ClawsandEffect

Isn't Psi Shockwave also a stun? If so I would use that one first. There is also no law that says you can't fire Fireball while in melee range (Scrappers and /Kin controllers do it all the time)

So I'd go like this:

Hover over a mob, detoggle hover, dropping you smack into the middle of it, Psi Shockwave, point-blank Fireball, then retoggle hover and go straight up, firing Psi Scream downward at them.

It kind of defeats the purpose of being a hover-blaster, but it would be a way to use all 3 AoEs effectively.

Martial Arts and Super Strength got new animations to satisfy a demand for a "Street Fighting" set without actually having to make a new set. That was the only reason they got them. Also, they seem to have been designed specifically to look good with Shield Defense, especially the KO Blow alternate, it looks like an upward shield bash. As evidence of this, look at the alternate animations they gave Martial Arts, they are ALL right handed animations and they do not alternate, which says to me they designed them with shields in mind. The Jab alternate is the only one that doesn't seem to work with a shield, unless the idea is for it to be a quick shield smash.

A LOT of animations are shared between powers. Even the alternate animation for Eagle's Claw is a recycled one, it's the same animation as Stun from Energy Manipulation.

Thunder Strike, Total Focus, Tremor: same animation

Air Superiority, Bonesmasher, Havoc Punch, Haymaker, Seismic Smash: same animation

Most of the blast sets use a set of 10-12 animations between 7 powersets or so.

The problem you're going to find here is probably that the devs don't want to give a few more sets alternate animations, which would set a precedent and people would start clamoring for new animations for EVERYTHING, which is a crap ton of work.

Besides, we still don't know what all is going to be in Going Rogue, alternate animations for stuff may be in there somewhere.

Shadow Punch and Smite. It shouldn't take you more than 2 hours or so to get to level 8 and pick up Siphon Life.

I have a level 50 DM/SR brute, and Shadow Punch is still very much a part of his chain. Though, once you get to higher levels with a scrapper and start IOing with global recharge bonuses, you can drop Shadow Punch if you like (I would definitely wait until after picking up Midnight Grasp to drop it) It's also another single target melee attack that you can slot Mako's Bite or Touch of Death in to help get you to the softcap. I like Touch of Death in Shadow Punch, because the slightly lower enhancement values (especially on recharge) don't matter as much in it as in the harder hitting powers.

So, if you take everything you will have 4 single target melee attacks, and 4 PBAoE attacks that you can use to slot set bonuses in. You will probably not have room for all of them though. Touch of Fear and Confront are pretty much universally skipped unless it's for concept.

For help softcapping, it's still pretty much the usual suspects: Touch of Death, Mako's Bite, Scirocco's Dervish, and Obliteration. I like 6 slotting Red Fortune in defense toggles if I'm trying to hit softcap, but if you can get the ranged defense elsewhere (or aren't worried about softcapping) 4 Luck of the Gambler is a good choice too. I also like 5 Crushing Impact and a Heal IO in Siphon Life, but opinions vary on that one.

As far as Shield Defense goes, you will want everything except maybe Grant Cover and One with the Shield, which are IMO optional. It's an absolute beast, but it takes more work to softcap than SR does because it doesn't have the passives contributing 7-8% to your defense. DM/SD has been proven to have the highest damage potential of any scrapper combination on a single target, followed very closely by Fire/Shield. (If I remember Bill Z's findings correctly)

Replace the Sniper sets in Zapp with another set of Thunderstrike.

The sniper sets have a total of around 2.75% ranged defense, Thunderstrike has a total of 3.75%. With a full percent point more, that will do it for you, assuming nothing else is altered.

It probably will have a negative impact on the villainside market.

I had a moment of extreme sticker shock when I went to IO my brute. I had 100 million on my toon and it wasn't enough to buy 1 complete set of Touch of Death. It was barely enough to buy 2/3rds of it. I have found that it costs me 3-4 times the cash to IO a character redside than it does for an equivalent build bluside.

People will see that the blueside market has things going much cheaper and take their villain over there to do their final IO build. In all likelyhood that will cause villain side prices to keep going up, because fewer people are buying and selling there.

When you are the only person who has had something for sale in the last 2 weeks, you can pretty much ask whatever you want for it (within reason, 2 billion for a Crushing Impact isn't going to happen), and if it is a popular enough recipe you will probably get it.

That tends to lead to people setting prices at ridiculous amounts, because they know sooner or later someone will want it bad enough to pay it. Especially if they bought billions from a RMT site.

When you get 2 billion inf in 10 minutes, it doesn't mean as much to you as if you had spent time earning it, meaning you're more willing to spend 200 million on something. Other people see that someone got 200 million for the same thing and set a similar price. Over time the average price goes up as people discover that they can set a price of 150 million+ and get it. There are more IO recipes in the game now than there were a year and a half ago, and the demand hasn't risen enough to justify the geometric price increases.

Greedy marketeers being made rich by RMT customers with tons of money and no clue. Gotta love it.

(Note: Not all marketeers are that greedy, most just want to make a tidy profit, and realize that if they gouge too much they will destroy their own market)

The market is cross-server. If they're pricey on yours, they're pricey everywhere, changing servers won't help you get them cheaper.

You can buy an enhyancement on Pinnacle from someone on Freedom, and then turn around and sell it to someone on Champion. It's set up like that because server populations aren't equal, a lower population server like Pinnacle would have an almost constant drought of things on the market if the market were just for that server.

Your build looks decent, though I don't have Mid's available at the moment to dissect it. If I remember I'll take a look at it when I get home.

You've obviously never seen how hard Soul Drain hits on a brute with a full fury bar already. Slotted for damage it's actually an effective AoE. That's the only AT it's worth slotting that power for damage on though, I'll give ya that.

Well, with IOs now, there are vey few builds that are actually "bad". I don't have one myself, and in fact I've never seen one, so if you keep the toon you will be unique at the very least. To me, that's reason enough to keep it right there.

Going from memory of the powers, it won't have the best synergy in the world, but it won't be the worst either.

You want real metal?

Okay.

(for a claws/regen specifically)
"Wolverine Blues" by Entombed.

Or "Dawn of the Angry" by Morbid Angel

Or "Hammer Smashed Face" by Cannibal Corpse. (For those not familiar, Cannibal Corpse was the death metal band in Ace Ventura, this is the song they were playing, Jim Carrey himself picked the band)

"War Ensemble" by Slayer

"Pure Hatred" by Chimaira

Metal enough for ya?

Do you realize how broken SR would be on a tank? I kind of doubt the devs will give us a defense based set that will exceed softcap by itself, with no other powers or IOs.

Just look at how easy it is to softcap Shield Defense on a tank. One extra power pool, and a single IO is all you need. With SR's passives you wouldn't even need that.

No qualms with the other things there, but I highly doubt tanks will ever get SR in it's current form.

Energy Aura seems unlikely as well, but more likely than SR. Energy Aura is what villains got instead of Ice, and they are very similar in function. So I wouldn't expect that one to be proliferated until villains get Ice Armor......

I'll do a demo-record when I have time for it.

Keep in mind my /DA toon is heavily IOed. There is no scrapper build in existence that can solo at +3 or 4/x8 without IOs.

Yes.

Situational power for me. I was looking into ways to get a little more E/NE defense and Eradication is a good set for that. So, I might slot 3 of them, and 3 of an End Mod set, probably Efficacy Adaptor. I should get into the low 30's with it slotted. it depends entirely on whether or not I hae room in my build, currently it doesn't look like I do.

Looks like I'm going to be screwed on Fire and Cold though.