Powersets

What the hell? One of the things that people like about */regen is that performs excellently at the low levels when you don't have the slots or enhancements to generate decent numbers from your powers or the endurance to run a boatload of toggles.

I dunno. Maybe my primary power let me down....Dual Blades. All i know it that I found myself in the hospital or getting revived more often than not. Which for me was a bad sign. And that probably backs up the statement that someone had made that people have different playstyles for different powersets. Maybe my playstyle was too aggressive? I dunno. But that was a while ago, and I'm willing to get every secondary a go-round and patiently get them up and "making them work" although I don't have the bottonless pockets of inf.

The reason you're going to see /WP, /SR, /INV, /Shields more often than others, is IOs.

These are the sets than can be softcapped easier than the others. Softcapped defenses is GREAT mitigation.

What I find however, is people make use of these sets, and think they can be just as great with just using SOs, and skipping some of the powers that make these sets even better.

IE...The Fighting Pool.

Shields for example, really isn't all that, UNTILL, you get TOUGH/WEAVE and IOs going.

Ran with a lvl 50 Shield/ tanker, who kept faceplanting...wasn't IOed, didn't have Tough/Weave (or Aid Self in place of that).

Though that said, Shield Charge and AAO are just fun So, may not be all that survival wise without IOs and Tough/Weave, but oh, the pretty numbers you can put out makes up for it

This isn't to say I think everyone should min/max their toons, but they wonder why they aren't doing as good as some other similar tanker/scrapper, and begin to think the set is the sucky, that's why.

Electric Armor is new, so it's going to see some play, but I expect to see that die down, when people realize it's not all that, even with the heal. They can be IOed out to become monsters like the others, but takes alot more work to do so, and even then, they're still seen as the weakest monster compared to the others.

FA and DA lacking knockback protection doesnt help their perception either...plus they're older sets, so they lack what the newer sets do.

Now after all that is said...

Pick a combo..you're a scrapper...you've already won.

Hehe, I'm a scrapper...I already won. I like that LOL!

My problem with some sets taking more to make better is that not all of us have alot of INF to make some these sets work (ok we can make them work BETTER) And with the rate of the purple drops, I'm not sure if people would like building up the stash to make the set work. But these days it is easier to squeeze out more defense via set bonuses. You just have to plan accordingly I guess and Mids does help. I haven't played with mids enough, but I should. I should make a pre IO build and post IO build, but not purpled out builds. I don't have a purple set to my name. Just too darn expensive. And no one is trying to sponsor my toon. LOL!

You don't need purples. In fact, if all you're really worried about imo, is getting awesome defense, you don't need them at all.

Purples imo, are only good for one thing...wanting the insane DPS build. So then you need even MORE recharge.

But going just the survival route...purples aren't needed.

Now I admit, I sometimes plan for purple sets in my builds, but then I know how to substitute them with other sets (or even just Gen IOs), and just drop in the purple IO, if and when it drops for that toon.

On my DB/WP scrapper, I have 2 sets of purples planned in use, Hecatomb and Armegeddon (I believe that's the one...the PBAOE set), just for the +RCH, I need to run BF -> AV -> Repeat. Right now, I just have two of the IOs each on the build, and just go BF -> AV -> Power Slice -> Repeat. I do fine :P

I'm actually more worried about getting the last of the other sets I want (Id actually have them all now, if I wasn't going for specifically lvl 33 IOs...I have all the LotG I want, the Numina/Miracle unique...I'm actually trying to get half the Kinetic Combat set, and Numina (non unique) IOs, right now. ).