Knight_Errant

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I wouldn't really call either Dull Pain or Instant Healing luxury powers - most definately not DP as it is one of your main defensive powers.

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For a Broadsword Scrapper it really isn't needed until the mid 20s (the damage output really is that good), at least in my experience and I don't think I'm that good as to attribute it to any exceptional skill on my part.

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MoG no longer needs any DefBuffs slotted in it, since I7 it hits the soft defence cap of 45% against anything up to +5s on it's own without any slotting.

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That's easily explained, I haven't changed this build since I6.

I did post Steampunkette's build a little under a year ago. Here's how she shaped out to 50. Regen has been given a back seat on the idea that the best defence is a good offence and her attack style is based on keeping opponents off their feet to cut down on incomming damage. She's not intended for PvP but I did double slot for accuracy on her attacks as it can hurt when she misses.

01) --> Slash==> Acc(1) Acc(3) Dmg(5) Dmg(9) Dmg(11)
01) --> Fast Healing==> Heal(1) Heal(15) Heal(46)
02) --> Slice==> Acc(2) Acc(3) Dmg(5) Dmg(7) Dmg(9)
04) --> Reconstruction==> Rechg(4) Rechg(7) Heal(13) Rechg(17) Heal(37) Heal(37)
06) --> Build Up==> Rechg(6) Rechg(15) Rechg(23)
08 ) --> Parry==> Acc(8 ) Acc(11) DefBuf(40) DefBuf(40) DefBuf(40)
10) --> Quick Recovery==> EndMod(10) EndMod(13) EndMod(19)
12) --> Air Superiority==> Acc(12) Rechg(45) Acc(45) Dmg(45) Dmg(46) Dmg(46)
14) --> Fly==> Fly(14) Fly(48 )
16) --> Integration==> EndRdx(16) Heal(17) Heal(19) Heal(39)
18 ) --> Whirling Sword==> Acc(18 )
20) --> Hasten==> Rechg(20) Rechg(21) Rechg(21)
22) --> Hack==> Acc(22) Acc(23) Dmg(25) Dmg(29) Dmg(31) Rechg(42)
24) --> Dull Pain==> Rechg(24) Rechg(25) Rechg(31) Heal(34) Heal(36) Heal(37)
26) --> Disembowel==> Acc(26) Acc(27) Dmg(27) Dmg(29) Dmg(31) Rechg(43)
28 ) --> Swift==> Run(28 )
30) --> Health==> Heal(30)
32) --> Head Splitter==> Acc(32) Acc(33) Dmg(33) Dmg(33) Dmg(34) Rechg(34)
35) --> Stamina==> EndMod(35) EndMod(36) EndMod(36)
38 ) --> Instant Healing==> Rechg(38 ) Rechg(39) Rechg(39)
41) --> Focused Accuracy==> EndRdx(41) EndRdx(42) TH_Buf(42) TH_Buf(43) TH_Buf(43)
44) --> Laser Beam Eyes==> Acc(44)
47) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(47) Rechg(48 ) Rechg(48 )
49) --> Moment Of Glory==> DmgRes(49) DefBuf(50) DefBuf(50) DefBuf(50)

Dull Pain and Instant Healing were taken late as they are more luxury than necessity in PvE when you have Broadsword. MoG was taken at 49 as a "nothing else worth picking" power. I've soloed almost every EB in the game with this build (only Nosferatu required help to bring down).
The Fitness pool really isn't needed until you've passed the mid 20s in preparation for Focused Accuracy.

Build Up and Parry are still way too late at 22 and 24.

FF is actually pretty awesome from a defender and it's less attention intensive than Empathy allowing a FF Defender to contribute a bit of damage and secondary effects. Even from the perspective of a Mastermind (where my experience of Bubbles comes from) the defensive buff provided by Bubbles is pretty significant and the knockback effect of Force Bubble has many applications in crowd control if your team needs something pinned in a corner or the squishies get overrun by hard hitting melee mobs.
With Manoeuvres and you can get an extra 6-7% defence buff vs all. Fully slotted with SOs the combination of Single target bubbles, dispersion bubble and manoeuvres puts any team member in range of your dispersion bubble at something like +50% defence vs everything except Psi which is somewhere around 25-26%. <rough numbers based on memory>

In the close confines of caves where line of sight can screw with an Empaths' healing the single target bubbles are great "fire and forget" protection for team members.

I took MoG at 49 simply because there wasn't anything else worth bothering with. Dull Pain + Instant Healing really does make a potent combo for soaking up damage, with Reconstruction providing backup against AV Alphas.
What did I gain for ignoring MoG (and Revive and Resilience for that matter)? A broader selection of attacks and a healthy respect for npc foes.

I've found Dm/Fa to be a good combo for soloing, the stacked -acc debuff provided by Dm really helps with survivability and the likes of Shadow Punch and Smite combined with Hasten can really pile on the Fury.
Siphon Life (yeah I know not everyone likes it) and Healing Flames provide reasonable health support with Dark Consumption and Consume helping to keep Endurance topped up. This all makes for a suprisingly self sufficient toon.
Doubtless there are other Brutes that can do more damage or tank better but for a jack of all trades Dm/Fa works pretty well.

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Phantasm is pants dmg and so are the phantom army... and army cant be buffed...

Imps all the way.

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The main problem with a blaster team is always going to be status protection, there are only so many break frees a toon can carry and their 'first strike' advantage will only work with a well coordinated targetting.

To supplement a Blaster team you need an AT that will provide something to support and enhance (wonderbra AT?!? ) the Blasters, not contribute to damage. Imps are pointless as they'll barely get into combat enough to do any damage and they can't tank large mobs, while PA and Phantasm will distract mobs allowing the blasters considerable time to dish out their damage unharrased.

An Ill/Kin would provide a way to distract and tie down mobs to reduce the chance of status effects hobbling the team while dramatically increasing the damage output of the team as a whole.

Likewise a Ill/FF or Ill/Emp controller would provide a more defensive boost to the team. I'm deliberately avoiding adding Defenders to the mix as controllers generally bring more options to the table although a Controller in a team of blasters will have his/her hands full.

The Reservoir Dolls, an all AR/Dev theme Sg on Union, has been going for a while. As a team they're pretty effective in pve. Granted we haven't faced an AV yet but it's only a matter of time.

I should be able to bring Steampunkette along for some Mito bashing.

Great post Thundorn!
A very friendly, comprehensive and helpful guide for first time players and scrappers in particular.

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People powerlevel everytime the xp weekend comes along.

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That would depend on how you define powerlevelling.

The way I see it playing during the double xp weekend isn't powerlevelling.

A common definition is as follows:
"Powerleveling is most frequently used in multiplayer games, where it usually refers to a player that is of much greater power assisting a player of much lower power in defeating enemies that are far too powerful for the low level player, but are easily and quickly killed by the more powerful player. Defeating high level challenges rewards the lower level player with experience points more rapidly than normal. In general this is considered a form of cheating, or manipulation of the game system for unintended results." - Wikipedia

I stand by Thundorn's recommendation to avoid powerlevelling. You will learn far more about your character, the foes you face and the stories you battle through by not powerlevelling.
My main Bs/Regen scrapper, Steampunkette, took a little over 6 months to get to 50. Some of it was teaming, alot of it was solo, none of it was powerlevelled. The end result was a near full collection of completed storyarcs and a good working knowledge of the powers she uses and the foes she faced in her journey. She's not just another level 50 toon, she has a history of aceivements behind her. No amount of powerlevelling can replace that.

To me a powerlevelled toon is little more that a Paragon Protector in fancy dress. Formidable in combat but essentially shallow and valueless.

I've been working on a DM/FA brute for a while now and she's just passed made level 29. In my experience the two sets complement each other pretty well. The only difficulty I had with AV/EBs early on was knockback but that's easily solved with acrobatics. Survivability isn't an issue as cycling Shadow Punch, Smite and Brawl quickly builds Fury into the region of 75-80 points and stacks up the -Acc effects nicely. Then it's just a matter of setting off Soul Drain and watching the fireworks as I tear my foe to pieces.

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If u can survive, and tank against an AV without a tier9 shield thats great, but I need a full set of inspirations and my tier9 shield to effectively tank and build fury, thats with either dm/elec or ss/elec - so where is the advantage of -ToHit when fighting an AV? Better to have high damage to try kill AV before you run out of inspirations, demonic aura and tier 9 shield I would say.

[/ QUOTE ] Fiery Aura doesn't have a Tier 9 Shield, it gets shields at 1 and 16 with a passive at 10. For Brutes Fiery Aura isn't geared toward tanking, it's moderate protection with a mix of useful powers added for good overall support in ensuring you pound you foe into a fine dust. I'd never expect to match most non-*/Fa brutes in "tanking" but, in my opinion, that's not the role a */Fa should be looking for, we're more like the villain equivalent of a scrapper.

Pulse Rifle Burst slotted 1x Acc 3x Dmg is suprisingly effective all the way through the game and its knockback effect is handy for a bit of crowd control.

If you're impatient like me then Stamina can be handy for speedy setting up especially if ambushed on entering a mission. Just throw up Force Bubble summon your army and equip them as you go. Also it means you don't get left behind by the rest of the team. Swift is handy too if you go down the hover route as it provides a good boost to your flight speed making it only marginally slower than sprint.

The +perception from Tactics is almost essential for dealing with stealth units all through the mid to late game. The accuracy bonus is also useful for keeping your Drones in the game once they drop to -2 level.

Aid Other is handy and more versatile than Repair (but that's just my opinion). It's not as potent as Repair but it does have the advantage of being useable on teammates which can be handy in keeping that useful Corruptor or Dominator on her feet.

Steampunkette will be there.

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Back to the original post, mathematically /Regen is great solo poor in teams, /SR and /Invun somewhere in the middle, and /Dark is great for teams. I can categorically say a tank would far rather have a /Dark next to him, damaging everything around him, debuffing their accuracy and disorientating him, than a /Regen whose powers effectively do diddly squat for the tank.

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How is Regen mathmatically weaker than SR in teams? I can understand Invun being useful if you need a minitank (it has a secondary taunt) and Dark having its debuffs. You miss one important aspect of Regen, its ability to be independent of support (the reason it's so popular for soloists), with the self heals and fast recovery rate it drains less attention from the other members of the team allowing them to concentrate more on the enemy. Also a Regen has no downtime and copes well in prolonged fights where I have seen other scrappers struggling with End issues.
Regen benefits a team not in what it contributes (like Dark) but in the fact that it provides, for want of a better term, a "fire and forget" damage dealer.

Getting stunned only ever seemed to happen if I got sloppy around Malta mobs, even then it was a rare occurance and tended not to be fatal.

Hasten will noticably increase your attack rate and regen clickies.
Resilience isn't really worth it unless you're willing to pony up two power choices to get Tough. The stun resist is handy but is more of a luxury than a necessity.

You'll find it very hard only having Hack and Parry for the first 18 levels and Whirling Sword will not fill the gap sufficiently.
Taking Build Up at 35 is waaaay too late. You'll want it much earlier for quickly dispatching tough opponents. Facing a Freakshow Tank (for example) without Build Up is going to be a painful slog especially when he get's back up after you've put him down the first time.

Steampunkette will be there!

The real gift is that high damage dished out by each attack from Broadsword. Most of the time you can usually drop a minion in three hits (two with Build Up or a critical on Hack). The faster your opponents drop the less chance they have to hurt you. This makes a big difference in the early levels as both Regen and SR can be a bit squishy in the early levels. With the addition of Parry you have a really decent way of supplementing your defence.

In a team with a buffing defender (Emp/Kin/Bub) BS/SR is a monster. In the absence of a tank you'll be able to hold several +2 foes, Lt's and Bosses included, with liberal use of Slice with little worry. I recall my Bs/Sr scrapper holding a corridor against a dozen +1 Council soldiers with an Emp/Elec defender backing me up. Great fun!

You'll have a tough time until you can get Practiced Brawler almost permanent but after that and with Stamina cushioning your End' it should be plain sailing.

Steampunkette should be there.

Grats!

I'm working on a BS/SR scrapper at the moment. My main is a BS/Regen and I wanted to try SR for a comparison.

Hasten isn't really a necessity for this combination and I have no idea where it would fit without sacrificing an attack or a defence power (neither of which is really an option). With Quickness the recharge times are already cut by a fair bit so I'm not to phased by having to throw an extra hack or slice to fill the time while the big hitters recharge. Add to that I'm taking Fly (my preferred travel power) so Air Superiority will give me an extra knockdown attack.

I always make sure my tier 1 robots get fully upgraded, their knockback effect is still effective even against +1 (+3 to them) bosses. The full auto power is great for tightly packed groups and provides excellent support for the missile fire from my assault bot. The thick cloud of little orange numbers above a mob is quite a satisfying sight.

I've not tried the other MM types so I can't really comment on them, however ignoring tier 1 robots or not slotting them would be a noticable handicap to any Robots MM.

It does seem as if one of my tier one robots gets more grief than any of my other pets. However they all seem to be behaving better since the last patch(famous last words).

Being an old Mechwarrior fan, I named Arachnette's robots after Battletech Mechs.

Drone 1 - Kitfox
Drone 2 - Koshi
Drone 3 - Ryoken

Protector Bot 1 - Pinion
Protector Bot 2 - Bushwacker

Assault Bot - Daishi