Umbral

Nightstar maybe? I can't think of any female AVs that are named anything related to the moon, much less PI AVs (which pretty much means Praetorians).

I think I'm a can filled with concrete so that I'm good for bashing people upside the head...

Is that because you double post rather than editing in stuff?

Except that taking Focus Chi isn't going to be the difference between "ok" and "omgwtfbbq!" Focus Chi and the other BU powers are most useful as powers to frontload or generate burst damage rather than actual attempts to increase overall damage. The effect that they have is only a little better than Assault when factored in over time, assuming you use them as soon as they recharge.

Not taking Focus Chi will not break your ability to deal damage. You'll still deal excellent damage, you just won't have the ability to spike it.

Which is one of the reasons why I think it would work better if they instituted the set along the lines you suggested as Sonic Control and Assault rather than Whip Control and Assault.

As to the Sonic Boom being the part that deals damage, that's pretty doubtful (and would be more akin smashing damage than energy or lethal). Whips are used because they don't really accomplish anything except for a crack and a sting. Virtually everything we've got in game is at least a rough approximation of "real" or "possibly real". Grabbing stuff with a whip or causing substantive damage to targets wearing armor doesn't even happen with the best whip users in the world.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Indiana Jones didn't actually use the whip to fight. When he was fighting, it was with guns or fisticuffs to my recollection. The only real examples I can think of for whip fighters would be Catwoman and Simon Bellmont, both of whose use of it completely ignores reality.

I think better comparisons would be a jet plane without an afterburner, a car without a NO2 tank, etc. You're still going to be dealing damage, you're just not going to have the ability to create that burst spike for short periods. Those comparisons all suggest that you're not going to be dealing any damage at all without it, which is blatantly untrue.

Keep in mind that those attack strings were built for Blasters with their 1.67 sec cast Fire Blast, rather than the 1.2 sec Fire Blast for Corrs.

Even so, I doubt that including Fireball in the attack string would be as deleterious to your endurance sustainability as you suggest. AM, passive accolades, Stamina, Perf Shifter procs, and the heal uniques do away with a vast majority of endurance problems and they're not particularly hard to fit into a build. I'm reasonably confident that an IO build would be able to throw Fireball into their ST attack string simply because there is so much redundant endurance in IO builds that it seems pointless to not do so on account of virtually unknown endurance issues. Hell, Spines can be made endurance sustainable with an IO build and we all know how bad Spines is on the blue bar.

A realistic whip wouldn't be dealing lethal damage, much less decrease a target's resistance to damage, knock a target down just by swinging it in a circle, or grab ahold of a target's limb in order to pull them down. This completely ignores the fact that for Whip Control you're not even using the whip for 3 of the attacks.

Real whips are pretty much incapable of dealing damage to anyone even remotely well protected. There is a very good reason why whips aren't used in combat and, when actually used, aren't used to whip animals (the animals are trained to either head toward or away from the small sonic boom at the end of the cracking whip): they're virtually incapable of dealing real damage, much less any damage to anything with a thick hide of some kind.

The sets would make a lot more sense as simply Sonic Control and Sonic Assault, especially if you're assuming they're deal any real amount of damage.

Except that you and I both know that you would have intelligent people leaving bids for exactly 4 times market price for high value items so that they can pick them up on the cheap. I'm pretty doubtful that it would remove much inf from the economy if such a system as this were actually made public knowledge. In order for it to be at all helpful to the game economy (and, even then, only for items that are actually in reasonable demand), the devs would need to implement it secretly and change the vendor markup to keep anyone from catching on and exploiting it.

They are essentially procs with a 100% chance to activate. This means that they are activated on the primary target of the power whenever the power is used. So, yes, you will need to slot them into Health if you want to see them on you at all times unless you plan on using Aid Other at least once every 2 minutes.

I dunno... after a few years of being homeless, an African prince that looks just like the street thug ends up just handing them a hundred thousand dollars.

What do you mean by "quick +tohit"? Shadow Punch doesn't provide any +tohit. It's a decent attack (one that you probably should have taken much earlier) with a tiny amount of -tohit on it just like virtually all of the Dark Melee attacks.

The -fly in AS is much less useful than you'd think since there aren't really very many flying foes that you'll fight. What makes it worth taking if you do choose to is the fact that it causes Knockup, animates comparatively quickly, and can cycle fast enough to keep a target on his *** for a majority of the fight. I don't ever bother taking it, but I some people that swear by it.

You're true on both counts. Flurry deals more damage than either Shadow Punch or Air Superiority and it's still worse. The reason being that, while Shadow Punch takes 1.056 seconds (listed as .83 seconds, but the listed times aren't entirely accurate) and Air Superiority takes 1.716 seconds (listed as 1.5), Flurry takes 3.3 seconds (listed as 3.07).

Because you can't use another attack until the one you're currently using finishes, the more important metric than the amount of damage an attack deals in a single activation (which is what Mids' lists) is the amount of damage an attack deals per time period of activation. The general time frame used is one second, so most people simply put everything within the context of damage per activation second (DPA). Shadow Punch has a base DPA of 54.7, AS has a base DPS of 36.5, and Flurry has a base DPA of 21.7.

Flurry has atrocious DPA, and AS is only valuable because it gives you decent mitigation. For out and out damage, Shadow Punch should be your choice without question.

Touch of Fear is bad. You shouldn't take it because all it does it take one target out of fight-ish (because it's a fear and a tohit debuff, you can't even guarantee that they'll hit you) and eats into your DPS a great deal.

Siphon Life is an attack, especially since you're playing a */Regen and don't need the heal very much, if at all. Take it asap and slot it as an attack.

Dark Consumption isn't an attack. The damage it deals is incidental. What you need to do is get the recharge down as low as possible so it can do its job and get you back endurance when you need it. Accuracy isn't needed until later because you only need to hit 4 targets in order to completely fill your endurance. End Mod is simply useless.

Reconstruction is an incredibly powerful power and provides a great deal of your baseline survivability. You should have taken it early on and slotted it up.

Resilience is another utterly useless power. It's a passive that provides so little resistance you'll never notice it and a pittance of stun protection that is only useful in a single instance of the game that can be easily avoided. Don't take it until you have a power choice to waste and don't ever slot it up.

Health from the Fitness pool does not bear slotting, nor does Fast Healing, but especially not Health. Health provides less +regen than FH and yet you decided to enhance Health more than FH. That's just filled with facepalm. Also concerning the Fitness pool, you have friggin' QR. It's more powerful than Stamina and you get it at level 4. You should have slotted it up first, not to mention that you don't even need Stamina until your 30s to late 40s because a */Regen's endurance costs aren't large enough until you have a good deal of other toggles and attacks in order to make the investment worthwhile. The fact that you took Dark Consumption means you can delay Stamina even more so.

Here's an SO leveling build that should do you much better if you feel the need to respec. If you don't, simply look at what I did and attempt to emulate it as best you can.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Regeneration
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Smite -- Acc(A), Dmg(3), Dmg(13), Dmg(21), RechRdx(23), RechRdx(31)
Level 1: Fast Healing -- Heal(A), Heal(40), Heal(40)
Level 2: Shadow Punch -- Acc(A), Dmg(3), Dmg(13), Dmg(21), RechRdx(23), RechRdx(33)
Level 4: Quick Recovery -- EndMod(A), EndMod(5), EndMod(5)
Level 6: Reconstruction -- Heal(A), Heal(7), Heal(7), RechRdx(15), RechRdx(15), RechRdx(33)
Level 8: Siphon Life -- Acc(A), Dmg(9), Dmg(9), Dmg(27), RechRdx(27), RechRdx(33)
Level 10: Dull Pain -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(11), RechRdx(11), Heal(19), Heal(19), Heal(36)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump(A)
Level 16: Integration -- Heal(A), Heal(17), Heal(17)
Level 18: Dark Consumption -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(37), RechRdx(39), Acc(43)
Level 20: Boxing -- Acc(A)
Level 22: Tough -- ResDam(A), ResDam(37), ResDam(37)
Level 24: Hasten -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(25), RechRdx(25)
Level 26: Soul Drain -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(29), RechRdx(29), Acc(40)
Level 28: Instant Healing -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(31), RechRdx(31), Heal(50), Heal(50), Heal(50)
Level 30: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- Acc(A), Dmg(34), Dmg(34), Dmg(34), RechRdx(36), RechRdx(36)
Level 35: Health -- Heal(A), Heal(45), Heal(46)
Level 38: Moment of Glory -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(39), RechRdx(39)
Level 41: Focused Accuracy -- EndRdx(A), EndRdx(42), EndRdx(42), ToHit(42), ToHit(43), ToHit(43)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- EndMod(A), EndMod(45), EndMod(45), Heal(46), Heal(46), Heal(48)
Level 47: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(48), EndMod(48)
Level 49: Resilience -- ResDam(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit

Psi isn't a position. It's a damage type.

Afaik, the only villains with non-positional psi attacks are Malaise, a couple Rikti lts and bosses (Mentalists, Mesmerists, Priests), and the Carny illusionists. A vast majority of psychic attacks have a positional component because they are drawn from Psychic Blast and Psionic Assault, which all have positional components, rather than from Illusion and Mind control.

Carnies don't generally qualify as "non-positional psi users" in most people's eyes because the only individuals that have non-positional psi attacks are the ones I mentioned and they only have a single, low damage attack that qualifies (Blind). The Rikti are generally view a bit worse because they have multiple individuals with multiple non-positional attacks that actually deal a respectable amount of damage. The worst offender, however, is the Praetorian version of Malaise because all of his attacks are non-positional psi (the Vindicator version is an ill/kin troller and thusly only has a single non-positional attack).

That's a common misconception. The ability for the heal uniques to be enhanced is not being removed. What is being fixed is an issue that arises exclusively with the Numina's +regen/+recov proc (which is why none of the others were mentioned) is enhanced. As it stands now, if you enhance one aspect of the Numina's proc (for example, slotting it in a power with heal enhancement) it also enhances the other part of the proc as well. Essentially, heal enhancement enhances both the recovery and heal aspects of the proc and end mod enhancement enhances both the heal and recovery aspects. With the patch, the heal uniques will still be affected by the slotting of the powers they are within, but the behavior that I refer to here, which is unique to the Numina unique and one that I've never actually bothered capitalizing on, is being fixed.

I never bother aiming for Psy defense. There isn't enough of it available to make slotting for it reliable and the only times when you need it are when you are facing non-positional psi attacks, which are thankfully rare. Luckily this isn't */SR or */SD where fighting non-positional psi is simply a case of falling over dead after 10 seconds. Defense simply exists to augment */Regen's substantial damage recovery so you can get away without slotting up such a rarely needed defense when the 3 positions will do for 99.9% of the time.

Well, pretty much anything you do grants inf, xp, and drops so you can generally get away with ignoring those when calculating prices.

Oh, I'd agree that hardcore farming is a bit too much, but it sets a decent bar for the price. I wouldn't suggest increasing it from that point, but it provides a decent point of reference by which to assign a price.

There's definitely going to be some fair price, and I think that purchasable summon temp powers would be a great idea if/when that price could be determined, but if the price is too low or too high it's not really going to get much accomplished while providing yet more players with what amounts to an even easier to access Shivan.

Here's something you might want to consider: don't attempt to equate influence to the value of a merit reward. The basic method of comparison that the devs have shown to use is time. 20 merits is equated to an hour of TFing. How much money do you think a level 50 farmer can make in a single hour? I'm pretty sure it's a good deal more than 10 mill inf. When P_P tells us how much she makes on a single character running a farm in an hour, we'll probably get a good baseline for how much a summon power like that should cost.

Isn't that pretty much what I said?

You will learn to love the awesomeness of combat bunny-hopping or die trying!

It's a matter of preference really. Personally, I prefer Hurdle because it make Combat Jumping even better for navigating while in combat, but Swift works out just as well.

As to whether you should take SJ or SS with Ninja Run... It depends. The BotZ set can be slotted into CJ if that's all you really want it for, so there's no real need to take SS or SJ for that reason (unless you need/want to slot more than one set). It really all depends upon your build and your preferences.

If you think AoE attacks are rare, try talking to */SR Scrappers pre-Evasion or running a Council mish and seeing how often you get hit. AoE is actually a lot more common than you think because the only attacks that have 2 positional tags are melee AoEs. Ranged AoEs are almost always flagged AoE exclusively (with 1-2 types as well). Going without AoE defense is going to hurt a lot more than you'd think.

I don't think I've ever actually seen him be really helpful. Most of the time he posts things that are blatantly untrue like saying that using a snipe mid-combat is a great thing for your DPS.

Actually, you're wrong. Check out Controller Psionic Mastery's Indomitable Will. While the recharge is a bit high for most builds to manage getting it permanent (*/Kin and */Rad can manage it thanks to native +rech buffs), it is still a mez protection ability within an APP.