The_Gamemaster

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Penny, this is the 3rd thread by this guy who's whining about his defunk pvp SG. People aren't doing what he wants and he thinks the world is ending.

This is his MO.

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He's just trying, unsuccessfuly, for obvious reasons, to inveigle you!

Fire/Fire is not as simple as some other Fire combos, but it's not overly complex, and there is more than one way to play it. I play the Invisible, melee Fire/Fire strat most of the time myself. I run:

Blazing Aura
Hot Feet
Combat Jumping
Invisibility

Position myself in a group, hit Aim and Build Up, drop Invisibility, and, depending on the composition of the group (how much burst damage and intrinsic mez it has available), I hit:

Fireball
Burn
Fire Sword Circle

or

Fireball
Fire Sword Circle
Burn

Past that point, if there is anything more than a couple of mobs still standing, and in melee range, I'll click Combustion to finish them off; otherwise, I use my single-target attack chain and polish off the wounded stragglers. If I need to increase the carnage (say if there are Bosses running around), I drop Rain of Fire in the middle of things.

The primary reason I don't use the breath/ball combo that I use with Fire/Energy b/c /Fire doesn't have Boost Range at its disposal. It's still very effective with Fire/Fire, but when it runs up against its performance limits, you are better off leveraging the powers in /Fire.

I have yet to see any evidence that there is an overwhelmingly *best* way to build and play Fire/Fire, but I can tell you that, no matter how you cut it, it's going to pump out damage--your job is to keep it alive long enough to finish the fight.

At last! I am out from under the guilt of not having written a New Testament or getting around to building the Dark Melee Dojo... Nice work, Des! You are a tribute to your... ahhhh... Well, great job!

I meant to comment on this some time ago, but I haven't been spending much time on the forums of late. It's good to see someone take up the cause of the much-maligned dark warrior, and I know from experience that it's where it needs to be: in your capable hands!

Are you at it again, advocating CoF over OG for DM Scrappers? You're a bad, bad boy... relentless too. From my point of view, it's a really simple relationship--against bosses, CoF > OG only b/c of Touch of Fear. Outside of that scenario (well, and some Defense-oriented IO builds, but that would undermine my basic premise, so I am going to pretend those don't exist ), OG has a better value proposition. Carrying the discussion beyond this point is generally headache-inducing and arguably counterproductive. Let's move on to something less controversial, like Siphon Life slotting...

After a cursory viewing my only suggestion would be to use the URL UBB Code tool to create links for the web pages that you reference, especially in the "Sources of Information" section.

Aim and Build Up concerns aside, the posted build is not even close to being optimal for its stated purpose. Passing up your core endurance draining powers makes close combat a much risker proposition than it really needs to be for Elec/Elec. I am sure that it performs fine on teams with buffs and debuffs b/c just about everything does.

Hover? Zapp? Invisibility? I think you could do a lot better with your power choices in terms of bang for your buck. Some solo testing on Test with a few classic builds could go a long way in helping you firm up your build. Just a suggestion.

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Just a head's up for everyone, we're going to be buckling down to get Issue 12 done...so you may see a lull in redname activity on the forums for a bit. Might not get as many immediate responses to PMs...mailboxes will probably fill up...posts demanding immediate answers will undoubtedly go unanswered

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Meanwhile, the world's seals, left alone by the busy devs, are able to multiply in record numbers. The massive seal population becomes emboldened, and starts encroaching on cities across the globe with newfound confidence. Soon seals take over the planet and become the dominant life-form, eclipsing mankind. Humanity becomes extinct, and a rain of seals is visited upon the earth the likes of which has not been seen since the early 1800s.

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Noooooooooooo! Cursed seals!

Smoke doesn't stack (Smoke Stack!) from the same caster...

Nice guide! I have a friend who is a hardcore bubbler, and it's definitely a cult of sorts.

I do have one point of contention to take up with you...

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I tried a scrapper a few times and I was bored out of my MIND! Go to the first mob, click a couple of attacks, goto the next one, click a couple of attacks. I was bored to tears.

So I went back to my FF Defender and guess what? I had to THINK again! It was wonderful, I couldn't just keep spamming the same powers over and over again, I had to choose the right tool to use at the right location at the right moment. It was like a game of chess mixed with a battlefield of insanity, and I loved it.

It was wonderful.

But once again, some people LOVE scrappers, they love the playstyle, it suits them, so they play it. Defenders don't work the same way as scrappers. Most scrappers are essentially the same thing with slight differences. Most Defender sets are COMPLETELY different and operate in completely different ways from each other. I like that, but what it means is that each powerset is almost like an archetype all its own. So you can "like" playing an empathy defender and hate playing a force fielder. They are completely different playstyles. With all of the differences between them, there will of course be more people that like to play one set than another, that's the nature of humanity.


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Remember what you said about a bubbler being more than someone who runs around with his Dispersion Bubble up, refreshing the shields on his teammates every four minutes. I have an analogy for you:

You:Scrappers :: Person you described above:bubblers

Scrapping can be a thinking game, just as much so as Blasting, Tanking, Controlling, and Defending can be. There is a vast difference between many Scrapper combinations that rivals the level of difference in Defender and Controller combinations. Playing a DM/DA Scrapper is so far removed from playing a Spines/SR Scrapper that they barely have enough in common to be considered as belonging to the same AT. Don't judge an AT's inherent variety by its (lack of) flashy animations.

You are certainly not required to play any AT as if you are playing a game of chess, but it is fun. My experience with all of the AT's in the game is that when you push them they are each uniquely capable of providing a cerebral challenge. The nature of that challenge does not always simply boil down to what to target or what to click next.

That's my two cents, but I don't want to derail the thread. Great job on the guide. You have really captured the essence of the nature and philosophy of bubbles, great and small!

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Someone get EvilGeko in here.

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The OP has made a reasoned and sensible post and I can do nothing more than agree. Well written sir, I applaud you.

I think it's clear that there is only one response that makes sense:

Buff Regen.

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Its pretty clear from the analysis that Regen needs more defense and resistance.

So the only logical solution is to swap Instant Healing for Lucky.

Regen is buffed and SR gets a small amount of healing. Everybody happy.

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Of course, Regen is so lucky that when we got Lucky it would come with all of the defense and scaling resists of Agile, Dodge and Lucky from the SR set.

Then Arcanaville would cry.

And the EvilGeko would collect her tears, chill them and toast the wisdom of Castle.

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That's revenge that is best served cold, not tears. Tears are a room temperature beverage.

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I'd say that depends on the salinity level of the tears in question. Flashing back a pair of years to a couple of doses of Fleet's Phospho-soda that I had to quaff as a prereq for an unpleasant medical procedure, I found the beverage to be much more palateable when it was very cold. Given the circumstances EG cited for your lacrimation, I suspect that it would follow a debaucherous evening featuring the consumption of multiple servings of potent potables of some sort, which could leave you quite dehydrated...

Just a thought.

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So, then you saw all the references to the other thread and saw the parity between the two as far as the OP goes, thus able to come to the obvious conclusion that the OP was in fact a spoof and in no way serious, thus not requiring a serious response, like the one you gave, right?

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It appears you missed what the point of my "serious" response was. If you've been following my posts in other threads now you should know how I respond to pseudo serious satire threads. My sig should also clue you in further, if you are smart enough to figure out the backward relation.

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ts:dr; You lose at the INTARWEB!

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I never wanted to win at the INTARWEB.

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Exactly! Thus I support your cause!

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So, then you saw all the references to the other thread and saw the parity between the two as far as the OP goes, thus able to come to the obvious conclusion that the OP was in fact a spoof and in no way serious, thus not requiring a serious response, like the one you gave, right?

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It appears you missed what the point of my "serious" response was. If you've been following my posts in other threads now you should know how I respond to pseudo serious satire threads. My sig should also clue you in further, if you are smart enough to figure out the backward relation.

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ts:dr; You lose at the INTARWEB!

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I disagree. The problem clearly lies with /regen so the fix must come from within.

A suggestion I have pm'd to Castle recently and have had some good reviews on as well:

Replace Instant Healing with Phase shift, only you can stay in PS for 90 seconds unlike its counterpart from stealth. This will give a /regen the ability its needed since day 1 to not have to use the self rez as much and adds some much needed survivability to an already severly lackluster power set. Thoughts?

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That's a pretty good idea. Along those lines, I think that another step in solving Regen's survivability issues, without ripping off the mechanics of existing Scrapper secondaries, is to revisit the fundamentals...namely the piss-poor performance of the set's namesake.

Fast Healing + Integration = Lose embarrassingly.

To dovetail conceptually with your brilliant Phase Shift suggestion, my proposal would be to replace the increased healing rate in Fast Healing and Integration with unsuppressable, minus perception effects. Groups would be slower to aggro on a Regen Scrapper, thus mitigating its brittleness to the alpha strike and allowing Dull Pain and Reconstruction, Regen's true core powers, to shine as they should by reducing the average amount incoming damage that they would have to ameliorate. AND...this change would reward aggressive play, as quickly dispatching mobs that do aggro will reduce the burden on the secondary and magnify the awesomeness that is minus perception-based damage mitigation.

The true conceptual beauty of minus perception is that it doesn't make a Scrapper feel weak, just sneaky, and it goes with that whole Wolverine ninja thing that they always played up in the X-Men back in the day. Defense is always touted as the most powerful form of self-contained, proactive damage mitigation with the slogan, "You cannot hurt what you cannot hit." Minus perception is even stronger than Defense b/c, "You cannot damage what you do not notice to attack."

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Someone get EvilGeko in here.

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The OP has made a reasoned and sensible post and I can do nothing more than agree. Well written sir, I applaud you.

I think it's clear that there is only one response that makes sense:

Buff Regen.

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Indeed. It is the only sensible solution...oh, and buff Dark Armor!

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For a great many people who play games like this, being the best and brightest is all it's about. This is the source of lots of advice you see in game about what sets people should and shouldn't take. It's incredibly naive of you to think that making the assertion that the set is only good for concept or challenge isn't tantamount to telling people it's a steaming heap of dung. Ergo: it's useless.

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Heh. As usual, your insight is spot on...and along with that insight comes the signature tenacity we have all come to know and love. Now that the discussion has finally reached the bottom line, there is nothing useful left to explore, and nothing to accomplish save to run the OP in circles or force him to further justify expressing his opinion. Slowly now...stop shaking the kitten...release the death grip...relax. Good boy.

After reading the pages of responses to this, I am impressed. You have managed to spark a debate. My experience with Bruting versus Scrapping leads me to reiterate an observation that I made earlier, before the discussion evolved into a full-blown debate that has, somehow, not completely degenerated into a flamefest--Dark Armor works well on a Brute, so long as one plays a Brute like a faster-moving Scrapper.

The new generation of players don't play Brutes like Scrappers. They play them in a fashion that most closely resembles an I3 Fire Tanker/Scrapper cross . It's a little sloppy; it's a lot of nasty; and it's very, very fast. Back in the day, I saw a few heavily HO'ed Claws Scrappers that came close to maintaing this kind of pace and playstyle.

The key lies in this statement:

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an assessment on why, despite any ideal numerical simulations, the set requires more effort for less return when compared to the majority of the brute secondaries

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In the typical ingame scenario, played competently, Dark Armor will equal or better any other Scrapper or Brute secondary in terms of increasing survivability. The catch is that it cannot do so while playing at breakneck speed. As the aggro gets hotter and the pace gets faster, Oppressive Gloom and Death Shroud decline in efficiency, Dark Regeneration becomes more dangerous, and the planning and positioning required to make sure that you don't get pounded slows you down. This is just a fact of playing Dark Armor.

The tighter you keep the aggro, the better the set performs. The more diffuse the aggro, the less impressive DA is. Those are just facts; it's certainly not a condemnation of the best overall defensive set in the game! There's nothing that says that you can't just play Dark Armor like you would if you were running Electric Armor; certainly your Brute won't just drop dead if you do so; OG will still stun mobs; Dark Regeneration will still have targets to heal you; and Death Shroud will continue to add extra damage to the fight. The problem is that you will take a performance hit, and that hit could easily be sufficient to diminish Dark Armor's overall performance enough to make it inferior to other sets played at the same pace.

Now, in my experience, a little bit of planning goes a long way in letting Dark Armor move quickly and stay upright, but there is no way to play a Dark Armor character as if it were in a raging, blind fury, fighting on the practical run and be reasonable in expecting it to perform at the levels of fire and forget secondaries.

I guess for me, what it comes down to is this: While I really want to disagree with Haetron's thesis, the sum of my years of Dark Armor testing, analysis, and ingame experiences just won't let me do so (more than weakly) in any intellectually honest fashion.

/signed

I see that your experience with Dark Armor was less than satisfactory...I would disagree with you, but I can see hardcore Bruters not wanting to play DA in the way that it needs to be played to maximize its performance.

Those of us who grew up on Scrappers tend to look at the optimal Brute playstyle as that of a faster-paced Scrapper. When I watch good Brute players who have never played a significant number of Scrapper levels, I see a completely different playstyle that doesn't really resemble Scrapping (except for the killing part).

The one criticism that I would offer of your guide is that you should have played a DA Scrapper rather than a Brute in the first place.

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lol

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Well said!

So basically, if I have between 750 Million and a Billion influence or about 250 Million and 200 hours of farming time, I can build a really powerful Fire/Kin Controller. I'll get right on that.

Acrobatics provides a minor protection from Holds.

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stealth adds 3.75% to ALL. Any reason not to take this? its a toggle, run speed is lowered -35%, and uses .32end/sec. and there is no prerequisite, it is available at level 6 and you could slot it with defense.

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Of course, half of the Defense provided by Stealth is suppressed in combat, so you are paying .32eps for +1.875 Defense, in practical terms.

That's an interesting ST build. Rapid fire! I notice that you appear to be two slots short in this build. If Hasten is indeed only down for eight seconds (I have only given this a cursory examination), I would consider swapping the position of Hasten and another power, Quickness, for example, and use a missing slot to put a fourth recharge enhancement in Hasten.

Nice guide, btw...I meant to post something a while back--in response to your shameless solicitation for feedback.

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"Bill, what is the meaning of life?"

42
Possibly beer.
Probably 42 beers

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Brilliant!

As usual, a useful contribution to the community. Thank you, sir.

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That sounds like a decent epic power pool right there.

Food Mastery.

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Food Mastery

Caffeination: Click, self buff. +70% recharge speed, +150% movement speed, 3600 seconds. When it expires, -50% recharge, -50% movement speed, -100 perception, -50% recovery for 600 seconds.

Supersizeme: Click, special, 120 seconds. All inspirations have double effect while this power is active. 10% chance per inspiration use that respites will do 25% damage instead upon use.

Shaketrops: Click, Location AoE. Splatters an area of effect with a large patch of sticky, slippery liquid. -jump, -fly, -20% recharge, -50% movement, 5% chance for -0.67 knockback per tick.

El Super Vomito: Cone, 25 foot radius, 30 degree arc. 62.56 toxic damage + 3 ticks of 12.51 toxic damage. Mag 50 afraid to target for 2 seconds.

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El Super Vomito...HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Food Mastery looks like the APP of choice for /Regen Scrappers intent on AV soloing...and for third-shift IT folks.