ClawsandEffect

Oh yeah. The soft-cap.

If you're not aware of what this is, I'll give you a quick explanation.

The "soft-cap" is a point at which getting more of something will do you no further good. It's most often applied to defense, but I've seen it applied to other things as well. Unless otherwise stated, you can assume that anytime someone mentions the term soft-cap, they are talking about defense.

The soft-cap for defense for the vast majority of the game is 45%. That is because of the hard-coded limits placed on chances to hit and miss. An enemy will always have a minimum of a 5% chance to hit you, no matter what else is happening. You could have 1,000,000% defense and that enemy will still have a 5% chance to hit. The base chance to hit for probably 95% of the enemies in the game is 50%. That means once you get to 45% defense to that enemy's attack type or position, getting more defense will do no good because you've already lowered their chance to hit you as much as you ever will.

On the reverse side, nothing can ever have more than a 95% chance to hit. That's why you'll sometimes still miss, even if your accuracy on a power is at 135%.

As promised, some tips on acquiring the expensive stuff I steered you toward in my last post:

I assume you're a VIP, since you could not post in this section if you were not.

That makes acquiring that stuff pretty easy actually.

For starters, if you have not run a full cycle of tip missions, do so at once. After you have "reaffirmed" your alignment as either a hero or a villain you can acquire Alignment Merits. These are the easiest way to get the expensive stuff, as nothing I recommended you slot will cost more than 2 of them.

After you have done that, run all of the Signature Story Arcs (hopefully you have not run all of them yet) Your first time through them you will get the option to select a Hero or Villain Merit as a reward. After the first time, you are limited to one a week.

I suggest spending the first 6 you acquire this way on the Numina's Convalescence +Regen/+Recovery, the Miracle +Recovery, and one of the Luck of the Gambler +Recharges you will need. Those IOs are known as the "Big 3", as they have consistently commanded a significant amount of influence to buy.

Also, by playing at level 50, or close to it, you have a chance to get a "purple drop". If you have not gotten one of these yet, the words that pop up on the screen when you get one will be in purple. These recipes go for anywhere from 100 to 600 million in the auction house. I recommend selling all the ones you get for a while to fund the rest of your build.

You can learn to play the market as well and gain influence that way, but I'm not particularly good at it, so you'd be better off asing someone else about that.

Have fun and happy scrapping!

Okay, here's the power by power breakdown for you. Your power choices themselves are fine, with very little I'd change at all, so I'll be giving slotting advice with the current powers as they are.

Also, there is no rule that says you have to use level 50 sets on a level 50 character. In fact, using lower levels sets is helpful in that it allows you to retain your set bonuses when you exemp to lower levels.

Power Slice: Replacing the 4 Crushing Impact you have in there with 4 Kinetic Combat will net you an additional 3.75% Smashing/Lethal (S/L) defense. It doesn't sound like much, but it adds up.

High Pain Tolerance: This power should be slotted for healing before anything else. Since you have 6 slots allocated to it already, I'll just give you replacements for all 6. 3 Numina's Convalescence will give you an additional 12% regeneration and 1.88% max HP. I would fill in the remaining 3 slots with Aegis, which will give you 3.13% Fire/Cold defense (F/C).

Mind Over Body: You have 4 slots already in this power, so just replace the Titanium Coating you have in there with Reactive Armor. It will give you an additional 1.25% defense to S/L and Energy/Negative Energy (E/N). Skip the pieces that offer no reistance enhancement.

Fast Healing: Already 3 slotted, so put 3 Numina's Convalescence in it for the regen and Max HP bonuses.

Ablating Strike: You have 6 slots in here. I would pull one slot to use elsewhere and put 4 Kinetic Combat in it for the S/L defense, and fill the last slot with Achilles' Heel Chance for Res Debuff. It's an IO that gives your attack a 20% chance to debuff your target's resistance by 20%. It will increase your damage output a bit over time.

Typhoon's Edge: The Scirocco's Dervish in here are fine. I would replace the Cleaving Blows with 4 Eradication. It's an amazing set for set bonuses. It gives you: 1.8% max endurance, 3.13% E/N defense, and 2.25% max HP when you put 4 of them in it.

Indomitable Will: Pull the Def/End/Rech out of this power and use the slot somewhere else.

Blinding Feint: 4 Kinetic Combat and 2 Rectified Reticle. This will have the net effect of an additional 5.63% S/L defense gained from sets in one power. We're only up to level 12 and have already added 13.3% S/L defense to your build.

Super Jump: No reason to slot this. I'd just put a generic Jump enhancement in here.

Combat Jumping: Lose the Gift of the Ancients and replace it with a LotG +Rech.

Rise to the Challenge (RttC): Drop the 3 piece and put 3 Numina's Convalescence in here, more regen and HP. (We've saved 3 slots to put somewhere else at this point)

Quick Recovery: Drop a slot, put Performance Shifter End Mod, EndMod/Something, and Chance for +End. Slot Stamina the same way.

Vengeful Slice: Drop a slot, add 4 (you guessed it) Kinetic Combat and a Mako's Bite quad. (Acc/Dam/End/Rech) (4 slots saved)

Boxing: No issues. I'd remove it from your power tray altogether to be honest.

Tough: Add one of the 4 extra slots you have floating around and put 4 Reactive Armor in here.

Weave: Put 3 LotG in here, including the +Rech.

Heightened Senses: Same as Weave.

Sweeping Strike and One Thousand Cuts: Slot these both the same as Typhoon's Edge.

Maneuvers: Same as Weave.

Tactics: 2 Rectified Reticle and an End Reduction.

Strength of Will: Put a Steadfast Protection Resistance/Defense in the default slot. It adds 3% to ALL defense, a must-have IO for any scrapper.

Conserve Power: Replace this power with Focused Accuracy and slot 2 Rectified Reticle in it. Add an End Reduction if you plan on using it.

Physical Perfection: Numina's Convalescence: Heal and Numina's Reg/Rec (the unique one). Also add a Miracle +Recovery.

And finally, take a couple of the extra slots you've saved and add them to Health. Put another 2 Numina's and a Regerativ Tissue +Regeneration.

That's my Willpower template. It can be applied with minor variations to any Willpower build.

I'll pop back in and give you some tips on actually acquiring all the expensive crap I told you to slot

Okay Riius, here goes. My wording may come off as harsh, but it isn't my intent to be mean. I don't have much time to type so it's in the interest of speed. So, if I seem short or like I'm barking orders, don't take it personally.

First, your mistakes:

-You didn't slot High Pain Tolerance (HPT) for Heal. HPT increases your max HP, which in turn increases your regeneration. Higher Max HP also means you can take more hits before you drop.

-You neglected to slot any sets that increase your defense. There are a number of places where you could have acquired a lot more defense. The more defense you have = the fewer hits that will get through. The fewer hits that get through = less damage for you to regenerate back. Willpower wants Typed defense, meaning defense to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, etc. That's because Heightened Senses gives you a good base of typed defense to build off of. Do not worry about Positional defense (Melee, Ranged, AoE), because the game uses the highest defense you have to a given attack, and only the highest. If someone attacks you with a sword, it will check Melee and Lethal defenses and use whichever is higher. The other is ignored.

-It looks like you built your scrapper on the cheap. Not that it's a bad thing, but if you want to really shine be prepared to drop some more cash on your build. You can put together an awe-inspiring build with a little bit of patience and maybe some luck.

-You didn't seem to slot many sets that increase your regeneration either. There are a number of sets that will do so, and regeneration bonuses will stack with Fast Healing, Health, and Physical Perfection to increase your overall regeneration. Regeneration will probably not save you on its own, but when combined with your resistance and defense it will make you a formidable foe indeed.

-You overslotted several of your powers. Example: you used 6 Titanium Coating in HPT. Why would you want 2 enhancements that do nothing but add recharge and end reduction in a power that is always on and uses no endurance?

-You also stopped just short of the desireable set bonus on some of your other powers. Example: You used 4 Crushing Impact in Power Slice. Crushing Impact's most desireable bonus is the 5% recharge bonus you get when you slot 5 of them. You did that with several other powers as well.

That's all the time I have for this post. I'll break down your build power by power in my next post. You can use as much or as little of my advice as you like. After all, it is YOUR character. I'm just trying to help you make it better, and it seems like you don't know the ins and outs of building efficiently yet.

That's all for now, I'll catch up with you in a bit.

Your build needs some help, but it's not the worst I've seen.

I'll pop back in on my lunch break and critique it for you.

It's not terrible, but it could be a LOT better than it is. And it can be if you're patient and willing to spend the money (in-game money, not real money)

Don't feel bad though, I made some way worse mistakes than you when I was first learning the ins and outs of build-fu

I just can't access Mids' from my work computer. IT is a little tyrannical about letting people download things on the company computers.

Good point on the Scrapper's Strike, I'd completely forgot to mention it.

Given the option, I'd probably opt to split it 3 and 3 between 2 different powers and make all of them Superior. (which will crank the S/L defense from it up to 5% for each)

After that I'd look into whichever set gives E/N defense for 3 slots (Smashing Haymaker? Pounding Slugfest?) for the remaining 3 slots. This is of course assuming you didn't max out on that bonus with all the Reactive Armors. (which gives the same bonus)

Basically, they own anything that has been created in the game.

The wording of the EULA was part of what prompted the Marvel lawsuit (IIRC).

Marvel wasn't just annoyed that people were creating their characters in the game, they were annoyed that NCSoft was technically claiming ownership of those characters because people were creating them in the game.

There's virtually no way that NCSoft could have actually been awarded the IP rights to Wolverine or the Hulk, but the simple fact that the EULA is worded in such a way led Marvel to file a lawsuit because they are legally obligated to defend their trademarks or risk losing them. (Essentially, there would be a very small chance a judge could have awarded the trademark to NCSoft if Marvel had not stepped forward to defend their trademark rights. It's extremely unlikely, but possible)

In the case of Mercedes Lackey using characters created in the game in her books, Paragon Studios isn't going to pursue that. The free publicity is too valuable. There is a whole group of Mercedes Lackey fans who might check out their game now that had never heard of it before reading her book. Suing her over it would be shooting themselves in the foot. But make no mistake, unless there was a contract signed between Paragon Studios and Mercedes Lackey allowing her to use those characters, they very much could file a lawsuit if they wanted to.

As far as the OP is concerned, if you want to use a character created in the game in another media, say a comic book or a novel, the first thing you should do is delete the character from the game and ensure that the character's physical description or appearance cannot be construed as coming from the game. The simple fact is, you do not have the clout of Jim Butcher or Mercedes Lackey in order to get away with using your own characters in the game or characters from the game in your own work.

The devs are notoriously resistant to the idea of giving us animation and/or weapon options that do not match the damage type dealt by the power.

In the case of the Fire and Ice swords, that damage is Fire/Cold and Lethal. So, any alternate options we get would have to also match up to having Lethal damage as part of it.

If you can convince them to ignore that, you might stand a better shot at getting what you're asking for. (no one has managed to convince them to ignore it yet)

It is because each drawn weapon set uses a specific combat stance that all of the animations from that set are built upon.

If you use a power that does not use the same combat stance, you will have to redraw your weapon.

Back Alley Brawler, before he left, almost figured out a way to get rid of it, but apparently something to do with Shield Defense broke things horribly and he had to scrap it.

Combat stances are so thoroughly baked into how the powers themselves actually work that it is going to be HIGHLY difficult to change. At this point, they'd have to pretty much rebuild the entire powers framework from scratch to get rid of redraw.

Complaining about it repeatedly on the forums does nothing to change how difficult it is going to be to change.

See my location.

That is all.

Edit: I had to log back in to make this post.......

Perhaps not an actual buff to the amount it does, but instead they just made it so the debuff is unresistable?

But with the amount as low as it is, it sounds like Reactive will be a better bet for my purposes. I didn't realize the amount was quite that low.

I'm pretty sure Penny is a foreshadow for this becoming an actual set.

If you recall, back when they did the survey that led to us getting Dual Blades, Willpower, and (eventually) Shield Defense, Psychic Melee and Psychic Defense came in second and third respectively.

Penny has a LOT of unique powers, and I find it hard to believe they would create that many unique powers if they never intended on them being anywhere but on an NPC that you don't interact with much.

Westin Phipps.

Evil is one thing. That kind of completely psychotic child murdering evil is another thing entirely.

I'd like to feed him into a very slow wood chipper feet first.

Well, my idea behind it is: It will have a chance to fire on the first tick of both damage auras, and every 10 seconds thereafter. It is a safe assumption that the first tick of my damage auras will occur before I fire an attack (if one also assumes that I jump in the crowd first instead of leading with Throw Spines, which I do tend to do)

If the proc fires on enough enemies when I jump into the crowd, it could potentially reduce the number of attacks necessary to defeat them down to 1. (probably Spine Burst)

The reason I was asking is because I have no experience with Degenerative to have any basis to speculate how well that will work.

Okay, I'm dusting off my level 40 Spines/Fire scrapper for 2xp weekend for the push to 50, after which I will be making him an Incarnate.

Now, for me, concept trumps all else. I do min/max and I am a little bit of a powergamer, but I do it all within the boundaries of my concept. That means no taking powers that don't work with the concept (i.e. a completely natural brawler type isn't going to be throwing fire, even if Blaze Mastery is the most powerful APP)

The quandary I have here is that 2 different Interfaces seem to be useful for what I plan on doing (level 50 tips at x8), and they both fit my concept. Those would be Reactive and Degenerative.

I'm familiar with Reactive and that was my original plan for this character, but the idea of the Degenerative -HP debuff sounds interesting and possibly useful against minions (I know it's pretty useless against AVs)

Has anyone tested Degenerative's -HP proc to see if it speeds up minion munching by lowering the amount of damage necessary to defeat them?

If Degenerative is at all useful I'm leaning toward going with that, just so I can not have reactive slotted like everyone and their grandmother. BUT.....I don't want to go through all the trouble of crafting and slotting it only to find out it's completely useless.

I would like some feedback from someone who has actually USED Degenerative on a character, and can give me some insight on its usefulness. I don't need people telling me Reactive is the best because it's the only one they've ever used.