North_Woods

Well I think I've been convinced to keep the toon as a tanker and I'm looking forward to leveling him up. I've been playing scrappers for awhile now, and haven't played a tanker seriously since EM got nerfed. My first tanker to 50 was an ice/em, and I really got spoiled with chilling embrace, hoarfrost, and energy absorbtion. I haven't heard any complaints about shield being squishy, so I assume that the durability comes in different forms, like HP and resistances like some people had mentioned.

Another reason to pick a tank that I over looked, but was brought up a couple times, was teaming. My first IO'd toon was a fire/spines scrapper, and its amazing what it can do, but scrappers are often over looked for teams, and I enjoy teaming. Also, I like the mobs sticking to me when I'm thrashing them. The one thing I disliked about the scrapper was that, whatever didn't die in the first 3 seconds usually was running away from me. Now that isn't so problematic on a spines scrapper, but I could see it being annoying on a toon with no range.

Excuse me, I should have mentioned that I was assuming the scrapper and tanker were at the softcap for defense. Though I admit resitances and HP slipped my mind.

So I posted these two things on the scrapper boards and didn't get any responses. Rather than posting again over there, maybe my questions will be better received here.


My question for WP slotting is, do you slot high pain tolerance, health, and fast healing with sets like miracle, numina's, and regenerative tissue for the uniques and bonuses, or do you just slot them for straight up health IOs?

My considered slotting choices are

health
- 1 miracle unique/2 health IO
- 3 miracle (including the unique)
- 3 health IO

fast healing
-1 numina's unique/2 health IO
- 3 numina's (including the unique)
- 3 health IO

High Pain Tolerance
- 3 aegis/regnerative tissue unique/2 health IO
- 3 aegis/3 regenerative tissue
- 3 aegis/3 health IO

Of course any of the healing sets could be moved around or duplicated if the uniques are deemed to be unecessary. But which of these options is going to make me the most survivable?

I'd also like some critique on my MA/WP build.

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According to some patch notes on test, shield charge is now going to be affected by damage multipliers that give it a small damage boost on tanks and a large damage boost on scrappers.

Now that the damage gap is even farther apart between a shield tanker vs. a shield scrapper, why would you ever make a shield/elec tank over an elec/shield scrapper? Also, I'm pretty sure its possible to softcap a shield scrapper with just a little more work than it would take to softcap a tanker. So aside from the HP difference, the scrapper is going to have the same survivability as the tank right?


This is not a troll for tank lovers. I honestly want to make a tanker, but its hard when the damage potential an elec/shield scrapper has is staring me in the face.
Convince on why I should not reroll my level 15 shield/elec tanker into an elec/shield scrapper.

Wow, so I tried to post my build, but all the code showed up too.
I checked Official forums, Export data chunk if creating a data link isn't possible, and export bonus totals and set break down. Anything I'm doing wrong?

Anyway, here is the data chunk for now.

My question for WP slotting is, do you slot high pain tolerance, health, and fast healing with sets like miracle, numina's, and regenerative tissue for the uniques and bonuses, or do you just slot them for straight up health IOs?

My considered slotting choices are

health
- 1 miracle unique/2 health IO
- 3 miracle (including the unique)
- 3 health IO

fast healing
-1 numina's unique/2 health IO
- 3 numina's (including the unique)
- 3 health IO

High Pain Tolerance
- 3 aegis/regnerative tissue unique/2 health IO
- 3 aegis/3 regenerative tissue
- 3 aegis/3 health IO

Of course any of the healing sets could be moved around or duplicated if the uniques are deemed to be unecessary. But which of these options is going to make me the most survivable?

I've got an MA/WP scrapper at 50 and I'm considering IO'ing him out. I'd like to fit in combat jumping to help towards defense, but I'm not sure if I should cut resurgence or SoW.

The choice may seem obvious, as a self res really does nothing for survivability, but I really like the QoL improvement it brings. Is an IO'd WP scrapper viable withouth SoW?

What about focusing on melee defense rather than S/L? As a tanker, you're going to be in the thick of it 99% of the time anyway. With the use of some of the damage sets, along with weave/combat jumping and the steadfast unique, you should be able to get up to 34% melee defense and the mid 20s on ranged/aoe. This shouldn't cost you too terriblie much either. Definitely cheaper going for the PvP sets.

Edit: The damage sets I was refering to were touch of death, obliteration, multistrike

Edit 2: I just realized you said high melee defense was nice in the last sentance of the post haha.

I don't think I want to go for capped defenses, and it seems like where I get into trouble is when my fire/kin gets held/slept/stunned. So my question is, are the status protection bonuses (hold res, stun res, etc.) a reasonable thing to slot for? How much protection does it take to make a noticeable difference?

Also, I like to run tf's, but when I'm not running a tf, I'll mostly like be farming for drops and influence to complete this build and fund other toons. My question regarding power picks is whether to take manevuers (to stack with combat jumping), tactics, and vengeance (because vengeance is awesome), or to take boxing, tough (to stack with fire armor), and rise of the phoenix?

I suppose the second question is more of a team vs. self situation, and both are probably viable options, but would either set of these power picks stand out more all around?

I think after getting my thought out of my head, I'll be leaning towards the tough/rotp build, but I'd still like to hear some feedback. Thanks.

There needs to be a WW mobile so I can check my items at work.

That is all.

Awesome! Thank you for the post. I appreciate the help.

No intent to derail this, but is stone recommended over psionic mastery in terms of survivability? How useful is indomitable will and the rest of the set compared to what stone can offer?

Yeah, I realize it is an end heavy build. Personally I don't run with hurricane on all the time though, so that may help some.

I took power mastery over the others because of power boost and conserve power. While I realise I could fill the exotic damage holes with other epics, I thought conserve power would be a better all around power pick.

And thanks for the build post. My storm/dark is already level 50, and I'm just finishing up IO'ing a scrapper of mine, so I'm trying to get ideas for the next project. I like what I see, the only changes I may make would be switch out gale for o2, drop dark pit/thunder clap/life drain, and pick up tornado, force of nature, and conserve power. I love tornado too much to let it go. I don't use it often, but I love having it around for AVs or if there is a controller on the team. Definitely gonna take health over swift for numina/miracle uniques.

I noticed some peoples concern with storm summoning was the lack of -regen for tackling AVs. Though those comments were a few pages back in the thread, I wanted to point out that a tornado slotted up for damage is a pretty effective way to negate an AVs regen. You can get them out fast enough to keep on almost constantly on the AV, and not only does it do a great amount of damage, it debuffs their defense too!

In my experiences, my storm/dark has been able to make AVs melt. I've been able to spam TT enough to actually get an immob down on the AV, and with their inherent kb protection, Tornado does not send them flying, neither does lightning cloud. I think storms can handle AVs perfectly fine.

Could anybody share a build they have for a storm/dark defender? I've been messing around in mid's and I can't decide how I want to build it.

I'd like to go for durability and damage to make my build "soloable", and a few powers I'd like to work into the build are combat jumping, maneuvers, temp invulnerability, tough, weave. I'm hoping the defense from cj, maneuvers, weave, and a steadfast defense IO slotted into tough or temp invlun, stacked with steamy mist, will help give me some good defensive numbers.

Of couse, if your build doesn't have those exact powers it's no concern. I'm open to any and all help.

I don't think screen size is the issue. I'm using a 46" 1080p panasonic as my monitor. Could it be resolution? I've adjusted the desktop to 1216x684 because icons/text tend to get a little small when I max the resolution.

I'm wondering how I can adjust the size of Mid's Hero builder window. When I open it up, the ancillary power pools are always way at the bottom and I can't see any of powers within the pool. Of course I can drag the screen to a larger size vertically, but I still can't fit everything in the window on the screen before I reach the edge of my monitor.

What level is your tank? Your endurance woes will go away once you get Energy Absorbtion. It will also greatly increase your durability as a tank. Be patient with ice, it's amazing set.

It seems as if shield/electric doesn't need much to softcap its defense. If thats the case, are tough and weave necessary? Can I skip the fighting pool for an epic like fire and pick up fireball and cap my defense with purely IOs? If I do take tough/weave and only need a few enhancements to cap my defense, what should the rest of my set bonuses be geared towards?

22% is good, but the difference between 22% and 35% is very very noticeable. But you're right, if you fit in tough and weave, you probably won't be able to take an epic, but I think you'll find that spine/electric has more than enough attacks to get away without TT and nightfall. And with lightning reflexes and hasten, if you choose to take it, you're recharge will be good enough that you may even have an attack or two that you don't fit into your chain. On my spines/fire for example, I rarely use impale because ripper/spine burst/throw spines/lunge are up so frequently, and I'm only using hasten and set bonuses.

I wouldn't worry so much about the kismet 6% tohit either. If you put some decent sets into your powers, you'll get a ton of acc through set bonuses. Not to mention, all your attack IOs will give each power some acc as well. I'd look at fitting the steadfast protection def/res unique in there for 3% defense to all instead.

Edit: The steadfast protection would fit into an armor, not cj as I implied. I still think the best option for CJ is a karma -kb IO or luck of the gambler recharge.

I know you have the vet reward to skip the travel power pre req, but I still may consider taking combat jumping. It will give you almost 2% defense to everything and its a good place to slot either a Karma -kb IO or a luck of the gambler recharge.

Also, while electric armor is a restance based set, defense is always good. I run a level 50 spines/fire and even though all the toggles, including tough/weave, make it consume quite a bit of endurance, it can be overcome with IO's (performance shifter/numina's/miracle) if you want to put the money into it, and also in elec armor's case, by power sink alone. The more defense I have, the less I get hit entirely, the more survivable I am. And like several people have suggested, and like you have found in a build of your own, it is possible to get up into the 20% and I'd imagine even the 30% melee defense range if you put some money into it. I think that the endurance weave will cost you is worth the survivability it will add.

And concerning lightning field. Definitely take this power! Dual damage aura's is what made spines/dark so popular as the original farming scrapper, its what made spines/fire the next fotm of farming scrappers, and it'll make spines/elec a popular build too! I think you're going to love this character when he blooms in the late 20s or early 30s.

Edit: I noticed that the builds you posted put end mods into power sink. If that power functions like the blaster powers, I'd focus on recharge. I'm pretty sure its an auto hit power, and hitting just a few enemies will almost entirely fill your end bar back up.

Ok cool. That is some good information to know.

But why is it that the rewards aren't more evenly distributed? For example: A player soloing a 1x6 should receive the same amount of IOs as they would when six actual players are running the mission. I think players should be rewarded in every aspect to team, and not just influence/xp.

I know there is a thread on this some where, but I can't find it anymore.

Anyway, I'm wondering about the recipe drop rate. I ran a Synapse TF last night on my level 50 scrapper with 7 other people, and did not get a recipe drop for the first 3 missions. Through out the entire TF I only had 4, two common IOs, and one rare dark watcher's chance for slow recharge, and a perplex.

I'm trying to think on how to put this without sounding like I want the game to be easier when it comes to getting IOs... but 4 drops in 3-4hrs of playing is crazy.

I'd like to get away from farming and run regular content to earn influence and IOs, but with the TF netting me 58 merits, one IO costing 150 - 240 merits, and getting one uncommon and one rare drop in 3hrs, it seems like farming is still the best option.

I'm sure I'll hear it from both sides, but maybe IO drops from all pools should be upped a little?

The description says foes near the target will be knocked down, but with my blaster's thunder strike, foes near the target are knocked back.

I just want to verify it is knock down and not knock back, or I will probably skip that power.