Maelwys

Used to be that resilience eliminated wakey-mezzle altogether from about level 35 onwards, but it's been stealthed nerfed since then i'm afraid.

There's still a bit of downtime (though only a second or two) for me after using a wakey at level 50 now, and I took resilience at 30. Thankfully I took Revive at 49 so I'm never forced to use wakeys unless exemping...

Energy Torrent is very useful since it does decent Energy Damage with a Wide cone Knockdown. Laser beam eyes is decent ranged NRG damage (Not Dark Energy, which some mobs are highly resistant to). As a DM/Regen you won't have too much use for Conserve Energy.

Can't really comment on Dark since I've not used it before, but it strikes me that the last thing you'd want is more dark energy damage on your attacks, unless you're going for a pure concept build.

If you're PVE-ing, I'd suggest reconsidering Shadow Maul.

It's very high damage in a small cone, and one of your few AOE/Cone powers. It DOES root you for about 3 seconds, but that's the same amount of time that Broadsword and other primaries' top tier attacks root you for anyway and it's really not that bad once you get used to it.

My Kat/Regen never needed Phase shift, if you want to be a bit hardier against AVs, slot up Dull Pain properly and take Tough and Resilience. Resilience will also help you vs. NRG toggle-droppers in PvP.

Concerning Perception, your BASE perc is 500. Scrapper Tactics +perc range at level 50 is +242.2 feet, at 30 it's +186.2 feet. Focussed Accuracy is a flat +300 feet buff.

A stalker running Hide is at -500 feet (so you can see him at close range with ANY perc buff)
A stalker running Hide + Stealth is at -890 feet. You will not see him standing beside you with just FA (+300) since there is still a -90 feet gap, which you can close with an insight inspiration (+125 feet) or Tactics etc.

As far as I know the only ways to see a stalker at the Stealth cap solo are:
(i) to roll a SR or DA scrapper for FS/CoD AND still run both Tactics and Focussed Accuracy
(ii) roll an Ice troller for arctic air's -stealth and pick up Tactics.
Warshades with both Shadow Cloak and Tactics can see stalkers at the cap at level 30 but not level 50.

In reality as long as you move about and are "quick off the mark" with using Dull Pain and Reconstruction, solo stalkers shouldn't give you much trouble. It's easier to ignore them and simply grab a clear mind or clarity buff from a friendly troller or defender if they start annoying you too much.

That said, get FA for the +accuracy buff. +Perception on it is just icing!

Perception Values Guide HERE

You generally have 50% "inherent" defense against enemies... or they have 50% chance to hit you, either way!! As I understand it SR's defense is effectively added on top of this (different values for melee, ranged and AOE attacks) so with 30% defense from SR a mob would have roughly 20% chance of hitting you.

There's a fairly complicated set of equations about somewhere that explain it all, but that's essentially the gist of it. Defence hits a "ceiling" of effectiveness at about 45%, but it can physically be buffed further in case of defense debuffs or enemy +tohit buffs.

Further information here

Mastermind Merc/Dark or Bot/Dark are very easy to solo and great in teams. Various forms of Rad trollers and Defenders are also. Ditto for Fire/Kin Trollers, Spines/Regen scrappers... there are some combinations that are simply better than others in the majority of both team and solo situations. That's why you see so many toons being declared as "Flavour of the Month".

I don't like it, but it's a fact of the game.

The Maths viewpoint also only stands up so far... if the variables (teammate buffs, mob resistances, number of bosses per mob, difficulty setting, is there an AV, is one teammate an aggro-pulling squishy, etc) don't change from team to team and mission to mission.

I agree with you that the inclusion of AOE buffs and attacks is very important on larger teams, but I disagree with the sweeping statement that "AOEs are _always_ better than Single Target buffs/attacks" on larger teams. In my view there is a "sweet spot" in large teams, beyond which more AOEs are unneccessary and more single target attacks are desirable.

I also agree that the BEST soloist will not be the BEST team-orientated toon, but IMO there are some builds out there that are very, very close to the top of both spectrums.

Having said all that, I can see that this is something you've thought a good deal about and I don't expect to change your mind about it. Differences in opinions and playstyles help keep this game interesting!

Regens get a considerable endurance boost in QR. This will often offset Quickness. At higher level's it's usually a toon's endurance that is the limiting factor, not his recharge rate (assuming that as a scrapper you are doing your job and attacking flat-out). With a few AM's or Speed Boosts, it's irrelevant since you'll have more than enough endurance and your recharge will be through the roof regardless of whather you are SR or Regen.

The other thing is that there are very few +regen buffs in game, whereas there are a LOT of +defense buffs and several +res buffs. The SR would already be fairly close to the +45% defense ceiling, any higher would overshoot it and be wasted. By that logic a regen is likely to gain more from buffs than a SR on larger teams.

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Yes I only use Sonic Disruption on tanks or sometimes scrappers, and 3 slotting it with end reducers is a must that toggle has massive end costs (going by the latest numers 1End per second! makeing it the most expensive toggle in the game by a long way)

[/ QUOTE ]According to my numbers, it's 0.26 EPT, 0.5 sec tick rate, so 0.62 EPS. Also, fwiw. TK costs 3.12 EPS.

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I believe the top quoted post to be referring to Disruption Field (the allied anchor debuff) not Sonic Dispersion (the PBAoE +res/mez Protection Field).

The Former (allied anchored debuff) is quoted on nofuture.org as 0.52 end per 0.5 sec tick = 1.04 end per second... which really does need 3 EndRed SOs when you're running it constantly, assuming that you're buffing and blasting when you get the chance.

Concerning the OP, I've got a Sonic/elec that's currently sitting at level 42... but in all the time spent levelling it I've never seen another sonic defender, let alone another sonic/elec! Usually I find myself working with a Rad/, Empath/ or FF/, all of which complement Sonic very well.

Sonic is a great set; you can really make a mediocre team shine by buffing their damage resistance to all but psi by 55%, then adding around 60% to their damage output (more if you take 'Assault'). Fire Tanks and Kheldians in Dwarf form will easily cap their resistances with your buffs. Non-melee toons love Clarity, especially Empaths- they'll be your best friends for life if you keep them perma-claritied!

I didn't take Acrobatics because I went via the flight pool to round out my attack chain with Air Superiority. Tesla cage works fine for holding minions/LTs (and holding bosses, albiet not perma). Sonic buffs are lovely, Voltaic Sentinel contributes to my damage output on teams, and Short Circuit can keep herds of up to +3/+4s drained of endurance. Dipping into the Medicine Pool for Aid Other/Aid Self is also extremely helpful. I skipped Liquefy, it's really not worth taking except as a last ditch escape tool. I've only got 2 Acc SOs in Sonic Siphon; it doesn't stack with itself. You might want recharges in it if you're going to be using it a lot on regular teams, since it's not an AOE and so the -res will only affect one foe at a time.

Eventually I'm going to be picking up Power Sink for even greater endurance drain, along with the Electricity Mastery shield (Along with Sonic's Dispersion Field this gives some very nice resistance numbers).

The damage output of /elec is mediocre, but Voltaic Sentinel helps and so does using Sonic Siphon in your attack chain. Getting slept is annoying: Carnie Illusionists and Electricity-armed mobs will get through your mez protection regularly... but the only enemies I have consistent problems soloing are Malta (-recharge on their grenades halt tesla cages' recharge rate and sappers can't be endurance drained).

Finally, Disruption Field does pull considerable aggro, so don't leave it on your tank when he's herding... wait till he's done or is tanking a smaller mob that's under the aggro cap, THEN stick it on him. The only time i've ever died from DF aggro was when I used it on a friend's Fire tanker without realising that he had respecced out of Blazing Aura the day before (for pvp, allegedly).

One toon I've played which has had very respectable AOE damage output has been my Robotic Mastermind with his Assault Bot's overlapping Burn Patches.

The reason many of my CoH toons haven't taken AOE attacks is that the damage output, recharge rate and endurance rate on those attacks sucked. Cone attacks tend to be more damaging/faster recharging and often just as effective as AOEs on scrappers. Compare Lotus Drops and Flashing Steel for example.

Between Flashing Steel, Golden Dragonfly and Energy Torrent my Kat/Regen usually manages to hit most of a herd of mobs to scrank or take an alpha strike. Pulling some of the aggro is not usually a concern for a well built tank or scrapper, heck even my squishy Human Form PB didn't mind pulling aggro occasionally.

I've been on manys-a-team where a quick Fulcrum Shift followed by a Fireball or two killed off most minions, leaving LTs and Bosses drained but not dead. One or two smacks with a Broadsword or Katana during the Fireball would have them eating dirt, and we can all move onto the next mob. In teams like that I don't even bother using my cones unless Energy Torrent's knockdown would be useful.

The other argument is that many CoH 40-50 missions that teams run have an AV in them, so a mixture of Single Target and AOE specialists is more desirable than a team of only AOE specialists.

Stone's Damage Aura isn't autohit either I'm afraid. Invincibility and Chilling Embrace are the only ones that are IIRC, and of those two Chilling Embrace is by far the stronger taunt aura.

I'd say Healing Flames could do with a boost to bring it on par with Restore Essence/Reconstruction. And if Immobilisation, Teleport Foe, Fear or KB protection was added to "Temperature Protection", it might actually suddenly become useful rather than 'the one power everyone always skips'.

I don't hold with the "AOE is always better in big teams" argument. The main reason being that on 7-8 man teams on invincible you get more bosses in each spawn: as long as you have enough AOEs or cones in the team to kill off the minions, the scrappers or single target specialists can take out the bosses and you can all move on to the next mob.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of 8-man teams I've been in during the 40-50 stretch where I'd rather have had my Peacebringer than my Kat/Regen Scrapper. As long as you have one or two AOE-attack toons already in the team, there is no benefit in picking a Spines Scrapper over a Broadsword one.

Having said that, If you play solely in min/maxxed teams with mostly controllers, defenders and a few blasters, you'll probably want more AOEs since you'll likely be running on Unyielding for more mobs but fewer bosses.

I'd say it really depends on Team makeup. If everyone in the team is simply throwing AOEs around, the bosses will last a fair bit longer than the minions. If you have a scrapper or two beating on the bosses while slightly fewer AOEs are thrown around, they all die at roughly the same time and the team usually feels slightly safer for having a "Boss Killer" or psuedo-tank around. Next mob, please.

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P.S I heard Dis was taken down by an empath in warburg, not long before this event

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Wouldn't be at all surprised...

GRATS again you guys.

Have gotten stunned before fighting a herd of red ink Tsoo, but that's rare. I can count the number of times I've been disoriented through integration on one hand.

Being HELD through integration is more common now, actually. Particularly at higher levels when with the mez protection nerf a single Carnie Boss can now chain hold you (Master Illusionist has one Hold plus a hold from each of its decoys = one chain held /regen).

IMO Priorities should be:
Integration > Reconstruction > Dull Pain > Instant Healing > Hasten > Health > Revive > Resilience > Tough
(then everything else, then Flurry/Jump Kick, then the medicine pool, then MoG!)

I dunno Alan, my INV tanker seems awfully squishy when he's soloing sometimes against non smashing/lethal damage mobs... and scrapper resist/defense numbers for that set are a lot lower.

Looking at it from a numbers PoV; assuming defense build with CJ and a fully-3-slotted tough/weave:

+ INV tankers
Resistance: 90.5% S/L resistance and 27.5% resistance to all but PSI.
Defence: varied but usually about 13-14%. One foe in Invincibility range brings that up to 20%.

+ INV Scrappers
Resistance: About 67% resists to S/L (50% without Tough), 20.6% resistance to all others but Psi.
Defense: 10% with Weave, Unyielding, CJ and tough hide. 15% with one foe in invincibility range.
Other: Dull Pain for Heal/+HP Boost. Unstoppable. Resistance to repel.

+ Regen scrappers
Resistance: Can get about 26.5% S/L resistance with Resilience + Tough.
Defense: 8.2% (solely from CJ and Weave).
Other: Will naturally regenerate from 0 to full in about 40 seconds, with a 50% heal up every 30 seconds (20 secs with hasten running), plus nearly 150% normal endurance recovery rate. Dull Pain for Heal/+HP Boost. MoG. Self Rez. Resilience is very good un-detoggleable Disorient resistance.

+ SR Scrappers
Resistance: 17.7% from Tough.
Defense: 38.9% defense to melee/ranged and 33% to AOE without Elude.
Other: Quickness Recharge Boost. Elude. Resistance to Slow. Un-detoggleable mez protection.

+ DA Scrappers
Resistance: 53% to S/L, 59% to PSI, 35% to Cold/Fire, 47% to Dark and 24% to NRG/Toxic.
Defense: 15% Defense with Cloak of Darkness running, gets better with Cloak of Fear for mob -tohit.
Other: Dark Regeneration gives a 50% heal for every mob in range every 20-30 seconds, Minions are effectively negated with oppressive gloom. Self Rez. Stealth. Fear Protection. No KB protection.

Draw your own conclusions... To me, INV scrappers get a raw deal, but as long as you're having fun.

(Numbers were taken from the latest, fully updated version of Sherk's Hero planner, I've a feeling it has an older, incorrect -tohit value in DA's Cloak of Fear power so have not included it)

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I am biased, having taken my Kat/Reg scrapper to 50, but it's brought the most fun I've had in the game so far.

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Ditto to that

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"Third"ed

Oh- and since you're coming from a brute background, try a /regen for your first scrapper.

You'll LOVE it.

Darks' not that bad. As long as you aren't running Cloak of Fear constantly it's approximately the same as SR. Stick one Endred in each of the 3 main defensive toggles and you should be fine.

Just remember to slot another Endred or two in acrobatics!

Regen - Simplest set to play. Basically it absorbs sustained damage and heals it back. Toggle Based mez protection. One very good self heal, plus Dull Pain. Quick Recovery negates downtime completely and can even allow for a staminaless build. The set's effectiveness kicks in early and peaks at around level 30. Not good at heavy spike damage, since the ability to heal damage back quickly doesn't help if you get killed with the first few blows.

Super Reflexes - Probably the most popular set after regen. Defence based set, geared at avoiding damage in the first place. Clicky-mez protection (stays on when mezzed- good for pvp) a mini-hasten and resistance to slow. The set matures later in the game, with Elude at 38. Super Reflex builds are often very "tight", since almost all the powers in the secondary (including the passives for resistance to defence debuffs) are deemed "useful". Aid Self from the medicine pool can increase a SR's survival considerably. SR's Defence is positional rather than type based, so the defence will apply as much against Psionic damage as Lethal/Smashing damage.

Dark Armor - The "expert set", apparently ranked third for popularity after Regen and SR, DA is mainly resistance based, with a few controls thrown in and a very small defence boost. Like SR, DA matures fairly late but it does not get a "God mode" level 38 power. It does get an impressive all-round set of resistances to all damage including psionic, as well as resistance to endurance drain and resistance to fear. Toggle-based mez protection does not include Knockback protection so it can be wise to pick up acrobatics from the leaping pool. Cloak of Fear and Opressive Gloom are effective controls against minions, but running all DA's toggles can be very endurance heavy.

Invunerability - Ranked 4th in popularity, Invunerability is a scaled-down, less effective version of the tanker set. All it really has going for it is protection against repel, Unstoppable (level 38 power) and heavy Smashing/Lethal damage resistance. Dull Pain is useful, but will be less effective than the tanker version due to a scrapper's lower HP pool, as well as the lower defenses of this set compared to the tanker version. This isn't to say that INV scrappers are bad, just that it will be much more difficult in 90% of situations to play an INV over a SR or regen scrapper. DA can also come fairly close to matching them for Smashing/Lethal Damage resistance.

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The Arena is for build-obsessed nerds

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Fixed properly this time

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Quoted for tru....
bah, this is getting ridiculous!

(and I thought _I_ was a build-obsessed nerd...?)

If it's your first scrapper, roll a /regen.
They're the simplest to play and are effective throughout the game in PVE.

+ Claws - Melee/Ranged, Moderate Damage with some AOEs but Fast Low-cost Attacks
+ Spines - Melee/Ranged, High Damage with some AOEs but fairly high endurance cost.
+ Dark Melee - Melee, Moderate Damage with some controls, damage is generally unresisted.
+ Martial Arts - Melee, High Single-Target Smashing Damage with some disorient control.
+ Katana - Melee, High Single-Target Lethal Damage with faster, lower cost attacks.
+ Broadsword - Melee, Extreme Single-Target Damage with slower, higher-cost attacks.

Katana and Broadsword also get Divine Avalanche/Parry which when properly slotted can effectively put you at the 45% Defense cap... I find DA a very handy emergency damage mitigation tool on my kat/regen.

Any Primary can be effective, but probably the best synergy with /regen is Broadsword or Spines, since they tend to be the higher endurance cost primaries and /regen gets Quick Recovery.

Technically you can get slight disorient protection as well by using Aid Self, but it's interruptable and a weaker heal than your standard one. Better to mezzle them first as Sin says... Pulsar or Incandescent Strike ftw!

There's a good method of dealing with void minions/LTs when you're soloing... Quantum flight in, build up, drop Quantum Flight, Radiant Strike --> Incandescent Strike --> Very nearly Dead Void with little risk to yourself.

I do not suggest trying to solo a Quantum or Void Boss, EVER. You can't mez them, so one "miss" with knockback powers and you're toast... I've soloed Quantum Bosses a few times by keeping them in melee-range only, but Void Bosses will one shot you, even Essence-Boosted in dwarfie with the +HP accolades.

Assuming you're talking about PB rather than WS:

As long as you know what enemies mezzle, it's generally not a problem soloing at invincible in Human Form, even without light form. The knockback, pulsar and Incandescent Strike's hold are golden.

I didn't take Nova Form, used a well-slotted human form build and took dwarfie at 35 to help survive and whittle-down harder enemies. Was doing invincible missions by about 25-30. Eventually I respecced into essentially a human-only blapper build, with Light form at 38 and Dwarf Form at 41 (because there's always AV mission PUGs where they'll need an 'instatank').

One thing I'll say though: if you're going mainly-human then get acrobatics, it helps a lot. I took it at 49 simply because I coudn't fit it in earlier, it's very useful to not get knocked on my rear all the time. You can use Kheldian's inherent "Hover", but you need to be on the ground to activate Solar Flare and it really impacts your manuverability.

I haven't played a warshade to a high enough level yet to be able to comment on their soloability... but with a lot of controls and their lovely pets they look just as good at it if not better than Peacebringers. Double-Mire and Eclipse?

From the melee's point of view, the most dangerous enemies should go down first - usually this means Bosses, then LTs, then minions... although mezzing enemies like sappers/mushrooms, Rikti Portals and DE Cairns (+resistance) and Quartz (+tohit) rank higher.

Melee toons do not use debuffs- new players will be be unfamiliar with them and ignore them, and many seasoned scrappers still hold the view that a debuffed LT can still kill a squishy; so if it looks like it is going to start causing trouble they take it out and expect the defender to reapply debuffs to a less dangerous target.

At your level Troll LTs and Bosses are very powerful since they can disorient and have very heavy smashing damage attacks, and pre-DOs tanks are still very squishy with poor aggro control.

Generally LTs are a safe bet to anchor your debuffs on, but if there are several, the melees will generally target any in the middle or near the front of the pack. If you want your anchor to last then find a LT near the back of the pack, or failing that a sturdy looking minion. Scrappers generally ignore anchor requests unless they are veteran players (and even then the red mist can settle in), tankers and blasters tend to be a bit better at heeding your requests.

At higher levels, if there are a few LTs to choose from then it is probably best to stick your debuffs on a target and then *lock it down* with a hold, immob or disorient so that the melees can easily identify your anchor and see that it is not still a potential threat. Troller /rads and dark/ defenders should have no trouble locking their anchor down, Rad/ defenders might have trouble with this if they are /dark or /nrg since they won't get access to any single target holds/immobs until the epic pools, /rad cosmic burst with usual slotting also cannot perma-disorient a target.

There's something wrong with the way you're reading those numbers I'm afraid... my Kheldian Peacebringer can use his slotted Essence Boost and get approximately 60% extra HP in Human form. And Blasters can get +HP from accolades.

Look further down the US Source page you've linked to, and there are formula to substitute those values into.

HitPoints = BaseHP - [ BaseHP * LvlMod * ( 1 - AT_Mod ) ]

MaxHitPoints = 1.5 * { BaseHP - [ BaseHP * LvlMod * ( 1 - AT_Mod ) ] }

The page lists the level one value for BaseHP as "100" with a LvlMod of 0.2.

So for a level one blaster:
HitPoints = 100- [ 100 * 0.2 * ( 1 - 1.125 ) ] = 102.5
MaxHitPoints = 1.5 * { 100 - [ 100 * 0.2 * ( 1 - 1 ) ] } = 150

And a level one tank:
HitPoints = 100- [ 100 * 0.2 * ( 1 - 1.75 ) ] = 115
MaxHitPoints = 1.5 * { 100 - [ 100 * 0.2 * ( 1 - 2 ) ] } = 180

Judging by this raid, the majority of toons "not involved in the holding phase" would be tanks and scrappers anyway.

As was already mentioned there were several toons from coward's hill that ran towards the GMs and engaged them, they just couldn't reach them in time to save the tanking team. Either a largish patrol team or several smaller "lookout" teams stationed around the jelly would make this unlikely to repeat.

Ack... some pillock managed to pull two GMs in on top of the tank/healing team during the holding phase.

We cleared the mitos with ease, had brawled the big guy, had pulled the joke tellers back and holders were spamming away... we definately had hami held and then from what I saw two GMs ran in and killed most of the Tank's Support team. A few scrappers and Damage Dealers ran in to intercept the GMs but it was too late... tank died, trollers got aggro and the Mitos respawned... ><

Not your fault Mags, was a well organised raid and working fine up until then. No plan can be made 100% "Idiot Proof", and we have some extremely highly qualified idiots on the server.

Someone mentioned this Thursday at same time for the next attempt?