G_Tanker

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  1. I'd make the argument low level sr and dark are not everyone's cup of tea, which might really detract from the 'fastest to level' argument... have both, love 'em, but not early bloomers.
  2. Uh... cons? I'm sure there are some, somewhere...

    As above - FR + PsiNado + Psy Scream.... solid ae potential. TK Blast + Willdom for st...

    Tornado for AV's, LS for all sorts of things... hurricane and snowstorm when needed... leadership toggles...

    Storm/Psi was my first defender, and I didn't find anything not to like about it other than no self heal, frankly.
  3. ... the one at the keyboard?

    I might go with Kat/Regen or Fire/Regen but really... whatever.
  4. [ QUOTE ]
    [ QUOTE ]
    As far as endurance concerns with /DA, it can't be said enough: Get the Theft of Essense: Chance for +End Proc for Dark Regen.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Interesting idea - I should try this with my Spines/Dark. Right now I have conserve power on autofire but this could free up a power slot if it works as described. Cool, thanks.

    Agree with all the other comments....

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Did this on my dark tank & scrappers. Glee.

    I also like the completely random nature of it... I can get nothing from a huge mob targets, or I can completely refill my bar.
  5. Skip elude, take other 8, softcap. Generically speaking it's pretty easy.

    My Fire/SR is very cheaply built. I put only 2 slots in each passive (the third slot is _not_ worth the return unless you're after a set bonus) and 5 in the three shields (Red Fortune for +15% recharge) with 6 in buildup (Gaussian), 1 in tough (3%), 3 in weave weave (3 Hami-O's) and lots of attacks. Aid Other & Aid Self also got 5 slots of doctored wounds.

    I can't remember but I only needed like 2% total defense from set bonuses and got those pretty easily. I think boxing had a stun set in it for a defense bonus.
  6. Storm/Psi was my first defender and I still love the combo.

    My love of the dark primary has overtaken storm, though
  7. Er... set up to ghost missions, pick a random scrapper, win?

    Ed: Prolly a bit too tongue in cheek, but I doubt most of my scrappers would have difficulty dealing with a 4man posi.
  8. I'd rec da/stone or da/wm, fwiw.
  9. I recommend avoiding da/fire or specifically da/fire/pyre. I have a 50 da/fire/pyre with a good # of IO's (25% def to all, lots of recharge and recovery - not a billion inf build, but 300MM easy) and simply put, without fire armor's extra buildup, the damage output isn't amazing, the survivability isn't amazing, there's no extra mitigation beyond COF/OG (fire melee's extra mitigation is.. more damage) and all in all it's "meh".

    Not TERRIBLE. But not as good as my fire/fire/pyre and less survivable than some of my scrappers.
  10. [ QUOTE ]
    I was also in the army. 11C. I learned a very valuable life lesson while I was in:

    Far too often, individuals are promoted past their level of competence.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    A sad fact that is most definitely not limited to the army.

    There's authority you're given, and there's authority you earn.

    Ed: Word swap for clarity.
  11. [ QUOTE ]
    And allows pandemics to wipe out our species.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    (thread tangent) ... WHO (World Health Organization) to Media: "I'm not sure pandemic means what you think it means." /Princess Bride-ism. But yeah, that really happened.

    The term itself does not connote deadly disease. The common cold is pandemic. Pandemic simply means widespread. Sorry to go off on a rant over word usage, but the empty sensationalism in our media these days drives me to drink repeatedly. "OH GOD! OH GOD! We're ALL GUNNA DIE! It's a PANDEMIC! Doesn't that word SCARE you?!! WATCH OUR NEWS!"

    Remember SARS? oh god oh god SARS? Yeah.
    http://respirators.4ursafety.com/sar....html#outbreak
    8K people caught it. 10% died. 774 people (worldwide).

    Guess how many people die A DAY from drunk driving in the USA? ~750. Heart attacks? ~270.

    EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!
    /end sidetrack


    Back to scrapping / leadership discussion - really, I think the people here who advocate the scrapper going off on their own are experienced players - the kind that I want on my teams. If they run off and do their own thing on a team I'm leading, usually I adapt to the situation. If I'm doing my own thing on a team and the leader gets all pissy about it without good reason beyond "you're not waiting for us", I'm probably better off on another team. And much of the team is probably better off going with me. /shrug
  12. [ QUOTE ]
    Here's the problem; any mission/TF the devs come up with as "end game" content will be picked apart and reduced to a formula. The devs will put out some uber end game TF/Trial, and within a week you'll have guides about how to beat it in under an hour or somesuch...

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I was thinking about that. One of the things I love about the AE is the auto-level range... not having to worry about SK's is fantastic.

    So, one of the things that made the original respec TF more challenging (the game has changed worlds since then) was the random spawns. Even with unlimited agro control on tanks at the time, no one could be in four places at once on the last wave. Made it a lot trickier than 4 static spawns.

    How well does the AE allow for scripted random encounters?
  13. [ QUOTE ]
    Am I the only one who thinks that this particular dom overhaul is totally tangential to reality?

    The number one dom issue in the dom issues thread is our hefty weakness vs hard single targets like EBs/AVs, and this has certainly been my experience 40+. A tweak to damage isn't going to help me where I need it most. It will get me through the map just a little bit faster where I can have just as much trouble as before with the endboss.


    [/ QUOTE ]

    Er, my experience with dom thusfar has been "why does it take me 8 attacks to kill what my scrapper can in 2 hits?"
  14. [ QUOTE ]
    [ QUOTE ]
    If I was team leader and you were running unnecessarily quickly into battle and putting the rest of the team to any kind of risk, I would give you three warnings before kicking you from the team....
    Once you are on a team, it isn't just about you. You aren't solo. You are part of a team. Act like it.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    I've never actually been kicked or warned by a team leader for doing things the Scrapper way nor have I had anyone quit over it. In general, people like high performance toons.

    Then again, I don't play on the lower IQ servers.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Ayup. I've been the team leader without being the alpha taker and had a scrapper (or BLASTER) start super-ceding the regular alpha. I don't get my undergarments wet over it. I think, and if they're genuinely trying to move the group faster, I suggest letting them lead. If they're not doing a good job, I suggest not following them. Things usually work themselves out.

    Leadership is not about using the star like a hammer.
  15. A) Yeah, I can't find a decent number of players elsewhere. I started on Pinnacle. I like teaming.
    B) I logged in to group for exp at 48. Guess what /who all 47-49 turned up?
  16. [ QUOTE ]
    I feel your pain. Was in a group where the "tank" wanted to heard every spawn even though they were pretty tight groups to begin with. He would plan out what group to heard and where he was going to heard them.

    So I jump in the middle of a group and say "hearding to here" and start killin.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    ... lmao. Love it.

    I've invited tanks to pugs that I've run with my scrappers (sometimes you just need a filler!) and had them leave after they realize that I'm already doing their job.

    Funniest memory along those lines,
    Newly Invited Tank (to steamroller pug): "I am preparing to herd! I will bring mobs here. Please wait."
    Teammate1: "No herding."
    Teammate2: "Uh... why?"
    Teammate3: "Just follow the star."
    (3m later tank quits)
  17. [ QUOTE ]
    Ok, time's up, let's do this! *charges in while the group stands around*

    How many of you use the durability of your scrapper to help dictate the speed of the group? I usually play a tank in MMOs, and I get frustrated with slow-moving tanks very quickly. To alleviate this frustration, I charge right in to the next group. If people follow me, cool, if they don't, meh, it's only an 8 man spawn, what's it going to do (other than get shredded by my claws)?
    ...
    Not all tanks are too slow, of course. Some tanks are ahead of me 99% of the time. But many seem to want to just fart around for 10-20 seconds between easy groups. RAGE! Things should be getting stabbed, not standing there unstabbed! Travesty!

    So, who else tends to dictate the group's speed on their scrapper?

    p.s. I also do this on my blaster and defenders, with much less successful results. I just can't stand standing around doing nothing!

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I stopped inviting tankers and just went looking for folks that could buff my scrapper to tankish survivability levels instead.

    Most tanks are too slow. (Yes, I also MT'd for raiding groups in other MMO's)
  18. I've got a half hour to kill before brunch (bottomless mimosas are calling me!). Given I've been in the mood to play COH lately, normally I'd log in, but I find myself asking "what's the point?". I really, really like the idea of Mission Architect. AE missions are not the sole reason for my rant, but serve to illustrate. Apologies if it's a little long winded, it's stream of consciousness.

    (Freedom) I logged into my 50 spines/fire last night because after my respec I really want to put the hurt down on some big groups. Nothing going on besides Cim and AE. By "nothing going on" I mean no large body of players trying to do anything for a specific reward, and not that many folks in Cim - everyone's in Atlas.

    I log into my 48 fire/rad and decide it's 1am, I might as well grind out a level or two. I go to an AE farm. Nothing but level 54 bosses (ice fairy map) as far as the eye can see. 1 stone tank, 1 scrapper, 1 blaster, 5 fire controllers. In one hour I went from 48 to 50 and made several $M inf. So what's the next challenge for my fire rad? Heck, I didn't even care enough to slot his last few powers. All I need is AM, fire imps, leadership, and enervating field in these AE farms.

    I'm am oldschool MMO'r (led raids for top tier guilds in EQ and then WoW) and I like challenge. I especially like team challenges (soloing AV #5321 with my scrappers or defenders or controllers is not a challenge I am interested in) and I like risk vs. reward. What bothers me about AE is that it basically gives me all the reward I could possibly want (exp and inf) for little to no effort. Which makes me ask "what's the point?".

    I don't mean to say the AE engine as a whole hands me my world on a silver platter. I mean to say that it enables even sillier farms than the old PI runs, and users flock to these farms like rabid geese (note: being birds, I doubt geese can actually catch rabies) to breadcrumbs. ("So don't go to AE farms!" ... but that's where I find _teams_ !)

    I guess part of my rant is lack of a real endgame - or rather, something that players will flock to that has decent risk/reward. The first time the respec mission came out, I was doing it 5-6 times a day because it was suitably CHALLENGING and FUN, and tons of players were drawn to it. My current "best" approach is to farm the ITF repeatedly for merits to get the few rare recipes I'm interested in and cash for the non-rares while still enjoying solid TEAM play and a moderately challenging environment. I admit, one of the things I love about COH is the lack of endgame - I am working more than fulltime as an analyst and don't have 30-50 hours a week to raid anymore.

    Anyhow. I guess my rant is more about the human mentality ("look! Free cheese on a silver platter! Let's all go there!" "Try my cheese, it's the best!" "_my_ cheese has blue fairies!") than the game itself. AE just shows it off. I want to play on fast paced, competitive, fun teams with a decent risk/reward. Given that this is COH, the risk is ... well, pretty limited (I is can has softcap defense?! woo!) but still, there aren't many rewards that people are lining up to pursue either... except free cheese.

    Anyhow. That's my stream of consciousness rant. I've attended a few BBQ's this weekend, so flame away, I've got sauce ready. There are doubtless things I could do to improve my gaming experience, but what it comes down to is there aren't good reasons for people to do anything but line up for cheese on a silver platter, and I'm not big on free cheese (gives me gas).
  19. G_Tanker

    DB/DA vs DB/WP

    I'd rec DB/WP for simplicity. DA is a clickie defense and could interrupt/slow comboing....

    You're looking at one super active vs 1 super passive combo..
  20. Mine has been my bs/dark ... but any/any is pretty much awesomesauce. Scrapper is an AT the dev's got right.
  21. Whoops.

    Pick 2: Ripper, Burn, Consume, Impale

    ... given I'm already 50 ... hmm. Consume + Impale or Consume + Ripper...
  22. Coming back and goofing off, I never was happy enough with my spines/fire. I really do like the power burn - against AVs and the like it's wonderful extra dmg.

    At the moment I have a weapon mastery build (IO) and darkness mastery build (no IO).

    I'm moving the weapon mastery to body mastery with Torrent & LBE as definite picks. Stated goal is to get better at farming and general play. This leaves me with a few problems/questions:

    Pick 2: Ripper, Burn, Consume
    Pick 1: Conserve power or Focused Accuracy?

    Thoughts?
  23. Make a random team of scrappers & defenders and rock out.
  24. I took psy and dark on my darks, I actually prefer psy.

    I tried PBU, didn't like it.
  25. I'd recommend fire/regen or claws/regen as your first char, frankly.

    /SD as a second option, but you should really try fire/regen