John_Printemps

I'm not so sure that a well-built Regen Scrapper vs. Brute is going to be that noticeable. Brutes do get an advantage in "throwing their weight around" with nearly 600 more HP potential, but Scrappers also have a higher Regen cap, so at full-throttle their gaps aren't going to be that big. Comparing a Scrapper HP capped vs. a Brute HP capped at ~1700 Regen was 180 hp/s vs. 215 hp/s respectively.

May be a 35 HP difference, but I think the biggest applicable item of interest that really defines the secondary on either AT is the fact that Brute must stay in combat with a target to keep Fury up, and are likely taunting in some fashion in the process. They're inadvertently forcing themselves to take more damage than the Scrapper would have taken. In a sense, the Brute requires that extra breathing room just to function at the same level. In the case with a Scrapper, they can willfully (and rather artfully) skip in and out of combat ("kiting") without any real loss in damage output.

So, in that analysis, I--personally--feel Scrappers get more mileage out of top-end performance versus Brutes.

Thing is, 220 is the "Paper DPS", the practical DPS in dealing with things like Light Form and Hasten and Light Form's crashes and Inner Light every 30/s, I'm really not surprised the DPS wasn't 100% where I desired it to be. Running the actual test and only getting an average 175 (Achilles' Heel PPM aside), that's actually much lower than 220. I even attempted to damage cap with inspirations and see where I was ending up, and stalled a hair under 200 (196). Even using an Incandescent Strike chain only projected to be 2.6 DPS higher, ~5 DPS more if I tried working at least one proc in there, and about ~7 DPS more if I were to try and fit two procs (one being the Purple Hold-Set's Damage Proc). If I were crawling tooth and nail for DPS, then that'd be a direction to go in, but it doesn't change the facts. PB's aren't doing stellar damage.

You know, really hard to tell which direction you were going with that.

lollowdpswut? Or doubleuTfhowugetdatdps?

So I'll just point to the data I personally have, and you can carry it either direction you like. Which, incidentally, I was able to improve my previous concept of DPS a bit so I'm glad you questioned it. Still doesn't put it somewhere I'm happy with (compared to other AT's), but it'd do. I stuck each of the single target attacks into NoChain based on best possible slotting I could manage with variations on which of the three ranged blasts could be present in the build and spun the wheel.

Previously I had been looking at 167 DPS with Perma Inner Light. Chain was: Radiant > G.Blast > G.Eye > Radiant > G.Blast > Incandescent and the Achille's Proc in G.Eye would be potentially up to ~185 DPS.

After I changed things up and re-ran with all the ST attacks, I'm now looking at Gleaming Blast > Gleaming Bolt > Radiant Strike, for 220 DPS with T4 Musculature and T4 Reactive.

Edit to avoid a secondary post. Fleshed out a prospective build on Beta and have seen the sad realization of what PPM does to Achilles' Heel. Without Hybrid, at all, T4 Musculature Core and T4 Reactive Radial, ranged 170-180 with a minimum of 41.3% Global +Dam (Including Inner Light's 28.8%). The inability to keep the Heel going for more than ~30/s out of every minute really kills it, and popping Light Form/Hasten constantly doesn't really help the DPS much either. Tested against a Pylon.

Actually not everyone can hit 300 hp/Sec and definitely not for the entire duration of the lightning patch. When I said I died, it was on the second patch at my own fault. I have yet to see any other secondary manage this solo. That says plenty in itself.

Incidentally, no, it was the second Lightning Patch that got me. Really hard to contend with that guy when I have to wait 82/s for Instant Healing to come back online, and I'll be honest, I was extremely lucky that I managed to time out the trigger of everything in my arsenal to live through it.

QFT

Spiritual Core Alpha
Rebirth: Radial Destiny

Get your Global Rech up there and grab the Soul PPP so you can run Shadow Meld + Moment of Glory + Shadow Meld for 45/s straight out of every 60/s (if you had to). 32.5% S/L (at least), Perma Dull Pain...

I think it would be put in better perspective if I said that my Regen can sit in Tyrant's Lightning Patch during the Magisterium. If you've run that, then I think the case is settled.

Not directly, no. It puts E/N at 43.2 with Hide on. Given your access to Energy Absorption, I find this a trivial concern. One enemy inside of EA puts your E/N up to 44.45, two pushes you over, and the fact that you can stack EA twice, and have access to Shadow Meld...there really isn't a reason to tear into one of your attacks for that minor difference from regular play. Entirely personal opinion.

As for the Endurance consumption...yeah, there's a bit of a "?" there. If you toss a couple standard Accolades on, it's 3.44 EPS, Performance Proc and Panacea will average about an equivalent of +0.3 eps, putting you around 3.74 Gross EPS. Net (everything on but Chilling Embrace) of 2.51. The build would have something like a 4.48 drain on the attack chain putting it -1.97 consumption. At 110 Max End, that'd take 55/s to burn through.

For standard gameplay, you'd have Icy Bastion and EA to help keep your endurance up, and in the chance that it still really helps, I'd probably consider Radial Ageless for the full end bar and Def-Debuff Resists it provides.

Personally, I'd slot Siphon Life 1x Acc/Dam HO, 2x Heal/End HO, Dam/End Mako's, Mako Proc, Glad Strike Proc.

I don't really care much for the Overhwhelming Force set. The KB->KD Proc is useful, but I'm less inclined to the rest of the set. If you have the desire to use it, then I wouldn't see complaint of finding room in Smite for the Proc, but I'd slot the rest of that attack with Hecatomb or the ATO1 Set in some fashion, or Hecatomb Set. You can actually see my I23 compliant build up above (with one minor tweak to anticipate Snipe changes).

In his case, I'd personally flip the slotting of True Grit with Health, but otherwise what he's running is standard */Shield.

Kinetic Combats aren't really a good suggestion for a Positional Defense set like Shield. Combats larger bonus is directly for S/L, the opposite of what Shield attempts to get. Better off devoting a single melee attack to a Touch of Death set rather than sticking K.Combats into two for the same return.

The Slots in Health and Stamina are most likely for the Ranged and AoE bonus,.

Take the extra slot back out of Physical Perfection, it only adds .06eps and is truly a waste, put it in Maneuvers. Then take those two other slots out of Conserve Power and put them in Maneuvers and slot it Def/Def/End/End. Dark Consumption will do more for you long-term than Conserve Power. I'd suggest relying more on DC for your general needs and saving Conserve for something like an AV fight.

As for the Scrapper ATO set, the reason I split it in two is because the 2.5% Melee Defense is more valuable to you than the 8.75% Global Recharge or 2.21% Resists. The only power that gets any real assistance is Hasten, and that only shaves 7/s off while Hasten is down. For most powers you're seeing only a .2/s-.5/s (most attacks) to 2/s (Soul Drain) difference across the board.

Yeah, your running on Ageless is a bit of a detriment to your chain, but you're actually right in the range I expected you to be in, so... it simply comes down to the fact you have to use one extra attack that Ricohdah does now. And yes, this definitely can result in that much of a difference. If I assume ~40 points for Hybrid and you took it down in ~2:00, you're sitting at 447 DPS, which would leave your non-Hybrid times 390-410 (or 407 if I assume an exact difference of 40 DPS off Hybrid). You're essentially trying to run the same chain as Ricohdah is, you really do just need one extra attack because your recharge isn't quite as exact as his.

As for your final SB, follow the chain. Switching HB and SB's order to help get SB in your last hit would be fine, but still hit that last SB and then recycle the chain. Don't hit BU until after. Like Ricohdah said too, I wouldn't skip any SB to keep the Achille's up.


Edit: Granite, if you're open to the use of some Enhancement Boosters, then take a look at the modifications I made to your build. I stripped out your reliance on Ageless. The build still runs the same chain, but without requiring Ageless to do so, which gave me a chance to improve a few other places.

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Granite posted this over on the Scrapper Pylon thread as well, and I made a few notations there that I can at least make this one here as well. I advised following this specifically:

BU > AS > CU > HB > SB > AS > SC > HB > SB > AS > CU > HB > SB > AS > SC > SB

It runs exactly around Build Up, and every fifth rotation would look like this:

BU > AS > CU > HB > SB > AS > SC > HB > SB > AS > CU > [Hasten] > HB > SB > [Ageless] > SC

To snag Hasten and Ageless at their "best" recycle points.

My original evaluation was 389-426 DPS without Hybrid. T4 Assault: Core averages 30-40 DPS increase which, (466) would put him near-par with yours, Ricohdah.

Edit: Figured I'd toss in, obviously your chain Granite is using, but I was leaving reasonable doubt that BU wasn't quite as flawless as yours (skimmed the video) relying on Ageless as he is.

If you can scrounge up, or otherwise convince someone to help you get access to even a couple of them, Nucleolus are a massive help to Free-Builds. Acc/Dam 33%, even just one in a power can allow you to trim slotting down a little bit, three in a single attack mean you can use the other three slots for End/Rech. I'll throw a build code after all this that wont really include those very much beyond Siphon Life where these are a really big boon to use in (at the very least) that one power. Also, you have Soul Drain, even if it isn't up 100% of the time, it comes packed with a +To Hit that means you can skimp on most of your accuracy slotting to just one for most attacks. This'll put you comfortable at fighting +1/2's most of the time, and while Soul Drain is running, you'll be able to take on +4's without problem. Hasten being available also will help with keeping things running, and while Hasten is up you can manage Smite > Siphon Life > Smite > Midnight Grasp without much gap in between the attacks. Not pushing towards an attack chain, but it helps with the illusion that you have more attacks than Dark Melee really does. I also tossed a few extra slots in Boxing just in case you felt like you needed a fourth single-target attack.

You'll also notice in the build some excessive slotting in a few of the defensive powers. Normally this would be something folks would frown against, but the qualm is easily dismissed in the fact that it will help get your Defenses up closer to 45%. In fact, by splitting the Scrapper ATO into three pieces in two powers, you can get 2.5% Melee bonus and this lets you hit 45% Melee. Ranged and AoE are at 42.5%, while not Soft Cap, this is definitely good on SO's.

I did take out Touch of Fear as an area to fit Tough/Weave. Once you start floating around 45% defense, the necessity of ToF's mitigation is nearly insignificant in dealing with mobs. In light of how close to 45% this is, Elude is also pretty un-necessary. A purple will often take care of any situation you feel uncomfortable, and between Conserve Power and Dark Consumption, your endurance is well under wraps.

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No one ran numbers? For shame.

Average Human-PB build is going to be 115-160 (Max Burst) DPS. Most will probably do ~125.

Peak comparison to defenders was Fire at ~140 DPS, Psionic ~100, Sonic at ~115 (w/ minimal accounting for all the stacking -Res). The average solo-Defender can do anywhere from ~75-140 DPS depending on Primary and slotting, and none of that includes their Primaries debuffs/buff, nor any inclusion of Snipes.

Additionally, in regards to fellow Epic AT's. The Soldiers of Arachnos range at no-lower than 200 DPS (average), and can spike all the way up to nearly 500 DPS through the inclusion of Pets and/or Incarnate abilities. Human-PB's would be lucky to tackle 200 DPS with Hybrid: Assault. A solo-Huntsman build relying on only their physical buffs and rifle attacks can range 200-260 DPS. Crabsterminds can (if they handle their pets well) do 600-1,000 "DPS" (virtual, not self-literal, but still sustained from a single controlling entity). Bane Spiders (upon reflection of a recent build) would be looking at a theoretical 350-370 DPS. A Night Widow can push up to 400-450 DPS w/o Incarnates, and a Fortunata around 300.

Heck, tried taking Nova Form, cranking the damage (Full Cosmic Balance, Musculature Core, two procs in each attack), still only got 155 DPS.

This reply isn't even really about "Defenders vs. Peacebringers," it's more "Peacebringers still getting ganked on the goods." I'm not saying the game should become "City of DPS", but a High-End PB still can't outclass a low-end Defender in straight brute-force.

Since you wanted to talk specifics, and some sarcasm often just gets me the wrong way:

Scrapper using Moonbeam with three damage IO's and Musculature Core T4: 210.1 DPA
--with Soul Drain (7 Targets): 319.2
Brute using Gloom with three damage IO's and Musculature Core T4 and 100% Fury: 239.9
--with Soul Drain (7 Targets): 293.2

Well known fact: Scrappers benefits significantly in the realm of +Dam% compared to its heavier cousins.

On an average scale Gloom is still greater than [New] Moonbeam (or any [New] snipes) when not accounting for extraneous sources like Soul Drain. In terms of the discussion of fitting a Snipe into a Scrapper build, there are only two very specific scenarios where said Snipe is going to outperform--on average--Gloom (Power Siphon and Soul Drain). On flat enhancement at the capacity a build can naturally generate, Gloom is going to be marginally better. And when you're number crunching for the high-end, that makes the difference. With that having been said, on basis of my original response to the original statement regarding Gloom vs. Moonbeam, again, no, Moonbeam is not MUCH better, in fact, it takes (some) effort to contend or surpass Gloom; especially when you account for the fact that you must have X recharge, Y To-Hit, and Z +Dam to do it.

The proposed alterations to Snipes actually make them a valuable attack if you have the resources and the desire to include them into a build that can support their use. You call them "lolsnipes", but that term is shortly to become "awesome" with their intended upgrades. Based on what's been said, Moonbeam will drop to a 1.584 Arcana cast time and actually become a more powerful DPA attack than most builds even have access to. When I ran the info for Stalkers specifically (due to several that have a more likelihood of running consistent Build Ups for To-Hit), there were only two attacks that had a higher DPA, in any set. This is--of course--only speculation at the moment, but is well worth the consideration.

If you "tl;dr" then: I'm not trying to say "go get Snipe!", I'm just saying, maybe you shouldn't "tl;dr".

Dark Melee does one thing really well, and that is most assuredly Single Target. I know most take the Fire APP for Fireball, but conceptually it just doesn't settle well with the character. He's very much the ideal of classic Starcraft Terran Cruiser where they'd come in with one massive alpha blast to take out single targets in huge bursts rather than a group collectively. The burning orange ball doesn't really mesh with him either. Besides that, there are more reasons than conceptual to forgo an AoE-inclusive Epic when you fully consider Incarnate Trials. In situations like Tyrant who rumbles around with 1200 Regen and it's already hard to stay in range with him, having an attack or two that gives me 150ft would be a boon. That entire trial really starts bending in the direction that the devs are going to be making the fights... not necessarily "harder", but with the "intention" that they should be simply on making the AV's more difficult to kill.

What are most of the trials bent around? Single-Target. The Guard, Weapon/Acid Crates in Lambda, then Marauder. Repeatedly killing Siege/Nightstar on the BAF. Small-knit groups, control panels, and Anti-Matter in the Keyes. Mot's Sentinel, and Diabolique in the DD trial. Many of the main focuses of those trials are all bent on removing one single target out of the fight. Granted it is with a team, but even Tyrant is difficult to kill in a raw-damage brawl (currently).

Huh, I guess I didn't really know for certain which toggles you had on, I just figured Shroud was one of them. When I kept seeing the "Miss" statement float everywhere, even while a few things in melee were feared, I naturally leaned to Death Shroud being the cause.

What they said.

TW/DA is feared because of the endurance qualms people have with the combination. You have to be aware of what attacks you're using when, and try to avoid over-extending (AoE's especially) to conserve your blue bar. Treat your Blue like your Green and you'll probably never go Red. If that makes sense

As a follow up: TW/DA Mid's Build. It's a bit antiquated without the Scrapper ATO, but I'm sure you'd get the jist of what's possible!

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Invuln will most likely get you a chunk of To-Hit on its own as well, Follow Up aside. But, that'd be your call, not mine, as mentioned below :P I feel I should mention, though, that for Scrappers the Snipes have a considerable Recharge on them (20+). I worked it into a DM/SD build, but it can only be repeated as the fifth attack in the chain; despite that it does add about 15 DPS with its inclusion.


Meaning, as in, you'd deal with it and use the Snipe. When the average Weapon-Based set doesn't even come close to 80 DPA, it might be worth considering the extra ~.5/s using the attack costs under redraw.

Okay, so I scanned through that last part where you died a couple times, and a bit before that, took a look at where your build is sitting at right now, and I'm left with a huge question mark over my head.

Your Death Shroud misses ... a lot. I expected maybe to see just a smattering of Pantheon bashing your head in, but it was quite the opposite. You waded into the mob and grabbed the attention of a handful right off the bat, keeping them in Melee and getting them locked down into Cloak of Fear. Your problem was everything else. The five Pantheon immediately on top of you were cycling in and out of Fear pretty consistently while two or three off to the left sat at Ranged and gradually picked off your health while the Boss Ravager stamped on your head unaffected by CoF.

This was the same thing I noticed in the moment right before, when you picked off a few stragglers one-on-one. Whatever you had in Melee was easily dispatched, but the two/one away from you had no trouble tossing in pecks of damage.

Consistent Pattern, really. You're able to spike up your Melee defense fairly well, but your Ranged/AoE still fall a hair under 45% at the tail-end of Barrier. Also, Hybrid: Melee isn't going to its full advantage when obstacles are still managing to stay outside of your 10' radius; as was the case in your final death-thralls. In my experience, when you start setting yourself at +4/x8 in any aspect of the game--Incarnate or Normal--foes start showing up with that higher-threshold of To-Hit making 40-45% insufficient. In terms of how you perished to the Pantheon, it was directly at fault to the ranged critters tossing chunks at your defective defense.

So what would I suggest? Ageless is a good start to increase your Debuff Resistance. Barrier is nice for 20/s, and terrible for the other 100. It might momentarily wipe out a Debuff, but it is just going to widen the gap as it starts to cascade down. Ageless would at least pony up the chance of halting that loss altogether and ultimately help you try and keep something. Past that, I think your defeat came in part from not keeping yourself surrounded. Sounds strange to say, but in the instances are I saw your health dip, it was mostly coming from something beyond 10'. Cloak of Fear looks to be working, but it only reaches so far. Obviously not going to work on Bosses, but it didn't look like you were really having an issue with him so much as his lackeys. You don't have a Taunt Aura, though (/em Scrapper Crai T_T), and I wouldn't even suggest it, but what was mentioned already (like Ageless), was Water Spout. Given the ability to dump that attack on a mob/group immediately outside your reach should theoretically give you the breathing-room you currently lack. It might inspirit a little Chaos, but you don't have many other ways of dealing with the stuff you can't keep close.

Your Alexei builds have always been strong survivors, especially in Melee. The Pantheon are just scared

Edit: I forgot to mention, in terms of Judgements, Vorpal Radial gives 10/s of 30% Defense when it successfully hits a target. The buff comes at the moment the accuracy check passes, so it it usually applies before the mob has a chance to respond to the face-kick they just took. Just some food for thought.

When you include Fury into the equation, Gloom is still significantly better. With just 50% Fury, its DPA rises to 111, and at 70% Fury it jumps to 133.5. Moonbeam isn't going to displace Gloom any time soon.

The Snipe Change will have impact on DM and KM for sure, as Granite suspects, but probably not in the areas that everyone is anticipating yet. For Stalkers, Kinetic Melee's highest DPA (besides AS) is Concentrated Strike, for 65. Moonbeam under Stalker Modifier is 80 DPA, and becomes next in line after CS. AS > CS with Hide Proc is auto-Build Up, and BU gives 20% To-Hit. A single Kismet in the build will make the Snipe a for-sure contender in that chain (somewhere) and is going to do something crazy to their chains. I'd probably expect the Snipe to get worked in around a BU for all Stalker chains, in fact. 80 DPA is at the top-margin of damage for them and is going to push their boundaries even further ahead.

Edit: I actually just did a quick run through after I thought about it. Stalker Energy Melee - Energy Transfer (87.32 DPA) and Stalker Street Justice - Crushing Uppercut (81.87) are the only two Stalker Primary attacks with a DPA over 80. Everything else is less, with few of the sets having an average over 60 DPA for any attack. If the Snipes are really going to be that strong, I could see Weaponized Sets choking the redraw for 80 DPA.

Actually, a KM with high recharge can leverage a bit better than 15-20/s. Power Siphon has its 20/s duration, but you also continue a "cool down" effect of the power, meaning you're likely to sustain that To-Hit buff for an additional 5/s or so. That can leave a very little window of downtime (8/s for my KM/SR). However, it did take me a minute to find something in DA strong enough to survive a quick test, but the buff from Power Siphon only triggers once on the first attack (11.25% with a Gaussian's Set).

For the average Melee toon, Reactive only functionally adds 10-15 DPS and that primarily comes from the DoT. The -Res Procs (Heel/Fury) are often more significant and much more reliable then to say they only net -4 Res. It all depends on how often the proc is being triggered, but on average they show more effective DPS increase than Reactive tends to.

When you start talking about chain questions, having a source to reference is helpful. So if you aren't using it, get Mids' Hero Planner and dump the Data Chunk with your question. Sometimes that can help get you a more precise answer when we can all see the same thing you're looking at.

Otherwise, with what you have posted, I think you need to reconsider using another attack in your chain. Ideally the Tier 2: Heavy Blow. If I remember correctly something like...

Heavy Blow > Sweeping Cross > Rib Cracker > Shin Breaker > Rib Cracker > Crushing Uppercut

Cross is a cone, but it still has pretty decent stats comparable to most ST attacks. The bonus is that it allows you to use a fairly longer, but still competent, chain. Cross will use up the one combo from HB, and then you'll stack three more points for CU. That gives you 7.92/s of animation time to work with. Having gaps in an attack chain negatively impact your DPS in a ST chain, and 2.5/s of "inactivity" can actually undo half your previous effort.


BTW: Degenerative