Sailboat

I personally just started a Katana/Fiery Aura Scrapper. Still a baby, but I believe it ought to work well.

Divine Avalanche should take a lot of the pressure off the Fire secondary to keep me alive, and Fire's good uninterruptable heal should fix most of the trouble I get into. And Fiery Aura should add to Katana's already first-rate damage.

You're in luck. Exactly such a thing exists.

I am not one of those who misses "the old days of herding entire maps." But it occurs to me the true nukes were designed back then, without a target cap. When they were given the same target cap as all other AoEs, they became just hard-hitting AoEs that weaken you afterward. There's little sense of a dramatic, action-stopping, all-destroying blast when it's almost the same as Rain of Arrows.

Personally I wouldn't mind if the true nukes got even larger radii and had their target cap raised just a bit. Their long recharge would still limit it as a power-leveling tactic, because you can do so much with the regular non-nuke powers during a nuke's recharge that there wouldn't be any point in just waiting for the nuke to recharge. But a bigger boom wasting 25 or 30 guys at the cost of exhausting yourself would start to be attractive enough to at least compete with Rain of Arrows, for example.

Foot Stomp on an awning or an electrical wire or similarly insubstantial substrate.

Parry. If I parry this guy in front of me, those guys over there can't hit me with ranged lethal attacks....but if there's no one in front of me in melee, I can't get the bonus to ranged lethal attacks and those guys can hit me after all.

Aggro range in general. I can stand in plain view 80 feet away and set off a gun, a thunderclap, a sonic scream...even a Warburg nuclear missile strike and the guys don't notice me?

The unfortunate accident of design that Storm Summoning, generally speaking, works much better indoors.

I'm going to go with Martial Arts. No cone to worry about positioning, no parry to remember to use, and most of the attacks are single-target and hard-hitting (assuming you skip Thunder Kick). Just click and kick the ever-loving hell out of whatever's in front of you. I find it satisfying.

Appears to be working as well as it ever did -- which is to say, occasionally yje followup Dragon's Tail will hit 6-8 guys and crit not at all. But I believe I have seen people assert that the window of time to get the crit bonus on the followup attack is so narrow that occasionally server hiccups will cost you the bonus, which seems like that could be what I am seeing.

However, the rest of the time Dragon's Tail gets multiple crits after Eagle's Claw, which appears to indicate the bonus still exists.

I like using it on Vazhilok zombies too. They're not true undead, and it doesn't get the extra damage against them, but it does do the base damage and paste up a great big "INEFFECTIVE" warning over their heads.

When it actually does kill them with the base damage, it's really funny to see "INEFFECTIVE" appear as they collapse to the ground, dead.

Aside from that, some of my characters took the axe thematically, like a tree-based controller. A tree hitting a human with an axe is morally satisfying.

Now that I get to have both (using the higher vet reward) I almost always take both Sands of Mu and the Ghost-slaying Axe, since another vet reward lets me take one of the ranged powers anyway. Very handy to have the Axe for COT spectrals and the like, especially if I don't have to give up Sands.

Skip Slash unless you feel you have lots of room left over for extra attacks; it's the least of your attacks.

Slot Parry like an attack with somewhat more emphasis on accuracy. Since you'll use Parry a lot while leveling, might as well get damage out of it while you're paying the animation time and end cost anyway.

I would slot damage to the ED cap (95% enhancement or better) in all my other attacks, though. My usual preference is end red, acc, dmg, dmg, dmg, recharge. Some people like more acc but you can get away with a little less since Broadsword debuffs defense.

Slice is a very good cone and will help speed leveling.

Don't hesitate to use Build Up as often as you can; saving it for a key moment has some utility but at some point that becomes "getting a lot less use out of it over time." For the same reason, burn inspirations liberally.

Two words: height slider.

I have a Stone/Fire Tanker whose concept and name I love, but as a result of concept, decided not to take the fire swords. He breathes and emits fire but does not wield a weapon. Since the two best powers in the Fire secondary are probably Fire Sword Circle and Greater Fire Sword, he's stuck with the less-damaging remaining powers...often, in Granite mode. Breath of Fire looks awesome, but it's no match for FSC.

So he's slower than a non-restricted Granite tanker would be. And because he predates IOs, I've never tried to IO him out to partially offset Granite's weaknesses.

I also have a nifty concept for a Dark/Sonic Defender. I love Dark Defenders and always enjoy having them on teams, and Sonic does great damage. So what's the problem?

Unlike Rad's and Storm's to-hit debuffs, Dark's is effectively "split" across two powers, the toggle and the fear cone, so applying both takes a wee bit longer (and they're different shapes). Then the Sonic blasts are...slow. Awesomely slow-feeling too, maybe the long howling sounds make them seem even slower. And Sonic's -res side effect works best if you apply it before your big hitters. Net effect is I apply Darkest Night, Fearsome Stare, Tar Patch (for more -resist!), then my slow sonic blasts, from weakest to strongest. On teams, that means most of the fight is over before I unleash my particular hell. Soloing works better if I am patient, but what a shame to solo a Defender with all those powers!

Despite getting to 30 and getting a lovely sleep power slotted up (which my teammates can promptly break!) the character feels like a chore to play and contributes too late in most team situations to really feel effective.

Generally you can make pin money (although not huge sums quickly) in salvage if you pay attention and if you have the patience to let bids sit.

Last night, for example, I went to buy 2 pieces of Living Tatoo yellow salvage for recipes I actually plan to slot. No bids were currently showing; last 5 were 10,000-12,000 except one for 501.

Since there were zero bidders, I bid 500 (nothing) then 1000 (got one!) but couldn't get the other one for bids as high as 15,000.

So I reset my bid to 555, nice and low, and went to play with a buddy. Three missions later he logs off and I come back to find I've bought my one piece for 555 and the last 5 sales are:

100,000
250,000
250,000
250,000
100,000

I coulda made a little there if I'd wanted to.

Good place to ask -- does Lightning Rod in the Electric primary crit? I believe Shield Charge does not (and it's in the secondary anyway). I believe Lightning Rod is a "pseudo pet" power but I'm not sure if that prevents it from critting.

I actually have it one one character, but with so much damage spam flying around overhead (mine has a proc in it too) I haven't looked too hard yet.

The moment the targeting reticle is filled.

Broadsword is a toolbox, with defense, knockdown, knockup, AoE, good single-target damage and even defense debuffing -- but mostly Broadsword is a can-opener, and the can says "Whoopass" on the label.

I have always been very happy with my 50 MA/SR even before the changes to MA; and I have a 50 Spines/Dark who melts crowds. And I have several other mature Scrappers, including Claws/WP, Dark Melee, Elec/Shield and Dual Blades.

But like Werner, I've been happily surprised by BS/Shield. Backed up by Shields, the Broadsword hits like a truck -- other sets surpass it for sustained high-speed damage to AVs, but BS does very good burst damage and actually fulfills the promise of killing things fast enough to take the heat off your defenses. It just dismantles enemies.

And Parry is awesome for staying alive -- my guy is going to turn 39 next time he kills anything, and he's never died (I play him with a hardcore supergroup that deletes characters who suffer even a single defeat).