SpaceDog_EU

I pretty much agree with those who prefer taunt in a tank.

Yes, there are tanks with taunt who don't seem to know how to get the most out of it. And tanks without taunt, namely ice armour tankers in my experience, who can get away without taunt becasue of a pretty effective aura.

However, I have yet to team with a tank without taunt (non-ice armour), who has been able to group up the mobs and keep them focused on them, regardless of how many high dmg Aoes are fired into the mass by the rest of the team.

I'm sure it can be done, as I say with ice armour, but with other sets, I reckon it would be a bit of hard work to have as much control over a mass of mobs as a tanker with taunt. And why make the role harder?

There do appear to be tankers about, who don't know what they do best, enjoy this and are able to do it well. Some of this, I am sure is down to ED; now its perfectly feasible to slot your attacks very early on, once you've got the 3 or 4 slots in your shields - I remember when I was leveling my tanks pre-ED and how I wouldn't slot attacks until most of my shields were 6 slotted! - making me fully aware of my role and abilities to take damage, and the futility of attacking anything all the way to the 30s.

Now, a tank can do damage very early on and should do, why not, if you have your attacks slotted well, without compromising on your shields?

But, whilst ED, in some respect has relieved the monotony of the tanker through the early levels ( no attacks, or non-slotted ones ) and has brought the negelected attacks into prominence earlier, I view this as a luxury which shouldn't detract from the main role of tanking > aggro managment specialist

Well done, Bio - another great episode. Keep up the good work

So many powersets and combinations, it seems every scrapper is different.

Mine is a Spines/Dark armour and I use him to AoE liuets and minions. I struggle if there isn't a tanker in the team and espcially someone without an end rec power Otherwise I'm using inspirations like they are particularly delicious sweets

One thing I've found with this toon though, is I still find a role to play within large teams. I didn't have that when playing as a MA/Regen, although I didn't feel as fragile.

Just wondering what your scrapper does best and any tips out there to be a walking one-man army? I'm thinking of rolling out yet another scrapper in the near future and am looking for something with great dmg potential with high survivability.

Broadsword, Katana - these are powersets I'm thinking of

You can slot it for Acc and Taunt duration. But as has been said, overall you will struggle to compete with the abilities of a tanker. However, at least pre ED, my WS Dark Dwarf had very good survivability slotted up with defence enhancements. Now I've got def and end rec slotted. Haven't tried him out in battle with these changes yet.

Sure - send me a global @A-force

Having only tried a MA/Regen scrapper (got him up to lvl 34) before giving up on him, especially after the chnages to regen - I thought about trying a Spines Dark Armour Scrapper after seeing a mate in Union get to 50 with him (Spinester)

Pretty impressive I thought, as I slugged it out with a single mob while he dispatched about 10 of them in the same time

So, here I am on Defiant now (no space for new toons on Union) - and I got to say I'm having a blast

For those who are maybe new to the game and deciding on what AT to choose, or having decided on the At, are now deciding on powersets...... don't skim past Spines/DA too quickly, espcially if u want to do major damage, whilst not being a squishy. I find it fills the initial need of wanting to blow villians away with your 00ber powers, and naturally starting a blaster only to find out in the latter teens (or before), that maybe you didn't look at the other ATs enough

Yes, you can watch those high numbers appear over villians heads, casued by your powers, without having to run for cover!

Get the shields. Slot them. Death Shroud. Slot it like a normal attack power. Quills. Do the same. All of a sudden you have major DoT flying over the heads of villians around you without trying

Then you have Spine Burst. Awesome power. Slot it.

I could go on. Its not a guide, just an appreciation of this set. If you think you have what it takes to get on that Punisher List time and time again if you choose - go spines/DA.

Ive got my spines/da scrapper to lvl 22 now and I haven't had that much problems. yeah - the aggro u get from the aoes is bad, but expected - but this can be mitigated by slotting the defence shields well with SOs.

I think the key is here, that you have to know what u can deal with - spines/da is the minion king; it despatches them like chaff, but struggles with the bosses.

With a decent tank (with taunt who knows how to use it) you become a major dmg dealer (who survives). I haven't reached high enough yet to slot all my defences with SOs, but I expect to be able to handle the dmg during battle, wiht the occasional heal and oppressive gloom to add some control to mobs attacks.

I've been a bit busy lately and have started a new char on defiant - lil' green man

Also, I think the rest of the heavy players have gone to COV - myself, I don't have the time to start another game right now