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Posts
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Joined
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Yeah. Curious as to whether it's a self debuff or a standard sort of -regen.
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Got my t1 judgement last night, unlocked interface and destiny as well. Need a few more threads to craft my t4 destiny (got lucky and got a v. rare component as a reward, woohoo).
Ion Judgement is really hilarious combined with shield charge. KABOOM!
Still haven't decided on which interface to do first. Does any one know if the -regen component is diminished by the purple patch? 60 percent -regen would be useful if it's actually -60 regen... if it's purple patched it'd be useless. -
Quote:I certainly don't disagree with you, and perhaps my meaning wasn't terribly clear. When average joe is forming a TF, he thinks "Ok, I've got a tank, and a support or two, now I need some damage." Generally scrappers fall into the "damage" archetype when people are considering who to bring along for teams. Sure, a well built, well IO'd scrapper can in many cases survive longer than a tanker with SO's who doesn't have taunt and hasn't got a clue what he's doing, but in my experience my scrapper isn't generally asked to tank TFs. That's all I meant by focusing on damage foremost, because I view that as my main role in teams.My philosophy on scrappers is scrappers are designed to be balanced. My definition of balanced is, in very rough terms, have enough defense to survive what you have enough offense to kill. Having enough offense to kill a pylon in three minutes is meaningless if it can kill you in one. That's obviously a very hazy target, and not something you can really easily put into numbers. But its what I strive for intuitively regardless.
When I'm looking at survivability for my characters, I tend to maximize their damage output first, because that tends to be very simple and easy to do. Obtain best attack chain within the confines of the build, obtain the necessary recharge to run it, along with the requisite endurance recovery to run said chain. Once this is done, there's not a whole lot more to do for most builds. I suppose builds like SS or DM/KM/Claws/DB are different in that you want to get their buildup power as perma as possible, and building for global damage set bonuses is helpful, but 95 percent of "min/max'ing" damage output lies in jiggering with attack chains. That took me about half an hour in mids.
Once that was done, I started looking at defenses. You're definitely correct in that a balanced approach is important in designing any character. There's so many different ways to increase survivability in this game, it makes my head spin sometimes. Defense, Def Debuff Res, Resistance, Regeneration, Healing, MaxHP all play a role in time to live. I've spent upwards of 40 hours in mids on my main attempting to squeeze "just a bit more" out of the build. DM/SD has spoiled me rather terribly because any time I play something else, I start thinking "I can sit in front of a pylon with an aggro cap worth of 54 rikti and never worry about dying, why am I playing this blaster?" -
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Quote:I'm most certainly with you on the "I CAN'T DIE THIS IS JUST A TF" mindset. I somehow died on a LGTF last night on my dm/sd, because DraGon or whatever his name is rolled a 3 twice on his BS incinerate move and I got splatted a lot faster than I expected. That was the first time I'd died in a TF in weeks... and i TF a lot.It all makes sense, and yet, unless I'm specifically TRYING to get myself killed, I HATE getting killed in this game. I hate even thinking that I COULD get killed. Like last night I was on an ITF with my concept Fire/Shield. He's soft capped, which I consider the bare minimum, but has low regeneration and no heal, so definitely isn't one of my survivability builds. His hit points dropped very rapidly in the Rommie fight. We basically had no healer and I must have briefly gotten some bad aggro before the Tankers had everything firmly controlled. I popped a green, hit points dropped like a stone, popped another... and the thought that went through my head was "I'm going to run out of greens and die. DIE. I can't DIE on this." I probably popped a big orange at that point, and then Rommie was down quickly, and we didn't have problems the rest of the time. But seriously, it freaked me out. A walk of shame back from the hospital? NEVER!!!
Yes, yes, I know that if you don't die, you aren't really trying. I have no problem getting myself killed on purpose, like my 50+ attempts to solo Ghost Widow on my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes before finally giving up, or when I herd up giant monsters to see how many it takes to kill me. But in something basic like a +0 ITF? *shudder*
So I guess while I don't expect to be shooting for 59% defense any time soon, I do understand it. And I'm actually fiddling with an Invulnerability/Super Strength Tanker build, trying to see what sort of defense I can pull off while still having excellent resists, near perma Hasten, capped hit points, Aid Self, and other goodies. I don't see 59% happening without more than one enemy in range, but something in the 50s looks perfectly doable, even if I haven't worked out the details yet. I suppose if I frequented the Tanker boards I'd have a much better idea what I was doing.
(Edit: And all of that may be irrelevant in I20 anyway, since I haven't paid any attention to what it has on offer.)
I think my point was more that for some (maybe most?) builds, survivability would be better served building for 45 percent (perhaps higher on non DDR capped builds, I grant that) and then going for more HP. Right now I'm trying to decide whether I want to spend 5-6 billion inf to get another 100 hp and 3 percent resists. -
Quote:I disagreeAw good grief, are we REALLY having this discussion again?
Deep in our hearts, we all know brutes are better, just based on the numbers.
I'm a scrapper player myself, but it's not because the archetype is better. I like scrappers.
Even after the 'nerf' to fury, brutes do equal or better damage than a scrapper (fire melee? super strength?) AND ARE TOUGHER. I rolled up a claw/inv brute to make identical builds, brute vs scrapper, just to test out the theory, and quit before fifty. Because it was quite obvious even on SO's.
Brutes do the same or better damage, and are quite a lot tougher, and the gap is going to get quite a lot bigger as the next four Incarnate Slots start unfolding. (Good lord, energy armor is gonna be SICK.)
HOWEVER.
The Devs have addressed this just about as much as they seem willing. Months ago. The subject seems closed.
If you are the sort who lives and dies by the numbers, roll the brute, every time.
If you like a little style, well, then the scrapper has it all the way.
Aww, yeah, scrapper strut.....
As I understand it, shield charge is better on a scrapper, as is single target damage output on a DM/SD. Saturated AAO + SD grants my scrapper a (perma) 240 percent damage buff, which is 1 big red off effective damage cap. When I see a brute break 320 ST dps on a pylon I'll retract my statement and level one
Til then I'll be enjoying my "teehee, MG crit that +2 av for 3k" moments. -
I'm still a firm believer that a scrapper's first job is damage output. Granted dead dps does no dps, but I've run both apex and tin mage quite a few times (and ended up tanking everything because of AAO) and I've never been below 60 percent defense on any of them.
I really think that the effort spent gaining an additional 15 percent defense would be far better served increasing layered defenses in 95 percent of these situations - more HP, more resists, more DDR (where appropriate), more regen, or alternatively by increasing global damage and recharge. As Obitus said, if worst comes to worst - hit a small purple. -
Reworked your build a bit - you don't appear to have a price cap so I spent a lot of mids-currency
Picked up ~120 hp, kept perma hasten and soft cap. The aoes are underslotted for damage but your musculature will compensate.
To be perfectly honest though for the amount of influence you've poured into this build, from a power-building point of view you'd be about a million times better off with a shield defense scrapper. More HP, more damage, more resists, same defense, same capped DDR, slightly less recharge (which can easily be compensated for via spiritual), a retarded pbaoe on a short cooldown, and a t9 that doesn't suck.
If your concept requires SR though, feel free to ignore the above paragraph - just felt it needed to be said.
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I qualify a "great build" as something that can come into a level 50 hero tip team full of level 6's and bring them through a +8/+3 or +4 mission of malta or carnies without letting them die and still complete the mission in a timely fashion. It's not about "lol you guys would be dead without me" it's about me knowing the limits of my build and what it's capable of (and not capable of). Insert something here about Sun Tzu and know thyself.
At the end of the day, that's why I play scrappers - because I know that if I'm on a big team and the defecation hits the oscillation, my build can handle it even if everyone around me dies because they didn't stick with me (Yes, I abuse AAO's taunt component). It could be argued that I should be playing a tanker instead but with the broad range of IO set bonuses letting pretty much any build be any archetype, a scrapper can retain scrapper damage and still achieve close to tanker survivability.
When I'm on a really solid team I prefer playing debuffers because there's something about turning a big spawn of purple baddies and av's into mewling kittens (cold, how do i love thee let me count the ways), but for normal pickup teaming I'll take my DM/SD over just about anything - simply because there aren't many situations where I have to think "I'm not sure I can handle this". -
I personally went for spiritual as a lot of the things Shield has benefit from more recharge (whee shield charge). The spiritual alpha allowed me to perma hasten and soul drain and perma double stack AD without having to make compromises in the build in other places.
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Don't forget the -fly!
He has a supar sekrit jet pack, don't you know. -
I think it'll be fixed eventually. SR's main selling point, honestly, is its ability to easily cap DDR without resorting to double stacking mez protection or hami-o tricks.
When you compare the two sets, shield gets the same mitigation as SR in soft capped defense, along with a good chunk of resists (that SR doesn't get until it has 20 percent HP), a +hp power, a t9 that allows you to cap s/l resists and doesn't have a heart-stopping -recovery crash (and actually increases survivability rather than doing the same thing as the other 8 powers in the set), an AOE that oneshots everything in sight, and an aura that's as good as popping 3 small reds at all times. SR has quickness which is very nice but there's many ways to get extra recharge.
I've played both SR and SD to a significant level of IO investment and there's simply no comparison - I know the devs don't design set performance around IO's the simple fact is that SD is really overpowered and I'm taking advantage of it as long as possible.
An easy way to fix it would be to either change AD's DDR to be flagged as unenhanceable or simply disallow double/triple stacking of the clicky mez protections.
Hopefully this happens later rather than sooner -
Grant Cover's DDR is tagged as unenhanceable - you can enhance the defense that it grants to teammates around you but that's it.
The following slotting will grant 95 percent DDR in game with double-stacked AD (all enhancements level 50)
Battle Agility: LOTG Global Recharge, LOTG Defense, Enzyme
Active Defense: Membrane, Membrane, Enzyme
Grant Cover (enhancement irrelevant, I mule a LOTG Global Recharge here). -
I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the "well-known" scrappers on this board stopped teaming as much after the update that allowed you to solo +4/+8 to your heart's content
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I'd like to see that same level of recharge on an /elec brute. 30 second downtime on 90 percent resist all sounds tasty... and yet that's basically the same effect as soft capped defense from a mitigation standpoint. Interesting the lengths that a resist only set has to go to achieve the same survivability that defense sets have been getting for years, and seems (to me) to validate Werner's thoughts on i20 content.
On the other hand, a point in non sr/sd powerset's favor is how much more survivability can be obtained in most teams from outside buffs. I routinely see 100-150% positional defenses on my SD toon which doesn't really do anything for my personal time to live, since it has capped DDR. Maybe the thing to do is build a WP/Inv/Elec/Regen etc to soft cap and allow team buffs to invalidate the copious amounts of -def that everything and its dog throws at you. So many people are running leadership these days that it's not uncommon (even on a 6 scrapper team) to see 3 or 4 maneuvers buffs. I know that when I was playing a super high recharge BS/Regen in pve, I achieved so much more survivability in a team setting where there was a FF or Emp supplying pb'd fortitude.
Maybe I'll finish bringing the kat/wp up and work on getting a build that can cap with a small purple or DA and make sure I have the recharge to run GC GD GC SD. Hmm. -
Most excellent. Thanks Werner! I shall soldier on with Virya
To be honest the only thing I think that would cause me to really start to question a full reroll is if they remove the ability for SD to cap DDR using hami-o tricks. Although I suppose if that ever comes to pass we're all in trouble because we won't be able to use enzymes in ways they weren't meant to be used.
Which server is your Kat/DA on? I'd love to see one in action. -
Right now I'm playing my DM/SD scrapper - heavily IO'd, glad unique, purple sets, etc etc and it really is all that, plus a bag of chips. I'm worried, however, that the trend of new content with high amounts of tohit that cuts through soft capped shield defenses is going to make SD less... shall we say... a strong contender when it comes to powerbuilding.
I'm considering something like a s/l softcap KM/Regen or perhaps a katana or fire/willpower. I've plagiarized a few of iggy's builds and have something that I think will work, but my question is more along the lines of "might the sky actually be falling on defense powersets, or am I just paranoid?" I've been playing defense sets heavily since the IO system came out - first SR and then SD. Against anything difficult (read +4/+8) that possesses large amounts of tohit (stupid battle maiden and her 2k headsplitters) or rularuularuularuuus or quartz (this one isn't so bad, shield charge is wonderful) defense powersets just don't really have the staying power that I want them to have.
I'm prepared to take the damage output hit switching from shields to something with more layered defenses - willpower seems like the best choice at the moment. I'd miss the 2.6k midnight grasp crits but I'll be okay given time (Hi, my name's Virya and it's been 3 days since I one-shot a +2 boss).
Will making something with soft capped s/l/e/n defenses and willpower levels of regen give me around the same level of survivability against "normal" content? I'm talking here about ITF and other non-incarnate level 50 stuff. The DM/Shield is pretty much unkillable in any sort of level 50 TF right now with the obvious exceptions (Hamidon in the LGTF and doing stupid things in the new incarnate TF's). I guess I'm looking for something with /SD's normal unkillable-ness without any of its holes. Willpower looks like it might fit the bill, but I'm concerned with its lack of defense debuff resistance. I'm so used to having capped DDR on the /SD that it's been awhile since I had to pay attention to "Oh hey, my defenses are red, I should move".
Here's the DM/SD current build to compare a baseline survival against - any opinions or thoughts from my fellow scrapper brethren would be greatly appreciated. Here's a build I shamelessly stole from Iggy (Katana/WP) mostly I would like opinions on whether this will be more survivable against things that we're likely to see in upcoming incarnate content. Money is no object, etc etc blah blah. Alternatively, if the new incarnate stuff is going to cover SD's holes and you think I should shut up and go punch things, feel free to say so
Cheers!
Virya - DM/SD
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Here's another look at a dm/sd build - this is what I'm currently using. Note that this is a level 50 build. It does okay exemplaring due to the recharge bonuses from the purple sets but it's mostly for destroying level 50 content. It's also pretty pricy, so take it with a grain of salt. It's by far my favorite character to play at 50.
Capped DDR, capped positionals, perma hasten with the t3 spiritual alpha, 35 percent s/l resists, 2023 hp, 23 hp/sec regen and easily sustainable endurance.
Feel free to pick it apart, if you have any suggestions to make it better or questions as to "why'd you slot that there, you idiot?" that'd be awesome.
http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...04FF0153F0EF95 -
This is going to be fun for top shelf dm/shield builds. An extra 30 percent global recharge is going to be pretty crazy - I'll be able to drop ~15 percent global recharge from sets and still get perma hasten, and then use those set bonuses to boost hp/regen/resistance.
Might end up rolling a KM/Regen for the +recharge healing boost as mentioned above.
/drool -
My DM/Shield with saturated (10 targets) AAO + SD reaches +242.8% damage.
150 from SD.
81.3 from AAO.
11.5 from incidental set bonuses.
I keep getting tempted to reroll KM/SD to see if it can outperform my DM/SD but every time I want to, I pull up mids and siphon life pops out at me and says "HAS HEAL" and I change my mind. -
Well, that was easy.
Thanks! -
Harro, fellow ebil marketeers - I'm looking to spend some of my not-very-hard-earned-billions on a shiny for my shield scrapper. Willing to part with somewhere around 3.25 for it although that's negotiable. If you have one you're willing to sell drop me a line ingame, @virya or reply to this thread.
I'll make a toon on whatever server you have, etc etc.
Thanks! -
3.25 if this is still available
@virya, virtue -
I remember herding the entire eden trial room around the crystal titan (on my invul tanker) into one of the little holes around the room and having a kin fulcrum shift (fwaaaaap!). The buffs went across the screen, 3 people DC'd, and a blaster cried out in delight and ran in and nova'd.
Good memories :P