Geveo

For me, the most fun to solo is my En/En blapper.

I think that of all my blasters, my Ice/Ice is probably the safest, and maybe even the most powerful soloist. But that didn't necessarily make her the most fun.

Generally speaking, Tanks and Defenders are typically the poorest solo ATs in the game. Certainly they can solo successfully, but they tend to have greater value in team situations.

For the two you mention, the tank is probably the safer bet. It may take you a long time to kill stuff on your own, but you'll rarely have to worry about dying in the meantime.

But as others have already said -- roll both. It probably won't take you long to figure out which you're enjoying more.

Check the progress bars for earning the badges under the 'inventions' tab in your badges window.

For most recipes, memorization requires learning recipes at two different level ranges... ie: Level 15 & 20, 25 & 30, etc. If a badge takes, say, 15 enhancements to complete, you'll have to make 8 enhancements of one level and 7 of the other level to complete it. So, for example, you can't make 15 level 30 recharge enhancements and earn the memorization badge. You'll also have to make some 25's.

If you mouse over the badge counters, they'll tell you exactly how many you need to complete the badge. If you are working on the level 25 & 30 recharge badge, for example, and the bar doesn't advance after you complete a level 30 recipe, then you'll need to do level 25s to complete the badge.

I can't offer you much help from the primaries you've listed, but some thoughts on your secondaries:

Regen has the big advantage of getting you more endurance. It has the drawback that you have to pay some attention to it, and you'll need to learn when is best to activate some of your click abilities.

/SR is great once you get into the mid to upper 30s, but it's something of a late bloomer. Until then, you have something of a hole in your defenses against AOE attacks, which isn't the end of the world, but it can be a pain sometimes. On the plus side, it's very easy to cap your positional defenses at higher levels without breaking your budget.

/SD is very nice, and gives a pretty smooth ride from 1-50. It would be my pick of the three you list, though you can't take it with every primary, so that may be a concern. You can softcap your defenses at high levels, but it is a pricier task with SD than with SR. SD has a very big plus though, as a farming build, in that it comes with a built-in mini nuke in Shield Charge, that is really great, especially combined with the damage boost from Against All Odds. Overall, not as strong a defensive set as SR, but with compensating additional offensive oomph.

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tactics and maneuvers would not be as useful as boxing/kick, tough and weave IMO. Yes its one dead pick to get them but you get much more defence, resistence and therefor mitigation (and closer to def cap). You want to slot gaussians so much, throw it in build up. When using powers like tactics as a mule for IOs think about how much accuracy you can dial out of IO builds making tactics pretty irrelecant, my spines/da (which is purpled) has a 95% chance to hit whilst standing in a lvl 52 COTs mages chill of the night.

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If you don't care about the To Hit bonus, then obviously Boxing/Tough/Weave is the better choice. But that's not relevant to this discussion, since the OP specifically stated that he wanted a To Hit bonus. And anyway, not every toon is purpled out -- for a lot of toons a To Hit boost is an important part of the build.

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I don't want to give up the acc boost from Tactics, and running both FA and Weave costs way more end than Tactics/Man.

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Just so you know Tough and Weave toggles cost LESS ENDURANCE than manuvers and tactics. The leadership toggles cost 17% more endurance than the fighting ones.


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Yes, of course they do, but that has very little to do with what I said. I said that Maneuvers + Tactics costs less endurance to run (a lot less) than Weave + Focused Accuracy.

And although it means giving up Tough, if the To Hit bonus is a priority (as was stated) you can get it for two fewer power picks by going the Maneuvers + Tactics route. You get less defense than with Weave + FA, but you pay less endurance for it, which doesn't make it a bad option in my book.

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Tactics is now better than FA but maneuvers is a terrible power for scrappers, it costs more than weave to run and gives a pooptastic 3.5% defence, combat jump gives 3% and costs a fraction of the end cost or slot a steadfast +3% def for no end cost.

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Much of this is true, but most of the powers you compare it to aren't mutually exclusive with Maneuvers. I have maneuvers AND a steadfast +3 AND combat jumping. I haven't shelled out 300 Million for the PvP +3 Def IO, so every little bit toward the def cap helps.

More importantly, I'm taking that pool anyway, so I can get Tactics, which when slotted with Gaussian becomes a defense power itself. I'd rather have Maneuvers and Tactics both running than FA at the same end cost.

Basically, with Stamina and Leaping that only leaves two power pools, so the choice comes down to two of the three from Leadership, Medicine, or Fighting. I don't want to give up the acc boost from Tactics, and running both FA and Weave costs way more end than Tactics/Man.

So while maneuvers may not stack up to those other powers one-on-one, it's a false comparison. Its advantage is that it's a pick that gets me to something else I need, and does something useful to boot.

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So I was gonna go with the popular choice of tough and weave but I'm not sure if I wan't to do that. I always preferred maneuvers and tactics because they're more team friendly. Also if I do that, there isn't a wasted ability like there would be if I took tough and weave (kick).

In terms of the medicine pool, would you take aid other or stimulant?

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Passing up Tough/Weave was a tough call for my /SD, and I'm not convinced it was the right one, for reasons others have pointed out. But like you, I *like* Maneuvers and Tactics, and runing both combined use about the same endurance as Focused Accuracy. Also, it took some doing, but using IO sets I did manage to cap my defenses without Weave. Tough is the power I most wish I had from the fighting set, but I haven't been able to justify dropping two other powers just to get it.

I'm not a hardcore optomizer, but I'll mention some things that occurred to me looking at your build:

I don't think you need three slots in Phalanx Fighting. The bonus to your own defense isn't boosted by enhancements, and I think you can get more mileage out of those slots elsewhere.

For leveling purposes, I'd think you'd want to put your Steadfast Protection +3% Def into a power you're going to have earlier on, like True Grit.

I'm not sure what bonuses the three slotted Reticles are getting you from Focus Chi, but it doesn't look to me like you have nearly enough recharge in that power. Unless you're PvP'ing, I don't think the improved perception or the extra to hit are going to be useful, especially since you've also got FA. If you can give up the bonuses from Rectified Reticle, I'd just go with two recharge IOs and save the third slot for elsewhere.

I didn't see a Chance for Resist Debuff proc anywhere in your build. I'm no expert on AV killing, but I know that having that in one of your attacks will help your effective DPS. I'd look at adding a sixth slot to Thunder Kick for it, or moving the Touch of Death set to Thunder Kick, and putting the Kinetic Combats into Storm Kick with the -Resist Proc (I forget which set it's in, sorry).

As a general observation, I think you have way more Melee and Ranged defense than you're going to need for almost any situation. That's not a problem in itself, but it makes me think you've probably shortchanged yourself in other places.

As I said, I'm not an AV hunter, so there may be aspects of this build that I don't get. But those are some of the things that occurred to me looking at your build.

If they're even bothering to look at it, Castle and Positron are probably loving this thread.

The fact that there are so many different combinations out there that are good enough to be *somebody's* favorite, speaks volumes about the balance and quality of the Scrapper powersets.

It's already been said by several people, but it bears repeating. If you're looking to play a good scrapper, just pick whichever one sounds fun to you. You can't go wrong that way.

I recently hit 50 with my BS/SD, and I've been very happy with her. End hasn't been a serious problem, even with two leadership toggles running, so I'm not sure what exactly is the cause of your woes. Some thoughts:

If you want to ensure that you're hitting everything while solo, a single Kismet +6% to hit proc might give you enough of a boost to hit just about anything except stuff like CoT, who have dark blasts and to hit debuffs.

To really guarantee yourself the cap on your hit chances against almost everything, take the leadership pool and Tactics. It's way cheaper on the End usage than FA, and gives a buff that's just as good, except in a few specific circumstances. It's also a great place to 6-slot Gaussian IOs, for all the nice bonuses, particularly the +2.5% to Ranged, AOE and Melee attacks. Also, Maneuvers is a useful power to get you that little bit closer to the defense cap.

Are you using generic IOs or SOs, or are you using IO sets? IO sets will go a long way to improving your survivability, both because you'll get more mileage out of the enhancements themselves, the set bonuses can also push you closer to the defense caps, and cut down on your consumption of green inspirations. If you're on a budget, look at Relatively inexpensive sets like Multi-Strike. If cost is not a concern, Sets like Obliteration and Mako's Bite are very useful.

You really don't want to jettison Build Up. Combined with AAO and Shield Charge, it lets you drop entire spawns in one crash. If Endurance is a problem for you, I don't think losing Build Up will help you... Build Up shortens your fights, and longer fights consume more End.

My build has Leadership, Fitness, Medicine, and Leaping for the power pools, and the only Epic power I took was conserve energy. Unless I'm fighting something with End drain like Carnies or Malta, I never need it, but it's great when I do need it.

Don't know if any of this will help, but those were my thoughts after reading your post. Ymmv

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I just hit 20. Planning to try CAK at 22 and see what my chain feels like using it instead of Thunder Kick. However with a recharge more than twice as long I feel I'll have a decent gap in there somewhere, which is why I was considering the other two.

I don't really see how CAK is so much better than AS though. According to Mid's CAK does 112.9 base while AS does 65.7, but in the span of 8 seconds (CAK's base recharge time) I can pull off 2 AS's which means with CAK I'm doing 112.9 damage every 8 seconds, but with AS I'm doing 131.4.

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Yes, if you didn't have any other attacks. But with the CAK, you can trigger a different attack while CAK is recharging. The important number for DPS is not the amount of damage done per recharge time, but the damage done per activation time.

My two L50 scrappers are my DB/SR and (very recently) my BS/SD. I have a great time with both of them. For a first scrapper, I'd probably steer you to the BS/SD combo. Great burst damage, and with the mini-nuke from Shields it's also a strong AOE combo. Shield defense is solid, and a smoother ride from 1-50 than /SR. SR is a better defensive set once you get past level 35 or so, but /SD also gives you a great damage boosting power, and Shield Charge is a fabulous aoe attack.

These two toons have a very different feel to them. The DB/SR is exciting to play, because everything feels so up-tempo. Quick attacks, fast run speeds, and steady damage output. The BS/SD goes at a slower pace, and does damage in big bursts, whether against solo targets or swarms.

Something to check -- If you have several things that are going to spawn on a map, and some of them are set to Front, some to Middle, and some to Back, it can help if you place them in your build file in the order you want.

I had a mission with two clues, one that was supposed to come early in the mission, one near the end. I tried map after map and could not get the later one to spawn correctly, it kept spawning near the front of the mission.

In my mission file, I had written the item that was supposed to be at the Back *before* the clue that was supposed to be at the front. As an experiment, I made a copy of the Back clue and put it after the Front clue in the editor, then I deleted the original Back clue. It worked. In my tests, at least, the clues now spawn correctly.

So the order that the clues appear in your file may trigger or worsen this problem, if clues designated as "Back" appear in your mission file ahead of clues labeled "Front" or "Middle".

Something to try.

I got my MA/SR up to level 41 and then she basically got shelved. But that had nothing to do with the powersets. She was a pre-IO toon, and when the invention system came out I started focusing on toons that I could build with IOs in mind from level 1, rather than retro-fitting all my existing toons.

I always found MA a blast to play. There's something very satisfying about sending some schmoe flying halfway across the room with a good solid kick.

I have a tendency to keep experimenting with the new shiny, but one of these days I'll dust that MA off and run her the rest of the way to 50. It won't be hard.

Wow... I had no idea. And just the other day I went through logging in each of my 40 bazillion (estimated) alts to make sure nobody was going to lose their market stuff (if they had any).

Ah well, this is good to know. And at least they all got their 5-year badge that way, so not a total wasted effort.

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Its been about a week since the "nerf" and since that time, once again servers are back to normal population. Before...I had fun and it was fun to see all the players jumping online.

What kind of vibe is the community getting since the nerf ingame?

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My mood ring is showing kind of a blue-green plaid with a hint of orange trim. But I lost the little card that came with it, so I don't know what that means.

I'm thinking it's probably "Doom", but that's just a guess.

I'm not too worried about a second thread opening up on this topic. It's a minor bug, perhaps, but it drives me up the wall, and I don't know why it isn't getting more attention from the player base. It really kinda wrecks the mood, you know, to be addressed as "Rescuer" all the time.

Is it just that nobody else is playing the in-game content anymore - Everyone's on AE all the time, so nobody else has noticed?

And yes, I posted in the other thread too.

Well, after four years and 10 or more free expansions since the last one, I'm not going to begrudge them the price of another boxed set.

Not sure how long CoX is going to hang on as my MMO of choice, but I have to give them credit, they're working their butts off to keep improving the game, and that counts for a lot.

Found this topic via search, because I am having the exact same problem. And yes, I'm talking about this occurring in game content that has been around for years, not in the MA.

For example, I rescued Ellie Weisman tonight in Harvey Maylor's arc, and she said "Listen, Rescuer, I've got to tell you what's going on!" or something along those lines. I've done that arc many times, and she used to know my name. But it's not just that. Hostages EVERYWHERE are calling all my toons "Rescuer" rather than calling them by their names. It's really kind of depressing. I liked having the people I rescued call me by name. Now it's like, "Yeah... it's great that you saved me and all, but I'm not going to go to the trouble of learning your name." It's kind of a drag.

I don't know why there aren't more people noticing this. Is it just that no one plays the old content anymore?

Love my DB/SR. Always loved my DB/SR. Loved her at level 1, loved her at level 20, love her at 50.

At lower levels, you need to keep track of your endurance, though honestly I'd run solo with my defenses off most of the time until I got to SOs, essentially playing her like a blapper. Once I got Stamina and dropped some End Reducers in the attacks, everything got toggled on and left that way.

And yes, it can be a tight build, depending on your preferences. If you go Boxing/tough/weave, you increase your durability a bit and reduce the need for IO sets to softcap your build, but it's very easy to softcap SR without Weave, and for most purposes Tough isn't necessary and Boxing is a wasted power. I took the leadership pool for Maneuvers and Tactics instead -- Six slotted with Gaussians, Tactics becomes a defensive power too.

I've never been able to get excited about the WP set... just a matter of personal preference. I know it can be awesome (like any other Scrapper set). I may give it another try after I get one or two of my current 40s up to 50.

Quick Reply:

I don't claim to understand the rationale behind the problem, but I may have a fix, as I had a similar problem several months ago.

Add "-port 13094" as a flag for the CohUpdater. For example, the Target line for the COH shortcut on my desktop currently reads:

"C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -port 13094

There was a redname post about this that I would recommend searching for if you want further details. Like I said, I don't know exactly why this works, but apparently it forces the updater to use a different port.

I had never had a problem with the updater before, then suddenly before the last 2xp weekend the updater started to crawl at a few KPS. This fixed it for me. Good luck, ymmv.

Edit: A Link to the article that I was pointed to in the Support section
Support info

And a link to the earlier thread when I had a similar problem:
Discussion

Here's one way to do it:

The contact sends the hero to capture the evil Doctor Zed before he can put his dastardly plan into operation.

Put a "Collect an Object" mission completion objective in the mission. Make it the only objective necessary for mission complete. Write custom text for that collectible object that will appear on the nav bar. Instead of having it say something like "Collect the last clue" , have it say "Defeat Doctor Zed"

Player runs the mission. His contact sent him to get Dr. Zed. The Nav bar says he has to defeat Dr. Zed. But when he gets to the last room and finds the glowie.... Dr. Zed has already put the next phase of his plan into operation. The hero has failed!

True, the hero didn't necessarily get the snot kicked out of him by the villain, but there are lots of ways to be beaten by the bad guy.

Just one way to do it. Ymmv.

I really doubt that anyone will get all the "Arts" references I put in Teh Freakshow Artz Klub. Heck, I don't even get some of them and I wrote it.

But some people have picked up on some pretty obscure stuff, and from the responses I've had, people are enjoying it no matter how many of the references they catch. After all, there's just something inherently entertaining about Freakshow Haiku.

The way that ratings are calculated makes it extremely difficult to obtain and keep a 5-star rating, and it gets more difficult the more plays your arc gets. This is simply due to the way people are, and the way numbers work.

If five people play your arc, and four of them give you 5 star ratings, but the last one gives you a 2-star, then you have an average rating of [(2+5+5+5+5)/5] = 4.4, which gets you listed as a 4-star arc, even tough 80% of your ratings were 5-star. If you're trying to get your arc up to 5 stars, every 1-star rating you get effectively wipes out the gains from 7 five-star ratings.

The human aspect is that it's just about impossible to please everyone. Some people want hard mobs to fight, some people want easy ones. Some people like certain kinds of stories, others don't care about the story at all, and won't even read most of the text that you might spend hours writing. People give different ratings for all sorts of reasons, and the sheer weight of numbers forces all the averaged scores toward the middle of the range. The better arcs will trend higher, the poorer ones will trend lower, but most arcs aren't going to dwell in the 5 range for any appreciable amount of time after they've accumulated a significant number of plays.

Edit: And you can't just go by the ratings given to you by people who are commenting on your arcs. Generally, people are more likely to comment on arcs they like. If someone is giving your arc a very low rating, chances are that they won't send you a comment, but they'll bring your average down all the same.

I think this is going to be very useful. I've scanned through the first few pages of this forum, and though I've seen at least a suggestion or two on ways to lable "funny" arcs, I would rather have a listing for 'Humor' rather than 'Comedy'. To me, Humor means it's got some funny stuff, whereas Comedy means the main point is the silliness. I'm sure others wouldn't make the same distinction, or see any difference in the terms.

In any event, at least as I started typing this Greyhawke didn't have a term yet for any sort of comedy/humor designation, so...

May I suggest: [ACHU] For "Arc Contains Humor"

(Hmm... after typing this, I realized the Pokemon danger, so a couple of other possibilities)

Or: [HCIA] for "Humorous Content In Arc"
Or: [SOHI] for "Sense of Humor Included"