Screwloose

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Body Mastery:
*Focused Accuracy: toggle: self +acc

If you take Focused ACCY,then can you get away with 6 slotting your attacks with all damage? Or should you continue to have at least 1 AACY in your attacks as well?

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Pretty much. FA provides about an SO's worth of Acc, which is fine for fighting up to level+1 and maybe level+2 mobs. If you fight mostly level+3 or more then 2 SO's worth of Acc would be worth while, which you can get from slotting 3 To Hit buff Enh in FA.

I would consider slotting several single target attacks with an End reduycer as well. Running a continuous attack cycle is a major drain on End, so slotting End reducers in your attacks is a good way to cut End costs.

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And one more thing....is Acrobatics the best knockup/knockback protection? I've read where a lot of scrappers are gonna go with Hover/Fly......but it seems to me that CJ/SJ/Acrobatics would offer more defense and better resisitance as you do a "backflip" even if you have Hover or Fly activated.

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Unless you are Dark Armor your Secondary Powerset Status protection power has the best protection vs KnockBack/Down.

If you are DA then you have to look at Acrobatics or Hover, or just live with KnockBack/Down.

Acrobatics can be overloaded where Hover can't and the other reason to get Combat Jumping was the Immobilise resist, which you now get in Cloak of Darkness.

The Hover "backflip" cuts the effect of KB/D by about 90% so it is good cheap easily available mitigation if you have a power pool choice unused.

I think many DA Scrappers will still go Leaping as it gets you fast movement with a vertical component and the option to get KB/D protection all in a single power pool.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Check my Spines Guide (second post of the scrapper gudies and Faqs thread), it has my build at the end. Check any thread in the Scrapper forum regarding Dark Armour, slotting for Spines DA is no different than any other DA.

I haven't changed anything for I5, mostly just because I am lazy, and IMHO DA needs less changes due to I5 than any other powerset. Spines is exactly the same.

DA Changes in brief.

Only important changes to DA IMHO are to Cloak of Darkness and Cloak of Fear.

CoD becomes not a great return for slots in I5. The power is still not bad but a Def Enh gets you 0.65% additional Def, so not a high priority for slots.

CoF has been nerfed a couple of times. As of I5 it only Cowers minions, it hits a level+0 mob 50% of the time and the To Hit debuff was reduced (from 25% to 10%). IMHO it is line ball as to whether it is worth the End cost to run and requires 3 Acc and a Fear Enh to give a 90% Cower vs level+1 mobs, leaving you with two slots to Enh the To Hit debuff or cut the sizeable End cost. If you are not prepared to 6 slot it or if you run Op Gloom, which will stun all the minions anyway, then don't take it.

Changes which are interesting but wouldn't affect your choice of powers or slotting.

All toggles can be run simultaneously.
Dark Embrace gives Toxic resist.
CoD gives Immobilise resist and increased Perception vs Stealth powers.
Ob Shield protects from Fear.
Murk Cloud protects from End Drain, this is actually quite nice.
Soul Transfer got a couple of improvements, but not enough to change anyones mind who was or wasn't going to take a Self Rez power.

I've just about got an I5 compliant DA overview ready to go, might be up sometime today.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

The update data file for one hero planner (Link in this thread) has the numbers as follows.

Pet Gaze

Activation 2
END 11.5
Duration 10
Recharge 8
Range 70


Tenebrous Tentacles

Activation 2
END 15
Duration 20
Recharge 10
Range 30


If you put 2 Hold Dur in Pet Gaze and have Hasten that would give you a Duration of over 16 seconds and a Recharge of under 5, which could allow you to Perma Hold a Boss, although you wouldn't be doing much else.

Pet Gaze won't let you park an LT and finish the rest of the Spawn like Touch of Fear will, but it will freeze a minion or LT long enough for you to do him a heap of damage before he gets to take any actions.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Spines DA is still going to be good in the I5-verse.

In fact DA got nerfed least of all the Scrapper Secondaries, and the things that got changed most you won't have had access to at level 15 so you will probably never notice.

The increase in damage for Scrappers makes Spines DA's AE damage even more impressive. And the decrease of End costs makes Spines DA a much more comfortable combo to play.

If you are having fun then I would suggest continuing. Keep an eye on the Scrapper forums for info on how people are handling DA, there have been a lot of threads about it over the last 2 weeks.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

How to Slot Regen for I5

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Edict's Guide to Claws Follow Up and DPS

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

IBTL is internet forum lingo and stand for In Before The Lock. It indicates that the pooster believes the current thread is about to draw the aggro of the moderators and be locked. IBTL +1 is a variation that is just making it clear that the poster is using the IBTL post to pad his post count.

Adds, or if said loudly ADDS are indeed unintended aggro. I believe it is shortened from Additional Mobs and indicates that mobs additional to the intended pull have aggroed.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

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Looking at your build so far it is suffering from having a lot of powers heavily slotted and squeezing Fitness in early.

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DA eats end like a bleep, so why is Stamina at 20 a bad thing?

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It is bad because it means that between Fitness, a movement power and Hasten you have only 6 powers out of 12 that are actually directly helping you defeat Mobs and not get defeated by them. And you aren't adding any extra attacks until level 47. Are you sure you wouldn't be better off making a Controller?

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Sure I may have some powers before I have the slots to put in them to really make them effective, but the way I see it, get the best powers and prioritize the slots as they become available.

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Yes I can agree with that, but squeezing all your slots into a few powers is not necessarily going to get you the best result.

Looking at it again one place you could maybe defer slots is Hasten, until you can get SO's slotted it really doesn't need to be 6 slotted.

Also you are taking and heavily slotting two big End recovery powers at the same time. Given that you are not adding anything that uses a lot of End between level 8 and 20 you seem to be swinging between maybe being a little under supplied in End to being massively oversupplied. Having End doesn't do you any good if you don't have powers to turn that End into some sort of effect. And the powers that you are taking from 22 to 41 only use moderate amounts of End, except Dark Regen.

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I will probably get Touch of Fear instead of Midnight Grasp. I figure it should make stopping the AVs easier. It's not like I won't have decent dmg output without MG, which I may take at 49 afterwards. Soul Transfer is, after all, a bit of a gimmick.

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ST has always been pretty useless.

Whatever you take at level 45+ should be irrelevant, by that time you will nearly have finished your characters levelling career and until there is something to do after level 50 that is practically the end of the game. Unless you are interested in PvP, which I am not so you'll have to ask someone else about that.

Good Luck.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

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I'm particularly curious over whether anyone thinks that the build will suffer particularly from not having a surprise attack element that SS or Teleport would give it. I fear I may have to replace Hover and Fly with Recall Friend and Teleport. However I have enough heroes with SS and one form of Stealth or another, so I'd rather avoid that. It's becoming a bit tired.

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I don't think that it is necessary to be able to get to zero range with mobs before aggroing them to be effective. And you can't do that with all mobs anyway.

Looking at your build so far it is suffering from having a lot of powers heavily slotted and squeezing Fitness in early.

I'd strongly consider Touch of Fear, it is a very good Fear attack and since you have access to it you might as well take it.

Try posting your build directly on the Scrapper forums you will probably get some comments. Note things are in a bit of flux at the moment with I5 coming so it is hard to say exactly how everything will look in a months time.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

As I am sure many people have mentioned Blasters have at 40% HP are often one hit away from KO so the helpful advice in the introduction to Defiance about managing your HP to get maximum effect is a little less than useful IMHO.

When this gets you extra damage it will be nice, but I don't see it as something that you can manage, much like Criticals.

Unless you are using a "drop from a great height and nuke" tactic, which seems a little less that heroic.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

The -Speed effect is Enhanceable, but the -Recharge effect is not. Generally the -Speed is fine at the base amount and not really worth Enhancing . If you could Enhance the -Recharge it would be great, probably too great (% .

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Freedom Fruy's AR Dev guide.

Placed here so I can find it easily even if no one else bothers to read guides anymore.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Scrapper APP's; A brief overview.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

I think each APP offers something to the Scrapper and which you get will depend mostly on your play style.

Body Mastery’s best offers are IMHO Conserve Energy, Focus Accuracy and Energy Torrent
Conserve Energy greatly reduces End costs for 90 seconds and with 6 Recharge reducers and Hasten I think has a recharge of 162 seconds.
Energy Torrents Knock Down can be a useful opening to set up your attack on a pack of mobs and can be used to break up incoming damage a bit.
Focus Accuracy will let you replace an Acc in your attacks, saving you a slot or letting you do a bit more Damage or slot an End reducer.

Body Mastery’s powers will require some slotting.
If you want to use Conserve Energy as a regular tactic then you will need to slot a lot of Recharge reducers in it.
Focus Accuracy, by reports, uses a huge amount of End so 3 End reducers are probably not too much.
Laser Eye Beams like any attack to get decent performance requires slotting, I try to get at least 4 slots in any attack I want to use seriously. As far as I can tell the Def Debuff is fairly small, unfortunately probably not worth slotting for.
Energy Torrent. Well one reason is that you might be using an only slightly slotted attack is for it’s secondary effects. If you are using Energy Torrent mainly for the Knock Down I’d still go for an Acc and maybe a Cone Range Enh.

Darkness Mastery is the only APP I have tried out to any extent. Petrifying Gaze and Tenebrous Tentacles look good and Dark Blast is a solid dependable attack that fitted straight into my single target attack cycle.
Petrifying Gaze will let you Hold a single Minion or LT. This can remove a seriously annoying mob like a Sapper from the fight. For DA and SR scrappers it can also reduce the variety of damage or attack types you might be facing.
Tenebrous Tentacles is a Moderate Damage Cone, with an Acc Debuff and Immobilise, all good. Although it is a DoT it is another moderate AE for scrappers lacking in AE damage. TT also has a very cool graphic.
Torrent is not quite as useful as Energy Torrent as it Knocks Back rather than Down, but you could use it to sweep mobs up against a wall for maximum AE carnage.

Darkness Mastery will require some slotting.
Petrifying Gaze has a much shorter duration and longer recharge than the Defender version. If you want to get any Hold on a Boss you will have to slot very heavily. IMHO it is probably worth 2 or 3, I will be going for an Acc and two Hold durations.
Torrent’s low damage makes it a poor choice for slotting Damage Enh. If you are going for the Knock Back effect an Acc and a Cone Range are probably worth while, that’s about it.
Dark Blast slot like any other attack you would take.
Tenebrous Tentacles I’d give at least an Acc and a Cone Range Enh. It’s Moderate Damage should give you a decent return for Damage Enh if you can spare the slots.

Weapon Mastery’s Exploding Shuriken is probably it’s pick, although Caltrops can be useful too.
Exploding Shuriken is a Moderate Damage AE; another solid AE attack to add to any scrapper’s arsenal.
Caltrops, well there is a reason they are still used. Drop it on some mobs they will be slowed and will spend some time trying to get off the Caltrops. The damage is a bonus.
Shuriken seems mainly good for pulling, at this point in your career a fast recharging minor damage attack is probably not much use.
Web Grenade is good for stopping runners, bringing Flyers down to earth and it has a very solid Recharge debuff.

Weapon Mastery’s attacks will require slotting.
Web Grenade is pretty good right out of the box. Slot an Acc in the slot it comes with, nothing else about it is really worth Enhancing.
Caltrops also are pretty good as is. I’d go for Slow over Damage as the Damage is small and if you Slow them more the mobs will stay in the AE longer.
Shuriken, low damage won’t give you a good return for slots, put an Acc in the slot it comes with and leave it.
Exploding Shuriken, if you have taken this then you should be pursuing an AE Alpha-Volley strategy, so slot it up for all it is worth. I’d go an Acc and 3 Damage.


Which APP is for you?

If you like the powers that you have and just want them to be more accurate and cost less End then Body Mastery is for you. Also shooting Lasers from your eyes is cool.

If you are looking for a solid AE attack and maybe a couple of utility abilities or have a ninja or natural shtick you want to keep then Weaponry might be for you.

If you are a Darkon Darkity Mc Dark or see the value of a single target hold or have a fetish about tentacles then Dark Mastery might be for you.

Stroytellers Thread of APP numbers.

Another Dead Heros guide to APPs.

Regards, Screwloose.
“I am not young enough to know everything.”

NB – 3000th post, thought I’d do something a little useful with it.

Spines Regen V3 for I4 by Havoc

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

The only negative change for Spines DA in I4 was that CoF has been seriously neutered.

It now has a base hit chance of 50%, which means you need some serious +Acc on it to give you a decent chance of getting good coverage of the nearby mobs, which cuts down the slots available for reducing the End cost or enhancing it’s Fear and Debuff effects.

Since CoF was the only thing that gave DA scrappers any sort of parity with other secondaries at the higher levels I don’t really see anything in the powerset that makes up for it.

In a way I feel I was better off pre I3 when even tho the Res shield didn’t stack I could at least get a solid reliable Acc debuff on Bosses and I could neutralise minions with OpGloom. Now I would have sub par resistances that cost me a lot of End and the choice of running a high End toggle that gives me a lower Debuff (less slots of Debuff Enh) not as dependably.

I don’t disagree with the Dev’s assessment that Fear had been improved beyond it’s intended strength and that Cloak of Fear might have therefore been significantly stronger than intended, but since it was pretty much the only thing keeping DA’s afloat they haven’t left us with much.

Other changes were all buffs and included in such a way that they were added to powers that you would pretty much take any way. Ob Shield got res to Fear. Clock of Darkness got res to –Perception and Immobilise. Murky Cloud got res to End drain.

Also Statesman’s comments after the Scrapper testing strongly suggest that Scrappers have more balancing to look forward to, so I suspect that some people are holding off doing major rewrites of guides until we see a little more of what that might be about.

Regards, Screwloose.
“I am not young enough to know everything.”

HO = Hamidon Enhancement, a special extra good enhancement that you get for beating Hamidon.

It isn't exactly an abbreviation, but since the other degrees of Enhancement are referred to as TO, DO and SO it has fallen into common usage.

Also sometimes Hami-O.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Still a good article, just want to keep my previous point on the record. Linking GC and PI via the Arena will bring more annoying /b spamming under level 10 characters into PI.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Great post.

I’ve recently started a Claws scrapper and been trying to weigh up Follow Up. My own less math focused brain had pretty much decided that it was a very near thing to Build Up, so in that way I guess it is balanced, but Build Up seems much less hassle to use.

At the moment I am planning on trying a not stacked FoU with a couple of To Hit buff Enh and replacing the Acc in my attacks with extra damage, which normally would scare the willies out of me. It will mean restricting myself to targets that I am 95% likely to hit with the Follow Up, but we will see how it goes.

Last thing, is there a worse named power in the game? It is not a Follow Up attack it is if anything an Opening Strike attack that you follow up with other attacks.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

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So when I needed some serious respec advice, there no question where to turn....

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The Blaster forum is a good place for general blaster advice.

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My build, as is, at Level 25:

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Overall I can't see much wrong with it. You have hit the Power Pools pretty heavily, which means that you haven't been able to take the bigger blast powers that became available from level 16+.

If you want to struggle on a bit you could start to pick those up and would probably see an increase in your viability.

Otherwise ..

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Stamina / 0 (strangely, I'm not having End trouble, despite this)

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Maybe this is something you could push back. If you aren't having End problems then dropping Stamina (I know it is heresy) gets you three powers which will give you a lot more tools to keep yourself off the floor, even if you have to pause for breath after each fight.

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Hasten/ Defense 1, Recharge 3

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Generally slotting of Hasten is all recharges, with 6 recharge SO's it can be on all the time (Perma) and the Def bonus isn't really big enough to get you a good return for an Enh slot.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Dark Armour - for discussing the DA powerset or just hanging out with DA scrappers, note spelling (% .

As mentioned in another post Australia channel is open to all and a good place to look for people playing mostly in the GMT+10 time zone. When the servers are quite pop in, we always have shrimp on the barbie and an esky full of cold tinnies. Some of us even play CoH (%.

Apparently there is a Justice channel, but I can't tell you what it is for as it is private.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Denman's DM SR guide.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

There is some debate about the base level of the To Hit debuff and how To Hit debuffs work. However the most persuasive testing I have seen suggested a Base of around 25% and an explanation of how the To Hit debuff on Smoke Grenade worked by Geko back in the days of the SG nerf suggest to me that To Hit debuffs are multiplicative. Where as powers that give +Defence, like Cloak of Darkness (CoD) merely subtract from the mobs Base Chance to hit.

If To Hit debuffs are multiplicative then this would mean they would have a larger effect on mobs with a higher Base Hit Chance, ie Bosses and AVs and any mob of a higher level than the Scrapper.

So for example vs a Level+0 Boss (base hit chance 75%)

With just CoF you would get

Modified Hit chance = Base * (1-Acc Debuff)
= 75% * (1 - .25)
= 56.25%

With just CoD you get.

Modified Hit Chance = Base Hit Chance – Defence
= 75 – 10
= 65%

Now additionally I believe that the Debuff applies before the Defence, so effectively the Debuff amplifies the value of the Defence.

With both vs the same level +0 Boss you get

Modified Hit Chance = (Base * (1 – Acc Debuff) – Defence)
= (75 *(1 - .25) -10)
= 46.25%.

Since To Hit debuff Enh add 33% to the effectiveness 3 would double the To Hit debuff to 50% making the previous calculation

With just 3 To Hit debuff Enh’ed CoF

Modified Hit chance = Base * (1-Acc Debuff)
= 75% * (1 - .5)
= 37.5%

With 3 To Hit debuff Enh’ed CoF and unenhanced CoD

Modified Hit Chance = (Base * (1 – Acc Debuff) – Defence)
= (75 *(1 - .5) -10)
= 27.5%.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

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Hmmm... How does this look? Not so much a scrapper player as a Defender, so some of the stuff might look dodgy. Plus, I just can't see where to get the slots.

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Can't see anything too wrong with it, not sure that Boxing is a great choice when you have Primary powerset attacks to take and you are not taking Tough. But I know some people like Boxing as an attack.

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I am, however, curious as to what effect adding Fear enhancers into CoF would have. Would they make CoF self-stack, like Choking Cloud does?

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As far as I know you can't make a single Scrappers CoF stack with itself. Certainly I have never seen anyone suggesting that it does.

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I don't know if this is the place to ask this or not, but...
So, I've been thinking a lot about acc debuffs vs. defense buffs lately before I make my next defender.
The question I have goes something like this...
is an -acc the same as +def ?

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There are some differences. Some everyone would agree on and some people have different views on.

-Acc is more team beneficial. Something Acc debuffed misses everyone more with all it’s attacks. +Def only protects you.

From comments made by Geko around the time of the Smoke Grenade change I believe that –Acc is Multiplicative where as +Def is additive. Which means that –Acc works better the higher the base hit of the mob is, ie better on Bosses and LT’s than minions.

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I'm thinking not in as much as when fighting a different lvl opponent your +def is effected by the lvl difference between you and the enemy while -acc isnt ?

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I would think it was the other way around.

+Res isn’t lowered by being hit by a higher level opponent so I don’t think that +Def would either, although in both cases since the mob would have a higher base to hit and do you more damage you would see an increased threat from the mob.

On the other hand debuffs are well documented to effect higher mobs less.

This is partly balanced by the fact that Debuff Enh give a 33% bonus for an SO while Res and Def Enh only give a 20% bonus for an SO.

Regards, Screwloose.
“I am not young enough to know everything.”