Dark Melee/Shields is the flavor of the month unlimited-budget AV soloer, and for good reason. You can soft cap your defense, have buffed up hit points, some resistance, extra damage from Against All Odds, keep your hit points topped up with Siphon Life without interrupting your DPS, and so on. Also, Shield Charge is great fun, even if it isn't an AV soloing power.
(Edit: An AV-spec'd DM/SR doesn't get squashed by two AV hits in a row. Often not by three. You'll have high hit points from accolades and sets, Siphon Life recovering some health even in the space of three sequential hits, and Tough plus your scaling resists helping reduce damage. A couple lucky shots won't generally be enough to take you down. All that said, Shield Defense should have even less trouble with bad luck, and will make the fight go faster due to superior damage output.)
(Edit 2: Doh! Like Demobot says, Soul Drain! Surround yourself with bad guys to buff Against All Odds, hit Soul Drain, and tear the AV apart. You should be seeing DPS in the upper 200s.)
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
Quote:
Don't forget Soul Drain!
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Originally Posted by Werner
Dark Melee/Shields is the flavor of the month unlimited-budget AV soloer, and for good reason. You can soft cap your defense, have buffed up hit points, some resistance, extra damage from Against All Odds, keep your hit points topped up with Siphon Life without interrupting your DPS, and so on. Also, Shield Charge is great fun, even if it isn't an AV soloing power.
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@Demobot
Also on Steam
Well I have had experience with Super Reflexes. It's just I chose a not-so-ultimate primary set with it (Dual Blades).
Considering the fact that I haven't tried Shield Defense yet, I think it's best to go with that.
A concern though. How much budget am I looking at to get an "ultimate" DM/SD Scrapper?
Furthermore, is Hasten ABSOLUTELY NEEDED for the "ultimate" DM/SD Scrapper? I really hate Hasten with passion.
A DM/SR scrapper was going to be my Mission Architect baby, the character I got from 1 to 50 mostly on MA content. I succeeded. Eventually. But I don't really recommend the combination as anyone's first choice. I frankly have no interest in soloing AVs, though, so my opinion may be irrelevant. My impression is that a level 50 DM/SR is great fun to play, but not as much fun to level, and the set scales down worse than others.
My Spines/Willpower scrapper, rolled after the MA baby, hit 50 well before that one did, using a mixture of MA and classic content.
I thought that having a self-heal in DM/SR, and adding to hit debuff to defense, would make the character close to invincible. The character is, indeed, hard to kill at level 50. But the self-heal has little to do with that; even when slotted for healing, like I have slotted mine, it doesn't overcome the binary nature of a purely defensive set. When you get clobbered, you won't have the lead time needed to make effective use of a self-heal.
And SR is the worst set I can imagine for exemping down under the current rules. I was going to revisit the content the character missed by levelling in MA. You try to run Synapse on a level 50 /SR scrapper and you'll feel like you forgot to wear anything over your underwear and didn't notice until you got to work. I hope this gets changed in i16, but until then, that character is for level 50 content only.
Finally, because the auction house is currently broken, it will take a long time to finish your character. The set bonuses you want are restricted to any kind of defense, which curtails your choices: especially since the ones that give you the needed bonuses at less than 6 are the ones for which pricing is currently the most broken on. We need price caps, and we need them now.
The utility, debuff, and control in Dark Melee work excellently with Willpower. That set provides layered survival with defense, resistance, and regeneration. No one component of it is impressive on paper. Put it all together, and you'll love it to death. Dark Melee gives Willpower a self heal that complements its regeneration. I've played that combo to 50 three times, as brute, tanker, and scrapper, and it's always been pleasant. And because of layering, these characters are all ideal at exemping down for merits.
My Martial Arts/Shield scrapper is currently level 42 and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. It seems to be a lot harder and more costly to defense cap a Shield scrapper than a Reflex scrapper, and under current conditions it can't be done in a reasonable time with influence gained during normal play. Shields scrappers are making somebody money in China.
I'm now working on an Inv/DM tanker. That also seems like a fine combination to play. A DM/Inv scrapper might be good too, especially since any /Inv scrapper is going to need a lot of endurance help.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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You'll need Hasten to double stack Active Defense for the extra defense debuff resistances (Membranes in Active Defense, Grant Cover, and Hasten are all required if you want maximum defense debuff resistance which is slightly less important for the DM/ primary but is critical for all the other primaries). If you are wanting to avoid Hasten I'd go with /SR instead of /SD.
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Originally Posted by Bright_Shadow
Well I have had experience with Super Reflexes. It's just I chose a not-so-ultimate primary set with it (Dual Blades).
Considering the fact that I haven't tried Shield Defense yet, I think it's best to go with that. A concern though. How much budget am I looking at to get an "ultimate" DM/SD Scrapper? Furthermore, is Hasten ABSOLUTELY NEEDED for the "ultimate" DM/SD Scrapper? I really hate Hasten with passion. |
-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 am going to wait for I16 to hit to try out a DM/Elec. Seems like a good fit and I am still busy with my Claw/SR anyway.
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Not just that, but to have the ultimate DM/SD Scrapper you would want to run the attack chain of MG>Smite>SL>Smite and to run that you need 234% recharge in MG and that is really hard to get without Hasten. With being a DM/SD I don't see getting that much recharge without losing some Defense to get it. Again we are talking about the ultimate DM/SD Scrapper you could run a different chain but then it really would be the best chain to run so it wouldn't be the ultimate DM/SD
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
You'll need Hasten to double stack Active Defense for the extra defense debuff resistances (Membranes in Active Defense, Grant Cover, and Hasten are all required if you want maximum defense debuff resistance which is slightly less important for the DM/ primary but is critical for all the other primaries). If you are wanting to avoid Hasten I'd go with /SR instead of /SD.
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"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
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Not to move a market debate to the scrapper forum, but if supply stays constant, how are price caps supposed to make it easier to get those shiny IOs you want? Also, price caps will reduce supply, since insane prices are an incentive to farm the most insanely priced IOs. So price caps would make it harder to get what you want, not easier. If you want it to be easier to get your shiny IOs, then you want the devs to increase supply, not for them to cap the price. However, my understanding is that the devs LIKE for the best IOs to be EXTREMELY rare, so I think they're happy with the situation as is.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
We need price caps, and we need them now.
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Back on the OP's questions, yes, you'll want Hasten an a Dark Melee/Shield Defense AV killer. If you hate it with a passion, you'll probably want a different secondary, and quite possibly a different primary.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
Quote:
As an FYI and case in point.....|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
Finally, because the auction house is currently broken, it will take a long time to finish your character. The set bonuses you want are restricted to any kind of defense, which curtails your choices: especially since the ones that give you the needed bonuses at less than 6 are the ones for which pricing is currently the most broken on. We need price caps, and we need them now.
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It isn't the auction house that's broken, it's the players. The content that players choose to run determine the drops that make it into the game. If you spend all your time in the AE you will never get a purple drop, never get a costume recipe, never get a respec recipe, etc.
If you spend your time on boss farms and constantly exceed the ticket cap to get influence you (and every one that plays like you [note that you is a generic you not targeted at the poster I am responding to or any specific player]) is reducing, not only the goods I mentioned above but, salvage, bronze rolls, gold rolls etc.
Reducing supply while increasing influence generated leads to inflation which for most folks means high prices.
If you want to make sure that the Auction House is broken beyond repair AND that Chinese RMTers become rich, then price caps is exactly what you want.
The day that a price cap is put into place is the day that only a fool will sell anything in the Auction House. I personally (and there are others that would do so as well) would put in hundreds of price capped bids hoping to snag something from one of those "fools" and then turn around and sell it for 3 times what it is actually worth in the REAL (virtual) Black Market global channel that would spring into existance.
Things would only get sold in tells, or globals (destroying the cross server function of the market) and bartered or traded only in person (remember before I9 and trying to trade Hamis? Same thing all over again), requiring both the seller and the buyer to be online and in the same zone.
RMT would then switch from influence sales to "item" sales and they too would be making huge (real world money too) profits from the price cap. They can have someone on line 24/7 and a $10 server transfer fee would be a very cheap way for them to move a bunch of goods that they have stockpiled on one server to another server for sale to multiple clients.
If you want the prices to drop ask the devs to increase drop rates in regular content enough to get part of the player base out of the MA and back into regular content.
Ask them to bring parity between merit values and ticket values (you get much less of the same goods from an hours worth of merits than you do from an hour's worth of tickets. You can easily get enough tickets in an hour's worth of play to make 3 gold rolls. An hour's worth of Merits is 1 Pool C roll.)
Every time someone says price caps, someone somewhere, kills a kitten or kicks a puppy and I cringe.
-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
Quote:
All the more reason to experience the pure awesomeness that is Shield Defense
| Shields: I have never experienced this set. |
I did not mean to threadjack here with a post about the moral issues posed by the market.
It remains the case that it is not possible within a reasonable time to meet the prices currently on the market with the influence dropped by defeated enemies in normal play. Specific enhancements needed for set bonuses usually need to be bought with merits. This means that you will end up waiting a very long time in order to build a character that relies on defense bonuses for performance under current conditions to achieve the numbers in your ideal build.
This means that in the current game, layered sets like Willpower have a fairly strong advantage over defense sets like SR and Shields, which are strongest when they meet the cap. Whether Willpower is the best set to solo AVs, given the fact that it too is somewhat susceptible to burst damage, I don't know; I've never built scrappers that way. (I once tried to solo a Pylon on my DM/SR scrapper. I didn't die, but got bored after around twenty minutes; the pylon was at about half life.)
It just means that a Willpower character that's fun to play will also be easier to build.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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I totally agree that it shouldn't take an unreasonable amount of time to kit out your character exactly how you want it. Unfortunately, reasonable time is a mere preference, not something that we or the devs can define.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
It remains the case that it is not possible within a reasonable time to meet the prices currently on the market with the influence dropped by defeated enemies in normal play.
|
I consider about 500 hours of play to be about right to level cap. It takes much less than that in this game these days, so to me, leveling seems unreasonably quick. These days, I often level pact to someone that I don't expect to play as much to slow things down. Similarly, I'm willing to put in hundreds of hours AFTER hitting fifty in order to turn a good character into a great character. I like playing my fifties. I like that there's still something to strive for at that level. All things told, I don't mind, and would actually prefer that it take, say, 1000 hours of play to make a top tier AV soloing powerhouse. Since I can actually achieve that in maybe 200 hours of solo play, to me, this game and achieving the shiny IOs I want is too fast for my own preferences.
But nobody is right and wrong in that regard. Some people want to be rewarded quickly, some want to be rewarded slowly. It's all a matter of what you want out of your MMO experience.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
Quote:
This game invites every player to make at least twelve characters on each server. That fact alone argues in favor of being able to develop any character fairly quickly. |
Originally Posted by Werner
But nobody is right and wrong in that regard. Some people want to be rewarded quickly, some want to be rewarded slowly. It's all a matter of what you want out of your MMO experience.
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At any rate, under current conditions, the less you depend on defense bonuses as the key element you want from your IO sets, the easier you will find it to develop your character. When the IO system came out and I started playing regularly again, they were never a priority. +Recovery and +endurance were far more important. I have not respecced out of those builds; they still serve me as well as they ever did. Defense bonuses are powerful, but they are hard to come by under current conditions, so characters that have other ways to improve might be the way to go.
And, FWIW, I didn't really start enjoying the DM/SR scrapper either until I had gotten all three of the Numina, Miracle, and Performance Shifter endurance enhancements. This is on top of Dark Consumption. And, of course, all that stuff had to be bought with merits as well; if I pooled the influence on all my level 50 heroes, they still wouldn't be able to get one of those recipes from the AH. Even my Dark Armor/Ice tanker was easy to play at a decent pace by contrast. This is another factor that argue against choosing /SR, IMO.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
Alright. I rolled a DM/Shield. Thanks to the magic of AE and a bunch of friends, she's sitting at level 21 now. 
I'm enjoying it so far. Especially when I took her out for a test drive on her cape mission with 4th Challenge Level.
I'm currently focusing on a "Fun Build", like I do with all my characters. I take whatever power I think would be coolest at the time. Once I reach 50, then I start worrying about the numbers.
However, I do have one question.
How do you slot Siphon Life?
Quote:
There already is one. 2 billion influence.
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
We need price caps, and we need them now.
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@Demobot
Also on Steam
Quote:
Here is a great thread about slotting for Siphon life. For AV soloing you will want it more of a heal but you still want it to do damage.
| How do you slot Siphon Life? |
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
Quote:
Heh, that's a thread unto itself |
Originally Posted by Bright_Shadow
How do you slot Siphon Life?
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I agree completely with all the advice given so far on DM/SD. I'll post my build here so you have something to consider as you level. Builds are highly personal though and while I think this is the very best DM/SD I can build others will have a differing opinion. Still, if you click the Scrapper Vids or the Multiple AV link in my sig it will give you some food for thought too.
As far as the cost of puples and the market? Milady's Knight hit it right on the head I think
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
It isn't the auction house that's broken, it's the players. The content that players choose to run determine the drops that make it into the game. If you spend all your time in the AE you will never get a purple drop, never get a costume recipe, never get a respec recipe, etc.
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But help is coming. The difficulty slider will change all this for me. I will be more than happy to dump the crazy XP for slightly less crazy XP and the chance to get rich PL'ng a toon to 50 with regular missions.
Anyway, here's Saint October's build to give you a starting point.
Good luck!
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Saint October: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Smite -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(3), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), T'Death-Dam%(7)
Level 1: Deflection -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(13), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(13)
Level 2: Battle Agility -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(7), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(9), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(9)
Level 4: True Grit -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(11), Numna-Heal/Rchg(15), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(17), Numna-Heal(33), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(34)
Level 6: Boxing -- Amaze-Stun(A), Amaze-Stun/Rchg(19), Amaze-Acc/Stun/Rchg(21), Amaze-Acc/Rchg(48), Amaze-EndRdx/Stun(48)
Level 8: Siphon Life -- Nictus-Heal(A), Nictus-Acc/Heal(11), Nictus-Heal/HP/Regen/Rchg(21), Mako-Acc/Dmg(23), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(25)
Level 10: Active Defense -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(27)
Level 12: Hover -- Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(A), Zephyr-Travel(15), Zephyr-ResKB(17), HO:Enzym(19)
Level 14: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(39), Zephyr-ResKB(39)
Level 16: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25)
Level 20: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 22: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Heal(27)
Level 24: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(A), P'Shift-EndMod(29), P'Shift-End%(31), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(34)
Level 26: Soul Drain -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(29), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(31), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Oblit-%Dam(34)
Level 28: Grant Cover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 30: Tough -- ImpArm-ResDam(A), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(31), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(36), ImpArm-EndRdx/Rchg(36), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(37), Empty(46)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Hectmb-Dam%(40), Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(40), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(42), EndRdx-I(50)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Oblit-%Dam(37), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(39), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(42)
Level 38: Dark Consumption -- P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(A), P'Shift-EndMod(42), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(43), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(43), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(45), P'Shift-End%(50)
Level 41: Shadow Maul -- Armgdn-Dam%(A), Armgdn-Dmg/EndRdx(43), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(45), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(50)
Level 44: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(45), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(46), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 47: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Code:
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Hmmmmmm.......
I might just pl the crap out of my dark/shielder.... ;-)
Just don't tell anybody though...
Quote:
Oh wow, I REALLY like this build! It's a little expensive, but it is not too far from possible.
Originally Posted by Powerforge
Heh, that's a thread unto itself
I agree completely with all the advice given so far on DM/SD. I'll post my build here so you have something to consider as you level. Builds are highly personal though and while I think this is the very best DM/SD I can build others will have a differing opinion. Still, if you click the Scrapper Vids or the Multiple AV link in my sig it will give you some food for thought too.
As far as the cost of puples and the market? Milady's Knight hit it right on the head I think
That's the reason. AE. I myself am totally guilty of running boss farms to level. After 3 years my "fun" in game comes more from creating "uber" builds and then creating and testing the toons than it does from playing the same story driven content I've done over and over.
But help is coming. The difficulty slider will change all this for me. I will be more than happy to dump the crazy XP for slightly less crazy XP and the chance to get rich PL'ng a toon to 50 with regular missions.
Anyway, here's Saint October's build to give you a starting point.
Good luck!
I actually wanted Flight for concept reasons and I couldn't get it in the build I was planning! I was having trouble with Soft-Capping. But you fit it in! It's perfect! I love you!
I think people tend to somewhat discount /willpower as an AV solo specialist. Maybe because most builds don't softcap defenses it seems that it might not perform as well. But I have to say, DM/WP is a scary AV soloer. I'd like to see more people try it so they know what I'm talking about.
Built for defense, you can get to 38 - 42% to all types, without gimping the rest of the build. With the to hit debuff from Rise to the Challenge, and most of DM's attacks, you are virtually softcapped. Add in the regen (mine is at 728% with 1 foe in range) and resistance (51% smashing/lethal), and it is really hard to take down.
Give it a try, you wont be sorry.
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That's odd, I managed to completely IO out my Claws/WP scrapper within 7-10 days of his hitting 50th Level. Since the build relies upon all of his specific defenses (except for Psi) to be at 40%+ I would say that he qualifies as "a character relying on Defensive bonuses".|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
I did not mean to threadjack here with a post about the moral issues posed by the market.
It remains the case that it is not possible within a reasonable time to meet the prices currently on the market with the influence dropped by defeated enemies in normal play. Specific enhancements needed for set bonuses usually need to be bought with merits. This means that you will end up waiting a very long time in order to build a character that relies on defense bonuses for performance under current conditions to achieve the numbers in your ideal build. |
And even though I could have bought everything with Influence I had made from other characters, all of the IOs bought for this scrapper came directly from the Influence and tickets he received running on his own.
That includes..
5 sets of Kinetic Combat (4 pcs each for the S/L Bonuses)
1 Numina Unique
4 LotG +Recharge IOs
4 LotG Defense and Defense/Endurance IOs
1 Regenerative Tissue Unique
2 sets of Blessing of the Zephyr
1 set of Reactive Armor
1 set of Obliteration
4 Enzyme Exposure HOs
And probably another hundred million+ worth of additional IOs to fill everything out with.
And that was with maybe two hours of running missions per day and spending an extra thirty minutes each day cashing in tickets for Recipes and Salvage and selling them at Wentworth's.
Less than two weeks (of casual play) from hitting 50th to "completed build" does not seem unreasonable to me at all.
Quote:
Gah!|
Originally Posted by Werner
I consider about 500 hours of play to be about right to level cap. |
It only took me about six weeks to level my first character to 50th (Maybe about 140-160 hours played total) and that was immediately after the game launched five years ago.
(Admittedly though, this was back when /Regeneration was godlike and I was able to literally tear through content non-stop).
Okay, so presuming you don't have the unlimited budget needed for DM/SD,
Dark Melee offers incredible synergy with Invunerability.
(Siphon Life is just the top up needed for what is a Resistance based set)
It's not the schtonkingly high damage of /SD, but it's survivability is out the Wazoo, far tougher than /SD and even tougher than basic Granite.
And definietely able to solo most AVs
Dark Melee pairs best with a Secondary that has a taunt aura because it makes keeping mobs in range of Soul Drain a whole lot easier and because the set is lacking in AoE so your attack's taunt doesn't help much in that regard. The two most common being Shields and Invulnerability.
Willpower is also very good, but its rather difficult to hold any aggro when on teams so getting more than one or two mobs in range of Soul Drain can be a chore. Not to discount the set because it is very strong, it's just not very team friendly if you normally play as the groups tank.
As to the market discussion, the lack of a sufficient cash sink is causing a disproportionate increase in the supply of influence/prestige in the game. However, it is quite amazing how fast people are to give up their cash when a sufficiently good reason is provided (cash for clunkers for example). So if the developers provide such a reason for people to burn their cash, the market can return to normal.
I normally don't post around the Scrapper forums, even though I like to think I'm a Scrapper specialist when it comes to play style. However, I'm stuck regarding a decision, and I was hoping some of the more experienced Scrappers could point me in the right direction.
Basically, I want my ultimate Scrapper. I already have 4 Scrappers (BS/WP, Claw/Regen, Dark/Dark, Spines/Fire) and 3 Brutes (Energy/Energy, Dual Blades/SR, SS/Invul), but I mainly built them for pure fun, and their builds revolve around concept. But now I want to have a Scrapper that can look at AVs and chuckle and insult their mothers.
For primary, I think I want to pick Dark Melee. It seems to be a very versatile melee set with a bunch of "utility" powers that would come in very handy in tough battles.
For secondary, I'm not sure what to pick. I'm stuck between:
Willpower: I think Willpower with near-capped Defenses would be quite nice, especially with Dark Melee's ToHit DeBuffs.
Super Reflexes: I am a personal fan of SR. But it's really not fun to level, and it's a very tight set. That, and from experience, there is always a chance that you get squashed in two shots if the foe gets lucky.
Shields: I have never experienced this set.
So. What do you think would go best with Dark Melee for an 'ultimate' Scrapper build?!
I also care a lot about the "fun factor"...