Your impressions closely mirror my own. Oh, I can do perfectly well in door missions, where there are 2-3 enemies in a group. But jump into, say, a lower level group in TV that my Regen had relatively little problem with, and it's faceplant time.
The problems are sorta like this:
1. While everyone sings praises that now a SR can floor even AVs, what they don't tell you is that it _only_ applies to Katana and Broadsword Scrappers using Parry all the time. (And even then only to melee.)
But for the rest of us it's been a nerf. If you're say, a MA/SR or Claws/SR Scrapper, your defenses won't even floor a white minion any more. In fact, even _with_ the passives, it will leave a 20% chance to be hit, which, frankly is only marginally better than you had in I6 with just the passives and CJ. It's that freakin' useless.
But maybe it evens out by protecting you better from bosses? Hah. Now an equal level boss has that approx 20% times 1.2 (or is it 1.3?) accuracy, for an about 24% chance to be hit. Again, it's _more_ than before.
Congrats, you've been nerfed.
Dark Melee has also been nerfed into oblivion in the process. The way it previously subtracted from the enemy's to-hit, it went a long way towards flooring at least one enemy. (E.g., the boss.) Nowadays it's subtracted from their 120% _accuracy_ factor, so, heh, it might get him down to minion accuracy. Yay. Not.
The real saving grace DM has is Siphon Life. That's what kept my Scrapper alive, not the newly nerfed shields. But if you're claws, you don't even have that, so, yeah, I can feel your pain.
Plus, healing every 15 seconds with SL is really Regen in disguise. And a gimped one, compared to how much a real Regen heals. If that's doing more to keep me alive than the nerfed SR shields, it says a lot. Seriously.
2. Even more importantly you have zero defense yet to cone and AOE attacks. In COV at least they merged the ranged and the AOE protections, but in COH you won't have any protection to those until the 30's. (And even there it will be the sucky protection from point 1.)
Congrats, anyone with a shotgun, flamethrower, grenade, bazooka, fire breath, etc, etc, etc, will shoot right through your shields as if you had none. Well, you actually have none.
3. Without those last 4 powers _and_ being level 50, your defense-debuff resistance is just barely above zero. Keywords: just barely.
Congrats, anyone with a sword, axe, SMG and a few others can reduce your shields by a ridiculous amount.
4. Not shield or survival related, but what rubbed me even worse than even being a defenseless Scrapper are the looping sounds. PB gets on my nerves already. Having the sounds fade out after about 10 loops, when you'll need to activate PB again around the same time... yeah, that's soooo much of an improvement.
But anyway, well, the moral of the story is: roll a FOTM Katana/SR like everyone else or yeah, get a Regen if you're one of us silly people insisting to play a Martial Artist or Claws or whatever.
for the rest of us it's been a nerf. If you're say, a MA/SR or Claws/SR Scrapper, your defenses won't even floor a white minion any more. In fact, even _with_ the passives, it will leave a 20% chance to be hit...
make it less and SR would be 2 overpowered...20% aint that much..shall we say this..20% chance to hit someone is a big pain in the behind
..you have problems with white minions?...Wonder how a DO'd SR can tank yellows then 
Basicly if you wanna make a pve scrapper go regen or dark..SR is just awesome in pvp and should be made for that imo
the lvl 35 power should be aoe def and not only cone 2 I believe
I suggest reading this:
Frequently asked questions about I7 Defence scaler
It has by no means been a nerf.
Well, My MA/SR is currently lvl33, has all the passives up to that lvl, and has no trouble doing Invincible missions in PvP zones. 
I can wade into a group of 3 red minions and take them down with my health only dropping by a quarter.(plenty of "avoided" and "dodged" words float up)
In fact, my character handles better after i7 than before! 
[/color]<blockquote><font class="small">Antwort zu::[/color]<hr />
make it less and SR would be 2 overpowered...20% aint that much..shall we say this..20% chance to hit someone is a big pain in the behind..
[/ QUOTE ]
Shouldn't that apply to Katan/SR and BS/SR Scrappers too, then? I mean, surely if a Katana/SR at 5% chance to be hit isn't overpowered, then Claws/SR wouldn't be that much overpowered under 20% either.
I mean, seriously, what the... the Katana is just another primary, not some kind of nobility for which entirely other rules apply. I could even understand being at 5% when everyone else is at 10% or some such, but everyone else taking _four_ _times_ more damage is bloody ridiculous.
[/color]<blockquote><font class="small">Antwort zu::[/color]<hr />
you have problems with white minions?...Wonder how a DO'd SR can tank yellows then
[/ QUOTE ]
Unless they're Katana/SR or BS/SR, simply put, they can't. Jumping into a yellow group that's been spawned for more than 1 or 2 people in the team, as, say, a Claws/SR earns you a very quick faceplant. On _DO_? Oooer. Now that'll be one quick faceplant.
Sure, you could get a FF defender to bubble you up into being able to tank them (but then they can bubble a Blaster into being able to tank them too) or an Empath doing nothing but healing you all the time, or whatever, but then a Regen can do the exact same then, and do it better.
Divine Avalance / Parry needs to be double stacked to achieve that kind of effect. That means it has to hit every time, it is not in effect from the beginning of the fight (so no help with the alpha), and it seriously hampers your DPS. Some people might still call it overpowered but let's not forget the downsides there.
That's an interesting read, Idris, but to the best of my knowledge the Minion to-hit wasn't 50% in I5 and I6. AFAIK, the defense "nerf" in I5 was accompanied by a reduction in the base to-hit for NPCs.
Admittedly, it's hard to be sure, since if you've followed the US boards in I5 and I6, each dev thought a different formula applied. And then some players came and measured it with Hero Stats and it was an entirely different formula that was actually implemented in the game. So it's hard to remember which was the truth and which was Statesman having zero clue how his own game works.
Still, whether that's true or not, it's fairly a moot point. If it's been 50% all along, then SR was broken all along. It's that simple. It doesn't really change the fact that it's utterly broken to need an _attack_ set to make a _defense_ set work _four_ _times_ better. Whether it's new in I7 or has been that stupidly designed all along, makes little difference.
Well, it does make one small difference. I'm sure I could be even more disgusted by Cryptic's utter inability to balance a game even after 7 major "issues". But, eh, my opinion of their maths abilities is pretty much "floored" already, to use the COH lingo, so even that's not much of a change.
According to all info I have, Parry is 15% defense to Melee without even any def enhancements in it. So seein' as the toggles + passives + CJ put you at a bit over 30% defense, it seems to me that exactly one unenhanced Parry is needed to hit the 45% number that floors the enemies.
And yes, it's not on all the time, but, eh... You could just put two accuracy SOs in it, and there you go, you can open the fight with it and have that defense from the start.
What, do you mean that even level minions had lower than 50% base to hit in I5-I6? I find it hard to believe.
I don't really understand why you bring Parry into this. Parry makes all the scrapper secondaries perform much, much better. If you think that's unbalanced, it's really a scrapper primary powerset balance issue and belongs to a different discussion. If Parry is an even better match for SR than the others, then surely that's only good for SR. Flooring the opponents' tohit is not necessary, the other scrapper secondaries don't have that level of damage mitigation either under normal circumstances.
[ QUOTE ]
[
Shouldn't that apply to Katan/SR and BS/SR Scrappers too, then? I mean, surely if a Katana/SR at 5% chance to be hit isn't overpowered, then Claws/SR wouldn't be that much overpowered under 20% either.
I mean, seriously, what the... the Katana is just another primary, not some kind of nobility for which entirely other rules apply. .
[/ QUOTE ]
My scrapper is MA/SR and does it without trouble..and the +def is just a thing they get..spines get immobilize and slow..MA gets stun..B.S +katana get +def..claws get perma damage boost (done well that is) and knockback style..they all have something they are better in
[ QUOTE ]
That's an interesting read, Idris, but to the best of my knowledge the Minion to-hit wasn't 50% in I5 and I6. AFAIK, the defense "nerf" in I5 was accompanied by a reduction in the base to-hit for NPCs.
[/ QUOTE ]
50% for Minions before and after I5, and still 50% in I7. The I5 reductions in mob base tohit was for Lts and above.
There have been no nerfs against even level minions, a buff against +level mobs, unless you were hitting the 5% cap prior to I7 in which case there is a slight nerf against Lts and above, and +levels.
It does get a bit more complicated for tohit debuffs.
Numerically SR underperforms compared to the other secondaries. But is helped a bit by taking all the passives for the resistance element and anything from the pools that gives healing, regen or additional defence.
Just one more quick point as to why I consider SR broken: all other sets have some form of heal or HP boost. Dark Armour has Dark Regeneration, Invulnerability has Dull Pain, Regen has Dull Pain _and_ Reconstruction. SR doesn't get anything.
SR needs 6 powers and CJ just to be at a 60% damage mitigation (approx 30% dodged out of 50% incoming) and... that's it.
Even by itself it's less than Regen _without_ Recon or DP. Taking Health and Stamina on both a SR and a Regen puts the Regen at about 570% regen, the SR at 178% regen. Let's say 180%, as a round number. But wait, the SR takes 2.5 times less damage (40% remaining damage after 60% mitigation.) So let's boost the SR's value by 2.5. Now the Regen is at 570% vs 450% for the SR. In fact Regen wins even _without_ Health there, since it becomes slightly over 490% on FH and Integration alone.
DP boosts that regen by a further 40%, moving Regen even further out the league of SR even if it wasn't a heal too.
And SR had to get to level 35 to get that for all attack types, Regen had that since level 16.
Yep, SR sucks in that comparison. Like an industrial vaccuum pump.
Note that at this point I haven't even included IH yet, which boosts the Regen by another 800% even without any healing enhancements in it.
And then come the heals. Where Invuln or Regen or DA can heal some of the damage right back, a SR can't. As a SR even if you survived the fight, you're looking at some long downtime just waiting for your health to rise back.
Simply put, there's no bleeding way to see SR without a heal as even remotely equivalent to how much damage a Regen can mitigate (well, heal right back) in the exact same fight.
What I'm saying is: if a SR is supposed to perform equally well without a heal as another Scrapper flavour does with their heal (which is what "balance" means), I'd expect their defenses then to work a lot better. It's, if you will, the same difference as between Warriors and Priests in WoW: sure, the priest can heal or shield themselves, but the Warrior get a _lot_ more damage mitigation for not having that ability.
Sure, you can use one pool choice, two power picks and 6 slots just to get a usable heal, but so can anyone else. (God knows I've even seen a posted Regen build with Aid Self.) Plus, it needs a total of 10 power picks (including your 8 defenses) just to get where everyone else was on less powers.
And again, it shouldn't be that an _attack_ set (that even a Regen can take) gives more melee defense than SR's corresponding toggle.
[ QUOTE ]
Just one more quick point as to why I consider SR broken: all other sets have some form of heal or HP boost. Dark Armour has Dark Regeneration, Invulnerability has Dull Pain, Regen has Dull Pain _and_ Reconstruction. SR doesn't get anything.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is very true. However on a team with a level of constant healing ( very common ) an SR will perform better than a regen. You could get Aid Self, but it is a bit cheesy.
Also, assuming you are sustained damage per second, regens die very quickly if the sustained damage increases beyond what they are capable of mitigating, defence and resistance based sets survive better.
[ QUOTE ]
And again, it shouldn't be that an _attack_ set (that even a Regen can take) gives more melee defense than SR's corresponding toggle.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually Cryptics rule of thumb for power of buffs/debuff seems to be approximately
Missable Attack > clicky buff > toggle power >> passive power.
Cryptic also do not seem to distinguish between the power of powers in the primary or secondary. The Auras in some defence sets are equivalent in damage to those in attack sets.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
[/color]<blockquote><font class="small">Antwort zu::[/color]<hr />
I don't really understand why you bring Parry into this. Parry makes all the scrapper secondaries perform much, much better. If you think that's unbalanced, it's really a scrapper primary powerset balance issue and belongs to a different discussion. If Parry is an even better match for SR than the others, then surely that's only good for SR.
[/ QUOTE ]
Because it makes a _four_ _times_ difference in damage taken for a SR, that's why. It's not a small boost, it's a huge boost. There's no way to see the primaries as balanced if 2 of them cause that kind of a _massive_ effect that the other 4 just don't have an equivalent of.
And because that particular fault is a direct cause of SR's problems. Everyone sees, "hey, look, we gave SR the ability to floor enemies", but tends to forget that it only applies to 2 flavours out of 6. As long as that's the case, we can pretty much forget any hopes for balance, since everything will be balanced for the massively boosted MA/SR or Katana/SR, not for us gimps with something-else/SR.
But, yes, you're right. I do find it ridiculous in its own right that an _attack_ set has a power that out-classes the corresponding SR toggle. The SR toggle has 12.5% base defense and _can't_ be stacked, while the BS or Katana attack has 15% base defense and _can_ be stacked. It's as absurd as having Temporary Invulnerability in the Super-Strength set instead of where it currently is.
Yes, I find it ridiculous to be allowed to double-stack something _that_ unbalanced even on a Regen, making it even more unbalanced than it already was. Ideally a Katana/Regen or a Katana/SR or a Claws/SR should perform similarly (again: "balance"), not be respectively uber, uber, and gimp.
And, yes, in a sense you're right that it's not just about SR or Parry. It's just an aspect of Cryptic's epic struggle with balance, always missing the point by a mile, and always ending up with a massively unbalanced mess. In a sense, I propose that the arch-nemesis for Statesman, Positron and the gang isn't Lord Recluse, but Lord Maths. Because that's what keeps foiling their balance attempts
[/color]<blockquote><font class="small">Antwort zu::[/color]<hr />
Flooring the opponents' tohit is not necessary, the other scrapper secondaries don't have that level of damage mitigation either under normal circumstances.
[/ QUOTE ]
Flooring them isn't necessary, yes, but again: then why allow it for 2 flavours and deem it unnecessary for the other 4?
As for what other secondaries need or allow, please see the maths in the previous post. A Claws/Regen mitigates more damage than a Claws/SR in the exact same fight, _and_ has a very good heal to deal with whatever got through that mitigation. A BS/Regen can just about turn into a pre-Granite Stone Tank (defense _and_ regen), a Claws/SR can't. Yes, the BS/Regen will lose DPS in the process, but it seems to me like a reasonable price to pay to be able to turn into a light tank whenever you wish or need.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't really understand why you bring Parry into this. Parry makes all the scrapper secondaries perform much, much better. If you think that's unbalanced, it's really a scrapper primary powerset balance issue and belongs to a different discussion. If Parry is an even better match for SR than the others, then surely that's only good for SR.
[/ QUOTE ]
Because it makes a _four_ _times_ difference in damage taken for a SR, that's why. It's not a small boost, it's a huge boost. There's no way to see the primaries as balanced if 2 of them cause that kind of a _massive_ effect that the other 4 just don't have an equivalent of.
[/ QUOTE ]
DA/Parry makes a lot of difference, so much in fact, that I7 nerfed them, in effect, for SR. With DA/Parry running, you will typically floor the to hit on a vast number of opponents... which means you got nerfed under I7. (Interestingly, this doesn't apply to /regen, which can't floor accuracy using only DA/Parry.)
Idris: DA/Parry make a HUGE difference to survivability for those who take katana or broadsword. The only real disadvantage is the drop in DPS (which is substantial).
Stacked DA/Parry will basically give you more S/L Defense than you can get from the equivalent SR powers, and you can have it hitting more or less every time against most opponents.
(PS. I love Divine Avalanche, it's great. 
)
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
It must be a personal thing for you, because i've been playing my SR and can't help but says fantastic in PvE now, big improvement from what it used to be, I have SOs and only the range and melee toggles and i do fine. Sure its trickier, but regen is just so easy to play in PvE. SR you have to move more and know went to run.
Its probably a playstyle thing for you, because there is nothing wrong with a set in issue seven, its great.
There is more synergy between some sets than between others. It's inevitable if you don't want to make them all exactly like each other. In any given situation, there's some primary/secondary combo that performs the best. I have a Katana/Regen and it's defensively a great combo. However most of the time I do not need that defense because my attacks don't grab that kind of aggro on teams. So I don't use DA at all unless needed. It's a great kind of flexibility. But not having to constantly chase runners or having more AoE (even ranged AoE) or more damaging single target attacks would make be more effective under those circumstances. Solo, I would hazard a guess that all scrapper combos can handle Invincible at high levels now unless badly built or played or at disadvantage with the particular enemy faction.
Now, the other sets don't get a similar defensive move as Katana and BS. Yes, it is a very good move. But Katana and BS don't get all the things the other sets have either. They don't disorient, they don't have range, they don't have AoE knockdown/knockback, they don't have a damage aura or a permable damage buff or the kind of AoEs that Spines gets. Defensively however they're clearly the winner. Personally I think the scrapper primaries are reasonably well balanced but like I said I don't think this has anything to do with SR, except that they synergize well which is surely a nice thing for SR.
Please don't assume I'm saying SR doesn't need a buff. I do think it's too power hungry for the effect. There's a thread currently going on at US scrapper forum with some really nice suggestions.
As for BS/Regen being able to turn into something like a pre-Granite Stone tank, there's no way it does that or else pre Granite stone tanks underperform horribly. (I wouldn't know)
[ QUOTE ]
Even by itself it's less than Regen _without_ Recon or DP. Taking Health and Stamina on both a SR and a Regen puts the Regen at about 570% regen, the SR at 178% regen. Let's say 180%, as a round number. But wait, the SR takes 2.5 times less damage (40% remaining damage after 60% mitigation.) So let's boost the SR's value by 2.5. Now the Regen is at 570% vs 450% for the SR. In fact Regen wins even _without_ Health there, since it becomes slightly over 490% on FH and Integration alone.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not entirely sure what Regen numbers you're using here.
Integration is a 150% regen buff, with 3 Heal SOs it gives about 240% +regen. Fast Healing is a 75% buff, fully enhanced it's about 150%. Health is a 40% boost, so with 3 SOs it's 80%.
Adding them all up, it's 470%. That means that if you compare SR and Regen they are both pretty close (using your method of working out SR's 'regen').
Flitz seems to be doing a lot better against higher level opponents and fares just as good as before against even level or lower mobs. Admittedly I only play on Tenacious, so don't run into too many +lvl mobs.
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
I cant say I've done extensive testing since I7, but I have had a go at those level 50 Scientists outside portal corp and I certainly feel like its performing as well against even levels (not had a try at higher yet). Side not wasn't even stacking ToF at the time and I dont use Siphon Life unless I'm slowed to hell and have no other powers available, with Quickness this rarely happens and didn't in this case. 5 Scientists owned without going into the yellow
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
SR is a great set at higher levels, its not worse than regen in want way, just different, a fire/kin can wipe my spines/regen with impunity while my BS/SR destroys them, all swings and roundabouts, I think the balancing is very impresive tbh
**Acceptable "support" responses**
Its your fault
Its your computers fault
Its your ISPs fault
I'd just like to say that my experience with SR (Katana primary) has been a good one.
Some enemies are more accurate than others don't forget - Sky Raiders always seem to get in more hits than Family when using ranged attacks - Fir Bolg lts and up are more accurate at close levels than Warrior equivalents too. This is all from personal experience by the way, just the feelings I've had during certain missions and arcs.
Perhaps it's because I'm a katana user and although the speed of attacks is less than Claws, I do more damage, lower the defence of the enemy and have a couple of handy multi-target attacks (Flash of Steel and The Lotus Drops) at my disposal? Therefore mobs tend to fall a bit quicker - plus the char. is a balanced team/solo PvE-er.
Just my 3.142 inf
I'm starting to think that the whole idea of SR is wrong. The fact it's a defense set tricks the user into focusing about defense.
When ever I see someone praising the SR set it is rarely (if ever) about how much they dodge and duck, but it usualy goes about on how their HP dropped to half and the slidding resistances kept them alive.
I was browsing the US forums and another thread was made about a guy telling how he was doing his Invincible set missions without his toggles. He noticed once he forgot to put them on and the mission was almost over, so he did a few more without them and.. no biggie.
As he says, he had to heal more (aid-self) but the slidding resistances (again) were keeping him up.
I'm sad I don't have a I7 respec because I made my scrapper after it came. I would really like to go to the test server and try a few builds, namely forget the toggles and focus on the passives first then see how it goes.
Later, when not so tight about powers, then sure, dump a few on the toggles and slot them, it's not they are doing much of anything but since they are there, meh.
[ QUOTE ]
When ever I see someone praising the SR set it is rarely (if ever) about how much they dodge and duck, but it usualy goes about on how their HP dropped to half and the slidding resistances kept them alive.
[/ QUOTE ]
So you've never used Elude, or heard of anyone using it? By far the best damage mitigation power in any scrapper secondary IMO, and it's all about the dodging.
[ QUOTE ]
I was browsing the US forums and another thread was made about a guy telling how he was doing his Invincible set missions without his toggles. He noticed once he forgot to put them on and the mission was almost over, so he did a few more without them and.. no biggie.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't suppose you know how long ago he did this? Enemies in Invincible missions are +2-3, so until I7 the DEF toggles would have contributed far less than they do now.
By my 50s shall ye know me:
Tundra, DVM, The Late, Neutrino Ghost, Sir Clanksalot, End Of Days, Prof. Migraine
Howler Monkey
Having heard good things about SR I rolled a claws/SR and went out to level. The claws bit is smooth as silk, but ever since day one SR felt like I could have it, or not, that no difference showed.
I let this go on account of not having SOs yet and plowed on with friends up until 22 where I finnaly got my SOs and tripple slotted my shields.
Ridiculous.
Jumped in a six mob even level spawn to test my new shields and died in seconds despite chewing two greens.
Quite annoyed I took a break and returned the next day, but it's the same. Once in a while I see a 'dodged' and for the most part I'm being hit.
The last drop was me jumping on a bunch of -1 as I waited for my friend to invite a few to our team.... and died.
Absolutly ridiculous.
I lack the passives, I agree, but what the hell.. triple SO-ed shields can't keep me alive against -1?
This feels like a complete waste of my time, I should've gone /regen or something -_-