Werner

So you didn't have people buffing your defense or resistance? Because if you were actually doing all this without any defense (even from buffers and/or purples), then that is a VERY interesting fact. One I'd want to explore. I'd then be very curious about your build. I'd want to see how you were doing it, or if it was all down to a level of player skill that I simply don't possess. (I don't claim to be a great player.)

But if you DID have buffers and purples taking your defense up to high levels, and you were fairly survivable as a result, I don't know that that proves the defense point, but it IS a data point for that side of the argument.

I suspect we can't really know the answer here, though. Chances are that if you don't build for defense, you don't monitor your defense, and don't know how much you're getting from the team. But if you do know, I'd like to know.

OK, I'm sorry then. As I said, your point of "I did the ITF with exactly what you said, and didn't have the problems you suggested I would have" is quite relevant, and a reasonable response.

I just thought you were implying the further point that building that way was just as good as the defense/recharge alternative. That's not what you were implying, so I apologize for my reaction. I just didn't want people to be misled, and start thinking, "Oh, then I should build my Regen for passive regeneration. These guys that think defense is important are obviously wrong."

OK, I understand that you were specifically replying to "I dare you to take a... regen based scrapper - build for zero defense... and then take it on the ITF". So what you said was definitely relevant. You basically did that, and had, well, some problems, but apparently nothing worse than what you're used to.

But to be blunt, your build's survivability sucks. Fortunately you're either an AMAZING player, or you had a big supply of purple inspirations (i.e., defense) or your team made up for your shortfall. But none of that means that your BUILD has any survivability, or disproves how important defense is to improving survivability. You'd probably do MUCH better with a decent build.

You gain from leadership small bonuses to whatever - damage, to-hit and defense. Damage is probably obvious, though I think is the most skippable of the toggles, particularly on a Brute. To-hit helps when fighting uplevel enemies, plus gives a perception bonus that helps see enemies, though you probably won't need the perception on Willpower due to Hightened Senses. Defense often becomes critical for the reason I mentioned earlier, "The more you get, the more each additional point increases survivability. So there's really not much 'close enough' to the soft cap. If you're close, you really want to close that gap." A tiny little defense power like Maneuvers may be exactly what you need to close that gap.

Also, a lot of people are team players and want to buff the team, even if Scrappers aren't particularly known for that. Vengeance can be nice here. But I even have Vengeance on what was my almost-entirely-solo toon, simply as a spot to stick an IO (Shield Wall +3% resistance). Now if I could only remember to USE it now that I'm actually running team content.

Ah, I missed that. That IS going to be very interesting. At the very least, the debuff is going to be a lot more reliable even with the 25% one. And since I don't have much in the way of AoE, it sounds like the Interface in my aura IS my AoE, really.

Is there a cap on fire DoTs from DIFFERENT people? Sorry I don't know anything - I don't tend to pay attention until things go live.

Top DPS required Crane Kick, which... complicated actually getting that theoretical DPS. Now we can get that DPS PLUS have another fairly reliable stun in the chain. Even outside of top DPS, for I suspect most people, adding damage to Cobra Strike turned it from a skipped power or an amusement at best into one of their regularly-used attacks. So for most people, the change increased both damage output AND the actual amount of stuns being applied. It also helped address an acknowledged weakness of the set as actually played by most people, which was the mishmash of differing secondary effects that didn't add up to much. By encouraging people to actually use Cobra Strike (and I believe Eagles Claw was buffed as well), we now have a much more integrated set of secondary effects centered on stunning. Yes, nothing's really changed in that regard if you look at the powers in a vacuum, and of course it's actually gotten worse. But as actually played by probably most people, it's now much more clearly a stun set, and we're getting more stuns out of it.

I think it was just what the set needed for most people. It was NOT what the set needed for people who had already focused on the stun aspects of the set (particularly when combined with Dark Armor's Oppressive Gloom), and were less concerned about damage output. But I think those people are a small minority.

So the devs went with greatest good for the greatest number. It sucks to be on the wrong side of that, of course.

Well, if you aren't muling anything, and since money is no object, I'd go with the Enzyme. It has better defensive values (even if they only help the team, and only rarely) plus it has endurance reduction.

Others have said it, but I think the current caps will probably be fine when everyone is +3 and knows the drill.

On my last Lambda run, the leader said "stick together" at the acid/grenade gathering phase, but didn't designate who to follow. So... there were multiple leaders, and I quickly found myself on a group of only three, then two as that group's leader died, then one as the remaining Tanker and I got separated by a door crowded with large numbers of enemies and he zoomed off elsewhere while I tried to lose some aggro. I ended up soloing two of the molecular acid tubes. I did use some inspirations, and it was tough, but it was doable. That's on a +1 character (IO'd all to hell, but still). Once we're all +3 and know what we're doing, I expect it to be a cakewalk.

Once it's a cakewalk, I don't want to sit in queue an extra ten minutes just because we're having trouble right now at the beginning.

What I wasn't happy with was the queues on Victory, though. I took up residence there precisely because it's relatively abandoned. That hurts for these trials. Now, I don't see complaints on the Victory forum (on an admittedly quick glance), so maybe it's just me. But here's my experience so far there during prime time playing hours:

wait in queue 10 minutes for BAF
fail on the escapees
wait in queue 30 minutes for BAF before giving up for the night
wait in queue 30 minutes for any before giving up for a while
wait in queue 30 minutes for any and finally getting on a BAF
fail on Siege
wait in queue for an hour for any before giving up on Victory completely
transfer Alexei to Virtue to have any hope of advancement (losing my name in the process, so now I'm Olof)

So far, no successes on any pick up group on any server (but that's probably only 5-10 trials total). Some, however, showed promise, and instruction has generally been good, so I'm hopeful. Also sounds like I might be just getting unlucky.

Most of us, on the other hand, are thrilled with the trade off.

Still, I can understand the appeal of a serious stun machine, and I AM sorry they broke your toy. I guess I'm just so used to the devs breaking my toys it barely phases me any more. "Oh, that character can no longer be what I designed him to be. Change concept or retire?"

In the immortality line sense for a Tanker, capped defense is equivalent to capped resistance. Increasing the resistance cap changes that balance. That's not necessarily bad, since normally defense is king, but it's something to keep in mind.

I can't see your original build either, but what did you want to know about the one Elegost posted? On the surface at least, it looks like a pretty standard high-end mid-budget Broad Sword/Regeneration build.

The Parry slotting may be a bit non-standard (standard might be a full Mako's Bite set or Crushing Impacts with a Luck of the Gambler global), but I'm more and more a fan of adding more defense to Parry these days, so would probably recommend something more like this. I have some similar frankenslotting on my Katana/Dark, also using only five slots. The idea here is that you want to get yourself to the melee (and ideally lethal) soft cap (45%) with just a single hit of Parry.

Hmmm, maybe you don't understand what the defense soft cap is. Basically, most enemies you'll face have a standard to-hit of 50%. Defense is subtracted from that, and the game stops at a minimum of 5% to hit. THEN accuracy modifiers are applied, so their actual chance to hit you can be significantly higher, but more defense wouldn't help at all. More defense only helps when enemies have higher than normal to-hit (becoming less rare these days) and as a buffer against defense debuffs (also relatively common).

So the idea is that you jump into combat using Parry as your first attack. As long as it hits, most melee attacks will have the minimum possible chance of hitting you. Then, if it were me, I'd double stack it as a buffer against defense debuffs.

Defense is also non-linear in its effect on survivability. The more you get, the more each additional point increases survivability. So there's really not much "close enough" to the soft cap. If you're close, you really want to close that gap. On that note, the 42% lethal defense makes me squirm a little, as an alpha strike with machine guns could pry open your defense, but hopefully it would be closed with the second Parry. Still, if I were putting effort into the build, it might be there.

He mentioned permanent Dull Pain, which this build has. Basically, Dull Pain is always recharged before the last one ends. That does NOT mean that you should immediately hit it when it comes up, as that's a big waste of the heal. Wait until you're injured again before hitting it. But any time you need it (getting injured badly), that means you'll have Dull Pain up, and be at the hit point cap. So further hit point set bonuses do you almost no good whatsoever. That's why you don't focus on them.

The Achilles' Heel proc in Hack is fairly important for DPS over a fairly extended time scale, basically when fighting bosses and up. It's great vs. archvillains. OK, "great" in this case might be something like +8% DPS or something, but that's still a big help, particularly given how much they regenerate (though that's kind of meaningless on a team).

Why you want so very much recharge was already explained I believe - you depend on a whole lot of click powers for your survival, and the faster they recharge, the better. The only thing competitive with that on a build like this is defense, which is why that's been the secondary goal. Mid 20s on Ranged and AoE is probably a pretty common point to aim for. I'm sure more is possible these days, but I'm not sure about on a mid-budget build, and I'm not sure what the compromises are (it's been too long since I've put one of these together).

The Soul Mastery epic was taken for Shadow Meld. That's a fast recharging defensive boost. As he said, it takes you over 45% defense when it's up, and you can have it up about 1/3 of the time, which is significant. That's also a good way to help fix defense debuffs before they cascade and kill you, at least if you're fast with it. Shadow Meld and stack Parry until you're out of danger. Moment of Glory is even better in that regard, so it's a matter of knowing which to hit when.

Ummm, Head Splitter, Hack and Disembowel are you big hitters, so that's why they're there. Parry is necessary for your defense. Slice and Whirling Sword are your AoEs. I skipped Slice (well, Katana's equivalent) when I put my build together a long time ago, but these days, there are some really nice AoE sets. Eradication is just what the doctor called for here, so it's nice to have that extra AoE attack, even beyond its own utility.

I agree with his recommendation of Spiritual Core for this build. Recharge is what you need, and the extra healing doesn't hurt. It does, however, put you way over the hit point cap with Dull Pain up, and you were already over the hit point cap without Spiritual, so perhaps there's a way to trade some hit points for something else of use. Oh, if you DO go Spiritual Core, I'd only put two recharges in Hasten. The third loses 85% of its benefit to enhancement diversification effects.

Your attack chain should be Parry -> Head Splitter -> Parry -> Disembowel -> Hack. Some might argue for a single-Parry chain, but I'm a fan of survivability first, damage second.

Hmmm, running out of things to comment on. Any specific questions?

Ah, two of them now? OK, same bid for the other one, then.

Your restraint inspires us all.

I'm not "hardcode mode" serious about not dying, because sometimes I like to push the envelope, but I don't like dying to normal content, and I consider the ITF to be normal content.

I've done a couple ITFs with my soft-capped Katana/Dark. I don't think I ever even hit Dark Regeneration. Now, I DO have serious problems soloing +4x8 Cimerorans. They put up their defenses, I can't hit with Divine Avalanche, they put my defense deep into the red, and then I'm dead. But the ITF on default is no problem, and I can safely jump into my own spawns. I doubt I could solo the entire thing (some Scrappers can), but probably most of it.

I really don't think the devs should be aiming to make the PvE game more like the current PvP game.

That said, OK, it's just another challenge like dealing with Devouring Earth Quartz. Not that I'm a fan of Quartz, but it's a manageable challenge. A couple nights ago I did +4x8 tip mission Devouring Earth with my concept Scrapper in a duo with a decent Tanker. I did die once on the first mob, but then I got my brain in gear, and there were no more deaths on the map. OK, that's not the same as soloing them, but still, it's a manageable challenge. Sounds like the potentially massive to hit of the 9CUs is in the same boat.

Yeah, even without seeing numbers, I've been guessing it's -resistance and +fire damage. My main question is how much of each. I figured that once I had enough to have to make a choice, I'd copy over to test, do both, then solo some pylons and solo my farm at +4x8, and compare my speeds through each. For team play, though, I'd think you'd want to lean on the -resistance, since it "buffs" the whole team.