Sailboat

So far I've only fought her with a high-flying Energy/Energy Blaster. I just kind of stayed way the hell up there and hurled long-ranged damage at her and ran away to use my pool heal when I got hurt, then came back.

I say we take off, and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I've never experienced any fight in which Broadsword felt weak, even against highly resistant foes. I concur with Werner that "lethal damage is less of an issue than most people make it out to be."

Don't underestimate the effectiveness of the secondary effects -- knockdown and knockup, def debuff, and of course Parry's buff. I like to say Broadsword is a toolkit...and every tool is a can opener...and the can is labeled "Whoopass."

I have a level 42-43 BS/Shield Scrapper playing "hardcore," the voluntary playstyle in which you delete a character when he or she is defeated. The fact that this one is 42+ means that he's never been defeated. I do play him more cautiously than my regular (non-hardcore) Scrappers, but still, that's a long time to stay alive on a character without set bonuses (I don't spend big money on him because I might have to delete him at any moment).

I agree with Local Man that the AoE seems pretty well-balanced; the fast recharge and great area coverage of Slice makes it more effective than it looks on paper, and you can add Whirling Sword, Headsplitter, and Shield Charge. And single-target is great, because Hack is such a hard-hitting early-tier attack.

Broadsword also has very good-looking models available.

You can opener is ready. Open that can. You know which one.

To the OP:

Don't take this personally, as this is my own rant about something I encounter all the time in posted builds these days: why won't you six-slot your attacks? You've got LOTS of underslotted attacks, key ones, not just Boxing or set mules.

At first I thought, "Maybe it's a build with a special emphasis." So I looked, and it's got a whopping 67.5% global recharge bonus. But what's the point in underslotting the recharge in your attacks and then "making up for it" with more expensive global recharge? You've used the saved slots to five-slot Combat Jumping? Planning to jump them to death?

And if it's a recharge build, why are the Crushing Impact sets four-slotted, when that fifth slot adds recharge?

I'm not really an expert on Hami-Os, so I could be missing something, but the slotting on Soul Drain looks expensive for what you're getting out of it -- why spend big influence for damage on Soul Drain at the cost of underslotting main attacks?

Also, I'm not sure the Shield Wall sets are giving you much value for money.

As a generalization, any character intending to enter combat can afford to six-slot several attacks, and almost certainly would perform better if he or she did. Sometimes a nice purple set, or frankenslotting, enables you to get good enhancement out of only five slots...at which point you can put a proc in that 6th slot, thank you.

Click attacks are your main endurance cost, almost all of your animation time, and other than positioning, form the bulk of you decisions as a player -- it seems logical to me they should get the lion's share of the slots and enhancement. Taking slots out of these powers is stealing potential effectiveness from the bulk of what you personally are doing when you're playing.

Thanks. I finally autocompleted it without incident. Fell asleep night before last wandering the halls looking for survivors. Guess I'll look for it again and /bug it if it gives me any lip.

Probably the most classic pairing is the Inv/SS Tanker.

Amyone else having trouble with this mission? I've done it successfully in the past, I think, but for the last 3 days I haven't been able to complete it. The first objective is to free the hostage, then defeat the leader of the ambush. Well, after freeing the hostage, the mission objective changes to 'defeat the leader...' and I am attacked by Commander Pike. I defeat Pike...then everyone in the room...then clear the entire multi-floor mission...but still no reward, no end of mission, nothing.

Am I doing something wrong?

Hero alignment, 9 other tips completed, trying to reinforce my alignment.

Once you have enough defense to soft-cap (my own guy soft-caps smashing, lethal, energy, and negative with one enemy in range of Invincibility...and fire/cold with 5 or so guys in range) you can drop Unstop as it is of limited utility. I did. Now that I can add one-slotted wonders back in due to inherent fitness, I might re-take it with one slot just-in-case, but haven't respecced yet.

Well, I pretty much concur with Finduilas on the specifics and on his unstated overall criticism: the posted build doesn't seem to have any designed goal in mind.

Take a look at CallMeAwesome's guide here as well. My suggestion is that you work up a build based on what you see in CMA's guide and the thread Finduilas linked to, taking care to have the good attacks well-slotted, and post it here for further review.

Taking Hurl will work out fine. My own Inv/SS Tanker takes Footstomp, Knockout Blow, Hurl, and a few more (be sure to take and slot Haymaker, as it's a fast-activating mainstay of your attack chain) and he's plenty strong.

Another suggestion I have -- if you're going to go for a defense build, consider Mocking Beratement in Taunt. Perfect Zinger is good too, but I rally liked MB in my own build.

I think that the no-jump limitation is the only one you can't overcome with set bonuses, and as such, unlikely to be removed. It IS a significant problem that affects the usefulness of these tanks...but it's the only one that can't be easily mitigated, so as long as they want Granite to pay a penalty, this one will probably be in place.

However, if they remove it, and allow limited small hops to get over curbs and guardrails and the like, I'd prefer if they let you step on and flatten the curb or guardrail instead of hopping nimbly over it.

Ah. Yeah, the defense is suppressed. Frankly I wouldn't expect Weave or CJ to keep me alive in a large spawn even if unsuppressed. I believe Blasters who softcap get the vast majority of it from set bonuses, which don't suppress.

I was just getting at the fact that you can generally tap a breakfree and just start hammering your attacks again without rebuilding your defenses.

I have a baby MA/Shield. She's too low to confirm, but I expect that Shield's AAO damage buff will synergize very neatly with Dragon's Tail, the sole PBAoE. Coupled with the crit boost from Eagle's Claw and a good bit of recharge to bring it up quickly, this might be enough to finally give a Martial Artist significant AoE capability. DT is already a pretty good PBAoE.