Werner

My guess is that the only time I'd need it would be when it would be highly resisted. If I'm going for a debuff, I want one that isn't normally resisted, like -regen or -resist. Technically, -resist is resisted by resistance, but it only means that the damage buff in percentage terms remains constant regardless of the current resistance of the enemy. I'm fine with thinking of that as an unresistable percentage damage buff, even though that's not technically what it is.

But I don't actually know whether the new debuffs are resisted, or how big each is, so I'm not making any decisions until I look at some real numbers. I should probably look at some real numbers, but I should probably also actually run the new trials and unlock this stuff.

It's kind of sad... I JUST got my I19 build finished on my main, just in time for it to be obsolete. I suppose that's the MMO treadmill in action, though.

45% is the soft cap to everything up to +5 mobs. Only +6 and up get to hit buffs. Until then, it's accuracy buffs, which defense over 45% won't help against. It WILL help against enemies with higher-than-normal to hit, or with defense debuffs, though Shield Defense can pick up very good defense debuff resistance (unless they've "fixed" some things in I120 - I haven't checked yet).

Trading Gambler's Cut for Sting of the Wasp is a bad idea. It isn't that Sting of the Wasp is a bad attack, but basically all the best Katana chains require Gambler's Cut and don't use Sting of the Wasp. Damage alone is a very poor way to judge attacks. You want damage over the amount of time the attack takes to execute in an attack chain, which is to say:

Options -> Configuration -> Effects & Maths -> Use ArcanaTime for Animation Times
Window -> Power Graphs -> Damage / Anim

Do that, and you'll see that Gambler's Cut beats Sting of the Wasp by a small margin. Not enough that that is what really makes the difference, though. The difference is in how it behaves in real atack chains, optimizing use of the Achilles' Heel proc, getting proper timing on other important attacks like Divine Avalanche, Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly, that kind of thing.

Unless your Dark Armor Scrapper uses a sword, it's better to go with typed defenses with a focus on smashing/lethal. I'm not sure about cheaper, though.

I don't think very many Scrappers build primarily for melee defense. Positionals tend to be get them all or take some other approach. That's not always the case, and my Katana/Regen would be an example, but I think it's usually the case.

It all makes sense, and yet, unless I'm specifically TRYING to get myself killed, I HATE getting killed in this game. I hate even thinking that I COULD get killed. Like last night I was on an ITF with my concept Fire/Shield. He's soft capped, which I consider the bare minimum, but has low regeneration and no heal, so definitely isn't one of my survivability builds. His hit points dropped very rapidly in the Rommie fight. We basically had no healer and I must have briefly gotten some bad aggro before the Tankers had everything firmly controlled. I popped a green, hit points dropped like a stone, popped another... and the thought that went through my head was "I'm going to run out of greens and die. DIE. I can't DIE on this." I probably popped a big orange at that point, and then Rommie was down quickly, and we didn't have problems the rest of the time. But seriously, it freaked me out. A walk of shame back from the hospital? NEVER!!!

Yes, yes, I know that if you don't die, you aren't really trying. I have no problem getting myself killed on purpose, like my 50+ attempts to solo Ghost Widow on my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes before finally giving up, or when I herd up giant monsters to see how many it takes to kill me. But in something basic like a +0 ITF? *shudder*

So I guess while I don't expect to be shooting for 59% defense any time soon, I do understand it. And I'm actually fiddling with an Invulnerability/Super Strength Tanker build, trying to see what sort of defense I can pull off while still having excellent resists, near perma Hasten, capped hit points, Aid Self, and other goodies. I don't see 59% happening without more than one enemy in range, but something in the 50s looks perfectly doable, even if I haven't worked out the details yet. I suppose if I frequented the Tanker boards I'd have a much better idea what I was doing.

(Edit: And all of that may be irrelevant in I20 anyway, since I haven't paid any attention to what it has on offer.)

I really only have one top of the line build at this point, Alexei (Katana/Dark). Werner (Katana/Regen) and Sergei (Dark/Super Reflexes) have I13 builds and no alpha level. Turiel (Fire/Shield) is I19 with the alpha level, but is compromised by having a concept build (only sword attacks in melee, no Aid Self because the tricorder is inappropriate). They're all pretty tough, but most of them are a bit off the curve these days. And I have plenty of Scrappers that only have leveling builds.

How do you not know whether or not your Scrappers are very well built?

OK, I suppose there are lots of players out there that think their Scrappers are well built only because they don't understand the game's rules, don't understand what a well-built Scrapper looks like, and have no idea how high the bar is in terms of what you can survive and defeat. Occasionally they post their builds on the forum seemingly only looking for praise, and we're all, "WTF?", and then they go off on us like we're the ones that don't know what we're talking about because they survive longer than Tankers or what not. (A claim, by the way, that never ceases to amaze me. Of COURSE you survived longer than the Tanker. If the Tanker is any good all, even the squishies survive longer than the Tanker. The Tanker job description includes, "Nobody is allowed to die unless I am already dead.") OK, I seem to be off on a tangent bordering on a rant.

Anyway, I don't think Organica is one of those people.

I get 0.17 EPS and 1.29 hit points per second from the Panacea proc.

I get 0.17 EPS and 1.12 hit points per second from the Numina proc.

So, if you like, think of the Panacea as marginally better than the Numina. The main difference is that you get the endurance and hit points in discrete random chunks instead of tiny increases every tick. I don't consider that a big deal, though I tend to prefer reliable sources to unreliable ones.

If you like the Numina proc, and you're rich, slot yourself a Panacea proc. If you think the Numina proc is a waste of slots because you can't notice its contribution in play, then don't slot the Panacea either. But I'll be wondering what IOs you DO slot if your criterion is that you must notice that specific bonus making a difference in your actual play. What IOs do you think are good if you think these are bad?

Of course. Very, very few exist. So all you need is a very, very small (and wealthy) minority that considers it useful. Though I suspect quite a few people consider it quite useful, but simply not worth the price (or other trouble required to get one).

Useful or not depends on the build and what else you could get from a single slot. I had it on two characters for a while, then dropped it on one when the alpha slot fixed my endurance problems. The heal alone wasn't tempting enough as a use for a slot when I had other things I wanted to do with the build.

Nope. Unenhanced, you're looking at virtually identical DPS, so it's down to how it's enhanced. It would be nice for survivability since it uses Siphon Life more often, but I've only seen one build capable of that kind of recharge, and it wasn't Dark Melee, and wouldn't be directly and easily adapted. You might accept a small gap for the sake of survivability, but generally speaking, I'd just stick with the normal chain, and spam Siphon Life if necessary. You'd probably lose less DPS overall, I'm guessing.