ClawsandEffect

What's a "defender"?

Oh, you mean those healers that gimp themselves by skipping their heals?

I tell you, I see so many Force Field healers that skipped their heals, Sonic healers too. It makes me sad that people don't realize that a healer's job is to stand there and crank out as many green numbers as they can. They think they can skip their heal powers and call themselves a "defender", but I'm on to em! They're just trying to leech XP by putting all these useless bubbles around me and dropping toys all over the ground! And then they have the nerve to attack, like they can actually hurt anything!

Don't these people realize their only purpose in the game is to heal the tank?!

I'll be happy if they just get rid of the damn multi-zone hunt mission.

No, they won't. Elude has only been rendered redundant by extensive use of IO sets, which are not necessary to play the game.

Like I said before, if they change Elude just because it becomes pointless when you slot a bunch of set IOs, it is the same as saying IOs are required to play the game. I don't see the devs suddenly making a complete 180 degree reversal of the stance they have held since IOs were introduced. They are optional and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

One of the things that has kept me playing is the fact that I don't have to spend all my time getting the best equipment in order to make my characters any good. It's the main reason I don't play WoW, and I imagine there are a significant number of players here that feel the same about it.

I have several heavily IOed characters that I enjoy playing. I also have a much larger number of characters that have very few IOs or none at all that are just as much fun to play. I like the fact that my spot on teams isn't determined by how many set bonuses I have. I really don't want to see this game go the way of having a gearscore that you have to meet in order to do anything.

Actually, that would work pretty good. Half of Sonic's damage is energy damage, so it would light your oil slick as well.

Umm, could it be because IOs weren't even on the drawing board when they designed the set?

I very much doubt the devs will ever change anything about a powerset just because IOs make it redundant. If they DID, it would be the same thing as saying "Yes, you need IOs to play the game", which is very much the opposite of the stance they have kept since issue 8.

Yeah, you'll have that when you get into the game. Welcome aboard!

I'm guessing you're still pretty low level (under 20). After you get to 22 and slots Single Origin enhancements, and hopefully have Stamina most of those problems should get better.

Honestly, you can get by without the combos. That said, I DO like the Attack Vitals combo. Blinding Feint + Attack Vitals is a pretty standard attack string for Dual Blades characters. I wouldn't go out of your way to respec into Nimble Slash.

You don't need Taunt to be a brute, but you'll want to take it if you want to fill a tanking role on teams. If you're planning on soloing most of the time it is very skipable.

I'll keep this part short: You want ALL of Super Reflexes. Your goal here is to get all 3 positional defenses (melee, ranged, and AoE) to 45% or higher. You need all the toggles and all the passives to help with that. So that's 6 powers you need.

Practiced Brawler is your mez protection. It is absolutely MANDATORY for a brute to take their mez protection. You can't fight if you're sleeping or held, and if you can't fight your team is in trouble. Slot it for recharge and put it on autofire so you don't have to worry about it. (you can put a power on autofire by holding the Ctrl button and clicking on it)

Quickness is a power that gives you a permanent 20% boost to your recharge, and a boost to your running speed. It doesn't need any slots in it at all, just put a single run speed enhancer in it and you're good. You want this power.

Elude is skippable once you get to your goal of 45% defense, but you may want to have it as an "Oh S***!" button until you get there.

Leaping is a good pool to pick. Take Combat Jumping to get to Super Jump. Do NOT take Jump Kick, it is a really pathetic attack that will force you to redraw your swords. Super Jump is my personal favorite travel power. Nice and fast with good upward mobility.

No, after you have Practiced Brawler you won't need it at all. Practiced Brawler does everything Acrobatics does and more, and it does it better while costing less endurance.

You don't NEED Stamina, but it is a very nice power to have. It makes your endurance recover faster, so it's value should be apparent to you there. Health is also a plus, it increases your regeneration rate, which will be nice since you have no self heal power in your secondary. I recommend Hurdle to open the pool since you said you wanted to go with leaping.

The Fighting pool is nice. It has a couple attacks (you have to take one to open the pool, but you won't be using it, or at least you shouldn't be). It also has Tough, which gives you some resistance to smashing and lethal damage (the most common types in the game). The last power in the pool is the one you want it for, Weave. Weave will help you get closer to your goal of 45% defense.

That wasn't a wall of text. You had punctuation and an understanding of grammar

Always glad to help.

Yes, they have control over the percentage chance that something will drop.

No, they do NOT have control over whether or not something will drop for just your character alone. Any change to a percentage chance they make changes it for everyone equally.

They are not out to get you, I can assure you of that.

But if you want to be paranoid and insist that the devs have a vendetta against you and ONLY you.....well.....bye then.

It is RANDOM. The probability is NOT a guarantee. The probability of a purple drop is something like 1 in 5000. that means you have that percentage of a chance of getting one. It does NOT mean you a guaranteed a purple after every 5000 kills.

I played my DM/SR brute for weeks, running missions at +0/x8, and got nothing, no purples, barely any rares. I filled up my recipe inventory with Common IO recipes and temp powers.

I logged my Claws/Regen scrapper in and killed a Night Widow in RV that dropped an Armageddon. It was the first and only thing I had attacked since I logged in.

You went through a streak where the random number generator was not being kind to you, that's all.

Yes, you can move around and do whatever you like, as long as it doesn't involve attacking. It's also a toggle, so you can shut it off whenever you want, but it has a 30 second limit so you can't stay phased all the time (probably to prevent exploitation in escort missions, among other things)

You can phase, hit IH, wait until your health is full and any debuffs have worn off, then drop the phase and go to town on em. It's a nice power that I never considered taking until I did my PvP build, and now I'm considering it for my other regens too.

Well, it occurred to me when I was in a Council mission being shot by at least 8 Marksmen, that I was going to die.....because that's what regens do when they get slowed that much.

Then I remembered that I actually have Phase Shift on this build and popped it. The 30 seconds it lasts is plenty of time for all those slows to wear off and get back into fighting shape.

It is kind of an interesting way around Regen's complete lack of any debuff resistance. Just phase until they wear off. It won't work on all the debuffs in the game, but if you find you're going to die because your heals have been slowed into tiny dots on your tray it's a pretty good solution

So, Martial Arts/Regeneration is the only powerset combo you've EVER played the entire time you've played the game? I have difficulty comprehending that. You've never been curious about how anything else played? Not even a little? You've never tried a blaster, or a tank, or a defender, or a controller, or a kheldian? You've never even tried a different scrapper?

If I were stuck with just ONE character I would have been bored to death and quit playing by now. That's why I never played WoW, one single character is like your frigging JOB there.

With the upcoming market merge....your dillema is going to become a thing of the past. There will be no need to move your Dominators blueside to get around lack of recipe availability, because everything will be available to everyone. So if you like playing redside, you won't have to move them unless you want to do so for other reasons.