Blue_Centurion

I haven't seriously fought Cims on anything besides my tricked out Str/Will Brute for awhile. It is a razors edge with him, for bigger groups I hit my uber power so I get 2 minutes of relief. For the rest I tend to try to take on small mobs, cleanup, move on. I can kill them pretty fast, but I can get overwhelmed pretty fast if the balance shifts. Those cims are vicious. Now I have a dark/dark tank at 33. I want to ask you, were you running the Confuse aura toggle and the Fear aura toggle, and if so, was it working to mitigate attacks?

As pointed out earlier, taunt is a tool. Is it the right tool on the Control heavy team you just mentioned? Not to stand at a distance and pull. Any decent tank will adjust their tactics to match their team's abilities. If a team I am tanking for is boiling crap, I do just about what you said, I leap into the middle and grab agro, knowing that in 10 seconds I need to be in the center of another group. I will say that when I leap into any group, I taunt as my lead move. Not saying you have to, if I was running Super Strength I would no doubt lead with footstomp, cause it's fun. But with my build Taunt is the fastest/largest area/surefire way to grab attention. That my toggles will have only a few seconds to damage/confuse/fear my enemies is something I will have to get over. Maybe I will console myself with all the experience/treasure/strike forces the team boils through.

Having said all that, on the other end of the PUG spectrum, sometimes taunt is the only thing I can use to save some teams from trying to destroy themselves. And sometimes even that is not enough.

I do not have data mined math tables to give you. But I have heard one statement over the years that seems to go uncontested. "Stone armor pre-granite is the worst armors of any set." I know it sounds like hyperbole, but that is seriously the word on the street. For what that is worth.

Dark Armor is a good build, but tough to run just SO'd out. Kind of like a regen scrapper, a lot of work, but if you know what you are doing it shines. Now, some sets benefit more from I/Os than others. Because of the way it is set up Dark Armor benefits a lot. Kind of like the old spy plane the blackbird. At less than supersonic it was tough to fly, literally rattled. Once it hit mach 2 the metals actually stretched from the heat, everything sealed up, and she glided through the air like a knife through butter. Became a dream to fly, or so they say. Dark Armor is like that, it is built for the end game, with armors/defenses ready to be I/O'd. Especially dark/dark. It benefits from just touching it with I/O's. Anything you put into it I/O wise gives back in play. Go defense, go resist, go recharge, they all bring out beautiful highlights. Or you can run it on the cheap, but yeah, beware, it rattles some and is tough handling.

Heh, then this is exactly right for me. I not ony have a willpower for my main, it is a Str/Willpower brute. Yawn. And it is totally purp'd out (well 4 sets, can't seem to squeeze the 5th on) Fights like a wet cat. I always know when he will die, where it will be, why. (Why did I try to tank that room of Cims on the ITF when the team was across the map?, right, bored lol) When I need to tank for a team with him, he comes through (helps with team buffs), heavy damage, he is there. Challenging, not really.

This new toon is a concept one, claws/regen. Living on the razors edge is where I want him, fun peaks, crushing valleys. Trying to keep him alive and learning to use Regen will be a fun few weeks I hope, and after I get him to 50 and start to purple him, it is nice to know that he will have very regular bursts of 15 second god modes with no crash (although, in truth, the crash on a I/O'd will brute is negligible, but you have to wait a while for it to rech, sad panda) To be able to take an alpha with a semi squishy will be way cool, especially while dealing crushing crits.

I see a bunch of stuff on here about Taxibots. I been playing this game 2 1/2 years. I have never seen a taxibot. (And i have run a long ways on some maps lol). What the heck is a taxibot?

Okay then, the deciding factor may come down to this. Is "Moment of glory" from regen able to have the rech time reduced by purples or LOTG? I know that "Strength of Will" from Willpower is not. (sad panda, my will brute would love that)

I built my SS/Will for recharge, expensively so. the reason I did this is it is the single fastest way (I feel) to improve performance. Build for defense = more survivable (not really a prob), build for resistance or regen, again, more survivable. Again, not really that big a problem. Build for Recharge, "Holy Knockout Blow Boy Wonder" I just sit and spam KO Blow, FS, Haymaker, and my 2 dark attacks from my epic pool. Double stacked rage is very common (very). Keeeel it, and it will stop trying to injure you.

Two words - Kinetic Combat. How could it not be knockback heavy?

"The kinetic energy of an object is the extra energy which it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its current velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetic energy unless its speed changes."

Say it with me folks "Knockback"

Like I said, I abandoned mine. GL

Please, for the love of god, get off this one guy's video. It has nothing to do with whether dark armor is an overall good set. At most it shows what one person can/cannot do with a toon, and in this case a video.

I am considering a scrapper build. To give you some background I have run mostly brutes, for a couple years. My main is a SS/Will, after switching from SS/Invul.

I am wondering what the style differences (feel/tactics) are between a regeneration Scrapper and a willpower scrapper? Is willpower chosen because softcapping a regen looks impossible, or is regen chosen because any I/O def/res benefits become like gold.

Also, are there certain primaries that are associated with each, and if so why?

As long as you have a kin it is a game changer, literally. You nerf the biggest nerf the Devs put on granite, possibly the biggest nerf in the game on one powerset. I got my Stone to 32, ran it for one more level, and stopped. I hate that nerfed feeling. But if you got a pocket kin you should do okay. I would say (since you are not too far along here) that you may want to consider a str/stone brute instead. The armors are nearly the same as the tanks (at this level of bracho a little more is not that much) and the damage potential is insane comparatively, especially if a kin is there, you will double down on Strength:Rage quite often. If you wanted blueside ability, the brute still works, as soon as GR is out.

Yeah, I remember badging DE in with my Brute (I think in RWZ), they were not +4, i think even level, or +1. I would grab 2 or 3 groups close to each other. Thankfully I had Aoe to take out those cairns, cause I couldnt see a damn thing. I knew I had to hit those cairns, and was fighting a nowhere fight until they were gone. Tiny little pains in the butt. I wish every class was as smooth as brutes, but I am somewhat bored with them now. I live for new powersets, and have tried about everything brute wise I have a concept for. Hmmm, maybe I should stretch my character writeup concept muscles. Hmmm. ((Runs off to create another alt))

And that's why we love PUG groups (and why I have a dedicated chat channel to some of the best players on my server)

Hey, I can see how you held agro (you hurt the hell out of him), the real question is how were there no deaths lol.

yeah, i thought so, that's 6 my time, and about when my teacher starts to kick the class into super high gear for aerobic yoga lol. gl with your battles, and wish me luck with mine.

Good lord, I have never watched this video. I do not plan to. I do not need to. Because edited/non-edited, setup/actual, manufactured/real, it just DOES NOT MATTER.

I have been running a dark/dark for the last week or so from 1st, now at 32. am completely S/O'd, except for a -KB I/O in combat jumping, and a +End Proc in the major heal. Look, I still have some end problems in a long fight, but I am running every single toggle in the dark armor set, +CJ. Oh, and the good news is at 35 I get the dark melee AoE attack that refills my end bar. And, and, and (think commitments) Dark armor has decent end drain resist, unlike most brutes/tanks/scrappers. Is it perfect, no. Do I need to watch a video to run the play in my head, no. Will it get better I/O'd out, yes.

Oh, and as long as I am reposting here let me add this about dark armor: I would argue, in my opinion, that Dark armor is neither a defense set (obviously) or a resist set. It could actually be argued that it is a heal based set. (maybe not argued successfully, but still.....) Here is where Cloak of Darkness comes in handy. With my aforementioned tactic of jumping into a spawn, hitting taunt, and waiting. I generally take a huge alpha. If my health is gonna bottom it will be here. Hit heal, and I am back up to full health, even if at 1% health. Suppose the baddies are still clawing at me hard? As a dark/dark, I work my combat punch little heal, wait 15 seconds for my major heal again (I am not I/O'd yet) What I cannot afford is any more agro. The CoD makes sure I get no more. While my taunt and 3 agro auras ensure I hold all that I already grabbed so my team is okay. It, in effect, becomes part of my personal agro management tool box. Until I want more agro, I do not collect more agro. Even if the next mob is darned close. They cannot see me until I want it and am ready for it

Sounds like most of the posts are right on target here. Cloak of Darkness, in my experience, is a fine power. My main is a SS/Will brute, which I take fly on, and drop freebird +steath. CoD is about the same as that stealth, plus some defense, +other cool stuff. It will noton a well run tank, affect your agro management. I have just leveled a dark/dark to 32 and plan to take the build to 50. I do run the build as a tank/troller, meaning I use taunt and all 3 agro auras. I tank for 8 teams and have no problem holding agro. Not the most subtle tank, I combat jump into a mob and spam taunt. Lots of fun.

Also, I see a lot on the discussion of defense. I would argue, in my opinion, that Dark armor is neither a defense set (obviously) or a resist set. It could actually be argued that it is a heal based set. (maybe not argued successfully, but still.....) Here is where CoD comes in handy. With my aforementioned tactic of jumping into a spawn, hitting taunt, and waiting. I generally take a huge alpha. If my health is gonna bottom it will be here. Hit heal, and I am back up to full health, even if at 1% health. Suppose the baddies are still clawing at me hard? As a dark/dark, I work my combat punch little heal, wait 15 seconds for my major heal again (I am not I/O'd yet) What I cannot afford is any more agro. The CoD makes sure I get no more. While my taunt and 3 agro auras ensure I hold all that I already grabbed so my team is okay. It, in effect, becomes part of my personal agro management tool box. Until I want more agro, I do not collect more agro. Even if the next mob is darned close. They cannot see me until I want it and am ready for it.

Dave, I don't think people (or many people) are actually saying "must take taunt." I hear more of a chorus of "in my opinion, when running tanktroller, a combination of aura and taunt works best" to severely paraphrase a lot of the last conversations. Maybe I am a bit off, but that's how it seems to me.

Now if you want a Scranker, do as you please. If you want to run a true artist at managing agro for a large team, a lot of these posts have useful information. Some of it is researched diligently, some is from long play experience.

If you think that you can manage agro for a large team in tough fights without taunt I am all ears. Cause I want to hear how you do it. That way I can use your technique, and then add taunt to make it better.

Taunt is the best way to grab that alpha you just mentioned. As far as setting up the baddies for AoEs, I have to ask one question. If I (as a tank) have 17 baddies trying to play king of the hill on my head, can you think of a better way for them to be set up to take AoE damage? When I spam taunt, and run my 3 agro auras, I tend to get some attention. You may believe this is not the most effective way to tank. That is cool. I happen to love it. I will give you two great reasons. 1) It works okay with bad teams. 2) It works wonderful with super hot teams.

In truth this is an interesting sub-discussion. Most of this topic seemed to have settled into Scranker lore vs Tanker Lore. Now if you want to tank, but thought your auras would handle it all, this line of the discussion is for you. Or you want to lead tank, thought taunt was enough to handle it and so chose a poor aura tank, beware. Oh, and to bring that into focus, any rundown on which tankers have best taunt auras, which worst? Anyways, the rule is to truly "tank" jump in the middle of the mob, while taunting, let your auras work, and taunt runners/far away portion of the same spawn. Your team will love you. When they have eaten that group, rinse, repeat.

I agree wholeheartedly Sir. I personally don't like the damage on a tank (me, personally) so I do not even understand why someone runs a Scranker. I have tried, I cannot grok it. I love the armors on tanks, and I have come to enjoy the tanktrollers role in this game. But if someone wants/needs a Scranker instead of a Brute/Scrapper/Blapper, I hope they enjoy, and they probably do not need/want taunt.

Some interest, but I am west coast and have yoga that night. Might be on too late to partake. What time you guys run?