Vysires

There is another map offered by one of the npcs in grandville that has all possessed scientists on a cargo ship. However even if you do get the right damage type, they also do a lot of -to hit. So I ran that map a bit with my SS/fire. Since I had lucked out and gotten fire, I took very little damage, but I would sometimes take longer then expected because my to-hit would get debuffed down to nothing. That is even with rage bumping my to-hit up to 100-130%.

I have to ask, what exactly is slotted into SL and MG? are they both 6 slotted already? because you would likely be better off trying to get more recharge into the both of them and just using MG-Smite-SL-Smite. Your listed Smite recharge is fine for that chain, just need to lower MG to 4.488, or about 4.5 seconds. So you just need to shave 0.35 seconds off your MG recharge and you are good for that attack chain. Heck, depending on Latency, you are likely good as is.

If you are trying to find a way to get less recharge in your build, then SP could work, but really, most of my builds don't have slots to spare, so even with I19, I really can't pick up another attack, generally just going to be adding stuff like LOTG mules or whatnot.

edit: Basically SP does less dps then any of the attacks you said that you had, including Dark Blast. So unless you can't make a solid attack chain out of the attacks you have, adding SP won't help you.

Well, the reason BA doesn't work on a Scrapper is that the Scrapper version doesn't have a taunt like the brute version.

So my main experience with /FA until now was a SS/fire brute. I decided I wanted to try a DM/Fire scrapper and I have leveling her and it's pretty fun. I have recently gotten her up to 30. Now that I have burn, Soul Drain and Burn is really nice, but I have been noticing that mobs seem to scatter more then I'm used to. Just to see if I was remembering wrong, I logged my brute on, and tried dropping burn without her aura running. As long as I didn't attack with anything with a taunt, I saw the same reaction, mobs would attack once or so, then run away. If I turn BA on, then no scatter, mobs stand in the burn patch just fine.

Does this get better for a scrapper? Is there some method to keep them from scattering without taking Provoke?

Yes, once I had realized that the build didn't have 5 lotgs, the choking cloud suggestion became less useful. I do realize that more recharge isn't always what might be wanted, but I figured I would point out the option of getting it.

My main point about recovery wasn't phrased very well. The Perf shifter proc only gives .2 eps at max, which in a build with Stam, Perm AM, Both Miracle and Numina procs, and other recovery bonuses, isn't really much of a bonus. So basically your spending 2 extra slots on .2 eps, 2.5% recovery and 1.8% hp boost. It's not bad, but if you need the slots somewhere else, its a place you could move them from. That was my point. Not that an Ill/Rad is easy on endurance.

If you can fit it in, choking cloud is another basilisk's gaze. You could drop fire shield or RoTP for CC, and move some slots over from Spectral terror. But it's only another 2.5% recharge, and a tiny bit of recovery, so not sure if it's worth it.

Alternately you could move the slots from stamina/health. I've never really found it to be worth it to 4 slot stamina. Ya, you get a few ok set bonuses, but you can get almost as much enhancement from 2 lvl 50 IOs, and the proc isn't really needed IMO. , especially with AM and both the procs in health. Shave 2 slots from stam, and 1 from health, and thats another 7.5% recharge. Up to you if it's worth it, the build has a ton of recharge already.

edit: just looked at the build again, another alternative is to drop something for group invis. It's useful at times, and will take another LoTG, and the latest build only has 3.

Static field is one of the few reasons I might play an elec/ controller or dom. In general I think the set is slightly weak compared to most other control sets. However Static Field is one of the few powers in the set that makes it interesting. A lot of the powers in the set are flawed, not useless, but less useful then they should be IMO. Static field makes up for it.

So yes, you could make an electric controller without static field, but you would be missing out on a lot.

As far as the unplayable discussion, I believe there was someone who played a toon up to a significant level using just brawl. So arguing that a powerset is playable without x,y,z is somewhat pointless. Anything is playable. But the question that has to be asked, is the powerset worth playing without x,y,z. IMO, Electric control without static field would be almost unplayable. Not quite, but honestly, the only two powers you can't get better in other sets are static field, and conductive aura. Conductive Aura is nice, but not quite enough to play a electric controller.

There is a cap, 3 slots is all you need unless you are working on a set bonus.

The other thing that helps KM for scrappers is that Concentrated Strike, instead of critting, has a 20% change to recharge Power siphon. So that gives PS an even better uptime. This obviously doesn't kick in until your 30s though.

Right, the best way to work in def on a /FA is get S/L and Melee high or to cap. The way you do that is you slot Kinetic combats and obliterations. Since Melee and S/L def IO bonuses give half to the other type, it's often worth it to work on both. Plus Obliterations give you the 5% recharge you are losing from slotting kinetic combats instead of crushing impact. It's not really effective until high levels when you have enough slots to go around, but it works ok. I have a SS/fire who has 34% or so to S/L and melee, and will get up to around 41% once I19 comes out. I could get more, but I start to make sacrifices I don't want to at that point.

Edit: Forgot, you also 4 slot Res armor with reactive armor.

The thing is, if you combine Kinetic combats with Oblits you end up with good S/L and Melee. My SS/Fire brute has 2 kinetic combats, 3 oblits, 3 reactive armor, a mocking beratement in taunt, plus the steadfast +def IO. With CJ, and Weave, this gets her up to about 31% vs S/L and melee, and it helps alot. You don't have to get capped on Def to get benefits from it. Especially for a resist set like /fire. However I generally don't find it viable to try to go for positional. So that is why I went for S/L, and Melee. They boost each other, and S/L covers a lot of stuff.

About Obliteration, it does have crappy end reduction, and that hurts in some powers. The reason for slotting it is that it gives 5% recharge, and 3.75% melee. Multistrike isn't bad, it gives good end reduction, and gives some melee and aoe def, but you do loose out on the recharge. If you have kinetic combats in your melee attacks, you often can't get 5% recharge in many other places. So it's a tradeoff. Spines/fire is going to be more of an end hog then my SS/fire, so I could see skipping the Oblits in Blazing Aura and Quills. Another option if you don't want to slot Oblit is to slot 4 Eradications, and then some extra end reduction and damage say. This doesn't get melee or S/L def, but gives some ranged def, and also +1.8% max end and 2.25% hps, all nice bonuses.

Some comments about the build in the OP, You don't need that many slots in physical perfection, better to put them in stamina. The Mako's bite in Lunge is somewhat pointless, if you don't get 6, it doesn't have any bonuses I would want. I would put either a Crushing impact or 4 kinectic combats and then a Acc/Dam/Rech or the Mako quint. Thunderstike in Impale is nice, but if you decide to go for S/L and Melee as I suggest, then it's somewhat wasted, decimation is a great ranged set and only takes 5 slots, freeing up one for whatever. If you are going for any defense, you want to 6 slot buildup with Gausian's, ya, it's only half value for typed, but it's pretty good overall.

edit: thought of one other thing about the difficulty setting. I think you will see a definitely improvement by dropping the level, and increasing the mob size. One benefit to that, is besides getting more out of all your AEs, you also get more inspiration drops.

Well, the issue for me is that this is a lvl 50 build, but you said you were having trouble at lower levels, so kinda need to know what level range you are looking at, and what build you have right now.

Spines/fire is an AE monster. You would be better off running at 0/x3 or x4 or even -1/x4 or x5. You would get more xp, and kill almost as fast I would guess. Basically I look at my scrappers 2 ways. They are either AE or single target. For AE focused scrappers and brutes, and other ATs really, I boost the number of players, but leave the level low, 0 or -1 a lot of the time. For single target I do the reverse, I boost the level, but leave player count low.

Spines/Fire is absolutely an AoE character. So I would suggest boosting player count, but leaving level low. Looking at your proposed build, you don't take tough until 38. If your current build is similar, then I would suggest that might be part of the issue, Fire needs all extra toughness it can get, and tough is one of the easier methods. So I would try to fit tough in earlier.

Weave is good, but really isn't worth taking unless you are working on getting defense in your build. If you are, then you want weave and combat jumping early as well, but generally I don't see it being worth the effort to work on defense on a /fire build until you are nearing endgame. You just don't have enough slots to get defense and recharge at lower levels, and recharge is generally more important for a /fire, or at least it's easier to get enough +recharge to make a difference then it is to get enough defense to make a difference.

I've been running my SS/fire brute a fair amount lately, and I've notice that sometimes I get the defense penalty on rage crach and sometimes I don't. I always have rage double stacked when the crash happens, so as far as I know, I shouldn't get the defense penalty, but sometimes I do, and it can be kind of annoying at times. Anyone have ideas on whats going on? On my current build rage recharges at sometime between 82 and 108 seconds, depending on how it interacts with Hasten. 108 is without hasten completely, just global and slotted recharge.

It's for the melee def and 5% recharge. Oblit also gives pretty good recharge ehancement, 80% or so with a level 30 set, better if you don't care about SKing and go with lvl 50s. The damage bonus isn't really important, though the damage proc in Oblit would add some more damage, though you don't fire consume off very often. If you want to save some cash and don't mind loosing the 3.75% melee def, then a 6 piece set of Efficiency adapter also gives 5% recharge bonus, and good rech, acc, and end mod. That is actually what I have slotted right now on live, waiting on the 4th oblit set.

Well, basically what makes SS better in AoE is Footstomp, plus rage. Tremor only does 70% of the base damage of Footstomp. So ignoring rage, assuming equal enhancements, FS is going to be doing 30% more damage then Tremor, plus it's about 2/3rds the activtion time. Adding in Rage, it gets even better. So that is why SS puts out better AoE then SM. Yes, Tremor recharges more quickly then FS, but once you get a good amount of recharge, the difference is smaller. So with my current planned build for my SS/fire, FS will recharge in 6.1 seconds. With similar recharge, Tremor would recharge in 4.3 seconds. When you add in the fact that recharge doesn't start until the power finishes activating, then you have a cycle time of 8.2 for FS, and 7.6 for Tremor. Pretty close there, and FS is doing 30% more base damage, ignoring rage.


Now, SM doesn't have to deal with rage crash. Plus with Fault it's got a lot of mitigation. So SM has it's good points, but it's not going to do as much AE damage as SS.

My first lvl 50 character was a SS/fire brute who had been somewhat shelved, but with the changes I got interested in IOing her out and so was looking at builds. I had much the same issue, do I go for some defense, which is hard to do, or do I go for recharge and regen/hps. I put together some builds and I decided that working on some S/L and Melee defense was worth it. Basically because if i went pure recharge, I really didn't get much more recharge then I could get with a defense build. Elec/Fire might be a bit different, but not sure. I caged some ideas from a build someone else had posted, think it was a fire/fire scrapper, but it gave me some slotting ideas.

I've got various versions I've put together, basically for cost vs level of def. There isn't a ton of difference between them, mostly just moving a few slots, and fitting more Kinetic Combat sets.

Here is the cheaper build that she is mostly running, she still doesn't quite have all the obliteration sets finished, and I am a bit worried about end once I finish them since I will have to pull out the End Red IO I have in Blazing Aura and Foot Stomp. Sorry, just looked at it, and remembered that it's the I19 version, Basically until I19 comes out, I dropped the stealth pool, and grabbed fitness instead. So less recharge until then, but she's still at around 60% with current slotting. Hope this gives you some ideas.


Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/

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Level 50 Magic Brute
Primary Power Set: Super Strength
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Aura
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Concealment
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Punch -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5)
Level 1: Fire Shield -- RctvArm-ResDam(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(7), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(7), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(9)
Level 2: Blazing Aura -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(9), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(11), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Oblit-%Dam(13)
Level 4: Healing Flames -- Dct'dW-Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal(15), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(15), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(17), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(17)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(19)
Level 8: Stealth -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 10: Knockout Blow -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(21), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(23), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25)
Level 12: Temperature Protection -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), S'fstPrt-ResKB(21)
Level 14: Grant Invisibility -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 16: Plasma Shield -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(25), RctvArm-EndRdx/Rchg(27), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(27)
Level 18: Rage -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-Build%(19), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(29), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(29), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(31), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(31)
Level 20: Invisibility -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 22: Boxing -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg(A), Stpfy-EndRdx/Stun(33), Stpfy-Stun/Rng(33), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx(33), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg(34)
Level 24: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam(34), RctvArm-EndRdx(34), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 26: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(36), HO:Enzym(36)
Level 28: Burn -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(37), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(37), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Oblit-%Dam(39)
Level 30: Consume -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(39), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(40), Oblit-%Dam(42)
Level 32: Foot Stomp -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(42), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(42), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Oblit-%Dam(43)
Level 35: Fiery Embrace -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(45)
Level 38: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(40), RechRdx-I(40)
Level 41: Gloom -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(46), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(48), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(50), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(50)
Level 44: Taunt -- Mocking-Taunt(A), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg(45), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(45), Mocking-Acc/Rchg(46), Mocking-Taunt/Rng(46), Mocking-Rchg(48)
Level 47: Rise of the Phoenix -- Dmg-I(A)
Level 49: Super Jump -- Winter-ResSlow(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 1: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A)
Level 1: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(50)

Actually, Mag 2 will only hit minions, LTs are 3 bosses are 4.

So my DS/pain is pretty tough to be honest. I have the crack whip, for the -res. I picked up both the pet +res aura IOs for my pets, that plus thier base resists, plus the aura from the ember demon, plus World of Pain gives my demons about 70% resists. Besides that, I focused on getting some global recharge so World of Pain would be perma, and so Anguishing cry would be up as often as possible. This also helps the heals come up more often. All in all she plays pretty well.

for /pain, I skipped share pain, because it's overkill generally, slotted the other 2 heals and suppress pain with 5 doctored wounds, to get a recharge bonus, and good heal/recharge. World of pain is 4 slotted with Res/recharge. Don't have painbringer yet, but I expect it will get a doctored wounds as well, and I will be putting it on my Gargoyle.

Best damage is likely going to be /dark, /traps. or /storm. All have -res powers that are up fairly often. Dark doesn't have a lot of other damage enhancing powers, but tar patch is really nice, and it's got a bunch of other great powers. /storm has Freezing rain, which is great -res and -def, plus gets some damage powers endgame. /traps has acid mortar, and trip mine for more damage, plus FF gen stacks with Bot's def really well.

One thing to keep in mind is Demons have Resists, cept the prince who has some Resist and some Def. And the LT gives Resist to all. So Pain and Thermal both combo well because they give some resist to stack with the demons. Thermal gives more to the pets, but doesn't provide any buff for you, plus you have to bubble, and that's annoying to me. That was what decided me on Pain. Pain doesn't have much in the way of debuffing, except anguishing cry, but world of pain stacked with the Resist aura procs, and the demon's base resist, plus the aura from the LT, and my pets on my Demon/pain generally have around 70% resists, more for fire, less for cold. And for the summoner herself, World of pain plus demon aura gives around 30% or so. At high levels if you want to work on that more, you could pick up one of the Res shields, not sure if it's worth it or not though, just depends on what you want.

I also have a Demon/dark, and dark is really great. The only issue I have with Demon/dark is the heal is small enough that it can be a pain to keep the demons healed sometimes, they run around a lot.

Just to be clear, he said Fitness is going to be inherent in Issue 19, you will get it at lvl 1 or 2, not quite confirmed. However, until Issue 19 comes out, you will still have to take Fitness to get Stamina. Issue 19 is the next free update.

Basically Brute does more damage, but is harder to softcap, has less hp and resist. The way you deal with -def as Shield is you pay a ton of cash and slot Membrane HOs into Active Defense, and mabye fit in Grant Cover. If you do both of those, and have enough recharge to double stack AD, you should be near the cap on Def debuff resist.