Windenergy21

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

Well, the way you said it originally, it sounded like you were saying that NO Dark Armor scrapper could softcap, which isn't true. Had you said "On a spines scrapper I know you can't", I would have agreed, as I have never seen a build that does it. All you said was "a scrapper" which implies that no scrapper can do it. My build is not the norm, and I never said that it was. It is a Dark Armor scrapper that is softcapped, which your original statement says couldn't be done.

Softcap is defined as having 45% or higher defense. How you got there is irrelevant. If you pop a bunch of purples, you are softcapped for the duration of the inspirations. So, the fact that I use Parry to softcap melee defense has no bearing on whether or not I am softcapped. Saying that sotcapping with Parry doesn't count is like saying that perma Hasten isn't perma because you have to click the power again.

And actually, you can't get 700% regen on an SR. Siphon Life is simply a self heal, it does nothing to increase regeneration. If you said "I can heal such and such amount of HP per second" because of Siphon Life, it would be true, since you can average it out to come up with a number. But.....that doesn't qualify as regeneration as the term is commonly used.

I apologize if my previous post was heavy on the snark. I was a little annoyed by being told that a build I spent a lot of time and influence on doesn't count as softcapped because I use Parry to get there.

Originally Posted by Werner

Yes, I think I get what you're saying. But in that case, you perhaps should have said "On a Dark Armor Scrapper I wouldn't suggest it" instead of "On a scrapper I know you can't."

The first is your opinion on how people should build for maximum effectiveness. That's cool. I probably wouldn't soft cap a Fiery Melee/Electric Armor or a Spines/Dark Armor either. But to say that you can't is incorrect, which is why we gave you counterexamples. You don't have to LIKE the builds for them to be counterexamples.


I half agree with you here. The conversation was more about Spines/Dark, or at least about doing some serious AoE damage, which isn't one of Broad Sword or Katana's strengths. So yeah, we're probably not talking about Broad Sword or Katana. But again, the stated question was simply if it was possible to get to the soft cap with Dark Armor as a secondary. And your answer was that it was not possible. Except that it IS possible. When no primary is stated, Katana and Broad Sword are possible primaries, and thus seem relevant to the question. We can of course debate whether it's advisable or not. I'd say yes it's advisable with Katana or Broad Sword - my soft-capped Katana/Dark is my toughest Scrapper. I'm not sure about other primaries. I'm going to guess that it probably isn't advisable, particularly if, like the OP, you're looking for a hard core AoE scrapper. But there's really no debate on whether or not it's possible. It's possible.

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

Look at the second build I posted in that thread.

And remember to turn Combat Jumping on.

I know for an absolute fact that it IS softcapped, because it is on my live character.

And another thing: Since Parry is part of my attack chain, any time I am in melee to be attacked from that position, I am softcapped to it. If I am not in melee with anything in order to stack Parry, I obviously have no need to have defense to it.

Ranged is at 45.17% on live, and AoE is at 44.9%. Sure you could quibble that AoE is .1% away from being softcapped, but I have NEVER seen a situation where .1% was the difference between being hit and not being hit. I'm sure it's happened, but I've never seen it.

All you said was "On a scrapper I know you can't", referring to Dark Armor softcapping. You never said anything about conditions or primary. As far as your original statement is concerned, my build proves it wrong. You made a blanket statement and it was debunked.

You can debate semantics all day, and it won't change anything. I proved you wrong, and you changed your argument to say that because I used Parry to achieve it, it doesn't count.

Originally Posted by Celidya

It depends on what you want to do exactly.

For general aoe goodness spines/dark is, by far, the best for overall survivability/damage. I don't see the point of spines/fire, there's a point where you have enough damage to quickly wipe the spawns and all you need is survivability to take on bigger spawns and/or larger. Mine is fairly old and was ok with a cheap IO build, now i brought her up to date with a solid build and, wow. Build up + throw spines + spine burst and a ripper to finish the lieutenants, i can wipe +1 x8 spawns in a matter of seconds. The damage auras are awesome, but what makes spines/dark shine is the range: the pbae and cone both have a huge range. It's all at the expense of survivability, though with very high recharge and clever kiting i find i'm as survivable as the average scrapper around while dealing crazy damage.

However, if you want to farm AE with tightly packed mobs around you, then you should consider claws/dark. Its main drawback is the very short range on the pbae but if you can hit enough ennemies with it, Spin is muuuuch better than spines burst. In AE farming back in the days when you could spawn hundreds of bosses my claws/dark was the best character i had for that. Attack chain was follow up > spin > evisecerate. With a kin you can just chain spin and eviscerate and everything dies very fast.

In general missions/tfs or older farm maps it's not as good, in the typical mob spawns a spine burst can hit everything, while spin won't. So claws/dark is only good for very tight packs of mobs where it can shine. The best was with custom mobs immune to KB to make sure you can spam Shockwave too.

I think they're overall better for farming than even elec/shield or anything else. For me the whole point of farming is to keep very high sustained aoe dps and i found shield charge on my bs/shield to be terrible for that. Sure, you can obliterate a spawn but, the damage is not high enough to be worth waiting for it to recharge.

For softcapping you can forget it unless paired with katana or BS. /dark is awesome because unlike most secondaries you get survivability from the global recharge, which is what you need for efficient farming too. Getting some defense to ~30% or so (you'll hardly get more unless you want to gimp your build) won't give you more survivability than upping your recharge. I think dark regen is up in about 8sec on my /dark scrappers, that's a full life bar + some endurance bonus every 8sec. Unless you jump in a pack of red/purple bosses, there's hardly anything that will destroy your lifebar in less than 8sec especially with the spines slow secondary effect.

And if it does, that's what Soul tranfer is for. I waste about 10sec when i die (retoggling everything) and that's it.

I usually run with 4 columns full of big purples insps and i eat everything that appears in the first column after everything. I kill stuff so fast i barely need to heal when i'm farming, like the cimmeroran wall, i need to fire the heal maybe once every 5 or 10 packs of 10 traitors, just because i kill them before they can attack. On the BM map set to +1 x8 i need to heal every 3 or 4 packs. Best survivability is to kill stuff before it can even attack you, and if you can't, just hit a few purples then you're invincible.

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

Really? You can't?

That's odd....

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=189427

Dark Armor is the easiest resistance-based set in the game to softcap for a scrapper. Invuln is a close second. Fire and Electric are more difficult.

Originally Posted by Werner

Probably any Scrapper can soft cap. Shred Monkey posted a quick and dirty Fiery Melee/Electric Armor build (below) with soft-capped defenses to prove the point. Whether it's the best approach or not is a lot more debatable, but possible, yes.

Originally Posted by squishor

Thanks. Is it possible to get soft cap if you know with dark as a secondary?

Originally Posted by Teeth

Huh? He didn't claim to have done it recently.

Originally Posted by Negate

Ah! Thank you I thought so! I remember being held by the "dance as well"

Originally Posted by Negate

Alright point taken my friend, but dance or not you can catch them for a few seconds with Ignite but not long enough for the full affect granted.

I think one still should take ignite it's great for protection when the kb in Slug, buckshot or M30 just doesn't cut it.

Originally Posted by Talionis

Didn't you need to use a fourth power to keep them in the Ignite patch?

Originally Posted by Chaos_String

Shiver's great. But it requires you to be within 60' to use it, which means you're subject to ranged attacks before you even redraw your gun and open fire. BR+BU+FA kills minions, and does it from beyond their 80' counterattack range. Granted, you can't do this in every situation, but when you can, it's better than Shiver.



Actually, if you start from out around 120' with Full Auto, the mobs won't be able to attack from that range and will try to close the distance. During this time the DoT will kill most of the minions, so they never get a shot at you (by contrast, Shiver gives them a ranged attack, since it requires you to be within 60').

The remaining minions and lieuts will close the distance, but only a few of them will stop at 80' and take a potshot. Most will attempt to reach melee range. But since you've got Buckshot and Flamethrower out past 60', they get caught in these cones (and most of them are knocked back and/or killed) before they get up in your grille.

The thing about Boost Range is that in many cases you can kill entire spawns with fewer counterattacks than you'd face using something like Shiver or Ice Patch. Granted, there isn't always enough room to do it, but often times, there is.



Nobody's telling you that AR/Ice will "have problems." All /Ice blasters have decent survivability if they're played well. What people are telling you is that Boost Range, stacking stuns, an early Build Up, and better single-target DPS give AR/EM functionality that you're not acknowledging. In fact you're working very hard to discount all these things and make them seem less valuable than they really are.


Yeah. Shiver and Ice Slick are good survival tools. We get that.

Actually there was an AR/Ice in my SG and I ran alongside him with my AR/EM a number of times back in the day. Granted, inventions have changed the game since then, and the changes to the AR and EM powersets have too, but what I observed was that I killed stuff faster because I was shooting it dead before he was close enough to even open fire. And when some freak tank self-rezzed and he was trying to whittle it down with Burst and Slug, I'd smash its face in real quick with Total Focus and Bone Smasher. My damage output was better, both in terms of AoE and single-target.

If having a couple mini-controller powers makes a blaster more team-friendly than superior damage output, then... well I think we're approaching the AT from two very different angles.



Agreed. As has already been mentioned, this is the glaring weakness of AR/EM. Ignite isn't even worth a power choice.



Without Boost Range, I'd never play an AR/anything.

True story. I've deleted every other AR toon I've subsequently rolled.

Originally Posted by OneWhoBinds

There is more synergy that Boost Range & the Cone attacks:

Build Up comes very early, which can provide some much needed punch in the early levels.

There are plenty of stuns to go around - it's easy to get even bosses disoriented for a time.

Not unique to AR/, but still there, is that Power Boost not only improves the stuns, but also any To Hit bonuses - like, say, Build Up?

And again, not only for AR/, but... Energy Manipulation has several powers self buffs that don't need anything more than a couple of extra slots... meaning there's plenty to go around for Power Pools and Epic powers.

The only thing the combo really lacks is some way to leverage Ignite - enough so that Ignite may even be dropped from the build.

Originally Posted by Airborne_Ninja

I vehemently disagree with your assessment of the situation good sir.