ClawsandEffect

No, but if you get a few accolades and a few +HP bonuses you'll be at the HP cap for scrappers anyway, so there is no need for it to stack.

You don't need perma Hasten to have perma Dull Pain. All you need is 3 recharge IOs in Hasten and 55% global recharge. My Claws/Regen has perma DP and I'm not even close to perma Hasten.

I concur on picking up Follow Up, though. if you can consistently keep it double stacked you have a 75% damage boost all the time.

And yes, Shadow Meld is a Soul Mastery power. You have to go full villain in order to run the arc to get it.

Actually you CAN auto-complete them. But there's a catch. You can only complete ONE of them that way, you still have to manually complete the rest.

So if you auto-complete the Base A mission, you still have to run the Base B and Base C missions normally.

This isn't going to work. Consume doesn't drain your enemies endurance, it just damages them and gives you endurance back. It is more like Dark Consumption from Dark Melee than Power Sink (which is the power you would want to use for that tactic)

Sounds much better.

If there is nothing you especially want from your primary or secondary at the moment (looks like you have them pretty well covered right now) you can do what I usually do and pick up Boxing/Tough/Weave at 22, 24, and 30 respectively.

I specify those levels because you REALLY want Soul Drain (which opens at 26) and Invincibility (which opens at 28) as soon as they are available.

Then Midnight Grasp at 32, Tough Hide at 35, and whatever else you want at 38 (I suggest Hasten there) You can fit in the other passive powers if you like, of the two, Resist Energies is the more useful (it has End Drain resistance in it)

I like Body Mastery for Conserve Power and Physical Perfection, but you can pick whatever APP sounds cool to you, or not take one at all (you don't HAVE to take an APP)

I solo probably 90% of the time, largely because I have to go AFK quite frequently (new baby will do that)

I usually run on +1/x3 or so, just because I lack the patience to get through huge spawns with my Claws/Regen. Works pretty good for me, but I'm pretty sure my build is capable of going higher.

Typed defense, Max HP, Regen.

Parry will take care of Melee and lethal defense for you. If you choose to go that route, you can not worry too much about Smashing/Lethal defense. That leaves you with E/N/F/C defense to work on, which isn't too difficult with a WP character. Though I would still try to get to 30% melee defense so you only have to apply Parry once to be softcapped. 15% will work too if you don't mind double stacking it.

I like 4xEradication and 2x Scirocco's Dervish in PBAoE attacks (Slice, Whirling Sword, and Head Splitter will all take it) Will give you E/N defense, more max end, and more max HP, with some regen from the Scirocco's.

3xReactive Armor and 3x Aegis in your resistance toggles (provided you can spare the slots to 6 slot them) and one or the other in HPT to go with the Numina's you have there. That will give you E/N defense and F/C defense respectively. If you don't have the slots to pick from, choose the one that gives you whichever defense is lower (which will probably be Aegis)

You don't need that many Achille's Heel procs. I'd leave just the one in Hack and call it good. They don't stack, so even if you did have them all go off, you're still only getting -20% resistance.

Otherwise the build looks alright.

If you don't already have all those purples, you may want to reconsider some of them. They are expensive and Willpower doesn't really benefit that much from them, and Broadsword doesn't require a whole lot of recharge to run a decent chain. I have a BS/DA that has soloed some AVs and he has almost no recharge at all in his build.

I like it to BE there, but with the ability to ignore it if I want to just play the game.

I don't like games that force me to sit through a 10 minute cutscene explaining the background of a character that isn't important to the story. It's nice if the information is THERE, just don't force me to sit through it to progress through the game.

Good games are set in a well-developed world, having that information available makes me feel like the gameworld is "alive". But sometimes I just want to punch stuff in the face and not worry about why this person needs punched in the face.

I don't RP either, at least not beyond writing a backstory and basic set of ethics for each character.

I have one character that is "me", and his approach to the whole alignment thing has been interesting. I'm not trying to earn Hero merits, but rather I approach each tip mission as "What would *I* do in this situation?". For example: I would not help Blast Furnace blow up the magazine office, because killing people for just talking trash about me isn't something I would do. On the flip side, I wouldn't rescue the Crey scientists from the Devouring Earth, because I wouldn't save someone who is knowingly working for an evil corporation from a situation of their own making. Had someone else done it to them, it'd be different, but it's pretty clear in that mission that they brought it on themselves.

I'm an aspiring writer, so I use my CoH characters as an exercise in seeing things from different viewpoints. Because without that ability you won't be a very good writer.

So, as you can see, my playstyle wouldn't mesh very well with the hordes of jacktards we'd probably see migrating here if the game went F2P. It probably wouldn't be everyone that played on a F2P basis, but we'd get enough of the "lrn2playnub" attitude people that it would get on my nerves. We have enough of that already, the last thing we need is more of it. (my attempt at getting the thread back on topic)

Still on the whole "If my pixelated character does bad things it makes me a bad person by extension" thing?

Seems like a silly reason to ignore half the game to me.

I have a number of characters that are complete dicks, and have no redeeming social value at all. The difference between us seems to be that I don't feel things a fictional character does reflect on me personally. It's no different from an actor playing a serial killer, just because they played one in a movie doesn't mean they are going to start murdering people in real life.

Sorry for the double post.

PS: I'm not trying to start a morals debate here, I just saw the quoted part and felt the need to respond to it.

I've never considered a video game an investment any more than I consider a movie or a night of bowling an investment.

Sure, you've spent time on it, but when it's all over, you've been doing nothing more than entertaining yourself.

When the servers shut down (as they eventually are guaranteed to), every single player in the game will lose their characters, all the billions of influence, IOs, and everything else associated with it. Being upset about that prospect will do you no good at all.

I don't think we have anything to worry about anytime soon, but I'm not anticipating still having CoH to play 10-15 years from now.

This attitude is a large part of why I don't like farming or playing the market. I refuse to spend my entertainment time doing anything that feels like work, knowing full well that eventually it will be gone. If I'm going to work for something, it's going to be something with a lasting benefit.

I appreciate your concern, but I think you're being overly pessimistic about he game's future. It IS going to end eventually, but not anytime soon.

I focused on defense on my Claws/Regen, because I don't have the cash for the purples I'd need to get large amounts of recharge.

Upside to focusing on defense is I don't need to hit my heals quite as often as someone who is all recharge and little or no defense. Couple different schools of thought, but both are valid.

When my most recent incarnation of his build is done I'll be a single small purple away from softcapped on Smashing/Lethal. I also have an above average amount of passive regen, so I can fight minions without having to hit Reconstruction (which lets me save it for when I really need it)

They are that valuable because, like purples, you will never lose the set bonuses, no matter how low you exemp.

If you managed to kit out your entire character with nothing but PvP IOs and purples, you could exemp to level ONE and have the exact same set bonuses as at level 50.

People begged for an alternate means to get them, because they didn't like the fact that the only way to get them before was to PvP (which is how the devs seem to WANT us to get them). The devs said a while back that if purples and PvP IOs ever became available at a vendor it would be at extremely high prices.

As far as the rarity goes.....I PvPed for 3 days straight, and didn't get a single recipe drop. Not a one. I did the same thing PvE and I was swimming in recipe drops, at least a dozen of which were oranges.

So yeah, they ARE that rare, go spend some time PvPing and tell me if you still think they aren't.

They are either in their own category or in with Costume pieces, I've gotten a temp power and a regular recipe from the same enemy before.

I have not gotten a costume piece and a temp power at once yet, so I can't confirm that one way or the other. Just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't possible.

Not sure if you're aware of this or not, but Fiery Embrace works differently now. It's not a straight damage boost anymore, instead it adds some fire damage to all your attacks for 20 seconds.

So, on that note, it doesn't really matter what set you pair it with, it will benefit them all equally now.