Maelwys

No, you need to be in the same SG. Coalitioned forces can't join your raid i'm afraid, unless you invite them to your SG temporarily. All members of your SG get the "IoP mission" flagged up when you start it, you use the Raid Teleporter to access the zone (set in the shadow shard) and everyone gets auto-sk'ed to 50.

The bit outside is actually the easy part. 3 pylons to kill which respawn pretty fast, each pylon is protected by what amounts to a shield generator. Both pylons and shield generators are guarded by mobs. Kill shield generator, then kill pylon (when shield drops). Need to beat all 3 within a fairly small time frame, but it's quite possible to beat two simultaneously then converge on the third one to beat it in time... just need to FIND them all first! Silly Shadow Shard maps!! Once all pylons are down, the gateway to the temple is accessable and remains so for the duration of the mission.

Inside the temple are 3 spawns of mobs spaced out in a circular chamber. The middle spawn also has an AV in it. The object of this second bit is to kill the AV.

Unfortunately, the AV is nasty. He possesses a one-way PFF... he can hit you but you can't hit him. The Force Field will only drop once all the other enemies in that room are defeated, at which point you have 60 seconds to kill the AV before all three mobs spawn again and the AV's shield (and health recovery rate) goes back up.

You need a LOT of damage to take out the AV within 60 seconds. As if that wasn't enough, the three groups of mobs in that room keep on respawning at a very fast rate as you are trying to kill them off. We found that you really need to defeat them all simultaneously in order to clear the room.

With a fairly unorganised group of 12 people on a first attempt (all level 50s I think. Very mixed group of ATs), we managed to clear the room three times, each time getting the AV down to about 20% Health before all mobs in the room respawned. The AV does a large amount of smashing and psionic damage in AOEs and fairly wide cones, and will be attacking you constantly. For "large amount of damage" read "more than a level 50 /regen scrapper can handle without Dull Pain + Instant Healing"... although if all else fails, you can "kite" him around a pillar indefinately with just integration running.

If you want to beat it first time, I'd suggest taking along about 16 people, or at least having a lot of spike damage output. If we had had some -res debuffs and used a kin to dump a "fulcrum shift" on our melees just before killing off the surrounding mobs, we probably would have taken the AV down in time with just 12 people.

Yeah I'd be up for ol' Manti...

Can arrange to be free for most weekday afternoon/evenings... I've 2 Damage Dealers and a Tanker above the 35 cap, and a Defender that's currently sitting at 33.

Arch mate at this rate you're going to have to delete a few 50s or face running out of character slots...

Grats!

For PVE, you can drop the second accuracy enhancement no problem and could even possibly make do with no accuracy SOs for most fights. Build Up is not worth slotting for tohit.

For PVP, you'll still want two accuracy enhancements in each of your attacks. Slot Build Up with Tohit if you can spare the slots, it'll considerably increase your burst accuracy helping you hit defense based toons.

As a guideline: with FA 3-slotted for tohit and 2 acc SOs in my attacks I can reliably hit Purple MoG'ed Paragon Protector Bosses in PVE. With one Acc SO in my attacks and a 2-slotted FA, I could hit Rikti drones reliably but still missed the aforementioned MoG'ed PPs a lot. Katana's -def effect helps a little too.

At present my Kat/Regen has 6-slotted FA (3 endred/3tohit), along with 2 acc SOs in SOTW, Flashing Steel and DA. SD and GD each only have one Acc SO but are generally used together with Build Up (3-slotted with recharges) or during an ongoing chain when the enemy is under a few stacked -defense effects.

There's two schools of thought over whether "Tough" is worth the two picks for a /regen or not.

Slotting up Health and Stamina is generally a good choice, even with QR.

Hasten is very useful to get clickyheals up sooner.

If you are set on PVPing, get resilience for the high disorient resistance. If you're going the leaping route then it might be worth picking up acrobatics for the hold resistance + hold protection since Integration is a little lackluster as PVP hold protection these days.

Would also recommend the Weapon Mastery pool for Web Grenade, or Body Mastery Pool for Focussed Accuracy. Depending on how you want to build your toon!

Dwarfie's actually one of the better tanks to take on a Shadow cyst crystal with... lots of negative energy damage from all those Nictuses (Nicti?), just make sure you fire off Hasten or get Speed Boosted before you get too much -recharge on you.

Pulsar and a good attack chain in Light form usually also makes very quick work of them. It's hilarious to see a seasoned team panic at the sight of a Nictus crystal, only to have the Kheldian dive straight in and solo it.

I tried that on a SR scrapper a while back, the speed is bearable but the lack of vertical movement can be extremely annoying.

Assuming you don't want to be using the temp power jetpacks throughout the game every time you want to go over an obstacle, you'd do well to consider at least picking up Combat Jumping and/or Hurdle (assuming you're going for Stamina). Fly is another good option especially if you're thinking of grabbing Air Superiority, since the speed of fly now gets buffed with swift.

Personally I'm going for the leaping pool on my /elec brute... Combat Jumping will stack nicely with the partial Immob protection from Grounded and Superjump is a nice fast travel power. I'm taking Acrobatics later on for 100% KB protection and higher hold resistance in pvp.

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Maelwys did his homework. I agree with everything he said, except the fact that Fiery Embrace is a very good buff if you have Fire Melee. With 3 recharges and Hasten, you'll be dealing a good amount of damage.

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I bow to Fu's superior experience here!

Again, I've tested Build Up + Fiery Embrace on an EM/Fire tanker and it works fantastically... just wasn't sure if you'd notice an extra 100% damage buff on a brute with a nearly full fury bar!

I ran a comparison on a hero builder a few weeks back when I went alt-crazy.

Fire Aura numbers are very decent for tanks, but for brutes they seem to be too low to give decent damage resistance... you actually need to take temperature protection to maximise your fire resistance. You get a rez, a self heal and an AOE endurance leech, but you'll also NEED to take the Leaping pool for Knockback protection via acrobatics, and the immobilisation protection in "Burn" is a bit iffy. It does have a decent damage buff in Fiery Embrace, which gives +100% damage for 20 secs on fire attacks and 10 secs on all others... Recharge time is a bit long though at 3 mins unslotted and it'll be less useful for Brutes than tanks because of fury.

Electric Armor is very good damage resistance and has very nice endurance buffs (conserve energy for when there are no mobs near you, and the electric AOE end leech is autohit unlike fire's), but the set lacks a HP buff or a self heal. Grounded has partial Knockback/Immob protection, you can still opt to go the leaping route if you want 100% protection but it's optional. You also get an "unstoppable", a recharge rate boost, resistance to endurance drain, resistance to psionic damage and protection against TP foe.

Both sets also have a PBAoE damage aura... electric's is a bit weaker at 0.4722 BI vs fire's 0.6111 BI (unslotted), although electric's also does slight endurance drain.

I plumped for an /Elec build with aid self, Fire Aura only really has the self heal and self-rez going for it, but IMHO Electric Armor gives better overall resistance and a far, far better set of toys.

Damage resistance comparison:
(assumes 3-slotted tough and all powers 3-slotted for damres with +3 SOs):

[u]Blazing Aura:[u]
53.1% Lethal/Smashing
20.7% Cold
35.4% Energy
78.7% Fire
35.4% Negative Energy
0.0% Toxic (15% res with unslotted Healing Flames)
0.0% Psionic

[u]Electric Armor:[u]
59.0% Lethal/Smashing
41.3% Cold
97.2% Energy
41.3% Fire
35.4% Negative Energy
0.0% Toxic
41.3% Psionic

3-slotted Power Surge adds 82.6% resistance to everything except Psionic for 180 secs, if you're running your toggles then even unslotted it will put you at the resistance cap for everything except Psi and toxic.

[edit] Numbers are from the latest build of Sherksilver's Hero Builder 1.7.6.0 (Power DB version is 1.0.336) It's not perfect, but with the villain ATs it's been pretty accurate since the Prima guide was released... [/edit]

He's currently hovering around level 30, and was 24 by the time I had a serious look at his build and planned the rest of it out, so he already had Resist Energies.

Thanks for pointing out the identical numbers of weave and Tough Hide. For some reason I had in my head that TH was considerably less of a buff... If I get a 2nd respec in the bank I'll shuffle it so Tough, Weave and Tough Hide are all in by 28 but at the moment I'm reasonably happy with the toons defenses.

Dull Pain really isn't worth the 3rd Heal for me. I would genuinely not notice the difference between it providing a 70% and a 78% heal. In teams I usually use it when I'm at about 40-50% HP so that the 3-slotted Health is acting on a higher HP pool. The support ATs would have a coronary if I let myself drop to nearly 20% HP before Self-Healing... This is possibly a result of my old regen scrapper mentality but it would drive me mad if I ever let myself get that low on HP... I'd much rather Dull Pain early and pop a purple while Health does its thing.

I have Hasten at 30 (eventually 3-slotted) so Dull Pain should be up fairly often.

I honestly don't know why Unstoppable has 3 Resbuff SOs in it (there must be gremlins in there somewhere!). It SHOULD be 1 DamRes, 3 Recharge and an Endmod. I may stick that Endmod in Dull Pain later as a 3rd Heal SO if enough people badger me about it, but it's more likely to go in Taunt as a Taunt Duration SO.

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How did this derail into pvp btw?

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It's all Aerie's fault!!

(In a pathetic effort to get back OT, the defensive abilities of the Inv tank I'm currently levelling are below!)

---------------------------------------------
01) --> Temp Invulnerability==> DmgRes(1) DmgRes(7) DmgRes(9) EndRdx(19) EndRdx(25)
02) --> Dull Pain==> Heal(2) Heal(7) Rechg(15) Rechg(15) Rechg(33)
08) --> Unyielding==> DmgRes(8) DmgRes(9) DmgRes(19) EndRdx(25) EndRdx(31)
12) --> Combat Jumping==> DefBuf(12)
16) --> Health==> Heal(16) Heal(17) Heal(17)
18) --> Invincibility==> DefBuf(18) DefBuf(23) DefBuf(40) EndRdx(46) Taunt(48) Taunt(50)
24) --> Resist Energies==> DmgRes(24) DmgRes(43) DmgRes(45)
26) --> Tough==> DmgRes(26) DmgRes(27) DmgRes(27) EndRdx(31) EndRdx(34)
28) --> Weave==> DefBuf(28) DefBuf(29) DefBuf(29) EndRdx(31) EndRdx(34)
32) --> Unstoppable==> DmgRes(32) DmgRes(33) DmgRes(33) Rechg(34) Rechg(37)
41) --> Tough Hide==> DefBuf(41) DefBuf(42) DefBuf(42)
44) --> Resist Physical Damage==> DmgRes(44) DmgRes(45) DmgRes(45)
47) --> Resist Elements==> DmgRes(47) DmgRes(48) DmgRes(48)

I'm planning to get all the +HP accolades, hence only two heal SOs in Dull Pain to hit the HP cap. Also I'll be respeccing weave and Tough Hide out once he hits 50 to fit in Rage and Focussed Accuracy and rejigging the power pick order a bit so he can function reasonably well in PvP.

Unstoppable is a clicky, it won't be turned off if you have no endurance and you'll get a nice endurance buff anyway... =D

IIRC kins usually won't have that great +accuracy either so if the inv is +def'ed up with CJ, weave, invincibility, etc. then might have more trouble landing that leech heal/endurance drain.

Meh, powers and counterpowers... pvp makes my head hurt!

Had a PUG the other night as a level 27 SS/INV, in an 8 man group with an Ice Tanker and another Inv.

I didn't let the other two tanks get aggro for a minute because every time they had more than one boss on them they more or less instantly went down. They'd both missed several key defensive powers from their primary and hadn't dipped into the fighting pool. With no taunt or taunt auras either, the spines scrapper was actually pulling more aggro than them with Quills.

In comparison by level 27 I had 3 slotted Temp Invul, Unyielding and Tough, fully slotted Dull Pain and decent defense with a defbuff in CJ and 2-slotted invincibility. (And Taunt, albeit with only one recharge SO in it!) Tanks *can* be decent at those levels, but most people in your average PUG still seem to be more of the 'scranker' mindset... thinking that more attacks and passives > main "tank" defensive/resistance/taunt powers.

(And to keep this on-topic, If I had have had my dwarfie, his survivability would have been about the same as my INV tank providing he had a defense buff on him. Aggro-control would have been much worse though)

But Invuln gets one of the best repel resistances...
Can basically walk through TK or Hurricane with either Unyielding or Unstoppable.

I'd guess that it's in the region of a 30%-35% defense debuff.
That's judging by my Kat/Regen... If I pop Geas and use Divine Avalanche (24% ish defense buff) then I still get hit slightly more than normal, but if I stack two (48%) then I get hit slightly less than normal.

It's a *huge* +recovery and accuracy increase though. You'll be hard pressed to use up endurance faster than it regenerates even when fighting enemies like sappers or carnies.

My level 50 Human/Dwarf Form PB absolutely LOVES it to recover from Light Form's crash, since he can use it whilst in dwarf form.

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You get invited to teams and is expected to be the main tank with your dwarf even though there are one already (because your better at it)

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Signed!
(actually... on occasion, we *ARE* better at it)

GRATS HAMMER!!!!!

Haven't tried it on my WS yet, the easiest way I can see is to just use Ctrl+Left for one and Shift+Left for the other.

I use a variant on that first macro ($$powexec_name Energy Flight$$powexec_name White Dwarf Step) for my PB's Human form flight/Dwarf form TP that works successfully... I think it's something to do with that Teleport target cursor.

Try this macro instead. Will need a few text files set up but it should work.

I've got a Bot/Dark that's currently sitting at 45, Haven't played thugs that much, but Dark's powers are certainly great (even overpowered!).

+ Twilight Grasp: 2x Acc, 2x Heal, Recharge, Endred. (Spammable -tohit and -regen!)

+ Tar Patch: 3 recharge, (2 slows can go in later if spare slots)

+ Darkest Night: 2x Endred, 2-3 Tohit debuff.

+ Fearsome Stare: 2 acc, 2 Fear Duration, 2 Recharge (makes it slightly more than perma on +1s)

+ Shadow Fall: Endred x2, Dmg Res. x2-3 (Defense isn't worth slotting)

+ Petrifying Gaze: Accx 2, Hold x2, Recharge x2 (Just short of Perma on +3s)

+ Dark Servant: Recharge x3, Acc x1, Tohit Debuff x2 (Recharge x3 is needed)
With 3 Recharges you'll have a 8-20 sec downtime without Hasten running. The Tohit debuff's base value on Servant is much better than yours, definately worth slotting. He can hold off a boss by himself pretty easily.

+ Howling Twilight disorient has a very low Mag (affects minions, but not LTs) but can be useful in a pinch for crowd control. The -spd can be useful for slowing running bosses. Slotting can vary wildly from 1 Endred to Recharges and Disorient Durations, mine's just at one endred.

If you're going for Black Scorpion's Mace patron pool, I highly recommend getting that last Hold at level 47. With hold/-spd/-recharge/-fly/-jump, It's one of the best debuffs you can get and has +20% base accuracy (so only needs one acc SO). The Hold aspect stacks with Petrifying Gaze and the debuffs stack with Web Envelope.

You don't need half a base full. If you pick the right zones, with 7 beacons you can get nearly every zone in COH (except the Shadow shard ones) within a one-zone hop of your teleporter.

+ Kings Row (Covering Galaxy City, Warburg, Indy Port (middle), Pocket D, Skyway, Yellow train line)

+ Steel Canyon (Covering Siren's, Perez Park, Boomtown, Indy Port (North end), Atlas, DO/SO Enhancements level 15-20)

+ Skyway City (Covering Hollows, Kings Row, Talos, Faultline, Atlas, Bloody Bay, Yellow train, DO/SO Enhancements level 15-20)

+ Talos Island (covering Striga, Dark Astoria, Skyway and DO/SO Enhancements 25-30)

+ Founders Falls (Covering Pocket D, Talos, Eden, SO Enhancements level 30-40)

+ Brickstown (Covering Indy Port (South end), Creys Folly, Eden, Green train (and thus Croatoa), SO Enhancements level 30-40)

+ Peregrine Island (Covering Rikti crash site, Talos, Firebase Zulu, SO Enhancements level 40-50)

That'd leave The Hive, Recluse's Victory and Terra Volta as the only Zones not accessable within a one-zone hop. The Hive and Terra Volta are certainly both rarely visited, and all three would be reachable fairly quickly via a two-zone hop. (Kings Row > IP > Terra; FF > Eden > The Hive; Skyway > Atlas > RV)

So far solo it'd be Calystix. Kept resummoning her/his coral pets far too quickly for me to be able to kill them off while doing enough damage to her/him. Died twice and got through about 5 changes of pets... This was about level 30, so before the Robot level 32 upgrade and dark's fluffy.

After getting Fluffy and the 32 upgrade power, EBs don't give me that much trouble. I've dropped Infernal twice practically without noticing, Positron was a lot tougher. I'll admit though that Valkyrie's self-rez/MoG combo surprised me and had me kiting for a good while at low-HP in BG mode.

In a group? Well yesterday I had a few very tough battles, One was vs Calystix again... but this time as an AV surrounded by a load of +repel/+knockback waterspouts and four high-psi-damage EB level fonts of power (which could essentially one shot me even with 3-slotted SF running, and did a good job at wiping out my minions in a Leeroy-style all pets BG mode charge) with another AV ambushing us afterwards. The team nearly quit in that mission after about the fifth/sixth trip to the Hospital.

Mind you, Numina was very hard as well... just getting to the right area of the zone was essentially like trying to break into Hero Base in Warburg. Then there were the multiple Longbow bosses with Knockback Singularities that Linked with Numina, who proceeded to run halfway across the map aggroing everything in sight and causing about three nearly complete teamwipes. Once we actually got Numy alone, it was a cakewalk... [img]/uk/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Loving dark's AoE rez, Heal, and the ability to floor the tohit of everything short of Hamidon.... [img]/uk/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

I've still not tried to solo an actual AV/Hero though (though it's just been me and a brute a few times)... nice job with Aurora Borealis Haidou!

Few comments, given that it's my post being linked to... [img]/uk/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

That build's aimed at PVE, and it works fantastic there. On the occasions I've ventured into PvP zones it's been more than survivable, but it's not that great at actually killing anyone with Knockback Protection unless the other person doesn't try to run away.

For a more PvP-focussed build you'll probably want to take the Jumping pool rather than Teleporting pool. With no immobilization or hold powers it can be very tricky to catch ranged blasters/kiters with TP (TP foe can work if you activate it and immediately cue a knockdown attack, but people adapt to that quickly).

Be sure to stick at least 2 accuracies in the attacks.
2acc/3dam/1 recharge will work fine in SOTW/GD/SD, especially if you take both Quick Recovery and Stamina.

Tactics will be useful for stalker spotting if you're going to be running about in PvP zones below RV.

That's about it! ^^

Heh, fair enough ^^

One thing my scrapper really misses is Combat Jumping + Hurdle... I took Teleport for TP Foe... I admit I'm a bit of a speed freak, I love SJ + Hurdle on my PB to make me that much faster between missions.

I usually leave sprint on and jump after chasing runners. Hurdle stacks with Combat Jumping really well for unrepressed movement in PVP. Personally I find it much faster to position myself for cone attacks and AOEs by jumping into place...

You'll root when attacking anyway, so whether you jump after or run after an enemy you'll need to catch it again unless you knocked it down on the first hit.

To each his/her own I guess...

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There are a few things I want to know about this build:
1) What is the downtime of my divine avalance, if I cant stack it?

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No downtime even unslotted. You can double stack it with that slotting constantly, and get a very very brief overlap with triple stacking. I wouldn't bother double stacking it in normal attacking, but it's useful to chain DA-GD-DA-SD... when up against tougher mobs like EBs/AVs/GMs.

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2) Can I keep up my attack chain?

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Yes. You could chain GD-SD-SOTW constantly for maximum DPS if you ran Hasten or had a recharge in GD/SD. As it is you'll need to use Flashing Steel to fill-in, but you'll still basically have a constant chain without DA.

Gamblers' cut is rubbish damage. Hasten or even The Lotus Drops would help more. Energy Torrent without Recharges or an Endred isn't really that useful, I run Hasten and have two recharges in ET and I still wish it was up more often.

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3) Would this work in PvP? Any changes towards more PvP survivability except swapping travel power, SJ is the only travel power I can use, hate every else :P also slotting sprint and/or hurdle wont happen.


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Hurdle + CJ/SJ is fine in PVP. You'll be fine against one-on-one melee combat... but you'll have issues with stalkers without tactics or a PBAoE. With absolutely no ranged abilities, slows or a -fly move you'll also have problems chasing down runners/fliers. Aid Self is also useful in PVP, Dull Pain is a good heal but with all that energy damage floating about it might not quite cut it alone if you're fighting a group of villains.

Katana's soft control is mostly Knockdown/Knockback which is fine in PVE but in PVP most people will be running Acrobatics so don't expect it to help your survivability much.

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After thinking, I think only problem is that Combat Jump has the extra endrec. Sure attack powers could all use 1 rechg, but where to get the slots?

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You can take three slots out of CJ and stick a Defense SO in the default slot... Also two slots out of Resilience with a Resistance SO in the default slot. This will make very little difference to your toon, it's highly unlikely you'll notice the change, it's about 1.9% resistance and 0.6% defense.

I'd also be tempted to stick a 3rd Endrec into Focussed Accuracy.

Also swap swift for hurdle!!!!!!! (!!!!!)
(believe me, it'll make a difference!)


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The combined end cost is much less after the change. I think 1 slotted end reds in Maneuvers and Tactics cost about the same as FA 3 slotted for end reduction.

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Nofuture gives them both as 0.195 end every 0.5 secs = 0.78 end per sec when combined.
Gives Focussed Accuracy as 0.585 every 0.5s = 1.17 end per sec.

According to Sherksliver Hero Builder's new numbers for I7; the most you'll get from a Scrapper running Tactics is 7% base accuracy boost, or about 11% 3-slotted for Tohit buffs. This is is a little higher than what a TO will give you... about that of a -3 DO.

Focussed Accuracy is 18.5% base or 29.1% when 3-slotted. A Normal +0 Acc SO will give you about 33% accuracy, so FA is about the same boost as a slightly under-levelled SO.

Leadership Pool's bad for a scrapper in general. Tactics adds about 7% accuracy at base compared to 18.5% for Focussed Accuracy, it's next to worthless by comparison. Most scrappers who take it will do so for the added +perception for PVP.

Assault is another pretty poor one, giving only 10.5% damage boost (applied to BASE damage, does not include damage SOs, so expect about 5% extra actual damage output) but it's better than taking Maneuvers (1.625 +defense at base, actually a fair bit less than Combat Jumping and basically useless) in order to get Tactics.

Vengence is decent, however multiple instances of it was nerfed recently, so only one can be up at a single time. Chances are that a defender or controller in your team will have it and their version has far better base numbers than yours. Also you can only use it when teammates die, and as a Scrapper you should be trying to prevent that (!)

You'll still need a travel power. Don't ditch the Jump pool unless you're OK with losing the manuverability advantage Combat Jumping gives you either. Try playing with it turned off, it takes some getting used to.

You shouldn't need Conserve Energy if you change your slotting a little for more endurance reductions. But I'd be very wary of thinking Tactics will replace Focussed Accuracy for Tohit buffs. Running Assault and Tactics will also be slightly more endurance heavy than Focussed Accuracy.

If you want to help teammates more, rather than getting vengence I'd suggest carrying a few awakens and take Taunt or Knockdowns like Air Superiority/Energy Torrent.

Using Katanas' GD/SD, Air Superiority and Energy Torrent I can keep two +5 bosses on their backs pretty much constantly... or by using Flashing Steel, Golden Dragonfly and Energy Torrent I can tank a small mob, keeping them on their backs a good bit into the bargain.

In my mind it's better to reduce incoming damage in the first place than to give the few survivors a slight defense boost, you can usually achieve that by grabbing the rampaging boss by his unmentionables and either keeping him on the floor or layering Divine Avalanche...