Bill Z Bubba

1: Yes, but I don't use either as I count on my router's firewall to handle that.

2: No. A cable modem is just the access point. A router would go inbetween the cable mode and your systems. This allows you to have multiple systems all accessing the cable modem at the same time. Mine's wireless as well as wired.

3: I thought MalwareBytes WAS a spyware cleaner.

4: I'd uninstall the old junk before installing new.

Finished slapping together the initial build idea.

Looking at 200DPS with 1 enemy feeding Soul Drain.
Need 225.2%rec-red in MG for the chain of MG, SL, Gloom, Smite, repeat and the build has 227.42.... but hasten looks to have a 10 second downtime, so that'll need to be dealt with.

2444 HP with 632% regen

EDIT: UGH. I run out of end in 86 seconds.

Oh yea... 19 to 20 felt like it took an hour or more, but as soon as I hit 20 and got QR, I burned through a mission worth 4 bubs in about 10 minutes.

Will I *need* dark consumption with QR/Stamina? Probably not. Although I like the idea of herding up the aggro cap and slamming it with SD/DC/DarkObli/SM.

spines/fa? Get as many slots into healing flames as you can as soon as possible. Quills+Blazing Aura can yank aggro off of good tanks. If you're running with tanks that don't taunt, forget about it. You ARE the aggro machine.

In your case, I'd send a private message to the defenders/controllers on the team explaining how much hate you bring in on yourself and ask them to buff/heal you as much as possible.

I would actually advise staying on the edges of the fight. Grab whatever the tank isn't grabbing.

On the other hand, if you do have buffers with good shields for you or debuffers that can wussify the enemy, ignore the tank completely and dive in for the slaughter.

If you have Mids, hit us with your current build.

But in general, scrappers die a lot before 22 and SOs. Our defenses aren't anything to write home to momma about. Some players actively ignore their secondaries until later and play like hit and run melee blasters in the early game.

When I do large teams as a lowbie (a rarity, I solo) I'll stick tight to the tank only leaving to pull a baddie off of one of my squishie teammates. If I see that I'm taking more damage than the tank, I'll lay off the aoes and focus on bosses/lts.

EDIT: After SOs and 22, I just kill everything and let the team sort it out.

Hit 20 on my new DM/WP replacement for my old EM/FA last night. Levels 18-20 were a nightmare of running out of end and missing.

So I'm here at work and fire up Mids to design his final build and sit there staring at the screen with the realization that Dark Consumption is NOT Soul Drain and I could have skipped all those gorram end issues at 18 were I not such a idiot.

I may have to respec as soon as I get in game tonight.

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I did an all Scrapper STF. That was fun.

Didn't even need nukes or shivans.

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The all scrapper ITF I ran was one of the best experiences I've ever had in this game. We had lowbies and even had to work hard at the end to get through it.

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youre coming down so something is pushing you that way.

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Log in and look at the animation again. Your coming down when you strike. Your at the peak of your jump still spinning backwards and away. Just sayin'

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And even then if they do it'll still have the same cast time.

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Yep....and?

I don't want to convince you or anyone else not to like the current eviscerate animation. All I'm saying is there are just as many people that hate it as there are that love it. It's a crazy over the top animation and you either like it or you don't. No reason to argue.

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Yup. Eviscerate and AidSelf are the two powers I'm hoping on most for alternate animations.

parry/Da is melee/lethal defense.

No love versus smashing, but there is a lot of lethal out there, including a lot of ranged lethal.

Yes, BS and Kat can deflect bullets.

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Why would it be disastrous for the power to work as designed?

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Make the -20% defense debuff resistable by the toon's defense debuff resistance

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That's not a bad idea.

Understood and agreed. I was more looking for verification that it remained as it was since I hadn't noticed the expected uproar such a change would likely create.

I meant the actual debuff. It's supposed to be part of the balance of rage. But when stacked, it fails to apply.

Agreed that this screws defense based sets far more than dam-res based sets, but Castle was supposed to deal with that at some point.

Why would it be disastrous for the power to work as designed?

Someone told me that the defense debuff failing to appear when rage is stacked was fixed. Can anyone verify?

Herding maps while solo. Or tanking on teams lacking a tank. Ok ok... I want all the hate on me all the time. MY KILLS MY KILLS MY KILLS!

In all seriousness, while I understand Castle's decision to give brute evasion the taunt aura for fury generation, I find it unfair that scrappers did not receive the same treatment.

It makes no sense to me for one to have something the other doesn't.

A taunt aura is an extremely useful tool for gathering enemies together for AoEs and keeping them coming for more.

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Smurphy, don't you assemble TF's (over VU2009?) and such where you require that every character, regardless of AT or powersets, contributes to the offence?
And aren't they usually wildly successful?

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"If you ain't killing, you're OUT!"

Oh yea... I approve whole heartedly.

There's also a huge problem with female feet when wearing pants. It's like the arch of the foot was snapped in the wrong way.

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I don't have the numbers in front of me, but isn't 90 Fury equivalent to crit damage? Someone with better numbers/memory than me is needed...

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Going purely off AT mod and no enhancements:
Brute: 41.708
Scrap: 62.562

Brute needs 25% fury or 50% damage buff.
To reach scrapper crit: 200% fury or 400% buff. (Impossible.)

But crits only happen 10% of the time. (What we decided should be used in the calcs I did.)

62.562 + (.1*62.562) = 68.8182

65% fury or 130% dam buff

I don't see it being any different on a scrapper. Except for being even more squishy due to the lower base HP. Flipside to that is that scrappers don't need fury. They can fall back any time they want without loss of damage output.

I've often called EA the set that lets a brute act like a stalker. I think that would hold true for a scrapper as well.

Should it be ported over? Hell yea. Would I give it another chance as a scrapper? Maybe. I do love the way it looks and sounds.

Yes. Probably around issue 18.

Umm, actually... I'm still ticked off that brutes got it but scrappers didn't.

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I don't know what to do for fury since SR doesn't have an aggro aura.
- ;p

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/Sr Brutes have a taunt aura on Evasion, available at level 20.

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grumblegrowlgnashsometeethheadbuttakitten

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Bill,
Even by that description, wouldn't they provide content to 50 as a neutral?
If they do push you out at 10 (as your example), then there are no 'neutral' story lines out there.

That is to say, no story lines expressly for a neutral person.

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I think you would have to be correct. The whole alignment thing does hint a quite the huge overhaul of the contact system, doesn't it? That's probably been asked in the huge GR threads. I haven't had time to hit them yet.

I'm expecting no more than one Praetorian zone with which you can begin new characters. At level 10 or so, you will be forced to dive out into the "real" world as a hero or a villain or as a neutral.

However, if I'm completely wrong and they give us the ability to level from 1 to 50 in Praetoria, well rock on. I'll be happy to be wrong. But I'm certainly not placing any bets on that.

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Try playing both with SOs only and you'll see what I mean.

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I did when it was on test. Took my main over, respeced back into his SO build while dumping all his enhancements in the trash for inf(man did THAT feel weird) and reslotted with SOs.

At that point I had a mace/shield brute at 50 with SOs and a claws/sr scrapper at 50 with SOs.

I ran them both through the paces in the RWZ. At that time, I found that SR beat SD by exactly as much as I would have expected it to due to the extra damage output that SD offers.