SuperUser

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Shields in general is rough going before adding Tough/Weave and IOs into the mix. It doesn't help that the oft-faced enemies redside have nasty tricks up their sleeves (50 levels of Longbow gets old after a while).

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Well, I have to say that simply slotting SO's helped a ton, I knew it would help some but I'm already feeling a lot better about the build. I'm doing a little franken-slotting to boost a few of the numbers, I'm pretty poor red-side so I won't be buying any full sets for a long time. I've got my DM/Shield Scrapper at 39% Melee/34% Ranged (no Weave yet) and he already feels godly mainly just because he kills so fast.

With regard to the other poster asking about boosting defense, the little things really add up. Combat Jumping with an SO adds 2.25%, Phalanx gives 2.7%, the Steadfast unique gives 3%... without Sets, there's almost 9% extra with maybe 1 additional slot. With defense-based sets, every little bit really does count.

Does anyone else find this build a slow starter? I've got a DM/Shield scrapper who's a lot of fun, so I thought I'd give a /Shield brute a try. At level 20 I still feel extremely fragile. Damage output with Fury isn't bad, but I usually end up taking so much damage I can't keep going if I run out of inspirations.

I've played defense-based scrappers (2 Shield and 2 SR), so I know the early levels can be rough, but this brute is definitely one of the more frustrating chars I've played. I'm holding out until level 25 (SO's and a couple more powers) before judging him too harshly, but I haven't felt this frustrated with a new char in a long time.

Admittedly, part of the problem is probably that the first Brute I played is a SS/WP, which basically plays like God mode.

So for these daily runs do we have to sign up, or just show up? Now that I've got a few days off coming up, I'd like to hop on board if you have the room.

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well I can update that after 6 hrs of sweeping this is what I noticed.

(All things I was getting xp from)

Greys - nothing but xp, no insp, enhance, savage or recipes.
Blues - xp + insp, enh, some salvage, no recipes
Greens - xp + insp, enh, some salvage, no recipes

large groups of whites and yellows sent me to the hospital so

To date, no recipes.

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Not sure what you were street sweeping, or where, it would be nice to know where to avoid. I spent 3 levels of my 20's on my Fire/Kin just street sweeping in Dark Astoria. I didn't touch any greys, but focused on -1/-2 for the sake of time. I don't recall getting any rare items, but I definitely picked up a lot of recipes. No groups with bosses, just minions/Lt's.

Maybe someone can help with this: Inspired by someone else who had done this, I've been trying to get a bind working that automatically turns on Sprint when I move, and turns it off when I stop. What I've come up with so far is this:

start.txt:
u "+ $$powexectoggleon Sprint$$forward 1$$bind_load_file c:\stop.txt"

stop.txt:
u " $$powexectoggleoff Sprint$$forward 0$$bind_load_file c:\start.txt"

This works, but it gives "Unknown command" in the chat window. Anyone know how I can prevent that, or a better way to handle this bind?

Sweet! Thank you!

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The worst thing about the Hess TF is that it pretty much embodies what a TF -should- be, instead of the 6 hour same old mission marathons the game has now.

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Too true. I hate to say this, because I'd like to get the badge for my new lvl 13 controller, but I just cannot build up the desire to do Positron again. The one time I did, our team did great, not a single death. After the 4-hour point, tho, it just be came tedious - same old maps, same old baddies. I got so sick of it I didn't even care about the story anymore. Took us another 2.5 hours (total 6.5) to finish it.

Other than Hess, I haven't done another TF since (except the Sky Raider respec). I've heard the most of the others are better, but I just can't get excited about them. Especially after Hess, I feel that I'm not going to get that much out of them.

I did the Hess TF last weekend, and I totally agree. I started getting burned out on the game in the late teens; I was so sick of Vahz, CoT, and Clocks. Finally, I had a reason to go to Talos, and eventually Striga. For a bit, I actually considered cancelling my subscription. But I have to tell you, the Striga experience has totally renewed my enthusiasm in the game.

The TF is great, the missions were super cool, and occasionally there'd be a really cool surprise. Not to give too much away, but there was a vampire mission that caught me off guard the first time through - I gained some debt, but I enjoyed it because it was the first (solo) mission where I actually had to plan a strategy.

Then there's the map itself - areas crawling with WarWolves (making it easy to get the Atlas Medallion pre-30), the Volcano (and surprise inside), the enemies battling each other for control, etc. This was also where I had my first experience with the "Batcave" mission map - the cave with all the technology, computers, etc. inside.

So, yes, there is some very cool stuff here. Regarding the TF, it's definately what I expect the ultimate TF to be: challenging but easily doable, fits a lot of content in a reasonable time period (roughly 3 hours for my team), it has cool surprises, the story is consistant and the missions make sense, the final mission comes pretty darn close to being "epic".