Stolid

Just looking at the in-game info for Eagle's claw, it's interesting that the property isn't listed in the description or the detailed info for the power at all. If you don't read the patch notes I don't think you'd even realize it was buffed in this way.

Yeah, one-handed or two-handed, Concentrated Strike looks like you're about to break your back trying to gather the kinetic energy in the attack.

I've got a KM/SD up to 48 now and he's going good. Don't be afraid to spam Power Siphon as the proc chance to insta-recharge it with Con. Strike is pretty high, and there's been numerous times where it's been recharged the very first time I use concentrated strike after popping it. Quite handy.

Shield Charge + Burst with a stacked AoO + Power Siphon is deadly, of course. Makes me hate knockback on teams after taking the time to pack them tight, though.

Skip repulsing torrent, skip confront as usual. I skipped quick strike since you end up with so many attacks you don't really need it, but some might suggest otherwise for leveling or some such. I have vet powers and the low levels go so fast for me I didn't notice a problem.

It's nice that the set has knockdown in focused burst and burst, and stuns in the others. Burst can really help if you get a nasty alpha with the RNG hating you.

I assume it's the frequency of the cascade failure problem that made defense debuff resistance necessary in the first place.. But isn't -Regen becoming seen more and more, and to an even worse degree than Defense debuffs? Even the worst defense debuff isn't comparable to most -regen debuffs--Pretty much any -regen debuff you get on you is going to completely stop your regeneration for its entire duration. Cascade defense failure (usually) requires multiple applications.

I can't get nearly as in-depth as you, Arcana, but regeneration seems to be the only form of mitigation that doesn't help itself mitigate debuffing. Defense does it via being hard to hit in the first place, and iirc Resistance debuffs still are subject to the resistance value they're debuffing.

I feel like /Regen is due for some help, with that kind of thing. Over time /SR has had DDR put in place and I think you're still trying to get it away from being the one-trick pony of *just* defense--most new sets try to diversify to do many different things. /Regen feels like it was left to do one thing and while it can do it, it has no back-up support like /SR had put in place, or safeguards to ensure it can always do the one thing it does (regen), wheres SR's 95% DDR means it's pretty damn hard to cause cascade failure.

But that's conjecture, I'll admit. I don't have numbers to prove that the disparities I see are viable mechanical differences that warrant helping /Regen. Certainly *feels* like it needs some sort of protection from those kinds of things, though.

It's been stated by the developers that Willpower's very weak taunt aura in RttC was an intentional build weakness. As so many others have pointed out, it's because Willpower has no real downsides otherwise, gaining a little bit of everything (and a lot of others).

I would suggest you trust Sarrate's information regarding how aggro contro/taunt effects work, as I think they're one of the few people who really have paid attention to what little info there's been about taunt mechanics and tried to understand it, to help inform others. Gauntlet and taunt together can easily make the taunt aura a non-issue.

As a general rule I would say self-rez powers should be the last things to focus on of any set. If it ever came down to helping the other powers or the self-rez, I'd always choose the former.

That said, the self-rez could include a brief +def time (10-15 sec) after it's used.

Jlove can't receive PM's, when I tried to do so. Not sure who else to contact in this case so let's hope for the best.

Hopefully they'll realize the bug and fix it in the next patch, then.

I've got a KM/SD up to 34 now and it's pretty amazing. AoO + Power Siphon = Fury for Scrappers. Concentrated Strike is my only real complaint, as its animation looks rather weird with a Shield. I can deal with it for the crazy, 500-damage hits in the 30's, though.

I have one character who presently uses the Tai gloves option on a Huge model character.

I made a character for GR and played them up and wanted to give them the same thing, and discovered that I could not. Further testing shows that if I try to edit the costume of the character that has it, they're immediately given the default glove option set as if making a new character (althought I can cancel the costume change and keep the costume piece).

I have purchased the Martial Arts super booster, of course, so there should be no problem there. Furthermore, other types of chests (robed for example) allow the Tai gloves to be used, but the normal 'Tight' chest option no longer has 'Tai' gloves listed as an applicable choice when it clearly used to be.

I'd like to get this settled somehow. Any and all help would be appreciated.

I think Kinetic Melee is good overall, but everyone seems to be in agreement that Repulsing Torrent is worthless. Admittedly, the rest of the set is good, but it'd be nice if something happened to the power to make it more worthwhile.

As for Kinetic Melee's secondary effect, I agree that the duration is too short. It'd be nice if they were all standardized to be 10 sec or so.

Huge male models, using the default 'Tight' overall upper body option. I made one character with the 'Tai' gloves option (I have the Martial Arts booster pack) and it works, and they have it.. But it's no longer on the list of available gloves for any of my other characters. I went into the character that has it to see if I was just missing it, but it seems to have truly disappeared from the list for no known reason. If I use a 'robe' overall option it seems to be there, but not for the default 'Tights' one. Please fix.

Phalanx Fighting says it accepts Defense Buff enhancements but the defense buff is flagged as unenhancable. Should that be added to the list? It seems like someone would've reported it by now since the set's been out so long, but it doesn't seem like anyone has.

I would sooner take away Practiced Brawler and add the mez resistances to one of the three toggles. Having a click mez protection is not really beneficial in SR's case anymore, since toggles don't drop if you get mez'd. Turn Practiced Brawler into something else--perhaps a small amount of damage done to every opponent of which you dodge via your defenses (not a natural miss--I think internally it calculates when you dodge from your defenses, as opposed to when they just miss from the natural 50/50, doesn't it?) while it's active. of course, that's more effective for brutes than scrappers, since they have a taunt aura..

Energy Melee

For the love of god, Energy Melee. Please, give Bonesmasher, Energy Transfer and Total Focus alternates so that they aren't all double-fist animations. Once is okay, even twice before the changes to it was alright.. but once all three became double-fist animations, I never played the set again.

Dark Melee would be nice to have alternate animations for Siphon Life and Midnight Grasp.

I would love you forever if you gave Super Strength more alternate animations for its attacks, namely in line with Vander's avatar (I think that's the name, anyway). Nice stuff there.

Crippling Axe Kick should just be redone, period..

Alternate animations for weapon sets would be nice.

Finally. Kamehameha in CoH. We needed that.

On another note, since the Tier 9 doesn't 'crit' like normal and instead recharges a power, does it give the 'Crit' message as floating text, or any indicator similar to the normal crit one to show the power's recharged? Is it hard to tell it's back up or not a problem?

I'm thinking I'll be making a KM/SD scrapper regardless of the changes to SD. Seems like stacking the +Dmg effects on a scrapper could lead to insane stunts and wonderful AV soloing..

Thanks for the detailed numbers. Kinetic Melee seems like a good set for fighting solo, difficult targets, isn't it? Siphon Power seems like it would shine against an AV or something.