Neogumbercules

soft-capping defense on a bs/fire probably isn't the best route to take. Soft-capping /fire at all is pretty much more of a novelty than anything. Since you have no debuff protection, all it takes is a couple of hits from something with defense debuffs to start the cascade failure, then your hundreds of millions of inf worth of IOs suddenly become useless. It's true that you'll have the res from /Fire to fall back on, but why bother building something that can be shut down so quickly?

Let alone all of the lame-duck power choices you'll be making just to slot the stuff you need to soft-cap.

Building for massive +recharge, +hp, +regen and +rec would probably be more useful overall. Fire benefits from all of these. The recharge will get HF back sooner, and the +HP means you'll be healing for more each time as well as regening HP at a greater rate. Recharge will also keep your APP AoE recharging quicker, which is what you'll need in order to make up for BS's relative lack of AoE.

Also, since I assume you'll be farming at x8 enemies, inspirations are going to be dropping on you like rain. You'll always be running around with several reds, purples, and oranges, as well as having plenty of greens in your tray in case you need them. My strategy is to mash f1-f5 after every spawn to use up every inspiration I get and there is rarely a time I'm not cruising around with around 50% extra defense from purples.

I don't have a build for your off-hand, but hopefully this advice will prove useful.

a lot more fun to play. I feel like I'm actually fighting the enemies now instead of just using my "i win" button and watching everything fall over. The stupidly high damage was fun for a while but I'm actually now having more fun being able to use my other powers once in a while.

The tier 1s have stupid looking heads but the rest look cool.

Give it to Neogumbercules.

Eviscerate

Topic: Still pretty low. Burn has been made less interesting by turning it into a boring old PBAoE attack, it can still only hit five enemies, and I doubt the extra damage is worth it.

The FE buff still seems pretty awesome but I'm still no more interested in making an FA character.

SC needed this, for sure. I'm glad they lowered the damage instead of killing the recahrge (and lowering the damage). Killing the recharge would totally change the feel of two of my favorite characters. At least I don't have to make any gameplay or build changes to compensate.

Dark Pit and Oppressive Gloom will stack nicely.

Dominators are getting rain of fire?! SWEEET!

Here's my current FM/SD. Couple of personal choices in here such as dropping Hasten and maybe you can work out something with obliteration sets if you want them. My goal was high recharge, soft-cap (44.5% to all is close enough for me) and it had to have fireball.

It's an unstoppable killing machine that never runs out of end. If you're spamming your inspiration drops while farming you're gonna be a freight train. I farm an AE map with 2/8 BM mobs on the well-known city map for tickets and it's basically a cake-walk. Note that a lot of the uniques I got were all from tickets. I kind of ended up in the "right place right time" during the massive amount of AE boss farming so I was getting 9999 tickets per map which was about every 10 minutes. Even so, this build is pretty moderate in it's costs.

Lots of room for improvement or personal changes depending on your budget. Oh, and even with the Shield Charge changes it's still gonna be a monster, so don't worry about that. Oh and I need to emphasize ShredMonkey's comment. Once you play an IO'd to the gills FM/SD... it's gonna be hard to make anything else without feeling like you just took 5 steps backwards. Enjoy!

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.704
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Blaze Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Scorch -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(5), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11), T'Death-Dam%(29)
Level 1: Deflection -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(7), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(15), RedFtn-Def(45), LkGmblr-Rchg+(45), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 2: Cremate -- T'Death-Dam%(A), T'Death-Acc/Dmg(3), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(9), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25)
Level 4: Battle Agility -- RedFtn-Def/Rchg(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(7), RedFtn-Def(13), LkGmblr-Rchg+(15), RedFtn-EndRdx(43), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(13), Zephyr-ResKB(31), LkGmblr-Def(37), LkGmblr-Rchg+(42)
Level 8: True Grit -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Numna-Heal(17), Numna-Heal/Rchg(17), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(37), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(37), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 12: Active Defense -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(43)
Level 14: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 16: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Fire Sword Circle -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(19), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(23), RechRdx-I(23), Sciroc-Dam%(25)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(21), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(40), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(40), P'Shift-End%(46)
Level 22: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Incinerate -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(27), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(27), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), T'Death-Dam%(34)
Level 28: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 30: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 32: Greater Fire Sword -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(33), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Mako-Dam%(34)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Sciroc-Dam%(A), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(36), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(36), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(36), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(42), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 38: Weave -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(39), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(39), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(39), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 41: Char -- G'Wdw-Acc/Hold/Rchg(A)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Posi-Dmg/Rchg(A), Posi-Dmg/Rng(48), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Acc/Dmg(48), RechRdx-I(50), Posi-Dam%(50)
Level 49: Grant Cover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 6: Ninja Run

I was hoping for FA to get some KB protection and a bit more of a radical burn change, but I tend to have an creative imagination for how powers could be changed. What's the target cap on burn? 10 foes now or still 5?

I was lamenting the adjustment but after having completed my build (and oh, add a posi's blast to Fireball) I realized even after purposely not using Shield Charge... He's still a monster. No big loss and it was inevitable.

Not really throwing much into it. Bought an LotG which can easily be transplanted or resold crafted for a profit. If I wanted to clear out this character I'd probably walk away with over a billion inf.

What type of nerfs are being talked about regarding shield?

Thanks for the build. Not a bad change but losing those two sets of Red Fortune will cost me 10% recahrge. I may have come to a decent compromise of my own here:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.704
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Blaze Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Scorch -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(5), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11), T'Death-Dam%(29)
Level 1: Deflection -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(7), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(15), RedFtn-Def(45), LkGmblr-Rchg+(45), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 2: Cremate -- T'Death-Dam%(A), T'Death-Acc/Dmg(3), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(9), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25)
Level 4: Battle Agility -- RedFtn-Def/Rchg(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(7), RedFtn-Def(13), LkGmblr-Rchg+(15), RedFtn-EndRdx(43), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(13), Zephyr-ResKB(31), LkGmblr-Def(37), LkGmblr-Rchg+(42)
Level 8: True Grit -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Numna-Heal(17), Numna-Heal/Rchg(17), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(37), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(37), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 12: Active Defense -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 14: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 16: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(43)
Level 18: Fire Sword Circle -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(19), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(23), RechRdx-I(23), Sciroc-Dam%(25)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(21), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(40), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(40), P'Shift-End%(46)
Level 22: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Incinerate -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(27), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(27), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), T'Death-Dam%(34)
Level 28: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 30: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 32: Greater Fire Sword -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(33), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Mako-Dam%(34)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Sciroc-Dam%(A), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(36), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(36), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(36), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(42), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 38: Weave -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(39), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(39), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(39), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 41: Char -- G'Wdw-Acc/Hold/Rchg(A)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(A), AirB'st-Acc/Dmg(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(48), Posi-Acc/Dmg(48), Acc-I(50), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Grant Cover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 6: Ninja Run







44.5% to everything, I get to keep my red fortunes and the only thing I need to buy is a set of BotZs I doubt I'll notice the 0.5% discrepency in defense, and since I'm playing at x8 I'll always have more purple and orange inspirations running than I'll know what to do with. I also dropped Hasten for Grant Cover. The extra defense debuff protection will be nice and I can slot another LotG 7.5 in there. I figured my AoE attack chain will be vastly improved from the addition of Fire Ball and I won't miss losing endurance after every Hasten crash. The big loss is adding about 9 seconds to my Shield Charge but it's a worthy trade-off. I'll see a slight decrease in my ST attack chain but nothing that great since everything seems to die in 1 hit after my AoEs fly anyway. I'd still be FAR beyond AV/Pylon solo'ing levels of DPS with a saturated AAO running. One thing not noted in the build above is a swap of the slot in against all odds for active defense giving me 2 rech for AD to ensure stacking. 1 end red is enough for AAO when I've got like 3.76 endurance recovery.

Some sets to look out for when you start to IO would be Mako's Bite, Obliteration, Scirocco's Dervish, Red Fortune, Gaussian's, Numina, Performance Shifter, Touch of Death, Blessing of the Zephyr, and don't forget the 3% unique steadfast which you can put in either the heal or the status protection. Don't remember which one. Or just put it in Tough if you plan on taking Weave.

/Nin in my opinion is by far the best Stalker set when you start planning IOs. Capped defense gives you the obvious advantage of almost never being hit. On a Stalker this is extra awesome due to being able to pull off mid-combat AS (which I do often). It also happens to be the only pure defense set with it's own self-heal which makes you practically invincible. You also get lots of places to put LotGs, tools to mitigate tons of damage, and it's just plain more fun (to me) than any other set.

rant/

Any other stalker set is just a gimped version of a scrapper/brute set that was never truly designed to work on the AT. Resist in general I find pointless on a Stalke, and even the so-called "good" stalker sets like WP are just bad versions of their counterparts. That's the reason why I don't play stalkers anymore. /Nin is a better version of /SR any if I wanted to play any other set I'd play them on ATs that they were designed for. Play /nin to 50, IO it, and you'll see everything the AT has going for it.

Stalkers are a supreme example of dev laziness. And I know what the naysayer is thinking! "But Neo, the dev team works really hard and gave us X, Y, Z and only had N employees working, etc, etc, blah blah freaking blah." I appreciate the devs for this game as much as the next guy, but if they aren't gonna do something right then they might as well not have done it. Dark Armor and Elec are an insult as Stalker sets, and the rest of them are just hack-jobs they threw in there to make it so Stalker's had more than 2 secondaries when CoV launched.

Obviously the devs are capable of making something unique and fun. Just look at /Nin for the example. They just chose to ignore stalker power sets for the most part for whatever, potentially valid, reason they had. Stalker's themselves are a conceptually sound AT but flawed in many ways, and I don't see that changing. Just my two cents.

/rant

Hi Scrapper board. Been a while since I posted anything here so I figure I'll post a build and get some ideas going.

I currently have a IO'd out Fire/Shield, soft-capped to all three, and a respectable amount of recharge. The only thing is I wanna work Fireball into my build. Other than having to respec a several hundred million dollar build, I'm also having trouble getting soft-capped to everything. Fireball and the additional power picks I have to take to get there is pushing the limits of my IO'd budget (no PvP 3% is going into my build unless someone wants to give me one) and slot limit. This is what I have so far:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.704
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Blaze Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Scorch -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(5), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11), T'Death-Dam%(29)
Level 1: Deflection -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(7), RedFtn-EndRdx(13), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(15), RedFtn-Def(45), LkGmblr-Rchg+(45)
Level 2: Cremate -- T'Death-Dam%(A), T'Death-Acc/Dmg(3), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(9), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25)
Level 4: Battle Agility -- RedFtn-EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(7), RedFtn-Def(13), LkGmblr-Rchg+(15), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(46)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(37), LkGmblr-Rchg+(42)
Level 8: True Grit -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Heal-I(17), Heal-I(17)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 12: Active Defense -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(43)
Level 14: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A)
Level 16: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(43), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 18: Fire Sword Circle -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(19), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(23), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23), Sciroc-Dam%(25)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(21), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(40), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(40), P'Shift-End%(46)
Level 22: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(29), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(31), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(37), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(37), GSFC-Build%(40)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Incinerate -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(27), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(27), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), T'Death-Dam%(34)
Level 28: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 30: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 32: Greater Fire Sword -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(33), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Mako-Dam%(34)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Sciroc-Dam%(A), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(36), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(36), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(36), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(42), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 38: Weave -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(39), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(39), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(39), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 41: Char -- G'Wdw-Acc/Hold/Rchg(A)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(A), AirB'st-Acc/Dmg(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(48), Posi-Acc/Dmg(48), Acc-I(50), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 6: Ninja Run



As you can see I'm short on ranged. By like... 2.7%. I'm sure this build can be made more efficient. The only compromise I could come up with was choosing which position I wanted to come up short on. I have most of these sets already so I don't really want to have to get rid of much so I want to re-use as much as I can. This build I'm posting is already dumping almost a whole set of numina that I currently have and I don't want to have to part with my LOTG's (that's how I'm coming up short on ranged.) One idea I'm trying to work out is dropping something to take grant cover, putting a LotG in there, then slotting one of my missing red fortune's to cap off ranged. The problem is.... what should I drop? Hasten is the only thing really sticking out to me but I'm not sure it's worth losing just to fit 2.7% ranged defense...

Anyway, any help would be much appreciated.

It depends on what you want to do. /Dark is certainly better at keeping you alive and keeping the team safe. /Kin is certainly better at keeping the enemies dead. I'd mention Elec/Kin can be an effective sapping build but the actual usefulness of sapping is.... difficult to quantify. Anyway, do you want to debuff the enemies and keep yourself safe or go "balls to the wall" and hope your massive damage buffing can kill everything before you get killed?

Oh and if you hate recasting the same buff every 90 seconds on your entire team that's something to consider.

That's for the response. I wasn't really asking for advice, just curious as to how you were doing it good luck!

Can you explain your day to day process like FF did in the guide? Maybe don't have to be as precise but can you show what you're selling and describe how you earned it. I'm guessing you're farming AE and rolling for ticket drops. What rolls are you doing, what types of things are you selling? What kind of mobs are on your AE map?

Anyone else do this?

I'm using the new market interface by finding my stored items with the find button. They come up, I see what they are selling for and attempt to post my item. Unfortunately my groggy, just-woken-up brain didn't realize I was making a bid on the top window, not placing a bid on the bottom window :0

Oh well, only cost me 4 million and at least I get to turn around and sell the item back for the same price I got it for.

My biggest mistake was back when the market first hit. I was trying to sell an item I had so I posted it, didn't sell right away, took it off, changed my price, posted it again, repeated, then it stopped letting me post. Wondering why, I then learned about the listing fee!

Lets just hope the 55 million infamy worth of crafted enhancements I put on the BM today are there when all this crap blows over.

What's your thought on stacking leadership? Everyone can stack up Assault and Maneuvers for tons of extra damage and defense. The /Fire and /Elec characters wouldn't have a huge problem with end, everyone else can take CP and PP from the APP. Plus you gotta figure in everyone basically using maybe 1 or 2 activated abilities per spawn since there will be so much stacked damage auras to do most of the killing.

Yeah I'd like to know, too. Shield Charge is getting a nerf?

Fire/Storm corr. Freezing Rain is way better than Tar Patch for that whole "slow em and blow em" routine.



that sounds dirty.