Werner

I might be up for it. I almost never do task forces and have never done the STF. So I'd be a total newb, in need of instruction, and just along for the ride. But hey, I'm on Virtue, and an all scrapper anything sounds fun. As long as I don't have to stock up on temp powers before it. I think I have some Katies, though. I'd have to look at that section of my power list for the first time and see what I have.

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I rarely buy and craft more than two of the same thing. I handcraft my fortune. If you do craft ten at a time, though, do not LIST all ten at the same time. The perception of large supply kills prices.

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I craft in batches of ten to save time, and fill up a storage bin with them. But I probably don't have more than 20 of any particular IO at one time, and I try not to list more than a few of each at a time. It might not matter much, though, because I tend to post at “sell it NAO” prices. Well, sell it within a day prices, anyway. I make my influence on volume.

I should probably switch some character over to purples or something else really expensive. Stacks of ten of purples. Now that sounds like fun. I'd think that the purple niches would be filled, but it seems like people keep making influence on them.

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How the heck do you keep track of all that stuff Werner?

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Giant spreadsheet with many different chains for many different primaries.

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So lets see I guess at low levels the attacks will be thunder, storm and air sup?

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I'm not a lowbie chain expert, but that would seem logical. You have the two fastest recharging kicks, plus Air Superiority, which also recharges quickly. It looks like you'd have big gaps, but pre-Stamina, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It may also not be that simple to fix, as adding more attacks that you can't slot out isn't necessarily going to improve the situation. Anyway, I just play my lowbies by feel most of the time.

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Do you think that will be enough to be able to solo Posi TF? Or will I need another attack?

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Dunno. Haven't even done Posi.

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End game DPS chain is Storm Kick -> Crane Kick -> Storm Kick -> Crippling Axe Kick.

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Wouldn't you want to start with Crippling Axe Kick, since it has the highest damage? And if it crits, the critter would be defeated quicker?

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Storm Kick is your highest DPS attack by far, only does about 10% less damage than Crippling Axe Kick, and will hit the enemy almost a second sooner. And Crippling Axe Kick isn't your highest damage attack; Crane Kick is. Basically, I was trying to front load the DPS.

But I don't think it would make any real difference if you lead with Crippling Axe Kick. The difference of front loading the DPS is pretty trivial given the short duration of the chain compared to the time it will take to work your way through a crowd or take down a big boss. So either way would be fine.

I don't craft the recipes that drop unless they're purple or otherwise known to me to be expensive. Why spend the time to craft for one recipe when I can craft a stack of ten for the same time and slot investment? So I toss them on the market at a bargain price for whoever is actually making influence in that niche, or vendor them if nobody is bidding.

On the other hand, I don't buy crafted IOs. It pains me to “overpay” for something I can craft myself. But if I were being more consistent in my behavior, I'd probably buy crafted IOs, even knowing that the markup on them can be hundreds of percent. For the time and slots invested, I'd often be better off just paying it and getting back to making influence.

If you want to make your influence crafting, look for a big spread between the cost of the recipe, necessary salvage and crafting costs and the price that people are willing to pay for the crafted IO. I've had good luck, but I've heard of people being burned by temporary price spikes and the like, so you may want to watch the niche for a while rather than jumping right in. I just jump right in myself. It's only play money.

I'll agree with Regen or Dark Armor, with Regen being the more interactive of the two.

I'll also toss out Fire as an idea. Damage boost, self heal, endurance recovery tool, and Burn for survivability should make it pretty interactive. Might be fun.

High levels of recharge will be difficult on that budget, but it should be easy to pick up 5 of the 5% bonuses and Hasten.

Now you have options. One it to keep chasing recharge, mostly getting it from more unusual sources since you probably won't be plunking down influence for Luck of the Gamblers, and definitely won't be getting purples. If you can bump your global recharge up to 42.5%, you can six slot Hasten with recharge, six slot Dull Pain with five doctored wounds (all but heal/end) and a recharge, and you'll JUST be perma.

Your other main option is to switch to positional defense at 25% global recharge, and that's probably the one I'd recommend. Pick up Combat Jumping and Weave, possibly Maneuvers, slot a Steadfast Protection, stick a Gaussian set somewhere (Tactics if you went with Leadership), and start pushing the positional defense bonuses. I'd focus mostly on melee defense since you'll be in melee with most enemies, and melee attacks hit the hardest. Your Dull Pain won't be permanent, so next up would probably be some hit point bonuses, but the priority there isn't very high.

(edit: Wait, I need to read more carefully, like where you said PvP. I'm no PvP expert, but the small levels of defense I mentioned are probably completely and absolutely useless in PvP. So I'd be going for more recharge, but you'll probably want an actual PvP expert to weigh in.)

End game DPS chain is Storm Kick -> Crane Kick -> Storm Kick -> Crippling Axe Kick.

Mid level chain is more of an “it depends”. I think a very effective one would be Storm Kick -> Air Superiority -> Crane Kick -> Storm Kick -> Air Superiority -> Crippling Axe Kick. Lots of knock down and knock back to boost your survivability, only 69% recharge required in Storm Kick (frankenslot it), and pretty decent DPS. But unless you're going into the flight pool anyway, I wouldn't want to burn a pool just for an attack.

Boxing works, and you'll probably be taking it anyway to get into Tough and Weave. But that bumps up the recharge to 90%. That's tougher to frankenslot for, so you're probably looking at Hasten, and small gaps when Hasten is down. Or just small gaps and skipping Hasten. You might not have the endurance for a faster chain anyway.

Thunder Kick is even better DPS, but it burns an extra power choice, and the recharge requirement climbs to 107%, so you're looking at bigger gaps while Hasten is down, which would probably cancel out the DPS benefit anyway. Also, all kicks, and it sounds like you want some punches.

And all of those have Crane Kick, which some people don't like because of the knockback, and Crippling Axe Kick, which some people don't like because of the animation.

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So put a little differently, “The devs can't make you play a lot of hours, but they can make sure that if you don't, you fall behind those that do.” Put in the effort, and you'll get the rewards. Kind of the backbone of an MMO.

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And here I thought the backbone of MMOs was the fact that they are a game, and are therefore for fun! I must be doing this wrong.

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Of course games are for fun. But MMOs largely cater to people who enjoy a certain KIND of fun – putting in effort to get rewards. Or put another way, running endlessly on a treadmill for the next level, the next shiny enhancement, the next whatever.

If your fun doesn't include the putting in effort part, and going straight to the rewards, there are a lot of games out there that cater to that kind of fun too. But I don't want my MMOs turned into first person shooters, or even into regular RPGs with 30 hours of content and suddenly you're maxed out. I LIKE that it takes hundreds of hours of play to get what I want. It gives me time to get good at playing my characters, to get attached to them, to want to make them even better. That's FUN for me.

Heck, if I had my way, I'd cut the XP in half (in practice, I do this by level pacting every character to someone that I pretty much drag along). And if anything, purples are just a little too easy for me to get my hands on. But hey, we have the PvP IOs now, so that'll take some effort to get.

Anyway, fun is where you find it. The developers have to strike a balance between people like me (it's too easy to get what I want) and people that think there's a purple problem to be solved (it's too hard to get what I want).

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Also, what difference does it make if you "fall behind" when there is absolutely no in-game content that requires* you to be "ahead" of anyone in terms of IOs or Purples?

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No difference at all. This game is easy. Nobody needs purples. Nobody needs set IOs. If you can't play this game using SOs, you need help with your builds and your play skills, and teh uber lewt is just a way of covering up some serious issues. That said, look! It's Shiny! Must have Shiny! I'm a sucker for it as much as anyone.

I'm not sure you'll have more endurance than you can possibly use – I somehow always find a way to use mine. But Assault is part of how I use mine up on my Katana/Regen, so yes, Assault can be part of chasing that little bit of extra damage we all want.

You won't be using Fire Sword Circle as part of a chain because it has a base recharge of 20 seconds. It's your alpha strike.

So at a low level, you pretty much need the fast recharging attacks, which are Scorch, Fire Sword and Cremate. Though you might be able to skip one with all the veteran attacks you have available. You'll eventually want Incinerate and possibly Greater Fire Sword. And when you get a lot of recharge, you'll probably want to spec into a tighter attack chain with fewer attacks.

If the question is what to skip to make room for another attack, delay Super Speed. It is easily replaced by the temp travel powers. I'd rather be killing faster than running faster.

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another thing I am sorely disapointed with MoG..... any advice for this power since it works completly different then ive read.. or at least thought I understood it...

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You... don't like MoG? No likey MoG makes me a sad scrapper.

As far as slotting it, you're after recharge and nothing else, though it can serve as a nice spot for some Luck of the Gamblers if you have the budget.

As far as using it, it is ideal for absorbing a big alpha strike. It will stop cascading defense failure in its tracks. And when badly hurt, it will buy you 15 seconds of breathing room, generally giving you time to recover much to all of your health.

As far as what you've read, perhaps you're reading about old MoG. Old MoG was a more traditional tier 9 with a long duration, but it shut down your regeneration and healing and dropped you to a quarter your hit points, I think. I wouldn't touch old MoG. I loves me some new MoG.

At least solo, Assault is pretty low damage for the endurance. It'll add up on a team, of course. Better than Temperature Protection? On a team, probably – hopefully others on the team are helping keep you alive, and you're helping them and yourself dish out damage. Solo, I'd go with Temperature Protection. Probably. It's really one of those “it depends” questions.

I'd focus primarily on your damage output on a low level scrapper. By 20, I think I'd want to be chaining (with gaps) Cremate -> Scorch -> Fire Sword -> Scorch. And I'd want to have Fire Sword Circle on a team build. So it seems like my answer to your question on which attacks to take is all of the ones you mentioned.

If you MUST choose between Scorch and Fire Sword, I'd go with Scorch for the faster recharge and the better damage per endurance, both of which matter a lot on a low level toon. The better DPS of Fire Sword isn't going to mean much when you're chaining with gaps and are severely endurance limited.

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The devs can't make you use the market, but they can make sure that if you don't, you fall behind those that do.

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Well, all it really takes is selling on the market. I got my first purpled out character before I even started marketeering. I just played a lot. If you play a lot on level 50 content, you'll eventually get a lot of purple drops. Yeah, they're hardly raining down on you, but even if you only get one per week, you can eventually purple out a character.

So put a little differently, “The devs can't make you play a lot of hours, but they can make sure that if you don't, you fall behind those that do.” Put in the effort, and you'll get the rewards. Kind of the backbone of an MMO.

But if we DO want to “solve” the “purple problem”, we to some extent control the supply (play more level 50 content other than AE) and also the demand (convince yourself and others that they aren't all that great). So there you go – play more level 50 content other than AE, stop using purples, and explain to people why they aren't worth it. “Problem” “solved”.

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i always though hasten was a must so you could get those powers in Regen back alot faster, and dull pain to be perm ?? Is that not needed? cause i can see combat jumping give you a bit more defends thats surely needed..

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I think Hasten is almost essential on a Regen and for the reasons you cite. That said, I don't have Hasten on my main. But unless you know EXACTLY why you aren't taking Hasten, and why what you're getting instead is better, take it. That's my advice, anyway.

If you're hunting significantly uplevel, I'd go with two accuracy SOs, a Kismet unique, and either Tactics (if you can fit in Leadership) or Focused Accuracy (if you can't). Even for things like the Rikti War Zone challenge, I wouldn't bother with BOTH Tactics and Focused Accuracy. And for most content, one or two accuracies and a Kismet should be good enough, particularly with Blinding Feint available to you. I would slot Blinding Feint like any other attack.

I'm kind of the opposite with my 50s. I love playing my IO'd (previously HO'd) 50s because they're finally DONE! I think I've spent about half of my play time on my 50s, half below that level on them and on alts.

Temperature protection does look a little underwhelming since you'll be near the fire resistance cap anyway, and the cold resistance isn't very high. Still, it's an autopower, so it's “free”. I'd fit it in if I could.

I think it's 100% every 5 minutes, a 5% tick every 15 seconds. With a level 50 AV at 28270 hit points, that's 94.2 hit points per second.

I'd rather not lose DPS on an attack that does no damage. I'd rather get my survivability elsewhere. But I suppose there are many ways to skin that cat.

In my experience, AVs are almost perma-immobilized by Midnight Grasp, only occasionally breaking free for a short period. So on the surface, it looks like Caltrops would be good addition to AV soloing damage.

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I hate the pink aura around the head so I might actually play a DA Scrapper now. I'm really hoping we can select "None" as a choice for color.

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I suspect it won't be, though. I'd expect a selection like our current color palette - so no clear/none. Even if available, that seems a bad idea. Last thing I need is a lack of visual cues that I've forgotten to turn my armors on!

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Yeah, I doubt that “none” will be a color option. However, there is often some color that makes an effect very subtle.

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It's a trade off with +max health vs resist dmg. In the above example, the character with more health will die after 4 hits of the same amount and type while the character with resist will still be alive. However the more health gives you mitigation against dmg types for which you have zero resistance. It all depends on what you value more.

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Which is why I don't get why folks equate the two. I'm not disputing additional hit points increase your survivability, I just don't see how folks equate hit points to resistance.

Another way of putting it, you simply cannot add the two and derive a mitigation value?

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1% HP = 1% resistance = 1/2% defense

People equate hit points to resistance in the same sense that they equate resistance to defense. It's not technically true, and in some cases can be way off, but it makes a reasonable rule of thumb to follow much or most of the time. And just like you don't add half your defense to your resistance to get a mitigation value, you don't add your hit point increase to your resistance to get a mitigation value.

For that matter, if you understand "mitigation value" in a technical sense, you've already moved beyond the simplified equation above, and shouldn't think of them as being equal.

Sorry, just been cranky recently. I shouldn't be taking it out on you specifically. It looks like we pretty much agree overall. Brutes debatably have the PvE edge overall, and very likely do for my play style, but it doesn't seem huge and overwhelming. I suspect I won't get a good feel for it until I'm playing them back to back against the same enemies on the same side since “average fury” is hard to nail down and hides important details of how it changes through a mission (such as generally being cranked up when you hit the final boss, unless you're on a team that wants to “prepare” by chatting and buffing and having you lose it all before you attack).

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Well looks like from the damage table that the game works per design.

Damege high
Hit points medium
"The Scapper is a fierce melle combatant, in had to hand, NO OTHER HERO can compare. But the scrapper is not as resilient as the tanker, and might find himself in a little trouble if he heedlessly wades into combat. The scrapper aptitude for melee is counter by a total lack of long distance attacks. Scappers posses critical strike capabilities. Their melee attak have a chance to sometimes do double damage"

Brutes

Damage=High
Hit points= High

" Brute lives to fight, an as a brute you revel is hand to hand combat. With strong offensive power sets to inflict pain and impressive defense to take it, youre THE BEST THERE IS IN A STRAIGHT OUT FIGHT. Protracted battles only make you mad, and the madder you get, the more damaging you attack become. You do lack ranged attacks, in which culd have you vulnerable to hit and run tactics without allies to cover you."

Both description are pretty similiar but clearly the damage table posted above is by design.

Nuff said.

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Well, thanks for clearing that up so that we can stop wasting time on number crunching and debates about balance and discussion of what this might mean when Going Rogue goes live. I can't imagine how the rest of us simply missed the fact that brutes are just SUPPOSED to be better. That should take care of everyone's concerns. You're right. No more need be said.[/cranky]

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As someone with a Fire SR, the End cost is Ridiculous,
(and I'm pretty sure it's not SRs fault )

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And it's not Fire's fault either. To quote myself from another thread:

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Unslotted, Arcanatime, my personal opinion on the “best” (not necessarily highest DPS) chain for each:

Fire: Incinerate -> Scorch -> Cremate -> Scorch does 18.1 DPE and uses 4.06 EPS

Dark: Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Siphon Life does 13.5 DPE and uses 5.33 EPS

Super Reflexes takes 0.78 EPS for its toggles

Invulnerability takes 0.78 EPS for its toggles

Fire Melee's DPE is MUCH better than Dark Melee's DPE, while the toggle cost of Super Reflexes and Invulnerability is the same. The main reason that Dark Melee would have less of an endurance problem is because it comes with an endurance recovery tool, Dark Consumption.

But overall, Fire is a very low endurance primary for the damage done, very comparable to Claws. In fact, the chain above is BETTER than you can get out of Claws, who's best DPE attack sits at 18.0. To call Fire/SR “deadly on your endurance” is to call ANY scrapper combination without an endurance recovery tool WORSE than deadly on your endurance, which I guess would mean all but unplayable. And that's simply not the case.

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A word of warning - Fire/SR is deadly on your Endurance,
(and it will take a little spending to get around that)

Still not as expensive as a tricked out /shields though.

One suggestion I would make, that keeps within a low budget, is -
DM/Inv.
(I've had far less endurance problems with this than my Fire/SR, and the total build (sans purples) was under 400million. )

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Unslotted, Arcanatime, my personal opinion on the “best” (not necessarily highest DPS) chain for each:

Fire: Incinerate -> Scorch -> Cremate -> Scorch does 18.1 DPE and uses 4.06 EPS

Dark: Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Siphon Life does 13.5 DPE and uses 5.33 EPS

Super Reflexes takes 0.78 EPS for its toggles

Invulnerability takes 0.78 EPS for its toggles

Fire Melee's DPE is MUCH better than Dark Melee's DPE, while the toggle cost of Super Reflexes and Invulnerability is the same. The main reason that Dark Melee would have less of an endurance problem is because it comes with an endurance recovery tool, Dark Consumption.

But overall, Fire is a very low endurance primary for the damage done, very comparable to Claws. In fact, the chain above is BETTER than you can get out of Claws, who's best DPE attack sits at 18.0. To call Fire/SR “deadly on your endurance” is to call ANY scrapper combination without an endurance recovery tool WORSE than deadly on your endurance, which I guess would mean all but unplayable. And that's simply not the case.