ninja surprise

Is soft-capping Energy Aura to Negative Energy possible or feasible? I've been happily cruising my Street Justice / Energy Aura brute up through the levels. Got most S/L/E to 45% but NE is still about 35%. Didn't worry about it too much until my first ITF, then those Dwarfs and Rommie at the end would just wipe me out with a couple Mires. The bonuses I've seen pair Energy and Negative Energy. Do I just need to suck it up and try to go for 55/45% E/NE defense or is there a source of pure NE defense bonus?

Here's level-up tips that are bare minimum & cheap. As you complete tasks forces and make inf you can add set bonuses. Ninja Reflexes: 3-slot defense Danger Sense: 3-slot defense Shinobi-iri: 1-slot defense Add in Combat Jumping here at some point, put in a Karma anti-kb because you don't get knockback protection until level 28 and you'll get slapped all over on low-level TFs. Kuji-In Rin: 2-slot Recharge, or 3 if you want to be certain it's always active until you get +recharge bonuses. You can take any travel power you want here. I always take Mystic Flight now so I can TP across long zones and flying is the only heroic way to travel. You could take Air Superiority in place of a MA attack and Flight, plus Hover and Afterburner for 1-slot LotG powers. Seishinteki Kyoyo: 3-slot recharge, eventually 2-slot endmod/rech + at least one pure recharge. I use this constantly during battle, every time it's up. Kuji-In Sha: 3-slot recharge, eventually 4-slot Heal/Recharge Bo Ryaku: 2-slot with both of the Resist +Def uniques from Gladiator's Armor and Steadfast Protection. Because of this you don't need Tough! People debate whether to skip Blinding Powder or Kuji-In Retsu, up to you. Add Maneuvers, three-slotted for defense Now you should have about 35% def to melee/ranged/aoe. When you get cash 6-slot your attacks with: Touch of Death for Melee def Mako's Bite for Ranged def PBAoE powers with Eradication for AoE def In NR, DS, and Maneuvers 5-slot Red Fortune and a LotG +Rech for some global recharge and you'll be doing great on a fairly cheap build. I have a Titan / Ninja and it's a blast.

I'm in this line too.

I just started one because it looked like an ideal Bloodshot tribute character, and it's been fun blasting through 4 DFBs to get to level 14. Next I'll start on the TFC task forces and radio missions. Thanks for this thread though, because I have no idea what to do with Bio.

I sure wish Translocation could be enhanced.

I love Stone Melee and wish it were available to Scrappers. Like KelvinKole says - (but I have screen shake disabled) the smashing, chunks of dirt flying, knocking critters around, throwing a boulder at a flying enemy and knocking them to the ground... loads of fun. Fire blasting is my favorite blasting. I think I've tried all the others and just didn't like them as much based mostly on sound effects. The whooshes of the fire blasts just work for me. BUT I can't stand Fire Melee, especially one attack that makes a loud shrieking sound. I like Dark Melee to pair with a secondary that doesn't have a self-heal or endurance recovery. DM/SR was my first 50 and I also love it with Ice Armor, even though it has a heal and endurance. The last two favorites would be tied between Electric Melee, Staff, and Dual Blades. I have an incarnate Titan/Ninjitsu Scrapper that I thought would be my main but then I keep playing my tanks in SR/Elec and Shield/Earth. So may fun combos!

Heresy! The doomcloud must flow!

How to put this delicately: Some people, who feel inferior, think they have to tear down that which is superior, in order to feel better about themselves. Other people are just trolls. Dark/Dark's a great combo, here's why: Things that people complain about in Dark Armor are addressed in Dark Melee, and vice-versa. DM is light on AoE - DA has Death Shroud DA is an endurance hog - DM has Dark Consumption to solve your endurance woes. Cloak of Fear is Mag 2, add a Mag 3 Touch of Fear and you've scared the boss. Soul Drain is a fantastic build up and buffs your DA cloak attacks in addition to your primary attacks. Dark Armor provides probably the most Psi resist of any armor set and can be built with tons of defense and overall resist, as shown by builds posted here. The only real drawback is that you may never see your costume again. Looking at other ATs all the various Dark powersets are pretty darn sweet.

Yep, it'll suck until you at least get to 22 and slot some SOs, those will practically double your resists (if you've three-slotted your armors), and Energize will recharge often enough to be a "Save my bacon!" button. There's lots of sets that give bonuses to resist smashing/lethal for just 2 - 4 slots and you can buy them attuned and start slotting them in your early 20's. But remember a soloing lowbie is much squishier than an IO-out incarnate. Get into a Synapse, your armor will shine against the end-draining clocks, and then a Yin. With double-XP you'll be in the mid-20's and able to slot some good sets.

What happens? Is this in the cavern with the cysts?

That's what I came in to say - all the windows stay where put except the Insp tray. It usually bumps up to the middle of the screen. I'm going to try the /wdwsave & /wdwload on a bind.

Asking for a friend - they signed up last year and played before going to college for 6 months (July - Dec). Just trying to get back in now and neither the game nor the forums accept their username/password. Tried doing a "forgotten password" on the forums and it says "We could not find a member account with that email address. Please try again with other information." I've seen that the inactive account policy isn't being enforced, what could have happened to her account?

You can easily skip Jacob's Ladder for Super Jump. I can't load the build to see what the total defense numbers are, but if not soft-capped you can swap Maneuvers for Super Speed.

Elec/Elec will be fine. You should be able to cap S/L/E/N resists with fairly inexpensive sets and Tough, and get your Psi resist pretty dang high. Your self-heal will keep you going vs toxic and alpha strikes. Slot that handclap-stun for KD (not KB) and the FF +Rech and you can keep non-bosses perma-stunned. It's a good set.

I have a Battle Axe/Energy Armor Scrapper around 30 and that's about as far as I want to go with it. BA basically seems fine, but is pretty endurance-hungry. It does fairly consistent knockdown, which is fun. But the swipes are just so slow.

They are in the patch notes in the Beta forums. They're going to work on it again, just couldn't get it settled for this next release.

I'm putting Dark Consumption back on my DM/Ice Armor scrapper! Energy Absorption will keep my End topped up so I can use DC for the attack!

That's because waiting for a tank to herd is a waste of time. Tank needs to get out there and gather the mobs before the team arrives! Plus, aggro caps are low so big herds aren't really viable.

Thematically Grav/Kin go great, like you're a master of momentum and gravity. Both are low-noise, light on the VFX. You can hold things and use them as batteries to buff yourself while defeating them. You have more damaging attacks than any other controller and /Kin buffs up your damage and recharges them quicker. You'll have useful attacks and buffs pretty much every task force level. It's quite Super.

It's a great combo. Mine is named Super Spooky because it's like being attacked by ghosts from the dark! Most of the /Dark powers don't need many slots, but the Illusion powers want a lot of recharge. So look for sets that boost recharge, Hasten, LotG +Rech, etc. At low levels it's easier to use Group Invis than Superior, it burns 1 end /sec, whereas Group is a click every 2 minutes. You'll want both though for LotGs. And you'll still want Fade from /Dark because it gives great buffs. Soul Absorption is another great power that'll heal you and buff your endurance once you get the timing of using it when there's plenty of bodies on the ground. The skippables are Black Hole from /Dark and Flash from Illusion. BH might save your bacon but your teammates will hate you for it. But you might use it when doing a stealth glowie-click surrounded by mobs. Flash is a short group hold that you'll be able to use about every 2 minutes. I always forget it's there. Incarnate powers recharge quicker. Howling Twilight is a better attack than Flash. It recharges quicker, stuns or scares (stacking with Spectral Terror) everything, debuffs their movement speed and recharge, and recharges pretty quick. Don't just wait for someone to die before you use it! So get yourself to 18 so you get your Phantom armies! If you don't know how to do powexec_location macros or binds, look those up. I use F1 through F4 for PA, Spectral, Dark Servant, and Tar Patch so I don't have to click the power then click a spot on the ground, they just appear at the badguy I've targeted.

I can't open the builds where I am but I suggest going for max recharge: Perma-Soul Drain will do wonders for your acc/ToHit Bringing Dark Consumption back ASAP will solve your endurance woes.

Ah, got it.

Note: there's two P2W self-rezzes. Renewal of Light does: "The restoration blasts nearby foes with an explosion, knocking them down and disorienting them. You will revive with about half of your hit points and endurance. You will be invulnerable for a brief time and protected from xp debt for 20 seconds. " Return to Battle imitates a ding-rez: "If you are defeated, you may return to battle empowered by the effects of several types of large inspirations!" and makes you untouchable for a little while. But takes 1 hour to recharge! I love RoTP, one of my favorite powers. Lesser heroes say you can't do damage if you're dead. They are obviously wrong. I keep the P2W as an emergency backup.

Yes, if you keep Repel on 24x7 you're going to have endurance problems. I believe the power description even says it takes extra endurance for every enemy it repels. If you stand next to a foe you'll lose end super fast. You get Stamina at level 1. Three-slot that, put some End reducers in your powers, and power through it like a hero.

OP said fully solo though so no worries about being the team aggro magnet or protecting other people via attack mitigation. Stalker wasn't in the original question, so I'd still vote for Scrapper as the better solo option. Always at 100% damage, and crits always available. It depends on your playstyle, but when I'm solo I want to get missions done, not spend all of every mission trying to maintain fury. Defeat the boss, click the glowie, move on. If I get a wild hair then I'll defeat everything. Scrappers are great for that. Although, having a taunt aura is really nice for keeping runners from running.