EricHough

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Your free space on your drives is rather low. Windows and CoH are both installed on the C: drive and you have a mere 22% free space available for them to use.

That's .... really pushing things in my opinion.

Your RAID drive has even less free space, so there's no moving stuff to that drive to free up space.

I'd burn some things off to CD or DVD if possible to free up space on the C: drive and see if that has any effect at all on how the game runs.

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You are looking at the %free and not paying attention to the actual free space - I have 35 GB of freespace on C: and 41 GB of freespace on D:. Thats not a lot out of the total (nearly 1 terabyte) but its a lot more space then most apps need. I do have stuff I can delete, especially on C:, but I doubt those are causing problems.

At this point I am fairly sure it is either my heat sink not working correctly or my video card overheating/malfunctioning as I am seeing the freeze almost as soon as I boot up the sytem and I just got a bluescreen in the video driver. Fortunately I have spare parts to play around with so I don't have to buy a new video card just to find out that wasn't broken.

Thanks for the advice folks, hopefully this won't be to ugly to fix.

It looks like its a heat problem - my cpu is spiking up to 55C and above. It looks like it was just that CoH was the only thing I run that stresses the system enough to push up the temp.

Now I have to play around with heat sinks/fans and figure out why I am suddenly heat spiking when I wasn't before.

I did install the updated drivers you suggested and they seem to work fine.

I have been seeing a persistent processor loop resulting in a Video/input/GUI hang while playing the game since this morning's update. In two cases I was in a mission in the middle of a fight, in the third case I was actually zoning into orobourous, all with the same character. I made a 4th attempt with a different character but I didn't even get into the game - hit the loop/hang right at the character selection screen. In each case the video screen appears to freeze up and gets diagonal lines through it, my mouse either quits responding or responds very slowly as does the keyboard and the sound goes out to lunch. My computer hasn't hung - I can access files on it over the network and it slowly responds to input - a CTR+ALT+DEL will bring up the windows security dialog eventually but input is extremely lagged and processor time is pegged at 100%. I can sometimes slowly patiently bring up the task manager and kill the city of heroes process which returns control to me and leaves the system working.

I was working just fine yesterday and I was working ok this most of this morning as well but currently the freeze occurs within minutes of starting up and logging on every time. I ran a virus scan just to be safe and it didn't find anything and other than the CoH update I haven't added anything to the system since yesterday. Unfortantely I get no errors in the system or application log. Would appreciate any suggestions although it looks like it is totally CoH doing this to me. I will try on a different machine to see if I have the same problems although both of my game machines use pretty much the same video card (different manufacturers, same chipset - geforce 8800 gts). Any suggestions would be appreciated as I pretty much can't play on my primary machine right now.

Here is my system information:

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.7---

DxDiag gathered at July 15, 2009 16:18 (-07:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6850 @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 3326MB
.Net Memory Report: 2705MB out of 3326MB available
Page File: 4697MB (511MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD1600AAJS-08PSA0) 34798MB out of 152624MB (22%) free
D Drive: (NVIDIA RAID5 931.52G) 41075MB out of 953874MB (4%) free
E Drive: (TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203N) zero-size drive
F Drive: (WR4549S LLL969L SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.5512 (32-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 8800 GTS
Video Memory: 640.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0011.6921
Driver Date: 12/5/2007 2:41:00 AM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: SoundMAX HD Audio
Driver File: ADIHdAud.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0001.6110
Driver Date: 1/15/2007 6:09:06 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: StrikerExtreme
Motherboard Version: 1.XX
BIOS Manufacturer: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Name: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: Nvidia - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20070822000000.000000+000

Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1920x1200
3D Resolution: 1920x1200 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes

Physics Quality: High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No

Anti-aliasing: 4x
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: High Quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: High

World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 2.000
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Gamma Correction: 0.855
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of Extra Player FX Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.797
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 1.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 331527 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 19.20090702.4T
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
. has 1 file
.\texts\English\Menus has 6 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 34 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files

Fire, Psi, ice and thorns would all work fine as secondaries for plant. They all have the standard AE (1 cone, 1 PBAE) and they all have decent utility powers and other attacks. Thorns actually gets more AE with ripper as a second cone, despite being melee and even thorntrops will add to AE damage, just not much.

You COULD go with electric assault but thunderstrike's AE got gutted in the update so all you have there is a cone. Energy only has the PBAE and while the set overall does some nice damage it synergizes best with single target focused control sets.

Ultimately plant has such good control and built in AE damage between the damage the confused mobs cause to each other and the fact that its AE immobilize does twice the damage of all the other AE immob's that you could use any secondary with it and do well. So find a concept you like and run with it is my suggestion.

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What about /Icy? Doesn't that have good AoE between Ice Breath and Ice Sword Circle? I've been thinking about making a plant/icy but am too undecided Are psi, fire, and thorns that much better at AoE? This is for my first dom, so I want something with lots of fun and/or synergy

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Ice would probably work ok but fire AE's do slightly better damage (Fire breath does 92 vs frost breath's 73, combustion and ISC are about equal) plus it has fiery embrace which is probably the best damage boost power dom's get - 85% boost to fire damage for 30 seconds. Psi assaults AE are about the same as ice but PSW has a much faster activation time then the other PBAE powers and drain psyche is a really nice heal+end rec tool.

Balancing this ice has a lot of slow, which is a nice secondary effect, and power boost isn't a bad utility power, especially for dominators, I just think it isn't as useful for plant since seeds is such a nice control power without any boost.

Looking over my post I realize I addressed two separate points I thought about when reading this thread, not just the one to which I replied.

My point about large spawn control is that with a primary/secondary combo that is mostly single target control and single target damage you need to play on difficulty 1,3 or 5 so you can focus your control and damage on a smaller number of targets.

My second point came about in response to some earlier comments Sam made about not playing above L2 because he didn't like facing higher than +1 opponents due to accuracy. If you frankenslot your powers as I mentioned you can get a lot more accuracy easily than if you stick to SO or generic IO's, which removes the barrier to playing at L3 or higher.

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I honestly can't imagine how it's even possible to keep a spawn of, say, five minions and one lieutenant (I seem to see a LOT of these for some reason) permanently incapacitated such that they cannot respond. Perhaps a fast-recharging confuse power could be able to do that, paying off for itself with marginal loss of experience, but beyond that? Gravity aside, how would, say, Earth control perma-lock an entire spawn of range-preference enemies such that they cannot fight back, and in such a way that it's sustainable past, say, 30 seconds or so?

Maybe Gravity is at fault, I don't know, but I simply cannot even conceive of the notion of controlling all enemies all of the time, if for no other reason than because a succession of developers have pronounced that as broken and based the I5 controller cutbacks on just this argument. I can see this doable occasionally, between Domination and perhaps a slotted-up AoE hold (and even then it's short-duration), but all the time not taking a hit? How does that even work?

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I think part of the problem is the combo of grav/energy (If I remember correctly that's what you said you where playing) and your difficulty level. Level 2 difficulty results in the following standard groups depending on the RNG:

Even level groups: 1 LT + 5 minsions OR 2 LT + 1 minion
Level+1 groups: 1 LT + 1 Minion OR 3 Minions

The problem with your combo is that you have limited AE control and pretty much only single target damage - so you can't kill the 6 person groups fast enough before your AE control runs out. Gravity is further limited in that it trades that extra control for damage powers that have limited soft control - the KB/KU is nice but with the ragdoll phsyics KB juggling is very hard. I would never play grav/energy on difficulty 2 or 4 until I at least have an AE control up every spawn and probably not until I have my pet. I would play on difficulty level 1 or 3 so that you never got a group bigger than 3 mobs - which you SHOULD be able to handle with a combo of gravity distortion, lift+power push and crush (for those lt's/minions that don't have huge ranged attacks) and killing fast with hard hitting single target attacks.

Almost every other control set has more AE control by the mid 20's or has a TON of single target control (like mind). Even with fire, which tends to be control lite due to hotfeet, you can alternate flashfire/bonfire for a combo of hard/soft control and hotfeet itself has an avoid + slow which gives it some soft control. Plus hotfeet pushes up your AE damage where gravity trades it's control for single target damage.

As an example - my plant/fire dom is currently L26 and runs at difficulty level 2 quite easily. Seeds of confusion is up generally 2 out of 3 spawns (depending on how long it takes to kill them) and now that I have carrion creepers things will get even easier. With the decent AE damage in fire even without seeds or CC I can frequently immobilize small groups and kill them before they do to much damage to me.

I know you aren't into IO sets, which is fine, putting entire sets together can be a pain in the posterior. However you should really consider frankenslotting IO's for enhancement benefit. You nearly double the amount of enhancement bonus you can get with 4-5 slots and get a fairly decent increase with even 2-3 slots. Plus it is cheap and easy, especially for dominators because the common control sets drop frequently and are in low demand so they are always available and cheap. As an example, with 3 slots in gravity distortion if you slot 2 L30 Acc/Rech/Hold IO's and 1 L30 Acc/REch IO from any set that will give you 56% acc, 56% rech and 34% hold enhancements. Compare that to the 34%-38% enhancement to each you would get from slotting an single Acc, Recharge and HOld SO or L30 IO's. Add a fourth slot and you can get even more benefits. Current market price, redside, for the set IO's I mentioned above are:


Acc/Hold/rech: Essence of curare (1k-5k each, 3 for sale), paralytic (1k-5k each, 12 for sale)
Acc/Rech: Essence of curare (1k each, 6 for sale), paralytic (1 inf to 5k inf, 11 for sale)

The triples of the other sets tend to be more expensive - some of them actually cost enough they are a serious investment but most of the double IO's are dirt cheap except for basilisks gaze. Immobilze sets are ALL dirt cheap and many stun sets can be cheap (there are some good bonuses in at least a couple of stun sets so they are sometimes in middling demand).

Damage set IO's are a little more expensive but even then you can probably pick up each individual IO for 20k-50k and do it all in one shopping session if you are willing to pick up things at odd levels. Anything from L25-L35 will give you decent results vs SO's or generic IO's when frankenslotted. It gets harder if you insist on getting IO's with a level that is a multiple of 5 - for some reason this is where everyone bids, so the Level 25,30 and 35 IO's can be going for 50k-100k where the L27 or L31 version is going for 25k.

The only real timesink when frankenslotting is gathering the salvage (which will probably cost you more than the recipe's did). If you have done any AE missions and have a reasonable amount of tickets you can get a lot of the salvage you wil need that way - even with random rolls for commons it isn't that hard and L26-40 common salvage (which most recipes you want will use) sells for a LOT on the market - so may even show a profit this way.

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The tier 1's still aren't worth slotting

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Absolute bunk. Slot and use your tier 1 blast. Anyone who says it's not worth using has poor math skills.

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Actually, my math skills are fine. :P It's just that I have better dps chains on my characters.

Feel free to see some calcs at the end of the page on
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....ue#Post13706803
for /energy

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The reason you slot up the tier 1 is so you can use it as a useful filler attack on things with low HP. Without slots, you end up wasting a lot of end if you come against a low HP mob.

It's not always about the DPA. Your overall DPS gets cut short if you run out of end, and that's why you slot up Power Bolt: less overkill.

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Also, unlike energy assault, not every set has 4 single target attacks you can take by L10 either so if they HAD left all the tier 1 attacks as slower, higher damage attacks at low levels you have would either live with a gappy attack chain made up of slow, high damage attacks (with subsequent overkill and huge end costs when you miss ) or fill it up with area attacks that cost even MORE end. Not everyone spends all thier time at 40+ (heck - some of us rarely even make it past 30 with most characters).

Back during the beta I definitely thought that castle could have kept power bolt at the 5 or 6 second recharge value and the set would have worked out ok but that was due to the changes to power push. However the 5-6 second recharge times they put on the tier 1 attacks for psychic assault and thorny assault felt really ugly at low levels. I do agree that he cut them back too far - charged bolts/lightning bolt in electric assault has always felt about right and I think that 4/8 second ranged attacks for most sets would have worked out as a nice balance.

If you only have one, put it in your soldiers. With 3 of them you will get the most effect out of it as ALL of their attacks will have a chance of firing off the proc. With the spec ops and commando you only have 2 or 1 of each pet and not all of their attacks will check the proc.

Definitely blaster for soloing - while a defender may be soloable even the best defender is going to be extremely painfull until you get some stamina and some decent end reduction slotting as it takes a defender a lot more end to do damage even approaching that of a blaster - either they have to attack a lot more often, spending more end to deal out the same amount of damage or they have to spend end on debuff/buff powers to push up thier damage potential. Where a blaster does higher damage out of the box AND can maintain about a 20%-30% boost on top of that with defiance making the pretty much the most end efficient archetype blue side (masterminds win that award redside). If you are grouping a lot the damage multiplication effect of defender buffs more than makes up for thier end in-efficiency but solo you don't get the same benefit.

Now if your playstyle and concept calls for a defender then go for it - everyone has a different feel for pace and speed of play in this game but if you are trying to decide between the two and plan on soloing most of the time I suspect you will enjoy a blaster a lot more.

EDIT: Spelling errors

I have found that mind/anything and plant/anything make good solo dominators. The first for the plethora of long lasting single target controls and the second because of seeds of confusion. I suspect that anything/energy will solo ok now as well with the improvements to that set, although energy plays a lot more like a blaster/blapper.

Most of my soloing so far has been at lower levels (pre 30) and obviously with many of the primaries when you get your pets things will change, however I have never been a huge fan of the 'suck till level 3x, then be awesome' school of thought so I tend to prefer sets whose performance is spread out evenly. Admittedly in many cases its more 'not as hot until 32, then rocks' instead of sucks till 32.

One suggestion I can throw out for gravity/energy is foe juggling - keeping them in the air or on their back as much as possible with lift+power push can provide a considerable amount of mitigation. Don't try to use propel for this - the activation time will get you killed and power push is far better in every way.

This is still of limited help with strong ranged enemies as the rag doll physics make it difficult to properly chain KB/KU - if you hit them to soon after you knocked them back nothing will happen (or they lift up in the air and land back on their feet) and if you hit them a second to late they have already queued up an attack and fire if even if flying back.

I also tried a grav/energy with the i15 changes as it seemed a combo that might work with the upgraded damage. I got to L12 and finally gave up - just to much incoming damage that I couldn't handle with immobilizes and I didn't see any respite coming until L26. Now, the dimension shift trick DOES sound good and I may try it again but I rerolled the last attempt as a mind/energy instead.

If you aren't tied to specific concept or are willing to try a different character you might want to give mind/energy a try. Mind has all the single target control you could EVER want at low levels and fairly fast recharging area controls - the trick here is that most of the controls aren't as well suited to grouping but if you solo they are great. Mesmerize is a low cost, single target sleep that lasts forever and will even get bosses as its mag 3.5, Confuse lasts nearly as long and will also get many bosses as very few things are confuse resistant and you get the usual single target hold (Dominate). Early on you get a fast recharging AE sleep in mass hypnosis (45 second recharge) and later you add in an AE fear that also recharges in 45 seconds with terrify. The only potential drawback to mind is that you get mass confusion instead of a pet. Note that this is only a drawback if you are intent on having a pet - mass confusion itself is an awesome power and with sufficient recharge alternates nicely with the AE hold for full spawn lockdown.

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I have found that, provided you where in BG mode previously, this command will pull you out of BG mode while they attack the your target but once it dies you will snap right back into BG mode.

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I find it takes slightly more than just the target dying before they auto-revert to bodyguard (well, unless the target was the only enemy present). I'm not 100% sure on the specifics, but it seems they'll only go back to bodyguard by themselves if all aggro has gone, both aggro from your enemies and your pets.

i.e. you approach a spawn of 4 enemies, you are on defensive follow, you give an attack order on enemy 1 and the entire spawn gets aggroed. Enemy 1 dies, but 2-4 are still alive: your pets remain in "attack my target" stance even though they no longer have a player-issued target (they just defaulting to their usual AI targeting) and bodyguard remains broken. Only once 2-4 are dead, or you manage to break combat, do they go back to bodyguard by themselves.

If on the other hand you'd managed to pull enemy 1 on his own and 2-4 stayed unaggroed, the pets will revert to bodyguard as soon as he dies

You get a visual indicator of all this if you have your pet window in "advanced" mode - the commands icon will stay as the attack my target crosshair even after the target dies, and reverts to the follow arrow once the above conditions are met (I've tested and it's not just a visual bug, bodyguard really isn't in effect until that follow arrow returns).

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Darn - I thought I had found a quick and easy way to swtich in and out. I suspect I never noticed it wasn't working because I usually don't switch to 'attack' mode until the mobs have mostly moved aggro off of me and onto the pets.

You can still force BG mode with defensive follow but it has that annoying delay where they won't react to incoming fire. I wonder if doing a defensive stay or defnesive goto command has the delay - will have to test it out.

I use the following commands to get into bodyguard mode and then stay there:

petcomall follow defensive

This puts your pets into follow and BG mode, I then try to pull fire to myself initially using whatever debuffs/attacks/control are available so I can stay in BG mode and still have the pets attack. However, at some point though you will need to direct your pets to concentrate fire on a specific target - I like to use the following for that:

petcomall attack defensive

I have found that, provided you where in BG mode previously, this command will pull you out of BG mode while they attack the your target but once it dies you will snap right back into BG mode. You can also force your pets into BG mode by re-issueing the defensive follow command - however there is like a 10 second delay after you issue a follow before pets will actually return fire so I dislike using a follow command unless absolutely necessary (like to pull back a bunch of zerging pets who have run forward or are following a runner)

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Well, I leveled my Dom to 22, and have tested all the powers except Terrify and Mass Confusion. I'm pretty set on the second build I posted, only with some powers moved around and Mass Hypnosis traded in for Hasten.

Unless someone can provide me a good reason to keep Mass Hyp, that is

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Well, the primary purpose I find for mass hypnosis it to quickly lock down a group. Either because you came around a corner in a mission and found yourself facing a bunch of mobs who suddenly aggro on you - or if you need to prevent an alpha that could be ugly. Since the lock down is a sleep this is clearly of the most benefit when solo as a team is likely to blow the sleep the second you establish it.

So, if you mostly team and find that you have enough emergency powers without it you can probably drop it. If you solo a reasonable amount it is a nice way to make sure certain groups (tsoo yellow inkmen for instance) don't get a chance to attack you before you can completely lock them down.

Even solo with a dominator I find it a lot more situational then I do with mind controllers as you don't need the sleep for containment and mesmerize + dominate + confuse is a lot of control, especially when combined with power push and/or levitate, both of which give you very good soft control.

So I guess on a dom who doesn't solo most of the time I probably wouldn't recommend it.

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How do you deal with being exemped to low levels then? If you only take enough attacks for a late game attack chain of 3 or 4 attacks, several which are somewhat late in the primary then doing flashback missions or exemping to help friends can be very painful.

I don't use it often in my attack chain anymore, but when exemped I'm glad to have swipe, strike and slash. Spin I may end up dropping again, but it's handy for large battles. it's also a good place for the second multi-strike set. Evicirate I'm not sure about keeping, but again it's a good place for multi-strike to get more +def. I'm actually considering dropping Follow Up again though. I keep forgetting it's there, so rarely use it.

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I hardly ever exemplar down so I don't have to worry about it, being mostly a soloer. Since exemplaring down is going to screw up your set bonuses and other things like that I think if I seriously expected to spend any time exemped down I would create an alternate build specifically for that - one that has a good attack chain at lower levels and doesn't waste a lot of space trying to softcap but instead just gets the best defenses possible. Actually, looking at the enhancement bonuses in the build you posted I can't imagine exemping down with it - the scaled down bonuses are going to kill your accuracy if you go below L30 or so (the 22% accuracy in strike and swipe are going to be 10%-15% depening on how far down you go).

As for follow up - dropping it is going to butcher your DPS. Most of the good single target DPS attack chains folks have come up with for claws rely on stacking follow up 2-3 times as a way to balance not having the burst damage other sets get with build up. I think my claws/wp scrappers single target chain is FU > focus > slash > strike <short pause>, with the occaisonal spin thrown in at the beginning or end to fill up the pause if I have more than one target around. I generally have follow up double stacked for at least part of the attack cycle (recharge is curently at about 6.2 seconds so I get 3 seconds of double stack by the second time around).

One thing to keep in mind in all of this - asking for advice on the scrapper forums is going to result in advice on how to build high DPS, maxed out builds that are intended for really high performance, as in soloing AV performance. You don't NEED that in most of the PvE game, especially if you never play with your difficulty set higher than level 1-2, which is what I would guess is your normal play level based on your comments about only needing enough accuracy to hit +1 opponents. THe build I posted regularily soloes at level 3 and would run at level 4 but I wanted to get shadow maul slotted up so I can actually kill fast enough to make it worth it. She could probably solo at level 5 but I have been lazy lately.

So how you build will really depend on what you want. If you want a generalist build that is probably not going to spend much time playing at high difficulty settings AND functions well while exemped the one you posted will likely work (except for the enhancement scaling issue - you really need more than 20% accuracy). If you want a higher def/higher DPS build I would suggest taking advantage of the dual build feature so you can optimize one build for high level use the other for exemping down if you expect to do that a lot.

If you don't want a travel power don't take it, I see no problem with that - however you are taking and slotting up WAY to many attacks. If you have enough attacks to fill up constant attack chain getting more attacks doesn't help and it can actually hurt - as you have to spread your slots out. With reasonable recharge (especially on an SR scrapper with quickness) you should be able to get a good attack chain out of follow up + focus + slash + (strike or swipe) - exactly which of the last two you take is personal choice as both do about the same DPS.

However, one good reason for taking movement powers is that its a LOT easier, slot wise, to cap ranged def with blessing of the zephyr set - 2 of those will get you 3.13% ranged def and the only one of the set that is really expensive is the -KB IO (and that is REALLY expensive but if you can get your hands on one worth slotting as well since it will give you AoE def which is hard to get otherwise).

Seriously - you don't actually need to slot up a lot of attacks to get the soft cap on melee/ranged def. You will get just as much out of 1 6 slotted attack that has a touch of death set than you will out of 2 attacks with 4 Kinetic combats - 3.75% melee def (TD) vs 3.76 (2 x KC) and you will actually use 1 less slot overall.

My claws scrapper is /WP but I do have a DM/SR scrapper and I had her soft capped to melee and ranged by level 39. At 41 I am still working on AoE def and will am not sure if I will get all the way to the AoE soft cap, that depends on what sets I can put together. Here is her current build (FYI - Empty slots are future planning, she isn't level 48 I have just picked out powers/slots up to that point):

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Midnight Mystique: Level 48 Natural Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Smite -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg:30(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:30(3), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:30(3), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:30(5), DampS-Rchg/EndRdx:30(19)
Level 1: Focused Fighting -- DefBuff-I:30(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:36(7), LkGmblr-Def:36(7), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:33(36)
Level 2: Focused Senses -- DefBuff-I:30(A), DefBuff-I:30(9), DefBuff-I:30(9), Empty(37)
Level 4: Agile -- DefBuff-I:30(A)
Level 6: Boxing -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg:30(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx:30(11), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg:30(11), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:30(13), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(13), T'Death-Dam%:30(23)
Level 8: Siphon Life -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg:30(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:30(15), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(15), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:30(17), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(17), DampS-Rchg/EndRdx:30(23)
Level 10: Practiced Brawler -- RechRdx-I:30(A), RechRdx-I:30(31)
Level 12: Swift -- Run-I:30(A)
Level 14: Health -- Heal-I:30(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+:30(25), Empty(37), Empty(40), Empty(40)
Level 16: Dodge -- DefBuff-I:30(A)
Level 18: Combat Jumping -- Zephyr-Travel:30(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx:30(19)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I:30(A), EndMod-I:30(21), EndMod-I:30(21), P'Shift-End%:30(25)
Level 22: Quickness -- Run-I:30(A)
Level 24: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(A)
Level 26: Soul Drain -- Oblit-Dmg:30(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg:30(27), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg:30(27), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(29), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(29), Oblit-%Dam:30(34)
Level 28: Lucky -- Ksmt-ToHit+:30(A), DefBuff-I:30(31)
Level 30: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel:30(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx:30(31)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:35(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:35(33), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:35(33), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:35(33), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(34), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:35(34)
Level 35: Evasion -- DefBuff-I:30(A), DefBuff-I:30(36), DefBuff-I:30(36), Empty(37)
Level 38: Weave -- DefBuff-I:30(A), DefBuff-I:30(39), DefBuff-I:30(39), EndRdx-I:30(39)
Level 41: Shadow Maul -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Shadow Punch -- Empty(A)
Level 47: Dark Consumption -- Empty(A)
Level 49: Conserve Power -- Empty(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]5.5% DamageBuff(Smashing)[*]5.5% DamageBuff(Lethal)[*]5.5% DamageBuff(Fire)[*]5.5% DamageBuff(Cold)[*]5.5% DamageBuff(Energy)[*]5.5% DamageBuff(Negative)[*]5.5% DamageBuff(Toxic)[*]5.5% DamageBuff(Psionic)[*]6.75% Defense(Smashing)[*]6.75% Defense(Lethal)[*]3% Defense(Fire)[*]3% Defense(Cold)[*]6.13% Defense(Energy)[*]6.13% Defense(Negative)[*]3% Defense(Psionic)[*]10.5% Defense(Melee)[*]9.25% Defense(Ranged)[*]3% Defense(AoE)[*]20% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]30% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]80.3 HP (6%) HitPoints[*]MezResist(Held) 2.75%[*]MezResist(Immobilize) 9.35%[*]MezResist(Stun) 2.2%[*]10% (0.56 HP/sec) Regeneration[/list]

She is currently L41 working on 42 and slotting up Shadow maul for some AE. I have spent a bit on getting +regen and +recovery - mostly because I hate having to wait on my blue bar. With the lower end costs of claws you probably won't be as tight on end although the +regen is nice.

The primary reason I went for super jump was so I could cap my ranged def without having to 6 slot my def toggles with red fortunes - not that that is a waste as you also get a nice +5% recharge but this let me slot LoTG sets for the +10% regen, which on a claws will probably be even nicer than on my DM since I have siphon life for healing.

You could easily translate this into a L50 claws/sr build - just substitute attacks as appropriate and add in the extra attacks you want earlier on and shift tough/weave to later in the build - I only took them that early to get to soft cap.

You probably won't need as much recharge as I slotted up since claws is fairly fast and I have a tight attack chain (MG &gt; Smite &gt; Boxing &gt; Siphon Life &gt; Smite &gt; boxing) so I needed the 40% global recharge plus a lot of recharge in MG/SL, which is why they are all 6 slotted. Odds are you could cut back to 5 slots for most things and put in Crushing impact sets if you want +recharge and +to hit or go for Mako's bit if you want damage buff, although I don't like the enhancement values you get from Mako's, it is better to mix and match 4 mako's plus 1-2 other enhancements if you want damage bonus.

A quick summary of the main points I wanted to make in my wandering comments above:

1) 1 6 piece ToD set = 2 4 piece KC sets and costs 1 power and 1 slot less (1 base slots + 5 extra slots VS 2 base slots + 6 extra slots)
2) 1 2 piece Blessing of Zephyr &gt; 1 6 piece Red fortune (at least as far as DEF goes) and saves you 4 slots (sorta - in the long run it really only saves you 1 slot as you will probably want at least 4 slots in your def toggles anyways).
3) To many attacks is a waste of slots and power selections.

[ QUOTE ]
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Dominator's got a pvp only damage buff back in one issue or another. It was definitely over 2 years ago. I looked for the patch notes regarding the difference in damage in pvp vs pve today and the search doesnt go back that far. Before anyone starts crying"bug" please do remeber the extra damge in pvp was added intentionally. That the dev's forgot they implemented that isnt a "bug".It's an understandable oversite and will be corrected.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ya it kind of bothered me that Sunstorm called it a bug as well. They sure love to label things as bugs and exploits even though it was WAI just a few days ago.

It's an oversight that they forgot to adjust for during the dom revamp, there is no bugged code or bugged powers everything is working exactly as designed and implemented.

They sure love those words at PS and it gets old fast. Someone should send them a copy of "The boy who cried wolf". If they keep calling everything a "bug" or an "exploit" those terms will lose all impact.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually in this instance I would say that this is pretty clearly a bug - a change in one part of the code (upping the dom base damage) is not interacting properly with another part of the code (the per attack damage in PvP) producing an incorrect result. It isn't like this is something that was working one way for ages and they suddenly decided they didn't like they way it worked.

Even then, calling it a bug would be exactly the correct language - at least from the standpoint of software developement. A bug is pretty much anything in code that needs to be changed - whether it is a simple code error like incorrectly bounds checking an array, a typo in display text or an actual flaw in design - you enter a bug against in in order to fix it.

In this case the dev's didn't even make us wait and wonder - they came right out and admitted that they introduced a bug. I would MUCH rather have them tell us when things are bad up front and smacking them like this when you don't really have a good case is just asking for the very type of cover-up you are claiming you don't like.

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I think you might see the XP lessened..

[/ QUOTE ]

Highly doubtful, it would be a reversal of the promoted XP parity with the regular game.
The MA would become the Arena equivalent, an inspire dispenser.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no XP parity, MA XP (Farms ie 90%sh of the content run) &gt; Reg XP. So either the nature of the encounters change (ie ALL X FARM) or the xp changes.

Now if regular missions provided "All X Farms" that anyone could access at any level, then there would be "parity".

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh. Hi. Radio Missions.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think Mr_Bal is referring to all LT or all Boss or all EB missions - which you can't get in standard radio missions unless you get really lucky and they happen to spawn nothing but LT's (which I have had happen, but not often).

However, even allowing for that I think his claim that the MA gives more XP than other fare in the game is completely unfounded and backed by nothing other than pure opinion. Considering that even on all LT or all Boss maps you don't get any more XP for a given mob than you would get in the rest of the game and sometimes less (custom mobs give you standard Xp for thier level/mob type but can be far harder than standard mobs) and considering the following that you DON'T get in MA:

1. Mission completion bonus XP
2. Story arc completion bonus XP
3. Patrol XP

My personal suspicion would be that in anything BUT the serious farm maps you are already earning at a lower rate than in the rest of the game - balanced ONLY by the fact that you don't have to travel from mission to mission.

So without some serious logs/data to PROVE that the MA gives more xp I think most folks who claim that are talking out of an in-appropriate body part.

Finally, I am sure the Dev's monitor things like XP/hour pretty closely and in the MA can indeed watch it more closely than in other parts of the game since you are essentially in TF mode the whole time. I am fairly sure they will adjust things as needed, hopefully without listening to all the whining currently going on.

Just to firmly establish my position on this (if I haven't already) - I don't farm cause I can't stand boring repitition. I pretty much ONLY play story based content in the MA - stuff that is tagged SFMA - but if the XP rewards get reduced any farther than they are I will stop playing it.

Here is the current build for my DM/Regen - he is 46 right now and the primary focus of the build was to get enough global recharge so I could put together an attack sequence consisting of MG - Smite - Dark Blast - Siphon life - rinse, repeat. After that I slotted for damage buffs and started adding some extra def although I am not sure if that is actually going to do me any good. I use shadow meld as my primary alpha softener and tend to reserve MoG for emergencies or EB's since shadow meld is up twice as often.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Level 48 Magic Stalker
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Regeneration
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Flight
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Shadow Punch -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg:30(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:30(3), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:30(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(9), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:30(11)
Level 1: Hide -- Ksmt-ToHit+:30(A)
Level 2: Smite -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:35(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(3), Mako-Acc/Dmg:39(5), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx:40(9), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:39(11), Mako-Dam%:31(36)
Level 4: Reconstruction -- H'zdH-Heal/Rchg:31(A), RgnTis-Heal/Rchg:30(15), Tr'ge-Heal/Rchg:29(15), Heal-I:25(39)
Level 6: Assassin's Eclipse -- C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:30(7), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:30(7), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(13), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:31(13)
Level 8: Build Up -- RechRdx-I:30(A), RechRdx-I:30(25), RechRdx-I:40(40)
Level 10: Swift -- Run-I:30(A)
Level 12: Placate -- RechRdx-I:30(A), RechRdx-I:30(25)
Level 14: Health -- Heal-I:30(A), Heal-I:30(40), Heal-I:30(40)
Level 16: Integration -- Heal-I:30(A), Heal-I:30(17), Heal-I:30(17), Empty(46)
Level 18: Siphon Life -- C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:34(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:31(19), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(19), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:36(21), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg:31(21), Tr'ge-Heal/Rchg:27(34)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I:30(A), EndMod-I:30(23), EndMod-I:30(23)
Level 22: Air Superiority -- Acc-I:30(A)
Level 24: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel:19(A), Winter-ResSlow:35(37), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx:40(43)
Level 26: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg:39(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg:34(27), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:38(27), Dct'dW-Heal:35(37), Dct'dW-Rchg:40(37)
Level 28: Touch of Fear -- Abys-Acc/Rchg:25(A), Abys-EndRdx/Fear:28(29), Abys-Acc/EndRdx:30(29), Abys-Acc/Fear/Rchg:25(31), Abys-Dam%:25(31)
Level 30: Instant Healing -- RechRdx-I:30(A), RechRdx-I:30(31), RechRdx-I:30(34)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:37(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:30(33), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:37(33), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:37(33), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:37(34)
Level 35: Fast Healing -- Heal-I:30(A), Heal-I:25(36), Heal-I:25(36)
Level 38: Moment of Glory -- RechRdx-I:40(A), RechRdx-I:40(39), RechRdx-I:40(39)
Level 41: Dark Blast -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg:35(A), Dev'n-Dmg/EndRdx:35(42), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:35(42), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(42), Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(43), SipInsght-Acc/Rchg:40(43)
Level 44: Shadow Meld -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:40(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:40(45), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:40(45), RedFtn-Def:40(45), RedFtn-EndRdx:25(46), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:25(46)
Level 47: Soul Storm -- Empty(A)
Level 49: Resilience -- Empty(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Assassination
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]<ul type="square">[*]8% DamageBuff(Smashing)[*]8% DamageBuff(Lethal)[*]8% DamageBuff(Fire)[*]8% DamageBuff(Cold)[*]8% DamageBuff(Energy)[*]8% DamageBuff(Negative)[*]8% DamageBuff(Toxic)[*]8% DamageBuff(Psionic)[*]2.81% Defense(Energy)[*]2.81% Defense(Negative)[*]5.63% Defense(Ranged)[*]31.3% Enhancement(RechargeTime)[*]37% Enhancement(Accuracy)[*]2.75% Enhancement(Terrorized)[*]4% Enhancement(Heal)[*]122 HP (10.1%) HitPoints[*]MezResist(Immobilize) 14.3%[*]MezResist(Terrorized) 2.2%[*]12% (0.6 HP/sec) Regeneration[*]20% ResEffect(FlySpeed)[*]20% ResEffect(RechargeTime)[*]20% ResEffect(RunSpeed)[*]2.52% Resistance(Fire)[*]2.52% Resistance(Cold)[/list]

[ QUOTE ]
Probably just the old toggle drop bug.

[/ QUOTE ]

If it IS the same old bug I would expect folks to have experienced it before I15 release, which is kinda why I posted in the first place.

Has anyone else noticed that sometimes when you enter a mission with a domination bar that is full or nearly full, but not with domination active, your bar will be reset to empty? I have had this happen with two different dominators now in several different mission although so far I have had it happen twice while running Lorenz Ansaldo's mission "Kidnap Iron Billy" (different chars each time). I don't currently have a dominator high enough level to try and reproduce this through oroborous but when one of them gets to 25 I will try it.

I bugged this but I am not sure if this is something newly introduced in i15 or something that was there all along as I could never stand playing dom's previously so its been a while since I seriously played a dominator.

It's actually better than integration. ED capped suppress pain gives 391% regen, ED capped integration gives 245% regen, so suppress pain is actually as good as integration + fast healing when everything is fully slotted for heals.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone else notice that the doors and footstep sounds in the AE building are different now?

edit: its not just AE building. But it seems footsteps and other sounds in general have been improved.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know about improved - they are definitely different. The new sounds for walking over rough terrain (like the cobblesteps/rough streets in mercy) make me think of a horse trotting on cobblestones - and since none of my characters are horses it is fairly annoying.

I don't see it on ANY of the lists on the wiki - which just may mean that no one has added it yet, it isn't like the wiki is the final word on everything (although I find it to usually accurate). Just for those who are having problems finding them - here are the 3 random roll lists currenly up there:

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Bronze_Class_Recipe_Roll

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Silver_Class_Recipe_Roll

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Random_Rare_Recipe_Roll

I do remember reading somewhere that the bronze class roll list wasn't complete yet - not sure how old that comment was or if it is still true.