Werner

the classic Siphon Life slotting thread

Grats! Just remember to move some influence somewhere before selling anything else.

Moment of Glory and Instant Healing are major powers, and will do MUCH more for you than Maneuvers + Assault or Tactics. However, you don't need an optimal build to play most content in this game. I strongly recommend against the swap, but ultimately, it's about what you enjoy.

But if you're looking for a toggle on and go sort of regeneration, you might want to just roll up a Willpower scrapper, rather than trying to turn a Regen scrapper into a Willpower scrapper.

I... uh... post it a lot.

I do think I should change the wording to more strongly suggest Hasten. It's actually pretty silly to take Leadership over Speed. Even I will likely switch to speed if I ever bring my build up to date.

And lest anyone think otherwise, the power and slotting suggestions aren't some magical "ooh, never thought of that" thing. It's just the very basic stuff that new folks may not have heard yet, and what I think is the forum consensus viewpoint on how to slot.

I do strongly suspect that purples will drop significantly in price, back down to the pre-AE prices or perhaps even lower. It is now trivial for 50s to set up +0x8 "farms" from every mission. I don't know much about the drop rate bug and fix, but it sounds like it affected purples and will be fixed "soon". So for everyone that wanted the purple prices to drop, it's probably about to happen or is happening already.

Great post, Doc.

Actually, it sounds like it's just because I haven't taken any secondary but Super Reflexes up against +4x8 yet. I expect my Katana/Regen to have some serious problems when I do. I didn't realize you were talking about that level of difficulty. At that level of difficulty, pretty much any hole in your armor can get you killed, lack of defense debuff resistance included.

I'm late to this party (haven't logged into game or forum for a bit), but below is my standard boilerplate for Regen. As indicated previously, Regen has changed DRAMATICALLY. It has been extensively nerfed since the early game, and the play style significantly changed. It's now the “OMG click something now now now oops I'm dead” set. I'm actually not saying that it sucks – it can still be quite good (as Val Blademaster's 4 AVs at once with no temps or inspirations will attest), but it's very different, and skill and timing and experience plays a much larger role.

“There are definitely other approaches, but here's what I'd consider a basic plan for the Regeneration secondary using SOs or common IOs:

• Fast Healing at 1, 3 heals
• Reconstruction nice and early, 3 heals, 3 recharges
• Quick Recovery nice and early, 1 endurance modifier at first, add 1 or 2 more as necessary
• Dull Pain when or shortly after when available, as there is a lot to squeeze in at that level, 3 heals, 3 recharges
• Integration at 16, 3 heals, possibly 1 endurance reducer
• Resilience when and if you can work it in, 1 resist
• Instant Healing when or shortly after when available, 1-3 recharges, no heals unless you're swimming in slots
• Skip Revive
• Moment of Glory when or shortly after when available, 1-3 recharges
• Hasten when convenient, 3 recharges
• Health when convenient, 3 heals
• Tough when convenient, 3 resists, 1 endurance reducer
• Stamina if and when you start having endurance trouble, which may not be until 30 or later, 1 endurance modifier at first, add 1 or 2 more as necessary

If it were me, I'd also try to get some basic defense, but it will use up even more power and pool choices. Combat Jumping or Hover, but don't worry about slotting for defense. Weave with 3 defense. Maneuvers with 3 defense. The Steadfast Protection unique in Resilience or Tough. With even-level SOs, that will give you 14.3% defense to all. Not great, but not bad.

The astute observer will notice that I've now recommended 5 power pools – Leaping or Flight, Fitness, Fighting, Leadership and Speed. You can't have everything, so you'll need to make some choices. I dropped Speed, using IO set bonuses and my primary (Katana) to drastically improve my defense. Most people should probably drop Leadership instead. You'll probably find Hasten more useful than Maneuvers.”

Here's my standard boilerplate for Regen:

“There are definitely other approaches, but here's what I'd consider a basic plan for the Regeneration secondary using SOs or common IOs:

• Fast Healing at 1, 3 heals
• Reconstruction nice and early, 3 heals, 3 recharges
• Quick Recovery nice and early, 1 endurance modifier at first, add 1 or 2 more as necessary
• Dull Pain when or shortly after when available, as there is a lot to squeeze in at that level, 3 heals, 3 recharges
• Integration at 16, 3 heals, possibly 1 endurance reducer
• Resilience when and if you can work it in, 1 resist
• Instant Healing when or shortly after when available, 1-3 recharges, no heals unless you're swimming in slots
• Skip Revive
• Moment of Glory when or shortly after when available, 1-3 recharges
• Hasten when convenient, 3 recharges
• Health when convenient, 3 heals
• Tough when convenient, 3 resists, 1 endurance reducer
• Stamina if and when you start having endurance trouble, which may not be until 30 or later, 1 endurance modifier at first, add 1 or 2 more as necessary

If it were me, I'd also try to get some basic defense, but it will use up even more power and pool choices. Combat Jumping or Hover, but don't worry about slotting for defense. Weave with 3 defense. Maneuvers with 3 defense. The Steadfast Protection unique in Resilience or Tough. With even-level SOs, that will give you 14.3% defense to all. Not great, but not bad.

The astute observer will notice that I've now recommended 5 power pools – Leaping or Flight, Fitness, Fighting, Leadership and Speed. You can't have everything, so you'll need to make some choices. I dropped Speed, using IO set bonuses and my primary (Katana) to drastically improve my defense. Most people should probably drop Leadership instead. You'll probably find Hasten more useful than Maneuvers.”

As others said, talked about and beaten many times. I've never beaten it myself, but my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes did have the pylon down to about 1/4 health on his best run (out of probably a dozen runs). I think it's a good test, and DPS plays more of a role, which is nice.

It's particularly annoying on sets without an aggro aura, as I've so far only found a single place where the enemies are close enough to the pylon to stay on me instead of losing aggro. So when I was seriously trying this, it was mostly an extremely boring waiting game punctuated by short bursts of activity and a trip back from the hospital.

The standard answer is that an any/any scrapper will solo normal PvE content just fine. Another standard answer for people new to scrappers is Katana/Willpower - easy to build, easy to play, easy to level, no major weaknesses, and gives up nothing on top end power if you get to that point.

Regeneration is a good solo set, but comes with a warning - it is very interactive, and your level of survivability will depend a lot on the skill you develop in properly timing the use of your click powers and in anticipating how much damage is coming in and when. It also isn't a particularly good choice for large teams or cranking up the solo difficulty level to mimic you being a large team. In comparison, Willpower is very fire and forget, and its survivability increases with the number of enemies surrounding you, so is good for team play or pretending you're a large team. Either will solo just fine.

I haven't fiddled with Electric Melee yet, but both Dual Blades and Claws are perfectly good primaries, with a nice mix of single target and AoE damage.

I don't think I'd go for soft-capped ranged with almost no AoE. I'd probably go for something in the middle on both. My feeling is that I get hit with more ranged than AoE, so I want more ranged than AoE, but I wouldn't neglect either.

If I had to choose between Flashing Steel and Lotus Drops, I'd keep Lotus Drops. Better to hit everyone around you, particularly when setting your missions for 8. But I'd want to have both for that scenario.

I almost never have enough endurance no matter how much recovery I'm packing because I'll always find a way to spend it. However, I haven't looked into Power Sink or what a typical Katana/Electric build might look like. I doubt it's an exception, though.

(Edit: On closer examination, maybe you WON'T need Stamina. In large crowds, even with just normal recharge, Power sink is a full endurance bar every 30 seconds or so. That's a huge amount of recovery, and only gets better with additional recharge in the build.)

For me, it's just too new. I haven't played around with electric builds yet. However, given that the set is entirely based on resistance, and that you already have melee covered with Divine Avalanche, I would definitely go for positional defense over typed defense.

Welcome to the forum!

You're missing that most scrappers suck before the 20s, and suck particularly bad through the teens. My experience, anyway.

Yes, Quick Recovery and Stamina will cure your endurance woes. Just Quick Recovery will be plenty for a while. As for your health, the defining Willpower power is Rise to the Challenge at 16. Still, it takes a while to get everything slotted out and running smoothly, particularly if you concentrate on offense instead of defense, which is the usual advice for a low level scrapper. You'll probably start feeling solid in the twenties, and very good by the thirties.

I agree with what's been said so far. I'd generally want to soft cap at least smashing/lethal or melee, and would pick whichever is easiest to achieve on a given build. As already stated, there usually isn't much doubt which to go for. Ideally, I'd softcap all positions or all types but psionic (and toxic, obviously).

I will add that someone (I keep forgetting your name, sorry) worked out that about 70% of attacks were either smashing or lethal. While I don't have any real data to back me up, I'd also guess that that's about the percentage of melee damage you face as a melee character. So to me, the two are roughly equivalent. Similarly, I'd rate Ranged as about equivalent to Energy and Negative, and AoE as about equivalent to the rest, again on a melee character. It's all pretty rough, though, and will differ greatly depending on what you're fighting.

So far, I'm running my L38 Katana/Dark on +2x4 bosses, L44 Spines/Dark on -1x8 no bosses and L50 Dark/SR on +4x8 bosses. These difficulty levels may need to be adjusted as I get a better feel for things. I definitely like having control, though. Actually being scared of dying while carving through missions is a change. I'm finally finding a use for that "Dark Regen" icon that's been lying neglected on my power bar.