Abbzy

Thanks for your very constructive criticism which i assue you i will take on board, the repetition of the and her was something i was concerned about to be honest and should have altered before posting.
I do have a bad habbit of getting lost in descriptions

Will hopfuly

I plan to get chapter 2 up perhaps within the next week or so, and i hope you enjoy where im aiming to take this fiction.

Well im kinda playing a bit again after a break for 2 months due to work commitments but yey for scrapper fans.

Got 4 myself

(Seretta) Dual Blades/Regen - 50 (My personal fav)
(Brambly) Spines/Regen - 50
(One Touch) Katana/Dark Armor - 50
(Elesie) Martial Arts/Super Reflexes - 50

This began as an attempt to add some depth to one of my characters ingame descriptions and quickly developed into my initial attempt at a piece of creative writing. I do have some plans as to where i hope to take this piece of fiction, though as this is my first piece of writing im testing the water a bit. Any constructive criticism and suggetions are more than welcome, and thanks for reading

Dark Transcendence

[u]Chapter 1[u]

Agent Seretta, born Elesie Ruth Seerhart, stared down the secluded Hong Kong alleyway, the darkness made more ominous by the relentless deluge; the frequent flashes of lightening staccato'd the appearance of her movements as though she were caught in the irregular pulse of a malfunctioning strobe light. The heavy rain obscured her vision, the tendrils of her long, silver hair clinging to the sides of her face like the threads of a thick, viscous spider web. Her immaculately tailored and expensive black silk suit had long since reached saturation point from the torrents of rain which cascaded down onto her narrow shoulders. Her white blouse and moderately flared silk pants clung uncomfortably to her slim frame as though they were a second skin.
A small rip ran around the upper portion of her jacket’s right sleeve, the tattered edges of the silk material darkened with the stain of her blood. The wound had only been minor and fortunately, due to her regenerative capabilities it had quickly healed, but the bloody stain had framed the injury leaving its mark on her expensive jacket.

Slowly proceeding down the alleyway, the clicks of her conservative black heeled shoes were drowned out by the hammering of the surrounding rain as it bounced off the ground beneath her creating a constant, deafening roar.
The nervous agent glanced behind her for a moment, her sudden movements and darting eyes betraying her usually confident persona. The subconscious part of her mind demanding her survival screamed for her to back away and leave this intimidating place, yet adrenaline surged through her veins driving her relentlessly onwards. Shakily reaching into her jacket pocket she removed a slim, silver cylinder like device, the hilt of one of her two vanguard issued Talsorian blades, a personal weapon of choice for the young agent. The elegant yet deadly pair of energy blades had become something of a trademark of hers amongst the Organisation and few argued her ability to utilise the weapons at an expert level. To her however the blades were more than simply a tool or weapon, but rather an organic extension of herself, the gentle soothing hum they released when activated coupled with the warmth that enveloped her hands when she wielded them granted her a sense of security and safety that she often felt she lacked in her obsessive and solitary work absorbed life.
Flicking the small switch on the side of the device triggered the blade to come to life, a large wave of energy arcing forwards to form a curved scythe like form of lethal dark purple matter causing the rain around it to evaporate in a constant hiss of steam.

It had been 6 months since she had first started tracking the rogue operative known as Agent Wolf. Her target had at a previous time been a member of the same Organisation as her, they had exchanged ideas, joked together, after her first mission she had confided in him and a relationship of trust and support had developed between them both. Existence within the Organisation provided a cold reality, a shadowy introvert life where identities were reduced to code names and hear’ say of exploits. In her 3 years of service, and with the exception of her superior, he had been the only person to address her as Elesie.
It came as a horrifying surprise when she heard the report that he had betrayed the Organisation disappearing with information and technology that had been declared vital to the Organisations security. It was through her persistent requests she had been assigned to the task of tracking him down despite the head of her department, Crimson, stating his objections over her inexperience in both tactics and combat when compared to the veteran target.

Only moments ago she had been painfully close to finalising her mission. Standing before the man she knew so well yet could no longer recognise. Cursing her own foolishness for believing she could have reasoned with someone who had an understanding of his own actions that extended far beyond what her own experience and knowledge could comprehend. Her impulsiveness to deactivate her weapons and approach her target, in an attempt to blindly defend a stance she barely understood, had left her wounded both physically and mentally. Her mind replayed her recently uttered words of pleading, which reluctantly she realised had been both weak and ill-judged.

"Wolf..., Mathew..., please..., please come back, the Organisation wants you back, they said they will forget this incident, you’re like a hero at that place.... What your doing is wrong..., they need you.....I need you.... "

Her final words had faded softly as the conviction in her voice was replaced by a tone of desperation. The embrace she wished he would grant her never came, the event she had envisioned in her idealistic mind was replaced by the unveiling of the naïve sense of morality she had been conditioned to believe in. Her world had been questioned and now she pursued her target out of confusion more so than a passion for her mission, 'What did he mean? What did I expect? What am I doing?' Her self interrogation continued with each step she took, her world cracked around her as his words echoed repeatedly through her mind inspiring these questions that shattered her confidence. In her attempt to reason with him and bring him home he had enlightened her to the unseen actions of those around her and in doing so he had exposed her inexperience of life. The Organisation was all she had known, it was her life, without it she had nothing, that concept alone terrified her, how could she forfeit what had become the primary composition of her existence.

“What’s right, what’s wrong, what’s heroic, what’s evil, who decides this? The hero’s of today are those grasping life by the throat, making their own destiny, shaping their own future and the future of those around them, morality has become another tool that cages humanity to the will of others. To follow orders obediently without question due to a false sense of morality is a barrier I have transcended. Those you consider your superiors stride towards aims without a care for the path they carve behind them. My dearest Elesie, I am sorry, so, so sorry.”

With those last words he had swiftly drawn his weapon and fired, delivering a glancing shot to her arm. The unexpected assault had left her staggering backwards, instinctively gripping her injured appendage. He was an expert marksman, known and feared as one of the Organisations greatest assassins, the best she had known in her brief life. She knew instantly he had no intentions of killing her, despite her self-healing capabilities he could have dealt far more damage at such a close range. He was aware more than most, of her ability to regenerate, a glancing shot to her bicep would have been futile for any other purpose, than to escape. Within the moment it had taken her to rationalise his actions he had fled out of the open park where their confrontation had occurred. Without time to rationalise the situation she had thoughtlessly given chase.

She continued to attempt to absorb and reassess her situation, whilst progressing further into the dark alleyway. The never-ending hail of rain refused to cease, the feeling of cold water running down her face had become the sole reminder to her that what was happening was no unpleasant dream.

Her movements came to a sudden halt at hearing the pistol click behind her head. The barrel pressed firmly through her matted wet hair to rest against the back of her skull.
Her legs weakened as she suddenly became attuned with the feeling of her heart pounding inside her chest, a sense of fear engulfing her as the fragments of adrenaline that had been driving her onwards through the alleyway drained away, being replaced with a sense of vulnerability and mortality she had not previously experienced. With a quivering voice she struggled to speak.

“Mathew…I…I don’t know what to do” she stammered.

Regenerating from cuts and falls was easy, a broken bone could meld together perfectly in minutes, but a bullet to the back of the head she was not so sure of. Her mind raced with thoughts of self doubt and her own demise. She did not want it to end here, not in this dark alley, not at the hands of her closest friend, not completely alone. The blade she carried slipped from her shivering hand, deactivating as the metal hilt bounced across the cold wet concrete beneath her. A single tear formed in the corner of her right eye, a glistening bead of water that briefly stood out from the millions of droplets that fell from the sky above, slowly running down her cheek to merge with the pouring rain that engulfed her.

“I did ask you not to take this assignment Ele”

A calm, precise and hauntingly familiar voice came from the man behind her, and with his few words the final crack in the glass of her world formed.

“Crimson?”

Was the only word that managed to escape her throat before she heard the pull of the trigger, the gunshot echoing against the walls of the alley, for a brief moment silencing the hammering rain.
The petite agent slumped forward collapsing against the wet stone floor next to the hilt she had held moments earlier, unmoving as her executioner casually withdrew his gun to the holster inside his jacket. Withdrawing a cigar and silver old fashioned lighter from an inside pocket he brought the thick tube of carefully prepared tobacco to his slightly parted lips. A quick flick of the lighter formed a generous flame, un-phased by the pouring rain he brought it to meet the cigars tip as he deeply inhaled; His expression remained emotionless as he glanced down at the still form before him, her vacant blue eyes staring absently along the glistening, black, wet floor that was gradually transforming into a diluted shade of red. A low sigh escaped his lips before releasing a large plume of smoke from his sizeable lungs, taking a moment to savour the taste of the best Cuba had to offer before he casually turned and left the alley.

To Be Continued...

Mmmm, by blades/regen im guessing you mean dual blades/regen, if so then ive recently finished IOing mine, its been an absolutely fantastic 2 months spent on a character and out of several 50's(including 3 other scrappers) dual blades is easily my favorite and i genuinely hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

However what I would say, in all honesty is well...
Its not a PvP set, its fun now and then in zones, but overall id rate it as the weakest pvp scrapper set.

Ive spent a fortune on enhancements, have some very impressive statistics, and still in pvp im craptastic so meh, trust me, the self realization i am experiencing while typing this is heart breaking

[u]Combo's[u]
(please note its the final move when the combo bonus is activated)

Empower Combo
Nimble Slash > Ablating Strike > Blinding Feint
Grants a temporary bonus to accuracy and damage (similar to a minor buildup effect on top of blinding feints standard buildup effect.)

Weaken Combo
Nimble Slash > Ablating Strike > Typhoons edge
AOE finale that lowers the defense and tohit of enemies struck.

Attack Vitals Combo
Ablating Strike > Vengeful Slice > Sweeping Strike
Causes enemies struck to suffer damage over time for a short period

Sweep Combo
One Thousand Cuts > Power Slice > Typhoons Edge
Causes knockup on all enemies struck, and adds a 50% bonus to the damage dealt by sweep

[u]Enhancement Information and Suggestions[u]

"The Law of Fives
While a character can slot the same (full or partial) set multiple times in different powers, he cannot benefit from more than five copies of any one set bonus of the exact same attribute and amount. This is a stronger restriction than simply being limiting to five copies of each set. It means that if two different sets give the same size bonus to the same thing, the character can't get more than 5x that bonus even if he uses a mix of sets.

Example: The Kinetic Combat set can give +1.5% Max Health and +3.3% Immobilization Resistance. The Mako's Bite set can give +1.5% Max Health and +2.75% Immobilization Resistance. If a character slots four partial sets of both, he will receive the full total of 24.2% Immobilization Resistance but only +7.5% Max Health because he cannot get more than five Max Health bonuses of exactly +1.5%.

Global benefits are tracked separately from set bonuses and from each other, based on the IO providing them. For instance, a character can benefit from up to five global benefits of Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Recharge Speed, which gives a global +7.5% bonus to Recharge Rate, as well as up to five set bonuses of +7.5% Recharge. If there were another global IO that also gave +7.5% Recharge, that character could benefit from up to five copies of that one as well."
-Section taken/borrowed from the invention origin enhancement set bonus page of paragonwiki.com

Just a few little ideas for various sets that work nicely here and there. Idealy you will be looking to attain set bonus's that boost your regeneration, recharge, health, unfortunately with dual blades/regen, you will find yourself primarily limited to melee damage, pbaoe damage and healing set categories.

From these selections i would recommend both doctored wounds for heal based skills, and crushing impact for melee based skills. Though better alternatives exist, they are far more expensive, and both crushing impact and doctored wounds provide pleasing set bonus's, both sets granting a bonus to recharge at 5/6.

The Scirooco's Dervish Set doesnt offer any bonus to recharge, but does offer a substantial accuracy bonus.set can be quite expensive for pbaoe skills, but prior to Armageddon(a purple IO set) there is little option in the pbaoe department aside from mixing io's from various pbaoe sets for higher base skill stats and sacrificing possible set bonus's.

thanks for the feedback,

attack vitals > blinding feint, repeat, is what i currently use, i was just curious if simply repeating the 2 big damage moves of the set (1000 cut's not included) would yield more dps than the attack vitals combo.

Wondering if anyone had an oppinion on which of the following attack chains when cycled would provide the most single target dps.

Blinding Feint > Ablating Slice > Vengeful Slice > Sweeping Strike (aka Blinding Feint > Attack Vitals)

Blinding Feint > Vengeful Slice > Sweeping Strike (no attack vitals combo, simply chaining those 3 moves)

Pocket D was quite entertaining and i appreciated my chance to participate, thanks for the afternoon

meh, an io'd spines/regen will beat pretty much any brute combo, in my exp anyhow.

Well a /stone could possiably force a draw

well was in warb for 30mins, and hero teams not fighting each other?

I was in the team with tg, and we squished the other hero team, it just took so long for the vill teams to setup, by the time they would get back to the beach between each death that well when we'd jump on you send you back to the hosp then crack on with the other hero team.

good fun, bb was far to laggy though,
This didnt seem to take much setting up individually(or maybe im just unaware of what preperation it required), just a date announced that people were aware of, so i dont see why this kinda thing couldnt be done more often.

lol first-aid

/hug spines

anyway umm yeah in my oppinion its quite balanced in comparison to what other power pools provide for similar investment.

seem to do ok vs rad/psi on a spines/regen, think thats been mentioned tho.

Am running +43%Acc from io's at the moment though to be fair, and havnt faced an io'd rad/psy yet.

Curious if theres on on union? As in fully io'd.

mmm, time to start saving those large inspirations

mmm it looks like quite a nice build, my only suggestion to look into would be maybe slotting doctored wounds in recon aswell as dp,

I find in pvp +recharge helps regen alot, more so than +recovery etc that miracle gives.

Apart from that the only other thing i wouldve mentioned is 6slotting crushing impact, but thats been mentioned by the philosopher.

quite a solid looking build

A malta gunslinger boss at level 52 only has mag 4 disorientate protection?
They really are wimps with guns

Well long story short, was with a friend earlier, were both kat/da doing a few missions for crimson when i noticed one of the malta bosses a gunslinger was staggering around disorientated, so im wondering, if they stack, and 2 can stun a level 52boss, could 8 og's stun an av maybe?
If so 8scrapper smtf incoming

Hi, umm im a first time poster, short term player (approaching my first vet reward)

Anyway, with the approaching respec ive been considering my scrappers current build, shes a kat/da scrapper, and ive come to the understanding that maybe thats not the greatest pvp combo for a scrapper but its something i want to try and make work in pvp. Been working on a build for a bit and well..would highly appreciate some input really, maybe some direction as to where id be going wrong, i dont really exemp much, though i do tend to spend quite a bit of time in warburg (more so than rv), ive also based my enhancements on so's and ho's i currently have. Have been considering dropping focused acc and cp for maybe dark mastery or weapon mastery for a bit of fun, though cp is nice i dont seem to suffer from endurance problems at the moment and im currently using a similar slotting strategy on attack skills.
Level: 50
Archetype: Scrapper
Primary: Katana
Secondary: Dark Armor
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sting of the Wasp==> Dmg(1) Dmg(3) Dmg(5) Acc(15) Acc(15) EndRdx(17)
01) --> Dark Embrace==> EndRdx(1) DmgRes(3) DmgRes(5) DmgRes(13)
02) --> Death Shroud==> Acc(2) Acc(39) EndRdx(39) EndRdx(40)
04) --> Murky Cloud==> EndRdx(4) DmgRes(23) DmgRes(40) DmgRes(40)
06) --> Build Up==> Rechg(6) Rechg(7) Rechg(7) TH_Buf(43) TH_Buf(46)
08) --> Divine Avalanche==> Acc(8) EndRdx(9) DefBuf(9) Acc(17) MembrExp(34) Rechg(36)
10) --> Obsidian Shield==> EndRdx(10) DmgRes(11) DmgRes(11) DmgRes(13)
12) --> Combat Jumping==> Jump(12) Jump(46)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Swift==> Run(16) Run(45)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18) Heal(19) Heal(19)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20) EndMod(21) EndMod(21)
22) --> Dark Regeneration==> GolgiExp(22) GolgiExp(23) Acc(25) Acc(42) Rechg(43) Rechg(43)
24) --> Cloak Of Darkness==> EndRdx(24) EndRdx(25)
26) --> Soaring Dragon==> NucleExp(26) NucleExp(27) Dmg(27) Acc(31) EndRdx(31) EndRdx(31)
28) --> Acrobatics==> EndRdx(28) EndRdx(29) EndRdx(29)
30) --> Hasten==> Rechg(30) Rechg(39) Rechg(39)
32) --> Golden Dragonfly==> NucleExp(32) NucleExp(33) Dmg(33) Acc(33) EndRdx(34) EndRdx(34)
35) --> Cloak Of Fear==> EndRdx(35) EndRdx(36) LysosExp(36) EnzymExp(37) EndopExp(37) EndopExp(37)
38) --> Super Speed==> Run(38) EndRdx(46)
41) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(41) Rechg(42) Rechg(42)
44) --> Focused Accuracy==> EndRdx(44) EndRdx(45) EndRdx(45)
47) --> Oppressive Gloom==> Acc(47) Acc(48) DisDur(48) DisDur(48)
49) --> Soul Transfer==> DisDur(49) Rechg(50) Heal(50) EndMod(50)

Ive gone with soul transfer at the end mainly for its use in group pvp, and its strength as a stun.
A few skills i have overlap, combat jumping and cloak of darkness for immob res, but i also wanted cloak of darkness for its perception aspects and slight stealth.
Also went with OG and cloak of fear, ive heard cloak of fear can be okish when slotted well, so ive been trying to do that, with the equivelant of 3endurance, 3 acc, 2mez and 2tohit debuff level 50 so's i was thinking it would be pretty effective for those toe to toe battles with other melee. Og ive had alot of success with though so wanted to keep it, as it tends to have its uses as a detoggle in certain situations.

Any help, oppinions, critics etc really really appreciated.

id be up for it if theres space in the team, char=One Touch, scrapper, kat/da