Cyber_naut

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You'll find as a Katana player (only any lethal type damage AT) that there are going to be quite a few AVs that you can't take down simply because of their resistances. I can't remember if Dominatrix is past these two AVs or not, but when you come across Siege and Nightstar, don't bother attempting them solo, because they also have 50% lethal resistance.

Anyhow, grats on Infernal! He was the very first AV I took down on my Katana/Regen, and I've come quite a ways since then. Our secondaries are different so you might have an easier time on some AVs than I did, and visa versa, but so far I've found Neuron (ranged attacks with -end) and Black Scorpion (quite a few big, big hits in his arsenal) to be my toughest, but still do-able, fights.

Good luck!

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This.

But I just hit 50 on my kat/wp and got it io'd up, and it's an incredible combo. Properly slotted you should survive against most anything with ease, the only roadblocks will be lethal resistant beasts like the 3 mentioned here.

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But if you want to whip out the nerf bat, lets beat down the other ats that can solo av's (some faster than scrappers) that are not supposed to be as good a solo at as the scrapper, who is supposedly meant to be the strongest solo at.

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I'm not picking on you, Cyber_naut, but some of the perspectives displayed here about AVs is really skewed. When people say "other ATs can solo them faster," what they should be saying is "other powersets can solo them faster." Sure, a Rad/Sonic Defender will melt an AV. Try that with an Emp/, FF/, or Sonic/. Heck, I suspect Kin/ would even have trouble due to its clicks eating so much of its activation time.

Having said that, you can have a character that is strong at soloing AVs, but still be a poor at soloing overall. Most content in the game is not AVs, and overall Scrappers are some of the strongest for that content. Some specific sets may be stronger at a single aspect (AVs: Rad/Sonic, farming: Fire/Kin, etc), but Scrappers are better at running the entire gambit.

For most squishies, one word will add a plethora of soloing frustration: mez.


As for Regen... I'll stay out of that debate. I haven't played that set much in years. I think what you're really seeing is the effect of IOs on min/maxed builds.


[edit: Oh, about intra-AT balance, I think what Talen was getting at was that Scrappers are on the high end of the performance scale. If you balance around ATs being able to do between X and X+5, and Scrappers are all in the X+2 to X+4 range, then boosting X+2 to X+4 isn't exactly a priority. I'm not saying Regen doesn't have issues, but I can understand Talen's point.]

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You are correct, team-centered at's as a whole are not outperforming scrappers in solo ability, but some sets and combos are, while still dominating team play and being more valuable in both situations - that is why I suggested that if the poster was concerned with nerfs, that is where the bat should be aimed first.

And yes, the scrapper at as a whole is the best solo at, because they are supposed to be. On teams, other at's are more valuable and increase the teams strength by greater magnitudes. I can't count how many times I've been excluded from tf's and such because the team was holding out for buff and debuffs. Stacking buffs and debuffs are by FAR the most powerful tools in the game for players, not scrappers that can solo avs. Thats why some 'squishies' can solo giant monsters... lol. And that's why I have to chuckle when I hear people claim scrappers are 'too powerful' or need to be nerfed. If you want to see a power balance issue on teams, run a team of scrappers on the reichsman tf then a team with lots of buff/debuffers, or any team mish for that matter. If anything, scrappers contribution to teams should be buffed as support toons solo-ability has been buffed through the years.

In regard to the main argument, I agree we are seeing the effects of IO's, but I think it's not just a 'maxed build' thing. Even a few select IO's strengthen some sets incredibly. Really, the big deal is defense, which is so much easier now to softcap with IO's, so sets that don't use defense are left in the cold once IO's start getting used. Now in a way, it's balanced to some extent, IMO, because regen is one of the easier builds to level up and without IO"s one of the top sets. But that doesn't address the problem that the set requires more work and skill and attention to get similar survivability that other sets get with less work, skill and attention. Then on top of that, all the clicking slows down your damage output. That is why I feel regen could use just a bit of love, and I certainly don't think what the op suggested is going overboard.

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Ah, so since some forum scrappers can solo AVs, scrappers are ALL too powerful and therefore shouldn't worry at all about INTRA-archetype balance? Look, if scrappers can overperform compared to other archetypes, then yeah, nerf scrappers or buff other archetypes. I haven't seen that to be the case, though. I looked into making an AV soloing blaster at one point, then realized that it would be TOO EASY, so didn't bother. Controllers solo giant monsters, which are still well out of reach of scrappers. A large forum presence of min-maxers in one particular class doesn't mean that's the most powerful class. It might also just be the most challenging.

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Nailed it.

But it's ok when an at that is designed to be weak solo in exchange for team ability actually outperforms the at that is supposed to be strong solo, because that is the at HE (talen) enjoys. Der.

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I am an avid regeneration scrapper player and was thinking about a small buff to regeneration in the form of recharge debuff resistance and regeneration debuff resistance.

[/ QUOTE ]People that solo AVs need buffs.

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Because we know of so many */regens that solo AVs compared to the vast hordes of */SRs, */SDs, */WPs, and */Invulns. Of the actual AV soloers, */regen is probably the worst suited for it because it doesn't really have any internal damage mitigation to make better via IOs and pool powers.

[/ QUOTE ]So what you're saying is, nerf everyone until regen is good, then nerf regen?

I think any archetype that has a forum presence of AV soloists, TF soloists, and pylon soloists should stop trying to get dev attention.

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Or just bring up the one or two underperforming sets, that might be easier. Nice job inadvertently demonstrating that regen is lagging behind many sets.

But if you want to whip out the nerf bat, lets beat down the other ats that can solo av's (some faster than scrappers) that are not supposed to be as good a solo at as the scrapper, who is supposedly meant to be the strongest solo at.

This.. is... scrapper forum!!! (kicks shockmare into a well)

If you need any help getting out let us know!

I like the suggestion sanc made. I've played all the scrapper secondaries, and while regen is good, with IO's and the ability for defense oriented secondaries like SR, SD, Inv, WP and even DA to achieve high levels of defense, regen has fallen to the rear of the pack. Add to that, the fact that regen requires the most attention and activity, while only providing at par survivability to these other sets, while actually falling behind at the top end, and I absolutely can see reason for some minor tweaks. If I'm getting similar survivability from sets, then I'm going to use sets that are easier to use, require less attention, and interrupt my attacks the least. Because of those drawbacks, I think it's reasonable to argue that regen should offer superior survivability, yet in reality it doesn't. You're on par with other sets but have to work harder to get there and get penalized with attack interuptions with all the clicks and in some cases redraw.

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Heh. I don't think we even live on the same planet as far as how we make builds. But it's a big universe, and as long as you're having fun, that's all that really matters. I suppose we min-maxers DO tend to go WAY beyond what is necessary to handle 99% of the content, and then assume that everyone wants to be similarly pointlessly overpowered when they ask for build advice.

Still, to at least explain the min-max powergamer point of view, or at least my take on it...

- You can put out more damage overall with a few well-slotted attacks than many poorly-slotted attacks.
- Your hypothetical 91% accuracy vs. even, 78% vs. +1 drops to 47% against +4, and that's assuming no defense or debuffs. We wouldn't be satisfied with all those misses cutting into our damage output when hunting uplevel.
- 30% defense gets hit twice as often as 40% defense gets hit twice as often as 45% defense. Since it is easy to hit 45% defense on a Super Reflexes, we tend to view it as all or nothing. At even slightly less than 45% defense, you're being hit WAY more often than you would with just a little more effort put into your defense.
- We tend to run repetitive attack chains, over and over, the same forever, so there's little chance of us forgetting a buff attack like Follow Up.
- It seems like many min-max powergamers don't often exemplar, and therefore aren't concerned with having a full set of lower level attacks. Many are also veterans with veteran attacks to fill in the gaps when they do exemplar.

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Yeah, I can't ascribe to that mentality. My tankers and defenders LOVE when they start getting multiple attack options for their chain. I crave the variety of having a bunch of attacks. Sure my dark/rad defender CAN get by with just two or three attacks chained to infinity, but that's boring. Even if one attack I've got does 'crap' damage, aka low damage, I'll still throw it out there now and then if it looks cool. To me more options is better. I may not get as great of dps, but I have tons of fun, and still do high dps.

I'd also be hard pressed to tell the difference between being hit 5% of the time and 6% of the time (modified by enemy ACC modifier of course). As for fighting +5's, why bother? That's more trouble then it's worth. Your damage gets reduced big time, debuffs don't work very well against them, even triple slotting ACC will miss fairly often... And any build that has to face +5's to be challenged sounds mind numbingly boring to play.

I exempler frequently. My friends all have lowbie characters since I play far more often. Since I love teaming with them, I frequently exempler down. I also do a lot of flashback missions too. Since Madam Enigma is nearly out of contact missions, flashbacks are one of my main things I could do until AE. As such, when I respec I gotta pay careful attention to when I take powers. Otherwise I gimp myself badly for teaming with friends

I can understand the mindset of power gamers, I just don't see why it's nessecary for most to assume it's a mandatory playstyle. Actually, the IOed out build I'm working on is kind of a 'for fun' thing. I don't expect I'll use the build much. I just want to see if I can do it without altering slots too much. Might dust it off for GM/AV fights though. Elude crashes are the pits.

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If you wanted to, you could leave your toon completely unslotted. But you came in here and asked for opinions on your build, so we gave you some - I even said ultimately you can do whatever you want, but if you are aiming for good performance, your build needs work.

First of all, theres just no reason whatsoever for running on such low accuracy. Like werner said, once you start hunting +3 or +4's, or run into anything with to hit debuffs or defense, you're going to become a miss-a-thon, and there's just no reason for that.

You can take every attack power available if you want, but you shouldn't if you want better performance. You don't need all of claws attacks, they recharge fast so some attack will sit there unused, simply draining more of your slots. Your exemplar concerns seem unfounded. I always slot my toons so they are useable thru all lvls. Not taking both 1st tier attacks isnt going to gimp a claws build at all, unless you're exemplaring to level 5 all the time or something, lol.

I'm not sure why you are infatuated with kinetic combat on an SR, but it's going to drag down your performance and cost you a LOT of dough. Again, you'd get better numbers from ToD, Makos or even CI's.

And in regards to travel powers, you don't have to take one, but life is a lot easier with one. You say you'll move at 70mph, but that with elude on - do you plan on constantly running elude? The constant crashing sure doesn't sound like fun to me. And when you're not running elude, if you're teaming you're going to lag behind everyone else, getting to missions and even moving around inside of them. Movement is a huge part of this game and over the life of your toon having a travel power will save you insane amounts of time. You already are taking combat jumping, so again, if it were me, I'd be looking to drop a power for SJ for the reasons mentioned. Plus you can put 2 or 3 zephyrs in there for an added 3% defense to ranged/aoe.

Now these are just my opinions, which is what I thought you were asking for. Otherwise, what was your point in posting this?

If the builds you posted are how you want to go, that's cool, have fun with it. But you will be getting very little bang for your buck, and you'll be spending lots and lots of bucks, lol.

An SR io'd up needs to be softcapped to all 3 def positions or you're doing something horribly wrong. If you're happy with your build as is, then rock on, but being soft capped to all 3 positions makes you far more survivable than the number you have right now. At 35% ranged you're gonna get clocked a lot, and range is one of the easiest positions to soft cap. I know you're going travel powerless, but 2 of the universal travel io's are nice for extra range defense, and you can dump the kinetic combats which aren't gonna help an SR as much as sets like touch of death and makos.

I'd dump elude, maneuvers and laser beam eyes and get into the fighting pool - tough will give you some added resists when you need it and can hold the 3% def to all IO, and weave gives you better def than maneuvers. Elude is nice, but not that useful once you're softcapped, which is what you should be shooting for.

With all the def bonuses from IO's, softcapping an SR is silly-easy, so there is really no reason not to do it. And I just noticed you have combat jumping, with fast recharging claws, you don't need all those attacks, I'd drop swipe and get me some super jump since traveling is a pretty big part of this game.

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You do also know that on larger teams, you have enough members that can take out bosses or bring them down to very few HP in less than 3.3 seconds right?

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So now we're talking about uber teams? I like how you keep moving the goal posts.

Keep it up!

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"Goal posts?" He said that on teams you'll end up saving your attacks for bosses because everything else will die so fast to your team, and all you did was point out that bosses spawn when in teams. After he already mentioned bosses.

And, no, it doesn't take an "uber team" to kill a boss fast considering most of the team will be focusing on it first.

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I call BS. I was on a team last nite and we had to disband because we ran into a boss and didn't have an em on the team.

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EM does great ST damage on paper it just the play still most people don't like.

Powerset DPS EPS

Brute Fiery 172.6 3.1
Brute Energy 157.5 3.3
Scrap Energy 151 3.3
Scrap Claws 149.6 2.9
Brute Claws 149.5 2.9
Scrap Fiery 149.3 3.1
Brute Warmace 148 3.7
Brute Dark 143.7 3.1
Brute Martial Arts 143.7 3.6
Scrap Strength 142.1 2.9
Scrap Dark 141.6 3.1
Scrap Martial Arts 141.5 3.6
Scrap Warmace 141 3.7
Brute Stone 137.5 3.5
Scrap Dual Blades 136.3 3.5
Brute Dual Blades 134.8 3.5
Scrap Stone 131.8 3.5
Brute Katana 131.2 3.2
Brute Battleaxe 129.3 3.2
Scrap Katana 128.6 3.2
Brute Strength 127.3 2.9
Brute Broadsword 124.9 3.1
Scrap Battleaxe 123.3 3.2
Scrap Broadsword 121.7 3.1
Brute Electric 106.6 2.9
Scrap Electric 103.6 2.9
Brute Spines 93.4 1.6
Scrap Spines 80.1 1.6

Takin from the scrapper form math doesn't lie.

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Who is claiming em does not do excellent single target damage?

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I can see why people dont like EM/ but on paper it looks good. Once i can change the pink look of it i start one ill just skip TF and i think can live with a 2.67 cast ET. And WH is bad for aoe but it is aoe in a ST set.

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Play EM on decent sized team and let us know what you think. Any set works when you play solo, when you're on a team competing against other sets, a sets flaws can become very painfully apparent. EM was never a good team set because its very single-target oriented, but when et was a quick hitting attack, you'd still get lots of kills because you'd hit targets after selecting them. Now, you select a target, and then while you're waiting for the attack to go through it's petrified animation, 2 or 3 of your teamates attack your target and kill it. But lucky for you, the animation completes, you hit the corpse, and still take ET's self damage. That sucks on paper and in game. Or you can use your other top-notch power, but that one takes even longer to animate, lol.

Interesting that several newer players noticed the problems despite clouded claiming it's only 'angry veterans' who dislike the set. I don't think the lack of play em has been getting since the nerfs is coincidence, it's just people using common sense.

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Well thats a great way to have a discussion, ignore the opposing argument and simply continue to repeat you are correct without providing any reasonable argument to support that conclusion, bravo, lol. Reminds me of a child covering their ears and repeating lalalalalala so they don't have to face reality.

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We've been down this alley before and I don't care what you think of EM because your viewpoint is obviously skewed due to ET's animation nerf.

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Once again, the single target damage is no better than several other sets, while it's aoe abilities are far behind the same sets that do similar single target damage, that makes it a bottom feeder.

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ST damage is not the worst and it's not the best. AoE damage is poor, probably at the bottom, if not the worst. Mitigation is good, the capability to stun bosses IS GOOD MITIGATION. Whirling hands might be a terrible power for damage, but stunning 2-3 minions each activation is good mitigation. The Damage Type is not heavily resisted so that gives EM a higher rating. If it were purely Smashing damage, then there would be more to discuss.

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And I'm not sure how you could consider single target stuns a 'good' form of damage mitigation in comparison to several sets that have dmg mitigation that affects entire groups of enemies and is far more reliable

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If you've played EM you'd be able to answer your own question. That's why I try to not respond to your constant attacks on EM. You don't want to like the set since you're still butthurt over the changes.

EM is not the best set and I'm not arguing from that viewpoint. You keep stating this set is a bottom-feeder, but you provide no evidence to support your claim. There have been tests done that show EM is above average for ST damage and I think it was performed by Billz with the help of various players.

AoE damage is poor, and that's the only point we agree on.

The stuns are good mitigation, and you always debate this point and I'm not sure why. If you've played the set, then you know anything less then a boss is stunned after 2-3 attacks and a boss scan be stunned with a couple more.

The damage type is what helps this set retain some of it's former glory. It's a mix of smashing/energy but with energy making up the majority of the damage and it being much less resisted; the set fairs much better against tougher opponents with higher resistances.

I shelved my EM/ELA Brute awhile ago because SS/WP and Fire/SR were much more fun and suitable to my playstyle. I blame /ELA more then I do EM/.

However, I have been playing a DA/EM Tank that does just fine for teams. WH + OG does a great job as active mitigation. Not to mention, stunning bosses is a common occurence due to the stacking stuns.

EM is a better solo set then for teams if the player is concerned about the max ub3r expezz/min. I'm not. I play to punch stuff in the face and EM sets that goal.

So there you go. The same tired arguement I've made time and time again. Next will be your same ole tired "bottom-feeder" response that discounts the ST damage, reminds me of the poor AoE damage (duh), discounts the stunning capability and then ignores the damage type. Gee, I can't wait.

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See, I knew you were reading my posts despite your claims to the contrary.

And it's time to stop trying to discount the argument that em is a bottom-end set by claiming it is only 'angry veterans' who are complaining about the nerfs it recently received. In the other thread you made this same claim in, 3 newbs chimed in and said they dislike the set for the same reasons I've been mentioning - lousy flow, slow animation and poor contribution in team environments.

And your continual argument that em is fine because its one of the top single target damage sets is completely broken, just like the set is, lol. I'm not sure why it's so hard to understand that if the set is on par with other sets regarding single target damage, but then is far behind those same sets regarding aoe abilities, then em is lagging behind those sets as a whole, which makes it a bottom feeder.

And again, single target mitigation is less valuable than aoe mitigation, and there is no arguing that em is a bottom feeder in this department as well. While an em is taking out one enemy with stuns (minions or bosses, whatever), a set like stone is taking out the entire group.

And finally, your admission that you are playing em on a tank speaks volumes. Tanks play pretty differently from brutes, and unless I'm mistaken, we are on the brute boards. EM is weaker after the nerfs for any at that uses it, but brutes where hit hardest because the at is meant to be a relentless, fast-paced killing machine, which is the opposite of what em has become after the nerfs - a glacially paced snore-fest that can only deal with one enemy at a time, which is less of a problem for single-target minded stalkers and tanks with taunt.

Willpower is much better leveling up, both in ease and in survivability. SR only becomes strong with slotting and once you start getting close to the softcap. Near the end game, sr is easier to make godly with IO's, and running around soft-capped to the 3 positionals will make you feel invincilbe for the most part. WP can match, and in some cases exceed that, but it takes a lot more IO slotting and a much tighter build. But once WP is softcapped to most things, you add it's insane regen, some resists, high HP, and a non-doom crash tier nine to softcapped goodness, and lots of endurance with QR and stamina.

So in summation:

Leveling up - WP
End game with avg slotting - SR
End game with extreme slotting - WP

All the attacks do different damage in pvp now werner, and the faster the animation, the lighter the damage - so he's actually very correct that in the new pvp, katana is pretty weak now (putting aside the fact that range is also critical in pvp, both new and old).

In the old pvp, and current pve, obviously katana can drop some wicked burst damage.

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No, I really didn't read what you wrote.


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Well thats a great way to have a discussion, ignore the opposing argument and simply continue to repeat you are correct without providing any reasonable argument to support that conclusion, bravo, lol. Reminds me of a child covering their ears and repeating lalalalalala so they don't have to face reality.

Once again, the single target damage is no better than several other sets, while it's aoe abilities are far behind the same sets that do similar single target damage, that makes it a bottom feeder. And I'm not sure how you could consider single target stuns a 'good' form of damage mitigation in comparison to several sets that have dmg mitigation that affects entire groups of enemies and is far more reliable, but then I can't understand how someone could argue without listening to those who hold a differing opinion...

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tl;dr

Energy Melee gives the player "good" ST damage, "good" mitigation in the form of stuns, "poor" AoE damage, and a "good" damage type (energy is not highly resisted).

Sorry to burst your EM-Hate Bubble, but it's not a bottom-feeder.

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Oh I think you read it, you just didn't have any answers or retorts to the facts I laid out for you so you covered your ears and repeated your little bubble bursting routine. What's the cool internet abbreviation for no argument;broken logic?

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brutes must play non stop. there is no waiting for people to res. no waiting for people to catch up. no waiting for fulcrum to recharge. no waiting for a fresh sb/fort/forge. no waiting.

not all brute secondaries can even play like that. MOST have serious end issues especially playing in a team like this. multiple brutes in a team means one has fury, the rest do not.

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FALSE. Brutes 'must' play 'non-stop'? No, brutes CAN play non-stop, build high fury, and out-damage scrappers AND out survive them AND out aggro manage them, which means they can outclass scrappers in everything. OR they CAN take their time, at which point they do less damage than scrappers, but still retain advantages in survivability and aggro management.

So in those two play-styles, the brute is better at everything in one, while trading dmg for survivability in the other. And as has been mentioned by other posters, the playstyle where brutes are universally superior is a playstyle shared by both at's and the majority of those who play them. If you still consider that parity, then I guess we'll just have to respectfully disagree.

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That's not exactly a fair evaluation. First of all, this presumes that the "benefits" being counted are always benefits, and they aren't always. For example, Brutes don't actually have "aggro manangement" they have aggro drawing ability. That's not always welcome to all players: in fact a big problem with low level tankers for many less-experienced players is Gauntlet-cide.

Second of all, this is a weirdly character-centric perspective when talking about playstyle. When a player plays with a particular playstyle, its not always a "choice" in the sense being discussed here. Its often just their playstyle, period. Its a false option to suggest that players that play Brutes always have the "option" to speed up and generate more damage, because that option may simply not exist for the player even if it exists for the character (Brute).

Mechanically speaking, the Brute is trading higher offense for lower survivability when going faster, on the presumption that going faster induces more incoming damage. Some players compensate through altered tactics and build strategies, but others can't or don't. For some players, the hurdle required to overcome to make this change is trivial, but for others its not. The archetype isn't balanced for expert players, but the playerbase as a whole where that trade is significant.

Reminder: the majority of this game's playerbase gains significant debt. They were not able to solo blasters or keep them consistently alive in teams prior to I11 (and who knows what the situation is now). They still use SOs. They can't always find the trainers.

The performance tradeoffs are designed for the average player. For players like us that are extremely build and playstyle-capable, the game doesn't (and couldn't really) offer "even" trades. Instead, it just tries to fence us in so we don't go too crazy off the map. If you think Brutes are better than Scrappers in virtually all cases for expert players, that's probably not seen as an especially important problem to resolve.


Incidentally, on the subject of Fury generation. My own personal experience from both conventional play and explicit testing is that in teams in high density single-level maps, its possible to generate and then consistently maintain high Fury, although I doubt the average player can do it consistently. Solo, especially in indoor multi-level maps, its essentially impossible except in bursts. The spawn density is simply too low while solo (on any difficulty level) for most maps to provide enough "fury-fuel" to do that, and any map with doors, elevators, and hallways is likely to provide too much travel distance to maintain high levels of fury spawn to spawn. The playstyle also requires significant attention paid to endurance efficiency in terms of both build and combat activity. Given that toggle-management is a curse word in this game in many circles, I doubt if a lot of players besides the very performance-minded would go through the trouble.

(The irony and the catch is that Fury is a form of ram-jet: high fury = higher endurance efficiency = higher activity rate = high fury. Fury does not have a linear learning curve: if you can't manage it well, you likely can't manage it at all.)

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To put it simply, you just said what I've been saying - there is a disparity, but it's not great. The better the player, the greater the disparity can be seen. As I've said, in the hands of a very poor player, perhaps the ats are pretty equally balanced, with brutes doing less damage but having higher survivability - but with even an ounce of ability, a player can leverage the brutes advantages to do equal or better damage than a scrapper while retaining higher survivability and use the at's aggro abilities to his or her advantage.

I understand that in theory the disparity does not appear to be great right now, and as such, it is very unlikely to be addressed, and that is fine. Though we'll have more actual game experience after going rogue, my experience from playing the at's, especially watching them compete in the rwz and cim, the gap is not huge by any means. But to claim the at's are on par is simply not true, imo.

(sorry for the necro-post, but i hadn't seen this post so i wanted to reply to it...)

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<ul type="square">[*]All three of the newest powersets have been made available to scrappers, and are great for them. Edit: Forgot Pain Domination. So of the four newest powersets, scrappers have gotten access to three.[*]Weapon customization benefits the scrapper probably as much if not moreso than anyone else.[*]The last time a new zone introduced featured something that was actually difficult for scrappers was I10.[*]Scrappers who were already leading the pack in power benefit much more from the IO system being able to push themselves to pylon-soloing.[/list]None of this was released to buff the scrapper, but the scrapper has been part of all the major upgrades to the game and has not found itself sitting on the outside by comparison. Certainly not compared to the dominator (Cimerora [censored] over doms, no 'new' powersets since launch, IOs let them catch up to the middle of the road, for example). About the 'worst' thing I can hear said about scrappers is they don't have a lot of variety in their epics, which isn't really in my mind a massively pressing concern.

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I don't see anything above that is scrapper specific attention. The opinion that scrappers received more benefits from recent IO sets in particular I disagree with. I guess you meant scrappers had like every AT been affected by recent additions to the game.

(Edited to be more clear, less aggressive.)

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Logic and pertinent points to support an argument are not his strong points, lol. In his mind melee should only be nerfed, and then nerfed again. I found it interesting how he pointed out that scrappers, the at that is supposed to be the strongest soloing at in the game, was able to beat pylons and such after IO's - when some support at's could solo some of the harder solo enemies WITHOUT them.

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Energy Melee gives the player "good" ST damage, "good" mitigation in the form of stuns, "poor" AoE damage, and a "good" damage type (energy is not highly resisted).

Sorry to burst your EM-Hate Bubble, but it's not a bottom-feeder.

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Sorry to burst your bubble bursting but you've bursted nothing...

You say em does good single target damage. True, but sets like SS, SM and DM doe similar damage, deliver it faster, and don't take any self damage from doing so. And if you're playing/teaming with others, you'll get a new 'frustration bar' that will be maxed out every session after your two glacially slow 'big hitters' are wasted on corpses that are killed by your teamates while you're waiting for the attack animations to animate.

The bottom feeding comes in when you start facing more than one enemy at a time, which happens what, 99% of the time? Even solo you're going to face at least 2 baddies at a time. Then those sets that do similar single target damage as EM, start to make EM look silly with far better multiple target attacks and aoe mitigation. And while em is mitigating one enemy's attacks with it's stacking stuns, sets like SS and SM are negating the entire mob.

EM's pitiful aoe abilities were ok before the et nerf because it was balanced by the fact that EM was the undisputed king of single target damage - nothing else was in the sets class. And even on teams, the quick et attack got the set reliable single target kills. After the ET nerf, the set is on par with several other sets for single target damage but remains in the basement aoe-wise, that's why there are so many complaints and that is why the set is a bottom feeder now. When they nerfed the sets single target damage, they needed to buff its aoe abilities - because if its going to be on par with other sets single target-wise, then logically it would need to be on par with these same sets aoe-wise to be balanced. At the moment, that is not the case - em is on par with some sets in single target goodness, while falling far behind these same sets in aoe ability. And that clearly is not balanced.

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Qunatify that last statement. Right now you're wrong but I want to see a better explanation as to why you're wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]What? I was making a comment about Cybernaut, who has demonstrated time and again that if it's not his pet melee class getting buffed it's not good enough, and it's okay for the things he likes to be overpowered.

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I've got level 50's in em, ss, dm, claws, ma, spines, dual blades, katana, broadsword and a lvl 35 fire melee. I'm working on a sm and elec toon now. I have no experience with ice melee, war mace and battle axe.

As you can see, I enjoy all of the melee powersets, so to claim I have a 'pet one' is ridiculous. And to imply I'm pushing for buffs to em to benefit me is even more ridiculous because I have no plans to play em anymore due to the fact I've played the set so much and the fact the set is now quite literally painful to play.

If I was pushing for set improvements based on selfish reasons, I'd be begging for buffs to SM or elec. I'm simply stating my opinion, based on facts that I've already stated, and with my experience with so many of the melee sets, that em is an underperforming set in the vast majority of situations players will face, and therefore needs reworking.

You claim the set is fine, and from what I can gather, based only on the argument that it does good single target damage and has stacking stuns. In my opinion that is a weak argument and completely ignores the fact it's pitiful in the aoe department, which is certainly more valuable as you face more foes, and exponentially so when teamed, which again, happens a lot in an mmo. And it ignores the fact that while em languishes far behind the other sets in these valuable categories, in the area it is supposed to shine in, it's equaled by several sets (that at the same time destroy em in aoe capabilites) and is even surpassed by some.

We can disagree and that's fine, but the idea that I'm only pointing out EM's underperformance because it's my 'pet set' is as flat out wrong and broken as the rest of your argument. And really, your argument is so odd that I'm left to question what your motivations are, or what type of actual game experience you have with the set if you actually believe it is performing on par with other melee sets.

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better than others in one category, while being inferior in almost all others, leaves the set as a bottom-feeder.

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Did you even re-read this sentence? High in one category and low in the other makes it MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.

lrn2average

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If one point is on the high end of the road, and all the other points are at the low end, it aint MIDDLE OF THE ROAD on average...

If you were being sarcastic, then well played.

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It's fine for some sets to be better at different things, but when one set is at or near the bottom of every category, that set is gimp.

[/ QUOTE ]'Good at soloing' is a category. 'Good at teaming' is a different one. Whine all you want about it, but it's not like you roll a brute thinking 'I will definitely be able to help friends with this.'

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Disagreeing with a talen lee argument isn't 'whining', from my experience, in most cases it's called 'being correct and logical'. But I can understand why you constantly attack the arguer rather than the argument when your arguments are so consistently weak.

Again, EM is really only good/superior at one thing, single target damage, and even in that category, it delivers the damage extremely slowly, which hurts it badly when playing with other players (which tends to happen a lot in mmos...), while it's best attack damages the user, and there are several other sets that do similar single target damage, that deliver it faster, don't do damage to the user, AND wipe the floor with EM in pretty much every other category. That is why so many people argue that EM is gimp now. Your argument is that EM is fine because its one of the better single target dmg dealers while completely ignoring all of it's other failings, and somehow failing to see that being equal to some, better than others in one category, while being inferior in almost all others, leaves the set as a bottom-feeder.

Listen to umbral.

WP works great with kat because it doesn't cause redraw which can be a pain with kat, and kat helps wp with DA in softcapping melee/lethal while wp can softcap everything else with good IO slotting. Use the fighting pool to help with that softcapping, and with tough you'll have pretty good lethal resists as well. WP's quick recovery makes leveling up a lot easier, and easier to grab powers early on when other builds are trying to fit in swift/hurdle, health and stamina, and WP offers up a tier 9 that doesn't have a doom crash. Fully io'd up, regen takes care of most of your healing needs, so no need to click heals and waste time redrawing the katana.

Don't get me wrong, katana will work with any secondary, it just fits best with WP, imo.

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What I'd do with Rage:

Nerf the ToHit down to 5% + 20% Accuracy (both enhance with ToHit slotting).

Give a reduced, but unenhanceable recharge (perma but non-stacking).

Nerf the damage to somewhere between 65% and 75%

Remove the crash so it has 100% uptime.

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So...umm you'd just add 65-75% bonus damage to SS outright and scrap rage. Oh and give the set a free accuracy and tohit bonus on all of it's powers plus add a permanent damage boost to any damage abilities and taunt aura's in the secondary and any ancillary powers with no downside at all. Basically it'd be taking SS would equal gaining a huge damage buff without taking any powers at all. With no downside at all.

That's so so not happening.

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SS WITH rage does similar damage overall to sets like SM, and SM doesn't have to waste a power and slots on rage. So with dem's suggested change, SS would basically be using a power and enh slots to get a global acc/to-hit buff. The damage buff would only ensure that SS was doing the same damage as competing sets like SM. And with the changes, the acc/to-hit wouldn't be nearly as good as the current 20% to hit bonus, which would justify removing the crash all together.

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When you're playing the game on a team, not so much.

[/ QUOTE ]Some powersets are good at some things, and less good at others.

How much more simple can we make this?

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I fully understand your opinion, I simply disagree with it.

It's fine for some sets to be better at different things, but when one set is at or near the bottom of every category, that set is gimp. EM has nice single target burst/sustained dmg, but it's on par with several other sets, while being at or near the bottom of any other measuring category you could think of. I think EM is a bottom-feeder set now because it's bottom-end in aoe damage, dmg mitigation, teaming play, attack speed, set flow, and the fact that even it's strong point, burst damage, is muted by the fact it takes forever and a day to deliver it. That is why many of us think EM is gimp - if you disagree, fine, but keep in mind that is your opinion, and that's about as simple as I can make it for you.