DrGamma

Does that count for Task Force Commander?

Glad it helped, then, and I hope you enjoy your choice! Do tell us if you do or don't, and beware of the squishiness of the low levels!

About DM... I forgot to mention earlier that, while it IS rarely resisted, some mobs do resist it A LOT. The most annoying that comes to mind are Banished Pantheon zombies, that have 50% resist to it (it's a pain) - but at least they're only minions. CoT spectral demons (including the annoying lt.) have 30%, but that never bugged me that much (they resist smash/lethal even worse). I don't think either is involved in any badges though (you only need to assassinate Spirit Masks for Banisher...)

And the reason I mentioned AoE was because of those boring badges like... the thousand rikti monkey ones and all those 333 croatoan critter badges come to mind. But I got some of those with my ST guys, often without actually trying for it (apparently, I have a deep subconscious hatred of redcaps, I always end up slaughtering hordes of them), so it shouldn't be too bad.

About the scrappers... I've played a lot with Claws and Spines (both are great and bring lots of AoE and even range, which almost feels unfair in a scrapper, but they can be slooow against robots), DM (great ST exotic damage and a small but constant heal) and FM (no mitigation but nice damage). I've also helped with and watched my brother's MA scrapper and was VERY impressed with it. Crazy ST damage, mitigation in the form of stuns that quickly stack to neuter a boss (he skipped the big KB though), a single AoE that isn't bad damage (and can later be complimented by something like epic fireball) and is great mitigation with KD.

Not sure about Regen though... My Claws/Regen hit 50 without any headaches, all right, but she was probably my melee character that died the most on the way there, when I wasn't quick enough with strategic use of her KD/KB powers and regen clicks. Willpower also has extra endurance and is much more survivable (at least if you're not at the top of your game, or if there's network or server lag), to the point it might feel TOO easy. SR has no extra end, but is very survivable as well, easy to softcap even with minimal investment and has that tasty +rech/+speed (it's also much less tight a build now, with inherent fitness). Pairing that with DM for the heal (the to hit debuff is overkill in this case, but helps in the lower levels) is great, too. Elec has end stuff AND +rech/+speed, but can feel squishier without much investment... Fire is squishier but does insane damage nowadays and also comes with a handy (no longer crappy) end recovery tool. I like the other armors too, but they do tend to hog end...

Stalkers are indeed great at stealthing and assasinating bosses, and nin is one of the best armors for them (plus it's fun: unique and full of utility). DM adds survivability and does mad ST damage, most of it NE and some smashing (MA theoretically does more damage, but it's all smashing, so I get the feeling DM ends up ahead - midnight grasp alone is a beauty, a critical from it almost feels like a much quicker and only slightly less powerful AS, especially right after an AS and placate, poor bosses). DM and MA suck at AoE damage though. Apparently, an Elec stalker does ok ST damage (thanks to AS) and very good AoE, and it's energy... Because of the Stalker's burst damage style, you don't feel the end going away as much, unless you start to scrap a lot.

Blasters are pretty easy to softcap to ranged nowadays if you go for IOs and it's not even expensive (not like, say, a Permadom or other mad recharge builds). That makes them really tough and you can go for the no mitigation, crazy ST and AoE fire damage. If you don't want IO sets though, Energy/ Blasters do a ton of mitigation with KB, are fast and have a nice mix of ST and AoE, and Ice/ comes with decent control. Pair that with hover and something like /Mental or /devices (which is not bad at all solo) or maybe /ice, avoid too much melee and you really shouldn't die much. Purples are your friends against EBs, but I never really had to use them against bosses with my blasters (even mezing bosses, after the change that let me keep hovering and the new defiance letting me attack and knock them on their behinds even while I was mezed).

Doms (especially Perma) look real good to me, too, but I don't have much experience with them, sadly. And my VEAT is great, but being a Crab, she's more of an AoE death machine (and very team/pet friendly) than a ST specialist for taking down bosses fast. Widows and Banes, aside from their great team buffs, won't really pull ahead of scrappers or stalkers solo... Fortunatas I got no idea, honestly, they look dominator-ish to me, but that's it.

As for Tankers doing low damage... That depends. If I decide to use both BU and FE, my Fire/Fire can take a boss down about as fast as any of my scrappers or stalkers (actually faster against certain enemies). Using only one of those, he's only a bit slower, but he ALSO does very good AoE damage (New Burn is a thing of beauty). Things melt FAST and he feels pretty tough - and when he doesn't, he has a great self-heal, and even a self-rez (that I don't think I have ever used yet). Shields/ and /DM have good tools to increase a tanker's damage, as does /SS if you don't hate the crash like I do (despite having the vet attacks to use during it).

And Ill/Rads don't kill that slowly (guess it depends on what you call slow), with PA and Phantasm beating on a poor guy debuffed to the gills, plus containment for your attacks (which are not so puny once you get to the epic pools). Fire Control and Kinetics are other decent sources of damage for controllers... That said, I don't think I'd pick a controller for a badger unless I really loved them, and since you said you get bored with MMs, you probably won't love controllers all that much...

Fly is indeed nice for badging, but jet packs are so plentiful and cheap nowadays that if you'd rather have another travel power, you can still easily reach any of the badges hiding high up there. Brutes are indeed dependant on Fury (without it they do less damage than tanks), and on being attacked by a bunch of things to get it, not just attacking like a... brute. It's a bit easier to get decent fury nowadays and it goes down slower, but it's harder than before to get and keep the fury bar full. SS/ shines on Brutes with the high damage cap and reduces the need for fury a bit (but it still has the annoying crash). Willpower is, indeed, Willpower. (The only thing it's not great at is keeping aggro, or single really hard hitters with certain types of damage, I guess).

So... Huge post and I didn't really help you pick anything... But I guess the lesson here is you can pretty much pick something you like and that feels fun and there are powersets and builds in every AT that can make your badging easier. Maybe there is a difference in performance between a softcapped hovering Fire, Ice or Energy blaster, a Fire or DM/WP or Regen Scrapper, a /Fire Tanker or a /Nin stalker, but I doubt they're significant enough to make that much of a difference, even when you're hunting hundreds of specific things. The Stalker's stealth is an advantage in this case I guess (and I -love- how they play, even if they are squishy early on), but it's easily mimicked with a +Stealth IO and some other stealth power (like Super Speed, Cloaking Device or good ole Stealth)... As Chad said, go with what you will want to play.

Anyway... I hope this helps more than it confuses... Gah. Must be less verbose.

Thanks! I kept oscillating between:

"It looks random enough at a glance, I probably just notice some of my misses and failures a lot more strongly then I do all the rest..."

and

"It sucks, damn it!" (Usually after one of those failures at a critical moment... at least they don't use the RNG for crafting, aside from combining TOs/DOs/SOs, or the hate would be unbearable).

And I've been trying to convince myself to be less lazy and test it for years... Now you've spared me the need to, and put an end to this angsty battle between mild curiosity and extreme lazyness!

Oh, and despite the short quote, I did read the entire post. Quite interesting.

And along came a spider and broke the rule with SoA. Of course, perhaps this exception (and a few others I'm sure we can think of) are just the ones that prove the rule.

Sorry to go off-topic but... I didn't see you post about this one test! What was the conclusion? Does it really suck as much as it seems to?

Off-topic, but I loved that back story.

Damn, I wonder how I totally missed that. Not just above, when I was looking it over to decide whether I should grab it or not, too. Duh. Now I'm MORE tempted to trade Omega Maneuver for AB... I just find OM so much fun... Meh.

Yeah, you could do that. I was specifically answering to the "Grab gun or patron AoE INSTEAD of the crab AoEs" thing someone had said before, but you can always grab them all. I find that having that much AoE, though, doesn't really help me that much unless I'm fighting +4 enemies (which I don't like to do solo, and in groups I have more people to help with the AoE carnage). +1, +2 and +3 minions are dying pretty fast with just 3 or 4 AoEs (plus stacked assault and some damage bonuses) and pets and single target attacks take care of anything tougher much more efficiently. So I prefered to grab less AoE attacks (that frees lots of slots, too) and go for being tougher and having double assault and maneuvers.

As mentioned several times before in this thread, crabs can stack them too, and often do.

Those are cool advantages indeed. Plus stealth and crits, too.

Crabs can get those same three pets, which are hard to make perma, plus the three cool spiderlings, which are easily perma-ed, for a total of 6 pets.

I was a little surprised by this (not the faster animations, I do know how painful it is with supression) and went to check it out.

Venom Grenade animation is exactly the same for the gun and crab versions: 1.67s. In this case, it's better to pick the crab version, since the gun might cause redraw, unless you do grab a bunch of other gun attacks.

Bile Spray is, of course, a winner, but more because of the -40% toxic resist in VG than because of its (also long) animation time of 2.67s. I didn't check the AoEs in other patron pools because I doubt they'll make up for the toxic thing.

Regarding Arctic Breath versus Supression though, to me Supression seems to come out on top. While its animation is indeed slower (3s versus 2.67s for AB - not considering Arcana Time), it does a bit more damage, so the DPA is nearly identical: 20.67 for Supression, 20.97 for AB, unenhanced at level 50. That .3 difference in DPA, though, is more than made up by Supression's arc of 60 degrees, which is twice as wide as AB's 30 degrees. I also think Supression looks much cooler, but that's besides the point.

Heavy Burst is faster (unless it comes with redraw) and actually has considerably better DPA than Supression: 2.67s activation and 22.85 DPA, about 10% better than Supression. It's all Lethal Damage though, very resisted, so I -still- prefer Supression's energy damage most of the time. HB's arc is also half of supression's, only 30 degrees.

Frag Grenade has the best DPA by far, with 1.67s activation and 38.92 DPA, it's pretty impressive compared to the others. Even factoring redraw and damage type in, it would still come out far ahead. It mixes in some smashing damage, too, which is not as badly resisted as lethal. It has KB, but WAWG counters that. It's 10 feet radius - half of VG's and as small as WAWG - is a little disappointing. I seem to always hit more targets with my arcs. But I'll agree passing up Frag Grenade is a debatable choice.

So, the only clear winners in the Crab AoE choices are Bile Spray (with VG) and Frag Grenade (even with the small radius and KB). Supression is better than Arctic Breath (nearly identical damage, twice the arc) and trades 10% DPA for a less resisted damage type, twice the arc and no redraw when compared to Heavy Burst.

I didn't mention Omega Maneuver because, while I love it to bits, I think it's more of a fun factor thing... Right now my AoE chain is VG->BS->Supression and I should probably drop OM and grab FG for even more AoE carnage, but I like OM and feel the AoE is fine as it is.

One wonders if the next step to FORCE players to do things in a specific way is either removing the lava from the room or giving that incarnate runt crazy KB resist...

Sent. Sorry it took me a while. Work... and then I forgot about this for a few hours. Duh.