Looking for some advice from any ?/SD scrappers
By
FitzSimmons,
Posted on: 2009-08-07 22:11 in Scrappers
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MA/Shields - MA is an End hog, Shields is low in mitigation. If you shore up shields by taking the fighting pool you will have difficult to over come (cheaply) endurance problems. The primary has a couple hard controls in it which gives you mitigation against 2 lieuts or 1 boss. Without serious IO set slotting you won't last long enough in a fight to deliver what is mostly single target damage.|
Originally Posted by Wildhart
I've been thinking of making a shield defense scrapper, and like most I was thinking about going broad sword but I dunno it seems like the chioce most have made. I wanted to ask all those shield defenders out there what they thought about the other combos, the pluses and minuses and experiences. Any and all help is greatly appreciated, thanks for help
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BS/Shields - BS is an End hog, Shields is low in mitigation. If you shore up shields by taking the fighting pool you will have difficult to over come (cheaply) endurance problems. Parry provides decent mitigation to melee at the cost of your DPS. If you rely on Parry for a good chunk of your melee defense you can get away with a cheaper IO build on BS/Shields. You will still want to make sure that you soft cap your ranged defense (most defense debuffs are ranged) and as much AoE defense as you can get. If you miss your initial Parry you will find pavement in your future. Shields has no self heal, and no other HP recovery tool. True Grit increases your hit points and with it your base regen but it isn't enough with SO or generic IOs to allow you to surive. The resists that Shields has underneath the defense is paper thin and not worth slotting up. You are much better off using those slots for more hit points and defensive set bonuses. 3 AoEs in this combination allow you to dispense with minions fairly quickly reducing one of the problems that MA faces. BS also has 2 single target soft controls one KU the other KD that help as well.
Fire/Shields - Shields is low in mitigation. If you shore up shields by taking the fighting pool you will have difficult to over come (cheaply) endurance problems. This primary lacks the hard controls that MA has but makes up for it with more damage. 3 AoE attacks allow you to dispense with minions fairly quickly reducing one of the problems that MA faces. Without decent IO set slotting you won't last long enough in a fight to deliver your damage.
DM/Shields - The cadilac combination with shields. You can safely take the fighting pool since the primary has an end recovery tool. If Body Master is taken as the Epic, Conserve Power means that this combination suffers no End woes even when using the fighting pool. The primary also has a minor and uninterruptible heal (10-20% depending on slotting) which is more than enough in most situations to handle the burst damage that gets through Shields low mitigation. The hit debuff in the attacks allow you scrimp a bit on defense and the Primary packs a really nice single target wallop. Combining the damage buff in AAO with the Damage buff in Soul Drain makes this the most effective Shields power set combo. (Which is kind of sad since this is the least thematic of all the available combinations.)
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
I have always been a fan of Dark melee. unfortunately my DM is paired with invuln, which I never really got into.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
MA/Shields - MA is an End hog, Shields is low in mitigation.
BS/Shields - BS is an End hog, Shields is low in mitigation. Fire/Shields - Shields is low in mitigation. |
What da heck is this about low mitigation? Since when is softcapped defense low in the mitigation charts?
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It appears that he is talking about the set on its own as in no outside help for the powerset.
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Originally Posted by Kanto2
What da heck is this about low mitigation? Since when is softcapped defense low in the mitigation charts?
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Because by itself shields without inventions, and power pools does not fair as well as other secondaries.
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
elec/sd should be fun once it's made available to scrappers. I love it on my brute.
What a odd (and possibly misleading) way to look at things. If Tough/Weave and inventions are available why look at the set outside of them? Someone asking if SD is good and being told it's weak in mitigation gives the completly wrong idea.
Or am I just being an oddball?
Descriptions of the set combos should say what they do have rather than what they don't have. Using the term "mitigation" doesn't mean much unless you know how its applied. For example, MA/SD has some soft-controls in stuns, a KB and AoE KD, though they could said to be a indirect form of damage mitigation. BS/SD has some KD and Parry, which is a defense buff, and is great direct damage mitigation.
Shield Defense has good defense values with some minor resistance thrown in. You can soft-cap it, but it won't be as easy as /SR is. One main reason players would choose Shields for the greater damage potential while still having a high defense build (through pool powers and inventions).
I have a BS/SD and I can tell you that it's END heavy. It hits hard, but if you don't have any END management, you won't be able to last in longer fights. It seems kinda slow after leveling a MA to 50, but that's based on a personal perception.
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You can't soft cap shields without (usually expensive) IOs. The game is not designed around IOs it's still designed around SOs. Shields provides roughly the same damage mitigation as Fiery Aura (the lowest mitigation providing scrapper secondary) but is vulnerable to Burst damage, Defense Debuffs, and Recharge slows where Fiery Aura is not.|
Originally Posted by Kanto2
What da heck is this about low mitigation? Since when is softcapped defense low in the mitigation charts?
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The best that you can do with SOs (not relying on Pool powers or IOs) is 21.5% defense to all positions, 17.7% resistances to all except Psi, 45% Defense Debuff Resistance, and 13.8% Slow resistance.
That means that more than 50% of all attacks are getting through and that those attacks are doing 83% of their damage.
45% defense debuff resistance means that a single defense debuffer (most MoB types have at least one) at 7% defense debuff (which is usually the minimum) Double stacked (which MoB recharge rates allow them to do with out any problem) will keep your defense in the 13% (or lower range) through out the fight.
13.8% slow resistance means that, even with Active Defense 3 slotted for recharge, a single Coucil Marksman (10% recharge slow that is easily double stacked) can open a hole in your mez protection (which incidentally drops your Defense Debuff Resistance to 27.7% while your mez protection is down).
Fiery Aura has 20% slow resistance in Temperature Protection and doesn't have the worry of losing it's mez protection from being slowed.
Active Defense being a click also costs the Shielder some DPS by interrupting the attack chain.
That's where I get low mitigation from.
Castle says that Shields provides the same average mitigation as Fiery Aura (including the heal). On paper (and spread sheets) it probably does. In game where various status effects have a higher negative effect on Shields, I'd have to argue that Shields fairs measurably worse.
Shields only saving grace is that it can be soft capped using IO sets. Which gives the IO'd Shielder time (that the SO'd only Shielder lacks) to use AAO and Shield charge to turn the tables.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Did you try to play the set? I don't mean this offensively.
A set is weighted on its whole, the whole includes Shield Charge which kills every minion in a spawn and, with hasten, is ready for every spawn. Of course if you're not considering IOs or Tough/Weave then you're probably not considering Hasten either. Having done the ITF or farmed the walls a few times I know that, indeed, if I walk away and come back fifteen minutes later I might be dead, but if I go in and Shield Charge the number of enemies left (if any) aren't a menace to anyone.
All the debuffs you speak of (recharge, defense, slow) have a particularity : they need to hit first. Well, we do have a few who are auto-hit. But playing a defense set they first need to pass that wall to apply the debuff.
But this isn't much of an argument if you base your point on SOs and no pools. Same as saying only Regen and Willpower can play the game because they have built-in Stamina.
Unless playing a Iron Man challenge who skips Stamina, Fighting and IOs? Even frankenslotting on the cheap does so much more than just SOs. Or picking cheap sets. Even just 40% defense already makes for a very tough defense based scrapper.
I find your premise flawed and can't really agree with it.
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Of course, I've played it. I have 2, 2+ billion inf shielder builds, and I was in the Beta Test for Shields. Shields is designed in such a way that you are supposed to take all of the powers in the set.|
Originally Posted by Kanto2
Did you try to play the set? I don't mean this offensively.
A set is weighted on its whole, the whole includes Shield Charge which kills every minion in a spawn and, with hasten, is ready for every spawn. Of course if you're not considering IOs or Tough/Weave then you're probably not considering Hasten either. Having done the ITF or farmed the walls a few times I know that, indeed, if I walk away and come back fifteen minutes later I might be dead, but if I go in and Shield Charge the number of enemies left (if any) aren't a menace to anyone. All the debuffs you speak of (recharge, defense, slow) have a particularity : they need to hit first. Well, we do have a few who are auto-hit. But playing a defense set they first need to pass that wall to apply the debuff. But this isn't much of an argument if you base your point on SOs and no pools. Same as saying only Regen and Willpower can play the game because they have built-in Stamina. Unless playing a Iron Man challenge who skips Stamina, Fighting and IOs? Even frankenslotting on the cheap does so much more than just SOs. Or picking cheap sets. Even just 40% defense already makes for a very tough defense based scrapper. I find your premise flawed and can't really agree with it. |
(Originally ALL of the ATs were designed around the idea that you would take ALL the powers in your Primary, all the powers in your Secondary, and use 2 powers on a travel pool (you have to take a pool power at level 24 and at level 30). When they expanded the game to go from level 40 to level 50 they added 4 more power picks and Epic Pools that had..... 4 more powers in them.)
I've tried and tested every scrapper secondary using SOs only and shields is the only one that could actually be beaten by a hazard zone swarm of -1 and -2s prior to level 35.
On the ship raid that we ran during the Beta Test the shielders were consistantly face planting. At one point 3 Rikti Magus hit us with Stalagmites simultaneously and the only player on my team that was left alive was a Dark/Regen. (We had 6 shielders on my team 3 scrappers, 2 Brutes, 1 Tank. The other players were a Dark/Regen and a Fire/Pain Corruptor)
The debuffs I speak of are 1 on 1. On a team with a taunt Aura running (AAO) you will be the target of not 1 but multiple defense debuffers. I gave the best case scenario.
The best that you can possibly do with SOs and pool powers is 30.3% defense to all positions, 35.4% resistance to Smashing/Lethal, 17.7% resistance to all others save Psi which is 0%. (the 1/3 of the time that OWtS is up that will be 70.8% and 35.4% respectively)
That means that you get the Fighting pool, Leaping with SJ as your travel power, 3 of the powers in Fitness, and Manuvers and you give up 3 of your primary powers, can't have Hasten, your Epic, or Medicine and have only 31 slots total left to assign to your attacks and other powers.
You use .98 end per second on toggles and have a recovery that is 2.49 end/sec which means your attacks will be burning up more end than you recover and you will have gaps in your attack chain.
15% of all attacks are going to hit you. The first defense debuffing attack that hits you is going to increase that to almost 20%. That means that the MoBs that spawn on a 3 man heroic team are all that it's going to take to create a defense cascade failure in almost every encounter.
Fighting Council on 3 man heroic teams will open a hole in your mez protection almost every encounter and, since they like to stand at range and fight, Shield Charge isn't going to be a solution since by the time you get them herded they will have shredded your defenses, dropped your mez protection, and slowed you to a crawl. (Shield Charge with SOs won't kill all minions without build up and partially saturated AAO)
Shield Charge will be up every other spawn with maximum recharge slotting so that's not going to be a save you can use every spawn which means you'll be dying every other.
You don't have to agree but my premise isn't flawed.
Edit - I can and have played all the other scrapper secondaries with only SOs. I would not even consider doing so with shields.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Miladys, your comments just don't ring true, I played an SOd fire/shield scrapper in the beta and had no survival issues late on (barring non positional psi) although I did have end issues with maps set for 2 on unyielding so effectively set for 3 solo.
I have a not very expensive near soft capped BS/shield build which is perfectly acceptable. It's not quite as survivable as my kat/SR, but puts out more damage.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
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I believe that the shields thread from beta was copied over, stickied, and preserved from purging. You should take a look at it some time (if you haven't all ready).|
Originally Posted by Minotaur
Miladys, your comments just don't ring true, I played an SOd fire/shield scrapper in the beta and had no survival issues late on (barring non positional psi) although I did have end issues with maps set for 2 on unyielding so effectively set for 3 solo.
I have a not very expensive near soft capped BS/shield build which is perfectly acceptable. It's not quite as survivable as my kat/SR, but puts out more damage. |
The numbers I posted above are accurate and I haven't mis-represented anything. In the early levels with TOs, defenses on shieilds run in the 13.0% range and defense debuff resistance is 13.8%. Against Hellions at this level on heroic difficulty a typical mob is a gunner and 1 minion. These mobs can spawn at +1 level about 33% of the time. (Outside of missions in locations such as Atlas Park there are usually more than 1 minion with the gunner and frequently more than 1 gunner/buckshot)
The gunner has a little bit more than 7% defense debuff (more if it cons +1) and enough recharge to stack the attack twice. That's a 37% chance to hit you on the alpha which if he does means that he has a 43% chance to hit you on the second attack which will leave you with 1% defense (essentially defenseless). That's going to happen in 14.19% of the cases in the first 2 attacks and in far more than 1/3 of the cases by the third attack.
(During beta testing I was killed by a spawn of 10, -1 lieuts and -2 minions in Perez twice while attempting a story arc hunt of "defeat 15 Hellions")
DOs are only slightly better yeliding 14.6% defense. During Beta Testing I solo'd the Atta Mission on Heroic where a typical spawn has 1 or 2 Trollkin gunners. There were very few times during that mission where I was in combat and had defense numbers that weren't red.
3 Slotted active defense with DOs gives you a 14.7 second gap in your mez protection (Most players can't afford 3 Slots in Active Defense at these levels) and 1 Rech DO in the base slot gives you 52.9 seconds with out mez protection even if not affected by slows (which cold using Outcasts and Vahz have at these levels)
It isn't until level 22 when you have 2, +3 rech SOs slotted that you can actually have full time mez protection. At this point you have 4.8 seconds of overlap and a single cold or slow attack will open a hole right back up. No other scrapper secondary requires you to wait this long to get full time mez protection. The other scrapper secondary with click mez protection gives you Quickness at level 20. 2, +3 rech DOs in Practiced Brawler gives you a 7.83 second gap in protection. At level 22, 2, +3 SOs give you 16.37 second overlap and the 40% resistance to slows in quickness assures that a hole will not be opened. It takes 3, +3 SOs and Grant Cover at level 28 to give the shielder equivalent coverage.
During Beta Testing I took my Shielder up against a spawn of -1 and -2 Council in Striga Island and was killed there twice as well. The Council Marksmen were able to open a hole in my mez protection and I was stunned and KB'd.
At level 25 in Talos running against Warriors, Parry was the only thing that gave me a chance and 5% of the time it would miss and my defenses and then my scrapper would get shredded. The Mercedes Shelton Arc (Crown of Glory) which I also tested during that closed beta was particularly nasty at level 23.
As for the rest well I've posted the reality of what I experienced while testing above. I would much rather play my SO'd level 50 DM/Regen than even try to level another Shielder without IOs.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
You are talking about Shield set with IOs but leave out a way to get Active Defense perma by lvl 11 for a hero? Yes, lvl 11, with only 2 slots even. Hasten will help but is not needed. Oh, how to do this? Yin's SOs. Science origin has +recharge SOs available at this store. The levels of these SOs are 13, 17, and 21. Yin SOs are one of very few reasons why 1 origin is better than another anymore and of course only for heroes.
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What if your concept for your shielder isn't science? Alot of shielders are going Magic and Natural for concept/theme reasons some are Tech and the least thematic is Mutation.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Body
You are talking about Shield set with IOs but leave out a way to get Active Defense perma by lvl 11 for a hero? Yes, lvl 11, with only 2 slots even. Hasten will help but is not needed. Oh, how to do this? Yin's SOs. Science origin has +recharge SOs available at this store. The levels of these SOs are 13, 17, and 21. Yin SOs are one of very few reasons why 1 origin is better than another anymore and of course only for heroes.
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-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Miladys, your numbers are correct, but your conclusions aren't. For example yes the hellion gunner can double stack his attack, but not if he's dead before he gets to shoot it for the second time, you take him out first. Also he only hits you 1/3 of the time so the chance of him double stacking it is small.
Have you never 4 slotted DOs or 15 common IOs to perma active defence, and respeced at 22 ?
I had no trouble soloing my DOd/15 common IOd SD scrapper and brute on rugged until I put it up to unyielding at 22.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
I don't know about much shield scrappers but shield tanks are absolutly fantastic.
I guess if you just stand there and let council shoot the bejeebers out of you then they will eventually get you.
But I think most sensible scrappers will use the terrain and their attacks to their advantage, plus the bonus damage shield provides to kill the council guys before they become a problem.
I think one picks shield for the potential that you get from soft capped defence and IOs. There are a lot of def bonuses avalible in set bonuses, so its much easier to get say soft cap def on a shield character and have all the other benefits that shield gives like extra damage and shield charge than it is to add as much damage and an aoe mini nuke to SR.
I just want to say that now that you've explained I agree. If a /shield scrapper doesn't take Weave and Hasten and Stamina and strictly slots SOs then yes, the set sucks.
That's why I was a bit taken back at the initial post but now it was clarified I understand your point.
The way I see it, we just can't take sets in a vacuum. If that were the case, no one would get Super Reflexes because it couldn't get to the soft-cap (outside of Elude) and everyone would be getting Regen or Willpower for Quick Recovery. That there is nearly an unlimited number of ways to customize and build a character demonstrates that one cannot just look at the individual powers at face value but also consider their impact on our powers as well. The fallacy of building with 9-and-9 + travel powers no longer applies in the game, regardless if it was the original intent. Just like toggle IH, things change.
Is Shield Defense lacking in some areas? Yes, it does. It's a bit of a late bloomer like SR, but once a SD build matures, it starts to perform well. It is harder to soft-cap than SR, true, but even around SO builds, Shields is a set that considers a team experience as well as soloing. Team with a Force Fielder or Cold Dom toon and you could get near the soft-cap, while providing some benefit to the team. In exchange, SD scrappers also have a higher potential for damage.
And while the numbers don't make Shields as tough with just SOs while soloing, just add two Shield Scrappers together and their survivability jumps up significantly, also as if the other was a defender, but without the loss of more damage. Sure, we should always try to at least take a look at powers and sets with SO builds in mind, but even for a solo AT like scrappers, we should also consider the team experience as well as when fighting alone.
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My "conclusions" aren't conclusions they are actual experiences that I recorded during beta testing for feedback purposes.|
Originally Posted by Minotaur
Miladys, your numbers are correct, but your conclusions aren't. For example yes the hellion gunner can double stack his attack, but not if he's dead before he gets to shoot it for the second time, you take him out first. Also he only hits you 1/3 of the time so the chance of him double stacking it is small.
Have you never 4 slotted DOs or 15 common IOs to perma active defence, and respeced at 22 ? I had no trouble soloing my DOd/15 common IOd SD scrapper and brute on rugged until I put it up to unyielding at 22. |
Its true that the gunner only hits a third of the time on the alpha, but that's for a single gunner in a spawn. About 1/5 of the time both the first 2 attacks are going to hit and leave you defenseless. In more than 33% of the cases 2 of the attacks are going to hit back to back and leave you defenseless either the first and second or the second and third. That's for a single hellion gunner. That means that you are defenseless in 1/3 of these encounters and are running about 6% defense in all but about 17% off them (where you actually have full defense).
It's not possible at this stage of the game to kill a single hellion gunner, (especially if it cons +1) since it's a lieutenant, before he gets off 3 attacks, especially if you have used extra slots for Active Defense. (You simply don't have the number of attacks available, the recharge, or the endurance to do so) Most of the time in the pre-DO range all my slots are all dedicated to accuracy and endurance reduction since missing and running out of endurance drops your damage output (and mitigation) to zero.
As far as purposely messing up slotting for low levels and respecing usually not (once when I created a character right before a free respec was given I did, but not before or since). Nor have I ever multi slotted rest for rech before stamina and respec'd.
When beta testing I try to play as if the account was brand new which means that I avoid using vet rewards (such as granted free specs and vet attacks) since new players will not have these things available.
My shield scrappers are the only scrappers I have ever had that were so weak and uncomfortable in the low levels. They played and felt exactly like blappers (which I have a great deal of experience with since an Energy/Energy/Force is my main which I play rather like a scrapper).
My shielders are the only scrappers I have ever had that could actually be killed in a hazzard zone by large numbers of defense debuffing -1s and -2s.
Without IOs Shields has the low mitigation levels of Firey Aura but combined with all the disadvantages of SR (vulnerability to burst damage and no self heal) with out any of the advantages of SR (Scaling Resists).
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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My wife and I tried exactly that with a pair of MA/Shield scrappers. While the numbers look good on paper it is in practice extremely hard to stay within 15' of each other at all times and nigh impossible to stay at 8'. (My wife prefers SOs or Common IOs and soloing or duoing with just me so it wasn't hard to get her to consent to the experiment.)|
Originally Posted by SpiderTeo_OC
And while the numbers don't make Shields as tough with just SOs while soloing, just add two Shield Scrappers together and their survivability jumps up significantly.............
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I ran the numbers before we tried that and 2 SO'd only shield scrappers are exactly at the soft cap when within 8' of each other but you must stay within that 8 feet at all times during the fight. That made taking the alpha, using shield charge, and handling range preferring mobs a mitigation problem and when 1/2 of the duo goes down the other follows a few seconds later.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Hey, it just takes practice. Sure, the radius of Shield's powers are not the greatest, but against serious threats, you guys shouldn't be too far apart anyway. In the same way that it takes a little practice to get a scrapper lined up for cones and KB powers, it would probably require a little more work to get the distance between the two scrappers figured out for the harder targets.
Now if you are talking about multiple targets, then it should be noted that the MA primary lacks AoE attacks against multiple targets. Shield Charge does help a little but if multiple targets are dropping you faster than you can drop them, then sticking to smaller but tougher mobs (diff. 5 than 4) might be the better scenaro for that combination.
Not to discount your experience, but I have had a different experience leveling my BS/SD scrapper. One instance was in a Sister Psyche TF where most of the team wiped and the rest trying to fight or run away. The tank got a bad alpha strike and didn't last too logn, but he did enable to rest of bust a move. Most of the team dropped and that left me alone and being told to run. Instead, I decided to hold the fort until the tank got back from the hospital. I was able to hold off most of the Freak bosses for a while, and was able to last until the tank got back to relieve me. For me, Shield Defense didn't feel weak, but tough enough in most general situations. Of course, this doesn't mean that I didn't get dropped many times, but after figuring out what the thresholds were for the toon, then I was able to get better with it.
Again, Shield Defense, like SR, just takes a bit longer to mature than other secondaries because it is a defense-based set. Even by your own words, the set isn't as tough prior to level 35, which is also the same case with Super Reflexes, but after wards it starts to get better.
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Sure.... my wife and I can communicate real time with out losing anything due to typing, we know each other's play styles to the T and compensate for each other while teaming and my wife is the n00b on the team having just received her 27 month vet rewards and we've teamed frequently during those 27 months.|
Originally Posted by SpiderTeo_OC
Hey, it just takes practice. Sure, the radius of Shield's powers are not the greatest, but against serious threats, you guys shouldn't be too far apart anyway. In the same way that it takes a little practice to get a scrapper lined up for cones and KB powers, it would probably require a little more work to get the distance between the two scrappers figured out for the harder targets.
Now if you are talking about multiple targets, then it should be noted that the MA primary lacks AoE attacks against multiple targets. Shield Charge does help a little but if multiple targets are dropping you faster than you can drop them, then sticking to smaller but tougher mobs (diff. 5 than 4) might be the better scenaro for that combination. Not to discount your experience, but I have had a different experience leveling my BS/SD scrapper. One instance was in a Sister Psyche TF where most of the team wiped and the rest trying to fight or run away. The tank got a bad alpha strike and didn't last too logn, but he did enable to rest of bust a move. Most of the team dropped and that left me alone and being told to run. Instead, I decided to hold the fort until the tank got back from the hospital. I was able to hold off most of the Freak bosses for a while, and was able to last until the tank got back to relieve me. For me, Shield Defense didn't feel weak, but tough enough in most general situations. Of course, this doesn't mean that I didn't get dropped many times, but after figuring out what the thresholds were for the toon, then I was able to get better with it. Again, Shield Defense, like SR, just takes a bit longer to mature than other secondaries because it is a defense-based set. Even by your own words, the set isn't as tough prior to level 35, which is also the same case with Super Reflexes, but after wards it starts to get better. |
I'd say that counts as practice and coordination wouldn't you?
Even with the above we weren't able to get the coordination down to survive most of the mid level (25-35) content using just SOs and common IOs especially without wasting a bunch of time making sure we were both on the same target (no the other Rikti communication officer, etc).
Using follow wasn't an option since there is a delay that means that you are farther than 15' apart which is especially deadly on the alpha.
We had more than enough AoE. Alternating Shield Charge on alternate spawns and a pair of Dragon's Tails a couple of times every spawn was a fine amount. The problems were (lack of) range of the buffs, enemy debuffs, and mobs that preferred range.
My wife loves her Tanks, Brutes, and Scrappers. She wouldn't play our shields duo past level 38 and refuses to ever make another.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
I'm currently running a level 41 BS/SD scrapper, running tough and weave and I don't notice major End issues. Mind you I run Solo level 3 missions, and whatever the pick up teams I got on are running.
Am I going to notice this in the future. I have only died once since I started my Softcap build, when I got held between an odd lapse in my status protection. My softcap is currently around 37%. Another level or two and I will be there. It's a pretty cheap build focusing on Multistrikes, 1 Mako, and one Touch of Death, Build up, Stamina, CJ, defensive sets, and the steadfast 3%. (Which I traded in Merits for).
My question is, when do these "endurance" issues arise? My next 3 planned powers are Aid other, Aid Self and either OwtS or Hasten. I currently rarely drop below 50% end when soloing and almost never on a decent team.
I've been thinking of making a shield defense scrapper, and like most I was thinking about going broad sword but I dunno it seems like the chioce most have made. I wanted to ask all those shield defenders out there what they thought about the other combos, the pluses and minuses and experiences. Any and all help is greatly appreciated, thanks for help