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Chaos_String

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  1. Chaos_String
    Assuming an Achilles Heel proc in Hack, the best single-Parry chain is Parry > Hack > Headsplitter > Hack > Disembowel, which requires 219% recharge in Hack, 108% in Headsplitter, 38% in Disembowel, and 0% in Parry.

    A single-parry chain with a slightly lower global recharge requirement would be Parry > Headsplitter > Hack > Disembowel, requiring 172% recharge in Headsplitter, 77% in Disembowel, 31% in Hack and 0% in Parry.
  2. Chaos_String

    Shield/Strength

    POST-ACTION

    Anytime sir. Also I don't think Charlie has seen her either.
  3. Chaos_String

    Shield/Strength

    POST-ACTION

    Well, I doubt you'll get to 150dps with this build, quite frankly. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my own SD/SS build has a lot more global recharge, better enhancement values in KO Blow, a purple proc in Haymaker, and more stacked Rage; yet even in an AAO-saturated pylon test I still managed only about 135dps (it took like an hour, much to my disappointment). Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I don't think so. I've soloed a bunch of AVs on this toon and it's really very slow going by my standards. Quite safe, though. Well, it's a tank, after all. But I have to say that the actual real-world DPS wound up being nowhere near what I'd fancied it'd to be on paper.

    However, on the upside, I really don't think you'll need both Grant Cover and 3-slotted Membranes in Active Defense. My build has just 2 Membranes and no Grant Cover and still has 87% DDR as long as AD is stacked, which is 95% of the time. Tankers get better base DDR values than scrappers do.

    Also you should look into taking OwtS; it has much better resistance values on a tanker, and having capped HP is also really spiffy.

    Also just to point out, if I had to choose between Jab and Boxing and slot only one of them as an attack, I'd choose Boxing. It's a stronger attack than Jab, and both of them take stun sets IIRC, so I'd throw the Stupefys in Jab and slot Boxing for damage.

    Posting my build... it's expensive but very durable with outstanding AoE capability and enough ST to take down AVs. It has nearly perma-stacked Rage and is softcapped to all positions with 87% DDR, 41.5 hp/sec passive regen, 46% S/L resist, 23-28% to everything else; rising to capped hp, 46.4 hp/sec regen, 80.5% S/L resist and 40-45% everything else with OwtS, which is pretty nice. Also it's endurance-sustainable in spite of Rage and OwtS crashes. A decent farmer, good mission/TF runner, adequate team tanker, slowish but effective AV soloist--pretty well-rounded build.

    Just to reiterate, though, it costs more than five times what you're wanting to spend.

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  4. Chaos_String
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Deep Rootz View Post
    Thanks for the reply Chaos. Nice to see you managed this without any purples in your build. I noticed you had only one recharge reduction in powersink. How often do you find you even need to use this? I imagine energize+Phys perfection really helps out quite a bit especially since you said you weren't too far from having energize perma. Also I didn't realize that Rectified Reticle gave an extra 1.88% to smashing/lethal which is nice considering how cheap they are. Anyway I appreciate the info...thanks again.
    Actually it's funny about Energize and Power Sink. If I'm really struggling to survive and I need to use Energize as often as it recharges, then I barely ever touch Power Sink at all. But if I'm fighting stuff like Battle Maiden warriors, and hardly ever need Energize, then I find myself reaching for Power Sink more often. If I go long enough without touching Energize, then I'll sometimes start using it just for endredux, but more often I like to save the heal/regen for when it may be needed. Just having a base slot in Power Sink lets me hold Energize in reserve as a healing power.

    Though in retrospect I think I should've slotted it with an Endmod/Rech IO, rather than a straight recharge. I don't need it remotely as often as it comes up, but once in a while I find myself wanting to use it and there's only a couple guys left around me. I think Endmod/Rech would be a better slotting for the power and I've made a note to change it next time I play the toon.

    At various times in the past I've built characters to use sapping as mitigation; I always found it very fiddly and unreliable, so I didn't choose to upslot Power Sink for this purpose, but instead went the route of S/L/melee defense and near-perma Energize. That covers my survivability admirably (I generally run missions at +2x8) and all I need Power Sink to do is top off my endurance every so often--less often if I need Energize a lot and more often if I need Energize less.
  5. Chaos_String
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker View Post
    Mids does indicate that Force Feedback proc gives an overall recharge if I'm reading it correctly, though I'm no expert and may be wrong there.
    Mids is actually wrong about this. Basically it thinks that the proc is always in effect, and on you. But it isn't. Even if you had it slotted in a personal attack, like Kick, it would still only have an effect if the proc landed (20% chance I think), and then only for five seconds afterward.

    But if you have it in a pet power, the proc will affect not you, but the PETS summoned by the power. Since all pets are immune to recharge buffs and debuffs, the proc will do nothing. Absolutely nothing whatsoever.

    Mids is wonky in the way it handles procs like this. Another example is the Gaussian's Chance for Buildup proc. Mids seems to think that it's always in effect, too, even though it isn't, and as a result Mids will show you incredibly high damage numbers which aren't remotely accurate.

    You should get rid of that Force Feedback proc in there. It's doing nothing at all.

    To speak further to your original post, it should be noted that Poison Pill's Thugs/Poison guide was written back before we had the ability to scale spawn sizes up to x4 or x8 or whatever. At that time, the highest difficulty setting was essentially +2x1. Poison is very good at heavily debuffing one or two targets at a time; and soloing effectively at +2x1 seemed pretty good back in the day.

    Nowadays we have a lot more options to tune the difficulty to our specific desires, and something like Thugs/Dark, which has better AoE debuffing, healing and control, holds up better against spawn sizes which would overrun a Thugs/Poison. (Personally, I hold that Thugs/Dark was *always* better than Thugs/Poison for PvE, but that's just an opinion of mine I don't expect anyone else to share.)

    My advice, though, to any /Poison mastermind is, slot those debuffs for lots of accuracy and try fighting fewer, higher-level enemies, rather than trying to fight lots and lots of lower-level enemies.
  6. Chaos_String
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Deep Rootz View Post
    Ok I'm working on my second scrapper right now and decided on this combo. I didn't want to go with spines/fire cause I already have an ss/fire brute, and I don't need another shield toon at the moment. I realize electric armor is still somewhat new to scrappers so I see there isn't a plethora of builds listed like I would find for some of the other sets. I was curious as to how much defense I should be going for since I planned on taking tough/weave and combat jumping. Also how much recharge should I be aiming for with this build since its obviously a build that relies on it? And also should I be picking up all my toggles or is there some of them I can do without? If someone wouldn't mind posting their build so I can see what power picks they've chosen and also what sets they've gone with. I'm don't want to simply copy someone's build, but I just want to get a better idea of what I'm working with. Any help would be great...thanks in andvance.
    Okay. Well, here's my build. It has 39.7% S/L defense, 36.6% melee, so not quite softcapped to anything, but can get a lot out of small purple inspitations. Also 46.3% global recharge bonuses on top of Hasten and Lightning Reflexes, so not quite perma-Energize but almost. Better than 33% uptime on Build Up and able to spam those AoE attacks very quickly.

    Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
    http://www.cohplanner.com/

    Click this DataLink to open the build!

    Ikonoklast: Level 50 Mutation Scrapper
    Primary Power Set: Spines
    Secondary Power Set: Electric Armor
    Power Pool: Fitness
    Power Pool: Speed
    Power Pool: Fighting
    Power Pool: Leaping
    Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

    Hero Profile:
    Level 1: Lunge -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(11), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17)
    Level 1: Charged Armor -- RctvArm-ResDam(A), RctvArm-EndRdx(5), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(13), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(40), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(43)
    Level 2: Spine Burst -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(3), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(11), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Oblit-%Dam(46)
    Level 4: Conductive Shield -- RctvArm-ResDam(A), RctvArm-EndRdx(5), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(13), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(40)
    Level 6: Build Up -- Rec'dRet-ToHit(A), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg(7), AdjTgt-Rchg(7), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(36)
    Level 8: Lightning Field -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(9), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(9), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Oblit-%Dam(46)
    Level 10: Static Shield -- RctvArm-ResDam(A), RctvArm-EndRdx(17), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(31), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(40)
    Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
    Level 14: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Heal(43), Mrcl-Heal/EndRdx(48)
    Level 16: Grounded -- RctvArm-ResDam(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(36), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(36), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(37)
    Level 18: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(19), RechRdx-I(19)
    Level 20: Energize -- Dct'dW-Heal(A), Dct'dW-Rchg(21), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(21), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(31), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(31)
    Level 22: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(23), EndMod-I(23)
    Level 24: Quills -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(25), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(25), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(29), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Oblit-%Dam(46)
    Level 26: Ripper -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(27), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(27), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(29), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Oblit-%Dam(45)
    Level 28: Lightning Reflexes -- Run-I(A)
    Level 30: Boxing -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(42), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(42), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(42)
    Level 32: Throw Spines -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Posi-Dmg/Rng(33), Posi-Dam%(34)
    Level 35: Power Sink -- RechRdx-I(A)
    Level 38: Tough -- RctvArm-EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam(39), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(39), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(39)
    Level 41: Focused Accuracy -- Rec'dRet-ToHit(A), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg(43)
    Level 44: Physical Perfection -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Numna-Heal(45), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(45)
    Level 47: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(48), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(48)
    Level 49: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
    ------------
    Level 1: Brawl -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(50), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(50), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
    Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
    Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
    Level 1: Critical Hit



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  7. Chaos_String
    I have both at lvl 50, fully IO'd and accoladed, and without a doubt, Kat/WP is way, way, waaaaaaay tougher to kill than the spines/elec.

    But the spines/elec shreds large spawns way, way, waaaaaaaay faster than the kat/wp.

    Both solo extremely well and team extremely well, but in totally different ways.
  8. Chaos_String

    For AR, EM or MM?

    POST-ACTION

    In a word, "yes."

    EM or MM will both be good with AR.

    I personally haven't played AR/MM; I love my AR/EM, but MM has some good synergy, too, like Subdue > Ignite, and PScream for use with the AR cones. Having played Rad/MM also, I can tell you that the stun from PSW isn't as reliable for stacking with a ST stun (Cosmic Burst + PSW) as guaranteed stuns from EM are (Beanbag + Total Focus or Stun). And honestly I doubt that Drain Psyche and PSW and WoC give AR what it really wants the way Boost Range does--my Rad/MM is built for S/L defense and is a PBAoE blapper, with saturated Drain Psyche, Irradiate, PSW, Neutron Bomb and the ability to recover instantly from Atomic Blast with a big enough DP buff, so I just stay in melee range wrecking stuff with PBAoEs... AR would be happier at standoff range firing range-boosted cones IMO, preferably with softcapped ranged defense.

    But like I say, either one will have strengths you can play to.
  9. Chaos_String
    That'll work ok for Irradiate and PSW which have 20' and 15' radii respecively, but less effectively for Drain Psyche and World of Confusion which have radii of 10' and 8' respectively. Even for the 20' and 15' spheres, coverage is significantly reduced if two thirds of the PBAoE volume is above the mobs and empty.

    I imagine it's viable to hover above mobs where possible and use Irradiate and PSW, like you said, and that it's safer that way, but that it's not always possible to do this (low ceilings), and even when it is, you're still giving up AoE output when the volume of your spheres is mostly empty and the lower third isn't saturated.

    But whatever works for you. As I explained above, the S/L defense, PBAoE blapper concept works extremely well for me.
  10. Chaos_String
    I initially planned to build my Rad/Mental with ranged defense, use EHaze and PScream and Neutron Bomb for AoE, and just dart in and out of melee to use Drain Psyche and PSW and Irradiate. In other words, my build concept looked a lot like yours.

    But after playing it for 47 levels, I was pretty sure that Rad/Mental had more potential as a PBAoE blapper in light of Drain Psyche, Irradiate, PSW, Neutron Bomb and Atomic Blast. So I built mine for softcapped S/L defense instead of ranged.

    If you go with ranged defense, leaving out EHaze seems like a bad idea; that and PScream and Neutron Bomb would be your AoE damage from range. Irradiate, PSW and World of Confusion are impractical powers for a ranged defense build, since being in melee range to use them consistently basically invalidates all the defense you've built for. And speaking from experience, darting in and out of melee range will still get you hurt and, worse, will detract from your ability to just spam hellacous damage.

    I don't mean to be harsh, but your build's a little bit schizophrenic. It really wants to be at range but it really wants to be up close but it really NEEDS to be at range but it absolutely NEEDS to get in close.

    Here's a look at my build. It can't solo everything at +2x8 or above, but it can do a lot of stuff at that difficulty. Can do Council Empire at +4x8. Solo farms like a champ. And on teams it's usually the top damage-dealer. The object of my build is to get into melee range with WoC running, hit Drain Psyche for a big buff, and then go to town spamming Irradiate, PSW and Neutron Bomb. If I hit enough foes with Drain Psyche, I can nuke with Atomic Blast, immediately retoggle (often, only one or two of the toggles will actually crash), and then just keep on fighting. I have a few single-target attacks also since they're occasionally useful.

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  11. Chaos_String
    Johnny Conqueroo



    He's a DP/Kin corr on Test but will be DP/Dark on Live.
  12. Chaos_String

    Rad/MM build

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Horusaurus View Post
    *glances at build* Me likey! Hmm, my only slight issue with it is super speed. I'm so used to being at hard-capped running speed. The SG I'm in, one of our mottos is aggro is a race not a right, it's a race to every mob to see who gets to be tank. Me needy speedy.
    Sounds like a cool SG. Mine is down to just me and one other active member, at least until GR goes live.

    Not sure what I could sack to pick up that 18mph. Edit: guess I could throw the stealth IO in Sprint and put runspeed in SS. But I'd rather not have Sprint in my tray, honestly.

    Perhaps I'll just rely on sheer single-minded aggression. Teams I run with can't even begin to challenge my permanent, all-AT-spanning case of scrapperlock.
  13. Chaos_String

    Rad/MM build

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Negate View Post
    I hope this toon puts out more dmg! I just reached lvl 23 last night. How do you guys get off Haze and Scream w/o getting your butt kicked?
    Well, I used Haze and Scream leveling up, and the best thing I can tell you is be ready to finish mobs off fast before they kill you, or wait for the tank to go in first, or some control to be applied, or whatever. Once you get Drain Psyche slotted for recharge and healing, you'll want to open most fights with Drain Psyche and Irradiate before jumping out to use your cones. Then Atomic Blast and Psychic Shockwave will come along and you'll want to take Neutron Bomb and just stay at PBAoE range and not really use cones anymore.

    The IO builds we have posted have good recharge on Drain Psyche, which if it hits 10 foes will give us something like 100hp/sec regen, and we're built for softcapped S/L defense, too. And we both wind up taking Hoarfrost, which is a clone of Dull Pain and Earth's Embrace. And Hibernate, which is an "oh crap, I almost bit the dust lolol" power. And mine has World of Confusion too, which helps mitigate some of the incoming damage as well.

    So as long as we're facing all or mostly S/L attacks, we can jolly well jump right into the middle of spawns and spam PBAoE attacks and not worry about dying. All that PBAoE makes short work of the enemies, as well.
  14. Chaos_String
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chromium_Man View Post
    The Premise: I'm obsessed with Elec Powers in all of their forms. I have an Elec/Elec Blaster, Tank, Brute, and Stalker all at the cap with a Scrapper currently at 47. With IOs I've got Perma-Hasten for my Blaster and ridiculous amounts of Regen/Recovery with my Tank and I want to go a different way with my Scrapper. I think I've made up my mind that I want to go for Soft-Capped Defense of some variety to compliment the decently high Resistances and good Regen provided by Energize. I already know of the pitfalls of building for Defense with no -Def Resistance, but I have a lot of resources and I think I want to do it despite the drawbacks.

    The questions:

    1) Has anyone built a different Resist-based toon for Defense? How did it work out?

    2) What would be better to build for: Smashing/Lethal or Melee Positional? I'm leaning towards Melee, but there's another Elec/Elec on my server that's soft-capped for S/L and says he likes it. Assume that influence is no issue.

    Thanks in advance for any help or insight that you can give me.
    1) I have a spines/elec with 40% S/L defense and almost-perma-Energize. It's very survivable at +3x8 against Carnies, Rikti, Malta, Council, most Praetorians, and Freakshow. CoT and Nemesis are tougher. Cimerorans are MUCH tougher. Arachnos and Rogue Vanguard kill me so bad it almost deletes the toon and cancels my sub.

    2) Depends on your primary. If the primary is Broadsword or Katana, definitely think about softcapped Melee Defense using Parry/DA and then whatever other positional defenses you can get from IO sets. With other primaries your best bet is probably to go for S/L defense and enough recharge for perma- or near-perma-Energize.
  15. Chaos_String

    Rad/MM build

    POST-ACTION

    I made a revision to my build, switching Psy Scream (which I like but don't use very much) for Maneuvers and wound up with 46% S/L defense.

    Code: 
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
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  16. Chaos_String

    Rad/MM build

    POST-ACTION

    That looks good. I'd go with that.

    (Well, I went with mine and it seems to be doing OK, but I'll remember your build in case I want some extra defense. TK Thrust, Psy Scream and WoC for Boxing, Tough and Weave seems like a decent tradeoff if it's the difference between 40% and 45% defense. If mine doesn't cruise through Council Empire and such at +2x8 by level 50, I'll probably make similar changes.)
  17. Chaos_String

    Rad/MM build

    POST-ACTION

    I like Neutron Bomb as a third PBAoE after DP > Irradiate > PSW. I don't think that proccing out WoC for damage will pick up the slack because it only ticks once every 4 seconds, which is half as often as most damage auras.

    I like your build, it's quite similar to mine, but without Neutron Bomb or Psychic Scream or EHaze, your AoE is a little less than it could be. I personally didn't go Tough/Weave and have only 40% S/L defense, but I have more recharge, Neutron Bomb, and Psychic Scream, so I can spam AoE constantly. But with only 40% S/L defense, you take twice as many hits as you do with 45%, so I guess the tradeoff is valid. (I assume your build has 45% S/L although I can't check because there's no datalink or datachunk.)

    I do think that people tend to make too many compromises chasing after defense softcaps, though, but again, the difference between 40% and 45% defense is huge, so I suppose it could be worth not having any AoE attacks beyond Irradiate, PSW and your nuke. If I had to give up something though, I'd almost rather give up the nuke in a PBAoE blapper build, just because nuking makes you retoggle everything even if DP lets you recover endurance after the crash.

    But then you'd lose S/L defense from the Oblit set so I dunno.

    FWIW, here's what I did.

    Code: 
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
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|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
  18. Chaos_String
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Windenergy21 View Post
    For ANY mob, yes you "can" use boost range on some indoor maps, but not all the time. Corners/ice patch or shiver lets you do so all the time.
    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.

    Quote:
    And "without reprisal" from 10 of the minions maybe (10 target cap on FA) On the lts and bosses it doesn't take long for them to close in 20-40ft during FA's animation to use their attacks, minnions like council can hit you at that range anyways.
    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.

    Quote:
    However the normal range with positrons blast set, and shiver, and the knockbacks of buckshot and m-30, and ice patch if they do get close, i've never had problems. Its also more team-friendly for a wide variety of situations.
    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.

    Quote:
    Add on actually being able to USE ignite, where the AR/EM, i woudln't even bother picking it up at all.
    Agreed. As has already been mentioned, this is the glaring weakness of AR/EM. Ignite isn't even worth a power choice.

    Quote:
    And without boost range, i agree, i'd never ever play an AR/EM.
    Without Boost Range, I'd never play an AR/anything.

    True story. I've deleted every other AR toon I've subsequently rolled.
  19. Chaos_String
    For SR scrappers, I'd agree, not having Tough is more of a liability than a benefit in a high-end build. While Tough has a pretty high endurance cost for the amount of resistance it provides, scrappers have plenty of tools in the APPs to make endurance effectively bottomless while running Tough/Weave.

    However, with brutes, it becomes a gray area. Fact is, brutes don't get any kind of endurance management tools from the PPPs, so avoiding Tough and Weave might make the difference between end sustainability and being endurance-limited.

    While this is only an issue in prolonged fights, it's worth noting.

    If you can give your brute sustainable endurance and Tough/Weave, that's the approach I'd take to softcapping, because the S/L resistance in Tough is very good to have, even if it isn't a lot. More likely for a brute, though, avoiding the Fighting pool may be an attractive alternative due to lower endurance consumption.
  20. Chaos_String
    Boost Range lets you kill stuff without reprisal. Yes, all the time during normal play. Hovering/sniping aren't even part of the equation. Wiping out minions from beyond 120' with BR+BU+Full Auto and then mowing down the lieuts rushing toward you with Buckshot+Flamethrower from 60'. Beanbagging and jousting bosses with stunning melee attacks while they're knocked down.

    Get it? Dead foes. No reprisal. Yes, during normal play. Yes, on indoor maps. Not hovering! Not sniping! Playing. Normally.

    Shiver and Ice Slick don't let you do any of this any better. They just make it easier to stand there using your slow-animating DoT attacks from 40' without getting facerolled.

    Cryo Freeze Ray + Freezing Touch? Grats on being able to do at 41 with your APP what AR/EM was able to do at 20, and half the time at 10.

    I mean, sure, Shiver and Ice Slick and Chillblain are great powers that add survivability to any set, no question about it. But you're seriously undervaluing what /EM brings to the table. I just have to lol at your use of caps and asterisks to try to demean the contribution of Boost Range. ("*FUN*")

    (seriously, lol... good stuff man)

    Yeah, AR with Boost Range is "*FUN*". Seriously. To such an extent that AR without BR feels gimp by comparison and hardly worth playing.
  21. Chaos_String

    Iv noticed.....

    POST-ACTION

    I have a lvl 50 spines/elec.

    I played him to 50 on Freedom, and then using free server transfers moved him to Infinity (along with several other semi-retired lvl 50s). I used him to farm up a fully-appointed SG base for my semi-retired toons (Exile to Infinity) in the span of a few days That includes TP to everywhere, vault, crafting table, storage for enhancements, insps, salvage, aspect of the pillar, basic medbay.

    I still use him now and then to farm inf for toons on Freedom and Justice, using WW to transfer a couple hundred million inf at a time between servers--yes, I know it costs 10% of the inf transferred, but that's the price I pay for having open character slots on my "home" servers.

    I for one appreciate the fact that spines/elec isn't a ubiquitous FOTM build; I rolled mine the first day of i16 and it serves my purposes admirably, but I certainly don't feel like a copycat for playing one.
  22. Chaos_String
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Werner View Post
    all Scrappers are awesome
    /thread
  23. Chaos_String

    My new RP concept

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mauk2 View Post
    Granted, Elec/shield is a pretty terrible build, the defenses have to suck, but it'd be fun to mess around with.
    Let me borrow this a sec, Santo.

  24. Chaos_String
    AR/EM is very strong for reasons already mentioned upthread.

    Boost Range is the critical power; it makes your cones twice as long and therefore twice as wide at their bases, which allows you to use them from a much safer distance (valuable considering the animation times and DoT effects of Flamethrower and Full Auto) and reliably hit 10 targets each time you use them.

    And the melee attacks are very good for ST damage, which fills in AR's lack of ST damage.

    Also /EM gets Build Up very early, which goes a long way toward making you forget you'll never have Aim.

    And I didn't see it mentioned upthread, but Beanbag also stacks with Total Focus and (half the time) Bonesmasher to stun bosses. This can be very useful.

    The glaring weakness of AR/EM is that it has nothing to leverage Ignite. No immob, no ice slick, no caltrops, nothing. Ignite will be nearly useless in an AR/EM build until you maybe take an APP hold (which you may or may not want). This is kind of too bad; Ignite is a very good power.

    So: a bunch of very good synergies and one major weakness.

    Boost Range trumps everything else though, and until you've played AR both with and without it, it's difficult to really appreciate how much standoff capability and area coverage the power gives you.

    Take /EM for Build Up at level 4, get Boost Range, all 3 cones, and make sure you take Beanbag, Total Focus, Bonesmasher, and the 2 ST blasts, and you'll have a very formidable blaster.
  25. Chaos_String

    My new RP concept

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RoboBug View Post
    This angers him so he goes around killing huge groups of villians in a very short amount of time. He is dead set in his ways so he likes to find just one or two types of bad guys and just thin the herd for hours on end.
    I lol'd.

    Now tell us, how long did it take you to come up with a RP concept for an elec/shield farmer?