ClawsandEffect

No, each proc is making it's checks independently of the other. Sometimes one will fire, sometimes the other will fire. Sometimes BOTH will fire, and sometimes neither will. Since both of the procs you have deal the same amount of damage, it's hard to tell which one it is, but I can guarantee they are not both firing together every time one makes a successful check.

And it's making those checks on a 10 second interval from when you toggled the power on, not from when enemies entered it's range. So you will occasionally see it proc on an enemy the second they walk into range of it. That is working as intended, because it would take up too much server resources to time every single enemy that wanders into melee range of you.

Also, the power has to hit in the first place to check for the proc to fire, if it misses there will be no check.

Something that only happens for 10 days out of the year is no reason to skip a power completely.

Especially since you can pick it up in 5-10 minutes when you hit level 2.

I have never seen a tier 1 secondary power that didn't remain at least somewhat useful for the character's entire career.

Okay, Infrigidate isn't the greatest power in existence, but when the alternative is an ally-only shield, guess which one I'd prefer to have when soloing?

The forced tier 1 power in every secondary is, without fail, something that will be useful to you while solo. The devs can't guarantee you'll be on a team, but it IS guaranteed that you will spend at least part of your time solo.

I follow a general rule of "Slot what the power needs first, then look at any set bonuses you can get out of it"

I'd slot Thunderstrike in Dual Wield, and I'd slot 5x Decimation and an Achille's Heel Chance for -Res proc in Pistols. That will give you ranged defense, and some bonus Acc, and Recovery.

By changing that, you would lose 5% melee defense, and some global accuracy, but you'd gain another 3.75% ranged defense.

If you can afford the Ragnaroks, they wouldn't be a bad choice for Empty Clips, or go with Posi's Blast.



Don't feel bad about that one, it's a common mistake. I didn't know it worked that way myself until fairly recently. It just amused me that you happened to put it in one of two powers in the game that you will never get any benefit from it in (Invisibility from the Concealment pool is the other)

I'd actually consider putting it in Hover.

No problem, always glad to help when I can.

Yes, you missed something VERY important. Most of your attacks aren't slotted to actually deal more DAMAGE.

Lets look at what you have slotted.

Pistols: slotted with a defense debuff set. Not only is that not enhancing the damage of the power at all, it is also largely useless to slot for defense debuff in the late game. If you're level 50 and can't hit your target without debuffing it, you have bigger problems than this power's slotting.

Dual Wield: Slotted with a SLOW set?! The only time this set will even come into play is when you are using Cryo ammo. If you are using any other ammo type, this set slotted here is completely useless.

Now, the real problem here isn't just that you've gimped the damage output of these two powers, but you have gimped the damage output of the only two primary powers you can use while mezzed. If you can only use two attacks while mezzed, wouldn't it be logical to want them to deal better damage?

Moving on,

Empty Clips: Again, a defense debuff set. At least you slotted a little bit of damage in this one though. I'd put 5 Posi's Blast in here and call it a day.

Bullet Rain: Posi's Blast. Pretty common slotting, because it's teh best non-purple Targeted AoE set. This one is fine as-is.

Suppressive Fire: Slotted with Lockdown. Actually this slotting isn't bad. make sure you use something other than standard ammo or it will be useless though (Hold enhancement only works when it actually is a hold, it is a stun with standard ammo)

Concentration: Slotted with Gaussian's. No problem here, I slot Build Up with gaussian's all the time.

Executioner's Shot: Exactly how I'd slot it.

Drain Psyche: I'd go 5 Doctored Wounds here. The Numina's unique will only function when you fire it, which will leave you with large gaps in it being active.

Piercing Rounds: Again, a slow set that is doing nothing when you're not using Cryo Ammo (which is pretty much universally agreed on to be the worst ammo to use). Slot Posi's Blast and call it good.

Hail of Bullets: Obilteration slotted. No problems with this one, leave it as it is.

Psychic Shockwave: You slotted one of the best PBAoE attacks in the game for stun duration. It should be self explanatory why that is a bad idea. If you're not going to slot this for damage, just drop it and put the set in Boxing instead.

Mind Probe: Mako's Bite. No problems here, I would probably slot it the same way.

Personal Force Field: You put the Kismet +Acc in PFF?!?!? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

That is a HORRIBLE place for that IO, I'll explain why: The Kismet proc is ONLY active when the power it is in is active. So if PFF is turned off, you get no to-hit bonus. If PFF is turned on, you can't attack. See the problem there?

Temp Invuln: No problems there. Might want some more end redux, but if you use Drain Psyche regularly you should be okay.

On another note, I noticed you had a couple PvP IOs in there. Did you check prices before you put your build together? If you had, you would have noticed that those two IOs go for at LEAST 2 billion inf each (and that's if you even see any for sale), or 35 hero merits (which equals over 4 months of running tip missions)

I wasn't trying to be mean here, but some of your slotting choices are....questionable to say the least.

Yes, the huge to-hit buff from a Quartz is a problem for defense based powersets, I agree with that. My answer to that is to kill the pet that is buffing them first.

If I were to complain that the endurance drain from Sappers is a problem for non-defensive based characters, I would be told to kill the Sapper first, would I not?

Since killing the Sapper first is such a logical conclusion, why is killing the Quartz first NOT a logical conclusion? Why is "Kill the Sapper first" considered common sense, while "Kill the Quartz first" is considered unreasonable? I see absolutely no difference between the two.

You are complaining about an issue that common sense should have solved for you a long time ago.

If the issue is that you set your difficulty higher and are getting more than one at a time.....what, the game getting harder because you increased the difficulty is somehow unexpected?

They will crit, but it seems they have a flat 5% chance to do so, which isn't adjusted by enemy rank. I know I've seen them crit, but they don't do it very often.

Incidentally, Boxing and Air Superiority will also crit. I imagine Flurry and Jump Kick will as well, but I don't think I've ever taken either power on a scrapper.

The only things that won't crit on a scrapper are Brawl and temp powers.

Claws/Anything/Fire or Soul will probably be the best bet for a ranged brute.

If you didn't kill all of the hero's Longbow escort the mission will not complete.

It happens sometimes that when you get defeated one or more of the Longbow decide to chase you down at the police station. I found one in one Mayhem mission standing 150 yards from the bank, just twiddling his thumbs because he lost track of where I was to come attack me.

I chalk it up to the AI just doing stupid things occasionally. Sometimes a couple of the Longbow will run off, forcing you to chase it down to complete the mission.

I was fighting them solo at +0/x8/bosses, which is what I usually run my DM/SR brute at. I got destroyed because I had forgotten about the Quartz dropping LTs. I remembered them and dropped my difficulty to +0/x6/no bosses, and had no more problems. And I have a bind set to automatically target Quartzes, which means I can target and destroy them the second they are dropped, because I watch for the animation the Guardians go into when they drop them. I have similar binds for the priority targets of any enemy group I fight, makes it much easier to take them out quickly before they become a problem.

If I'm on a team fighting DE, I will usually designate one person to kill emanators if I'm the leader. If I am NOT the leader, I will frequently take it upon myself to do so. If one team member is specifically targeting and killing them, they won't get a chance to have too many piled up at once.

See, if you're soloing on the default difficulty setting, they are no problem. That is what the game is balanced around.

My issue here is that people are complaining about multiple Quartz emanators being dropped at once. Well, that only happens when you increase your difficulty, or are running on a large team. Sorry, folks, the game is NOT balanced around your softcapped character being able to mindlessly button mash their way through +4/x8 missions.

You increased your difficulty and the game got harder?! Imagine that!

Complaining because you can't solo your way through content set for large teams is just plain ridiculous. That's like saying the game isn't balanced because my tank can't solo Lusca. If you increase your difficulty, you may find that you've bitten off more than you can chew, which is both working as intended and completely FAIR.

There are a few groups that are designed for high defense characters to not be able to effortlessly blow through. Fortunately, if you adjust your tactics you can eliminate the threat posed by them and get past them just fine.
The thing that makes them dangerous (Emanators, Vengeance, etc.) is able to be easily rectified.

If they got these buffs and you were unable to prevent or eliminate them, I might be inclined to agree that it needs fixed. But as it currently stands, you can prevent or eliminate them, which makes it perfectly fair to me.

That's funny.

My DM/SR brute got annihilated by a DE mob simply because I hadn't fought them in a while and had forgotten about the Quartz dropping LTs.

After I remembered about them and started killing the Quartz as soon as I could target it, I haven't been killed by them since. The only time I EVER die to a DE mob anymore is if I don't notice a Quartz that got dropped, which I consider to be my own fault because they have the name floating over it all the time.

My wife's DB/SR had similar problems until I reminded her about the Quartzes, after that it was smooth sailing for her too.

The to-hit was left as high as it is simply because Elude still exists. Sure, you can't make it permanent anymore, but you can still get your defense well over 100% for a couple minutes at a time. Seems like the devs left the to-hit as high as it is so SR doesn't have a way to simply ignore something that was intended to make things difficult for them (and other defense based characters). A 50% to-hit buff will still be floored by Elude, a 100% to-hit buff won't be.

They threw us a bone by making sure that Quartz are easy to kill, and easy to spot. And if you actually pay attention to what your enemy is doing, you can kill the Quartz before it really starts buffing them. I know that when that Guardian raises his hand in the air, I should get ready to kill a Quartz, and anyone not blindly mashing buttons while staring off into space should be able to tell the exact same thing. Try backing your camera off if you find that they are dropping them outside your field of view.

It is common knowledge that when fighting Nemesis on a defense based character you should kill LTs last, because they will pop Vengeance as soon as they die. 3-4 Vegeances on a spawn of Nemesis and your defenses are nonexistent, no different than a Quartz.

So, if the common wisdom is to kill Nemesis LTs last, it makes just as much sense to kill DE emanators FIRST.

Actually, my Fire/TA controller uses Entangling Arrow all the time, for one reason: It triggers Containment damage. If I have one LT left in a mob that isn't already mezzed, I'll hit it with Entangling Arrow so both Ring of Fire and Char will deal double damage, instead of just one or the other.

(I kept the ST immobilize for added single target damage, I'll probably respec out of it once I get to APP levels and can take a blast, but or now it's still useful)

It also gives you a place to put 4 Enfeebled Operation for some S/L defense, without gimping damage output, since it doesn't deal any.

And like I mentioned before, Gale gives you a way to get some cheap KB protection through slotting Kinetic Crash.

No worries. If you recall, I was one of the people sticking up for blasters in that thread.

No need to get so defensive. Did I say anywhere in my post that you were one of those people? I don't believe I did.

I can tolerate Energy Torrent, because it at least does some damage in the process.

And I also have Howl on my build, and I'm working on going villain so I can pick up NightFall and Soul Tentacles.

When you're soloing, Siren's Song is better than Shockwave by a wide margin. Siren's gives you ~45 seconds of safety, Shockwave gives you maybe 5 seconds.

You can subtract Daredevil from that one. If you read the Shadowland storyline, Daredevil is now in control of the Hand ninjas and he crossed the line by killing Bullseye in cold blood. There are hints that it isn't really Matt Murdock in control there, but I believe it WAS Matt's decision to kill Bullseye.

It suppresses in combat, and slows down your run speed while active, so no, not really worth it.

My problem isn't with knockback, my problem is with players who have the "You have to adjust your playstyle to match mine, but I refuse to extend the same courtesy" attitude about it.

If someone is continually knocking things away from a tank, scrapper, or brute who depends on an aura power for a large part of their survivability, while refusing to adjust their playstyle, I'd say that melee player has a right to be annoyed.

For the record, I love Sonic, but I despise Shockwave. It really doesn't take that long to get to level 18, and I'd rather take a power that deals damage at level 8 instead of a knockback that will just piss off a lot of things at once while not doing much to them.

With Siren's Song, you can sleep a whole spawn, and kill them one by one. I would actually recommend taking Bonesmasher to help with single target damage. It hits like a truck, and activates fairly quickly.

Only if they start with the Going Rogue box.

If they start with the Architect Edition they won't even have ACCESS to Praetoria, let alone be forced to start there.

Yes, it does say that.

It doesn't say that all MMOs make you team all the time. In fact, it the part I have quoted here, it states that most MMOs require some degree of teamwork for PARTS of the game. That doesn't sound like it's saying you should be able to team for 100% of the game. The quoted part here does nothing to support your point at all.

Really? When I was a new player, I wanted to solo as much as possible to get a feel for the game on my own terms. I didn't start teaming regularly until I'd been playing for a couple months.

Saying "any new player would naturally want to do this" is not even close to true. You could say "many" new players, and that would be somewhat more accurate. In actuality, the word you're looking for is "some" new players would naturally want to do this. Don't speak for an entire group of people unless you know what that entire group's opinion is. There is no possible way you could know what every new player would prefer to do, so your statement is pure hyperbole.

The pop-up saying "This mission must be completed solo" isn't clearly stated enough? Seems pretty clear to me.

I dunno, maybe I have an advantage over some people because I actually READ the boxes, instead of clicking my way through them as quickly as possible.

As have I.

Had one guy actually start getting rude and abusive because he couldn't understand that there was more to the game than AE. He was giving the leader crap because he hadn't set the mission so he could get in.

Several of us attempted to explain that the entrance to the mission was somewhere else, but he either refused to believe it, or he was just that dumb. We eventually gave up and kicked him.

Had another DM/SR scrapper with 4 travel powers, all the DM attacks, and almost nothing from SR. he had Focused Fighting (that he never toggled on), Agile, and Practiced Brawler (that he clicked once at the beginning of the missions and never again)

He ragequit the STF we were running because, in his own words: "This character NEVER dies, this team sucks!" We all got a good chuckle out of that, because we all knew exactly WHY his character had never died.....he'd never actually FOUGHT anything before.

Bolded part is incorrect.

Lingering Radiation is a click power. If you meant to say Enervating Field you would have been correct. If you actually DID mean Lingering Rad, it would be very very wrong.

Ditto.

My BS/DA was softcapped, but no longer is. That said, with Parry and ~35% to ranged and AoE he's still pretty damn tough. (I stripped some of his IOs for another build, he was at 41% to ranged and AoE with his prior build)

I have my doubts that MA/DA would be able to softcap easily. And the hole in the set is one that isn't easily covered by that powerset combo (Dark Armor has weaker resists to Energy, if you can't get decent levels of Energy defense, those pure energy attacks are going to hurt)

S/L defense should be doable, but kind of expensive, and you probably won't be getting much recharge slotted in the process either.

Given the choice, I'd probably lean toward MA/Shield.

Couple points.

- DE were designed when it was possible to have perma-Elude, which was a great deal more overpowered than IOs can make SR now.

- How exactly is their accuracy being buffed by an easily targeted and killed pet blatantly unfair? If the emanator were untargetable I would agree. But it takes no more than 3 hits to kill one, and they are easy to hit. If you choose not to kill the Quartz it's your own fault. That's like complaining about Sappers, but never killing them.

Again, it was designed when it was possible to have over 100% defense pretty much all the time.

And again, it is a buff pet that is EASILY KILLED. It's not like it's an EB level enemy that's buffing them, or an untargetable enemy. Kill the damn thing before they kill you and they lose the buff. Why is that so frigging difficult to do?

/bind <key> target_custom_next Quartz

Use it and you will automatically target any Quartz that may have been dropped. It really is NOT that hard to eliminate the threat of the ridiculous to-hit.