has a good recovery power. I usually aim for soft-cap S/L and Range, so I do not get mezzed often. When I do I always have at least 4 Escape inspirations on me and I also usually take Pistols and Dual Pistols for DP, so I can still attack while Mezzed. I use Barrier to push my defenses to incarnate levels when needed. You also have the option for Inner Will with MC, so may not need Clarion. If you are going all out on +4/8 then maybe Clarion is the better pick, but I don't usually try that on Blasters. Hybrid - I usually go Assault. Lore - I usually go with whatever fits my character concept. Banished are supposed to be top tier, but they are to big for me, so I usually go Tsoo or something else.

Yes, I had the PVP / PVE tag toggled to PVP, so the numbers are much different.

I think more people would take Hasten with these changes. I know I would...

I thought testing of these procs showed that having multiples was not optimal. Has this changed?

I have a character who is a rapper and occasionally he's got to say some stuff. I want to press a key (let's say z) and have him say the bad guy's name and then other stuff in local. Can anyone show me how to do that?

I like this idea, but not sure I like replacing Focus Chi. I would suggest that taking Focus Chi opens up these toggles.

I have been doing 4/8 DA missions with my Savage/SR stalker. I've never really done 4/8 before, but I was trying to T4 my incarnates, so I decided to try it to speed up the vet levels and was shocked how easy it was. I will occasionally take some hits where I have to do a strategic withdrawal before finishing a mob and I have been defeated a couple of times, but overall I do fine. The DA missions are all Banished Pantheon, so not sure how I would fare against other mobs.

Revisiting this thread, sorry for bumping my own thread, but thought I would provide some additional information. My numbers were skewed earlier because I had the PVP tab selected. Here are the updated numbers and build. Instead of providing commentary in this thread I am going to provide cost information, so people can get an idea of how much a build like this costs. I just revamped the build and bought IOs yesterday, so this info is pretty recent. Comments / Goals: Soft-cap Range and S/L without having to use Power Boost Have Fly as a travel power (due to concept) Have a Stealth IO and SS for 65' PVE stealth Try to get enough recharge to use Power Boost often The updated Build Build Cost

Thanks for the tips. I wasn't aware the Hetacomb proc wouldn't proc as much, so I will definitely test that out. Your other suggestions are good as well and I will make those adjustments. I was building for recovery, so I tend to use the Miracle proc. I usually try to get both Numina and Miracle in Health where I can, but just couldn't fit it in on this build. I think I am going to do a second build and remove Hasten and add Inner Will as an Auto. I'll also try and get BoS back in the build, but I want to maintain my soft-cap Ranged and S/L. I'll try some +4/8 DA mission with my current build to check my baseline performance first and then do the second build and see how it stacks up.

That is a serious tease! Any hints?

All true, but I guess the point is that if you wanted the high end gear in SWTOR you had to seriously grind for it. Here if you want the high end gear you have to do what I would consider minor grinding, but I would argue the grind is much less and there are many more options here than in SWTOR. You can do most of the content here on SOs that drop from playing the game or the base IO recipes that drop as well. The term grind is going to be subjective to everyone. IMO the grind here is very limited and you can easily get rewards from just playing the game in whatever manner you choose. Some options are more efficient than others, but all of them will allow you to fully kit out a character.

We have that here though, right? I played SWTOR while CoH was MIA. That was a grind and could take hours daily to be able to upgrade a piece of gear once per week. Here I can play for an hour and feel confident that at the end that hour I have made progress towards my goal. If my goal is a purple IO I can get one in about an hour by running a double Hami, a TinPlex, use the AH, or even some missions / flashbacks / TFs. There is very little grind here. I do the same thing where at level 22 I slot level 25 IOs and use them until I can replace them. I will use converters to make some money and buy some attuned IOs during the leveling process, so that by the time I hit 50 I really only need to focus on the expensive IOs (Purples, PVP, and Winter).