Frostweaver

regen on sentinels is disgustingly tanky compared to regen on scrappers/brutes, for some weird reason. I mean, you cannot cap ANYTHING without cutting into your recharge, but with mog up 25% of the time, 600% regen, instant's disgusting absorption, and tanker-level HP, I almost never feel it.

Nope, they get icy bastion. a massive resist, regen, and recovery boost. WAY better than hibernate. It's like 40% resist all but psi, 200 recovery, and 400 regen. with sick recharge it can be up about half the time.

Dude. you are in the SCRAPPER forum.

I disagree that it's a matter of theme. There are clearly mechanical reasons that claws works vastly better for scrappers than stalkers, although i couldn't tell you much about /nin, as I have never tried the set. From the point of view of your primary (only) claws is better on scrappers because: End savings are more important when you don't always get to pick your next fight. Stalker's crits are rare and selective compared to scrappers... That means slow, high DPA attacks are vastly preferable to fast, efficient, high-dps attacks, which is claw's specialty. Aoe is GOD in this game outside of AV fights, and claws has some of the best... but the stalker version strips out one of the best DPS PBAOE's in the game, Spin. The only melee dps PBAOE that is better than spin is burn. whirling axe: 4.1 whirling sword: 5.25 spin: 9.3 typhoon: 5.5 lightning rod: 2.3 thuinderstrike and chain are weird to calculate, but are below 5 total. fire sword circle: 5.3 frozen aura: 4.4 lotus drops: 5.7 Burst: 4.8 Dragontail: 5.25 Mass lev: 5.25 atom smasher: 4.25 savage leap: 3.8 rending on 5 stacks: 4.25 spine burst: 4.0 quills: 5.5 Eye of the storm: 4 spinning strike: 6-8 (depending on combos) whirling smash: 6-9 (depending on momentum) whirling mace: 4.6 Also, stalker claws replaces follow up with build up. Don't get me wrong, build up is WAY better than follow up for stalkers, but FU's ability to more or less provide a constant, unending stream of +75% damage for DPS streams on other Melee AT's is the gem of the set. Of the 5 at's that get Claws, stalker is by far the worst. Claws is top tier for everyone except stalkers. You decide.

How about you go rad and simply recolor it orange, and then add fire special effects to your costume? Seems to make more sense than taking the obviously weakest set in the game that is counterbalanced by the absolute DPS BEAST that is burn (and your immob protection) and stripping off it's key ability. It's like skipping invincible on invulenrability, or chilling embrace on ice, it's cutting off half your utility.

My only problem is trying to figure out how to AVOID a double rage. keeping track of the little buff icons in a fight is a nightmare... it feel like the tanker change is actually going to penalize anyone who dares slot a couple of kinetic crashes, Slots agility without complete recalculation, or gets one too many -rech set bonuses.

This is my pure ranged wolf spider huntsman build, incarnate edition. Great Teaming, decently survivable, good dps, a solidly useful part of ANY team. And no ugly crabsac

Right. and as someone who has played both Ice and Bio, I consider Ice slightly above Bio. I still think you should play it before trying to rate it, because it HAS damage (icicles) It has truly amazing aggro management, in CE, it has massive Hp bonuses, and heals, it helps your team, it helps your primary with end management. it has resists and defense, has a great place to dump procs (icicles again) and it has hibernate... which, while not as good as the scrapper version, still takes you from nothing to full with complete invulnerability in less than 5 seconds (which is a fantastic way to spend your rage crash if you are SS) and when slotted, recharges in about 30 seconds. it is also chock full of stuff that helps you deal damage. -recharge resistance out the wazoo, -slow resistance (ever try to get in the middle of a a bunch of knives of artemis, or keep a group of green ink men locked down?) so that you can keep dishing out damage and sucking up aggro, Bio's little 10% damage boost for which you pay a nasty -resist is not even in the same league as being able to run across caltrops and ignore siphon speed. Only recovery mode is any good, and Ice has the same tools for managing end and regen... endurance which keeps you fighting and dealing damage while Dark is Gasping for breath. Every objection you try to raise is simply showcasing your lack of experience with the set. Why are you so dead set against even trying it? I have offered you everything you need to jet right to the highest levels, and experience it yourself, but you have not even bothered turning the offers down... you simply ignored it. To me, that means you don't even WANT to learn anything that might interefere with your preconceptions. Or at least you don't want to admit that the only reason you have a problem with ice is because it's sorta ugly. You know what? This whole thread is sorta stupid. I doubt more than a handful of people have played EVERY set with enough different builds to rate them meaningfully. Let's try a bar chart instead. That way people will KNOW what each set has to offer.

Ice doesn't need Dark's tools. Which leaves you with a low-damage set with crappy AOE.

yeah, brag that the rage crash will be completely eliminated. That way they will make sure to nerf the changes before they hit live.

You don't have perma hoarfrost? and you don't have almost 3400 health? I find my 1600 hp heal from uninterruptible aid self every 5 seconds much more reliable than your bio/rad/fire heals. which I can do, because I don't have to buy 4 LOTG mule pools in order to get decent recharge. Yeah. comparing the best bits from 3 separate sets in order to refute Ice being mid to top tier? You don't get to make a rad/dark/bio/whatever Tank. If I got heals, scaling resist, beta decay, capped resists, a pbaoe teleport, ignore rage crash, Burn, a debuff aura, absorbs, and capped defense, DNA siphon, and -to-hit, I would happily call that a 'top tier' set. Too bad that set doesn't actually exist. Look, I get you are a resist monkey. And I even agree that defense sets suck on tankers because they cap in the same place everyone caps, instead of tanker's resistance bonus. Except that Ice is NOT a pure defense set. There's only 1 of those, and that's SR, and yes, it sucks. Just play the goddamned set. I will be happy to give you all the help you need with builds, pling, tips, tricks, and even influence/enhancements if you are playing on Excelsior. Ignorance is only bliss until it kills you. And you still have not defined 'top tier', you have only defined what you play.

right click on the power to lock it, then check out the description. there's a 'target' slider in the dscription box. The power can hit up to 16 targets, and caps out at +10 (200%) this is a VERY realistic number of targets to affect in normal combat, but you might want to scale that back to 1 target if you are fighting AV's or towers, It gives you a more realistic image of how much regen you have available. You can do the same thing with fury (I usually set mine at 70% for normal fighting, 80% when I have brute ato fury bonus slotted in an aura) and for things like assault hubrid, where you KNOW you will be spending a lot of time at +5, doublestacking rage, and the damage resistance for target-saturated evolving armor. It helps you 'stage' your defenses for a 'real fight' simulation... it also shows why certain sets that have external mitigation do NOT quire 'hard capped' or 'soft capped' defenses. Even for full 4/8 Dark Astoria solo missions with bosses and EB's (which have a to-hit base of 75%, not 50%, and much higher damage than vanilla mobs... it's counted as incarnate content) I seldom even bother with my clickies or incarnates... even at 35% defense and 50% resistance, Bio has absolutely disgusting external damage reduction AND insane regeneration. In a lot of cases, the only thing worth slotting is procs and recharge reduction. Sometimes I even skip the fighting pool for with Bio. I told you it was OP 🙂

Okay, the problem is that Bio armor is too goldanged good. Everything in it has so much potential to make you a badass I just couldn't give anything up. Here's another version, slightly tougher and more damaging than the last, which I think I may respec into myself. It can give whole groups of enemies -40% resistance pretty easily, and takes advantage of the weird aura synergy with brute fury bonus (it might be a bug). You should be able to put a pylon at -50+ resist and -regen with relative ease, and between the -damage auras, perma-ablative, 50% uptime on parasitic aura, decent resists and some capped defenses, and of course melee radial to cap your defenses with ease, as well as the usual brute disgusting damage output. Still, I kinda used most of the tricks I know on this one 🙂 I am not sure it's possible to kill it even if you fall asleep in the middle of an LRSF. OP secondary.

The one thing I have absolutely learned about Bio is that it does not want nor need healing from other sources. especially when you have built in tanker-level HP. siphon just doesn't help it much. I am bored this morning... Please give me a few moments to update and tweak the build to better suit your desires.

ahh, understood. Bear in mind I have not updated her in about two months, I have learned a few minor things about brute slotting since then, and I also need to do something about radiation siphon... It's not the best attack and I should probably figure out a way to crowbar in a bit of pyre mastery. Melt armor really IS that good.

Would you like to see my Rad/Bio Brute? I have been playing her for some time. She is obviously similar to yours, but has slightly less AOE (no fireball) and I tried to play to Bio's strengths, namely much higher regen and HP totals with capped s/l, and slightly overcapped defenses with the melee radial in order to whiff incarnate content (and add more taunt... I hate when tanks steal my aggro)

Yes, you really do. Those are kinda what makes it bio and not regen. They are more important for a brute than adaptive armor, and MUCH more important than radiation siphon, which is kind of a meh power when you have any secondary with a heal. You can certainly skip ablative if you are going in a different direction or playing a set that require uninterrupted attack chain (like TW), but skipping one of the best tier 9's in the game is a little..odd. especially since you seemed to dump a LOT of decent bonuses in order to basically replicate it's effect with IO's, only limited to s/l. Post level 50, as you well know, there are LOTS of damage sources that are NOT S/L. If you want to play in Dark Astoria or the RWZ, having a click massive resistance/heal debuff will prove enormously useful Unless you are building a specific farmer?

I agree with Hyperstrike on this. Many many sets change enormously based solely on your playstyle and preferences. I, for instance love and am totally used to spending a few seconds lining up cones. Cones are actually very powerful DPE wise if you are used to them, and usually almost OP DPA wise as well. Some people hate them, They cannot tolerate aoe's that do not hit everything without targetting, or the slight delay that using a Cone causes, even if it is maxde up for elsewhere. Both are totally valid approaches, both wind up with only slightly varying total dps output... and that's just for fire melee... don't get me started on the arguments for slotting beta decay or even TAKING taunt, ground zero, or meltdown. As a ferinstance, I have a claws/fire brute that is built upon an ENTIRELY different philosophy than the prevailing 'top farmer' claws/fire... It is a cone monster, and uses the spiritual and melee radial incarnates as well as shark cone epics as an important part of the build rather than mu mastery, musculature and assault.... I am able to hardly build in defense at all, and use clarion for range on the cones, so it feels almost like a blaster and gets a slightly faster clear time than 'traditional' claws/fire farmers. And the build is ENTIRELY different in almost every major way, from which sets to choose to skipping the fighting pool altogether, and even in platsyle it is different, running MUCH hotter when there are a lot of foes on the board to slowing down sharply when the map is almost cleared... and yet it is just as valid.

You have to admit, that power boost makes blizzard just as amazing as any defender or corrupter pairing.

I am not sure what's so difficult. Replace raptor pack with electrified net arrow, which is a mandatory pick. I am pretty sure it is a mid's version incompatibility, not an actual build difference. If ti makes you feel better, replace cj with hover and you are golden. It's not a bad build, to be fair.

I wish that statement were something other than exaggeration.

scrapper taunt always has been a joke. Seriously. I actually have both T4 assault and Melee Radial on my rad/ice, depending on whether I am in standard content/cave farming or running comicon asteroid. In asteroid, the insp come so quickly that staying at damage cap is too easy to use assault (and the double hit one kinda sucks) the taunt, plus slows from CE and slows from caltrops as well as the dribbling And, to put the icing on the crap cake, I found that I needed both Caltrops from munitions slotted with annihilation proc AND spring attack with....you guessed it.... force fedback -recharge, The dribbling from spring attack and slows from ce/caltrops tends to keep stuff clustered pretty tightly despite Calt's scatter effect, and my DPS tends to hover right around 450 dps per target for an average of ten targets. That doesn't really hold a candle to Brute's 600 dps per target for 16 targets, but I like to think my procs and -res will squeeze out another 50 dps that a rad/fire brute just cannot exploit.

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If they were really mean, they could port it without foot stomp and give SS a proton sweep clone instead.

my 'knockdown patch' is overwhelming proc slotted into icicles 🙂