Crysys

No such thing as "too much" but I'd start to re-think it if you are slotting only for recharge versus some of the other bonuses you can achieve.

My memory is a little dated so others may correct me if this is "old thinking" but I believe:

PermaDom via Hasten: Requires 70% global recharge from IO's and 3-slotted Hasten

PermaHasten + PermaDom: Requires 90% global recharge from IO sets + 3-slotted Hasten

PermaDom without Hasten: 125% global recharge from IO sets

As the poster above states, if you find yourself unable to use the powers you need, or you are frequently fighting -RECHARGE types of critters, then the more recharge the better. But that's pretty rare.

Once i achieve PermaDom on my Dom's, I try to get Hasten to Perma if possible, but its by no means game-changing if I have a gap of 10 seconds or so. You just have to remember to click it when its up. I typically have Dom on auto-fire anyways.

Tier 4 Reactive on a Broadsword is impressive. You'll be amazed how much more damage you are doing...it really does add up, far more noticeable when you are whittling on a boss. There are some minions you used to have to smack twice and now you can just hit them once and they die from the DOT a few secs later.

^^ Yeah a bit hard on the eyes, but I just highlighted your text to make it legible.

I can't comment too much on the Ice powers, but for plant I've fooled around with all sorts of slotting on Carrion Creepers. Unless you are married to the set bonus you get from the Posi's in there, you might want to consider frankenslotting it with a bunch of damage procs. The power went from "great" to "ZOMG" when I put in all Damage Procs. It gets so many chances to Proc that it just makes it that much better. Works best with Tactics unless you throw in some +ACC in there, however.

And while we are on topic of Procs, I'd pull the HO slot from Entangle and put that slot into something like Combat Jumping, using it to hold a Kismet +ACC...which is actually a +TOHIT. Really helps your overall accuracy, especially once you start routinely fighting +4's.

I've got Doms with different powersets and have gone the S/L defense route on a few, normally via help from Ice or Scorp Shield. But I really prefer Ranged defense. Its harder to cap for Ranged, but in particular for Plant doms, you've got Seeds of Confusion that is a highly effective opener for getting the spawns to take their own alpha. This ties up all the Minions/Lt's and usually the Boss as well. Then you Root to immobilize and start raining down destruction. Since your holds are locking things down...entering into Melee range is a piece of cake. Now if you were leading with a PBAoE, then sure, I can see where S/L makes more sense. But you aren't as a Plant Dom.

Ask any Blaster and they'll tell you that Range is a great defense. Ranged Def on top of just plain Range, or not entering melee until you've locked things down, is an excellent defense.

But really, it boils down to personal playstyle choices.

I consider great ranged defense to be around 30%. I'm at 32% Ranged defense depending on the build (30% NRG/NegNRG). One build has around 78% global recharge (w/Hasten 148%) and the other has 71%/141%. The only real diff between those two is 6-slotting Maneuvers with a Red Fortune vs 5-slotting it and adding a LOTG +RCHGE in the sixth slot. That is less Spiritual bonus which frankly I'm not smart enough to figure out how to calculate with ED and such.

For me "great ranged" isn't the cap; the cap would be 'perfect.' While I can get there its not without either sacrificing the /Fire epic or recharge. I can softcap with a small purple if I want but I rarely get hit since I'm leading with Seeds or Creepers and staying at range for the duration of the BBQ that follows. And having played with both those builds extensively, I really don't notice any difference in survivability between the two.

I did choose to abandon Audrey slotting to achieve the goals of the build but really never found I missed her (it) all that much. My Lore pets are better for when I really need pets, but I'm not a 'troller so the Pet damage wasn't much use in the first place. I used her up until around level 44 and then respecced out of those slots. I may even drop her entirely once I see the new top-level pool power choices like burnout, etc.

And all the above is pre-Incarnate. You throw in Spiritual and Barrier and many other slotting choices become available if you are willing to live with a few holes in your timing of defense coverage.

There may be some scrapper fans here that will think I'm dissing the set but I'm really not when I say this:

For soloing, there is no simpler blue-side AT to play than a Scrapper. Tankers are also very easy to play if you are soloing, they just can take more abuse and take longer to kill things than do scrappers.

I'd say the same thing about Scrappers cousins red-side, the Stalker, but the mechanics of hide/out-of-hide make it slightly more complex in terms of strategy.

You only have to understand two basic concepts for playing a scrapper: Damage and Damage mitigation. For almost all the other AT's, you need to consider things like pulling, range, debuffing and debuffing target acquisition priorities, soft vs. hard controls, mezzers, etc.

With a scrapper, you just point at your target and start clicking attacks. Sure, later levels may require some of the same strategies other AT's had to deal with back in the early days, but they've mostly matured beyond those. A scrapper doesn't worry about target acquisition until they meet Sappers from Malta and the like. Tsoo sorcs and BP Shaman's may have annoyed you in the past, but you could pretty much ignore them until you got around to killing them. Most other AT's can't do that at such a low level as a Scrapper.

This is, by the way, why scrappers don't always get the love when teamed. Most other AT players have either played a scrapper themselves or are accustomed to solo scrappers so they just use them as "team padding" most of time.

YMMV of course...just stating a personal opinion.

I don't see many DM/Regens out there playing actively today, but I do see quite a few DM/SR's. I have a 50 DM/SR myself (retired for several years now) and remember how well the two sets complemented one another. There were many times when the team was wiping and I'd hit Elude and start cycling my attacks, holding aggro until the team could rez and re-join the fray.

I also remember, waaaaaaay back when, I'd share Hami tanking duties with a DM/Regen. We discovered that his Taunt, equally slotted and with him having same recharge as I did (this was pre-IO's and pre-ED) was slightly more powerful than my Confront. Never understood why but it was.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I've seen many DM/DA running around either.

High recharge for a click-oriented set like Regen is as important as the Regen itself. I'm at permhasten before any Spiritual bonuses. Those who have watched me solo AV's have often commented that my attack chain with Broadsword is gapless which contributes greatly to damage output. And although its seldom mentioned, the boundless END native to Regens that take Quick Recovery ensures I never have to worry about all those clicks costing me END either. I think my END Recovery is something like 6/sec before all those IO bonuses kick in (Perf Shifter, etc.)

The title of this thread is a lie. It is quite evident that dogs and cats are not happy about teh regin.

The only inspirations I ever use are damage. I have one of those nifty macros that converts 3 of anything to reds. I agree with the "paying attention" comment, however. Knowing when to hit Dull Pain so you get both the heal and the double HP for example. Or saving IH for the rooms where the 9CUs all gang up on you. Or for that matter knowing when to hit MOG. But "paying attention" is HOW you play a Regen.

Personally, having played a Plant/Fire/Mace with capped S/L before, I found it wasn't as helpful as going for high recharge + ranged defense. It could be my playstyle preferences versus your own, but I found that in the post 40 PvE world, I was facing a lot bigger threats than S/L. That and once I dropped my S/L shield (I went with Scorp Shield) and loaded up on more attacks from the Fire epic, range defense became more valuable for me.

But since I have a different playstyle preference than you, I'd just throw a few things out that I see in your build.

-You can get a nice (6.25%) recharge bonuses by slotting up Seeds with a Malaise set. Since Recharge is important to you, there are a few other options I could recommend as well but to get them you will lose some S/L defense from other set bonuses.

-You are taking Fiery Embrace too late. Take it earlier and put a couple of recharge slots into it. That's a nice damage bonus and high recharge + more damage = less need for defense.

-I'm not a fan of Audrey....just not that much help in the late game. I only spare a couple of slots in the pet. Carrion Creepers, while awesome, is also more than sufficient with 3 slots and all proc's post 40. Again, permadom + Seeds + Roots and nothing is moving or firing back at you anyways.

-I prefer CJ (LOTG +RCHGE in there) from Leaping, Hasten and Super Speed from Speed and the Leadership pool for Tactics and Maneuvers. I see you went Hover/Fly but I much prefer SS as an in-mission movement power. You basically become a Brute in your 40's. You can tank (with Seeds of Confusion), hold aggro (or just plain hold) and burn everything down to cinders. That puts you in lead dog role for most missions. SS gives you the ability to keep up with the team and be the steam in their steamrolling. Fly can also but you can also throw a Celerity +Stealth into SS and that takes care of your desire for stealth. It worked great for me and I dropped the Concealment pool as a result. Again, personal preference, but I found taking Grant Invis and Invis to be pretty big wastes just as set mules. Take Tough/Weave; For Tough, throw the Steadfast +3% Defense unique into Tough and slot out Weave for more defense (I like Red Fortunes) and with another LOTG +RCHGE.

-I also think you are undervaluing Flares. Give it 5 slots and throw a Decimation set in there for another 6.25% +RCHGE bonus. Yes the damage isn't fantastic, but it cycles almost instantly and you will find it is actually a great part of your DPS chain, using it when Blaze is just "too much" to take out that last sliver.

But again, just personal preferences. I don't use purples in my Plant/Fire/Fire Dom...didn't need them. I went for Ranged defense and high recharge and the Oblit quads plus the LOTG's were the only high cost items in the build.

I went Fire epic and respecced out of Incinerate...that animation time was just too much to bear. I picked up Rain of Fire and Fireball from the epic instead. RoF isn't that much of an improvement when it comes to animation time, but the DoT effect is worth the animation time to me.

^^ What he said.

I think the reason so many /SD scraps skip it is simply the whole "I'm not a buffer!" mentality that goes with scrapping. Forget the fact that it gives your team a minor +DEF buff. It really can be the difference between your ability to softcap your DEF or not. Slots are tight when you start throwing 6 Gaussian's into Tactics or whatever to get the set bonus, so Phalanx will definitely help.

Ahhhh.....that explains it! Everyone wants to buy the special items available from the elf. Thanks, didn't know what was up but enjoyed the profit!

I was buying them in lots of 10 and flipping them for 5-7X purchase price. Why the sudden run on these things?

^^ The Mac COH client is actually just an emulation mode of the Win version running via Wine...and it blows. Seriously unstable and buggy, game crashes all the time.

I do have BootCamp on my Mac so I just guess I'll log into there, download the Win client for COH and try it that way. Either that or just pull up Mids (which I run under VMware) and hand-build my Plant/Fire/Fire build. Probably easier actually.

Pretty expensive build for investing in a blaster but yeah....that would be a decent farmer.