Werner

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Actually I was more concerned with mobs frequently rolling low numbers under the defense value. I'm more concerned there's something up with the random number generator for some of the enemy attack rolls. To roll under 6% with such frequency is a bit odd. But I take your point. I'll do some more testing and see how the numbers add up.

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Testing like this is probably the best way to go about it. I'll again recommend using Herostats, as I think it keeps track of all that, and should be easier than reading your log for thousands of attacks. I'd probably pick a "farm" with a known enemy that you think this bug might apply to, and just go to town for a while. I still suspect you'll find that there is no bug, but I could certainly be wrong, and if there IS one, it would be nice to get it fixed.

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OK, here is my Super Reflexes scrapper standing in the middle of 16 enemies letting them all pound on me while I take out an AV, solo, with no temporary powers and no inspirations.

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I can do similar things with my dm/sd brute. Its sad because it makes most other builds pointless after being so powerful. I'm only lvl 31 and only have basic IO's. Best character I've created so far.

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You're going to LOVE it if you spend the influence to max it out. The top end of a Dark Melee/Shield Defense brute should be frickin' amazing. Didn't intend to imply that brutes sucked, or that I was the strongest scrapper out there, or anything like that. Just that Super Reflexes scrappers don't suck.

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"I'm having trouble believing you. Why? Because my main hero side is claw/sr"

I don't want to hear from Scrappers whose only job is to do damage. You can't compare scrapper survivability to that of someone whose job it is to actually draw enemy fire. You don't get attacked as often as my brute does. You don't herd like I do. Stand in the middle of a herd that you grouped hitting the aggro cap and see how long you live. That's the job of a brute. SR brutes take more of a pounding than some scrapper who's only there for damage add.

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OK, here is my Super Reflexes scrapper standing in the middle of 16 enemies letting them all pound on me while I take out an AV, solo, with no temporary powers and no inspirations. Anything else you think scrappers can't do because we're not expected to herd?

As far as your experiences, I recommend downloading Herostats, running it, and sending the results to the devs. Or just turning on the to hit rolls and sending them the text. That's assuming you're actually getting hit as often as you say you do. Because if you are, it's a bug. But I suspect what you'll see is observer bias – it's easy to remember the hits, and hard to remember the misses. I suspect you'll see that over a long period of time, you're not getting hit all that often.

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Follow Up > Focus > Slash

What does it take recharge wise to get Focus to hit with that sweet triple Follow Up goodness?

I seem to hit 3XFU on Focus with my current build half of the time when the stars are aligning for me. If it doesn't take much more global recharge, I might be able to get there.

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In theory, you hit the triple stack with a gap at 279% recharge, with Follow Up recharging in 3.17 seconds. Your Follow Up is recharging in 3.16 seconds, so as long as the stars align and everything is perfect, you'll get the triple stack, which is what you're seeing. To have it more reliable, you just want more recharge, but not any specific amount. The 308% recharge is only what you need if you want to run the chain without gaps, which isn't strictly necessary.

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MA/DA is going to have better synergy with OG. BS/DA, Kat/DA, and DM/DA are going to have better synergy with CoF. Everything else is in the middle...

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Yeah, I suppose I could add that Oppressive Gloom is on my Spines/Dark, and Cloak of Fear is on my Katana/Dark. To me, the synergy with Katana is less about the -to hit, and more about having incoming melee damage (CoF) vs. ranged damage (OG). I agree that the majority of mobs tend to remain in range of the stun, but some don't, and when they wander out and attack, it's ranged damage, unless they run back in and get stunned again.

Here's 300.6. That plus a base empowerment buff would get you gapless with that chain. You'd be better off with a single-tick gap before each Ablating Strike and the Hecatomb set in Ablating Strike, though.

Also, I believe Shred Monkey was running it with a single tick of gap WITH the base empowerment buff, though I don't remember for sure. And he fit in Aid Self.

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Another question, totally unrelated.. I was in the original beta, but didn't play after release until a few months ago (not counting a trial here and there). If I were to activate my beta account, would those characters still be there? I guess I'm asking if they did a wipe before release, I can't honestly remember.

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I'm pretty sure they did a wipe before release. None of my old beta characters are on the beta server anyway, but I could easily have deleted them since then.

I only have two Dark Armor characters, and neither are 50 yet. I run Oppressive Gloom on one, and Cloak of Fear on the other. Oppressive Gloom can get away with the simplest slotting. Basically, all it has to do is hit, so you can get away with nothing but an accuracy in the default slot, or maybe two accuracies if you do a lot of uplevel hunting. I haven't slotted up Cloak of Fear yet, so any comparison I could make won't really be valid. With Cloak of Fear, you want a lot of accuracy and a lot of endurance reduction. Maybe two of each, more if you can afford the slots. I'd probably put a fear in as well so that the duration is twice the activation, making the enemies less likely to come unfeared, but I haven't really played with it.

Initial impressions (I've only just started using Cloak of Fear) are that Oppressive Gloom does a better job of mitigation. While the stunned mobs sometimes wander out of it and can attack, it's often a ranged attack, which does less damage. This might reverse on a Katana or Broad Sword character, where melee defense will be MUCH higher than ranged defense. Also, Cloak of Fear does a much better job of keeping enemies in Death Shroud.

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mmmm...never heard that about the debate of running CoF or OG ...

dont knwo what to do now LOL

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Try both, then respec out of one later. Definitely slot up Cloak of Fear fully before making a decision, as it requires more of an investment. You may find yourself with endurance issues with Cloak of Fear, but also keep in mind that in the long run, there are ways to manage those. You might decide, for instance, to level up with Oppressive Gloom because it's easier to pull off, then switch when you move to IOs. Or one of them might stand out as clearly better for your play style. But they're similar enough that I think it's hard to make the call based on numbers and recommendations. I think it's a situation where you just have to find out for yourself.

I finally tried Cloak of Fear. It sucks! Never take it!

/em run away cackling before Des can kill me

(this one's an old, old debate, and it comes up frequently)

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Not the first to say this. If there were a difficulty 6 it would be called Dev Nerf Datamining.

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Because the devs don't already know that scrappers can completely destroy invincible and have been doing so for five years now. I really don't think the devs are as ignorant of what's going on as you seem to think.

Shred Monkey uses Blinding Feint -&gt; Ablating Strike -&gt; Sweeping Strike -&gt; Ablating Strike. To run it gapless requires +314% recharge, but it'll still do amazing things at +279% recharge (two ticks of delay in the chain). I wouldn't bother below that, as the Achilles' Heel stacking starts dropping off.

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He might be able to cascade his defenses but I don't think Manti would put out enough damage to kill him.

Only one way to find out!

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OK, Werner now has a shiny new even-level SO build to try AVs with, no temps, no inspirations, no veteran powers, blah blah blah. First up was Manticore of course. First try was a failure. It took him about 45 minutes, but Manticore DID indeed eventually put out enough damage to kill me, and there were several close calls before then. Cascading defense failure was a problem, but not a serious one from a damage perspective, more from a recharge debuff perspective. He'd debuff my defense then keep hitting me with slows, which meant my damage output would drop significantly. Since it was already only barely enough to hurt him, he'd start healing. I think I had him down to 70% at one point, but his health would go up and down. Pretty frustrating.

So... looks possible, but looks like it will take more patience than I have tonight.

Well, if we're looking for excuses for a natural origin, put on some experimental goggles and call it a gadget power. Nobody says that natural super heroes can't use a little technology.

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Nothing? No previous experience available? No solo'd Posi info? No build help? No interest in helping? Not enough thread post by OP?

I guess I should have started a Flame Topic...like /Dark Sux or Scrappers Sux to elicit a response....

Maybe my Scrappers is more ubers than yours is ubers thread to get the blood boiling.

Thanks anyways...

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Well, it looks like you decided to turn it INTO a flame topic. Excellent choice. I'm sure the constructive feedback will start rolling in now (actually, there's a chance it might, which is kind of sad).

I think you may be suffering from an inflated sense of entitlement. Nobody here is getting paid. None of us owe you anything. I like being helpful, but there are only so many hours in the day and so many topics I can respond to. Looks like last night just wasn't your night. Many nights I don't even get to play the game because I'm too busy trying to help other people. How about you? No? OK, then. Moving on.

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What's the concept behind Laser Beam Eyes? You have such complete control of your body that your eyes now shoot lasers?

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Concept? CONCEPT?

My concept is that shooting frickin' lasers out of my frickin' eyes is frickin' awesome.

(In practice, I almost always choose the magic origin. Then my answer to ANY question on why I can do something is "It's magic!" So yeah. I shoot magic lasers. Why not? )

I think it's the same on an in depth analysis as it appears on the surface – tankers are more survivable, and do less damage than scrappers.

They certainly overlap in the middle, though. A scrapper that focuses on survivability can outsurvive many tankers. And a tanker that focuses on damage can outdamage many scrappers.

For powerleveling another character on your own, you'd need a second account. Since kill speed is probably the name of the game, you don't want a tanker. Scrappers are probably good, but you'd want a more AoE-focused primary. Spines is ideal, but Fire and Claws are probably pretty good too. Dark Melee isn't so good due to its largely single-target nature.

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(And then maybe a Difficulty level 6 so that it REALLY pays off, but thats more wishful thinking)

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I think they should give us another five difficulty levels with “super” tacked on the front. I want to be SUPER INVINCIBLE. Yeah, probably not going to happen.

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I'm a HUGE fan of LBE,

but a few people have already mentioned that it doesn't belong in your attack chain. They're right.

It is however very useful for catching that minion who ran away while you slew everything else, or even on a Hami raid for helping with the blue mitos.

A little bit of ranged potential is good.

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Oh, I HAVE Laser Beam Eyes on both of my mains. I mean, come on, you shoot frickin' laser beams... out of your EYES. And I use it regularly. I just don't stick it in my attack chain.

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See, For me, what makes AV soloing worth bragging about is the fact you've achieved enough Damage output, enough Survivability AND enough End Recovery.

Miss any one of those three and it's not possible. (without insps at least)

So coming full circle, I just don't think an SO build could pull off all three, but it could come close, very close.

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I think I've been trying it with the wrong character. I've been trying to work up an SO build for Sergei. I should probably be working up an SO build for Werner. Basically, only go up against lethal AVs, and soft cap using Divine Avalanche and some pool powers. The regeneration secondary should then handle the rest of the survivability plus the endurance recovery. I don't expect to kill nearly as many. I just want to kill a few. I bet Manticore goes down pretty easy. Hmmm.

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Oh, and yeah, I actually would be impressed if they only used Brawl &amp; TOs, but more in a "crazy back alley Freakshow kind" of way, and less a "it'd be a honor to team with them" kind of way

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Totally.

Idono. I'd be pretty impressed with soloing an AV using only brawl and TOs, even if you did bio nuke it from space and sick everything on it. Or can you pretty much sit back and do nothing and let temp powers do the job for you? I never use them, so I honestly don't know.

In a similar vein, among the many projects that I never seem to get to, I want a no temps, no inspirations, no IOs AV soloer. Not sure it's possible, but I think it would be a lot of fun to try. Basically, I want to see just how big the gap between IO builds and SO builds is. Is the gap almost entirely from the extra power of IOs, or is a lot of the gap a result of the best builders only making IO builds? I want to see what's possible with just SOs.

Anyway, since I'm very slow getting around to things, if someone wants to beat me to it, have at it.

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Also, power customization. Please, do some research before you bring up tired old complaints.

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Yep. Or at least research after people point out that it has long since been debated, and that it isn't going to happen for some time, if ever. You want us to come up with a solution? OK, it's called power customization. Do we all want power customization? YES. Are they going to stick it in the next issue just because you don't like targeting drone? NO. Welcome to the line, please move to the back of the queue rather than taking cuts.

(I'm actually with you. I've always hated the thing on my Assault Rifle/Devices. Shhh. Don't tell anyone.)

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To the OP:

There is a group at there to be aware of, especially on these forums: the folks who can solo AVs, (True definition be damned! Grow up already, will y'all?) but don't really want to. My build, for example, is durable enough, and puts out enough damage that I could, eventually, take down most AVs. It'd take a good twenty minutes minimum, though, and it'd be fairly dull otherwise, so I choose to measure my ePeen in different ways, but it's still possible.

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There's that too. On many builds, once you can survive them and have enough damage output, it's just a button-mashing exercise. The kind that might not appeal to that many people. It takes a certain kind of crazy to hit the same three keys over and over for 20 minutes. At least SOME builds are more interactive than that.

He only used it once against me, but I only fought him once. Sounds like it's variable. Just keep plugging away. You'll get him.

He's a pretty difficult one. Took me a lot of tries on my own Katana/Regen. Grats!