Well, Double XP Confirms: DM/Shield What about You?

I don't know about you guys but I spent a whole pile of time trying to make a new main. I shelved my 50's and went to town on some old toons, some new toons, and some junk in between.

My focus was tanks and scrappers. I did find I had to research on the forums for some time to figure out what was a great blend of powers to try out. I soon found an overwhelming theme that kept re-occuring; that being: *.Shield.

But nevertheless I thought I'm going to make a non-shield character.... why not pull out my old buddy from pre-nerf martial arts/regen? Nope .... I still remember the old days too well.

I ended up going down the list of everything I wanted to try, and everything I left on a shelf.

Like many of you I powered up through the weekend trying to see how many times I could ding a level before seeing a trainer.... it was fun, but what a process to find something I suspected.....

DM/Shield is far and away the most powerful toon I've made. His biggest downfall? Ego. You just want to take on probably a bit more than you should with this guy. And with that attitude, it's face plant city with a lot of characters.

The only regret I have is in a state of total burnout, I fired up a Kinetic Melee/Electric Armour toon, and I was shockingly amused by it. I confess this is after accepting that no character I make will compare to my DM/Shield. I mean by the time the Kinetic guy is finished rolling his glowing pizza dough, DM/Shield has a mob on the floor, but still Kinetic has some interesting looks.

Anyway I don't know about you guys, but I felt I spent a lot of time chasing my tail this weekend. It was fun, but the only character I really did 'well' on and grew on me in a sort of 'cold sore on your lip' sort of way was: Claws/Willpower. Weird eh?

So I'm curious what other hardcore-ish scrappers dabbled in over the weekend. Any great revelations?

I rolled a fire/rad corr, got it to lvl 26, deleted it yesterday. I also got a kin/wp scrap up to 40. I plan on seeing how high I can get his regen rate up to when he hits 47-50 range. I know its probably better to slot for some defense instead, but I want to see what the highest regen I can get him up to would be. I also have a db/wp and might do it on him instead. I ended up spending much of yesterday respec'n my main, ma/sr, instead of taking advantage of double xp. I posted his build but I guess with double xp there wasn't a lot of people on the forums.

So far the kin/wp is pretty fun. The first three attacks seem really quick and fluid together. But damn CS, Burst, and FB seem like the take forever to fire off. I found, since lvl 32, I felt like a brute chasing rage(or whatver, cant think of name right now).

I can see why they would nerf CS though already, get to about 175% damage boost, and that damn thing was one shotting most stuff, was insane really.

I rolled a claws/wp brute not too long ago, but lost interest after I remembered why I didn't like claws before, the damn ranged attacks, reminds me of wolverine on the old arcade game, why the hell is he shotting stuff out of his claws? Just a theme thing for me really, and can't see not taking focus. Shockwave is an easy pass, but focus is just too good to pass up.

I spent the weekend bringing characters to 35ish in prep for ITF, then rolled the (second) best scrapper in terms of what I've enjoyed so far: My Fire/Earth dominator.

Wait, what do you mean I'm not a scrapper? I go into melee and hit things really hard!

Yea Focus is a must.

It is a bit of a 'weird' power isn't it? But I agree, you gotta take it.

I got my Claws/WP guy up to 40 this weekend. But I am really wishing I would have spent more time figuring out Kinetic Melee like you obviously did.

Funny thing is the reason I never tried Kinetic Melee before double XP Sunday is because the sounds! Seriously the vrooooom, vvveeeerrwwwwwwoooooowwwwmmm noises drive me nuts. It sounds like a grand prix racing game. But the set does seem... valid. Too bad.

I spent a ton of time on about 4 scrappers and 2 tanks. The scrappers were mostly a waste because I kept trying to measure them against my main. But claws is kind of neat. Feels a touch dated, but it's not bad.

I didn't get much time for CoH, but the time I did get I spent playing a Shield Defense/Dark Melee Tanker. It was fun, but I really need to at least take the time to frankenslot him.

I didn't get to play very much this weekend but I was able to level my Pistols/MM Blaster Dual Hero to L10. I don't level too many characters to 50, I usually have to fall in love with them before I commit

Due to work, I wasn't able to get a lot of time in :/ However, I did get my new project, a Spines/Elec up to level 30.

I wanted something different. Something you don't see often (or at least I haven't). Then I want to IO it out to the gills! I've already started in fact.

Energize is 5 slotted with Doctored Wounds. Steadfast and Gladiator's +3% Defense slotted. Winter's Gift slotted (who doesn't want additional Slow Resist, especially when you get 40% with a power pick! ).

Haven't decided if I'll slot the level 30 Kismet I have sitting around or get a lvl 10-15 Kismet.

My only regret so far. Not enough slots yet!

Got my Earth/Fire Domi up to 28, not quite my goal but didn't really have too much time to play. Also got my Inv/Kin tank from level 1 to 22 which got me SOs.

Heh, I kinda know what you mean. My SD/DM Tank is definitely awesome.

Then again, a lot of characters can be awesome in a different way. My Elec/SD Scrapper, for example, can put out insane AoE, something the SD/DM can't.

I haven't really gotten back to my Dark/Shield Scrapper yet. It's still missing a few IO's like LoTG's and such, the PVP IO if I feel like softcapping it. Whether I feel up to gathering the H/V Merits to buy it is another matter... I dunno yet. But yes Shield is very good. I also want my Night Widow to be perma-Hasten, and I need my accolades for my Regen scrapper I'm trying to build for PvP....yeah so many things I'm trying to juggle.

Meanwhile, I've been stockpiling incarnate shards for my Claws/SR Scrapper. My revealation, 2xp weekend was a very good weekend for getting shards.

Got my Claws/Invul up to 21 & out of Praetoria over 2XP weekend. Fun toon to play, but I have to confess I had a *lot* more fun playing my Mace/WP brute instead, also to around 21 & out of Praetoria this weekend, all of it solo. I generally prefer scrappers to brutes too--I guess I'm wishing they'd port Mace to scrappers already.

Got my Fire/Shield/Leviathan scrapper to 50 and IO'd out, then I got my DM/Shield/Soul brute to 42, finished the villain epic storyline and got gloom and IO'd him out too.

Lets see, that gives me a 50 BS/SD Scrapper, 50 ElM/SD/Mu Scrapper, 50 FM/SD Scrapper, 50 SD/SS Tanker and a 42 DM/SD Brute, most all of them IO'd out with uncommon incarnates.

I've tried going back to non-shield toons but I just can't play them for long. And I have a 50 Claws/WP Brute and 50 FM/WP Scrapper, they were alot of fun leveling, especially early when they were tearing through things faster than anything else should be capable of, but I can't play them much anymore. Man I wish I could make a claws/SD scrapper.

I was on a camping trip I ran a total whopping 4 missions on Thursday evening on a lvl 34 katana/wp I have and that is all i got to do for double xp weekend

Even with that my main is going to stay my fire/sd he is by far my favorite toon

I had quite a few toons sitting at 22 (fire/kin on another account, yes I cheat) for this weekend. Would have liked to take a few farther than I did, but oh well.

traps/pistols to 26
db/inv scrapper to 26
kat/ela scrapper to 29
km/wp brute to 34
elm/sd to 37


I was pleasantly surprised by the db/inv. I've never really gotten into db before, but this was rather fun. I was even more surprised by the kat/ela. It turns out stackable melee defense, solid resists, and a heal/regen/end red power work really really well (who knew?!). Okay, okay, so I pretty much knew it was going to work well, I did not expect it to be as fun as it was.

kinetic melee - Outside of the fact that I don't like the t9 animation, this set confuses me. I just can't tell if I like it or not. At all. >.<

electric melee/shield defense. All I can say is - "Ahahahahahahaha" =D

I worked on a few characters during the double xp weekend:

MA/FA Scrapper - level 1 to 10 - Seems like it is going to be a fun combo
EC/Kin Troller - level 1 to 9 - Made to test the effectiveness of a sapper. We shall see...
EC/Storm - level 12 to 20 - I have been having a blast with this combo.
MA/SR Scrapper - level 40 to 42 - I am really liking the MA changes.

On a semi-related note, I ended up shelving my DM/SD scrapper in favor of a KM/DA scrapper and a KM/SD scrapper. I am really a big fan of KM. My KM/SD scrapper can dish out a TON of damage. Fully saturated AAO + full SP + CS = Huge orange number that will just bring a tear to your eye. While my KM/SD is a damage monster, I think I actually prefer my KM/DA. He is just a few LotG +recharges away from having a complete build and he is very survivable. He has solid resistances, soft-capped S/L defenses, positional defenses around 30ish, a fear aura, a stun aura, a self rez that stuns everyone around you, and a self heal that fills up my green bar with just 2 or 3 enemies in range. All of that adds up to insane survivability. While not as good at the massive orange numbers as my KM/SD, he still handles groups like a champ. SP and damage auras are a very good thing.