StormDevil

I've got my fingers crossed that GR will allow rogue Heroes/Villains to "swap" Epics; i.e., Scrappers can choose Patrons, Brutes can choose Epics. It makes 0 sense thematically to not allow this option, but I can see balance concerns.

If they do let us, then I definitely want to check out a SS/SD/Body Brute.

Cool, I'm at school right now, so don't have Mids, but I'm sure between now and the time I get home, some other folks will come by and help you out (and potentially offer advice that runs counter to mine, which is fine and dandy; that'd help me out with my Elec/SD, too).

EDIT: Oh, one other; I don't do it on my Scrapper, because I always try to make just one build that's capable of AoE/farming/teaming and "big game" hunting, but I know that a lot of AoE-centric Elec/SD folks choose Havoc Punch over Charged Brawl.

Without your data chunk, I have to rely on a bit of speculation, and also try to apply advice to more general combat than just whatever it is you're farming (I'm not familiar with "Samurai" as an enemy group; might be an AE thing I don't know about).

You could increase your Ranged defense by moving the Fighting pool up in your build, and 6-slotting Weave with Red Fortune (+2.5 to Ranged), or you could get 3.13% more AoE defense by 5-slotting Tough with the Aegis set. You may also have some more slots floating around if you pulled some out of CJ.

Cool, thanks folks.

Just some quick suggestions:

I'd kill the Medicine pool; between True Grit, Health, and Physical Perfection (coming to that), you should be fine, especially with how much more quickly you'll be melting spawns by switching the Med pool for...

Hasten. Really, no farming Elec/SD should be without it.

Then I'd use the other power choice from the Med pool on Physical Perfection.

Combat Jumping is severely overslotted; there's really no need for it to have that much Defense, as the base value is really low (1.75, if memory serves).

I'd swap Focused Accuracy for Conserve Power, and slot the Kismet +toHit in CJ.

Doing all that increases your speed and Endurance management, which were your two big concerns. Yep, you lose Aid Self but, if you're farming at speed, you honestly shouldn't have enough time to use it, and if you're already popping Blues, you can just start popping Greens instead; I'd wager that you'll find yourself popping far less of the latter than the former.

That's all I've got for a quick read.

The best character for farming quickly using only SOs depends primarily on what exactly it is that you are farming. However, generally speaking, a Fire/Kin/Fire is the "starter" farmer.

I'm not sure I'd toss an anchor on a mob that's a priority for being taken out first; I guess you mean, "make sure that one gets the debuff(s)", but if it's a truly dangerous mob, and the team is tactically proficient enough to defeat it first, then you've got to retoggle.

Which is actually a good segue. (Thanks, StormDevil. Hey, no problem, StormDevil.)

Different folks have different strategies for the twin toggles; some like to cast them both on the same mob, some like to RI one, and EF another. They're both viable options; the former perhaps lends itself better to, "make sure we kill (...you are on Redside, right?) that guy last", while the latter is more of a, "we're ripping through these guys pretty fast, nothing lasts that long anyway" kind of thought process. Learning to retoggle quickly can be key for +3 and +4 mission teams; those few seconds without either or both of the toggles can get sketchy pretty quick.

Heh, I think a new player creating his first character would look at the Character Creation screen, see "Lethal Weapon Attack" and "Smashing Weapon Attack", and be utterly confused.

I still like the basic premise of the idea, though; the more skin(s) the better.

That's essentially what an AV is, yep. I should also mention that the ability to solo them depends on heavily investing in IO Set bonuses, specifically +Defense (usually Ranged and AoE, but many players go for Smashing/Lethal Defense as well). Just wanted to clarify that.

That's a pretty cool idea, but what would you rename the sets?

At first, I was going to simply suggest throwing Sonic's -Res toggle on whomever seems to be the most survivable melee character on your team; then I realized that you're actually talking about Sonic/Rad, not Rad/Sonic.

Speaking to your specific issues (range/melee and spreading mobs), the simplest fix is to use terrain and obstacles to your advantage; whether you anchor your debuff(s) on a melee opponent or a ranged opponent becomes less important if they're all grouped up at a corner. You'll still get some runners, specifically the melee ones who want to run over and punch you in the face, but there are ways around that as well, such as Hovering over the mobs.

Another important consideration in choosing anchors is "flight risk". Anything that teleports (Tsoo Sorcerors, Sky Raider, uh, Porters, etc.) is a terrible choice, since they'll take the debuff with them, both negating its effect on the mobs in front of you and potentially aggroing mobs you haven't even met yet. Also, some enemies like to run all over the place (Tsoo Blue Ink Men, Council Wolves); those are equally poor choices.

I'm on the Ninjitsu for Scrappers bandwagon; between Katana, Martial Arts, Weapon Mastery (I know, "lulz"), and now the Martial Arts Booster, it seems like a pretty obvious choice. The necessary changes have been mentioned here and in other threads, but I think you'd actually have to change the heal, as well. It just seems like that set would be "OP" if the heal retained its current values when ported over.

(That's totally subjective, of course; I'm sure a strong case could be made for maintaining the current values, and I for one would be glad to hear that case)

Because my bids for my Blaster's missing IOs aren't filled yet.

This combo is pretty flexible; you can build it to accomplish a variety of effects. The most popular (at least on the boards) seems to be "AoE juggernaut", of which it is completely capable. Alternatively, it can be built as an ST powerhouse; Silverado rather famously soloed a number of Giant Monsters with his (sure, he used Insps, but c'mon, they're freaking GMs). With dual builds, you could easily build it both ways and hop back and forth between them as situations dictate. Personally, mine is a hybrid, since dual builds are too pricey for what I would want them to do. But if you're sitting on a decent amount of Inf, you can easily create a Blaster who can unleash significant amounts of AoE damage, or breeze relatively easy through (most) AVs all by your lonesome.

I'm curious to know how one could discern whether or not another player has two builds for their character, without asking them or teaming with them and noticing that their power info changes.

I think this about sums it up.

Rad blasts debuff defense; Sonic blasts debuff resistance. You can "make" the Rad blasts debuff resistance by slotting the Achilles' Heel -Res proc in one of the blasts (or two, but keep in mind that they don't stack, so slotting it in either of the first blasts and then maybe Irradiate would be the only time I'd slot two). However, Sonic's -Res will stack with itself, so you can achieve much higher numbers with it than with a proc'd out Rad.

But I'd still pick Fire/, if it were me. AV fights are all about Single Target damage, and Blaze is just too good to pass up for that.

Damage comparisons between the two ATs without including one of those ATs' inherent powers is either disingenuous or absurd. Yes, if you eliminate something which is built into the very nature of an AT (Criticals), then the comparison is much closer. But since Criticals are, again, built into the Scrapper AT, it absolutely has to be included in any comparison. You wouldn't compare burst damage between a Scrapper and a Stalker without including the latter's various assassination attacks...well, maybe some folks would, but that would be silly.

Fire, it would behoove you at some point to question whether dozens of veteran players, veterans who are vested enough in the game to create spreadsheets and perform extensive datamining, are all incorrect, or maybe perhaps it is just you. Probability says it's the latter. Of course, you may have a deeper understanding of the game than someone like BillZ, who compiles data and releases things like comprehensive cross-Archetype damage comparisons...but the odds are certainly stacked against you.

I think the origin of much of the "vitriol", for lack of a better word, engendered by your posts is that there is a real danger in your posts when read by newcomers to the game, or just those who don't frequent the boards. A new player might read one of your posts and be completely misled unless and until your flawed assertions* are countermanded. The negative rep which you seem to perceive as some sort of personal attack should instead be seen for what it is; a notice to readers of your posts that you are, quite simply and quite often, in the wrong.

*other flawed assertions (and this is just off the top of my head): Dark/ is the best blast set for soloing AVs (better than Fire/ or Sonic/...simply ridiculous, and backed up with even more ridiculousness, such as slotting the attacks for Endurance Reduction and using Moonbeam in your proposed attack chain); "Tanking" with Defenders ("Tanking" here, as defined by you, as being able to soak up an alpha, and/or preemptively lock down/defeat spawns...the inclusion of anecdotal "evidence" from SOLO PLAY, for pete's sake, is truly absurd. It's literally impossible to "tank" when solo. )

My Kat/SR with Aid Other agrees with Fleeting Whisper's definition of "healer".

It's been covered several times, but it ain't Tanking if you can't hold aggro. It also ain't Tanking if you're solo; who the hell else are the mobs going to hit? Sure, my Dark/Sonic can handle an alpha strike, but once the rest of the team kicks in with their AoEs, whatever I'm "tanking" pretty much stops paying attention to me, and turns its attention to whoever's got the highest Threat Level.

That said, any Defender who dips into the Presence Pool could Tank if they wanted to Tank.

Most Fun:
Everything in Storm Summoning except for

Least Fun:
Gale-a mob positioning tool that gets supplanted by a better one later on in the same set. Super.
O2 Boost-blah.

Hey folks, I don't really play a ton of Redside, but with Archery getting ported over, I wanted to give an Arch/Traps build a shot. The only thing I'm a little on the fence about is Snap Shot vs. Triage; other than that, I think it's serviceable, but I wanted to get some feedback, suggestions, and advice from some of the more veteran Redsiders.

I keep WoC on pretty much all the time. BenArizona was right on with his assessment of it. It mitigates a pretty decent amount of incoming damage. Yep, it only affects minions; so what? If you're in melee, surrounded by mobs, most of them will be minions. So a decent portion of that damage will be redirected.

I see a lot of griping about the 4 second interval between ticks, or the 1.5 second base duration. I'm not sure what people would want instead that wouldn't be overpowered; no other Blaster secondary has what in effect amounts to a layer of melee defense. Additionally, WoC exists within a set that has a power with which WoC is extremely useful; Drain Psyche. Not to mention that WoC is very handy for deflecting some incoming damage when you spawn-dive to unleash a PBAoE nuke.

Fulmens is entirely correct in that it's far more difficult to make the Drain Psyche+Nuke combo work on teams, and especially on very fast teams. My experience with it has been mostly solo, as my particular /MM Blaster is edging up on some really pretty decent survivability capabilities, so I tend to not wait around if I can't find a team. On teams, when my Nuke is up, I typically rush spawns right behind the Tanker, doubly so if it's a smart Tanker that knows they don't need to stand around while stragglers get mopped up. The DP/Nuke combo is still viable on teams, there's just far more variability in how many mobs I hit with DP.