BlackBellatrix

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The SS/fire+fire/kin duo farming difficult foes who all happen to do fire damage is the real brain twister. That combo lampshades the real weakness of the reward system: it can't really take into account the real effort involved in any given combat because it's pre-determined. I suppose a really finely tuned system would recognize the "rock paper scissors" effects in the game, and reward rock less for beating scissors and more for beating paper, but that's a bit much to ask.

This kind of thing has always existed in the game in "accidental" synergies between primary and secondary, and between teammates on a team, but the effect is boosted greatly when you get to customize your foes as well.

I'm not sure the devs can do better than leave that one alone.

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That's the exact kind of thing I've been wondering since Positron made his announcements regarding the AE abuse. I have a Elec/WP that runs boss only missions of E/N dealing foes with my E/N defense being soft-capped.

The whole healing debate also hinges on the amount of regeneration the team has as well. I'd say having an Empath on the team who is able to keep Regeneration Aura up most of the time, or two to keep it perma, with sufficient mitigation will completely remove the need for any healing whatsoever.

Furthermore, if I'm a high recharge /MM Blaster, /Psi Dom, WP Scrapper/Tank/Brute/Scrapper or Stone Armour Brute/Tank, I'm going to be getting a far better boost to my survivability by having soft-capped defense and some additional resistance than any healing could possibly give. Add any sets that have any sort of self-heal into the equation too and you'll see that healing as a form of 'survival increase' is very moot, especially once power sets start to mature. I'm not saying healing is bad. I'm saying [b]DEDICATED HEALERS ARE BAD[/i] because, especially later on, they don't bring a lot to good teams.

Not only that, but most sets that dedicated healers do not choose have enough healing to make up for any bumps while steamrolling through mobs. A Dark Defender or a Kinetics Defender both have very potent heals but both would be remiss if they chose to be dedicated healers to the point of ignoring their other abilities.

I think 8 Kins would be overkill. 2 Fulcrum Shifts are usually enough to cap +Damage and you'd be maxed out on recharge after 6 SBs stacked. Would still be a lot of fun.


8 Rads, however... Pure awesome.

Claws is one of those sets that works really well with all of the scrapper secondaries. Like everyone else says, it really depends on your experience. I run a level 48 claws/dark armour and she's a lot of fun but without a bit of knowledge on slotting io's and some capital to buy those io's, you're looking at a potentially frustrating set. My vote goes to willpower or invulnerability. Willpower is a bit more forgiving across the board whereas invulnerability excels against some and is weak against a few late game types of mobs.

Back to the original post... Have you thought of a human form peacebringer? This has potential to fit the concept you're looking for quite well.

Another one:
Mids won't let me slot recharge in Mind Link but set IOs with recharge reduce its recharge. Is this how it behaves in game?

I've had this character concept for quite a while on a character I wanted to make but couldn't figure out which AT suited it. That was until I realized that a melee Fortunata would be perfect.

However, having never really built one beyond the early teens, I've got a few questions...

1) Does using mental attacks cause redraw on the Claws?
2) CT:O - Skipable?
3) Is Fighting Pool recommended? I take it on most of my melee types and was just wondering if it really helps with a Fort.

That's all I've got for now. As I think of more, I'll post them.

I think, after somewhat IOing out my Claws/DA, that a Katana/DA could achieve some incredible durability and performance. Considering that with Weave, CJ, Cloak of Darkness and another filler defense power, you've got 4 LotG Recharge slots to help shore up any recharge lost on trying to cap Ranged/AoE. AoE wouldn't be too hard to soft cap by 5 slotting Aegis a couple times... I can see it going pretty good.

My .02 on /DA.

Without Theft of Essence Proc in Dark Regen = Meh, decent.
With Theft of Essence Proc = Awesomesauce.

What about, instead of the +recovery battery, a PBAoE Drain Psyche style power except it affects the team and has much smaller +regen/recovery numbers?

This is most directed towards Dominators but could also add a little bit more utility for Brutes and Tanks.

How about having Energy melee attacks be able to attack enemies in any Phase in PvE? PvP having this option might be a bit unbalanced.

Wait... would a Shield/DM Tanker put our more damage than a Shield/SS Tanker? I figured a Shield/SS Tanker might be capable of doing some ridiculous things like solo'ing AVs and the like but would DM outperform it?