SevereCalamity

I'm not crying, but this is definitely sudden. I don't blame anyone who is though.

Heck, I hate considering even playing Ninjas, but you're definitely making it look appealing.

And I agree, I think you, sir, have just fixed ninjas. Congrats.

Yes, it was Psylenz and Crysys who were talking about TPing into groups. I read a few of their posts while looking for any tips on time.

From a min/max perspective, bots do really look like the best choice for what I want to do. I know thugs are really good too, but I think bots will serve me better in the long run for reaching incarnate defense cap as well as everything and their mom resisting all the lethal damage of thugs.

I rolled a couple MMs the other night since I have yet to try /Time since coming back to the game. I already have a 50 bots/traps that I haven't touched in a couple years, so thugs seems like a good change up but I'm afraid that I'll miss the 11% defense (after enhancements) shield from the Bots when it comes to Incarnate stuff.

Any thugs/time MMs out there that can tell me that they don't need/miss the shield from bots?

4-6 slot cloud senses. Accurate to-hit debuff is king in fluffy.

The heal is just icing on the cake; good to have but you can't count on it.

I just reactivated my account last week and I think I got mine just a few days after that.

Sorry I can't be more precise.

Thanks for explaining your experience. The more I read on the forums, the more it seems that people are enjoying Electric Armor with their Staff characters.

Do you think it is not worth running the recharge staff mastery power and then using power sink to compensate? Power Sink is too good of a power to give up in my opinion, and the recharge from staff mastery is pretty nice.

Normally don't ask about preference related matters such as this, but I'm really torn and I have 4 Staff scrappers/brutes atm and need to pick one. I'm hoping some people around here can give me some insight on how their experiences with their staff/??? to help influence my decision.

My main objective is to solo level and solo the incarnate DA content at end game, catching incarnate trials when I can play uninterrupted. (doesn't happen often )

I'm just returning after about a year away, and I looked up the new DA mobs and a lot of them have -defense attacks. I know the best way to counter it DDR, but shield isn't an option with staff and I already have three SR characters. So I'm trying to figure out which secondary (between WP and Elec Armor) will perform better at current endgame with similar IO investments. I'll probably still try and hit S/L defense softcap on either character, and try for Energy defense as well. I have about 1.5 bil saved up from before I left, and I plan on making a bit more to put into the build. I'll probably see how far I can push it without purples.

Next up is the AT. I figure that staff doesn't really favor either Scrapper or Brute, so it's more about Epic/Patron (toss up between Shadow Meld and Darkest Night) and the secondary pools (brutes have higher HP and resistance cap, fury makes damage aura hurt) rather than the primary. Since I mostly play solo, I don't mind chasing fury.

Right now I'm considering either a Staff/WP scrapper or Staff/Elec brute, but I can switch it up if there are some good reasons to.

Interested in any opinions anyone has to offer on this matter. Thank you.

Almost the same as scrappers.

It loses the AoE damage aura for hide, and loses the Cloak power for a passive auto power that gives you the same benefits as the cloak while it is suppressed.

I believe other than that, it is exactly the same.

I'm back after a year off and I'm trying to catch up. Do enemies in the new Dark Astoria (or missions located in the zone) require a 59% defense softcap like the enemies in the Incarnate Trials?

Oohhhhh nice. I didn't think about that. Aid Self without having to take Aid Other. Niiiiiice.

First off, the defense soft cap is 45% for regular content, and 59% for incarnate trials.

Secondly, there are two varieties of defense:

Postional (Melee, Ranged, AoE)

and Typed (Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative, Psionic)

Just about every attack in the game falls into a category of either one of those two varieties of defense. For example, Gambler's Cut from your own Katana set is a Lethal typed damage Melee positional attack. You only need to be softcapped against one of those two categories to avoid the attack.

The game takes your highest defensive value to determine whether or not you dodge the attack. For example, if you had 25% lethal defense and 45% melee defense, it would only use the 45% melee defense attribute against an enemy using Gambler's Cut against you.

In your build, it looks like you went for smashing/lethal as well as melee/ranged/aoe. I will tell you that the smashing/lethal defense is a complete waste with SR, since it is a positinal defense based set. Those kinetic combat sets have to go, they are expensive and pretty much a waste with SR.

Another thing I noticed is that your attacks are way underslotted, especially for accuracy. You will be missing a ton. Without sufficient accuracy set bonuses or to hit buffs, kinetic combats by itself is not enough for an attack.

First thing we need to know is if you're trying to get incarnate soft capped at 59%, or just regular content softcapped at 45%. You will generally sacrifice DPS to get incarnate softcapped, and I'm not sure you can even do it without purple sets. I'm sure someone around here has a well built character that can hit it.

Also, do you plan on getting your Alpha Slot unlocked and built up to T4? That will also make a difference. Is there a budget on the build? Using purple sets, no purple sets?

You also don't need both Sting of the Wasp and Gambler's Cut. Most people skip Sting of the Wasp, as Gambler's Cut is fast recharging and fills in the attack chain perfectly for Katana. It also does really good damage for it's animation time.

I woke up today and was instantly sad because I still don't have Street Justice.

And then I went to work.

I'd slot an achille's in Gambler's Cut for sure, since you use it the most out of all of your attacks in just about any Katana attack chain. You can slot it in more than one attack to try and get it to proc more often, but like others have said it does not stack with itself.

I think people with cash put the Fury of the Gladiator proc in their Golden Dragonfly to increase their single target DPS since it stacks with the achille's proc for a total of -40% resistance to your target.

I personally don't put -resistance procs in the AoEs since cannon fodder usually dies anyway even without the -20% resistance. There is also the problem of whether or not you will even take advantage of the debuff in an AoE. If the proc gets one out of the five guys you hit with Flashing Steel, there is no guarantee that you will even be attacking that same guy again in order to make use of the -resistance. That is a personal opinion though; I'd rather increase the efficiency of the power through recharge, endurance, accuracy, and damage or save the slot for another power. My Katana build is also more single target oriented, with the AoE is just slotted normally. Others may build their Katana guys differently.

Also you bash Darkest Night for its 3.5 second cast time, when Shadow Meld's is 3.15. Not really a big difference there. Shadow Meld is also useless if you're already softcapped, and incarnate trials you would have to hit it multiple times a fight to get the same benefit as darkest night all the time. Not to mention it isn't even perma. Even if the -to hit is resisted, -20% damage is nothing to sneeze at. Do not forget that Darkest Night benefits your entire team, not just yourself.

I'm not saying shadow meld is a bad power at all, it's very awesome for resist/regen based sets but loses a lot of its usefulness for defense based that are already capped toons in normal content. I love it on my WP scrapper.

Not really going to touch hibernate; it's a good oh **** power and it can save you, but shadowmeld and darkest night will prevent that situation from ever happening while still allowing you to kill stuff.

Besides those powers, the the damage attacks in both of those pools pale in comparison to Gloom and Dark Obliteration. Soul Mastery is a really good patrol for damage and survivability on a brute. The single target, AoE, and survival tool are all top knotch.

Because they can't? Scrappers don't have access to darkest night. Also, I have 2 shield scrappers and a shield brute, ioed about the sme.

A brute is more durable than a scrapper if you're talking about the same power set. You're the one who doesn't seem to understand. Obviously a softcapped character is more survivable than one who isn't. You're the one who doesnt understand that the point of the thread is an SD scrapper vs. an SD brute, not that brutes are all more survivable than all scrappers or that all scrappers do more damage than all brutes. You can't compare a power set to itself in different ATs if you're going to start bringing different power sets in to the mix.

And I didn't say people were ignorant for not agreeing with me. I said "Stating the SD scrapper is just as survivable as a Brute is just being ignorant. " Perhaps I should have said "Stating the SD scrapper is just as survivable as a SD Brute is just being ignorant. " Since that was the topic of the thread, I guess I thought people were just smart enough to understand that. It's not my fault you wanted to go off topic. If the (SD) brute has the same exact defensive numbers as the (SD) scrapper but the brute has 200ish more HP, it is more survivable. That is fact, not opinion. Couple that with Darkest night, and it gets a whole lot more survivable.

When I said "The fire aura brute does have more Hp than the scrapper" I meant that "The fire aura brute does have more Hp than the scrapper version of fire aura." Comparing the survivability of and SD anything to an FA anything is ridiculous, obviously the SD character will be more survivable. FA isn't meant to be invincible, just to kill stuff fast. Also as an FYI, a SD scrapper has MORE Hp than an FA brute assuming the scrapper took and slotted True Grit and equal set bonuses.

You're the one who started generalizing things instead of just scrapper SD vs. brute SD.

I suppose "For some reason, these people dont understand that that having more HP = more survivability" was also too general for you. You took what I said out of context, and assumed I was talking about everything in general. Obviously I meant "For some reason, these people dont understand that that having more HP = more survivability, assuming all other defensive numbers are the same."

Once again, the thread is about Shield Defense only. There is no reason to assume I was saying that more HP means a character is automatically more survivable than anything else. If that was the case, everyone would just roll Invuln and run perma dull pain.

The fire aura brute does have more Hp than the scrapper (version), and since all of the other defensive numbers are the same, it is more survivable. It is also possible for the brute to have higher resists, although except for fire resistance it won't matter unless there are outside buffs such as sonic or thermal shields.

Fire aura also tends to do more damage on the brute, since fury effects the damage aura and burn, but scrappers inherent criticals do not. Fire Aura is kind of an odd set out and is probably the only secondary that is better in every way on the brute than a scrapper.

EDIT:

I think you were trying to say that the Fiery Aura brute has more HP than the SD scrapper? So now you want to compare a SD scrapper to a FA brute? That doesn't make much sense in a thread comparing the same set across different ATs.

The SD scrapper might have the same amount of health as an FA brute. Since shields has a +HP power and FA does not, I'm not sure which would have more HP between to the two. Overall I'd have to say that the SD scrapper has better survivability, but the FA brute would do more damage. This can be dependent on the primary too, as FA brutes also have access to rage which makes FA even better.

Edited again because I guess I need to be more specific and so that people stay on topic.