Werner

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What level is your tank now Werner? Any differences you noticed so far?

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Only 18, and I don't have a Dark Melee/Shield Defense scrapper to compare. I've built entirely for utility and damage so far, so it pretty much feels like a scrapper.

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I decided to post this here instead of creating a new thread since its based on the info in here. Ok, so from everything I've learned here, I've decided to try the following.

First, I'm trying to get a SD/WM build that could take on AVs, but I'm unable to create a successful attack string that would have a good DPS output. I also did some searches to see if anyone has talked about this but nothing.

I was trying Shatter -> Jawbreaker -> Clobber -> Jawbreaker but Jawbreaker seems to need almost 300% recharge to support this. I was thinking Shatter -> Jawbreaker -> Clobber -> Pulverize -> Jawbreaker but not sure if this is the best use of a string.

Also, once again, I was thinking about the -res PvP proc to put into Shatter since for the most part it could act as ST attack when focused on one target. I tend to think of this attack as an ST that can sometimes hit others. That could help out with the AV resistance.

Why an SD/WM? I have one readily available. I know that Smashing is a heavily resisted type.

The second option is an SD/Fire, but I have to get that character to 50 (which shouldn't take long since I have one up there). I was going to try Energy with SD, but I would have to level one up from scratch. And then there is the fact that the set doesn’t currently make me happy, and my regen goes down ever time I use Energy Transfer.

And for the enhancements to do this, I'll end up doing what I always do. Take the enhancements from one character and carry them over to the next character since I have so many vet reward respecs whenever I create a new character.

What do you guys think? Should I go forward with this? Think its worth trying it out?

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Well, let me take a look. Looks like the key is getting Clobber up as often as possible, then using some combination of Jawbreaker, Pulverize and Shatter to fill in the rest.

So with a little poking, I'd suggest Clobber -> Jawbreaker -> Shatter. It only takes three attacks, Clobber is at +257% recharge (you want it very high like that), Shatter is at +250% recharge, and Jawbreaker is down at a mere +150% recharge.

That's higher DPS than your desired chain of Clobber -> Jawbreaker -> Shatter -> Jawbreaker, which wouldn't have been possible anyway due to requiring +589% recharge in Jawbreaker.

On the surface, it looks capable of soloing AVs even without the Shield Defense primary, so you should be good to go.

Hmmm, I threw together a quick Invulnerability/War Mace build, and while it does 130 DPS, it also sucks down endurance at 0.74 EPS net and isn't any more survivable than the other ones I threw together. So it needs work, and getting endurance under control would probably cost a fair amount of that DPS.

But then Shield Defense should get you that DPS right back. I think it's a good AV soloing candidate with the right build.

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Ok, so how do I figure out my DPS with all 3 mentioned (SS, Energy, Fire) in comparison to the "Big Boy AV's" Resists? Thanks in advance. Or if you aren't tired of putting up the numbers for me Please list them, thanks in advance.

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Well, you can look up “all” enemy resistances in the game here. If you're doing 130 DPS, and the AV has 20% resistance, then you'll do 130 DPS * (100% - 20%) = 104 DPS. But since an AV heals 94 hit points per second, you're really netting out to 10 DPS. Be prepared for a VERY long fight.

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Well unfortunetly for me I am running RC Windows 7, and don't have the necessary software to open up your link. Have trouble with a lot of stuff, it is an RC after all, although it is better than a finished Vista OS. . .SO. . .ya. Anyway, could you just give me the Top 3 AV's with the highest resists and what they resist. Then I can plug your formula in for the DPS's you already gave me, thanks.

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Here are a handful of the more common AVs with high resistance to smashing, energy or fire:

Dominatrix – 50% to all of those
Lord Recluse – 50% smashing, 30% energy, 20% fire
Nemesis – 20% to all of those, plus 20 second invulnerable periods
Infernal – 25% smashing, 50% fire
Marauder – 50% smashing
Nightstar – 50% smashing
Shadowhunter – 50% smashing
Siege – 50% smashing
Tyrant – 25% to all of those
Lord of War: Hro'Dtohz – 30% smashing and energy

Looks like smashing is a big loser here.

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I am planning a shield something for my next build and I was wondering which was better suited for it. Any opinions?

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Dono. I'm told that Shield Defense isn't so great for a tanker. That said, I'm leveling up a Shield Defense/Dark Melee tanker specifically as an alternative to a scrapper rather than as a traditional tank. Also, I could have heard wrong - I'm no tanker expert, and don't frequent the tanker forum.

I'm pretty sure those were just his henchmen. I think he's a mastermind. So I think it counts as soloing.

Poor Chimera, at the start of the arc and all. "Sorry, Chim' old buddy, but I have to go through you to get to the REAL AVs."

It's possible, but you'd need Hasten plus a lot of recharge in Blinding Feint, and you'd slow down when Hasten was down. Probably better to go Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals -> Power Slice. Blinding Feint needs +86% recharge, Sweeping Strike needs +71% recharge, and Vengeful Slice needs +52% recharge. Rather than use Hasten to get there, I would frankenslot the attacks. It doesn't cost much more than regular IOs, and just takes a little more work at the auction house.

If these continue, I really need to get my Broad Sword/Shield Defense IO'd out so that I have another viable option. I need to do that anyway. This is just another little push.

I'm sure. And my Mids' is showing 112.9 average unenhanced damage for Hack and 68.8 for Slash. Same cast time. Longer duration for the debuff on Hack. Faster recharge on Slash, but you shouldn't need the faster recharge for your best attack chain option at your level of global recharge.

Right, Shields isn't as defense debuff resistant as Super Reflexes. If you want as much as you can get, slot Membranes instead of recharge in Active Defense. Ideal is to then double-stack Active Defense. And even though I'm doing all that, I'm still planning to keep Parry in my Broad Sword/Shield Defense build because of debuffs and because of AE enemies with to-hit buffs.

As for managing endurance costs, consider a Performance Shifter proc in Stamina. That adds the equivalent of 0.2 EPS. Not a lot, but it helps. Other than that, it would be a matter of doing a lot of fiddling to get better endurance reduction in the attacks without losing the soft cap.

My usual accuracy target is 95% or higher against +4s. You're in the mid 80s. It's good enough most of the time, I guess.

Due to the way defense and defense debuffs work, defense debuff enhancement in a defense power actually enhances defense. That means Enzyme gives you +33.3% defense enhancement vs. only 20% for Cytoskeleton. It's probably technically a bug, but it's been around forever.

I've been satisfied with one knockback protection on my Spines/Dark and my Katana/Dark. The knockbacks are few and far between. However, I mostly solo, and don't run Katies. There are certainly situations where it could get ugly.

Count me in. I'll bring Sergei this time for variety's sake, and because Rieze decided to play the Regen scrapper on this one. There can be only one, you know.

Well, Hack is a much better attack than Slash – same duration, nearly twice the damage. That's the only thing that's really glaring. You could go with Slash if you needed the lower recharge, but I don't think you do. It looks like you'd be chaining either Head Splitter -> Slice -> Disembowel -> Slash -> Slice or the same thing with one or two Parries replacing one or two Slices. Either way you'd be better off with Hack. Except from an endurance perspective, of course, but the DPE is the same for the two, so you can always slow down when you get to that point. Might as well do more damage faster until then.

I do suspect you'll have endurance problems in sustained fights due to the low endurance enhancement in some of your main attacks.

Enzymes are better than using a single Red Fortune defense/endurance.

Accuracy is only so-so. A Kismet unique and/or a fourth Luck of the Gambler in some powers would help.

My usual rule is that if it's worth using an attack, it's worth six slotting it.

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Been actually looking at Katana with the ability to put in 2 -res IO... Have not run any numbers on it but I'm thinking it could be very high up the list for ST damage, that of course not counting in shields for DM or FM...

[/ QUOTE ] I'm calculating 243 DPS for a Katana/Super Reflexes DPS build that uses both -resist IOs. That's better than the other primaries I've checked so far (all on Super Reflexes for an even playing field) ? Claws, Dark Melee, Dual Blades and Broad Sword. I still need to calculate Fiery Melee, Martial Arts and Spines to finish up my DPS comparison project.

[/ QUOTE ] wow! very nice, that's like 15 more dps than what i had on my claws. now only if i could get my self to buy that IO, might go well on my kat/fire.

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I calculated 227 DPS for a maxed-out Claws build, so with you getting approximately that, that's a good sign that maybe these numbers are realistic and can be achieved on more practical builds than the ones I'm using for comparison. I need to finish this project. It's getting close. Only Fire and Spines to go.

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i also have no knowledge of the HO enhancements so don't include those in my build. thx for all your help werner. If you could do me a favor and in blaster posts an ideal great build for solo'ing with an ice/ice/cold blaster. If too much to asks, then no big deal.

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I'm no blaster expert. I've winged the ones I have, and the last time I maxed one out was back when Hamios were +50% to two aspects, which is to say a long time ago.

That was great. Grats.

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Ok, so how do I figure out my DPS with all 3 mentioned (SS, Energy, Fire) in comparison to the "Big Boy AV's" Resists? Thanks in advance. Or if you aren't tired of putting up the numbers for me Please list them, thanks in advance.

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Well, you can look up “all” enemy resistances in the game here. If you're doing 130 DPS, and the AV has 20% resistance, then you'll do 130 DPS * (100% - 20%) = 104 DPS. But since an AV heals 94 hit points per second, you're really netting out to 10 DPS. Be prepared for a VERY long fight.

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By level 50 I start playing the character to get the most powerful IO's possible. Therefore, I build every character to be as good as it can possibly be without any regard to how ridiculously expensive it would be to do so. It's really just an excuse to keep playing the character at 50. I don't see a reason to set a cash limit when I'm mostly blowing time anyway. Either way I'm going to be playing this game.

I assume I'm not the only one who does this based on the number of ridiculous builds I see floating around.

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You're definitely not the only one. Leveling to 50 is my trial period. If I like the scrapper, then I want to IO him out. But if I like the scrapper, I'm going to be playing him a lot anyway, and for fun, so who cares how long it takes? Oh, noes! I'll need to survive hundreds of hours of additional fun on my scrapper to make him uber! I can't take any more fun once I've hit 50! Stop the insanity!

So yeah, ridiculous builds just give me a goal and an excuse to keep playing the characters I love to play.

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This thread has made my choice for sunday real clear. I'm bringing one of my regens to the all scrapper stf!!

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DO EEEEET!!!

I'll bring my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes this time for variety.

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Many of my deaths occur with every click power available, they occur so fast.

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Werner: This is my biggest frustration with Regen. Everytime I die in the blink of an eye, I feel extremely cheated. It's frustrating on squishies, but more-so on a Scrapper. You, along with several others, have proved it can still be a strong set, but it just doesn't suit me anymore.

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I can definitely see how that might turn off most people. I guess I just see it as a challenge. I could have survived! I just needed to be THAT much faster! Regen is AWESOME! It's just me that sucks.

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Werner said [ QUOTE ]
It hasn't had a big buff, but apparently it was enough that Invulnerability is now very good.

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I think the main buff was to the way IO's treat typed damage. You can now easily get very high smash/lethal/fire/cold defense [and probably get en/neg as well, I just know Aegis and Kin Combat off the top of my head. ]

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<facepalm>

I knew that. Why did I forget that that was the reason Invulnerability was suddenly so awesome? Not that it sucked before, but the IO change was a huge boost.

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The problem is, once you start getting hit with defense debuffs, and you will, because they're freaking everywhere, you can start kissing that investment goodbye.
In fact, Regen has no Debuff Resistance of any kind, and because Regen is not dodging anything, it gets hit with everything. Any debuff in the game has absolutely no mercy to you, and you will constantly be slowed down with every attack that hits you in some way or another.

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Although I agree with this, you can actually get around it pretty easily with Katana or Broadsword since most defense debuffs are melee or lethal. Up until the scrapper ITF this weekend, Cimerorans had never killed my Katana/Regen. And only one of my four deaths was from cascading defense failure. And even then, it was entirely my own fault. I went from soft capped to negative defense to dead in the space of about three seconds, but I was clicking on Moment of Glory as I fell, which probably could have saved me had I hit it a fraction of a second earlier, at least if immediately followed by Dull Pain. I monitor my melee defense and base defense. Base defense going red is my signal to pay close attention to my melee defense and react appropriately. So I was simply too slow. You need to be fast with Regen.

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Been actually looking at Katana with the ability to put in 2 -res IO...
Have not run any numbers on it but I'm thinking it could be very high up the list for ST damage, that of course not counting in shields for DM or FM...

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I'm calculating 243 DPS for a Katana/Super Reflexes DPS build that uses both -resist IOs. That's better than the other primaries I've checked so far (all on Super Reflexes for an even playing field) – Claws, Dark Melee, Dual Blades and Broad Sword. I still need to calculate Fiery Melee, Martial Arts and Spines to finish up my DPS comparison project.

Agreed. It makes a difference. At 44% defense, you get hit 20% more often than you do at 45% defense. Where defense is concerned, at least for really tough fights, there's really no “close enough”. I mean, mind you, 44% is great. It's just that 45% is even greater.

46% would be situational. Anyone with to-hit isn't going to be much affected by that extra percent. But it will shine against defense debuffs. Since most slotted up Super Reflexes scrappers probably have 95% defense debuff resistance, an extra 1% defense over the soft cap will keep you in good shape against up to 20% defense debuffs. I'd shoot for something in the 46% to 48% range. Trouble is, that will involve compromises. So I personally ended up just a fraction over 45%. It's good enough most of the time.

Dual Blades/Willlpower is a good combination. I played one to 50 and enjoyed it a lot. For a newcomer Dual Blader, that's probably the one I'd go with. Willpower is very friendly to new players without giving up anything on potential top end power. You may find yourself unhappy in the teens – it's a bad time for most scrappers, with endurance problems, not enough survivability from the secondary, and so on. Once you pick up Quick Recovery at 20 (take it at 20), and then once you slot some SOs, you should be fine.

The scrapper forum has a lot of vocal number crunching powergamers with apparently unlimited amounts of influence to blow on the most expensive of IOs. But that doesn't mean that you can't get by on SOs. I level up using mostly SOs, common IOs and frankenslotted attacks, which is the power for cheap approach. I can afford better, but I don't bother except on the occasional level 50. Scrappers are just fine without all that shiny, expensive equipment. The shiny equipment just makes them, well, completely overpowered for 99% of content.

Katana/Willpower IS probably a more survivable combination, but not by so much that you'll notice often in normal play. And the attack chain you would eventually be running on Katana actually does feel very fast, at least to me. But honestly, you may find Dual Blades more fun. I know it's subjective, but I think it's more interesting visually, and just more satisfying somehow.

So my suggestion is to stick with what you have and enjoy!

I'm late to this party, but this one's easy!

*puts on an Iggy mask*

Yes, you can do it on Fire/WP.

*takes off Iggy mask*

(saves the build template)