StarkFist

They can kill the thread. They can deny the possibility. They can make excuses for why it won't work how we want. They can try to quash the idea and they may hope we forget about it and move on to a new topic.

But they can never take away our dreams of a Big Red Ball future!

Vive le BRB revolution!!!!

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Yes, give us the big red ball! I find myself running into couches, crates, etc. in missions and watching them fly about the room...if only each of those had been a big red ball, imagine the fun!

We need the big red ball!

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Somewhere in this disturbingly long thread, the devs have posted that the big red ball we all desire will never happen. It has something to do with problems of targetting, knockback, etc. (Although making it a zone monster with no attacks, nigh-infinite regen and <0 KB protection doesn't seem THAT tough to me, I'm no programmer and I'm sure they have good reasons for denying us our fun. )

But as the quoted post notes, we already have kickable scenery in missions. It would be sad not to be able to affect the BRB with powers, but under the theory that any BRB would be better than no BRB- could we at least get a ball that reacts to being kicked/pushed around? The in-game physics already exist as demonstrated by the current kickable scenery- so all they would have to do is make a polygon for it (and you can't get much simpler than a big red ball), turn the friction way down for it so it can "roll" around, and start dropping them randomly in zones. Drop one every hour in the main zones- perhaps more often in hazard zones- despawn when the new ball drops. The only requirements should be low friction and suitable bouncyness. I also personally think they should mysteriously drop from the sky upon spawning, but that's just me.

Good guide. Some comments and corrections:

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Not that great BUT when you exit your base you will be returned to your mission entrance or the spot you fell, rather than having to run/fly/jump/port you way back. Unfortunately in City of Villains you get sent to the zone beacon. Different manufacturer I guess


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This is not always the case. Sometimes, like if you are running the TV respec trial, you will pop back out of the mission door. If you die on the streets of Kings Row, you'll come back right where you died. In most zones, however, you will come back at some other place, which seems to be the teleport drop point in most hazard zones, and somewhere completely random in non-hazard zones. If you die in IP, for example, the base med/tp will dump you back out at the extreme north end of the map. If you die fighting Lusca, it is much faster to just go to the hospital.

When bases first came out, there was a "bug" that made you always come out of the mission door where you died. Unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom the devs have "fixed" that VERY HELPFUL AND HANDY "bug" so that the medbay transporters are not nearly as useful as they were originally. Say thank you, sir, may I have another?

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As soon as your base is created you will start accumulating Rent So it is worth noting that you are charged more for prestige in the bank than you are for junk in your base. The difference is small but it still gives you a good reason to smother your base in banners.


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There still seems to be some confusion on this, but general consensus is that rent is based on your total prestige net worth, including base costs PLUS prestige in the bank. This is a crummy system that eliminates the possibility of small groups ever saving up their prestige over time, but that is an issue for another thread (or dozens of other threads in the Base Construction forum). Spending every dime of prestige on decorations and items will not change the amount you owe. Just be sure to save enough liquid assets to pay the taxman/landlord, otherwise you'll have to sell back those beautiful countertops when rent is due.

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When it comes to actually paying your rent, do not do so until devices stop functioning. Otherwise you will be paying unnecessarily.

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This is absolutely correct- just QFT. "Rent" is "due" every two weeks. Your base will lock you out at about six weeks (4 weeks overdue). The next rent cycle starts when you pay- therefore you can get away with paying monthly with no penalty other than annoying "rent is due" messages when you log in. Or, if you desire, go ahead and pay every two weeks like a sucker and enrich the Paragon City SG Registrar. If enough groups pay on time he gets a nice fat bonus at the end of the year.

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From the point of view of cost [the holodisplay] is a horrid device in that you can get the same control from Terminals for less prestige.

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It isn't great for prestige vs. control, however IIRC it is a litle more power-efficient. That is, it gives you a little more control per unit of power used. Plus, as you said, it just looks neato.

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Update: I understand that Combat Jump acts as a minor anti-immobilization as well.

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It is more than minor- CJ is a very good immobilization protection, and can keep you moving as long as there aren't too many immobs stacked. I don't know what the specific immob protection magnitude is, but from experience I know it is very hard to immob my toons with CJ running.

I see this best implemented as a specific type of arena match. Superpowered soccer! A goal on each end of a large flat arena, with teams trying to KB/push the ball into the opposing team's goal. The ball should be affected my most powers, such as TP foe, inertial dampening, AOE debuffs, etc. To make it fair though, the ball might have to be immune to force bubble- otherwise you just park your FF defender as goalie and watch the opposing team cry. And the ball should have very low, or even negative KB resistance so that even powers without a KB component would send flying back in the direction of the hit. This is such a 5-star, huge fun idea! I don't know why it hasn't been suggested before!

Of course, the OP is right that just having a big red bouncy ball to play with in zones would be fun too, but I really se it taking off as an arena event. Perhaps it could even lure people back to the almost deserted arenas! I'd want one in Pocket D too- that way griefers would have fewer places they could "hide" the ball to deny others fun.

There is a fantastic post-i6 Dark/Dark Scrapper guide posted here: DM/DA Bible It is not just a good DA/Dm gguide, but one of the best guides I've ever seen on these boards.

Tactics, and the leadership pool in general, gives poor to mediocre buffs to scrappers. Defs and 'trollers get much better utility out of it. Tactics provides ~7.5% to hit buff... one white Acc DO gives you ~16%. IMHO, you'd be better off just slotting some accuracfy in your attacks.

The main use you might get from tactics would be the +perception for spotting stalkers in PvP zones, which is a plus, but I don't know if that makes it worth it to take up the required power slots. It wasn't for me, personally, but I'm working on a pretty tight (and a little wacky) DM/DA build and can't afford the extra power pool. YMMV

Hope this helps.

Thanks again for your thoughts and comments, oh great darkity dark guru! I will take your comments into consideration as I progress with this build. Perhaps unfortunately for me, you have not quite talked me out of the idea, since I'm probably going to proceed with him anyway for purposes of fun and concept. I've played the game enough that a straight min/max, fast xp/fast lvl build isn't really what I'm going for- rather, looking for somehting fun to play. I'm hoping I can squeeze enough damage mitigation out of the controllery aspects of the fear that I can save a few slots on shields so my attacks don't suffer too terribly much. I'm going to be tweaking the scraptroller build as I go based on info from your guide and my own experiences as I play him. And I'm already resigned that there will be sacrifices- i.e. in order to take my preferred travel power (SJ) I'll have to forego hasten in this build, which means at least a rech in most attacks. And I can already tell that end use is going to be a consistent problem throughout my career- but hey, that's why Statesman gave us Consumption! (The good kind- not the disease.)

And yes, when I started down this fearsome road I did have a little PvP in mind. One of the things that inspired me to try this experiment was helplessly watching my Kat/SR getting very slooowwwlllyyy pwned by a dark/dark defender in a one-on-one duel. Fear lockdown and death of a thousand cuts- that'll teach me to underestimate a squishie! I enjoyed that so much I wanted to try it for myself! The fact that fear is nigh irresistable is icing on the scary cake. I'm looking forward to that popularity!

Gamemaster- Thank you for taking the time to write one of the most comprehensive and informative guides I have found on these boards. I appreciate your depth of DM/DA knowledge, and the hours you put into sharing that knowledge with the rest of us.

I am a relatively experienced scrapper (50 Kat/SR and 47 Kat/regen with scattered other alts) trying out the DM/DA seriously for the first time. My DM/DA is only up to 18, but so far I'm having a blast with him.

I do have one question for you. In your guide you mentioned the presence pool as for "experimental" builds only, and then discussed it no more. I have read another guide floating around the boards (the Scary Scraptroller guide) that advocated using the fear powers in the presence pool to augment and stack with the fear powers in the DM/DA set. This appeals to me in theory, and fits well with the concept of the character I'm building (fear, fear and more fear!). I especially like the idea of stacking the presence AOE fear with COF, and using TOF to ghetto lock down particularly resistant mobs and bosses. I was wondering your feelings about this idea, and if you have had any experience with this particular "experimental" type of build. Any insight you might be able to share would be appreciated since it is obvious you have spent quite a bit of time with the DM/DA set.

And again- can't thank you enough for the GREAT guide! Good job!

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So! That being said, I can tell ya that this build IS optimized. There's nothing you could do to make it nastier for PvE, I've tried everything and this is the "ultimate" slotting and such, if you will. PvP is another story altogether, but I never play in that. Should be strong as hell even there, but it won't have stuff like Tactics to let you see doublecloaked Stalkers or Teleport Foe to hose sniper Blasters.

If you're having problems with PvE using this build as a guide, feel free to get in touch! Your play style is off and I may have some pointers. Build's rock solid!


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I have a lvl 50 Kat/SR (and a 47 Kat/regen). Just had a couple quick comments. It looks like you have a solid build that you like and that works well for your playstyle. That's great, and I wish you the best of luck with it. I like that you have a hasten-less build, and wish more heroes would be brave enough to throw away that particular crutch. However, I would not necessarily say that this is the best possible Kat/SR build ever created and that nothing could ever be done to optimize it further. My build at 50 is radically different from what you have here, and he is an absolute killing machine.

Elude, for me, is just a panic button for use on very tough AV fights or when everyone else on the team is dead or running- otherwise I'm a nonstop lawnmower of whirling death. The end crash when elude cuts out means downtime, and I don't like downtime. And if a battle lasts longer than 3 minutes, the elude crash (and consequent toggle drop) means people are probably going to start dying, probably starting with myself.

I never liked Divine Avalance simply because the damage is subpar and the def bonus just wasn't worth it to me. My build includes tough/weave/combat jumping for additional defenses, and DA is is just not that useful. Particularly, if you rely on it as a defense against strong enemies, you may find that it misses just when you need it the most. I used to have DA, but after respec it out long ago I have found I never miss it.

This is all just IMHO; I'm not claiming that my build is necessarily "better," and don't claim it is the best possible min/max Kat/SR build ever created. However, just wanted to point out to any other up-and-coming Kat/SRs out there reading this that there are many very good ways to skin this particular Kat. SR can be a rough road, but very rewarding for those who follow it to the end. My best advice would be to find what works for you and your playstyle, and not rely on copying someone else's build and style.

A couple general comments from my personal experience:

I agree with the above poster who said that the Triage Beacon can definitely be useful in certain situations. Using the goto command I can keep my pets in a fairly tight group and drop the beacon in the middle for tough fights. I don't need it every fight, but when the boys have taken a nasty beating from that Freedom Corps Flamethrower, it can certainly make a difference in the overall battle. It is not a huge heal, and there are disadvantages such as not being able to drag it around with you (I'd love to see it go mobile like the FF beacon!). But on many occasions it has saved my boys from the brink of death and at the very least it can reduce down-time between battles. It also is useful on teams when I drop it in the back line with the corruptors and dominators to help avoid some of their inherent squishiness. Yeah, I could dismiss and recall the heavilly damaged pets, but if I've already dropped TU on them I'm always hesitant to dismiss lightly due to the long rech time. Also, if you happen to be on a team with someone else with TB, two or more of them running at the same time can provide a very generous health boost for tough battles.

The other thing I disagreed with slightly was the offhand dismissal of poison trap. IMHO this is an incredibly important and useful power. The hold duration is relatively short but it has a chance to hold/choke/puke every tick and when the hold does hit it is an incredibly high magnitude. I have made elite bosses and AVs puke with a well timed toe bomb, and it works wonders on large groups of mobs running through the green misty cloud. Damage prevention is always better than damage healing, and when the mobs are choking and puking they aren't hitting me and my boys. With 1-2 rech it is up and ready for almost every battle, and I use and abuse it regularly. I never got around to picking up caltrops but I intend to when I do my respec and drop one of my two attacks. Caltrops+Poison trap= mob pain and a very messy floor.

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3) Fix the Prestige scaling. Higher level heroes should earn more Prestige; after all, they're more prestigious.


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I do so wish people would stop suggesting this. I don't care how "realistic" it is that various flying people in tights get the same prestige as other flying people in tights. I care that the system is designed to make it equally advantageous to have members across all levels in your SG. The last thing I want is SGs saying "you can join when you reach the level cap" you'll generate more prestige then.

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For once Lothart, I agree with you. Currently lower lvl toons actually get a prestige bonus simply because their missions go faster. Scaling prestige to lvl will probably do exactly what you suggest and encourage levelism with groups restricting lower toons from joining.

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Now, if they'd only look at the rent issue...

[/ QUOTE ]hehe Yea I was going to post something about that , but figured I'd wait until this goes through.

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Here, here! And well said Mr. Hamster! I'm a leader and architect of a mid-small SG and I don't care if we have to work for a year or more to build the neato base we want- the high prices don't bug me. But the current rent system is going to kill our ability to save for the things we want down the road. I appreciate the love, Statesman, really do- it is so rare that I'm not sure if we even have a word for it- what is the opposite of nerf? But baby-bases for smaller SGs are not going to fix all the problems we have with prestige.

Amen indeed! Thanks for listening Statesman!

Now there's just a couple other hundred Base Building threads you might want to take a look at.....